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Republicans, can you stop screaming like hyenas at every little indignity suffered by our former president? Donald Trump wouldnt lift a finger to help you.

Yes, it was asinine for the FBI to stage a raid on Mar-a-Lago when we all know the only documents Trump wanted were his letters and photos with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (North Korea has nukes. See? Nuclear documents.) Trump needs those for his scrapbook, to accompany the photos of him with Kim Kardashian, Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Hannity.

Still, the raid isnt going to affect your life. It barely affected Trumps. He was golfing in New Jersey at the time.

You want to be mad at the FBI? This is why you should be angry. Rather than fight crime, the agency has turned itself into the wingman for Defund the Police. That could get you and your family killed.

Consider how they treated the cops in Louisville, Kentucky, who risked their lives trying to serve a search warrant on a major fentanyl dealers moll, Breonna Taylor, on March 13, 2020. The true story was discussed in last weeks column, as well as my Dec. 16, 2020, column.

Heres the rest of the story, as told by Sgt. John Mattingly in his book, 12 Seconds in the Dark.

In the spring of 2020, as the defenseless officers were being smeared by Oprah, LeBron James, Cardi B., Beyonce, Common, Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys, Demi Lovato, Ellen DeGeneres, Amy Schumer, Ice Cube, Diddy, Kamala Harris, the entire MSNBC on-air talent, and on and on a confidential informant revealed that a hit had been put on the officers by two black motorcycle clubs, No Haterz and STR8 RYDERZ.

And heres something random: Breonnas mother was dating the president of one of the clubs.

A few weeks later, the ATF received information that the clubs Chicago chapter would be driving to Louisville that weekend to kill the officers. The targeted cops were given security and a description of the cars and motorcycles coming for them.

What happened next would force the officers to flee and live in hiding for the rest of their lives, thanks to the inaction of the FBI.

Heres how Sgt. Mattingly describes it: On May 31, 2020, I was told the FBI corroborated two separate threats from different sources. We received a call at 10 p.m. asking us to pack our bags and leave our house. We had to sell our house that we lived in for six weeks and have been in hiding ever since.

It seems a $50,000 bounty had been put on the heads of the officers. Breonnas birthday would have been that Friday. As part of the balloon release celebrating the occasion, the organizers wanted to have something to celebrate. To wit: Dead cops.

At least the FBI had the officers backs! No, Im sorry, the FBI Trumps FBI sided with the guys whod put a bounty on the cops heads. The agency dropped the case after a remarkably short 2 1/2 weeks, announcing implausibly that the informant was unreliable.

Well, hed proven reliable in the past. The informant was, even then, being used in another active case. And of course, no one at FBI headquarters had bothered talking to him. But so desperate was the FBI to close the case that it was willing to blow up one of its own informants: Once ruled unreliable, a source can never be used in another federal case.

Mattingly says the FBI refused to investigate credible threats on the officers lives because of the optics of going after a mother in a nationally sensitive case. Shouldnt it be the reverse: The FBI must investigate because Breonnas mother was affiliated with a club planning to murder the cops whom she blamed for her daughters death? (In fact, Breonna died because her good pal Kenneth Walker shot at the police. Ironically, a no-knock warrant the officers knocked and yelled, POLICE! would have saved her life.)

Local FBI agents in Louisville were enraged. Asked what the targeted cops were supposed to do, the FBI bosses said: Tell them to relocate. Two weeks later, Mattingly had to watch as the FBI sent 15 agents to investigate a racist rope in Bubba Wallaces stall at NASCAR.

Right-wingers, save your breath defending the most disloyal man alive. Do something useful and get a job at the FBI. Just be sure to put BLM on your resume! The next Republican president (Ron DeSantis) is going to need a lot of help.

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Ann Coulter: The FBI wing of BLM | Opinion | marshallnewsmessenger.com - Marshall News Messenger

"2000 Mules is Dinesh DSouzas application for a job in the next Trump administration, or at least for a talking head spot on Russia Today. It takes the same debunked claims about the 2020 election and adds a few more hunks of bigotry and bad production values in an effort to keep fleecing the MAGAt sheep.

The specific evidence he uses cell phone location data is discussed and dismissedby Reuters hereandnoted Leftist Ann Coulter here.They cover the main problems with DSouzas claims thoroughly. I will refer to the Reuters piece several times throughout my discussion here. DSouza uses three main techniques to create his illusion of nefariousness: imagery, labelling, and concealment of facts that change the interpretation of events. I will discuss each in turn.

IMAGERY

DSouza copies the aesthetics of anAll The Presidents Men type heroic-journalists-exposing-massive-corruption thriller. He suggests, without ever providing anything that anyone else could corroborate, that the 2020 election was stole.The movie starts with a grainy image of Joe Biden and a video clip of someone in a grey hoodie putting something in a drop box, but with no identification or explanation, just a clip of someone dressed in the standard Scare The Wingnuts costume in bad light. He returns to the spy movie imagery again and again in the film, trying to suggest by image that something nefarious happened without actually saying words that include provable statements.

