Election Integrity Firm: 7% to 18% of Registered Voters in 26 States Either DO NOT EXIST or Reside at an Address that DOES NOT EXIST

Guest post by Jay Valentine at Omega4America.

If there is one consistent take-away from the last 40 months of election fraud frenzy, it is anyone can find phantoms on voter rolls – nobody is removing enough to make a difference.

Our team runs voter rolls in 26 states. We apply time series analysis across every state roll – comparing the voter roll from 2 years ago with the one from yesterday – and people, little has changed!

There are fewer than 230 days to go before the 2024 extravaganza!

The “most important election in history.”

Any rational person will find it difficult to believe enough phantoms will be removed from voter rolls – in the 7 wing states – run by Leftists, with mostly Leftist Secretaries of State and Leftist courts – to make a difference – in a few months!

Is there anyone, maybe one guy, but really anyone else, who thinks the election equipment in the 7 swing states will change in the next 230 days?

In 2024, the way to stop the steal – if there is one – is to fight entire hydra – not just the phantoms!

One must employ tactics, no strategy here, that can be effective in less than 230 days!

One must stop, or seriously cripple sovereign fraud – first coined on American Thinker – where the government is the actor impacting election outcomes.

One must identify, track, trace every illegally funded NGO, non-governmental agency – funneling hundreds of millions of laundered dollars to Leftist candidates, registering voters with no IDs at homeless shelters.

And while phantoms aren’t coming off voter rolls any time soon, citizens can stop mail-in ballots from going to them if they reside at ineligible addresses – which enough do to impact the outcome in every swing state.

The Wisconsin team did it in 2022!

In 2024, the election hydra has 3 heads – phantoms, sovereign interference, and NGO money laundering.

Impact all three – or go home.

Phantom voter fraud is undeniable.

We do not ask you to believe us – watch our videos, showing enough built-in phantom name/address anomaly in many states’ databases to turn an election.

Every state we test, all 26, has from 7% to 18% of its registered voters who either do not exist, or reside at addresses that do not exist, or live at real addresses – that are gas stations, convenience stores or restaurants.

We call them addresses “without bedrooms.”

Phantoms – chased by voter integrity teams for the last 36 months – remain on voter rolls in droves. The handful taken off are replaced by brethren. It’s in the data.

Sovereign voter fraud remains a threat – because it works.

Our team performed the post-mortem for the Kari Lake election showing over 22,000 new voters added, days before the election – in one Arizona county alone. Lake was blind to this – as her campaign relied on useless relational technology from the RNC – thus they never saw it coming.

Lake lost by 17,000 votes.

How about, in every swing state – in 2024 – citizens download voter rolls every day – apply quantum time series analysis to them – and when the county changes the zip codes of 33,000 people in a single Arizona county – Republicans know it on October 3, not November 6th!

The third aspect of institutional, organized, industrial-scale election fraud comes from the NGOs and Leftist political organizations funneling hundreds of millions in illegal campaign money to favored candidate.

This month, the Fractal team finished the SMURF system – the real time, massive, election contribution database – of every contribution, to any Federal candidate, from any reported source, in the last 50 years – from a phone – at 200 million transactions per second.

In late 2021, the Florida team sent the Fractal team evidence that Leftists were funneling hundreds of millions of dollars in donations with fake contributions ascribed to some poor, elderly person.

The evidence was compelling; we sent it to the team in Wisconsin. Those clues made their way to some entertaining James O’Keefe videos.

This month, the money laundering tracking system was moved to quantum technology.

Massive government databases may be public – that does not make them informative.

Current relational technology cannot easily compare the entire FEC database with every voter in Wisconsin, tracking every contribution to its source – and watch money flowing from NGO A, to NGO B, then to 400,000 debit cards, each for $1, then each debit card is converted to a gift card – later all the dough goes to a district attorney harassing a former president.

Quantum technology from our team, and others makes these gargantuan government databases information weapons – weapons that can win an election!

As we demonstrate, the institutional financial fraud, supporting Leftist causes, tied to elderly citizens’ stolen identities – who never knew someone made 3,000 contributions, in their name – in one day – has moved from James O’Keefe anecdotal evidence – to a real time system in place for 2024.

Every contribution – from every source – to every destination – including all intermediate steps – for the last 50 years – tracked from a phone!

SMURF is the term of art for money laundering – thus the Wisconsin team so named it.

In several swing states, the SMURF system is tracing illegal NGO action – and it is massive. For instance, thousands of contributions in an hour from the same credit card.

Ever make an FEC contribution?

Log on, fill in your name, address, company name – all that stuff.

Now, do it 3,500 times in 2 hours. Impossible! Unless you are using advanced computers – doing this as a bot exercise – thus illegal.

That data has always been in the FEC database.

Quantum technology turned it into useful information – that can impact the election in 230 days – or 30 days!

It gets better.

The Wisconsin team downloaded the state contribution roll for all 50 states.

