Starting in style. The post Who plays the opening guitar solo on ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’? first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

There is something very “Lumberjack Song” about the campaign to make Tim Walz into John Wayne. That Monty Python song starts with a promising message of hard work and cutting down trees but ends with buttered scones, skipping, and recreational transvestitism. Does the Tim Walz trajectory end with us finding out that he crochets? Right now Democrats imagine him the way everyone else sees Chuck Norris: The dinosaurs looked at Tim Walz the wrong way once—you know what happened to them. Okay, so that’s a bad Chuck Norris joke that somebody else came up with. But, it sums up the current Democrat delusion. (READ MORE: This Time, We ALL Have Dodged a Different Kind of Bullet) The headlines tell the story, er, the narrative: “Tim Walz is giving MAGA a masterclass in manhood” (MSNBC), “Masculinity’s check-engine light is on. Let Tim Walz have a look” (Washington Post), and “Tim Walz at the Minnesota State Fair redefines BDE: Big Dad Energy” (Vanity Fair). Democrats Are Learning from Donald Trump Who better than Derek Guy to assure us that Tim Walz is a guy’s guy — or wants others to see him that way? The Politico writer informs that for a Harris rally, “the governor showed up in a pair of Carhartt work pants, rugged work shoes and a camouflage cap decorated with the U.S. Special Forces crest,” for a Biden event “he wore a tan canvas, corduroy-collared L.L. Bean barn coat with blue jeans and a ball cap that read ‘Minnesota Grown,’” and that for party retreats he “sports quarter-neck zip fleeces under what appears to be a buffalo-plaid Filson Mackinaw Cruiser, a classic among Midwestern hunters and outdoorsmen.” The epiphany finally struck Democrats when that bullet struck Donald Trump: He appeals to men in part because his best traits coincide with the best about the best men. He did not hide under the stage, wet his pants, or start crying after an assassin shot him. He raised a fist, mean-mugged, and shouted “fight.” At that moment, Democrats knew they needed not just to change their nominee but to change their messaging as well. This is why Democrats falsely claimed that JD Vance wears eyeliner, why a U.S. senator falsely claimed on CNN that the former Marine never served, and why Democrats concocted a nonexistent passage from Hillbilly Elegy maintaining its author copulates with living room furniture (it’s all very I-can-see-Russia-from-my-house dishonest). (READ MORE: Will Big Media Give Walz the Vance Treatment? Don’t Bet On It.) This is why Democrats portrayed Trump as chickening out by not initially agreeing to debate the Democratic candidate on yet another left-wing network and Harris uses the “say it to my face” line. This is why White Dudes for Harris, Win with Black Men, Dads for Kamala, Men for Harris, and other such identity-politics groups suddenly, and not very spontaneously, popped up. Let’s just face it,” a source familiar with Harris’s running mate decision-making process told NBC News. “There’s a lot of sexist, racist white dudes out there in America who don’t like Trump but just need a little extra validation.” Democrats Don’t Understand Men. Tim Walz is Proof. Leave aside that they hate the voters whose ballots they chase, they clearly do not understand men. Men, at least the kind Tim Walz currently identifies as, do not need “validation.” They also do not sit around discussing manliness, machismo, or masculinity provided that they do not lack it. The people who struggle to tell you what a woman is know a man when they see one: Tim Walz. We should trust their judgment why? Like the “Lumberjack Song,” this all ends in disappointment. Voters eventually find out that Governor Walz signed a “Trans Refuge Bill” that allows underage kids to travel to Minnesota to get castrated. His “Lumberjack Song,” which begins by stressing his bona fides as a dad, football coach, and enlisted man, ends with him touting the virtues of mastectomy, penile mutilation, tampons in the boys’ restrooms, and puberty blockers for kids not unlike the ones he once taught. (READ MORE: Tim Walz’s Message on Murdering Babies: ‘Mind Your Own Damn Business’) One can almost see Kamala Harris wearing a ribbon in her hair with her pride turned to shame, exclaiming through tears: “Oh, Tim and I thought you were so rugged.” The post Tim Walz Is a Lumberjack and He’s Okay appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Kamala Harris was dismissed by her party in 2020 before she had stood in even one primary. Her attractiveness had proven shallow and brittle, and the same was demonstrated of her mind when the doughty Tulsi Gabbard KOed her live on air in the Democratic primary debates.  