Democrats Against Democracy

Yet again, the Democratic Party has ejected the party's chosen nominee.  Graham Platner, whose Nazi tattoo did not discourage Maine voters from voting for him, has become even more toxic since the primary.  Or has he?  No, this, like the 2024 Presidential Election, is a reaction to polls.  When it was clear that Joe Biden was going to get creamed in the general election, the Democrats 'convinced' him to withdraw and then selected an equally flawed candidate to replace him.  Now Platner, the second notably Democrat candidate this year to be brought down by sexual assault accusations (i.e., Eric Swalwell), has been jettisoned by his party and the party will select a new candidate.  You know, democracy.

Bill Clinton had a lot of baggage in 1992, including serial infidelity and a rape accusation (i.e., Juanita Broaddrick), but the polls said he was a winner, which he was.  Bill Clinton's sex life was less of a threat than his smoking marijuana.  "I didn't inhale," is a more memorable line, perhaps because Billy Crystal riffed on it during the Oscars.  But then there was Barack Obama, who documented his membership in the weed-smoking Choom Gang in one of his biographies, and it was hardly a blip.  He had an America-hating pastor, ties to a Weather Underground terrorist, and questions about his citizenship.  Not a problem.  He polled well.

Democrats will toss losers over the side in a heartbeat but stick with seriously flawed candidates if the polls look good.  If Platner was still polling well, the excuses for his behavior would be flowing.

The Race Tightens

Five years after the fact, Trump is on the brink of winning the 2020 election.  Fulton County, Georgia, has admitted that 315,000 ballots were unlawfully certified.  Joe Biden carried the county by a 73% to 26% margin, so most of those votes went into his column.  The margin of victory for the state of Georgia was just shy of 12,000 votes.  Removing the invalid ballots would flip the state to Trump.  It has already been determined that Pennsylvania's new voting law was unconstitutional.  Nixing those invalid ballots would likewise flip that state.  Georgia is worth 16 electoral votes and Pennsylvania is worth 20.  That 36-point shift would drop Biden from 306 to 270 and raise Trump from 232 to 268.  The race is getting close!

Next, it might be time to take a closer look at Maricopa County in Arizona.  Here is a county that has voted Republican in every election since 1952 with the exception of 2020.  That is odd.  Biden carried the state by only 10,500 votes, but the typically Republican County by 45,000 votes.  Perhaps investigate the surge of absentee votes after midnight from Milwaukee in Wisconsin.  Biden carried Wisconsin by only 21,000 votes.  If either of these have issues like Georgia or Pennsylvania, the 2020 election flips.

Does it matter at this point?  Yes.  If our elections are tending toward becoming mere shows, like those in China, North Korea, Russia, and so on, then the country is over.  Once the Deep State can consistently choose the winner (or even just the party nominees), the country is at an end.

Pardon Me

The power to pardon has been in the Constitution from the beginning.  George Washington issued 16 pardons during his 2 terms in office.  Only William Henry Harrison and James Garfield issued fewer pardons.  In fact, they each issued none on account of dying early in their presidencies.  John Adams, the sole Federalist president, only issued 20.  The power of the pardon has grown since then.  Let's see how that breaks down by party.

Independent

Washington didn't like the party system though he most aligned with the Federalist Party.  However, he spoke against parties so he's generally classified as Independent.  He offered 16 pardons.  John Tyler, the 10th President, was originally a Democrat but switched to Whig.  When he took over for William Henry Harrison, the Whigs disowned him and the Democrats didn't want him.  Thus, he falls into the Independent Party.  He offered 209 pardons.  Tyler lifted the average per president quite a bit.

Federalist

There was only 1 Federalist, President John Adams.  Following Washington, he was stingy with the pardons, only granting 20 in his 4 years as president.

Democratic-Republican

The Party of Thomas Jefferson, it primarily competed with the Federalist until they disintegrated after the War of 1812.  Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams were Democratic-Republicans.  The party was much more generous with pardons, offering 917.

