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August 2024

The Words We Need to Win in ’24 By Joan Swirsky

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

Living in one of the most far-left communities in the United States for the past many decades, I am intimately familiar with the mindset of the left — the liberals, leftists, progressives, or whatever they’re calling themselves today.

And as the entire world has witnessed over the past eight years, since the man they used to lionize and admire — and rewarded with a 15-year boffo success TV show, The Apprentice — descended the escalator in Trump Tower in 2015 and announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States, a true mass hysteria erupted to denounce, vilify, degrade, reject, and ultimately try to destroy — including with a bullet! — one Donald J. Trump.

Why?

The primary reason was because America had just survived the eight-year hate-America regime of Barack Obama, whose communist leanings had successfully ushered in socialized medicine via Obamacare and socialized education via the Common Core Curriculum — both disastrous contributions to the devolution of America.  The left fully anticipated that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton would spend the next eight years completing the left’s hundred-year mission to turn our dastardly capitalistic system with its allegiance to the horrific Constitution of the United States into the communist paradise on earth they all so fervently believed in…and do to this day!

The Trump Imprimatur

In spite of non-stop harassment, bogus accusations, and vicious lawfare suits, President Trump ushered in — this is the very short list — low taxes, low regulations, low food prices, low gas prices, sky-high employment across all demographics, a challenge to our NATO partners to pay their fair share (which they had never done, but complied with immediately), energy independence for the next thousand years, unprecedented success with peace initiatives via the Abraham Accords in the Middle East, and — ta-da — no wars!

It will be amusing to watch this stellar record go up against the Harris-Walz slate, which features virtually not a single policy or action that has benefited America.

Yes, they will have non-stop positive coverage from a craven media, but the Trump team will have what to liberals is the most terrifying lethal weapon imaginable: cold, hard facts!

Just a Few Examples

Five words: Darfur, Yemen, Myanmar, Ukraine, Israel — all raging wars that did not exist four years ago.  These are the sole responsibility of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — and are costing American taxpayers trillions of dollars.

The Myriad Projections of the 2024 Campaign If you don’t want what the people want, you have to project. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/19/the-myriad-projections-of-the-2024-campaign/

Projectionism

Projection is a Freudian psychological term. It describes a particular defensive mechanism, when people, often unconsciously, attribute their own (usually undesirable) behaviors to others who do not have them.

These mental gymnastics are intended to alleviate one’s own guilt or sense of inadequacy at the expense of another.

Sound familiar?

But in the political sphere, projection involves more overt dissimulation. It is increasingly common for leftist candidates or political parties to falsely accuse their opponents of the very destructive behaviors and unpopular agendas that they themselves embrace, but out of political necessity must deny.

Rather than an unconscious Freudian defense mechanism, political projection is usually a conscious strategy of hiding one’s own negatives by fobbing them off on antagonists.

Projection often proves a quite successful ploy.

After all, the political projectionist knows best his own hazardous or off-putting conduct and policies. And so, he can most skillfully attribute just these liabilities to those who have had no experience with them.

Our Leftist Projectionists

The 2024 Harris-Walz campaign is turning out to be projectionist to the core. How?

First: Kamala Harris and her new running mate Governor Tim Walz have long advanced fringe leftist political agendas. (Her “everyone needs to be woke” and his claim that riots happen because society doesn’t prioritize “equity and inclusion.”)

They have been loud in their fringe cultural commentaries, which are not just unpopular but roundly rejected by the majority of the electorate. And they know that if they become open and honest about what they have done, they will likely be defeated.

Second: On a more personal level, both are attacking the behavior and conduct of their rivals as a way of deflecting attention from their own weaknesses on that score.

Thus, this kind of projection, about both policy and personal behavior, is more common on the left because its ideology is fundamentally far more distant from the views of most voters.

