The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal done last its damn mind. It has found its way clear to ignore that Kari Lake is a conspiracy theorist and election denier. She is a proponent of drinking hydroxychloroquine. She recently got herself in trouble for a video she released, claiming that Katie Hobbs, her opponent for governor of Arizona, intended to discontinue education on the founding of our government.

There isn’t a word of truth in what you’re about to see. It’s one bald faced lie after another and Tokyo Rose 2022, which is what Lake is, feels completely comfortable spreading disinformation like this.

Even the Washington Examiner reported that Lake had disgraced herself.

Washington Examiner:

But the problem was Lake’s complete misreading of the bill in question and the changes made to it.

“Voting against this bill would not be voting against the national anthem,” Wes Gullett, former chief of staff to ex-GOP Gov. Fife Symington, told the Arizona Republic. He added that the bill Lake is referring to would have only added the words “Ditat Deus,” which means “God Enriches,” as well as the phrase “In God We Trust” to things that could be taught, read, and posted in classrooms. What the bill didn’t do is prevent any of the things Lake listed in her video from being taught and posted in Arizona schools.

The mistake has undoubtedly caused a headache for Team Lake, which has had to repeatedly defend Lake’s lack of government experience from even those in her own party.

Lake is a devotee of the Donald Trump school of politics, which basically translates that if you’re a TV personality and you can look good and sound like you know what you’re talking about, that’s all that matters. You don’t need any real skills or knowledge to govern, it’s just a PR job.

The former news anchor nonetheless refused to admit she was wrong and erroneously pointed to two other bills she said supported her argument. Those bills also did not refer to the Pledge of Allegiance being taught in classrooms.

“It demonstrated how unserious of a candidate Kari Lake is,” Hobbs spokesman Joe Wolf told the Arizona Republic. “She can’t read the bill. She can’t read the bill. if you’re governor, you’re probably going to have to end up reading a few of the bills you’re signing.”

This debacle happened about a week ago, but that didn’t stop the Wall Street Journal from endorsing her. If you can believe this, WSJ sees the gubernatorial election in Arizona as being about school choice. Seriously. You read that right. WSJ thinks that school vouchers are the key issue and on that basis, and that basis alone, they are endorsing Kari Lake for governor. I’m not the only one falling off my chair.  “It requires the skills of a contortionist to look at Arizona and declare that the November election is all about school choice,” says The Bulwark:

Writing as if nothing had changed in American politics since 2011, the editorial board assailed Katie Hobbs, the Democratic candidate for governor, as a tool of the teachers’ unions for her opposition to school choice. Noting that the race is neck and neck, the Journal advised that parents would be well advised to vote Republican if they hope to save their kids’ educational vouchers.

There you have it: The failure of the intellectual leaders of conservatism in one editorial. The once magisterial voice of the conservative worldview looked at the race for governor in Arizona and airily overlooked reality. School choice? Are they out of their minds? […]

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor, whom the Journal is endorsing, may be in favor of school choice, but that’s a little beside the point when you consider the larger picture. Kari Lake has declared that the 2020 election was “corrupt and stolen.” Regarding the current president of the United States, she has expressed pity, urging that “Deep down, I think we all know this illegitimate fool in the White House—I feel sorry for him—didn’t win. I hope Americans are smart enough to know that.” She has no patience for temporizers. “It is not enough to say you are for ‘Election Integrity’ if you are not for DECERTIFYING the 2020 election if wrongdoing, fraud or different results are revealed,” she tweeted last year. She then boasted that she was the only candidate for governor calling for decertification of the 2020 election. […]

There is no fiction she has not willingly endorsed. She told a group of young women that they shouldn’t take precautions about COVID because “the truth is that hydroxychloroquine works and other inexpensive treatments work.” Her campaign merch featured a t-shirt with the image of a burning mask. Naturally, she has denounced vaccine mandates.

She told Steve Bannon that her opponent would likely be in jail by election day, and advised another audience that as governor she would criminally prosecute journalists who “dupe the public.” During her primary race, she suggested that fraud was already underway. A week before the voting, she announced, “We’re already detecting some stealing going on.” And despite her victory, she carried a sledgehammer onstage on primary night and pantomimed smashing electronic voting machines. Her loyalty to the orange Jesus is total. After the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, she declared that “Our government is rotten to the core.”

That’s the GOP nominee for governor of Arizona. What does the Wall Street Journal do with these awkward realities? The board interprets them as problems only insofar as they make it harder for her to win:

GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake hasn’t helped herself or her party by insisting that the 2020 election was stolen. Her election fraud claims put off many Republicans and independents and are a loser in the general election. A winning and unifying issue for Republicans this November is school choice.

The important thing is for the election-denying cult member to win, so let’s find something that can distract disaffected Republicans and independents.

Again, this is more evidence that the Republican party stands for nothing in the year 2022. It has completely and I believe, irrevocably, lost its way. If the “bastion of high brow conservatism” can find its way clear to ignore facts such as you have seen about Kari Lake and take the ludicrous posture that the Arizona gubernatorial race is about school choice, then they are as intellectual dishonest and bereft of insight as any tabloid.

Kari Lake is a fraud. She is utterly incompetent and unqualified to hold the office for which she is running. The Journal cherry picked through the issues to find one that they could endorse her on. It’s like going over the criminal career of Ted Bundy and ignoring everything, but coming up with the observation, “he loved his dogs.” Ahh, good. He loved his dogs. So all the women he murdered? Not to worry. Let’s just not deal with that. Let’s remember the man as a dog lover.

