The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Fictitious Candidate Kamala Harris and Her Imaginary ‘Presidential Campaign’

Posted on | August 9, 2024 | Comments Off on Fictitious Candidate Kamala Harris and Her Imaginary ‘Presidential Campaign’

Why is Kamala Harris now the Democratic presidential candidate? Perhaps you’ve forgotten, so let me remind you. After the June 27 debate debacle for Joe Biden, it took about three weeks for the party bosses to convince Joe he had to go, and why? Because his meltdown was so bad as to make it impossible for Democrats to have any hope of recapturing the House of Representatives, and put Chuck Schumer’s Senate majority in jeopardy. This prospect of down-ticket damage was the real reason that Joe got kicked off the ticket and replaced with Kamala who, in the 19 days since being anointed as Biden’s replacement, has yet to conduct a press conference or to do a major media interview — not even with such friendly outlets as CNN and MSNBC. It seems apparent that the game plan for Team Harris is to keep playing hide-the-candidate at least until the end of the convention next week, in order to minimize any risk that she’ll say something besides what’s written on the teleprompter.

Meanwhile, I sit here with my office TV tuned to CNN, which is endlessly hyping up Harris as enormously popular, her campaign “surging” with grassroots excitement. This cannot last, I keep telling myself. Sooner or later, the media-generated protective bubble around Kamala is going to be pierced, America will discover that she’s a complete airhead, and her (suspiciously high) poll numbers will collapse. Or maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe this whole thing is a scripted simulation. Maybe Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) think they can repeat the Biden basement campaign scenario of 2020, absent the excuse of a pandemic. Maybe there will never be any press conferences, no media interviews in which Kamala has to face questions that aren’t submitted in advance, so that she can rehearse her answers ahead of time. Could she actually win the White House with such a fake campaign? I doubt it, but the point is Kamala’s job as “candidate” doesn’t require her to win. All she has to do to “succeed,” by the standards of those who installed her as Biden’s replacement, is to avoid the kind of catastrophe that would drag down the Democrats in their House and Senate campaigns.

There are plenty of ambitious Democrats — governors and senators, especially — with their hungry eyes fixed on 2028, and having Harris actually win the White House this year would be bad for them. But they don’t want the kind of meltdown they were facing with feeble-minded Joe at the top of the ticket, so now they’ve got Kamala as a sort of puppet whose job is to not lose so bad that it hurts Democrats in the down-ballot races. Kamala is a fake candidate in a make-believe campaign.



 

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Category: Kamala Harris

My Patriotic Duty: Posting ‘Material Which Incites Violence or Hatred’

Posted on | August 9, 2024 | Comments Off on My Patriotic Duty: Posting ‘Material Which Incites Violence or Hatred’

The British Crown Prosecution Services posted a message warning to “THINK BEFORE YOU POST,” telling Brits that they could be prosecuted for “posting material online which incites violence or hatred.” This comes in the aftermath of rioting after three girls were stabbed to death, and eight others injured, in Southport, about 20 miles north of Liverpool.

Here’s the thing: This is all entirely the government’s fault.

After a 17-year-old suspect was arrested for the Southport stabbing attack, the police refused to publicly identify him. Given the pattern around such incidents in England, this led a lot of people to assume that the attacker must be a Muslim immigrant, and so some of the rioters targeted mosques or facilities for so-called “asylum seekers.”

Eventually, the situation was such that officials finally identified the attacker as Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, the son of immigrants from Rwanda. Rudakubana was reportedly born in Cardiff, Wales and, whatever his motive — other than Crazy People Are Dangerous — there is no apparent connection to Islamic radicalism. Therefore, the claim is being made, “misinformation” was to blame for the riots.

No, actually, government secrecy was to blame. If the police had merely released the name and mugshot of the suspect, at least the public would have known that he wasn’t named “Mohammed” or “Abdul,” which was a conclusion many people quickly leapt to, based on recent history of such stabbings not only in England, but all across Europe. And just because it appears the attacker was a deranged teenager — apparently motivated by mental illness, rather than radical ideology — does not mean that complaints about immigration policy are irrelevant or misguided. The cultural dislocations involved in relocating Third World migrants to England (or France, Belgium, Canada, America, etc.) often result in situations like this, where the children of immigrants become alienated or hostile. Even if the immigrants themselves are grateful toward their host country, and eager to have their children take advantage of the available opportunities, the younger generation may not share that attitude, and may not be able to handle the pressure to adapt and assimilate.

