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Government Corruption

ActBlue officials decline to testify, Congress threatens subpoenas in foreign donations probe

2025-05-24

[JustTheNews] The witnesses initially agreed to voluntary interviews but pulled back after President Donald Trump signed an order instructing the Justice Department to probe ActBlue, correspondence shows.

The chairmen of three powerful House committees on Thursday threatened to issue subpoenas after several current and former top officials of the Democrat online fund-raising platform ActBlue declined to testify in a probe into possible foreign and fraudulent political donations, according to correspondence obtained by Just the News.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., revealed in the letters that several of the witnesses initially agreed to voluntary, transcribed interviews, then pulled back through their lawyer earlier this month after President Donald Trump signed an order instructing the Justice Department to probe the platform.

“As we have explained, the Committees are examining allegations that ActBlue, a leading political fundraising organization, allowed bad actors, including foreign actors, to exploit the company’s online platform to make fraudulent political donations,” the chairmen wrote in letters to the witnesses, which were sent to a lawyer representing them, Danny Onorato.

"Fraudulent political donations corrupt American elections could amount to interstate criminal conduct," the letters also state.

The letters laid out the testimony flip-flops for each of the witnesses, including ActBlue’s former chief revenue officer, Peter Slutsky.

“On April 21, Mr. Onorato indicated that you had agreed to appear for a voluntary transcribed interview and began the process of scheduling your appearance. However, on May 7, Mr. Onorato notified the Committee that you had changed course and now would not appear for a voluntary transcribed interview,” the chairmen stated.

“He cited a reported Executive Branch investigation into ‘the unlawful use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees’ as the basis for your refusal to cooperate voluntarily with the Committees,” the letter to Slutsky and Onorato also states.

You can read that letter here:

Similar language was used for nearly all the witnesses who got the letters, which told the witnesses that an ongoing DOJ probe wasn’t a valid excuse for refusing to testify to Congress.

“The relevant precedent is clear that the mere existence of state or federal law enforcement investigations has no bearing on Congress’s oversight power,” the lawmakers wrote. “As such, an Executive Branch investigation into matters related to versight by the Committees is not a legitimate basis on which you may decline our request.”

The letters demanded each witness schedule their interview by no later than May 29 or risk facing a subpoena.

“The Committees are prepared to resort to compulsory process, if necessary, to obtain compliance with our requests,” the lawmakers warned.

The committees have been probing ActBlue over lax security measures and whether those vulnerabilities allowed foreign entities to donate to U.S. political campaigns, which is illegal.

In October, Steil and Sen. Ron Johnson, a fellow Wisconsin Republican, wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines about concerns that four U.S. adversaries may have donated through the platform.

“We write to you to raise an urgent concern regarding potential illicit election funding by foreign actors,” the lawmakers wrote Yellen in a letter dated Thursday. “CHA has been investigating claims that foreign actors, primarily from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and China, may be using ActBlue to launder illicit money into U.S. political campaigns.”

They also said: “Our investigation has indicated that these actors may be exploiting existing U.S. donors by making straw donations without their knowledge.”

The lawmakers specifically demanded access to any Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) related to money passing through the fundraising platform generated by any U.S. financial institution as part of their anti-money-laundering activities. Congress has been pouring through those SARs in recent days after gaining access to them under the Trump administration.

ActBlue has acknowledged to Congress that it has updated its donor verification policy to automatically reject donations that “use foreign prepaid/gift cards, domestic gift cards, are from high-risk/sanctioned countries, and have the highest level of risk as determined,” by its solution provider, Sift.

The change occurred just three days after Steil introduced the Secure Handling of Internet Electronic Donations (SHIELD) Act, on Sept. 6, 2024, to ensure foreign money stayed out of online political fundraising. Before the change, Steil said, donations made with foreign gift cards were not automatically rejected by ActBlue before the change, Just the News reported.

ActBlue has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and says that it is fully cooperating with ongoing investigations.

