RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Democratic U.S. Rep. Elaine Luria and her GOP challenger, Jen Kiggans, tangled over federal spending, the economy and abortion restrictions during a combative debate Wednesday, as the two Navy veterans sought to present themselves as the best equipped to represent Virginia’s military-heavy 2nd Congressional District.
Kiggans, a state senator, nurse practitioner and former Navy helicopter pilot, is trying to block Luria, a retired naval commander, from a third term representing the highly competitive district that could help determine party control of the U.S. House in next month’s midterm elections.
In sometimes-fiery exchanges, the candidates offered vastly different perspectives on the state of America’s economy and the other’s record during the approximately hour-and-a-half debate hosted by the Hampton Roads Chamber at an oceanfront hotel.
Luria called Kiggans “an election denier” who is “not fit to serve” because she has repeatedly refused to say plainly that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. Kiggans has repeatedly answered questions on the topic – including during an interview with The Associated Press – by simply acknowledging Biden resides in the White House.
Kiggans said Luria campaigns as a moderate but is actually unwilling to buck Biden or congressional leadership. She said “danger and insanity” in the halls of the Democrat-controlled Congress and what she cast as out-of-control spending have led to an economy “in shambles” and contributed to rising inflation.
“This November will be a referendum on what I consider to be failed economic policies from the Joe Biden administration,” she said.
The two candidates have agreed to a candidate forum Oct. 17 in Smithfield and a televised debate Oct. 25, according to Luria’s communications director, Jayce Genco.
Paul Plante says
Luria called Kiggans “an election denier” who is “not fit to serve” because she has repeatedly refused to say plainly that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election?
What a load of pure unadulterated horse crap that is, because in 2020, there WAS NOT a legitimate election for Joe Biden to have won!
There WAS NOT a legitimate election in 2020 for Joe Biden to have won because FIVE ROGUE STATES who put Joe Biden over the top did so by intentionally acting in clear violation of Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution which states in plain English that a Navy Commander should be able to assimilate and comprehend and understand that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”
Don’t listen to any horse**** from Elaine Luria, who seems to have been gifted by nature with a copious supply of it – go to the Congressional Register for 6 January 2021 and read the words of the actual debates, and you will see that that was clearly so, and the ONLY reason Joe Biden is president today is because on 6 January 2021, the Democrats who APPROVED what took place in those FIVE ROGUE STATES outnumbered the Republican objectors to those UNCONSTITUTIONAL ELECTIONS in those FIVE ROGUE STATES that put Joe Biden over the top on electoral votes.
BOTTOM LINE: LURIA WANTS KIGGINS TO BUY INTO THE DEMOCRAT HUGE BIG MASSIVE LIE THAT JOE BIDEN IS A CONSTITUTIONALLY ELECTED PRESIDENT.
DO YOU WANT A REAL LIAR REPRESENTING YOU IN CONGRESS?
THEN VOTE DEMOCRAT AND YOUR WISH WILL BE FULFILLED.
J Wheaton says
LMAO, when you come up with evidence the election was illegitimate maybe we’d actually listen.
Guess the earth is flat too.
Paul Plante says
When windbags like me come up with evidence the election was illegitimate maybe you’d actually listen?
That’s BULL****, J Wheaton, and you know it, because your mind has been closed in all time I have known (not in the Biblical sense, of course) you, which is a considerable amount of time now, and let me add how much sheer intellectual pleasure it gives me when something I have said lures you out of your den like a Moray eel to come and viciously attack me with false logic in an attempt, a vain attempt I must say, to make me look stupid, in order to make you in turn look smart and totally in touch with the times your are in as well as being comfortable inside your own skin, which is tres, tres important in power politics as you play the game today.
That is why it is so fun in here when I do manage to lure you out of hiding, as was the case today, where I PRESENTED THE CANDID WORLD with where to go to determine for themselves the UNCONSTITUTIONAL NATURE of the FLAWED ELECTIONS in the FIVE ROGUE STATES where the Biden supporters, in order to RIG THE ELECTION in FAVOR OF Joe Biden, RENOUNCED Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution which states in plain English that even a closed-minded person like yourself devoid of the ability to use reason to engage in critical thinking should be able to assimilate and comprehend and understand that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”
Are you at all able to wrap what small mind you are possessed of around that concept of ELECTIONS being PRESCRIBED by STATE LEGISLATURES, not secretaries of state, not UN-ELECTED OBAMA JUDGES?
