CNN Issues Controversial Presidential Debate Rules

/2 Comments/in , /by

CNN issued several controversial presidential debate rules over the weekend that will govern the encounter between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden on June 27.

The new rules come after Trump said in March he would debate Biden anywhere, anytime, and anyplace, putting pressure on Biden to participate in the event.

The Biden campaign agreed in May to a total of two debates that would be closely regulated. It demanded a ban on audiences and approved CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as moderators. Tapper is one of Trump’s sharpest critics.

CNN announced additional parameters on Saturday:

Two commercial breaks (Likely to benefit Biden)
Campaign staff will not be able to interact with their candidate during the break
No opening statements, two-minute closing statements
Two-minute answer shot clock, one minute for rebuttals
Mics will be muted “except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak” (Likely to benefit Biden)

(Read more from “CNN Issues Controversial Presidential Debate Rules” HERE)

Poll Reveals Sharp Decline in Biden’s Support Among Black Voters

/1 Comment/in , , /by

President Joe Biden is experiencing a significant decline in support among Black voters in the pivotal swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania, according to a recent USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll. The findings indicate a dramatic shift in a demographic that has historically been a stronghold for Democratic candidates.

The poll shows a substantial drop in Biden’s approval among Black voters, with support plummeting from 76% in 2020 to 56% in Michigan and 54% in Pennsylvania. This represents a decline of at least 20 percentage points. In the 2020 election, exit polls revealed that Biden received 92% of the Black vote in each state, underscoring the precipitous nature of the current decline.

Several factors contribute to this erosion of support. The primary reasons cited by respondents include dissatisfaction with Biden’s performance in office, concerns about his age and mental acuity, and discontent with his stance on international conflicts, particularly his support for Israel in its war against Hamas.

Despite a favorable view of Biden by 61% of Black voters in Michigan and 59% in Pennsylvania, these numbers are seen as weak for a constituency that has traditionally shown overwhelming support for the Democratic Party.

Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, is making notable inroads with Black voters in both states. The poll indicates that 15% of Black voters in Michigan now back Trump, a significant increase from the 9% who supported him in 2020. In Pennsylvania, Trump’s support has risen to 11%, up from 8% in the previous election. This uptick in support is particularly pronounced among Black men compared to Black women.

Suffolk University’s Political Research Center Director David Paleologos highlighted the challenge for Biden. “Since Biden won 13 times Trump’s support from Black voters in 2020, to maintain the same level of support, Biden would need to earn 13 new Black votes for every vote he loses to Trump,” Paleologos explained. This dynamic underscores why Trump senses an opportunity for improvement within the Black community.

The poll surveyed 500 Black voters in each state via landline and cell phone from June 9 to 13, 2024, with a margin of error of ± 4.4 percentage points.

Photo credit: Flickr

Foreign Media Raises Concerns About Biden’s Health Ahead of 2024 Election

/0 Comments/in , /by

Concerns about President Joe Biden’s health have become a focal point for several foreign media outlets, casting doubt on his fitness as he prepares for the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Reports from various international sources suggest growing unease among U.S. voters about Biden’s age and cognitive abilities.

Recent editorials and news stories have highlighted Biden’s public missteps, including tripping, forgetting names, and appearing disoriented. These incidents have sparked widespread debate about his capacity to serve another term. A June editorial from the U.K.’s The Independent stated, “Biden isn’t the man he used to be,” warning of a potential collapse of trust in the White House if concerns about his health are ignored.

The Hindustan Times from India published a story on Monday describing Biden’s “inability to function well,” citing frequent gaffes and struggles with recalling simple words. Similarly, Le Monde in France emphasized the “worrying episodes” related to Biden’s memory lapses.

At a recent Group of Seven (G7) summit, Biden’s behavior drew particular attention. Footage showed him wandering away during a group photo, only to be redirected by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. This incident led to headlines like Sky News Australia’s “Joe Biden’s ‘unusual behavior’ at the G7 leaves leaders ‘alarmed’ and ‘bemused.’”

Biden and his administration have consistently downplayed these concerns, portraying his age as an asset due to his extensive political experience. During campaign stops, Biden’s team has emphasized his legislative successes and portrayed his age as a symbol of wisdom and resilience. Despite these efforts, a New York Times/Siena poll from March indicated that over 70% of voters believe Biden’s age makes him “ineffective” or incapable of handling the presidency’s responsibilities.

