Widget Image
Follow PPD Social Media
follow
1,000 Followers
follow
0 Followers
follow
People's Pundit Locals Community
Friday, January 16, 2026
SECTIONS
logo
mobile-logo
HomeStandard Blog Whole Post (Page 941)
World

Russia and Russian separatists Ukraine

July 22, 2014: A pro-Russian fighter stands guard next to bodies near a destroyed Ukrainian tank in the northern outskirts of the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. (Photo: AP)

The White House confirmed Thursday that Russia is firing artillery from its own territory at Ukrainian military sites in the embattled eastern European country. The developments suggest the conflict is escalating, as Russian involvement increased after Europe and the West provided a weak response to the downing of a civilian aircraft last week.

“This clearly is a military escalation,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said. Pentagon officials also made clear that there is no doubt the firing is coming from the Russian military in-country, not the Russia-backed separatists.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, citing “human intelligence,” first made the claim earlier Thursday at a State Department press conference. She also added that Moscow has increased both the amount and system capabilities regarding its military shipments to pro-Russian separatists.

“We have new evidence that the Russians intend to deliver heavier and more powerful multiple rocket launchers to separatist forces in Ukraine and have evidence that Russia is firing artillery from within Russian to attack Ukrainian military positions,” Harf told reporters.

Now, the Pentagon is simply confirming her earlier claim, adding that Russia has been firing artillery for several days now.

The latest developments follow an ongoing crisis in Ukraine and the wholesale murder of civilians by Russian-backed separatists when they shot down a Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 jet over eastern Ukraine last week.

U.S. intelligence officials told PPD they had no reason to doubt the authenticity of audio tapes that were intercepted by Ukraine’s security force, which caught the moment Russian separatists shot down the Malaysian plane, killing nearly 300 innocent people with a Russian-built and supplied surface-to-air missile.

Harf said Wednesday the ultimate responsibility for the downing of the plane rests with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced his resignation Thursday, saying a “collapse of the coalition” demands new elections. Yatsenyuk took over as prime minister just short of five months ago supported by a coalition of pro-European parties. They took power after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was driven from office by months of street protests on Kiev’s Independence Square, or Maidan.

Also, more military aircraft carrying remains of victims from the Malaysian plane disaster arrived in the Netherlands on Thursday, while Australian and Dutch diplomats joined to promote a plan for a U.N. team to secure the crash site which has been controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

On Monday, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution proposed by Australia demanding that rebels cooperate with an independent investigation and allow all remaining bodies to be recovered.

The White House confirmed Thursday that Russia

Policy, Video

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the 2012 vice presidential nominee and Chairman of the House Budget Committee, has been an anti-poverty advocate his entire career. This week he delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a D.C.-based policy think-tank, outlining his plans for “expanding opportunity in America.”

“Too many families are working harder and harder to get ahead, and yet they’re falling further and further behind,” Ryan said. “The costs of food, housing, and gas keep going up, but paychecks haven’t budged. So whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, I think we can all agree: America deserves better.”

Paul argued that now is the time to reform the nation’s entitlements programs, social safety nets and rebuild a “healthy economy.” Without a strong economy there is no social safety net. That’s true for “both for those who can’t help themselves and for those who just need a helping hand,” he said.

However, despite the U.S. spending nearly $800 billion annually to fund 92 federal programs supposedly aimed at fighting poverty, the poverty rate is the highest in a generation. “Deep poverty is near record highs,” he noted.

“When you take a step back and look at all this, you just have to think, ‘We can do better,’ Ryan declared.

Congressman Ryan gave one rhetorical after another highlighting the various challenges — both societal and economical — average Americans face in today’s faltering economy. But current government policy largely ignores the cultural challenges America faces.

“Maybe you’re struggling with an addiction, and you need counseling. Maybe you come from a broken family, and you need a network of support. The point is, you would work together to get you from where you are to where you want to go,” Rep. Ryan said.

