Staring to see a lot of Rightwing dooming and glooming regarding the 2024 election on social media. It is lead by some big follower accounts but it is being picked up heavily by Never Trump. To hear them say it, now that the 538 aggregate has Biden up 0.2 it is all over! Finished. Done!
Let’s leave aside that 538 is the Democrat Hopium aggregate while all other averages and market predictors show a Trump win – is there, indeed, reason to give up hope? Are we finished? Will the Democrats just muscle the old geezer back into office against a hapless Trump who hasn’t opened up enough field offices in Pennsylvania?
Hey, anything is possible. Heck, on Thursday Pudding Brain’s drug cocktail might be so powerful he comes out and tap dances for us. But, absent a miracle, what have we got?
First off, keep in mind that even the good aggregators have it Florida, Texas and Ohio as “likely GOP”. Guys, the Democrats aren’t even going to contest those States. They’re as “solid GOP” as California is “solid Democrat”. But the aggregates don’t reflect this. These aggregates also have NV, AZ and GA as “tossups”. They aren’t. All three States plus NC are “leans GOP”. In fact, in my view, Biden hasn’t got a chance of winning any of those four States…polling has consistently showed him down three to five in all of them for months – ie, people have made up their minds. To be sure, he will battle for them…but Team Pudding Brain knows that this election really comes down to Biden holding PA, MI and WI. Any one of those three go Trump and it is over (with NV, AZ, GA and NC added to Trump’s 2020 we get Trump at 268 electoral votes). What I’m really saying here is that the polling is not reflecting the reality on the ground. Keeping in mind that Biden has to have an aggregate lead of at least 3 (really 4, but lets tamp down our views) to be within range of 270. Even in the most rosy polling, he’s tied. But in my view even the best for Trump polling is underestimating him.
Now, why would I think that? They recently released a Maryland poll and, as you expected, it shows Biden winning the State in a blowout. The RCP average of polls shows Biden up by 23.5. Neither campaign will spend a dime in the State. It will be called for Biden as soon as the polls close; and they’ll make that call without even doing any exit polling. So, what am I up to here? What makes me think that the Maryland polling is good for Trump? Because Biden won the State by 32.9 points in 2020. See where I’m going? In deep Blue Maryland where the primary source of wealth is federal government employment…Biden is bleeding support. Not enough to cost him the State, but a lot. Now, how do you think that is translating into purple States? If the States won by Biden in 2020 just have a 3 point shift to Trump then NV, AZ, GA, PA, MI and WI flip and Trump is at 311. Just do the math in your head for what happens if the national shift is 5 points. Or 7 points. Or, like Maryland, 9.
Now, as a mental exercise, pretend you had never heard of either Biden or Trump but someone told you the relative positions each man was in less than five months before the vote: who do you think would seem in the better position? What I’m getting at here is there is no reason for doom and gloom. Sure, you can have your doubts. You can worry (if you think that will help). But to consider it all over but the shouting? Based on what? Nothing. There is no reason to be filled with a sense of doom. There’s certainly enough good news out there to make you want to get out and fight.
Unless, of course, you’re paid by the Democrats to be a Debbie Downer for the GOP in a psy-op to depress GOP turnout. Because, after all, even the Experts will tell you that the lower the turnout, the better for Biden. This is a reversal from the past when high turnout favored the Democrats.
The real lesson here is to remember that the lying liars who lie aren’t going to suddenly stop. They’ll keep up the lies about everything all the time. They will not give an accurate assessment of the race. They will not allow it to become known that Biden is in trouble. They will not report Trump strengths. If Trump is heading towards a Reagan-style landslide they simply won’t tell us. They can’t. The DNC won’t let them. Even if the Democrats admit to themselves (and more and more of them are) that its over, they’ll still want to keep the money flowing and to salvage whatever they can down ballot. Here you’re just going to have to think for yourself – and painful process for Never Trump and next to impossible for Liberals. But if you want to keep grounded – and even grounded if things turn south for us in the Fall – then there will have to be some mental activity. Some thought about how things are and a heck of a lot of sifting what is being said.
And then, in the end: fight. Hey, if we’re going to lose then we might as well go down swinging. And if there’s a chance – even a one in a million chance – that we can win, fighting is what will bring us the victory…and the more we fight, the larger the victory if we obtain one. It certainly beats sitting around whining about it.
Blogs For Victory 
Polls are pretty meaningless until after Labor Day. A good percentage of voters aren’t paying attention now. Democrats have been out performing the polls pretty consistently over the last three years. Add in the legal problems Trump is facing and I’m pretty sure Biden will win by over ten million votes this time.
pollslegalproblemstenmillion yawn
You seem to have missed, or are simply ignoring, the question I keep posing to you—as if you are entitled, somehow, to just keep dumping your fantasies and delusions here without responding to serious questions.