Democratic

Having lost the 1824 election, Andrew Jackson split from the Democratic-Republicans to create a new party.  This is the Democratic Party that continues to this day.  It is the most generous with pardons, averaging 1,489 per president.  This number does not include Andrew Johnson's blanket pardon for many Confederates after the Civil War or Jimmy Carter's blanket pardon to over 200,000 draft dodgers after Vietnam.  Franklin Pierce was the stingiest with pardons (142), while Joe Biden has more than doubled 2nd place FDR (3,687) with 8,027 pardons so far.

Of particular note, Joe Biden has dramatically lifted the average.  Removing Joe Biden's 8,027 pardons, drops the Democratic average to 1,053 per Democratic president.  How high will it go by January 20th?

This reminds me of Al Gore's hockey stick graph.

Whig

There were only 3 Whig Presidents and two of them died early in their presidencies.  The Whigs only issued 208 pardons.

Republican

The Party of Lincoln has had more presidents than its nearest rival, the Democrats.  A Republican president averages 701 pardons.  Calvin Coolidge offered the most pardons (1,545) of any Republican while George HW Bush offered the fewest (77), if we excluded James Garfield, who issued none before his assassination.

From Eisenhower to Trump (1953 to 2021), there were 8,126 pardons.  President Biden is going for the Guinness Book of World Records.

Presidential Rankings - The Bad Ones

To fall under the 'somewhat negative' category, Graboyes states that the president "governed badly, had serious personal failings, or both."

John Quincy Adams: A great man who rose to his highest level of incompetence.

Martin Van Buren: A fixer who was not suited to the top role.  Helpless against the Panic of 1837 that was the hangover of the Jackson years.

Lyndon Banes Johnson: One of the most skilled and competent presidents ever but his policies have left lasting damage, notably Medicare and Medicaid.  No personal ethics.  His handling of Vietnam.

Richard Nixon: Competent and skilled, he resolved LBJ's Vietnam disaster and established relations with China.  However, he embraced bad economic policies (price controls) and destroyed his presidency by his actions regarding Watergate.

Gerald Ford: Creditable job of post-Watergate leadership.  Bad foreign policy and economic policies.

Bill Clinton: Though he had the makings of a somewhat positive president with his political skills, moderated views, charming demeanor, and strong intellect, he poisoned it with his sexual scandals, financial shenanigans, perjury, and unpardonable pardons.

Barack Obama: Ended NASA monopoly on space which allowed SpaceX to flourish, took out bin Laden.  His embrace of racial division, frequent attacks on his predecessor, and beneficial treatment of Iran were harmful.  He created a cult of personality that his party has yet to overcome.

Donald Trump: Despite a long list of impressive accomplishments (Abraham Accords, Jerusalem embassy, smashing ISIS, energy independence, end of the Iran Deal, the COVID vaccine, roaring economy, low unemployment - notably for blacks and Hispanics, border enforcement, Space Force, and Judicial appointments), Trump more than offset it with his verbal diarrhea and J6 catastrophe.

Joe Biden: He reversed most of the positives of the Trump administration.  The end of energy independence once again filled the coffers of adversaries: Russia & Iran. Iran financed Hamas (October 7 attack in Israel and the latest Gaza War), Hezbollah, and the Houthis (Red Sea conflict).  Inflation.  Open border, mobs at homes of the Supreme Court, obvious signs of dementia.

Mostly, I'll agree.  He's a bit hard on Martin Van Buren.  He had some foreign policy successes that determined the borders of the United States and Canada, but that Panic of 1837 really sank him.  The Amistad was just a footnote.  Nixon established the imperial presidency, seeking to create executive positions that duplicated the Cabinet in order to expand those protected by executive privilege.  Given how many positives he lists for Trump, the negatives must really weigh a lot in his estimation.

Who's Going to Tell Joe?

Richard Nixon announced his resignation live.  LBJ announced his decision not to run for re-election in a presidential address.  Joe Biden posted a letter.  Really?  Supposedly, some of the White House staff learned that the president was withdrawing via X (Twitter).  The obvious decline of Joe Biden could no longer be hidden or excused after his trouncing in the June debate.  The move in his party to remove Biden grew until he finally agreed that he should step aside.  Or did he?  If he agreed, one would expect him to have given a national address.  But now, it's a fait accompli.  The speech writers are working on his eventual public address.

