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Morning, cap. Above water I see.
We're getting our share of rain with Debby yet to come.
The only thing that bothers me is the satellite signal cutting out during the downpours.
How lucky to have that as my big problem.
Have a good one.
399399... Great grub, cap.
Sorry I didn't recognize it sooner.
He may prefer an ice pack at this point.
The ladies will have to wait.
Thanks for the reassurance, cap.
We're due for some doozy downpours around here starting late today heading into tomorrow with more rain on the way through the weekend.
No need to shovel rain. That is good.
Accidental rise of Kamala Harris is a symptom of an unserious age
By Martin Gurri Published Aug. 5, 2024, 1:23 p.m. ET
(Bitterly funny read. IMO)
Help me out here. Kamala Harris is the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate? How on Earth did that happen?
And what about the other guy? You know, the sitting president — Joe Biden? I realize he withdrew from the race in the constitutionally mandated manner, by posting a sullen document on X, the digital platform formerly known as Twitter. That was well done. Biden managed to make Elon Musk happy after all these years.
But why did Joe go? He never said. Actually, he made it clear that he thought his magnificent record in office “merited a second term.” If that was true, why not put it to the test, allowing those randos we call “the voters” to decide?
Biden had something like 14 million votes in the Democratic primaries. No one else had any. His obvious dottiness wasn’t the reason, either. He never owned up to it — and if he had, he’d have to explain how a man too mentally enfeebled to be a presidential candidate could continue to serve as president.
In the debate with Donald Trump that began the slide to oblivion, Biden’s empty eyes and zombie-like groaning, we were told, had to be written off as a really bad night.
He said he was quitting the race because saving “our democracy” was more important than “personal ambition.” Now, I happen to agree that Biden retiring permanently to the basement of his Delaware home is a boon to American democracy. But that was true from Inauguration Day — why did he inflict his personal ambition on us for three and a half years?
I’m an analyst. I don’t prophesy the future, but I’m supposed to know why the president of the United States suddenly wakes up one morning and decides to give up his candidacy. So I’m going to run with a conspiracy theory, because why not?
I believe Biden — and his human walker, Dr. Jill, and that Kissingerian strategist, Hunter — all believed he deserved a second term, but were pushed aside by the two kingmakers who secretly run the Democratic Party: George Clooney and The New York Times.
That still doesn’t get us to Harris. She’s the vice president, not the alternate candidate. If Biden faltered, she would automatically inherit the presidency but not his primary votes or delegates. The Democrats could have opted for an open convention.
They have a strong bench, or so we keep hearing. For example, there’s California’s Gavin Newsom, whose hair alone should be declared a national monument. There’s Hillary Clinton, who keeps banging against the glass ceiling like that annoying moth outside your window. And there are others, like Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, who are the best potential candidates of all because no one outside their immediate family has heard of them.
Instead, almost on a dare, the shakers and breakers of the party settled on the one candidate who has consistently polled more poorly than the president, and who, like Biden, has made an eternal enemy of the English language.
Harris sounds like a kindergarten teacher who has forgotten her lesson — her words scatter and float away like helium balloons into the clouds. In a Washington, DC, rife with impostors and empty suits, hers is a truly authentic lightness of being.
Her abrupt elevation has been called “a coup,” but it wasn’t. There were no tanks running over rioting Biden diehards — and the Democrats are entitled to anoint anyone they wish for the candidacy. It’s their party, as they say.
But the rapidity of the swap startled many inside the power structure. We know Biden was surprised because he needed a second tweet after the withdrawal announcement, essentially saying, “Kamala for, you know, that thing.” We know Harris was surprised because that’s her normal state of mind. We know the Democratic presidential campaign, which Harris inherited, was totally befuddled because it set out at once to invent a whole new person to be known, henceforth, as “Kamala Harris.”
This pure abstinent creature had never been named “immigration czar,” had never been ranked “most liberal” in the Senate, had never donated to bail for violent criminals or advocated defunding the police.
It was telling, I should think, that the campaign preferred a Harris who had never done anything — a Harris who resembled a bout of amnesia, liberated from every memory of the past. Even with the assistance of a supine media, this replacement of a replacement is unlikely to catch on. If you want a blank slate, go for Whitmer. Harris, alas, is too memorable, in her own unique way.
Americans are eager to learn the political principles that motivate the new candidate. Her handlers, we have seen, would rather she not have any.
Her detractors seem equally divided between portrayals of Kamala the Airhead and Kamala the Communist. The two are not mutually exclusive, of course, but neither gets to the essence of the matter. The ideology espoused by Harris is technically labeled “California,” which academics define as “extreme performative endorsement of the latest thing.” It’s politics as fashion statement — as might be expected, a pastime of movie stars and the idle rich.
Thus Harris’ habitual attitude toward Israel has been condemnation: She boycotted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent speech to Congress, for example, and has made it plain she blames Israel, not Hamas, for the devastation in Gaza. These gestures have failed to influence the Israelis or change a single fact on the ground in Gaza — but it’s a cool look for the ruling class.
She’s also all in on racial identity, though in her karma chameleon way, she has sometimes chosen to emphasize the Indian ancestry of her mother, sometimes the black roots of her Jamaican father — making her, taken whole, the ideal woman of many colors.
