President Joe Biden addressed the nation Wednesday from the Oval Office for the first time since the Sunday announcement that he would not run for reelection.  In what was functionally a stump speech for Vice President Kamala Harris, his preferred successor, Biden appealed to “democracy” and “the American idea.” The president did not explain why he chose to exit the race or reassure the American people that he can lead the country over the next six months. “America’s going to have to choose between moving forward and moving backward,” he said. “When you elected me in this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth,” Biden continued. The president then gave a list of accomplishments, such as appointing the first black woman to the Supreme Court and “securing” the southern border.  The president also illustrated several goals he hoped to achieve before the end of his term, like curing cancer. “I will keep fighting for my cancer moonshot so we can end cancer as we know it,” he said. “We can do it.” But the allegedly unique nature of the 2024 election cycle was his recurring theme. “The very nature of who we are is at stake,” he concluded. “The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule; the people do. History is in your hands. The power is in your hands.” The president did not provide further clarity on his decision to step down from the Democratic nomination, nor did he address the campaign by party grandees to oust him after his poor June 27 debate performance.  Biden: ‘In recent weeks, it’s become clear to me that I need to unite my party … I believe my record… my vision… all merited a second term’He did not concede he wasn’t up to it. He said, elegantly, that he was couped by his party and the prestige media.Tad chilling.— Curt Mills (@CurtMills) July 25, 2024 The president also did not disclose why he did not make any public appearances before Tuesday, a decision which set off wild speculation about his condition. The post Biden Delivers First Speech After Exiting Presidential Race appeared first on The American Conservative.

No one seems to have picked up on this: If Joe Biden had stuck it out to the brutal end, he probably would have lost — but might have won. Republicans, talk radio hosts, and Fox News analysts are fond of starting sentences critiquing leftists, Democrats, and the mainstream media (all the same thing) with the words “The American people are too smart to be fooled by . . .” Over and over, year after year: “The American people are too smart to be fooled by . . .” Well, sorry neighbors, but no, they aren’t. At least half the American people are, by definition, below the midline, mediocrities, fools. They elected Carter, Obama, and Biden. They elected House and Senate majorities, and barely missed another House majority. Oh, yes, afterward they complain and complain and complain when their women, or women they know, or women they read about get raped and murdered by illegals. And yet, it took their votes to elect the connivers who opened the border to the mentally ill, convicted criminals, convicted rapists, and murderers. They complain that they cannot afford food, need to skip one meal a day, can’t afford gas at the pump — and yet it was their votes that empowered corrupt power brokers to impose the laws and regulations that have left them without breakfast or lunch, and paying $4–6 a gallon when it had been $2 under Trump. They complain about crime and smash-and-grabs and drive-by shootings in the inner cities, and then they elect and reelect for a century the same Democrats whose “no cash bail,” catch-and-release, and minimal prison sentences gave them that. So, no, the American people are not too smart to be fooled by almost anything. And special gold medals go to the rubes and local yokels in Montana who are totally MAGA Donald Trump supporters, give him victories like 55.6 percent to 34.4 (2016 over Hillary) and 56.9 percent to 40.6 (2020 over Biden) — and then elect radical leftist Jon Tester to the Senate, time after time, where he has been the deciding vote with Kamala Harris, also time after time, to advance the Biden–Harris agenda on crime, open borders, botched economy, disastrous foreign policy, and so much else. The American people are “too smart”? Gimme a break. Tester gets a buzz cut and wears cowboy boots, and the rubes keep electing him to be the wrench in the Trump MAGA agenda. If anyone knows how to talk sense to the Big Sky crowd, please do. We have three months to get through to them. This same lack of sophistication has meant that “moderate” and “Independent” voters who inclined to vote for Biden over Trump because he is “more moderate” were lining up for Biden again, like sheep to the slaughter, lacking the simple understanding that voting for Biden was tantamount to voting for Harris. They could not grasp that. Their preference for a “moderate” like Biden over a radical woke San Francisco leftist like Harris left them unfocused on the Biden ticket’s vice presidency. They would sooner have voted for Trump or maybe RFK, Jr. than Harris. In their unsophisticated minds, they could not pick up that a