thelibertydaily--2020-10-20--Democrats’ Radical Left Court Packing Will Destroy the Constitution and Our Rights

Say goodbye to free speech and other constitutional freedoms .
Joe Biden is waiting until the last minute before Election Day to finally tell voters where he stands on packing the Supreme Court , which would expand the number of justices who sit on the Supreme Court to ensure a progressive left majority for decades to come .
It doesn ’ t really matter , however , what Biden thinks about court packing in his heart of hearts .
If Democrats sweep the White House as well as both the House and Senate , packing the Supreme Court will almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end to the Senate filibuster .
Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt failed in his effort to pack the Court in 1937 , there is nothing in the Constitution to stop a heavily , more leftist Democrat Congress from succeeding this time .
As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said , “ everything is on the table ” if the Democrats take the Senate and Schumer becomes the Majority Leader .
Say goodbye to the independence of the judiciary and the Supreme Court ’ s legitimacy as an institution .
Say goodbye to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of government to legislate , to execute , and to adjudicate respectively , where the courts have an assigned role to interpret but not to make the law .
Say hello instead to the progressive left ’ s own version of a super legislature .
Moreover , the protections of individual liberties from government overreach set forth in the Constitution ’ s Bill of Rights will be out the window .
Strict limitations will be imposed on freedom of speech , for example , in accordance with critical race and other radical progressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discard any shred of judicial restraint , they trash the Constitution .
Such judicial activists are willing to strip away meaningful limitations on governmental power contained in any reasonable reading of the Constitution ’ s text in order to achieve their far-reaching “ social justice ” policy objectives .
The late Justice William Douglas , an extreme environmentalist , provided an example of a progressive justice run amok .
He went so far as to say that inanimate objects like trees should have their own standing as plaintiffs in lawsuits to protect the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] ontemporary public concern for protecting nature 's ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation.
” As crazy as Douglas ’ s words may seem to most Americans with a modicum of common sense , progressive leftists today want to pack additional justices onto the Supreme Court who are far more radical than Douglas .
The court packing progressive leftists intend to throw America ’ s system of constitutional government and rule of law - premised on checks and balances , separation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overboard .
In their place , these progressive leftists want one party government with an ensured Supreme Court majority subordinate to their will .
The remaining justices diligently trying to interpret the law as written and apply it to the facts before them will be overwhelmed by radical justices telling us , for example , the words we are permitted and not permitted to say or write .
Leftist legal commentators have questioned U.S. case law exalting the preeminent importance of the First Amendment ’ s protection of free speech .
It is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of step with other Western democracies that weigh values such as human dignity , equality and freedom from hateful language as on par with freedom of speech .
Critical race theorists , for example , have argued that the First Amendment should not protect what they consider to be racist hate speech .
They want to regulate speech that they believe is degrading against a historically oppressed group such as blacks .
They reject Justice Louis D. Brandeis ’ s classic formulation that the remedy to bad speech is “ more speech , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a leading critical race theory scholar , co-authored an article published by the Cornell Law Review back in 1992 , which argued that “ modernist and postmodern insights about language and the social construction of reality show that reliance on countervailing speech that will , in theory , wrestle with bad or vicious speech is often misplaced.
” Instead , according to Delgado , “ we should not let a spurious motto that speech be ‘ everywhere free ’ stand in the way of outlawing speech that is demonstrably harmful.
” Under critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ All Lives Matter ” or “ Blue Lives Matter ” be considered “ demonstrably harmful ” as derogatory put downs of the Black Lives Matter motto and , by extension , of blacks themselves ?
Who gets to decide what speech is “ demonstrably harmful ?
” Critical race theorists like Delgado want “ woke ” progressive courts , ultimately a stacked Supreme Court , to make such determinations .
Instead of allowing a free exchange of ideas regarding police treatment of African Americans and the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ government to have veto power over what people can say about such sensitive topics .
Catharine Alice MacKinnon , a prominent radical feminist lawyer and professor , has focused her attention on “ pornography , ” which she considers to be equivalent to an act of rape that should be more strictly regulated .
She has also argued more generally that equality and freedom of speech are competing values `` on a collision course . ''
Equality , she believes .
should prevail .
MacKinnon made the preposterous claim that the right of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , coercive , and violent as it has become more and more legally protected . ''
In a 2018 essay collection entitled “ The Free Speech Century , ” MacKinnon wrote that “ the First Amendment over the last hundred years has mainly become a weapon of the powerful.
” It no longer serves “ radicals , artists and activists , socialists and pacifists , the excluded and the dispossessed , ” she argued .
Instead , the First Amendment now serves “ authoritarians , racists and misogynists , Nazis and Klansmen , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New York Times Sunday Magazine featured as its cover story on October 18th an article questioning the importance attached by the judiciary in this country to free speech protections .
It was written by Emily Bazelon , a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School .
Her article is indeed an exercise in very `` creative '' writing .
Bazelon ’ s rambling essay should not be taken seriously , except for the fact that it reflects the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a Supreme Court packed with progressive left justices .
Bazelon writes that “ it ’ s time to ask whether the American way of protecting free speech is actually keeping us free.
” She argues that “ good ideas do not necessarily triumph in the marketplace of ideas , ” pointing specifically to what she describes as “ the mass distortion of truth and overwhelming waves of speech from extremists that smear and distract ” flourishing on social media .
Bazelon quotes from a forthcoming book entitled “ The Politics of Language @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the linguist David Beaver , who argue that “ Free speech threatens democracy as much as it also provides for its flourishing.
” Bazelon also quotes Hannah Arendt to support the proposition that the dissemination of “ propaganda ” helps create a totalitarian society .
But Hannah Arendt was actually a strong proponent of freedom of speech .
She wrote : “ If someone wants to see and experience the world as it ‘ really ’ is , he can do so only by understanding it as something that is shared by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ separates them , showing itself differently to each and comprehensible only to the extent that many people can talk about it and exchange their opinions and perspectives with one another , over against one another .
Only in the freedom of our speaking with one another does the world , as that about which we speak , emerge in its objectivity and visibility from all sides.
” Bazelon cites the law in other democracies where freedom of speech is but one of several equally important values that must be equitably balanced .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ different shape and meaning in Europe , ” she writes .
“ For the European Union , as well as democracies like Canada and New Zealand , free speech is not an absolute right from which all other freedoms flow…Germany and France have laws that are designed to prevent the widespread dissemination of hate speech and election-related disinformation.
” In the United States , freedom of speech is not an absolute right either .
Incitements to imminent acts of violence , for example , are not protected speech .
But giving the power @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what is or is not “ hate speech ” or “ disinformation ” is an invitation to eventual government control of what we can say and write .
It won ’ t be long before restrictive speech codes that are so prevalent in colleges and universities today become enshrined in statutes and regulations and upheld by a packed progressive Supreme Court .
Globalist progressives will further expect that their supermajority of Supreme Court justices will incorporate so-called “ internationally accepted norms ” in “ interpreting ” what constitutes allowable speech in public discourse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these justices have fused our Constitution with such vaguely defined “ international norms ” created by unaccountable outsiders , they will have begun the process of erasing the protection of individual rights unique to this country .
In short , America ’ s constitutional system of self-government , separation of powers and protection of individual rights under the rule of law , which has endured for more than two centuries , will stand no more under the weight of a Supreme Court packed with progressive leftists .