The scene cuts to DSouza stalking through Washington DC asking whether the election really was that secure. Then we get clips of wing nuts suggesting that the election was fraudulent. Included in this was a clip from local Austin stations KXAN asserting that the Travis County clerk locked Republican poll watchers out. This assertion came fromfailed GOP candidate Jennifer Fleck,but the film doesnt provide that information. No charges ever resulted from Flecks claims. Next, there is a short clip from an Atlanta station saying that a software glitch delayed counting, Rand Paul saying there was election fraud, and a short clip of security camera recordings which a Gateway Pundit announcer claims to be someone dropping off ballots somewhere at 3 a.m. Nothing in any of these clips is ever discussed again in the movie.

DSouza then shows a clip fromProject Veritaswhich the voiceover claims to be of a man selling a voter registration from. It is not possible to identify anyone in the video. PV adds helpful labels to each of the participants: VOTER and BALLOT HARVESTER, and adds a big red arrow pointing to POCKET MONEY supposedly changing hands for the registration form. Notably PV doesnt stated that the BALLOT HARVESTER is paying the VOTER for a vote, only a registration form. This is, again, imagery from thrillers designed to suggest something bad happened but without needing to provide demonstrable corroboration.

DSouza convenes a meeting of his fellow Salem Now pundits, including Sebastian Gorka, Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, and Charlie Kirk. They chat and pretend to discuss whether there is evidence of election fraud. DSouza films this on a set designed to look like an Ivy League library lots of bookshelves, leather wing chairs, nice panelling and everyone pretends the discussion isnt scripted. Elder says Democrats would have done anything to beat Trump, and goes to the bottomless well of wingnut obsessions by quoting Jane Fonda. They conclude, unsurprisingly, that the election was fraudulent.

DSouzas next section really leans into the Fake Woodward and Bernstein elements. He and a woman are on a set that looks like a kitchen in an ordinary house. DSouza gets a phone call from Catherine Engelbrecht ofTrue the Vote, in which Engelbrecht says she has lots of useful evidence. The scene cuts to a parking lot in the back of a strip center, showing a sedan drive up toward two people next to a dumpster. This doesnt last but a second or two, because showing the scene from outside the vehicle reminds viewers that this is a movie, with camera operators, and not a couple of brave journalists meeting their secret source.

Next we go inside to an overhead shot of a set that looks like a basement. Theres a table in the middle of a big room, a barely-visible map of the southwest corner of the US, some blue-painted boxes that look a little like ballot boxes, and a desk partiallyconcealed by a bank of lockers. Engelbrecht and her partner, Gregg Phillips, sit with DSouza and the other woman at a table. Engelbrecht claims to be non-partisan and discussesthis election.Phillips then describes what he claims is a pattern to election fraud: non-profits hire people to collect ballots and others to deposit the ballots. Engelbrecht interjects that it is illegal to get paid for your ballot. They then claim to have evidence of fraud in the form of cell phone data.

She is correct. It is illegal to pay someone to vote.

LABELLING

DSouza and company create pejorative labels for the various participants in their asserted scheme. These labels are not terms of art used in any specific field but words and phrases DSouza and his collaborators coined for their own enterprise. Those words and phrases are mules, ballot trafficking and stash houses.

Engelbrecht and Phillipsclaimthat the cell phone data they obtained shows mules taking ballots from non-profits and delivering those ballots to drop boxes. It should be noted that theyadmitthat theycoined the phrase ballot trafficking because it sounds like the phrases drug trafficking and human trafficking. There is no specific crime of ballot trafficking. They use the word mule to describe the people delivering the ballots because thats the same word used for people who carry illegal drugs. They claim that the mules collect ballots fromNot only is this a way to imply an unproven connection to crime, its also racist. Drug mule conjures images of scary brown people from south of the Mexican border invading White America.

Supposedly these mules would obtain ballots from what they call stash houses. They coined the phrase stash house to describe non-profits that collect ballots and distribute them, which is in some undefined way nefarious. DSouza again coins a pejorative phrase stash house which conjures images of drug dealers or other criminals to disguise the fact that he doesnt actually provide any facts here. DSouza never names any of these non-profits other than to state that they are aligned with Democrats. That, apparently, is enough for him to convict them, but it shouldn't be enough to persuade anyone else. It is a really good example of his tactic of creating phrases to generate an emotional reaction but that dont state any facts. Its a nice way of avoiding a libel suit but doesnt prove anything. (See the links at this Wikipedia article for good discussions of what happens when someone makes unsupported assertions about private citizens.)

Concealment of Facts

DSouza and company fail repeatedly to analyze the stuff they present as evidence to show whether or not it proves what they claim. The Reuters article above discusses the problems with the specific geotracking: its not possible to prove that the person didnt have a good reason to follow the same routes and stop at the same places during the period in question. Drop boxes are usually in libraries or post offices, which get a lot of traffic for reasons unrelated to the election. Nowhere in this entire flick does DSouza, Engelbrecht, and company ever note the locations of any of the drop boxes. In the absence of this vital evidence, their entire case falls apart.

