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‘President of United Earth’ Stacey Abrams Insults Georgia Sheriffs in TV Debate

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Liberals in Hollywood decided that election denier Stacey Abrams (who lost to Brian Kemp by 55,000 votes in 2018) would be perfect for the role of “President of United Earth” in the Star Trek Discovery series, but without explaining exactly how she might obtain such a lofty position. Fortunately, politics in the real world is nothing like science fiction, and Abrams more or less guaranteed her own defeat in Sunday’s debate:

Democrat Stacey Abrams said in the final Georgia gubernatorial debate that state sheriffs want to “take Black people off the streets,” handing Republicans a talking point on a pivotal issue a little over a week before the election.
During the Sunday debate on WSB-TV in Atlanta, Ms. Abrams fired back after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp touted his support from law enforcement, saying that he had been endorsed by 107 state sheriffs.
“As I pointed out before, I’m not a member of the good ol’ boys club. So, no, I don’t have 107 sheriffs who want to be able to take Black people off the streets, who want to be able to go without accountability,” said Ms. Abrams. . . .

She immediately tried to walk it back, saying she didn’t mean every sheriff in Georgia, but guess who’s not buying that excuse?

Effingham County Sheriff Jimmy McDuffie, president of the Georgia Sheriffs Association, said he was “incredibly disappointed to hear what Ms. Abrams had to say about the sheriffs of our state.”
“Stacey Abrams‘ comments about Georgia sheriffs in Sunday night’s debate are exactly the type of false, demoralizing, and offensive accusations that have driven good men and women away from the law enforcement profession,” said Mr. McDuffie in a statement.
Police and sheriffs “put their lives on the line for everyone in their community — no matter their race, background, or walk of life. To suggest otherwise is insulting and outrageous,” he said.
He also called on her to “immediately apologize to Georgia’s law enforcement community.”

Being a native of Atlanta myself, I have direct experience with sheriffs in the state, and I don’t care who you are, don’t eff around in Georgia.

Polls indicate Abrams might lose by double digits this time. She can’t lose by a big enough margin to suit my tastes. Let her go campaign among the Klingons, but please get her the hell out of Georgia.




 

Red Wave Hits New Hampshire?

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This would almost certainly flip the Senate to GOP control:

New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Gen. Don Bolduc has taken the lead for the first time over Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) in New Hampshire’s Senate race, a Tuesday Saint Anselm poll revealed.
Forty-eight percent of voters selected Gen. Bolduc, while Hassan only garnered 47 percent, well below the coveted 50 percent threshold for an incumbent. Three percent were unsure.
The poll surveyed 1,541 New Hampshire likely voters from October 28-29 with a 2.5 margin of error.
Campaign spokeswoman Kate Constantini told Breitbart News the result of the polls shows the Bolduc campaign’s grassroots initiatives are producing results.
“This result is not surprising since General Bolduc has spent this entire campaign speaking directly with New Hampshire voters about the important issues facing our country,” Constantini said. “Momentum is hard to get and even harder to stop, and we are taking nothing for granted this last week of the campaign.”
Gen. Bolduc has clawed his way into the one-point lead, a gain of 12 points in just six weeks, when Hassan had an 11 point lead. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll four weeks ago showed Hassan with a nine point lead (50-41 percent) over Gen. Bolduc.
That lead was cut to seven points (52-45 percent) in an October 12 AARP poll. Both polls showed Hassan with majority support.
On October 21, a Fabrizio, Lee & Associates poll showed Gen. Bolduc had tied the race (45-45 percent) with seven percent undecided.
During the campaign, Gen. Bolduc has highlighted four issues: inflation, gas prices, crime, and open borders. According to third quarter fundraising totals, Bolduc has been outspent by $9 million dollars.

So it’s not just one poll — there is a trend of polls showing that the race has shifted toward Bolduc since late September, and this picture of increasing GOP momentum is a nationwide phenomenon. Democrats got a summer poll bump from the Supreme Court abortion decision, but that began fading in September and, over the course of October, the signs of an approaching “red wave” began to multiply. Crucially, Democrats started shifting resources away from defending House seats in districts that Biden had won in 2020 by a few points, toward districts where Biden had won by eight, nine, 10 points. In other words, the Democrats’ own internal polling shows a shift from D to R on a scale similar to the way Virginia flipped last year. Real Clear Politics now projects Bolduc winning in New Hampshire, and FiveThirtyEight is now projecting a GOP Senate majority, based mainly on Adam Laxalt’s strong Senate race in Nevada.