When, in 2020, Joe Biden declared he was looking for someone “of color and/or a different gender” as the chief qualities for his vice president, Harris had all the bases covered.
In the spirit of fashionable segregation, her campaign has organized supporters into groups according to race and sex: “Black Women for Kamala,” “White Women for Kamala,” “Latinas for Kamala,” etc. My favorite category is “White Dudes for Kamala,” which met online under the auspices of that rugged exemplar of Caucasian manhood, Pete Buttigieg. The first speaker, apparently, was a black dude.
But we shouldn’t make too much of this. The latest thing in California is never the latest thing for the United States of America. Harris seems aware of this troubling fact, and has already tiptoed away from previous stands on border funding, a fracking ban and Medicare for All.
I wouldn’t be surprised if her next online support group turned out to be “E Pluribus Unum for Kamala” — she’s a political chameleon on a journey across a treacherous landscape, non-California America, and she will continue to change colors to blend in with the unfamiliar background.
Whatever one thinks of these unusual tactics, they appear to be effective. Relieved to have a candidate who doesn’t drool in front of the cameras, the Democrats feel re-energized. The media, of course, have already crowned Harris Coconut Queen of the Universe.
The pollsters are talking about a significant bump in her favor, regaining much of the ground the doddering Biden had lost. It’s even odds that she will defeat Trump and become our next president. Maybe better, since the power and the glory of American culture, from Harvard to Hollywood, has aimed an immense monophonic Bronx cheer at the heedless Trump.
And here I return to my initial observation: Kamala Harris, president? Evidently, I have slipped into an alternate dimension of time and space, a region where the laws of probability have been abolished.
I offer these facts for your consideration.
Harris has no personal following. Why should she? She wasn’t going anywhere. She has no entourage of trusted experts to enlighten her on the issues — the experts were buzzing around Biden, who was supposed to be the candidate until he wasn’t. Her personality, in public, is comical, and in private it hasn’t exactly been a magnet to party activists or intellectuals.
By all accounts, her staff hate her and go running for the doors at the first opportunity. Her name isn’t closely identified with a particular cause or issue.
She’s a pretty terrible politician. She underperformed as a vote-getter in deep blue California. She self-detonated before the first primary when, in 2020, she sought the presidential candidacy on her own merits.
As might be expected from someone whose words break free of Earthly gravity, she’s a wretched debater. What Tulsi Gabbard did to her in the 2020 Democratic debates was horrifying to watch — the oratorical equivalent of Bambi vs. Godzilla. Her campaign never recovered from the thrashing.
Harris is like that feather in the wind at the end of “Forrest Gump.” She’s a historical accident. That, in less than four months, she could be the most powerful human on Earth, decider between war and peace, her manicured fingers flitting casually over the nuclear button, fills me with awe and astonishment over the inscrutable perversity of our age.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/05/opinion/accidental-rise-of-kamala-harris-symptom-of-an-unserious-age/
Tim Walz left National Guard battalion ‘hanging,’ ‘slithered out the door’ before Iraq deployment: vets
By Caitlin Doornbos and Josh Christenson Published Aug. 6, 2024, 1:00 p.m. ET
Veterans have accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of “embellishing” his military career and abandoning his National Guard battalion, highlighting that the now-vice presidential pick for the Democrats never served in combat and retired from service ahead of his unit’s 2005 deployment to Iraq.
In a letter posted to Facebook in 2018 as he first ran for governor, retired Command Sergeants Major Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr said Walz retired from his 24-year tenure in the National Guard after learning that his battalion would be deployed to Iraq, despite allegedly assuring his fellow troops he would join them.
“On May 16th, 2005, [Walz] quit, betraying his country, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior Non-Commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” Behrends and Herr wrote.
Walz, 60, wrapped his military career just in time for him to launch his political career the following year, successfully running for Congress in 2006.
Behrends and Herr criticized him for leaving the National Guard for Congress despite being fully aware that he could have requested permission from the Pentagon to seek office while on active duty.
Walz further dodged the necessary paperwork to ensure a smooth transition out of military service and “instead … slithered out the door,” the pair added, with his retirement filing showing “soldier not available for signature.”
The National Guard members also accused the now-two-term Minnesota governor of having “embellished and selectively omitted facts of his military career for years.”
The letter was first unearthed by the Daily Wire.
Still, Walz has said he has “an honorable record.”
“We all do what we can. I’m proud I did 24 years,” Walz said about his service.
Walz joined the National Guard after high school and had served in the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery before his retirement, where he obtained the rank of command sergeant major.
During his subsequent tenure in Congress, Walz came out in opposition against then-President George W. Bush’s plans to increase troop levels in Iraq.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/06/us-news/tim-walz-embellished-military-career-for-years-dropped-from-national-guard-unit-ahead-of-iraq-deployment/
Cowabunga!
Gabriel Medina surfing at the Place of Skulls, Tahiti.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/is-the-viral-olympic-photo-of-gabriel-medina-the-most-viewed-surf-shot-ever/ar-BB1qYqwz?ocid=BingNewsSerp
You guys don't know what you're missing...
Anthony Ammirati failed the bar and the commentators are clearly having a hard time acknowledging what happened 😂 HELP I'M DYING pic.twitter.com/5hOHttVA5g
— Gladys Wotching (@Glodyswotcher) August 3, 2024
Howdy, rr. Good luck to Moreno and the great Buckeye state.