"Democratic and progressive campaigns have trusted ActBlue’s two-decade-long track record of innovation and dependability to deliver during big fundraising moments," the firm said in a statement in June 2024 celebrating its 20th anniversary in business.

According to internal company documents reviewed by the committees, during the 2024 campaign cycle, ActBlue issued new standards encouraging staff to “look for reasons to accept contributions.” Before the policy change, the platform already failed to require CVV numbers for credit card transactions, increasing fraud risks.

An internal assessment by the company determined the policy change led to “between 14 and 28 additional fraudulent contributions each month,” the committees said.

The documents also show the platform began monitoring potential fraudulent donations from several foreign sources, including hundreds of donations from Brazil, Colombia, India, Iraq, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, and other countries.

The lawmakers and Trump have both asked DOJ to probe ActBlue for possible criminal conduct.

Link

Home Front: Politix

James Carville says Democrats can't afford to lie like 'Republicans do'

2025-05-07

[NYPOST] Democratic political strategist James Carville expressed frustration with the state of his party on his podcast Thursday, arguing that Republicans are able to get away with lying while Democrats

Link

Government Corruption

Democrat Unveils 7 Articles Of Impeachment Against Trump

2025-04-29

*Yawn* It’s been done, and it has failed repeatedly. Show a little pride, guys.

[DAILYWIRE] On Monday, a House Democrat introduced seven articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, kicking off a bid that has virtually no chance of succeeding in the Republican-led Congress.

The impeachment resolution from Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) accuses Trump of ''high crimes and misdemeanors'' over alleged constitutional violations related to taxpayer funds, deportations, tariffs, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort led by Elon Musk, retaliation against the press, and others.

''Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unfit to serve as President and represents a clear and present danger to our nation's constitution and our democracy,'' Thanedar said in a statement. ''His unlawful actions have subverted the justice system, violated the separation of powers, and placed personal power and self-interest above public service. We cannot wait for more damage to be done. Congress must act.''

In a video posted on social media, Thanedar claimed the ''final straw'' was Trump defying a Supreme Court ruling that the government must ''facilitate'' the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant deported to his home country of El Salvador.

The announcement came hours after Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney launched a 2026 primary campaign for the Detroit-area district against Thanedar, a 70-year-old Indian immigrant serving his second term in the House. McKinney joins former state Sen. Adam Hollier, who is challenging Thanedar for a third time, and has already received an endorsement from the leftist Justice Democrats.

''People like our congressman, Shri Thanedar, are the problem,'' McKinney said in an announcement video. ''A multimillionaire who spent millions to buy a seat in Congress, who has more in common with Donald Trump and Elon Musk than people like us.''

During his first term, Trump was impeached twice when the Democrats commanded the House. One inquiry dealt with Ukraine, and the other with January 6. Both efforts ended in acquittal by a GOP-led Senate.

Because the House and Senate are now controlled by Republicans who are largely aligned with the president, Thanedar's articles of impeachment are likely to go nowhere. That has been the case with articles of impeachment announced by Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who accused Trump of committing ''dastardly deeds'' in the first couple of weeks of his second term.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result

2025-04-11

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

oh boy, here we go. pic.twitter.com/fPh2xgXbwZ
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 10, 2025

The honourable Congresscritter from the great state of Texas lacks the votes to do anything more than make speeches in the empty House chamber.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Nolte: San Francisco Gay Pride Parade Loses Longtime Sponsors

2025-03-20

[BREITBART] Several longtime sponsors, including the company that makes Bud Light, have pulled their funding from the annual the Socialist paradise of San Francisco

...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
Gay Pride Weekend.

For some reason, San Francisco Pride requires $3.2 million to cover its June weekend of events. Corporate sponsors were expected to pay $2.3 million of that. But after four declined, the organization will have to scramble to make up the $300,000 shortfall elsewhere.

San Francisco Pride's executive director, Suzanne Ford, told SFGATE that they expect to lose a few sponsors every year, but it was ''very abnormal'' for four sponsors who have been with them for years to suddenly bail out.