We’re planning a special Election Night edition of The Other Podcast, starting next Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET and running until 1 a.m. The outcome in New Hampshire will be one of the earliest indicators of how the night is shaping up, but I anticipate that nearly every key Senate race will be deemed “too close to call” by the media until midnight or later. Because you’ve got to wait on those mysterious 2 a.m. ballot dumps, am I right?

OK, sorry, didn’t mean to stoke your paranoia — and possibly incite political violence — by suggesting that Democrats might steal the election again, but we all know that Democrats will always cheat enough to win any close election, which means that in order for Republicans to win, they must beat “the margin of theft.” If it’s not close, they can’t steal it.

I am not an “election denier.” I am an election realist.




 

Why Democrats Can’t Take the ‘L’

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When your Senate candidate suffers a debilitating stroke, to such an extent that he can’t communicate coherently, what do you do? Well, if you’re Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself), you pretend that this devastating setback isn’t really devastating, that somehow Pennsylvania voters won’t notice, or won’t care, that John Fetterman is like the monster in Young Frankenstein: “He’s got a rotten brain!”

Noah Rothman offers this excellent explanation:

The sunk-costs fallacy describes a tendency to devote ever more resources to a lost cause rather than simply take the loss. And for Fetterman’s media boosters, some of whom sunk so much reputational capital into the idea that the Senate candidate was up to the job, Tuesday night’s debate was a big loss. But rather than concede that fact, their crusade continued with the fury of an addict chasing a high.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

If you look at the situation Democrats are facing, it makes sense that they’re desperate to salvage their investments in Fetterman. There were three states — Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania — where Democrats believed they had a reasonable chance to flip a Senate seat from “R” to “D,” thus countering their likely losses elsewhere, in order to sustain Chuck Schumer’s razor-thin majority. But Ron Johnson appears to have weathered the storm in Wisconsin, and Tim Ryan has flopped in Ohio, leaving Pennsylvania as the Last Best Hope for Schumer.

The contest to fill the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey seemed winnable, in part because Democrats felt that the Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz was unqualified, damaged by a bruising GOP primary, and tainted by the endorsement of Donald Trump. Fetterman had a certain sort of “Regular Guy” persona that might appeal to some blue-collar voters who had gone for Trump, and so Democrats poured tens of millions of dollars into his campaign. But then, four days before the May primary, Fetterman’s campaign announced that he had suffered a stroke, reportedly caused by a heart problem that Fetterman had not previously disclosed. Exactly when the stroke happened, I’m not sure, but it was announced the Friday (May 13) before the primary on Tuesday (May 17), and the way the media reported it, you would have thought that they were interviewing Fetterman, when in fact they were quoting press statements issued by the campaign:

Fetterman says his wife Gisele spotted the symptoms and got him to the hospital where they removed the clot, reversed the stroke, and got his heart under control.
Fetterman says doctors believe he didn’t “suffer any cognitive damage” and that he’s “feeling much better.” . . .
“I’m well on my way to a full recovery. So I have a lot to be thankful for. They’re keeping me here for now for observation, but I should be out of here sometime soon. The doctors have assured me that I’ll be able to get back on the trail, but first I need to take a minute, get some rest, and recover. There’s so much at stake in this race, and I’m going to be ready for the hard fight ahead.”

See? “Fetterman says” — but to whom did he say these things? These weren’t actual quotes from an interview with Fetterman, who was undergoing surgery at a hospital at the time he allegedly “said” all this.

The media deliberately misled the public about the severity of Fetterman’s condition, which so damaged his capacity for speech that, if he’s not capable of forming coherent sentences now, after months of recovery, he sure as hell was in no shape to be giving these glib quotes to the media in May, when he was at death’s door.

There must be a word for this — ah, yes, “disinformation,” they call it.