Paul Ryan was attacked back in March after he appeared on Bill Bennett’s Morning in American radio show. In response to Bennett saying that the “fatherless problem is a big one,” Ryan went on to discuss the culture of fatherless homes in inner cities across America, a problem everyone knows has become an economic crisis. Yet, despite the data showing fatherless homes is the single-biggest driver of child poverty, race-mongers jumped on him immediately after his comments.

But that hasn’t deterred Ryan, who said “we’re reconceiving the federal government’s role.” Over 50 years and trillions of dollars since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a “war on poverty,” and the federal agenda has been a failure by every measure.

“No longer will it try to supplant our communities but to support them. In my view, the federal government is the rearguard—it protects the supply lines. But the people on the ground—they’re the vanguard. They fight poverty on the front lines. They have to lead this effort, and Washington should follow their lead.”

Unlike traditional government-led discussions on poverty, the debate on Ryan’s plan is an open forum. While he believes his proposal are good ideas, “they’re just a start.”

As of today, the congressman says it will be referred to as a “discussion draft,” because it’s meant to start a discussion. “So if you have an idea to expand opportunity, we want to hear from you,” he said.

Send your idea to [email protected].

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the 2012 vice

Economy

New homes sales data reported by the Commerce Department. (Photo: REUTERS)

New home sales fell dramatically in June and the prior month’s data was revised to show less robust growth, suggesting a weak housing market.

The Commerce Department said on Thursday that single-family sales dropped 8.1 percent, the largest decline since July 2013, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 406,000 units. New home sales in May were revised to show a 442,000 unit pace, down from the previously reported 504,000 units.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales at a 479,000-unit pace last month. If the sales data are compared to June of last year, then sales were down 11.5 percent.

U.S. housing starts and building permits also unexpectedly fell for the month of June, further suggesting the housing market recovery is struggling to get back on track after stalling in late 2013. Many economists attempted to blame the weak housing market on unusually cold weather since February’s weak report was released, but that excuse simple will not do in the middle of the summer.

A run-up in mortgage rates, as well as a shortage of properties for sale, resulted in a weak housing market that undercut economic growth.

Last month, new home sales fell in all four regions, declining by a whopping 20 percent in the once-robust Northeast region.

At June’s sales pace it would take 5.8 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, the highest since October 2011. The inventory of new houses on the market rose 3.1 percent to 197,000 units, which was the highest number since October 2010.

New home sales fell dramatically in June

World

John Kerry Bill Grant Israel July 2014

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry walks with U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Bill Grant as he arrives to Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, July 23, 2014. (Photo: AP)

Secretary of State John Kerry’s proposals for a cease-fire that would halt the fighting in the Gaza Strip have been resisted by the Islamic militant group Hamas, who insist that any truce agreement must meet the group’s main demand that a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the territory be lifted.

“When it comes to the balance of power in this crisis between us and Israel, they are the executioners, the aggressors, the occupiers, the settlers, and we are the true owners of the land,” Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said Wednesday in a televised speech from his home-in-exile in Doha, Qatar. “We will not accept anything but the end of the siege.”

It has been grossly under-reported that Hamas was in dire financial straits prior to the outbreak of fighting, because a tight crack down of the blockade by Egypt had stopped cash and weapons from coming into the strip through hundreds of smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border. Israel imposed the blockade in 2006 after Hamas and other militants abducted an Israeli soldier. Egypt tightened its own restrictions last year after the overthrow of the oppressive Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo, which was aided by Hamas, and has destroyed many of the cross-border smuggling tunnels were used by Hamas to bring in weapons.

Hamas rejected the first Egyptian cease-fire proposal, demanding the joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade be eased so they can have access to the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Also, Hamas demands that Israel will release the Palestinian Schalit prisoners.

