Author Archive: Ed Driscoll

October 28, 2024

IT’S SPRINGTIME FOR DONNIE IN MSG: “Seems like an extraordinarily large amount of Jew Nazis outside the building. But inside the campaign equivalent of the Rhineland on the Hudson, let’s see how unified the Nazi message was:”

Read the whole thing.

Related: MSNBC shockingly edits images from Nazi rally into coverage of Trump’s MSG appearance.

One X user wrote: ‘MSNBC just called 20.000 Trump supporters nazi’s. Let that sink in.’

‘They must have forgotten that the DNC held their convention there for Bill Clinton,’ said another.

A third added:  ‘MSNBC is a shameful extension of the Democrat Party of hate and division.’

But it wasn’t just MSNBC that made the controversial comparison – democratic candidate for VP Tim Walz said: ‘There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden.’

Walz added: ‘And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.’

Causing the left to completely overreach in their entirely predictable response? Katie Pavlich Spotted ‘a History Lesson for Hillary Clinton’ Inside Madison Square Garden.

“The Clintons had their own Nazi rally at MSG in the early 1990s? No way! Was Hitler there in spirit?”

Was he there when Hillary had another rally there in 2001 shortly after being elected senator? Trump campaign slams Hillary Clinton for ‘hypocrisy’ with NYC Nazi rally comparison. “Clinton was honored through a ‘Tribute to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’ at [Madison Square Garden] in January 2001, archived White House records show. The event was held just days after she was sworn in as a U.S. senator.”

Finally, question asked and answered:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 28th, 2024

JOHN HINDERAKER: Last Night’s Rally, From Afar.

So the event was pretty anodyne. What was most jarring to me was the pacifist tone taken by some speakers. Joe Biden was denounced as a warmonger. But to be a warmonger, don’t you have to start at least one war? Biden is a terrible commander in chief, as manifested in his withdrawal from Afghanistan, but he didn’t display there the instincts of a warmonger. The opposite, if anything. And it may be reasonable to blame Biden, in part, for the wars that have broken out in Ukraine and Israel, but that is on account of weakness, not militarism.

Worse, in my view, were the denunciations of Dick Cheney and, implicitly, George W. Bush. The days when Republicans stood for a vigorous national defense are apparently gone. When Lutnick shouted “Crush the jihad!” it was a jarring echo of a vanished era. And more than one speaker criticized our support for both Ukraine and Israel from what can only be described as an isolationist perspective.

So last night’s successful, if rather tame, rally leaves the Democrats as the only party to hold a Nazi-themed event in recent years.

As for the comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, we missed him, so I watched his bit on YouTube this morning. He was mildly amusing and inoffensive for the most part, but he made jokes about Puerto Ricans and others that were arguably racist. They were the kind of joke that comedians like Don Rickles told in the 1960s. But the Democrats have seized on Hinchcliffe’s appearance and made it the only “news” story to emerge from the rally.

Which makes one wonder: why did the Trump campaign think it was a good idea to put Hinchcliffe on stage? I’m told that his material last night was relatively mild; frequently, he is more controversial. The Trump team knew that the Democrats had gone all-in on characterizing last night’s event as a neo-Nazi rally. Trump’s speech made that charge look silly, but his campaign allowed the Democrats to claim vindication by needlessly featuring Hinchcliffe.

As Hinderaker writes, Hinchcliffe’s joke was a “kind of unforced error” that of course, the DNC-MSM would eagerly glom onto. But I was told I would be watching Nuremberg Part II, and all I got was a Don Rickles show in Vegas:

Posted at 10:34 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 28th, 2024

MAKE SAN FRANCISCO GREAT AGAIN:

Posted at 12:43 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 28th, 2024

THIS IS THE WAY: JD Vance Leaves Jake Tapper a Sputtering Partisan Mess As He Wrecks His Narratives.

Jake Tapper has never been good at hiding his bias, but he does spend a lot of time putting on his faux-serious face and pretending to be a serious journalist. As the Kamala Harris/mainstream media presidential campaign appears to be imploding, however, the CNN host has been having trouble keeping his cool.