So the media, by acting as stenographers for Fetterman’s campaign, were engaged in a cover-up, an attempt to conceal the true gravity of the candidate’s condition. And then when they couldn’t hide it anymore — when the televised debate showed everybody that Fetterman’s basically a walking vegetable — they went into denial mode, trying to pretend that he didn’t really do so bad, all things considered. Ironically, even Chuck Schumer seems to be living inside that bubble:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was caught on a hot mic telling President Biden Thursday that Democrats are “in danger” in at least one Senate race and admitting that the party is “going downhill” in the closely-watched Georgia contest.
“That seat, we’re, we’re in danger in that seat,” Schumer could be heard telling the president on the tarmac at Syracuse Hancock International Airport. It’s unclear to which seat Schumer was referring.
“But you know, it looks like the debate didn’t hurt too much in Pennsylvania as of today, so that’s good … basically, we’re picking up steam in Nevada,” Schumer continued, referencing Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman’s poor showing in his first and only debate with GOP opponent Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Biden could be seen crossing his fingers as Schumer delivered his assessment that Fetterman’s debate performance didn’t end his chances. The president exchanged some words with Schumer as well but it was unclear what he was saying.
Seconds later, Schumer updated Biden on the state of play in the Peach State, where the latest average of polls from RealClearPolitics shows Republican Herschel Walker leading incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock by 0.6 percentage points.
“The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia. It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker,” a shocked-sounding Schumer told the president.

Indeed, things are “going downhill in Georgia,” but Schumer’s claim that “the debate didn’t hurt” Fetterman must be considered merely a repetition of the “spin” coming out of the media.

Just 12 more days, and we’ll see about that.




 

A Widespread Mental Disorder

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Look at that headline. Notice something strange? I call your attention to the phrase “Fetterman Supporters.” Who are these people? And while we’re at it — “Undecided Voters,” really? After watching that idiot (who was already an idiot, even before suffering a debilitating neurological trauma) babble incoherently on national TV, who could possibly still be “undecided” about whether Fetterman is fit for office?

This is what blind partisanship does to people. No matter who the Democrats nominate for any important office, that person is going to get 80% of the vote in Philadelphia. Hillary Clinton got 83% of the vote in Philadelphia and, while we’re on the topic of brain-damaged imbeciles, Joe Biden got 81% of the vote in Philadelphia. And because Philadelphia accounts for about 11% of the statewide vote in Pennsylvania, this lopsided 4-to-1 Democrat majority in Philadelphia almost always results in Democrats winning every statewide election in Pennsylvania.

In the 2018 midterms, about 5 million votes were cast in Pennsylvania. If the same number of votes are cast in this year’s election, and Fetterman gets at least 40% of the vote — which he certainly will — that will mean that 2 million citizens of Pennsylvania watched that debate, saw with their own two eyes the unmistakable evidence that Fetterman is mentally damaged, and voted for him anyway! Which tells you that Fetterman is far from alone in being mentally damaged. Nearly half the people in Pennsylvania are also suffering from neurological defects.

They’re called “Democrats.”




 

SOROS-FUNDED PHILLY D.A. BLAMES G.O.P. ‘RACISM’ FOR IMPEACHMENT

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Before we get to the latest news from Pennsylvania, I’d like to begin by congratulating Dana Pico for his success in spotlighting the dangerous lunacy of District Attorney Larry Krasner, who has turned loose so many criminals that “Killadelphia” has well and truly earned its infamy. There are more dangerous cities in America — St. Louis, for example — but none of them are as big as Philadelphia, America’s fourth-largest city, so that when the homicide rate goes up there (and it’s increased 78% since Krasner took office), it’s kind of difficult to ignore the death toll. Of course, the national media have tried to ignore the violence in “Killadelphia,” but Dana kept hammering away and now the floodgates have opened, so that Krasner felt compelled to hold a press conference Friday on the steps of the state capitol where he says Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled legislature is getting ready to impeach him:

The Pennsylvania House committee looking to impeach Democratic Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner canceled a hearing with the city’s top prosecutor after he requested a public forum.
Krasner still showed up at the state Capitol on Friday morning, condemning the select committee’s investigation and telling reporters that he expects the Republican-controlled chamber will start the impeachment process as early as next week. . . .
Krasner said the committee has no legal grounds for impeachment. Instead, he accused the committee of targeting him for his ideas and policies during a “super-heated election cycle” and attempting to blame large and diverse cities as being “lawless.”
“What we see here is the same old playbook, which is about coded and racist messaging,” Krasner said. “It’s about blaming the biggest city in Pennsylvania with the most diverse population for having the same national struggle that we have with gun violence everywhere.”

Well, the city may be “diverse,” but there is a decidedly monochromatic aspect to the daily bloodshed in “Killadelphia,” where more than 80% of the murders are black criminals shooting black victims. There were an all-time record 562 murders in Philadelphia last year, which means that roughly 450 black people were killed, but according to Krasner, the Republicans who want to end the city’s bloodbath are “racist.”

