When Hypocrisy and Possible Voter Fraud Mingle

This is Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence.

Tulsi Gabbard full on pandering to the Big Lie: "We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time and vulnerable to exploitation to manipulate the results of the votes being cast." pic.twitter.com/UkrXfSBX4L

— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) April 10, 2025

From CNN via Hawai'i Free Press:

 …  In March 2024, Gabbard and her husband, Abraham Williams, bought a home in the Austin suburb of Leander, Texas, according to property records.

Several months later, in June, Gabbard and Williams declared under oath before a notary public that “we are resident(s) of the State of Texas,” and their Leander home was “designated as the family homestead,” according to a public document filed in Travis County, Texas, the following month….

On the (2024) campaign trail, she echoed some of Trump’s rhetoric about election security, calling voting integrity “a serious concern and a serious issue” at one Trump campaign event in Las Vegas last fall….

But a few months later, Gabbard voted in the 2024 general election back in Hawaii….

…Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University who studies election law, said Gabbard’s vote raised “a bunch of questions.”

“If she voted in Hawaii without actually living up to Hawaii’s eligibility standard, then that’s a problem,” said Levitt, who served as a voting policy adviser in the Biden administration. “Alternatively, if she always meant to keep Hawaii as home, that could well be a problem for that Texas tax exemption.”

Hawaii law says that individuals can only have a single residence for election purposes, and defines a voter’s residence as the “place in which the person’s habitation is fixed, and to which, whenever the person is absent, the person has the intention to return.”

If a voter has more than one dwelling, there is a “presumption” that a voter’s residence is the dwelling that is “subject to the homeowner’s property tax exemption,” state voting regulations say. There is also a presumption that if a voter takes up a new dwelling in another state, that new dwelling is their residence. The regulations allow voters to present evidence that they should still be allowed to vote in Hawaii.

Lance Collins, a Hawaii lawyer who has worked on multiple cases in the state in which voters challenged an elected official’s residency, said he thought Gabbard could face a challenge to her registration or an investigation into her vote in the 2024 election.

Under Hawaii law, voters keep their residency “until you take some affirmative action to abandon it,” Collins said. “Requesting a homestead exemption in another state is strong evidence of an intention to abandon.” …

In May of 2024, Gabbard was interviewed by the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody about the former congresswoman's recently published "For the Love of Country: Leave the Democratic Party Behind." Asked about gender, she contended that Democrats "themselves are removing these guardrails in our society that the truth then becomes whatever they deem it to be, putting themselves in that position of trying to be God."  In the book itself, she had written

I cannot associate myself with today’s Democratic Party, the leaders of which stand in direct opposition to this freedom, intent on using all levers of their power to target people of faith, especially Christians, and undermine our religious freedom.” She spoke of her own experiences when her father was persecuted for his religious beliefs and how over her lifetime God has been removed from the Democratic Party. In 2002 God was mentioned seven times in their official platform but in 2020 only once. Gabbard also scrutinizes how during the pandemic, churches were shut down–-even drive-in ones—yet liberal political protests were allowed to continue.

Bit in December of 2019 when Gabbard was seeking nomination as the Democratic nominee for President, she had commemorated the 39th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon, who with his wife had written the 1971pop hit "Imagine." She posted to Twitter a three-minute video showing her singing the song while she was in the back of her campaign bus and accompanied by her husband playing a ukelele. "Imagine," the politician sang

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.

One day she's singing "Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try... And no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace." Less than three years later, in her letter announcing her departure from the Democratic Party, she wrote in October of 2022 that the Democrats "actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith and  spirituality...."

For Gabbard then, peace comes only through the elimination of religion and with it, God. Then there was Gabbard leaving the Democratic Party in part because it was doing everything in "their power to target people of faith, especially Christians."

To be generous, Gabbard belongs to the Science of Identity Foundation, an offshoot Krishna Consciousness, itself an offshoot of Hinduism. There is, ahem, history between Hinduism and Islam, and Gabbard may have been aghast as the tolerance of the Democratic Party toward Islam and Muslims.

Or perhaps Tulsi Gabbard is merely a fake, a phony, and fraud. Adopting the Republican playbook, she turns her back on God while claiming to be a person of "faith," allegedly unlike her opponents. And she has conveniently adopted one of the central tenets of the Donald Trump strategy: never admit error or play defense and always attack. So now the response of the woman who appears to have voted illegally in 2024 herself attacks what she claims is electronic voting fraud to manipulate election results.

That ' is paired with someone who celebrates atheism, then condemns her political opponents for targeting "people of faith."  If that ever is combined with blatant corruption, we'll have the perfect Cabinet secretary for the Trump Administration.

