"A top Democratic operative says voter fraud, especially with mail-in ballots, is no myth. And he knows this because he's been doing it, on a grand scale, for decades.

"Mail-in ballots have become the latest flashpoint in the 2020 elections. While President Trump and the GOP warn of widespread manipulation of the absentee vote that will swell with COVID polling restrictions, many Democrats and their media allies have dismissed such concerns as unfounded.

"But the political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears prosecution, said fraud is more the rule than the exception. His dirty work has taken him through the weeds of municipal and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Hoboken and Hudson County and his fingerprints can be found in local legislative, mayoral and congressional races across the Garden State. Some of the biggest names and highest office holders in New Jersey have benefited from his tricks, according to campaign records The Post reviewed.

"'An election that is swayed by 500 votes, 1,000 votes -- it can make a difference,' the tipster said. 'It could be enough to flip states.'

"The whisteblower -- whose identity, rap sheet and long history working as a consultant to various campaigns were confirmed by The Post says he not only changed ballots himself over the years, but led teams of fraudsters and mentored at least 20 operatives in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania -- a critical 2020 swing state."

Read entire article here.

"I don't pretend to know what will happen in November. No one who lived through 2016 should be confident in their predictions. I have a profound fear of what is happening to my country, however. All of a sudden, legitimate concerns about racial equity and social justice are transmuted into justifications for vandalism, theft, violence, cancellation, and ostracization. Random communities -- Kenosha, Wis., diners in Washington -- become sites of revolution, rebuke, and disorder. This cannot last. What Trump offers isn't so much the end of the chaos -- federalism and prudence circumscribe his sphere of action -- but at least a rhetorical and gestural rebuke of the idea that my country was originally, and fatally, diseased.

"It was not. I love my country, and the Constitution, and the principles that animated its Founders. And I don't think I'm alone. The Republican convention did a good job of demonstrating that white, black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans agree. What Donald Trump has done is reframe the 2020 election as a referendum on the American idea. And Joe Biden might not know how to answer."

"Dems made what I believe to be a historic error in failing to say a single word -- a single word -- about the national urban crisis during their convention last week. They said nothing about the violence and the tent cities of homeless popping up everywhere, yet embraced the Black Lives Matter movement, frequently criticized the police and romanced protestors as a new wave of selfless heroes.

"But what the nation is witnessing is not protest and it is certainly not heroic. It is a generational assault on America's founding principles and our modern way of life. Murder and arson do not bring about social justice.

"The country has noticed. Slowly but surely, the nation is awakening to the horror unfolding on television screens night after night and the fact that the Dems have been MIA in the battle for safety. ...

"The president has staked out a position as the defender of America, while Biden and his party appear to be on the side of the attackers. The result is a kind of fusion of Trump with the nation and the Dems with those who are hostile to it."

"Unemployed workers may soon get a bump of $300 or more in their weekly jobless benefits.

"What's more, it seems they won't have to apply for that extra pay -- it will come automatically.

"More than half the states have received federal approval to offer 'lost wages assistance,' created by an executive measure that President Donald Trump signed Aug. 8.

"The program directs federal disaster-relief funds to unemployed workers, following the lapse of a $600-a-week federal supplement to unemployment benefits at the end of July. That prior subsidy had been enacted by the CARES Act in March.

"Workers eligible for the aid will get an extra $300 a week on top of their current benefits. Some states, like Kentucky and Montana, are kicking in an extra $100 a week from a federal coronavirus relief fund, for a total $400."

"Senator Tim Scott on Monday rebuked Democrats for what he described as their bleak outlook on race relations in the U.S. and shared his family's story as a testimony to the progress the country has made. ...

"The South Carolina senator's grandfather, who Scott said would have turned 99 tomorrow, 'had to cross the street if a white person was coming. He suffered the indignity of being forced out of school as a third-grader to pick cotton, and he never learned to read and write. Yet he lived long enough to see his grandson become the first African American to be elected to both the United States House and the United States Senate in the history of this country,' Scott said. 'Our family went from cotton to Congress in one lifetime.'

"Continuing his optimistic note on the progress of race relations in the country, Scott credited his initial election to the House as a representative from South Carolina before he ran for Senate to the 'evolution of the Southern heart.'

"'In an overwhelmingly white district, the voters judged me not on the color of my skin but on the content of my character,' Scott said. 'We live in a world that only wants you to believe in the bad news, racially, economically, and culturally polarizing news. The truth is, our nation's arc always bends back towards fairness.'"

"Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has an enthusiasm problem with two key constituencies he needs to win: younger voters and African Americans. Only 25 percent of voters aged 18-39 are 'very enthusiastic' about voting for him. And CNN reports that Biden's support among Black voters is smaller than Clinton's was in 2016. Worse, only 68 percent of African Americans aged 18 to 29 say they intend to vote for Biden -- 17 points fewer than supported Clinton four years ago.