Whereas the Democrat D.A. who keeps letting criminals out of jail, well, he’s anti-racist, you see. Such is the contorted logic of Larry Krasner’s “social justice” agenda. The results have been disastrous.

Republicans are blasting Pennsylvania’s Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman because a man — exonerated of a murder conviction and released from prison through Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), which Fetterman supports — was allegedly involved in another murder in September.
On Thursday, Fox 29 Philadelphia reported that Jahmir Harris, 32, who was released from prison last year, is wanted for his alleged role in the murder of 50-year-old Charles Gossett in September.
“Prosecutors say Harris was identified by security footage as the driver of a vehicle that two gunman exited before shooting 50-year-old Charles Gossett in the back of the head around 2 a.m.,” Fox 29’s Steve Keeley and Kelly Rule reported. . . .
Harris was convicted of the December 2012 murder of Louis Porter, who was shot in the head in front of his own five-year-old son. He was sentenced to life without parole in 2015 but was exonerated and released through Krasner’s CIU last year, which Fetterman lauded earlier this week . . .

Do you think maybe this “exoneration” was a mistake? Like, maybe Harris actually did commit the murder for which a jury convicted him?

Nor is the case of Jahmir Harris an isolated incident. Over and over again, the criminals charged with murder in Philadelphia turn out to have been let loose in accordance with Krasner’s “social justice” agenda.

Say hello to Yaaseen Bivins, 21, who was convicted in August “of plowing his car into a pregnant woman and killing her unborn baby while drag racing,” but set free on bail while awaiting sentencing. Then in September, according to police, Bivins “shot five teens outside Roxborough High School.” One of the teenagers died: “Homicide Capt. Jason Smith said the teen who was killed — Nicolas Elizalde, 14, of Havertown, Delaware County — appeared to be ‘a totally innocent victim,’ fatally struck in the chest during the hail of gunfire.”

Krasner’s reaction? “Obviously, with hindsight, it is a truly awful situation.” Oh, as if you needed hindsight to realize that turning loose violent criminals is a dangerous idea.

But if you call attention to such horrible incidents, and think that the anti-police/pro-criminal District Attorney should be held accountable for the results of his policy, that means you must be a “racist” Republican!




 

There Is No Joy in ’Bamaland

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The headline at ESPN says, “Tennessee tops Alabama in epic back-and-forth thriller,” but please, spare me such “thrills.” Pardon my lifelong preference for the boring, easy, lopsided Alabama victories.

O, Lord, keep your “thrillers” far away from the Crimson Tide!

’Bama spotted Tennessee a 28-10 first-half lead, but then Heisman Trophy quarterback Bryce Young led the Tide back to tie it 28-28 early in the third quarter. Alabama only punted once in the second half, scoring touchdowns on three of its five possessions, and adding a defensive touchdown when linebacker Dallas Turner scooped up a Tennessee fumble and ran it in. That gave ’Bama a 49-42 lead with less than eight minutes remaining, but Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker then led the Volunteers on a 75-yard touchdown drive that included two pass interference penalties against Alabama. The second penalty saved Tennessee after a fourth-down interception that would have — should have? — clinched the victory with four minutes left to play.

Now the game was tied, but Young led the Tide downfield again, reaching the Tennessee 32-yard line with 34 seconds left. Alabama still had one timeout left, and you might think they could have RUN THE DAMNED BALL at least once, but instead they threw three passes, all of them incomplete. With 15 seconds on the clock, Will Reichard came on to kick what would have been the game-winning field goal, but it went wide right, and it seemed we were headed to overtime.

Alas, Hendon Hooker may be the best quarterback Tennessee’s had since Peyton Manning. He connected on two passes that put the Vols at the Alabama 23 with two seconds left and Tennessee won on a field goal.

It was the first time Tennessee has beat ’Bama since 2006. Their fans tore down the goal posts and, of course, UT alumnus Glenn Reynolds was celebrating. Someone in the comments at Instapundit said, “Imagine scoring 49 points and losing!” To which I replied, “Unfortunately, we don’t have to imagine it.” A dreadful nightmare. “Thriller,” my ass.

Much of the blame for this defeat will fall on Bryce Young, perhaps unfairly. He threw for 455 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions, spreading the ball around to nine different receivers. The real problem for Alabama was that they got 17 penalties for 130 yards.