The six prisoners were initially freed by Israel as part of an exchange for a captured IDF soldier, but later re-arrested in the West Bank after the group recommenced terrorist activities. Israeli officials said earlier in the conflict the issue of re-releasing the prisoners was “not up for discussion,” because they are simply too much of a danger to their national security.

Israeli tanks and warplanes continued to their offensive on the Gaza Strip on Thursday. Israeli officials said three of their soldiers had died Wednesday, bringing the military’s death toll to 32 since ground operations in Gaza began on July 17 with the aim of halting rocket fire from Gaza.

However, upon entering Gaza, Israeli officials discovered a network of “complex and advanced” underground, cross-border “terror tunnels.” Following several attacks last weekend, including Hamas terrorists wearing Israeli army uniforms infiltrating central Gaza through a terror tunnel last Saturday, which resulted in two Israeli soldiers being killed, Israel has expanded its operation. At the start of the conflict the state mission was to put an end to the rocket fire, but the mission now includes the destruction of the underground terror tunnels that have the Israeli population seriously concerned.

More than 2,000 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza since July 8, and the Israeli military says it has uncovered more than 30 tunnels leading from Gaza to Israel, some of which have been used by Hamas to carry out attacks.

The 16-day conflict has claimed the lives of 736 Palestinians, though it is unclear how many of them were civilians. Two Israeli civilians and a Thai worker in Israel have also been killed in the conflict. Since the latest round of violence began, Israel has contended Hamas is pursuing a strategy that intentionally puts Palestinian civilians at risk, hoping for a high civilian body count to help win a public relations war, because they know they cannot win the actual war.

People’s Pundit Daily did confirm July 12 that the Gaza Interior Minister told residents to ignore Israel’s warnings and to stay in their homes after the Israeli air force dropped leaflets in Gaza warning residents to evacuate their homes. He said the announcement was just Israeli “psychological warfare” and that Israel was simply hoping to create confusion.

In a recently released video on PPD, Gaza youth confirms Hamas is in fact preventing people from evacuating their homes to a safer place, which would more than suggest Israeli officials are on the receiving end of unjustified condemnation from the international community and misguided western media outlets.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that diplomats from the U.S., Israel, and other Middle Eastern countries are reworking a cease-fire proposal made by Egypt’s foreign ministry last week. The paper reports that the new proposal will call for both Israel and Hamas to cease military operations in the coming days before calling on the U.S. and the international community to begin talks on a long-term economic program for Gaza.

However, Hamas’ demands to open up the movement of “goods” into Gaza, such as the rockets that found there way into two UN schools this week, are most assuredly going to be met with opposition from Israel unless it is allowed to monitor the trade of weapons.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said the rockets were found in between two other UNRWA schools that are being used to host 1,500 displaced people. The discovery added validity to the claim that Hamas is intentionally hiding and launching weapons in and from areas populated with civilians.

The UN secretary-general said today in a statement that he is “alarmed” to learn that rockets are missing.

“This statement tells you all you need to know about how corrupt and corrupted the UN is in the conflict between Israel and the Arabs,” Charles Krauthammer said on a “Special Report” panel Wednesday night.

“How do you smuggle 20 missiles into a classroom? Can you imagine a principal in the U.S. saying, ‘Well I really am not sure how they got there? What did the Hamas do? Put them in a golf bag? Walk them in and say he’s preparing for the Gaza Open?” Krauthammer continued.

The Islamic militant terror group Hamas is

Politics, Video

A United Nations envoy supposedly tasked with providing humanitarian relief in the Gaza Strip said they found rockets hidden by militants inside a vacant school Tuesday. The discovery added validity to the claim that Hamas is intentionally hiding and launching weapons in and from areas populated with civilians.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said the rockets were found in between two other UNRWA schools that are being used to host 1,500 displaced people, but the weapons have since gone missing.

The UN secretary-general said today in a statement that he is “alarmed” to learn that rockets are missing.

