I still remember when I got my first set of hearing aids. I knew that my hearing had deteriorated, but didn’t realize the significance of this. Quite simply if you can’t hear what you are missing you don’t know what you have been missing. I put on those hearing aids and everything changed. First, I noticed the ability to hear what people were saying. But I also noticed a lot of other sounds, some of which were startling to me. It took me a few weeks to adjust to a world that was suddenly a whole lot louder.

Yesterday, I was driving my tour of duty for the Sun City Center Security Patrol. It is pretty tame; we just drive around and look for anything to report. In the meantime, I was listening to Fox News which happened to be broadcasting the on-stage interview of Donald Trump on economic policy by Bloomberg. The person asking the questions, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief, John Micklethwait had a very distinct British accent. He is clearly an anti-tariff guy and he was obviously on a mission to challenge Trump.

Now if you listen to MSNBC, then you probably think Trump was horrible and rambled on inconsistently. Here is their report:

Why Trump’s on-stage interview on economic policy was such a mess (msn.com)

This is typical of the MSM, and once again, they totally missed the point. They didn’t really listen and as a result they did not hear. Trump more than held his own in this conversation. He debated Micklethwait and he didn’t hesitate to respond when challenged. Frankly, it was a classic example of why Trump has been successful. He listens to the experts, but he isn’t intimidated by them. He made several excellent arguments explaining exactly why tariffs can be extremely helpful. Mr. Micklethwait obviously believes in free trade and that includes between countries. But Trump pointed out that free trade requires reciprocity. We can’t allow someone like China to take over manufacturing, move jobs overseas, and then refuse to allow American companies to compete in China. He explained why he warned American companies seeking to move plants to Mexico that they wouldn’t be allowed to sell their products in the U.S. with no restrictions. It should be pointed out that it was Trump, not Micklethwait who was getting applause for his answers. One may love Trump, hate Trump, or be indifferent, but listening to this conversation it was impossible to ignore the reality of Trump. His accomplishments as a businessman and a leader are incredible and they are not accidental. The real leaders are not those who follow the crowd and mimic talking points, they are those who see the world as it really is and more importantly figure out how to change things.

Several years ago, friends of our had a Chinese exchange student visiting. They him shopping, to try and find a souvenir from the U.S. to  bring back home to China, but he was disappointed to learn that almost everything was made in China. The sad reality is that far too many American business owners moved manufacturing to China and other places, destroyed large swaths of American Industry and ignored the impact on the American economy. Trump understands this and he understands how to fix the problem. It would be wise not to underestimate him. The cultured elite think they know the answers to everything but in reality, their plans have been a total disaster because they don’t understand the skill necessary to make a deal. Trump does. He knows how to play the game and that interview showcased what makes him special.

The MSM was too focused on trashing Trump to listen. There is none so blind as those who will not see and cannot listen. However, people who actually listened to this conversation were confronted with the reality of Donald Trump.

The contrast between him and Kamala Harris could not have been more obvious.

TDM

My parents were far from rich, so they never considered wasting money on something as silly as “silly putty.” But I used to watch other kids play with it. Pretty amazing stuff. They could shape it into almost anything and it would bounce and even float. But it was still mostly silly, and when you were done one often ended up with a stinky smelly blob, because it was also good at attracting things like dirt, ink or even pet hair. It acted a lot like rubber, but it was not a good enough product to replace rubber. It was properly named “silly putty.”

This reminds me of the current political climate. We have a Democratic Party and its fawning supporters in the MSM who can twist, stretch, and manipulate things to create the illusion of something useful. The few times I read something on the Drudge Report or watch CNN, MSNBC, CBS, or ABC the more stunning the deliberate distortion and flat-out misrepresentation. One recent example was where some reporter tried to get J.D. Vance to say the reports about Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex was a lie. The story is true. A Venezuelan gang did take over an apartment complex. But because it was against the Biden Harris administration, the reporter thought this was a lie. How many times, exactly, does a Venezuelan gang need to take over an apartment complex before it matters?