What felony did Trump commit? No ducking, no dodging, no hiding behind the same old bleat of “I gave you links”. If you do not have a clear and accurate understanding of the actual felony committed by Trump, the thing you find so compelling that it will result in a massive landslide for Puddingbrainpoopypants, then there is no reason for you to be here as you have absolutely nothing to offer but brainless parroting of the Leftist narrative.
But Cappy has picked up on another thread out there – along with doom and gloom for the Right, the Left is being fed “hey, the polls are wrong; Biden will win bigger than he did in 2020”. This also seems to me to be a psy-op; gotta keep Dem money coming in, after all.
The jurors unanimously agreed that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. The below link is a good explainer. Trump can appeal and may well win.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-trial-34-counts
I’m sure that casper appreciates you stepping in and at least trying to answer the question he keeps dodging, even though you still had to depend on a copy-and-paste partial answer and a link to the same copy.
Yes, the jury did unanimously agree that the entries were false, and that they were made to hide the fact they were hush money payments to a sex worker to get her to stop spreading salacious stories about Trump. Up to that point, we are talking about a misdemeanor that a prior DA had found too insignificant to bother prosecuting. At this point, the reason for falsifying the records is immaterial, because it is not illegal to pay “hush money”. And the misdemeanor offense happened so long ago it was past the statute of limitations. It took distortions of the law to revive it, and that was done on the pretext that the falsification was done for the purpose of enabling or concealing another crime, which would elevate the misdemeanor to a felony.
Clearly, the next obvious step would be to identify the predicate crime upon which the change in status was based, and it was, evidently, the New York law that it is a crime to try to promote or prevent the election of someone by unlawful means. That is very important, because it is not illegal to merely try to influence the outcome of an election. There is no such statute. Every campaign is an effort to influence the outcome of an election. No, to make it a crime the effort must be “by unlawful means”.
So what, exactly, were the “means” employed to promote or prevent the election of Donald Trump? Clearly, that was the effort to prevent the distribution of salacious gossip about him, by Daniels, by paying her to shut up. So we have to examine that, to see if that effort was “unlawful”. And we find that it was not.
Here’s where the shell game happened, the sleight of hand that substituted the falsification of the records for the only real action taken which might have shown an effort to ” promote or prevent” the election of Donald Trump—or, as is deceptively stated so many times, “to interfere with the outcome of the 2016 election”—which was the effort to shut down the salacious and potentially harmful gossip by paying Daniels her hush money. Here is where the prosecution shifted the alleged effort away from the actual means to influence voters to that of falsifying the records, though of course the falsification of the records was not something one would expect to ever be made public or have much of an influence on voters. The prosecution needed to do this switch because they needed an actual crime—falsification of records—as an effort to influence the election, so they could then make that falsification a component of the bigger crime of using “unlawful means” to influence the election and thereby let them escalate the original misdemeanor to a felony.
But OK, let’s go with that for a minute. Let’s say that the “unlawful means” employed to try to either promote or prevent the election of Trump was really the falsification of those records. Let’s go along with the idea that if the voters knew why those payments had been made it might have influenced them in some way, so it was the hiding of the reason for the payments that was the crime, not the payments themselves. And the hiding of the reason lay in the way the payments were entered in the books.
Got it. Now we know that merely paying Daniels off was not an “unlawful” means of trying to “influence the election”, it was the way the payments were falsely entered into the books that was the unlawful means of doing so, and because the falsification was unlawful in and of itself that meant it was also an unlawful means of promoting Trump (influencing the outcome of the election).
But the false entries were not made until weeks after the election.
And this is why election interference, even under the New York law, was not given to the jury as the unlawful action enabled by the falsification of the records. The jury was told to rule on whether the records were illegally falsified, and then that this was in the first degree, a felony, and somewhere in there they were told that it was in the first degree, a felony, because of the reason it was done, which was to enable or conceal another crime. And then they were allowed to choose which of three crimes they thought the falsification was done to enable or conceal. None of which had been part of the trial, none of which had received any testimony, none of which had been exposed to questions or challenges by the defense, and NONE OF WHICH WERE ABOUT TRYING TO INFLUENCE THE OUTCOME OF THE 2016 ELECTION.
No, after weeks of throwing all kinds of irrelevant (and even salacious) testimony at the jury, it came down to asking them to decide if the entries were purposely false, after it had been presented to them that this was already a first degree crime because it was committed to enable or conceal another (unspecified, untried and unadjudicated) crime, and then they were told to choose any or all of three crimes that had never been part of the trial. So they were told, once they decided that yes, entries were false, they were linked to the enabling or concealing violation of federal campaign finance laws, falsification of other business records or a violation of tax laws. But there were NOT given the option of ruling that the entries were falsified to enable interference in the 2016 election. Violation of tax laws is a federal concern, violation of federal campaign laws are both federal and misdemeanors, and it is just plain insane to convict him for the possibility that he did or might falsify “other business records”.
