SLAIN TROOPS’ FAMILY MEMBERS WHO SHUNNED BIDEN TAKE COMFORT FROM TRUMP

SLAIN TROOPS’ FAMILY MEMBERS WHO SHUNNED BIDEN TAKE COMFORT FROM TRUMP

 BY PAUL MIRENGOFF IN AFGHANISTAN, DONALD TRUMP, JOE BIDEN

When George Bush was president, parents of armed service members killed in Iraq received special attention from the media if they denounced the war and criticized Bush. Cindy Sheehan gained a huge profile for bitterly attacking Bush after her son was killed. Eventually, she became a fringe figure, to put it as politely as I can, but this was only after Barack Obama succeeded Bush.

Before then, the mantra on the left, first recited by Maureen Dowd, was that “the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.” But this was nonsense.

Like all Americans, such parents have the right to speak out about Americas wars. And given the sacrifice of their sons or daughters, they should be listened to when they speak.

But “absolute moral authority”? No.

The idea of such authority falls of it own weight because parents who buried children killed in Iraq had differing views about that conflict. To give Cindy Sheehan absolute moral authority would negate the moral authority of parents who favored our military’s presence there.

Again, though, all Gold Star parents should be heard.

What do the parents and loved ones of the 13 Americans who died at Kabul airport think of Joe Biden and his Afghanistan policy? According to the Washington Post:

Family members of at least six of the 13 U.S. service members killed in the Aug. 26 attack in Kabul have been publicly critical of Biden. Some declined to meet with Biden when he attempted to console them as the bodies arrived at Dover Air Force Base. Some of those who did said they were put off by the amount of time Biden spent talking about his son Beau, who served in Iraq and later died of brain cancer.

Biden apparently has taken the criticism with his characteristic lack of class;

Shana Chappell, the mother of Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 20, who was killed in the attack. . .recounted meeting with Biden at Dover, with him attempting to console her and her telling him he had no idea how she felt. At one point, by her account, Biden grew visibly annoyed and began walking away.

Criticism of George Bush by family members of service members who died in Iraq was sporadic. In Biden’s case, it approaches, if not exceeds, a majority of those killed at the Kabul airport.

And no wonder. Congress authorized the war in Iraq and that war overthrew an evil, terrorist-supporting regime.

Congress didn’t authorize the withdrawal from Afghanistan and would never have authorized, nor would the American public have supported, a withdrawal carried out as Biden executed it. The 13 died after hurrying to Kabul to help evacuate Americans and their allies. They had to hurry into Kabul for this purpose because Biden had foolishly pulled the military out before Americans had been evacuated.

Moreover, unlike American soldiers who died in the Iraq war, these American soldiers weren’t fighting against evil terrorists and their supporters. They were in Afghanistan to mop up the spillage from a decision to allow evil terrorist supporters to return to power.

Donald Trump has reached out to family members who shunned Biden or found his attempts to console them for their loss in Kabul unsatisfactory. His enemies will say that Trump has “pounced,” and in a sense I suppose he has.

But these family members deserve to be consoled by a leader they like, or at least respect. In many cases, that leader is Trump, not Biden.

Darin Hoover, father of a Marine killed in Kabul, said of his phone conversation with Trump:

It was just very cordial, very understanding. He was awesome. He was just talking about the finest of the finest. He said he heard and saw everything that we had said, and he offered his condolences several times, and how sorry he was.

Similarly, Mark Schmitz, whose son was also among the Marines killed, said he was grateful for Trump’s call and got “much more satisfaction or a sense of compassion” speaking with Trump than he did with Biden.

To be fair, when Trump was president a small number of Gold Star parents criticized the way in which he tried to console them. These days, how a parent felt about a president before losing an offspring might well influence how the parent feels about the president’s attempt at consolation.

But the high percentage of negative reviews Biden received suggests that this wasn’t the only dynamic at work. The shockingly botched nature of the Afghanistan pullout along, perhaps, with Biden’s insistence on talking about himself and his son, must have been a factor.

The parents who criticized Biden don’t have “absolute moral authority,” but they know what they’re talking about.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/09/slain-troops-family-members-who-shunned-biden-take-comfort-from-trump.php

This, More Than Anything Else, Might Doom Joe Biden's Campaign

BY MATT MARGOLIS 

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Joe Biden has enjoyed a lead in several national polls and even battleground state polls. Like in 2016, the media has presented the narrative that Biden is on a path to victory, but I would caution them not to count their chickens before they hatch. In addition to the fact that polls have been tightening in the past week, there’s also an interesting metric that has been overlooked to be considered.