Now, at quantum speeds, users cross search the guy who made 3,500 contributions, in someone else’s name, a dollar each – and traces that dough to a state senate race in Wisconsin.

Since the Fractal system currently runs the voter rolls for 26 states, integrating contribution information and voter information became very interesting.

With a single click, one sees the address, which is a warehouse, with no bedrooms, housing voters, is also a collection point for an NGO to collect donations. Two more clicks – shows where the money goes – always to a Leftist candidate.

Data is multiplicative.

One domain database is like a street map.

Two or three databases, you have a relief map with hills and valleys.

Four or 5 databases, cross searched at quantum speeds – is a live movie of money laundering gone wild – from warehouses to candidates who have been taking this dough for 20 years.

It’s way too late to keep screwing around chasing phantoms.

With fewer than 230 days to go, Republicans better sober up, hit the Leftist hydra to thwart the sure sovereign fraud in the swing states and “out” all the illegal money flowing like a river through the FEC database.

Since every ineligible ballot-location – in every swing state voter roll, is now known – Republicans can do what the Wisconsin team did in 2022 – stop ballots from going to ineligible addresses – and impact 2024 – now.

The time for phantom chasing is over.

Either get in the game now, with technology that can impact 2024 in 230 days, or go home.

Jay Valentine led the team that built the eBay fraud engine, the underlying technology for the TSA No-Fly List and the fraud systems for State Farm, GEICO, USAA and other major insurers.

Jay can be contacted at his Substack: Substack.com/Omega4America

The post Election Integrity Firm: 7% to 18% of Registered Voters in 26 States Either DO NOT EXIST or Reside at an Address that DOES NOT EXIST appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Lara Logan on Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse: “Everyone Knows… This Is a Cyber Attack on a Critical Infrastructure Corridor in the United States”

Early Tuesday morning, the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, MD, collapsed after a cargo ship collided with a support column, causing the bridge to collapse. The Francis Scott Key Bridge is a significant commuter route carrying the Baltimore Beltway I-695 over the Patapsco River at the southern end of the Baltimore Harbor.

In the video below, the ship’s lights can be seen going off and then on again as it appears to pass by the support column. Suddenly and inexplicably, the lights on the cargo ship are turned back on as the ship appears to turn toward the support column and hits it head-on.

Investigative reporter Lara Logan reported Tuesday that this was not an accident, it was a brilliant “strategic attack.”

TGP’s Patty McMurray covered Lara’s early reporting yesterday.

Later on Tuesday Lara Logan joined Steve Bannon on The War Room to discuss the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Steve Bannon, who served in the US Navy, was also skeptical of the official narrative that was established by daylight yesterday that “it was an accident.”

Steve Bannon asked Lara about her investigation.

Steve Bannon: You say there may be something. Here’s the other thing that’s concerning me. Why they run to the mic. You had McCabe on this morning at sunrise on CNN saying, It’s not terrorism. It’s not terrorism. It’s not… It might not be terrorism. But why do you come to the mic Right away, we need facts, we need empirical evidence, we need an investigation. What is your investigation telling you?

Lara Logan: Well, I have a better question for you, Steve. Why are you coming to the mic telling the country that it’s not terrorism when your own intelligence agencies are telling you it is? And I know they are because I didn’t make this up. These are not my words. I’m talking to people who are on the inside, some who are on active duty, some who are retired. And everyone, literally, from critical infrastructure in the Department of Homeland Security to the intelligence agencies, they know there’s no other… This is a cyber attack on a critical infrastructure corridor for the United States.

For those people who think this is just a river, this is in Baltimore, what does this matter? You don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. The I-94 corridor on the Eastern Seaboard is literally what connects the North and South. And when I talk about hazardous materials, this is a brilliant, well-planned strategic attack on one of the most important supply chains in the United States of America. The only other one is in the Western side in California. That’s the only one that’s busier. And what you have done, you now have shut it down.

And When I talk about hazardous materials, what are we talking about here? This is refined fuels, right? This is propane gas. This is diesel. This is fuel. This is flammable materials. This is oversized loads, nitrogen, chemicals. Everything that you need for your economy to move has literally just been shut down for 4-5 years.

How did they do it? They knew that they had to target one of two main anchor points on that bridge. There are two load-bearing pylons that any structural engineer can identify that are on the end of each side of the bridge. These are the ones that are thicker and stronger than anything else on that bridge. When you hit one of those pylons, when you take that out, the reason you see so much of that bridge collapse instantly is you just brought 50% of the span of that bridge coming crumbling down. And what you don’t see beneath the surface of the water steep is absolutely catastrophic. It is a structural nightmare and a logistical nightmare because you have the entire bottom part, the concrete part of that bridge, and you don’t know the extent of the structural damage to that, and you won’t know it until you pull all of that infrastructure out of there and you get to look at it.

Watch the entire interview here.