The international skepticism isn’t confined to media reports. A Pew Global Research survey released on June 11 found that confidence in Biden’s ability to conduct foreign policy has significantly declined in 14 countries, including key allies like Israel, Japan, the U.K., and Australia. Less than half of respondents in these nations believe Biden is managing global conflicts, such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas situation, effectively.

The upcoming debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump, scheduled for June 27 in Atlanta, Georgia, is expected to intensify the focus on Biden’s health. The Telegraph noted that both candidates are leveraging age as a weapon in their campaigns, with Biden’s frequent lapses becoming a point of attack for his opponents.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

State Bar Association Issues Warning to Lawyers Who Speak Out Against Trump’s Prosecution

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Connecticut Bar Association (CBA) issued a warning Friday to public officials who speak out against former President Donald Trump’s prosecution.

During his Manhattan trial, Trump often read aloud remarks against his prosecution made by lawyers and media pundits outside the courtroom in avoidance of violating his gag order. Leadership from the CBA railed against “unsubstantiated and reckless” defenses of Trump by lawyers, saying in the statement that “such statements can promote acts of violence against those serving the public as employees of the judicial branch.”

“Words matter. Reckless words attacking the integrity of our judicial system matter even more,” the statement reads. “In the wake of the recent trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump, public officials have issued statements claiming that the trial was a ‘sham,’ a ‘hoax,’ and ‘rigged’; our justice system is ‘corrupt and rigged’; the judge was ‘corrupt’ and ‘highly unethical’; and, that the jury was ‘partisan’ and ‘precooked.’ Others claimed the trial was ‘America’s first communist show trial’—a reference to historic purges of high-ranking communist officials that were used to eliminate political threats.”

The CBA leadership acknowledged that “free speech includes criticism.” The statement, however, claimed that “headlines’ grabbing, baseless allegations” made by public officials against Trump’s prosecution “have no place in the public discourse.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, a repeated critic of Trump’s Manhattan indictment brought by Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, responded to the CBA’s warning Saturday. He called the CBA’s rebuke “chilling” and said Trump’s conviction in New York was “a flagrant example of such weaponization of the legal system and should be denounced by all lawyers.” (Read more from “State Bar Association Issues Warning to Lawyers Who Speak Out Against Trump’s Prosecution” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

More Data Confirms Biden’s Not-So-Secret 2024 Advantage, and Republicans Need to Take It Seriously

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Looking purely at the recent polling, Donald Trump must be considered current favorite to win November’s national election. We’ve explored how his felony convictions in New York City have not altered this overall trajectory, which has appeared to favor the challenger for months now. The oddsmakers and political forecasters seem to agree with this assessment, pegging the 45th president as likelier than not to become the 47th president in various published models. For what it’s worth, I don’t put a ton of stock into these models, especially with four-plus months left to go, but they’re still worth mentioning. As of this writing, Trump leads Biden (in RealClearPolitics five-candidate field averages) by nearly five points in Arizona, six points in Georgia, five points in Nevada, five points in North Carolina, and two points in Pennsylvania. Michigan and Wisconsin are almost exactly tied. Beyond these ‘big seven’ battlegrounds, Democrats have at least some cause for concern about an expanding map. I’m still rather skeptical about Trump’s chances in either of these states when all is said and done, but these are averages from late last week, not just single snapshots, as the election year summer gets underway:

Let’s put it this way: If Democrats are really sweating Minnesota or Virginia on election night, there’s a very good chance Trump will be re-elected. Based on the head-to-head polling, the incumbent’s approval rating, and broad voter sentiments, betting on a Trump victory makes sense. However. I will once again return to a fixation I’ve been writing about for months, based on some fresh data. As I’ve been pointing out, Biden enjoys the built-in advantage of ‘high propensity’ voters favoring his party by a meaningful margin. The Americans who are absolutely guaranteed to vote now lean decidedly blue. Democrats also have a well-established and lavishly-funded turnout and ballot operation that will wring every last vote out of their machine, fueled by people for whom voting (often early, by mail) is basically a religious rite. Republicans, by contrast, are generally skeptical of non-traditional voting methods, and their coalition is increasingly reliant upon ‘low propensity,’ or haphazard (sometimes at best) voters participating. Advantage: Democrats. Public opinion data also shows that many would-be voters are deeply disenchanted with their choices this year:

This is relevant because it speaks to the battle over the key “double disapprovers,” among whom Biden won handily in 2020. Polling this year shows this demographic more evenly split, some with Trump leading. But there’s a decent chance that a lot of these unsatisfied millions just stay home this fall. If turnout is relatively low, the importance of cranking out the base will rise for each major party. And Democrats are just better at that than Republicans are these days. The New York Times has published new data fortifying the high vs. low propensity voter dynamic I’ve been harping on so much. The more engaged the voter, the more likely she or he is to be a Democrat:

(Read more from “More Data Confirms Biden’s Not-So-Secret 2024 Advantage, and Republicans Need to Take It Seriously” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Supreme Court Rules Bump Stock Ban Unlawful

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Friday to overturn a Trump-era policy banning bump stocks for semi-automatic firearms, arguing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive (ATF) exceeded its authority.

The Trump administration’s ATF created the regulation 14 months after the deadliest U.S. mass shooting took place in 2017 at a country music festival in Las Vegas. The regulation reversed previous ATF policy that stated a semi-automatic firearm with a bump stock does not constitute a fully automatic firearm or machine gun. The Trump administration, alongside others, argued bump stocks “illegally convert semi-automatic rifles … into fully automatic machine guns,” The Federalist’s founder Sean Davis explained.

Upon implementation of the rule, anyone who owned bump stocks had 90 days to either destroy them or surrender them to the government in what represented “the most sweeping federal gun control effort since the so-called assault weapons ban, which was passed in 1994 and expired in 2003,” Davis wrote.

The high court struck down the rule, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority.

Michael Cargill, who was forced to surrender two bump stocks after the ban went into effect, argued the ATF lacked the statutory authority under the Administrative Procedure Act to create the rule because under federal law, bump stocks are not “machineguns.” The Supreme Court affirmed that the ATF lacked the authority to create the rule since. A Court of Appeals similarly affirmed this decision prior to the case heading to the Supreme Court. (Read more from “Supreme Court Rules Bump Stock Ban Unlawful” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Medical Organizations Urge End to Transgender Surgeries for Kids

/1 Comment/in , /by

Last week, pediatricians, doctors, and medical organizations from across the country joined forces, urging all U.S. medical personnel to stop experimentation and abuse of children under the guise of transgender treatment.

The “Doctors Protecting Children Declaration,” authored by the American College of Pediatricians (ACPEDS), was a collaborative effort relying on the expertise of hundreds of doctors, researchers, health-care workers, and leaders who “for years have been sounding the alarm on the harmful protocols that continue to be promoted by the medical organizations within the United States,” said ACPEDS Executive Director Jill Simons, MD, at a June 6 press conference.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, Endocrine Society, Pediatric Endocrine Society, American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry need to “follow the science” their European colleagues are finally acknowledging “and immediately stop the promotion of social affirmation, puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and surgeries for children and adolescents who experience distress over their biological sex,” Simons said. “[We are] defying the claims made by these medical organizations in the U.S. that those of us who are concerned are a minority, and that their protocols are consensus. They are not consensus and we are speaking in a loud unified voice, ‘Enough.’” . . .

Representing thousands of health-care workers in more than 50 countries, the declaration comes on the heels of the April release of the nearly 400-page Cass Review, an extensive and independent review of gender services for children commissioned by the British National Health Service. The findings were glaring: no evidence of positive mental health outcomes for children who socially “transitioned;” social transitioning led to increased medical interventions; puberty blockers reduced bone density in youth and led to no improvements in gender dysphoria or body satisfaction; most long-term negative outcomes are yet to be seen.

In spite of this and the recently leaked WPATH files exposing the dangerous pseudoscience base for gender medicine, some U.S. medical organizations have not changed course, Simons said. With “clearly laid out evidence that these procedures are harmful and not helpful,” Simons and her colleagues had expected gender-transition practitioners to take a step back from current protocols, but instead they have “doubled down and said they’re going to continue with what they’re doing.” (Read more from “Medical Organizations Urge End to Transgender Surgeries for Kids” HERE)

Black Community Leader Tells Donald Trump Obama, Biden ‘Never Came To The Hood’

/1 Comment/in , /by

A black pastor told presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump Saturday that former President Barack Obama and President Biden “never came to the hood” in Detroit.

Trump held a roundtable discussion with several black community leaders in Michigan, according to the Detroit Free Press. Lorenzo Sewell, senior pastor of 180 Church, told Trump that Obama and Biden “never came” to the west side neighborhood where Trump attempted to court black voters.