And where the hell was the defense, huh? Since when does Alabama’s defense give up 52 points to anybody, let alone Tennessee? The last time the Crimson Tide gave up this many points was 1907.

If Bear Bryant was alive, he’d have them boys running wind sprints until they died. Fifty-two points! That’s not a defeat, it’s a humiliation!

One of the problems with being America’s Greatest College Football Team is that there are really only two kinds of seasons for ’Bama: National Championships and failures. Since Nick Saban became the coach in 2007, the Crimson Tide has won six National Championships and, in all but two of those years, they did so with at least one regular-season loss on their record. So it is too early to say the Tide can’t come back this year, although they face a difficult schedule down the stretch, with the Nov. 12 game at Ole Miss looking especially tough.

’Bama fans will therefore remain hopeful that somehow Saban can get the team back to the SEC title game and we’ll see how it goes from here. For now, however, a dark cloud looms above Tuscaloosa, and in the hearts of Crimson Tide fans everywhere. There is no joy in ’Bamaland.




 

Ohio Voters Are Not Stupid, the Polls Are Mostly Bulls**t and Tim Ryan Is Losing

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There was a debate Monday in the Ohio Senate race, which isn’t really a race, because Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan is going to lose, badly. The only suspense is the exact size of J.D. Vance’s winning margin.

Let’s be clear about one basic fact: Ohio is a Republican state.

There was a time, as recently as 2012, when the general popularity of Barack Obama (and the general unpopularity of Mitt Romney) made it seem that Ohio was a “swing” state. That time is now over, and it’s been over for long enough that the national media can no longer deny it.

In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Ohio by an eight-point margin (51% to 43%, about 450,000 votes) and pundits were shocked. Obama had carried Ohio twice, by a three-point margin in 2012 against Romney, and by more than four points against John McCain in 2008. Even during the otherwise successful GOP election years of 2000 and 2004, Ohio had been “too close to call” late into Election Night both years, with Bush squeaking past Al Gore by a margin of about 160,000 voters in 2000 and edging John Kerry by less than 120,000 votes in 2004. Yet here was the endlessly “controversial” Trump not only beating Hillary in Ohio, but beating her by the biggest margin in recent history.

Part of the shock for the liberal media in 2016 was that polls in Ohio (like everywhere else) had so completely failed in their predictive capacity. As late as the Sunday before Election Day 2016, the Columbus Dispatch poll had Hillary leading 48% to 47%, and this was not even the worst Ohio poll in 2016. A month before the election, Monmouth had Hillary leading Trump by 2 points, and the CBS/YouGov poll had Hillary up by 4 points.

I repeat: Trump beat Hillary in Ohio by 8 points in 2016, and you might think such gross polling blunders might have caused pollsters to correct their methodology over the next four years. If you thought so, however, you would be wrong, because the pollster blew Ohio even worse in 2020!

Well do I remember being at my mother-in-law’s house in rural Ohio in late October 2020, in a county where Trump signs proliferated and there was scarcely a Biden sign to be seen, and trying to reconcile what I was seeing with my own eyes with the poll numbers I kept seeing:

Anyone can look at the results from 2016 and see that Trump racked up majorities of 2 to 1 or more in this part of Ohio — 72 percent in Morrow County, 71 percent in Crawford County, 67 percent in Knox County, 66 percent in Richland County, 64 percent in Marion County. In fact, Trump won 80 of Ohio’s 88 counties four years ago, defeating Hillary Clinton by an eight-point margin statewide.
If you believe the polls, Joe Biden is neck-and-neck with Trump in Ohio. Three recent polls (New York Times, Quinnipiac, Rasmussen) showed Biden with a one-point lead, and the current RealClearPolitics average of Ohio polls has Trump ahead with a margin of less than 1 percentage point. But nobody believes the polls, especially when the numbers are starkly contradicted by on-the-ground evidence like the proliferation of roadside Trump signs. . . .

Read the rest of that American Spectator column from October 2020, in case you’ve forgotten how dreadfully wrong about Ohio most pollsters were. Once again, Trump racked up an eight-point margin in the Buckeye State, stomping Biden in Ohio like Godzilla stomped Tokyo.

