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Ruth King

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Harris’s Collection of Clichés

By on August 23rd, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/harriss-collection-of-cliches/

Without a teleprompter in this campaign, she’d be rendered practically mute.

Kamala Harris competently delivered a convention address that capped what has been an extraordinary run for her over the last month.

Since her ascension as the Democratic nominee, of course, the path has been greased for her. The sheer relief among Democrats that their fate is no longer tethered to that of Joe Biden and boosterish media coverage have transformed the race, with Harris narrowly ahead in most national polls whereas Biden was falling increasingly behind prior to his defenestration.

Harris wants to portray herself as a fresh, new force who is not Donald Trump or Joe Biden; this may be her greatest political advantage, and it was a major theme of her speech.

She represents, she assured us, a New Way Forward, as the nation “has a precious, fleeting opportunity to move past the bitterness, cynicism, and divisive battles of the past.” Whether she succeeds in making this argument will have much to do with the outcome in November. There is no doubt that Trump’s shtick is getting long in the tooth, and he’s trying to run as the outsider who was president less than four years ago. But, rather than an agent of change, Harris is a representative of a Biden administration status quo that a majority of Americans consider with dismay.

To the extent that Harris is differentiating herself from Biden, it is by moving to his left, although she didn’t put the accent on that in her speech. Instead, it was a paint-by-numbers collection of clichés. She’s from and for the middle class. She’ll be a president for all Americans. She’ll fight for this country. Anything is possible in America.

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DNC protest ends with arrests after demonstrators refuse to disperse The protest assembled at the Israeli Consulate in downtown Chicago quickly grew unruly, and protesters clashed with police.

By on August 23rd, 2024

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/dnc-protest-ends-arrests-demonstrators-refuse-disperse-rcna167487

CHICAGO — Protests on the second night of the Democratic National Convention ended in arrests after a pro-Palestinian group led several hundred demonstrators on an improvised path through the streets of downtown Chicago after police tried to block them.

Tuesday night’s protest was organized by Behind Enemy Lines, a leftist group with militant leanings. Another group behind the protest was Samidoun, which Germany and Israel have banned over allegations that it has ties to terrorist groups. (The U.S. has not declared Samidoun a terrorist group.)

“Dozens of people were brutally arrested outside the Israeli consulate by Brandon Johnson’s thugs defending the genocidal criminals inside the DNC,” Behind Enemy Lines said on Instagram late Tuesday, referring to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the number of arrests.

Police Superintendent Larry Snelling praised his officers for “showing restraint when no one else did,” saying they “did an excellent job responding to violence and vandalism.”

Some groups had come to the city with “hostility,” and “that’s exactly what we saw tonight,” he told reporters. “People got too close to officers.”

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ANTI-SEMITISM, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Fear and Brisket for Jews at the DNC Jewish delegates at the DNC have to meet in hiding. by Daniel Greenfield

By on August 23rd, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fear-and-brisket-for-jews-at-the-dnc/

“As the highest-ranking Jewish official in American history, I want my grandkids and all grandkids to never, never face discrimination because of who they are,” Senator Schumer concluded his speech. “But Donald Trump. This is a guy who peddles antisemitic stereotypes.”

Meanwhile Jewish Democrats were literally hiding out at the DNC.

Most Jewish events at the DNC were held at undisclosed locations with organizers having to approve attendees and only then provide them with the secret location shortly beforehand.

Agudath Israel, a traditional religious and not particularly Zionist group, whose members wear black suits and hats, held an open event to discuss the antisemitism faced by Orthodox Jews, only to have masked activists show up and scream that they were going to destroy Israel. No one at the DNC condemned those responsible or held them accountable for their actions. Imagine the reaction if black or Asian attendees were systemically harassed in this way.

“After 50 years fighting antisemitism in America, I could not have imagined a time -Jews would have to meet in secret locations in Chicago at DNC,” former ADL leader Abe Foxman tweeted.

Outside the DNC convention, men in Hamas bandanas flashed victory signs, waved Hamas flags, burned American and Israeli flags, and declared their support for the mass murder of Jews on Oct 7. Inside the DNC convention, President Joe Biden deviated from his prepared teleprompter remarks to declare that, “those protesters out in the street, they have a point.”

When the president says that those who want to kill and harass Jews have a point, is it any wonder that they operate with political impunity and support from the top echelons of the party.

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Kamala’s Bait-And-Switch: Progressivism For Socialism

By on August 23rd, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/23/kamalas-bait-and-switch-progressivism-for-socialism/

If you’re one of the shrunken number of people who have bothered to watch the Democratic National Convention, you will by now certainly know it’s been long on rhetoric, and incredibly short on policy specifics. That’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

On Thursday night’s final evening of the Democratic National Convention, the party’s candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t release a party platform. So “our democracy,” as the Dems like to call it, apparently doesn’t come equipped with any policy promises. Just a candidate, who received zero votes in any primary.

The truth is, the increasingly far-left Democratic Party doesn’t want anyone to know that it plans to push the nation even further to the socialist side of the scale because they know it won’t sell with average Americans who still think the ol’ U.S. of A. is a special place.

