I disagree with Navarro’s premise here, but so what if she’s right? I’m so old, I can remember last month, where Kamala’s “code-switching” was absolutely endorsed by all of the best people on the left. But then, we are talking the “It’s different when we do it” party here.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Why CNN is changing up its polling for 2024.
CNN polling director Agiesta, who in May completed a one-year term as AAPOR president, declined to be interviewed for this article.
But in a CNN-sponsored discussion before the 2022 midterm elections, Agiesta addressed the question of whether polls are accurate, saying, “I would like to think that they are.”
She said pollsters had been “taking lots and lots of steps to try to correct for the errors that we have seen in past cycles,” adding: “I mean, obviously, the problems that polling had in 2016 and in 2020 were extremely well publicized. Everybody’s aware that there was an understatement of the Republican support in a lot of polling in both of those election cycles.”
Over her right shoulder, on display in the office where she spoke, was a desktop sign that bore this emphatic pronouncement, in capital letters: “ACCURACY FIRST!”
Given that she works for CNN, I’m sure she meant that strictly ironically.
JOHN NOLTE: Politico’s Ryan Lizza on Leave over Olivia Nuzzi’s Harassment and Blackmail Claims.
Politico’s chief Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza is on a leave of absence after his former fiancée Olivia Nuzzi filed a court complaint accusing him of blackmail and harassment.
Just when you thought this story could not get any more awesome…
This all started earlier in the month when Nuzzi was herself placed on leave by New York Magazine, where she was considered their star reporter. Everything fell apart when it was discovered she had been reporting on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while pursuing a personal relationship with him.
According to various sources, after interviewing Kennedy, who is married to actress Cheryl Hines, Nuzzi got flirtatious during a phone call. Kennedy responded by blocking her number. Through various machinations, she was able to convince him to unblock her once in a while. Then per the source, she would send him sexy pictures of herself. Someone leaked this information to New York Magazine. Nuzzi was put on leave. Lizza announced Nuzzi was now his EX-fiancée. Kennedy is currently looking into suing her.
But now, Now, NOW(!) things are even more juicy…
"Smells to me like a left-wing honeypot operation" https://t.co/10ldUmul7n
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) September 23, 2024
In her court complaint, Nuzzi says that Lizza “explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career, and reputation—a threat he has since carried out.”
Nuzzi also claims “Lizza had stolen a personal electronic device from her, was hacking her devices, then anonymously shopping information about her to the media.” She adds that some of this information might have been “doctored” by Lizza to look worse than it was. She also believes Lizza impersonated “an anonymous campaign operative” to damage her reputation with a political campaign.
Meanwhile, with RFK Jr. accused of having additional affairs with “at least” three more women over the last year (it’s October of a presidential election, so the opposition researchers are out in full force), Cheryl Hines reaches her breaking point – her husband’s bromance with the Bad Orange Man: Cheryl Hines may divorce RFK Jr. — but it’ll be over Donald Trump more than Olivia Nuzzi.
GREG LUKIANOFF: How Tim Walz got free speech very wrong at the Vice Presidential Debate.
When you’ve been defending free speech as long as I have, you’ve heard every bad argument against it about a billion times. And while FIRE and I have responded to these anti-free speech arguments repeatedly over the years, some of them are tougher to kill than a tardigrade. No matter how many times they are rebutted, they just keep coming back up.
In the span of about 30 seconds during last night’s Vice Presidential Debate, Minnesota governor and Democratic candidate Tim Walz managed to bring up the top three:
- There is no ‘hate speech’ exception to the First Amendment.
- Misinformation and disinformation are protected speech — and should stay that way.
- Yes, you can yell ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater.
* * * * * * * *
Walz’s last comment on this during the debate is one of the most popular and enduring defenses of limiting expression, and one of the most frustrating for those of us who know anything about how free speech and the First Amendment actually work: “You can’t yell ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater.”
Yes, Governor Walz, you actually can — as many people, including Christopher Hitchens, have literally demonstrated.
What you can’t do is “falsely shout fire in a theatre and cause a panic.” The emphasis is mine, but the quote comes from an analogy that Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes made in the 1919 case Schenck v. United States.
The most irritating thing about this quote is that the parts I emphasized above are often omitted, but they’re the most important because they illustrate the context of the speech in question. The idea is not that the word “fire” is forbidden in a crowded theater, but rather that attempting to incite behavior that will cause people harm (like, you know, making them think there’s a fire and causing them to freak out and stampede) is not protected speech, and actually falls under the very clearly-defined exception to First Amendment called “Incitement to imminent lawless action.”
