RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/22/there-is-nothing-graceful-about-bidens-withdrawal-from-the-race/

And so the spin begins. Within minutes of Joe Biden announcing that he was dropping out of the presidential race, his sycophants were gushing over his ‘grace’. The New York Times marvelled like a wide-eyed idiot at the ‘historical rarity’ and ‘fundamental humility’ of a president bowing out for the good of the nation. Celebs lauded his ‘integrity’ in stepping down to ‘save democracy’. He has restored ‘honesty’ to politics after years of ‘scandal and chaos’, said Mark Hamill, as if Old Joe was Obi-Wan Kenobi to Trump’s Darth Vader. One Democratic governor hailed Biden for setting the ‘ultimate example’ to the American people. That example being what, exactly? That you should stubbornly stay in your job even when you know you can’t do it any more?

The propaganda machine is in full swing. The spindoctors are working overtime. They’re determined to depict Biden’s retreat from the race as an act of unparalleled altruism. As a brave effacement of the self in order that democracy might yet live. As something ‘utterly extraordinary’, in the words of the NYT. Be awed at the ‘bigness of what Biden just did’, it says. Get a room. History is being rewritten in real time. And we cannot let it stand. Not in order that we might kick Biden when he’s down, but in order that we might uphold the truth. The truth here being that Biden’s late retreat, and his anointing of Kamala Harris as his rightful successor, speaks not to the integrity of his administration but to its chaos and corruption.

The speed with which Biden’s relinquishing of his candidacy has been turned into a tale of ‘integrity’ should horrify everyone who cares for truth. It is three weeks – three long weeks – since he took to the stage of that CNN debate and shocked the world with his confusion and incapacity. And in those three weeks we all saw him furiously cling to the Oval Office desk. We all watched him haughtily dismiss concerns that he was no longer fit for office. We all heard that Jill Biden was batting aside his critics – from George Clooney to Barack Obama – as just so many Brutuses come to remove her perfectly capable husband. Grace? Humility? This was one of the most unseemly spectacles of jealous power preservation of modern times.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/22/the-joe-biden-debacle-shames-the-democrats/

So, he finally caved. On Sunday, Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 race for the White House. This followed weeks of intense pressure on him from Democratic Party bigwigs, who were shocked into action after his disastrous debate performance on 27 June.

Biden’s decision is historic – there has never been a withdrawal from a US presidential contest so late in the process. It reveals a Democratic Party in shambles, trying to pick up the pieces before November’s ballot. This chaos is an indictment of both Biden and his party’s elites.

By running for re-election, Biden selfishly put himself above the party. Back in 2020, he claimed he was just a transitionary figure, a defence against Donald Trump’s re-election and a bridge to the future Democratic Party. That implied he would not run for a second term. But then he proceeded to do just that. He (and his family) knew that he, as an 81-year-old, was no longer physically and mentally up to the job. Yet the vain Biden thought that, even as a shuffling old man, he was the only one in the country who could now beat Trump in 2024.

The party’s leaders – among them the old guard of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, as well as current congressional leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries – are as much, if not more, to blame for this debacle. They have also known – for years! – about Biden’s declining health and diminishing faculties. They were quite happy to have a puppet in the White House who would do what he was told. They cynically thought they could continue to get away presenting this Weekend at Bernie’s frontman for re-election in 2024. Rather than have a messy primary contest, they cleared the way for Biden to enjoy a virtual coronation as the party’s nominee again, without any real debate or contestation (which would have revealed Biden’s poor state).

Biden was made the presidential nominee in spite of a majority of Democratic voters saying, for many months, that Biden was too old to run again. Now, in forcing Biden to withdraw from the race via behind-the-scenes pressure, the party elites will no doubt claim that they are simply following the will of their voters. But what the country is seeing is an incumbent president, whom party members still voted for in the primary, being brought down by a palace coup. And this is happening in the party that says it is defending democracy.

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/07/23/another-reason-to-vote-for-trump/

Late last year, Donald Trump said if he wins in November, he will on day one close the border and “drill, drill, drill.” He’s now added to that list a promise to “end the electric vehicle mandate” upon taking office. It will be refreshing to have a president who isn’t beholden to crackpot activism.