Cynics hold that this was always in the cards.  Vivek Ramaswamy argued in the early primaries that Joe Biden would not be the nominee.  Lucky guess?  Doubtful.  Joe Biden stayed on the ballot and hid in the basement just long enough to secure the nomination.  Now, the party elites can pick his successor.  It has long been clear that the party doesn't trust its voters, which is why superdelegates exist.  Had Biden not been in the primaries, RFK Jr. might have won the nomination.  That was so unacceptable that the party has driven him to run as an Independent.

Will it be VP Harris?  Seeing as she was the first candidate to be eliminated in the 2020 primaries, she looks to be a weak choice.  But the Biden-Harris campaign war chest can only be spent if she is the nominee.  Will the Democratic Convention select her?  With Biden out, his delegates are probably free to pick whomever they like.  Gavin Newsom?  Gretchen Whitmer?  Josh Shapiro?  Pete Buttigieg?  Will these politicians try to sway the nation, or will they just shake hands in the smoke-filled rooms?  Just like old times.

The Trouncing

A debate with no audience.  A debate that even barred other reporters.  Strict time limits.  Two moderators who have clearly been anti-Trump.  It was a debate that most candidates would refuse.  Trump accepted and the trouncing began.  Mostly, this was a debate of contrasts.  Joe Biden looks old, sounds old, and frankly is old.  He is too old.  There were plenty of accusations back and forth.  Trump repeatedly called Biden the worst president ever.  Biden called Trump a convicted felon and sexual predator.  I suspect a transcript would narrow the gap in performances, but the visuals were quite bad for President Biden.  Interestingly, though Snopes recently declared the Fine People story from Charlottesville to be false, Biden brought it up as though it were true.

As for moderators, we need to do away with them.  Not entirely, but certainly as far as the questions are concerned.  Let the candidates ask each other questions.  They will each go for the jugular and it will be a livelier debate.  Keep the moderator(s) purely for timekeeping and some organization.  For instance, "It is your question, President Biden."  Give something like 30 seconds to ask a question and a couple of minutes to answer.  Some rebuttals as needed.  However, rebuttals go against their time, so one needs to be strategic.  Have a time on their podium, so everyone knows how much time each has used.  Would need to do some tweaks to deal with talking over one another.  It is beyond exasperating that every four years, the moderators are a bunch of Democrats who can't help but favor the Democrat.  With clear time rules and candidates asking the questions, that issue goes away.

In some of the post-debate commentary, I read calls to dump Biden at the convention.  Yeah, probably a good idea.  Also, Joe Biden is the reason for the 25th Amendment, sections 3 and/or 4.  Woodrow Wilson had a debilitation stroke in 1919 and yet remained president until 1921.  Very few will willingly surrender power, which is why George Washington was such a great man and Joe Biden is not.  Of course, his party is also to blame; they prefer him over Kalama Harris, or he would have been removed already.

Term Limits Desperately Needed

Little did the voters of California realize in 1992 that Dianne Feinstein had been elected Senator for Life.  More than 30 years later, Senator Dianne Feinstein has died.  She was 90.  A couple of months ago, she was participating in an appropriation meeting when one of her aides told her to "just say aye."  Feinstein said, "Aye."  Was the senator the one making the decision or was it the aide?  Or was it some unseen person behind the scenes.  Clearly, Senator Feinstein's mental faculties were not what they had been earlier in her political career.  She should have long since retired.  She is not alone in this.

Senator Mitch McConnell (age 81) has repeatedly frozen midsentence in recent months.  He is more than a decade beyond the traditional retirement age.  Joe Biden (age 80) regularly loses his train of thought, speaks incoherently, and rambles off topic.  The leading candidate for the Republican Party is Donald Trump (age 77) and would finish another term older than Joe Biden is now.  Clearly, term limits are needed.  In the case of the Presidency, we already have that.  However, we may need a maximum age.  Maybe an amendment that you can't run for president after the age of 70.  Heck, that could go for the House and Senate too.

One of the problems with term limits is that they only apply to elective offices.  They should apply to federal service in general.  After all, a bureaucrat who has been working in the system for 30 years is going to walk all over some newbie Senator or Representative.  I have already stated my desire to return to the spoils system, which would allow a full housecleaning every 4 to 8 years, but term limits would be a second best choice.  Say 12 years on the federal payroll and out.  Careerism in government is anathema to limited government.