“President Trump, I’m so humbled that you would be here,” Sewell said, “President Obama never came to the hood, so to speak, right? President Joe Biden, he went to the big NAACP dinner, but he never came to the hood. So thank you.”

“Thank you, pastor. Really nice,” Trump said as attendees erupted in applause. “Thank you, my honor.”

(Read more from “Black Community Leader Tells Donald Trump Obama, Biden ‘Never Came To The Hood’” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Woman’s Murder Conviction Overturned After 43 Years Behind Bars: REPORT

/3 Comments/in , /by

A judge in northwestern Missouri overturned the conviction of a woman incarcerated for 43 years for a 1980 murder after her attorneys argued that a disgraced police officer committed the crime, the Associated Press (AP) reported Saturday.

Judge Ryan Horsman of the 43rd Circuit Court of Livingston County ruled late Friday that there was evidence Sandra Hemme, 63, was innocent and that, failing a retrial, she therefore must be released within 30 days, according to the news report. Hemme’s trial counsel was ineffective and prosecutors failed to disclose helpful evidence, Judge Horsman reportedly said.

“We are grateful to the Court for acknowledging the grave injustice Ms. Hemme has endured for more than four decades,” Hemme’s attorneys told the AP via a statement. They would continue working to dismiss the charges and reunite Hemme, a psychiatric patient, with her family, they reportedly added.

There was no information from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the AP said.

“Hemme was wrongly convicted for the 1980 murder of Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph, Missouri, after police exploited her mental illness and coerced her into making false statements while she was sedated and being treated with antipsychotic medication,” Hemme’s attorneys said via The Innocence Project, a New York City-based non-profit organization using forensic science and legal support to tackle wrongful conviction cases.

(Read more from “Woman’s Murder Conviction Overturned After 43 Years Behind Bars: REPORT” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Top Ex-Spies Who (Still) Lie About Hunter Biden’s Laptop Are Anything but ‘Patriots’

/3 Comments/in , , /by

By New York Post. Nearly four years after 51 former top intel officials smeared The Post and misled the nation about Hunter Biden’s laptop, not one has any regrets — even though the FBI and Justice Department have confirmed the computer’s authenticity and federal prosecutors even cited it as evidence in the first son’s gun case.

Indeed, the 51 “spies who lied” in a letter falsely suggesting the laptop report was “Russian disinfo” are proud of deceiving Americans, with a lawyer for some even calling their deception “patriotic.”

No: They sold out their own credibility for a mess of pottage by intentionally misleading the public, and giving pro-Biden media outlets an excuse to dismiss and censor The Post’s 2020 election-eve scoop, as well as offering Joe Biden an escape hatch on the issue in his then-upcoming debate with Donald Trump.

Again: A host of top intelligence community leaders effectively lied to the American people “for their own good”; after that, how can anyone trust any “information” the IC offers?

And how does the IC justify all the billions the taxpayers spend on it, when its leaders manipulate the public instead of serving it honestly? (Read more from “Top Ex-Spies Who (Still) Lie About Hunter Biden’s Laptop Are Anything but ‘Patriots’” HERE)

____________________________________________________

Not One of the 51 Intel Officials Who Illegally Changed the Outcome of the 2020 Election Regret Their Lies

By Fox News. Dozens of former intelligence officials who signed a letter warning Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop “has all the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation are either declining to retract or doubling down despite the device being entered as evidence in his ongoing criminal trial.

Fox News Digital reached out to all 51 individuals who signed the heavily scrutinized October 2020 letter, published just before the 2020 presidential election, asking if they regretted signing it now that the laptop is being used by the prosecution arguing Hunter committed a federal gun crime.

“No,” former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper simply said, also declining to publicly remove his name from the letter or concede that those signing onto it should have waited longer for more information to develop.

Mark S. Zaid, an attorney representing signatories Ronald Marks, Marc Polymeropoulos, Douglas Wise, Paul Kolbe, John Sipher, Emile Nakhleh and Gerald O’Shea, sent Fox News Digital a statement on behalf of his clients that doubled down on the importance of the letter and claimed it was “patriotic” to sign it.

“There continues to be by many a calculated or woefully ignorant interpretation of the October 2020 letter signed by fifty-one former intelligence officials concerning Hunter Biden’s laptop,” Zaid, who once posted online that Trump’s election was “very scary,” said in the statement. (Read more from “Not One of the 51 Intel Officials Who Illegally Changed the Outcome of the 2020 Election Regret Their Lies” HERE)