“This statement tells you all you need to know about how corrupt and corrupted the UN is in the conflict between Israel and the Arabs,” Charles Krauthammer said on a “Special Report” panel Wednesday night.

“How do you smuggle 20 missiles into a classroom? Can you imagine a principal in the U.S. saying, ‘Well I really am not sure how they got there? What did the Hamas do? Put them in a golf bag? Walk them in and say he’s preparing for the Gaza Open?” Krauthammer continued.

According to Krauthammer, UN workers have collaborated with Hamas for years.

“They know that there are missiles in the schools, in the hospitals, in the mosques and they know what’s gonna happen – kids will be killed and that’s gonna be on television,” he said.

Krauthammer said that the problem isn’t the smuggling of weapons – it’s the use of human shields, which is a violation of the law of war. He charged the U.N. with aiding and abetting.

The UN "knows that there are missiles

Policy

obamacare fraud

ObamaCare fraud is rampant, according to investigators at the Government Accountability Office, who testified at a House Ways and Means hearing Wednesday.

A probe by the House Ways and Means Committee found GAO investigators successfully obtained coverage and health care subsidies using fake identities.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, said 11 out of 12 online and phone applications submitted using “fictitious identities” were accepted, resulting in subsidized health coverage.

“For each of our 11 approved applications, we paid the required premiums to put policies into force, and are continuing to pay the premiums. For the 11 applications that were approved for coverage, we obtained the advance premium tax credit in all cases,” the report said.

According to the GAO, the total amount for these credits was $2,500 monthly, adding up to $30,000 a year.

GAO officials testified before a House Ways and Means subcommittee Wednesday. On Tuesday, members of the committee were given a copy of the testimony from Seto Bagdoyan, head of GAO’s Forensic Audits and Investigative Service.

“We are seeing a trend with ObamaCare information systems: under every rock, there is incompetence, waste, and the potential for fraud,” Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement. “This law is already hitting Americans where it hurts the most – their pocketbooks. Now, this administration is forcing the American taxpayer to foot the bill for ObamaCare’s waste and fraud.”

The undercover investigators created fake identities by inventing Social Security numbers, income, and citizenship, and by counterfeiting documents.

Of the 11 out of 12 fake online or telephone applications that were approved, 5 of 6 phone applications were successful. It was only due to one caller who declined to give a Social Security number that all were not approved. Six online applications were initially blocked by the verification system, but the investigators were able to find a workaround by going through the call center.

In fact, contractors processing applications repeatedly told the GAO investigators their role was not to bother checking for fraud.

The findings from the GAO investigation are only known now because the investigation was requested by several Republican senators and representatives before the insurance exchanges launched in the fall.

ObamaCare fraud is rampant, according to investigators

Politics, Video

A series of undercover videos are beginning to paint a picture of Planned Parenthood giving widespread encouragement to underage girls to engage in inappropriate sex acts.

The latest video, “SEXED: Dangerous Sex Advice for Kids (Episode 3),” is part of Live Action’s nationwide campaign to spread awareness of Planned Parenthood’s track record. The U.S. taxpayer gives more than $500 million annually to Planned Parenthood, including “sex education” and abortion funding through ObamaCare.

Some girls like being “spanked,” “hit,” or “whipped,” said the counselor. Other instructions ranged from encouraging the minor to read “Kama Sutra” books to watching “educational pornos” online.

Last week Live Action released SEXED Episode 2, which caught Planned Parenthood staffers in Colorado giving advice on “choking,” “whipping,” and “tying up” sexual partners to young, underage girls. Now, in Portland, Oregon, a Planned Parenthood employee at the Clackamas Center told a 15-year-old girl how to best “enjoy” sex and explore “different types of fetishes.”

“There is no way anyone can justify a counselor telling a 15-year-old girl that ‘some people like being spanked, or whipped, or hit,’” said Live Action president, Lila Rose. “This is not the stuff of sex education, but rather a disturbing ideology consciously being pushed on our nation’s youth.”