It’s not “racist” or “anti-immigrant” to mention this phenomenon, which is widely acknowledged by social workers who deal with immigrant populations, and equally known to advocates of immigration. From a conservative perspective, of course, this problem points toward a simple conclusion about immigration: NUMBERS MATTER.

Assimilation is easier when immigrant populations are relatively small, and the larger the immigrant population, the greater the likelihood of violent conflict. If you have a town of 10,000 people, the arrival of one family of immigrants from Guatemala or Ghana is not going to have much impact on the social fabric; whereas the arrival of 500 or 1,000 immigrants is a whole ’nother thing. When you have mass immigration — which is what England has been dealing with for decades — the potential for trouble rises to a near certainty. Government officials don’t want to tell the truth about the results of their policies, and so a culture of secrecy arises, eroding public trust and leading to exactly the kind of situation that produced riots in the wake of the Southport stabbings.

“UK Authorities Monitoring Social Media, Arresting People for Misinformation,” was Mary Chastain’s headline at Legal Insurrection, which immediately caused me to wonder, “How can I get myself arrested?” Or at least, get me banned in Britain.



 

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Category: Crime, Great Britain, Immigration

Worst VP Pick Since Tom Eagleton?

Posted on | August 8, 2024 | Comments Off on Worst VP Pick Since Tom Eagleton?

Kamala Harris has been the designated Democratic candidate for barely two weeks, and she’s already screwed the pooch with her first major campaign decision, the choice of Tim Walz as her running mate. I’m sitting here with my office TV tuned to CNN, and everything right now is all about Walz’s disputed military service record.

THIS IS NOT A GOOD MESSAGE DAY FOR KAMALA.

Far be it from me to pretend any expertise in what does or does not constitute “stolen valor,” but it seems clear that at times, Walz has misrepresented or embellished his record, which is unfortunate, because his actual record is nothing to be ashamed of. He did 24 years in the National Guard, rising to the rank of Master Sergeant (E8) and, at one point, served temporarily as Command Sergeant Major (E9), although he did not complete the training necessary to obtain E9 status.

Then there’s the thing about him retiring from the Guard just weeks before his unit deployed to Iraq and the fact that, whether or not Walz himself claimed to be a “combat veteran,” he didn’t make a point to deny that misleading portrayal of his service. There will be lots of back-and-forth over all this, and CNN is currently running with the idea that Republicans are “attacking” Walz’s service, which is itself misleading. Nobody is denying that Walz served honorably; the issue is whether he misled the public about his service. That may not seem like a big deal to most civilians, but let me give you an example of why it matters.

As regular readers know, my son is in the Army, and has twice completed the Best Ranger Competition. He spent years training Rangers at Camp Merrill (“Mountain Phase”). Despite that, my son doesn’t call himself a “Ranger” (and corrects anyone who erroneously refers to him as such), because that title is reserved to members of the 75th Ranger Regiment.

Earning the Ranger tab is a worthy achievement, but there have been instances where former soldiers seeking political office have made the mistake of calling themselves “Rangers” (because they finished Ranger School) when they never served in the 75th — and that’s deeply offensive to veterans of the 75th. So while we civilians may think the difference between E8 and E9 is insignificant, and as for Walz’s . . . Well, his indifference to whether he was perceived as a combat veteran, some civilians may not understand why that’s problematic, but it is.

CNN is trying to defend Walz on this, but the thing about politics is, if you’re playing defense, you’re losing, and the Democrats are losing this week, whether they are willing to admit or not.



 

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Category: Tim Walz

In The Mailbox: 08.07.24

Posted on | August 8, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.07.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Pete’s 1969 league (the one I’m in) is looking for someone to take over the Atlanta team.
Obligatory seriousness about SGMMSG Walz, ARNG (Ret)
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What If You Bought An $800 CPU And It Self-Destructed?
EBL: J.D. Vance in Michigan: Kamala Harris policy failures and Tim Walz cowardice, USA Figure Skaters get gold in Paris Summer Olympics, and Stolen Valor: Tim Walz Lied About Serving In Combat
Twitchy: Check Out The Bizarre, Kinda Violent Post From A Harris/Walz Stan (Who Tried To Delete It), Social Media Influencers Got Paid Up To $10K For Scripted Anti-Trump Videos, and Rashida Tlaib Retweets Altered Image With Disgusting Claim About IDF Soldiers
Louder With Crowder: UK Authorities To Start Charging Citizens With Thought Crimes For Retweeting “Hate”
Vox Popoli: Harris-Walz 2024, SJW Reason, and Iran Has Allies Too
Upstream Reviews: The Book of Feasts & Seasons
Ammo.com: America’s Stolen Guns

