90 Miles From Tyranny

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Vulnerable Dems’ Midterm Strategy: Attack Their Own Party

As confidence in the Biden administration reaches new lows, vulnerable Democrats running in the 2022 midterms want to disassociate from their party, according to an Associated Press report.

Democrats in Congress are localizing their campaign issues to create distance between them and the embattled administration in Washington, D.C. Even though her party is currently enjoying a legislative majority, Nevada senator Catherine Cortez Masto says on her campaign website she is running against "dysfunction in Washington." Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman, another vulnerable Democrat, said in a recent TV ad showing footage of a town in his state, "Washington, D.C., attacked towns like this for years." Wisconsin Senate candidate Mandela Barnes has described the Democratic-controlled Senate as an "out-of-touch millionaire’s club," the AP reported. And New Hampshire senator Maggie Hassan has criticized in recent weeks President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and border policies, as well as challenged her party to address soaring gas prices.

"I’m taking on members of my own party to push a gas tax holiday, and I’m pushing Joe Biden to release more of our oil reserves," Hassan said in a May campaign ad.

Almost 50 Democratic officials doubt President Joe Biden can prevent sweeping losses for Democrats in the midterms, interviews conducted by the New York Times revealed. The president is unpopular among both parties as the cost of goods climbs and gas prices reach an average of $5 for the first time in history. After the past two years brought a disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, border crisis, and record inflation, party leaders, including former president Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist, are also concerned about Biden’s age and efficacy if he ran again in 2024.

"To say our country was on the right track would flagrantly depart from reality," Steve Simeonidis, a Democratic National Committee member from...

Rep. Brian Mast: Flag Day 2021 -- what every American should know about the sacrifice woven into our flag

Today, we celebrate our flag, the Stars and Stripes, and what it represents. It will always be worth fighting for.

June 14, 2020 is Flag Day - God Bless America!

Visage à trois #299

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

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Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #466

The Jan. 6 Democrats Have A Point About Trump (If You Simply Ignore Facts)

If it were in fact a ‘lie’ to charge that an election had been unfair, even stolen, we’re going to need a few more special committees just for Hillary Clinton.

So the slam-dunk argument congressional Democrats have so far made during their obscenely boring Jan. 6 hearings is that Donald Trump not only lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election but that he knew he lied. How can we as a nation look at ourselves in the mirror ever again after that shock revelation?

Maryland Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin, who sits on the Jan. 6 committee, summarized the conclusion on Sunday. “I think we can prove to any reasonable, open-minded person that Donald Trump absolutely knew because he was surrounded by lawyers,” he said on CNN.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Trump must have been willfully dishonest when he said over and over again that he lost the election because it was rigged and fixed to ensure his defeat. After all, his lawyers had told him it was a lie!

The only problem with that open-and-shut case, to the extent that it’s supposed to mean anything to anyone, is that it ignores the lawyers and aides who were telling Trump the opposite, plus the all-too-likely possibility that Trump simply didn’t believe anyone who was telling him he had lost.

None of this is new. Trump White House assistant Peter Navarro was telling the president he had won the election, even publishing a three-part report making the case that the race was stolen. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was telling him he had won. Plenty of others inside and outside the administration were also arguing that state election laws had been illegally altered by lower courts, giving Democrats an unfair advantage.

It was supposedly “devastating testimony” (at least according to CNN’s Jake Tapper) by former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr on Monday (previously recorded) when he recalled telling Trump in person that the Justice Department was unable to substantiate any widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election.

That story is three months old. Barr recounted it first in the Wall Street Journal during which he said he told the president he found no evidence of fraud and that the president was resistant: “There is a mountain of evidence,” Trump said, according to Barr.

But people told Trump he lost! So he knew he was lying!

That’s not how lying works. The Justice Department swears at this very moment that “white supremacy” is our greatest domestic threat. I say it’s not and I can tell you why I disagree. That doesn’t make me a liar.

And if it were in fact a “lie” to charge that an election had been unfair, even stolen, we’re going to need a few more special committees just for Hillary Clinton.

A subsequent point Democrats are aiming for is that Trump had also stated even before the election that his loss could only occur if Democrats cheated, thus he must have had a diabolical plan all along. But guess who made the same assertion? Democrats!

Back in August 2020, CNN hosted a segment with fire-breathing liberal Ana Navarro, Democrat Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, and Democrat former Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. Here’s what each of them said in the span of five minutes:

“The only way he feels now he can win this against the Biden-Harris ticket is to straight out steal it, and he’s doing it in plain sight, and we cannot let it happen.”— Boxer

“This man is not going to win fairly. So why are we supporting crooked activity?”— Clyburn (Yes, the James Clyburn who is credited with having “saved” Biden’s campaign.)

“[H]e’s going to find every single way he can to steal this election, to rig this election in his favor.”— Navarro

Is it only worth an investigation when Republicans do it or…?

I get that Democrats are trying to make a broader case that Trump’s election claims were part of a conspiracy that ultimately led to the riot in the Capitol in 2021, but if reaching that point first requires that they ignore the gaping holes in the fundamental assertion that Trump purposefully lied to the public, the committee hearings are basically just re-runs of Lawrence O’Donnell’s programming of...