Their concealment of facts and failure to analyze what they present is best demonstrated by the part of the movie devoted to security camera recordings.Engelbrecht claims they matched security camera recordings of the drop boxes to their cell phone records, and shows a couple of clips from those security cameras. It should be noted that despite their claims that the people in the recordings visited dozens of drop boxes, they only show one recording of each person. The only evidence of these other visits are their assertions.

In one, a woman wearing blue disposable gloves that look like medical gloves drops an envelope into a drop box located near the door of a large building. Engelbrecht makes a great fuss over the fact that the woman goes straight to the drop box and doesnt have to look around for it. Theres what appears to be an ATM near the box, facing the camera. The possibility that the woman has been to that location to use the ATM isnt mentioned. Furthermore, the clip doesnt show every move the woman makes from her arrival, so its possiblethat she looked around off camera or at some time before dropping the ballot.

Engelbrecht mentions that the device associated with this person is from South Carolina and implies that means that this person is casting an illegal ballot. Engelbrecht does not provide the evidence which leads her to conclude that the device, which I assume is a cell phone since theyre whole case is based on cell phone data, is from South Carolina. I make another assumption that the number associated with the device has a South Carolina area code. First, obviously, cell phones are MOBILE. This person can legitimately have a South Carolina number and still live in Georgia because she moved recently, especially if she didnt change service carriers. Since 2003, cell phone carriers have to allow customers to port old numbers to new carriers. (Seehere.) Therefore, its possible that this person kept a number from a previous residence even when moving. Another possibility is that the woman is posting a ballot for a family member, which, as the Reuters article linked above notes, is legal in Georgia. Thus, this clip proves nothing.

Another clip shows a man walking a dog and placing a ballot in a box that is also at a polling place. This clip happens during daylight, and there is a line of voters observing the action.Phillips comments on the brazenness of the dog-walkers actions, adding people watching you cheat. Again, there is no actual indication that this man is cheating at all, just Phillipss accusation by voice-over.

In the final section of 2000 Mules devoted to what he claims his evidence,DSouza then shows several Power Point slides with numbers and simple multiplication equations on them. He shows the asserted number of mules for several swing states, the number of asserted illegal ballots, multiplies the two numbers and gets what he states are the number of illegal votes. He does this two times for each state, once with a lower number of mules and again with a higher number. Since he hasnt provided anything else at all, even of the useless quality of the Georgia security camera scenes, for any of those other states, these calculations are completely worthless. In case anyone needs reminding, statistics need to be connected to actual, provable events to have any merit as evidence. Stats are narrative in number form, and the numbers are only as good as the narrative, which in this case isnt even close to being good for anything.

It should be clear that after more than 60 lawsuits all being dismissed, that Trumps claims about the 2020 election are lies. That much others have confirmed, mostly the judges that heard those silly lawsuits. Its still worth paying attention to right wing propaganda to see the techniques they use to manipulate emotions in the absence of facts. Showing the world how the illusionist does his magic is the only effective way to counteract the illusion. 2000 Mules uses all the standard techniques: imagery, labelling, and concealment of facts that would alter the asserted interpretation. If we progressives want to defeat the right wing propaganda mill, we need to recognize those techniques and counter them.

Read more from the original source:
I Watch Bad Movies So You Don't Have To: "2000 Mules" An Exploration Of The World Of A Jackass - Daily Kos

Abe Hamadeh has built his campaign for attorney general around cleaning up elections in Arizona. Yet as a teenager, he boasted to an online message board about voting before he was legally allowed to and altering his mom's ballot.

The posts were among thousands Hamadeh made to an online message board beginning in 2007. When he wasn't bragging about altering ballots, he was offering antisemitic and sexist rants, backing Sheriff Joe Arpaio and arguing that voting should be limited to college graduates who pass intelligence tests.

As a candidate, Hamadeh smartly used money and the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump to sucker Trump into backing his campaign.

Of all Trumps endorsements, championing the 31-year-old retired Army captain and one-time Maricopa County prosecutor was among his most surprising. Hamadeh was a low-level prosecutor for the county for less than three years even though his campaign website brags the he "fought in dozens of trials."

Hamadehs upholding of the Big Lie led Trump to pluck him from a crowded field of Republicans during the primary, which ended in Hamadeh defeating former Tucson City Councilmember Rodney Glassman.Hamadeh faces Democrat Kris Mayes in November.

Abe Hamadeh knows what happened in the 2020 election, and will enforce voting laws so that our elections are free and fair again, Trump wrote in his June endorsement.

Hamadeh said so himself.

As Attorney General, I will rebuild the confidence of our elections by prosecuting election fraud to the fullest extent of the law, the political newcomer from Scottsdale said in a statement. Confidence in our elections is the cornerstone to our country. We must restore voters trust.

Online posts uncovered by Phoenix New Times dating back to the 2008 presidential election tell a very different story.

In June 2007, Hamadeh, then 16 years old, became an active member of the online message board Ron Paul Forums, a virtual gathering space for supporters of Ron Paul, a Libertarian, former member of Congress and three-time presidential candidate.