Are you aware that in the FIVE ROGUE STATES that had UNCONSTITUTIONAL ELECTIONS, it was secretaries of state and UNELECTED OBAMA JUDGES that were instead UNCONSTITUTIONALLY PRESCRIBING the elections?
Are you intellectually incapable of grasping that?
Seems so to me, anyway, but I’m a very fair person, so instead of saying you are insane, I will afford you an opportunity to prove that you are not.
And you guess the earth is flat too?
You know, J Wheaton, I’m not at all surprised!
Somebody who thinks that people in FIVE ROGUE STATES can decide to change the Constitution on election day so their favored candidate can win would indeed think the earth is flat, because it looks like it is to them, and that’s all the need, since whether the earth is flat or not to them is a matter of emotion, just like the horsecrap you are peddling in here that Joe Biden was LEGITIMATELY elected president, when THE FACT IS that he was clearly appointed by Nancy Pelosi, who herself, along with Elaine Luria renounced OUR Constitution on 6 January 2021 to make Joe Biden the president DESPITE CONSTITUTIONALLY FLAWED ELECTIONS in FIVE ROGUE STATES.
So can he do it, people?
Can our J Wheaton prove to the candid world that he is not truly insane for believing that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president in 2020?
Stay tuned is all I can say for it should be quite the interesting show when he tries.
J Wheaton says
All those words and not even a hint of anything substantial. Why don’t you and your friends come on back when you actually have something?
It’s been how long since the election and no proof has been forthcoming? Oh, that’s right your friend Rudy had proof, but he must have lost it or something.
Paul, we all have listened and we are all ready to agree with you but here is the thing – it’s time to put up or shut up. Show us the evidence
Paul Plante says
All those words and not even a hint of anything substantial?
Uh, okay, J Wheaton, whatever you say.
Why don’t I and my friends come on back when we actually have something?
What friends?
What on earth are you on about there, J Wheaton, with this crazy talk of yours about some imaginary friends I am supposed to have?
Who are they?
Where are they, besides in your vivid imagination?
It’s been how long since the election and no proof has been forthcoming?
Where on earth have you been in that period of time. J Wheaton?
The proof was forthcoming on 6 January 2021.
IT IS IN THE CONGRESSIONAL REGISTER!
The fact that you personally cannot read what is in the Congressional Register in no way negates the proof that is in there.
And given your proven inability to assimilate more than a few vowels and consonants at a time, I will not waste my very valuable time trying to educate you, when you are ineducable.
Oh, that’s right your friend Rudy had proof, but he must have lost it or something?
What friend Rudy?
I don’t know any Rudy’s, nor do I have any friends named Rudy, so I find myself unable to shed any light on what might have happened to any evidence this Rudy you know might have had.
If he lost it, he lost it, and too bad for him, ain’t it, but it don’t confront me none what happened to Rudy’s evidence.
And what’s this: Paul, we all have listened and we are all ready to agree with you but here is the thing – it’s time to put up or shut up?
Show us the evidence?
J Wheaton, YOU have not listened to a word I have said, and you wouldn’t even be here trying this horsecrap if you were not so worried about what I am EXPOSING here, which is TRUTH and FACT.
Joe Biden is NOT a legitimately elected president.
But let’s do this instead!
YOU PROVIDE US WITH IRREFUTABLE, INCONTROVERTIBLE PROOF POSITIVE THAT JOE BIDEN WAS LEGITIMATELY ELECTED, AND THEN, AND ONLY THEN, UPON A PRESENTATION OF SUCH PROOF BY YOURSELF WILL WE BE READY TO BELIEVE YOU!
Paul Plante says
JEN KIGGANS (1:32:23): … while my opponent (Elaine Luria) has run a one-issue smear campaign based on lies and unhinged television commercials – voters will remember these things when they cast their vote on November 8th …
And speaking of slimy, scurvy smear campaigns such as I have never witnessed in the United States of America in my lifetime, and that includes Joe McCarthy, what is interesting here is that on 11 January 2021, Elaine Luria voted for the following Resolution calling on Vice President Michael R. Pence to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments of the Cabinet to activate section 4 of the 25th Amendment to declare President Donald J. Trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting President, because in the words of Elaine Luria, “Donald Trump has demonstrated repeatedly, continuously, and spectacularly his absolute inability to discharge the most basic and fundamental powers and duties of his office.”
So according to that Resolution and Elaine Luria, on 6 January 2021, Trump was a mental defective, a serious head case, somebody insane, which means he did not possess the necessary mens rea (the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime) to commit the criminal acts that Elaine Luria is now charging him with as a Pelosi-ite WITCH HUNTER, which criminal charges come to us straight from the 11 January 2021 Resolution which follows, because being insane on 6 January 2021 as Elaine Luria stated on 11 January 2021, Trump could not have known right from wrong; he was so mentally disturbed or incapacitated at the time of the offenses alleged by Elaine Luria that he did not have the required intention to commit the crime, and are therefore could not be guilty, where Trump can plead that he did not have the required mens rea for the crimes Elaine Luria alleges he committed because he was, in the words of Elaine Luria on 11 January 2021, insane at the time he is alleged to have committed the crime, i.e. his insanity negated his culpability in the crimes Elaine Luria alleges he committed on 6 January 2021, to wit:
Whereas on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, the day fixed by the Constitution for the counting of electoral votes, Congress experienced a massive violent invasion of the United States Capitol and its complex by a dangerous insurrectionary mob which smashed windows and used violent physical force and weapons to overpower and outmaneuver the United States Capitol Police and facilitated the illegal entry into the Capitol of hundreds, if not thousands, of unauthorized persons (all of whom entered the Capitol complex without going through metal detectors and other security screening devices);
Whereas, the insurrectionary mob threatened the safety and lives of the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the President pro tempore of the Senate, the first three individuals in the line of succession to the presidency, as the rioters were recorded chanting ”Hang Mike Pence” and ”Where’s Nancy” when President Donald J. Trump tweeted to his supporters that ”Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country” after the Capitol had been overrun and the Vice President was in hiding;
Whereas the insurrectionary mob attacked law enforcement officers, unleashed chaos and terror among Members and staffers and their families, occupied the Senate Chamber and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office along with other leadership offices, vandalized and pilfered government property, and succeeded in interfering with the counting of electoral votes in the joint session of Congress;
Whereas the insurrectionary mob’s violent attacks on law enforcement and invasion of the Capitol complex caused the unprecedented disruption of the Electoral College count process for a 4-hour period in both the House and the Senate, a dangerous and destabilizing impairment of the peaceful transfer of power that these insurrectionary riots were explicitly designed to cause;
Whereas 5 Americans have died as a result of injuries or traumas suffered during this violent attack on Congress and the Capitol, including Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick and Ashli Babbitt, Rosanne Boyland, Kevin Greeson, and Benjamin Phillips, and more than 50 police officers were seriously injured, including 15 officers who had to be hospitalized, by violent assaults, and there could easily have been dozens or hundreds more wounded and killed, a sentiment captured by Senator Lindsey Graham, who observed that ”the mob could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all”;
Whereas these insurrectionary protests were widely advertised and broadly encouraged by President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly urged his millions of followers on Twitter and other social media outlets to come to Washington on January 6 to ”Stop the Steal” of the 2020 Presidential election and promised his activist followers that the protest on the Electoral College counting day would be ”wild”;
Whereas President-elect Joseph R. Biden won the 2020 Presidential election with more than 81 million votes and defeated President Trump 306–232 in the Electoral College, a margin pronounced to be a ”landslide” by President Trump when he won by the same Electoral College numbers in 2016, but President Trump never accepted these election results as legitimate and waged a protracted campaign of propaganda and coercive pressure in the Federal and State courts, in the state legislatures, with Secretaries of State, and in Congress to nullify and overturn these results and replace them with fraudulent and fabricated numbers;
Whereas President Trump made at least 3 attempts to intervene in the lawful vote counting and certification process in Georgia and to coerce officials there into fraudulently declaring him the winner of the State’s electoral votes, including calls to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and a State elections investigator, and an hour-long conversation with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger badgering him to ”find 11,780 votes” and warning of a ”big risk” to Raffensperger if he did not intervene favorably to guarantee the reelection of President Trump;
Whereas President Trump appeared with members of his staff and family at a celebratory kickoff rally to encourage and charge up the rioters and insurrectionists to ”march on the Capitol” and ”fight” on Wednesday, January 6, 2021;
Whereas while violent insurrectionists occupied parts of the Capitol, President Trump ignored or rejected repeated real-time entreaties from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to appeal to his followers to exit the Capitol, and also ignored a tweet from Alyssa Farah, his former communications director, saying: ”Condemn this now, @realDonaldTrump — you are the only one they will listen to. For our country!”;
Whereas photographs, cell phone videos, social media posts, and on-the-ground reporting show that numerous violent insurrectionists who invaded the Capitol were armed, were carrying police grade flex cuffs to detain and handcuff people, used mace, pepper spray, and bear spray against United States Capitol Police officers, erected a gallows on Capitol grounds to hang ”traitors,” vehemently chanted ”Hang Mike Pence!” while surrounding and roving the Capitol, emphasized that storming the Capitol was ”a revolution,”, brandished the Confederate battle flag inside the Capitol, and were found to be in possession of Napalm B, while still unidentified culprits planted multiple pipe bombs at buildings near the Capitol complex, another lethally dangerous criminal action that succeeded in diverting law enforcement from the Capitol; and
Whereas Donald Trump has demonstrated repeatedly, continuously, and spectacularly his absolute inability to discharge the most basic and fundamental powers and duties of his office, including most recently the duty to respect the legitimate results of the Presidential election, the duty to respect the peaceful transfer of democratic power under the Constitution, the duty to participate in legally defined transition activities, the duty to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States, including the counting of Electoral College votes by Congress, the duty to protect the people of the United States and their elected representatives against domestic insurrection, mob rule, and seditious violence, and generally the duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives calls upon Vice President Michael R. Pence—
(1) to immediately use his powers under section 4 of the 25th Amendment to convene and mobilize the principal officers of the executive departments in the Cabinet to declare what is obvious to a horrified Nation: That the President is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office; and
(2) to transmit to the President pro tempore of 10 the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives notice that he will be immediately assuming the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Boy says
J Wheaton. Do you think suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story helped Joe Biden win? Russian collusion? Was the media unbiased and fair? I’m no Trumper but if you think that was a fair election well….
Bob says
So thats the best these two could do !!!
More BS from the failing government in total .
Instead of US the People arguing amongst ourselves (as our government likes so they keep control and manipulate )
Its time to get out the broom
And sweep everyone there out ,
Replace the failing government
With the one that actually represents
WE THE PEOPLE
And I dont mean using violence
The how to do that ??
Probably can’t realistically be done at one time
But if WE THE PEOPLE stop fighting within ourselves and let this government know that WE. STAND TOGETHER even if we disagree on matters
I would suspect they would have to recognize their way ( all parties ) are no longer going to keep us separated
Paul Plante says
If anyone finds themselves interested in watching the whole debate, here is the YouTube link to it:
Virginia Elections 2022: Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria and Republican Jen Kiggans full debate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc5iWQtAHkc
If you don’t have the time to watch the whole thing, and you want to hear a crusty, battle-hardened, salty old seadog made of the same stern stuff as a “Bull” Halsey or Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar barking out orders like a true fighting admiral on the bridge of a warship in the Battle of the Coral Sea or Leyte Gulf, move the cursor on the bottom of the screen to 1:28:14 for the closing arguments of Elaine Luria, which will have you shouting to your family, “TEN-HUT, ADMIRAL ON THE BRIDGE,” so forcefully does she come across in laying out all the myriad reasons people should not be voting for her come November, and as an added bonus, which I personally thought was a great added touch for the sake of drama, which is all important in power politics as Elaine Luria plays the game, at 1:29:44, Ms. Luria appears to “pull a Joe Biden,” forgetting for a moment who she was, where she was, and why she was there in the first place, although she did not go “FULL JOE,” in that she didn’t start wandering around on the stage aimlessly, shaking hands with people who weren’t really there.
Paul Plante says
And now, courtesy of and thanks to the Cape Charles, our Grand Palladium of Liberty in the United States of America, we have more play-by-play from the now world-famous “Full debate between Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria and Republican Jen Kiggans,” with its drama and riveting political dialogue deemed absolutely stupendous in scope according to focus groups all over the nation who have deemed it “BEST POLITICAL DEBATE FOR 2022” as follows:
ELAINE LURIA: (1:29:14)(Delivered very forcefully with extreme feeling and emotion and Con Brio while with hooded eyes candidate Luria “screw-faces” her opponent Jen Kiggans to intimidate her into submission as candidate Luria lashes her mercilessly with the sharp side of her tongue while delivering her diatribe) I’m NOT your candidate if you would rather have Donald J. Trump as your president again because you (Kiggans) are so critical of Biden you (Kiggans) obviously supported Donald J. Trump.
Meanwhile, back on the farm:
The Washington Examiner
“Obama is right: Democrats’ anti-Trump fixation is killing them”
Opinion by David Freddoso
16 October 2022
Former President Barack Obama recently pointed out that Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot with their obsession with Donald Trump and the various legal issues surrounding him.
They have deluded themselves, as a party, into believing that the rest of the world is as obsessed as they are with Trump, whatever legal battles he faces, and the January 6 committee.
In reality, nobody cares about any of this stuff.
At all.
Most people don’t even know what’s happening in that committee.
And they certainly don’t care about the lawsuits being filed in New York.
“We spend enormous amounts of time and energy and resources pointing out the latest crazy thing he said, or how rude or me and some of the Republican candidates behaved,” Obama said on a recent podcast.
“That’s probably not something that, in the minds of most voters, overrides their basic interests: can I pay the rent?”
“What a gas price is?”
“How am I dealing with child care?”
Obama is completely right.
If Democrats don’t listen to him, they are going to be slaughtered in the coming midterms.
And fortunately, they will not listen.
Perhaps the most amazing illustration of this is the recent poll showing that New York Attorney General Letitia James could actually lose her re-election battle — mostly because of this exact problem.
She is completely out of touch with New Yorkers and completely Trump-obsessed in her work.
James has essentially neglected her job of prosecuting the criminals preying upon New Yorkers in order to obsess over Trump and build up her profile with blue-checkmark Twitter.
The last poll of her race shows her losing against a no-name opponent.
That doesn’t mean she will actually lose, but she is losing even though she should not be anywhere near to losing.
And politicians who are as out of touch with the needs of their constituents as she is deserve to lose.
This is where the Democratic Party finds itself now.
The party’s activist base is obsessed with Trump to the point of insanity.
They cannot give him up, two years after he left office.
We hear all this talk of election denialism — it is almost as if they cannot accept that they won the 2020 election.
Paul Plante says
Being critical of Joe Biden is obviously a CARDINAL POLITICAL SIN to candidate Elaine Luria, which really is a telling statement about where candidate Luria’s true loyalties really are, and based on that diatribe aimed at candidate Kiggans, who weathered the onslaught and barrage quite well, I thought, it is quite obvious, even to the proverbial blind man, that the loyalties of candidate Luria are NOT to OUR Constitution – to the contrary, they are to the dictatorship of AUTOCRAT Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., so that when candidate Luria barks out at the audience in the GREAT DEBATE at 1:29:16 “I’m not your candidate if you stand with insurrectionists,” it raises the serious question of why then is she supporting Joe Biden, who most certainly not only stands on the side of violent DOMESTIC TERRORIST INSURRECTIONIST GROUPS like JANE’S REVENGE, but is actively inciting them to insurrection, sedition, rioting, contempt for rule of law, anarchy and violence against Supreme Court justices, and anybody else who dares to stand in their way.
Candidate Luria STANDS with Jane’s Revenge, which TERRORIST GROUP was branded by Facebook as Terrorists.
Wikipedia describes Jane’s Revenge as a militant, extremist, abortion rights group that encourages and claims responsibility for acts of firebombing, vandalism, and arson in the United States, targeting crisis pregnancy centers, a church, and a Congressional office.
The attacks began in May 2022 after a leak of the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, which would soon overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights.
They are who candidate Luria and Joe Biden stand with, and once again, and this is so stupid, because we are talking high school history here, DOBBS DID NOT OVERTURN ROE v. WADE!
That is a FALSEHOOD being put forth by candidate Luria and Joe Biden to incite these militant women to acts of violence against those who do not support Joe Biden on election day.
ROE v. WADE WAS OVERTURNED IN 1992 BY Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), wherein was stated as follows by the Supreme Court in 1992, to wit:
Primary Holding
A person retains the right to have an abortion, established by Roe v. Wade, but the state’s compelling interest in protecting the life of an unborn child means that it can ban an abortion of a viable fetus under any circumstances except when the health of the mother is at risk.
end quote
SO WHY ARE ELAINE LURIA AND JOE BIDEN LYING TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA TO INCITE THEM TO RIOT, SEDITION, INSURRECTION AND ACTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?
WHY IS ELAINE LURIA STANDING WITH JANE’S REVENGE, A VIOLENT DOMESTIC TERRORIST GROUP?
Election Day is coming, so give that question some serious thought while you can!
Paul Plante says
And now, courtesy of and thanks to the Cape Charles, our Grand Palladium of Liberty in the United States of America, we have more play-by-play from the now world-famous “Full debate between Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria and Republican Jen Kiggans,” with its drama and riveting political dialogue deemed absolutely stupendous in scope according to focus groups all over the nation who have deemed it “BEST POLITICAL DEBATE FOR 2022” as follows:
JEN KIGGANS: (1:30:43) My entire life has been about service, service to my country as a Navy pilot, service to my family as a Mom of four, and a Navy wife, and service to my community as a geriatric nurse-practitioner and state senator.
You’ve been able to hear both of our views, not just on business issues, but also our vision for our community and country and what motivates us to run.
Each election year my opponent campaigns as a moderate but in between elections she doesn’t vote like a moderate.
She votes like Nancy Pelosi.
The first vote she cast was for Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the house, and then she continues to vote with Pelosi 99% of the time.
If you all take away nothing else from today I want you take away that statistic.
When I knock on doors, talk to moms in carpool lines, neighbors in civic league meetings or business leaders like many of you, and ask what is driving people to vote this year, the response I usually get is that we are not happy with the direction of our country, then they tell me about the economy, and how much they pay to fill their tank, how much it costs to feed their family and how much less they have in their savings account.
Hard-working Americans are hurting from Joe Biden’s disastrous failed economic policies.
In the second congressional district, these policies go by the name of Elaine Luria who votes for them 99% of the time.
The wasteful spending and tax increases must stop.
The government mandates and expansion into our lives and businesses must stop.
To stop these things and get our country back on track, we must have a change of leadership in Congress.
In the second district, that starts with flipping this seat and firing Nancy Pelosi.
My campaign has been focused on the economy, the border, our children’s education, crime and our military, while my opponent has run a one-issue smear campaign based on lies and unhinged television commercials – voters will remember these things when they cast their vote on November 8th.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve my community, my district and my country and government.
It was the honor of a lifetime and a responsibility that I do not take lightly.
I ask for your vote and I look forward to serving as the next congresswoman for the second district.
Paul Plante says
CCM: Luria called Kiggans “an election denier” who is “not fit to serve” because she has repeatedly refused to say plainly that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election.
REALITY AS IT EXISTS IN THE REAL WORLD OUTSIDE OF WASHINGTON, D.C.:
Fox News
“NY Times laments new poll showing Dems and independents care mostly about economy: ‘Remarkably apathetic’”
Gabriel Hays
18 October 2022
A New York Times report called American voters “remarkably apathetic” after the paper’s latest poll showed that danger to democracy is not the biggest concern going into the midterm elections.
In its latest midterm election report, titled, “Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority,” the outlet noted the findings of the latest New York Times/Siena College poll.
The poll found that a good chunk of independent voters and even some Democrats were willing to vote for 2020 election deniers who they thought would be better for the economy.
The outlet stated, “In fact, more than a third of independent voters and a smaller but noteworthy contingent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as they assigned greater urgency to their concerns about the economy than to fears about the fate of the country’s political system.”
The NY Times/Siena poll showed that among all registered voters, 39% are willing to vote for “candidates who reject 2020 election results.”
Among that slice, 18% are “very” willing, while 21% are “somewhat.”
Among independent voters, 37% said they are willing to vote for election deniers, with 15% saying there are “very” willing.
In addition to exposing the voting bloc willing to vote for MAGA Republican candidates, the poll also noted, “Twenty-eight percent of all voters, including 41 percent of Republicans, said they had little to no faith in the accuracy of this year’s midterm elections.”
According to the paper, these findings “reinforce the idea that for many Americans, this year’s midterm elections will be largely defined by rising inflation and other economic woes.”
The Times said, “Democratic voters cited the economy and inflation as their top concerns, prioritizing them over democracy and other issues like abortion access.”
It added, “Independent voters were far more worried about issues other than democracy, and some were willing to look past candidates’ election-denying stances if their views aligned on other policies.”