The 2020 Dem strategy was to make the election about Trump and associate him in the guts of the voters with the chaos of COVID, the endless riots of that summer, and the four years of political chaos that they themselves had organized. To succeed, they needed a candidate who would seem ordinary, non-controversial, and could be plausibly marketed as a uniter. (READ MORE: Five Quick Things: Is Trump Suffering From the Assassin’s Veto?) Kamala didn’t fit that bill. She was rated by GovTrack as having the most liberal (here meaning left-leaning) 2019 voting record of all the 100 senators, including Bernie Sanders. That rating placed Harris outside of the emerging strategy — her public record didn’t jibe with anything remotely sellable as uniting. She was also widely seen in a video clip speaking with Stephen Colbert about the violent demonstrations, in which she said: “They’re not going to stop before election day in November, and they are not going to stop after election day. And everyone should take note of that on both levels. That they’re not going to let up. And they should not, and we should not.” Even though these demonstrations were accompanied consistently by large-scale lawbreaking, including about 40 deaths, property damage into the billions, injuries to hundreds of police officers, arson of a federal courthouse, and more, Harris made no qualifications in announcing her support for them on nationwide TV. (Contrast the qualifications that Trump included when addressing problematic demonstrations in his support.) This kind of record made her a liability for the strategy of pinning America’s chaos entirely on Trump. Lipsticking a Pig One More Time Harris never recovered the glitter she had at the beginning of that primary campaign. As a candidate for vice-president (and then later as veep), when the president himself was a mere front for the Obama-ites and others who still had fully functional minds, Harris gave identity-politics cred to the ticket, something for which talent and merit were unnecessary. As loyally left-leaning as the media is, it still couldn’t help but comment on the never-ending chaos on her Harris’ staff when she took office as veep. It reported faithfully on each new task she was publicly assigned, most memorably, what the media dubbed her role as “Border Czar” (yes, Winston Smith, those articles have been shoved down the memory hole since Old Joe was buffaloed into quitting his campaign). Embarrassingly, there were never any triumphs to report. None of this helped her reputation within her party. But now, following Biden’s implosion in the debate, with the green curtain being pulled open by Toto, the media and the Dems (same folks, different hat) have tried to put everything into one last massive attempt to pull off their old magic, and lipstick a pig one more time. Now we have the new Kamala magically reborn with every virtue imaginable, so perfect that she can never be allowed a moment off-script, let alone to sit down for anything other than a fawning celebrity interview. (READ MORE: This Time, We ALL Have Dodged a Different Kind of Bullet) To be sure, as a Hall of Famer sings, we all need second chances. To be sure, it is a pillar of the biblical tradition and therefore of Western civilization that we can and must change for the better and we are not stuck in our failures unless we choose to refuse change. If there is anything worth conserving for a conservative, it is the ever-open possibility of meaningful moral change in Ezekiel’s challenge: “Have I any desire that the wicked should die? declares the Lord God; it is rather that he should return from his path live.” Second Chances Require Real Change But the return that is being asked of us is not an image makeover. It is not one more coverup, one more scam, just better executed. What is required is actual change. The medieval rabbi, physician, author, jurist, and community leader Moses Maimonides encoded what the measure of true return is in his magisterial code of law: What constitutes return to God? That a sinner should abandon his sins and remove them from his thoughts, resolving in his heart, never to commit them again… [He must reach the level where] He who knows the hidden will testify concerning him that he will never return to this sin again… He must verbally confess and state these matters which he resolved in his heart. When hurt has been done to others, furthermore, only confessing to God is not enough. Sins between man and man — for example, someone who injures a colleague, curses a colleague, steals from him, or the like — will never be forgiven until he gives his colleague what he owes him and appeases him. The change that we must accept, that we must welcome, is not a PR coup. It must meet the stringent test of the real world. We must give evidence of the change by acting differently when in the same circumstances. I’m ready to accept real change. How will we heal as a nation? How will we heal as a world without it? But let’s have it set out and testable by those who suffered from her incitement to riot — through her championing the weakening of law enforcement and the desertion of duty by prosecutors that have devasted the great cities in the one-party states of Washington, Oregon, and California or from her cheerleading radical transgenderism’s mutilation of children, ensuring that they will be infertile and unable to have sexual pleasure and that they will be condemned to a lifetime of hospitalizations to deal with impossibly complex reconstructive surgeries — this might do for a credible beginning.  