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Shaken

The President was playing his favorite song, the wildly overrated Macho Man when

President Trump told Americans Monday to be “Strong, Courageous, and Patient” with his sweeping tariff regime — as markets continued their freefall.

 “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!),” the president wrote on Truth Social half an hour before Wall Street opened for trading.

 “Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”

It took fewer than forty-eight hours for a near-reversal to occur, when as noted by Politico

After a week of market turmoil that spread from stocks to, crucially, government bonds, Trump finally flinched after days of insisting that there would be no delays and that the world should hunker down for a long, nasty global trade war.

“I know what the hell I’m doing,” Trump told a gathering of House Republicans Tuesday night, bragging that countries have been “kissing my ass” to try to make trade deals.

After the fact, Trump’s courtiers called it all part of a well-articulated plan. “This was his strategy all along,” as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it, citing outreach from some 75 countries begging Trump to negotiate for some sort of tariff reprieve.

Yet this is a case to take Trump both seriously and literally: By Trump’s own admission, he was spooked about the sharp selloff of Treasuries — admitting, as is well known but rarely acknowledged by him personally, that he very much cares about what other people think.

“The bond market is tricky,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy … jumping a little bit.”

This guy seems to agree:

It turns out that "people" always has meant "people I control"  As Ezra Klein put it last autumn, "one of Trump's verbal tics is to say 'Many people are saying.' But it's the opposite. He's saying what many people want somebody to be saying. He's saying what people are saying in private but often are not saying in public."  Trump reversed or sharply reduced most of his tariffs because he himself was getting a little queasy:

And, no, it wasn’t just other people who were queasy. A person I spoke to close to the White House confirmed: Internal worry about panic spreading to government bonds, usually a safe haven during economic volatility, are precisely what made Trump do a 180.

The President didn't rescind or cut the most important tariffs, those against mainland China, which exports far more goods to the USA than dies any other country. However, pulling back on the other tariffs must have been difficult to do for a zero-sum guy, who believes he is benefited only by imposing pain upon others. And we don't know what the 90-days of the pause will bring.

Yet, on one day, for whatever reason(s), President Trump did the right thing. And he became the nation's leading Panican.

 

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The Smartest and Most Spineless in the Room

In November of 2013, conservative Mark Steyn of the conservative National Review wrote contemptuously

Still, as historian Michael Beschloss pronouned the day after his election, he's "probably the smartest guy ever to become president." Naturally, Obama shares this assessment. As he assured us five years ago, "I know more about policies on  any particular issue than my policy directors."

In March, 2016 house conservative Niall Ferguson wrote in The Atlantic

It is a criticism I have heard from more than one person who has worked with President Obama that he regards himself as the smartest person in the room- any room. Jeffrey Goldberg's fascinating article reveals that this is a considerable understatement. The president seems to think he is the smartest person in the world, perhaps ever.

It always was a go-to criticism of Barack Obama by Republicans that the President believed he was "the smartest guy in the room."  It was a more diplomatic way of slamming a black man than to accuse him of being "arrogant," which appeared to be their real, unspoken criticism of him. From the right-wing Free Beacon (which, perhaps ironically, initially funded what became known as the Steele dossier):

Another incident critics cite is when Obama was still a Senator from Illinois and traveled to Iraq in 2007. General David Petraeus, then commanding U.S. forces for the war effort, gave Obama his assessment of the fight against al Qaeda and how to prosecute it. Obama disagreed with the general's analysis, arguing that Petraeus had it wrong.

the nerve to question a general? I think the word the Free Beacon was searching for was arrogant.

Funny thing is that Obama may have been the smartest guy in the room, though certainly not overly imbued with fearlessness. Last week, we learned

Former Vice President Kamala Harris was "very annoyed" with former President Barack Obama as she sought his endorsement to take former President Joe Biden's spot on the 2024 Democratic ticket, a new book claims.

"As the hours rolled by, and it became clear that she was well on her way to seizing the nomination by storm, Obama's opposition to her grew more confounding," authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes reported. "Harris was ‘very annoyed’ with him, according to a confidant. They had plenty of donors and political allies in common. The rest of the party threw in with her. Where was Obama?"

The book, published earlier this month, is titled "Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House" and details how Harris secured the support of key Democrats after Biden dropped out of the race. The authors revealed that Obama did not want Harris to run in Biden's place, because he felt she couldn't beat Trump.

In the discussion with MSNBC, Allen stated  "President Obama absolutely did not think that Joe Biden should continue, according to our sources close to President Obama."

The former President was correct on both counts. The incumbent President should not have run for re-election. It had been obvious for many months that Biden had lost something off his fastball and that voters would not forgive him as they would forgive opponent Donald Trump, who either physically or mentally (let alone ethically) not right. 

And Obama was right that Harris couldn't beat Trump. The then- Vice President wisely ran a campaign emphasizing her strengths and de-emphasizing her weaknesses. Nevertheless, she still didn't win because, ultimately, she was Kamala Harris.

Yet, if Barack Obama had been cast in The Wizard of Oz (fictionally set in the birthplace of his mother), he easily could have played the cowardly lion, albeit without the self-awareness. True to character:

However, Obama spoke with Harris over the next couple of days, according to the book, and he found he was in a position where "his actions against Biden and Harris could diminish him in the eyes of Democratic elites."

Well, that wasn't very bold. 

Still Obama, who as Senator dared to question the corrupt  David Petraeus, was encouraging a challenge to a candidate who herself thought the nomination was her divine right  His counsel- similar to that of James Carville- should have been embraced.

Instead, the Party fell in line with James Clyburn, who quickly endorsed Harris after Biden's exit in order to stave off any momentum for an open primary.  The four-year old Win With Black Women leveraged its influence.

The prescience and wisdom the courage. In an interview last week at Hamilton College in New York State, the former President stated

Imagine if I had pulled Fox News’ credentials from the White House press corps. You’re laughing, but this is what’s happening. Imagine if I had said to law firms that were representing parties that were upset with policies my administration had initiated, that you will not be allowed into government buildings.

We will punish you economically for dissenting from the Affordable Care Act or the Iran deal. We will ferret out students who protest against my policies. It’s unimaginable that the same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that from me, or a whole bunch of my predecessors.

I say this not on a partisan basis.

Of course, he didn't say it on a partisan basis. The name "Trump" never crossed his lips. He completely avoided the words "Trump" or "Donald Trump" or "President Trump." It was very Obama-esque.

It's a feat worth admiring. So, too, is Barack Obama's sense that betting on Kamala Harris was a lousy gamble. It's unfortunate that he wasn't bold enough to let more than a few people know at the time.

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Playing Us All for Suckers

As can be seen in the video (at 1:53)  below, Jim Cramer tells CNN's Erin Burnett, once a colleague of Cramer at CNBC

What bothered me, Erin, was they really did- over and over again- the Presidentsaid- listen, it's going to be reciprocal. If you do it, we do it. And that was going to be so good.. And I really believed in it. And I feel like a sucker becausse I am not a free trader and I do not believe in free trade and I was just as tough, if not tougher, than his people but they screwed it up and they really did- they made it a totally ill-advised way and I was very let down as someone who truly believes that free trade is awful for the American working person. This is what they came up with?

Tariffs today, no tariffs tomorrow, modified tariffs tomorrow; slamming allies and letting Russia off the hook; motivation seemingly borne out of vindictiveness. As Cramer argues, tariffs imposed properly can help balance the god of "free trade" and its half-century+ of hollowing out America's industrial base. The holy grail of free trade was characterized by the story of American steel manufacturing, in which, as Joshua Zeitz explains in Politico  

The example of American steel manufacturing is telling. American steel firms, such as those in Youngstown, had once been an engine of national economic power. But they had been slow to invest and modernize, and foreign competitors adopted new technologies that made their steel production faster and more efficient. Compounding the problem, federal policy inadvertently strengthened foreign steel production. Following World War II, American assistance helped rebuild efficient steel facilities in Europe and Japan while allowing these countries to impose high tariffs on U.S. steel. At the same time, American companies invested in modern plants abroad rather than upgrading their domestic operations, resulting in increased import penetration in the U.S. market. Furthermore, conglomerate ownership of steel companies like Youngstown Sheet & Tube led to profits being siphoned off to finance non-steel ventures, further weakening the industry’s competitive position. The result was a wave of plant closures and job losses, as seen in once-prosperous Youngstown, where over 50,000 steel jobs vanished within half a decade.

"All of this," Zeitz recalls, "led to the anomaly known as stagflation," a combination of high inflation and slow growth, which contributed considerably to the downfall of the Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter presidencies. This begs the question which the reporter (emphasis his) asks: Why would anyone elect to do this?"

Zeitz notes "Trump maintains that, contrary to what most economists believe, it will reinvigorate American industry in his nationalist vision."

Trump's argument- not the only one he has made to justify his tariff regime- comports with the overall vision of Cramer and myself. But this may not be the President's primary motivation. While Trump was plotting his comeback to the presidency:

 

Donald Trump was not saying that the system was rigged or that Joe Biden was corrupt. He was saying that the USA was at that time rigged and corrupt- and evil. Admittedly, he was contending this when he was out of office. Not so when at a Cabinet meeting on February 26, 2025, President Trump would declare "this country has gotten bloated and fat and disgusting." He also called Joe Biden "the worst President in the history of our country" and "a disgrace." This was on- wait for it-

             

It's too easy to snicker that this President wants to outdo Joe Biden. Yet, when a man calls his own country "evil" and "disgusting," that may be exactly what he's trying to do.

The President's punitive trade policies reflect contempt for nearly all nations, and he has exhibited a special disdain for Canada, Greenland, and Denmark. His disregard for human life in Gaza is startling, though no more so than for individuals in the undeveloped world who will be ravaged unto death from starvation or disease because he has ended the US Agency for International Development.

Nonetheless, much of the contempt has been saved for Americans ourselves. We've all heard about the Administration summarily disabling the departments of Treasury, Education, and Health and Human Services and the Federal Election Commission; attacking the C.I.A. and the F.B.I.; shaking down major law firms; harming transsexuals and other beneficiaries of diversity, equity, and inclusion; gutting the Social Security Administration; and so much more.

The depth and breadth of Donald Trump's attacks on virtually anything which helps Americans should prompt us to consider the possibility that the President is assaulting more than the specific individuals, institutions, or groups which he believes have victimized him. He may harbor a special hostility toward foreigners. However, he also may be targeting Americans, as in all Americans regardless of circumstances.

The latest example of unparalleled scorn- at least as of this writing- came on Thursday. Over the last several years, Trump has called deceased American servicemen "losers"- on another occasion "suckers"- and because of rain skipped a ceremony at Alsne-Marne American Cemetery to honor American servicemen killed in France during World War I. Now he has missed 

the dignified transfer for four U.S. soldiers who were killed in Lithuania during a training accident as the president, who was forced to abort his helicopter after a wheel malfunction that same day, was seen playing golf at his Trump National Doral Miami golf course for a LIV Golf event.

Lithuania's president held a ceremony honoring the fallen soldiers who fatally 'drowned' after their tank disappeared on a training mission about a week ago. Lithuanian, Polish and U.S. soldiers and rescue teams searched through forests and swamps at the Gen. Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in Pabradė, which is about 6 miles west of the country's border with Belarus.

And yet we are to believe that the guy who believes that the United States of America is "evil" and "disgusting" is only trying to do right, as he sees it, by his country. This may be Donald J. Trump's biggest con ever.

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If Only This Were a Movie

"If." And if a cat were a dog, it could bark.

Geraldo Rivera: "The family did visit Japan... we did not see a single American car on the road in Tokyo — not a Caddy, not a Buick, not a Ford, not a Chevy... I have an innate sense that there's something unfair going on... if they are screwing us, we got to tax them." pic.twitter.com/awkaHEQaVS

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 3, 2025

The positive comes in the form of Rivera's qualification with "if."  He argues "if these numbers are correct, so if some fraction of them, you know, if the trend is, if there is not an essential lie being told here, and if we are getting screwed by these foreign producers, then.... "

What are the odds that a chart blessed by Donald Trump will have an underlying accuracy? Donald Trump? Really? As with most of the President's assertions, the dishonesty should be treated with something well beyond skepticism. Journalist and The Guardian financial editor Nils Pratley explains

....  analysts noted the simplistic- or plain perverse- formula behind the administration's tariff arithmetic. It seems to have taken a country's trade deficit in goods with US, divided it by its exports to the US and called the resulting number a trade barrier that deserves a "reciprocal" US tariff. The underlying logic, it would appear, is that every country should always have a perfect trade balance with the US- never mind the impossibility of achieving that outcome, and never mind that the tariffs don't affect trade in services.

Also, Geraldo Rivera: not an economist. "If they are screwing us, we got to tax them." However, tariffs are federal taxes,, set by Congress,  as aa "percentage of the price a buyer pays a foreign seller." They are "applied to  goods at the border" and are collected by customs and Border Protection agents at the 328 ports of entry across the USA. We are not taxing them; the US government is taxing domestic buyers, which are then inclined to pass most of the additional cost on to consumers.

"Screwing us?" Yes, someone is screwing us. But the screwing is being done by the guy who at a Cabinet meeting said the country is "bloated, fat, and disgusting" and is taking his revenge upon that country and the people, immigrants or otherwise, within it. The call is not coming from foreign countries. The call is coming from inside the house.