Will they never learn their lesson? Apparently not. On Tuesday, Instapundit linked to a Townhall article about Monday’s Ohio debate, where Ryan got completely owned by Vance:

In seeking to emphasize his claim that Vance does not support exceptions on abortion, Ryan engaged in a particular display of fear-mongering when it comes to the tragedy of rape victims and complications in pregnancy as part of “the chaos that we’re having now.”
Ryan went on to claim that “we read at least a couple of articles every week, of young people, underage girls who have been raped, or women who have had, uh, significant problems with their pregnancy, not be able to get help in the state. They gotta go to Indiana, they gotta go to Illinois, and that’s not good enough for JD Vance, he supports a national abortion ban, in which he wants women to have to get a passport and have to go to Canada.” The congressman then called for “some moderation on this issue” before painting his opponent as an “extremist,” something he would do throughout the night. . . .
Where [Vance] really hit back against Ryan, though, was by reminding that the alleged criminal in the case of a 10-year-old girl who was raped and became pregnant as a result, was here illegally.
“But let’s talk about that case,” Vance mentioned. “Because why was a 10-year-old girl raped in our community, raped in our state in the first place? The thing the media and Congressman Ryan, they talk about this all the time, the thing they never mention is that poor girl was raped by an illegal alien, somebody that should’ve never been in this state in the first place.” Vance then turned towards Ryan to decry how “you voted so many times against border wall funding, so many times for amnesty, Tim. If you had done your job, she’d never have been raped in the first place.” As the buzzer rang to call time, Vance called on Ryan to “do your job on border security, don’t lecture me on positions I don’t actually have.”

Vance’s demeanor throughout that debate exuded calm strength, whereas Ryan looked weak and desperate, but then at the end of the Townhall article I caught this:

The race is considered to favor Vance, with forecasters rating it as “Lean Republican” or “Likely Republican.” Vance has a +1.4 lead in the polls, according to RealClearPolitics. 

What part of “the polls are all bullshit” do I have to explain here?

Ohioans, who voted against Joe Biden by an eight-point margin, have had to suffer through ruinous inflation and other disastrous consequences of Biden’s policies, and don’t you think they’re pissed off about it? Don’t you think Ohio voters are smart enough to see through Ryan’s phony “moderate” stance? And yet what are these poll numbers?

In September, Siena College had Ryan leading 46% to 43% — in a state that went for Trump by eight points? Are you freaking kidding me?

Well, guess what, boys and girls? That’s right — in October 2020, Sienna College did an Ohio poll for the New York Times and had Biden winning 45% to 44%. So if we consider that they missed by nine points in 2020, and they’ve got Ryan leading by three now, then Vance should win by six points. Except I think he’ll win by a much wider margin than that. The big question about Ohio is whether Vance will win by 10 points or more.

Certainly, Ryan deserves to lose by that much. Democrats seem to think the abortion issue is going to deliver them a midterm miracle, but unless they can somehow prove that J.D. Vance paid for Herschel Walker’s girlfriend’s abortion — c’mon, Democrats are really desperate — I don’t think Republicans need to sweat Ohio this year. Or 2024, either.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!




 

The $250,000,000 Scandal That’s Wrecking Minnesota Democrats

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There haven’t been many public polls in the Minnesota governor’s race, but Republican challenger Scott Jensen is within striking distance of Democrat incumbent Gov. Tim Walz, who is now dealing with fallout from what federal prosecutors call “the largest pandemic relief fraud scheme charged to date”:

The Department of Justice announced today federal criminal charges against 47 defendants for their alleged roles in a $250 million fraud scheme that exploited a federally-funded child nutrition program during the COVID-19 pandemic. . . .
“This was a brazen scheme of staggering proportions,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger for the District of Minnesota. “These defendants exploited a program designed to provide nutritious food to needy children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, they prioritized their own greed, stealing more than a quarter of a billion dollars in federal funds to purchase luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property abroad. I commend the work of the skilled investigators and prosecutors who unraveled the lies, deception, and mountains of false documentation to bring this complex case to light.”
The 47 defendants are charged across six separate indictments and three criminal informations with charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, and bribery.
As outlined in the charging documents, the defendants devised and carried out a massive scheme to defraud the Federal Child Nutrition Program. The defendants obtained, misappropriated, and laundered millions of dollars in program funds that were intended as reimbursements for the cost of serving meals to children. The defendants exploited changes in the program intended to ensure underserved children received adequate nutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than feed children, the defendants enriched themselves by fraudulently misappropriating millions of dollars in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds.

The question is now being asked: What did Tim Walz know, and when did he know it? And his answers so far seem kind of shaky.