"If you think Democrats are confident these voters will turn out, count how many times they urged viewers to 'make a plan' to vote. An energized base doesn't need that kind of encouragement.

"Those efforts at base mobilization came at a cost. There was virtually no effort to win back the working-class voters who voted twice for Barack Obama but defected to Trump in 2016. The reason Trump is president today is because about one-third of the nearly 700 counties that twice voted for Obama went for Trump in 2016. According to Nate Cohn of the New York Times, Trump won because he 'flipped millions of white working-class Obama supporters to his side.' If you were a working-class Obama-Trump voter watching this week's convention, you heard a lot about gun violence, racial justice and climate change, but not much directed at you. The message you heard was: Democrats are not interested in your support. ...

"Trump now has the opportunity to do what Biden did not: use his convention next week to reach beyond his base and make a pitch to the 10 to 15 percent of voters who have said they approve of his economic policies but don't approve of him. It is in their economic self-interest to give him a second term."

"He did it. Joe Biden got through the biggest speech of his life cleanly and coherently, without stumbling or mumbling or getting that far-away dazed look in his eyes. ...

"So congratulations to Biden for clearing a fundamental hurdle. Now the bar is raised and he should be treated as any other candidate. He can start by releasing his health and medical reports, which he has so far refused to do.

"Most importantly, there is no excuse for him to hide any longer in his basement. Hidin' Biden must be a thing of history."

"Gotta say, it was bold of Democratic Party convention organizers to let voters know they plan on passing federal energy policies that would transform the rest of the country into California. The Golden State is experiencing rolling blackouts even as the Democrats speak. Millions of people are having their electrical power turned off in the middle of a heat wave -- more specifically, their air conditioners. Blackouts aren't merely an inconvenience, it is an economic drag and dangerous to vulnerable populations.

"California doesn't have enough reliable power -- which is to say fossil-fuel and nuclear energy -- because it depends on intermittent sources like solar and windmills. California is what happens when quixotic political aspirations smother economic reality. I'm skeptical that most Americans -- even Californians -- will be willingly to roll back modernity for long. We'll see.

"California governor Gavin Newsom was forced to admit the state's 'transition' away from fossil fuels was one of the contributing factors in rolling blackouts, so you can imagine how serious it is. For context, renewable energy is now responsible for approximately 36 percent of the state's energy generation, and it's already putting a tremendous strain on the state. It has to nearly double that number within a decade, and go 100 percent fossil-fuel free by 2045."

"If you want a barometer for where we are as a country, consider this: Rioters can topple statues of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson and odds are good local police will be ordered to stand down. Remove a neighborhood mailbox for ordinary reasons, and well, that's such a potent symbol of supposed U.S. government tyranny that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will convene hearings about the 'the sabotage of the Postal Service' and members of Congress will openly suggest arresting the postmaster general. ...

"Last year, the post office delivered 471 million pieces of mail on an average day. Even if every one of the America's 153 million registered voters cast their ballots by mail, the Postal Service wouldn't miss a beat. Yet, the media, pundit class, and the highest levels of the Democratic Party responded to Trump by embracing a full-blown conspiracy theory about how he was deliberately sabotaging the post office. ...

"A grand total of 30 mailboxes have been removed in Portland and Eugene, Ore., in places where the post office says there were multiple mailboxes. The volume of mail has been declining for decades, and the USPS has been acting accordingly. In 2016, while Joe Biden was vice president, the agency announced it had removed 14,000 mailboxes around the country in the previous five years.

"Since removing thousands of mailboxes happened on Biden's watch, by his logic the Obama administration was trying to impede elections. As a conspiracy, that makes about as much sense as implying that Trump personally ordered the removal of 30 mailboxes in a state he lost by 11 percentage points in 2016 -- a state, incidentally, in which every vote has been cast by mail for decades. ...

"In 2016 it was Russia, and now in 2020 it's the post office. Partisan, media-fueled conspiracies designed to delegitimize the results can't be a feature of every election. Unfortunately, the theatrics of the upcoming congressional hearings over the U.S. Postal Service are sure to provoke even more sensational media coverage at a time when we most need a voice of reason."

"Remember how Donald Trump brought Jeb Bush low by characterizing him as 'low energy'? Few major American events in my lifetime have been as low energy as the Democratic National Convention's first night.

"It was the opposite of stirring, motivating, thrilling, exciting. By the time the two hours were over, America was so dehydrated it needed a saline drip. ....

"What we learned last night is that when you sever the last connection to the conventions of old -- the people -- you divorce them completely of any meaning, even vestigial meaning."