As such, it’s no surprise Harris has been a bit gauzy about what she intends to do if elected. Why, it’s almost as if the Dems are hiding something from us.

And they are. As one DNC speaker put it, “we got 70 days to act right, y’all. After 70 days, we can go back to acting crazy, right?” Followed by an answer from one of the assembled panelists: “Right.”

That’s it. Just try to act normally for the next two months or so. Win the election, then all bets are off. A “democracy” built on lies wins.

So what will Harris do for the next two months? Pretend her agenda is no different than the one that the DNC has already adopted.

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Kamala Harris Picks Terror Supporter as “Liaison” to American Jews by Daniel Greenfield

By on August 22nd, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20888/kamala-harris-jewish-liaison

A member of John Kerry’s team under President Barack Obama, whose biased attacks on Israel and support for Iran and Islamic terrorists in Israel helped lead to the current regional crisis, [Ilan] Goldenberg had spent the years leading up to October 7, 2023 doing everything possible to make the Hamas attack happen.

He had urged that more money should go into the Hamas territory and argued that Israel should allow in workers from Gaza. “You used to have 25,000, 100,000 Gazans working inside Israel. That needs to happen again.” That led to Oct 7.

Harris’s new Jewish “liaison” opposed every single pro-Israel move by both Republicans and Democrats, whether it was moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, or even cutting off aid to the “pay-for-slay” program of the Palestinian Authority. Instead, he urged anti-Israel moves, including a unilateral recognition of a “Palestinian” state on Israel’s territory.

Goldenberg had been a vocal proponent of the Iran nuclear deal, and attended an event by National Iranian American Council (NIAC): the Iran lobby. He had argued that, “In the aftermath of a successful nuclear deal, U.S. relations with Iran should shift from that of an adversary to that of a competitor.”

And Goldenberg had been part of the team that was responsible for and had defended the Obama administration’s opposition to Israel at the UN.

Previous Jewish liaisons were usually involved with Jewish communal life and could speak to a variety of issues. Goldenberg is simply an anti-Israel activist whose only issues are empowering Iran and Hamas.

Instead of selecting someone from the Jewish community or any of her political aides, Harris chose someone whose sole function will be to justify her anti-Israel policies to the Jewish community, and who will filter any efforts by the Jewish community to push back against them.

During the 2021 battles with Hamas, Goldenberg explained why Biden was only pretending to support Israel.

Lies, deceit and manipulation with the aim of empowering Hamas and destroying Israel.

The Kamala campaign and her political allies are leading a fundamental break with Israel, even before the election, while disguising it with happy talk for the benefit of some of their donors.

The appointment of one of the most persistently hostile foreign policy figures as a ‘liaison’ to the Jewish community sends a powerful message that this administration will be as anti-Israel as him and that Kamala will reconfigure her relationship with American Jews around her anti-Israel policies. Not even Obama went that far. What does it say that Kamala is already doing it now?

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Return of History: Liberal Values and Global Realities Only when we understand the fragility of liberal democracy will we be properly motivated to defend it. Zak Schneider

By on August 22nd, 2024

https://quillette.com/2024/08/21/the-return-of-history-liberal-values-and-global-realities-ukraine-russia-europe/

My socialisation into polite liberal society—my crunchy, Quaker-school education and my progressive cultural milieu in a Northeastern American metropolis—helped to forge my worldview. I was, after all, the product of a culture and a generation in which the liberal world presided over the most peaceful and prosperous societies in the history of humanity. Liberalism seemed to be the natural order of things. I failed to appreciate that my experience was born of a unique moment in human history, and that my enculturation represented a break with normal human existence.

Rather than people competing in conquest and blood, as was the case for nearly all of human history, postwar liberal democracies relied upon consent and converging economic incentives to a greater degree than at any previous time. In this new world, it was taken for granted that liberal values would appeal to anyone given the choice, and reorient people towards economic interdependence and international cooperation. Western societies were free and prosperous, so after the Cold War, many Western commentators and analysts naturally assumed that those newly liberated from tyranny would want to emulate them.

The time I spent living and working in a small Baltic country bordered by an aggressively imperial neighbour forced me to reassess the assumptions with which I was raised. Lithuanians understand that the default state of human beings is not cooperation and humanist values. They were therefore not surprised that, after the Cold War, some actors continued to defy economic self-interest in the name of ideology and festering resentment, bucking the trend of liberalisation.

A failure to appreciate this reality is where well-intentioned liberals like me went wrong.

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The British state ‘Blob’ has declared war on Israel Civil servants have blocked new arms sales to Israel – even before the Labour government changes policy. Mick Hume

By on August 22nd, 2024

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/21/the-british-state-blob-has-declared-war-on-israel/

The powerful UK network of woke, unelected civil servants and officials known as ‘the Blob’ has become notorious for trying to subvert democracy at home, defying the previous Tory government on everything from Brexit to immigration policy.

