A SIGH OF RELIEF THAT IT ISN’T JOSH SHAPIRO: “While the activists lobbied to take out Shapiro because he is Jewish and criticized pro-Hamas protesters, in reality, his selection would have made it a lot easier for Harris to more aggressively pursue anti-Israel policies. As VP, Shapiro wouldn’t be setting policies toward Israel. But he would have provided useful cover for whatever Harris wanted to do. We’d be told that picking Shapiro was her “Sister Souljah moment” to the pro-Hamas leftists. No matter how much hostility she exhibited toward Israel, she would dispatch Shapiro to dutifully spin the policies to Jewish and pro-Israel audiences. She would let pro-Hamas mobs run amok in cities and on college campuses, and Democrats would trot out social-media posts — of the Shapiro family seder, of their Purim costumes, or of a sukkah on the grounds of the vice president’s residence. Pro-Israel Jews would have gotten symbolism while anti-Israel Democrats would have gotten policy victories.”
Archive for 2024
August 6, 2024
WOW: Josh Shapiro Backed Out of the Kamala Veepstakes at the Last Minute.
Shapiro’s chances remained high even after he faced serious allegations by a fellow Democrat of covering up harassment in his office. The sexual harassment cover-up didn’t take Shapiro out of contention, and neither did another cover-up — this one involving murder.
In 2011, 27-year-old Ellen Greenberg, a first-grade teacher, was found dead in the apartment she shared with her fiancé, Sam Goldberg. Her body was discovered on the kitchen floor with a knife in her chest and 20 stabs and slash wounds, half of which were in the back of her neck and head. Initially, Philadelphia Assistant Medical Examiner Marlon Osbourne ruled her death a homicide. However, after police publicly challenged this finding, Osbourne changed the ruling to suicide without explanation.
Related: Why Did Kamala Harris Pick Tim Walz?
In 2019, then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Shapiro supported the suicide determination when the case reached his desk—and many speculate his connection to the fiancé’s family was the reason. Shapiro, for his part, seemed to be actively campaigning for the job, going so far as to abandon his faith and principles to help make himself palatable to the progressive, antisemitic wing of the Democratic Party.
Take a look at this report from Politico (emphasis in the original):
Why not Shapiro? By contrast, Pennsylvania Gov. JOSH SHAPIRO’s team felt that his own interview with Harris did not go as well as it could have. There was “not a great feeling” coming out of it, according to a person in touch with Shapiro’s advisers. A person familiar with the selection process told our colleagues that, after their meeting on Sunday, Shapiro called Harris’ team and made clear that he was “struggling with the decision to leave his current job as governor, in order to seek the vice presidency.”
Does anyone believe that Shapiro was “struggling with the decision to leave his current job as governor”? Of course, he wasn’t. This sounds like Shapiro realized that the risk of joining the Harris ticket was too high after the terrible jobs report on Friday and the subsequent stock market crash on Monday.
In other words, he dropped out.
Question: Did Philly Mayor Ruin Shapiro’s Chances?
The video in question hit social media on Friday and was interpreted initially by some as an inadvertently posted announcement of Shapiro’s selection as running mate until the mayor’s office pushed back, claiming it was merely an expression of support. The reason reporters thought that is because the video looks like an announcement. It featured Philadelphia mayor Cherelle Parker and other locals explicitly promoting “Kamala Harris for president” and “Josh Shapiro for vice president.”
Considering that we now know Harris’s mind was not made up at the time, and that reporting indicates there was a concern with Shapiro’s ambition which a slickly produced hype video would seem to validate, the decision to make that video in the first place is mind-boggling.
Politico reported a few hours ago that, apart from the video, the Pennsylvania governor’s style already rubbed some in Harris’s orbit the wrong way:
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, another finalist, avoided the green-room circuit and instead touted Harris and his own record at a series of events throughout the state. A pro-Harris event in Philadelphia turned into a Shapiro-for-VP party.
His style was seen by at least some in Harris’ world as showboating. One senior Democrat in touch with Harris’ team called it “counterproductive.”
Heinrich reports that Shapiro had nothing to do with the Philadelphia video. If that’s the case, it’s fair to wonder whether the mayor helped tank the governor’s bid in the course of trying to do the opposite.
Noah Rothman writes that “The Walz Pick Is a Statement of Weakness:”
Beyond Walz’s presumed capacity to shore up the party’s faltering lines in the Midwest, it is also believed that the governor’s popularity among progressives in positions of authority mollifies the more rabid far-left elements in the streets. As Nate Silver wrote, the value proposition here was to “avoid news cycles about a disappointed left and Democrats’ internal squabbling over the War in Gaza.”*
This tacitly concedes the GOP’s claim that Democrats are unduly beholden to a radical faction within the party that is overrepresented in the press, on college campuses, and in online forums. This is terrain Republicans are eager to attack. Walz’s selection may foreclose on taking the campaign to the GOP’s turf, forcing them to commit finite resources to what should be safe states and triangulating their issues in the effort to pick off erstwhile Republican voters at the margins.