The post Lara Logan on Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse: “Everyone Knows… This Is a Cyber Attack on a Critical Infrastructure Corridor in the United States” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

EXPOSED: Maryland Police Conspire to Manipulate Traffic as Part of Deep State Agenda

As Americans, we pride ourselves on our freedom and the ability to speak our minds without fear of government intervention. However, recent events in the state of Maryland have brought to light a disturbing plot by the left-wing elites to control and manipulate our daily lives. A leaked report reveals that the Maryland police were pre-alerted to divert traffic in a predetermined direction, as part of a larger conspiracy to suppress conservative voices. Let’s take a closer look at this shocking revelation.

According to insider sources, the Maryland police were given specific instructions to divert traffic away from a particular area during a planned rally by conservative groups. This pre-planned diversion was orchestrated by none other than the deep state, in an effort to silence the voices of those who dare to challenge their radical leftist agenda. The question is, why would the authorities take such drastic measures to silence a peaceful protest?

Baltimore Bridge Collapse.
CNN report below:
“Ahead of the collision, ship’s crew notified officials with a “mayday” call that allowed authorities to stop traffic before impact & likely saved lives,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said.

“The collapse that has indefinitely halted flow… pic.twitter.com/paEyWaogxK

— Harinder S Sikka (@sikka_harinder) March 27, 2024

To understand the true motives behind this insidious plot, we must first examine the larger picture. The deep state has been working tirelessly to control every aspect of our society, from the media to the government. And now, it seems they have turned their sights towards controlling our very movements. By strategically manipulating traffic, they hope to disrupt and silence conservative gatherings, preventing their message from reaching the masses.

This revelation comes as no surprise to those who have been paying attention. The deep state has been working behind the scenes for years, using their vast resources and power to manipulate and control the American people. And now, with the help of their puppets in the Maryland police, they are taking their agenda to a whole new level. But we, as conservatives, must not let them succeed.

Clip of Boat striking Baltimore Bridge Gantry at 8x speed is truly insane.

What do you notice? pic.twitter.com/PcDsgZadC7

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) March 26, 2024

The implications of this pre-planned traffic diversion go far beyond just one rally. It sets a dangerous precedent for the future, where our basic right to peaceful assembly and free speech is threatened. If the deep state can control and manipulate traffic to suppress our voices, what’s next? Will they start blocking roads to prevent us from voting? Will they shut down our internet access to censor our opinions? The possibilities are endless, and we must stand united to fight against this blatant attack on our freedoms.

But we must not let this revelation discourage us. In fact, we must use it as motivation to continue our fight against the deep state and their corrupt agenda. We must use our voices and our votes to elect leaders who will stand up for our rights and protect our freedoms. We must expose the deep state’s insidious tactics and never back down in the face of their oppression.

In conclusion, the Maryland police’s pre-alerted traffic diversion is a clear indication of the deep state’s growing influence and control over our society. It is a blatant attack on our fundamental rights as Americans and must not be tolerated. We must continue to speak out and resist their agenda, no matter the obstacles they throw in our way. Let us unite as conservatives and stand strong against the deep state’s conspiracy to silence us.

The post EXPOSED: Maryland Police Conspire to Manipulate Traffic as Part of Deep State Agenda appeared first on The Conservative Brief.

What’s Happening in NYC? Women Randomly Punched in the Face While Walking Down the Street

@Halleykate/TikTok

What is happening in New York City, and why are young women randomly getting punched in the face while walking down the street?

Recently, women in NYC have been sharing videos on social media in the aftermath of being randomly punched in the face while strolling down the city streets.

Halley, a content creator and influencer, shared a video on Monday morning telling her story.

As she walked down the street, a man punched her, leaving a giant goose egg swelling on the right side of her head.

In the video that has been seen over 21.3 million times she said, “You guys. I was literally just walking, and a man came up and punched me in the face. It hurts so bad. I can’t even talk. Literally, I fell to the ground, and now this giant goose egg is forming, and I’m like, oh my God. So crazy.”

@halleykate♬ original sound – halley

Halley followed up on her original post with additional details.

“I was just walking on the sidewalk, and my head was down, and I was like looking at my phone, just sending an email. But there was so much room on the sidewalk, and literally nobody was around, and I guess this man, I don’t know if he punched me or if he elbowed me. I literally passed out.”

“I think he just was really mad that my head was down. He was walking his dog, so he took it upon himself to body check me and let me know to be conscious of my surroundings.”

After being punched, Halley said she fell to the ground and “blacked out for a second” before getting up while the man screamed at her, and she ran away.

Mikayla Toninato, also an influencer, shared a similar story of being punched while walking on Monday.

She said, “So I just got punched in the face walking home. I was literally like leaving class, I turned the corner and I was looking down, and I was looking at my phone and texting. And then out of nowhere, this man just came up and hit me in the face. “I’m actually in shock right now. I’m just like walking home because what else do you do?”

She added a warning, “I guess if you’re in New York right now and you’re walking while looking at your phone. Maybe don’t do that.”