According to a recent Pew Research poll, “for Biden supporters, opposition to Trump is by far the most frequently mentioned reason why they support him.” Voters were asked an open-ended question about the main reason they support or lean towards voting for Biden, and a staggering 56% cite their opposition to Trump.

Trump’s supporters, in contrast, “cite a variety of reasons for supporting him, including his leadership and performance as president (23%), his issue and policy positions, as well as their opposition to Biden (19%).”

Support for a candidate that is really based in opposition to their opponent is called “negative support”

The last time there was a Republican president running for reelection, there was a similar phenomenon. Pew Research noted in February 2004 that while John Kerry was “running even” with Bush in their poll of registered voters, “Kerry’s support is less of an endorsement of his candidacy than a reflection of opposition to Bush.”

“Fully twice as many Kerry supporters characterize their choice as a vote against Bush rather than a vote for Kerry (30% vs. 15%). By comparison, Bush supporters are much more affirmative in their feelings about the president: ­39% characterize their choice as a vote for Bush, while just 6% see it as a vote against Kerry.”

It also can’t be denied that despite being within points of each other at the polls, there was more enthusiasm for Obama among the left in 2012 than there was for Mitt Romney on the right, resulting in Obama being reelected, despite the poor economy and low support for Obamacare.

We’ve seen “negative support” for challengers result in incumbents’ reelections for decades. One exception would be Clinton it 1992, where, as Pew noted, Clinton’s supporters also mostly saw their vote as anti-George H.W. Bush—though Bush Sr.’s reneging on his “no new taxes” pledge and the formidable candidacy of Ross Perot were extra factors in the elder Bush’s defeat.

The enthusiasm gap between Trump and Biden is well documented, and it remains to be seen if Kamala Harris will actually close that enthusiasm gap. Some have argued whether the enthusiasm gap matters at all. But to those who dismiss the enthusiasm gap as irrelevant, I say they just need to look at John Kerry and Mitt Romney. Both were running neck and neck with their incumbent opponents but trailed in enthusiasm, and ultimately lost.

Mitt Romney, in particular, is a more relevant comparison. He lost to Obama despite the Tea Party movement that ousted Democrats from control of the House in 2010, yet Obama’s popularity helped give him another term. Enthusiasm for Trump on the right is very similar to the enthusiasm Obama had from the left.

That tells me that while enthusiasm doesn’t register in the polling, it does make a difference in the only poll that counts: Election Day.

https://pjmedia.com/election/matt-margolis/2020/08/20/this-more-than-anything-else-might-doom-joe-bidens-campaign-n816162

The Real Threat to Our Republic: The Democratic Party

The Real Threat to Our Republic: The Democratic Party

 

BY MATT MARGOLIS 

(Getty Images)

It seems like only three years ago that liberals were accusing Donald Trump of not committing to accepting the election results if he were to lose — as everyone expected him to. Oh, wait, that was three years ago. In fact, there were a lot of things being said by liberals three years ago that are amusing to look back on today, such as this gem from Jason Silverstein, national politics reporter at the New York Daily News: 

Even if Donald Trump wins the popular vote for President in November, it is entirely possible — and even Constitutionally acceptable — that we could be spared from his leadership. For that, we can thank the Electoral College.

“We take for granted every four years that the Electoral College will vote accordingly to the winners of each state's popular vote,” Silverstein said, but "there is nothing in the Constitution, federal law or electoral history” that says that’s how it has to work. “The Electoral College has the freedom to override the people's choice — in part, to expressly stop someone like Trump from taking over.” To Silverstein, the Electoral College was designed to stop Trump, not enable him to be president. The scenario he then presented, that rogue Electors could simply ignore the popular vote in their state and not cast their ballots for Trump, was a ridiculous pie-in-the-sky scenario, but is a fascinating look into how the left fantasized that the Electoral College could “save us” from Trump. In fact, Silverstein’s scenario may have inspired anti-Trumpers to harass and threaten Electors to do just as he envisioned… you know, to preserve the Republic, or something.

Others believed that the Electoral College system gave Hillary Clinton an advantage from the start. “Even before candidates were decided in the 2016 presidential election,” explained MSNBC political reporter Alex Seitz-Wald, “Democrats started with a major advantage – thanks to changes in the Electoral College – over presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.” Of course, once Trump won the election without winning the popular vote, Democrats’ attitudes toward the Electoral College changed drastically. What they had counted on to keep Trump out of the White House had suddenly put him in. The last time this happened was, of course, the 2000 election, where Bush’s narrow margin in Florida gave him an Electoral College victory without winning the national popular vote.