''I just interpreted that companies are making decisions that at this time it's not good to be sponsoring Pride,'' she said. ''I think in this political environment that they thought that was a risky decision. But that's just me reading the tea leaves. I think for a long-term sponsor not to sponsor us, they are responding to what we are.''

According to Ford, ''Comcast; Anheuser-Busch, the company behind Budweiser and Beck's beer; wine company La Crema; and Diageo, the beverage company that produces Guinness, Smirnoff,'' all declined to be a sponsor this year.

Anheuser-Busch, it should be noted, is the company behind Bud Light, the beer hit with a major backlash and damaging boycott after the company chose transvestite Dylan Stench of Death Mulvaney
...the transexual influencer who single-handedly trashed a major American beer brand owned by a Belgian company, tainted Maybelline and Condé Nast, and then demanded that anybody who called him/her/it a man be arrested...
as a spokesperson.

From where I sit two things have changed—

The first is that much of the public's opinion of the so-called LGBTQ community has soured. A public that had come to sympathize with the bigotry and treatment of homosexuals no longer feels that same goodwill. After all, we were told that gay people just wanted to be left alone, to be allowed to live and let live. That turned out to be a big, fat lie. In about six seconds we went from, How does my same-sex marriage affect you, to openly targeting little kids with grooming, gay porn in elementary schools, drag queens reading to kids, boys playing in girls' sports, men barging into women's bathrooms and locker rooms, and this monstrous push to permanently mutilate children as sacrifices to the trans gods.

The second thing that happened is that with the reelection of President Trump, Normal People stood up and said, Enough of this fascist
...anybody you disagree with, damn them...
, anti-science perversion! Emboldened with the knowledge we are on the 80 percent side after years of the corporate media making us feel alone, Normal People are finally pushing back against the Pronoun Nazis. Normal People are also letting corporations know that if they subsidize this grooming and child-queering, a price will be paid.

Normal People don't care what consenting adults do. That's not the issue. It's just a fact that too much of the so-called LGBTQ movement is targeting our children now, and that changes everything. And any corporation that aids and abets child predators should be shamed out of business.

Link

Home Front: Politix

James Carville Says He's 'Telling' Dem Donors That Party Needs To Stop Pulling 'Stunts' Against Trump

2025-03-16

[DAILYCALLER] Democratic strategist James Carville said during a Thursday podcast that he was in the Socialist paradise of San Francisco

...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
instructing numerous party donors that ''stunts'' are not an effective way to combat President Donald Trump
...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried....
On ''Lunch with Jamie,'' Carville pointed to Democrats
...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy, white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects...
' behavior during Trump's March 4 congressional address, where Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green interrupted the speech and numerous politicians held up signs. Carville suggested the party's approach lacked dignity and was not suited for the moment.

''As we speak, I'm in San Francisco with a lot of Democratic donors. And I'm telling them the last thing we want is throwing our hands in the air, screaming, protesting or anything like that,'' Carville said. ''This is a critical time in the history of the country. I'm 80 years old. I have never, ever been not close to as afraid for the country as I am now.''

''And I think the Democrats — we act like it. I think we should be determined, we should be dignified, okay? And that's got to guide how we do this,'' he continued. ''This is not the time for stunts, it really isn't — I always say Carville's first commandment of politics is: 'Thou shalt not make an ass out of thyself.' And people ought to keep that in mind.''

Carville told Fox News Digital in an interview published Friday that Democrats face pressure from donors who ''demand'' they take action against Trump.

''I think we're at a very perilous moment in the country. I really do. I think it might go the wrong way. And what I think Democrats should do is act like it's a very grave situation,'' he said. ''And, I know that they get donors that call them and demand something.''

Pollster Frank Luntz said on March 6 that voters detested Democrats' conduct at Trump's congressional address.

''The viewers really dislike[d] [it]. They saw this performance art. They saw it as a bad form of opposition,'' Luntz said.

''And in fact, what they decided to do with those paddles, what they decided to do with Congressman Green, was absolutely abhorrent to voters,'' he added.

A CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
poll conducted by SSRS on the night of Trump's speech found that 80% of the viewing audience believed Green's interruption was ''inappropriate.''

Link

Government Corruption

Congress demands anew Treasury provide access to Suspicious Activity Reports involving ActBlue

2025-03-12

[JustTheNews] New letter reveals Biden administration didn’t fully comply with requests involving Democrat online fundraising platform

The Biden administration failed to fully comply with a demand to allow Congress to review Suspicious Activity Reports involving the massive Democrat online fundraising platform, prompting a fresh request Monday to the Trump Treasury Department, according to correspondence obtained by Just the News.

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., made the joint request to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant seeking access to the SARs, which are required by federal law when banks suspect money laundering or other suspicious activity.

The committees first sought the reports last fall, and Comer has said government officials told them there are hundreds of such reports.

In their new letter, the chairmen revealed the Biden Treasury Department only let Congress see some of the reports.

“Although the Biden Administration initially stalled the Committees’ requests in its entirety for months, on January 2, 2025, Treasury allowed the Committees to review only limited documents,” they wrote Bessant. “We write to request Treasury, in its commitment to transparency and cooperation, provide both Committees with the remaining records relevant to our investigations.”

Congress along with numerous state attorneys generals began investigating ActBlue last election, citing concerns the massive fundraising online platform, which claims to have raised $2 billion for Democrats and liberal causes over the last two decades, had not until recently used security tools like the CVV number on the back of credit cards to ensure donor identities.

The lawmakers told Bessant they were concerned that loose security might have led to abuses on the platform, including the flow of prohibited foreign monies into U.S. elections.

“Our Committees are concerned that the failure to properly vet contributions made through online platforms may allow bad actors, including foreign nationals not lawfully admitted for permanent residence or individuals attempting to evade individual contribution limits, to more easily commit fraud to illegally exploit and violate federal campaign finance laws,” they wrote.

For emphasis, they added the committees want to “guard against illicit foreign influence or other illegal activities in U.S. elections.”

In a recent interview with the Just the News, No Noise television show, Comer indicated the “small fraction” of documents the committees was shown by the Biden Treasury Department only heightened lawmakers’ concerns and determination to get access to all records.

“I think you are going to have a lot to report on ActBlue in the coming weeks,“ Comer said. Asked whether there is a foreign trail of money, he responded: “Absolutely.”

Back in December, Steil told the Just the News, No Noise television show that Congress likely will refer ActBlue to the Trump Justice Department for possible investigation.

“Once Pam Bondi comes in as attorney general under the Trump administration, we then have a partner at the United States Department of Justice to look at this, to do the investigation into bad actors, and to hold anyone who is engaged in this activity accountable,” he said.

In October, Steil and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, a fellow Republican, wrote to then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray and then-Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines about concerns that four U.S. adversaries may have donated through the platform.

“We write to you to raise an urgent concern regarding potential illicit election funding by foreign actors,” the lawmakers wrote. “CHA has been investigating claims that foreign actors, primarily from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and China, may be using ActBlue to launder illicit money into U.S. political campaigns.”

Link

Home Front: Politix

James Carville tells Dems to ''play possum'' as nationwide protests rage against Trump

2025-02-19

[NYPOST] Democratic strategist James Carville suggested the tide is turning in the country and advised Democrats

Being not nice would be unwise, given how many former Democrats voted for The Donald and their local Republican candidates last November. Unless the Democratic Party masochistically wants to lose even more than they did in the last round.

Link

Home Front: Politix

ActBlue in Trouble?

2024-12-05

[HotAir] ActBlue is the Democratic Party's main fundraising arm, and it is a cesspool of fraud and corruption.

It's not like this is a particular secret. It is common knowledge in political circles that the organization facilitates "smurfing," which is a method of laundering illegal campaign contributions through straw donors. It is a way to break up enormous political contributions that exceed campaign contribution limits into smaller donations that evade scrutiny.

