I’m always on the lookout for the best conservative fighters. Regular readers will know that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was my choice for the GOP presidential candidate in 2024. But there are other conservatives who are amassing a long, long list of conservative achievements. And I’m interested in telling you about them, so you know who to vote for in GOP primaries.

Here’s an article from the Daily Signal about Tennessee’s conservative attorney general:

As Tennessee’s attorney general for only two years, Republican Jonathan Skrmetti is racking up wins for conservatives in policy and law against the Biden-Harris administration and private sector actors.

[…]Skrmetti, now 47, was sworn in as attorney general on Sept. 1, 2022. Married and the father of four, the Franklin resident previously was chief deputy attorney general under his predecessor, Herbert H. Slatery III, for three years.

[…]Skrmetti also was chief counsel to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a fellow Republican.

[…]Skrmetti received degrees from George Washington University, the University of Oxford, and Harvard Law School.

[…]Aides and other admirers say that as attorney general, Skrmetti has spearheaded successful lawsuits against the federal government, especially leading the charge against gender ideology mandates and government overreach.

And the article has a list of 5 of his major accomplishments:

• Protecting Consumers
• Countering Gender Ideology
• Combating Illegal Immigration
• Fighting for Life
• Opposing Racial Discrimination and DEI Policies

Let’s look at one of these:

1. Protecting Consumers
Skrmetti’s duties as attorney general include protecting the state’s consumers, and supporters say he has risen to that task.

Skrmetti filed a lawsuit against one of the world’s largest asset managers, BlackRock Inc., in a “first-of-its-kind” consumer protection case.

Tennessee successfully sued BlackRock over misleading statements about its use of ESG standards (for environmental, social, and governance considerations) in investments.

Ordinary shareholders argue that ESG standards elevate over “social justice” and other progressive causes over profitability and good business practices.

He’s also sued the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And put Fortune 100 corporations on notice about their DEI policies being unwelcome in Tennessee.

When I speak to some Republican voters who claim to be “very conservative”, I often hear from them lines like this:

• elections are rigged
• the parties are the same
• the government is run by federal agencies who have dirt on all the politicians
• Republicans never go after big leftists like Blackrock and Soros
• I’m the real pro-lifer because I don’t support incremental measures

When I ask these people how are the parties the same, how are the elections rigged, and what is the dirt that the federal agencies have, they have no evidence for any of these assertions. The real cause of their lack of knowledge and lack of effort seems to be “convenience”. They want to assert that they are better conservatives than people like Ron DeSantis and Jonathan Skrmetti and Chip Roy, etc. But they want to do it without reading anything, advocating for anything, convincing anyone, etc. They don’t want to put any effort into achieving conservative outcomes. And they especially don’t want to give any respect to the people who do achieve conservative outcomes. The conspiracy theories about how everyone is compromised except them are convenient, because it allows them to sound conservative without to achieve any conservative results. And you’d better believe that conspiracy theories don’t equip them to convince anyone else to vote conservative.

I’m the opposite of that. I want to read a lot of books about economics, health care, immigration, education, foreign policy, military history, etc. and then evaluate the candidates using voter guides and performance metrics. And I would like you to be a high-information, high-persuasion voter, too.

A simple way to understand the secular left is that they want to be very generous with other people’s money, and very compassionate at the expense of other people’s safety. The Biden-Harris regime, for example, wants to let in millions of illegal immigrants. Many of those have serious criminal convictions, and many of them are facing serious criminal charges. And these criminals threaten YOU.

This story is from Fox News:

Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants with sex offenses and homicide convictions could be loose on the streets, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data provided to lawmakers this week.

The agency provided data to Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, about national data for illegal immigrants with criminal charges or convictions. The data, as of July 2024, is broken down by those in detention, and those who are not in detention — known as the non-detained docket. The non-detained docket includes illegal immigrants who have final orders of removal or are going through removal proceedings but are not detained in ICE custody. There are currently more than 7 million people on that docket.

Pay attention to these numbers:

The data says that, among those not in detention, there are 425,431 convicted criminals and 222,141 with pending criminal charges.

Those include 62,231 convicted of assault, 14,301 convicted of burglary, 56,533 with drug convictions and 13,099 convicted of homicide. An additional 2,521 have kidnapping convictions and 15,811 have sexual assault convictions.

There are an additional 1,845 with pending homicide charges, 42,915 with assault charges, 3,266 with burglary charges and 4,250 with assault charges.

“As of July 21, 2024, there were 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories on ICE’s national docket—13,099 criminally convicted MURDERS!” Gonzales said in a statement. “Americans deserve to be SAFE in our own communities.”

And this – a sharp drop in deportations compared to the Trump administration’s policies:

The Biden administration came under fire for releasing many migrants who came to the U.S. border into the interior, which coincided with a sharp drop in deportations as it focused on prioritizing public safety and national security threats. There were 142,580 removals in FY 23, up considerably from 72,177 in FY 22 and 59,011 in FY 21, but still down from the highs of 267,258 under the Trump administration in FY 19.

Should we expect Harris-Walz to protect taxpayers from criminals? Or does their virtue-signaling take precedence over their responsibilities to protect taxpayers?

Let’s look at Tim Walz’s record. Do you remember how Tim Walz handled rioting and arson and violence in his state, when he was governor?

Daily Wire reports:

Minneapolis officials estimated the rioting and looting in 2020 cost the city around $55 million in damages. Rioters set fire to at least 220 buildings following George Floyd’s death in police custody. Estimates in 2021, a year after the riots, put the total cost of damage to both Minneapolis and St. Paul at $500 million, according to the Star Tribune. Many of the businesses damaged in the riots remained closed a year after the unrest.

And what about Kamala Harris? She put out a call on Twitter for people to donate money to bail criminals out – including ones who had previous convictions for violent crimes.

Even if you put aside concerns about crime, there’s also the matter of costs. Illegal immigration costs money, and taxpayers have to foot the bill.

Daily Wire reports about the costs of illegal immigration for just one state – Mississippi:

Illegal immigration could cost Mississippi more than $100 million every year, a new report from the state’s auditor reveals.

[…]Mississippi’s healthcare system is hit particularly hard by illegal immigration, with the report estimating that the state spends a whopping $77 million on healthcare for illegal immigrants and their children every year. The report estimates the figure with data on the number of illegal immigrants in the state, their rate of health insurance, and their use of emergency medical services. It also found that Mississippi spends $4 million every year to pay for births to illegal immigrants, whose children are then designated as American citizens.

[…]The state auditor’s report indicates that illegal immigration poses a massive financial burden on the Mississippi education system as well.

“In K-12 spending alone, in total, Mississippi taxpayers likely pay $25 million to educate illegal immigrants each year,” it reads, also noting that an estimated 2,500 illegal immigrants are currently enrolled in the state’s K-12 education system. “This estimate does not include the cost to educate the US-citizen children born to illegal immigrants, which is difficult to estimate given the state’s inability to collect citizenship data for students and their families.”

So, just be careful what you vote for in November.