And THIS is what has you people so giddy. I know, most of it is because you don’t care enough about the facts, or the law, to do any analysis on your own, but you refuse to even try, just obediently copying and pasting the narratives fed to you, and/or falling back on “links” to substitute for actual thought.
And this is why you are scorned and rejected here.
You know what this link does not mention? What made those otherwise misdemeanor entries “First Degree”?
Because that is the question. The NY law on using unlawful means to influence the 2016 election can’t be used here because all of these offenses took place in 2017. I appreciate NPR for providing that interesting information—-it always sounded like the entries were made before the election, and hidden so no one would know he made legal payments to a sex worker to hide them so they would not influence the election. It just gets more convoluted, doesn’t it, because those entries alone would not arise to First Degree. What bumped them up to that level?
Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsification of business records in the first degree, which is a felony in New York. Feel free to repeat the Turley talking points for the 12th time.
“Falsifying business records” is a misdemeanor and past the statute of limitations at that. They created the federal felonies when they tied it to “election interference”, the same crime Biden’s Intel Officers committed.
The thing is, at the end, after they finished shuffling all the shells around so no one knew what was under any of them, they never did actually officially tie the motley collection of accusations, salacious smut testimony and distractions to “election interference”. They couldn’t, because election interference is not a crime, and although they started off trying to piggyback the escalation of the misdemeanor onto NY law about it being a crime to interfere with an election by UNLAWFUL MEANS they realized they had too many smart people watching to get away with that, as the actual “means” that could be attributed to attempted election interference under that law just happened to be inconveniently not unlawful.
So after squealing about “election interference” without any actual testimony about it they had to, at the last minute, do a bait-and-switch and tell the jury, essentially, ” this isn’t really associated with election interference at all, and we’re not going to tell you what it is because then we would really get shot down, so we are going to give you three choices that haven’t even been discussed in trial and telling you YOU have to decide what it’s really been about, so when it all falls apart we can blame you”.
Then they issued talking points to the lapdog media, which obediently started peddling the falsehood that the jury convicted Trump of election interference, and the lemmings and schlubs picked up on it, and it became accepted but it isn’t true.
What made the misdemeanor of falsifying business records into a felony? What elevated this to the “first degree”?
Answer or go away
The fighting has to happen on multiple fronts, Trump can not be the only warrior, and fortunately it appears the GOP is fighting back now too …. and this is how we win
Big news for Steve Bannon tonight:
1) The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) voted tonight 3-2, confirming the offiicial legal position of the House is that the J6 committee was illegitimate, and all subpoenas issued by the committee were also illegitimate. 2) BLAG has now directed the House Office of General Counsel to file an Amicus Brief in support of Steve Bannon with Justice Roberts. 3) Matt Gaetz explains how the BLAG process works, in the video. 4) I spoke with Bannon in the last hour and he is optimistic.
The J6 committee was illegitimate, the impeachments were illegitimate, President Biden is illegitimate.
“Get in their face and argue”, “If they bring a knife, we bring a gun” … Barack Obama. Well now it’s our turn. Don’t let their unhinged fears of climate and flu viruses destroy our quality of life ever again. Defund their insane proposals.
What happened to Jamaal Bowman yesterday will happen to Biden in November.
“The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) voted tonight 3-2“
Let me correct this for you. Three Republicans, at the request of a convicted felon, voted that the J6 committee was illegitimate. Yeah, that makes since.
About as much “sense” (corrected that for ya teacher) as the J6 committee accusing Trump of an insurrection. Unarmed I will add.
The increasingly unhinged Left has accelerated its redefinition of terms tactic so they not only redefined “insurrection” they now claim that (1) election interference is a crime, and (2) that Trump was convicted of it.
With a base that is equal parts ignorant and gullible, the Left gets away with crap like this. Some examples of this crawl under our tent every now and then
And yet the convicted felon is also the only president impeached twice.
And you are just as impressed by the Kabuki Theater of the now-disgraced impeachment efforts as you are about the Stalinist show *trial in New York. Wow, the taste of that “convicted felon” manta is so yummy for you, that’s all that matters. Fake “felony”? WHO CARES? It’s just so much fun to say!
Bullshit multiplied by bullshit equals bullshit.
Grasp this, Casper: your precious institutions are despised. Mistrusted. Everyone who isn’t a partisan invested in Biden and the Democrats knows that both the impeachments and trials are the merest political hitjobs.