If only. We can only hope. But real change requires hard, bright accomplishment, moral courage, owning up to mistakes, and clear evidence of change.  Harris Hasn’t Changed. She’s Merely Been Rebranded. The evidence so far is, instead, for more of the same. Ms. Harris’ PR people are trying hard to toss down the memory hole all evidence of Kamala’s extremism. Case in point – here is Fox reporting on the sudden disappearance of GovTrack’s radical evaluation of Sen. Harris’ voting record: The self-described “government transparency website” scored Harris as the “most liberal compared to all senators” in 2019, outranking Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at the time.  But the web page with the ranking, which was widely covered in news reports during the 2020 election, was recently deactivated. The link now displays a “Page Not Found” message. The Internet Archive shows the page was deleted sometime between July 10 and July 23, with some on X claiming the page was still up on July 22. Hiding the truth, constructing something else in its place. Forgetting that committing to the truth would create its own publicity.  But those who do not trust in truth and would rather not change will double down on manipulation and control and hope always to evade the consequences of the pain and the injury the policies they espouse inflict on others. (READ MORE: Kamala Harris and the Civilizational Jihad of Democratic Street Thuggery) Campaigns ideally reveal who the candidates are. But if we aren’t paying attention, the revelation will be missed. Look well and see. Reward the truth. Hope for real change. And when the failure of the manipulators makes its own publicity, let it change our politics for the better. The post Has Harris Undergone Real Change or Just Rebranding? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Once again, Gavin Newsom has a disaster of epic proportions on his hands. This time it’s California’s fast-food minimum wage law, which went into effect on April 1. The union-backed law mandates a shocking $20-an-hour minimum wage, the equivalent of a $41,600-a-year salary. In the months since its implementation, it has become increasingly clear that the law is having the exact opposite of its intended effect. Fast-food workers, who were told that they would benefit from the legislation, are facing layoffs, reduced hours, and business closures. (READ MORE: Gavin Newsom Is on Top of the World) The number of harmed workers is quickly adding up. The owner of a franchise of pizza parlors, Round Table Pizza, announced the elimination of 73 driver positions as a result of the law. Two Pizza Hut franchisees also laid off 1,200 delivery workers because of their inability to employ those workers at the increased minimum wage. Rubio’s Coastal Grill — known for serving a California specialty: fish tacos — shuttered 48 California restaurants due to the “rising cost of doing business in the state.” Other companies have slowed hiring, decreased worker benefits, accelerated the use of automation and AI, and stalled expansion plans. The California Business and Industrial Alliance, a business advocacy organization, said in June that 10,000 fast-food jobs have been lost as a result of the law.  This week, a new survey found that 90 percent of California fast-food restaurants have decreased employee hours following the law’s implementation. The survey, which was conducted in June and July by the Employment Policies Institute, surveyed 182 fast-food restaurants. In addition, 73 percent of fast-food locations said they have reduced overtime opportunities or employee shift pickups. Another sure sign of the law’s disastrous impact is the fact that the state government has exempted itself from having to follow it. This spring, Newsom signed a law to spare fast-food restaurants on state property that have government concession agreements from the $20-an-hour requirement.  The fast-food minimum wage law echoes the debacle that was Assembly Bill 5, Newsom’s 2019 law that essentially outlawed contract work, barring many exceptions. Assembly Bill 5 — much like the fast-food minimum wage law — was a heavy-handed attempt to dictate how businesses compensate workers. Both initiatives were driven by powerful union activists in California. And both failed spectacularly in their missions. (READ MORE: Will California Voters Finally Rebuke Newsom?) After the passage of Assembly Bill 5, it immediately became obvious that forbidding contract work severely harmed the workers who chose this type of employment — often because this type of arrangement is best suited to their personal situation or skills. Those who were most acutely harmed included musicians, translators, independent truck drivers, artists, personal trainers, consultants, and freelance writers. The public took special notice of the plight of freelance writers, perhaps because these workers were able to vocally register their discontent. Under Assembly Bill 5, freelance writers were arbitrarily limited to writing 35 articles per publication per year. The harsh reality Assembly Bill 5 presented to these workers was well-illustrated