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Why Wasn’t ‘Scranton Joe’ at the Harris-Walz Launch Rally?
American Greatness: Ultra-Liberal Kamala Harris Is Anti-Black, Anti-American, & Anti-You, Tulsi Gabbard On Terrorist Watch List? The Regime Is Getting Jumpy, California Adopts Six Million Children, and Kamala Harris Campaign Website Still Has No Platform or Policy Positions
American Power: Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian
American Thinker: Greenhouse Gases Are a Scientific Myth, also, Trump Assassination Attempt: What’s with the Crime Scene?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Venezuela’s army vows ‘absolute loyalty’ to Maduro after opposition appeal, Unlike Pope Francis, Venezuela’s two Cardinals denounce electoral fraud, deny legitimacy to Maduro, and As governor, Tim “One man’s socialism is another’s neighborliness” Walz set up a snitch hotline in Minnesota
BattleSwarm: Has Marvel Purged The Woke?
Behind The Black: China launches first 18 satellites in a new Starlink-type internet constellation, Lufthansa signs deal with Airbus to train its astronauts for the Starlab space station, European aerospace company Safran to open production facility in U.S., A supernova overpowers a spiral galaxy, NASA has decided to consider bringing Starliner down unmanned, and Students win settlement against college for censoring their speech illegally
CDR Salamander: What Do You Mean We’re An 11-Carrier Navy In A 15-Carrier World?
Don Surber: Walz closing in
First Street Journal: Cori Bush Merritts continually trashed Israel, but she thinks it’s wholly unfair that she gets called to account for it
Gates Of Vienna: Lefties Love Kids, Edwin Wagensveld: “I Do Not Care Whether I Am Convicted or Not”, The Great Jihad Targets Taylor Swift in Vienna, and Bread and Circuses for Criminals
The Geller Report: Speaker Johnson Calls on Biden/Harris to Lift Israeli Arms Embargo and Release Weapons to Israel Following Rocket Attack on US Soldiers
Glenn Reynolds: Our Crisis Of Institutional Incompetence
Hollywood In Toto: Jack Black Isn’t a Cancel Culture Victim
The Lid: Ohio Judge Clears Way for State Ban on Dangerous Transgender Procedures on Children
Legal Insurrection: Penn State Student Facing Federal Charges Over Alleged Ties to ISIS, Tim Walz’s ‘Mind Your Own Business’ Jab at GOP at Odds With His Draconian COVID Stances, Harvard Student Who Glitter-Bombed School President Faces Felony Charges, Taylor Swift Concerts in Austria Canceled After Alleged ISIS Terror Plot, Cori Bush: ‘AIPAC, I’m Coming to Tear Your Kingdom Down’, Democrats Use Dark Money to Pay Influencers $10,000 to Prop Up Harris-Walz Campaign, and Will Tim Walz Make It To Convention As ‘Stolen Valor’ Scandal Grows? (Reader FLASH POLL)
Nebraska Energy Observer: Civil War in the UK and Walzing to Defeat
Outkick: No Megan Rapinoe, No Problem: USWNT Reaches Gold Medal Game At Olympics, NCAA Gives Jim Harbaugh A Four-Year Show-Cause Penalty For ‘Unethical Conduct’, Recruiting Violations, NFL Star’s Wife Slams Tim Walz With Simple Message, Chiefs Owner’s Daughter Suffers Serious ‘Deep Wound,’ Receives Emergency Surgery, WNBA Rookie Spent The Olympic Break With Her Rumored College Girlfriend, Colorado Buffaloes Must Win Or Deion Sanders’ Message Will Ring Hollow, and Denise Richards Encourages Tori Spelling To Go Topless Behind A Paywall, Tori Wants A Third Boob Job First
Power Line: Freedom, Walz style, Vance Trolls Harris, and China’s Candidate
Shark Tank: FL House Hopeful Steve Shives Receives GOA Endorsement
Shot In The Dark: Under Advisement, also, Just To Be Clear
The Political Hat: Subsidizing Poverty via Free Money From The Government
This Ain’t Hell: Texas Ranger rehired post Uvalde firing, Cori Bush, second ‘squad member’ to lose primary, Tim Walz against free speech, JD Vance trolls Kamala Harris in front of her airplane, and VP Candidate Tim Walz – Stolen Valor Stories
Victory Girls: Tim Walz Has A Blue Falcon Problem
Volokh Conspiracy: Scooby Dooby Doo, Whose Are You?
Watts Up With That: Major Solar Company Files for Bankruptcy After California Strips Subsidies, State of Alaska’s “Priority Climate Plan” (EPA bribe = trouble), Right, Washington Post, Rural Areas Are Significantly Cooler Than Cities, But Please Learn How to Convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, and Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Battle—Seize Land for Green Energy
The Federalist: After Walz Pick, Kamala Can No Longer Deny She’s A Radical Leftist, Courts Stall Georgia Election Official’s Case Months After Dems Threatened Her For Refusing Certification, Watchdog Demands DHS Inspector General Investigate New Abuses Of Surveillance State, Lawsuit Alleges Maricopa County’s Election Chief Is Unlawfully Refusing To Undertake Proper Voter List Maintenance, The Riots In Britain Represent The Total Failure Of Britain’s Governing Class, Simone Biles’ Life Proves Exactly Why ‘Suffering’ Should Never Decide If A Baby Lives Or Dies, and Cori Bush Becomes Second ‘Squad’ Member To Lose Reelection This Year
Mark Steyn: The Fires of August, also, Live Around the Planet: Waltzing Kamala