Faced with a skilled opponent like Trump’s running mate JD Vance on Sunday’s episode of “State of the Union,” he threw all objectivity out the window and became a sniveling argumentative mess. “But but but,” he seemed to be saying constantly, trying to push his own narrative instead of listening to what his supposed interview subject was trying to convey.

Tapper simply wasn’t ready for JD Vance:

Read the whole thing, which is a master class in handling a former and current Democratic Party operative with a Chyron.

Related:

UPDATE:

Posted at 12:05 am by Ed Driscoll on Oct 28th, 2024

October 27, 2024

OLD AND BUSTED: Lizzo Vows ‘The Whole Country Will Be Like Detroit’ if Kamala Harris Becomes President.

The New Hotness? Will the whole country be like Oakland if Kamala because president? How progressive politics turned Kamala Harris’s birthplace into a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Oakland, birthplace of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and the city where she launched her ill-fated presidential campaign in 2019, now resembles a post-apocalyptic nightmare, its streets piled high with trash, burned-out vehicles and homeless encampments.

Driving through its streets is a surreal and potentially dangerous experience. Many businesses have closed down and are boarded up. Those still operating are covered in graffiti, even on their windows, and many refuse to allow customers inside for fear of being robbed.

Critics of Ms Harris, who began her legal career as a prosecutor in Oakland, across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco, argue that the city is a stark example of the results of extreme Left-wing policies, some of which she embraced when she ran in the 2020 presidential race.

This time around, Ms Harris has distanced herself from movements such as “defund the police”, which she praised four years ago.

Former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has branded Ms Harris a “communist”, rejecting her claims that she was tough on crime as a prosecutor and as California’s attorney general.

Meanwhile, Oakland criminals are becoming more brazen by the day, emboldened by the knowledge that the average police response time after a 911 emergency call is 48 minutes. Their latest method of break-and-enter theft is “ram and rob”—smashing a car through a storefront before jumping out to loot.

Related: Harris still won’t weigh in on California’s tough-on-crime ballot measure.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is registered to vote in California, said Wednesday that she still needs to take a look at Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime measure on California’s Nov. 5 ballot that would reverse some progressive criminal justice reforms voters approved a decade ago.

“I’ve not voted yet and I’ve actually not read it yet,” Harris told reporters ahead of a flight from Detroit to New Jersey, in response to a question about Proposition 36. “But I’ll let you know.”

Why does Proposition 36 exist? To dial back the excesses of Proposition 47: How Kamala Harris Helped Create a Crime Wave in CA.

In 2014, as Attorney General, Kamala Harris was one of the leading champions of Prop 47 — which eliminated the ability of police and prosecutors to arrest and punish criminals in California for countless crimes.

Carl DeMaio, chairman of Reform California and candidate for State Assembly, says Harris even lied to voters by giving Prop 47 a false and misleading ballot title that suggested it was a “tough-on-crime” initiative. The title read: “Criminal Sentences. Misdemeanor Penalties. Initiative Statute.” This began the practice of state Attorneys General approving misleading ballot titles.

“Because of Kamala Harris and Prop 47, a crime wave has hit California — with our communities across the state experiencing an unprecedented spike in both retail/property crimes as well as violent crimes ranging from assault, rape, and murder,” said DeMaio.

DeMaio says that in November, voters have a chance to turn the tide to stop the California crime wave by voting yes on a new ballot measure, Prop 36.

No wonder Kamala is playing so coy about Prop 36.

UPDATE: Will the whole country be like Minneapolis if Kamala wins? Flashback: Did Tim Walz ’Let Minneapolis Burn?’

Posted at 9:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

MELISSA MACKENZIE: The Best Possible Outcome for Democrats: A Trump Win.

It took a bit of time, but the hagiography of the media around Kamala Harris couldn’t hold. She is what she always was: an incompetent, dull-witted woman who achieved her success through horizontal negotiations and pretty privilege. Every time she talks, American voters wince. Every advertisement is a herculean effort in combatting full-body cringe reactions. To Scott McKay’s point: Kamala Harris isn’t having fun, her campaign isn’t having fun, and good grief, her voters aren’t having fun. She’ll get plenty of votes simply because she has ovaries, but even Biden polled better among women than Harris is now.