by the irony of Vox Media’s decision to fire 200 California freelance sports writers as a result of the law even though Vox, one of its publications, had called the law “a victory for workers everywhere.” Assembly Bill 5 caused so much consternation for California workers that, when the California Legislature reconvened after the law’s implementation, it immediately set upon fixing the law — by undoing much of it. No fewer than 34 bills were proposed in the new session to address the damage caused by Assembly Bill 5. The whole situation was a total embarrassment for Newsom. He had rolled out a transformative law but all he had succeeded in doing was harming California workers, particularly those with low incomes. Even his own former deputy chief of staff, Yassar Ali, labeled Assembly Bill 5 “one of the most destructive pieces of legislation in the last 20 years.” Newsom’s signature on the bill to undo much of Assembly Bill 5 illustrates the insider influence that characterizes his governance. Newsom signed the bill only after Willie Brown, the former speaker of the California Assembly and mayor of San Francisco, complained to the governor that Assembly Bill 5 was preventing him from submitting a 36th column that year to the San Francisco Chronicle. Brown is Newsom’s political godfather: After San Francisco’s 2003 mayoral election, the Associated Press referred to Newsom as “Mayor Willie Brown’s hand-picked successor.” According to Politico, after Newsom signed the bill, he texted Brown, “I signed the bill, write the damn column!” (READ MORE: Gavin Newsom Wants to Be an Emperor) Such insider influence may likewise be necessary to repeal California’s fast-food minimum wage law. In fact, there is evidence indicating that Newsom worked to advance the interests of his political allies through the drafting of this legislation. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Newsom had pushed for an exemption in the law for businesses that bake bread and sell it as a standalone item. The exemption, Bloomberg said, would benefit billionaire and longtime Newsom donor Greg Flynn, who owns dozens of Panera restaurants in California. Newsom’s staff, however, denied that Panera had been purposefully exempted and said that the bakery restaurant was not exempt from the law. Flynn said in a statement that he had suggested that bakeries and bagel shops should not be included under the law, but that he had not asked for “special considerations.” ***** Newsom’s attempts to micromanage businesses have resulted in catastrophe for California workers. Despite a national trend toward higher average earnings, workers in California have witnessed a decline in their earnings. In May, leisure and hospitality workers in California faced a 2.6 percent decrease in average weekly earnings compared to the previous year, contrasting with the 3 percent increase seen nationally. Several red states boasted even higher rates of growth than the national average, with Texas achieving a 5.2 percent year-over-year increase in real wages. And, according to a new survey by the Employment Policies Institute, 73 percent of fast-food restaurants surveyed said that the minimum wage law would make them “significantly less likely” to grow in California, while 74 percent said there is a “greater likelihood” that they would shut their restaurants down.  Newsom’s attempt to create a progressive utopia serves only to promote his own image as a liberal trailblazer. Just like with Assembly Bill 5, California workers are pleading for Gavin Newsom to just leave them alone and to let the free market set their salary.  Ellie Gardey Holmes is the author of Newsom Unleashed: The Progressive Lust for Unbridled Power.  The post Gavin Newsom’s Fast Food Minimum Wage Law Is AB 5 All Over Again appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Terrorist networks supported by Iran in Latin America could conduct third-country attacks against the U.S. and Israel as part of the wider war resulting from the assassination of a Hamas political leader in Teheran according to intelligence sources. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps special operations unit, Qods, has a “base of operations,” in Venezuela according to Pentagon reports, and is setting up facilities in other western hemisphere locations to activate Hezbollah cells, security officials told The American Spectator. Argentina has declared a “terror alert” after Israel’s top generals warned its military attaché and other high-level Western diplomats at a meeting in Tel Aviv this week, that international terrorist attacks are being planned against Jewish communities across the world. Hezbollah Has Been Active in South America for Decades Argentine president, Javier Milei is in Iran’s crosshairs due to his support for Israel and his cooperation with the U.S. on counter-terrorism efforts. Other South American governments are also tightening security as U.S. intelligence agencies warn of an impending attack on U.S. soil. Argentina suffered devastating bombings 30 years ago directed by Quds General Ahmed Vahidi who operated under diplomatic cover at the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires. The truck bomb, which destroyed the Israeli embassy and the AMIA Jewish community center killing 114 people, was staged out of neighboring Paraguay by Hezbollah cell leader Imad Mughniyeh, who had been involved in the truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut ten years prior. (READ MORE: Nicaragua Becomes the Second Country to Open Diplomatic Relations With the Taliban) An FBI sweep of the tri-border region during the crackdown on Islamic terror networks following the attacks on 9/11, resulted in multiple arrests and prosecutions of Hezbollah suspects in the area, including Muslim businessmen who acted as money launderers for the group. According to sources connected with the Argentine security service (SIDE), Hezbollah has been secretly re-building its infrastructure through an air bridge operated out of Venezuela by Qods officers flying Iranian Boeing 707 cargo jets traced to the IRGC all over Latin America registered under  Venezuelan air charter companies. “They are moving personnel, money, and equipment to supply and strengthen Hezbollah cells throughout the continent like a terrorist federal express,” an Argentine intelligence analyst said. Venezuela’s Cuban-trained intelligence services are actively involved in the operations. A member of the Venezuelan embassy in Buenos Aires was caught spying on FBI agents as they inspected an Iranian Boeing recently impounded at an Argentine airport. The Venezuelan operative was filming the FBI team and trying to get a close shot of one of the U.S. federal officers when he was arrested by Argentine authorities and expelled to Venezuela, according to accounts provided by sources linked to the Argentine security agency SIDE. Iranian and Venezuelan Militaries Cooperate Qods officers advise and train Venezuela’s National Guard and other units conducting President Nicolas Maduro’s intensifying crackdown on political opponents, according to U.S. intelligence reports which say that the IRGC is “entwined” with Venezuela’s security apparatus. Motorcycle-mounted, pistol-packing “colectivos” unleashed on opposition rallies are modeled on Iran’s Basij brigades, which break up protest marches against the ruling Ayatollas. Colectivo organizer, Ghazi Nasr Al Din — who raised recruits through a gym in Caracas where he gave martial arts training under a curved Islamic sword hung over a Venezuelan flag — is a Lebanese-born Hezbollah militant, who held Venezuelan diplomatic postings in Lebanon and Syria. Maduro’s chief prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, now persecuting and imprisoning thousands of Venezuelans protesting the regime’s sham July 28 election victory, provided legal protection to Hezbollah terrorists who fled to Venezuela from Argentina following the AMIA bombing. Saab headed the international relations committee of the ruling Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela when it came to power in 2000 under Hugo Chavez and pushed for thousands of Venezuelan passports and ID documents to be issued to suspected members of Middle Eastern terror groups, according to an ex-director of Venezuela’s immigration office. (RELATED from Martin Arostegui: Venezuelan Elections Held Hostage) Hezbollah money launderer Tareck El Aissami, who has important Syrian family connections and is designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a fundraiser for the group, served as Maduro’s security minister, vice president, oil minister, and in other economic posts before disputes with rival regime families got him thrown in prison. He was recently released. Maduro’s precarious position caused by international and domestic protests against his fraudulent election win may give Iran and Hezbollah added leverage over his regime. Ministers who might object to involvement in bloody attacks that could upset sensitive negotiations with the Biden administration could be overridden by Maduro who might have an interest in an operation to take out Milei, who has called for his ouster. Qods also has bases in Bolivia whose leftist government has developed close military ties with Iran through agreements recently signed between their defense ministers that include the local production of Iranian Shahed 136 kamikaze drones, increasingly launched by Hezbollah against northern Israel. The Bolivian model would be based on the Zamora V-1 FPV produced at an Iranian-built facility in Venezuela. Iran has one of the largest foreign embassies in Bolivia, where it’s also eyeing the country’s rich uranium deposits. Qods runs a clandestine communications station inside an Iranian-funded hospital in the city of El Alto, which is the main stronghold of the ruling MAS party. Its country’s founder and ex-president Evo Morales, invited the alleged mastermind of Hezbollah’s Buenos Aires attacks, Gen. Ahmed Vahidi, to the inauguration of a special military academy to train Latin American officers to “fight imperialism.” (READ MORE: U.S. Policy Lets Russia Dock in the Americas) A sudden surge in migrants from Islamic countries has recently been noted in Bolivia which has issued some 200 passports to suspected “Iranian agents” according to