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In The Mailbox: 08.06.24

Posted on | August 7, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.06.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I would like to think the defeat of Cori Bush is a sign that Reichskanzler Bismarck is still right about the U.S., and that God’s not ready to stick the enema hose in quite yet. Don’t @ me about this; I have to find my happiness where I can this election season.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Caroline Marks of Team USA wins gold in surfing, Kamala Harris Dumps Josh Shapiro for Tim Walz, Kamala Harris: Stay Woke, and Kamala Harris’ Prosecutors Sent This Innocent Man to Prison
Twitchy: Occasional Cortex Tries Dunking On J.D. Vance – But Twitter Showed Up With ALL The Receipts, Forbes Digs #TamponTim Out Of His Red States Are Mostly “Cows & Rocks” Statement, and Here’s #TamponTim “Fixing” The Minnesota Flag
Louder With Crowder: “One man’s socialism”: Five things to know about Kamala Harris VP finalist #TamponTim (Updated)
Vox Popoli: The End Game, A Distinct Lack of Support, Evil Redefines, The Markets Sink, Amanda Palmer Speaks, Clown World is Getting Desperate, and The UK Government Hates the British
Upstream Reviews: Music Review – Angus McSix & The Sword of Power
Stoic Observations: Zombie Biographies
Defending The Wood Perilous: The Devil Appears In The Guise Of An Angel Of Light