Reports: Harris Has Picked Tim Walz as Running Mate
Hamas Youth Vote Knocks Out Josh Shapiro?
https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/08/06/reports-harris-has-picked-tim-walz-as-vp-running-mate/
Governor of Somalia USA (home of Ilhan Omar).
Any Jew who votes for this team needs to have his/her head examined.
Israel is so screwed if they win. JMO.
lol You got that right, cap.
You can't please all of the people all of the time...
Especially when there are deep divides in ideology.
Wonder who Harris will chose (or who will be chosen for her).
Report: Harris Campaign Hits ‘Ugly Phase’ as Infighting Ignites over Running Mate Decision
WENDELL HUSEBØ 5 Aug 2024 4:33
The Harris campaign is reportedly bracing for the worst with Democrat party factions fighting for influence over Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice of a running mate.
The Democrat party that allegedly bubbled with unity and oozed enthusiasm is now purportedly overcome with disunity and turmoil behind closed doors. The division centers around Harris’s pick for a running mate. Many want Harris to choose a more moderate Democrat, while others want Harris to pick a candidate more ideologically aligned with the far left.
Pro-Israel Gov. Josh Shapiro (PA) is opposed by the far left, while Gov. Tim Walz (MN) is more favored by the radicals. Sen. Mark Kelly (AZ) appears to be viewed as the safest choice, but the one most disliked by the base. Gov. Andy Beshear (KY) appears to be the compromise candidate.
Reports indicate Harris will announce her decision by Wednesday. Whoever she settles on, one corner of the party will have to accept the choice, raising concerns of continued “fissures,” according to the New York Times:
The competitive, divisive primary that many Democrats long wanted to avoid has arrived anyway — playing out largely behind closed doors in a fight over the bottom of the ticket.
The final stage of the campaign to be Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate reached something of an ugly phase in recent days as donors, interest groups and political rivals from the party’s moderate and progressive wings lobbied for their preferred candidates and passed around memos debating the contenders’ political weaknesses with key demographics.
The disunity comes as Harris faces pressure from her radicalized allies to maintain her radical positions heading into November. Last week, anonymous Harris campaign sources tried to walk back at least four far-left policies that Harris has supported, outlined here: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/08/01/anonymous-campaign-spokesperson-claims-harris-flip-flops-5th-radical-policy/
Harris, one of the most liberal U.S. senators in 2019, must wrangle with her radical allies as she seeks to win independent voters in the so-called Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The left, however, remains adamant that Harris must carry its agenda into the general election, causing further division within the party amid running mate considerations.
The Harris campaign made it clear Monday that it will try and placate all sides of the party, though it remains unclear if consensus can be reached on the plethora of radical issues the left insists Harris must champion. Those policies include:
• Making abortion a federal issue
• Banning fracking
• Continuing the war on American energy
• Increasing red tape by further empowering the administrative state
• Sympathizing with pro-Hamas protesters against Israel
• Enacting socialized medicine
• Expanding taxpayer-funded housing
• Making college free
• Doubling down on Bidenomics
Since the party coronated Harris the party’s nominee a couple weeks ago (it became official on Friday) Harris has not held one serious interview, underscoring her apparent attempt to straddle all sides of the party. It also suggests she is concerned about answering questions about her radical record and indicates she might run a campaign similar to President Joe Biden’s, who seldom held solo press conferences and rarely sat for live interviews.
Avoiding questions from the media appears to be Harris’s strategy since accepting Biden’s endorsement two weeks ago, Democrats acknowledged. “The vice president is showing all of us that you don’t need to do high-profile interviews or press conferences in order to get attention from the media or from voters,” Democrat strategist Christy Setzer told the Hill Friday. “I’d say she has a robust communications strategy.”
Harris cannot avoid questions forever. Republicans are quickly defining her as a radical Democrat who flip-flops on policies, a second Democrat strategist said. “They’ve got to get her out there soon because they can’t let this be part of the narrative,” the person said. “I know we’re riding high at the moment but that’s going to end soon and then what?”
More on Harris’s radical record is here: https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/08/01/kamala-harris-wanted-ban-plastic-straws-2020/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/08/05/report-harris-campaign-hits-ugly-phase-infighting-ignites-over-running-mate-decision/
Joe Biden Boasted ‘I Cured the Economy’ Days Before Global Market Rout
WENDELL HUSEB Ø5 Aug 2024 2:13
(Wonder how the LSM a.k.a. the DNC cheerleaders will spin this.)
President Joe Biden insisted the Biden-Harris administration “cured” the economy just days before the Dow dropped 900 points and the Nasdaq sank six percent in a global market rout Monday morning.
“I cured the economy,” Biden said Tuesday when asked about his administration’s accomplishments:
JOE BIDEN LAST WEEK: “I cured the economy.”
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 5, 2024
🤡pic.twitter.com/oBAajoVSuO
Four years ago today, Trump claimed the stock market would “crash” if Joe Biden was elected
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) May 24, 2024
(The stock market has reached the highest levels ever recorded in history under President Biden) pic.twitter.com/4ZXsmtgh7z
"We have never been down 1,000+ points — EVER, not even intraday — on the Nasdaq."#KAMALACRASH pic.twitter.com/iCXN83vOkQ
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 5, 2024
Ouch! Vote Trump.