Joe Biden is waiting until the last minute before Election Day to finally tell voters where he stands on packing the Supreme Court, which would expand the number of justices who sit on the Supreme Court to ensure a progressive left majority for decades to come. It doesn’t really matter, however, what Biden thinks about court packing in his heart of hearts. If Democrats sweep the White House as well as both the House and Senate, packing the Supreme Court will almost certainly become a reality along with an end to the Senate filibuster.
Although President Franklin D. Roosevelt failed in his effort to pack the Court in 1937, there is nothing in the Constitution to stop a heavily, more leftist Democrat Congress from succeeding this time. As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “everything is on the table” if the Democrats take the Senate and Schumer becomes the Majority Leader. Say goodbye to the independence of the judiciary and the Supreme Court’s legitimacy as an institution. Say goodbye to the separation of powers among the three branches of government to legislate, to execute, and to adjudicate respectively, where the courts have an assigned role to interpret but not to make the law. Say hello instead to the progressive left’s own version of a super legislature. Moreover, the protections of individual liberties from government overreach set forth in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights will be out the window. Strict limitations will be imposed on freedom of speech, for example, in accordance with critical race and other radical progressive legal theories.
When Supreme Court justices discard any shred of judicial restraint, they trash the Constitution. Such judicial activists are willing to strip away meaningful limitations on governmental power contained in any reasonable reading of the Constitution’s text in order to achieve their far-reaching “social justice” policy objectives. The late Justice William Douglas, an extreme environmentalist, provided an example of a progressive justice run amok. He went so far as to say that inanimate objects like trees should have their own standing as plaintiffs in lawsuits to protect the wilderness, stating that “[c]ontemporary public concern for protecting nature’s ecological equilibrium should lead to the conferral of standing upon environmental objects to sue for their own preservation.”
As crazy as Douglas’s words may seem to most Americans with a modicum of common sense, progressive leftists today want to pack additional justices onto the Supreme Court who are far more radical than Douglas. The court packing progressive leftists intend to throw America’s system of constitutional government and rule of law – premised on checks and balances, separation of powers, and judicial independence – overboard. In their place, these progressive leftists want one party government with an ensured Supreme Court majority subordinate to their will. The remaining justices diligently trying to interpret the law as written and apply it to the facts before them will be overwhelmed by radical justices telling us, for example, the words we are permitted and not permitted to say or write.
Leftist legal commentators have questioned U.S. case law exalting the preeminent importance of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. It is outdated, they say, and out of step with other Western democracies that weigh values such as human dignity, equality and freedom from hateful language as on par with freedom of speech. Critical race theorists, for example, have argued that the First Amendment should not protect what they consider to be racist hate speech. They want to regulate speech that they believe is degrading against a historically oppressed group such as blacks. They reject Justice Louis D. Brandeis’s classic formulation that the remedy to bad speech is “more speech, not enforced silence.”
Richard Delgado, a leading critical race theory scholar, co-authored an article published by the Cornell Law Review back in 1992, which argued that “modernist and postmodern insights about language and the social construction of reality show that reliance on countervailing speech that will, in theory, wrestle with bad or vicious speech is often misplaced.” Instead, according to Delgado, “we should not let a spurious motto that speech be ‘everywhere free’ stand in the way of outlawing speech that is demonstrably harmful.”
Under critical race theory, would phrases like “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter” be considered “demonstrably harmful” as derogatory put downs of the Black Lives Matter motto and, by extension, of blacks themselves? Who gets to decide what speech is “demonstrably harmful?” Critical race theorists like Delgado want “woke” progressive courts, ultimately a stacked Supreme Court, to make such determinations. Instead of allowing a free exchange of ideas regarding police treatment of African Americans and the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement, the critical race progressives want the government to have veto power over what people can say about such sensitive topics.
Catharine Alice MacKinnon, a prominent radical feminist lawyer and professor, has focused her attention on “pornography,” which she considers to be equivalent to an act of rape that should be more strictly regulated. She has also argued more generally that equality and freedom of speech are competing values “on a collision course.” Equality, she believes. should prevail. MacKinnon made the preposterous claim that the right of free speech has become “more exclusive, coercive, and violent as it has become more and more legally protected.” In a 2018 essay collection entitled “The Free Speech Century,” MacKinnon wrote that “the First Amendment over the last hundred years has mainly become a weapon of the powerful.” It no longer serves “radicals, artists and activists, socialists and pacifists, the excluded and the dispossessed,” she argued. Instead, the First Amendment now serves “authoritarians, racists and misogynists, Nazis and Klansmen, pornographers and corporations buying elections.”
The New York Times Sunday Magazine featured as its cover story on October 18th an article questioning the importance attached by the judiciary in this country to free speech protections. It was written by Emily Bazelon, a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine and the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School. Her article is indeed an exercise in very “creative” writing. Bazelon’s rambling essay should not be taken seriously, except for the fact that it reflects the thinking that will find a prominent place on a Supreme Court packed with progressive left justices.
Bazelon writes that “it’s time to ask whether the American way of protecting free speech is actually keeping us free.” She argues that “good ideas do not necessarily triumph in the marketplace of ideas,” pointing specifically to what she describes as “the mass distortion of truth and overwhelming waves of speech from extremists that smear and distract” flourishing on social media. Bazelon quotes from a forthcoming book entitled “The Politics of Language,” written by philosopher Jason Stanley and the linguist David Beaver, who argue that “Free speech threatens democracy as much as it also provides for its flourishing.”
Bazelon also quotes Hannah Arendt to support the proposition that the dissemination of “propaganda” helps create a totalitarian society. But Hannah Arendt was actually a strong proponent of freedom of speech. She wrote: “If someone wants to see and experience the world as it ‘really’ is, he can do so only by understanding it as something that is shared by many people, lies between them, separates them, showing itself differently to each and comprehensible only to the extent that many people can talk about it and exchange their opinions and perspectives with one another, over against one another. Only in the freedom of our speaking with one another does the world, as that about which we speak, emerge in its objectivity and visibility from all sides.”
Bazelon cites the law in other democracies where freedom of speech is but one of several equally important values that must be equitably balanced. “The principle of free speech has a different shape and meaning in Europe,” she writes. “For the European Union, as well as democracies like Canada and New Zealand, free speech is not an absolute right from which all other freedoms flow…Germany and France have laws that are designed to prevent the widespread dissemination of hate speech and election-related disinformation.”
In the United States, freedom of speech is not an absolute right either. Incitements to imminent acts of violence, for example, are not protected speech. But giving the power to government agencies and courts to decide what is or is not “hate speech” or “disinformation” is an invitation to eventual government control of what we can say and write. It won’t be long before restrictive speech codes that are so prevalent in colleges and universities today become enshrined in statutes and regulations and upheld by a packed progressive Supreme Court.
Globalist progressives will further expect that their supermajority of Supreme Court justices will incorporate so-called “internationally accepted norms” in “interpreting” what constitutes allowable speech in public discourse under a neutered First Amendment. Once these justices have fused our Constitution with such vaguely defined “international norms” created by unaccountable outsiders, they will have begun the process of erasing the protection of individual rights unique to this country.
In short, America’s constitutional system of self-government, separation of powers and protection of individual rights under the rule of law, which has endured for more than two centuries, will stand no more under the weight of a Supreme Court packed with progressive leftists.


thelibertydaily--2020-10-20--Biden Landslide? Not So Fast; MSM Begin Hedging Their Bets