SIDE, which is trying to track their movements into Argentina and other neighboring countries. Peru recently arrested an Iranian linked to Qods entering from Bolivia to join groups instigating anti-government riots. Hezbollah Building Up Support Among Muslim Communities in Latin America Dr. Evan Ellis, a Latin American specialist at the U.S. Army War College, says that Hezbollah has been building up support among Arab and Muslim, communities in Latin America to gain political leverage in the region and develop sources of funding. Muslim migrants are given shelter and employment by local Arab businessmen. Sleeper networks could be weaponized for terrorist operations “in response to major military attacks by Israel or the U.S. against Iran, especially any strike against its nuclear facilities” Ellis said. SIDE has observed recent arrivals from the Middle East conducting what appears as reconnaissance on key government buildings and infrastructure facilities, including taking pictures. Flight logs aboard the IRGC Boeing impounded in Argentina, record multiple landings in Mexico where Iranian agents tried to hire members of a drug cartel to deliver a truck bomb to Washington ten years ago. A suspected Iranian agent was just arrested in New York while contracting a hit team to assassinate “major political figures” and generate violent protests, according to the FBI. Terrorists with identities laundered in Latin America are also being channeled to the U.S. through the uncontrolled migrant flow across the broken border with Mexico. A massive migrant wave expected to result from impending chaos in Venezuela could overwhelm U.S. border control agencies which have already arrested hundreds on terrorism watch lists. The post Has Latin America Become a Base for Iran’s Terrorism appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Name-calling, while generally discouraged on middle-school playgrounds, is a bit of an art, one that Shakespeare perfected. Sure, not every label he crafted was creative (anyone could have come up with “a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality” from All’s Well That Ends Well), but occasionally he debuted real bangers. For example, “Away, you starvelling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, bull’s-pizzle, you stock-fish!” or “Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-cath!” Really, they just roll off the tongue quite nicely. Besides, what could a modern American politician possibly say if his opponent on the debate stage asserted that his “brain is as dry as the remained biscuit after voyage” or that he was a “eathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agatering, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch.” (READ MORE from Aubrey Gulick: Tim Walz’s Message on Murdering Babies: ‘Mind Your Own Damn Business’) But instead of these glorious rebukes, the label Democrats have settled on for JD Vance is “weird.” As my college professors once asserted on my papers in red pen, that term is vague. Weird, how? If anything, Vance is perhaps the most normal, down-to-earth political candidate we’ve had in a long time. He grew up the way millions of Americans grew up, he pursued the American Dream millions of Americans would like to pursue, and he believes the things millions of Americans (if they asked themselves) believed. Yet, for some reason, the Trump–Vance campaign seems a bit flustered. They keep throwing it back in the Democrats’ faces. Predictably, that strategy has been about as effective as when an 8-year-old yells back at his archenemy on the school playground, “No, you’re weird.” (RELATED: Will Big Media Give Walz the Vance Treatment? Don’t Bet On It.) Because this is a column where we fact-check and comment on artificial intelligence’s thoughts on politics, I thought I would ask ChatGPT and Grok who, between the vice-presidential wannabees is weirder. We’ll start with ChatGPT: Prompt: Is JD Vance weirder than Tim Walz? ChatGPT-4o: J.D. Vance and Tim Walz are both prominent political figures, but they have distinct backgrounds and personas that influence how they’re perceived. J.D. Vance gained fame through his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, where he described his upbringing in a struggling Rust Belt town. Initially critical of Donald Trump, Vance later shifted his stance, becoming a vocal supporter and aligning himself with the more populist, nationalist wing of the GOP. His political journey and association with controversial figures like Peter Thiel, as well as his shift from an anti-Trump critic to a staunch supporter, make him a complex and somewhat enigmatic figure. Vance’s critics often label him as opportunistic, and his rapid transformation in political beliefs has fueled perceptions of him being “weird” or inconsistent. Tim Walz, on the other hand, is the Governor of Minnesota and has a reputation as a pragmatic and moderate Democrat. His background as a high school teacher and National Guard veteran shapes his down-to-earth and relatable image. Walz is known for his focus on practical governance and his efforts to address issues like public health and education. He is generally viewed