The most recent archived version of Hamadehs profile on the site shows that by October 3, 2010, he had posted 4,163 times.His posts quoted in this story include their original typos, misspellings and grammatical errors.

Many of the posts are attached to discussions about radical ideas for election reform. They include Hamadehs own eugenics-reminiscent proposition that only college-educated Americans who passed intelligence tests should be allowed to vote by law, not people who justgo to a DMV and sign up to vote.

'No I cannot vote, I just submitted my mothers absentee ballot, she votes who I vote for, she voted for Ron Paul, and Im saddened that I had to vote for Barack Obama, but it was the right thing I had to do.' Abe Hamadeh

Obama is getting all of this crap simply cause hes black, he has an Arab name, hesthe only senator who is black in the Senate, he is successful, and he is a HarvardLaw graduate, they're scared they might have a smart man in the white house, Hamadeh wrote. Based on Barack Obama's intelligence I casted my vote for him yesterday through absentee.

In the same discussion thread, Hamadeh claimed that then-Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who lived in Phoenix, was a radical fascist.

In a subsequent post, Hamadeh wrote this:No I cannot vote, I just submitted my mothers absentee ballot, she votes who Ivote for, she voted for Ron Paul, and Im saddened that I had to vote for BarackObama, but it was the right thing I had to do."

Under Arizona law, it's a felony for a person to knowingly mark a ballot "with the intent to fix an election for that person's own benefit or for that of another person" orto possess anyones early ballot other than your own. It's also illegal for anyone younger than 18 to cast a ballot.

The username on the account that posted the comments is Hamadeh. The birthday listed on the account is Hamadehs birthday, May 15, 1991. The location listed on the profile was Scottsdale, where Hamadeh lived, and the hometown listed on the profile was Chicago, Hamadehs place of birth. A post in January 2008 also indicated the use of an email address from which Hamadeh sent a November 2007 email to then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The author of that email included a Phoenix phone number that is also associated with Hamadeh.

'If you think Jews arent big in america (2%) how come 56% of them are CEO'S Jews are influential and for the most part rich. its good were targetting Arabs now, next will target Jews.' Abe Hamadeh

Hamadeh's campaign didn't directly address whether or not he wrote the posts or committed voter fraud. Instead, in a statement to New Times, a campaign spokesperson said Hamadeh's digital footprint dates to a time when teenagers made comments "well before their minds were even fully developed."

Abe Hamadeh is the youngest statewide candidate in the country, and one of the first to be scrutinized on his digital footprint dating back to a time when he was 16 years old, the same time he thought he would grow up to become a wrestler in the WWE," saidErica Knight, a spokesperson for the Hamadeh campaign.

We are entering a new era of political opposition where candidates who have lived through their adolescent years on the internet are being judged and criticized based on comments they made well before their minds were even fully developed. It is now our responsibility to be careful where we draw the line," Knight added.

Brett Johnson, an election law specialist and partner at Phoenix-based Snell & Wilmer, said Hamadeh's post could have been the admission of a felony.

There are issues here, Johnson told New Times. It could or could not be a felony. In this case, you can prove the criminal act, but can you prove the intent?

The actions Hamadeh discussed in the years-old posts fall outside the state's statute of limitations, which is seven years forcharges of voter fraud. Hamadehs posts, though, still raise eyebrows for a candidate whose campaign centers on restoring sanctity in Arizonas elections.

We have all had life experiences where we, as individuals, have learned, grown and evolved into the people we are today, Knight said. Abe grew up, joined the military and became a great and highly accomplished patriot. Time in service changed, matured and, most importantly, provided Abe with the values he currently has and the deep love he has for his country.

Mayes, Hamadeh's opponent in the November election, criticized his record.

"Abraham Hamadeh has a track record of dishonesty and deceit," Mayes told New Times. "We see it in his interviews, his daily tweets and his public appearances. The Attorney General's Office requires honesty and integrity at its core, which Mr. Hamadeh does not possess."

Kris Mayes, the Democratic nominee for Arizona Attorney General, criticized opponent Abe Hamadeh for a "record of dishonesty and deceit."

Kris Mayes Campaign

Hamadeh was born and raised in Chicago by parents from Syria and Lebanon.

In 1994, a grand jury in Illinois indicted his father,jeweler Jamal Hamadah, on charges of conspiracy to commit arson after the Mikro Kodesh Anshe Tiktin synagogue was fire-bombed, according to the Chicago Reader. When he was arrested, Hamadah admitted to being in the U.S. illegally after overstaying a visitor's visa.

The charges were dropped after the two men who set the fire failed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify againstHamadah. At a later deportation hearing, the judge allowed him to stay stateside because his son, Abe, is a U.S. citizen.

In 2008, Abe Hamadehadvocated for cutting U.S. funding to Israel and indicated fervent opposition to Israel as a state in several of his posts on the Ron Paul Forum.

"If you think Jews arent big in america (2%) how come 56% of them are CEO'S Jews are influential and for the most part rich. its good were targetting Arabs now, next will target Jews," he posted in July 2007.