Paul Plante says
And as we head into the November midterms with the fate of our REPUBLIC on the line in the face of a Democrat assault on our Constitution, this timely article from The Hill, which to me was never a friend of Donald Trump, and so cannot be considered by the Democrats, “Trumpist,” about the activities of Virginia’s Elaine Luria as a Pelosi-ite WITCH HUNTER certainly bears careful scrutiny by anyone who actually cares about the dangerous, un-democratic direction Pelosi Democrats like Elaine Luria are trying to take this country in, to wit:
“The Jan. 6 committee is fueling unwarranted distrust of the Fifth Amendment”
Opinion by Steven Wright, opinion contributor
21 October 2022
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has revealed plenty of jaw-dropping testimony, including those moments in which high-profile witnesses asserted their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
The committee has made a repeated and short-sighted practice of highlighting such assertions.
For example, it shared the recorded, awkward testimony of former national security advisor Michael Flynn repeatedly asserting his privilege.
In a second public hearing, the committee noted that John Eastman, the alleged architect of Former President Donald Trump’s machinations to remain in power, asserted his privilege more than 100 times.
The committee should stop making hay of witnesses’ invocation of their Fifth Amendment privilege.
This practice contributes to a cultural erosion of an important constitutional right and to a distrust of those who assert it.
Indeed, emphasizing a witness’s decision to assert their privilege, as the committee has repeatedly done, does little to advance the committee’s aims, runs counter to our constitutional tradition, and stigmatizes a right nearly as old as the Republic.
end quotes
That is Elaine Luria he is talking about there, people.
Going back to the article, it continues, as follows:
Our constitutional privilege against self-incrimination, commonly known as “pleading the Fifth,” is an essential bulwark against government aggression and misconduct.
end quote
And right there, the “government aggression and misconduct” is coming at us from the Democrats and Joe Biden, himself, who calls us “DREGS OF SOCIETY” if we do not bow and scrape before him as our “leader.”
Going back to the article for more, we have as follows:
The privilege empowers the accused to defend against overzealous government interrogators who might attempt to obtain confessions through coercion, torture, bribery, browbeating or trickery, practices that modern police interrogators continue to employ.
Institutional and cultural distrust of the privilege can and does lead to false confessions, which is the leading cause of wrongful convictions.
Already too many Americans presume guilt when a witness pleads the Fifth.
One poll found that more than a third of registered voters still believe that someone who pleads the Fifth is usually guilty.
The same poll found that college-educated individuals, in particular, are more likely to incorrectly associate guilt with the assertion of the privilege.
Political leaders often reinforce this cultural distrust of the privilege.
end quotes
Those “political leaders” doing so in this country in OUR times today include Virginia’s Elaine Luria.
Going back for more, we have:
No wonder the U.S. Supreme Court has generally forbidden lower courts and prosecutors from telling jurors about an accused’s decision to assert this privilege.
Making jurors aware of an accused’s assertions “cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly,” the court has warned.
Further, highlighting the invocation of the privilege “solemnizes the silence of the accused into evidence against him.”
Further, this critique — that the committee should stop bringing attention to moments when witnesses plead the Fifth — differs from other arguments that have attempted to delegitimize the committee’s important work.
Instead, this critique begs the committee to consider the societal impact of its decision to reinforce misguided assumptions about those who assert the privilege.
The select committee on Jan. 6 should be especially sensitive given Congress’s history of demonizing individuals who asserted their Fifth Amendment privilege.
During the 1950s, for example, the House Committee on Un-American Activities ruined the lives and careers of citizens who invoked the privilege to decline to answer questions about friends, personal beliefs and political activities.
The hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, for a generation, popularized the pernicious notion that witnesses who plead the Fifth must be hiding some misconduct.
Further, the committee should be mindful that its audience includes juveniles and young adults, who, from watching the committee, will understandably conclude that pleading the Fifth will lead to mockery, ridicule, insinuation and automatic assumptions of guilt.
Prior to the hearing, several of those advisors announced that they had asserted their Fifth Amendment privilege in the face of committee questions.
No doubt a congressional staffer has counted the times each advisor asserted the privilege.
Another staffer has almost certainly created TikTok-sized clips of these same advisors declining to answer the most basic of civics questions.
But the committee gains nothing by highlighting the advisors’ decision to plead the Fifth, and it risks further eroding one of the most important rights in the American criminal justice system.