Hey Kids!

Let’s have some fun today and play Debate Bingo!

It’s FREE!

Since the debate tonight isn’t going to actually affect the election at all, we can at least have some giggles watching it. The Salon has lovingly stolen these 4 Bingo cards from some website or other and is providing them to use for tonight’s Presidential Debate. 

It’s Easy! All you have to do to play is download and print the four Bingo card images you see below, get four Sharpies (the preferred tool to sign checks to porn actresses and alter hurricane tracking maps), pop the popcorn and uncork that bottle of cab that you’ve been saving (or drop a couple of “funny gummies” if it’s legal – or nearly so).

When you hear Harris or TFG say something that’s shown in one of the squares, take your  Sharpie and mark the square. Five in a row, column or diagonally and YOU WIN! 

What you win is strictly up to you and your friends, but I suggest a buy-in of at least a Hamilton. Toney players might want to bump it up a bit and pitch in a Franklin each, but that’s your call.

Enjoy!

Where to watch? Apparently any channel you want except for QVC – they have marcasite rings to sell.

In order to do some debate prep of our own today, let’s hone our skills at spotting a lie. In this case, however, the challenge is to spot which of the nine quotes listed below made by actual human beings were uttered by TFG, and which (at the risk of violating Godwin’s Law) were made by Adolf Hitler.

It is the press, above all, which wages a positively fanatical and slanderous struggle, tearing down everything which can be regarded as a support of national independence, cultural elevation, and the economic independence of the nation.

When I recognize a concept as correct, I not only have the duty to convey this to my fellow citizens, but moreover the duty to eliminate contrary interpretations.

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.

Our strategy is to destroy the enemy from within, to conquer him through himself.

Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.

Those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law which will include long term prison sentences so that this depravity of justice does not happen again.

Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.

Who says I am not under the special protection of God?

It is not truth that matters, but victory.

Now the truth is that all but one of the quotes listed above were that of Herr Hitler. 

Just messing with you.

Down at The Salon this morning, Juanita Jean challenged her customers to listen to Dr. Allan Lichtman’s Presidential Prediction video. So I did, and you can as well.

See it before The Debate tomorrow. Or after. It doesn’t matter. Lichtman’s prediction is based on his 13 keys model, and not ONE of them entails how a given presidential candidate does at a televised debate.

There, I said it. The debate won’t turn a page. It is, as advertised by websites with phone numbers that charge $3.99 per minute, “For Entertainment Purposes Only.”

On the other hand, I just had to find out which one of the past 10 presidential elections did Lichtman get wrong? So I looked it up.

Al Gore. He got it wrong with Al Gore.

Lichtman got that one wrong because one of his keys doesn’t take into account a 5-4 Supreme Court decision that overturns an election.

Do better, Allan.

Here on the Left Coast there is a storm brewing in several congressional districts that threatens to turn the congressional red-blue balance on its ear.

As a denizen of CD-41, one of these races is of high interest to me. A longtime member of Congress, Ken Calvert has comfortably weathered fifteen challenges from Democratic opponents. But in 2022, Calvert came so close to defeat that he could hear the bullet whizz past his ear.

Too soon?

This was because of the 2021 redistricting which put Calvert in a newly redrawn CD-41 which now includes what has been called (but not by me, no way) “the gayest city in California“.

In 2022, Calvert edged his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Attorney Will Rollins by a mere 11,100 votes. That’s fewer votes than TFG needed from Georgia Governor Kemp in 2020.

But now I am learning that, with the switcheroo that replaced Joe Biden with Kamala Harris at the top of the ballot, Rollins, who is repeating his run at replacing Calvert in this year’s contest, has an even better chance to knock over the MAGA-prone Republican.

With Harris now at the top of the ballot, new polls are showing a trend that 7 Republican congressmen in California are now eying: Harris polls 8 points higher against TFG than Biden did among California Hispanic voters.

Should this continue down ballot, Calvert will experience (excuse me for being born in a less cultivated era) a veritible Mexican Standoff.

By the numbers, CD-41 had 237,000 voting participants in 2022, and the U.S. Census reports that residents of CD-41 are 38% Hispanic. If voting percentages are in the same futbol stadium, this means that there were 90,000 Hispanics that voted in the mid term election. Assuming an 8% shift in their voting, this means that about 7,500 more Hispanic votes will be cast for Rollins this year.

That cuts Calvert’s 2022 edge down to 3,600 votes.

I don’t expect an increase in the LGBTQIA+ vote for Rollins (who is openly gay) this year because they all hate Calvert with the same passion that Calvert believes they are all pedophiles. So, no help from Palm Springs.