@mikaylatoninato @halley ♬ original sound – mikayla

Last week creater Olivia Brand, shared a similar video.

“I literally just got punched by some man on the sidewalk. He goes, sorry, and then punches me in the head.”

@olivia.brandI &lt3 nyc♬ original sound – Olivia Brand

Just a few hours ago, another young woman, Kendall, shared that she was walking near Times Square with her coworkers when she was punched.  Sitting in a restaurant, she put ice on the visible bump rising on her forehead.

“I have fallen victim to men in New York City lifting an elbow or trying to punch innocent girls on the street, except I wasn’t on my phone.”

“I was with my coworkers walking in Times Square. So be safe out there.”

@kendalllllllll888 B safe out there nyc girlies (i wasnt on my phone at all and this man barely skimmed by me – i wasnt even in his way) #MYCPunch #TimesSquare #bump #staysafe ♬ original sound – Kendall

What is going on in NYC?

The post What’s Happening in NYC? Women Randomly Punched in the Face While Walking Down the Street appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Captain and Crew of DALI Cargo Ship Were Taken to Walmart Before Ship Crashed into Key Bridge

The Baltimore Sun reported the captain and the crew of the DALI cargo ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge were taken to a local Walmart to shop before their departure on early Tuesday morning.

The Apostleship of the Sea Director, Andrew Middleton, told the press he took the DALI captain and crew members to shop at a local Walmart over the weekend.

Apostleship of the Sea is a Catholic ministry that helps crew members of international ships run errands, go shopping, and perform other tasks.

Post-9/11 security measures require crew members of international ships to be escorted through port areas by vetted persons.

Middleton told USA Today that as soon as he heard the news that the cargo ship crashed into the Key bridge, he messaged one of the members on WhatsApp and asked if everyone was alright, to which the crew member responded everything was okay.

Dali crew spent weekend in Baltimore before heading back to sea, but ship instead struck Key Bridge https://t.co/eBHSGQo80X

— Sun Latest News (@BaltSunBrk) March 26, 2024

Per USA Today:

The crew of the stranded container ship DALI have reported they are OK and awaiting rescue after the collision that caused a portion of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore to collapse, according to a seafarers’ chaplain who took them shopping on Sunday.

Andrew Middleton said he took the ship’s captain and a crewman shopping at a nearby Walmart to buy personal items and snacks before their departure.

Since 9/11, international crews have to be escorted by a vetted person through most port areas, and Middleton said it’s fairly common for crews like the DALI’s to request assistance from the Apostleship of the Sea Baltimore Stella Maris International Seafarers’ Center, where he is the director. The group is part of the Catholic Church’s Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Middleton woke up Tuesday morning to the shocking news the ship hit the bridge, and he immediately messaged one of the crewmen via WhatsApp.

“My question to him was, ‘Is everyone ok?’ And the answer was ‘yes sir, everyone is safe,’” Middleton told USA TODAY.

Frantic text after Baltimore bridge collapse confirms crew OK: ‘Yes sir, everyone is safe’ https://t.co/XlC8MmO9cq via @usatoday

— Tabassum Zakaria (@tobyzakaria) March 26, 2024

The latest update on the tragic bridge collapse is that the U.S. Coast Guard stopped searching for the six missing construction contractors working on the Key bridge at the time the bridge collapsed.

Authorities have presumed they are dead.

BREAKING: 6 constitution workers who plunged into the water during Baltimore bridge collapse presumed dead, search is now a recovery mission, Coast Guard says

R.I.P. pic.twitter.com/eJkOrKGijk

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 26, 2024

The post Captain and Crew of DALI Cargo Ship Were Taken to Walmart Before Ship Crashed into Key Bridge appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

With VP Pick, RFK Jr. Is Gunning for the Democrats

With VP Pick, RFK Jr. Is Gunning for the Democrats

Nicole Shanahan appeals to the disaffected, West Coast–style leftist voters who feel lost in the Democratic Party.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent candidate for the presidency, announced Tuesday that he had selected Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. Kennedy introduced the 38-year-old, who has no political experience, at an event in Oakland, California, her native city.

In her first speech as a vice-presidential candidate, Shanahan praised Kennedy’s anti-war commitments, criticized both major parties for offering “vague promises that never amount to real change,” and listed the foci of Kennedy’s campaign to which she was most attracted after a friend encouraged her to watch “just one” interview with Kennedy: chronic disease issues, electromagnetic pollution, and non-healing medications. 

“I wanted a partner who is a gifted administrator, but also possesses the gift of curiosity, an open, inquiring mind, and the confidence to change even her strongest opinions in the face of contrary evidence,” Kennedy told the crowd in his introduction. “I wanted someone with a spiritual dimension and compassion and idealism and, above all, a deep love of the United States of America.”