But there is a problem. Silly putty is still just silly putty and it doesn’t take long for most people to figure this out. Play around with it for a while and then just throw it away. In the end, it is only useful as a distraction. There are numerous signs that a significant percentage of Americans have figured this out. While some of the polls show this as a close race, the answers to key questions indicate the opposite. Blacks and Hispanic support for Kamala Harris is stunningly low. Barack Obama got 93% of the black vote. She will be lucky to come within forty points of that. The same is true when people are asked about the two most critical issues, the border and inflation. Quite simply few appear to be buying the Democratic MSM lie that these issues are just an illusion created out of the delusional mind of the boring uneducated Trump Maga supporters.

Just go the grocery store, buy anything, then look at your wallet. Look at the headlines with all the illegal aliens trashing up sanctuary cities all over the country. Find out that FEMA needs more money because it spent a ton of money helping people who aren’t even here legally. Watch Kamala Harris try, and try, and try again to answer a simple question. She mucks it up every time. Watch Tim Walz, the great American pheasant hunter forget how to load a shotgun. Now find out, maybe, that Kamala Harris’s great book was copied word for word from Wikipedia. Now convince yourself that ordinary people, not throwing up word salads on the View, are buying this crap.

Early voting is down, way down. There are more Republicans registering than Democrats. Bob Casey, desperately trying to keep his Senate seat in Pennsylvania refused to be on the same platform with Kamala Harris. Jon Tester doesn’t want here anywhere near Montana. The man supposedly going to push Ted Cruz our of the Senate happens to have a father who was convicted for helping the cartel traffic drugs.

But most importantly watch the faces on the MSM, if you can stand that for a brief moment. You will see pure panic, getting worse by the hour. In addition, they are running out of silly putty. All that’s left is dirt, stink, and slime.

We better hope Trump wins and wins big, because while we may be able to survive a Kamala Harris presidency, it is far from sure we can survive being stupid enough to eat silly putty.

TDM

The Harris/Walz campaign was already wobbling and leaking fuel. Then Tim Walz embarrassed himself on national television. That was bad enough that the chances of Trump winning the election were increasingly rapidly. Then three things happened that made this worse, much worse.

The first was Hurricane Helene. Now neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris can be blamed for the damage done by this hurricane. But they can and will be blamed for how they respond. This started out in the worst conceivable way with Kamala Harris out of action, because she was at a Democratic fundraiser in California while Joe was out of action because he was sunning himself, again, at this vacation home in Delaware. They both showed up with too little too late other than a couple of photo ops, demonstrating zero leadership during this crisis. Kamala Harris even poised for a photo on Air Force Two pretending to talk to FEMA, without realizing she had not connected the cord on her headset to her smart phone. Not a good look. Joe said he had been in command because he had spent a couple of hours on the phone. Few believed him and those that did were not exactly impressed.

That would have been bad enough, but now Mayorkas says that FEMA doesn’t have enough money to manage this crisis. It turns out that the Biden/Harris administration has spend about $1 billion in FEMA emergency funds to pay for hand-outs to illegal immigrants. This is beyond bad and it is doubtful they can come close to explaining this one away.

Then, to make things even worse, Iran launched somewhere around two hundred ballistic missiles at Israel. It is clear that Israel is going to attack Iran. Biden even hinted that this might involve an Iranian Oil Depot which created speculation about a catastrophic rise in fuel costs. At the same time the U.S. is telling Israel to avoid letting this escalate, failing to consider the fact that Iran has already escalated this. This is the opposite of effective leadership regarding international affairs.

This would be bad enough, but there is still more. There is a major strike regarding all the ports in Texas and the East Coast. So far, this is not going well. Joe Biden says he is with the unions and will not even consider using Taft Hartley to stop this strike. In the meantime, the union workers who apparently are already earning over $100k per year want a 75% wage increase and a stop to automation. No one knows how long this strike will last, but if it doesn’t end soon and very soon, the impact on the economy will be through the roof.

All of these is a direct result of either incompetence of a lack of leadership by the Biden Harris administration. Just at a time when people are seriously considering who they can trust to be next President of the United States, Harris and Walz are putting on a case study in why it shouldn’t be them.

