If you had any doubt that the Democrats know they have a losing candidate (who has this week pushed back the announcement of his running mate) at the head of their ticket, their conduct the past week is the tell:

1.The outrageous House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General William Barr, whose IQ surely bests that of the combined intelligence of the Democrats on the committee, was surely a desperation move to hold their base. Scott Johnson:

To say the Democrats must be crazy would be an overly charitable interpretation of their performance in the House Judiciary Committee spectacle starring Attorney General Barr yesterday. They only seemed crazy as they repeatedly disgraced themselves. The disgrace, however, was obviously premeditated.

It turns out they had called Barr as a backdrop for their own accusatory and disparaging speeches with the thought that they would cut him off and preclude him from responding. They prevented him from responding by “reclaim[ing their] time” virtually every time Barr sought to respond to the accusations. I can’t be the only one who thought to himself, “Forget your time. You need to reclaim your mind.” When it comes to the defense of the United States, they’re on the other side.

Barr was given no opportunity to respond to their ridiculous accusations, but he demolished the panel when given even a tiny opening. Michael Goodwin:

After the GOP’s Jim Jordan countered with an attack on the FBI’s spying on Trump’s campaign and played a video of pundits calling the violence in Portland and elsewhere “peaceful protests,” the air had left the room before Barr said a word.

When he got his chance, he didn’t just defend his tenure -- he went on offense to demand an end to the “demonizing of police” and the dangerous defunding movement.

The war against law enforcement, he said, is making police “more risk-averse,” and that is part of the reason crime is soaring across America -- leading to the deaths of the very people the Black Lives Matter movement says it wants to help.

“The leading cause of death for young black males is homicide,” he said, adding that about 7,500 are murdered each year, 90 percent by other black Americans.

 “Each of those lives matter,” the attorney general declared.

Thankfully, somebody is not afraid the truth will get him canceled.

It was the first of many times Barr turned the tables on his would-be tormentors. He often appeared bored, but when he was allowed to speak, his words cut through the room like a knife. He called the attacks in Portland and elsewhere “an assault on the government of the United States.”

Later, he chided Nadler & Co. for their silence in the face of clear criminal activity.

“This is the first time in my memory that the leaders of one of our two great political parties, the Democratic Party, are not coming out and condemning mob violence,” he said. “Can’t we just say the violence against the federal courts has to stop? Could we hear something like that?”

2. The Democrat mayors’ walkbacks of their overt support for the rioters now that it’s clear that most Americans prefer the rule of law to mob rule and that these mass “peaceful or mostly peaceful” riots are eroding the Democrats' hopes for a return to the Oval Office. Under our federal system there is little the president can do -- except protect federal facilities in cities whose mayors refuse to cooperate -- but some mayors are beginning to cooperate and I think it’s because they recognize this Democrat-supported mayhem is working against them.

(a) As murder rates soared in Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot relented and agreed to the President’s offer to have National Guard troops help restore order.   

The Chicago Tribune reports that both sides are still keeping their options open -- The President for sending in troops to patrol, rather than just aid in the investigations and Mayor Lightfoot to withdraw from the agreement, but I consider this a white flag on her part that her present tactics are only worsening the chaos. 

Trump on Wednesday said he is expanding “Operation Legend,” with the agents heading to Chicago to bolster existing law enforcement efforts -- not create a Portland-style camouflaged paramilitary strike force that is attracting widespread criticism.

The agents will work in partnership with Chicago police and Lightfoot’s office under the direction of U.S. Attorney John Lausch, who Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, knows and trusts.

Trump and Lightfoot are in agreement over the strategy of sending in agents to plug into existing operations. Trump, who has bragged since his 2016 campaign he knows how to easily solve crime in Chicago, did not take a future heavier handed response off the table. That’s why Lightfoot is wary. 

(b) Portland:

In Portland, instead of continuing to attack the placement of federal troops around the federal courthouse, Oregon has agreed to send in State Troopers and local police forces to protect the facility. Federal troops will withdraw conditionally from the courthouse but will remain in the area to return if Oregon doesn’t do what it has promised to do.

"The Department will continue to maintain our current, augmented federal law enforcement personnel in Portland until we are assured that the Hatfield Federal Courthouse and other federal properties will no longer be attacked and that the seat of justice in Portland will remain secure," said Wolf. "This has been our mission since the violent, criminal activity began."

(c) Seattle

The Seattle authorities passed a law banning police from using standard riot control techniques, but a federal court judge issued a temporary ban on that law, which Chief of Police Carmen Best noted would not allow her troops to handle riots. 

Again, federal troops will augment the force that Democrat officials are doing everything to hamstring.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, a federal government plan arrived in Seattle, carrying federal law enforcement officers who were expected to be deployed this weekend to protect federal buildings from any possible rioting.

They would augment the deployment of local police.

(d) Minneapolis

The mayor and city council, looking and behaving like a high school student council, have voted to defund the police. Local communities are forming their own self-defense operations.  

3. The push for mail balloting as evidence grows of its inadequacies. Among these are the fact they make voting by ineligible voters more likely; the mail delivery system is insecure and, worst of all, the slow counting of ballots and the challenges likely to ensue from such an absurd run around normal procedures guarantees prolonged election challenges and fights, possibly leaving the results in limbo as the parties wend their way through the court system.

4. RussiaGate

At the House Judiciary Committee Hearings, Democrats pressed Barr to agree that no criminal prosecutions would be initiated until after the election. He refused. Given that any trials of those involved would be in an almost 96 percent Democrat jurisdiction, I’ve always believed that the prosecutors need to have plea agreements. So it was of interest to read a report that Strzok and others are believed to be cooperating with the Durham probers. L.J. Keith of Community Digital News:

WASHINGTON, DC: Former FBI agent Peter Strzok is cooperating and working with the John Durham probe of the origins of the Russia Hoax, investigative reporter Adam Housley reports. If true, it would be a bombshell development in the investigation of the criminal conspiracy against Donald Trump.

Strzok would be a key witness against higher-ups at the FBI, the intelligence community, and the White House. He is at the center of both the Hillary Clinton exoneration and the origins of the Russia Hoax. He and Andrew Weissmann started Crossfire Hurricane. They used the Brennan Mifsud frame job of George Papadopoulos and the Steele Dossier to obtain fraudulent FISA warrants...

Adam Housley, an award winner former Fox News reporter tweeted on July 23rd: “Being told that Peter Strzok is talking with investigators.”

To recap, as we head into the national campaign, the Democrat mayors and councils have done little to protect their citizens and property, and only the federal government, despite the strictures of the federal system, has been working to restore law and order. It’s possible that indictments will be filed against the wrongdoers in the RussiaGate scandal before the election, and the Democrats are doing everything they can to make the election as chaotic and litigious as they possibly can. As if there is not enough chaos in ordinary national elections (and transitions), they hope to make it even more so. Doesn’t sound like they think they have this in the bag. Rasmussen says they certainly do not. He places the President ahead of Obama’s approval ratings at this point in time.