Liel Leibovitz Send in the Clowns Columbia’s former president is out, and her successor seems not to have learned a thing from this year’s anti-Semitic demonstrations.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/send-in-the-clowns

Earlier this week, Minouche Shafik, Columbia University’s president, unexpectedly resigned her post. You would think that the departure of an Ivy League leader less than three weeks before the start of the fall semester would be a cataclysmic event, an indication that the institution and its board are ready to account for the series of unfortunate events that led the august school to this low point, a string of catastrophes that began with a temperate embrace of the anti-Semitic marauders who occupied the campus and harassed their Jewish classmates and ended with the shameful resignation of three deans who were caught exchanging text messages disparaging Jewish students concerned about said harassment. You’d expect something close to soul-searching, something approximating an apology, something approaching a promise to do better when thugs brandish the Hamas flag and threaten Jewish students that they’re next on the terror group’s kill list.

Welcome to American academia: what we got instead this week were two statements, one from Shafik and one from her interim replacement, Katrina Armstrong, that are so dazzling in their moral, intellectual, and emotional vacuity that they deserve to be read closely and carefully. Call these twin missives the ur-texts of our academic Armageddon, proof that from the crooked timber of contemporary American higher education no straight thing may ever be built again.

First, Shafik’s resignation. Here is its first paragraph, in full:

I write with sadness to tell you that I am stepping down as president of Columbia University effective August 14, 2024. I have had the honor and privilege to lead this incredible institution, and I believe that—working together—we have made progress in a number of important areas. However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community. This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead. I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins.

Sadness? Appropriate. Progress in a number of important areas? No evidence is provided, but let us, in the spirit of human kindness, nod right along. But then we get to the heart of the matter: “a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.”

Harris/Walz: Mostly Peaceful By J.B. Shurk

EXCERPT:

Walz lazily watched as Black Lives Matter and Antifa arsonists burned parts of Minneapolis and Saint Paul to the ground during 2020’s “summer of love” riots.  (His wife enjoyed the carnage so much that she spent her nights getting high from the smell of incinerated businesses.)  Not to be upstaged, Harris encouraged people to donate to sketchy groups bailing out criminals who had been arrested for vandalizing property, looting stores, torching police precincts, and attacking citizens unfortunate enough to reside within Walz’s Twin Cities.  This is what the Democrap Party sees as stand-up leadership these days: a couple of terrorist sympathizers willing to promote violence against Americans for personal political gain.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think politicians who fail to protect cities should be put in charge of protecting nations.  On the other hand, if the goal is to “let America burn,” Walz and Harris make perfect sense.  Walz is an out-and-proud Maoist who enjoys vacationing in China (including celebrating his nuptials in Tiananmen Square).  Harris not only supercharged inflation by casting the deciding vote for the Green New Deal boondoggle but also plans on using government force to further manipulate food, fuel, and housing markets.  If Tim and Kam get the chance, they will do everything they can to transform the United States into Maduro’s Venezuela.  They will light the whole country ablaze and leave America in “mostly peaceful” ashes.

Coalition of 15 States Sues Biden-Harris Regime Over Plan to Force States to Provide Public Benefits to Illegals By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/15/coalition-of-15-states-sue-biden-harris-regime-over-plan-to-force-states-to-provide-public-benefits-to-illegals/

A coalition of 15 states have filed suit against the Biden-Harris regime over its new rule that will require states to pay public benefits to illegal immigrants, including healthcare benefits.

The rule, which is set to go into effect on November 1, would force states “to expend limited resources on illegal immigrants,” said Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in a press release Thursday.

“Not only is the Biden-Harris Administration responsible for bringing illegal aliens into Missouri, they are also giving illegal immigrants access to citizen benefits for free, encouraging them to remain here illegally on the taxpayers’ dime,” said Bailey. “The American people are already struggling to make ends meet in the current economy; their paychecks should fund their own healthcare, not the healthcare of those here illegally. I will continue to use every tool at my disposal to ensure that Missourians’ hard-earned dollars are not funding illegal immigration.”