In much the same way Donald Trump’s running mate doubled down on the qualities already represented in Trump, Harris’s veep pick suggests that her campaign will not seek to remake the electoral map. As such, it is still playing the same defense Joe Biden spent much of the year playing until it became obvious to all that he had already lost.
Don’t get cocky.
* Well, that’s one way to phrase it. America’s Newspaper of Record not surprisingly, is much bolder in their phrasing:
Found via Ace of Spades, who in a post headlined “Tim Walz Quit the National Guard and Abandoned His Unit When They Got the Call-Up to Deploy to Iraq in 2005,” quips, “Make America Somalia Again!”
I CERTAINLY HOPE SO:
My own personal view is that the United States will be territorially expansionist again in the 21st century. Despite the Outer Space Treaty the most likely target for annexation will be parts of the Moon and the entirety of planetary Mars.
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) August 6, 2024
AXIOS DOES DAMAGE CONTROL FOR THE KAMALA CAMPAIGN: The stock market slump doesn’t have to mean a recession is near.
This might, though: Axios Lays Off 50 Staffers Amid Media Landscape Shift.
MY BROTHER HAS A 1990S FRONTIER PICKUP AND IT’S STILL RUNNING PERFECTLY AND LOOKS GOOD: Can the 2025 Nissan Frontier’s More Appealing Equipment Help It Stay Relevant Against Newer Competition?
CA COURT UPHOLDS STUDENTS’ RIGHTS TO CONDEMN MURDEROUS COMMUNIST REGIMES: FIRE secures yet another First Amendment legal victory, this time for the Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Clovis Community College when the school’s administration removed their anti-communist flyers and rejected their request to post pro-life flyers, claiming both were “inappropriate or offensive.”
FASTER, PLEASE: ‘We just have to build it:’ Why Concorde’s successor is eyeing supersonic flights to America.
The founder of the company seeking to build a successor to Concorde has hit back at “flight shaming” activists who are demanding an end to mass air travel.
Blake Scholl, of Boom Supersonic, said that the demand to cut back on flights for the sake of limiting CO2 emissions is “depressing”.
He said: “There are some people who look at this and say, ‘Well, I guess we should all have less things. We should use less energy, we should go to fewer places.’ There’s been a lot of virtue-signalling and it’s very depressing.
“I believe in a future of abundance. I believe the north star is human flourishing and that we should build a future in which more people can go to more places more often.”
Mr Scholl, who spoke at last month’s Farnborough International Airshow where Boom unveiled the cockpit for its proposed 64-seat, 1,300mph Overture jet accompanied by four former Concorde pilots, argues that so-called flight shamers are ultimately seeking to stifle human progress.
He said: “Can you imagine this conversation on Zoom? It’s so much worse. I want our kids to grow up in a world where they’ve gone to other continents, they’ve broken bread with other people, they’ve experienced our shared community.
“To do that we need flights that are faster, we need to be at a price point people can afford, and, yes, we need to care for the planet.”
This looks much more like the 21st century I was promised as a kid than today’s subsonic commercial aviation:
COME ON, ABC: JUST ADMIT IT’S ANTI-SEMITISM:
On Monday’s Good Morning America, ABC senior White House correspondent Selina Wang not-so-subtly refused to acknowledge the anti-Semitism behind the far-left meltdowns over Vice President Kamala Harris having Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) as one of her nominees for a 2024 presidential running mate, instead chalking up opposition to coming from pro-Palestinian Arabs hating Jews.
The framing below from Wang in her segment on the 2024 election was almost certainly on purpose and wildly obtuse.
Even Van Jones, who thinks nothing of going on panels with Al Sharpton, admits on CNN that that’s what cost Shapiro the veep nomination: Van Jones: Some “Darker” Elements Of Anti-Semitism Have Been “Marbled In” To The Democratic Party.
In accordance with the prophecy: Democrats Worried Choosing Jewish Vice President May Cost Them The All-Important “Death To America” Vote.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Tools For The Beginning Gunsmith.
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD:
BREAKING: Rumble has joined @X to sue a cartel of advertisers and ad agencies who conspired to block ad revenue from going to certain platforms and content creators.
GARM was a conspiracy to perpetrate an advertiser boycott of Rumble and others, and that's illegal. pic.twitter.com/7mnYkyoKuR
— Rumble 🏴☠️ (@rumblevideo) August 6, 2024
Between this and the Google decision, it’s been a bad week for Big Tech monopolists.
AT LEAST THEY ARRESTED HIM: New: Pakistani National Arrested for Plot to Assassinate Trump, Others.
THE PERFECT CHOICE FOR KAMALA:
What the hell
Minnesota First Lady says she left the windows open during the 2020 BLM riots to smell the burning tires and soak in the moment
Her daughter was also caught leaking National Guard plans to rioters so they could avoid arrest
This family is sick pic.twitter.com/yBzx9vmzF4
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) August 6, 2024
He let them riot, Kamala raised money to bail them out.