If they had been skillful hit jobs with even a hint of competence they might have carried them off outside the little bubble of caspers lovingly stroking their delusions, but they were so clumsy, so inept, so glaringly incompetent that in the end the only ones who were damaged were themselves. Cheney is out on the back 40, howling at the moon and begging “Notice me, oh please pay attention to me” while her replacement is kicking ass and taking names to the point where a top GOP voice suggested that all GOP reps ought to cede their time to Harriet because she knows how to bring the heat. Liz could never do that and you know it eats at her to see Harriet in the limelight. The other major casualty was Kinzinger, reduced to giving tongue baths to Libs on the Complicit Agenda Media and keeping tissues handy. Video has come out showing Nancy admitting she refused to allow the National Guard to provide the security Trump asked for. The fallout from the J6 fiasco is still coming.
And what was supposed to be a major victory for the Left, that awful letter signed by 51 people in the “Intelligence” community, had the short term success of getting Joe in the White House but that is its own revenge because now Leftist governance is not just an abstract possibility it has become an ugly and terrifying reality, and in the meantime it thoroughly and permanently discredited all of them—-that’s 51 Lefty Losers we shouldn’t have to deal with any more—plus providing all the ammo we need to clean house in that arena of government. Did you sign that letter? Buh-bye.
The Leftists are a perfect example of GIGO but they seem to multiply the GI so the GO is much bigger.
casper gloating over the shabby “felony” makes me think of a guy bragging about the $20.00 “Rolex” he bought on the street, with the silver paint peeling off. But it says “Rolex”!
Is anyone bothering to keep track of how often obedient little parrot casper repeats his new favorite mantra of “convicted felon”—while tacitly admitting he doesn’t even know what it means?
But then facts have never had much to do with casper’s belief systems.
And the J6 committee was so blatantly illegitimate it didn’t even try very hard to pretend otherwise. After all, they were playing to their base, schlubs like casper, and knew that no matter what crap they dished out there would be some lined up at the trough to slurp it up. Secret depositions, secret testimony, illegal destruction of evidence, blatant statements of intent prior to beginning, it made farces look legitimate by comparison.
No wonder casper thought it was just marvy.
Casper will do whatever the “cool kids” are doing. He has admitted that. Here’s the interesting thing … cool kids rebel against status quos, and we see them rebelling right now against Biden. That will create quite the conundrum for Casper.
The thing is, casper always wanted the cool kids to like him, but the students who looked up to him were the marginalized kids, those with more limited abilities, and he sucked up to them by playing games with them by doing things with them like elaborate lip syncing videos. It’s great that someone pays attention to kids like this and validates them, but this was casper’s whole fan club, while the cool kids laughed at him and his goofball comments and many of their parents told them to just ignore the stupid stuff he tried to teach them, like his bizarre take on the Constitution. He was the school commie and joke. He once bragged about having students call out to him in the cafeteria to “come sit here, Mr. W” (He didn’t provide the W. I did.) But, to put it in a very un-PC way, those were the short bus kids, not the varsity.
The problem with “the sky is falling so you need to give us complete control to save you” is that they need to keep coming up with new “sky is falling” scenarios. The Covid Plandemic has been revealed as a scam, the climate change will kill us all narrative is losing steam as those damned seas just won’t rise and those damned ice shelves just won’t melt and the damned planet just won’t get hotter (in spite of hysterical reports on “record high temperatures”. All they have now is the whine about “saving democracy” but that should be a hard sell after almost four years of the entire nation being run by Executive Orders and the weaponization of federal agencies to keep the government boot heel on the necks of the opposition.
They lost “Trump is a Nazi” when the party became the Nazi Party of America, calling for the genocide of Jews. “Fascist” is too closely related to Nazi which is the same thing as genocide for Jews, so that’s pretty much gone, especially with the cozy fascist relationship of the Biden regime with Big Pharma. They’ve got the tiny little Degenerate subculture, and even a lot of people who sympathize with these mental illnesses don’t want those men in their girls’ locker rooms or taking their athletic titles and scholarships. They’ve got schlubs like casper, waddling through his third trip through the line at the All You Can Eat Buffet, calculating the state of the nation’s economy based on how many other people are in line with him.
Their only hope is to get rid of Biden and somehow manage to ditch Harris and run someone younger, like Shapiro to get out from under the “not just too old but WAYYY too old” shadow looming over him to shift the dynamic but I think they might be too entrenched with him to be able to do that. Tomorrow night will give us a hint on that.
In the last year, how much money do you think has gone to Ukraine? How about Gaza? How about all the NGO’s helping the illegal invasion?? Those people are definitely Joe Biden’s priority. The American people?? Not so much
The fire that destroyed Lahaina on the island of Maui in the state of Hawaii was almost a year ago and yet residents of the community are still struggling to rebuild.
