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founding
May 7Liked by Jim Buckley

The campaign to inculcate a visceral hatred toward Donald Trump has been successful. I hear Republicans lament that they must vote for Trump in spite of their repulsion. Repetition of content such as Stephen Hahn has prevented objective thinking for all but the staunchest. Yet Kahn maintains that the NYT is largely impartial. And Mayorkas claims the border is secure. And Biden claims that Hunter's laptop is Russian disinformation. The economy is strong. On and on and on and on. The Democrat party will stop at nothing to maintain and consolidate power save for one thing. To promote policy that is good for the American people.

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author

Thanks Jeff. Well said. Part II will come out next Tuesday and I've go to tell you, with Stephen Hahn, Maureen Dowd, and like folk taking up the above-the-fold prominent position every day, it's going to be tough slogging between now and November. Impartial my ass.

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Despite persistent allegations that the laptop contents belonging to Hunter Biden indicated corruption by Joe Biden, a joint investigation by two Republican Senate committees released in September 2020 did not find wrongdoing by him, nor did a Republican House Oversight committee investigation by November 2023.

Give it up!

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author

Perhaps it is time to read the Oversight Committee's actual report https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/

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our government is a criminal organization (Rs + Ds)…Biden is compromised…read all about it…

https://bidenreport.com/#p=1

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founding

I said it was claimed to be Russian disinformation which it was not. I never said that the laptop's contents implicated Joe in anything. If you post a reply, it is most effective if it addresses what was in the comment. Otherwise you can post any opinion as a comment and you can do it for free.

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founding

It is a mistake for the Santa Barbara Current to limit comments to paid subscribers. Readers will be lost and the message with it.

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author

Apologies. This article was incorrectly sent out without checking the box allowing comments for everyone. It has been changed and now all can comment

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I support only paid subscriber commentary on this forum. Partisan dross, bots and trolls can be found everywhere else for free. It is nice to see actual conversations evolve among conservative speakers here; something we do not find locally anywhere else.

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founding

Your points are good as are most of your contributions here. On the other hand I have been entertained by the contributions of the dross gallery. Where else could I have been enlightened by the writings such greats as D Freeman? Where else would the partisan dross hear a conservative perspective and opinion form locals? I think the dialog is beneficial to all. Anyway, apparently the limitation to paid subscribers was a temporary mistake.

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Know when a Democrat is lying? Their lips are moving.

Impartial is definitely not a word associated with corporate media

The issue is that between the Criminal Syndicate, deep state Uni Party controlling the three letter agencies firmed to “protect” and “safeguard” Americans and the corporate media puppets America doesn’t stand a chance.

It’s the equivalent of being held hostage. Our captors say they are trying to help & protect us. As long as we do not question them or try to go outside they are “nice” to us.

As soon as you ask a question they attack you to quiet you. They use peer pressure from paid actors to control the sheep.

It’s the reason they created the KKK, Antifa, BLM so they can do things like get Americans to support designated terrorists that killed 35 Americans in a slaughter and invasion of a US Ally.

It goes to show you how weak minded Americans are. Even the ones who disagree & have a head on their shoulders choose to be silent and watch the destruction of their constitutional rights.

We are where we are today defending terrorists because conservatives chose to remain silent.

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I am a Democrat and I am NOT a liar! Sweeping stereotypical comments like yours are divisive and rude. You know who IS a liar? Donald Trump. Trump tweeted out lies and falsehoods throughout his presidency and continued to lie after he was legitimately voted out. Trump's lies are well documented and all it takes is a light Google search to find them.

I remember many of Trump's lies... “When WikiLeaks came out ... I never heard of WikiLeaks, never heard of it.” (He criticized it as early as 2010.). On his healthcare bill: “Well, we are protecting pre-existing conditions. And it'll be every good — bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.” (His bill weakened protections for people with pre-existing conditions, like my spouse who just passed away from cancer.). Trump on taxes: “We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world.” (We're not.). I have lists of his lies. I challenge ANY of you to refute them with proof that he wasn't lying.

In your comment you mention that the Democrats "created the KKK". According to Politifact, an unbiased fact checking website, that is NOT true. So who is lying now? Also, the Democratic party of the 1930's and 40's is not the Democratic party of today, same with the Republicans. There was a time in my life when I voted Republican. I voted For Ronald Reagan, for example. I would never consider voting for today's lying grifting woman-hating Republican party.

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author

Dear S Schroeder: This is history, not fallacy. Just clicked on History.com. Here's what it says: "Founded in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for Black Americans. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and Black Republican leaders. Though Congress passed legislation designed to curb Klan terrorism, the organization saw its primary goal—the reestablishment of white supremacy—fulfilled through Democratic victories in state legislatures across the South in the 1870s." Please don't go Biden on us. Stick to the facts.