Still, there’s even more context that makes this particular cliché irritating to encounter. Holmes’ Supreme Court opinion was one that upheld the imprisonment of two people who argued that military conscription was wrong. The Court justified the ban with Holmes’ dubious analogy, which was meant to tie back to the principle that the First Amendment doesn’t protect speech that incites people to physical violence.
But the Supreme Court abandoned the logic of that case in 1925, and rightly seeing that this line of thinking was being used to justify clearly unconstitutional censorship, outright overruled it in 1969. And yet, the cliché endures, even in the mouths and minds of a candidate for the nation’s second-highest office in 2024.
And then there’s the dog that didn’t bark: Tim Walz Endorsed Censorship In Front Of Millions Of Americans And No One Cares.
Why would Democratic Party operatives with bylines object to something they completely agree with?
MARK FELTON: Iran’s Top Guns — The Last F-14 Tomcat Squadrons. In his 2022 review of Top Gun: Maverick, John Podhoretz wrote:
[W]hile Top Gun was basically a school movie—Maverick and Ice and the others are all training to be pilots at the Navy Fighter Weapons School and they compete like they are trying to make the crew team—this new one is an out-and-out war movie. Maverick returns to Top Gun as an instructor, only this time the 12 people he’s teaching are all top naval pilots and weapons officers who have long since graduated from Top Gun. The deadly serious mission is to destroy a uranium enrichment facility in an “enemy” country (though at one point I thought I heard someone say “Iran”) protected by surface-to-air missiles and better fighter jets than America possesses.
I didn’t catch any references to Iran when I saw Top Gun: Maverick, but as Mark Felton notes in his latest video, Iran’s Air Force is flying the last iterations of Maverick’s favorite plane, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, on the planet:
Near the end of his video, Felton speculates why the Iranians keep flying this 50-year old aircraft:
The real reason why Iran still clings to its antiquated Tomcats may be something completely different from air-to-air combat. F-14s have immensely powerful radar systems, and some analysts suspect that the Iranians use their F-14s as a kind of stop gap airborne early warning platform; Iran lacking any dedicated AWACS aircraft in its fleet. The Tomcat’s ability to fly quite high and fast makes it a good reconnaissance platform. There is nothing the Russians and Chinese currently make that would match these abilities, so that may be the reason Iran keeps a handful of old F-14s flying.
But now, the Iranians have a much more powerful, albeit not very sophisticated long range detection system: President Biden Assures Iranian Air Defense: ‘Nothing Going to Happen Today.’
Iran is an American enemy. Iranian-backed militaants have killed and wounded American military personnel. Iran supported terrorists and insurgents in Iraq that killed Americans in uniform.
You would think that an American president would not merely be cheering on Israeli actions that eliminate Iranian-backed terrorist threats, he would be lending all possible aid. Instead, the Biden administration is emphasizing that it offered no assistance and played no role in the strike that killed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
And now the president apparently thinks it’s a good idea to blurt out what he’s heard about Israeli response plans.
Q Would you support Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: We’re in discussion of that. I think — I think that would be a little — anyway.
Biden got a question about Jack Smith, and then:
Q (Inaudible) response to the retaliation? Will you let Israel retaliate? What are the plans to allow Israel to strike back against Iran?
THE PRESIDENT: First of all, we don’t allow Israel. We advise Israel. And there’s nothing going to happen today. We’ll talk about that later.
This is how President Biden helps, by announcing to the world that Israeli retaliatory strikes aren’t coming today.
Who needs AWACS, or even F-14s, when you have the patented Trunalimunumaprzure early warning system?
UPDATE: “Ayatollah Frantically Googles ‘How To Build Iron Dome Thingy FAST,’” America’s Newspaper of Record reports.
ISRAEL CONTINUES TO SETTLE ALL THE FAMILY BUSINESS: “The IDF announced the death of Rawhi Mushtaha, head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, on Thursday.”
BARRY AND BEN RHODES SMILE: Iran is months from the bomb – stopping it may not be easy.
Following Iran’s Tuesday-night attack on Israel – which saw the Islamic Republic launch nearly 200 missiles at Israeli territory – the question is not whether Israel will retaliate but how.
Calls to militarily target the Iranian nuclear programme are neither new nor surprising.
But while strikes may be able to roll back parts of the nuclear programme in the short term, they could ultimately exacerbate the threat and limit options to deal with it in future.
Iran does not currently possess a nuclear weapon and there has so far been no indication that Tehran has made a decision to weaponise the programme.
Nevertheless, the country possesses a near-threshold nuclear capability – meaning that it likely has much of the necessary know-how, technology and materials to develop a nuclear weapon on short notice.