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown to Skip DNC, Will Not Campaign with Kamala Harris
PAUL BOIS 4 Aug 2024 2:59
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will reportedly skip the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and will not be campaigning with Kamala Harris in her bid for president.
Brown, who finds himself in a difficult reelection battle in a state trending toward former President Donald Trump, will also reportedly not issue a defense of President Joe Biden’s handling of the Southern Border with Mexico, per CNN. Brown will instead keep his focus on Republican challenger Bernie Moreno by attacking his character and past business practices.
“It’s not left or right. It’s not who you vote for, for president,” Brown told CNN. “It’s who stands up for people in the state.”
Nearly all Senate Democrats in contested states have faced an uphill battle when asking voters to split the ticket between them and former President Donald Trump. As noted by CNN, “just one candidate in the 69 Senate races in 2016 and 2020 won when their state voted for a presidential candidate of the opposite party.” Brown intends to keep the focus strictly on Moreno in hopes that voters will make the leap by simultaneously voting for Trump and sticking with him. When asked if he would campaign with Harris, Brown said the two have different strategies.
“I’ve got my own schedule,” Brown said. “She’s got her own schedule. I will focus on my race. My strategy is perhaps different from hers … talking about the differences on abortion rights and on the minimum wage between Bernie Moreno and me and how I fight every day for the dignity of work.”
Brown also said he will skip the convention.
“I often skip conventions,” Brown said, adding that he will not defend Kamala’s record. “My job is to fight for Ohio workers. You can talk about the presidential race. That’s your job. … I know that what will matter is people vote for me because I stand up for workers and will continue to fight for workers.”
Democrats will have to retain Ohio if they hope to keep their small majority in the U.S. Senate, which they will likely lose this election cycle now that West Virginia may swing toward Republicans with Montana on the brink.
Bernie Moreno told CNN that Kamala Harris being at the top of the ticket will help his chances.
“Oh, it helps me tremendously,” Moreno said. “So maybe Scranton Joe had a little bit of credibility here in Ohio. San Francisco Kamala absolutely does not.”
https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/08/04/ohio-sen-sherrod-brown-skip-dnc-not-campaign-kamala-harris/
Morning, Mr. G. I saw a clip of the Pelosi-Biden on Mt. Rushmore idiocy.
When did Leslie Stahl get that old?
It was like watching two cadavers having a chat.
Pelosi's out after this election. Is that right?
Probably won't stop her from pulling those behind-the-scenes strings.
Here's to a new day and week.
Lots of bright sunshine right now.
Might be good mowing weather on your end.
I have to wait for thing to cool off.
Miss Hot-Weather-Wuss here.
Have fun.
Message in bottle found at Jersey Shore could be oldest ever — and included ‘unbelievable’ extra discovery
By Isabel Keane Published Aug. 4, 2024, 2:52 p.m. ET
A message in a bottle found in the sand at Ocean City, NJ, could be the oldest ever discovered.
Amy Smyth Murphy, 49, was strolling through Corson’s Inlet State Park over the July Fourth weekend when she discovered an antiquated green corked bottle containing what appeared to be a business card from 1876 and a handwritten note, she told NJ.com.
Smyth Murphy said she believes that the bottle, which bears the words “Barr & Brother Philadelphia,” a business from the mid-1800s, was tossed into the water about 146 years ago — or 10 years before the message-holding container found in Australia in 2018 that currently holds the Guinness World Record.
A message in this bottle could be the oldest ever discovered.
TikTok / @asmythco
“It’s just so interesting to be connected to people in this way,” Smyth Murphy told the outlet.
She said she has applied to have the bottle vetted by Guinness World Records.
One of the papers inside the bottle appeared to be a business car for “W.G. & J. Klemm,” a pair of brothers, William and John Klemm, who ran a gentleman’s furnishing goods company in Philadelphia until 1881, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s newspaper archives.
Another paper inside the container referenced a local yacht called “Neptune,” which was docked in Atlantic City, NJ, in the late 1800s and captained by Samuel Gale, according to the newspaper archives.
Gale may have lived in Atlantic City in the late 1800s, according to Smyth Murphy’s own research.
One of the papers in the bottle appears to be a business card from 1876.
TikTok / @asmythco
“I really like the mystery. I love the research,” Smyth Murphy said.
She said the rare bottle also contained something else a bit more unsettling.
“The smell that came out of it was unbelievable,” she said, describing the odor as “the bay smell times 1 million.
The business card was for a furnishings company owned by two siblings, William and John Klemm, in Philadelphia.
TikTok / @asmythco
“We were not prepared for that.
The discovery occurred months after a multimillion-dollar beach fill was performed in the Ocean City area, which according to experts may have caused the bottle to break free from the ocean floor.
“They dredge up things,” said Steve Nagiewicz, who teaches maritime history and marine archeology at Stockton University in Jersey, to NJ.com.
Another note in the bottle was linked to an old local yacht.
TikTok / @asmythco
“Some of them just get stirred up and float around the ocean, and I think that’s what happened in her case. Those ocean currents can do some amazing things,” he said.
Smyth Murphy shared her adventures in uncovering what the messages inside the bottle said, posting TikTok videos of her family gently using toothpicks to pull the decaying pieces of paper out of the container.
While the woman waits to hear back about whether her discovery broke a world record, Smyth Murphy’s family says uncovering information about where the bottle and its contents came from has been rewarding.