It is hard to imagine any of these cases working out satisfactory in time to affect the election. If anything, the problems are likely to become more severe and increasingly impossible to ignore.

In addition, blaming Trump is not exactly a good option. The problem with placing all your hopes on an impossible scheme is that mission impossible is the new reality.

TDM

Read the full transcript of the vice presidential debate (usatoday.com)

The ?debate? between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz was a complete mismatch. Walz managed to behave like an adult and didn’t go into one of his rants. But he made serious mistakes so obvious that even the biased CBS anchors were unable to rescue him. I was surprised when one of the CBS anchors asked him directly about his recent lie regarding being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests. Unfortunately for Tim, there were contemporary newspaper accounts of him showing that this was a lie. He didn’t even pretend that this was true, just called himself a “Knucklehead.”  One of the few things he got right.

This went viral with reports on Mediate, USA Today, MSN, BBC, Yahoo, and a cast of thousands. This is destined to be known as the “Knucklehead debate.”

He also was so nervous answering the first question that he confused Israel with Iran. First, he said “Iran – er – Israel’s ability to defend itself is absolutely fundamental.” Then he said: “The expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute fundamental necessity for the United States.” Huh?

Then, in trying to explain the need for an assault weapons band he said: “I’ve become friends with school shooters.”

J.D. Vance, on the other hand, was extremely focused. He made his points and introduced himself to the American people, but he also answered questions clearly and concisely. CBS “fact checked” him regarding Haitians in Springfield Ohio, and muted his microphone before he could respond. Unfortunately, the internet came alive and quickly proved that it was CBS that had its’ facts wrong.

At one point Norah McDonnell arrogantly muttered that “The overwhelming consensus among scientists is that the earth’s climate is warming at an unprecedented rate.” She did not give J.D. Vance a chance to respond.

I really wish someone would have responded by saying “if scientists are so concerned about global warming, why did they stop saying global warming and replaced it with climate change?”

Most scientists do believe the earth is getting warmer, it has been getting warmer since the little ice age that lasted from the 14^th to mid-19^th century.

What Was the Little Ice Age? | Britannica

One notes that humanity managed to survive the little ice age.

J.D. Vance put this in a very different perspective. He pointed out that forcing us to take drastic measures while ignoring the much more serious pollution from places like China doesn’t make sense.

Normally a VP debate makes no difference. But this year may be an exception. The problem for Democrats is Kamala Harris who only impresses the extreme left who can only see an abortion supporting black female and ignores everything else. They needed Tim Walz to impress. He did, but for all the wrong reasons.

The real polls, the ones showing how people really feel about immigration and the economy favor Trump. In addition, almost every poll shows rapidly shrinking support for Kamala Harris among blacks and Hispanics. But more importantly the world looks really scary with Iran launching hundreds of ballistic missiles toward Israel and Ukraine looking on the verge of a catastrophic defeat. In a real crisis, people don’t look toward the smiling person with the great personality, they look for the mean looking dude in the corner, the only one who looks capable of taking on the bad guys. That ain’t Kamala Harris and after last night, that ain’t Tim Walz either.

TDM

Most of you are aware of Hurricane Helene. It did an incredible amount of damage. While those of us living in the Tampa area did not experience hurricane force winds, people living along the cost were pummeled by the 8 ft. storm surge. I have friends whose homes were a near total loss because of the high water.

Prior to 1983, Casey Key and Siesta Key was separated by an inlet. But in 1983, the Army Corps of Engineers decided to deepen Sarasota Bay as part of the intercoastal waterway, and they deposited the dredged material in the inlet. Two property owners finished the job.

People have been griping about this for decades. Few listened. Michael Jenkins, an engineer with Applied Technology and Management was asked about this on September 10^th, 2024, and he said the following:

County takes a pass on alternative to opening Midnight Pass | Your Observer

“I’m fully aware of the history of Midnight Pass,” Jenkins said. “It is well known within coastal engineering circles in Florida. It is a well-known discussion that’s gone on for many decades.” Instead of just reopening the inlet, Jenkins suggested pumping water from the Gulf into the bay at strategic locations to dilute pollutants.