Should Tehran decide to rush towards a nuclear weapon, experts have assessed that it could produce sufficient weapons-grade enriched uranium for a single weapon in under a week.
Actually developing a nuclear weapon would take months. Mounting it on warheads capable of striking an enemy like Israel may take even longer – and not guaranteed to succeed.
But it will be Biden-Harris approved as this 2022 Legal Insurrection headline spotlights: Biden Waives Sanctions on Iran’s ‘Civilian’ Nuclear Program in Bid to Restore 2015 Deal. Iranian foreign minister says Biden’s nuclear waiver “is not enough” as regime rushes to build a bomb.
HUNG CAO ANNIHILATES TIM KAINE IN SENATE DEBATE:
In the debate, the candidates were questioned about military recruitment numbers dipping. Cao pointed out that the woke agenda that has permeated the military in recent years is to blame.
“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want. What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are gonna rip out their own guts, eat ‘em and ask for seconds,” Cao said. “Those are young men and women that are going to win wars.”
* * * * * * * *
“Do you support mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants?” Cao was asked.
“Immigration is very near and dear to my heart. When Vietnam fell, we had nowhere to go and America brought us in. My parents waited in line for seven, we all did, for seven years, to get our citizenship,” Cao said. “The last thing that my dad had hang over his bed when he passed away two years ago was his naturalization certificate.”
“I love this country so much that I wrote a blank check up to including my life to defend it for 25 years…to anybody who wants to come here, don’t ask for the American dream if you’re not willing to obey American laws and embrace the American culture…that’s the no. 1 criteria coming into the country. If you come here illegally, then you need to leave, especially if you’re a violent crime person,” he said, adding that there are 13,000 convicted murders and 16,000 convicted rapists that came across under the Biden administration’s watch.
* * * * * * * *
The moderators tried to silence the audience again when Cao stated, “never go against an Asian when it comes to math.”
“Honestly, of the 227 bills that Senator Kaine has proposed, only three of them made it through… That’s a 99% failure rate,” Cao said.
“Check the tape on that. That’s completely wrong,” Kaine retorted.
“There’s two truths in the world, okay? Never walk into a target store wearing a red shirt and never go against an Asian when it comes to math. Trust me,” Cao said.
I like the cut of this man’s jib.
THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Watch: Harris Wishes ‘Happy Birthday’ to Anti-Semite Al Sharpton Who Said ‘Diamond Merchant’ Jews Have the ‘Blood of Innocent Babies’ on Their Hands.
Vice President Kamala Harris praised Rev. Al Sharpton—an anti-Semite who has said that “diamond merchant” Jews have the “blood of innocent babies” on their hands—in a birthday shoutout Thursday morning.
“Happy 70th Birthday, Rev! … I celebrate the day you were born,” Harris said in a video aired on MSNBC. “You are a voice of truth, a voice of conscience, a voice of practicality around what we must address and what we can do, and I thank you so much for your friendship.”
Sharpton, a prominent Democratic ally, provoked the 1991 Crown Heights riots—one of the worst eruptions of anti-Semitic violence in American history that inspired chants such as “Let’s get the Jew!” and “Hitler didn’t finish the job!”
Violence broke out in Crown Heights after a Jewish driver accidentally killed a black child. Sharpton called for escalations.
“The world will tell us he was killed by accident,” Sharpton said at the time. “It’s an accident to allow an apartheid ambulance service in the middle of Crown Heights. … Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights.” Sharpton said Jews have the “blood of innocent babies” on their hands.
Sharpton also defended an anti-Semitic college professor who blamed “rich Jews” for the slave trade.
It’s the ultimate heckler’s veto: Despite — or perhaps because of — that background, for a quarter of a century, every Democrat presidential candidate is apparently required to very publicly kiss Sharpton’s ring when running for the White House.
20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Harris surrounded by disaster, mayhem entering the final weeks of the presidential race.
A deadly hurricane, a massive labor strike and wars raging around the globe are among the crises engulfing the Biden-Harris administration one month before the election.
Former President Donald Trump is flipping the script on Democrats, who for months have warned voters that he would bring chaos if he returns to the White House.
“It’s a choice between freedom and chaos,” Ms. Harris told her audience at a rally in Milwaukee this summer.
Her argument isn’t resonating with voters as war erupts in the Middle East, illegal immigrants swarm across the southern border, and rural residents in Georgia and North Carolina beg for help from the Biden-Harris administration in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
President Biden toured the disaster area in North Carolina by helicopter on Wednesday as the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided aid and rescued people stranded by flooding.
The president and Ms. Harris have been criticized for waiting to visit and failing to provide enough resources as taxpayers spend millions of dollars to shelter illegal immigrants and send $175 billion in aid to Ukraine.