No one has claimed that Walz personally benefited from this fraudulent scheme, but rather that his administration failed to properly supervise the expenditure of federal funds through this “child nutrition” program run by the non-profit Feeding Our Future:

Aimee Bock’s organization was keeping a low profile as it handled millions in government money when the video appeared on Facebook in January.
It purportedly showed one of Bock’s employees receiving an astonishing wedding present: an ornamental cart, laden with so much gold that guests gathered around to see it up close.
Abdihakim Nur, a Somali activist and blogger who shot the video, said he heard the gold came from food vendors who were getting rich off the money they collected through Bock’s nonprofit, Feeding Our Future.
Nur was appalled, and his video created a stir in the Somali community.
“We cannot close our eyes to such corruption which will put our entire community’s name in the news as fraudsters and criminals when we only have a few bad apples,” Nur posted.
Five days later, the FBI raided Bock’s home and a sprawling government investigation went public.

Well done, Mr. Nur! Because, if you read the indictment, here are the names of the 47 people charged in this criminal scheme:

  • Aimee Marie Bock
  • Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh
  • Salim Ahmed Said
  • Abdulkadir Nur Salah
  • Ahmed Sharif Omar-Hashim
  • Abdi Nur Salah
  • Abdihakim Ali Ahmed
  • Ahmed Mohamed Artan
  • Abdikadir Ainanshe Mohamud
  • Abdinasir Mahamed Abshir
  • Asad Mohamed Abshir
  • Hamdi Hussein Omar
  • Ahmed Abdullahi Ghedi
  • Abdirahman Mohamud Ahmed
  • Abdiaziz Shafii Farah
  • Mohamed Jama Ismail
  • Mahad Ibrahim
  • Abdimajid Mohamed Nur
  • Said Shafii Farah
  • Abdiwahab Maalim Aftin
  • Mukhtar Mohamed Shariff
  • Hayat Mohamed Nur
  • Qamar Ahmed Hassan
  • Sahra Mohamed Nur
  • Abdiwahab Ahmed Mohamud
  • Filsan Mumin Hassan
  • Guhaad Hashi Said
  • Abdullahe Nur Jesow
  • Abdul Abubakar Ali
  • Yusuf Bashir Ali
  • Haji Osman Salad
  • Fahad Nur
  • Anab Artan Awad
  • Sharmarke Issa
  • Farhiya Mohamud
  • Liban Yasin Alishire
  • Ahmed Yasin Ali
  • Khadar Jigre Adan
  • Sharmake Jama
  • Ayan Jama
  • Asha Jama
  • Fartun Jama
  • Mustafa Jama
  • Zamzam Jama
  • Bekam Addissu Merdassa
  • Hadith Yusuf Ahmed
  • Hanna Marekegn

Probably not a lot of Trump voters on that list, if you get my drift.

In defending themselves against accusations of administrative negligence, Walz and the state department of education say they tried to cut off payment to Feeding Our Future, but that the non-profit responded with a lawsuit falsely claiming racial discrimination.

Wait a minute — Democrats admitting that false cries of “racism” are used to exploit the system? Wow, it’s a new day in America.

But look at that list of names again. Regardless of the details of how Walz’s administration handled this, do you think the average voter in rural Minnesota can’t add 2+2 and find that the sum is 4?

“Let’s give millions of dollars in taxpayer money to Somalis” — that’s what this “child nutrition” program was really about, and which party do you think this political payola was meant to benefit? The problem was that the corruption was just too blatant, what with the “luxury cars, houses, jewelry, and coastal resort property,” to say nothing of the “ornamental cart laden with gold,” and at some point somebody at Minnesota’s department of education got worried about it. Eventually, they tipped the feds to their concerns and tried to halt the payments to Aimee Bock’s organization, but when this was answered by a racial discrimination lawsuit, they restarted the payments, and the “child nutrition” bonanza continued right up until the feds raided Bock.

The gubernatorial race in Minnesota is very close, and this scandal works entirely to the advantage of Republicans. Furthermore, there’s a toss-up House race in Minnesota’s 2nd District, where GOP challenger Tyler Kistner — who barely lost in 2020 — is trying again to oust Democrat Rep. Angie Craig. Now we learn that Somalis have been looting the taxpayers to the tune of $250 million, and you’ve got to think that scandal doesn’t help the Democrat incumbent in this House campaign.