Meanwhile, Columbia Willamette, a Planned Parenthood affiliate that runs the facility in Live Action’s latest video, was shockingly tapped by the Department of Health and Human Services to receive PREP grant funding.

“Oregon is a liberal state,” Rose said. “There’s no doubt about that. But political ideology shouldn’t affect parents’ desire to protect their children. Whether you’re liberal or conservative, or even pro-life or pro-abortion, tax-funded ‘counseling’ sessions directing kids to porn sites and sex shops, and teaching them how to beat and choke each other, are completely unacceptable.”

A series of undercover videos are beginning

Politics

Montana John Walsh

Incumbent Democratic Senator John Walsh of Montana plagiarized his thesis to obtain his master’s degree from the United States Army War College. (Photo: NYT)

Democrat John Walsh of Montana, 53, was appointed by Gov. Steve Bullock in February to serve out the remainder of retiring Sen. Max Baucus’ term, which Democrats hoped would boost their chances of keeping the Red state’s Senate seat. He is a decorated veteran of the Iraq war, a former adjutant general of his state’s National Guard and, now, a plagiarist.

“An examination of the final paper required for Mr. Walsh’s master’s degree from the United States Army War College indicates the senator appropriated at least a quarter of his thesis on American Middle East policy from other authors’ works, with no attribution,” The New York Times reported.

The “strategic research paper,” which is what the Army War College calls the thesis required to earn a Master’s Degree, was passed off as his own when it was completed in 2007 and includes other academic papers, policy journal entries and well-known books. Walsh’s 14-page paper, titled “The Case for Democracy as a Long Term National Strategy,” argues for the basic tenets found in the democratic peace theory, except he plagiarized the work of other scholars at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, a research institute at Harvard, as well as from a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace document.

“Mr. Walsh copies an entire page nearly word-for-word from a Harvard paper, and each of his six conclusions is copied from a document from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace without attribution,” The New York Times wrote above a startling interactive slideshow of the paper demonstrating the dishonesty.

John Walsh plagiarism

Democrat incumbent Sen. John Walsh’s 14-page thesis from the Army War College. (Photo: NYT)

When approached Tuesday outside his office on Capitol Hill Walsh first took the position that he didn’t do anything wrong.

“I don’t believe I did, no,” Walsh said.

By Wednesday, the campaign was in full damage control mode, as expected. However, the apparent political strategy has been nothing short of disgraceful.

A campaign aide didn’t even bother to argue whether Walsh was guilty of plagiarism, but instead advised The Times “that it be viewed in the context of the senator’s long career.” She went on to do exactly what members of the military are known for not doing — make excuses. She suggested the plagiarism should somehow be less outrageous because Walsh “was going through a difficult period at the time he wrote the paper,” and then scapegoated a tragic suicide by one of the members of his unit from Iraq. The soldier committed suicide in 2007 just weeks before it was due.

Walsh’s master’s degree in strategic studies from the War College has directly contributed to the position of power he now holds. After Walsh was appointed adjutant general of Montana’s National Guard, a military evaluation said his selection for the position was “bolstered” by his degree from the War College, an institution that boasts the attendance of American heroes Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Patton and Norman Schwarzkopf. From that position, Walsh launched his successful bid for lieutenant governor, painting himself as a moderate, otherwise extinct pro-military Democrat.

This isn’t the first time Walsh’s integrity has been called into question. He ran in to a problem when a Montana TV station KXLH reported that Walsh was cited in a 2010 inspector general report for improperly using his position in the Guard for personal gain. While seeking a leadership position in the National Guard Association of the United States, Walsh was reprimanded for using his power as adjutant general to urge other guardsmen to join a private advocacy group.

