October 12, 2024

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Obama Is Blaming Black Men for the Democratic Party’s Failures.

In both 2008 and 2012, I was proud to be an Ohio delegate for President Barack Obama. So I was shocked to hear what former President Obama had to say while speaking to Black men during a surprise visit to Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign field office in Pittsburgh.

His words made my jaw hit the floor. In fact, they made my blood boil.

President Obama had some choice words for the enthusiasm gap for Vice President Harris specifically when it comes to Black men. “My understanding, based on reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities, is that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running,” President Obama said, and then went on to lecture Black men about their lack of support for Harris. “Part of it makes me think—and I’m speaking to men directly—part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

I was infuriated to hear these remarks. No other group of voters is talked to like this, as if they are children. But it’s not just the paternalistic tone that had me enraged. It’s the underlying message in his words—that Black men are misogynistic and can’t bring themselves to vote for a woman.

This vilification of our men is out of line. For starters, it’s false. Black men are socialized in the same patriarchal society that every other American man is socialized in, yet when Secretary Hillary Clinton ran for President in 2016, 81 percent of Black men voted for her, while only 32 percent of white men did the same.

As for Black men allegedly being so reticent to vote for Vice President Harris, her lowest numbers are with Black men under 50 years old—72 percent of whom support Harris.

If white men supported Harris at 72 percent, they’d be held up as an example of how men can support women. So why are Democratic Party leaders like former President Obama vilifying Black men?

It’s simple: The Democratic Party is setting Black men up to take the fall in case Vice President Harris fails to defeat former President Trump in November. It’s that simple.

Evergreen:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

YEAH, THAT’S A TOUGH ONE TO FIGURE OUT: Why Kamala Harris won’t appear on Fox News.

Ms Harris’s approach to the media – seemingly to avoid almost all potentially damaging interviews and instead cosy up to friends and allies – reveals an interesting aspect of her electoral strategy.

The campaign has focussed on getting out the vote among groups it believes it has already won, such as Latinos and young women, rather than converting Republicans.

That approach has raised some concerns from Democratic strategists, who feel Ms Harris is not far enough ahead in the polls to take such a cautious approach to the media.

On the current numbers, almost all pollsters put the overall result of the election within the margin of error, and several sophisticated election models predict that Trump will win.

The question being asked in some party circles is whether Ms Harris will subject herself to an interview with the most hostile mainstream broadcaster: Fox News.

One strategist told The Telegraph that the question of a Fox News interview was under discussion among Ms Harris’s allies, amid concerns she needed to be “braver” about the media.

As seen in this week’s Power Line Week in Pictures, good luck with that:

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE “I’M SORRY YOU WERE OFFENDED” SCHOOL OF NON-APOLOGIES: Whitmer: I’m Sorry You Failed to Appreciate My Genius, Catholics.

At least Gretchen Whitmer got one political tradition right this week: the non-apology apology.

After participating in a weird submissive-porn version of Catholic communion, or just a demonstration of how Kamalites operate, the governor of Michigan has gotten a deluge of outrage and criticism. Catholic bishops in all seven dioceses in the state issued a statement demanding an explanation and apology for Whitmer’s campaign video for Kamala Harris and its “offensive impact” in mocking the Eucharist. Clearly, the bishops recognized the imagery Whitmer and Liz Plank used, since they see it every day in their own parishes:

The Bishops of Michigan have expressed their “profound disappointment and offense taken” with Governor Gretchen Whitmer for posting a video skit on social media showing the state’s Governor feeding a Dorito corn chip to a kneeling podcaster in a manner that is widely being perceived as a mockery of the Holy Eucharist.

“The skit goes further than the viral online trend that inspired it, specifically imitating the posture and gestures of Catholics receiving the Holy Eucharist, in which we believe that Jesus Christ is truly present,” said Paul A. Long, President and CEO of the Michigan Catholic Conference which represents the seven dioceses of the state, October 11.

“It is not just distasteful or ‘strange;’ it is an all-too-familiar example of an elected official mocking religious persons and their practices. While dialogue on this issue with the governor’s office is appreciated, whether or not insulting Catholics and the Eucharist was the intent, it has had an offensive impact.”

Indeed, although as I wrote earlier, that’s not all the video did, either. Whitmer role-played a priestess in a cult setting rather than make an argument for her preferred policy. Even without the trappings of Catholic practice, the video makes progressives and Democrats into a cult and its elected officials as idols to be worshipped, as Plank clearly demonstrated, rather than public officials to be held accountable.

Plus, if you believe the other interpretation, Whitmer and Plank used a submissive-porn motif to model what the two apparently believe is the proper relationship between elites and the masses. That’s “masses” with a small-M, of course. YMMV, but all of these interpretations could apply simultaneously … and probably do. (Read my earlier argument on all three.)

We need a complete and total shutdown of Michigan until we can figure out just what the hell is going on there:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

REPORT: “Massive” cyber attacks hit Iranian government sites and nuclear facilities.

As Middle East tensions rise, cyberattacks hit Iran’s government branches and nuclear facilities, following Israel’s response to Iran’s October 1 missile barrage.

Amid escalating Middle East tensions, Iran faced major cyberattacks Saturday, disrupting its government branches and targeting nuclear facilities. The massive cyberattack followed Israel’s pledged response to Iran’s October 1 missile barrage, as regional conflicts intensified in Gaza and Lebanon.

Abolhassan Firouzabadi, former secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council for Cyberspace, told local media Iran suffered a cyber attack. Firouzabadi also added that threat actors stole sensitive information from targeted infrastructure.