County takes a pass on alternative to opening Midnight Pass | Your Observer

Well guess what. God made the decision for them, because low and behold Hurricane Helene, in addition to trashing beachfront property, reopened Midnight Pass.

Hurricane Helene reopens Midnight Pass, naturally ends controversy for now (msn.com)

Some boaters have allegedly already used the new/old short cut to the Gulf of Mexico.

Sometimes, it appears as though God has a sense of humor. I mean people have been bitching about this for over 40 years, and God appears to have fixed the problem in a couple of hours. My prediction is that it will take just as much time and effort by politicians to decide to “re-close” midnight pass as it has taken to try and get it re-opened. In the meantime, Midnight Pass is back.

This is a reminder that God can change the best laid plans of mice and men in an incredibly short period of time. Up until now most of us had never heard of Midnight Pass. Yet, in the course of a few short hours, God decided Midnight Pass was a good idea and man was helpless to prevent that.

This is also a reminder that God is in control, including our elections. Many of us are genuinely afraid that Kamala Harris will become President of the United States. Perhaps an even worse fear is that this country would be stupid enough to let that happen.

I earnestly pray that wisdom will prevail and that Donald Trump will win in November. It is hard to imagine God wanting someone like Kamala Harris to win. But regardless of what happens, it will be his will. Eventually, that will  be best for everyone.

TDM

There are many versions of the Ukrainian Rhapsody. Vasyl Barvinsky wrote the Ukrainian Rhapsody for orchestra in 1922. Another Ukrainian Rhapsody was released in 1994 by Franco Cesarini. There was also a Soviet film called Ukrainian Rhapsody. There was also a musical documentary released in 2017. Here is how that is described:

Ukrainian Rhapsody – EUROARTS

Even a slight amount of research into the history of Ukraine shows nearly constant turmoil. For example, according to Wikipedia:

History of Ukraine – Wikipedia

In 1919 total chaos engulfed Ukraine. Indeed, in the modern history of Europe no country experienced such complete anarchy, bitter civil strife, and total collapse of authority as did Ukraine at this time. Six different armies – those of the Ukrainians, the Bolsheviks, the Whites, the Entente [French], the Poles and the anarchists – operated on its territory. Kiev changed hands five times in less than a year. 

Now we have an incredible new Ukrainian Rhapsody where the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting. He started off with a visit to a Pennsylvanian ammunition plant. He is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and perhaps former President Donald Trump. He appears to endorse Harris, but one wonders why? She famously flew to Germany in 2022, less than a week before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She met with Zelensky, apparently to advise him that the Russian invasion was inevitable. Zelensky urged the U.S. to impose preemptive sanctions against Russia and if Russia did invade, to flood weapons into Ukraine, including anti-aircraft systems, fighter jets and heavy artillery. Harris allegedly rejected both suggestions.

The Uneasy Alliance Between Harris and Zelensky | TIME

Trump interprets this as a last-ditch effort to get Harris elected. Harris has recently pledged full support to Ukraine, but based on her personal history, why would they believe her? Trump, on the other hand, says he wants the conflict to end, now. That, of course, is not what Zelensky wants to hear.

In the meantime, Zelensky is touring that ammunition plant with Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro and even had Shapiro sign bombs. He then openly criticized Trump and said J.D. Vance was way too radical. Zelensky was flown to Pennsylvania on a U.S. Air Force C-17. Of course, it would be silly to even consider the possibility that the Biden administration would use U.S. military assets to assist with a political campaign, because that would be unthinkable.

This looks and smells like an act of desperation by Zelensky, the Biden Administration and the Harris campaign. This could easily backfire more than they can imagine. Last year CNN learned that 82% of Democrats, 75% of Independents and 73% of Republicans are worried that the war will just continue without resolution for a long time.

CNN Poll: Majority of Americans oppose more US aid for Ukraine in war with Russia | CNN Politics

All agree that America must consider its own security requirements when deciding when and how to support Ukraine. Zelensky flying over here to lecture us may have the exact opposite effect of what he wanted or expected. Meeting with Donald Trump, after publicly trashing him, is even more unlikely to go well.