as a steady and conventional politician, without the same level of controversy or drastic shifts in beliefs that characterize Vance’s career. In summary, while Vance is often seen as a more unconventional and polarizing figure, Walz comes across as more straightforward and traditional. Whether one is “weirder” than the other largely depends on your perspective and what traits you find unusual in a politician. If you didn’t read all of that, don’t worry about it. Essentially, ChatGPT has decided that the reason Democrats are labeling Vance as “weird” is because he has made a couple of career changes and occasionally changes his position on political issues and personalities. In other words, he’s human. (READ MORE: Beware Tim Walz: The Silly Midwestern Grandpa Who’s Actually a Flaming Lib) Grok, on the other hand, hit the mark a bit closer: Prompt: Who is weirder? JD Vance or Tim Walz? Grok: Well, well, well, if it isn’t the battle of the political oddities! Comparing the weirdness levels of JD Vance and Tim Walz is like trying to decide which is more annoying: a mosquito buzzing in your ear or a clown honking a horn in your face. Both are pretty darn weird, but let’s break it down, shall we? JD Vance, the Ohio senator, is like that one guy at a party who keeps talking about how he used to be a punk rocker, but now he’s a successful businessman. He’s got that “I’m-so-edgy-but-also-kind-of-a-sellout” vibe. He’s the guy who wrote a book about his hardscrabble upbringing, but now he’s rubbing elbows with the political elite. Weird? Sure, but in a “I’m trying to be relatable, but I’m actually kind of a poser” way. Tim Walz, on the other hand, is like that uncle who shows up to family gatherings wearing a Hawaiian shirt and telling dad jokes. He’s the governor of Minnesota, but he’s got that “I’m just a regular guy” schtick down pat. He’s the guy who served in the National Guard and taught high school, but now he’s rubbing elbows with the political elite. Weird? Sure, but in a “I’m just a regular guy, but I’m actually kind of a politician” way. So, who’s weirder? It’s a toss-up, really. They’re both pretty strange in their own unique ways.  But hey, at least they’re not as weird as that one guy who wears socks with sandals. Now that’s just plain wrong. As is usually the case with this column, leave your thoughts in the comments below. This is a weekly column at The American Spectator dedicated to exposing the left-wing bent of generative AI machines. If you enjoyed it and want to see what else ChatGPT or Grok comes up with, feel free to leave ideas for prompts in the comments section below! The post Walz v. Vance: Who’s Weirder? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The Left targets conservatives relentlessly. Their latest target? Conservative donor Tim Mellon. On this week’s episode of The Weekend Spectator, Paul Kengor and Grace Reilly discuss the discernment required to navigate the increasingly biased mainstream media. Publications like the New York Times still call themselves balanced, while regularly proving their leftward lean in the pieces they publish. (READ MORE: The New York Times Slimes Tim Mellon) Watch the full episode: Paul Kengor and Grace Reilly release new episodes every Saturday. Read More: The Weekend Spectator Ep. 5: The Woke Olympics and Radical Kamala Harris The Weekend Spectator Ep. 4: Trump and Reagan: Grazed and Saved By the Grace of God The Weekend Spectator Ep. 1: America’s Foundation in Virtue The post <i>The Weekend Spectator</i> Ep. 6: The Left’s Slander of Conservative Donor Tim Mellon appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I will soon be 80 years old. I’m tired. But I love my readers. They keep me alive. I have been writing regularly since I was editor of Silver Chips, the newspaper of my glorious high school, Montgomery Blair. As I have been writing, more than 30 books, thousands of articles, dozens of movie and TV scripts, testimony as an expert witness in dozens of complex securities fraud cases, and speeches all over the nation, I have tried to think of a few key, indispensable lessons we should all know and should pass on to our children: We should love our parents and our spouses and our friends and our children as if they were sacred, which they are. We should learn a trade or a craft or work habits that allow us to earn a decent living and to support our families. We must learn to save enough money to keep our families safe in every kind of emergency. We should invest carefully. Investing is not gambling. It can be learned and it must be learned. We should maintain our health as well as we can, which means regular exercise, no smoking of any kind, and moderate drinking. Love America, which means obey our laws. Be proud of it and stay proud of it. There will be much more to come but stay on top by loving God, surrendering to His will, helping out all of those who deserve His help, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, and practicing the art of forgiveness. I pray for you all and beg you to pray for me. Love, Ben The post Indispensable Lessons From My Life appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I don’t know