August 16, 2024

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

Trump Quietly Gaining Support Among Black Voters In Battleground States Against Harris

By Manzanita Miller

The likely outcome according to current polling and historical precedent is that the Democratic Presidential candidate will win a wide majority of the Black vote, and with Vice President Kamala Harris on the ticket this expectation is raised even further.  

However, there is new evidence that Black voters are less likely to support Harris than they were President Joe Biden, and former President Donald Trump is on track to more than double his share of the Black vote in certain swing states. 

A recent nationwide New York Times-Siena College poll has Harris leading Trump among Black Americans 72 percent to 19 percent. While this is a broad advantage for Harris, it is a substantially slimmer margin than the 87 percent of the Black electorate who supported Biden in 2020 and marks a six-point gain for Trump, who won thirteen percent of the Black vote four years ago. 

When you zero in on certain battleground states, Harris is significantly below Biden’s 2020 numbers with Black voters, while Trump has more than doubled his share of Black voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania. 

The latest Times-Siena College poll focusing on three key battleground states – Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – has Trump eating into Harris’ margins. 

In Michigan for example, Trump has doubled his share of the Black vote, going from 7 percent in 2020 to 14 percent who intend to support him in November. Harris has lost twelve percentage points with Black voters in Michigan, going from 92 percent of the vote in 2020 to 80 percent who expect to support her in November.   

In Wisconsin, Trump is on track to more than double his share of the Black vote. The Times poll has Trump earning 17 percent of the Black vote in Wisconsin compared to eight percent in 2020. Harris is polling a full fifteen points below what Biden earned in Wisconsin, earning just 77 percent of the Black vote in the Times poll to Biden’s 92 percent in 2020.   

In Pennsylvania, Trump’s gains among Black voters have been slimmer but he is still ahead of his 2020 numbers. The Times poll has Trump going from 7 percent of the Black vote in 2020 to 10 percent today. Harris has lost eight points compared to what Biden earned in 2020, with the Times poll showing her earning 84 percent of the vote to Biden’s 92 percent in 2020.  

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania all boast relatively large Black populations, and let’s not forget just how slim the margins were in 2020.

In Michigan for example, Black voters made up an estimated 12 percent of the electorate or over 650,000 votes in 2020. Trump lost Michigan by less than 155,000 votes.

In Pennsylvania, Black voters made up around 11 percent of the electorate or over 750,000 votes in 2020, and Biden eked out a victory by less than 82,000 votes.

In Wisconsin, Black voters made up around six percent of the electorate or over 194,000 votes, and Biden won that state by just 0.6 percent, or less than 21,000 votes.   

The Times poll also supports longstanding evidence that a majority of Black voters do not consider themselves liberal or progressive, but moderate. Over half of Black voters in the poll – 52 percent – identify as moderate, while 25 percent say they are liberal, and 19 percent say they are conservative.

Harris may be popular with the mainstream media and being deluged in fundraising dollars from wealthy donors, but she is arguably the most radical Democratic presidential candidate yet – and that may not play so well with moderate Black voters at the margins.

Harris is likely to do better than Biden did with women and certain other demographics in these battleground states, and she may even turn her numbers around with Black voters before November.

However, it is worth noting that Harris is well underperforming Biden’s 2020 numbers with Black voters in these key states three months out from November. Despite attempts to block Trump from becoming president ranging from sham lawsuits to an attempt on his life, the former president has gained not entirely insignificant support from Black voters.    

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/08/trump-quietly-gaining-support-among-black-voters-in-battleground-states-against-harris/

Broken National Security: Home Detention For Man Caught Smuggling Confidential Documents Out Of Country

By Rick Manning

A U.S.-Turkish dual citizen, who somehow was granted a Top Secret Clearance as a civilian Pentagon employee at the Joint Warfare Analysis Center was arrested leaving the country with classified documents in his possession.  The Obama appointed federal magistrate judge, Ivan Davis, denied prosecutors requests that the accused be released and subjected to home detention pending trial. 

What the heck? Has our system of justice gone so far awry that the fact that someone was leaving the country with illegally held Top Secret documents (with other classified documents found in his home) is not in the clink awaiting trial, while sight-seeing grandmas and grandpas who took selfies in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 were hunted down and held for months and years while unconstitutionally being charged with an obstructing Congress claim is beyond ridiculous.

In fairness to the Department of Justice, they did request keeping the probable spy in detention, but the federal magistrate effectively set him free saying, “too far of a leap” to tie the illegal possession and attempted transport of classified documents to a foreign nation as being a strong mishandling of documents claim.

America knows quite a bit about the handling of classified documents given the on-going prosecution of former President Donald Trump, which included an attention seeking full-blown FBI raid on his home in Mar-a-Lago. The bogged down prosecution ultimately and largely comes down to the question of whether a President of the United States can declassify documents, with the obvious answer being yes, that power is an Article II constitutional power of the unitary executive.

We have also seen a former U.S. Senator and Vice President, who currently serves as President be found to have a treasure trove of classified documents illegally taken prior to his becoming President, stored everywhere from his garage to a Chinese government paid for office at a University of Pennsylvania branch in Washington, D.C. being absolved from prosecution due to his feeblemindedness.

But this is the first time we have seen a man caught leaving the country with classified documents not being treated like a national security threat.  After all, he was only copying documents detailing war planning and attempting to smuggle them to Mexico.

Beyond this absurd judicial decision, which is being appealed, other questions arise.