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Britain’s Hard Hat Riots
American Greatness: How Trump Can Win—or Lose—the Election, Pelosi Bizarrely Suggests Adding Biden to Mount Rushmore, After Cocaine Was Found in White House, Former USSS Director Cheatle Reportedly Pressured Forensics Team to Destroy the Evidence, New American Greatness Poll Shows Battlegrounds Are a Dead Heat, Rep. Jamie Raskin Says Congress Will Have to Disqualify Trump if He Wins the Election; Civil War Could Ensue, Trump 2.0 Must Expose and Prosecute America’s Enemies—Foreign and Domestic, and Harris Is Recycling the 2020 Democrat Campaign
American Power: Marybeth Hicks, Don’t Let the Kids Drink the Kool-Aid
American Thinker: The ‘Crime’ Harris Was Toughest on was Journalism, also, To Reach Non-Traditional Republican Voters, We Must Speak In Non-Traditional Ways
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Black Monday News
Babalu Blog: As Maduro intensifies repression, opposition leaders call on Venezuelan police and military to side with the people, Russia sends scientists to Cuba to ‘strengthen knowledge’ of Oropouche and Dengue epidemic, Gulp! Filthy ‘drinking water’ flows from taps in Santiago de Cuba, and Nicaraguan Ortega-Murillo dictatorship arrests more Catholic priests
BattleSwarm: Waltzes With Wokeness
CDR Salamander: Another Carrier Enters The Indo-Pacific
Da Tech Guy: Oakland, Gaza and Southport, all self inflicted
Dana Loesch: Meet Tim Walz
Don Surber: Obama finally reveals his agenda
First Street Journal: Dead man walking: Hamas declares Yahya Sinwar as their new political leader
Gates Of Vienna: Covid-19: All Lies. All Crime. — Chapter 15, Targeting Anne Frank, 34 Culture-Enriching Crimes, Bacha Bazi Comes to Trieste, The Rise of the Fourth Reich, A Culture-Enriching Family Business, and Vehicular Jihad in Cologne
The Geller Report: Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin says IF TRUMP WINS Democrats will disqualify him on January 6th, 2025, Calls for Civil War
Hollywood In Toto: Box Office Winners & Losers of Summer 2024, Anchorman Star Pummeled for Comics for Kamala Fundraiser, The Kamala Harris Sketch You’d Never See Today, and Will Late Night Apologize for Sharing Cassidy Hutchinson’s Hoax?
The Lid: More than a Million Fewer Americans Have Jobs Thanks to Failed Biden-Harris Economy
Legal Insurrection: Penn State Trustee Suing School to Gain Access to $5 Billion Endowment Records, Anti-Israel Squad Member Rep. Cori Bush Loses Her Primary, Anti-Israel Student Protesters Preparing to Start Again in the Fall, ‘Traitor’: Guardsman Lashes Out at Walz Again Over Leaving Before Iraq Deployment, Harris-Walz Reactions: ‘He Let BLM Rioters’ Burn Minnesota and She ‘Encouraged Donations’ to Bail Out Those Arrested, Court Allows Antisemitism Case Against Harvard to Proceed, and Van Jones: Harris Appeases ‘Anti-Jewish’ Democrats by Picking Walz
Nebraska Energy Observer: It should come as no surprise
Outkick: Silver Medalist Claims Athletes Have Found Worms In Their Food At Olympic Village, Rips Plant-Based Items, Pitbull Stadium Is Now The Home Of FIU Football Thanks To Historic Deal With ‘Mr. 305’ Himself, Charles Barkley Is Reportedly Not Retiring From Television, Just As Everyone Paying Attention Was Predicting, Serena Williams Shamed By X Community Note, Clarifying Her Story About Bad Treatment At Hotel, Team USA Basketball’s LeBron James Required Stitches After Taking Elbow to the Face Against Brazil, Chicago White Sox Are On Verge Of Wrong Kind Of History, and Olympic Pole Vaulter With Big Penis Gets Big Offer From Adult Site
Power Line: Justice Gorsuch on the Administrative State, The Daily Chart: Food Maps, and It’s Walz!
Shark Tank: GOP Legislators Blast Administration After 99 Terrorists Reportedly Enter Country
Shot In The Dark: Pouncing On Gov. Klink, also, De-Origin Story
STUMP: Chicago Is My Kind Of Town To Beat Up On -2015 Edition, also, Taxing Tuesday
The Political Hat: The True Nature Of The Uniparty: Grift
This Ain’t Hell: Veterans’ service dog provider accused of SV, Kam’s VEEP, Assistant DA, who worked on child endangerment cases, busted in pedophile sting, and Five Tim Waltz controversies
Transterrestrial Musings: An Ongoing Foreign-Policy DIsaster, Joe Rogan Goes Live On Netflix, Kamala Harris And The Masque Of Magical Thinking, Safe Is Not An Option, and On The Plane again
Victory Girls: Tim Walz Is The VEEP Who Let Minneapolis Burn
Volokh Conspiracy: Lawsuit Over Alleged Discriminatory Refusal to Let Church Lease School Property on Weekends Can Go Forward
Watts Up With That: Grauniad Frets “Climate Deniers” make up Nearly a Quarter of US Congress, New EPA Rules Could Dangerously Close Baseload Power Plants, and Is the Future of Nuclear Power in the Wilds of Wyoming?
The Federalist: Cowardly Josh Shapiro Was Right About The Palestinians, The Same Media Who Call Lizzo ‘Healthy’ And Vance ‘Weird’ Are Calling Tim Walz ‘All-American’, No Surprise, David French Completely Botches J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings, More States Reject College Board’s Politicized Dual-Credit Classes, X Sues Global Advertising Giants For Coordinating ‘Illegal’ Boycott Designed To Punish Free Speech, and Walz Let Rioters Burn Minneapolis While Harris Fundraised To Bail Them Out Of Jail
Mark Steyn: “A Global System Change”

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Republicans Dodged a Bullet Today — and Van Jones Tells the Truth About Why!

Posted on | August 6, 2024 | Comments Off on Republicans Dodged a Bullet Today — and Van Jones Tells the Truth About Why!

