President Joe Biden gave a 10-minute speech Wednesday night attempting to provide a post hoc rationale for his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race. He did not mention pressure from former President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He did not mention his age or his horrific debate performance last month. He did, however, insist that he was trying to “save democracy.” This rationale is quite peculiar. In order to “save democracy,” Biden would disenfranchise 14.3 million Democratic primary voters. These voters chose him to represent their party after Democratic elites systematically prevented more viable candidates from entering the 2024 race. This bubbling frustration led Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., to enter the Democratic race. Phillips, who knew his track record as a member of the House of Representatives likely would not be enough to unseat the sitting president, nonetheless threw his hat in the ring because he thought Biden could not win. Cenk Uygur, creator of “The Young Turks” talk show and also a long-shot candidate, entered the race for the same reason. Rather than allow a small-d democratic process to select their nominee, Democrats shielded Biden, helping the White House and the legacy media in their efforts to dismiss serious concerns about the president’s age and mental acuity. Meanwhile, the Republicans had a bruising primary that now has resulted in a party fully united behind former President Donald Trump. Yet preventing a real primary was not the only thing Democrats did to undermine democracy—ironically, in the name of saving it. Many appeared to hope that attacks on Trump in the legal system would prevent the American people from having a real say in who governs them this election. Democrats attempted to boot Trump—a former president and the leading Republican candidate—from the ballot under the pretext that he abetted an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021. These cases rightly failed. Then Democratic prosecutors launched another witch hunt against the former president, bringing case after case in a transparent attempt to hamper his political campaign. Each legal case came after Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race, even though most of them involved alleged lawbreaking from years prior. When the Supreme Court rightly ruled that presidents enjoy immunity for some official acts, the Left went crazy because the ruling would result in a delay of legal cases that they hoped would hobble the Republican candidate in the Nov. 5 election. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has launched an extensive effort to turn the federal government into a get-out-the-vote machine likely to boost Democrats. Biden issued an executive order heavily based on a memo from the far-left group Demos, directing federal agencies to register voters—the kind of activity political campaigns generally engage in. His administration has teamed up with other far-left groups, including the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, in a transparent effort to tip the scales in elections. Biden may wax eloquent about “democracy” all he wishes, but his extreme rhetoric about Donald Trump shouldn’t fool the American people. After all, Americans just witnessed an assassination attempt on Trump after years in which Democrats, the legacy media, and Biden himself described Trump as authoritarian, a puppet of Russia, or a 21st-century Adolf Hitler. If Democrats really want to “tone down the rhetoric” and “save democracy,” each should take a long, hard look at the beam in his or her own eye. The post ORWELLIAN: Biden Would Destroy Democracy in Order to ‘Save’ It appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A California high school took down its “LGBTQ Resources” webpage shortly following The Daily Signal’s report exposing it. Newport Harbor High School in the Newport Mesa Unified School District had posters around its halls with scannable QR codes in its hallways that take students to a number of “LGBTQ+ Resources,” including the LGBTQ Center of Orange County’s website, according to photos shared with The Daily Signal. Now, the QR code takes scanners to an “Error” page. The now-deleted resources included this link to “LGBTQ Affirming Therapy” provided by the LGBTQ Center OC. The link takes students to a form that helps them connect with a therapist who can write a referral letter for transition procedures. The LGBTQ Center’s website also has a form that connects minors with doctors who prescribe sterilizing hormone-therapy regimens and perform irreversible gender-transition surgeries. The form asks the person filling it out to select what kind of transgender surgery they are interested in. Options include “top surgery/chest masculinization,” “breast augmentation/chest feminization,” “facial feminization or masculinization,” “tracheal shave,” “body contouring,” “hysterectomy,” “phalloplasty,” “vaginoplasty,” “metoidioplasty,” and “orchiectomy.” The district denied that it refers students to “gender-affirming care.” “We do not partner with any of the resource providers and none of our direct links are connected to gender transition counseling/therapy,” Newport Mesa public relations officer Annette Franco told The Daily Signal in an email. “We support students and know they are more successful when we involve their parents and families in decisions that impact their lives.” The post District Takes Down ‘LGBTQ Resources’ Link to Org With Transgender Surgery Information After Daily Signal Exposé appeared first on The Daily Signal.

When Vice President Joe Biden met in 2011 with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing, the two men joked about their age. “I note that we were born in the same year,” Wen said when the two made a joint public appearance. “You have spent about 35 years in public service, and I’ve been working in the government compound of Beijing for more or less the same period of time.” “What a magnificent place,” Biden said of that facility. “Now I know why even though we were born in the same year, you look so much younger than I. You worked in a much more commodious environment than I do.” As this column has noted before, Biden then thanked this communist leader for China’s help to fund the U.S. debt. “We appreciate and welcome your concluding that the United States is such a safe haven because we appreciate your investment in U.S. treasuries,” Biden told him. On that day—Aug. 19, 2011—the federal debt was approximately $14.639 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. At the close of last week, it was approximately $34.944 trillion. That is an increase of $20.305 trillion—or 138%. History will record that Biden himself oversaw a massive increase in the debt—which as of last Friday had increased by approximately $7.1923 trillion during his term. That will not be the only negative mark on Biden’s legacy. Biden picked Sept. 11, 2021—the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks—as the deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. “President Joe Biden … officially announced the drawdown of all 2,500 U.S. troops in that country beginning May 1 and concluding by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the war,” the Defense Department reported April 14, 2021. “I believed that our presence in Afghanistan should be focused on the reason we went in the first place: to ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again,” Biden said in remarks delivered that day. Then the president said: “We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We’ll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely.” About two weeks before Biden’s 9/11 withdrawal deadline, an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. service members in an attack outside the Kabul airport. The Defense Department reported that the terrorist “was one of thousands of ISIS-K members the Taliban released from a pair of detention centers in mid-August 2021.” Did Biden’s withdrawal leave behind an Afghanistan that is free of terrorists who could try to attack the United States in the future? “ISIS-K and its allies retain a safe haven in Afghanistan, and they continue to develop their networks in and out of the country,” Gen. Michael Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March. What about al-Qaeda? “Al Qaeda, while weakened, still enjoys safe havens in Afghanistan and Yemen,” Kurilla said, as this column has noted before. Then there is the surge of “inadmissible” Afghans caught trying to cross the southwest border. According to an inspector general’s report, as this column has noted before, the Border Patrol encountered 932 “inadmissible” Afghans there through March 5 of this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. During fiscal 2019, according to data published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol did not encounter even one individual on the terrorist watchlist trying to sneak across the U.S.-Mexico border between the ports of entry. So far this fiscal year, it has encountered 93. When Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in 2007, he conceded that human life begins at conception—but spoke of it as a religious principle, not a scientific one. “Do you believe that life begins at conception?” host Tim Russert asked him. “I am prepared to accept my church’s view. I think it’s a tough one,” said Biden. “That is a tough, tough decision to me. But there is a point relatively soon where viability—it’s clear to me when there’s viability, meaning the ability to survive outside the womb, that I don’t have any doubt.” “Are you still opposed to public funding for abortion?” Russert asked him. “I still am opposed to public funding for abortion,” he said. In this year’s State of the Union address, Biden said: “If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.” After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Biden’s Defense Department issued a policy that, as NPR put it, would “pay for service members to travel for abortion care.” “But the Biden DOD abortion travel policy forces taxpayers to pay the transportation costs for military members and dependents to travel to procure an abortion, for any reason, right up until the moment of birth,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said in a speech on the House floor. So, Biden believes life begins at conception—and that the government should force taxpayers to help fund the ending of that life. Biden says he will leave the presidency after one four-year term. But decades from now, history will recall the massive debt he accumulated, his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the border he did not secure, and the innocent lives his policies worked to destroy. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post How History Will Remember Biden appeared first on The Daily Signal.

NPR: Protests in D.C. Were 'Largely Peaceful'

On Wednesday, PolitiFact beclowned itself as it claimed it is “mostly-false” for Republicans to say Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed “border czar.” However, that was not all. Also on Wednesday, PolitiFact tried to attack the party for condemning Democrats for not knowing what a woman is and other “LGBTQ+ talking points” from the Republican National Convention. The first claim that LGBTQ issues writer Grace Abels tried to discredit was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claim that “[Democrats] promised normalcy and gave us Transgender Visibility Day on Easter Sunday."  Abels labeled that “misleading” because it was just a coincidence that the two happened to fall on the same day, but that does not explain why President Joe Biden felt the need to issue a proclamation acknowledging it. Further down, under a “LGBTQ+ ‘ideology’ in schools” subheading, Abels cites former Donald Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro, declaring, "They're indoctrinating them with poisonous attitudes on race and gender." After some more quotations, Abels twisted herself into a logic pretzel, “In 2022, we looked into what research says about gender and sexuality in schools. There is no evidence that increased exposure to LGBTQ+ people or topics makes children more likely to join the LGBTQ+ community, experts in psychology and child development told PolitiFact. Rather, an environment of increased acceptance allows people to more openly consider whether they might be part of the LGBTQ+ community, experts said.” Even further along, Abels takes on the issue of “Transgender athletes in school sports.” She cites Sen. Steve Daines remarking, “These liberal senators want boys in girls sports. "They want men in your daughter’s and my daughter's locker room." Abels tried to discredit the idea, “There is no official count, but estimates show the population of transgender athletes participating in school sports is very small. So few that lawmakers supporting restrictions have previously struggled to cite examples of trans athletes competing in school sports.” Struggled? It was only two months ago that a biological male from Washington won the state’s 2A 400 meter championship. There are several other examples if only Abels would take the time to find them. Finally, Abels sought to take on the idea that “Democrats can’t ‘define what a woman is.’” While Republicans ridiculed Democrats for being unable to answer such a simple question, Abels wrote, “Today, medical experts and most major medical organizations agree that sex and gender are different.” For Abels, being a woman is just a feeling, “Gender identity refers to someone’s internal sense of being a man, woman or nonbinary.” The word “gender” was always another choice for people who were squeamish about the word “sex,” at least, until political activists decided to rewrite the English language to fit their political agenda. Speaking of political agendas, Wednesday made it clear that PolitiFact has one. For them, it is a fact to say Harris was not the “border czar,” but not to say that whether one is a man or a woman is objective. This is who PBS teamed up with to save democracy.

Dave Rubin, as a former Democrat, loves when lefties see the light and have the humility to switch teams. No one perhaps better exemplifies this than tech billionaire Elon Musk, a longtime Democrat who’s unabashedly ripped the radical left for its adoption of wokeism and commended the right for its rejection of it. In Jordan Peterson’s recent interview with Musk, Peterson asked him about his Trump endorsement, which in a way crystallized Musk’s political leanings. Watch Jordan Peterson’s Face When Elon Musk Tells Him Why He Ditched Democrats www.youtube.com “So you've obviously decided to lay your efforts down on the side of the Trump administration in the forthcoming election,” Peterson said. “I think we need a change of administration. Many years ago ... the Democratic Party was the party of meritocracy and of personal freedom. They used to be the free speech party, and these days, they seem to be the censorship party under the guise of hate speech,” Musk said. “So weirdly, in my view, the Republican Party is actually the party that's the meritocracy party because, you know, the Democrats are also promoting DEI, which is really just another form of racism and sexism,” he continued. “It’s the most pernicious form, I think,” Peterson said of DEI, pointing to the fact that “it insists on dividing people by groups.” Musk agreed, adding, “I think the Democratic Party is stoking division,” while “the Republican Party is more in line with meritocracy and with personal freedom.” To hear more of their conversation, watch the clip above. Want more from Dave Rubin?To enjoy more honest conversations, free speech, and big ideas with Dave Rubin, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