“Nearly all three branches of Iran’s government – the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive branch – have been hit by heavy cyberattacks, and their information was stolen,” said Firouzabadi, the former secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, was quoted as saying by the Iran International. “Our nuclear facilities have also been targeted by cyberattacks, as well as networks like fuel distribution, municipal networks, transportation networks, ports, and similar sectors. These are just part of a long list of various areas across the country that have been attacked,” he added.

Live look at Iran’s computer networks under attack:

Posted at 12:25 pm by Ed Driscoll

GREAT MOMENTS IN VICTIMHOOD: Mariska Hargitay suffered ‘secondary trauma’ from ‘Law & Order: SVU’ storylines.

Mariska Hargitay, 60, who has starred as Olivia Benson in the “Law & Order” franchise since 1999 — making her the longest-running character in the longest-running prime-time drama — said that she’s been “deeply” impacted by the show.

“When I started the show, I wasn’t aware of how deeply it would go into me,” Hargitay said in a recent interview with “SVU” fan Selena Gomez published Monday in Interview magazine.

Hargitay, who has been married to “Blue Bloods” actor Peter Hermann since 2004, added, “My husband Peter is always like, anytime I go anywhere, my first question is, ‘What’s the crime rate here?’ So it’s on the brain.”

She continued, “There’s been times when I didn’t know how to protect myself, and I think I was definitely a victim of secondary trauma from being inundated with these stories and knowing that they were true. Those were the parts that I didn’t know how to metabolize, just because of the sheer volume of it.”

Hargitay is paid a reported $500,000 per episode of her Law & Order franchise.

Posted at 10:44 am by Ed Driscoll

WHO ELSE IS REALLY REALLY TIRED OF POLITICS? Call It Space Porn [VIP, and make sure to read to the end for the new VIP Platinum]

Posted at 10:41 am by Charlie Martin

SKYNET SMILES, MUTTERS, “FASTER, PLEASE:” Here’s when Elon Musk’s walking, talking Optimus robots could come to your house, experts say.

Elon Musk claimed this week that Tesla’s humanoid robots will be “the biggest product ever of any kind” — sparking a lively debate over when and whether he’ll manage to put a robot in every house.

The walking, talking Optimus robots stole the show during a Thursday night event in Los Angeles to reveal the company’s “Cybercar,” a self-driving taxi.

The nearly 6-foot-tall robots danced onstage to techno music, served up fruity cocktails and played rock, paper, scissors.

Musk said the bots can “basically do anything you want” – like mowing your lawn, cleaning the kitchen after dinner, babysitting your kids or just being a friend — and will cost less than a car, between $20,000 to $30,000 in the long term.

Musk was quiet about the timing on Thursday, but earlier this year he said Tesla may be able to sell the humanoid robots by the end of 2025.

Nevertheless, experts disagree over whether Musk will be able to overcome many of the bots’ kinks in just a few years.

Dev Nag, CEO of QueryPal, a support automation company that uses artificial intelligence, said it will likely be five or more years before consumers see Optimus bots in their homes.

“The robot still faces challenges in areas like walking steadily in uneven terrain, lasting all day on a single battery charge, and safely navigating around people and pets – a thornier problem than it might seem,” Nag told The Post.

“While Musk is known for his ambitious timelines, most experts believe Optimus will first prove itself in factories and warehouses before it’s ready for household use,” he said.

That’s despite dazzling capabilities the Optimus bots displayed on Thursday night.

“How’s everybody doing?” a bartending bot wearing a cowboy hat and apron called out to guests, with a hint of a Texas drawl.

When one customer asked for a watermelon-flavored drink, the cow-bot double-checked the order: “A watermelon? ’Course you can!”

I don’t think it’s going to ask for “your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle”…for now at least:

Posted at 10:14 am by Ed Driscoll

THIS IS THE WAY: DeSantis schools reporter trying to tie Hurricane Milton to global warming.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) dismissed the possibility of Hurricane Milton being the result of global warming, citing how tornadoes have existed “for all of human history.”

The National Weather Service reportedly issued a record-breaking 126 tornado warnings across Florida related to Hurricane Milton, which struck as a Category 3 hurricane. During a Thursday press conference, DeSantis was asked by a reporter about the tornadoes and whether global warming had any role in them.

“I think you can go back and find tornadoes for all of human history, for sure. and especially, you know, Florida— how does this storm rate in kind of the history of storms?” DeSantis asked the reporter on Thursday. “I think it hit with a barometric pressure of, what was it, about 950 millibars when it hit, which I think if you go back to 1851, there’s probably been 27 hurricanes that have had lower — so the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger it is. I think there have been about 27 hurricanes that have had lower barometric pressure on landfall than Milton did. And of those, 17 occurred, I think, prior to 1960.”

Much more like this, please:

Posted at 8:14 am by Ed Driscoll

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

The last Republican mayor of Milwaukee left office in 1908. The last Republican mayor of Detroit left office at the beginning of 1962. The last Republican mayor of Philadelphia left office at the beginning of 1952. Why are Democrat-monopoly cities such toxic cesspits?

Posted at 7:44 am by Ed Driscoll

ED MORRISSEY: WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS? “Even on vacation, some topics just demand attention. And the weirdest video by a sitting governor ever definitely qualifies.”

Basically, we’re left with three versions of Hell from which to choose an explanation:

Whitmer and Plank want to create a cult by which Whitmer and Kamala Harris are high priestesses and everyone else is subservient to them
Whitmer and Plank are attacking Catholics and Christians in order to promote Kamala Harris and the radical queer agenda
Whitmer and Plank are big fans of submissive porn themes and think they should apply to politics.

So which fresh Hell is this?

Note: These are not mutually exclusive options, either.

We are ruled by crooks, cretins and creeps. Those are not mutually exclusive options either.

And a friend comments: “Kamala is all cringe. Hillary was and remains detestable but Kamala is the queen of cringe.”

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

THIS IS THE WAY:

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll