Politics Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris The former president’s age and the media’s full-court press conspire against him. Credit: Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images Roughly a year ago, I attended a pricey fundraiser for Ron DeSantis in Southampton. Our host, a highly successful Italian-American lawyer,  introduced the governor by saying that his main motivation for getting involved was that he did not want to see Kamala Harris president of the United States. He didn’t have to make it explicit; the premise understood by all there was that Donald Trump, for all his undoubted strengths, would not fare well against a candidate twenty years his junior.   Even then it was becoming clear, surprising as it initially seemed, that DeSantis did not have the political juice to shake Trump’s hold on the MAGA base; Trump remained undisputed king of it, and he had grown that base big enough to hold off comfortably any challenge from the Bush/Cheney/McCain wing of the GOP, attractively represented by Nikki Haley.  If the polls have shown anything consistently since then, it is that a wide swathe of voters and probably wider percentage of elites did not want a Biden-Trump rematch, and that choice between a visibly senescent and rapidly failing 81 year old and 78 year old election-denier with legal problems was not the best choice Americans could have in a perilously troubled time. In a stunning two weeks, the Democratic Party has acted with surprising coherence and ruthlessness to retire forcibly Joe Biden and unite around Kamala Harris. What seemed a very likely Trump victory a fortnight ago—and the former president had been leading significantly in swing state polls for months before Biden’s debate disaster and Trump’s miraculous escape from assassination—now seems anything but certain. Indeed, I would put it as less likely than not.  Harris might be objectively a weak candidate, but the traditional and time-tested ways through which that weakness would be exposed to voters—a press reporting on her positions, rivals probing at her vulnerabilities throughout months and months of competitive primary process—have been effectively short-circuited by the Democratic elite decision to unite behind her. One day we will have reporting on what roadblocks might have impeded this coronation and how they were effectively circumvented. As it was, her path to her party’s nomination seems as seamless as Charles becoming King of England after his mum’s death. Harris is receiving the kind exuberant across-the-board media support that hasn’t existed since LBJ swamped Goldwater. That kind of media is worth what—five points in the polls? Ten?  By comparison with Hillary, on stage in debate and almost every televised media report, Trump seemed more vigorous, humorous, and strong. By comparison with Biden, such differences were startlingly obvious to every Democrat. By comparison with Harris, Trump will seem old and overweight, a contrast which could be mitigated and overcome if he were able to present himself as wiser, more reassuring, and statesmanlike. That is likely to be, for Trump, a difficult ask.  The one factor in Trump’s favor is that Harris is a genuinely radical left candidate—more so than any of her competitors (who had soundly bested her in the polls before the 2020 voting started), more so even than Bernie Sanders, whom the party establishment united against in March of that year. Sanders’s two generations of experience with American voters gave him a fairly realistic sense of how socialist the country could become by democratic means—not very. He had seen the collapse of a Soviet Union he once admired, he had lived through decades of very real debates about socialism (which was intellectually quite popular when he was young) and had undoubtedly learned a lot.  To hear Harris talk again and again of “equity,” as she has in countless speeches, is to hear a fourth-grade version of these debates—why not make all economic outcomes equal? That ignores everything about the actual history of socialism, of economic incentives, and of actual differences between people. The media, thoroughly on her side, proclaims Harris only ran like this to occupy the left lane during the Democratic primaries. But she continued to push her woke viewpoints after her campaign fell apart: months after lack of voter support drove Harris from the 2020 race, she was at it during the George Floyd riots, urging people to support a bail fund for the rioters in June even as the New York Times had noted that the “protests” were growing out of control.  Later in the month she went on national television, had noted the riots were “a movement” which is “not going let up” and “should not.”  Trump ads have already pointed to Harris’s comparison of likening ICE to the KKK and her positions favoring free healthcare for illegal immigrants. These and other examples of Harris’s embrace of radically woke positions are well chronicled in an important Andrew Sullivan column. Sullivan, it should be recalled, is a centrist who has supported the Democratic nominee in (at least) the past four presidential election cycles.  