Videos shared to Smyth Murphy’s TikTok show her family carefully removing the papers from inside the bottle.
TikTok / @asmythco
“It’s been really fun kind of doing it all together,” said John Smyth, Smyth Murphy’s brother.
Guinness World Records did not return a Post request for comment Sunday.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/04/us-news/message-in-bottle-found-on-jersey-shore-could-be-oldest-ever-discovered/
8-12" is much better, cap.
Good luck.
Turn around. Don't drown.
Good luck, cap.
That is way too much rain.
Not to worry, MG. Quick research told me MS-13 has its roots in El Salvador.
Your visitor is probably a good Catholic boy at heart.
Scary scene. I don't blame you for being disconcerted.
If Trump does not get back in office...
this country is s.c.r.e.w.e.d.
Good luck with the wet weeds and crabgrass, Mr. G.
As long as everything is the same length, you'll be in great shape.
The sun just came out. I'm staying in.
Stay safe and have fun with it.
Good Morning, Mr. G. Thanks. I'm a big fan of Lenore Skenazy.
She nails it with this one.
I worked with a woman whose daughter went to Cornell.
She called the kid every morning to make sure she was up and going to class.
Good grief.
We would have been mortified if our parents hovered like that.
So glad I was a kid back then and not one now.
Hope you're surviving this rainy (torrential at times) weather.
I'll be happier when things dry out.
Stay safe and may your power stay on.
Black conservative activist steals show after introduced by ‘Big T’ Donald Trump at Atlanta rally: ‘Incredible’
By Fox News Published Aug. 4, 2024, 8:43 a.m. ET
(Smart and a real cutie.)
Trump invited Michaelah Montgomery up on stage toward the end of his speech at the Georgia State University Convocation Center.
REUTERS
A Georgia activist stole the show after being introduced by former President Trump at his rally in Atlanta Saturday.
Trump invited Michaelah Montgomery up on stage toward the end of his speech at the Georgia State University Convocation Center. He introduced Montgomery by explaining he met her at a restaurant this year.
Trump said Montgomery, who attended Clark Atlanta University, had recognized him in public and commended him for funding historically Black colleges and universities.
“She looks at me, says ‘It’s President Trump. You saved my college.’ And I said, ‘How the hell do you know that?’ … This one is so smart, so sharp,” Trump recalled.
“She grabbed me. She gave me a kiss,” he added. “I said, ‘I think I’m never going back home to the first lady.'”
“You were supposed to keep that quiet,” Montgomery laughed.
The former president commended Montgomery, describing her as “incredible” with a “tremendous future,” and told her he would do “whatever I can to help you,” before giving her the podium.
“She grabbed me. She gave me a kiss,” Trump said. “I said, ‘I think I’m never going back home to the first lady.'”
REUTERS
“I do want to add on to some of the remarks that were made by others,” the conservative activist began. “And we do need to do our best to get the message out there. The fight is nothing if all we do is talk about it amongst ourselves.”
Montgomery added that she was a founder of an organization called Conserve the Culture, which helps “mobilize the HBCU students so that they may get this [conservative] message.”
“Nobody needs this message more than my folks, so do y’all care for real?” Montgomery said to the cheering audience. “Are y’all with us for real?
“I’ma give it back to Big T.”
The rally took place days after Trump was criticized by the White House for statements he made at the recent National Association of Black Journalists convention about Vice President Kamala Harris’ racial identity.
“She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black. And now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
On Wednesday, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson praised Trump for “answering tough questions” at the conference.
“I commend my friend @realdonaldtrump for going into a hostile environment at @NABJ today and answering tough questions,” Carson said in a post on X.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/04/us-news/black-conservative-activist-steals-the-show-after-introduced-by-big-t-trump-at-atlanta-rally/
Kamala Harris: The ‘discount-Obama’ repeating Clinton’s failed 2016 playbook
By David Christopher Kaufman Published Aug. 3, 2024, 7:00 a.m. ET
In June of 2016, six months before election day, I wrote a column detailing how Donald Trump could defeat Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House. As I explained, a mix of racial anxiety, political alienation and over-reaching identity politics was propelling rural whites and working-class urbanites toward Trump in an act of unanticipated voter rebellion.
“Fed up with the preachy do-goodism and blanket-blaming [by] the elite,” I wrote, Trump is “offering a safe space to supporters shut out from increasingly rigid definitions of ‘acceptable’ cultural conversations. Tired of being told what to say and how to think, Trump’s supporters are reclaiming their voice — and publicly committing it to the ballot box.”
Eight years on, I don’t write these words to gloat, but because history looks likely to repeat itself. Two election cycles after Trump’s first upset against a heavily hyped Democrat, the former president could easily triumph again. All of the signs are in place.
Today, as in 2016, the US is mired in economic uncertainty thanks to the Biden-era inflation Kamala Harris will inevitably inherit. The nascent wokeness and identity overreach of the Obama-era now extends from Hollywood to corporations and, most dangerously, higher education. Cancel culture no longer merely shames, it’s driven some caught in its crosshairs to suicide. Transgender issues now dominate school sports and medical care, while the chasm between left and right is so vast, it almost cost Trump his life.