Jamaal Bowman’s defeat yesterday shows us that even common sense Democrats are tired of all the shit heaped upon this country by communist leftists. Biden will suffer the same fate as Bowman in November.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/almost-year-after-disastrous-fire-residents-lahaina-hawaii/
I see our resident communists are calling out election interference, which I am glad to see. I know they are sticklers for free and fair elections so I am interested on their comments about this issue:
New information released by the House Judiciary Committee shows CIA contractors colluded with the Biden campaign to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop. In October of 2020 – just days before the presidential election – 51 former intelligence officials signed and published a letter that baselessly decried the contents of Hunter’s ‘laptop from hell’ had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” This was a lie.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/just-new-information-shows-cia-contractors-colluded-biden/
What law did they break, chief?
The very same crime you accuse Trump of … “influence the outcome of the 2016 election”. In this instance, it would be the 2020 election. Did you forget you said that already?
What law does “election interference” break, papoose?
It is not criminal election interference for citizens with expertise in Russian operations to provide opinion on a political subject. Cite the law broken.
Is it not wrong for officials under the color of law (look it up) to conspire to lie to the public in an effort to protect a political ally and influence an election by not just hiding but lying about information that might influence voters? These co-conspirators did not identify their letter as mere opinion but stated it as fact, supported by their official status.
How many times do we have to say no law was broken?
Oh, that’s right—-I said they broke the same law Trump broke. Sorry—that was obviously way too subtle a way of saying none of them broke a law because there is no law against trying to influence a campaign. They lied as a conspiracy to use the status of their old jobs as officials of our government and presumed access to classified information–but no statutory offense. It’s not a legal thing, it’s an ethics thing.
There is some speculation about government officials (former or current) trading on their security clearances and positions to blatantly lie about something, but I haven’t gotten into that and don’t have time to worry about it.
These guys destroyed any respect or credibility they or their offices and agencies might have had, and that is good enough for me.
Now—cite the Trump act that was actually the stated predicate offense that formed the foundation of the escalation of the misdemeanors to felonies. Was it campaign finance or was it paying hush money? STATED predicate offense. The one that the jury was told justified the escalation of the charge to First Degree. Cite the words of the court, not Politico or NPR as both of their “analyses” are caca.
“CITIZENS”?????? Are you ever honest about anything? Those were INTEL OFFICIALS with security clearances. Do you think John Brennan and James Clapper ever lied to the American people?
Read the letter Alma. They were former officials. No color of law question. It is their opinion the emails were likely a Russian Op.
And you foolishly continue to try to sell the BS that such an “opinion” from people who had served, even very recently, in these positions did not list their former positions as part of an effort to lend official sanction the conclusions in the letter? Why didn’t they just sign their names, if they didn’t want their former positions to influence how their conclusions would be seen? Why did Gerald O’Shea not just sign his name, instead of adding that he was “Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency, and
served four tours as Chief of Station, Central Intelligence Agency” if he didn’t want his credentials to lend weight to his conclusions? And BTW, that was not “FORMER Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency”.
James B. Bruce might have been a FORMER Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency and a FORMER Senior Intelligence Officer, National Intelligence Council, but he made sure we knew he had done “Considerable work related to Russia”—not just your average citizen.
David Cariens admitted he is a FORMER Intelligence Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency, but wanted his “50+ Years Working in the Intelligence Community” to be known, to give him more authority
Other positions ostentatiously included, for the same reason: And not all of these are former positions, so you are lying.
When you look at the titles of high-level positions listed by each signer, it is obvious that they wanted their positions listed to bolster their alleged credibility. But one thing that jumps out to a reader of these titles is how many include the word “Intelligence”—yet not one of these co-conspirators could figure out how to verify the provenance of the laptop—or even, evidently, didn’t think it was important. And you know who’s missing from this cast of characters? The FBI, because it had already verified the ownership and legitimacy of the computer. You don’t see law enforcement on this list, just “Intelligence” people. There can’t be a better argument for purging the entire intelligence community.