These days, Hamadeh vows to use the power of the attorney generals office to uphold Arizonas draconian abortion bans.In December 2007, Hamadeh venerated a commenter on the Ron Paul Forum who was met with downturned thumbs during a protest outside an abortion clinic in Orlando, Florida. Women always thumb down, they all complain about there right to choose to have an abortion," he wrote in the post.

In 2009, in response to a post in which the author indicated that conservative commentator Ann Coulter had endorsed Ron Pauls presidential bid, Hamadeh wrote, She is a BITCH, I don't give a $#@! if she votes for Ron Paul, but she better not be speaking at any, ANY rallies.

'Sheriff Joe Arpaio is probably one of the most honest people to have served this State.' Abe Hamadeh

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is probably one of the most honest people to have served this State, Hamadeh wrote.

He added that people are to dumb to make decissions on there own, they need the government to help guide them.

Now, hes gunning to become that guiding light.

Hamadeh's campaign said the posts don't reflect his present-day views.

Comments allegedly posted during his teenage years do not represent his current values and views, Knight said. I encourage the opposition to stop wasting time picking apart the actions of children and focusing on nonsense and start taking action to make sure the American dream still exists for the next generation.

The rest is here:
Abe Hamadeh Wants to be Arizona's Top Cop. As a Teen, He Bragged About Voter Fraud - Phoenix New Times