Folks, if Donald Trump wins in November, today will be remembered as the day that the 2024 election shifted decisively in his favor. While vice-presidential picks rarely affect the outcome of an election (Thomas Eagleton being perhaps the most egregious exception to that rule), Kamala Harris could have made the Electoral College (EC) arithmetic very difficult for Trump if she had chosen Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate. Pennsylvania has 19 EC votes (tied with Illinois as the fifth-largest state) and Shapiro is so popular in the state, it would have made it effectively impossible for Trump to compete there. But snubbing Shapiro, Harris automatically puts those 19 EC votes in play. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz adds no such obvious advantage for the Democrats; in theory, his Midwestern appeal might help Harris in Wisconsin (10 EC votes) and Michigan (15 EC votes), but that’s not nearly as clear-cut as what the Shapiro/Pennsylvania play would have added.

And, of course, there’s the Jewish thing. A week or so ago, when the “short list” of VP contenders was much longer, my brother Kirby more or less predicted that Harris would not pick Shapiro, simply because such a choice would alienate the anti-Semitic segment of the Democratic Party’s coalition. I thought North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper might have a shot but, again, Kirby correctly predicted that wouldn’t happen, because Harris looks likely to lose, and Cooper doesn’t want that stain on his resumé. When the name of Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly was floated as one of the finalists, I was skeptical — really, a bald 60-year-old? — but then Walz was mentioned, and I was like, are you kidding me with this?

However much Harris might want to pander to the pro-Hamas college kids, and the “uncommitted” voters in Dearborn, surely, I thought, the advantages of picking Shapiro were obvious enough.

Hello, Jewish money? Not to play into any stereotypes here, but the Democratic Party collects many millions of dollars in contributions from Jewish donors every year, and with the current situation in the Middle East, one might think that Harris would wish to reassure those donors that the party was still pro-Israel. Because guess what? Trump was arguably the most pro-Israel president ever, and there’s no guarantee that all that money’s going to keep going to Democrats if Democrats are going to be sucking up to the anti-Jewish mobs we’ve seen at Columbia, Harvard and other elite universities. As much as losing Pennsylvania in one election would hurt Democrats, how much worse would they be hurt by alienating Jews permanently? So I was honestly startled this morning when it was announced that Harris had picked Walz and, of all people, CNN’s Van Jones shared my feelings:

Look, Josh Shapiro is a class act from beginning to end. He’s a rising star in this party. He’s done an extraordinary job. . . .
Republicans, they were chewing their fingernails down to the knuckle because they were afraid of a Josh Shapiro, they were afraid of a Mark Kelly, they’re not as afraid of [Walz] . . . [H]ere’s the challenge you’ve got in this party, and you know, people don’t want to talk about it — we got to talk about it.
On the one hand, you have a lot of young people who are concerned about Gaza. You have a lot of Muslims and Arabs and others, they have not felt seen by the Biden administration. You started hearing that genocide joke, that was building that was building and so those folks needed to have a candidate that they could feel comfortable with. This helps him in that regard. But you also have anti-Semitism that has gotten marbled into this party. You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot. But there are some anti-Jewish bigots out there and there’s some disquiet now and there has to be. How much of what just happened is caving into some of these darker parts in the party? So that’s going to have to get worked out. It’s going to have to get talked through.

Republicans are, of course, worried about the election, but we now have a lot less to worry about, thanks to Harris picking Walz.



 

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Category: Election, Kamala Harris, Minnesota, Pennsylvania

Mystified Why Trump Keeps Criticizing Georgia Republicans? Here’s the Answer

Posted on | August 6, 2024 | Comments Off on Mystified Why Trump Keeps Criticizing Georgia Republicans? Here’s the Answer

Was the 2020 election stolen? That’s a yes or no question.

Were I called to testify under oath, I’d have to answer yes.

I’ve talked to friends in Georgia who tell stories of “ballot harvesting” there, and this is completely apart from the arguably unconstitutional rule change that allowed universal vote-by-mail in my native state. (The Constitution gives state legislatures the authority to establish election procedures. The Georgia legislature never changed the law; instead, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger implemented universal vote-by-mail on his own authority, without legislative approval.) We know for a fact that Mark Zuckerberg poured millions into Georgia election activism, specifically in the metro Atlanta area — Clayton, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton and Gwinnett counties — and every Republican who watched the way the official results were reported on Election Night said, “Shenanigans!”

So, yes, I sincerely believe Democrats stole the 2020 election, but that doesn’t make me a “conspiracy theorist,” because I don’t claim to have any detailed proof of how Democrats stole the election. There are people who do make such claims, however, and I have neither the time nor interest to investigate their claims. The media is quick to label any such claim as having been “debunked,” and I don’t care to investigate the alleged “debunking,” either, since it’s neither here nor there in terms of my own general belief about Democratic shenanigans in 2020.