“We’ve given them all we have,” Mr. Biden said this week when asked whether more resources would pour into devastated areas of North Carolina and Georgia.
Mr. Biden has abdicated an active role in resolving a port worker strike that shut down all East Coast shipping on Monday. The walkout threatens economic calamity in the coming weeks. Instead, Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have endorsed the strike, which is poised to disrupt the nation’s supply chain, leaving store shelves empty and sidelining thousands of workers.
“Presidential campaigns are usually decided by the two P’s — Peace & Prosperity — and right now we have neither,” said Jim McLaughlin, who polls for the Trump campaign. “The world and country are on fire, and where it’s not on fire, it’s underwater.”
Ms. Harris, he said, “can’t run away from it.”
Kamala’s line that “It’s a choice between freedom and chaos” should be placed front and center in Trump campaign ads, alongside visuals of the ongoing chaos she and Biden are doing nothing to solve, and in some cases, deliberately set in motion themselves.
Earlier: A Storm, a Strike, and a War Are All Working Against the Harris Campaign.
Don’t get cocky.™
FABULIST FUMBLES: An Imprecise Biography Catches Up With Tim Walz.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday that “I need to be clearer” after a series of misstatements and exaggerations about his experiences and biography have created a distraction for Democrats weeks before the election.
The vice-presidential nominee suffered his worst moment in Tuesday’s debate with Republican VP nominee Ohio Sen. JD Vance when he tried to explain years of repeated false statements about being in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests in China. Walz also has gotten into trouble for past claims including about his National Guard retirement rank and a 2018 comment about “weapons of war that I carried in war” when he was never deployed in a combat zone.
Such exaggerations are known in Minnesota as “fish tales”—embellishments often with a basis in fact—and they generally haven’t hurt Walz within the friendlier confines of state-level politics. But on the national stage they can be damaging. Those involving Walz reveal the growing pains he has experienced since his selection as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.
“The national spotlight was sure to expose Walz’s weakness of exaggerating or being less than honest,” said Blois Olson, a nonpartisan political analyst who publishes a newsletter on Minnesota politics and has known Walz since 2006.
Olson said Walz and his team have prevented media interviews that are likely to yield follow-up questions or challenges. “The rule of thumb for Minnesota media and observers is just because he says it convincingly it doesn’t mean it’s true,” he said. “It’s his Achilles’ heel, and at some point he can’t keep running the same way.”
On Wednesday, Walz sought to play down any inaccuracies by presenting himself as an everyday guy, despite more than a decade in Congress and being elected statewide twice. “I speak like everybody else speaks,” he said during brief comments to reporters in Pennsylvania. “I need to be clearer, I will tell you that.”
A person familiar with Walz’s speaking history said the governor’s gaffes aren’t necessarily nefarious or embellishing in nature and are more a result of his casual speaking style.
No, I’d say they’re a bit nefarious, given how Walz acted in 2020, his radical chic appointees, and his “what me worry” attitude with the CCP: Tim, Don’t Try to Pass Off a Lie by Saying You “Misspoke.” Tim Walz’s love affair with China and its communist government.
OLD AND BUSTED: Partying Like It’s 1999.
The New Hotness? Partying Like It’s 2020! People are panic-buying toilet paper because of the port strike. There is no need for that.
Toilet paper shortages in stores across America are giving folks nightmarish reminders of the pandemic era. But the lack of toilet paper isn’t a direct result of a major port strike Tuesday. It’s because of panic buying.
Reports of shortages filled social media Tuesday, showing empty shelves where toilet paper and, to a lesser extent, paper towels were supposed to be.
“They cleaned out the toilet paper at my local Walmart in Virginia. Toilet paper hoarding 2.0!,” wrote one person in a post on X, along with a photo of empty shelves.
“Shelves at Costco & Target running low or out of paper towels in Monmouth County NJ,” posted another X user. “Seeing people buying TP & water too in reax to port strike. Costco employee told me they were sold out of TP/paper towels this am.”
But the strike at ports from Maine to Texas will have absolutely zero impact on the supply of these products.
The overwhelming majority — more than 90% by some estimates — of U.S. toilet paper consumption comes from domestic factories. Most of the rest comes from Canada and Mexico, which means it most likely arrives by rail or truck, not ship.
Jim Geraghty calls the longshoremen strike the “Self-Inflicted Dagger to America’s Economic Heart:”
In about as vivid an example of the “MacGuffinization of American Politics” as you’re ever likely to find, this morning the New York Times writes, “Scenes of striking workers, hurricane devastation in the Southeast and missiles over Israel represent a rare moment of turbulence for Kamala Harris.”