vote for Biden would have been a vote for Harris. Indeed, no one in history ever has cast a presidential vote for Harris, not even in a primary. American people too smart? Really? Biden, may he recover fully and be well for many more decades in private life, succumbed politically from the post-debate Obama–Pelosi pressure, amplified many times over by being struck with COVID. I don’t hear this from other pundits but, for my two cents, I am convinced the COVID blow broke his resolve, amid the disease’s ravaging wallop and the lingering coughing and aches, particularly at 82. He is recovering after at least 10 doses of Paxlovid, and may he emerge with a complete recovery, but he just ran out of strength, and the Democrat vultures circled around to feast on his political corpse. He gave up the ghost. And Kamala snatched it. Had Biden not stepped aside, Kamala’s record never would have come under serious scrutiny. The Trump campaign’s focus would have been on Biden. Usually, that is OK because the vice president, at least for the short term, is there for window dressing even though he or she becomes the presumptive leader in the party’s next derby four or eight years hence. Sure, there would have been asides, in campaigning against Biden, about Harris the border czar, and the bizarre border she only once “czarred,” “tsarred,” or visited. But the focus would have been on Biden. By contrast from GOP campaigning, the Democrats throw mud and feces at everyone everywhere: e.g., Clement Haynsworth, G. Harrold Carswell, Dan Quayle, Brett Kavanaugh, and Aileen Cannon. However, Harris would have slipped through, unnoticed except for her cackle and occasional idiocy that invariably would arrive “with the passage of time.” Then, days after the 2024 election — if Biden won — he would have stepped down, and she would taken the reins. Even if Biden would have continued fighting reality, it would not have lasted long. As United States Attorney Robert Hur essentially concluded, no jury concerned with humanitarian grounds and elder abuse ever would convict him after getting a good 10-minute exposure to him. So Biden would have quit, and Harris would have become president by means of the preferred and historical Harris way: without getting a single vote in her life to be president. But that now changes. Instead of her sliding into the White House without any serious scrutiny, this time her record will be exposed. If she gets in, it will be only because of the outright stupidity of a majority of the American people — call them the “Montana Testerites” — who will have been informed and warned of her record and failed to grasp that a vote for Harris is a vote against their families and themselves. She won’t slide in unnoticed. Instead, American voters will have to decide: Do I want a president for the next four years who: Has lied to me for four years, right in my face without blinking an eye, about Biden’s discombobulation Has expressed support for reducing police funding Has advocated giving felons, and has considered even giving mass murderers, the right to vote Has promised to seize private health insurance from everyone and replace it with “Medicare for All” Has been a “Border Czar” under whom 11 milion illegals — including mental cases, rapists, and murderers — have entered the United States Caused 600 convictions to be dismissed and critically messed 1,700 convictions as San Francisco district attorney Stood by convictions corruptly obtained with false confessions, withheld evidence, and other legal malefactions as California attorney-general Helped raise money to support a woke “prisoner’s rights” group that opposes bail, thus freeing hundreds of people who proceeded to commit more crimes including murder Inability to select and hold onto qualified aides Is co-responsible for and owns the entire Biden–Harris disaster of the past four years: crime, energy prices, food prices, wages not keeping up with price rises, Afghanistan, endorsing Medicare for illegals (which will collapse the Medicare system), Afghanistan, and so much more If that is who the American people want and vote for, then please stop prefacing political analysis with “The American people are too smart to be fooled by . . .” To quote her fortune cookie mantra, we have got to unburden what has been. The post Kamala Almost Slid Into the White House by Disguise appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — During my recent travels, I did something I haven’t done in a while and grabbed a cab rather than an Uber at the airport. It was enlightening. When ridesharing apps burst onto the scene, the state of cab riding was mostly dismal — dirty vehicles, credit card readers from another era, and exorbitant prices. Lo and behold, this cab featured a decent car, improved payment system, and better pricing. It’s amazing what some competition can do. When people discuss ridesharing, they generally focus on some specific aspect of this ridesharing service that they like or dislike. They often forget the broader point — the degree to which this app-based technology has transformed the entire taxi/limo/shuttle industry. Nothing