Over the years the organization has gotten ever more blatant, laundering contributions through the identities of real people by making contributions in their names without their knowledge. By now the amount of money involved is likely in the billions in fraudulent poitical donations.

Independent journalists have been tracking down individuals whose identities have been used to launder big contributions, stunning some "donors" with the massive contributions they were supposed to have made. These are generally Democrats

...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy, white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects...
who have indeed contributed small amounts. Once ActBlue has their donor information, larger sums are washed through their accounts to enable illegal campaign contributions.

Several Attorneys General from Republican states have opened up investigations, and now Mark Block, a Republican who discovered that his identity was used to launder campaign contributions to Kamala Harris
once a marijuana-busting Caliphornia DA
, is suing ActBlue in Wisconsin. ActBlue was fighting discovery, and a judge just knocked them down.

For the first time, a Wisconsin court has approved a subpoena to the massive Democrat fund-raising platform ActBlue, saying it owes an explanation to a Republican whose email identity was used to make liberal donations he did not authorize.

"Something is not right," Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad D. Schimel declared as he approved a limited demand for documents and opened a new front into a widening fund-raising probe begun earlier this year by Congress and 19 attorneys general.

Schimel rejected ActBlue’s arguments that it was onerous to require it to comply a subpoena for third-party donations it processed on its platform. The judge permitted GOP consultant Mark Block and his lawyers from America First Policy Institute to conduct discovery to determine if fraud was involved in the use of his identity to make dozens of Democrat donations on his old email address.

"I get the argument that this is an assumption on plaintiff's part that the donations are fraudulent," the judge stated in a hearing Nov. 21. "There may be an element of fraud or maybe it is innocent. Plaintiff has set forth enough in their complaint and in support of their subpoena to demonstrate that there may be something here."

ActBlue is and always has been a money laundering operation, and once the investigations into its practices really get going we will see exactly how billions of dollars have gotten laundered into the coffers of Democratic Party campaigns.

Everybody has been stunned at the scale of Kamala Harris' spending and how outrageously inefficient the campaign was, but too few people have focused on how ridiculous it is to believe that Harris legally raised $1.4 billion in so little time. It boggles the mind, and more importantly, raises questions.

James Carville suggested an audit of the Harris campaign to figure out who exactly benefited, and in that I wholly agree. But the audit shouldn't be just of the spending, but of the money raised. Where, exactly, did it really come from? Were all the people who supposedly donated the real donors?

Ron Johnson, earlier this year, revealed how uninterested the FBI and federal government were interested in pursuing the smurfing issue, even if foreign actors are involved. They seem just fine with campaign finance fraud, at least considering who benefits.

This is not an idle concern. In fact, ActBlue uses a method of processing credit cards that explicitly allows for fraudulent contributions--not collecting CVV numbers (the security numbers on the back of the card). This allows a card to be dissociated from a person.

Processing cards this way is more expensive but allows for the anonymity of the card owner. A donor can use a gift card with no attached name and then input the name of anybody as the donor. That's how Mark Block wound up being an unwitting "donor" to Kamala Harris.

This practice goes back more than a decade, and everybody knows it. As with so much other political corruption, now is the time to shut it down and prosecute the fraudsters.

Link

Home Front: Politix

James Carville Drops A Truth Bomb On Democrats About Kamala Harris

2024-07-28

[PJ] After weeks of pressure, Democrat elites successfully blackmailed Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, and Vice President Kamala Harris was quickly coronated as the presumptive nominee. There is no denying that Democrats are in the middle of a honeymoon phase with their new candidate.

However, famed Democratic strategist James Carville is warning Democrats that it is not time to celebrate yet and cautioning them against getting too confident about their new choice.

"I have to be the skunk at the garden party. This is too triumphalist, OK?" Carville warned during an appearance on MSNBC earlier this week. "Everybody’s giddy. I look at the coverage and it’s great. If I had to write a play about what I think, it’d be titled, ’The Icepick Cometh,’ OK? Get ready, they’re coming. All right? And it’s good. Everybody should feel good and liberated and everything else. But if we don’t win the election, we haven’t done anything. This kind of giddy elation is not going to be very helpful much longer ’cause that’s not what we’re going to be faced with."