For all the bad things going on, there are, on the other side, Joe Bidens approval ratings, which are a nonstop source of joy for us. And if youve seen them recently, you know in your heart exactly how the November elections are going to turn out. Bidens obviously been a disaster for the country, but not only has he made the U.S. poorer, weaker and much more ridiculous, people know that he has, and they tell pollsters about it all the time. Biden is the single least popular president in modern American history. At this point, absolutely nobody is impressed by Joe Biden and that would be including Dr. Jill. So, this is a big problem for the Biden family, obviously, but a much bigger problem even for the Democratic Party, which Joe Biden leads. Unpopular presidents drag their parties to the bottom in midterm elections. Thats the unchanging rule of politics. You saw it famously in 1994 with the Republican takeover of Congress after two disastrous years of Bill Clinton. You saw it in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina. You saw it in 2010 after ObamaCare. You saw it in 2018. So, theres no question based on precedent that thats about to happen once again in 2022, in November. Thats what everybody assumes and in fact, it may well happen. Were certainly praying for it, but as of tonight, we have to be honest with you, the numbers dont show that happening. Not even close. In fact, all the indications we have right now suggest that despite Joe Bidens well-earned unpopularity, the Democratic Party still, again, as of tonight, has a strong chance of holding Congress in November. The prediction markets, which many believe are more accurate than the polls, overwhelmingly point to the Democrats keeping at least one chamber and maybe strangest of all, as of this week, Democrats are leading Republicans nationally in the so-called generic ballot by about four points. So, if you ask people, Which party do you like more? they say Democrats. And maybe thats why Democrats are raising a lot more money, too and not just money from their patrons in big tech, but from small-dollar donors. Thats bad. JUDGE TO WEIGH WHETHER UNSEALING AFFIDAVIT FOR MAR-A-LAGO RAID WILL JEOPARDIZE TRUMP INVESTIGATION In June, Democrats raised $64 million online from 4 million people. That same month, this June, Republicans raised only $26 million online from just over a million donors. From the first quarter to the second quarter of this year, donations to the Republican Party dropped by more than 12%. By contrast, donations to the Democratic Party are up more than 20%. That is not good at all, not simply because you need money to run a political campaign, but because money is, to some extent, a measure of commitment and intensity and you see the same dynamic playing out in individual races across the country. For example, last quarter, Raphael Warnock, that would be the thoroughly mediocre Democratic senator from Georgia, the guy who was caught on video appearing to commit spousal abuse (Remember that?) that guy raised more than $12 million online. His opponent, Herschel Walker, who everyone likes, raised less than half of that. So far, Raphael Warnock has raised an astounding amount of money. Hes hauled in more dollars online than seven Republican senatorial candidates combined: Candidates in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Georgia combined. Herschel Walker is now trailing Raphael Warnock by ten points and this is happening in a state they tell us went for Joe Biden by a margin of about one-third of a percentage point. That is bizarre. What is going on here? Its not just happening in Georgia. According to the official numbers, youll recall, Joe Biden won the state of Pennsylvania by a little over a single percentage point in 2020. So, its been two years. Biden has become much less popular since then. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, has become much worse, far more chaotic and dangerous. Here is the scene in the states largest city on Tuesday. GRASSLEY SAYS NEW WHISTLEBLOWER INFO REVEALS DEEPLY ROOTED POLITICAL INFECTION WITHIN THE FBI REPORTER: Nearly 100 shots fired on 57th Street between Haverford and Westminster tonight. A sea of evidence markers lined this West Philly Street telling of the potentially deadly chaos that unfolded here. Responding officers found four victims on 57th Street. Two shot in the head in critical condition tonight. One victim, were told, in a BMW, is an innocent bystander caught in gunfire and shot in the shoulder, all while kids and young adults were on a nearby playground. Over 100 shots right in the middle of the street. Its hard to believe thats an American city. Its hard to believe thats the place where our Constitution was written. Its totally unacceptable, and it wasnt organic. It didnt just happen. This is a result of policies from the Democratic Party. Period. Now, youd think this being a democracy, that voters would punish anyone who had anything to do with turning Philadelphia into the disaster you just saw and John Fetterman certainly did have a hand in that. Hes the sitting lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Fetterman now wants a new job. Hes running for the U.S. Senate. Hes the candidate. In some ways, John Fetterman is the weakest possible candidate you could run. He has obviously a very public record of failure. He also had a devastating stroke this spring, which is sad, but it affected him. Here he is campaigning for Senate: JOHN FETTERMAN: You can count on us to eliminate the filibuster. If you come out and step with us, we will be able to stand with you in DC and lets get some stuff done for America. I gave away the lieutenant governor, governor in Pennsylvania, the only lieutenant governor in the history to do that. JUDGE SAYS HE WILL RELEASE PORTION OF AFFIDAVIT THAT LED TO SEARCH OF TRUMPS MAR-A-LAGO So, this guy is everything youd think wouldnt work. Hes radical, for one thing. Lets eliminate the filibuster. Oh, good idea, John Fetterman. Hes implicated in the destruction of the state that hes still a lieutenant governor of and hes obviously impaired. Thats not an attack on him. Its just true. Watch him. So, youd think there would be no way a guy like that could win a Senate seat, and heres the sad news, however, John Fetterman is winning overwhelmingly. He currently has a double-digit lead over his Republican opponent Mehmet Oz, Dr. Oz. The National Republican Senatorial Committee just slashed its spending in the state of Pennsylvania by more than $5 million, including their ad buys in the city of Philadelphia. Thats a retreat, and its happening in a state the Republicans ought to be winning. What is going on here, and why is no one mentioning it? Well, a couple of things are going on, but first, lets hear from Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell is the head Republican in the Senate. Hes not there because everyone likes him. McConnell has no close friends. Hes loved by no one, but hes considered very smart. Hes a master tactician as the dummies who cover politics for Politico and The Washington Post are always telling us. In Washington, people are very much afraid of Mitch McConnell. Cross him and he will hurt you and they listen carefully to his political analysis because thats what hes spent his life doing. Thats the only thing he spent his life doing. So, heres what Mitch McConnell says the problem is. Watch. MITCH MCCONNELL: Theres probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different. Theyre statewide. Candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome. So, theres the head Republican in the Senate conceding three months out that Republicans are probably not going to retake the Senate. Why is that? Well, the answer, of course, is in the final line you just heard. Some of the candidates are mediocre. Thats Mitch McConnells excuse and theres some truth in that. Obviously, some of them are mediocre, but compared to what? Mediocre in the Congress. Well, lets see. Dianne Feinstein hasnt spoken a coherent sentence in years, hasnt had trouble getting reelected. Eric Swalwell had sex with a Chinese spy. Hes still there. So, mediocre people get elected to office, lots and lots and lots of them do every cycle. So, what McConnells analysis really is, of course, is buck-passing. Dont blame me. I didnt choose these people. All right, but theyre still the nominees. FORMER ICE DIRECTOR SAYS BORDER IS LARGEST CRISIS HES SEEN IN HIS CAREER: ITS COSTING LIVES