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WOW. Braaaaavo... (slow sarcastic clap). "morass of misery wrought by us illiberal heathens"... Really? Liberals are the heathens? Let's talk about the glaring contradiction between Republican's rhetoric of "freedom" and their actions. Republicans love to call themselves "patriots" and talk about their love of "freedom". Whose freedom? --- Women? Certainly not. Immigrants? Certainly not. Trans people? Certainly not. Feminists? School librarians or lunch ladies? Anti-gun activists? Black and Brown people? Ohhh, NOoooo, not them either.

What about the constitutional right to vote? Republicans’ full fledged assault on the Voting Rights Act is shameful and relentless and unfortunately will not cease in 2024. Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, Black voters in Alabama, Louisiana and Georgia will all have a more fair congressional map for the 2024 election. Without the VRA, Republicans will continue to use their mapmaking gerrymandering power to discriminate against voters of color and entrench their own power at the expense of the will of the voters. They know that without cheating they cannot win, so they redraw the district lines.

The Republicans also will not stop the assault on women's reproductive rights. Republicans HATE women! At least 172 Republican lawmakers voted against the Violence Against Women Act. New laws in some states will mean a death sentence for women who need abortions for life-or-death medical reasons. Republicans are so "pro-life" except for the life of a pregnant woman... or any woman, really. So when does a femal fetus lose her rights, inside the womb or does that happen when she is born?

WHO are the immoral heathens here? Not the Democrats.

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S.S: You do have all the party dogma down pat. We are hearing nothing new in your arguments. But, thanks for the refresher course.

---Voluntarily killing an unborn infant is not "women's health care", nor "reproductive rights. It is infanticide. Why does that remain hard for you to admit?

---Those who cross our border illegally are not "immigrants" - they have entered illegally. They are citizens of another country who have entered ours illegally; therefore they are aliens.

---Politifact is not an unbiased resource to quote.

---Trans-people are free to be who they want to be. They are not free to demand others deny their birth biology, but they are free to be who they want to be.

---VRA and CVRA "election reform" automatically denies the rights of every legal voter, if even a single illegal ballots is cast. Current elections are too leaky to ever be called legitimate today. Zero tolerance for our elections is the only standard and we are a long way from meeting that standard; nor having only neutral parties running our election offices and processes.

---Current population-based voting districts have created "rotten-boroughs" (low voter registration-high illegal non-voting population numbers that create a distinct and even mandated voting district) This non-citizen built-in election distortion is far worse than the old system of partisan gerry-meandering of registered voters.

---Voluntary infanticide is violence against women. The life of the mother remains sacred in all states; it is a lie to claim otherwise..

---Democrats do march to strange higher powers -mainly controlling as many tax dollars as they can, for themselves. God or Mammon - the eternal struggle. The rest of your issues are political theater, used to cover your real agenda.

Make your best case for your own party. No value spreading tired lies about your opposition. We like protection of private property; free and competitive markets; rule of law; limited government. You like confiscation of private property, nanny state micromanagement; two systems of justice; and Big Government.

That is where our conversations will be more fertile - which combination makes America great; which combination rots this country from within. OrangemanBad argument is a dead end. Just like your own Weekend at Bernie's candidate. Care more about country, than current personalities.

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Your first comment made me curious, so I looked it up...

"Infanticide - the crime of killing a child within a year of its BIRTH [emphasis mine]." I believe you meant to say "feticide." Are there actually any statutes that designate "feticide" as a crime? Please correct me if I am wrong, but abortion was legal in the United States in 1776, and remained legal throughout most of the States in the 19th-Century. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin even published a pamphlet in 1748 that provided instructions for a successful "at-home" abortion. The first state to deny women a "choice" was Connecticut in 1821, followed by New York, which declared "pre-quickening" abortions a misdemeanor in 1829. Other states later followed. A woman's "right to choose" was reinstated by the SCOTUS in 1973.

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Why would I correct you? You use your dictionary. I will stick with mine. We are talking about humans lives, and you want to win with semantics?

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J. LIvingston: When you force a pregnant woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy you are taking away her bodily rights. That is NOT freedom. That is not ok. If you do not have control over your own body and your right to not reproduce, you have nothing.

To all of you anti-choice Republicans who are against abortion because it "kills a human llife" so do guns. So does chemical spills in our water. So does starvation because a single mother can't earn a living wage even working 60 hour weeks. So do curable diseases kill when there isn't universal access to healthcare in our country. Yet while you sanctimoniously stick your nose into family-planning choices, you have smugly opposed every attempt at safety regulations, gun control, raising the minimum wage and the ACA. The worst kind of hypocrisy.

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At worst it is a four month physical discomfort, before allowing live birth delivery. And adoption into a waiting and loving family. Drop the drama.

Think in terms current land-lord tenant law, just cause requirements and stays on evictions. Might give you a healthier perspective about the awe of creation and the 9 month temporary residency in a female womb, when you compare to how other tenants are now generously protected, against the will of landlords.

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J. Livingston - Look in the mirror. You have your party dogma down pat as well. Talk about marching to strange higher powers is a fault on both sides. I lean left - so I will ask if you could explain more about the dems desire for confiscation of of private property if you could.