“I will end the electric vehicle mandate on day one,” Trump said last week during his acceptance speech, “thereby saving the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration which is happening right now and saving U.S. customers thousands and thousands of dollars per car.”

Four months ago, the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency finalized a new emissions rule that requires “up to two-thirds of new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. to be electric vehicles (EVs) in eight years.”

It was of course heralded as “one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history,” “a day to celebrate” and “a positive step forward in protecting communities.”

So it’s just that easy to set the world on its proper course. It seems that anyone could do it.

But there’s much more to this issue.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-anoints-kamala/

President Joe Biden abandoned his reelection campaign on July 21st following weeks of intensive pressure to quit from members of his own party. President Biden promptly endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris to run as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee against former President Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris, who had all along praised Joe Biden’s mental acuity and fitness for office, lauded her boss’s “patriotic” decision to drop out of the race. Was she part of the coverup of President Biden’s cognitive decline, waiting in the wings to take his place at the top of the ticket?

And what happened to the existential importance in this election of saving democracy that President Biden and Vice President Harris have spoken so frequently about? The millions of votes for President Biden in the Democrat primaries and caucuses have been nullified. Kamala Harris is being anointed by the party power elites, even though she showed her weakness as a presidential candidate previously by bowing out during the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination campaign before any votes were counted.

Kamala Harris has also been an utter failure as vice president. She completely flubbed, for example, her only major substantive assignment as the border czar. Now she will have to shoulder full responsibility for the estimated twelve million or more illegal immigrants who entered the country during the Biden-Harris administration’s time in office due to the administration’s open border policies.

Why not simply release Biden’s delegates in an open convention after a series of town halls with the leading Democrat candidates for the top spot, as some Democrat strategists have suggested, rather than hand the nomination over to Ms. Harris?

The answer is that Kamala Harris, a woman of color, embodies the Democratic Party’s ethos of identity politics and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Democracy must give way to DEI. Besides, Ms. Harris can be counted on to continue the disastrous policies of the Biden-Harris administration so admired by the progressive base, but with even more of a left-leaning bent and hostility towards Israel.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

The Platform, predictably bland and clichéd but positive in tone, carries the title “Make America Great Again.” It is an expression of both traditional conservativism and conservative populism. It is dedicated “To the Forgotten Men and Women of America,” those made famous by Hillary Clinton’s term “deplorables.” The dedication reflects the new base of the Republican Party, not the coastal elites who in places like Connecticut a couple of generations ago dominated the Party. Today’s Republican Party is more representative of America’s middle class – working men and women, of every race, nationality, and religion. The Platform’s preamble is titled “America First: Return to Common Sense,” an expression of nationalism and a reference to judgement based on practical observations and universally accepted facts.

A political party’s platform must be generic, as it must appeal a large swath of voters. There are, approximately, 162 million registered voters in The United States. According to an April 2024 study by Pew Research Center, registration is about equally divided between Democrats and those who lean Democratic (49%) and Republicans and those who lean Republican (48%). Keep in mind, America is noted for its individualism, citizens who, historically, have not marched to assigned drummers. Republicans, especially, tend to be free-thinkers, more difficult to lasso and corral.

The over-arching tone of the Republican Platform is “America first,” as regards trade and the border, and a return to common sense, as regards manufacturing, the border, energy independence, military strength, and equal treatment of all under the law. This analysis does not pretend to be complete, but among its subjects, the document addresses the economy, defense/national security, education, culture and size of government.

The Platform recommends energy independence, reducing regulation, and making the 2017 tax cuts permanent, while imposing tariffs on some imported goods. Without providing solutions, the document reflects inherent contradictions between free markets of traditional conservatives – Jospeh Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction – and economic populism, the protection of jobs, industries and communities affected by globalization and changes in technology. Finding the balance between these competing forces will be the job of Congress, through debate and discussion. In his speech following acceptance of the GOP nomination, Donald Trump spoke of the need for improvements in education to help people become more competitive in today’s dynamic economy, i.e. a focus on community colleges. The document encourages innovation in emerging industries, such as Crypto, Artificial Intelligence and Space. It argues for the reduction of interest rates, without explaining whether that will be a function of government or markets. And it promises to do away with taxes on tips.