works better to force companies to improve and better serve consumers than the risk of losing business to a competitor. Generally, taxicab companies operate within a regulatory system whereby localities hand out a limited number of medallions. The prices of those permits are often sky-high because of the limited number of cabs that cities allow on their streets. If, say, a city permits 1,000 cabs and there are 2,000 people who want one, well the price of the permit to operate one goes to the highest bidder. When Uber and Lyft created this innovative process of calling for a ride from a private driver via one’s phone app, it upended everything and seemed to pose an existential threat to taxis. But taxis haven’t gone away. Instead, they’ve gotten cleaner, newer, comfier, and cheaper. In other words, Uber forced cab companies to up their game. Ridesharing also caused a widespread decrease in the value of those medallions, which were artificial costs imposed on drivers and ultimately borne by consumers. Instead of paying, say, $100,000 for the right to own a cab, drivers just started driving for a ridesharing firm, which had no such artificial limits. Some mostly large cab companies lost out — but such “creative destruction” became a boon for virtually everyone else, including drivers who now mostly earn better pay. Uber began operations in 2009, but it really took off in the last eight to 10 years. But, of course, California’s state government can’t just allow a groundbreaking technology to grow and prosper, improve entire industries, provide decent jobs, and make everyone’s lives a little bit better. It had to step in and try to crush that industry on behalf of unions, ideologues, and others who use the government to protect their turf. As ridesharing expanded its reach throughout California, the state Supreme Court issued a 2018 ruling in a case known as Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court that threatened — and indeed still threatens — to obliterate this business model. The case involved a delivery service that switched its workforce from permanent employees to independent contractors. Some drivers claimed the change violated the state’s labor rules. The court concocted something called an “ABC Test” that essentially forbade companies from using contractors or freelancers except for some limited tasks. Unions of course celebrated, as they always seem to want the government to put a thumb on the scale. The union-dominated Legislature responded to the ruling by codifying its far-reaching provisions. As an aside, the Biden administration has been trying to impose similar rules via federal regulatory edict. As I’ve written before for The American Spectator, the legislation, Assembly Bill 5, targeted most freelance workers, and the legislation caused immense blowback as people working in myriad professions suddenly found themselves without work. Companies began laying off California-based contractors rather than hiring them full time (big surprise). The Legislature ended up exempting more than 100 industries from AB 5’s draconian rules. Voters then approved Proposition 22 in 2020, which exempted rideshare drivers from AB 5 and promised them a number of fringe benefits. But instead of finally recognizing that they overreached, California’s Democratic officials have continued to double down on their efforts to potentially shutter the ridesharing business. In May, the California Supreme Court — the same court that created this mess with its Dynamex ruling — heard oral arguments regarding the constitutionality of Proposition 22. The initiative was ruled unconstitutional by a superior court but upheld on appeal. CalMatters concluded that, “Based on their line of questioning, California Supreme Court justices seemed to be reaching for a compromise” on the matter. We’ll see. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal had found that lawmakers specifically targeted these ridesharing companies, but last month an 11-judge panel on the same court found AB 5 constitutional and ruled that, “There are plausible reasons for treating transportation and delivery referral companies differently from other types of referral companies, particularly when the Legislature perceived [them] as the most significant perpetrators of the problem it sought to address — worker classification.” Meanwhile, Courthouse News reported that the U.S. Supreme Court “passed up on an appeal from Uber … forcing the rideshare giant to face a California lawsuit that claims the company misclassified drivers as independent contractors.” This whole misclassification notion is absurd, given that these drivers generally prefer to work this way rather than as 9-5 employees, but the whole matter continues to be tied up in costly and endless litigation. The industry continues operating as usual as the yearslong matter plays out. Over the same time period that Uber, Lyft, and other app-based companies have transformed and improved the transportation and delivery business, this state has been trying to shut — or at least hobble — this industry. What does this say to entrepreneurs who have other ideas to improve our lives and bust up encrusted, bureaucratic industries? And does anyone — even California lawmakers — want to go back to the bad old days of crummy taxis? Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org. The post California’s Endless War on Ridesharing appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