Shanahan’s career is a Bay-Area success story. In 2013, while still studying at the Santa Clara University School of Law, she started an IP management company called ClearAccessIP, which was bought in 2020 by patent hawk Erich Spangenberg’s finance tech company, IPwe. That same year, she founded a philanthropic outfit called the Bia-Echo Foundation, which seeks to harness the “creative spirit and life force behind our human capacity.” In 2022, the foundation reported over $25 million in total assets.

The invited speakers at the announcement event reflected the colorful and sometimes contradictory coalition that has formed around Kennedy. The candidate’s speech was preceded by a land acknowledgement from the chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohione Tribe of the San Francisco Bay. This solemn affair was followed by more lively addresses from Del Bigtree, the campaign’s communications director, Kelly Ryerson, the founder of the public awareness group Glyphosate Facts, Jay Bhattacharya, the anti-lockdown Stanford health policy professor, Chris Clem, the former deputy chief patrol agent with Customs and Border Protection, Calley Means, an author and cofounder of the Austin-based tech payment company TrueMed, and the former Lakers forward Metta World Peace, born Ronald William Artest Jr.

In her own address, Shanahan mentioned two experiences that formed her political consciousness while she was in high school. In her junior year, she spent time with families recovering from the civil war in El Salvador that ended in 1992; and, at graduation, she led a walkout protesting the American invasion of Iraq.

Most of the coverage surrounding Shanahan’s selection revolves around Kennedy’s quest to get on the ballot in all 50 states, which requires building a ground game from scratch—an expensive project from which the major party candidates are exempt. To that end, the Kennedy campaign, which reported a little over $5.1 million on hand in a March FEC filing, could see Shanahan as a real asset. In the lead up to Shanahan’s divorce from the Russian émigré and Google cofounder Sergey Brin, in July 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that Shanahan sought over $1 billion in the proceedings. 

That cash is already working for Kennedy. In February, the New York Times reported that it was Shanahan who coughed up $4 million to fund the nostalgic Super Bowl ad that was sponsored by the pro-Kennedy Super PAC American Values 2024.

Perhaps the most comprehensive—and revelatory—coverage of Shanahan’s comings and goings can be found not in the hard news dailies but in People, which offered coverage in July 2023 of Shanahan’s barefoot “love” ceremony with 39-year-old Jacob Strumwasser, to whom she committed herself in part because of his “love of nature.”

Shanahan’s campaign donation history reflects this crunchy “Left Coast” sensibility. During the 2020 election, Shanahan donated $2,800 to Marianne Williamson, $2,800 to Pete Buttigieg, and $25,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising operation of the Biden campaign, the DNC, and state Democratic parties. 

The Williamson-style spiritual leftism to which Shanahan appears to adhere may have appealed to Kennedy’s sensibilities: her selection, along with the pride of place offered to the Muwekma Ohione during her announcement event and her recent political alliances, has certainly given his campaign an overtly left flavor. This could be a cause of worry for the Biden campaign; while some polls have shown the Kennedy run pulling more votes from the former President Donald Trump than from Biden, Shanahan shifts the ticket to appeal directly to disaffected Democratic voters.

“I am leaving the Democratic Party,” Shanahan said in her acceptance speech. “I do believe they’ve lost their way and their leadership.”

In his introduction, Kennedy highlighted Shanahan’s appeal to a historically blue constituency, young voters. “I want Nicole to be a champion to the growing number of millennials and Gen Z Americans who have lost faith in their future and lost their pride in our country,” he said.

The post With VP Pick, RFK Jr. Is Gunning for the Democrats appeared first on The American Conservative.

Deplatforming Ronna McDaniel Won’t Deradicalize Anyone

Deplatforming Ronna McDaniel Won’t Deradicalize Anyone

Canceling even milquetoast figures won’t make conservatives feel more heard.

Greater injustices have been perpetrated in the media world than the premature conclusion to Ronna McDaniel’s punditry career at NBC News. 

By the end of her tenure at the Republican National Committee, no wing of the party was entirely pleased with her performance and it was not clear which constituency she best represented. But whatever McDaniel’s faults, the revolt against her brief broadcast news star turn was motivated by the belief that a majority of the Republican Party does not deserve representation. At most, very watered down versions of what they want should be granted a place on the 2024 ballot or platformed at major media institutions this side of shortwave radio.

When Donald Trump first took his magic escalator ride nearly nine years ago, his support was so thin even within conservative media that the cable networks had to go out and hire new pundits to speak favorably about him on air. 

Sometimes while working at night, I would see the televisions playing in the background of the newsroom with the sound off. If I did not know any better, I would have assumed Kayleigh McEnany was being surrounded by her mother and aunts, who were all yelling at her for failing to clean her room.

That was essentially the most favorable treatment a political operative could expect to receive for appearing on a television channel with a liberal or politically mixed audience and explaining their preference for one of two major-party candidates for president. When nearly half the country voted for Trump, including pluralities in the battleground states that sent him to the White House, the problem got worse rather than improving. 