This election is still going to be “tight as a tick” as they say, but with the 8% Hispanic bump, plus the additional voters awakened by decisions by a criminally unethical Supreme Court, plus the gravitas of a Presidential (as opposed to a mid-term) election, Congressman Calvert should probably be honing his retirement plans.

He needs a nice (hopefully) long rest.

It cannot be over-emphasized how contagious TFG’s deranged speech is to those who spend what is probably too much time around him. 

I strained to listen to TFG’s lawyer, Will Scharf’s unpunctuated speech to reporters this morning. A speech delivered after oral arguments were made in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case that was heard by a 3-judge panel at the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal.

Just to make sure that I was hearing what I was hearing, I slowly and methodically transcribed the speech which I have pasted below. I could write a tome on any given point expressed by Mr. Scharf, but my emphasis is the absurd remark that caused me to spray my coffee this morning.

Down the rabbit hole we go, Alice (punctuation guessed at, and here’s a visual aid):

No fair jury could have reached the verdict that was reached in this case, and as a result, we believe that this verdict needs to be overturned. But there’s more than that. In addition to this improper propensity evidence, President Trump and his trial team were prevented from cross-examining E. Jean Carroll and other witnesses on crucial issues. Crucial issues in particular, relating to political motivation and the political coordination behind this entire lawsuit. This is a lawsuit that was instigated in large part by George Conway, a longtime political foe and adversary of President Trump. This is a lawsuit that was funded by Reid Hoffman, a key political ally of the Biden-Harris Administration and a major Democrat donor. We were limited in the evidence we were allowed to present at trial about these crucial facts. We were limited in cross-examining E. Jean Carroll on aspects of that dynamic that underlies the entire lawsuit, and that, too, unfairly corrupted the jury’s deliberations in this case and requires reversal of the jury verdict. I think this political coordination point is particularly important, though it is important to emphasize because what we have seen in the last few years is a weaponization by the Biden Administration and by their political allies, of our legal system and of our courts to unlawfully unconstitutionally interfere with President Trump’s core First Amendment right to run for President. That is a right guaranteed to him by the constitution. That is the right that his political opponents are attempting to strip away from him. We have seen this in case after case after case where unfair political motives have underlay what should be serious legal proceedings. And I think when you look at this situation in toto, when you look at what the Left, when you look at what the Biden-Harris Administration is attempting to do to President Trump, this is insane.

Uh, excuse me? “President Trump’s core First Amendment right to run for President?”  I never heard of that one. Wait and I’ll go and Google it.

Yeah…no.

“School shootings are a fact of life.” — J.D. Vance

No it’s not. It’s just not. I hate to go all old man on everyone here, but these things didn’t happen when we were kids. I graduated from high school in 1993. I think there was a famous school shooting at the University of Texas back in the day, but that’s pretty much it. In 1999 Columbine happened. In the last 25 years it is has been like shooting fish in a barrel.

So, maybe logic is the way to go about it. I feel like the conservative response is to point to things we know we can’t fix. It’s a whole generation of kids raised by single parents. It’s the violent video games. It is the lack of God in our culture. It’s the ramping up of hate on social media. It’s the mental health.

These things might be true to a greater or lesser extent and I am not here to discount any of those things. However, school violence is a choice. Gun violence is a choice. Every other industrialized country on the planet has figured this out better than we have. It’s not a fact of life. It is what you have chosen to accept.

One of the things I’ve noticed with a child going into the college process is that I wouldn’t have gotten into the institution I went to with the grades I had. My SAT score wouldn’t have been enough. We are loading up our kids with AP courses, college essays, internships, and part-time jobs. These kids aren’t soft like we are accusing them of. They have a lot more on their plate than any of us had.

Now, what does this have to do with the issue at hand? Someone that shoots up a school, mall, movie theater, or anything else by definition is mentally ill. That by definition is someone in distress and is not exercising good coping skills. Mentally ill doesn’t have to mean being in a straight jacket. It doesn’t mean needing a padded room with no sharp things. It doesn’t mean they need copious amounts of medication and therapy.

It is so much more than that. We are increasingly creating an entire generation of people without coping skills. We heap all of this stuff on them, tell them they will have to pay for college for the rest of their lives, won’t be able to ever afford a house of their own, and we provide them with few ways to manage this stress. We tell them they have to choose a path early in life. They need to spend all of their free time either studying or getting better on that path. What stress relief strategies are we providing?

Guns are not necessary for the survival of 99 percent of us. Your little pea shooter is no match for the military might of the largest and most powerful armed force in the history of the planet. I want people to be able to do what they want in their free time as long as it doesn’t endanger me or my family. You can do that without an AR-15. You can do that by simply waiting a week to make sure you don’t have a history of domestic abuse, mental illness, or criminal behavior. Registering your gun is not going to seriously infringe on your rights. Heck, having a license to carry it won’t either.