https://www.electionbettingodds.com/
What it is ain’t exactly clear.
Hour by hour, minute by minute, the odds change, as bettors react to, and attempt to anticipate events. Right now Harris is almost twice as likely to be elected President as Biden.
Pardon me, Kamala
As soon as he became President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed as President. President Kamala Harris could pardon not only Joe, but the whole Biden crime family.
It would be best done before the November election. If Biden resigned after losing the election, and was then pardoned, it would like a quid pro quo, a deal they cut. But if Biden resigned in the next few weeks, and President Harris pardoned him shortly before leaving office on January 20, 2025, it would look like clemency, and a path out of the business of prosecuting your predecessor in office, a terrible precedent Biden set for himself..
I think this would appeal to all the criminals in the family. Biden could go out gracefully and be responsible for the first black woman to become President, if only for a few months.
I bet Hunter would see the benefit, and his mother would like to see her son avoid prison.
The funeral of Jimmy Carter
He’ll be 100 in October and has been in hospice 16 months. It’s traditional that all living ex-Presidents attend a Presidential funeral. I can envision Clinton, Bush, and Obama at the ceremony.
And Biden, of course.
And Trump.
A great moment in Presidential history. All the ex-Presidents would be younger than the current one. Obama is 63, and Trump, Bush and Clinton are all 78.
The Art of the Deal
A few years before I was born, a very long time ago, we lost the Supreme Court. It had defied Franklin Roosevelt, and blocked parts of the New Deal, but its defiance didn’t last long. Roosevelt failed in his 1937 attempt to pack the court. That failure effectively put an end to his New Deal improvisations, but the Court got the message, and soon adapted itself to the new political reality. It would no longer stand in the way of the expansion of the federal government. For 80 years it stood by while the constitutional limits on federal power were ignored, even ridiculed. This all culminated when the Court, and Chief Justice Roberts, gave its blessing to Obamacare in 2012.
Then things began to change. Gorsuch replaced Scalia in 2017, but that left Roberts as the swing vote. What tipped the scales were Kavanaugh in 2018, and Barrett in 2020. These were Trump appointments, but the real credit goes to Leonard Leo, and the Federalist Society.
As a candidate in 2016 Trump was, at first, flippant about who he might put on the Court. He even suggested his sister might make a fine Supreme Court Justice. This attitude horrified conservatives. We remembered George W, Bush, and his ridiculous appointment of Harriet Miers, his Deputy Chief of Staff. She was forced to withdraw, but the lesson was learned. Presidents could make really stupid appointments.
Trump was impulsive, and capable of getting it into his head that someone like Judge Judy belonged on the court. We asked ourselves, what were the chances that he would appoint real constitutional conservatives? It all came to a head with the death of Justice Scalia.
Trump was smart enough to realize that there were a lot of traditional conservatives who were very reluctant to vote for him. When Leanard Leo and the Federalist Society offered him a deal, he took it. He agreed that he would only nominate candidates who had been vetted, and recommended, by the Federalist Society. Trump made that deal, and as a result a critical bloc of voters supported him. He kept his end, and we got three outstanding conservatives as a result.
The Federalist Society is dedicated to, of all things, federalism! When the time comes, and these Federalist Society Justices are asked to rule on the epitome of federalism – Article V – we can hope they will be sympathetic.
Reviving the Constitution
In calling for a “Second American Revolution,” the Heritage Foundation demonstrates its ignorance of the First. The revolution of 1776 overthrew the government of Great Britain in the 13 colonies, and substituted a new one, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. This was soon superseded, not overthrown, by the Constitution.
We are in the process of reviving, or resurrecting, that Constitution, not overthrowing it. We are not revolutionaries, we are conservatives. We are already making giant strides in our political and legal campaign, even as the pivotal election of 2024 is months away.
For 60 years we’ve been waiting for the courts to recognize “affirmative action” for what it is: state sanctioned racial discrimination. Finally, at long last, the Supreme Court has ruled that benign intentions cannot justify discriminating against any racial group.
For 50 years we waited for the great, and thoroughly unconstitutional exercise of eugenics and birth control known as Roe v. Wade to be overturned, and it finally happened.
For 40 years we’ve waited for the sprawling, invasive administrative state to be brought under control, and with the overturning of “Chevron deference” it’s finally happening.
None of these cases were, in the least sense, revolutionary. They were, in turn, a restoration of equal protection, judicial restraint, and the separation of power. They represent nothing more, or less, than a return to the principles set forth in the Constitution by the men who wrote it.
And now, all of a sudden and in one debate, all the lies from the media about Joe Biden have been exposed, and his sordid political career is coming to its humiliating conclusion. The media has disgraced itself covering for Biden, and its reputation has been destroyed, perhaps permanently. We can hope.
With big Republican victories across the country only four months way, it’s going to get even better.
All of us should be energized and motivated to do everything we can to make the November election a watershed, an historic turn in politics equivalent to 1932, the election that changed everything. For almost a hundred years now the federal government and the deep state have been accumulating power. Even the great Ronald Reagan, despite his best efforts, could not turn the tide. 2024 is our great opportunity to begin a reversal, and start returning power to the states, and the people.
The Framers of the Constitution gave the states, and the people, a mechanism to make such a reversal permanent. Article V allows the states, working in concert, the ability to amend the Constitution, and exercise control over the federal government which they created when they ratified the Constitution. This provision has never been used. Once the states exercise this power, the restoration of federalism which would result is the best hope of reconciling our deep political divisions.
One election, even one as significant and promising as 2024, won’t solve all our problems. We will remain a deeply divided country. There have always been deep divisions in a country as vast and diverse as the United States. Federalism allows such a nation to function successfully. Federalism means, in practice, live and let live. It means tolerance and diversity. It means let California be California, and let Alaska be Alaska. It’s how our government was originally designed to work.
The political alignment of 2024 is the most promising I’ve seen in my lifetime. We can’t let this opportunity go to waste.
Fritz Pettyjohn’s first venture in politics was working for Goldwater for President in 1964.
reaganproject.blog 