Joe Biden’s really plastering the airwaves with ads. Saw another one. Did you know Trump gave tax cuts to the rich? Yep. Said it right in the ad, so it must be true.

I wonder . . . what are the qualifications to get that tax cut? My wife and I got a check earlier this Spring – $1,200 apiece – was that the tax cut for the rich? I think we also got a bigger refund last year. Maybe that was it?

I have my taxes done by HR Block. You’d think they would have mentioned if I could take advantage of a tax cut. Maybe I’m not rich enough? How rich do you have to be? If Biden is going to take away tax cuts, that means somebody is paying higher taxes. Is it going to be me?

You know, Joe, before I fill in the box next to your name, I’m going to want a few more details on which tax cuts you’re taking back. Care to be more specific?

Joe Doakes

It’s true because shut up.

First it was Kanye West – one of rap’s most consistently creative (and yes, unbalancee) figures. [1], endorsing Trump three years ago.

Then it was Ice Cube – formerly of NWA, and more famous as an actor these days – not so much “endorsing Trump” as asking blacks what the Democrats have done for them lately, and getting a lot of “because shut up” from white progressives as an answer.

And now, Fifty Cent- who realized that under the BIden tax plan he’d just be Thirty Cent:

While I remain resolutely apathetic about celebrities’ political opinions, let’s look below the surface. Say what you will about rap [1], but at a time in the election season when celebs are supposed to be threatening to move to France, you’ve got three incredibly successful black men, actively telling their own community that the party that has considered their votes their property for two generations, doesn’t deserve ’em.

So what? Other than a lot of adenoidal progressive white and academic black critics saying Cube, Kanye and Fifty Cent were never all that good anyway, , I mean?

I’m wondering if part of the reason Biden – who, the media polls tell us, has an eleventy-teen digit lead over Trump in Minnesota – is spending to much money in an ostensibly safe state is the Democrats are worried about the black vote slipping away?

Remember – it’s been estimated that if the Dems’ take of the black vote ever drops below 80%, they are sunk nationwide. Not the whole black vote; one in five.

Is that in striking distance?

Saw another Biden ad. Did you know Trump plans to eliminate Social Security? Really. But never fear, Joe Biden’s got a plan to save it. Good for him. You go, Joe!

Except. . . what, exactly, is that plan? Everybody knows Social Security is insolvent, but as far as I know there are only three solutions and all of them suck, which is why nobody in Washington is pushing them, not even Trump.

We could raise the retirement age high enough that people die before collecting. That would save money.

We could cut benefits low enough that there’d be enough for everybody to get a check, though maybe not enough to live on.

We could raise taxes on our kids’ incomes high enough to fund current benefits and current retirement age, but that would leave our kids destitute.

You know, Joe, before I pull the lever for you, I’m going to need some more details on this ‘plan’ of yours. Care to be more specific?

Joe Doakes

I keep yelling that at my TV/computer, several times a day.

Their pollsters just have to know that “Joe has a plan!” can only resonate with idiots.

Right?

Right?

Talking about Hunter Biden’s addiction is mean to addicts.

Do you know what’s really mean to addicts?

Enabling them

Giving a separate justice system to the powerful.

(Notice how NPR “fact checked” the assertion that Biden was kicked out of the Navy? he got an “administrative discharge” – as if he’d have gotten that had he been a kid from Oklahoma…)

Using them as a misapplied political point.

That’s mean to addicts.

I saw an ad on television. Donald Trump only cares about the stock market. He gave tax cuts to the rich. Joe Biden will fix all that.

Stock market – fat cats – rich people. Yeah, screw ’em. Not like it’ll affect my family at all. Go for it, Joe!

Well, except for that IRA that I had from private practice. And my kid’s 401k. My wife’s Deferred Compensation and Health Care Savings Accounts. Those are all invested in the stock market. And they’re not insured like bank accounts so if the market tanks, they lose everything.

Not me. I’m a government employee. We have defined benefit pensions through Minnesota State Retirement, Public Employees Retirement, or Teacher’s Retirement, all of which are administered by the State of Minnesota and prudently invested in . . . the stock market. Which Biden’s going to tank to punish the rich.

