President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party insist that “Democracy is on the ballot” this election. While some of us have challenged that hyperbolic claim, one thing that may not be on the ballot is choice, if the defenders of Democracy have anything to say about it. Georgia Democrats have joined counterparts in other states to prevent citizens from being able to vote third-party candidates.
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.
North Carolina joined this effort recently to block third-party candidates to avoid “mischief.”
Georgia Democrats are challenging efforts to place Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and three other candidates on the state’s presidential ballots. With Biden struggling in the polls and the vast majority of voters viewing him as too enfeebled to serve another four years, Democrats are rushing to reduce the choices for voters.
Democratic Party of Georgia Executive Director Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye insists that Kennedy, independent Cornel West, Claudia De la Cruz of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Jill Stein of the Green Party “have not faithfully observed the state of Georgia’s election laws.” All of them must go.
For voters who may not be thrilled with Trump, the Democrats insist that all is well. To paraphrase Henry Ford, you can have any choice of candidate so long as it is Biden.
Tolulope Olasanoye — according to him, Jill Stein, Cornel West, RFK, Jr., and a fourth candidate, haven’t ‘faithfully’ complied with Georgia’s voting laws.
And we, who have never heard of this guy, are supposed to simply believe him?
Is Joe Biden ‘faithfully’ complying with his sworn duty to protect this country from an invasion of illegal aliens, just to name ONE duty not faithfully being complied with?
Did you know that 2.5 million Americans served in Vietnam? That’s the same number as the population in America during the Revolutionary War. Perspective.
2024 you may see the validity of 500,000 questionable ballots in Georgia.
Yes, Joe is done. He wouldn’t defend Israel.
Thank you, Mr. Turley, for your commentary.
Do you mean defund Israel?
Georgia’s Democrats could care less about “saving democracy” Jonathan. By blocking all third-party candidates, they are ensuring that Mr. Sniffer Whiffer will win the state’s 16 electoral votes in a close election.
Hmm, am sure that DEMOCRATS would like to have ONLY BIDEN on the Ballots just like North Korea
I’m guessing that (il)legal advice for this effort is being spearheaded by uber-DemoKKKrat and uber-ZioJoo Marc Elias.
I don’t understand this. The Daily Mail is reporting that Crooks’ parents called the police for help finding him because he was late coming home the same day that he left the house and before the attempted murder. He was 20-years-old. What was wrong with him that he required such close monitoring? What prescription drugs was he taking? By my 20th birthday I had already worked for mining companies, fought forest fires, ridden freight trains and hitchhiked thousands of miles and this guy needs looking for because he is late coming home? It makes no sense to me.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13643655/Secret-Service-spotted-Thomas-Crooks-hunting-rangefinder-inside-Trump-rally-THREE-HOURS-shooting.html
@Young
At some point it has to register that modern young people are not former young people; stop assuming there is some predetermined rite of passage that will magically grow them up or infuse them with clarity, because there isn’t. I had my first job when I was 12. Today’s kids have likely never even microwaved a meal or done their own laundry by that age. This is something everyone really, really needs, to accept. My wife teaches middle school, and most of her students can’t use a stapler or a paper clip. There is much to be said about modern parenting, and that comes along with all of the external nonsense piled on top. A 20 year-old today might as well be nine or ten, just with more privileges.
James posted: At some point it has to register that modern young people are not former young people
The older I get the more tired and more shop worn the “kids these days” complaint gets.
In high school, I had excellent teachers and many were very fit WWII veterans in their early 40’s who lectured us about “kids these days”. Probably referring to the slovenly, dirty, drug addled hippies and draft dodgers that were those “kids these days
When I went underground mining as a blaster in the early 1970’s, I had shifters and shift bosses who were more WWII veterans who told me about “kids these days”, even though the hippies were kind of drying up.
And now at 70, retired from 40 years of law enforcement and the military, it’s hard not to notice it was the “kids these days” that rushed to the flag and kept rushing to the flag to fight for their country after 9/11. While mature adults who could have easily signed up to serve in a local Guard unit decided to stay in Civvy Land and let the “kids these days” do the fighting and dying for them.
Go into the oil patch and who do you see working as the roughnecks up on the monkeyboards of a drill rig? Pulling two week stints of 14 – 16 hour shifts in camp at a northern open pit mine?
Yep… “kids these days”.
While the media that carefully selects which “kids these days” they will show us, never bothers to point out that they follow the lies and false promises of “70-80’ish old people these days” like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and That Guy Whose War Hero Uncle Was Eaten By Cannibals.
She me a kid these days that’s a loser and I’ll show you lots of their parents and older that came along to be losers before those kids.
What did you mine?