CNN political analyst Scott Jennings went there. After President Joe Biden spoke from the Oval Office on Wednesday — never explaining why he chose to end his re-election campaign — a CNN panel that featured Biden allies swooned over the president for being "selfless" and "heroic," claiming Biden willingly chose to step away from power. 'You're asking the country to overlook a lot of dishonesty about Joe Biden's abilities, capabilities — his capacity to serve for another four years.' But Jennings quickly rained on their parade. The Republican commentator, instead, brought forth all of the evidence indicating that Biden's decision to step aside is not the selfless act of courage Democrats are claiming it to be. "It's odd to me that just a few weeks ago — heck, a few days ago — most Democrats were still looking at television cameras and saying that this person is up to another four years. I mean, he's obviously running on fumes," Jennings began. "They weren't 'cheapfakes,' no matter what the government told you." "In fact, I still think it's a legitimate scandal how they ever arrived at the decision to run again in the first place," he added. The Biden family and his staff, Jennings continued, "have a lot of explaining to do," referring to their decision seemingly to hide Biden's cognitive decline. But that's not the only problem for Democrats. In fact, the praise for Biden, Jennings said, hides the fact that Democratic Party leaders forced Biden to step down from his re-election campaign, thus ignoring the will of voters. "I'm still shocked at how easy it is to overthrow the president," Jennings observed. "He got 81 million votes in 2020, and then he get 14 million more. But at the end of the day, he was no match for a handful of party bosses who run the Democratic Party." "At the end of the day, a bunch of people looked into TV cameras over the last days, weeks, and months, and told you a lot of things — a lot of things that were not true about this president," he pointed out. The panel did not immediately challenge anything Jennings said.But later in the discussion, David Axelrod, a close ally of former President Barack Obama, took exception to Jennings' observations. He claimed Biden wasn't "toppled" by Democratic Party bosses before chastising Jennings for not giving Biden enough "grace." Jennings, however, did not have the patience for Axelrod's revisionist history. "What you're asking Republicans to do is to overlook a lot of dishonesty that came right out of this White House, that came right out of the vice president, people who worked for him, his family, other Democrats, Democrats in Congress," Jennings told Axelrod. "You're asking the country to overlook a lot of dishonesty about Joe Biden's abilities, capabilities — his capacity to serve for another four years and so on." Jennings ultimately told Axelrod that it is "weird" Democrats are pretending that Biden wasn't pushed out by party bosses, especially considering that Biden and Democratic Party leaders were insisting just one month ago that Biden is capable of serving another four years as president. Despite the fact that Democratic voters chose Biden in their primary elections, Vice President Kamala Harris became the party's presumptive nominee this week when enough delegates pledged to support her campaign. Harris, unfortunately, has an uphill fight if she wants to seriously challenge Donald Trump for the White House. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn't just the long awaited continuation of a series that's laid dormant for a decade, but could also be a return to form for creator Bioware that many players are hoping will capture some of the appeal of earlier work like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age: Origins. While we'll need to wait and see if the game meets the expectations of that segment of the audience, some good news has arrived months out from its launch: The Veilguard is already Steam Deck Verified and its Steam version won't require the EA App at all. Continue reading You won’t need the EA App to play Dragon Age The Veilguard on Steam MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best RPGs, Dragon Age 4 characters, Dragon Age 4 release date

The Long Dark, which first came to PC in 2014, is one of the best survival games to date. Its take on the genre, set in a frozen stretch of post-apocalyptic Canadian wilderness, makes it unique among other standouts like Don't Starve, Rust, DayZ, Valheim, Subnautica, and Sons of the Forest. Somehow, though, it's taken until now, a decade later, for another studio to create a game made with clear inspiration from The Long Dark, which certainly seems to be the case with wintery survival roguelike Angst: A Tale of Survival. Continue reading The Long Dark gets spiritual successor with new survival game, Angst

Belonging to a man who died in present-day Taiyuan in 736 C.E., the tomb is adorned with a wealth of other paintings, including farmers working in their fields, sentries with swords, and several multicolored dragons. The post Archaeologists Discovered A Mural Of A ‘Western Man’ With Blonde Hair And A Beard In An 8th-Century Tang Dynasty Tomb appeared first on All That's Interesting.