DogFaceponia undercover spies have reported on last-minute alterations that ABC is making to support Kamala Harris in the upcoming debate. With their help, Kamala is a sure winner.Following are the debate…

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Lost love... The post ‘River’: how Joni Mitchell created the saddest break-up song ever written first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

ABC News has now published the final rules for Tuesday night’s presidential debate, and they are essentially identical to those which governed the June 27 encounter between former President Trump and President Biden on CNN. They contain nothing that should worry anyone who can stand on stage for 90 minutes and provide coherent two-minute answers to questions involving the major issues of the day. In 2020, you will recall, a single exchange with then-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard essentially destroyed the Harris presidential campaign. Yet Vice President Harris will be on the stage with Trump Tuesday night precisely because her boss couldn’t get over that low bar. Nor is it obvious that she can clear it either. The Harris campaign is well aware of her rhetorical limitations, of course. Thus, after insisting that Trump was somehow obligated to debate her on Tuesday because he had agreed to face off with Biden that night, the Harris team promptly tried to change the rules. They pressured ABC to drop the “muted microphone” precondition originally put in place pursuant to a demand made by the Biden campaign. It was meant to protect the President, but it worked in Trump’s favor by forcing him to remain quiet while Biden imploded. According to a report in Politico, however, the Harris campaign contended that this rule unfairly constrains her: Harris and her team — holed up in Pittsburgh for a multi-day debate camp — wanted unmuted microphones so that the vice president could lean on her prosecutorial background, confronting the former president in the same way she laced into some of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees and Cabinet members during Senate hearings … Harris campaign officials argued that she will be “handcuffed” by the rules, which were negotiated by President Joe Biden’s team earlier this summer. The claim that Harris wanted to “lean on her prosecutorial background” in the debate is nonsense. It would violate several debate rules, including this stipulation: “Candidates will not be permitted to ask questions of each other.” A more plausible explanation for their objection to the muted microphone rule involves their fear of what she might say if permitted to speak extemporaneously for even a couple of minutes. They are afraid she might revert to factory settings and start churning out word salads. The Harris campaign wants Trump to interrupt her before she says something that permanently damages her campaign. Is the Harris Campaign Losing Steam? The campaign is already losing steam. Her razor thin lead in the national polls is evaporating according to the RCP average, having declined from 1.9 to 1.4 points in a single week. Likewise, not one of her microscopic leads in the battleground states exceeds the margin of error. This is particularly deadly in Pennsylvania, a state that is a must win for her in the Electoral College. RCP shows her tied with Trump in the Keystone State. And it gets worse. According to statistician Nate Silver, the probability of Harris winning the electoral college has declined to 36 percent. Silver writes that this is largely due to the NYT/Siena survey: A new New York Times/Siena College poll this morning contained excellent news for Donald Trump, showing him 1 point ahead in a head-to-head matchup against Kamala Harris and 2 points up with minor candidates included. This is one of our highest-rated pollsters, so it has a fair amount of influence on the numbers … The good news for Harris is that there’s a debate on Tuesday, and if she turns in a strong performance, nobody is going to care so much about the Times poll. This obviously brings us back to Harris’ ability to turn in a “strong performance” against Trump — or anyone else for that matter. In 2020, you will recall, a single exchange with then-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard essentially destroyed the Harris presidential campaign. She will no doubt have some help from the ABC moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, but the format of the debate will force her to do something she has been avoiding since she was elevated to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket. Tuesday night she will need to coherently answer a lot of questions on live television under the eye of millions of real voters. It really doesn’t matter if she gets softball questions or serious policy questions. She has demonstrated over and over again that she can’t handle either without drifting off into the rhetorical ether like a lost balloon from a child’s birthday party. Moreover, it’s likely that the five days of debate camp during which her campaign staff and outside consultants will attempt to teach her to communicate clearly will actually achieve the opposite result. For readers old enough to remember the Reagan years, a similar process caused “the great communicator” to crash and burn during his first debate with Walter Mondale in 1984. Reagan recovered from that debacle in the following debate because he had a real gift for public speaking and his most trusted advisors insisted that his coaches “let Reagan be Reagan.” It worked and he later won the 1984 election by a stupendous popular and Electoral College landslide. In the case of our VP, this would never work. Why not? Because there is no authentic Kamala Harris to unleash. Like the lost balloon from the birthday party, she is empty inside and the lighter than air gas that has kept her aloft is escaping. Will there be enough left get her over the rhetorical bar that balked President Biden? It isn’t likely. READ MORE from David Catron: Hiding Candidates Is Now SOP for Democrats Harris Will Lose Unless Her Polls Rise Sharply The post Harris Will Defeat Herself During Debate appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