Director of National Intelligence
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency
Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Director, National Security Agency
Principal Deputy Director of Na<onal Intelligence
Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Secretary of Defense
Director, Central Intelligence Agency
White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor
Director, Terrorism Threat Integra<on Center
Analyst and Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Deputy Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
Senior CIA Operations Officer
Director, National Counterterrorism Center
Acting Director, National Counterterrorism Center
Deputy Director, National Counterterrorism Center
Analyst of the Soviet Union and Russia, Defense Intelligence Agency
Deputy Director, National Counterterrorism Center Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency
Director of Congressional Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency
Minority Staff Director, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency
White House Situation Room
Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency
Chief of Staff, Department of Defense
Chief Counsel, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Chief of Staff, Central Intelligence Agency
Director of Intelligence Programs, National Security Council
Chief of Station, Central Intelligence Agency
General Counsel, National Security Agency
Inspector General, Central Intelligence Agency
Democratic Staff Director, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Counterespionage Case Officer, United States Air Force
Analyst and Targeting Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Deputy Associate Director for Military Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency
Deputy Director of Congressional Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency
Operational Support Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Chief, Central Eurasia Division, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Deputy Director of the Special Activities Center for Expeditionary Operations, CIA
National Intelligence Officer
Chief of Russian Operations, Central Intelligence Agency
National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, Central Intelligence Agency
Director of Public Affairs, Central Intelligence Agency Chief of Station, Central Intelligence Agency Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior National Security Executive
Dean, Sherman Kent School of Intelligence Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency
PDB Briefer to President George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency
Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Twice former staff of the Republican Majority Leader
Technical Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Intelligence Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Served four tours as Chief of Station, Central Intelligence Agency
Analyst and Manager, Central Intelligence Agency
PDB Briefer, Central Intelligence Agency
Deputy Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Office of Russian and European Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Acting Chief of Operations for Europe and Eurasia, Central Intelligence Agency
Former Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Officer
Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Former Deputy Chief of Russian Operations, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Director for Intelligence Programs, National Security Council
Senior Operations Office, Central Intelligence Agency
Deputy Assistant Director for Global Issues, Central Intelligence Agency
Deputy Executive Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Analyst of the Soviet Union and Russia, Central Intelligence Agency
Chairman of the National Intelligence Collection Board
Chief of the PDB, Central Intelligence Agency
Briefer to Vice President Dick Cheney, Central Intelligence Agency
Chair, National Intelligence Council
Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
Director of Analysis, Central Intelligence Agency
Chief, Counterterrorism Center, Central Intelligence Agency
Senior Intelligence Officer, Central Intelligence Agency
PDB Briefer, Central Intelligence Agency
Too bad not one of these “Intelligence” officials could figure out how to vet the laptop, or even realize that it had to be confirmed or officially dismissed as fake, before jumping in line to offer half-assed and easily disproved “opinions” that just happened to influence a presidential election.
The letter ended up providing no legitimate information on the laptop, but a huge amount of information about the quality of our “Intelligence Agencies”—-particularly the CIA.
You’re pretty proud of the fact that you have weaseled back into the blog dozens of times after getting kicked off dozens of times, aren’t you? It’s really a sad and creepy credential, but you don’t need a reference to a 25-year-old name to make your point—your posts reek of the same old same old, no matter what name you use.
They were former officials so yeah they were/are citizens. Did you read the letter?
here it is:
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-4393-d7aa-af77-579f9b330000
Yes, they were citizens. But they didn’t write just as citizens—every one of them made a point of including his official government title. And they conspired to help rig the election by using their status as high-ranking and presumably respectable officials in the highest level of government to bolster the implication that they had special access to the information in that letter, making it more credible.
The letter would have had far less impact if 51 other citizens, such as members of the American Union of Dog Walkers, had put their imprimatur on such a claim.
Do you need a whaaaaambulance. What law was broken again?
For those who find nothing wrong with rigging an election, there is no problem with this. Your problem is that you posted that Donald Trump was found guilty of felonies including interference with an election when that was not in the verdict and there is no law against interfering in an election, and then you argue that interfering in an election by having 51 high ranking government officials conspire to lie to the country is not a crime. Make up your mind.
I don’t know a decision has been made on whether these 51 laughably identified “Intelligence” officers committed a prosecutable crime codified in a statute, but there is no doubt that they violated the trust placed in them as officials of our nation. You may find it acceptable to defend reprehensible and profoundly dishonest actions on the basis that they do not violate a statute, but this is a position that says much about you and your character.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Too complicated? It’s your info from your link trying to argue that these people portrayed themselves as just average citizens and not people with specialized and classified information that made their conclusions more valid than anyone else’s
I think that high-pitched whine is pretty typical of Lefties when they realize they are backed into a corner. We hear it a lot.
Here is the reason why the misdemeanor falsification of business records became a felony. Novel for sure but there you have it.
Prosecutors argued that Trump falsified various business documents in order to conceal the nature of his payments to Cohen with the the intention of defrauding others, and for the sake of concealing another offense — namely, a violation of an obscure New York state prohibition on conspiring “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”
Specifically, the prosecution argued that Cohen’s payment to Daniels was a de facto donation to Trump’s campaign, since the intention behind the payment was to abet his election by suppressing politically hazardous information. That payment’s size greatly exceeded the legal cap on individual donations to a candidate, and therefore constituted a violation of federal campaign finance law. And Cohen owned up to this crime when he pled guilty to campaign finance violations in 2018. Therefore, according to the district attorney’s office, Trump had conspired with Cohen to promote his own election by unlawful means.