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Outspent and Victorious

Republicans, even the one who steps away from Donald Trump, can be very slick.

Ingraham: Why did the Republicans lose that judicial race in Wisconsin?

Miller: You got to remember, candidates do matter. In this case, we did not have a particularly good one. Democrats also have a ton of out-of-state money that came in pic.twitter.com/mczSlQwOQN

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 2, 2025

Democrats did raise a lot of money from out-of-state. However 

With ideological control of the court again at stake, the race shattered the record set just two years ago. Through today, WisPolitics had tracked $107 million in overall spending through independent expenditure filings with the state, data from AdImpact, information from media buyers and sources with knowledge of the efforts. That includes $58.2 million by Schimel and those supporting him and $48.8 million by Crawford and those backing her.

The spending was dominated by big donors. George Soros donated $2 million to the state Dem Party, while Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker chipped in $1.5 million. The party then poured $11.4 million into Crawford’s campaign.

On the GOP side, Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks has given $3.6 million to the state Republican Party since Jan. 1, while Illinois businesswoman Liz Uihlein kicked in $2.2 million, and her husband Dick Uihlein gave the party another $1.7 million. It transferred $9.5 million to Schimel’s campaign.

Still, no donor was more influential than Musk, who appeared in Green Bay over the weekend.

The billionaire business owner and top aide to Trump plus two aligned PACs put in more than  $24 million, according to the WisPolitics tally. That includes $12.6 million by America PAC and another nearly $8.7 million by Building America’s Future PAC.

Musk personally gave the state GOP $3 million. And the $24.3 million doesn't include what America PAC handed out to registered voters who signed a petition opposing "activist judges." Those who did that- and provided personal information the PAC could use for GOTV efforts- received $100 per person.. The PAC offered other incentives as part of its turn out the vote efforts, including three $1 million awards to people who signed the online petition.

In the land of Trump- with which Jason Miller no longer is directly involved- Miller is nowhere near the most vial nor most dishonest. He's not even the most vial Trump acolyte named Miller because that honor clearly goes to Stephen.  But complaining about spending by Democrats when Elon Musk is on the other side is a little rich.

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Simply One Step in the Inevitable Direction

NBC News reported Sunday

President Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility of seeking a third term in the White House, which is prohibited by the Constitution under the 22nd Amendment, saying in an exclusive interview with NBC News that there were methods for doing so and clarifying that he was “not joking.”

“A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said in a Sunday-morning phone call with NBC News, referring to his allies. “But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it’s very early in the administration.”

“I’m focused on the current,” Trump added, in some of his most extensive comments to date about serving a third term.

Coyly

When asked whether he wanted another term, the president responded, “I like working.”

“I’m not joking,” Trump said, when asked to clarify. “But I’m not — it is far too early to think about it.”

When asked whether he has been presented with plans to allow him to seek a third term, Trump said, “There are methods which you could do it.”

NBC News asked about a possible scenario in which Vice President JD Vance would run for office and then pass the role to Trump. Trump responded that “that’s one” method.

“But there are others, too,” Trump added.

Asked to share another method, Trump simply responded “no.”

Not joking and not diverting attention from anything else. This is floating an idea to see if it flies. There are at least four ways Trump can possibly occupy the Oval Office sometime beyond January 20, 2022. While more sanguine than I am of keeping King Trump from doing so, Chris Cillizza (video below) explains

There is clearly a will for it. He wants this to happen. He is making very clear that he wants it to happen. He talked about this in his first term. He's talked about it now in his second term. It's moved from "oh, I'm joking" to "I am not joking" and, you know, this is a step in that direction.

   

This is a step in that direction. If Trump waited, till, say, December of 2027 to declare his intention to hang on to the presidency or return to it, it might come as a shock to the public and the mainstream media. Therefore, he has decided to normalize the possibility. At this point, it sounds preposterous to many people but as he consolidates power and periodically raises the possibility of a third term, the notion will become more mainstream, hence more acceptable.

There won't be a constitutional amendment erasing the limit of the number of times an individual can be elected to the presidency. A Vance-Trump ticket is an option. Alternatively, martial law may be declared or Trump will cling to power by initiating a war or claiming one is under way. National emergency. If he has no other choice, he will refuse to leave office or force a confrontation with the U.S. Supreme Court. If he loses there, his rallying cry will be: you and whose army?

The Overton Window will continue, perhaps subtly, to shift. Whatever route he eventually takes, the President, Bannon, and others will periodically float the idea that Trump will serve one or more additional terms.. Donald J. Trump may not survive the remainder of this term, but will not give up power willingly otherwise.

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