“Plagiarism is a serious form of cheating that carries serious consequences,” the NYT noted is written in the War College handbook. In this case, the consequences are most assuredly his seat in the U.S. Senate. PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions model previously rated the Montana Senate race “Likely Republican.” Even though historical election data show there is zero evidence to support the Democratic claim that appointed incumbency would give Walsh the edge, we viewed him a formidable candidate, albeit in a race he badly trailed Republican challenger Rep. Steve Daines in the polls and fundraising.

However,  we see this clear case of plagiarism as a campaign-ender. “Update: The War College provost told me they will start investigation into Sen Walsh’s paper tonight,” Jonathan Martin, who authored the piece at The New York Times, recently tweeted. That won’t make for a great campaign slogan, so we are now moving this race to “Safe Republican” alongside West Virginia and South Dakota, two other states the GOP is a safe bet to flip in November.

Poll Date Sample MoE Daines (R) Walsh (D) Spread
PPD Average 6/9 – 7/18 — — 49.5 37.0 Daines +12.5
PPP (D) 7/17 – 7/18 574 RV 4.1 46 39 Daines +7
Rasmussen Reports 6/9 – 6/10 750 LV 4.0 53 35 Daines +18
CEA/Hickman Analytics (D) 4/24 – 4/30 400 LV 4.9 49 37 Daines +12
Rasmussen Reports 3/17 – 3/18 750 LV 4.0 51 37 Daines +14
PPP (D) 11/15 – 11/17 952 RV 3.2 52 35 Daines +17

Democratic Sen. John Walsh plagiarized his thesis

Politics

[wzslider info=”true” lightbox=”true”]

Representative Bruce Braley, the Iowa Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, is again under fire over revelations he skipped Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearings. Yet, what has already been a bad week for the once-favored Iowa Senate candidate, has just gotten worse.

Not only did Braley attend just 4 out of 19 hearings of the full Veterans’ Affairs Committee from 2011 to 2012, according to minutes from the U.S. Government Printing Office, but subsequent explanations for why he missed a whopping 78 percent of those hearings are turning out to be false.

A report from the Des Moines Register claimed Braley attended three fundraisers for his own campaign on Sept. 20, 2012, a day the committee was slated to address VA backlogs and a gross lack of oversight at the Veterans Administration.

Braley’s campaign spokesman Jeff Giertz told Jennifer Jacobs at DMR that Braley missed the 10 AM ET. Veterans Affairs Committee meeting because he was at a 9:36 AM ET Oversight and Government Reform Committee meeting. Technically, the House Veterans Affairs Committee started at 10:19 AM ET and ended at 11:54 AM ET. However, a transcript of the hearing shows he didn’t say a word if he did attend and, an attached CSPAN video viewable below clearly shows an empty chair behind the nameplate indicating where Braley should have been sitting.

Now, the Iowa Republican Party is asking, “Does Bruce Braley really attend his committee hearings in Washington or does he check some box to fool voters back in Iowa that he’s doing his job?”

The topic of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing may give some insight as to why Braley didn’t show up for that hearing, either. That was the day Michael Horowitz testified on the findings from the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s “Fast and Furious” operation, a gun-walking operation that resulted in the death of Arizona Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in December, 2010. The weapon used to kill Terry was traced back to Fast and Furious, an operation Attorney General Eric Holder outrageously claimed he first learned about from Congress.

If providing political cover for President Obama and Eric Holder was Braley’s motive for missing that hearing, then was Braley choosing politics over veterans, as well?

Over the last decade, nearly two dozen reports from the agency’s inspector general and the Government Accountability Office found veterans were dying because of long wait times for health care. Worse still, the reports found that they were covered up by bogus and corrupt record-keeping bureaucrats at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals.

These revelations first forced the resignation of Robert Petzel, the undersecretary for veterans’ health care, and shortly after the resignation of former head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki. Yet, it is precisely the Washington D.C. culture exemplified by Bruce Braley that drains the American people of confidence in their government. Rather than doing his job, which is to protect the taxpayer and provide oversight, Bruce Braley instead decided to spend the day fundraising.