Democrats are pointing to these two elections as reasons why the Electoral College is outmoded, racist, homophobic, transphobic, something-phobic, whatever. The national popular vote is the only truly democratic way to choose our president, they now say. Democrat presidential hopefuls are embracing this idea, and blue states across the country are entering into the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, in the hopes of, essentially, overthrowing the Electoral College system. To “preserve” our Republic.

The problem with their position now, besides the obvious, is that when it comes to the Electoral College, it’s not the system they have a problem with, it’s that's the system doesn’t work for them. The last time a Republican won both the national popular vote and the Electoral College vote was in 2004, when George W. Bush defeated John Kerry. But Democrats didn’t simply concede defeat when it was obvious they’d lost fairly.

Bush won Florida easily in 2004, but the results in Ohio were a lot closer, and John Kerry was urged to contest the results in Ohio over allegations of voting “irregularities” statewide. He did not. No number of recounts in Ohio could have resulted in flipping the state and the national popular vote. The only purpose of challenging Ohio was to overturn the Electoral College results. A recount in Ohio only netted Kerry about 300 votes statewide, but that didn’t stop Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) from filing an objection (on behalf of a group of Democrats in Congress) to the counting of Ohio’s electoral votes, and delaying certification of the 2004 presidential election results. This was only the second time in history such a challenge occurred. Nothing came of the challenge, as we know, but it’s also interesting to note that even now, John Kerry believes that the election was stolen from him.

The Democrats’ attitudes toward the Electoral College have nothing to do with the merits of the system, but the merits of the results. If they lose, the system is rigged and undemocratic. If they win, the system has proven itself to work. Democrats have a history of wanting to change the rules for their benefit. Senate Democrats were more than happy to use the filibuster to block President Bush from nominating judges to the courts, but took that power away from Republicans when they used it to block Barack Obama from nominating judges, citing a “broken system.” Democrats don’t believe in the sanctity of rules or law and order, they believe in winning at all costs. They won’t be happy in a system that doesn’t allow them to win 100 percent of the time.

Democrats the mentality of four-year-old children. They have to win every time, otherwise, it’s not fair. The Electoral College isn’t a threat to our Republic, the Democratic Party is.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-real-threat-to-our-republic-the-democratic-party/

Flashback: The Worst Day of Their Lives

Flashback: The Worst Day of Their Lives

 

BY ED DRISCOLL SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

In early September of 2011, Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal wrote, "This Sunday's 10th anniversary commemorations will evoke some semblance of the unity then in the face of an enemy attack on U.S. soil. But make no mistake: It's gone." What happened?, asked Henninger:

The accord that emerged in the post-attack period had no chance of standing up to the most powerful force in American life now: party politics.

For activist and professional Democrats, the most ignominious day in their collective political lives occurred a year earlier—the Florida presidential recount. The 2000 election ended only when the Supreme Court resolved it in favor of George Bush. Republican and independent voters moved on, but many Democrats never did; they were now being governed by an illegitimate president. The chances that any Bush policies would retain their support were minimal, with or without 9/11.

The aftermath of that schism lingers on in a million different ways. Before he self-immolated over RatherGate, Dan Rather -- or whoever wrote his copy that day -- sought to immediately poison the well even before George Bush took office. On Sunday, November 26, 2000. As Tim Graham of the Media Research Center wrote the following day, "Last night in live coverage on CBS, Dan Rather identified Harris as a Republican at least six times, and questioned the finality of her finding at least ten times:"

Flash-forward to today, where DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz describes yesterday's historic recall election against anti-Second Amendment Democrats in Colorado as "voter suppression, pure and simple."

But then the left views every election where they don't win as illegitimate in one form or another.

Meanwhile, despite his years of service to President Obama, CUNY college students heckle retired General David Petraeus on his way to his first day of class:

Petraeus was reportedly on the way to teaching his first class at CUNY’s honors college, entitled “Are We on the Threshold of the North American Decade?” He took on the teaching gig as part of rehabilitating his image following an extramarital affair scandal that led to his resignation from the CIA.

The students can be heard yelling “War criminal!” at the retired military officer who played a key role in the “counterinsurgency” strategy of the Iraq War. “Every class, David!” the students shout, suggesting they plan to protest him on a weekly basis, before every lecture.

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“Petraeus out of CUNY” and “Fascist” were some of the other chants.

You use that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.

In his latest column, Jonah Goldberg explores "The Myth of Live-and-Let-Live Liberalism:"

There is a notion out there that being “socially liberal” means you’re a libertarian at heart, a live-and-let-live sort of person who says “whatever floats your boat” a lot.