IN PART BECAUSE OBAMA FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED IT: A Tale of Two Jews: Why the Party That Welcomed Joe Lieberman Rejected Josh Shapiro.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Apple 2024 MacBook Air 13-inch Laptop with M3 chip. #CommissionEarned
DONALD TRUMP: “Everything woke turns to s***.”
You'd miss Donald Trump all the same.
"Everything woke turns to shit". Ain't that the truth. pic.twitter.com/g79uCCS0lC— IrishConservative (@RealIrishCONS) August 22, 2021
Kamala Harris: “We have to stay woke. Like everybody needs to be woke.”
Kamala Harris: "We have to stay woke. Like everybody needs to be woke." pic.twitter.com/ueVP2hpSup
— MAZE (@mazemoore) August 5, 2024
I’m not sure which is worse — Harris’s message or her constant laughter at her unfunny remarks
MEDIAITE MELTDOWN: Jon Voight Ups the Ante on His Pro-Trump Videos By Claiming ‘the Left Is Trying to Take Away Your Children!’
But he’s not wrong: Harris VP Pick Greenlit Law Allowing State To Take Child Custody From Parents Who Oppose Sex-Change Surgeries.
Comcast and MSNBC are definitely onboard with that idea:
Related:
This is Tim Walz's Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan.
She went viral a few months ago for saying "When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them."
While wearing a shirt with a knife on it that says "protect trans kids." pic.twitter.com/7j1zWfzpjM
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 6, 2024
But what are these…”children” you speak of? Gov.Walz signs abortion-up-to-birth bill, entrenching Minnesota as global outlier on abortion policy.
Combined, the two candidates “are the Most Pro-Abortion Ticket in History,” LifeNews.com reports.
And here we go! New Trump Ad: ‘Chief Weirdo Tim Walz.’ “This didn’t take long. It’s almost as if Republicans knew what was coming:”
Tim Walz is a weird radical liberal.
What could be weirder than signing a bill requiring schools to stock tampons in boys' bathrooms?
Or weirder than signing legislation allowing minors to receive sex change operations? pic.twitter.com/2kqTQ9CzfT
— MAGA War Room (@MAGAIncWarRoom) August 6, 2024
THIS NPR BIT ON THE “SEXISM” OF CALLING KAMALA BY HER FIRST NAME IS BEING ROASTED IN ITS OWN COMMENTS: First one: “This is a non issue. Her online moniker is literally Kamala HQ. People will tell you how they prefer to be called. Listen to them. Presidents and other male elected officials throughout history have been referred to in myriad ways. Ike, Dubya, JFK, LBJ, Bernie. Someone decided to put this idea into the collective consciousness and it’s not a thing.”
Plus: “She advertises herself as ‘Kamala’ in the same way that Bernie Sanders markets himself with ‘Bernie’. ‘Kamala’ is a far more unique name in America than ‘Harris’, so it makes sense that they would opt for it. I understand the sentiment of this reel, but we have bigger fish to fry than the ‘correct’ name to call Kamala Harris.”
And: “It seems she has leaned into Kamala so I don’t know that we should turn it into an issue when there are legit problems.”
Of course, there were a bunch of predictable NPR-listener comments. But still the amount of sensible commentary is surprising. Kinda like the New York Times commenters.
3/3 AIN’T TOO SHABBY: With FIRE’s help, Jeff Gray has now won all three lawsuits against the Georgia cities that violated his First Amendment rights for displaying a “God bless the homeless vets” sign outside their city halls.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-MONOPOLY COLLEGE CAMPUSES SUCH CESSPITS OF ANTISEMITISM? Harvard must face lawsuit over antisemitism on campus, US judge says.
ADAM SMITH, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Ancient Chinese bone needle workshop reveals industrial practices of the 2nd millennium BCE.
RON COLEMAN WINS THE INTERNET TODAY:
Poor @JoshShapiroPA. Stitched his foreskin back on for nothing
— Ron Coleman (@RonColeman) August 6, 2024
UPDATE (From Ed): America’s Newspaper of Record reports:
THE SCIENCE IS NEVER SETTLED: Has Webb broken cosmology? JWST is challenging our theories of the Universe and finding things that shouldn’t exist.
JWST’s intriguing deep-field observations of faint light from the early, distant Universe reveal stars and galaxies that seem to be much larger than expected.
The CEERS (Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science) survey, led by Prof Steven Finkelstein of the University of Texas at Austin, used JWST’s NIRCam instrument to look back as far as the epoch of reionisation, just after the so-called dark ages of cosmic evolution, to study the structure of galaxies in the very early Universe.
It found more of them than predicted, and they appear bigger and brighter than expected.
According to our best models of how the infant Universe developed, they aren’t supposed to be there so early or look as they do.
Some of the first survey results have even indicated there are mature-looking disc galaxies reminiscent of our own Milky Way present as early as 10 billion years ago.
We were expecting a more chaotic picture, with predominantly irregular galactic structures interacting violently.
It’s time to update those models.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Fred Hoyle, call your office?
DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: Tim Walz’s past DUI arrest for driving 96 mph in a 55 zone comes back to haunt VP pick.