Yes, I know the argument and I have cited it several times.
falsified various business documents in order to conceal the nature of his payments to Cohen Yes, the jury believed this and so ruled.
with the the intention of defrauding others” Which “others” and in what way? There is a legal definition of “fraud” and does not just mean fooling people. Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. The precise form of “fraud” in the Trump case was, like so much of the rest of the case, conveniently never explained.
for the sake of concealing another offense—— namely, a violation of an obscure New York state prohibition on conspiring “to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”” As I have stated and explained, at this time it is necessary to isolate and define this offense and explain why it was “unlawful”.
As I have pointed out, in a different post which you have evidently chosen to ignore, the only “means” of allegedly trying to ” promote or prevent the election of any person ” was the concealment of the potentially damaging gossip being spread by a sex worker/extortionist, achieved by paying her to stop doing it. That was the only action taken which could possibly be seen as an effort to influence voters, to either “promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office”.
And this is not unlawful.
That leaves us with the only option of saying that it was the false entries which constituted the effort to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office. But this option poses two distinct disadvantages. One is the unlikelihood of learning of a minor bookkeeping error having an effect on voters, but the biggest defect in this effort is that this act did not take place until weeks after the election. Were they arguing retroactive election influencing?
It’s like Jenga—if you pull out a key piece, the whole tower collapses. And the key piece here is the fact that the sole action even remotely related to an actual effort to influence the perceptions of voter was not “unlawful’ and therefore trying to hide it did not raise the original misdemeanors to felony status. Unless the payment itself was an “unlawful” act it can’t be used to support a claim that the NY law was violated, and therefore that the falsification was done to enable a crime.
It is its own crime, a very little crime so insignificant that a prior NY DA looked at it and chose to let it go.
And then there is the fact that although the official story is that the elevation to felony status was based on this NY law, the jury was never asked to rule on that. Instead, they were just informed that the falsifications were felonies just because, and then told to decide for themselves if the predicate crime that elevated the misdemeanor falsification of records to First Degree was a campaign finance crime (federal and never argued in the trial) or a tax evasion crime (federal and never argued) or that maybe Trump falsified some other records at some other time or that he might do so in the future. It was bait and switch at the end of a complicated shell game. Any effort to claim that hiding the nature of the payments was an illegal campaign finance violation because, well, money was paid to try to conceal damaging information and that might affect voter perception and that might promote or prevent someone from being elected is stretching the connection way too thin and just tossed out as a distraction because even Fat Albert knows that a candidate is not limited in how much he can contribute to his own campaign, no matter what he calls it.
………………………………
You say “Specifically, the prosecution argued that Cohen’s payment to Daniels was a de facto donation to Trump’s campaign” and go on to assert that “That payment’s size greatly exceeded the legal cap on individual donations to a candidate, “. So what? Cohen was not on trial here.
Cohen was found guilty in 2018 of donating HIS OWN MONEY to the campaign by paying off Daniels. They could not legitimately claim that Trump violated campaign finance laws regarding the same $130,000 they had already claimed was Cohen’s and besides, there is no cap on what a candidate can contribute of his own money to his own campaign. Arguing the Cohen issue was just more of the chaff they kept throwing at the jury, like the long, irrelevant and smutty Daniels testimony that had nothing to do with the charges, to generate as much confusion as possible. It was the trial’s distraction version of the charlatan’s chatter as he moves his shells around.
So—what was the felony? It was not trying to influence the 2016 election because that was not a verdict. It was First Degree Falsification of Business Records with no clear or coherent explanation of the factors that made it First Degree but the only actions that can even remotely be attributed to trying to influence an election under that NY law —-paying hush money or making a de facto campaign contribution —-are not “unlawful”.
And that was all bullshit – which is why even Biden’s DOJ passed on it.
The bottom line is that there was no crime. At most it was a debatable bookkeeping error. Everyone already knew of the allegations of Trump’s philandering. If the Access Hollywood tape didn’t sink him, then Daniels wouldn’t. It is just a ridiculous leap…and the whole thing will be tossed on appeal, especially given the Supreme Court’s ruling this week that a jury has to be unanimous.
But they WERE unanimous—just not on the same things!
The bookkeeping error was debatable, but give it to them. It’s a misdemeanor, tossed because it times out on the statute of limitations. But give it to them anyway.
It’s the crime that they piggybacked the misdemeanor onto, to make it a felony, that is problematic. Can’t be campaign finance, though they threw in the red herring of Cohen’s guilty plea on that, because (1) it was never argued in a way that allowed for a defense to be mounted, meaning a violation of due process, and (2) Trump can donate his own money with no limitation. So it had to be the payment of the hush money—but darn it, that isn’t a crime! And it can’t be the falsification of the records to influence the election because those records weren’t recorded until after the election!