It worked out much better for McEnany’s career than McDaniel’s, even if both experiments were relatively short-lived; other pundits found they had to switch sides to keep theirs going. But the gradual increase in ideological diversity on the networks that once hosted liberal monologues rather than debates was increasingly ghettoized, with each cable behemoth identifying which market segment they existed to outrage and then outraging them all day long.

POLITICO’s Jack Shafter nevertheless published a lengthy, if not quite exhaustive, list of people with resumes similar to McDaniel’s who made the jump from politics to punditry. The greatest pundit of a generation worked for and largely defended Richard Nixon during the height of the Watergate scandal and wrote some of Spiro Agnew’s most famous media-bashing speeches

Yet not even at the apogee of liberal domination of the media did the network heads and newspaper editorial pages imagine they could indefinitely silence perspectives that were winning 49-state presidential landslides. 

Partisan political operatives often lie, or, more charitably, repeat without careful examination suspect claims that are good for the party. This includes things that are of far greater consequence, and come with less public ability to scrutinize, than inaugural crowd sizes, such as weapons of mass destruction before going to war and a family’s ability to keep their doctor under new healthcare laws. Many operatives once involved in that type of spin currently grace the airwaves of MSNBC.

Those airwaves are also routinely full of assertions about the 2000 and 2016 elections that are as dubious as Trump’s nonsense about 2020. It is true, thank goodness, that no one responded to those conspiracy theories and lies as violently as the mobs at the Capitol on January 6 did. A sincerely held belief that the Russians manipulated or altered the 2016 vote totals easily could have provoked such a reaction.

Is Trump the only reason some election conspiracists behaved worse than others, such as the Russigate maximalists or those who believed George W. Bush was “selected, not elected”? Trump certainly insisted on pressing his case far beyond the point of legal or constitutional plausibility, sparking a dangerous and violent national embarrassment that but for the grace of God could have been much worse. 

But Trump also appealed to some voters who were already more radicalized, and believed themselves to have less effective representation from the political class and its media allies, than the people who thought Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, and Stacey Abrams got robbed on Election Day

A few Ronna McDaniel cable hits probably wouldn’t have made these voters less radicalized. But her banishment won’t make them feel better represented, either. 

The post Deplatforming Ronna McDaniel Won’t Deradicalize Anyone appeared first on The American Conservative.

One Hundred Days of Libertarian Populism in Argentina

One Hundred Days of Libertarian Populism in Argentina

Milei has made strides toward pushing back the left—but is his time running out?

On December 10, 2023, Javier Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist, was sworn in as president of Argentina.

Milei, best known for the hair that he claims is combed by Adam’s Smith invisible hand and an eccentric and irascible demeanor, promised to end the country’s economic woes—prevalent in the last 80 years but heightened in the last couple of decades—by launching a full-blown libertarian economic program of privatization, deregulation, and tight monetary policy. On the way, he would rid the country of the unholy marriage between socialism and wokeism that has assaulted Argentine institutions over the last 20 years.

After 100 days in power, has “the wig,” as he is known, laid the foundations for a libertarian populist revolt, or is his project showing early signs of foundering?

Milei is a culture warrior, which is why, despite being a radical libertarian, he has rallied conservatives and nationalists behind his agenda. But make no mistake: Most Argentines voted for him hoping he would fix the economic mess the country has been in since the early 2000s.

On the macroeconomic side, some of the measures are working. Monthly inflation fell in both January and February, after reaching its highest point in decades in December.

Milei promised to achieve a budget surplus (before interest payments) of 2 percent this year, after last year’s 3 percent deficit. So far, so good: The first two months of the year brought surpluses, the first in more than a decade.

Moreover, Argentina has an exchange control. Milei has not eliminated it yet, seeking to reduce the gap between the official and black market exchange rates (it now sits at around 20 percent) and improve the macroeconomic output of the country before eliminating it. Foreign reserves have increased by over $7 billion and the country-risk index has dropped significantly.

But this all has come at a cost.

Milei reduced energy and transport subsidies drastically. He also cut down on transfers to provinces. And, even though he has been raising spending on retirement pensions, he has done so by less than inflation, which means that, in real terms, he has also cut down spending.

In the first handful of days in his government, he devalued the peso by over 50 percent, causing inflation to skyrocket.

This has of course worsened the situation for Argentines, at least in the short term. Fifty percent of the country is in poverty and the economy is set to shrink by 4 percent in 2024.

Milei has been clear since day one that things in Argentina had to get worse before they got better; so far, his approval ratings are still relatively high, sitting close to 50 percent. He has achieved this because most Argentines believe the “caste”—the left-wing elites of the country—are to blame for the economic woes.

How long will Milei’s popularity last? That remains to be seen.

One of Milei’s key problems is that he doesn’t have enough parliamentary support for some of the most radical proposals in his agenda, such as labor reform and some deregulation policies. In fact, his party only holds seven seats in the Senate (which has 72 senators), and 41 representatives (which has 257), hardly enough to pass any kind of legislation. 

He depends on PRO, the party of former president Mauricio Macri, some smaller parties that hold some seats in the House, and some breakaway members of opposition parties to pass legislation, which has proven difficult in his first 100 days in government.

In less than two years, Argentina has midterm elections, renewing parts of both houses of Congress. If Milei’s plan to stabilize the country’s economy has not worked by then, he may suffer a defeat that will end up derailing the rest of his term.

In fact, Milei’s lack of legislative support has not allowed him to take advantage of his popularity to pass essential elements of his agenda.

His first 100 days of government have been marked by two main measures: the Omnibus Law and the DNU.

Milei sent to Congress an all-encompassing bill with 664 articles that covered everything from fishing permits and privatization of state companies to shutting down the National Theatre Institute and reforming the pension system. This gave the opposition, and even some of his supporters, enough reason to pick the law apart, until Milei eventually withdrew it. He will likely try to pass it as individual laws, slowing down the process of reform.

Milei’s DNU (Decreto de Necesidad y Urgencia, Decree of Necessity and Urgency in English) was passed in December and was almost as all-encompassing as the law above. It covered labor market regulations, increasing interest on credit card debt, and reforming pharmaceutical companies.

Being a presidential decree, it technically does not need congressional approval. However, if both houses of Congress vote against the measure, they can strike it down. The Senate already voted against Milei’s decree, but until the House follows—and it is unclear whether it will, as Milei might reform the decree to garner some support—the decree remains on its feet.

Labor reform is key to Milei’s success. After the state bureaucracy built by the Peronist left, the trade unions are perhaps the most significant element of the “caste” Milei seeks to tear down. Mauricio Macri, today one of Milei’s most important allies, was president between 2015 and 2019 and tried to enact some of the same reforms; he was derailed by both the Argentine congress and the all-powerful labor unions that constantly called for strikes against Macri and to close main roads of the country.

Unions in Argentina are closer to a mafia than to organizations built to defend worker’s rights. For example, the truckers’ union has had the same president, Hugo Moyano, for 36 years. His eldest son is the vice president, while a daughter and a son are part of the work. Another son used to run a union for toll workers before becoming a congressman. The family has owned some of the most important football clubs in the country and has a political party close to the Justicialista Party, the traditional Peronist party in Argentina.

This family, allied with the traditional left of the country, is able to freeze the transport of food and oil in the blink of an eye, as they did under Macri. 

Milei, so far, does not seem intimidated. He has shown a very un-libertarian impulse to wield state power to achieve his political ends—and this is what scares the left and makes the populist right stand by his side.

Milei’s long-term goal is dismantling most of the Argentine state. Make no mistake, he sees himself as an Argentine Reagan, tasked with becoming a libertarian hero. Many of his economic formulas seem to come out of the IMF rulebook, and he believes in international free trade with passion. Without the antics, Milei might seem like a product of an American think tank.

But what makes him different is his muscular use of state power. Milei is not afraid to wield public power—whether with far-ranging decrees or by using legitimate force to stop protests that threaten the stability of the state and his reforms—to achieve his political goals.

This has been particularly clear with unions: Milei tried to pass legislation to make union affiliation voluntary (it is currently compulsory and automatic) and also wants to allow companies to fire workers who take part in street blockades during protests. However, both are still frozen in the courts with all his labor reform until the Supreme Court decides on the matter.

Similarly, he has suspended all government publicity in media for a year, which was the main source of income for many privately-owned media outlets that served as parasitic propaganda entities on behalf of the government.

For years, Peronism enlarged the number and size of organizations that depended on the state through government funds or beneficial regulations. These organizations entered into a parasitic relationship with the “caste.” Milei has started eliminating these privileges. Lawyers are now not needed in some fast-track divorce procedures, which used to be an easy source of income. Artists relied on government funds to produce works that no one saw, and Milei gutted them. Fishermen and sugar producers relied on regulations, subsidies, and tariffs to sell their products, and unions depended on the automatic enrollment and payment of dues of their members to continue accumulating power.

Moreover, even though he is playing it smart (for example, by delaying the elimination of the exchange control or discussions on the dollarization of the economy), he is riding his popularity to enact the strongest, most painful reforms he needs to pass.

He does face a big challenge: If Congress stops his decree and does not pass his reforms (or they are stopped by the courts), Milei may run out of time. The Argentine people are becoming poorer by the day and their patience might not be great enough to wait until he can strike a deal in Congress or to see if he wins a congressional majority at the midterm elections.

He has floated the idea of holding a referendum to pass his reforms. Even if it is a non-binding consult, it might put enough pressure on some congress members to accept part of his reforms, and he seems popular enough to win such a referendum.

Also, his goal of maintaining a fiscal surplus might prove to be harder than expected. The recession is affecting tax revenues, and savings on energy subsidies were due to deferrals, not a budget reduction. 

Milei has another front of opposition: provincial governors. None of them are members of his party, and many rely on generous discretional transfers from the central government, which Milei has reduced dramatically. Governors hold a significant level of power within their parties, meaning they can influence members of Congress from their parties to not negotiate with Milei and also continue challenging his agenda in the courts.