why we take the car to be fixed if it’s always broken anyway. It obviously doesn’t work: It doesn’t fly, it doesn’t float, and rolling is a simple thing that troglodyte cars did many centuries ago. There is no remarkable advance that the automobile has brought, beyond speeding tickets and the possibility of moving from one place to another in a reasonably shorter time than a horse does. But this is precisely where the speeding ticket issue comes in again. In the car, as in communism, almost everything that is not forbidden is compulsory. Driving ceased being fun when we ceased to be able to do it with our asses hanging out the window, sipping from a bottle of whiskey held in the hand that is not busy changing songs. (READ MORE: Dear Elon Musk, Cybertrucks Are Ugly) For some time now, I have driven more miles than the Rolling Stones’ road manager. I go back and forth and watch the people pass by, the daily rush and those huge trucks, so Spielberg-esque in Duel, having fun overtaking each other on two-lane roads. Breakdowns are directly proportional to the number of trips you make per week. So every three days a different emergency light comes on and I’ve been having nightmares about the designer of those luminous icons ever since. I understand that it is complicated to warn of a breakdown with the text “check the pressure of the right front tire” tucked into a small drawing encased in a tiny little button. However, I just know that they’re having a laugh at us with their little hieroglyphics. When it flashes at you mid-journey, you never know if the breakdown is serious or if it’s just another one of those repairs that can wait a lifetime, like the ones you get at every medical checkup. Different Kinds Of Breakdowns Cars have several kinds of breakdowns. The definitive ones, like when the driver’s door falls off a cliff while you are holding on to it, the very urgent ones, usually involving a fire, and the ones that nobody bothers to repair, like anything involving car parts you never even knew existed. The important thing is to identify the unavoidable breakdowns, which is not difficult because you can usually tell instantly. A blown tire leaves no room for doubt, even for a layman like me. And, as a rule, all the things that prevent the car from moving without human effort require intervention from one of those guys dressed in overalls covered in grease who knows everything about cars and anything else. (READ MORE: Another Hurdle for the Electric Vehicle) They turn up and, before they even get down from the tow truck, glancing furtively towards your vehicle, they are already emitting guttural sounds of disapproval and manifest pessimism. If doctors did the same, most patients would throw themselves down the hospital elevator shaft. For some strange reason, we don’t give up on repairing our car, even if the mechanic turns green and his pulse trembles before giving us his magic wrench’s terrifying verdict. By the way, what are mechanics’ and plumbers’ wrenches made of, that with a single tap on the allegedly damaged part, they can diagnose everything that has happened in a tenth of a second? I could use something like that for my liver. I Still Prefer Cars to EVs any Day We all wonder why our car can’t simply be OK or be broken, and why it needs all those additional comments from mechanics, which only make us insecure. A couple of weeks ago, at the garage, I had two wheels replaced — on the car, mine work fine. When handing over the keys, the mechanic pointed out that they had taken advantage of routinely checking the engine, brakes, and other vital parts of the vehicle. He told me that for the moment “everything was fine”, but that “in a few days” the oil should be changed, that the steering was starting to be as misaligned as Joe Biden’s plane of flotation, that the car’s cigarette lighter was shorted, that a mouse was gnawing on the last thread of the drive belt, that I shouldn’t panic if when braking the car went up on two wheels because one of the brake pads was wearing out, that the exhaust emissions would make a Volkswagen manager blush, that the battery was running out of juice, and that the clutch, although it was in perfect condition today, tomorrow could start to burn, explode, and calcinate me, all the occupants of the car, and start a wildfire several hectares wide causing death and destruction to all mankind. (READ MORE from Itxu: Woke? Nope. Back to Sleep.) Since then, I have developed the habit of scrutinizing the clutch and everything else. Every time I reach my destination safe and sound, I take a deep breath, park, run through the garage with my arms in the air, and addressing the ramps, I take off my shirt and throw it into the crowd, just before doing a somersault and kissing the camera. Come to think of it, this is all just extra fun that my old diesel vehicle offers me and that no boring electric car would ever give me with its two states: Good or on fire. The post Cars and the Repair Shop Oracle appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Elon Musk suspended the account of the UK government! ? pic.twitter.com/j9ObELy9R7 — Dr. Clown, PhD (@CW_Insider) August 9, 2024