When the shells stop moving, it’s easier to see that there isn’t anything under any of them.
But they got their word—-felony—and the lemmings are not going to let go of that. That is their trophy. That is their “precious” and they will cherish it till the day they die, tarnished and bogus as it is. It’s that little cheesy dime store trophy on the shelf next to the matching one that says “Impeachment’ and the faithful bow to them and light candles in their tawdry little “I Hate Trump” shrines.
Jeff Childers asks the obvious question about yesterday’s historic Supreme Court decision:
Yet they do openly celebrate anything that gives the State power over the people. I think Barrett focused too tightly on the question of anyone was “harmed” but I think that when a civil right, such as freedom of speech, is violated that IS the harm.
And it wasn’t that.
I disagree that there was a lack of standing but I can understand why the ruling was issued. Courts are like that.
But, at any event, the Court won’t save us. At best, the Court can slow down the decline. The fix isn’t in getting a ruling in our favor because that won’t actually stop the Left. Suppose the Court had ruled that the government cannot in any way work with social media to suppress speech: anyone think that would stop our liberals? For goodness sake, Biden these days brags about how he’s defying the Court on student loans.
No, there is no political savior for us. We’re going to have to get down and dirty and fight this out.
What we need to do is find some guy in the deepest Red jurisdiction who was banned from social media via government pressure on a social media company – and then charge everyone involved, government and corporate, with conspiracy to deny civil rights. That law is already on the books. That law has already survived multiple Court challenges. The Supreme Court will not vacate the charge or any resulting conviction. We start sending these people to jail and they will stop. And it is the only way to make them stop.
FINALLY! I’ve been saying for years to use the legal system. I have been thinking more along the lines of suing on the basis of disenfranchisement—-if there are fraudulent votes then my vote was canceled out. Or class action suits against secretaries of state for failing to act properly to protect our elections. But I like the civil rights feature because it does not (no matter what ACB said) require proof of damages. The loss of a civil right IS the damage.
My Dad was on that issue in the 80’s when the Left was doing things like blocking defense workers from getting into the plants…that the authorities didn’t break up the protests worked out to a denial of the rights of the workers.
I honestly don’t see why more don’t understand this – no matter how important a cause is to a person, it does not trump anyone else’s cause. You can’t stop me from using the public square. Maybe someone wants to save the world and I just want to get a sandwich but legally, both causes have equal rights. Both parties have equal rights. I must be allowed to get my sandwich as much as Dimwit there has a right to tell me we’re all gonna die.
From a NYT comment section:
Tucker deals with a “reporter” trying to accuse him fomenting violence. This is well worth listening to, if only because the “reporter” is so persistently stupid. He says “Maybe you’re just pretending to be dumb, but I don’t think it’s an act.” “Castrated robots reading directions from the boss”. (The clueless refusal to accept anything that stands in the way of her conviction reminds me of our blog trolls.)
As article author Bonchie says” “The entire thing was a masterclass in how to handle a dishonest reporter. Don’t accept their faulty premises, and make them explain their own logical inconsistencies. If you do that, that’s usually enough to leave their heads spinning.”
I was just watching this … this how you handle the propaganda media
https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1806034521369776406
The thing I like about Tucker is that he speaks plainly and clearly, with no ambiguity, and with confidence and clarity. And courage.
Tucker doesn’t get a paycheck from anyone, which means he can speak the truth. And he does.
I seldom cite anything Nancy Pelosi says, but this is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that she is actually right about something for a change, in her comment on the role of the Supreme Court, and the other is her admission that it’s wrong to rule on policy rather than what the Constitution says. (Naturally this only applies when the policies lean toward the Right—policies and issues are what she wants the Court to rule on if they are on the Leftist agenda. I’m sure she’s happy with this latest abortion ruling, which Kagan argued in terms of policy and not law.)
She is complaining about this, but I’ll bet she is singing a different tune now that two important decisions have come down from the Court that rule on policy instead of the law but in ways the Dems will celebrate.
Both of these opinions transfer authority to the federal government, one in violation of the 1st Amendment and one in contradiction to the 10th. The idea that the State should have the legal ability to censor speech and silence opinions with which it does not concur, is appalling and one of those misbegotten mistakes that must have the Founders spinning in their graves. And there is nothing in the Constitution delegating authority to the federal government over personal health care, so this entire area must be left to the states or to the people.
I don’t see how the Court can rule, in Dobbs, that the federal government has no authority over abortion, and then in a few months rule that the federal government can override state decisions which involve abortion.
We always knew that the three Liberal women would always rule on Leftist-approved policy, and we knew that Roberts is spineless and unmoored regarding commitment to Constitutional law. But we expected more from Coney, who lately has come across as more ditzy than competent.