Tweedle-Kam and Tweedle-Tim By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/tweedle_kam_and_tweedle_tim.html

There is little to differentiate the kooks setting things on fire outside the Democrats’ convention from the kooks setting rhetorical fires inside

The more I see of Tim Walz, the more I realize he’s just a fatter, whiter version of Kamala.  They both laugh at inappropriate times.  They both say weird things.  They both yearn for a communist America.  They’re both on the wrong side of the IQ bell curve.  If we lived in a society that encouraged talented people to run for political office, Tweedle-Kam and Tweedle-Tim would not be known.  Because our political system excels at promoting mediocre minds attached to lost souls, the Democrat Party gives us a babbling baboon and a cackling hyena for veep and president.

I thought Tweedle-Kam had a monopoly on obnoxious laughing, but I was wrong.  Every time a camera pans over to Tweedle-Tim, his head is thrown back in a chortling fit.  Every subject seems so funny.  Food and fuel costs are a nightmare, Tim.  Ha-ha-ha!  Foreign nationals are killing Americans on neighborhood streets.  Tee-hee-hee!  You misrepresented your military rank and service record.  Hey now, that’s not funny!  You’re right, coward.  None of it is funny at all.

It’s increasingly clear that the Tweedle-twins laugh because they have nothing significant to say.  Or, rather, anything significant they might say, they can’t admit until after the election.  As Nancy Pelosi would tell us, you have to vote the Tweedle-twins into office before you can find out how they plan to screw over America.  Nobody wants to vote for open borders and mass amnesty for foreigners.  Nobody wants to vote for more spending and inflation.  Nobody wants to vote for social credit scores and expanded government regulation.  Because the Tweedle-twins can’t say what they want, they must laugh during all the awkward silence.  It’s just weird.

But Democrats are the party of weird.  For them, moms and dads are boring.  Families are bad.  White people are evil.  And individual liberty is repulsive.  They are the party of she-hes, xirs, poly-whatevers, and subjective truths.  They don’t have time to think about sound money or global peace because they’re too busy fighting linguistic battles against hetero-cis-normativity, unconscious bias, systemic racism, and the dreaded patriarchy.

Trump and Vance Explain How They Will Handle a ‘World on Fire’ at North Carolina Rally Trump and Vance’s speeches at Asheboro contrast Trump’s strong mastery of the global threats facing this nation and Harris’s profound national security inexperience and incompetence. By Fred Fleitz

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/23/trump-and-vance-explain-how-they-will-handle-a-world-on-fire-at-north-carolina-rally/

During a huge rally in Asheboro, North Carolina on Wednesday, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance gave compelling speeches on the urgency of returning to Trump’s approach to U.S. national security to reverse the Biden/Harris administration’s disastrous foreign policy.

My AFPI colleague General Keith Kellogg and I were honored to attend the Trump/Vance national security speeches. (Kellogg also delivered a solid national security speech to warm up the crowd.) The Asheboro event was the first outdoor Trump rally since last month’s assassination attempt against the former president in Butler, PA. This rally had the high-security measures that should have been in place at the Butler rally.

The Trump/Vance presentations were especially significant because Vice President Harris and her campaign refuses to explain how a Harris administration would address growing global instability. There also has been an absence of any serious discussion of national security at this week’s Democratic National Convention.

An August 22 Wall Street Journal editorial raised concerns about this, noting that “Foreign policy is where the Vice President’s unknowns are most troubling… Yet Ms. Harris hasn’t explained her security views on much of anything… She hasn’t explained to the public what her core principles are, or even who she relies on for foreign policy advice.”

Trump and Vance did not pull their punches on the dire state of global security caused by the Biden/Harris administration or hold back on their policy solutions.

THE DEMOCRATS ARE HAVING A CONVENTION ABOUT NOTHING: PETER SAVODNIK

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdb5b8531-5106-4ee6-a5bd-5f73fb8e7081_1125x245.png

The Democratic convention in Chicago has been a huge success, I suppose. The party has rallied around Kamala Harris and “Coach Walz,” rebranded her as a tough-on-crime prosecutor, and connected the campaign with Barack Obama’s inspiring 2008 race for the White House.

On top of that, the anti-American, antisemitic flag-burners who promised to turn this city upside down haven’t materialized en masse. The hoped-for 1968 redux is more like a sad, echoing whimper. 

In other words: The vibes have been spectacular!

And yet.

It’s unclear what these people are peddling.

Certainly not Harris’s proposal to cap the cost of groceries. The only speaker at the convention who has bothered to talk that up has been Bernie Sanders. Everyone else drones on about Harris being a dog lover and a fighter and, most importantly, Momala.

While (rightly) pummeling the GOP–Donald Trump cult of personality, Democrats have mythologized Harris and turned her into an alternate-Harris who would have been unrecognizable to Harris herself just a few weeks ago: tough, caring, super-smart, results-oriented. Hillary Clinton 2.0.

But no one has ventured to say what this alternate-Harris would do in office. Or, more broadly, what her party wants to accomplish over the next four years. There is no program. 

To be fair, the Republican agenda is a mosh pit of confusions—a free-market, tariff-laden, stick-it-to-the-establishment, fuck-China, go-America mélange of half-baked, sort-of proposals.

But the idea behind that confusion is straightforward. It is America first. Americans first. And every bill, initiative, executive decision can be, should be, viewed through that lens. Whether that amounts to a coherent theory of government remains to be seen. (The Republicans seem to be trying to figure out in real time the how behind the what.) But there is a focal point.

No one says what the Democrats’ North Star is. They have wielded enormous power for most of the past two decades, and they insist they won’t “turn back,” but no one says where we’re going. Or what they want beyond the blandest of platitudes about “freedom” and “choice” and “identity.”

Asian Representation at MIT Increases after Supreme Court Ruling Ending Affirmative Action By David Zimmermann

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/asian-representation-at-mit-increases-after-supreme-court-ruling-ending-affirmative-action/

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has seen a significant increase in Asian-American representation in its first freshman class to be admitted since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in the admissions process at U.S. colleges and universities last summer.

Asian-American students make up 47 percent of the incoming freshman class, according to the new admissions data that MIT announced on Wednesday. This is up from 40 percent the prior year.

The data is consistent with the evidence that Students for Fair Admissions brought in its two lawsuits against Harvard College and the University of North Carolina: that subjective admissions criteria were used to disadvantage Asian students who performed disproportionately well on standardized tests such as the SAT, while black and Hispanic students, who scored lower on such tests on average, were given an admissions boost. As a result of the landmark ruling, it’s expected black enrollment will decrease while Asian enrollment will increase. MIT came to the same conclusion.

“We expected that this would result in fewer students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups enrolling at MIT,” Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill told campus publication MIT News. “That’s what has happened.”

The percentage of black students enrolled at the university dropped from 15 percent last year to 5 percent, and the percentage of Hispanic students dropped from 16 percent to 11 percent. White students stayed roughly the same — 37 percent compared to 38 percent last year.

The university notes these figures do not include international citizens, nor does the total add up to 100 percent as students may identify as more than one race or ethnicity.

MIT is the first major university to publish data on the composition of its first-year class since the Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2023.

Harris’s Collection of Clichés

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.

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.

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.”

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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.