Yes, but this is also a “moment of turbulence” for everyone else, and perhaps a lot longer than a moment. For Harris, the International Longshoremen’s Association strike that has shut down every port on the East and Gulf Coasts is a political headache to overcome. The Democratic candidate has to finesse the reflexive, unthinking pro-union stance of Joe Biden and the ludicrous demands — a 77 percent raise for workers and zero automation — coming from Harold Daggett, the ILA boss. The guy who enjoys a $900,000 salary and drives a Bentley boasted that his strike would “cripple” the economy. (More on him below.)
* * * * * * * * *
The irony is that the dockworkers’ strike is just about the best friend Donald Trump could ask for right now and, as the Times suggested, a major headache for the Harris campaign. If everybody’s frustrated by higher prices and empty shelves in the coming weeks, does that make voters feel happier or less happy with the incumbent party? The strike is terrible for the hurricane victims, terrible for the economy, and terrible for the country as a whole. But as if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s terrible for the Democrats.
Why can’t the almost-82-year-old president see the logic of this? What’s it going to take to slap some sense into him?
Heh, indeed. Read the whole thing, if only for Daggett’s views on the E-ZPass automated toll collection system, which explains much about his Luddite worldview.
FL STATE GUARDSMAN: What The Media Is Telling You About Helene Is Complete Bullsh*t, Politicians Don’t Have A Clue And Are Lying. “Jonathan Howard with Florida State Guard Special Missions Unit assisting with aerial recovery in North Carolina following the damage of Hurricane Helene, delivered a video message explaining what is really happening on the ground…‘I don’t know why they’re doing it,’ Howard said of the federal response. ‘I don’t know what kind of conspiracy I’ve heard so many things, whatever you want to come up with, but they are literally allowing these people to f*cking die in the mountains right now because we can’t get helicopters. They got money for everything else in the f*cking world right now.’”
WHEN PEOPLE TELL YOU WHO THEY ARE, BELIEVE THEM: Biden-Harris: Ukraine and Illegal Immigrants First, Hurricane Helene Victims Last.
Even voices from the left are scratching their heads over the lack of engagement by both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
“To show this level of cavalier indifference just literally takes my breath away,” former Bill Clinton advisor Doug Schoen told Fox News on Tuesday.
The administration, likely trying to save face in light of the criticism, has since tried to appear more engaged, just barely. For example, the Biden-Harris administration announced Wednesday that a mere $750 would be provided to residents in states devastated by Hurricane Helene. Kamala Harris herself announced this federal aid herself.
“The president and I have been paying close attention from the beginning to what we need to do to make sure the federal resources hit the ground as quickly as possible, and that includes what was necessary to make sure that we provided direct federal assistance,” she said Wednesday. “And that work has been happening.”
She added, “And the federal relief and assistance that we have been providing has included FEMA providing $750 for folks who need immediate needs being met, such as food, baby formula, and the like. And you can apply now.”
Wow. Imagine losing your home, your livelihood, and possibly much more, only for the Biden-Harris administration to hand you a meager $750 if you apply. It’s a slap in the face—plain and simple.
This kind of “relief” is not only insulting, but it begs the question: how much more could have been done if we weren’t pouring taxpayer dollars into giving illegal aliens free housing and rent, or sending billions overseas to Ukraine? Priorities are clearly out of whack, and hardworking Americans are the ones paying the price.
Biden-Harris will question the patriotism of anyone who opposes more aid for Ukraine but can’t give more money to American citizens who’ve lost everything. Biden-Harris has unlimited resources to fly illegals across the country and give them free housing, but offers people who have lost everything less than the average weekly pay for middle class Americans.
Related: Once again, America’s Newspaper of Record is doing straight-up reportage: North Carolina Asks Zelensky For $100 Billion In U.S. Funding.
ALL THIS AND WORLD WAR II: Having attempted to rehabilitate the Nazis and denigrate Winston Churchill last month, Tucker sets his sights on more immediate world events: Tucker Carlson: Do You Really Believe Iran Is a Threat?
I asked whether he meant the FBI’s assertion that there were teams of Iranian-backed groups in the US trying to kill Donald Trump. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” he interrupted. I denied it. “Okay, good. Because, you know, I’ve been around the block, and since 2003 it seems like everyone in the intel community shouts ‘Iran, Iran, Iran,’ every time there is a national security threat,” he said. “It’s truly shocking that people, especially those on the right, still believe that Iran is our greatest national security threat.”
I asked Tucker for his reaction to Mark Levin’s recent suggestion that the United States should treat Iran’s speculated involvement in the assassination attempts on Donald Trump as an act of war. He scoffed, “That’s truly deranged. Hard to believe and take seriously. Anyone who is repeating this line about Iran is a liar. Realistically, Iran does not want a hot war with the United States and has tried to avoid one for the last year. It is one of the most sinister lies out there.”
I asked him whether he thought, despite Donald Trump’s anti-war posturing and his selection of J.D. Vance as a running mate, the neocon/hawkish wing of the Republican Party had been fully ousted from influence of the electorate. “Are you kidding me? We haven’t exorcized the neocon establishment at all!” he said with a laugh. “You have to understand though that this is not a right/left thing. Just look at the second guy who tried to kill Trump. Fundamentally, he believes the same exact things that someone like Bill Kristol, David Frum, and Victoria Nuland believe.”
“That’s the scary thing. You have all of these people telling us that Iran, Russia, North Korea, are the greatest threats to our national security and I just simply don’t believe that,” he continued. “It really seems at this point that the Democratic Party and the national security establishment are in fact our greatest threats to national security.”
I know this is crazy talk, but maybe both could be worrisome in 2024.
Earlier: What Happened to Tucker Carlson?
Becoming a TV superstar can have deranging effects on anybody, as Carlson noted in his 2003 book. “If running for office can encourage you to imagine millions of supporters [who don’t exist], hosting a show can entirely separate you from reality,” he observed. “If you’re not careful, you can permanently lose all critical distance from yourself. One morning you wake up, and you’re living in your own irony-free world.”
That could be the world Carlson is living in today.
Could be.
OLD AND BUSTED: The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books. To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
—The Atlantic, yesterday.
The New Awfulness? This Hartford Public High School Grad Can’t Read. Here’s How it Happened.
When 19-year-old Aleysha Ortiz told Hartford City Council members in May that the public school system stole her education, she had to memorize her speech.
Ortiz, who was a senior at Hartford Public High School at the time, wrote the speech using the talk-to-text function on her phone. She listened to it repeatedly to memorize it.
That’s because she was never taught to read or write — despite attending schools in Hartford since she was 6.
Ortiz, who came to Hartford from Puerto Rico with her family when she was young, struggled with language and other challenges along the way. But a confluence of circumstances, apparent apathy and institutional inertia pushed her haphazardly through the school system, according to Ortiz, her attorney and district officials.
Those officials, in statements that her attorney says display “shocking” educational neglect, have acknowledged that Ortiz never received instruction in reading.
Despite this, she received her diploma this spring after improving her grades in high school — with help from the speech-to-text function — and getting on the honor roll. She began her studies at the University of Connecticut this summer.
Ortiz can’t read even most one-syllable words. The words she can read were memorized during karaoke or from subtitles at the bottom of TV screens and associating the words she saw with what she heard, she said.
“I was pushed through. I was moved from class to class not being taught anything,” Ortiz told The Connecticut Mirror during a series of interviews. “They stole something from me … I wanted to do more, and I didn’t have the chance to do that.”
Ortiz was diagnosed with a speech impediment and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in early childhood and has been classified as a student with a disability for “as long as I can remember,” she said.
I have to give whoever diagnosed Ortiz with ADHD for being an early adopter to what is an increasingly universal trend: Is ADHD overdiagnosed and overtreated?
Yes to both. Next questions?
‘AMAZING!’ Politico Explains Tim Walz’s Debate ‘Eye-Popping’ and It’s Something Else.
Quality control has slipped very badly when it comes to German-made propaganda in recent years.
YES, THESE ARE CERTAINLY PRESIDENTIAL-QUALITY OPTICS IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF A DEVASTATING HURRICANE: Harris hails striking dockworkers, swipes at Trump’s record.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday embraced striking dockworkers and bashed former President Donald Trump’s labor policies in her first public comments since a work stoppage at ports across the East and Gulf Coasts began Tuesday.
She said in a statement that “foreign-owned shipping companies have made record profits” and the union workers “deserve a fair share” of that money. As tens of thousands of members of the International Longshoremen’s Association hit the picket line, Harris also sought to use the moment to draw a contrast with Trump on his labor record.
“As president, he blocked overtime benefits for millions of workers, he appointed union busters” to the National Labor Relations Board, she said, “and just recently, he said striking workers should be fired.”
Trump had previously tried to wield the strike against the Democrats. In a statement Tuesday, he said “American workers should be able to negotiate for better wages” and blamed the strike on “inflation brought on by Kamala Harris’ two votes for massive, out-of-control spending.”
Trump has long benefited from an image among some voters as a successful businessman who is well-equipped to manage the economy. Trump leaned into that impression when he was running this year against President Joe Biden, whom many Americans blame for inflation and high prices.