It didn’t take long. I read in the New York Times that Kamala Harris is the candidate of “joy.” She hasn’t even been at the forefront for 72 hours and already the syrup has started to drip. Joy? As bad-tempered as she is, she can hardly be the candidate of joy. And, on the other hand, joy does not solve inflation, nor the border crisis.  We knew that nothing would be the same after the attack on Trump. What we didn’t know is that it would all happen so fast. In less than 10 days, the former president has gone from saving his life by a few inches to redoubling his chances of returning to the White House, amid a wave of popular support, as the world watches as the Democratic Party commits assisted suicide in real time. And in less than 10 days, Trump has gone from facing a zombie to having to face a ghost.  Kamala Harris is a gaseous matter, invisible, still unknown to science. Harris is nothingness, a kind of quantum vacuum, the specter of the annihilation of a particle, an error of terrestrial gravity. Of her political abilities we know only one, her ambition. Her intellectual abilities are unaccounted for. And her leadership ability is comparable to that of a driftwood log. Perhaps her only political talent, at this moment, is having been born a woman, but that is a condition that more than 50 percent of American citizens can also claim. And, following Democrat logic, even the other 50 percent could claim it providing they are willing to undergo surgery. The Left has succeeded in making being a woman mean nothing special. So there’s little reason to be impressed with Kamala; in fact, we should remind them of it every time the press announces the possibility that, for the first time, a woman will be president of the United States. It’s micromachismo or whatever the neo-language woke calls it. Biden would not have resigned without the attack or, rather, without Trump’s rise in popularity after the attack. From that point on, the internal pressures became unbearable and the Democrats had to face their own delusion: they have been insisting for months that Biden is better than ever, that he could even take part in the damn Olympics, and that he is the right man to save the nation from itself.  Neither is it certain that the president has decided to leave of his own free will. I have serious doubts that he has done anything of his own free will in the past year. There is only one thing more sectarian than a progressive taking on a conservative, and that is a progressive taking on another progressive. Historically the Left has been unrivaled in internal purges. I’m prepared to bet that Biden has been secretly purged by the same people who have been celebrating him publicly up until a few hours ago. I am not saddened by the cruelty of his fate, frankly, because he should never have run, but I am amused to discover that, once again, for Democrats, politics is the art of betrayal.  Kamala Harris represents everything that is wrong with the contemporary Left. Biden was a horrible candidate, but if there was one thing we couldn’t accuse him of, it was having bad ideas; to have bad ideas you have to have at least some ideas. It was enough for Biden to figure out in what order to put his shoes on, which, for a few months now, is just about where his presidential responsibilities begin and end. If the Left wishes, we can continue to pretend we haven’t noticed.  Harris is different. Harris is the American version of the radicalized postmodern Left present in the rest of the West. Harris is a frightening mix of wokeism, sentimental politics, socialism, and sectarianism. It is like making Amanda Gorman defense secretary; and I hope I am not giving Harris any ideas. She is capable of signing her on as vice president, without even bothering to find out if anyone has looked into the harmful effects of her poetry on her victims’ glucose levels.  In 20 years of journalism, I have learned that in journalism you should never exaggerate the importance of something that is happening in real time, but above all you should never minimize it. I doubt I’m wrong: I’m pretty sure that in a few years we’ll be talking about what has just happened as the 10 days that changed the world. Trump is saved. Biden is gone. And Harris, well, who cares about Harris? READ MORE: The Democrats’ Panic Reveals Vance’s Strength Advice To Trump: Fire The Secret Service The post Ten Days That Changed the World? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

When Kamala Harris was first introduced on the national stage, she was frequently heralded as a former prosecutor. After she was selected for the ticket in 2020, Democrats and the media quickly worked to rebrand the role of prosecutor due to the fact that the profession was being vilified amid the George Floyd killing in the spring of 2020. Despite the New Yorker’s feeble attempt to rebrand her former profession, others were quick to criticize. Now, Vice President Harris’ former job is infrequently — if at all — mentioned with her bio.  And it isn’t any surprise. The popularity of prosecution has plummeted in recent years. Scholars may speculate as to underlying cause, but the effect in liberal politics is clear — a long, celebrated career of seeking incarceration is no longer politically popular on the left.  But now that President Joe Biden has announced his intention to drop out of the 2024 campaign, and thrust his support behind Harris, questions about Harris’ early career and close ties to prosecution may return to the forefront of America’s collective psyche.  Harris graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1986. Harris immediately matriculated to the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where she graduated in 1989. A little known or discussed fact is that Harris failed the bar exam the first time she took it in 1989. She passed the bar in 1990 (and now is apparently an inactive member of the California bar).  Beginning in 1990, Harris served as a “deputy district attorney” in Alameda County, California, where she remained for four years. She left to fill an appointment from California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, her boyfriend at the time, to serve on the California Medical Assistance Commission, making $72,000 annually ($148,033 in today’s dollars).  Harris took a brief leave of absence from the District Attorney’s Office to pursue the aforementioned Board Service before returning to prosecution, but this time in a leadership role. In 1998, the San Francisco District Attorney appointed Harris as the head of the “career criminal division.” According to an article written at the time, the division handled some of the office’s “most serious” offenses, including “third strike” offenders. To jog your memory, “three strike” laws, supported by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, would impose a mandatory life sentence for a person’s third felony conviction. In the intervening 30 years, “three strike” laws have been largely viewed as being a primary contributor to America’s incarceration problem. More relevantly, however, Stanford Law School has led the charge to systematically overturn and repeal any sentence as a result of a “third strike.” Their effort has been deemed a “voice for the forsaken” and a “proven path to clearing out overcrowded prisons.” It was also supported by the Obama White House. Today, one would be hard-pressed to find a prosecutor who believed a person should receive a life sentence for any third felony conviction.  In 2004, Harris challenged her former boss for the position of San Francisco district attorney. In her victory speech, Harris vowed that criminals would be “met with the most severe consequences” and promised to work to “build a better relationship” with police.  Harris served as the district attorney of San Francisco until 2011, at which point she was sworn in as the attorney general of California. Her statewide record is too lengthy to cover in detail here, and changed entirely to suit the California electorate. She quickly went from actually caring about reducing violent crime to devoting significant time and resources to truancy, shifting with the political winds. While politicians and people should certainly be provided license to change their mind, Harris has completed a full transformation from the start of her career. Virtually everything she publicly supported she has subsequently decried. She has gone from leading the unit that sentenced people to life in prison for a third felony conviction (which would have included drugs such as crack cocaine), to advocating for “ending mass incarceration.” It’s one thing to reverse track on a single tweet sent out a decade ago. It’s another to completely work to undo decades of public service.  Maggie Cleary Kilgore is a visiting fellow at Independent Women’s Law Center (iwlc.org) and Deputy Commonwealth Attorney in Culpeper County, Virginia. She is former Special Counsel to Attorney General Jason Miyares and former Deputy Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security under the Youngkin administration. She is also a former federal prosecutor. The post Harris Has Virtually Disavowed Her Career as a Prosecutor appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

by Geoffrey Grinder, Now The End Begins: The Beijing Declaration was signed at the closing ceremony of a reconciliation dialogue among the factions held in China’s capital from July 21-23. In further proof that we are living in the end times prophesied in your King James Bible, this amazing thing just happened. A meeting was held […]

by Martin Armstrong, Armstrong Economics: The European Union has revoked Hungary of its right to host the next summit. The EU supposedly has a rotating presidency of council to maintain the appearance that each state has an equal say in the direction of the bloc. The truth of the matter is that the unelected elite […]