Many things are not merely as bad as they were in 2016; they’re worse. And Harris represents everything that’s brought us here. Say what you want about Hillary Clinton — imperious operator, sloppy e-mailer — but she was the most qualified presidential candidate of her generation. A former first lady, secretary of state and US senator, her domestic, foreign and Beltway bona fides were unassailable.
Harris, however, can claim few of Clinton’s markers, yet alone achievements. Her CV is lacking and the only “first” Harris offers is the Asian-American heritage she’s continually downplayed for political expediency. She’s like a discount Obama or fire-sale Clinton — all of the identity but none of the politics. No wonder Michelle and Barack literally phoned in their Harris endorsement.
The worst part about Harris’s brief campaign is how far it’s leaning into the exact type of woke-babble that helped Hillary lose. Even in this age of peak affinity groups, Harris’s use of race- and gender– and sexuality-based supporter networks borders on the obscene. Imagine mega-Zooms of Whites-for-Trump or pro-lifers-for Trump or Trads-for-Trump. The take-downs by big media would make their Hamas-hyping seem tame by comparison.
Then there’s the left’s near total ban on Harris critique. As with every woke crusade, any dissent must be silenced, every criticism quashed into submission. We do not dare allude to her race or gender — even though Biden himself said he chose Harris as VP because she was female and black. We cannot question her failures on the immigration front; we can no longer even claim Harris was tasked with handling the border crisis in the first place. Any derision is seen as racist or sexist, and to ask “why” or “how” is the incontestable proof of that racism and sexism.
But woke culture thrives when reasonable people deny their best instincts, and my instincts say Harris is not what’s best for America right now. Let alone the rest of the world. I, too, am a mixed-race and California-born Gen X-er — raised on the same noxious dreck of grievance and entitlement as Harris. I come from the same culture that expects little from people of color and demands even less. I’m onto Harris’ hustle because it could easily have been my own.
But being born a woman or black or Indian are neither achievements or accomplishments. She’s done nothing to earn these totems and deserves little reward for them. Like Harris, I know what it’s like to be a DEI hire and let me tell you — it never ends well.
Eight years ago, I predicted Clinton would lose because her campaign lacked authority and authenticity. There was too much girl power and not enough hard power to defeat a brute like Trump. Imposed and manufactured, Harris’ campaign offers even less legitimacy, let alone authority. I am all for crowning Kamala the candidate if that’s what the Democratic electorate wants. But via the convention in Chicago — not a palace coup.
The conditions that allowed Trump to beat Clinton have been weaponized far beyond their 2016 levels, making Harris — even with her more than $300 million war chest — an uncertain winner. Sure, her campaign still has time to course-correct. But that would require an actual course, which Harris is still yet to deliver.
dkaufman@nypost.com
https://nypost.com/2024/08/03/opinion/kamala-harris-the-discount-obama-repeating-clintons-2016-playbook/
Cellphones don’t just harm kids but parents too
By Lenore Skenazy Published Aug. 2, 2024, 5:42 p.m. ET
New York City is on the verge of banning cellphones in schools because too many students are addicted to their screens. Several Long Island school districts are suing social-media companies, saying that kids’ phone use is causing record levels of mental illness.
But phones are doing damage to us parents, as well: The relentless connection to our kids may be driving our own anxiety sky-high.
A 2022 Harvard study found that 18% of teens were suffering from anxiety . . . as were 20% of mothers and 15% of fathers.
Of course, parents have always worried. That’s basically the job description.
But until about 15 years ago, we had no option but to learn to deal.
Today? Even though the murder rate is lower now than it was in the 1970s, ’80 and ’90s when many of today’s parents were children, kid trackers have become a $100 billion market, promising parents peace of mind.
As if! You want peace of mind? Get a time machine.
Somehow, way back when my mom let me walk to school as a kindergartener — I know, call the cops — she could wait till 3 p.m. to see me again.
No texts. No tracking.
In that way, she, like most other parents back then, learned to believe in me, in our neighbors and even in her own parenting. All were good enough to keep me safe.
Imagine how great that would feel: Trusting that all was well . . . because you didn’t have a choice.
The thing is: Trust is a muscle. It has to be exercised to get strong.
My mom’s trust muscle grew because it got daily exercise, thanks to the social norms of the time.
Mobile phones stop that growth from happening.
Instead of getting accustomed to being out of touch for a while, phones have us seeking — and getting — addictive hits of reassurance, all day long, that our kids are OK. Only constant connection soothes us.
I consider that arrested development . . . of us as parents.
In “The Anxious Generation,” Jonathan Haidt explains attachment theory: Kids need at least one adult that they know will always be there for them.
This adult is their secure base, whose attachment allows them to go off-base and explore.
As soon as kids can crawl, they scootch off to the dog or toy (or Ming vase), glancing backward: Yup, mom’s still there.
When the dog barks, they scurry back. On-base, they’re comforted. Off-base, the learning occurs. Off they go again.
But a cellphone means the child is less likely to internalize that secure base, because they never have to truly detach — and neither does the parent.
I read once about a mom who wanted to let her daughter walk alone by the creek, a childhood experience the mother had loved as a girl. So she gave her kid a smartwatch — as if this activity could not be allowed without one.
When the girl was off on her adventure, her bike chain fell off . . . and she called her dad, who rushed over and fixed it.
To the mother, this proved the wisdom of the technology. But to me, she’d given her daughter the opposite of her childhood experience.