But after Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Harris managed to shake off some of that baggage, and opinion polls have shown her narrowing the gap with Trump about who can handle the economy better. If this strike drags on, though, the economic fallout from spiking prices and commodity shortages could imperil that progress.
As Ward Clark writes at sister site Red State: October Surprise! Kamala Harris Embraces Striking Port Workers, Owns Any Resulting Economic Damage.
Here’s the problem with her embracing the strikers: She now owns, whether fairly or unfairly, all of the economic fallout of this strike. All of the rising prices, all of the empty store shelves, all of the layoffs due to supply chain disruptions; she owns it all. She has chosen this, and in a month she may well learn that when you dine at the devil’s table, you don’t get to choose the menu. And it’s not just commodities that will be affected; if this strike drags on, there are indicators that it will affect the energy sector, too.
Then there’s the other endorsement Harris just tacitly made: Union boss who threatened to ‘cripple’ economy lives in luxe 7,000 square-foot mansion.
Harold Daggett — the union boss who has vowed to “cripple” the US economy if ports don’t ban automation and raise dockworkers’ wages sharply — had a Bentley convertible parked outside his sprawling mansion in New Jersey this week, exclusive photos obtained by The Post reveal.
Photos taken by drone on Tuesday show the British luxury car parked with its top up outside what appears to be a five-car garage that’s connected to his 7,136-square-foot, Tudor-style home by a covered skyway.
The hulking, two-story mansion — located on a 10-acre property in Sparta, a leafy enclave 50 miles west of New York City — encircles a spacious backyard patio with an amoeba-shaped pool. A covered outdoor bar is situated next to what appears to be a massive, brick pizza oven.
A gate on the far side of the patio opens toward what looks like a free-standing sauna surrounded by a spacious wooden deck. A expansive swathe of forest surrounds the property on all sides.
The posh compound is nestled in a picturesque section of the Garden State near the Delaware Water Gap, where five-bedroom homes list for as much as $6 million, according to Zillow.
One realtor who spoke to The Post said that Daggett put the four-bedroom, six-and-a-half bathroom property on the market in 2004 at a listing price of $3.1 million before reducing it to $2.9 million. He eventually took it off the market.
Daggett, who has been alleged to have ties with the mafia, is president of the International Longshoremen’s Association, a job that comes with a salary of $728,000 annually on top of an additional $173,000 from ILA-Local 1804-1.
Kamala-approved! Because it’s good to be in the nomenklatura. As Clark writes, “That’s not a good look, not when people are having trouble meeting their monthly grocery bills. It’s hard to feel much sympathy for a union boss bringing in damn near a million a year when you just had a mayonnaise sandwich for lunch.”
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD:
School Shooters Distance Themselves From Tim Walz https://t.co/nFHmdFVTJT pic.twitter.com/Z4yXHWweDn
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 2, 2024
The ghost of Michael O’Donoghue, the father of “cut and slash humor,” smiles.
DISPATCHES FROM THE “VIBES ELECTION:” September consumer confidence falls the most in three years.
As Ed Morrissey writes, “Well, the oppo-research files have opened up right on time. I usually take any such extraordinary claims this close to an election with skepticism, but then again, both Hunter’s laptop and the Access Hollywood tape turned out to be on the level. Will this penetrate into mainstream American media outlets? And will ‘Jane’ come forward to refute or corroborate these accounts? Until the latter happens, I’d advise caution.”
And:
As to the likely silence of the DNC-MSM regarding the above Daily Mail story, as John Nolte likes to say, Democrats sure got it good:
Doug Emhoff timeline:
2009: Impregnated his chiId's nanny
2012: Physically assauIts his girlfriend
2023: Lectures us on toxic masculinity
2024: Hailed for redefining masculinity pic.twitter.com/Ow18xQpHlI— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 2, 2024
JIM GERAGHTY: Tim Walz Loses His Bubble Wrap.
On the menu today: J. D. Vance fans, last night your man won his own personal Super Bowl. Tim Walz fans, your guy may not be ready for the major leagues. The good news for the Minnesota governor is that there’s not a single smudge on any of his timepieces, and he can clearly see what time it is . . . because Vance absolutely cleaned his clock.
Walz Seemed Small on the Big Stage, and He Knew It
Being a Democratic statewide official in a deep-blue state ranks among the easiest jobs in America. Once you’ve won your primary — which can be hard fought and nasty — you’ve got that job until you choose to retire, or until you are term-limited out. It’s extremely unlikely you’ll lose a subsequent primary, because while neither party tosses out incumbents much, Democrats almost never do it. (That’s usually the case down ticket as well; of the 2,214 Democratic state legislators who ran for reelection this year, 98.5 percent won their primaries.)
