Alarmed by repeated warnings from top FBI and military officials, a former acting CIA director and a foreign policy thinker writes bluntly in Foreign Affairs: “The United States faces a serious threat of a terrorist attack in the months ahead.” Michael Morell and Graham Allison write that there are striking echoes of the run-up to […] The post Ex-Acting CIA Director Warns We Face a Terror Attack Soon appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Something fascinating and unique is happening regarding the 2024 election. If you look at the polling data, you see what’s unique: Republicans are breaking into the low-likelihood voter camp. Typically, when it comes to elections, the basic logic has been that Democrats win in high turnout elections and Republicans win in low turnout elections. This has explained why Republicans seem to outperform during midterm elections, although 2022 was an exception. In 2016, there was low voter turnout and Donald Trump won. In 2020, there was very, very high voter turnout, and Joe Biden won. But in 2024, something unique is happening. In their “If Everyone Voted, Would Biden Benefit? Not Anymore.” article, the New York Times explains: “A new electoral divide has emerged in America. This divide is not rooted in race, geography, age or education. Instead, it is engagement in democracy itself.” A representation of all 200 million registered voters in the United States shows that people who voted in the 2022 primary election are favoring Biden in this election by a margin about 5%, 49 to 44. But of people who voted in the 2020 election, Donald Trump is leading. And of people who didn’t vote at all in either of those elections (2020 or 2022), Trump is leading by 14 percentage points.  What this means is that if everyone voted among those 200 million registered voters, Trump would win. It is not Biden who would win. As Nate Cohn writes: In a reversal of one of the most familiar patterns in American politics, it appears that Donald J. Trump, not President Biden, would stand to gain if everyone in the country turned out and voted. … The pattern is the latest example of how the Trump brand of conservative populism has transformed American politics. His candidacy galvanized liberals to defend democracy and abortion rights, giving Democrats the edge in low-turnout special and midterm elections. Yet at the same time, early polls suggest, many less engaged and infrequent voters have grown deeply dissatisfied with Mr. Biden. So is that about Trump, or is that about dissatisfaction with Biden? I would suggest that it’s about wild dissatisfaction with Biden. A new poll suggests Trump is now leading in Minnesota — Minnesota! — by two points. That is not a state that should be on the map for Trump. He is currently winning well outside the margin of error in Nevada, which he lost in 2020. In other words, so many people are disillusioned with Biden that he is losing even among voters who tend to be those low-propensity voters. This is a massive problem for him. WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show The biggest obstacles to Donald Trump winning are Donald Trump’s ground game and Donald Trump saying things. Democrats have had an excellent ground game for as long as I have been alive, and it’s gotten better and better. The Republican party ground game has been very weak, except in states like Florida. So Trump had better be expending the resources. It’s one thing for Trump to complain about the possibility of voter fraud. That possibility is quite real. But now the excuses are gone. This election is Trump’s to lose. His daughter-in-law runs the RNC. He has a massive campaign. He has millions of dollars in the war chest. That means there’s no excuse for not getting out the vote for Republicans in the swing states. And there’s also no excuse for not having an army of lawyers at the polling places to ensure every legal vote is counted. That’s problem number one, and theoretically, the Trump campaign should solve it. Then, there’s problem number two. The debate is coming up. The rules for the debate have now apparently been set, according to CNN. This whole scenario has been stacked by the Biden campaign from the outset, when they offered debates on CNN and ABC and immediately had the dates and the moderators lined up. That means it was preset with those networks before Biden even issued the challenge. Trump didn’t want to appear chicken, so instead of saying, “Let’s settle on what those debates look like,” before accepting, he simply accepted the debate. That is going to put him at a systemic disadvantage because the moderators in these debates are going to be wildly biased against Trump. The first debate will be hosted by Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, both of whom clearly do not want Trump to be president and also believe he is a threat to democracy — which means the entire debate, if they have their druthers, is going to be about January 6 and the 2020 election. This is the single greatest threat to Donald Trump retaining the presidency in this election cycle. If he falls for that trap, that is the biggest mistake he can make. He needs to have a swift and a quick comeback line. If they say, “Mr. President, you tried to lead an insurrection on January 6,” he should say, “Listen, I disagree with your characterization of what happened on January 6, but let’s point something out: January 6 happened in 2020. The year is now 2024. And there’s one thing the American people know: They saw me as president and they saw Joe Biden as president. Their lives under me were much better than they are under Biden because everyone knows he is a terrible president.” He needs to keep shifting the attack back to Biden instead of getting defensive and talking about election 2020, which he wants to do because President Trump loves talking about what he believes was a rigged election in 2020. In some ways, he’s right. Obviously, the media were very motivated to lie during the election cycle, as with hiding the Hunter Biden laptop story. Not to mention all the changes to the voting. All of that is true. But talking about that is not going to win him votes. What will win Trump votes in the debate is focusing on Joe Biden’s actual record. The debate is only 90 minutes. And now apparently, it’s going to include two commercial breaks. This is the first time a presidential debate will include commercial breaks. Trump should have said, “No, I’m not doing the debate if there are commercial breaks,” because Trump has the stamina to stand there for 90 minutes. Biden doesn’t. Additionally, microphones will be muted throughout the debate, except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak. No props or pre-written notes will be allowed on the stage. Candidates will be given a pen, a pad of paper, and a bottle of water. There will be no studio audience. In other words, CNN is rigging this as much as possible in favor of Biden. No studio audience? The studio audience would certainly be much more prone to support Trump because half the Democratic Party is angry at Biden. Muting the microphones? That is going to prevent Trump from jumping in with a one-liner, as he did with Hillary Clinton. When she was talking about how terrible things would be if Trump were president, he quickly responded, “If I were president, you’d be in jail.” There’s one other big threat in the debate being set up right now: lowering the debate bar for Biden. What Trump should say is, “Listen, we can all see that Joe Biden is ailing. We can all see that he’s really old. He’s falling apart. With that said, the State of the Union address proves that you can shoot that guy up with whatever you need to do to get him to be mildly alive, mostly dead. So this debate is not going to be about Joe Biden’s mental capacity. This debate is going to be about Joe Biden as President of the United States and his terrible record on everything from the economy to the border to foreign policy.” He should be saying that from now until the election because what’s happening right now is good for the Trump campaign, which is the widespread perception that Biden is not mentally competent to be president of the United States. But it’s very bad for the debate because if Biden even shows up and doesn’t die, then he wins. That’s how low the bar is right now. If Biden is simply breathing, if he has a pulse by the end of the debate, if he has not soiled himself on stage, then he will be deemed a sprightly, elderly winner of the debate by the media. Donald Trump doesn’t have to point out that Joe Biden is gone. We all know it. What he needs to point out over and over again is that he was a better president than Biden is. End of story.

Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, are scheduled to host a screening of Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary “Screams Before Silence” — a 57-minute film about the extreme sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023. Harris reportedly plans to deliver remarks on conflict-related sexual violence around the world — including places like Sudan and the Congo — at the White House at 4:30 p.m. ET, and a partial screening of Sandberg’s film will be a part of the event. US Vice President Kamala Harris will host a partial screening at the White House on June 17 of Screams Before Silence, the documentary created by Sheryl Sandberg about the horrific sexual violence committed by Hamas on October 7. By @HannahBrown972https://t.co/J684eBNMy6 — The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) June 15, 2024 CNN anchor Dana Bash spoke with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) about the event on Monday morning, referencing one of the Israeli women whose story is told in the documentary. “Look, Amit’s story should make every human being sick. Sexual violence,” Bash said. “We know that Sheryl Sandberg documented those horrific stories so that the world could bear witness, ice out denialism. And yet denialism still exists. How do you combat that?” “Well Dana, thanks for shining a spotlight on this. The primary way that we combat it is by doing exactly what you and I are doing here, and that’s making sure that we can shine a spotlight on the sexual and gender-based violence that Hamas perpetrated on its victims on October 7th, and that very likely, we know, are continuing to perpetrate that sexual violence,” Wasserman Schultz replied. “And Sheryl Sandberg’s film is searing. But I’m really proud of the Vice President and the Second Gentleman for using the White House’s platform to make sure that the world knows that Hamas used sexual violence and continues to use it as a weapon of war, is violating women, Israeli women,” she added.

NBC’s Erin McLaughlin appeared to link last Friday’s Supreme Court decision — which overturned a Trump-era ban on bump stocks — to mass shootings that occurred over the weekend, despite the fact that bump stocks were not used in any of the instances she referenced. McLaughlin made the intuitive leap during Monday morning’s broadcast of The Today Show, framing her report for anchor Hoda Kotb as though there was a direct connection between the court’s ruling and the shootings. WATCH: NBC’s Erin McLaughlin blames the Supreme Court’s decision on bump stocks to 3 mass shootings over the weekend, despite the fact none of the weapons were equipped with them. pic.twitter.com/j5IfEKaEWE — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 17, 2024 “A mass shooting at a splash pad in Michigan, another at a Juneteenth celebration in Texas, and yet another at a gathering in Massachusetts — all just days after Friday’s Supreme Court ruling that rejects a ban on bump stocks,” McLaughlin began. “This morning, friends and families across the country are grieving after multiple mass shootings this weekend,” the report continued, showing several clips of emergency calls that went out during the shootings as well as the police response. At the Michigan splash pad, a shooter discharged 28 rounds and injured at least nine, some of whom were children. The shooter then reportedly turned the weapon on himself, and an investigation into his possible motive is ongoing. In Texas, two were killed and more than a dozen were injured when a gunman opened fire — and in that case, authorities are still looking for the alleged perpetrator. In Massachusetts, a pop-up party was the target of a shooting that left eight injured. At the end of the report, McLaughlin circled back to the Supreme Court ruling — seeming once again to suggest a link between the bump stock ban being overturned and the three recent shootings.