A movie critic X friend of mine, Movie Mad Motto, regularly cites the films he’s watched or is about to watch. What I like about his posts is that though Rob is much younger than me, he appreciates old films and astutely disparages most new ones. Case in point, amid all the intra-Industry manufactured fervor for the recent box-office bomb Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Rob pegged it for the feminist fantasy claptrap it was. “Most current actors are minority acolytes to the ubiquitous and ridiculous girl boss protagonist.” Conversely, he compiled a list of the ‎100 Best Westerns Of All Time that includes such lesser known gems as The Violent Men with Glenn Ford and 70s anti-Western Lawman starring Burt Lancaster. Rob’s level of next generational insight suggests not all young people have been brainwashed by woke media culture. And that cinema may not be a totally lost art, despite the best efforts and ignorance of Hollywood to bury it. For instance, last week Rob posited that homosexual representation on screen far outweighs the actual gay population. “Being gay will never be mainstream,” he tweeted. In the usual display of leftist obliviousness, instead of addressing his point, they attacked him for homophobia with homophobic slurs. “You say that while looking like you drink cum hourly,” responded one of many idiots. So, Rob had to waste time clarifying the obvious. “Gay people make up 10% of the population. My point was that as much as gay relationships and themes are presented as much more common in entertainment and art it’ll never be relevant to most people. This should be obvious, but this is also Twitter.” Last weekend, Rob posted he’d just watched Billy Wilder’s sublime Witness for the Prosecution (1957), based on a short story turned play by Agatha Christie. The picture is so clever that revealing the surprise ending would be a spoiler even today, unlike famous modern finale twists like in The Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects. In my reply to Rob, I suggested several other reasons for the film’s superiority over almost all current fare. “They don’t make movies like Prosecution anymore about clever, likable, positive, ethical people,” I wrote. “Sadly, even British justice has become weaponized.” See my August article here on new socialist, er, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Metropolitan Police Commissioner sheepdog Mark Rowley threatening to jail UK citizens for regime-disapproved online political speech, like criticizing mass migration. (READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: Reagan Made Me a Conservative) Witness for the Prosecution depicts a much more majestic legal system, represented by a moral hero worthy of the land that created jurisprudence via the Magna Carta. “No free man may suffer punishment without the lawful judgment of his peers,” decreed the revolutionary document more than 800 years ago (1215). It’s a lesson not only tyrannical British leaders have forgotten, but their American counterparts as well, now waging endless lawfare on their chief electoral opponent and probable next President of the United States. But my other point is just as salient regarding the hero of Witness for the Prosecution, barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts, a noble legal crusader delightfully portrayed by Charles Laughton. Sir Wilfrid reacts with righteous outrage at a perversion of justice in the story. He would doubtless condemn his profession’s contemporary mutation into a political guillotine. That he’s also a heterosexual (Laughton’s real-life sexual proclivity notwithstanding) aristocratic white man in a colonialist nation makes him an unlikely subject for a Hollywoke remake. To the list of unlikely Hollywoke heroes, I must add the protagonist of my new political detective thriller The Washington Trail — private eye Mark Slade. This hit me during a fun interview I did with the Daily Wire. Editor Joel Kneedler asked me what should have been a dream question for an author, “If (and when) The Washington Trail gets turned into a movie, which actor do you see playing Slade?” I soon realized I could only indirectly answer him, due to the sad state of modern screen casting. “My trouble is that Slade and Cork are young men (32), and I haven’t seen a recent movie featuring a virile, commanding young white male lead in a decade,” I said. “Most current actors are minority acolytes to the ubiquitous and ridiculous girl boss protagonist. But if there’s a young Sean Connery out there, then I’d love to hear him say, ‘My name is Slade — Mark Slade.’” A Hero Made for the Movies In fact it took an independent producer to make a good, positive movie about one of the greatest men of the 20th Century, Reagan. And if Hollywoke had a clue instead of a self-destructive leftwing agenda, they’d make a movie or TV series based on one of the greatest heroes of the 21st Century, Elon Musk. But there’s only one drawback. They hate his guts for letting those outside their elitist liberal bubble have their say. Here’s my pitch to a sharp producer for the series, Rocket Man: “In the vein of Arthur Hailey. A multi-billionaire engineer who revolutionized the electric vehicle industry buys a social media platform to save free speech from tyrannical censorship and must repel domestic and international lawfare while building rockets to take men to Mars.”(READ MORE: Election 2024: Real Men vs. Feminist Women and ‘Men’) Episode One (pilot). When DEI incompetence junks a NASA corporate contractee’s spacecraft leaving two astronauts stranded on a space station, the liberal Administration has no choice but to seek help from their number one civilian target, Nathan Burke, even as he joins their challenger’s campaign against them. Rocket Man would be a monster hit, along with The Washington Trail, but not in Hollywoke. ____ Praise for Lou Aguilar’s The Washington Trail: “If ever a city needed a couple of tough guys to bust some kneecaps, it’s Washington D.C. Go get ’em, Slade and Cork.” — Andrew Klavan, author of the Cameron Winter mysteries, including the brand new A Woman Underground The post Hollywoke Heroes and Movies We’ll Never See appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