In addition to Missouri, the attorneys general of Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia have joined the lawsuit.

According to Bailey, “there are 77,000 to 104,000 illegal aliens currently residing in Missouri, costing taxpayers between approximately $342 million and $462 million per year.”

According to a report from the House Homeland Security Committee last November, the U.S. government was already spending $451 billion a year to house and care for “asylum seekers” nationwide.

Another U.S. military base under attack: Lackland Air Force Base returns fire on armed group in vehicle By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/08/another_u_s_military_base_under_attack_lackland_air_force_base_returns_fire_on_armed_group_in_vehicle.html

You’d think this might be bigger news, with reporters scruffing around for more information about it, pressuring public officials:

According to the Associated Press, which has the most complete account:

U.S. Air Force security guards exchanged gunfire with someone who twice opened fire on an entrance to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland early Saturday, according to a spokesperson for the base.

“It was an off-base shooting from a passing vehicle that fired shots towards the gate, prompting our security forces to respond,” base spokesperson Stefanie Antosh said in a statement. “There is no threat to the installation. We had no injuries, no fatalities.”

Antosh said the shooting was being investigated by San Antonio police, who said in a release that the first shooting occurred about 2:15 a.m.

“The security personnel stated they heard several shots fired as well as the fired rounds go past them,” Sgt. Washington Moscoso said in the release. “After this incident, the security personnel added more armed guards as a precaution.”

A vehicle later stopped near the same entrance shortly after 4:30 a.m., Moscoso said.

The Professor, His Nemesis, and a Scandal at Oberlin The story of how a liberal college promoted and defended an Iranian Islamist and betrayed its own values. Roya Hakakian

https://quillette.com/2024/08/08/the-professor-his-nemesis-and-a-scandal-at-oberlin-mohammad-jafar-mahallati-iran-islamism/

I. A Disappearance

On 28 November 2023, the profile of a tenured professor at Oberlin College disappeared from the school’s website. Only a day earlier, typing Mohammad Jafar Mahallati’s name into the site’s search box returned a page with an extensive biography and links to several of his posts and videos. His photograph was there, too: a bearded man with a greying hairline and a reticent smile that suited his title of Professor of Peace and Friendship Studies. Since 2007, he had been among the most prominent professors on campus.

A former top diplomat who had represented Iran at the United Nations from 1987–89, Mahallati had brought a certain metropolitan pizzazz to the small college, along with glamorous tales from his days of hobnobbing with a global who’s who of politicians and diplomats. Among academics, where consensus is hard to reach, nearly everyone remembers Mahallati as “magisterial.” If Shi’ism had a campaign ad made for the American consumer, Mahallati—who had swapped the Western suit and tie for the mandarin-collar blazer and shirt and drove a siren-red BMW around town—would be that ad.

Even the locals were smitten. The Iranian professor who had given them an annual Day of Friendship, complete with rainbow flags and peace t-shirts, was all the proof they needed that the George W. Bush administration was wrong to call Iran an evil state. With his arrival at Oberlin in 2007, he managed to infuse the humble small town with an air of cosmopolitan grandeur. And a few years later, he was appointed to the prestigious Nancy Schrom Dye Chair in Middle East and North African Studies. The chair’s namesake, Nancy Shrom Dye, was Oberlin’s president from 1994–2007, and it was Dye who brought Mahallati to Oberlin after she met him during two trips to Iran in the mid-2000s.

The Voter-Registration Guide Will See You Now By Stanley Goldfarb

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/the-voter-registration-guide-will-see-you-now/

A worrisome new consensus in the medical community holds that doctors should be as concerned with politics as they are with medicine.

‘We again discussed . . . the importance of voting and the safety, security, and effectiveness of voting by mail.”

