Months ago, I wrote a column about how Democrats have continued to try to block voters from being able to vote for candidates while claiming the mantle of the defenders of Democracy. This effort not only included Democratic Secretaries of State attempting to remove former president Donald Trump from the ballots, but efforts in the primary from the ballot. Many of these Democrats now calling for a “blitz primary” previously said nothing as voters were barred from having a choice in the primary. Now, in North Carolina, Democrats are seeking to bar third-party candidates from the general election . . . all in the name of perfecting democracy.
The Democratically controlled North Carolina’s Board of Elections voted against giving ballot access to new parties supporting presidential candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. All three Democrats (Alan Hirsch, Jefferson Carmon, and Siobhan Millen) voted to prevent voters from being able to vote for Kennedy and West, though the decision will have to be reconsidered. Yet, even if reversed, they are preserving uncertainty as to whether they will be viable candidates in the minds of voters.
The excuses for this action are superficial and manufactured.
Chairman Alan Hirsch insisted that their organizations were “problematic” in how they gathered signatures and how Republicans may be supporting their efforts to allegedly “take away votes from Joe Biden.”
They also said that they were concerned that the third-party candidates were using the new party rules to gain an easier path to ballots. That is a bizarre objection. They are opting for the best approach under the existing rules. It seems openly partisan for these three Democrats to suddenly raise concerns over the existing rules when it could harm Joe Biden or the Democratic Party.
Yet, Democratic commissioner Siobhan Millen worked hard to rationalize what is a raw political muscle play to prevent voters from having a choice:
“If this board keeps rubber-stamping thinly veiled so-called parties, national operatives are going to continue to come in and keep manipulating our system. Allowing unaffiliated candidates to follow the more lenient new-party rules is allowing a blind eye to partisan mischief, potentially.”
If Millen wants to see partisan mischief, she does not have to look far. She and her colleagues are engaging in precisely such mischief to deny voters choices this election to try to bolster the chances of Biden in a swing state.
Democrats continue to claim to defend Democracy while resisting democratic choice and abusing the legal process. This glaring disconnect was evident when President Joe Biden spoke on the top of the Point-du-Hoc in Normandy on the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Biden again used the event to suggest that democracy was in danger in the United States with the upcoming election.
Yet, Biden has overseen widespread government censorship with federal agencies targeting those with opposing views on everything from elections and climate change to COVID-19 and transgender policies.
As Democratic secretaries of state sought to bar Trump from ballots, Biden refused to oppose the efforts. When liberal law professors and members demanded to pack the Supreme Court to guarantee a liberal majority, Biden refused to denounce it during the last campaign.
This is why some in the country may view Biden and the Democrats as existential threats not just to Democracy, but to themselves. They see a party that is engaged in efforts to cleanse ballots (of Republicans), censor dissenting voices and prosecute political opponents.
The effort in North Carolina continues this hypocritical and cynical narrative. These three Democratic board members just voted to prevent their fellow citizens from being able to cast votes for third-party candidates who are attracting increasing support among disgruntled voters.
Democracy is a peaceful system of conflict resolution based on taking a head count, and going with the majority’s preference. It is viewed as superior to use of intimidation and violence, since being on the losing side of a head count is preferable to losing life and limb. It relies on the wisdom of majority sentiment, which relies upon the free flow of trustworthy information leading up to the head count. Reliable information is simply that which stands up to scrutiny over time. The opposite — unreliable information — is that which later on wilts under scrutiny, and in retrospect is agreed to have been based upon naivite, misunderstanding, or outright deception by fabrication or cover-up.
Democracy as a system of peaceful decisionmaking is vulnerable to manipulation, since the minds of the people are malleable through censorship and propaganda. The idea of “nudging” the head count through conscious manipulation of the infospace leading up to the taking of it is vile and despicable. That subterfuge will eventually come to light, though it will usually be too late to matter as there is no do-over — the consequences of having been duped are a feeling of regret and betrayal — of having misjudged the credibility of information at the time when it most mattered — of having squandered a better choice.
That democracy hinges on the virtues of its inhabitants was understood during our nation’s founding. Among these are an open-minded, independent-thinking, mentally-balanced citizen who is trustworthy in his/her intake of information and public pronouncements. There is room for passion, but at a level below zealotry and fanaticism. Virtue is defined as taking a restrained approach to self-interest, by considering and acting for the benefit of others. Honesty and candor are high on the totem pole of virtue, since they undergird mutual trust and sound decisionmaking. Patience, learned-impulse-control and willingness to listen to opposing ideas are essential virtues.
A breakdown of virtuous self-restraint heralds the decline of democracy. It portends a future of regrettable public decisions, loss of trust and confidence, and a morass of constant paranoia and deception — lowering the threshold for descent into intimidation and violence as the primal decisionmaking modality of uncivilized primates.
Democracy is accepting the wisdom of majority rule, and working to preserve an infospace open to divergent thinking
that is virtuous in character. It means marginalizing the solipsist and zealot who take up manipulative tactics of infowarfare.
What the Democrats forget is that the “DEM” in Democracy stands for “the people” not “Democrats.”
Can you imagine this scenario, sometime in 2025 or 2026, IF Trump is back in the White House? While the swamp hasn’t been completely cleared by the operatives Trump brings into his administration with him in 2025, they have uncovered actual evidence, hard copy and irrefutable evidence, the the 2020 election was, in fact, ‘stolen’ from Trump. How does this country repair THAT damage —-
It is highly unlikely at this time that we will see much more in the way of evidence reqarding the 2020 election .
Federal election law – which was frequently violated requires maintaining election records for 22 months – much of what would be necescary to prove election fraud is now gone.