On October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israelis and 32 Americans. They also took some 240 hostages, among them at least eight Americans. Four of the American hostages (and about 100 Israelis) were still believed to be alive last week before Hamas murdered six hostages when Israeli forces attempted a rescue. One of the six murdered was an American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a man of dual American and Israeli citizenship. Only indicting three terrorists in response to Goldberg-Polin’s murder is simply ridiculous. We had to do more. The fact that the six were murdered was clear from the condition of their subsequently recovered bodies. Each had been shot a number of times. Afterward, Hamas said that any Israeli hostage rescue attempts would result in the murder of more hostages. (READ MORE from Jed Babbin: Questions for Kamala Harris) In response to this latest murder, the Biden administration announced that it has indicted six leaders of Hamas, three of whom are, according to the Israelis, already dead. Indictments against all six, including the three who are alive — Yayah Sinwar, Khaled Meshaal (who lives in a Qatari luxury hotel) and Ali Baraka — a popular guest on Lebanese television — were unsealed on Tuesday. They are accused of “planning, supporting the terrorist atrocities Hamas committed.” The weakness of that response would be shocking were it not from the Biden-Harris gang. It’s a billion-to-one shot that the three would ever be in U.S. custody because they’re not likely to escape Israel’s determination to kill them. If they were in U.S. hands, we should immediately turn them over to the Israelis. (Yayah Sinwar is reportedly trying to escape — taking some of the hostages with him — through Egypt to Iran.) Indicting these murderers is a U.S. confession of weakness, which is consistent with the Biden-Harris’s diplomacy throughout its time in office. It’s a purely diplomatic and legal response when America’s response should have taken another form entirely. It’s redundant evidence of why our allies no longer respect us and our enemies no longer fear us. There were times when America actually made efforts to protect its citizens and took what we call these days “kinetic action” in response to Americans being kidnapped or murdered. Teddy Roosevelt must be spinning in his grave. We should remember that in 1904, he sent a fleet to Morocco vowing that the taker of an American hostage and his son — Ion Perdicaris — would be sent home alive or the hostage-taker, Raisuli, would be killed. “Perdicaris alive, or Raisuli dead” was Teddy’s motto in the 1904 election. Perdicaris and his son were released. After the 9-11 attacks killed almost 3,000 Americans, we went to war with the Taliban in Afghanistan. President George W. Bush gave them the choice between turning over bin Laden to us and war, and the Taliban chose war. We posted a multi-million-dollar reward for bin Laden alive or, preferably, dead. It took a decade for the CIA and NSA to find bin Laden and one dark night for SEAL Team Six to kill him. We should remember that when Obama and his team met in the White House situation room to decide on the bin Laden mission, Joe Biden was the only dissenting voice. As I’ve written elsewhere, the Democratic platform Kamala Harris is running on complains that we spend 13 times more on defense than on diplomacy. It promises to “balance” defense spending — i.e., cut the defense budget significantly — to provide more money for diplomacy and other “urgent” domestic spending priorities. That means slashing the defense budget at a time when we are unprepared for new wars. Only indicting three terrorists in response to Goldberg-Polin’s murder is simply ridiculous. We had to do more, much more, in response to his murder. We should, at least, have condemned Hamas and posted rewards for the three Hamas leaders, dead or alive. Preferably dead. The Israelis aim to kill all three and we should not stand in their way. From the Biden-Harris administration, Hamas has never heard a discouraging word. Nor has Iran, of which Hamas is a proxy force. As the late Donald Rumsfeld was fond of saying, weakness is provocative. The murder of Goldberg-Polin should have been expected, as are the murders of the 100 other hostages Hamas still holds. Recusing hostages is an enormously dangerous and risky task for both the rescuers and hostages. In Vietnam, soldiers who crawled into the narrow tunnels the Vietcong had dug — armed with only a flashlight and a pistol — were called “tunnel rats.” These days, Israeli soldiers searching for Hamas’s hostages go through tunnels wide and tall enough to drive a truck through. Those tunnels have a variety of booby-traps, meant to kill the Israeli soldiers, as well as motion sensors, remote tv cameras and other devices meant to warn the terrorists of their approach. Hostage rescue is a slow and dangerous process for both the would-be rescuers and the hostages. We should applaud their efforts and support Israel, not Hamas, as Biden and Harris have done. Nowhere to be seen are our special forces troops such as the Navy’s SEALs or the Army’s Delta Force both of which are expert in hostage rescues. It may be that the Israelis don’t want our help, but it probably was never offered. We should make it a priority for our intelligence community to help the Israelis find the three terrorists and do everything else we can to help them do so. (READ MORE: Biden’s Phantom Truce) If Mr. Trump wins in November we should expect him to do that and more to help the Israelis. It’s entirely natural to be angry with Biden and Harris for their failure to even demand the release of American and Israeli hostages.  Their failure made possible the murder of the six hostages including Goldberg-Polin. The post Our Response to Hamas’ Murder of Hersh Goldberg-Polin appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, Vice President Kamala Harris has hammered former President Donald J. Trump for laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on August 26 — the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate terrorist bombing at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. Amid the Biden-Harris Administration’s calamitous retreat from Afghanistan, an Islamofascist suicide bomber murdered 13 U.S. GIs and wounded 18 other Americans in uniform. At least 168 Afghans were killed, and 150 more injured. Kamala actively attacked him via social media for doing what she has been too callous to attempt. In an even more bizarre complaint, a Trump advance man allegedly jostled an Arlington National Cemetery employee who, naturally, is anonymous and suddenly declined to file a report on the alleged incident for fear of retaliation — even though Trump is out of power (something that, to be fair, might change, and should). Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung denied the dustup: “As the Army has said, they consider this matter closed. President Trump was there to support the Gold Star families and honor the sacrifices their loved ones made.” Joe Biden standing at an Arlington Cemetery on May 31, 2010, included in a 2020 Biden for President campaign ad. Chueng added that a 2020 Biden for President ad showed him at an Arlington grave on May 31, 2010. Barely acknowledged in this controversy is the fact that Trump did not barge in on a private memorial ceremony. The Gold Star families invited him to attend. So, he did. (READ MORE from Deroy Murdoch: Trump and the Kennedys for Tax Cuts, Kamala Not) Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Sergeant Nicole Leeann Gee, said: “This year, for the third-year anniversary of her murder, we welcomed President Donald J. Trump to Arlington to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with our family and to visit Nicole’s graveside. President Trump and his team were respectful. They listened to our stories and didn’t talk much at all. We welcomed them that day, and they were a comfort to our family.” “President Trump was invited by those families who have their soldiers buried at Arlington,” said Jaclyn Schmitz, Gold Star Mother of Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz. “He was invited there as a friend, as somebody who has taken the time, numerous times on numerous occasions, to hear our stories, to speak our kids’ names.” “President Trump has been there for us,” said Jim McCollum, Gold Star Father of Lance Corporal Rylee McCollum. “He’s been a rock for us. He showed compassion for us, and he showed he truly cares for the families that truly do know what the ultimate sacrifice really is.” As for the video camera, recording the event was not Trump’s idea. The Gold Star families wanted the occasion captured for posterity. “We are the ones that asked for the video and the pictures to be taken,” said Darin Hoover, Gold Star Father of Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover. “Again, we asked the Trump team to take the videos, take the pictures of our time there,” he added. “Let it be clear: There was no politics discussed, none whatsoever. There was also not an assault that we observed take place or did we hear it. I do not know where this is coming from, but it is disgusting and gross.” So, Trump agreed to the families’ request and brought a videographer. Regular news cameras also were at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after Trump’s participation went public. He could not stop those cameras from being there, nor should he have. The Biden-Harris regime perpetrates enough censorship without Trump’s help. Rather than dash in and out for a photo op, like a true political opportunist, Trump stayed and grieved with the families of these murdered American service personnel. Rather than applaud Trump, or at least have the good taste to keep quiet about his honoring America’s fallen, Kamala and her domestic help in the media slammed Trump for being there. Meanwhile, Kamala issued a box-checking press release and evidently hung out at the US Naval Observatory, her official residence, just 15 minutes away via motorcade. For his part, President Joe Biden kept working on his tan at Rehoboth Beach. Neither could face the families of those who were butchered by a terrorist who most assuredly would have been too far away to harm anyone, had America left Afghanistan via the once-secure Bagram Air Base rather than the chaotic airport in downtown Kabul. Meanwhile, if Trump had decided to stay out of the equation and declined the Gold Star families’ request to join them at Arlington, the exact same Leftists who are roaring against Trump today would attack him for not being there. One can imagine the headlines, all too easily: It’s All About Him: Trump Disses Grieving Gold Star Families Who Mourn Abbey Gate’s Victims Trump to Gold Star Families: Lay Your Own Goddamn Wreath Trump Tells Survivors of Abbey Gate Blast: Take this Wreath and Shove It There literally is nothing that Donald J. Trump can do to satisfy his malignant critics. NOTHING. For her part, all Kamala had to do was keep her big mouth shut. Instead, she attacked Trump for comforting the survivors of 13 GIs who were slaughtered, thanks to the Biden-Harris policy of strategic bedlam. She brags about being “the last person in the room” who could have talked Biden out of his deadly withdrawal plan but did not. “It is a solemn place,” Kamala said of Arlington National Cemetery, via X. She added on August 31: “Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt.” Kamala’s comments enflamed the Gold Star kin. Over Labor Day weekend, they released eight videos that tore into the Democrat standard bearer. The Gateway Pundit highlighted these statements, some of which are quoted above, and below. They are powerful, heartfelt, and genuine. The DIY look of these videos makes them even more devastating. “This message is intended for Vice-President Kamala Harris,” Herman Lopez, Gold Star father of Corporal Hunter Lopez, said on August 31. “It’s been three years since my son was killed in action and myself, my family and other Gold Star families have not seen any support from you or your administration,” he continued. “These promises from Kamala Harris, especially in regard to supporting the military and our military families, are false and baseless. They have not been proven, and she has not earned our respect.” Steve Nikoui, Gold Star father of Lance Corporal Kareem M. Nikoui, told Harris: “At no time have you reached out to me to offer your condolences, to offer thank you for Kareem’s sacrifice and service. Not once have you honored him by saying his name, so I said it for you. You have disparaged all 13 who have lost their lives as well as their families, exhibiting your lack of gratitude by your silence.” Mark Schmitz, father of Marine Lance Corporal Jared M. Schmitz, seemed the most chilled by Kamala’s icy heart. “Here we are on a beautiful holiday weekend day. I got to stop what I’m doing, spending time with what’s left of my family to address a heinous, vile, and disgusting post put out by Kamala Harris,” Schmitz said. “You have 13 families who have been waiting over three years to so much as get a phone call, to so much as hear our kids’ names said aloud in the halls of Congress, at a state of the Union. Hell, anything,” he added. “You’re despicable,” Schmitz berated Kamala, looking directly into the camera. “You have zero business running this country. And I pray to God, Americans, wake the hell up and get your ass out of office. You have spit in our face for the last fucking time.” Kamala’s defenders might respond that she is a busy woman with places to go and things to do. Nevertheless, she didn’t bother to attend the dignified-transfer ceremony in Dover, Delaware, where the Abbey Gate 13 came home in steel containers. Biden frosted the bereaved at that gathering by repeatedly checking his watch. But at least he was there. Kamala was a no-show. (READ MORE: Donald J. Trump: Kommandant-in-Chief?) Even more disrespectfully, for three full years, Kamala never picked up a telephone while jetting about on Air Force Two to ring these people and simply say: “I feel your pain. I am sorry for your loss. How are you and your loved ones feeling these days? America thanks you for your relative’s service and mourns with you. I need to go now. Goodbye.” Starting in September 2021, Kamala could have made one such call per month and completed this entire task in September 2022. Would that have killed her? If this were emotionally draining, she would have had 30 full days between calls to rest, recover, and compose herself. But even that was beneath her. Regardless, Kamala mustered the energy to lash out at Trump for showing care and concern for these sorrowful American families. Rather than plagiarize Trump’s example (as she did when she ripped off his No Tax on Tips proposal), praise his initiative, or simply grind her molars in silence, Kamala actively attacked him via social media for doing what she has been too callous to attempt. Kamala’s cruelty is contagious. Her running mate, Governor Tim Walz (D – Minnesota), answered softball media questions at the State Fair in St. Cloud on September 1. And then someone dared to ask about the Israel Defense Forces’ discovery of five Israelis and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, an Israeli-American dual citizen. Hamas executed them all, as IDF rescuers closed in. “What’s your reaction to the six hostages being found dead in Gaza?” a journalist wondered. “Alright, thanks, everybody,” the Democrat vice-presidential nominee dodged. He spun around and strolled away while holding a vanilla milkshake. If this episode foreshadows coming events, a Harris-Walz Administration would be a deep, shameful nadir from which America would be lucky ever to escape. Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor. The post Kamala Actually Slammed Trump for Honoring Gold Star Families appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In the course of a week, Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, then John McCain’s son did, and then Dick Cheney. Their public statements have consequence for a reason they did not intend. Trump’s rise in the GOP has generated a long-overdue debate in the party, pitting a deeper populist conservative philosophy against the RINO “classic conservative” worldview. There are some Republicans in between, but they are hard to locate. Most have taken sides. Liz Cheney was a rising superstar in the GOP right wing … Then she replaced her red state with a bullfighter’s red cloak, charging full-steam ahead at Trump. Two Types of Republicans Two types of people have associated with and registered as Republicans. One group, which we can call Republicans In Name Only (RINO) or “Never Trumpers,” identify as more conservative than woke “progressivism” or even extreme liberalism. They are somewhere between “moderate conservative” and the “center.” They are like the “Conservative Party” of England, quite liberal but conservative only as compared to communists, socialists, and extreme labor union activists. (READ MORE from Dov Fischer: The Ocasio Convention) Those RINOs would prefer tightening the borders but can be quite comfortable with a steady trickle of illegal aliens, as long as they are fewer than a million or two a year. They use the old Jeb! Bush argument that Hispanics never will vote for Republicans if we enforce our southern border, so we never will win elections. Many of those RINOs also are titans in Big Business and actually want Illegals flooding in because they work for peanuts, glad to take whatever they can get. That brings down wages for American workers in the lower economic rungs, amplifying profits for RINOs like the Koch Brothers, the Bain Capital crowd, and the like. RINOs want “free trade agreements” because “classical conservative free-market economics” calls for it as a religious sacrament and increases their profits. It allows them to purchase goods and materials from China and other foreign producers cheaper than if they had to buy American, where prices are affected by union demands, workers’ legitimate needs for a fair living wage, healthcare, Social Security and Medicare protections, and other benefits. Free trade agreements also work great for RINOs because they can move their businesses overseas to avoid extra American labor costs and government regulations. Through “free trade,” they can move to Mexico or China and make more money. Meanwhile, back home, tens of thousands of once-good-paying jobs disappear. Few “Never Trumpers” are based in high-crime inner cities. They have college and graduate degrees, memberships in country clubs, time and money for golf. They want unimpeded drilling for American energy, but they can afford the “Green New Deal’s” excesses if they must. They don’t care about abortion, this way or that. Many have guns, others don’t. Many have religion, others don’t. Think of the Koch Brothers, Mitt Romney, the first George Bush (H.W.) and Jeb! Bush, James A. Baker, and a wonderful writer, George Will. And another, Peggy Noonan. I distinguish between ideas and persons. If he writes well and injects great anecdotes, I will grant him that publicly. And that is the great tragedy of the Never Trump RINO. Until Trump, true right-wing conservatives have not had a chance to vote these past 50 years for our guys for president, except for Ronald Reagan, who at least powerfully talked the talk and was solid on foreign affairs. Nixon was not a true conservative — price controls, Big Government, some terrible justices, excessive eagerness to open to Russia and China. Ford was a mixed bag, honorable but weak. To fight the Left, we need strong. George H.W. Bush: “Read My Lips.” Bob Dole was past his prime and too deeply a part of the Beltway. John McCain and Mitt Romney were just awful, unduly elevated by early New Hampshire primaries with crossover voting. None of the above satisfied the GOP rank and file, but we voted for them. We did not want McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, Hillary, or Biden. We were true and went with the better — or least bad — choice, the choice that probably would pick less awful justices and judges, might keep a few Illegals out, might say a kind word about the cops, might let the energy industry drill or frack a bit, and might keep the military stronger or at least less rainbow-colored. (READ MORE: Columbia University Stinks Just a Bit Less Today) We did not allow personal feelings of disappointment about a GOP candidate drive us to the Dark Side. Country came and comes first. By contrast, regard RINO Never Trumpers. To become the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, Trump had to take on Jeb! Bush. Jeb! had been coronated by the media and the RINO elite as the undisputed nominee. The RINO donors all lined up. Media wrote about the first three-president dynasty. (John Quincy Adams (#6) was the son of John Adams (#2). FDR (#32) was Teddy’s (#26) fifth cousin. Benjamin Harrison (#23) was the grandson of William Henry Harrison (#9). James Madison (#4) was second cousin to Zachary Taylor (#12).) It was in the bag. All they needed to say was “Jeb!” Trump Busts the RINO Monopoly And then came Trump. He captured the essence of Jeb! in that first debate, tagging him as “low energy,” and Jeb! never recovered. Here is how the RINO insanity ensued: Trump beat Jeb! in a rough way, and he distinguished himself from the RINOs, putting him at odds with the whole Bush clan. Dick Cheney — actually, an excellent conservative — has been a lifelong intimate of the Bush family. He was Secretary of Defense to George H.W. Bush and then Vice President to George Dubya Bush. He had no private schemes to become a president afterward. He simply served his country honorably while manifestly devoting the deepest loyalty to the Bush family. In return, Dubya accorded him enormous power as Vice President. Since Trump ended up at odds with the Bushes, and since Cheney is tight with the Bushes, Cheney evolved to endorse the wild-radical extreme-woke Harris over Trump. On the one hand, it makes no sense. But this is the craziness of the RINO world. To hurt Trump, Cheney would rather see a 15-justice Supreme Court comprised of 15 Sotomayors and the likes of the One Who Cannot Define “Woman” than to see nine Scalias, Alitos, and Thomases. He would rather see the great American military over which he presided succumb to transgenderism and sensitivity training than to prepare for nuclear Iran, China, North Korea, and Russia. Thus his daughter. One day, Liz Cheney was a rising superstar in the GOP right wing, rooted in red state Wyoming. Then she replaced her red state with a bullfighter’s red cloak, charging full-steam ahead at Trump. She ended up like the bull. And the same with the McCain clan, who turned out to be very petty people behind the veneer and façade of gentility. Their tell-tale sign: They refused to invite Sarah Palin to the memorial for John. How petty and small! In time, all things become clear. Sometimes right away. Sometimes after a few years. Sometimes after a lifetime. As we look back on Joe Biden’s term, so many more see now what was clear to many of us four years ago. He never intended to be a unifier but to actualize Obama’s tearing up of the American fabric. He never was going to honor his promises in Scranton to free the energy industry and to allow unbridled fracking. He never was going to protect the border. And he campaigned from his basement not primarily because of COVID but because he was a gaffe machine. For years, he denied that he had been in cahoots with Hunter’s corruption, bringing millions from Ukraine and China to the entire Biden criminal enterprise. The media covered for Biden and Hunter. During the 2020 election cycle, social media barred mention of the laptop, and the corrupt Bidens and media found support among the corrupt infesting the intelligence community, all claiming “Russian disinformation.” Now Hunter pleads guilty to everything and probably will get sentenced to 10-17 years in prison as part of a scam that will see him pardoned by the Big Guy in four months. One final Biden “Catch and Grab.” As we consider now, eight years after 2016, what kind of president Jeb! really would have been, our political Rosetta Stone is Ana Navarro. Jeb! introduced her to us as a great Republican, a member of his transition team, his Director of Immigration Policy. She likewise had been an advisor to John McCain. We otherwise had no idea who this character was. She was the Great Hispanic Republican. Now, a few years later, we know. Imagine if she had been Jeb! Bush’s Mayorkas in charge of the border. It does not take great insight to understand why the GOP rank and file — the people who actually vote — have associated with Trump’s leadership in reconfiguring and metamorphosing the GOP. Whether a Republican voter has advanced graduate degrees for white-collar professions or works on assembly lines (in or out of unions) or in mines, today’s GOP voters share so much in common. None ever wanted McCain or Romney as choices but gamely voted for them anyway, resisting any notion to vote for Obama as a “Never Mitt” or “Never McCain” sore sport protest. Republican voters want tough on crime; no-compromise tough on the border; “Drill, baby, drill!” and fracking. Uniformly, the Republican voter wants our military spared from sensitivity training to embrace a culture of LGBTQIA+++ sex-change, orange-and-blue hair, 18 face rings in the nose, the eyelids, the tongue, and whatever else is next in the rainbow. This is what a conservative American wants: schools where kids and grandkids are spared that LGBTQIA+++ junk, too. Parents and other taxpayers don’t want to send our boys to effectuate regime change, but do want a defense posture that is so strong and imposing that it prevents foreign entanglements and wars simply by projecting the Armageddon that awaits any who dare mess with the U.S.A. The rank-and-file Republican voter does not do country clubs, by and large, but takes the family for a modest dinner at Cracker Barrel or Denny’s. If they can’t afford Disneyland more than once in a lifetime, and can’t stand the choices offered in the movies, they stream at home or watch I Love Lucy reruns. American mainstream conservatives want protective tariffs to even an uneven world market where everyone else tariffs us anyway, while denying the workers in their countries decent wages and benefits. Tariffs keep corporations at home, and that means jobs for Americans. Sensible people don’t want trillions pumped unnecessarily into the economy, triggering spiraling inflation that leads the price of food to become so expensive that families have to skip a meal every day, and middle-class professionals can no longer afford to go to Starbucks once a week. Then interest rates skyrocket to subdue the out-of-control inflation, and those rate hikes cause mortgage rates to skyrocket in tandem. As a result of that: With mortgages at such rates, new buyers cannot afford to buy their first homes; Current homeowners cannot afford to sell and move to new homes because they dare not lose their Trump-era 2.75 percent mortgage for a new Democrat-era 6.75 percent mortgage; Therefore, new buyers are further shut out as the supply of houses on the market gets choked off, further propelling purchase prices according to the law of supply and demand; and Landlords, watching house-purchase prices explode, accordingly explode the prices they charge for their rentals. As a result, unlike the Trump years, wage increases do not keep up with rising living costs. At election time, sensible Republicans do not allow personal vendettas to impel them to endorse and vote for left-wing Democrats. If the McCains and Cheneys cannot figure this all out, so be it. But they have exposed why the GOP rank and file moved to Trump from the RINOs. In most cases, not because they love everything about Trump, his comportment, and his wince-generating moments, but because he stands for what they stand for, and he has a record that proves he is far more than bombast and actually gets things done, changing the playing field. Subscribe to Rav Fischer’s YouTube channel here at bit.ly/3REFTbk and follow him on X (Twitter) at @DovFischerRabbi to find his latest classes, interviews, speeches, and observations. To be invited to attend his three weekly Zoom classes, send a request to rabbi@yioc.org The post Liz Cheney and the Reason MAGA Voters Side with Trump appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Imagine if, on the upcoming anniversary of 9/11, crowds of people filled America’s streets to praise the devastating terrorist attacks as an act of “resistance.” We will witness something similar later this year, when anti-Israel advocacy groups plan to celebrate Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7, 2023 in Israel, or the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. To those who would memorialize Oct. 7, I pose the question: Who is it that supports “genocide”? In a recent Instagram post, a coalition of pro-Palestine groups declared Saturday, Oct. 5 to be an “International Day of Action” and published a tour-style list of rally locations across the U.S. and Canada. They say this will mark “one year since our people in Gaza showed the world that the Palestinian people will continue to resist their continued displacement and dispossession by their colonizer.” (READ MORE: As Students Return, So Do Pro-Palestinian Protests) An earlier version of the post included an image of a man standing on a tank, taken straight from news coverage of the Oct. 7 invasion. Meta took it down for violating its rules against supporting “dangerous” organizations, according to the Palestinian Youth Movement. It shouldn’t surprise us that the anti-Israel activist movement has led to this. Covering it for almost a year has shown me that this love of violence increasingly shapes the cause. Who Celebrates Oct. 7? Many of the groups announcing these rallies also led giant protests in Washington, D.C., this summer, where I and other journalists documented numerous examples of support for terrorism. I saw flags representing Hamas, jihad, and “martyrdom,” as well as T-shirts honoring Leila Khaled, a Palestinian who hijacked planes. People wore headbands for Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another terror group that participated in Oct. 7. There were signs saying people should “stand with Hamas” and that “Allah” will bring “the final solution” against Jews in Israel. Vandals wrote messages such as “kill another soldier now” and “Hamas is comin” on American monuments. This kind of rhetoric didn’t come from the fringes. One sign that said Oct. 7 was “justified” appears to be a creation of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network — one of the groups promoting the upcoming demonstrations. I also watched as an activist declared in front of the White House that “Oct. 7 was the beginning of the end” for Israel and America’s “genocide,” causing a crowd to erupt into cheers. Every radical protester I saw received little to no backlash or ostracization from the overall crowds, which wanted Israel destroyed “from the river to the sea.” But when a counter-protester held up a sign condemning terrorist groups, Palestine supporters began surrounding him and deliberately blocking the sign from view. The extremism of these activists has become apparent across the country, especially as college campus protests turned violent. Many, if not most anti-Israel protests spring from the same network of organizations or their local chapters. Even the Palestine Solidarity Committee at my school, the University of North Texas, liked and reshared the Instagram post announcing the October rallies. The Committee is an affiliate of two groups involved: the Palestinian Youth Movement and Students for Justice in Palestine. Much of this defense of terrorism stems from the Marxist worldview that widely characterizes the movement. I’ve seen socialist groups and themes at demonstrations from our nation’s capital to my Texas campus. Unsurprisingly, the funding trail for protests includes nonprofits connected to the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, this