The girl didn’t get a chance to solve her problem. The parents didn’t get a chance to see her succeed on her own.
And without that feedback, parents aren’t getting the information that would allow them to let go a little more.
Another problem: Some mobile devices can let us spy on our kids’ bad behavior.
But that, too, disrupts the off-base experience. At one time, kids had a chance to be good or bad and deal with the consequences themselves. And parents had no ability to know — or fret about — all the details of our kids’ minute-by-minute lives.
Without the opportunity for real separation, we’re missing out on our half of the attachment cycle: us letting go, us being afraid, us having them come back, and then letting them go off again.
With technology tethering us, both generations lose out.
I know most parents use the cellphone connection for convenience, not control. Most feel it lets them give their kids more freedom, not less.
But once we have the ability to watch, assist and reassure from afar, we’re no longer forced to trust our kids out there. We’re tricking ourselves into a form of false freedom.
Today’s tech relieves us of the pain of truly letting go. But the less we need to trust our kids, the less the trust muscle develops.
And if you’re wondering why being more in touch with our kids would make us more anxious about them, that’s why: The opposite of trust — the opposite of fiercely believing our kids can handle anything — is anxiety.
Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, the nonprofit promoting childhood independence, and founder of the Free-Range Kids movement. Adapted from After Babel substack.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/02/opinion/cellphones-dont-just-harm-kids-but-parents-too/
I see we're thinking alike this morning. Howdy, Mr. G.
Maybe he needed to use the bathroom.
Biden-Harris wasted $8.5 billion in taxpayer money to lose 15,000 jobs at Intel
By Stephen Moore and Phil Kerpen Published Aug. 2, 2024, 7:14 p.m. ET
Well, ladies and gentlemen: the chips are down — literally and figuratively.
Two years ago, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris touted their “Chips Act” to bring the semiconductor industry back home from Taiwan, China and Singapore.
The price tag on the bill: a cool $280 billion of corporate handouts. It was arguably the largest corporate welfare bill in American history.
Intel, Micron, Global Foundries, Polar Semiconductor, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Samsung, BAE Systems, and Microchip Technology have been the direct beneficiaries of the law.
This was supposed to be one of the “Crown Jewels” of the Biden-Harris admin. A massive job creator that would allow America to take back its technological
leadership.
Even many Republicans in Congress shamelessly voted for the handouts at a time when the federal government was already borrowing more than $1 trillion a year.
Heavy failures
But today, the failures far outweigh the successes — and in spectacular fashion.
Intel was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Chips Act, receiving an $8.5 billion grant announced in March, a $25 billion sweetheart tax incentive and likely the lion’s share of an $11 billion federal loan program. That’s only the opening act.
What did we get in exchange? Intel this week announced it was laying off 15% of its workforce — 15,000
positions.
America lost twice: billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.
Meanwhile, Nvidia, which took no government money, has been the top-performing stock over the past 18 months and has made hundreds of billions of dollars for American shareholders. Its chips are mostly made in Taiwan, but it creates thousands of jobs here at home.
This Chips Act was supposed to be the Biden-Harris crowning achievement. A giant job creator. Hundreds of billions of government handouts to bring the semiconductor industry back home. Now, it’s looking like the Titanic.
Maybe these layoffs make business sense and will help Intel become the powerhouse it once was. But the company’s new government-dependent status means all of its decision-making is being directed by Washington — not the marketplace.
Their strategy has been to maximize taxpayers’ dollars — not creating value for their customers.
How many times can we learn the same lesson? Government is terrible at picking winners and losers. Remember Solyndra and Fisker Auto?
Corporate welfare woes
Politicians gamble — with your money — and go broke again and again.
Corporate welfare almost never works. We’ve tried it with steel, autos, solar panels and electric
batteries.
Just look at how this policy has hobbled the electric-vehicle industry. Biden has handed out tens of billions in handouts, mandates and other Hershey kisses to an industry that was well on its way to success when Donald Trump left office. Now the car companies are losing billions of dollars even as they chase down all this “free” money.
EV sales would be much higher today if politicians had simply kept their paws off of it.
Or consider that the Biden administration passed its Green New Deal —dishonestly called the “Inflation Reduction Act” — with hundreds of billions for solar and wind companies.
Today, the industry is still flat on its back — providing less than 10% of American energy. Meanwhile the nonsubsidized oil and gas and coal industries still supply 80% of our energy. The oil and gas industry actually pays taxes rather than just taking government money.
Poor policy
The theory of national industrial policy is based on the idea that some sectors are of such paramount importance that they can’t be left to the private sector. That may make sense when it come to defense industries.
But as we’ve seen with electric vehicles and green energy in recent years, trusting the government to take charge is about the worst way for any business to succeed.
Ironically, the Biden-Harris administration wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% on our successful corporations — the ones that actually make a profit and don’t need government subsidies — and use that money to prop up the loser industries.
It’s no way to run a country. It is the way socialist regimes have all gone broke.
The two of us have suggested that America should pass a law preventing the government from giving any company a subsidy if it has more than $100 million in sales. Use the savings to cut tax rates for everyone.
The failure of the Chips Act is a reminder of the maxim that the best government policy for the economy is: don’t meddle.
In the meantime, Congress should suspend the $100 billion that the semiconductor industry hasn’t already spent and wasted. Never throw good money after bad.
