You probably didn’t notice it this morning, but today marks the annual summer solstice, meaning this 24-hours will feature the sun at its highest point in the sky and offer the longest period of daylight in all of 2024.
Yes, summer is here.
This hot season news isn’t exactly fresh to those enduring an unusually long and dry heat wave in many parts of the United States recently. Whereas we can usually expect fairly regular rain patterns in my home domain, it’s been a couple weeks since a drop of precipitation hit the ground here – and there doesn’t appear to be any wet relief in the forecast, either. Since my family relocated to central Virginia a half-decade ago, we’ve only needed to use the expensive irrigation system we installed at our new place a total of about a half-dozen times. The sprinklers are getting a workout these days, however. And it's only a matter of time before the “climate change” bozos break out their standard predictions of guaranteed doom if mankind doesn’t alter its ways and start replacing gas guzzling cars with Chinese-battery powered electric vehicles.
In other words, the politicians will find a way to make a few weeks’ worth of hot and dry conditions into a political issue.
One presidential candidate who probably wishes he’d have an opportunity to talk about “climate change” as well as several other issues that aren’t getting wider coverage in campaign ‘24 – such as government COVID overreach and the rights trampling Joe Biden administration -- is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Bobby Kennedy’s oldest boy has devoted much time and effort lately to pleading his case for inclusion with the Democrat and Republican nominees-to-be on the debate stage. Arguably the whole world will tune in on June 27 to see a face-to-face with Biden and Trump – but RFK’s mug won’t be allowed in the building.
In an article titled, “Report: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Will Not Qualify for First Presidential Debate”, Eric Lendrum reported at American Greatness a couple days ago:
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will not be on the debate stage on June 27th, falling short of the qualification criteria and missing out on the chance to debate former President Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
“As the New York Post reports, Kennedy just barely fell short in the polling criteria and came up much shorter with regards to the electoral vote criteria. CNN, the host of the debate, requires a candidate to garner 15% or higher in at least four national polls, and to be registered on the ballot in enough states that the candidate could feasibly win 270 electoral votes, which is the minimum required to become President.
“Kennedy had achieved 15% in three polls, just one poll shy of the threshold. And although his campaign claims that its ‘aggressive ballot access operation has surpassed all its milestones to ensure’ ballot access in all 50 states, election officials in a majority of claimed states could not verify Kennedy’s ballot access.”
This announcement wasn’t entirely unexpected. RFK’s campaign has just kind of hung around the edges of the news long enough to still deserve a mention every now and then alongside whatever bubble or hiccup is occurring in the national horserace, the vast majority of Americans either so bored to tears with a lack of discernible movement in the usual two-candidate contest or already set in stone with their decision to back… Trump.
For many, many voters have reached the inescapable conclusion that the former president represents the only true option to broken-down, hair sniffin’, nude swimmin’, shoulders massagin’, public event freezin’, prodigal son protectin’ senile Joe Biden that they’ve committed themselves to contributing to and working for a change at the White House.
Most elections contain an element of “anyone but him (or her)” in the calculus, but 2024 represents a special case since this year is a rematch of 2020, there were so many questionable circumstances in the election four years ago, and so many awful things have happened in the interim. While it could be said that American voters don’t have long memories for events or happenings, it’s hard to forget how bad of a president that Biden has been when the reminders pop up every day in the news.
Or at the grocery store… or when the bank loan officer calls and tells you that your income history won’t qualify you to borrow the money needed to purchase your dream home. Being able to afford everyday life has become pretty darn hard for middle class Americans and saving for retirement is out of the question for most people. There’s just nothing left at the end of every month to “save”.
Meanwhile, word came out this week that this year’s federal budget deficit will approach two trillion (yes, that’s with a “t”) dollars and there’s very little urgency from the political class to deal with it or to approach it realistically in an election year. Senile Joe Biden and the Democrats have never met a spending proposal that they didn’t slobber over (except maybe for military outlays) and Republicans, under Trump, lightly touch on fiscal responsibility but only within the context of being able to save money through not providing benefits for illegal aliens.
The major entitlement programs are off the table for both parties, which means that the next several years will see no improvement in the bottom line for the big-ticket items.
All of which would seemingly provide an opening for a third-party candidate like RFK Jr. to draw interest, yet the independent hasn’t established much traction thus far. And with the legacy family son’s failure to gain access to next Thursday’s debate, don’t count on a miracle happening the rest of this summer, either.
Every four years commentators and pundits claim that political conditions are ripe for outsiders (basically non-Republicans and non-Democrats) to finally mount a credible third-party challenge, believing that particular year presented the once in a half-century chance for an independent or minor party standard-bearer to stand toe-to-toe with the big boys (or girls) and compete on a semi-equal basis for votes.
2024 appeared to be such an odd year since polls showed that American voters were lukewarm, at best, at the prospect of seeing Biden and Trump on the ballot as they were in 2020. This time, of course, Biden is the incumbent and Trump the one who’s free to travel from place to place savaging his opponent’s decision-making history and record. And Biden has given Trump a lot to talk about, since the Democrat’s personality, capabilities and policies have been cringe-worthy.
There’s more chatter these days about possibly replacing Biden on the Democrat ticket than assessing his bona fides versus Trump’s. Biden’s job approval ratings are at historic lows, yet the establishment media pollsters still see the contest between the top two as neck-and-neck. How? The close numbers defy logic, even if Trump remains mighty unpopular himself – among his haters -- and he’s been sidelined by official government legal troubles for as long as most folks can remember.
RFK Jr. is still making media appearances and his familiar face and gravelly voice can usually be located if you search hard enough. With senile Joe’s ongoing struggle with mental deterioration, do Democrats regret not giving the challenger a greater look last year, before he announced that he was leaving the leftist party? Put another way, would a so-called “moderate” Democrat have fared better against Trump?
Both Trump and Biden are probably relieved that it appears as though RFK Jr. won’t be with them in Atlanta, though Biden stands to lose much more from having the Kennedy family name representing an alternative to him. Trump and RFK Jr. are anti-establishment candidates, which are in demand in these times of political turmoil.
Not only is RFK Jr. anti-vax and anti-COVID mandate, he’s also solidly against military adventurism overseas. One can envision Trump and Kennedy presenting a solid case for cutting the Ukrainians off from aid and opposing the Democrats’ open borders immigration policies. Biden wouldn’t have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to foreign policy, and it’s not like his domestic ideas are that much more popular.
Kennedy would help Trump present even more of an alternative to Biden – not only in wherewithal, but also from governing capability. RFK Jr. would cut into Trump for his own early COVID policies, but it’s Biden who “owns” the issue now. Senile Joe similarly “owns” Americans’ negative associations with the economy, inflation, illegal immigration, crime, government spending, etc. as well.
RFK Jr. isn’t taking his intentional exclusion from the debate sitting down, complaining that, since neither Biden nor Trump have officially been nominated by their parties (before the conventions, right?), CNN is basically making an in-kind campaign contribution to the Democrats and Republicans. His objections aren’t likely to get far, but the fact that Kennedy got close but was still left out is buying him notoriety nonetheless.
Everyone knows either Biden or Trump will end up the 2024 winner, and RFK’s presence on next week’s debate stage probably wouldn’t make much difference in the long run, but it would’ve injected new energy into the discussion to have a third presence introducing different topics to help focus the back-and-forth.
Two candidates accusing Biden of lying would’ve been better than one. I guess we’ll never know.
Because the two-party system functions the way it does, presidential hopefuls outside of the “normal” lanes just don’t receive the same consideration that the others do. RFK Jr. called both Trump and Biden on a number of issues and advanced the debate along the way. Will the country miss Kennedy’s presence next week? Will anyone even note that RFK Jr. isn’t there?
Joe Biden economy
inflation
Biden cognitive decline
gas prices,
Nancy Pelosi
Biden senile
January 6 Committee
Liz Cheney
Build Back Better
Joe Manchin
RINOs
Marjorie Taylor Green
Kevin McCarthy
Mitch McConnell
2022 elections
Donald Trump
2024 presidential election
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