These probably aren’t the words you’d expect to see in a medical record. Yet that’s what a medical professional at a prominent northeastern hospital wrote earlier this year after seeing a patient. The record, a de-identified version of which was provided to my organization, shows a new and profoundly concerning trend in medicine: Leftists are making the doctor’s office a major cog in their voter-registration and turnout machine.

The movement has been building since at least 2020, growing out of the woke fixation with so-called “social determinants of health.” This concept holds that medical professionals should be as concerned with welfare, housing, and climate policy as they are with diagnosing illnesses and prescribing medications.

As the argument goes, such policies affect patient health, so health care has a duty to shape them. In 2022, the American Medical Association — which is thoroughly captured by woke ideologues — passed a resolution asserting that “voting is a social determinant of health.”

Statements from such influential sources signal to medical employers and educators that doctors should make voter registration a central part of their work. Medical journals are applying further pressure by publishing a slew of opinion articles and tendentious studies arguing that voter registration in medical settings will improve health equity.

Having practiced and worked in academic medicine for 50-plus years, I know that when the New England Journal of Medicine says jump, the medical establishment collectively leaps.

Beware Extremists in Green Hats at the Democratic National Convention By Robert Stilson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/08/beware-extremists-in-green-hats-at-the-democratic-national-convention/

The far-left, anti-Israel National Lawyers Guild has been mobilizing to assist the tens of thousands of protesters expected to hit the streets of Chicago.

If demonstrations unfold as expected at the Democratic National Convention next week, look for an occasional fluorescent-green hat among the protesters. This is the signature headgear worn by National Lawyers Guild (NLG) legal observers, who can often be found attending major left-wing protests in support of the demonstrators. They represent an organization that has long been one of the most deeply radical activist groups in the country and one that harbors a particularly virulent hostility toward Israel. They have expressed that hostility in some truly appalling ways.

Next week in Chicago, scores of radical groups are promising to “March on the DNC.” While the protesters’ ancillary demands span the full “Everything Leftism” spectrum, the overriding motivation is animosity toward “apartheid Israel” and the Democratic Party’s alleged complicity in a “genocide” in Gaza. Tens of thousands are expected to take to the streets.

For months, members of the NLG — a nonprofit association of leftist attorneys, law students, and other legal workers — have been mobilizing in anticipation, promising “on-the-ground support to all the courageous protesters.” This includes training sessions in protesters’ rights, assistance for any demonstrators who are arrested, and access to a network of volunteer attorneys ready to represent those facing charges. The guild’s local Chicago chapter will operate a 24/7 legal support hot line for convention protesters.

CHAPTER 32: Transhumanism, Big Lies, and the Great Reset Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is* by Linda Goudsmit

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/27985/chapter-32-transhumanism-big-lies-and-the-great

: goudsmit.pundicity.com  and website: lindagoudsmit.com

We begin our discussion of transhumanism with its 2018 description from the World Economic Forum (WEF), “What is transhumanism and how does it affect you?”:[i]

The central premise of transhumanism is that biological evolution will eventually be overtaken by advances in genetic, wearable and implantable technologies that artificially expedite the evolutionary process…. The result is an iteration of Homo sapiens enhanced or augmented, but still fundamentally human….

Some distinguished scientists, such as Hans Moravec and Raymond Kurzweil, even advocate a posthuman condition: the end of humanity’s reliance on our congenital bodies by transforming “our frail version 1.0 human bodies into their far more durable and capable version 2.0 counterparts”.

Transhumanism is the political ideology promoted by the globalist elite in their quest for immortality. “Humanity 2.0” is the biological objective of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and stakeholder capitalism is its economic engine.

Klaus Schwab, the premier 21st-century humanitarian huckster, is selling stakeholder capitalism as the central feature of the Great Reset, WEF’s economic recovery plan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Schwab is selling enslavement dressed up as freedom, with the infamous slogan “You will own nothing and be happy.” In reality, stakeholder capitalism is a return to the binary sociopolitical system of feudalism, where you will be an indentured serf who owns nothing because the elite own everything, including you.