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All politics are local - start with the landlord tenant laws right here in Santa Barbara, then move on to the state, and finally the draconian confiscations of private property under federal "covid emergency" fiats.

The primacy of government employee pension promises is confiscation of private property of those who later must pay for them. Expect to hear "taxation without representation" a little more in the future when the massive public debt bills come due.

Don't even get me started on the potential threats from a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

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founding

Nice use of Google to confirm your truth. But what is truth? Americans are the highest taxed if you consider that the tax revenue of the American government is the greatest of all nations.

Therefore Americans pay more in tax than any other nation. Things may be defined and understood in many ways. For example mean and median are different ways of understanding averages. If I use mean cause I am mean and you use median does that make me a liar? The point being that going to the internet and fact checkers is a good way to confirm in your mind what you already believe and to simply discount what does not comport with your preconceptions. It is best to minimize Google verifications because much of the information is biased. I find that relying on personal experience, logic and gut instinct has been my truest compass. Frankly to me people who refer to fact checkers and paste internet links sound a lot like chat GPT. Chat GPT sounds clownish. Where do you stand on masking?

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The amount of public debt passed on to future generations is the far more corrosive marker of our country's ultimate health.

Young people are finally getting it. Orangeman vs the Bio-mort Cadaver for the next four years is not the real issue that will affect their future. Rather which direction will this country take over the next four years, under whose leadership that they will soon inherit.

They know this nation must return to saner fiscal ground. They know the current Democrat tax, print and spend for immediate political gain is unsustainable. That is their bedrock. And not a moment too soon.

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I am sorry to hear about your wife, our condolences.

Much of the Republican Party are RINOS. It’s a Uniparty.

Democrats, southern slave owners who were Dems took over the Democrat party at the beginning.

Dems voted against every civil rights bill. In the 60s Dems realized they’ll never be able to keep women and blacks down so they decided to start giving blacks money to buy votes. Enter the Economic Oportunity Act that every Dem supported. Dem leaders are the same self serving people they’ve always been. They’re good liars. I woke up and kept the D party.

As to lies, you pick Wiki Leaks?

How about Quid Pro Joe admitting he bribed Ukraine to fire the prosecutor overseeing Hunters company? Or how about Joe admitting he used classified documents, from when he was a Senator then a VP, not a President and had no right to retain those documents., to write a book which he was paid $8,000,000. And the DOJ still refuses to press charges.

How about allowing non citizens who chose to come here illegally getting free healthcare, free schooling, free college, housing, monthly stipend? Joe said for three years the border is secure. Meanwhile more illegals came here than over the previous three presidents

How about Schumer lying about the J6 videos and testimonies of witnesses at the committee?

How about Newsom closing Santa Ynez and Paso wineries while allowing Napa and his winery to state open despite more deaths in Napa than here?

Or going out to dinner at the French Laundry during lockdowns with a bunch of unrelated people?

Or Michigan governor using their boat while she locked dine the marinas and did not allow anyone else to use their boat?

Or Pelosi getting her hair done while every other hair salon had to be closed?

Or the Cook County Illinois and Alameda County CA Pub Health admitting in 2020 they are purposefully inflating Covid deaths by including gun shots and car accident victims as Covid deaths?

As I stated there are plenty of RINOs out there. They’re joining the Democrats.

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The current state of our 'news', our courts, our society is utterly disgusting. The left is rabid in their quest to destroy Trump. I fear for the man's life because they will stop at nothing.

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Everything Jim said may be true but it doesn't negate the fact that Republicans nominated the weakest candidate in the field to go against Biden in the fall. Given how awful Biden has been, almost every Republican candidate would be kicking his ass in the polls except for Trump who is basically tied with him. That's extremely ominous for our chances of defeating the worst president in my lifetime.

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The whole point of Democrat Big Government is creating enough tax dollar-funded voters to ensure their next election. To the spoils go the victors is the new political truism.

GOP limited government principles has a distinct disadvantage, when you are up against the numbers of government employees each Democrat administration eagerly adds to the public payroll.

With 22 million current government employees, we should no longer be shocked "Biden could win". Each one of them has at least one family member or friend that will follow their lead. This fact alone creates a permanent - and tax dollar funded - Democrat voting base.

This number of actual government employees does not even include the numbers created by government- funded contracts. This is why all recent elections have been so close. Kudos to the GOP for doing as well as they have, when up against this Democrat slush fund voter base.

God himself could be on the opposition ticket, and you still have to buck the built-in 22 million 99% Democrat-voting government employee plus the contract base. Pretending this automatic self-interest voting use does not exist every election year and get worse with every Democrat administration, is sheer folly.

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founding

In your opinion who was the strongest candidate?

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You are probably not going to like my answer but Nikki Haley was beating Biden by double digit margins in some polls. She was electorally the strongest candidate, although I supported DeSantis because I thought he would be the best president by far among all the candidates.

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