So, if you want to save the country and move in a different direction, yes using some mediocre people to do it, what are you going to do? No hint of what you might do for Mitch McConnell other than just accept the inevitable. Now, the truth is, its entirely possible Mitch McConnell doesnt want to retake the Senate because then youd have to run things and theres one thing Republican leaders dislike. Its running anything, much easier to complain on Fox News, but if you actually wanted to win, what would you do? Well, heres an idea just kind of out of nowhere. Just spitballing here. How about you run on issues that voters care about? That might work even for a mediocre candidate. So, lets say again, just for the sake of argument that you ran a campaign on illegal immigration and crime. Now, these are two issues that didnt just arise out of nowhere. Theyre the product of policies the Democratic Party put in. They were intentional outcomes. We have millions of people coming in illegally and we have a lot more murders than we had two years ago. These two issues, immigration and crime, dont simply annoy voters, though they very much do. These two issues threaten the existence of our society. So, maybe you should run on them. That seems reasonable, but thats not what theyre doing. Oh, no. Here, for example, is a recent campaign ad from Dr. Oz. Hes the guy whos losing to the stroke victim in Pennsylvania. Watch. DR. OZ: I thought Id do some grocery shopping. Im at Wegners and my wife wants some vegetables for a crudites, right. So, heres the broccoli. Thats two bucks, not a ton of broccoli there. Theres some asparagus. Thats $4. Yep and carrots, thats four more dollars. Thats $10 of vegetables there and then we need some guacamole. Thats $4 more and she loves salsa. Yes, there is salsa there. $6. Must be a shortage of salsa. Guys, thats $20 for crudits and this doesnt include the tequila. I mean, thats outrageous. Now we got Joe Biden to thank for this. THOUSANDS OF RAINBOW FENTANYL PILLS SEIZED AS AUTHORITIES WARN OF POSSIBLE NEW TREND TARGETING KIDS $20 for crudits, whatever that is. Its obviously very easy to make fun of that, but its not entirely a stupid ad if inflation were the salient issue here, the generational issue of this campaign season, but its not. Inflation is terrible. Its making people poorer. We actually could tank the U.S. dollar. These are all big, big problems, but changing the population of the United States, allowing people to be murdered in the street, letting drug addicts live on the sidewalk and sending them crack pipes that will change everything forever. These are offenses against the most basic rules of any civilization and the most basic of all is you reward people for doing the right thing and you penalize them for doing the wrong thing. If you start doing the opposite, then everything falls apart and everybody knows that. So, why not just say it? Why dont you say that? Dont be embarrassed. Just say that. If you live in Texas, for example, supposedly aconservative state, you dont even have police protection anymore. Thats how quickly things have changed on the most basic level. Thats not some report from a government agency telling you what the inflation rate is. Thats your life. You dont have police protection anymore. If theres one reason to run for office, its to fix things like that. Heres Fox reporter Madison Alworth describing it. MADISON ALWORTH:In Dallas, they are unable to fill the nearly 600 openings that they have budgeted for. In Atlanta, they have over 400 openings that they cannot fill, even with an up to $4,000 signing bonus. SEN. KELLY LOOKING TO CARVE BIPARTISAN PATH ON BORDER SOLUTIONS AS ARIZONA HIT HARD BY CRISIS PAT LYNCH, PBS PRESIDENT: Police department has been demonized across the country in communities across the country, from coast to coast, its been demonized. If that police officer in uniform is not on your corner, we are seeing the results. The staffing crisis is creating crime. Its creating violence. ALWORTH: You take a look at crime across the U.S. and it is way up. Robbery is up nearly 20% in Chicago and Los Angeles and here in New York City, up nearly 40%. Okay, crudits is 20 bucks. Got it, but thats more important than everything else thats going on right now. Law and Order. You see it on the streets of our cities. You see it at our southern border. Its collapsed. So, if youre a Republican voter and not just a Republican voter, any voter, you probably want to know what is the government going to do about the fact that I can call 911 and no one shows up? What are you going to do about the fact that our border is open to the world and that millions of them have come in illegally? How can you take the country seriously when it doesnt even have a border? And it doesnt, and we know that because on video, every single day people stream in. Foxs Bill Mulligan just caught the whole thing once again on camera. AOCS DEFUND THE POLICE REPORT CARD FLUNKS STATISTICS TEST AS NYC CRIME SPIKE RATTLES COMMUNITIES BILL MELUGIN: Take a look at this video we shot yesterday where were standing. This is the first time we had ever seen this. The Texas National Guard closed and locked a gate on this property. Its a major crossing area and they blocked the illegal immigrants from being able to come into this property. Its private property. The owner allows the National Guard and Border Patrol to work here, but you can see illegal immigrants started showing up. They werent let in. They expected to be let in and they were surprised they couldnt get in. Heres what happened, though. Take a look at this video. Border Patrol showed up. A supervisor came with a key, opened up that gate and let all of those illegal immigrants in, symbolic of the way the state of Texas handles things versus the way the federal government handles things. So, if every Republican candidate just repeated, repeat after me, law enforcement, law and order is not racist. Law and order is a prerequisite for civilization, and if it goes away, so does the country, you would win the votes not simply of your own voters, but of a lot of other voters and people who have never voted before and any normal Democrat would agree with that because its inherently true, but is the opposite of what we have. When Ann Coulter saw the video we just played, she noted correctly that its easier to get into this country as an illegal alien than it is to return as an American citizen back into JFK. By the way, the people you saw are the ones who just want to be caught. Theyre turning themselves into the bus to your town. There is a lot of people who dont want to be caught, and those people are bringing in fentanyl, which is killing thousands of Americans every month. REPORTER: Its been a busy few weeks for U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Nogales. At the checkpoint on Saturday, they found 2.5 pounds of black tar heroin, 9 pounds of heroin, 89 pounds of meth, and 320,000 fentanyl pills. Later that day, another huge bust, including more than 40 pounds of drugs and 150,000 fentanyl pills hidden in a car. Border officials say people are becoming more creative in the ways they smuggle items through. In one case, someone tried to hide 10,000 fentanyl pills using a body-shaping garment. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Everybody knows this is happening. This is not hidden information. These are not the Gnostic gospels. Every American citizen knows exactly whats happening and yet the leader of the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell, will watch footage like that and tell you, no, that most important issue that we face: territorial integrity of Ukraine and in the same breath, they will tell you there is nothing the Republican Party can do to avert historic humiliation in the midterm elections. But the truth, as you well know, is that the people who run the Republican Party dont actually want to do anything about it. There are candidates who are talking about the stuffJ.D. Vance in Ohio, Blake Masters in Arizona, Joe Kent in the Pacific Northwest. The leaders of the Republican Party in Washington would rather those guys lose and people like them lose than change the focus of the party to issues that voters actually care about. But the truth is, you cant win elections unless you listen to voters. Theyre telling you what they want. Republicans have less than three months to figure this very simple riddle out, or its going to be an actual disaster.