Under normal circumstances, a candidate of Harris’s beliefs would stand no real chance. But of course things are not normal: The enthusiasm for her today has the same energy of the George Floyd riots, and something of a similar psychological basis. The tremendous relief of Democratic and media elites feel from not being under the burden of having to lie about Joe Biden has parallels in the relief millions felt in having a socially permitted reason to escape covid lockdowns.  The media is a political superpower, and so far at least has indicated it will do virtually anything to advance her candidacy. The chance that Trump can actually help himself in a debate with Harris seems, to me, very small. She on the other hand has before her a convention where she will be paired with any one of able and fairly appealing (white male) running mates. I don’t doubt she will be leading in the polls by Labor Day. Trump and J.D. Vance will then have before them the task of conveying the truth about Harris in a very brief period of time with the major communication outlets of the country dedicated to preventing the truth from emerging. It took more than a year for centrists and conservatives to even begin to effectively debunk the myths that had grown up around the police, Black Lives Matter, and the rest of the dishonesty which permeated summer of 2020. Trump, Vance and their allies don’t have anywhere near that amount of time. The post Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris appeared first on The American Conservative.

"I very much take my style from him." The post “He’s still the best”: The greatest bassist of all time, according to Suzi Quatro first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The announcement that President Joe Biden was quitting the race for the presidency and endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris for the 2024 Democratic nomination for president had echoes of President Lyndon Johnson’s announcement on March 31, 1968, that he was ending his quest for reelection that year. Johnson, behind the scenes, worked to ensure that Vice-President Hubert Humphrey would get the nomination, while Biden has outwardly favored Vice-President Harris. Johnson coupled his announcement with a bombing pause and increased negotiations with the North Vietnamese to attempt to remove the unpopular war from the political equation. Biden, even before he decided to drop out of the race, proposed immigration reform in an effort to tone down that issue which has been an albatross around his campaign’s and party’s neck. Johnson was praised by many in the media for sacrificing his personal ambitions for the national interest. Biden, too, is praised by the mainstream media for placing the “country’s interests” (i.e., preventing Donald Trump from returning to the White House) ahead of his personal interests. But in reality, the decisions made by Biden and Johnson were based on nothing more than raw politics. The Reality of the Raw Politics Politics, the realists among us know, is fundamentally about the struggle for power. Both Biden today and Johnson in 1968 saw their personal political fortunes and their party’s political fortunes in danger. Both were pressured by senior Democratic leaders to quit the race —Biden even more so than Johnson. Presumably, both retreated in the face of internal polls that said they could not win — otherwise, they would not have dropped out of their respective races. (READ MORE: The Path to Beating Harris) In 1968, Democratic political leaders soon rallied behind Humphrey who emerged as the party’s candidate. Now, Democratic political leaders are rallying to Harris, who will likely be the party’s candidate at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. Humphrey in 1968 was unable to overcome his connection to an administration that had turned the Vietnam War into a debacle, and he lost a close race to Richard Nixon, with Alabama Governor George Wallace, a third-party candidate, coming in a distant third. This year, we also have a third-party candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who will also likely finish a distant third. Harris Will Be Plagued by the Biden Record Harris should have to answer questions about why she stood by silently after witnessing Biden’s cognitive decline during the past three years. She will also have difficulty lifting the albatross of the border crisis from the administration’s neck. In 1968, Humphrey could not distance himself from the very administration he served in for the previous four years. Harris will have a similar problem. Biden’s low standing in the polls is based on issues — the border crisis, the economy, high consumer prices, inflation, and a world that grows more dangerous every day. Those same issues will plague Harris — it is after all the Biden-Harris administration that has led the country for the past four years. One thing is certain, the mainstream media’s political goal is to stop Donald Trump from regaining the presidency and it will line up behind whomever can accomplish that. The so-called party of “democracy” and their media accomplices are only too glad to turn their backs on “democracy” (all those voters who supported Joe Biden for president will be ignored) to stop Trump. The media hates Trump even more than they hated Nixon. Expect media analysts to suddenly discover Harris’ gravitas, statesmanship, and star quality. The Hollywood crowd will go wild for Kamala. The donors will pony up tens of millions of dollars. Biden will become just a memory. READ MORE: Kamala’s Useful Idiots Kamala Harris and the Too-Late Solution The post Even More Echoes of 1968 appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Venezuela is the holy Job of modern history. Their mixture of struggle and resignation, of resistance, of enduring unnecessary poverty and dispensable humiliation, is an example for the world. The people have once again voted against the mustachioed walrus. There is talk of an opposition victory by as much as 70 percent of the votes. Maduro says he won with 51.2 percent, but that would be a Bolivarian miracle attributed to the possible excess of rum in blood, or to the fact that some Chavistas voted with both hands and feet. The mustachioed walrus is not going anywhere. It is nothing new. He is a dictator, of course, but he is also a tyrant. Between Saturday and Monday, the regime kidnapped two Spanish compatriots, journalist Cake Minuesa and former congressman Victor Gonzalez. The communist vice-president of the government of Spain congratulated Maduro for his victory; not a word from the government demanding the release of the two Spaniards; no statement from the EU. Nothing. This is how things are. (RELATED: ‘By Hook or By Crook:’ The Venezuelan Election ) The truth is that Maduro’s real fear is not losing power, but that the people will be in a position to hold him accountable for all the damage he has done, the pain he has caused, and the money he has stolen from the Venezuelans. Maduro is beginning to resemble those unwelcome visitors, unexpected friends who stay for dinner, and who are still there watching TV, or talking non-stop when you want to go to bed. In the end, you only have two options: resignation or conflict. To enter into conflict means to get up and demand to know: “But what’s wrong, man, don’t you have a home to go to?” Maduro is the clumsiest dictator of our time, but he is also the heaviest. Dictatorial Regimes Stay In Power Until People Shed Their Blood Dictators believe that they have the army on their side. They forget that they have bought the military commanders, but not the whole army. Those in the military have families, children, parents, and friends, and it is likely that none of them have voted for Maduro, because almost no one has done so in these elections. What was he thinking? A minimal split in the army would likely provoke desertion en masse, a change of sides, and the immediate fall of the communist regime. If it has not happened so far, it is because Venezuelans — starting with the opposition leaders — have had to choose between fighting or waiting for a better opportunity each time they have taken control of the streets and have been brutally repressed, and someone or something always ends up convincing them that it is better to avoid “a bloodbath.” I do not judge them. It is enough for them to survive the mustachioed walrus. But perhaps it is worth remembering that many dictatorial regimes do not give up power until the people shed their blood to free themselves. (READ MORE: Venezuelan Elections Held Hostage) Ideally, however, peaceful mobilization would be sufficient. There is nothing more painful than a civil war. For peaceful resistance to work, all possible international pressure is required. Is there any? No. I dare say that, as of this writing, Venezuelans have done their job bravely, but the West has not done its part. If the Western countries do not firmly support the struggle for freedom of the Venezuelan people, we will have lost the last hope of identity left to us. The West Has Failed to Call for Transparency The EU response has been lukewarm and bureaucratic. It has taken them ages to demand transparency from Maduro when from the beginning they should have condemned the electoral theft and demanded that Maduro step down immediately. Anything else implies support. Nor has the United States been up to the task. Kamala Harris’ statements are like bread without salt, like a slice of cold turkey, like a monument to irrelevance. Asking a bloodthirsty dictator to “respect the will of the Venezuelan people” is like asking the fox to dance with chickens, and not eat them. (READ MORE: Kamala’s Useful Idiots) Elon Musk has done more for Venezuelans from his X account in the last few hours than all the great Western democracies. I feel ashamed to live amid such cowardice, such lukewarmness, such stupid empty talk. Unity, democracy, and struggle have achieved, over the last century, the fall of the most powerful and intelligent dictators in history. And now it turns out that we cannot topple the mustachioed walrus, the most cowardly and the dumbest dictator in the world. Oh, but we can. Of course, we can. His time has passed. Long live free Venezuela! The post Maduro, Get Down From Your Tree and Scram appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“The Watch Checkers“ editorial cartoon by Yogi Love for The American Spectator, July 30, 2024. The post The Watch Checkers appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The much-anticipated Third Plenary Session of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) concluded earlier this month. Historically, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee in 1978 was pivotal in transitioning China from the Mao era to reforms and opening up. This latest session garnered significant interest, especially due to its delay and China’s current economic downturn. Many hoped for new policies to address economic issues, but the results were disappointing, largely because observers misunderstood the CCP’s model. The Rise of the CCP’s China Inc. The CCP operates as “China Inc.,” treating the entire country as a giant corporation with the Party as the owner and manager. All enterprises, whether state-owned or private, are subsidiaries. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are direct subsidiaries, while private enterprises function as joint ventures controlled by the CCP. Foreign investments are akin to franchisees. (RELATED: Reject China, Inc. — Not Trading With It) Under this model, the CCP concentrates resources on developing targeted industries, acquiring foreign technology, and setting up protection mechanisms to prevent foreign competition. This strategy has succeeded in sectors like solar power, high-speed rail, and automotive batteries. China’s electric vehicles, for example, have rapidly gained global market share. The national corporation model has drastically impacted global trade, as competition typically occurs among private enterprises, not state-controlled entities. China Inc. wields immense resources, combining governmental power with corporate flexibility. Furthermore, China’s total output has surpassed the United States (measured by purchasing power parity). This dominance affects any industry China enters, significantly impacting global markets. China’s model features high production capacity and low consumption, necessitating the export of surplus products. The CCP depresses wages and the RMB exchange rate, making Chinese products cheap globally. Despite low wages and overwork, Chinese citizens have no option but to obey, hoping they can gradually increase their incomes. The key to this model is the CCP’s rule above the law and its dictatorial control, with no legally protected property rights. The CCP can confiscate property or enterprises at any time. Challenges Facing the CCP The CCP currently faces numerous domestic and international difficulties. Domestically, China’s economy is in crisis. The primary issue is a lack of confidence among people. Entrepreneurs are hesitant to invest, and citizens are reluctant to consume due to the CCP’s arbitrary actions against private enterprises and individuals. The zero-COVID policy has pushed the population to the brink and nearly bankrupted the economy. Today, passive resistance and “lying flat” are common attitudes among the public and officials. The CCP has not adopted significant economic stimulus policies, hoping the private sector will resolve issues independently. (READ MORE Governance in Gaza and the West Bank: What to Know) Internationally, there is growing distrust and vigilance towards China. Countries are increasingly aware of the dangers posed by the CCP’s model and are taking steps to decouple from it. Many nations are establishing alternative supply chains to reduce dependence on China and counter the CCP’s use of trade as a political tool. China Inc.’s international prospects are grim, especially if Trump returns to power. For the CCP, closing its doors is terrifying because, without international trade profits, it cannot placate the masses economically. This could lead to a zero-sum game between the ruling class and the governed, potentially resulting in internal conflict. The CCP fears decoupling from developed countries like the U.S. and Europe, as this would exacerbate domestic economic decline and public dissatisfaction. Third Plenary Session: Hope or Hype? Faced with these challenges, what measures has the CCP introduced at the Third Plenary Session? The first measure is to strengthen the Party’s leadership and bolster Xi Jinping’s authority. The second measure is to re-emphasize “reform.” Strengthening the Party’s leadership and establishing Xi’s authority offers no economic benefits and may further frighten private enterprises and citizens. The emphasis on reform is ineffective because it does not aim to transform the socialist public ownership and dictatorial system into true private ownership and the rule of law. Instead, the reform aims to save the CCP and ensure its perpetual rule. The party may adopt capitalist measures and introduce Western capital and technology when the economy is on the brink of collapse, but this is merely a tactic to buy time, not a genuine embrace of Western democracy, freedom, and the rule of law. The party will not relax its grip and is willing to use military force to maintain its rule, as demonstrated by the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. (READ MORE: Former Trump Defense Official Makes the Case for Prioritizing Asia Over Europe) If there is anything significant in the Third Plenary Session’s communiqué, it is two key phrases. The first is the acknowledgment of the “severe and complex international environment” reflecting the international challenges. The second is to “let firms thrive and control them effectively” (“放得活”又“管得住”) — more specifically, let the market play a role in resource allocation while ensuring the Party’s leadership remains absolute. This phrase is crucial because China Inc. concentrates national resources while encouraging enterprise activities. These show that the party actually recognizes the challenges it faces. A Bleak Outlook Given the global pushback against China’s national corporation model, what options does the CCP have? The best option would be to abandon the model, establish a supreme legal system, place the CCP under the law, and shift the government’s role from an economic player to a referee. This would mean relinquishing dictatorship, something the CCP has explicitly stated it will never do. Therefore, I am not optimistic about China’s future. Without external pressure, the CCP will maintain its one-party rule indefinitely, even at the cost of economic collapse. The phrase “China has entered the garbage time” went viral because it reflects the belief that the CCP will not change its course. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the party has shown some flexibility in adopting market competition, but without true property rights and an independent legal system, China’s economy cannot break through its current bottleneck. This is why the Third Plenary Session is not worth paying attention to and will not introduce any substantive policies. Shaomin Li is a Professor of International Business at Old Dominion University and the author of The Rise of China, Inc.: How the Chinese Communist Party Transformed China into a Giant Corporation.   The post The Third Plenary Session of the CCP Failed appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

We have a national security risk going nearly unnoticed. It doesn’t draw widespread attention on the evening news or social media. It’s not displayed on an emergency phone alert, debated in the halls of Congress, or one for which the military is training to combat. Most don’t know about it, few choose to acknowledge it, and even fewer seek to address the problem. Yet, it’s a clear and present danger to our constitutional republic. The threat facing America is this: The overwhelming majority of high school graduates do not understand, comprehend, or appreciate civics or U.S. history. The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) shows only 22 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in civics while a measly 13 percent are proficient in U.S. history. The consequences of these data are severe. (READ MORE: Philistines à la Mode) Absent knowledge of the people, places, and papers that shaped our union, how will they prevent and solve complex challenges from foreign and domestic threats as adults? Without a basic knowledge of civics, how will they engage with and contribute to a free society? Diluting Civics Education Betrays the Founding Fathers The Founding Fathers viewed history and civics as key to education. They believed both were critical to individual success and sustainability for the republic. For example, George Washington desired education in the “science of government” for the “future guardians of the liberties of the country.” Further, he asked, “What species of knowledge can be equally important?” America isn’t meeting the expectations set forth by her first president. Unfortunately, as time passed and America moved into the 20th century, history and civics were diluted under the broader umbrella of “social studies” — an amalgamation of disciplines. Academics and social scientists began injecting inquiry-based learning, student-directed history, or action civics into lessons. With these approaches, factual knowledge declined as history and civics were replaced with themes like culture and identity. In an attempt to teach social studies, civics, and history became opportunity costs. Thus, we have a national security risk of alarming proportions. (READ MORE: Oklahoma School Districts Must Teach Scripture. Is That a Good Thing?) Sans a background in U.S. history, students’ awareness of the United States’ role in the world will suffer. For example, an inadequate understanding could lead students to the false conclusion that liberty exists without hardship or sacrifice. Furthermore, with the rise of artificial intelligence and rampant misinformation, citizens must know the history of their country and understand the mechanisms that govern it — or risk falling prey to nefarious actors. The decline leaves citizens vulnerable to adversaries seeking to sow division and undermine our nation’s future. For the safety and security of our country, citizens must know the basic tenets of civics and U.S. history. American students are as capable as any across the globe, but they must be taught effectively. We need a new approach. The Republic Must Endure This unsettling trajectory can and should be flipped at the state level. Louisiana answered the call by establishing a new direction for its students. We developed a Freedom Framework to meet the moment. It consists of rigorous academic standards, teacher preparation through collaboration, and accountability for learning. Paramount to our approach is the utilization of primary source documents, seeking to reduce teacher bias and scaffolding background knowledge. Under Louisiana’s Freedom Framework, the totality of events shaping America into an incomparable nation on a quest for a more perfect union is explored. After their high school experience, students are asked to explain and evaluate the concept of American exceptionalism. The quest for freedom is the hallmark of the American spirit, the American story. From the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation to the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the journey towards freedom has been one of struggle and sacrifice. We must and we shall teach students the fragility of liberty. We must and we shall teach students the majesty of our country and their obligations as citizens to safeguard the Republic. We must and we shall teach students the triumphs of our nation and the immense magnitude of sacrifices of those who came before us. Through intentional instruction, learners may appreciate the words of Ronald Reagan when he expressed, “Freedom is one of the noblest and deepest aspirations of the human spirit.” (READ MORE: Oklahoma Public Schools to Include the Bible in Curriculum) America is worthy of our best efforts. As a country, let us join together and overcome the national security risk at our door. Let us be resolved to accept the challenge and invest in effectively teaching the rich history of the United States and the civics that underpin its government. The Republic must endure. Dr. Cade Brumley is Louisiana’s State Superintendent of Education. He also serves as a member of Louisiana’s America 250 Commission. The post The National Security Risk at our Door appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In the same Washington Post op-ed in which President Joe Biden calls the Supreme Court “not normal” and responsible for “dangerous and extreme decisions,” he admits, “I have overseen more Supreme Court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone living today.” Hmmm. If one buys into the premise of a Supreme Court so structurally damaged as to require outside repair, then one must assign a great deal of responsibility to Joe Biden. He boasts, after all, that he oversaw more nominations “than anyone living today.”  If he wielded more influence on the process that resulted in such a disaster, then maybe encouraging him to solve the problem he helped create does not make for such a good idea. Do As I Say, Not As I Do Biden offers three fixes, one of which only tangentially involves the high court. First, the 81-year-old president was recently prevented from running for reelection because, if one can believe Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh’s reporting, of threats to invoke the 25th Amendment by Barack Obama and Kamala Harris. But he wants term limits for Supreme Court justices, the oldest of which entered the world six years after he did. Biden, of course, has held political office almost continuously since the age of 27, which seems a). an awfully long time for this idea not to heretofore occur to him; and b). a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do approach in the extreme. Second, the president, whose family raked in millions from China, Ukraine, and points beyond, insists that justices must “refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.” Finally, the president wants to reverse the court’s Trump v. United States ruling that provides presidents broad immunity for acts undertaken while in office. This ruling covers, presumably, the legal harassment engineered by the White House to kneecap Donald Trump and not just the crimes alleged by that legal harassment pursued by the former president’s political enemies. Elsewhere in his article, the president, ostensibly in passing, cites questions about the court’s “impartiality” and overturning “settled legal precedent.” This seems the heart of the matter. The entire edifice of modern progressive jurisprudence — Roe v. Wade, Kelo v. New London, Engel v. Vitale, Furman v. Georgia, and beyond — relies on overturning “settled legal precedent.” So, not the principle but the particular here outrages the Left, which desperately wants a partial court. This comes off as a projection similar to the longstanding claim that the party whose presidents nominated most of the justices who sided with the majority on Roe v. Wade (Blackmun, Stewart, Brennan, Powell, Burger) and the majority of post-Roe nominees (Stevens, O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Roberts) until Trump’s inauguration who refused to overturn Roe. Biden Is Only Interested in Justice When it Favors Him Joe Biden did not begin using the law for partisan means when he sicced his Justice Department on his political bête noire. As chairman of the judiciary committee, he presided over the vile ideological show trials disguised as confirmation hearings of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. On a purely ideological basis, he voted against John Roberts becoming chief justice just as he had voted against William Rehnquist becoming chief justice. In fact, since Antonin Scalia ascended to the high court, Biden voted just one Republican nominee (Souter) to the Supreme Court. The alpha, if not omega, explaining his past stonewalling of GOP nominees and present scheme for the court is abortion. Secondarily, Biden and other Democrats remain frustrated by a court that does not provide a green light to unconstitutional schemes, such as the CDC wielding imagined power to compel landlords not to raise rents. The president says he wants to depoliticize the courts as he aggressively puts the Supreme Court on the ballot this November. The latter exposes the dishonesty of the former. Joe Biden, a big part of the problem for the last four decades, remains clueless regarding a solution. It vexes a man who champions “democracy” that this court refuses to allow unelected usurpers in the bureaucracy to make law or one court to dictate the abortion laws of all 50 states. And, so, he reacts much like a predecessor also frustrated by a court loyal to law and not to him. Franklin Roosevelt more ambitiously sought to add seats to the court to ensure a majority to his liking. Despite Republicans occupying just 16 seats in the Senate and fewer than 100 in the House, his court-packing scheme failed miserably. Biden faces a majority of Republicans in the House and enjoys a slight majority in the Senate. This is a public relations stunt disguised as a serious proposal. The post Biden Puts Supreme Court on Ballots as His Name Comes Off Them appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The whiny Neil Cavuto didn’t like it on Monday when Sen. John Kennedy noted, during a guest appearance on his Fox News show, that “many Americans think that the vice president is a little bit of a ding-dong.” Cavuto proceeded to scold Kennedy for “name-calling,” and covered himself by lamenting verbal cruelty coming from both sides of the political aisle. But while Kennedy’s unkind characterization of Kamala Harris might have perturbed Cavuto and incensed the various X mobsters of the Left into dubbing him a racist, sexist, and whatever other tired slurs of their choice, that doesn’t make him wrong. Kamala is a ding-dong. Everybody knows she is. Harris Is a Radical. No Doubt About It. If it wasn’t commonly known that she’s a cackling imbecile whose political rise was a combination of casting-couch mentorship, identity politics, and Third-World puppeteering, her handlers wouldn’t be working as hard as they’ve been for the last 10 days to recast her as a “cultural phenomenon.” You’re seeing the most breathtaking fake-it-till-you-make-it campaign since Lou Pearlman left the music business, complete with cringy identity-politics Zoom calls, tens of millions of dollars raised from “small, first-time donors” whose contributions surprisingly come in Sunday night, media whitewashes of commonly-known facts and a candidate even more absent from public scrutiny than even Basement Joe Biden was. Why? Because she’s a ding-dong. Kamala Harris, in the space of a few seconds of a CNN interview when she was running for president in the 2020 cycle, voiced support for limiting the amount of red meat available to American consumers, favored banning plastic straws, and sought to eliminate privately-owned gasoline-powered cars. She’s for the elimination of private health insurance and hydraulic fracturing, though now she says she’s for fracking. Harris is pro-gay, pro-trans, pro-Hamas, and deeply anti-Catholic (though she did enable pedophile priests while DA in San Francisco; apparently she’s for corruption of religion rather than religion itself). (WATCH: The Spectator P.M. Podcast Ep. 64: Kamala Harris Is Radically Anti-Catholic and Anti-Life) Those are ding-dong positions. They’re not serious public-policy stances. It isn’t possible to successfully run a country on such an agenda. We know this because we’ve seen America over the past four years. And we saw America during the eight years Barack Obama was president. Obama’s Protege Harris has always been an Obama protege. Obama directed his donors to her 2020 campaign before it crashed on the launch pad. Obama’s influence was clear in Joe Biden’s choice of Harris as his VP. We now know that it was Obama who fired Biden as the 2024 Democrat nominee despite the latter having won all of the Democrat Party primaries earlier this year; Seymour Hirsch has reported that Obama lowered the boom on Biden by threatening to have Harris and the Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. The only question in this timeline is whether Biden didn’t exact some revenge on Obama by quickly endorsing Harris and therefore foreclosing his ability to manipulate an “open” convention process to choose a new nominee. Even that is mostly immaterial, as the current Democrat Party nominee will inevitably be an Obama puppet. Until the Democrats suffer the good, hard ass-kicking up and down the ballot they so richly deserve, Barack Obama will control that party lock, stock, and barrel. And it doesn’t matter whether the reports claiming that Arizona senator Mark Kelly was more favored by Obama as the 2024 nominee instead of Harris are true. The fact remains that it’s Barack Obama’s Democrat Party, the one he built shortly following John Kerry’s ignominious 2004 defeat and which lumbers on into possibly its third decade of dragging America to the left, which lined up behind his failed former puppet of choice. Obama might have wanted a competition. He wasn’t upset by the fact there was none. His concern wasn’t about whether Harris would do his bidding but whether he could sell her the way Pearlman sold those manufactured music bands (until he couldn’t). But those concerns, for whatever reason, abated. And so now we have Harris, who is best described as a Xerox copy of Obama. As in, a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy, with all the consequent degradation in quality. A Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox… ad nauseum She’s more a citizen of the world than a red-blooded American, just like Obama. She came up in radical deep-blue urban politics, just like Obama. She’s been coddled and protected by the media and political class all the way up through her career, just like Obama. She’s lived a suspect personal life in some respects, though not necessarily parallel to Obama. She’s been referred to as “inauthentically black,” with a background different from that of a classic African-American whose ancestors were brought to this country as slaves, as Obama was. Like Obama was, she’s now being packaged as far more “hip” and “cool” than a serious wielder of political power subject to accountability therefrom. And she’s for every hard-socialist, implausibly green, totalitarian policy imaginable. Just like Obama. In a brilliant takedown of Harris as a perfect puppet for Obama, Lee Smith, writing at Tablet Magazine, noted that Obama had been bent on replacing Joe Biden ever since Oct. 7 of last year, when the Iran-backed Hamas terrorists Obama has favored since his time palling around with Edward Said at Columbia and Rashid Khalidi back in Chicago pulled off their mass-murder masterpiece… The question is when, exactly, did it become clear to Obama that it was time for Harris to finally replace Biden? Was it after Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump? After the attempted assassination of Trump? No, it seems the countdown officially began Oct. 7. The Palestinians’ murderous assault on communities in southern Israel exposed Biden’s limited ability to represent the interests of the party he was tapped to temporarily preside over. It didn’t require an especially refined moral sensibility to be appalled and terrified by the carnivalesque depravity of Oct. 7—but to give Biden credit, he evidently was. And that was the signal his time was up. He‘s no John Fetterman. Biden is not a particularly courageous friend of the Jewish state, nor does he appear to much value the strategic importance of an ally that lessens America’s burden in a region vital to U.S. interests. When it comes to Israel, the 81-year-old president is just a normal late-20th-century Democrat who likes the country well enough, recognizes Jews as an important albeit small voting bloc and a crucial source of campaign funds, and performs ritualistic contempt for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But last Wednesday’s pro-Hamas riots in Washington, D.C.—in which domestic left-wing extremists linked arms with Middle East terror supporters and other foreigners to burn the American flag, deface monuments, and brawl with police, all in the name of protesting Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of Congress—was only the latest evidence that the crux of Biden’s Oct. 7 problem was not that Michigan and Minnesota’s voter rolls are swollen with advocates of Muslim and Arab terror. The issue was not a party constituency at all, but rather the party itself and its leader. Barack Obama fundamentally reshaped the party when he struck the 2015 deal legalizing the nuclear weapons program of Hamas’ sponsor, Iran. By legitimizing the apocalyptic foreign policy aims of the world power that embodies Jew hatred, Obama sidelined the Jews and other centrists and made the progressive, anti-Israel faction the party’s new center of gravity. But Smith is just a little off when he frames the rejection of Biden as an unsuitable frontman for the Obama machine as insufficient disdain for Israel. It isn’t Israel that Obama despises, it’s America. It’s Western civilization. The New (and Leaky) Instrument of Destruction The destruction of the West has been Obama’s project his entire adult life, as I noted in Racism, Revenge and Ruin: It’s All Obama. And Harris, whom Smith describes as an empty vessel into which he can pour all of his resentments and aggressions cultural, political, and economic, is the new instrument of that destruction. But, like Biden except for different reasons, Harris is a leaky vessel. For all the pomp and circumstance surrounding her elevation, Kamala Harris is not a viable candidate for the presidency. She has no record of accomplishment, and what record she does have her allies in the media are furiously attempting to scrub. Or haven’t you heard that Harris was not actually the border czar, regardless of the mountain of media coverage to that exact effect when Biden named her his “point person” in dealing with the border his stupid policies were causing to be overrun with migrants? She has no ability to communicate as Obama could. Harris does duplicate to an extent the gaseous rhetoric Obama regaled audiences with during his time on the political stage, but the difference was that with Obama one could discern a certain philosophical direction. What can one discern from “the significance of the passage of time” or “unburdened by what was?” And while Obama had a talent, mostly burnished by shamefully sycophantic media coverage, for creating fake middle grounds around which to frame his radical policies, Harris can’t rise to that level. Hers is fangirl leftism, no more well-considered than that of an average ding-dong lefty co-ed and not much more well-articulated. It’s a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox. Kennedy isn’t wrong to call this sham of a campaign by derisive names, whether it hurts Neil Cavuto’s feelings or not. The post Kamala Harris: Obama’s ‘Ding-Dong’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.