There was a striking paragraph in a Politico piece on Monday , one that should give pause to the notion that Joe Biden is leading by double digits — or even 18 points , a Drudge Report headline blared — in the 2020 presidential election .
`` Democrats are poring over early vote totals , circulating anxiety-ridden campaign memos and bracing for a long two weeks , '' the inside the Beltway website wrote .
The liberal website , created by two former Washington Post reporters , has been pumping out pro-Biden stories for months .
Now , apparently , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` Yet two weeks before Election Day , the unfolding reality of 2020 is that it 's harder than ever to be sure .
And Democrats are scrambling to account for the hidden variables that could still sink their nominee — or what you might call the known unknowns , '' said the piece , headlined `` The hidden factors that could produce a surprise Trump victory . ''
Of course , they 're not hidden , or not , at least , for those who are looking — and especially those who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then , polls like those from fivethiryeight.com gave Hillary Clinton a 91 % chance of winning the White House .
She got crushed in the Electoral College , 304-227 .
Politico is changing all the parameters the mainstream media has been laying out for months .
The MSM once said Democrats were more jazzed about the election than Republicans , but Politico said , `` Republican registration has ticked up in key states at the same time Democratic field operations were in hibernation . ''
And there were musings last month that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
No , all the `` politicos '' said , the mail-in vote will change everything , especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic .
`` A top Democratic data and analytics firm told 'Axios on HBO ' it 's highly likely that President Trump will appear to have won — potentially in a landslide — on election night , even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted , '' reported Axios , which , incidentally , is a website created by one of the Politico founders .
According to the site @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by mail than Republicans , due to fears of the coronavirus , and it will take days if not weeks to tally these .
This means Trump , thanks to Republicans doing almost all of their voting in person , could hold big electoral college and popular vote leads on election night .
... '' That is what this group , Hawkfish , which is funded by Michael Bloomberg and also does work for the Democratic National Committee and pro-Biden Super PACs , is warning is a very real , if not foreordained @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says just the opposite .
`` Democratic turnout is surging in the early vote , '' according to Politico .
`` But it 's unclear whether it will be enough to overcome an expected rush of ballots that Republicans , leerier of mail voting , will cast in person on Nov .
3 . ''
So why the shift ?
Simple : 2016 .
Remember that on Election Day that year , at exactly 10:41 a.m. , pollster Nate Silver posted a story on his website FiveThirtyEight under this headline : `` Final @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Range Of Outcomes , And Most Of Them Come Up Clinton . ''
Silver said his `` forecast has Clinton favored in states and congressional districts totaling 323 electoral votes , including all the states President Obama won in 2012 except Ohio and Iowa , but adding North Carolina . ''
Like the MSM now , Silver hedged his bet a bit , saying Clinton could lose North Carolina or Florida — especially — so `` the average number of electoral votes we forecast for Clinton is 302 . ''
Clinton lost both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3.8 % ) .
She also lost Pennsylvania , Ohio , Michigan and Wisconsin .
Landslide .
But Silver in June came out with a brand new prediction : A `` Biden landslide is possible . ''
He might be right .
He works the numbers .
But he was way wrong last time , so there 's that to consider .
Then there 's this : The secret Trump voter .
Admitting you back the president nowadays might get you a punch in the kisser .
So they 've gone underground .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least one swing state there may be `` secret Trump supporters '' who could tilt the election toward the president on Nov. 3 .
The poll by Monmouth University of 401 Pennsylvania voters found that a majority of voters think there are Trump supporters out there who are n't being counted .
`` The media consistently reports that Biden is in the lead , but voters remember what happened in 2016 , '' said Patrick Murray , director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute .
`` The specter of a secret @ @ @ @ @ @ @ '' `` Most voters ( 57 % ) believe there are a number of so-called secret voters in their communities who support Trump but wo n't tell anyone about it , '' the pollsters wrote .
`` Less than half that number ( 27 % ) believe there are secret voters for Biden .
The suspicion that a secret Trump vote exists is slightly higher in swing counties ( 62 % ) and Clinton counties ( 61 % ) than in Trump counties ( 51 % ) .
Donald Rumsfeld , Defense Secretary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2002 : `` There are known knowns ; there are things we know we know .
We also know there are known unknowns ; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know .
But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we do n't know we do n't know . ''
And that is , in a nutshell , the 2020 election .
The known unknowns are the key .
`` There are more known unknowns than we 've ever had at any point , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Democratic data firm TargetSmart .
`` The instruments we have to gauge this race , the polling , our predictive models ... the problem is all those tools are built around quote-unquote normal elections .
And this is anything but a normal election . ''

There was a striking paragraph in a Politico piece on Monday, one that should give pause to the notion that Joe Biden is leading by double digits — or even 18 points, a Drudge Report headline blared — in the 2020 presidential election.
"Democrats are poring over early vote totals, circulating anxiety-ridden campaign memos and bracing for a long two weeks," the inside the Beltway website wrote.
Huh? Isn't Biden cruising to victory?
The liberal website, created by two former Washington Post reporters, has been pumping out pro-Biden stories for months. Now, apparently, the editors are hedging their bets.
"Yet two weeks before Election Day, the unfolding reality of 2020 is that it's harder than ever to be sure. And Democrats are scrambling to account for the hidden variables that could still sink their nominee — or what you might call the known unknowns," said the piece, headlined "The hidden factors that could produce a surprise Trump victory."
Of course, they're not hidden, or not, at least, for those who are looking — and especially those who saw what happened in 2016. Back then, polls like those from fivethiryeight.com gave Hillary Clinton a 91% chance of winning the White House. She got crushed in the Electoral College, 304-227.
Politico is changing all the parameters the mainstream media has been laying out for months. The MSM once said Democrats were more jazzed about the election than Republicans, but Politico said, "Republican registration has ticked up in key states at the same time Democratic field operations were in hibernation."
And there were musings last month that the race won't end on Election Day. No, all the "politicos" said, the mail-in vote will change everything, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"A top Democratic data and analytics firm told 'Axios on HBO' it's highly likely that President Trump will appear to have won — potentially in a landslide — on election night, even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted," reported Axios, which, incidentally, is a website created by one of the Politico founders. According to the site:
"Way more Democrats will vote by mail than Republicans, due to fears of the coronavirus, and it will take days if not weeks to tally these. This means Trump, thanks to Republicans doing almost all of their voting in person, could hold big electoral college and popular vote leads on election night. ...
"That is what this group, Hawkfish, which is funded by Michael Bloomberg and also does work for the Democratic National Committee and pro-Biden Super PACs, is warning is a very real, if not foreordained, outcome."
Now, Politico says just the opposite.
"Democratic turnout is surging in the early vote," according to Politico. "But it's unclear whether it will be enough to overcome an expected rush of ballots that Republicans, leerier of mail voting, will cast in person on Nov. 3."
So why the shift? Simple: 2016. Remember that on Election Day that year, at exactly 10:41 a.m., pollster Nate Silver posted a story on his website FiveThirtyEight under this headline: "Final Election Update: There's A Wide Range Of Outcomes, And Most Of Them Come Up Clinton."
Silver said his "forecast has Clinton favored in states and congressional districts totaling 323 electoral votes, including all the states President Obama won in 2012 except Ohio and Iowa, but adding North Carolina." Like the MSM now, Silver hedged his bet a bit, saying Clinton could lose North Carolina or Florida — especially — so "the average number of electoral votes we forecast for Clinton is 302."
Clinton lost both (North Carolina by a lot, 3.8%). She also lost Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Landslide.
But Silver in June came out with a brand new prediction: A "Biden landslide is possible." He might be right. He works the numbers. But he was way wrong last time, so there's that to consider.
Then there's this: The secret Trump voter. Admitting you back the president nowadays might get you a punch in the kisser. So they've gone underground.
A survey in August found that in at least one swing state there may be "secret Trump supporters" who could tilt the election toward the president on Nov. 3.
The poll by Monmouth University of 401 Pennsylvania voters found that a majority of voters think there are Trump supporters out there who aren't being counted. "The media consistently reports that Biden is in the lead, but voters remember what happened in 2016," said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. "The specter of a secret Trump vote looms large in 2020."
"Most voters (57%) believe there are a number of so-called secret voters in their communities who support Trump but won't tell anyone about it," the pollsters wrote. "Less than half that number (27%) believe there are secret voters for Biden. The suspicion that a secret Trump vote exists is slightly higher in swing counties (62%) and Clinton counties (61%) than in Trump counties (51%).
Donald Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary for George W. Bush, famously said in 2002: "There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know."
And that is, in a nutshell, the 2020 election. The known unknowns are the key.
Said Politico:
"There are more known unknowns than we've ever had at any point," said Tom Bonier, CEO of the Democratic data firm TargetSmart. "The instruments we have to gauge this race, the polling, our predictive models ... the problem is all those tools are built around quote-unquote normal elections. And this is anything but a normal election."


thelibertydaily--2020-10-20--POLL: Majority of Likely Voters Believe Biden Had Conflict of Interest Involving Ukraine Oversight,

POLL: Majority of Likely Voters Believe Biden Had Conflict of Interest Involving Ukraine Oversight, Corrupt Son Hunter

A majority of likely voters believe Joe Biden when vice president had a conflict of interest in his oversight of Ukrainian corruption , considering his son was on the payroll of a Ukrainian energy conglomerate being investigated for corruption in that country , according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen When asked , 53 % of likely voters agreed with the proposition that Biden 's oversight posed such a conflict .
Twenty-six percent found no moral issues with that arrangement , while 21 % were uncertain .
Joe Biden has for years faced questions about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the board of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings , which has long been shadowed by corruption allegations .
The New York Post last week , for instance , broke what appeared to be emails indicating that Hunter had introduced a Burisma adviser to his father when Biden was still vice president .
The Democratic presidential nominee has repeatedly denied any knowledge of his son 's business dealings in Ukraine .
The survey of 1,265 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen using a mixed mode approach from Oct. 15-17 , 2020 .
To @ @ @ @ @ @ @ click here .
To see this question 's methodology and sample demographics , click here .