A lot of it is generational. How long ago where you 20? I don’t want to sound like old guy here, but each generation seems to get softer. My parents didn’t monitor my moves when I was living at home while I attended college. Have you heard the term ‘helicopter parents’? Every generation of parents seem to try have a tighter grip on their kids. adding to that, kids are getting softer, in my opinion.
The 250 year cycle of empires specifically shows the results of affluence led to decline and decadence
Doug…
I think it is more complicated than that. Rome began about 753 BC and had a continuous history until 1453 AD
Young, I like your historical perspective but the Roman Empire didn’t start until 700 years after you state and it was not the same a thousand years earlier than you claim. Also, things move much faster these days and a better comparison might be the British Empire even though we all love to use Rome as our example.
Hullbobby,
The emperors did not appear until about 700 years after the founding. But Rome, first under the 7 kings, and then under the Republic, expanded almost continuously. Livy could think of only two times the doors to the temple of Janus were closed, first under king Numa and next in his own time under Augustus. When the temple doors were open Rome was at war and, generally, expanding an empire. Of course it wasn’t the same during all that history but it was still Rome up until May 29, 1453 when the Turks took Constantinople with the help of Viennese cannon. The last emperor died on the walls fighting and much of the history and customs and law of Rome fled west where it stimulated Western culture. Even now Louisiana and Quebec in North America and Latin America and Europe except England, Wales and, I believe, Ireland use Civil Law evolved directly from Roman Law, particularly as pulled together by Trebonian under Justinian. We, Canada and England use common law which Hume dates from Alfred the Great and others Henry II. We live in the warmth of the embers of Rome and Greece.
@ Econ
A bit more than 60 years ago. My grandson is partly fascinated and partly horrified by the stories I tell. At 17 I thought he was old enough to tell him a couple days ago about a friend who needed lower hair removal because he was scheduled for a vasectomy and so went with another of my friends to a cat house to have the girls remove the hair. They didn’t think they could shave him but had another idea, “something we girls use.” After a long wait one of the girls poked her head into the waiting room and said he will be out soon, he’s feeling better now. “Better?! What did they do?” Nair. It stings in that area, I guess, not having tried it myself. My grandson asked what became of him and I said he was killed performing in an airshow when his engine missed doing a slow roll flying low the length of the runway. He was shocked and repelled, “That’s dark!” Surprised me. Yes, unfortunate and I am sorry he is gone but where I grew up getting killed in contrast to merely dying wasn’t an especially uncommon event. Yes, kids are getting softer. My stepfather was boss on a forest crew using double bit axes and when city kids came to him almost in tears asking what to do about the blisters on their hands he said, “Pee on them, rub dirt on them and get back to work.” We need more of that attitude and less navel gazing and stupid trigger warnings.
When my dad was 20 he was dropping bombs on Germany from a B-24.
And he wasn’t the youngest member of his crew.
My dad was in the Pacific USN with the 1st Marines Corps Division pharmacist mate 2nd class, corpsman. He was 19 years old when he joined up and died at 30 when we were very young. His brother was a PBY pilot flying the south Atlantic while his only sisters husband was in the Army and fought the Japanese
in PauPau New Guinea. They were some tough bas*****s and I’m proud of them all, long juice in this Nation of ours.
Anon, My best friend’s father, across the street also flew bombers over Europe, shot down and parachuted one time, and I was mostly interested in parachuting, wanted to do it, and less interested in the combat; every adult male I knew had been in the war, old hat. Now I realise what a fool I was. I do remember his saying he preferred the B-24 to the B-17 and have since heard the same from other pilots. Much older I met Jimmy Dolittle briefly and shook his hand and am grateful that by that time I knew enough to recognize what a great honor it was.
I think the Mighty Eighth Air Force had more KIAs than the Marines. Shocking when one thinks of the savage fighting in the Pacific. I knew and later worked with some of those guys too two of them who were on Iwo and a couple who were on Guadalcanal Canal. Tough, tough guys.
When my dad was 20 he was dropping bombs on Germany from a B-24. And he wasn’t the youngest member of his crew.
Check the range of ages of the 13 servicemen killed at Kabul in 2021, when the old guys running our military refused to allow our snipers to take out the suicide bomber. Five were the same as your father’s age, and some of those it wasn’t their first deployment. The oldest was a 31 year old staff sergeant; the average age of the 13 would be around 23.