ideological connection goes back decades. Terrorists in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have received backing from the CCP, North Korea, Japan’s Red Army, and the Soviet Union through the years. North Korea has also provided military aid to Hamas. Middle East militants and communist regimes both judge “oppressor” groups in ways that excuse horrific mass violence — as do their apologists here in the West. In the near-year since the Oct. 7 massacre, Hamas’s premeditated barbarism has been well-documented. Terrorists ran through neighborhoods shooting anything that moved, raped women and paraded their bodies through the streets, burned families alive in their homes, beheaded children, took hundreds hostage, and much, much more. Their founding charter makes it clear that “killing the Jews” is their mission. (READ MORE: Killing Hamas) Rallying in celebration of these acts is hardly different from the idea of praising the 9/11 attacks as resistance against the West. To those who would memorialize Oct. 7, I pose the question: Who is it that supports “genocide”? Hudson Crozier is a contributor to Young Voices and the associate editor at Upward News. His reporting and commentary have been published in the Washington Examiner, the Federalist, the College Fix, and others. He studies journalism at the University of North Texas. Follow him on X @L0neStarTrooper. The post Oct. 7 Celebration Rallies Are on the Way appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

When bipartisanship is extremely difficult to come by, policymakers seem to agree on the urgency for permitting reform. The regulatory burden of the existing permitting process is hampering America’s infrastructure potential. From housing to major transportation projects, the lack of permitting reform can affect many critical projects. Under the status quo (without any reform), these projects are usually finished late and over budget with taxpayers and consumers footing the bill for these delays and added costs. Comprehensive reform of the country’s permitting process is needed to finally bring U.S. construction prices closer to international averages. The Biden administration and Congress are cognizant of the urgent need for change and have put forward reform proposals that are a good first step but fall short of what is needed. Without comprehensive reform, these reforms are likely to be mere band-aids rather than a sustainable solution. A large part of the root problem is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is one of the most contentious federal statutes, allowing private entities to easily start litigation over the environmental review process. This can cause long delays to any project. This has enabled a small (but loud) minority to weaponize the environmental review process to sabotage projects they do not agree with by filing frivolous lawsuits. (READ MORE: Reversing America’s Decline) A recent study by the Breakthrough Institute shows that there has been a a sharp increase in the number of NEPA lawsuits since 2001. The success rate of these lawsuits has been a meager 20 percent. This same study found that this litigation process takes just over four years to complete. In essence, projects are subjected to years of delay because of these lawsuits. To make things worse, the study found that non-governmental organizations (NGO) started 72 percent of the total challenges, with just 10 NGOs being responsible for 35 percent of those lawsuits on their own. Permitting Reform Proposals The proposals brought forward by the Biden administration and the permitting reform bill led by Sen. Manchin (I-W.Va.) recognize the disruptive nature of NEPA and have included proposals to reign in its harmful effects. Manchin’s proposal would introduce various “shot clocks,” that would set deadlines for agencies to either approve or reject projects. It would also limit the window in which a third party can introduce a lawsuit. However, the bill’s provisions would only apply to energy and mineral projects.  Meanwhile, President Biden’s proposal focuses on housing. The administration would waive NEPA reviews for transit-oriented developments funded with federal loans under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act or the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing programs. This benefit would apply if these projects do not expand the footprint of the building being converted or modify other facilities. It would also streamline the historic preservation review process for federal housing projects. These proposals have the potential to ameliorate some of the most egregious harms caused by the current permitting regime in this country. Unfortunately, they might not be enough. Comprehensive reform of the country’s permitting process is needed to finally bring U.S. construction prices closer to international averages. Otherwise, Americans will continue to overpay for basic infrastructure, housing, and power plants.  While NEPA’s environmental review is the most egregious offender of added costs, there is still significant ground to cover in terms of permitting. A video recently posted by Reason summarizes how the complex, multi-layered permitting requirements adds thousands of dollars in fees and delays in order to build housing on a vacant lot. This is one example of how the current permitting regime in America resembles a death by a thousand cuts, where the proliferation of efficiency or material standards, infrastructure mandates, and other sorts of policy-enabled micromanagement has hampered America’s capacity to build, and at the expense of the American taxpayer. (READ MORE from Juan Londoño: Don’t Regulate Data Centers Out of Existence) The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. The administration’s proposal should alleviate some of the price surges in the housing market. Sen. Manchin’s bill (if passed) will unlock America’s capacity to produce energy efficiently. These are valuable first steps in reforming a broken permitting system. However, these cannot be the only steps taken. Comprehensive permitting reform should be a priority for the upcoming president and the Congress. Juan Londoño is a senior policy analyst at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.  The post US Permitting Regime is Hampering America’s Potential appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.