While I have the luxury of being agnostic toward any specific detailed claims regarding 2020 election fraud, others are less fortunate. You see, the whole “J6 insurrection” controversy, including the federal prosecution of Capitol riot participants, as well as legal proceedings against Trump and his allies, are premised on two basic propositions: (a) that the 2020 election was entirely legitimate, and (b) that no reasonable person could believe otherwise. Whereas Trump’s supporters claim they were victims of a political crime, the prosecution of Trump’s supporters portrays them as perpetrators of such a crime, and it is crucial to the defense of anyone so accused to establish that they were acting on a sincere belief that the 2020 election was stolen.

All of this is necessary to understanding why, in his Atlanta rally Saturday, “Trump assailed [Gov. Brian] Kemp in a roughly 10-minute tirade,” as the Associated Press described it. Kemp denies that there is any reason to doubt Joe Biden won Georgia four years ago, and in doing so, effectively sides with Fani Willis in her argument that Trump and his allies were guilty of a crime in trying to prevent certification of that alleged Democratic victory. Some of my conservative friends are perplexed by Trump’s public criticisms of Kemp (and Raffensperger), and certainly it can be argued that airing such intra-party conflicts in the late stages of a crucial election campaign is, uh . . . less than optimal, strategically speaking. (I’m sure my friend Dianna Deeley in Valdosta can speak of less-than-optimal intra-party conflicts locally.)

Those of us who can afford to be agnostic about the specifics of election fraud in 2020 may be tempted to cast aspersions on those who are not so fortunately situated: Why are they so obsessed with this topic? Well, if a prosecutor was trying to put you in prison, you might be “obsessed,” too. And it’s not just Trump. His former spokeswoman and longtime “War Room” contributor Liz Harrington called attention to the ongoing battle between Trump’s supporters and the Georgia Election Board.

You can read the entire complaint, alleging “under the penalty of perjury that the evidence and records are conclusive — Fulton County’s 2020 General Election Recount was intentionally and fraudulently manipulated.” As I say, I don’t have any interest in such details — my eyes glaze over — but then again, no one is trying to put me in prison for my beliefs about election shenanigans. At least not yet, but if Democrats steal the next election, too, maybe we’ll all get locked up. Then we’ll have plenty of time, sitting in jail awaiting trial, to be “obsessed” about it.



 

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Category: Donald Trump, Election, Georgia

Crazy People Are Dangerous: Deranged Florida Family Murders Deputy

Posted on | August 6, 2024 | Comments Off on Crazy People Are Dangerous: Deranged Florida Family Murders Deputy

“She was talking about how she was . . . God’s wife, and we were all demons, and our dogs were hell hounds and all of this, and it was just a crazy and insane moment.”
— witness interviewed by WESH-TV

This story broke over the weekend, but I didn’t report on it immediately because there wasn’t much information on the suspects. A deputy was killed, and two others were wounded, when they were ambushed after responding to a situation that began with a woman attacking her neighbors on Brookside Drive in Lake County, Florida. The woman, subsequently identified as 48-year-old Julie Sulpizio, was under some sort of religious delusion, claiming to be acting on behalf of God against pedophiles and “dark souls.” She was taken into custody for psychiatric evaluation under the Baker Act, but not before encouraging deputies to go to her house. When they followed up, there was no response from the occupants of the residence and, because a screen on one of the windows had been disturbed, deputies suspected that there might have been some kind of home invasion. Lake County Sheriff Peyton Grinnell laid out the details of what happened at a Monday press conference:

“The [911 caller] stated [Julie Sulpizio] was acting religious, accusing them of being sinners, and she knows what they did…” Grinnell explained. “But Julie states that she is ‘Helen’ under God’s will.”
Just before 8 p.m., a deputy arrived at the scene, and despite being ordered otherwise, Sulpizio began to approach the deputy, according to the sheriff’s office. As a result, the deputy pointed his Taser at Sulpizio, prompting her to take a few steps back.
“During a calm verbal exchange, Julie Sulpizio states that ‘they’ — meaning the group of people that was present there — were involved in pedophilia. She again claims to be Helen, and she asked one of the victims that she had battered, ‘Who is your God?’
“Julie Sulpizio stated to them that ‘Julie is in heaven.’
“She then went on to state, ‘You see, the thing is, we needed to trick Lucy.’ And we later learned to be a name she calls Lucifer. She then points at (the deputy) and states, ‘You are one of them.’” . . .
[After Julie Sulpizio was taken into custody] Two deputies then went to Sulpizio’s home — a short walk away — to perform a well-being check on her husband and two daughters — Michael Sulpizio, 48; Cheyenne Sulpizio, 23; and Savannah Sulpizio, 22.
No one answered the door when the deputies arrived, though they saw three people running within the house, Grinnell said. Two small dogs were also found dead in the front yard.
According to investigators, the deputies then heard a “loud banging” and discovered an open window with the screen kicked out, which sparked concern over the well-being of Michael Sulpizio and the two daughters.
As a result, the deputies called for backup, believing some kind of home invasion or burglary had taken place.
In addition, investigators interviewing neighbors discovered that Michael Sulpizio a few days prior had allegedly threatened to shoot the neighbor’s children the next time he saw them, Grinnell said.
Just after 9 p.m., four deputies attempted to enter through the rear door at the driveway, announcing their entry, Grinnell added.
“As Master Deputy (Bradley) Link crossed the threshold into the hallway, his body-worn camera captures several frames of what appears to be a male in a black-sleeve T-shirt or body armor positioned with a rifle on the arm of a couch, waiting to ambush deputies,” the sheriff explained.
Investigators reported that the deputies were then met with heavy gunfire, which struck Link in the back. Someone also began shooting at the deputies outside, and another deputy — Master Deputy Sheriff Harold Howell, 41 — was also injured by the gunfire.
Link was immobilized, though the remaining deputies cleared out of the home, Grinnell explained. Investigators tried to negotiate with those inside the home to release Link, but they were refused.
“Master Deputy Link’s body-worn camera continuously recorded audio and video from within the residence facing up toward the ceiling, and at 9:24 p.m., a female yells from within the residence as she racks a firearm and states, ‘My king will kill all of you. You are Lucifer’s children,’” Grinnell said. “This was in response to deputies yelling for Master Deputy Link to crawl to them.”
Afterward, a plan was put in place to rescue Link. According to Grinnell, Deputy First Class Stefano Gargano, 28, led a rescue team inside while using a ballistic shield as cover.
However, Gargano was shot several times through the wall as he moved through the home, causing him to be incapacitated, according to the sheriff’s office. He was ultimately extracted from the home and taken to the hospital in critical condition.\
Eventually, a SWAT team was able to get into the home and rescue Link, though he later died from his wounds at the hospital.
Cheyenne Sulpizio and Savannah Sulpizio were also found dead inside the home, having shot themselves in the head, Grinnell said. Michael Sulpizio was also found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head, and he died at the hospital afterward, Grinnell added. . . .
Inside the home, investigators found over 20 firearms, stockpiled ammunition, gas masks, body armor, ghillie suits, medical bags, MREs and bottled water, alongside “anti-government propaganda” and “conspiracy-theory-related media,” Grinnell said.
In a later interview with Julie Sulpizio, she told detectives that her name is actually “Helen” and that God speaks through her, Grinnell continued. He added that Julie Sulpizio told them her husband Michael Sulpizio was actually the biblical guardian angel Michael, who obeyed God’s commands through her.
“She stated that she was trying to lure the neighbors to her residence so that Michael could kill them,” Grinnell stated. “She was not successful because of our deputies.”
Sulpizio faces charges of premeditated first-degree murder on a law enforcement officer, seven counts of attempted murder, and four counts of battery.

While the investigation is still ongoing, the sheriff and his lead detective said enough during the press conference that we know the family was socially isolated. The two daughters had reportedly been withdrawn from school when they were middle-school age, and did not have access to TV or other media. Despite the evidence of religious mania, there is no report of the family attending any church. The sheriff said the family were not “on the radar” of local law enforcement as any kind of extremist threat.

So there are still lots of unanswered questions, but this would seem to be what we might call “QAnon adjacent” insanity. How it got to the stage where deputies were ambushed in this manner, that’s the real puzzle. I mean, there’s lots of people out there with kooky ideas, without ever resorting to deadly violence. Three of the suspects in this case are dead, and the survivor in custody is so crazy that there’s a real chance she’ll be found incompetent to stand trial, which means that detectives face a difficult task of putting together a coherent narrative about how this family descended into dangerous lunacy. But as always, we know what the real lesson is: Crazy People Are Dangerous.



 

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Category: Crime, Florida
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