So many people forget today that during WW2 “kids” were asked to to make decisions of life and death in war. Some failed , some died , many more excelled. In my youth I knew men that were mere boys that learned to survive and make hard decisions in that war. They saved many of their men in their charge…and brother did they grow up fast. The mettle of those that lived through the depression made them tougher than nails…Audie Murphy for example. So much of our youth has been poisoned by the woke mindset , extremely poor quality of public schooling and those that push it. Most of our youth does not have a clue how to fight for right…only flee and or capitulate to social woke weakness . Look alone to how our armed forces training in “bootcamps” for example has been dumbed down lesser standards , stress cards and like woke vomit. The DEI cancer is even into our Special ops in all branches of the military…. this does not bode well . In everyday work in a skilled trade I see a myriad of ‘helpers’ that have little to any physical strength. Little ability to grasp doing the job , take direction and remember tradecraft. I see more of the I want the big money now and how can I shortcut to the top without doing so much work. When I have had a helper try and tell me how to do my job I have been doing for 25 years , and when I have to put them in their place it’s not gratifying , but sadly common place. These kids are addicted to their phones and cant concentrate. They expect their paycheck to rocket up after their 90 day probationary period – if they make it that far. Zero critical thinking ability almost universally. Between weak parenting and horrible public schooling America’s youth is taking a beating bad.
” Yes, kids are getting softer. “
Young, I was thinking the same for quite awhile and then the Gaza war broke out. I looked at the 18-21 year old Israeli kids and they reminded me of our greatest generation.
S. Meyer,
I agree. The Israeli kids, boys and girls, are magnificent.
S. Meyer posted: I looked at the 18-21 year old Israeli kids and they reminded me of our greatest generation.
If you looked three years earlier at the 13 servicemen killed at Kabul because an old guy wouldn’t authorize a sniper to take the suicide bomber out, you’d see that five of the dead were 20 years old and for several of them it wasn’t their first deployment.
Unlike Israel, we don’t have national service. Those dead kids these days volunteered to enlist, knowing they would be going overseas to fight our war on terrorism that began before or just shortly after they were born.
Oldairborne: “killed at Kabul because an old guy wouldn’t authorize a sniper to take the suicide bomber out, you’d see that five of the dead were 20 years old and for several of them it wasn’t their first deployment.”
Sounds like too often good guys are led to injury or death by uniformed bureaucrats. ‘Chesty’ Puller wouldn’t have hesitated to take out the suicide bomber.
REMFs
Remember that age old phrase from the great war about the British Generals and soldiers fighting in the trenches :
“Lions lead by Donkeys”. Some things never seem to change.
Each Generation gets softer because with few exceptions each generation has it easier Standard of living rises,
further as prior problems are solved or diminished there are less great injustices for each new generation to fight against.
All this is actually a good thing.
It is what we want.
Unfortunately character tends to get formed in a cruicibal.
Biden will be forced out by the second week of August. I just watched a compilation of his two speeches in NV yesterday and they were bot train wrecks and his chat with Lester Holt was a disaster. The movement to get him out stalled last week, was totally off the board after Butler PA on Saturday but it is now coming back and there will be no stopping it. Biden will NOT be the nominee.
HullBobby,
While we are seeing more and more Democrats calling for Biden to step aside, they are legally lock into a pickle.
By law, all the campaign contributions can only go to the Biden/Harris ticket.
Biden has already won in the primaries. Some states have laws against changing for another candidate other than the Biden/Harris ticket.
They just might be stuck with Biden/Harris.
How marvelous!
Upstate,
When has that pesky little thing, called the law, ever gotten in the way of this bunch?
Methinks “Sleepy” Joe and his sidekick, “Lover of Venn Diagrams”, wouldn’t know a law if it bit them in their fat gludii Maximi!
I recall when Lousyberg was allowed to run for senator in NJ decades ago violating state laws so late in that race …because of his political party nothing was done about that.
John Howard Wilhelm, Ph.D., Economics Univ. of MI @JohnHowadWilh1 Dec. 14, 2023
The Trouble with Polling Third-Parties
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2023/12/11/the-trouble-with-polling-third-parties/ is a good
read, but one that ignores the actual realities on election day see: WHY INDEPENDENTS
ARE UNLIKELY TO VOTE FOR THIRD PARTIES IN ACTUAL ELECTIONS in:
http://www.nationalrenewal.org/node/49 .
There is an easy solution to the desire of 60% to be open to voting for a
third-party or independent candidate and avoiding the spoiler effect. See my
my one page brochure nationalrenewal.org/ElectionReformFlier.pdf .
There is an easy solution to the desire of 60% to be open to voting for a
third-party or independent candidate and avoiding the spoiler effect. See my
my one page brochure nationalrenewal.org/ElectionReformFlier.pdf .
The dedication to Russ Perot, the third party candidate that made Bill Clinton president.
There’s one hell of an endorsement of your “easy solution” and where it looks for desirable outcomes.
Of course, I’m already turned off on that after watching a Libertarian hand Soviet Democrat Senator Jon Tester another six years in office to continue being a guaranteed vote in Schumer and Biden’s pockets.