August 30, 2023
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Poll: Trump rallies to 2-point lead against Biden following mugshot, debate absence, improves among Blacks, Hispanics and Democrats
By Robert Romano
Former President Donald Trump now leads President Joe Bident by 2 points in the latest Emerson poll following his Aug. 24 arrest and mugshot by Fulton County, Ga. prosecutors and his absence at the Republican presidential debate the day before, 46 percent to 44 percent.
The poll, taken Aug. 25 and Aug. 26, marks an improvement from the Emerson poll take Aug. 16 and Aug. 17, which had Trump and Biden tied 44 percent to 44 percent.
Which was a further improvement from the June 19 to June 20 Emerson poll, when Biden led 44 percent to 43 percent.
And even better than the April 24 to April 25 Emerson poll, when Biden led 43 percent to 41 percent.
Trump’s edge in late August comes amid a considerable number of Democrats who say they will be voting for Trump, at 16.9 percent, compared to just 10.7 percent of Republicans who say they will vote for Biden. Independents are roughly split, with 41 percent saying they prefer Biden and 38 percent who want Trump, with almost 21 percent undecided.
Critically, since April, Biden has dropped among Democrats from 84 percent to 78 percent, and Trump has improved among Republicans from 81 percent to 82.6 percent. In April, both candidates again roughly spilt independents, with Biden garnering 33.8 percent and Trump with 33.4 percent.
The picture for Biden in August worsens if philosopher Cornel West is in the race, with Trump leading 44 percent to 39 percent, and West with 4.1 percent. Suddenly, then, Trump is leading independents 35 percent to 30 percent, with West scooping up almost 7 percent of non-affiliated voters. Trump still keeps 16 percent of Democrats, and Biden improves among Republicans to 11.5 percent.
Deeper in the numbers, Trump has dramatically improved among minorities, garnering 19 percent of Blacks and 41 percent of Hispanics in the two-way race against Biden, and 17.8 percent of Blacks and 39.7 percent of Hispanics in the three-way race against Biden and West.
In April, Trump only received 15 percent of Blacks and 31.5 percent of Hispanics, and only 9 percent of Democrats.
West for his part garners 8.1 percent of Blacks and 6.8 percent of Hispanics, almost entirely out of Biden’s votes in the two-way race, illustrating the potential spoiler role the candidate could be playing the race for 2024.
Suffice to say, these numbers are simply awful for an incumbent president seeking reelection a year out from the election. Biden could still mount a comeback, but over time, voter attitudes in opposition tend harden and could ultimately result in the American people saying it’s time for a change.
In the Republican nomination, Trump still safely leads the field in the Emerson poll, garnering 49.6 percent, compared to 11.6 percent for Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, 8.8 percent for Vivek Ramaswamy, 6.9 percent for former Vice President Mike Pence and 6.6 percent for former South Carolina Republican Governor and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.
With Trump continuing to dominate the news—including his prosecutions by Democratic-dominated cities and jurisdictions of New York City, Fulton County, Miami, and Washington D.C.—any impact the trials might be having on Trump’s own political fortunes is either negligible, or it might actually be helping him.
And yet, partisan Democrats remain highly committed to acting like the moth to flame, with 71.5 percent saying it made them less likely to vote for Trump, but they weren’t voting for Trump anyway. Beneath that, 21 percent of Democrats remarkably said the indictments made it more likely they would vote for Trump. That includes 15.6 percent of Blacks and 41.1 percent of Hispanics who said the indictments made it more likely they would choose Trump.
It’s almost as if attempting to lock up your political opponents and potentially attempt to disqualify them from running for office so you don’t have to face them in an election like a tin-pot dictator is offensive to the American people, and could ultimately prove to not only be counterproductive for Biden come 2024 — but catastrophic.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
Video: 2020 Debate Clips the Left Wing Media Wants to Bury
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWJY90MFiEI
Video: Biden Prosecutors Have No Right To Railroad Trump With Speedy Trial
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRnRbullyg0
Biden’s price fixing in doctor-patient relationship is a government directive, not a negotiation
By Rick Manning
Joe Biden is trying to take control of senior’s relationship with their doctors by picking winners and losers on medicines. The Biden administration says it is beginning a ‘negotiation’ with the manufacturers of ten medicines over what Medicare will pay for them, but it’s not a negotiation when the federal government gives you a directive. Try negotiation with the Internal Revenue Service on paying less taxes. Make no mistake, Biden’s government is giving these companies a federal directive and setting a price. The result of these directives will be a not so subtle shift away from doctors prescribing medicines which best treat their individual patients to their being pressured to prescribe other lower cost, but less effective drugs.
This is not conjecture, it is exactly what happens with Medicaid patients in almost every state in America. States create drug formularies based upon similar ‘negotiations’ and doctors are in many cases dictated to prescribe lower cost drugs which in many cases have already failed that patient.
Now Biden is putting into place this exact kind of system for Medicare recipients. A system which prescribes based upon cost to the Medicare system rather than the needs of patients. Like every cancer, it is starting as a little noticed bureaucratic action where federal employees who go home at 4 pm every day and only work every other Friday will effectively dictate to the companies which invent the medicines what can be charged.
Anyone who thinks this is going to end up going well for the patients who depend upon getting the right medicine when they need it simply hasn’t been paying attention to the political abuse of the medical system over the past three years.
No one can legitimately argue against seeking cost savings in the Medicare system, but here is what the deliberately misnamed Inflation Reduction Act actually allows to happen with any savings resulting from these ‘negotiations.’
They don’t go to making the Medicare system solvent. No, instead, savings are diverted away from Medicare solvency and toward green energy projects.
That’s right. While Medicare teeters on the brink of fiscal disaster, the savings will be going to buy Chinese windmills, solar panels and electric car batteries.
In Biden’s America Last world, it might make sense to dictate what prescription a doctor should write for their patient in order to fund a green energy future which puts the Chinese in control of the world’s energy production.
I guess it may be time for Americans for Limited Government to start bidding on some of Hunter’s art work as a last ditch effort to try to slow the Biden administration led planned decline of our nation.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/08/bidens-price-fixing-in-doctor-patient-relationship-is-a-government-directive-not-a-negotiation/