Stephen Moore is chairman of Unleash Prosperity and Phil Kerpen is executive director. Moore also serves as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation while Kerpen Heads American Commitment.
https://nypost.com/2024/08/02/opinion/biden-harris-wasted-8-5-billion-in-taxpayer-money-to-lose-15000-jobs-at-intel/
Guess you Patriots told me.
I'm still going to watch the sports I like.
Guess you guys told me.
I'm still going to watch the sports I like.
Only if they let her meet the press withOUT teleprompters. She is good at reading.
I've been watching the swimming (on now), gymnastics, and diving because I love the sports.
There's only so much political protesting I can do.
It's been taking over my life and that is not good.
"Frailty thy name is woman." (Hamlet)
Kamala Harris Rambles Incoherently in First Unscripted Comments to Press Since Becoming Democrats’ Nominee
WENDELL HUSEB Ø2 Aug 2024 2:35
Vice President Kamala Harris delivered one of her infamous word salads when speaking unscripted about Thursday’s prisoner swap with Russia.
Harris often spouts odd phrases and explanations for simple ideas. In 2022, for example, she marveled over Venn diagrams. Another time, she rambled about the “significance of the passage of time.”
“This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy,” Harris rambled with a serious face while waving her hands:
It was the second awkward statement in 24 hours. Harris accidentally called herself “president” on Thursday during former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s eulogy.
Perhaps the gaffes are why Harris appears to be avoiding questions from the media. She failed to hold a serious interview since becoming the Democrats’ de facto nominee. Even Democrats took notice of Harris’s perceived strategy.
“The vice president is showing all of us that you don’t need to do high-profile interviews or press conferences in order to get attention from the media or from voters,” Democrat strategist Christy Setzer told the Hill. “I’d say she has a robust communications strategy.”
Another reason Harris could be avoiding the media is out of fear of answering questions about her radical-left policies. The vice president already appears to be back-peddling on many policies, though the flip-flops were given by anonymous aides.
Harris no longer supports “a federal job guarantee,” an anonymous Harris campaign spokesperson told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. The New York Timesreported Monday, citing anonymous campaign officials, that she also now (1) supports fracking, (2) wants to increase funding for the border, (3) does not want to require people to sell their assault weapons back to the government, and (4) no longer supports “a single-payer health insurance program.”
More is here on Harris’s radical record:
https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/08/01/kamala-harris-wanted-ban-plastic-straws-2020/
https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/08/02/kamala-harris-rambles-incoherently-first-unscripted-comments-press-becoming-democrats-nominee/
‘Unfair, Unsafe and Wong’: Social Media Erupts After Taiwanese Fighter Who Failed IBA Gender Test Defeats Female Opponent
WARNER TODD HUSTON 2 Aug 2024 6:13
(Another freak of nature boxing against women. Wonder which of the two will take the gold? No wonder people are ignoring the Olympics.
Lots of Xweets at the link.)
Social media has erupted in condemnation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its decision to allow two boxers who failed IBA gender tests to compete as females in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris this week.
The overwhelming victories by Algerian boxer Imane Khelif on Thursday and Taiwan fighter Lin Yu-Ting on Friday have caused an uproar in sports.
Both boxers were barred from IBA-sanctioned events in 2023 because they did not satisfy the gender testing required by the organization’s latest rules.
In 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) President Umar Kremlev explained his organization’s decision to disqualify Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting and Algeria’s Imane Khelif from competing in the IBA’s 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships, according to Russia’s Tass News Agency. “Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women. According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition,” Kremlev said.
Despite the drama, Khelif and Lin have been declared winners in their first bouts.
Social media users were incensed with many characterizing the two boxers as males and excoriating the Olympics for allowing competitors with unfair advantage to fight against women in the brutal sport of boxing.
Former marathon runner and two-time Olympian Mara Yamauchi blasted the IOC for its decision, which she said was “unfair, unsafe, and wrong.”
Activist Maya Forstater slammed the 2024 Games on X, saying it is “unfair.”
Harry Potter scribe J.K. Rowling allowed that the two boxers may have a genetic condition that makes identifying their gender more difficult, but insisted, “Someone with a DSD cannot help the way they were born but they can choose not to cheat; they can choose not to take medals from women; they can choose not to cause injury.”
As the Telegraph reported, “Two-time Olympic champion Nicola Adams called allowing those ‘not born as biological women’ to compete both ‘unfair’ and ‘dangerous.'”
Former Olympic fencer Julia Bracewell is also decrying the IOC’s actions.
On Thursday, she wrote, “I am a former Olympic fencer and have been on various sports governing bodies boards. I was involved with Scottish Rugby’s gender policy. I am horrified at what has happened and am adding my voice to Sharon’s and other much better known sports women.”
https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2024/08/02/unfair-unsafe-and-wong-social-media-erupts-after-taiwanese-fighter-who-failed-iba-gender-test-defeats-female-opponent/
Valentina Gomez makes a valid point.
It is ridiculous that XY-chromosome people are allowed to compete against XX-chromosome individuals.
Good luck to Ms. Gomez in the election.
Let's put the feminists who support this crap in the ring with the transgender turd and in the locker room with a bunch of his kind.
Wonder if they'd change their tune then.
Sick pup world these days.
Morning, possh. Stay safe.