For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority was created during the Great Depression to bring the Tennessee Valley into the 20th century.  90 years later, it is still operating.  Why?  Because, as Ronald Reagan often said, "a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life."  The bureaucrats have a disincentive to success; success will reduce funding and perhaps eliminate their jobs.

The current system is an obvious failure.  Time to reboot the system.

As the Deep State Turns

Look at all the evidence that is poring into the open about Hunter Biden and the Big Guy.  Devon Archer has testified to Congress and confirmed that Joe Biden was involved in multiple calls and meeting with Hunter's business associates.  In fact, he confirmed the Burisma story where Joe Biden arranged to fire a prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.  Yeah, Trump was entirely justified in asking the Ukrainian president to look into that, but he was impeached for it instead.  The Bidens have offshore shell corporations that have received money from overseas.  Of course, we knew most of this several years ago.  Why is it coming out now?  Because the Deep State can't hold back the tide with a broom.  Time to cut their losses.  Joe Biden will not be running for another term.

So who will run in his stead?  Kamala Harris?  Not a chance.  She was the first to be eliminated from the 2020 primaries, before voting even started, and is mostly an embarrassment to the administration.   They certainly don't want RFK Jr.  He has a longstanding dislike of the Deep State, viewing it as responsible for the death of his father and uncle.  He will not be an ally like Obama or a puppet like Biden.  No, who can they get?  Governor Newsome of California!  The Democratic Party put a thumb on the scale to get Hillary instead of Bernie Sanders and will do it again.  Those superdelegates decide the nominee while the ordinary delegates just give the impression that it was a democratic race.

To give the Democratic nominee a better chance to win, the Deep State has indicted the leading Republican candidate.  Trump has been repeatedly indicted.  Where Trump asking questions on one phone call before Joe Biden had even announced his presidential run was deemed an impeachable offense, it turns out that siccing the DOJ on your opponent is just fine.  It is very hard to hide the two-tiered justice system these days.

Not All There

“American soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division scaled that 1,800-foot cliff at night, caught the Germans by surprise, captured key positions, and broke through the German defense line at a pivotal point in the war.  Just imagine — I mean it sincerely — I say this as a father of a man who won the Bronze Star, the Conspicuous Service Medal, and lost his life in Iraq. Imagine the courage, the daring, and the genuine sacrifice — genuine sacrifice they all made.”

President Joe Biden

October 13, 2022

Beau Biden, Joe Biden's son, did indeed win a Bronze Star and Conspicuous Service Medal, but he did not die in Iraq.  He returned from a tour of Iraq in 2009.  Six years later, he died from brain cancer in Bethesda, Maryland.  President Biden does not remember where his son died.

Last month, Joe Biden asked where Jackie Walorski was during a speech.  Of course, she had died in August.  On the day she died, he released a statement that started thus:

Jill and I are shocked and saddened by the death of Congresswoman Jackie Walorski of Indiana along with two members of her staff in a car accident today in Indiana.

President Joe Biden

August 3, 2022

Clearly, President Biden isn't all there, but no talk of the 25th Amendment.  In fact, Democrats are trying to get another politician who is not all there to join Joe in Washington.  Jon Fetterman, Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania, is recovering from a stroke and needed a machine to translate for him because he has trouble understanding English at the moment.  Yeah, sounds like someone totally qualified to join the Senate.

Afghanistan

During the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States seized Guantanamo Bay.  A US Naval Station was established there soon after.  That station is still active.

As a result of World War II, the United States established bases throughout Europe and the Pacific, most especially in Germany and Japan.  76 years after the war's conclusion, the United States military maintains bases in England, Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, and Japan.  The areas have been peaceful since.  Germany and Japan are economic powerhouses and US allies.  Mostly.

The Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953, 68 years ago.  To this day, the United States maintains a considerable force in South Korea.  Though there have been skirmishes over the decades, peace has brought prosperity to South Korea.