A majority of likely voters believe Joe Biden when vice president had a conflict of interest in his oversight of Ukrainian corruption, considering his son was on the payroll of a Ukrainian energy conglomerate being investigated for corruption in that country, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen
When asked, 53% of likely voters agreed with the proposition that Biden's oversight posed such a conflict. Twenty-six percent found no moral issues with that arrangement, while 21% were uncertain.
Image Just the News Daily Poll With Scott Rasmussen
Joe Biden has for years faced questions about his son Hunter Biden's tenure on the board of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, which has long been shadowed by corruption allegations. The New York Post last week, for instance, broke what appeared to be emails indicating that Hunter had introduced a Burisma adviser to his father when Biden was still vice president.
The Democratic presidential nominee has repeatedly denied any knowledge of his son's business dealings in Ukraine.
The survey of 1,265 Likely Voters was conducted by Rasmussen using a mixed mode approach from Oct. 15-17, 2020.
To see this question's cross-demographic tabulations, click here.
To see this question's methodology and sample demographics, click here.


thelibertydaily--2020-10-20--Senator Ron Johnson Asks Secret Service to Verify Hunter Biden’s Travel History After Email Bombshel

Senator Ron Johnson Asks Secret Service to Verify Hunter Biden’s Travel History After Email Bombshell

Top-ranking Republican Sen. Ron Johnson on Tuesday asked the U.S. Secret Service to provide information about Hunter Biden 's travel history following last week 's apparent bombshell report regarding emails between Hunter and a Ukrainian national that suggested the former may have been selling political access to his father Joe Biden .
That report , first published in the New York Post , cited emails obtained reportedly from one of Hunter Biden 's personal laptops that had been left in a computer repair shop .
Joe Biden has dismissed the controversy as a `` smear campaign , '' though nobody @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the veracity of the messages .
On Tuesday , in a letter to U.S. Secret Service Director James Murray , Johnson—the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee—asked Murray for several records pertaining to Hunter Biden 's travel history with Secret Service details .
In the letter—also signed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley—Johnson noted that several of the emails allegedly written by Hunter match up with records of travel history involving his Secret Service detail .
One Apr .
13 email , for instance , makes reference to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Service records show a travel entry for Mr. Biden from April 13 , 2014 – April 14 , 2014 , to Houston , TX , '' Johnson noted in the letter .
Noting that one of the emails references an apparent Secret Service detail a year after Hunter Biden ended that arrangement in 2014 , Johnson asked the committee for any records indicating that Secret Service agents accompanied Hunter after July of that year , as well as records of communications between Hunter , some of his associates and Secret Service agents during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` Please provide this information as soon as possible but no later than October 26 , 2020 , '' Johnson wrote in the letter .

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson on Tuesday asked the U.S. Secret Service to provide information about Hunter Biden's travel history following last week's apparent bombshell report regarding emails between Hunter and a Ukrainian national that suggested the former may have been selling political access to his father Joe Biden.
That report, first published in the New York Post, cited emails obtained reportedly from one of Hunter Biden's personal laptops that had been left in a computer repair shop. Joe Biden has dismissed the controversy as a "smear campaign," though nobody in the Biden camp has yet denied the veracity of the messages.
On Tuesday, in a letter to U.S. Secret Service Director James Murray, Johnson — the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee — asked for several records pertaining to Hunter Biden's travel history with Secret Service details.
In the letter — also signed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) — Johnson noted that several of the emails allegedly written by Hunter match up with records of travel history involving his Secret Service detail. One Apr. 13 email, for instance, makes reference to a trip to Houston. "Secret Service records show a travel entry for Mr. Biden from April 13, 2014 – April 14, 2014, to Houston, TX," Johnson noted in the letter.
Noting that one of the emails references an apparent Secret Service detail a year after Hunter Biden ended that arrangement in 2014, Johnson asked the agency for any records indicating that Secret Service agents accompanied Hunter after July of that year, as well as records of communications between Hunter, some of his associates and Secret Service agents during Joe Biden's vice presidential tenure.
"Please provide this information as soon as possible but no later than October 26, 2020," Johnson wrote in the letter.


thelibertydaily--2020-10-21--Stalinist Libtards, Fake News Seek “Revenge” if President Trump Loses to Beijing Biden

Media commentators , who are unloading everything they have on President Trump , are no longer content with the idea of him merely losing .
Now , in their esteemed estimation , there has to be a “ reckoning.
” As part of a package of editorial condemnation , the New York Times declared that “ Donald Trump ’ s reelection campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.
” Then the Washington Post ’ s Outlook opinion section devoted its cover to two alternatives : whether Trump and his minions should be prosecuted or merely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commission .
If that wasn ’ t enough , two MSNBC ex-prosecutors wrote a Post op-ed headlined “ A Rap Sheet for a Former President.
” For liberal media people who have agonized over the last four years , you might think the idea of evicting Trump from the White House , and welcoming a Democratic administration , would be enough .
AMERICANS SAY TRUMP VS. BIDEN MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN DECADES , GALLUP POLL FINDS But no , more voices are suggesting some sort of national cleansing .
Isn ’ t that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ call for uniting the country and returning to some semblance of normalcy ?
What it actually tells me is that the national polarization will rage on indefinitely , regardless of how Trump handles his exit , if he indeed loses .
It also suggests a hunger for payback against the incumbent president , even as critics on the left decry his demands that Barack Obama and Joe Biden be prosecuted and his “ lock them up ” rally chants .
Just yesterday , the president demanded on “ Fox & Friends ” that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prosecutor -- before the election -- to investigate Biden over his son Hunter ’ s business dealings .
Perhaps Trump ’ s critics , donning the cloak of righteousness , can ’ t see that they ’ re falling into a similar trap .
In the Post ’ s “ Reckoning ” package , Sam Tanenhaus , a former New York Times Book Review editor whose writing I respect , says “ it is imperative to confront the facts of the Trump era .
We elected as president a homegrown insurrectionist .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ democracy and damaged it ...
It ’ s unimaginable , ludicrous even , to contemplate doing nothing about Donald Trump.
” But while Tanenhaus acknowledges the desire to “ hold the Trump crew truly accountable for past crimes , such as those uncovered by Mueller ” -- who recommended no charges , by the way -- he concludes “ the price of such an inquiry would be considerable .
It could rebound against Democrats and undermine public confidence in their fairness and sense of proportion.
” Instead , the piece says Biden should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scale of the Warren commission after JFK ’ s assassination , or the 9/11 commission .
Trump and other Republicans who have suggested the 2020 elections are rigged “ would be given a chance to testify with immunity and in a closed session , their words recorded ...
Such a proceeding will be vulnerable to accusations of bias .
But the facts would be on the record , and perhaps we would learn more about how democracy works , and doesn ’ t work , and what we can do to repair it.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ effort -- are such things possible any more ?
-- looking at problems with the pandemic election might make sense .
But in tone and concept , this sounds like it could become , to use a famous phrase , a witch hunt .
The other Post piece , by New Yorker writer Jill Lepore , begins by noting that MSNBC host Chris Hayes is pushing for “ some kind of truth and reconciliation commission.
” This is deemed “ a terrible idea.
” “ The Trump administration , ” you will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nazi Germany , nor is it a nation defeated in war .
Its wrongdoing — a litany that includes corruption , fomenting insurrection , separating parents and children at the border , and violently suppressing political dissent — should be investigated by journalists , chronicled by historians and , in some instances , tried in ordinary courts.
” SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE 'S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST , A RIFF OF THE DAY 'S HOTTEST STORIES Lepore ’ s argument is that truth commissions , such as those tried in Argentina , El Salvador and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ means for the winners of a democratic election to issue a verdict on the losers.
” And here , while conceding that the left wants to blame the right , she makes an excellent point , calling for self-reflection “ not only from Republicans but also from establishment Democrats and progressives and liberals and journalists and educators and activists and social media companies and , honestly , everyone .
Does The Washington Post not bear some responsibility for the state of the nation ?
Or , most of all , Facebook ?
Or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over each other on Twitter ?
” In other words , if there ’ s some agonizing to be done over the Trump years , the liberals , the media and the social media loudmouths don ’ t get a free pass for their conduct .
That hasn ’ t stopped those who are thirsty for revenge .
With a fantasy sketch of Trump testifying in court , New York magazine last month ran a Jonathan Chait piece with the subhead : “ Lock Him Up ?
For the Republic to survive Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tried for his crimes .
Even if that sparks a constitutional crisis of its own.
” This is the most apocalyptic election in modern American history , with each side warning that an opposition victory will doom the country .
It doesn ’ t help to be plotting some kind of inquisition even if your candidate wins .

Media commentators, who are unloading everything they have on President Trump, are no longer content with the idea of him merely losing.
Now, in their esteemed estimation, there has to be a “reckoning.”
As part of a package of editorial condemnation, the New York Times declared that “Donald Trump’s reelection campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.”
Then the Washington Post’s Outlook opinion section devoted its cover to two alternatives: whether Trump and his minions should be prosecuted or merely investigated as part of a national truth commission. If that wasn’t enough, two MSNBC ex-prosecutors wrote a Post op-ed headlined “A Rap Sheet for a Former President.”
For liberal media people who have agonized over the last four years, you might think the idea of evicting Trump from the White House, and welcoming a Democratic administration, would be enough.
AMERICANS SAY TRUMP VS. BIDEN MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION IN DECADES, GALLUP POLL FINDS
But no, more voices are suggesting some sort of national cleansing. Isn’t that at odds with Joe Biden’s call for uniting the country and returning to some semblance of normalcy?
What it actually tells me is that the national polarization will rage on indefinitely, regardless of how Trump handles his exit, if he indeed loses.
It also suggests a hunger for payback against the incumbent president, even as critics on the left decry his demands that Barack Obama and Joe Biden be prosecuted and his “lock them up” rally chants. Just yesterday, the president demanded on “Fox & Friends” that Attorney General Bill Barr name a special prosecutor--before the election--to investigate Biden over his son Hunter’s business dealings.
Perhaps Trump’s critics, donning the cloak of righteousness, can’t see that they’re falling into a similar trap.
In the Post’s “Reckoning” package, Sam Tanenhaus, a former New York Times Book Review editor whose writing I respect, says “it is imperative to confront the facts of the Trump era. We elected as president a homegrown insurrectionist. He rose to the highest position in our democracy and damaged it...It’s unimaginable, ludicrous even, to contemplate doing nothing about Donald Trump.”
But while Tanenhaus acknowledges the desire to “hold the Trump crew truly accountable for past crimes, such as those uncovered by Mueller”--who recommended no charges, by the way--he concludes “the price of such an inquiry would be considerable. It could rebound against Democrats and undermine public confidence in their fairness and sense of proportion.”
Instead, the piece says Biden should set up an election commission on the scale of the Warren commission after JFK’s assassination, or the 9/11 commission.
Trump and other Republicans who have suggested the 2020 elections are rigged “would be given a chance to testify with immunity and in a closed session, their words recorded...Such a proceeding will be vulnerable to accusations of bias. But the facts would be on the record, and perhaps we would learn more about how democracy works, and doesn’t work, and what we can do to repair it.”
If it were a truly bipartisan effort--are such things possible any more?--looking at problems with the pandemic election might make sense. But in tone and concept, this sounds like it could become, to use a famous phrase, a witch hunt.
The other Post piece, by New Yorker writer Jill Lepore, begins by noting that MSNBC host Chris Hayes is pushing for “some kind of truth and reconciliation commission.” This is deemed “a terrible idea.”
“The Trump administration,” you will be glad to hear, “is not Nazi Germany, nor is it a nation defeated in war. Its wrongdoing — a litany that includes corruption, fomenting insurrection, separating parents and children at the border, and violently suppressing political dissent — should be investigated by journalists, chronicled by historians and, in some instances, tried in ordinary courts.”
SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE'S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF OF THE DAY'S HOTTEST STORIES
Lepore’s argument is that truth commissions, such as those tried in Argentina, El Salvador and Chile, “do not provide a means for the winners of a democratic election to issue a verdict on the losers.”
And here, while conceding that the left wants to blame the right, she makes an excellent point, calling for self-reflection “not only from Republicans but also from establishment Democrats and progressives and liberals and journalists and educators and activists and social media companies and, honestly, everyone. Does The Washington Post not bear some responsibility for the state of the nation? Or, most of all, Facebook? Or CNN? Or people who spit all over each other on Twitter?”
In other words, if there’s some agonizing to be done over the Trump years, the liberals, the media and the social media loudmouths don’t get a free pass for their conduct.
That hasn’t stopped those who are thirsty for revenge. With a fantasy sketch of Trump testifying in court, New York magazine last month ran a Jonathan Chait piece with the subhead: “Lock Him Up? For the Republic to survive Trump’s presidency, he must be tried for his crimes. Even if that sparks a constitutional crisis of its own.”
This is the most apocalyptic election in modern American history, with each side warning that an opposition victory will doom the country. It doesn’t help to be plotting some kind of inquisition even if your candidate wins.


thelibertydaily--2020-10-21--Trump Campaign Releases Devastating New Ads Ahead Of Final Presidential Debate

President Donald Trump ’ s re-election campaign is set to air a new lineup of advertisements at midnight tonight targeting Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden on a variety of issues ranging from policy to the growing controversy that he is facing regarding his son .
The new ad buy — five ads in all — centers on Trump ’ s “ Promises Made , Promises Kept ” campaign theme and casts Biden as someone who has achieved little over his nearly five decades in public office .
In a nearly 2-minute ad , the Trump campaign highlights a powerful speech @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Masvidal — a key advocate in Fighters Against Socialism , a program that includes MMA fighters that campaign for the president .
I ’ m gon na let you in on something .
The Democrats just think that they ’ re entitled to the Latino vote .
They think that we just have to hand it over to them .
That ’ s right .
We sure as hell don ’ t .
They ’ ve got to show us what they can do for us , what they can do for our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to buy the same wolf tickets and false promises that destroyed great countries like Venezuela and Cuba .
It ’ s not gon na happen .
You know what else is not gon na work for them ?
Playing “ Despacito ” on your cellphone to pander to us .
Hell no .
You got ta give us some credit for having heads on our shoulders .
I ’ m going to wrap this up with some words of Barack Obama ; he said , “ Elections have consequences.
” That is true @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more true than they are today .
We either re-elect President Trump and Keep America Great … or we let Joe Biden destroy the greatest country the world has ever seen .
Now , I ’ m a professional athlete and I ’ ve been one for most of my life so I ’ ve seen things through a sports lens ; that makes Donald Trump our head coach and before the global pandemic we were winning Super Bowls .
And when you ’ re winning Super Bowls you don ’ t fire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you don ’ t like the plays he runs , the players he puts on the field , or what he says on Twitter .
You sure as hell don ’ t replace him for another coach that ’ s been in the business for 47 years at every level and never won a f***ing game .
The ad will be featured on the YouTube masthead , which is the most viewed ad unit on the internet and has greater reach than MSNBC and CNN combined .
Other ads highlight a variety of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy to the growing controversy that he is facing regarding his son .
One ad , titled , “ Now We Know Why Joe Got So Angry , ” highlights the growing controversy Biden faces about his actions as vice president with regard to his son ’ s foreign business dealings .
The ad seeks to cast the Biden family as corrupt and shows Biden repeatedly getting angry when asked about his son ’ s foreign business dealings .
Another ad , titled , “ Influence , ” gets more specific about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ son ’ s overseas business dealings and highlights explosive reporting from the New York Post about the matter .
A fourth ad , titled , “ Joe Biden Wants Your Money , ” highlights Biden ’ s tax plan compared to Trump ’ s tax cuts and tells viewers that Biden will raise their taxes .
The final ad features first lady Melania Trump discussing the health benefits of getting parents back to work and sending kids back to school after living through an abnormal time due to the pandemic .
“ When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ missing more than just time in the classroom , ” Melania Trump said .
“ They are missing the laughter of their friends and the joy of recess and play .
Children ’ s mental health and social development must be as much of a priority as physical health .
The same is true for parents .
Many will be forced to make stressful choices between caring for their children and going back to work and we must address those needs as well as their own mental health and well being.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news , opinion , and entertainment .
Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member .