While there was specific misconduct by those in government – in the Trump administration to tip the election in favor of Biden,
All that is already pretty well exposed.
Beyond that the malfeasance in the 2020 election was conducted at the state level – not the federal – beyond the fact that Barr put blinders on and ordered US attorney’s to do the same and kick election fraud claims back to the states that allegedly committed the fraud.
There MIGHT be a slow drip of new information – such as the recent revalations as a result of court procedings in GA.
But there is not going to be new irrefutable evidence.
Thbe most important evidence of election fraud in 2020 – is the incredible lawless conduct of democrats in 2024.
It is pretty easy for voters to conclude that the party that lied about Joe Biden’s competence for the past 4+ years, that lied about the Biden influence peddling syndicate, that lied about Russian collusion, that has waged blatantly obvious political lawfare,
likely also committed fraud in 2020.
It will be far more than stolen elections and prepare for the inevitable.
PUPPET WATCH
Pre-Dawn Edition, Thurs. July 11
Professor Turley posted two columns on Wednesday. Neither received more than 70 comments. A dramatic low in contrast to June when comments frequently tallied at 300-500.
Yet the low counts for Wednesday had a positive effect. It was easier than ever to determine the ratio of comments posted by Floyd Estovir.
Both columns had just under 70 comments. And about 45 of 70 comments were posted by Floyd Estovir.
Yet Floyd Estovir deployed different puppet configurations for each comment thread.
For the column: “The War On Free–
Green anonymous posted 10 comments. Old Airborne Dog 9, Floyd, 3, Upstate Farmer 3. Then most established puppets posted at least one; including Highly-educated-suburban-woman, a legacy puppet used only sparingly.
Old Airborne Dog is currently trending as a leading puppet to take some load off Upstate Farmer. One should picture Old Airborne Dog as an Air Force veteran; or so Floyd hopes.
Floyd Estovir has also introduced a French puppet named ‘Toulon’ who reads like a lame joke. Toulon was present on both of Wednesday’s comment threads.
Toulon is kind of like a Morning Greek Chorus Bot but a little more featured.
For the column, ‘Partisan Mischief–
Green anonymous posted 8 comments. GEB 4, Toulon 4, Floyd 3. Then several established puppets with 2 comments each; including Old Dog, Traveler and Upstate.
The Morning Greek Chorus Bots numbered 11; a mixture of familer and one-day only puppets. Still, that’s 11 of 68 total posts.
So again, each column had just under 70 comments. Yet puppets accounted for roughly 45 of 70 comments.
One more thing to note. It appears that Floyd Estovir wants us to forget those walls of profanity he was posting 2 weeks ago.
So Estovir is getting a makeover; repackaging himself as cultured and well-traveled. For real..!! New lame puppet Toulon inspired a conversation about trips to France.
PUPPET WATCH
A California-based non-profit
Please take your medicine.
They’re running low on lithium due to EVs and such.
Dennis McIntyre’s Anonymous Handmaiden From California Assumes The Position
PUPPET WATCH
Pre-Dawn Edition, Thurs. July 11
Question: Following the mating and gestation, what are the spawn of Dennis McIntyre and his Anonymous Handmaiden going to look like?
More information on Biden’s neurologist, Dr Kevin Cannard. The 2 most recent research articles published where he is listed as an author are on early Parkinson’s Disease. Brain stimulation is still expertise. Given his patient comes with incredibly unethical, power hungry bigot, rots of ruck.
He is listed in the last position for the second article which means he was driver of the research. IOW, he’s no idiot. He wouldn’t be wasting his valuable time on a patient with routine neurology checkup
Hacker, M.L., Meystedt, J.C., Turchan, M., Cannard, K.R., Harper, K., Fan, R., Ye, F., Davis, T.L., Konrad, P.E. and Charles, D., 2023. Eleven-year outcomes of deep brain stimulation in early-stage parkinson disease. Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface, 26(2), pp.451-458.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10198566/
Hacker, M.L., Turchan, M., Heusinkveld, L.E., Currie, A.D., Millan, S.H., Molinari, A.L., Konrad, P.E., Davis, T.L., Phibbs, F.T., Hedera, P. and Cannard, K.R., 2020. Deep brain stimulation in early-stage Parkinson disease: Five-year outcomes. Neurology, 95(4), pp.e393-e401.
https://www.neurology.org/doi/abs/10.1212/wnl.0000000000009946
Sounds like they’re doing to Biden in the basement what they did to Eagleton at the Mayo Clinic. Either snake oil or a 21st century version of Ponce de Leon’s search for a fountain of youth somewhere near St. Augustine, FL.
Professor Turley,
I have been hoping you would write an opinion piece on the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on Murthy v Biden (Maybe you did and I missed it).
I am aware that decision was about a lower court’s injunction against censorship. But Barrett’s opinion for the court seemed to look askance at parties claiming to have been injured. IOW, should the Supreme Court hear a case on the merits, it seems doubtful it will prevent the government from censoring public speech the way it has been.
Your thoughts?
Much Thanks
“As Democratic secretaries of state sought to bar Trump from ballots, Biden refused to oppose the efforts.” Me thinks the good professor already realizes what the rest of the country sees (including those in his own Party)…Joe is not running the show. May I suggest using “Joe the Figurehead” in place of the name “Biden” until it’s known who really is running the administration? ‘Tis disingenuous and perhaps another form of elder abuse, to lay the blame on anything Biden simply can’t comprehend he’s doing (or not doing).
Turley,
How can you make this claim without referencing the statutory text that was passed by the GOP that created this dumb distinction between third political parties and independent candidates?
With this context, your entire point falls woefully apart. Do better.
– A concerned North Carolina voter.
The GOP and DNC scratch each other’s back so much they’re basically the same entity.