In 2001, the ruling Taliban refused to hand over Al Qaeda terrorists who had plotted the 9/11 attack.  The United States overthrew the Taliban and spent 20 years, billions of dollars, and many American lives to better the condition of the region.  However, it seems that 20 years is too long a commitment for the United States.  No sooner did the United States begin its withdrawal than the Afghan government collapses and the Taliban filled that vacuum in an instant.

Though no fan of nation-building, the US withdrawal is a tactical blunder on the global stage.  This especially true on account of how badly it was done.  This is a huge signal of weakness to both our allies and our enemies.  In the wake of this, is China more or less likely to invade Taiwan and press its claims on the South China Sea?  Is Russia more or less likely to make further advances in Ukraine?  What happened in 2011 when the United States withdrew from Iraq?  ISIS happened, creating vast waves of refugees into Europe and a return to heavy fighting in Iraq and Syria.  No sooner has that been quelled than we repeat that failed strategy in a different place.  I'm sure it will work out well this time.

In 1975, Freshman Senator Joe Biden argued in favor of an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam as it was being overrun.  The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 were a casualty of Watergate.  With Nixon gone and Ford a literal President-Select (he had replaced Agnew by appointment), it was up to a Democratic Congress to hold the line.  Nope.  Joe Biden was also in favor of total withdrawal from Iraq.  And now Afghanistan.  His fingerprints are on several US military failures during his Washington tenure.

Law of Averages

The Law of Averages is a weak law when applied to small numbers but becomes more reliable as the sample grows.  For instance, if 100 people flip a quarter 10 times each, you can expect about 500 heads and 500 tails.  However, if Bill flipped 10 consecutive heads while Stacy flipped 10 tails, that would not be surprising.  The more coin flips, the closer to 50-50 it should be.

In Michigan, Joe Biden had his strongest showing in Washtenaw County.  He crushed Trump, winning 72% of the vote compared to Trump's 26%.  His next best showing was Wayne County.  Biden won 68% of the votes to Trump's 30%.  As these are some of the most populous regions of the state, that explains how Biden could win despite only carrying 11 of Michigan's 83 counties.  But this leads to a question of those early morning batches:

3:50 AM, 59,215 votes were processed that were 92% for Biden.  Huh.  This is a vastly better showing than Biden had in his two strongest counties.  As noted in an earlier post, he stomped Trump with mail-in ballots by a 2 to 1 margin but this is 12 to 1.  Of course, there were 5.5 million votes cast so this is only 1% of the total.  This is like the example where Bill flipped 10 consecutive heads.  Just happened to lean very Biden.

6:31 AM, 185,069 votes were processed that were 95.9% for Biden.  Huh.  That's over 3% of all the votes cast in the state and it is even more lopsided.  As a whole, the state went to Biden by 50.6% to Trump's 47.8%.  The bigger the sample of ballots, the more it should tend toward that ratio.  If Biden had won these two batches by 63% to 37% - still stomping Trump, Trump wins Michigan.

Food for thought.

Trump's Landslide vs. Biden's Landslide

According to Pew Research, 27% of votes were cast on election day, 27% at early voting sites, and 46% via absentee or mail-in ballots.  The breakdown by candidate is interesting:

Trump - 37% election day - 30% early voting - 32% absentee/mail-in

Biden - 17% election day - 24% early voting - 58% absentee/mail-in

That means that 67% of Trump voters went to a polling station to cast their ballot while only 41% of Biden's did so.  What does the election look like in that case?

Trump 49,728,639 vs. Biden 33,325,465

This is a Trump landslide, a 60 - 40 split.  The number of people leaving their house to vote for Trump dwarfs the number who did the same for Biden.  Now let's look at the absentee/mail-in votes.

Biden 47,144,756 vs. Trump 23,750,992

That is a Biden tsunami, a 66 - 33 split.  This is a massive drubbing.

This split between Trump and Biden voters follows the candidates' behavior.  Trump was out campaigning and his voters came to the polls.  Biden spent most of the campaign season in his house and that is what the majority of his voters did.

Election in Four Vote Batches

At midnight on November 3, Trump was leading in Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  If he held these three states, he would win re-election.  The balance shifted in four discrete batches of votes.