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Tucker Carlson: Despite Biden's unpopularity, Democrats still have a chance of holding Congress in November - FOX Bangor/ABC 7 News and Stories

Karma?

Anewpoliticalactioncommittee, or PAC,aimed atpreventingformer PresidentTrump fromever coming close totheOval Officeagainis being led by a woman.

AndRep. Liz Cheney(R-Wyo.)is likely to be arm-in-arm withseveralotherRepublican womenintakinga defiantstand against Trump.

BobbieKilberg, a major GOP fundraiserwho helped Cheney raise money in the past,told the Wall Street Journallast weekthe congresswomanwill have plenty of moneyto fundherfight against Trump inside the GOP.

Cheneymight get support fromElaine Chao and Betsy DeVos,two prominent Republican women.

Theyboth resignedfromTrumps cabinet to protest hisrole in inciting the mob attackof Jan. 6,2021,on the Capitol.

Anddont forget thesethreewomen,conservativeandTV-friendly,ready to follow Cheneys lead:

Carly Fiorina, thebusinesswoman andformer presidential candidate; Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey; and Barbara Comstock, the former Virginia congresswoman. Allarewilling to pay the political price for calling out Republicans who have fallen under Trumps spell.

Thenthere is Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler(R-Wash.)who, like Cheney, voted to impeachthe then-presidentand went on toloseher GOP primary to a Trump-backed challenger.Shehas no regrets about being punished in the primary for defying Trump.

I always told the truth, stuck to my principles, and did what I knew to be best for our country, she said after her defeat.

Anotherwomanin the fightlooks to be a political winner despite defying Trump:Sen. Lisa Murkowski(R-Alaska).

Her reelectionbidsurvived the primarieseven though she is in a red state and isone of the seven Senate Republicans to voteto convict Trumpafterhis second impeachment.

Then there are the youngerwomen.

One former Trump White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, caused a sensationin late Junewith her damning evidence to the HouseSelect Committeeinvestigating Jan. 6.FormerdeputypresssecretarySarah Matthews testified the following month, whileformer director of strategic communicationsAlyssa Farah Griffinhas become a high-profile Trump criticthrough herfrequent media appearances.

Six years ago, Trump trafficked in sexist rhetoric to defeata woman,Hillary Clinton. He was infamously recorded on theAccess Hollywoodtape boasting about howstardommeans you can do anythinggrab[women]by the pssy. Hesaidtough debate questioningfromjournalistMegyn Kellywas becauseshe had blood coming out of her wherever. He denigrated his former aide, Omarosa ManigaultNewman, aBlack woman, as a dog.

Oh, and lets not forget, henominatedthreeSupreme Court justiceswhovoted to end abortion rightsfor American women.

Now for the payback.

Cheney,vice-chair of theJan 6.Committee,will have a nationalspotlightto lead her brigade of women warriorsfor the rest of this Congress.

And she will have her new PAC,apparently to becalled The Great Task.The name is an allusion toPresident Lincolns Gettysburg Address.

Lincoln famously called on Americans to honor those who died in the Civil War by being dedicated to the great task remaining before usensuring the U.S. remainsa democracy.

Cheney sees herself protecting democracy in the 21stcentury.She hascontempt forthe mencowering before Trump.

In a new book, she is quoted delivering scathing criticism of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Where Kevinis like full-on public embrace [of Trump],McConnell is: Ignore and hope he goes away. And that just doesnt work,shetold Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin for their book This Will Not Pass.

Cheneyraisedmore than$13million for her failed primary bid against a Trump-backed candidate.At the end of July,she still had around$7 million left, which could yet be used in her broader fight against Trump.

Speaking to hersupporters on election night, Cheney made her future plain:We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January6 that I will do whatever it takes toensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office.

Im a conservative RepublicanI love what our party has stood for, she said.But I love my country more.

An Economist/YouGov poll last week found women favoring Democrats by 14 pointsin the coming midterm electionswhile men leaned towardthe GOP by two points.Smart GOP strategists and conservative pundits have always understood the gender gap is their Achilles heel in elections.

Ann Coulter has always been fond ofpointingoutthat in every presidential election since 1950 except [Barry] Goldwater in 64 the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted.

Republicans are trying to counter the gender gap by fielding pro-Trump MAGA firebrands who parrot the Big Lieof 2020 election fraudlikeHarrietHageman,the attorneywhodefeated Cheneyin the GOP primarylast week. There are more like her,includingArizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lakeand Michigan gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon.

History will remember them as selling out for short-term political gain.

Ifthe Party of Lincolncanbe savedfrom becoming a cult,to quote Cheney,it will bedue tocourageous womenwilling to shoulder the burden of history.

Now is the time for all good Republican women to come to the aid of the party and their country.

Now is their time to stand with Liz.

Juan Williams is anauthor,and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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Juan Williams: Will GOP women stand with Cheney? - The Hill