"I think the Vice President, to put it in athletic terms, needs a really good cutman in the corner, because she’s getting ready to get cut," he continued.

"It’s still the same country, all right? It might be a different mood, and all I’m saying is good. Bang your helmets against the locker, it’s fine," he said. "But still, when you go out there, you’re facing Alabama. Just get ready because these Republicans, you’re right, they got caught off guard, but they’re going to get their sea legs and we’re having to get a campaign—a whole campaign started."

Link

Home Front: Politix

Carville: I Would Bet Trump Is a 'No-Show' for the Debate

2024-06-20

[BREITBART] Democratic strategist James Carville said Monday on MSNBC’s "The Beat" that he does not believe former President Donald Trump
...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US...
will attend the presidential debate scheduled for June 27 on CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
Host Ari Melber said, "When you look at these debates, this is next week, so people who don’t follow as closely as news viewers, they’re going to realize, here’s the debate. I wanted to mention for folks, the new rule, next week, it will be different. No opening statements, two minutes to answer each questions, red lights visible when time expires. In a big win for the Biden campaign given Trump is a rule breaker, the other candidate who’s not speaking will be muted when it’s not their turn."

Carville said, "Well, if I was a gambler — and actually, I am a gambler — I’d take even money that Trump doesn’t show up."
Snakehead misspelled "Biden"
Melber said, "Ha. You don’t think Trump’s coming next week?"

Carville said, "I mean, I don’t know, but I think he’s gonna wake up and decide. Just like he said he was gonna testify at his defense in his trial. He didn’t even put on a defense. Let him show up. I wouldn’t be shocked, but I certainly would not be surprised if you gave me even money, I’d say he’s a no-show."

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Secret Democrat plot to replace Biden revealed: How Clinton, Obama, Pelosi and Schumer would topple...

2024-06-18

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] … the aging President… and when they'd do it.

Nearly every time President Joe Biden appears in public these days, he fuels the chatter: Will aging Joe bow out of the 2024 race? Will he be forced to step aside?

In the latest incident, former president Barack Obama was seen on Saturday reaching for Biden's hand and seemingly guiding the 81-year-old Commander-in-Chief off the stage at a Los Angeles fundraiser.

And that came after Biden stood motionless and stared blankly for a full minute at a Juneteenth celebration at the White House on Monday, as others sang and danced around him. Eventually, Philonise Floyd, brother of the late George Floyd, noticed Biden's concerning pause and wrapped his arm around him to help.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates is denying that Biden froze in the viral video, calling it a 'cheap fake memo' being spewed by the media.

But it seems no matter how much cold water the Biden campaign or Democratic Party throw on this raging fire of speculation, Americans will not be put off the Great Joe Biden Replacement Theory.

It's the idea that somehow, some way the President will be swapped out as the Democratic Party's candidate ahead of the 2024 election.

'Dropping out would be a big risk. But there's some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk,' polling guru Nate Silver wrote on social media last week. 'Are we there yet? I don't know. But it's more than fair to ask.'

Silver, founder of the website FiveThirtyEight, noted that Biden's average approval rating had reached a new low of 37.4 percent. And chief among voter concerns is Biden's age, which Silver concluded to be, 'an extremely understandable concern, [as] Biden looks/acts his age and is a huge outlier to ask for the job until 86 [years old].'

Atlantic columnist Mark Leibovich cruelly stamped the President 'Ruth Bader Biden' earlier this month. That's a reference to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who once angered some liberals by refusing to retire during Barack Obama's presidency and subsequently passed away during Donald Trump's term, allowing the Republican president to nominate a conservative justice.

And James Carville, the political mastermind behind Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns, said flat-out this month that Biden should not have run for re-election.

Now, a last-ditch effort by Biden's backers to silence his critics inside the party may prove to be his ultimate undoing.