From 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., Braley was attending a $2,500 breakfast at Johnny’s Half Shell, a fresh from the Chesapeake Bay seafood restaurant. Still, the restaurant is roughly 10 minutes away from the location of the hearing, giving Braley plenty of time to attend. However, as shown in the slideshow above, time-stamped images from the CSPAN video show another empty chair, a picture that is too-often available to take.

“If the Republican Party of Iowa had said Braley missed 74 percent of full committee hearings, the claim would be true. In fact, we found Braley missed 78 percent of the full hearings in 2011 and 2012,” The Gazette recently reported.

PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions model currently rates the Iowa Senate race a “Toss-Up” for a number of reasons, including several that PPD Senior Political Analyst Richard D. Baris says are “demons of Braley’s own design.” Braley, a trial lawyer and an establishment-picked nominee, “suffers from a bad case of foot-in-mouth disease,” Baris said.

“The media tends to focus on primary battles in the GOP, but Braley is a perfect example of how dangerous it can sometimes be to shut down intra-party debate,” Baris said. “The Democratic Party bosses picked Braley and admonished potential challengers, which denies candidates and their campaigns the opportunity to smooth out any rough edges before the general election.”

A video shared with the Des Moines Register showed Braley claiming to be a farmer during a Fourth of July parade at Iowa Falls. Of course, Braley is not a farmer, and was misleading a voter to her face in a terrible attempt to rectify another, more politically damaging mistake.

Braley was first caught on video back in March trashing Iowa’s most popular senator, Republican Chuck Grassley, and he did so in full elitist fashion, belittling Iowa farmers. Braley was clearly insinuating that Iowans shouldn’t send a less intelligent farmer over a trial lawyer to the U.S. Senate.

Joni Ernst, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and potentially the first woman senator ever from the Hawkeye State, has a new ad out highlighting her record of service to Iowa and the nation. The ad represents a new direction for the self-described “mother, soldier, conservative,” who will soon return from a two-week deployment with the Iowa National Guard.

(Remember “Where’s Waldo?” Let’s play “Where’s Bruce Braley?” during the hearing his campaign said he attended in lieu of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing.)

Not only did Braley attend just 4

Politics

David Perdue

July 22, 2014 Atlanta – Republican candidate for U.S. Senate David Perdue holds his grandson David Perdue IV as former Gov. Sonny Perdue looks at his election-night party at DoubleTree Hotel Buckhead on Tuesday, July 22, 2014. (Photo Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / [email protected])

While he emerged with more votes than any other candidate in May, Georgia Businessman David Perdue scored an upset victory in the Georgia Republican primary run-off Tuesday. Perdue, a political new-comer, defeated 11-term Rep. Jack Kingston, capturing the party’s nomination and chance to go up against Democrat nominee Michelle Nunn.

The former CEO of Reebok and Dollar General topped the ally of Gov. Nathan Deal by 50.9 – 49.1 percent, shaping a fall contest between two candidates with ties to two well-liked political figures in the Peach State. David Perdue is the cousin of Sonny Perdue, a popular two-term governor. Michelle Nunn is the daughter of Sam Nunn, a four-term Democratic senator.

Even though we favored Perdue in the May primary, Kingston was favored to win the run-off in the latest polls, and had endorsements ranging from the Chamber of Commerce to local tea party groups. However, Perdue had a few things going for him that were over-looked. First, he was able to self-fund his campaign to the tune of $3,000,000. In the final weeks of the campaign, he hammered Kingston on a questionable donation involving a felon and highlighted his private-sector experience, capturing what was an under-estimated, anti-establishment sentiment among the electorate.

Still, he was outspent by Kingston. But his famous last name and the remaining political network from his cousin played a role in countering the money disadvantage. Late-reporting metro Atlanta counties propelled Perdue to his narrow win, as Kingston’s southern Georgia and coastal county base saw lighter-than-expected turnout rates. Also, even though Karen Handel threw her support behind Jack Kingston, her voters didn’t follow her suggestion, as was evident in Fulton County.