Alleged proof for this amusing myth (or pernicious lie; take your pick) comes in the form of liberal support for gay marriage and abortion rights, and opposition to a few things that smack of what some people call “traditional values.”

The evidence disproving this adorable story of live-and-let-live liberalism comes in the form of pretty much everything else liberals say, do, and believe.

Social liberalism is the foremost, predominant, and in many instances sole impulse for zealous regulation in this country, particularly in big cities. I love it when liberals complain about a ridiculous bit of PC nanny-statism coming out of New York, L.A., Chicago, D.C., Seattle, etc. — “What will they do next?”

Uh, sorry to tell you, but you are “they.” Outside of a Law and Orderscript — or an equally implausible MSNBC diatribe about who ruined Detroit — conservatives have as much influence on big-city liberalism as the Knights of Malta do.

Seriously, who else do people think are behind efforts to ban big sodas or sue hairdressers for charging women more than men? Who harasses little kids for making toy guns out of sticks, Pop Tarts, or their own fingers? Who wants to regulate the air you breathe, the food you eat, and the beverages you drink? Who wants to control your thermostat? Take your guns? Your cigarettes? Heck, your candy cigarettes? Who’s in favor of speech codes on campuses and “hate crime” laws everywhere? Who’s in favor of free speech when it comes to taxpayer-subsidized “art” and pornography (so long as you use a condom, if liberals get their way) but then bang their spoons on their high chairs for strict regulations when it comes to political speech? Who loves meddling, finger-wagging billionaires like Michael Bloomberg when they use state power and taxpayer money to herd, bully, and nudge people but thinks billionaires like the Koch brothers who want to shrink government are the root of all tyranny?

At the national level, who bypassed Congress to empower the EPA to regulate the atmosphere? Oh, and who pushed Obamacare on a country that didn’t want it? Who defends bending the entire country — including religious institutions — into a national health-care scheme dedicated to the proposition of live and let live so long as you live the way the Department of Health and Human Services says you should?

As they say at David Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine, ”Inside every liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out,” and November of 2000 was a key benchmark along the way, particularly given the events of the following year, which required a rare interregnum (with notable exceptions) in the culture war from the left. Four years later, it would lead to what Charles Krauthammer dubbed "the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release," in August of 2004:

The loathing goes far beyond the politicians. Liberals as a body have gone quite around the twist. I count one all-star rock tour, three movies, four current theatrical productions and five bestsellers (a full one-third of the New York Times list) variously devoted to ridiculing, denigrating, attacking and devaluing this president, this presidency and all who might, God knows why, support it.

How to explain? With apologies to Dr. Freud, I propose the Pressure Cooker Theory of Hydraulic Release.

The hostility, resentment, envy and disdain, all superheated in Florida, were not permitted their natural discharge. Came Sept. 11 and a lid was forced down. How can you seek revenge for a stolen election by a nitwit usurper when all of a sudden we are at war and the people, bless them, are rallying around the flag and hailing the commander in chief? With Bush riding high in the polls, with flags flying from pickup trucks (many of the flags, according to Howard Dean, Confederate), the president was untouchable.

The Democrats fell unnaturally silent. For two long, agonizing years, they had to stifle and suppress. It was the most serious case of repression since Freud's Anna O. went limp. The forced deference nearly killed them. And then, providentially, they were saved. The clouds parted and bad news rained down like manna: WMDs, Abu Ghraib, Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Joe Wilson and, most important, continued fighting in Iraq.

With the president stripped of his halo, his ratings went down. The spell was broken. He was finally, once again, human and vulnerable. With immense relief, the critics let loose.

The result has been volcanic. The subject of one prominent new novel is whether George W. Bush should be assassinated. This is all quite unhinged. Good God. What if Bush is reelected? If they lose to him again, Democrats will need more than just consolation. They'll need therapy.

And lots of it: "More than half of Democrats, according to a neutral survey, said they believed Bush was complicit in the 9/11 terror attacks," according to JournoList member Ben Smith, summarizing a 3006 Scripps-Howard/Ohio University poll. But then paranoia, anger, ideology and a self-righteous belief that you're part of the anointed class make for quite a dangerous cocktail:

https://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2013/9/11/flashback-the-worst-day-of-their-lives

Democrats really do love Republicans — when they’re dead

By Michael Goodwin

John McCain (left) and George H.W. BushGetty Images

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He was a patriot, a hero, a ­genial gentleman and a great American. You can’t pick up a newspaper or go near a television without hearing leftists gush with praise for the late President George H.W. Bush. Who knew they felt this way?