At 1:34 AM on November 4, Georgia ran a batch of 136,155 votes.  Of these votes, 82.4% were for Biden and 17.6% were Trump.  That is a 107,040 vote margin for Biden.  As of this writing, he leads Georgia by 12,670 votes.  Hmm.

At 3:42 AM, a batch of 168,542 votes were run in Wisconsin.  Biden received 85.1% of these votes.  He thus gained 118,216 votes in the statewide race.  His margin of victory for the state is 20,608.  Hmm.

At 3:50 AM, a batch of 59,215 votes were processed in Michigan, 92% going to Biden.  At 6:31 AM, a batch of 147,226 votes were run, 95.9% for Biden.  Biden gained 185,069 in the race thanks to these two batches.  The margin for the state is 154,188.  Interesting.

Of course, this could totally be cherry picking.  The margin is always somewhere but this does make for some peculiar graphs:

This graph could just be a brilliant piece of propaganda but there are several such graphs.  Some Democrat should produce graphs from previous elections that have this same pattern so as to debunk this.  Failure to do so only makes it more suspicious.  The only counterargument I keep hearing is there is no widespread fraud.  All right.  Four instances is hardly widespread.  It doesn't need to be widespread to make a difference.  Assure me there isn't fraud in these four lopsided vote batches.

Benford's Law

Though I took a lot of math and even a couple statistics courses, I was unfamiliar with Benford's Law.  Even having read it, I'm not clear on why the pattern holds.  However, the graphs are interesting and it is funny that every candidate follows the pattern except Joe Biden in certain key locations.  Is this just so much cherry picking?  Could easily be.  Have the Russians turned against Trump and now sided with Biden?  Doubtful.  An interesting read.

Joe Biden's votes violate Benford's Law

Against the Trend

For the last 120 years, if an incumbent president received more votes in his re-election campaign than he received in his election, he was re-elected.  In fact, if the incumbent president merely maintained 90% of his original vote total, he has always been re-elected.  Until now.

Here is a chart that shows only presidents who were elected and then ran for re-election, which is why Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, LBJ, and Ford are not included:

In 2008, Obama received 69.5 million votes but won re-election with 61 million votes.  By contrast, Trump won in 2016 with 63 million votes but lost re-election win 70.5 million (as of this writing) votes.  Joe Biden, who doesn't hold a candle to Obama in the charisma department, received 75 million votes.

Ruinous Election

Whoever wins this election will be illegitimate to much of the country.  Already the courts are involved, making this Bush v. Gore II.  There are enough irregularities that will only serve to confirm to Trump voters that he was right when he claimed it was a rigged election.  Changing election rules on the fly was doomed to create problems and the piles of mail-in ballots have slowed the counting.  It's Florida 2000 all over again but in multiple states.  This kind of disaster is how you ruin faith in elections.

Our voting system needs to be overhauled.  It has needed it for years.  One would think that after Florida 2000, something would have been done.  Nope.  20 years later and it has gotten worse.  Nevada can count billions of dollars in an instant but can't figure out millions of votes.  Of course, voting is a state issue.  Personally, I'd like to go back to a system where we have election day rather than election season.  No early voting, no mail-in ballots.

This is par for the course in 2020.  What a year.

The Final Debate

Whoever you are for won the debate.  If you're for Biden, the attacks on Trump's finances, racist policies, and lack of empathy were damning.  If you're for Trump, the pounding on Biden's decades of not getting it done and frequent references to Hunter were devastating.  If you were for Welker, she was by far the most commanding of all the moderators although her bias toward Biden was pretty clear.

I would give the win to Trump.  He was more controlled than his last debate.  This is probably because he was forced to be thanks to the muted microphone.  He repeatedly hit Biden on the obvious question: you were VP for 8 years and didn't get it done.  Why didn't you let Obama know how to get it done.  Though the MSM is still trying to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story, Trump hammered it.  Joe replied with denials that could come back to bite him soon.

For a guy who everyone says is suffering dementia, Biden did well but never effectively answered the point of having been there already and not gotten it done.  He made the claim of a Republican congress.  True.  But there was the first year where the Democrats controlled both houses and the presidency.  Trump had that same benefit for 2 years.  As for Hunter, one has to be willfully obtuse not to know his financial success is directly tied to his father's political career.  Same goes for any of Trump's kids.  Hunter isn't rich because of his keen business sense.