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is set to air a new lineup of advertisements at midnight tonight targeting Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden on a variety of issues ranging from policy to the growing controversy that he is facing regarding his son.
The new ad buy — five ads in all — centers on Trump’s “Promises Made, Promises Kept” campaign theme and casts Biden as someone who has achieved little over his nearly five decades in public office.
In a nearly 2-minute ad, the Trump campaign highlights a powerful speech that was given by UFC Champ Jorge Masvidal — a key advocate in Fighters Against Socialism, a program that includes MMA fighters that campaign for the president.
In the ad, Masvidal states:
I’m gonna let you in on something. The Democrats just think that they’re entitled to the Latino vote. They think that we just have to hand it over to them. That’s right. We sure as hell don’t. They’ve got to show us what they can do for us, what they can do for our communities. We’re not going to buy the same wolf tickets and false promises that destroyed great countries like Venezuela and Cuba. It’s not gonna happen. You know what else is not gonna work for them? Playing “Despacito” on your cellphone to pander to us. Hell no. You gotta give us some credit for having heads on our shoulders. I’m going to wrap this up with some words of Barack Obama; he said, “Elections have consequences.” That is true. And those words have never been more true than they are today. We either re-elect President Trump and Keep America Great … or we let Joe Biden destroy the greatest country the world has ever seen. Now, I’m a professional athlete and I’ve been one for most of my life so I’ve seen things through a sports lens; that makes Donald Trump our head coach and before the global pandemic we were winning Super Bowls. And when you’re winning Super Bowls you don’t fire the coach—it doesn’t matter if you don’t like the plays he runs, the players he puts on the field, or what he says on Twitter. You sure as hell don’t replace him for another coach that’s been in the business for 47 years at every level and never won a f***ing game.
The ad will be featured on the YouTube masthead, which is the most viewed ad unit on the internet and has greater reach than MSNBC and CNN combined.
WATCH:
The Trump campaign is set to release this digital ad featuring UFC Champ Jorge Masvidalin in a matter of hours pic.twitter.com/knOzdPXl6f — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 20, 2020
Other ads highlight a variety of issues ranging from Biden’s tax policy to the growing controversy that he is facing regarding his son.
One ad, titled, “Now We Know Why Joe Got So Angry,” highlights the growing controversy Biden faces about his actions as vice president with regard to his son’s foreign business dealings. The ad seeks to cast the Biden family as corrupt and shows Biden repeatedly getting angry when asked about his son’s foreign business dealings.
WATCH:
The Trump campaign is set to release this digital ad showing Democrat Joe Biden repeatedly getting angry when asked about his son's overseas business dealings pic.twitter.com/lMaTvQRl4j — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 20, 2020
Another ad, titled, “Influence,” gets more specific about the allegations facing Biden that stem from his son’s overseas business dealings and highlights explosive reporting from the New York Post about the matter.
WATCH:
The Trump campaign is set to release this digital ad highlighting the New York Post's explosive reporting on Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings and how the controversy is connected to Democrat Joe Biden pic.twitter.com/9sb0KBgQiI — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 20, 2020
A fourth ad, titled, “Joe Biden Wants Your Money,” highlights Biden’s tax plan compared to Trump’s tax cuts and tells viewers that Biden will raise their taxes.
WATCH:
The Trump campaign is set to release this digital ad highlighting the difference between President Donald Trump's tax cuts and Democrat Joe Biden's plans to raise people's taxes. pic.twitter.com/ZIQ44TCywP — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 20, 2020
The final ad features first lady Melania Trump discussing the health benefits of getting parents back to work and sending kids back to school after living through an abnormal time due to the pandemic.
“When children are out of school they are missing more than just time in the classroom,” Melania Trump said. “They are missing the laughter of their friends and the joy of recess and play. Children’s mental health and social development must be as much of a priority as physical health. The same is true for parents. Many will be forced to make stressful choices between caring for their children and going back to work and we must address those needs as well as their own mental health and well being.”
WATCH:


thelibertydaily--2020-10-21--Democrat Cities are Killing America

Democrat Cities are Killing America

Daniel Greenfield , a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center , is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism .
The coronavirus , like so many other social ills , real and metaphorical , incubated in major cities .
New York City , with the highest population density in the country , also accounted for the highest death toll .
San Francisco , the second highest among large cities , was a major incubator .
Pandemic maps of the death toll show the deaths concentrating around major cities before making the slow trek @ @ @ @ @ @ @ areas .
The urban lockdowns didn ’ t stop the spread of the virus .
What they really did was trap poor and middle class residents in urban areas , while the wealthy fled , and the virus spread to urbanites with the least mobility .
The people with the worst immune systems , in the densest living conditions , and the least ability to get up and leave , suffered the most , from nursing home patients to minorities with large families .
The general pattern was historically familiar from the Middle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our public health experts proved is that they weren ’ t any smarter than medieval peasants .
But the coronavirus is an urban problem and all the official solutions to it are urban solutions .
And the urban problems and their solutions are killing us and taking down the whole country .
The Black Lives Matter race riots that followed on the heels of the lockdowns were yet another example of an urban problem exploding out of failed cities to become a national crisis .
But the vast majority of our problems , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political , are the problem of the city .
Cities concentrate civilizational achievements and challenges , but it ’ s been a long time since cities were generating American achievements .
America ’ s cities were once built to house industries and businesses .
Their only real business anymore is the business of government .
That ’ s why the Democrat plan to stack the Senate depends on making D.C. into a state .
American cities aren ’ t hyperdense blocs because of industrial density .
Even as the city went into a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ governments began building huge stacks of public housing meant to cram as many people as cheaply as possible into a single block .
Why did so many people need to be housed in such a small space ?
It wasn ’ t because they had jobs , but because they didn ’ t .
And yet cities needed to keep growing , not because they had too many jobs to fill , but because their political influence depended on human capital .
The more people a city had , the more votes it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got .
And the fewer jobs a city had , the more people it needed to boost its political capital and its cash flow .
Even fifty years ago , cities had stopped making jobs and focused on making people .
The cities are running out of money , but population growth made them political powerhouses .
Even if that power is based on trapping the descendants of black factory workers in urban wastelands , attracting immigrants they can ’ t employ , and using raw numbers to seize power .
That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is about .
The South had triggered a civil war by trying to use human capital for political power , but its Northern urban counterparts used human capital to dominate regions , states , and then the country .
Cities took over the country ’ s power politics even as they grew more broken and less useful .
No one asked what cities were for anymore .
The answer seemed self-evident .
Huge cities growing out of control while figuring out new ways to house new immigrants and the grandchildren of dispossessed sharecroppers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nation needed .
What it needed them for , beyond exotic restaurants and a few industries requiring dense office spaces that suburban employees would spend two hours a day commuting to , no one knew .
And pandemics and race riots are just part of the price we pay for having big cities .
Housing thousands of people in an area that would normally be home to one family comes with high crime , mental breakdowns , and vulnerability to disease .
Stacking a vast number of poor minority groups together requires high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and tolerance for the inevitable outbreaks of violence by people living dead end lives in miserable conditions .
But cities need that human capital .
And that means importing immigrants from Muslim majority countries who react to religious or political dissent with violence .
It means that regular air travel and border traffic keeps bringing new exciting diseases into cities where they spread like wildfire .
It means the implosion of families and the communal and social structures of civilization which unleash gang violence , feral youth , suicide , drug use , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t really new developments .
Prohibition was one of the first massive responses to urban misery .
But back then cities created more than they destroyed .
Now all they do is destroy .
America was a rare example of a new land .
The land attracted settlers , the settlers built villages , towns , cities , industries , and their own unique society and government .
Millions of immigrants flocked to the frontiers to run their own farms and to the cities to build their own businesses .
By the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country was a booming proposition and running out of frontier .
But what it lacked in territorial frontiers , it made up for in industrialization .
Immigrants came for factory jobs and large numbers of black people also moved out of the South for them .
And then the industrialization declined , but the people still kept coming .
A million immigrants poured into the country every year .
But America wasn ’ t making a million more jobs .
Certainly not a million jobs that would transform the new arrivals into productive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has failed .
The coronavirus lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter race riots haven ’ t revealed a new reality , but the old truths under the glossy branding and hipster cafes .
The underlying failure of the city isn ’ t social , it ’ s economic .
Urban areas parted ways from the basis for their existence generations ago .
Cities don ’ t exist because we need them , or because they ’ re more efficient ways of bringing workers and businesses together .
They ’ re relics of economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ architecture and urban decay .
Major cities only productively employ a fraction of their residents , and most of their better jobs in both the private and public sectors are filled by workers who don ’ t live there .
But the limited culture , medical , financial and tech industries that do thrive there produce a lot of money and even more influence .
The difference between the perception of a failed city and a successful one is bringing in a few companies with a national brand and a global footprint .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ firms , financial companies , or dot coms is seen as a success even if these narrow sectors have little to do with the majority of the millions of people who actually live there .
Urbanization has become a pyramid scheme taking over entire states , while hollowing out the more conservative rural areas , turning red states blue , and leaving everyone except those at the top of the pyramid scheme poorer with each generation .
America is no longer divided between the old geographies of North and South , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and their suburbs , and rural areas and small towns .
The latter represent the old American communities , while the former showcase the new feudal order in which great suburban wealth and urban poverty combine into radical political alignment .
That ’ s the so-called “ resistance ” , not by the disempowered , but by the politically privileged .
The growth of urban areas benefited Democrat political machines .
These machines however fell out of the hands of the old machine politicians and into the hands of a class of academic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and incapable of understanding basic economic realities .
They accumulated populations without having the faintest idea of how to provide for them even while imposing policies that crushed industries and shattered the economies of entire regions .
And this class insisted that it knew what it was doing because it was listening to the experts .
The bigger the urban political class grew , the more it was able to destroy industries , replacing actual productive labor with government makework in its own economic echo chambers .
The deficits were plugged with unsustainable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city .
Cities grew , debt rose , jobs declined , welfare increased , and the clock ticked ever closer to midnight .
The scarcity of jobs sharpened racial conflicts , between black and white workers , between citizens and new arrivals , fighting over the rotting slices of a shrinking pie .
And the only solution of the political class was to promise that everyone should be able to go to college for free , as if the problem was the lack of credits in social anthropology , instead of the lack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made the promise of new industries seem real , but it was another facade .
The biggest tech companies , Amazon , Facebook , and Google are little more than pipelines connecting Chinese businesses with American consumers .
When Chinese dot coms succeed in replicating Amazon ’ s fulfillment model , and the freebies-for-data advertising models of Google and Facebook , then the big behemoths will fall or just be taken over by our new overlords .
Meanwhile all they ’ re really doing is creating new industries and manufacturing jobs in China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rooted in the economic boom of our origins .
America only ‘ worked ’ as a growing and expanding nation .
The boom of land , liberty and production made us a superpower .
But , like the European continent that birthed America , we ’ re running out of all three .
All we have anymore is population growth and so does the entire Third World .
Cities have become cancers on the country , expanding unsustainably , sucking up resources , and eliminating productive employment .
The urban model is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wealthy industries .
Those cities that can keep a Silicon Valley , a Wall Street or a Hollywood can go on faking it , while those that lose core industries become black holes , sucking up endless amounts of money , while spewing blight , crime , and violence in all directions .
Urban political models insist that we can spend our way out of these crises by putting even more money into schools , social services , public housing , and the rest of the welfare state .
That hasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not about to start working now .
Welfare states don ’ t create jobs .
They ’ re what happens when there are too many people and no jobs .
We might be able to build our way out of this dead end , but we have to begin by questioning the urban model which is at the root of all of our national problems .
America doesn ’ t need an expanding population .
Urban political machines do .
Nor do we need massive urban density that no longer occurs because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just the opposite , the density of failure and the real estate bubbles that are fueled by urban crises .
There is no shortage of cheap labor in America .
We don ’ t need more of it .
Every major city is already choking on the unemployed cheap labor forces they have .
And unless we have a massive manufacturing boom , the only employment opportunities for them are in the gig economy where they can deliver pad thai and give rides to environmental consultants .
The urban model hasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The pandemic has put it on the verge of collapse as the wealthy industries that made cities their base flee into virtual workspaces .
It ’ s time to rethink and defund cities as the hubs of our economy and our nation .
The Trump administration began the move by trying to relocate federal agencies from Washington D.C. to other parts of the country .
But the government has a great deal more power to defund the urban sprawl that ’ s choking the country ’ s institutions .
Government funding created centralized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It has the power to defund them .
Envisioning a less dense and more open country will heal many of our social and economic ills .
Urban areas have concentrated political radicalism and blight .
Universities have become their own radical cities .
Municipalities have built networks of crony companies around themselves .
Density has destroyed communities and families while depriving people of a meaningful life .
America was built around communities , not cities .
It can be rebuilt around communities again .
Reducing immigration can slow down population growth to sustainably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities can allow our society to heal from its urban wounds .
The city is too big to fail and that means that the country is dying of its failures .
We can either keep the city alive at the cost of the country , or let the city fail so that the country can live .