A recent poll conducted by Landmark Communications found Nunn with a 6-point lead over Perdue, but those results are more than even Democratic operatives admit is possible this fall. They hoped to have a stronger-than-average candidate in Georgia, but Nunn has been coddled by the media and the Republican Party up until now, and yet still has already shown signs of not being ready for primetime. During an interview on liberal MSNBC, Nunn was wholly unprepared to answer a question about one of the predominant issues of the election cycle — ObamaCare. Even a favorable editing job couldn’t mask the disastrous moment, which has now been made into a video by the opposition.

Nunn was “unaware” that one of her co-hosts for a fundraising event was Virtual Murrell, an early militant leader of the Black Panther Party. Murrell embraced the organization’s radical platform, calling the United States government racist and threatening to retaliate against the police and the military “by whatever means necessary.” Murrell also went on to become a political consultant and, in the mid 1990s, spent time in jail for using corrupt government influence to extort local businesses.

“Our campaign was unaware of Mr. Murrell’s criminal history and disagrees with his comments,” Nunn communications director Nathan Click told National Review Online.

Democrats plan to hammer Perdue in the same fashion they hammered Mitt Romney. That might become problematic, as another story strikes at the heart of both the idea Nunn has bipartisan credibility and the Left’s anti-venture capitalist message.

Michelle Nunn made a ton of cash in 2007 when her nonprofit organization, Hands On Atlanta, merged with the Points of Light Foundation, former President George H.W. Bush’s project. There is certainly nothing wrong with being rewarded for hard work, particularly when communities are better off as a result of that work. However, from 2007 to 2010, under the direction of Michelle Nunn, the organization played the role of vulture capitalists, cutting 175 jobs down to 80 to offset her more-than generous annual salary.

PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions model still rates the Georgia Senate race “Likely Republican.”

The bottom line is that Georgia is not quite purple yet, which we have previously demonstrated. Both Nunn and state senator Jason Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, hoped the increase in black voters’ percentage of the electorate would end the Republican Party’s domination of statewide office. There are several problems with that claim.

First, we have seen these claims go down in flames when black voters actually voted at a rate higher than white voters — the 2012 presidential election. One of the major reasons Georgia is only modestly moving toward the left is due to the fact black voters in Georgia are more conservative than in other southern states, for exame Mississippi. Democrats will have to find another message to win in November now that David Perdue has secured the nomination, which they believe they have.

It may yet work, but then again, Mitt Romney carried Georgia by a 53.30 – 45.38 percent margin.

Poll Date Sample MoE Nunn (D) Perdue (R) Spread
PPD Average 5/5 – 7/15 — — 42.0 42.0 Tie
Landmark Communications 7/15 – 7/15 750 LV 4.0 48 42 Nunn +6
SurveyUSA* 6/3 – 6/5 999 LV 3.2 38 43 Perdue +5
Rasmussen Reports 5/21 – 5/22 750 LV 4.0 45 42 Nunn +3
Saint Leo University 5/5 – 5/6 1000 LV 3.0 37 41 Perdue +4
Atlanta Journal-Constitution 5/5 – 5/8 1012 RV 4.0 46 45 Nunn +1
NBC News/Marist 4/30 – 5/5 1066 RV 3.0 41 45 Perdue +4
Landmark/Rosetta Stone 4/1 – 4/1 600 RV 4.0 33 38 Perdue +5
PPP (D) 8/2 – 8/5 520 RV 4.3 40 40 Tie

 

How political new-comer David Perdue defeated 11-term

People's Pundit Daily
You have %%pigeonMeterAvailable%% free %%pigeonCopyPage%% remaining this month. Get unlimited access and support reader-funded, independent data journalism.

Start a 14-day free trial now. Pay later!

Start Trial

Subscribe