And you are not mistaken if the outpouring of previously unknown affection for the first President Bush sounds familiar. That’s because it is almost identical to the loving send-off the same suspects gave Sen. John McCain after he died in August.

It all just goes to prove that Democrats and their media handmaidens really do love Republicans — when they’re dead. All the more so if, when they were alive, they ­opposed President Trump.

There were reports that both Bush and McCain voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. See, good Republicans.

McCain’s feud went beyond the grave, when it became known that he did not want Trump at his funeral. McCain got extra love for that ­final bit of pettiness.

Paradoxically, Bush gets extra credit because he wanted Trump at his funeral, even though both gestures are seen as a rebuke to the current president. In this case, Bush is hailed for rising above pettiness.

There is another phony dimension in the media’s praise for Bush and McCain in that both were said to epitomize a less toxic time in politics. While it’s true that politics wasn’t always as vicious as it is now and that Democrats and Republicans actually socialized frequently, the mainstream media didn’t share in that bipartisan bonhomie when it came to coverage.

Even then, their bias tilted left, although their double standard has reached new depths in recent years. I believe the press corps’ lapdog approach to Barack Obama and attack-dog approach to Trump are part of why Americans have become so polarized.

Indeed, many Trump voters ­explain their support for him as a reaction to left-wing press bias and the failure of other Republicans to fight back the way Trump does.

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The heydays of press hatred for Bush and McCain came during their presidential campaigns. Long before they were saluted for their late-in-life stances against Trump, Bush 41 and McCain were declared unfit to be president.

SEE ALSO

George H.W. Bush remembered as casket arrives in DC

The New York Times, which last endorsed a Republican for president in 1956, backed the hapless Michael Dukakis over Bush in 1988, and Bush went on to win in a landslide, picking up more than 53 percent of the popular vote and 426 electoral votes.

Four years later, the paper supported Bill Clinton, ripping Bush’s economic management as “exasperating” and his positions on individual rights as “infuriating.” It accused him of stoking racial resentment, of going to “radical ­extremes” in supporting right-to-life measures, and said his “capacity to govern has collapsed.”

When Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991, he and Thomas got the same kind of character smearing that Trump and Brett Kavanaugh got this year.

Now, in his coffin, Bush is a model of American greatness.

McCain likewise was hailed as a brave maverick in 2000 when he sought the GOP nomination against George W. Bush. But when he won the nomination in 2008 to run against Barack Obama, the Times said McCain had “retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past.”

As he lay dead, the paper hailed the “adventurous bipartisanship” he demonstrated “in a long and distinguished career.”

The Washington Post, which has never endorsed a Republican for president, followed a similar trajectory: condemnation for McCain when he criticized Obama and other Dems, lavish praise when he turned fire on Republicans, especially Trump.

SEE ALSO

Trump won't attend services for John McCain

There is, of course, nothing wrong in saying something nice about the recently departed. Eulogies are not the time or place to seek balance.

The problem emerges when the partisan lens becomes the decisive factor in switching from damnation to praise. Then it is hypocrisy masquerading as principle and grace.

The flip-flops are the latest reminders that, more than two years after Trump’s stunning upset, it is not adequate to say American elites of both parties and the media have yet to accept his presidency. It is clear they never will.

Instead, they distort reality to make it fit their prejudice. They discover virtues in men they never supported only to use them as a cudgel against Trump.

Bush was elected in 1988 largely because he was seen as Ronald Reagan’s third term, and he was not an inspiring president, getting just 37 percent of the popular vote in 1992 in a three-way field, with Ross Perot getting 19 percent.

His post-presidential life was noteworthy mostly because his son also became president, and because he lived to 94.

Yet Jimmy Carter, another ex-president, is also 94, but even fellow Dems shun him, so he’s not seen as beloved or a national treasure by almost anyone.

As for McCain, his bitterness toward Trump was personal, dating to nasty remarks Trump made in 2015 about McCain’s five years of captivity and torture by the North Vietnamese. “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured,” Trump said then. “I like people that weren’t captured.”

McCain did his best to get even, reportedly giving the phony Russian dossier on Trump to the FBI. That kind of payback, more than his military career or captivity, is what finally endeared him to the left.

https://nypost.com/2018/12/04/democrats-really-do-love-republicans-when-theyre-dead/

Jake Tapper Falsely Claims Scooter Libby "Leaked" Noted Anti-Semite Conspiracy Theorist Valerie Plame's Name to Press; Refuses to Correct

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