What’s more, your state’s media will often be a wind at your back. Your gaffes will rarely matter; scandals, mistakes, and policy failures will be explained away; you’ll always have the fundraising advantage unless you’re challenged by a self-funding billionaire; and no matter how bad you are, the biggest names in your state’s media world will always endorse you for reelection. What are they going to do, vote for a Republican?
Democratic statewide officials in deep-blue states lose their jobs so rarely, they might as well have tenure. They play the game of politics on easy mode.
* * * * * * * * *
That CNN report that Walz was nervous might not have been expectation-setting spin after all.
The Minnesota governor looked like a guy who had no expectation of being on a nationally televised debate stage three months ago, and who realized early in the night that the moment was too big for him. His default facial expression is one of worry; he does not have a commanding presence. He looked down to take notes so often, someone on social media asked if he was working on a crossword puzzle.
Perhaps if most journalists weren’t Democratic Party operatives with bylines, they would have fewer not ready for primetime politicians. But then again, don’t discount the person who advances them to the big leagues:
BIG APPLE CONTINUES TO ROT: “New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the elected official who would replace Mayor Eric Adams if he resigns, accepted political contributions from a businessman who is accused of orchestrating illegal donations to Adams.”
Earlier this year, Williams’s re-election campaign received a total of $5,000 in donations from Brooklyn construction contractor Tolib Mansurov and two of his company’s employees, city campaign finance records show.
A federal indictment unsealed last week against Adams alleges that Mansurov illegally reimbursed four of his employees who each donated $2,000 to Adams 2021 mayoral campaign. Mansurov, who also directly contributed $2,000 to the mayor’s 2021 campaign, later received favors from Adams, prosecutors said.
The contractor, an Uzbek American, got help from Adams and his assistants in arranging events celebrating the national heritage of his ethnic community, according to prosecutors. The mayor also helped to resolve a stop-work order that the city Buildings Department had imposed on one of Mansurov’s building projects, according to the indictment. Records show Mansurov also donated $1,000 to Adams’ re-election campaign last year.
Mansurov is referred to only as Businessman-4 in the Adams indictment and hasn’t been charged with wrongdoing. He didn’t respond to requests for comment. State and city campaign finance records show he has only donated to the campaigns of Adams and Williams.
As Glenn wrote yesterday in the New York Post, “Adams isn’t even the tip of the iceberg: He’s more like one of the little frozen chunks floating around it. Because in truth, American politics, all the way to the top, is riddled with corruption and foreign cash on a scale that dwarfs Hizzoner’s alleged misdeeds.”
UPDATE: Seen on Facebook:
It’s been a long time coming: CBS’s Scott Pelley Loses a Fight Rigged in His Favor.
And since Dan Rather’s Rathergate implosion was a key mile marker pointing towards today’s result, note this Mediaite story from today: Dan Rather Rips His ‘Spineless’ Former Network for Refusing to Fact-Check During the VP Debate.
But only to fact check Vance, of course.
Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather tore into his former network on Tuesday for refusing to fact-check its first vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz.
In an article published to Substack, Rather predicted Vance would tell “more than one lie” during the debate, before adding, “Who’s going to fact check you? Well, apparently not CBS News.”
He continued:
Please allow me to pause here and say that I am always reluctant to criticize CBS News. I spent 45 years there. Loved every minute of it, even the worst times. I still pull for the important institution that it is, and for the many good people who work there.
With that as background, it is necessary to report and comment on the fact that CBS News has decided not to fact-check the candidates in real time. I would love to know what went into this decision, because it feels spineless, especially after ABC’s Linsey Davis and David Muir effectively and correctly fact-checked Trump during the debate with Kamala Harris.
Naturally, there is no mention of any aspect of RatherGate or why CBS is now Rather’s former network in the Mediaite piece.
UPDATE: So much for no “fact checking:” “And… they just cut Vance’s mic because he was fact-checking Margaret Brennan’s fact-check.”
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: What can we learn from election prediction failures of the past?
These cases together remind us that error stalks even the most confident of forecasts and that elite opinion is not always astute or discerning. In such reminders, there is no small value.
Likewise, they emphasize that impressions, “vibrations” and polls signaling landslides can be unsound bases for forecasting outcomes of presidential elections, especially in these days of a polarized U.S. electorate.
They also reveal something about the appeal of prognostication despite the prospect that forecasts will often go sideways. Offering an election prediction implies that this time will be different, that this time the prediction won’t fail. But as these cases attest, that’s not necessarily so.
Hence the continued reminders to forswear all modalities of the cockiness.
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