Oh, crap.

Joe Doakes

It’s gotten to the point where you hope Biden’s ads are just chanting points to con the gullible.

Record number of women and minorities seeking concealed carry permits.

When Harris gets elected and her first Executive Order bans all guns, will the New York Times headline read, “Women and Minorities Hardest Hit”?

Joe Doakes

Should Harris/Biden win, and the Senate flip, and given the left’s predilection to overreaching when they get power, I suspect the first mid-term is going to get pretty sporty for any Democrats outside major metro areas.

I suspect that’s why Big Left has been trying to beat down the NRA, frankly. Not that that’ll help ’em much.

…rest assured, they are doing it to distract from all their voting fraud.

But we knew that.

A majority of Americans are not only worried about violence after the election – they’re doing something about it:

When asked about just what sort of violence they expected to see, those polled responded with “riots,” “looting,” “burning” as some of their predictions. “Trashing of cities” was another response.

The YouGov poll was completed between October 1 – 2, 2020 and used 1,503 respondents.

It followed another poll released October 1 that found 61 percent of Americans agree with the concern the U.S. could be on the verge of another Civil War.

Additionally, 52 percent of consumers have also stockpiled food or essential goods in anticipation of social unrest tied to a resurgence of coronavirus in the coming months and/ or the election.

Unmentioned – they’re also gunning up numbers that crush all previous records.

This could be good news for conservatism in the long run; genuinely self-reliant people tend not to vote “progressive”.

Provided the GOP doesn’t screw it up…

…oh.

Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

A “security guard” with lefty sympathies allegedly killed a pro-police protester, in Denver over the weekend.

The video is disturbing:

The “guard” – who apparently lacked a security guard license – was contracting through Pinkerton Security, one of the big rentacop jobbers, to Denver’s NBC affiliate.

The Denver Police quickly leapt to Big Left’s defense, disclaiming any “Anti”-Fa or BLM links…:

…although crowdsourcing showed quite the opposite – Dolloff appeared to have left-of-center sympathies. More on that will come out in the near future, I suspect (although you won’t get any of it in the mainstream media). Unconfirmed reports after a bit of social-media sleuthing indicate…:

Which, if proven by a county prosecutor (assuming Denver’s left-leaning administration allows a serious prosecution), could all be used as evidence that Dolloff was a “willing participant”.

Whatever Dolloff’s sympathies, Big Left was certainly clear on its feelings about the death of :

Be careful out there.

I/m farirly convinced – amost to the point of making up a new Berg’s Law – that the Democrat messaging strategy is as follows:

• Assume that Democrat voters (as opposed to participants in their political class) are low-information voters who don’t really think all that critically
• Message accordingly.

Exhibit NZA-212949993-6:

Well, no – doing the job one is elected to do, after winning the election, while not fundamentally changing the institution, is not “packing the court”.

But Democrats – up to and including Biden and Harris at the debats – seem to be counting on Democrat voters not knowing this.

HowPoll tests got a bad name – deservedly so – during the Jim Crow era. And it’s kind of a shame, because more and more, I think some sort of test indicating at least a minimal knowledge of the parts of our government, to say nothing of knowing what they do and why they check and balance each other, would be a very good thing.

One of my favorite quotes:

“…when women have a conversation, they’re communicating on five
levels. They follow the conversation that they’re actually having, the
conversation that is specifically being avoided, the tone being applied
to the overt conversation, the buried conversation that is being covered
only in subtext, and finally the other person’s body language.”

― Jim Butcher, Cold Days

Chris Wallace asked President Trump: “You have repeatedly criticized the
vice president for not specifically calling out Antifa and other
left-wing extremist groups, but are you willing tonight to condemn white
supremacists and militia groups, and to say that they need to stand down
and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in
Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?”

“Sure, I’m willing to do that,” Trump replied. But then the debate
degenerated into quibbling. It had to, because of all the levels of
conversation. Here’s Trump’s answer explained more fully:

Level One – the conversation we’re having: Yes, I condemn violence.

Level Two – the conversation we’re avoiding:  Biden’s side is actually
committing the violence, not mine.

Level Three – the tone: I’ll be honest and fair, telling both sides to
stand down, including my own.

Level Four – the subtext: I will maintain public order so your children
will be safe.

Level Five – body language: You can tell I’m sincere because I look
confident.

And one more level – the headline he must avoid – “Trump Concedes
Supporters are Violent Racists.”

How I long for the days when the issue was a simple “Resolved” and my
team was assigned either Pro or Con.

Joe Doakes

To be fair, the Democrats aren’t communicating to people who perceive particularly well on one level, much less five.

Remember during the impeachment fiasco, when a few Democrats who weren’t smoking pot outside school during civics class remembered the order of succession? And realized Mike Pence, not Hillary Clinton, would be taking over?

The fear they felt?

You could see why last night. Mike Pence mopped the floor with Harris.

How bad?

Bad enough that “feminist” pols had to revert to calls for victorian deference, that’s how bad:

Mike Pence showed that talk radio background of his. He controlled the tempo, seized the initiative, and led Harris into more traps than the Road Runner vs. Wile E Coyote.

He got her to contradict herself on tax increases.

He made her deflect to “diversity” when the question of packing the court came up.

He got her to sweep her record as a prosecutor under a rug of bluster.

He reduced her to a smirking, hectoring blob.

How bad was it? Even NPR had to step in to do Harris’s deflecting for her:

One pundit called the Veep debate “the first debate of the 2024 campaign cycle”. Judging by tonight, Harris isn’t going to do any better this time around than in 2020.

My take on the debates:

BIDEN: “Trump [as opposed to Democrat governors and their idiotic lockdowns] tanked the economy”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “He let the Russians put bounties on our troops!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “He said the Nazis at Charlottesville were perfectly fine people!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “I was brought in to solve the 2008 recession, and I did it!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “Trump inherited massive job gains [not a dead cat bounce, nosirreebob]!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “He called the military ‘losers’!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “Hunter was completely exonerated!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “Nobody has ever established that there has ever been any election fraud!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “Climate changed causes stores that ahve already wiped away entire counties!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “Trump didn’t do anything about Covid!”

THE LEFT AND MEDIA (PTR): (Bobs heads approvingly)

BIDEN: “Antifa doesn’t really exist, but roaming gangs of White Supremacists do!”

MITCH: Trump needed to shut up and let Biden talk more. The more Biden talked, the more Wallace had to step in to rescue him. He was meat on the hoof, especially about forty minutes into the debate.

Mr. President, for your own good, practice shutting the front door up.

Once upon a time, I got some great life advice.

“Find what you’re good at, and run with it”.

John Thompson, would-be DFL rep from District 67A, the East Side, apparently got and practices the same advice.

He does seem to like burning down suburbs. Or at least talking about it.

A lot:

Sure, that’ll solve police overreach against blacks. Run with it.

Hey, DFLers – this is the mainstream of your party.

Nearly every American partisan voter will tell you one presidential candidate is not of sound mind.

Half of us have documentary evidence:

I watched Family Feud last night.  Joe Biden told me he’d impose a national mask mandate to save us all from Covid, so I should vote for him.

Now, it seems he won’t. 

So . . . no reason to vote for you, then, Joe?  Might as well stick with the devil we know?

Good by me.

Joe Doakes

He’s vamping.

Well, no – the people feeling him his lines – they’re vamping.

Just saw a Joe Biden ad. If he’s president, on day one, he will implement the plan he’s been advocating since March. Okay, what is it? Nope, not going to tell us, it’s a secret plan to defeat the virus. But it does include masks.

Joe Doakes 

I watch those Joe Biden ads – it seems the old duffer has a plan for everything.

If it’s borrowed from Andrew Cuomo, I’ll pass.

By the way – those TV spots are the audio equivalent of those old ransom notes cut together from letters from magazines and newspapers; the audio is clearly stitched together from coherent sentences.

It’s like the stress and emphasis changes within a single sentence.

They may be better off hiring a Biden impersonator.

Trump is under no obligation to wait ’til the election. He should not.

There are two types of rules in Washington: laws that allocate power, and norms that reflect how power has traditionally, historically been used. Laws that allocate power are paramount, and particularly dangerous to violate, but there is no such law at issue here. A president can always make a nomination for a Supreme Court vacancy, no matter how late in his term or how many times he has been turned down; the only thing in his way is the Senate.

Twenty-nine times in American history there has been an open Supreme Court vacancy in a presidential election year, or in a lame-duck session before the next presidential inauguration. (This counts vacancies created by new seats on the Court, but not vacancies for which there was a nomination already pending when the year began, such as happened in 1835–36 and 1987–88.) The president made a nomination in all twenty-nine cases. George Washington did it three times. John Adams did it. Thomas Jefferson did it. Abraham Lincoln did it. Ulysses S. Grant did it. Franklin D. Roosevelt did it. Dwight Eisenhower did it. Barack Obama, of course, did it. Twenty-two of the 44 men to hold the office faced this situation, and all twenty-two made the decision to send up a nomination, whether or not they had the votes in the Senate.

Threats are all the Democrats have – until the next Senate sits. And then, only if they take control.

A socialist walks into a Latino restaurant in Miami, hoping for a cheap, Latin-vote-grabbing photo op.

The socialist was Kamala Harris.

The Latino restaurant was Venezuelan.

It did not end well for Harris, either gustatorily or in media terms:

All Latinos look alike to Democrats.

Sorta like all blacks, gays, women, Asians…

This really sums up the entire Democrat messaging, in Minnesota and nationwide, perfectly:

To be a conservative in Minnesota (forget for a moment that neither Trump nor today’s GOP are “conservative”) is to assume all hope is illusory, even a little bit cruel.

And yet Biden and Harris are spending time here – a state that should be a gimme for them, at least at the Presidential level.

I hate to harbor hope.

But sometimes I still do.

Ryan Winkler, the House Majority Leader, isn’t thrilled with President Trump stealing Joe Biden’s thunder:

Then the Majority Leader has had a pretty sheltered life.

Know what’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard?

Other than the Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, the Gulag, the Holodomor, the Rape of Nanking, the subjugation of Tibet, the history of Haitian slavery, or pretty much an garden-variety genocide?

Well, not this…

But it was pretty bad anyway. And if Bogdan Vechirko – who owned no “white supremacist” paraphernalia at all, and heroically avoided hitting anyone (who wasn’t trying to get hit) wants to sue for slander, I’ll host a fundraiser.

Have you people call my people.

I rarely watch pay television, I’m generally reading a book or watching a movie on Netflix. So I was surprised at the quality of Joe Biden’s campaign ads.

If I didn’t know he’s been hiding in the basement the last six months, didn’t know he stumbles and flubs his way through interviews, didn’t know he’s been silent in the face of riots across the nation, I’d be impressed. He talks like a patriotic American. 

The ads are lies,  but they are good lies. 

We know hardcore conservatives will vote for Trump and hardcore liberals will vote for Biden. It’s the mushy headed individuals in the middle, who don’t make up their mind until right now, just before the election. Those are the ones who decide the election in the end. If these ads work for them, Trump is in trouble.

Joe Doakes

They are good – although if you listen to the audio, you can tell Biden’s voice-over track is spliced together. There’s no way the old fella did those reads sitting behind a mike in one take.

“So, Mitch – why are the Democrats and media (ptr) spending so much time saying that Trump wants to delegitimize the election?”

The answer, of course, is because they need to deflect away from the fact that they are trying, in advance, to delegitimize the election.

My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw the latest Biden ad, about the violence in our cities.

It’s not what’s in the ad, per se. It’s what’s missing.

Go ahead. What do you not see in this ad?

I’ll wait.

No identifiable “Anti”-Fa or BLM.

The only identifiable people in this ad are “right wing” protesters – in no case violent, not of of which burned or looted anything.

Biden – well, the people operating his animatronic controls, anyway – would have you believe the rioting, burning and looting, the coordinated and paid tantrum of the American Left (TM), was Trump’s fault.

This is what every spousal abuser says about their victims.