Now the Blob is spreading its anti-democratic tentacles internationally, pressing its allies in the Labour government to abandon Israel, which is fighting against Islamist terrorists for its survival as the only democracy in the Middle East. The Blob is so blinded by its loathing of Western-style democracy that it seems prepared, effectively, to declare war on Israel.

A UK Foreign Office official has just made news headlines by resigning over British arms sales to Israel. Mark Smith, who worked in counter-terrorism at the British Embassy in Dublin, reportedly sent an email to top civil servants and government advisers declaring it was his ‘duty as a public servant’ to protest against alleged Foreign Office complicity in Israeli ‘war crimes’ in Gaza.

‘Each day we witness clear and unquestionable examples of war crimes and breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza perpetrated by the state of Israel’, he wrote. Smith said he had told ministers and officials to stop British arms sales, but they had refused to follow his advice, so he had to resign.

The political arrogance of this obscure embassy official, in demanding that the elected UK government must do as a supposed ‘public servant’ says, is matched by the wilful ignorance of his view on the war in Gaza. The one ‘clear and unquestionable’ fact that should be evident through the fog of war is that Israel is fighting an existential battle against the genocidal, Jew-hating death cult of Hamas, which has vowed to repeat the pogrom of 7 October ‘again and again’ if it gets the chance.

A ban on UK arms sales might not make much material difference to the war effort. But it would signal a further Western retreat from defending Israel (already evident in the US and the EU), and leave the world’s only Jewish state even more isolated internationally.

Smith’s decision to flounce out of the Foreign Office and take his civil-service pension with him might make him look like a lone protester. In truth, the Blob has been working to stop Britain aiding Israel since the war began – and the Labour government appears to be taking its orders.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Vote for School Choice on Election Day Parental freedom in education as an election issue is a good bet. By Larry Sand

By on August 22nd, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/22/vote-for-school-choice-on-election-day/

As I noted in 2022 and 2023, school choice, where applicable, should be a campaign issue. With untold numbers of national, state, and local candidates on the ballot in November, voting for parental freedom is a winner. While this cause is usually associated with Republicans, Democrats who are not beholden to the teachers’ unions should also get on board.

Keri Ingraham, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, highlights numerous success stories of pro-school choice legislators. In March, Texas saw six representatives ousted who voted against parental freedom. The Texas runoff election a few months later found three more representatives opposed to school choice voted out of office.

In Kentucky’s primary election in May, the two Republican representatives who received the most money from the teachers’ unions lost by 44 and 48 points each.

In Tennessee, after a bill to expand a school voucher program failed, Gov. Bill Lee went to work endorsing candidates who favored expanding school choice. His effort was successful, as 12 out of the 15 candidates he endorsed were victorious in the state’s primary election on August 1.

In Missouri, voters chose six pro-school choice candidates in their August 6 primary election, a clear sign of the strategy’s effectiveness.

Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, adds that three Republicans in the Idaho House who had the most support from the teachers’ unions lost in the primary election, while their opponents all supported school choice.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who Is ‘Destroying Democracy in Darkness?’ Have those who lectured us about democracy in danger now decided to save it by destroying it? By Victor Davis Hanson

By on August 22nd, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/22/who-is-destroying-democracy-in-darkness/

The 2023-2024 campaign season is not just the strangest on record, it’s also arguably the most anti-democratic.

Ostensibly, the Democratic Party has claimed over the last decade that Donald Trump posed a continued and existential threat to the republic.

That allegation subsequently justified a variety of anti-democratic means to neuter his first two presidential candidacies, his presidency, and now his third and final run for the White House.

A near decade ago, we witnessed the 2015-2016 Hillary Clinton/Democratic National Committee/FBI-assisted effort to plant the false accusation of Trump-Russian collusion to warp the 2016 election.

That gambit centered around the fraudulent Steele dossier and nearly fatally crippled the Trump 2016 campaign. That hoax would later sidetrack 22 months of his presidency before being proven a fantasy.

On the eve of the 2020 election, the left next birthed the Russian laptop disinformation campaign.

That hoax also warped a presidential debate with false charges that Hunter Biden’s own incriminating laptop was once again the work of Russians seeking to conspire with Trump.

Those unusual efforts continued during the Biden administration.

For the first time in election history, the allies of one campaign sought to persuade some 16 states to try to remove a major party’s likely nominee from their primary and general election ballots.

The plan was to smother a Trump third presidential bid in its infancy, and thus once again not allow the people to accept or reject his candidacy.

Nearly simultaneously, four federal, state, and local prosecutors filed dozens of felony charges against Trump.

They all shared some strange similarities.

These indictments would likely not have been filed, had Trump not run for office. Nor would any of them have proceeded had Trump not been a controversial conservative Republican seeking reelection.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Drop Out of Presidential Race By Haley Strack

By on August 22nd, 2024

Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will drop out of the presidential race by the end of the week, and is considering endorsing former president Donald Trump, according to multiple reports.

Kennedy will likely announce the decision, which was first reported by ABC News and confirmed by the New York Times, when he addresses the nation on Friday from Arizona, calling it quits as his campaign coffers dwindle. The speech will be “about the present historical moment and his path forward,” Kennedy’s campaign said this week.

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