According to Democratic bigwig, Obama campaign guru David Axelrod, the Biden team scheduled one of the earliest presidential debates in history (June 27 on CNN) to prove to naysayers that Joe's not going anywhere.

But the gambit carries tremendous risk.

While an efficient debate performance by Biden could help rally Democrats behind him - a significant misstep would only stoke more replacement chatter.

Former Clinton advisor and polling expert Mark Penn suggested the CNN debate will be Biden's last chance to reassure voters he's fit for the job.

'They have deliberately thrown down the gauntlet for an early debate,' Penn said, 'and I think that's gonna be the point at which Americans judge: is he ready for another term or not.'

Now DailyMail.com has learned that if Joe stumbles in that first face-off with Trump or if his polling numbers keep falling, it'll take a united front of the liberal grandees to make Joe throw in the towel.

'The only people who could force him out would be Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,' one Democratic strategist told DailyMail.com. 'It would have to be the four of them collectively.'

And the process would be high risk.

But other party insiders concede that the candidate swap could work if everything was carefully planned and executed.

Political columnist Joe Klein theorized in a recent newsletter that if Biden were to stand down, 'a vigorous young candidate — don't ask me who — could win over the country with a single convention speech' in August.'

In Klein's scenario, the Democratic party savior would deliver an Obama-esque inspirational speech, akin to Barack's famous 2004 Democratic Convention address, that would quickly bring together disaffected Democrats and moderate independents.

Plus, wrote Klein, the Democratic Party's prodigious dislike of Trump would unite any disaffected factions behind a new nominee.

However, there's another potential complication.

As the recognized leader of the Democratic Party, a stubborn Biden could refuse to step down and fight on to Election Day, even as the party grows more exasperated with his performance.

Biden is fiercely proud of his first-term accomplishments, which he – dubiously – boasts are more significant than other modern president's triumphs. Though to be fair, Biden was the one who beat Trump in 2020.

Additionally, while Biden respects former House Speaker Pelosi, Bill Clinton, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, his growing resentment of Obama has become painfully clear.

The former president famously backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 over Biden in the Democratic primary and even reportedly tried to stop his vice president from running in 2020.

Ironically, both Barack and Michelle Obama appear to have intentionally kept their distance from the Biden White House - knowing that their public appearances trigger nostalgia for the days when voters liked their nominees. Barack Obama made a brief appearance at the White House state dinner for the Kenyan president in late May and Michelle was nowhere in sight. Mrs. Obama, who has no close personal feelings for the Bidens, according to one well-connected Democratic source, flat-out ignored the invitation.

On Monday, in response to this article, a spokesman for Nancy Pelosi reiterated her support for the President, telling the Mail that, 'Speaker Pelosi has full confidence in President Biden.'

The Democratic party machine has now elected to hold an online nomination, complete with a 'virtual roll call,' to formally select Biden as their nominee ahead of the DNC convention in Chicago in mid-August.

Part of the reason to go 'virtual' is to ensure a more controlled process should the party decide to select a replacement candidate.

In that case, top Democratic leaders would quietly draft the substitute nominee in advance.

That person would not be Vice President Kamala Harris, according to sources, who observed that Harris has already had to fend off a push to replace her on the ticket.

'It doesn't just become Kamala. Kamala only becomes the nominee if Biden dies,' one blunt consultant said.

Another Democratic political insider believes that Harris has failed so badly as vice president that she has made it nearly impossible for Biden to step aside – because the party would have to contend with progressive blowback over passing over the potential first black woman president.

But if not Harris, then who?

Strategists theorize that Democrats would have to hold a public event to symbolically transfer power to the new candidate. Biden, Obama, Clinton, Schumer, and Pelosi would publicly introduce and endorse the anointed nominee.

They would also have to convince Harris to throw her support behind the substitute, which would be a painful experience for someone so fiercely protective of their political future.

And the Biden Replacement would also be a risk for the replacement nominee. If he or should took up the party banner and then lost to Trump in November, their political careers may never recover.

All Democrats may have some painful decisions ahead.

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