As to the moderator, I was unimpressed.  Why is it that in the four debates (#2 was cancelled but still worth mentioning), all the moderators are Democrats.  Admittedly, I don't know their registration but it was obvious in every case that they were pro-Biden and anti-Trump.  Who's Chris Wallace voting for?  How about Susan Page?  Steve Scully?  Kristen Welker?  Every one of them is a Biden voter.  Why do Republicans let this happen every single election?  Welker was more of an interviewer than a moderator.  She constantly cut off any debate between Trump and Biden because 'we have a lot of questions to get to.'  Who came up with this format?  Why not let the candidates decide what questions to ask and have the moderator just try to keep the time even and maybe move things along if there is a lull.  You know, what the candidates thing is important might tell us a lot rather than what the moderator thinks is important.  When the interruption numbers come in, it is going to be astonishingly lopsided as to how often she cut off Trump vs. Biden.  Two Democrats vs. one Republican.  Typical.

The Dog that Didn't Bark

Jonathan Turley offered a keen insight about the Hunter Biden's emails regarding the Biden Campaign's reaction.  There are three obvious responses that have not been offered.

1. That's not Hunter's laptop.  If it's not his laptop, say so.  Get in front of this hoax.  That the campaign hasn't pursued this line of attack says they think it probably is Hunter's laptop.

2. Those aren't Hunter's emails.  If this is bogus, why not challenge the authenticity of the emails or the pictures.  No claims that these are fake.  Interesting.

3. Defamation.  A major paper has printed clearly defamatory claims against Hunter Biden and, if it's not true, he should be suing them.

Rather than deny the authenticity of the claims, the campaign has offered specific responses regarding Joe Biden's schedule not showing the meeting reported in the emails.  Huh.  Well, if it isn't on his schedule, it must not have happened because nothing gets left off the schedule.  This doesn't exactly sound like a denial.

It is clear that Hunter Biden got his high paying position in Burisma because he was the Vice President's son.  Why else would a foreign company hire a man who was kicked out of the navy for drug use?  Not for his judgement.  Could it be that his father was the point man for Ukraine in the Obama Administration?  No, that's just a coincidence.

An October Surprise

The New York Post has emails revealing Hunter Biden's dealings with Burisma and implicating his father in the scandal.  Here's Tim Pool on the topic:

Of note, Facebook and Twitter have blocked this story.  There are stories that the public should not read.

The First Debate

Quick thoughts.

Trump was boorish and overbearing.  He barely let Biden speak with his constant interruptions.  What is funny is that it reminded me of how Biden debated Ryan in 2012.  Well, Biden wasn't rude and overbearing but he constantly interrupted.  Trump had a hard time staying on topic but he was dogged about answering Biden's accusations.  Though he clearly dominated, it didn't come across well.  Seemed almost like bullying.

Biden was rather passive.  Where was that Biden who schooled Ryan?  Though I thought Ryan won that debate on substance, Biden won it on optics.  Here, he was getting steamrolled and waited for Wallace to tame Trump.  If Biden can't handle Trump, what is he going to do when facing Putin and Xi? 

Wallace was clearly on Biden's side, especially as the debate continued.  Trump even asked if he was debating Wallace, which he often was.  To an extent, perhaps Wallace was trying to balance the scales since Trump was bulldozing Biden.  When it came to climate change, Wallace was debating Trump and Biden was just a bystander.  Has this become a hostile interview?

Overall, I'd say it was a draw.  Biden exceeded expectations in that he didn't say something truly bizarre (e.g. "dog-faced pony soldier") and managed to remain coherent.  Despite his verbosity, Trump lacked focus.  Sometimes, he was on point but other times he rambled.  Browbeating a senior citizen (I know they are both senior citizens but Joe looks it) is not commendable.  Wallace was a failure as a moderator.  He couldn't maintain control and let his bias show.  He grilled Trump about the recent tax story but then pretended that the ballot harvesting story from Minneapolis (released the same day as the tax story) never happened when they discussed ballot integrity.  He demanded Trump denounce white supremacists but didn't make a similar demand for Biden to denounce Antifa/BLM.