There is no doubt in my mind but that the GOP is going the way of the Whig party, back in the 1850’s. A new conservative party of some sort will emerge. It has to, if the two party system necessary for democracy is going to endure. I think that the Journal would do better to concentrate on that reality than on endorsing horrific candidates. Color me shocked and disappointed.

Help keep the site running, consider supporting.

12 COMMENTS

  1. The G.O.P. might be going the way of the Whigs but will it be soon enough? They have done almost immeasurable harm to our country (and others) and we are at a tipping point. Our democratic institutions are hanging on by a thread, our planet’s climate is about to bite humans in the ass…hard, and this same party is about to enslave 1/2 of the population.

    I’m all for the party splitting up and going their separate ways but it needs to happen now not a couple of years from now.

    11
    23
  2. “They have done almost immeasurable harm to our country.” You paid for post liar. You can’t be that stupid. It’s the Democrats DISTROYING our country. Look at what they’ve done in just 2 years. Get out from under that CCP rock you live under. Go outside and try buying anything if you can afford or find it. You really do work undercover for the Communist party, don’t you? You really are a (stupid) paid CCP propagandist. The DOW is crashing as I type because of Biden reversing Trumps policies. And the good little comrade you are will be pumping out your propaganda. Hey readers, there will be 11% unemployment by Christmas 2023 because of the unexperienced losers in office running this country. This is not an opinion. This is happening now. It’s just the beginning.

    24
    18
    • Gee, red, I’ve seen you here for a few weeks now, and still haven’t seen anything you’ve typed that makes any sense, includes any meaningful sentences or doesn’t include serious spelling errors.
      Can you explain why you sometimes yell socialism and then the next time scream communism, and sometimes do it in the same post.
      What I find amusing is that you think you’re doing “your side” a service by “owning the libs.”
      All you are doing is exposing the vacuity of whatever it is you may believe in, and, as always, stating things as facts that are simply not in evidence.
      Keep hanging around, though, because it solidifies all the points being made by the diarists in their articles, and by many of the thoughtful comments by others, like Denis and Samuel.
      I also fail to understand how you can tell the color of someone’s skin by what they type.
      Keep up the good work.

      13
      24
      • So you have a hard time reading is what your saying. There is nothing I can do about that. I can’t help you’re cognitive capabilities. Democrats are both socialism and communistic. Why do you think the usa is degrading by the day. The stock market is in the toilet with senile Biden and his handlers self inflected policies. You’re either young or a complete idiot not to know what’s going on around you.

        24
        5
        • You have a hard time understanding reality, like record low unemployment RIGHT NOW and for the last several months, so you just pull numbers out of your ass and say they will happen. Somehow. Because Democrats have actually done good things for the country instead of for the Orange Menace personally and the billionaire oligarchs.
          It’s Republicans that want to kill America’s economy, turn all seniors into beggars, impoverish a huge swath of the middle class, and give all property rights to the billionaires. Also end free speech, actual religious freedom, and the right to vote.

          7
          23
      • So you’re the board spelling monitor? You can’t even figure out what you’re reading.
        Stock market is now just above $28k and falling everyday. Get your head out of your ass and read what I’m saying. I usually do have sources on my posts. That means you’re either incredibly stupid or a confused liar.

        24
        4
        • And where was the market in 2020? Gee, how quickly you forget.
          The stock market is not the economy, it’s the millionaire gambling site. That’s why it goes up and down on ridiculously trivial news item every day. The real economy rests with the people, working.

          8
          23
          • I bet that 71 year old nazipig is drawing social security & has Medicare. You fucking socialist you. Oh & a big fat hypocrite & liar…like his nazi party.

            4
            22
        • You’re too stupid to know that the stock market isn’t the economy. Traitor45 inherited the Obama Economy that that had corrected the disasters of 8 years of Shrub’s ineptitude and warmongering, and then the orange turd drove our nation into the ground with his shockingly inept handling of the nation’s safety in a pandemic, because he was so busy pandering to his slobbering cultist base (for reference, go look in a mirror). You’re all a bunch of ignorant White Nationalist snowflake fantasists who thrive on lies and threats of violence when you’re not bawling like babies and hanging around downtown Dallas waiting for Dead Kennedys to appear. This level of ignorance and abject hatred for Democracy is why the GQP has become so dangerous. Go jack off to your stash of Boebert photos
          In-between firing off your impotent sputtering diatribes that give us such amusement.

          2
          24
          • After college I had a relationship with an economics major who was working on an MBA. I asked her about the Dow since it always got a brief mention on the evening news (just the “big three” in those days) and she patiently explained to me how it was at best a very crude tool for measuring the overall economy. Specifically she noted it’s comprised of thirty, yes only thirty “blue chip” stocks – companies that are huge and with a storied history. The share prices of stocks on the Dow are beyond the reach of most people, at least in any meaningful volume. It’s rare, but if one of those companies has wound up in some trouble they get kicked off. The point is that judging the economy by how a handful of blue chip stocks that virtually ALWAYS rise in value over time (despite ups and downs along the way) bears as much resemblance to the health of the economy as measuring how well most folks in my dying hometown are doing by looking at the generational business owners who have made their pile and can retire in great comfort whenever they want.

    • You do realize current inflation is global, not just the US. Check the news and you’ll discover a global problem for freedom loving nations because of the idiot in Russia whom former President Trump admired and still does. Wake up folks, people who admire and get love letters from ruthless dictators are a real threat to democracy and freedom. People who think the press is the enemy of the people know nothing about democracy. People who begin aligning themselves with QANON are batshit crazy.

      1
      24

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

The maximum upload file size: 128 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop files here