TDM

A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video may be worth much, much more. If you watch or listen to the reporters on the MSM you may be seeing a very distorted picture of what is really happening. It seems like each day there is another poll, by someone, of somebody, seeming to show that Harris is either tied with Trump or creeping ahead. But is that reality?

Between April 9 to July 3, the Teamsters conducted in-person polling. This was prior to Joe Biden withdrawing from the race. Biden won this poll, 44.3% to Trump’s 36.3%. Another poll was done recently, involving a remarkably high percentage of the 1.3 million members of the Teamster’s union. This showed Trump beating Kamala Harris 58% to 31%.

Teamsters Release Presidential Endorsement Polling Data – International Brotherhood of Teamsters

If the Teamsters poll is accurate, and there is no evidence to the contrary, then Trump has surged ahead of Harris and her approval rating has dropped to near record lows. So how could the other polls be so wrong? Are the Teamsters composed of only MAGA Republicans.

One obvious explanation is to simply ask the question: “who is participating in these polls?” Most people I know have smart phones and they don’t take calls from people they don’t know. They certainly don’t waste time participating in silly political polls. I really question whether any poll, obtained by phone surveys with a few hundred people, is credible. In addition, there are numerous reports of over sampling Democrats.

It may be more informative to see what happened recently. On September 11, 2024, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump showed up for a wreath laying ceremony. When Biden and Harris were introduced, few people even bothered to applaud. But when Trump showed up, there were wild and enthusiastic cheers.

Here is a video from msn.com showing this:

Trump, Biden And Harris Greeted with Very Different Reactions in Shanksville | Watch (msn.com)

Then there was the following video from Inside Politics:

CNN host jokes Harris’ talking points could inspire ‘drinking game’ (yahoo.com)

Dana Bash, yes that Dana Bash, said that “Vice President Harris’ talking points on the economy were so repetitive, you could start a drinking game.” Wow. If this is that obvious to Dana Bash, it is obvious to everyone.

There are also interesting videos of people being asked who they support. Here is a video of a CBS reporting what happened when she visited numerous restaurants in Reno, North Las Vegas, and Pahrump. This was part of a “3 Meals” segment on CBA mornings. Unless only MAGA Republicans eat out at restaurants, this does not look encouraging for the Harris campaign.

CBS reporter finds only 3 Harris supporter in 3 Nevada restaurants: ‘People are really excited about Trump’ (msn.com)

There are other videos showing comparable results. Get the picture. There are now only a few weeks before the election. This is the time when people start making up their minds. My best guess is that people mostly concerned about the economy and illegal immigration will not be overly enthusiastic in voting for Kamala Harris. If that is correct it could be a very red November. Of course, Democrats will try to do something, almost anything, to stop Donald Trump. But this time, they may be running out of time and bullets. Look out your window. Get the picture?

TDM

When I first heard about another assassination attempt on President Trump, I thought it was a mistake. The initial reports were of a shooting, near a golf course where he was playing golf, but he was not injured.

We now know that this was another assassination attempt, and while the Secret Service did better, this guy still got within three to five hundreds yard of President Trump. He was armed with an AK47, and he was clearly there on a mission to kill Donald Trump.

One of the most important questions is whether the Secret Service is doing enough to protect Donald Trump. They did much better this time. However, this was still too close to be acceptable.

More importantly, why does this keep happening to Donald Trump? Sadly, that is not a difficult question. Democrats and their fawning supporters in the MSM have conspired to not only trash Trump, but to demonize him. They routinely refer to Trump as an existential threat to Democracy. A man who cannot be trusted, and a man who would  turn this country into a dictatorship. The undeniable fact that Trump was President of the United States for four years, and none of this happened, is irrelevant.

Kamala Harris was afraid to debate Trump. Now whistleblowers are speaking out. The latest whistleblower is actually a Democrat who does not like Donald Trump. Incredibly, an affidavit was given to Bill Ackman. He is a longtime Democratic supporter:

Bill Ackman – Wikipedia

He is a longtime donor to Democratic candidates and organizations, including Richard Blumenthal, Chuck Schumer, Robert Menendez, the Democratic National Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Ackman shared screenshots of the affidavit and tagged Disney CEO Bob Iger demanding answers. Disney owns ABC. Ackman didn’t send this to the DOJ or the FBI or the Secret Service, he sent it to someone who can actually do something about it. Remarkable.

Attached to the screenshot he said the following:

“I find the allegations credible as written, particularly because the affidavit was reportedly made the day before the debate and mentions details, like Harris’ smaller podium, that only became public later.”

Here is a link to the Bill Ackman post on X.

Bill Ackman on X: “.@RobertIger Dear Bob, I assume that you have been made aware of this affidavit which was made public earlier today in which a whistleblower states that @ABC worked closely with the @KamalaHarris campaign in sharing the substance of the questions, avoiding certain topics,” / X

This has the ugly odor of Truth. According to this affidavit”

The Harris campaign demanded and got a smaller version of the Podium so Kamala Harris, who is five feet two inches tall looked bigger. Then the podiums were seldom shown side by side, creating an illusion favorable to Harris.

It was agreed that Donald Trump would be subjected to fact finding, but Harris would not. There is an allegation that fact checking took place before the debate, anticipating answers from Trump.

The Harris campaign was not given verbatim questions, just sample questions covering similar topics. These were not provided to Trump.

There would be no questions regarding the perceived health of Joe Biden.

There would be no questions about her tenure as Attorney General.

There would be no questions regarding her brother-in-law, Tony West, who faces allegations of embezzling “billions” in taxpayer funds.

When you combine this with the second assassination attempt, unless something changes Kamala Harris is headed toward a world-class defeat and humiliation. Trump is likely to win in a record landslide. Democrats, of course, cannot accept this reality. They will do something, almost anything, to stop Trump. They have tried and failed to stop him with weaponization of the Justice Department. The MSM has been united in falsely calling him a liar and trashing him in every conceivable way. When, exactly, is the last time you saw anyone in the MSM say anything positive about Donald Trump? There have been two assassination attempts. Yet none of this is working.

If they have been willing to do all of the above, and it isn’t working, what will they try next? Hang on to your hats, because the only thing certain is that there will be zero consideration to doing the right thing for the right reasons.

TDM

If any of you enduring watching the debate on Tuesday night, some things were really obvious. One was that the moderators were totally focused on challenging Trump regarding anything he said that they didn’t like. The other was that they ignored blatant lies by Kamala Harris. The predictable result is that Trump looked angry and in the eyes of the liberal media, Harris looked more focused.

This is consistent with the MSM constantly referring to Trump as a serial liar. This has worked, because I have many liberal friends who have told me they could never vote for Trump because he tells so many lies. But the biggest lie of all is the lie that it is Trump and only Trump who lies about things. Five minutes research shows that most of the so-called lies told by Donald Trump fall into hyperbole, where he exaggerates things to make himself look better. By that standard, Washington would be empty.

Sometimes we don’t know who really won a debate until we learn the real impact. That can take days or weeks. In this case, only a few hours. Many of the most outrageous lies told by Trump, during the debate, turned out to be, well, true. And exposing the truth can change lives.

One example is where Trump accused Harris of supporting giving free transexual surgery to illegal immigrants. The MSM was furious that he would even dare to accuse her of something so outrageous. But it turns out Trump is right and there is documented evidence to support this claim.

The following article by Fortune, designed to clarify her position, actually makes it worse.

‘Transgender operations on Illegal aliens’: What was Trump talking about? | Fortune Well

Another is where Trump said Democrats want no restrictions on abortion, in some cases even after a live birth. Again, the MSM was furious. They were furious because no one would consider that acceptable. Except that Trump was right again, that is exactly the result of the Democrats unwillingness to put any restrictions on abortion. Let me be blunt. If there is an abortion after 24 weeks, then there are only three possible outcomes. The baby is killed before the procedure begins, the baby is killed during the procedures, or the baby is born alive and there is no effort to keep the baby alive after birth. Those are scientific facts. Facts incredibly inconvenient for Democrats, but still facts.

Walz signed law allowing abortion at any stage and defunded crisis pregnancy centers (msn.com)

Trump also accused Harris of lying about the crime statistics and he was right about that too. The FBI crime statistics look down only because of a delay in reporting. Places like San Francisco either can’t or won’t report crime statistics until 2025.

The MSM continues to ignore this but the following report in the Washington Examiner is based on facts, not suppositions:

Bad data from the FBI mislead about crime – Washington Examiner

“In 2019, 89% of agencies covering 97% of the population submitted data, but by 2021, that coverage plummeted to less than 63% of departments overseeing just 65% of the population. Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City all failed to submit crime data. To increase participation, the FBI relaxed the NIBRS requirement in 2022, allowing agencies to report via the legacy system.” 

This really matters, because even left-wing Trump hating liberals are absolutely appalled by these issues. Even anchors on CNN were shocked and disgusted to learn about Kamala Harris support for transgender surgery on illegal immigrants. I recently had asked a liberal friend to point out Trump’s biggest lie. He said that Trump accused liberals of supporting late term abortions and in some cases, allowing a baby born alive to die. My liberal friend  literally screamed “No one believes, no one supports that!” But Tim Walz definitely believes that and the Democratic plan for abortion with no limitations results in exactly that.

There is a real possibility that when Democrats and independents are confronted with the facts about what Harris and Walz believe on these issues, they will be appalled. Some of them will never vote for Trump, but they may not vote for Harris/Walz either. Others just may decide that voting for Trump, no matter how much they hate him, is the only ethical thing to do. When people are confronted with the truth about these issues it changes them. That is why Democrats and the MSM are so determined to hide the truth. But facts are stubborn things and in todays world, it is much harder to prevent people from learning the truth. Truth has consequences.

TDM

The great debate was held last night and it was, as expected, a hot mess. The ABC moderators were predictably prejudiced and desperately tried to help Kamala Harris . Trump, as expected, went off the rails on occasion. The moderators fact checked Trump, inaccurately, and ignored blatant lies by Kamala Harris.

We can be absolute certain that the MSM will praise Kamala Harris and trash Donald Trump. We can also be certain that at least some Republicans will criticize Trump’s performance. The most likely complaint will be “opportunity lost.” But ultimately the only opinion that matters is how people, who were undecided, reacted to this event.

The people who mattered, who watched this debate, will not react the same as the talking heads on the networks. Donald Trump is one of the most recognized names in the world. People know all about him. Nothing he said last night was a surprise to anyone. However, few people knew anything about Kamala Harris. This was her opportunity to show people that she is worthy of being President of the United States.

The most important thing for Donald Trump to do last night was show that he is not a threat to democracy. He did that in spades. In fact, he countered by pointing out who did and who did not weaponize the DOJ against political opponents. He was strong and focused in pushing back against the January 6^th insurrection myth. He even made the point that it was the irresponsible rhetoric by Democrats that contributed to him being “shot in the head.” Point taken.

Donald Trump had several points to make and he focused on them all night long. It is obvious that country is not headed in the right direction. People are concerned about inflation and economy. In addition, there is increasing concern regarding the open border and runaway crime. On those issues, Trump was much stronger than Harris.

It is hard for any of us who strongly support one of the candidates or even despise one of the candidates to give an honest evaluation of results. But there is a significant difference between Trump and Harris. I know many people who support Donald Trump, but they don’t necessarily like him. What they do like is how the country did while he was in office. This meant that in order for Kamala Harris to win this debate she needed to do two things. One is she needed to introduce herself to the American people as a focused and effective leader. I don’t think she pulled that off. The other was that she needed to convince people that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. She didn’t do that either.

I think the post-debate polls will pretend that Harris got a post-debate bounce, but it won’t be much, and it probably won’t last. Let’s be honest, if a Republican is running five points behind at this point, they are actually ahead. That has happened almost every time for decades. Republicans always over perform on election night. This means if Kamala Harris is not ahead, she is behind. Nothing about last night changed that.

It would have been wonderful in Trump had been more disciplined and used the numerous opportunities to stick it to Kamala Harris. He didn’t do that. But he wasn’t trying to win a debate, he was trying to win an election. I would not bet against him after this performance.

TDM