The last major challenge he faces comes from within: Milei’s banner is the economy, but his brand also includes the fact that he is a culture warrior, which is why he was able to garner support from conservatives and nationalists despite his defense of gay marriage and drug legalization in the past.

He quickly delivered by closing the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, which was widely considered a do-nothing organ that existed simply to keep members of the ruling party as employees and fund left-wing propaganda. Milei also banned “inclusive” language and any reference to “gender perspective” in government documents and eliminated the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity.

Nevertheless, these were mostly symbolic measures. Milei has not been shy to use state power to cut relations with its parasitic entities and eventually reduce its size. On the socio-cultural side, he seems to do the same: eliminate, cut down, reduce. But if Milei wants to fight the culture war and enact a long-term change, it seems that negative movements, focused on reduction and elimination might not be enough.

If he fails at his task of reforming the Argentine economy, his presidency will end up feeling like a fever dream. And to succeed, he might have to let his populist impulses overtake his libertarian mind.

The post One Hundred Days of Libertarian Populism in Argentina appeared first on The American Conservative.

The Associated Press Rushed to Politicize Historic Figure Francis Scott Key After Bridge Collapse

After the collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge, the Associated Press wasted absolutely no time rushing to politicize the history around Francis Scott Key, the author of the national anthem.

Never let a crisis go to waste, right? It’s almost like they’re preparing for a suggestion that it be renamed for someone else.

This is what the media does now. Take a look:

Who was Francis Scott Key, whose namesake bridge fell? His poem became ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ https://t.co/Y5tMA75Dob

— The Associated Press (@AP) March 26, 2024

From the story:

While the first verse of the anthem is the most well-known, there are a total of four stanzas; in the third, there’s a reference made to a slave. Key, whose family owned people and who owned enslaved people himself, supported the idea of sending free Black people to Africa but opposed the abolition of slavery in the U.S., according to the National Park Service’s Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine.

His personal history has made him a controversial figure in some quarters; in June 2020, a statue of him in San Francisco was taken down.

It’s all so predictable, isn’t it?

Only took 12 hours for “the bridge was racist” articles.

— brit (@pashedmotatos) March 26, 2024

Gearing up to rename the bridge already, are we?

— GumSlinger (@GumSlinger) March 26, 2024

Apparatchiks already positioning to rename it ‘The George Floyd Memorial Bridge’

— The Realest Realist (@ProGunMemes) March 26, 2024

Do your followers actually not know who Francis Scott key is? If yes, is it because you taught them that “The Star-Spangled Banner” is racist?

— Matt Elliott (@MonarchosMatt) March 26, 2024

When did the media transform into a bunch of scoldy social justice activists?

The post The Associated Press Rushed to Politicize Historic Figure Francis Scott Key After Bridge Collapse appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

CRIME PAYS: New York City Begins Distributing Pre-Paid Debit Cards to Illegal Immigrants

New York City has begun passing out pre-paid debit cards to illegal immigrants. The cards can reportedly only be used for food and baby supplies.

How long will it take for someone to figure out how to scam this system? Should we expect a black market to emerge around these cards and the value assigned to them?

This plan is ripe for corruption.

FOX News reports:

New York City begins giving illegal immigrants prepaid debit cards as part of $53 million pilot program

Officials in New York City have begun giving out prepaid debit cards to migrant families residing in the Big Apple.

The first batch of debit cards, which are reportedly meant to be used by the illegal immigrants to purchase food and baby supplies, were handed out Monday to a handful of migrant families in the city, New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office confirmed to Fox News Digital.

The effort is part of a reported $53 million pilot program to hand out prepaid credit cards to migrant families housed in hotels despite public outcry.

The program, which the mayor’s office confirmed will provide migrant families of four with two children under 5 with up to $350 each week until the end of their stay, began with a limited number of families on Monday and will expand to about 115 families, or roughly 460 people, over the next week.

Watch a video report below:

It pays to be an illegal in NYC.

NYC will begin handing out prepaid debit cards to illegals. The cards will be loaded with $1,400 per month and the pilot program will cost city taxpayers $53 million. pic.twitter.com/Ho2ob6AqBu

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) March 26, 2024

We’re basically paying people to break our immigration laws.

Paid to break the law….

New York City begins giving illegal immigrants prepaid debit cards as part of $53 million pilot program https://t.co/SJVaBNcVIU

— GOP (@GOP) March 26, 2024

Trump should be running “your taxes pay for migrant debit cards” as a nonstop campaign ad in New York. https://t.co/LJEkUBYkHr

— (@FreeStateWill) March 26, 2024

There are probably a lot of poor American citizens in New York who could use this kind of assistance. They’ll have to get in line behind the illegal border crossers.

The post CRIME PAYS: New York City Begins Distributing Pre-Paid Debit Cards to Illegal Immigrants appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.