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
The coronavirus, like so many other social ills, real and metaphorical, incubated in major cities.
New York City, with the highest population density in the country, also accounted for the highest death toll. San Francisco, the second highest among large cities, was a major incubator.
Pandemic maps of the death toll show the deaths concentrating around major cities before making the slow trek from urban into suburban and eventually rural areas. The urban lockdowns didn’t stop the spread of the virus. What they really did was trap poor and middle class residents in urban areas, while the wealthy fled, and the virus spread to urbanites with the least mobility.
The people with the worst immune systems, in the densest living conditions, and the least ability to get up and leave, suffered the most, from nursing home patients to minorities with large families. The general pattern was historically familiar from the Middle Ages, and the only thing that our public health experts proved is that they weren’t any smarter than medieval peasants.
But the coronavirus is an urban problem and all the official solutions to it are urban solutions. And the urban problems and their solutions are killing us and taking down the whole country.
The Black Lives Matter race riots that followed on the heels of the lockdowns were yet another example of an urban problem exploding out of failed cities to become a national crisis. But the vast majority of our problems, social, economic, racial, and political, are the problem of the city.
Cities concentrate civilizational achievements and challenges, but it’s been a long time since cities were generating American achievements. America’s cities were once built to house industries and businesses. Their only real business anymore is the business of government.
That’s why the Democrat plan to stack the Senate depends on making D.C. into a state.
American cities aren’t hyperdense blocs because of industrial density. Even as the city went into a decline as an industrial center, municipal governments began building huge stacks of public housing meant to cram as many people as cheaply as possible into a single block.
Why did so many people need to be housed in such a small space? It wasn’t because they had jobs, but because they didn’t. And yet cities needed to keep growing, not because they had too many jobs to fill, but because their political influence depended on human capital.
The more people a city had, the more votes it commanded, and the more money it got. And the fewer jobs a city had, the more people it needed to boost its political capital and its cash flow.
Even fifty years ago, cities had stopped making jobs and focused on making people.
The cities are running out of money, but population growth made them political powerhouses. Even if that power is based on trapping the descendants of black factory workers in urban wastelands, attracting immigrants they can’t employ, and using raw numbers to seize power.
That’s what the battle over the census is about.
The South had triggered a civil war by trying to use human capital for political power, but its Northern urban counterparts used human capital to dominate regions, states, and then the country. Cities took over the country’s power politics even as they grew more broken and less useful. No one asked what cities were for anymore. The answer seemed self-evident.
Huge cities growing out of control while figuring out new ways to house new immigrants and the grandchildren of dispossessed sharecroppers was one of those things a great nation needed.
What it needed them for, beyond exotic restaurants and a few industries requiring dense office spaces that suburban employees would spend two hours a day commuting to, no one knew.
And pandemics and race riots are just part of the price we pay for having big cities.
Housing thousands of people in an area that would normally be home to one family comes with high crime, mental breakdowns, and vulnerability to disease. Stacking a vast number of poor minority groups together requires high welfare spending, heavy police investment, and tolerance for the inevitable outbreaks of violence by people living dead end lives in miserable conditions.
But cities need that human capital. And that means importing immigrants from Muslim majority countries who react to religious or political dissent with violence. It means that regular air travel and border traffic keeps bringing new exciting diseases into cities where they spread like wildfire. It means the implosion of families and the communal and social structures of civilization which unleash gang violence, feral youth, suicide, drug use, and constant political outrage.
These aren’t really new developments. Prohibition was one of the first massive responses to urban misery. But back then cities created more than they destroyed. Now all they do is destroy.
America was a rare example of a new land. The land attracted settlers, the settlers built villages, towns, cities, industries, and their own unique society and government. Millions of immigrants flocked to the frontiers to run their own farms and to the cities to build their own businesses.
By the turn of the last century, the country was a booming proposition and running out of frontier. But what it lacked in territorial frontiers, it made up for in industrialization. Immigrants came for factory jobs and large numbers of black people also moved out of the South for them.
And then the industrialization declined, but the people still kept coming. A million immigrants poured into the country every year. But America wasn’t making a million more jobs. Certainly not a million jobs that would transform the new arrivals into productive and independent citizens.
The American city has failed. The coronavirus lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter race riots haven’t revealed a new reality, but the old truths under the glossy branding and hipster cafes. The underlying failure of the city isn’t social, it’s economic. Urban areas parted ways from the basis for their existence generations ago. Cities don’t exist because we need them, or because they’re more efficient ways of bringing workers and businesses together. They’re relics of economic empires that have collapsed leaving behind beautiful architecture and urban decay.
Major cities only productively employ a fraction of their residents, and most of their better jobs in both the private and public sectors are filled by workers who don’t live there. But the limited culture, medical, financial and tech industries that do thrive there produce a lot of money and even more influence. The difference between the perception of a failed city and a successful one is bringing in a few companies with a national brand and a global footprint. A city with a few major publishing firms, financial companies, or dot coms is seen as a success even if these narrow sectors have little to do with the majority of the millions of people who actually live there.
Urbanization has become a pyramid scheme taking over entire states, while hollowing out the more conservative rural areas, turning red states blue, and leaving everyone except those at the top of the pyramid scheme poorer with each generation.
America is no longer divided between the old geographies of North and South, but the new geographies of density, between cities and their suburbs, and rural areas and small towns. The latter represent the old American communities, while the former showcase the new feudal order in which great suburban wealth and urban poverty combine into radical political alignment.
That’s the so-called “resistance”, not by the disempowered, but by the politically privileged.
The growth of urban areas benefited Democrat political machines. These machines however fell out of the hands of the old machine politicians and into the hands of a class of academic leftists who were detached from everyday life and incapable of understanding basic economic realities. They accumulated populations without having the faintest idea of how to provide for them even while imposing policies that crushed industries and shattered the economies of entire regions.
And this class insisted that it knew what it was doing because it was listening to the experts.
The bigger the urban political class grew, the more it was able to destroy industries, replacing actual productive labor with government makework in its own economic echo chambers. The deficits were plugged with unsustainable borrowing sprees against the brand of the city. Cities grew, debt rose, jobs declined, welfare increased, and the clock ticked ever closer to midnight.
The scarcity of jobs sharpened racial conflicts, between black and white workers, between citizens and new arrivals, fighting over the rotting slices of a shrinking pie. And the only solution of the political class was to promise that everyone should be able to go to college for free, as if the problem was the lack of credits in social anthropology, instead of the lack of industries.
The dot com boom made the promise of new industries seem real, but it was another facade. The biggest tech companies, Amazon, Facebook, and Google are little more than pipelines connecting Chinese businesses with American consumers. When Chinese dot coms succeed in replicating Amazon’s fulfillment model, and the freebies-for-data advertising models of Google and Facebook, then the big behemoths will fall or just be taken over by our new overlords.
Meanwhile all they’re really doing is creating new industries and manufacturing jobs in China.
Our political and social crises are rooted in the economic boom of our origins. America only ‘worked’ as a growing and expanding nation. The boom of land, liberty and production made us a superpower. But, like the European continent that birthed America, we’re running out of all three. All we have anymore is population growth and so does the entire Third World.
Cities have become cancers on the country, expanding unsustainably, sucking up resources, and eliminating productive employment. The urban model is a welfare state subsidized by a handful of wealthy industries. Those cities that can keep a Silicon Valley, a Wall Street or a Hollywood can go on faking it, while those that lose core industries become black holes, sucking up endless amounts of money, while spewing blight, crime, and violence in all directions.
Urban political models insist that we can spend our way out of these crises by putting even more money into schools, social services, public housing, and the rest of the welfare state.
That hasn’t worked in four generations. It’s not about to start working now.
Welfare states don’t create jobs. They’re what happens when there are too many people and no jobs. We might be able to build our way out of this dead end, but we have to begin by questioning the urban model which is at the root of all of our national problems.
America doesn’t need an expanding population. Urban political machines do. Nor do we need massive urban density that no longer occurs because of the density of opportunities, but just the opposite, the density of failure and the real estate bubbles that are fueled by urban crises.
There is no shortage of cheap labor in America. We don’t need more of it. Every major city is already choking on the unemployed cheap labor forces they have. And unless we have a massive manufacturing boom, the only employment opportunities for them are in the gig economy where they can deliver pad thai and give rides to environmental consultants.
The urban model hasn’t worked for America in sixty years. The pandemic has put it on the verge of collapse as the wealthy industries that made cities their base flee into virtual workspaces. It’s time to rethink and defund cities as the hubs of our economy and our nation.
The Trump administration began the move by trying to relocate federal agencies from Washington D.C. to other parts of the country. But the government has a great deal more power to defund the urban sprawl that’s choking the country’s institutions. Government funding created centralized institutions and massive urban housing complexes. It has the power to defund them.
Envisioning a less dense and more open country will heal many of our social and economic ills.
Urban areas have concentrated political radicalism and blight. Universities have become their own radical cities. Municipalities have built networks of crony companies around themselves. Density has destroyed communities and families while depriving people of a meaningful life.
America was built around communities, not cities. It can be rebuilt around communities again.
Reducing immigration can slow down population growth to sustainably match our economy and replacing cities with communities can allow our society to heal from its urban wounds.
The city is too big to fail and that means that the country is dying of its failures. We can either keep the city alive at the cost of the country, or let the city fail so that the country can live.