Who gave a Top Secret clearance to a Pentagon employee who has only been a citizen of the United States since 2021, maintaining dual citizenship with his native country? The question arises, should a foreign citizen even be eligible to work with, let alone handle Top Secret documents regardless of whether he or she also became an American citizen.

Should the just-reappointed federal magistrate be forced off the bench for this ruling that clearly demonstrates his inability to discern the difference between accidentally putting the wrong file in your briefcase (which is still prosecuted aggressively) from actively copying confidential documents after hours and then seeking to take them overseas.

Sunday newspapers across America used to have a magazine insert which included various general interest columns.  One of these was directly named, “Can this Marriage be Saved?” After learning that a federal magistrate can’t even identify a clear case of espionage when put right before him and keep the presumed innocent accused in prison before his trial, one wonders if a country that has apparently lost its will to live can be saved?

Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/08/broken-national-security-home-detention-for-man-caught-smuggling-confidential-documents-out-of-country/

Frances Martel: China, Iran Send Diplomats to Taliban Victory Parade at Former U.S. Air Base

By Frances Martel

The Taliban terrorist organization celebrated the third anniversary of President Joe Biden facilitating its return to power in Afghanistan on Wednesday, hosting a large military parade on the former U.S. air base site at Bagram featuring U.S.-made equipment and welcoming envoys from Iran and China.

August 15 will mark three years since the fundamentalist Taliban terror group stormed Kabul, the nation’s capital, while then-President Ashraf Ghani fled in a helicopter. The Afghan military had collapsed by then, leading to a nearly bloodless takeover of the government for the Taliban. The Taliban remains at press time the uncontested government of Afghanistan, though no country recognizes it as such in an official capacity.

The fall of Kabul was preceded by Biden announcing that he would break an agreement the United States, in its 20th year present in the Afghan war theater, with the Taliban to leave the country by May 1, 2021, in exchange for the Taliban not attacking Americans and cutting ties with terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda. Biden replacing the deal, brokered by predecessor Donald Trump, with an extension of the war into September 2021 that never happened, as the Taliban had disintegrated the official Afghan government by then.

The Taliban so swiftly dismantling the Afghan government resulted in a haphazard, and deadly, exit for American troops from the country that left the jihadists possessing millions of dollars of American equipment, some of it on display at the former Bagram air base on Wednesday.

“The Taliban’s armed forces towed Soviet-era tanks and artillery pieces through the former U.S. air base in Bagram, where Chinese and Iranian diplomats were also present,” the Turkish outlet Daily Sabah, citing international agencies, reported. “A swarm of motorbikes strapped with yellow jerry cans, often used to carry improvised explosive devices (IED) during the fight against international forces, also rumbled past assembled officials.”

The outlet also identified “U.S.-made armored personnel carriers” being driven in the parade. A report published in February 2023 by the office of the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that Biden left at least $7.2 billion worth of military equipment to the Taliban.

The Biden administration surrendered Bagram shortly before the fall of Kabul, replete with the supplies abandoned there and a population of jihadist inmates estimated to total about 5,000 men. One of those prisoners was later identified as the suicide bomber responsible for the massacre of 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. servicemembers at Kabul’s international airport on August 26, 2021.

According to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Taliban made the parade an international occasion by inviting unnamed “Chinese and Iranian diplomats.” While neither country officially recognizes the Taliban as a government entity, both maintain friendly ties to the Taliban. China became the first country to accept a Taliban ambassador to Beijing in December.

China’ state-run CGTN network covered the Taliban celebrations in Afghanistan favorably on Tuesday, publishing videos of parades, what appeared to be youth athletic fairs, and a paratrooper display.

The Bagram parade featured a speech by Sirajuddin Haqqani, a New York Times–published terrorist who serves as the “interior minister” of the Taliban government.

“My message to the international community is that there is no need for dismay over the fact that you took our independence, and we reclaimed it successfully,” Haqqani claimed. “We do not want to hold anyone accountable. We have created favorable circumstances and have good intentions for them to cooperate with us in rebuilding Afghanistan, similar to how they helped during the occupation.”

Official Taliban propaganda omitted the tone of reconciliation that Haqqani used in his address, openly celebrating “jihad” against America.

“To achieve this day, our mujahideen [holy warriors] and people underwent many hardships and difficulties and as a result of jihad, struggle, patience and perseverance,” an official Taliban statement published on social media by top spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid read. “The great aggressive forces of the time were defeated and our Jihadi struggle was victorious.”

“The twenty-year infidel occupation and the martyrdom and sacrifices of our people against it left a great lesson for our future generations that should never be forgotten,” the statement continued. “We commit to the Islamic system, which has been achieved through the great efforts of Afghans and in the shadow of which the ruling religion of Allah and Sharia [Islamic law] have been implemented.”

The Kabul Times, a Taliban propaganda newspaper, also honored the “mujahid nation and the heroes of Afghanistan” for killing Americans and NATO allies.

“During the 20 years that the country was occupied by the U.S. and NATO, the Mujahid nation and the heroes of Afghanistan did not sit aside for a moment as they started Jihad and resistance against the invaders,” the newspaper claimed.

The Kabul Times went on to bafflingly claim that the Taliban had “ended all ethnic, regional, racial, or religious discrimination in the country.”

Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund separately issued a statement telling Afghans that their “duty did not end with the victory in jihad.”

“We now have the responsibility to strengthen the regime, rebuild the country, protect the people’s property and honor, and compensate for the damages caused by previous wars,” he mandated.

To view online: https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2024/08/14/china-iran-send-diplomats-to-taliban-victory-parade-at-former-u-s-air-base/