It’s a cataclysmic political outcome. Except, it’s not.

Should Harris win, it will be worse for the Democrats (and America, but we’re talking politics only for the moment). Consider, if she wins, after four disastrous years, she’ll be crowding out other, more able candidates. By losing, the Democrats can regroup and find someone who actually has a chance against JD Vance and/or Ron DeSantis, two young and capable politicians waiting in the wings.

Boom! With both Biden and Harris gone, two of the worst politicians in recent memory, the Democrats are free to remake themselves. The question is this, though: will they?

Is there a successor to the Democratic Leadership Council eager to promote another Bill Clinton-style move (feign) to somewhere near the center if Kamala loses? Or are the post-2020 Dems so over their skis that such a move would be impossible?

Related: “We’re nine days away from the end of the presidential election (and potentially a few days more away from knowing the victor). But within one of the defining political factions of our era, the possibility of a Harris win is already prompting an existential question: Are we in the last gasps of the Never Trump movement?”

Posted at 9:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

QUESTION ASKED: Is Tua Tagovailoa the Man Who Will Kill the NFL?

On Sunday, he’ll return to the field when the Miami Dolphins face the Arizona Cardinals. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell would never admit it, but he doesn’t want Tua to play. Not on Sunday, not ever again.

Because, if Tua takes another headshot, it would probably end his career. That’s bad PR.

Worst case scenario, it could kill him.

And that just might kill the NFL.

Not right away, of course. But then again, CTE doesn’t kill you right away, either.

Pro football is deeply entrenched in American culture, but there are troubling signs of erosion: The “kneeling” controversy alienated a percentage of fans, and for many different reasons, younger Americans are less likely to watch or play the game. It’s a sign of the times: Facebook is more popular than face masks.

But the biggest issue is the risk of brain damage.

In a recent survey, 92% of parents worried about brain damage from tackle football. And 91% doubted if helmets provided adequate protection.

If kids don’t play the game, in 20 years, there is no game.

In contrast, as Scott Pinsker writes: “When I was a kid, concussions were funny. It was kinda the football version of that pull-my-finger gag:”

In fact, all the way until 2006, ESPN featured a segment called “Jacked Up!” It was nothing but devastating, ungodly collisions — and concussions galore.

No hyperbole, folks. Check out this snippet from 2004. It’s less than two minutes long. Note how gleeful and giddy the hosts are:

Heck, the 1977 CBS NFL Today opening credits are full of clips that would get players permanently banned from the league today, but back then, this was considered the cheerful introduction to an afternoon of family-friendly TV viewing:

That NFL is long gone; Pinsker wonders how much longer the league itself will go on. No wonder Roger Goodell was probably thrilled that all the kneeling and protests from 2015 to 2017 kept concussions out of the sports section for a few years.

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

WE’VE ENTERED SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH VAN JONES IS A VOICE OF SANITY:

Earlier: Dems’ Closing Pitch to Young Men: Stop Being Fascist Oppressors and Vote Kamala.

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

REPORT: Israel hit Iranian nuclear test sites, satellite reveals.

Israeli air strikes damaged a military base linked to Iran’s defunct nuclear weapons programme on Saturday, satellite images show.

The attack appears to have hit a ballistic missile site in Parchin, where it is suspected Iran has previously conducted tests of high explosives that could be used in a nuclear weapon.

Photographs taken on Sunday morning by satellite firm Planet Labs also showed that an Israeli strike destroyed two buildings at the nearby Khojir base, where analysts believe solid fuel for ballistic missiles was mixed.

Israel did not target Iran’s nuclear facilities or oil refineries, after pressure from US and other Western countries.

David Albright, a former UN inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security, was the first to identify the damage to the bases. He confirmed that one of the buildings hit in Parchin, Taleghan 2, was formerly used for nuclear testing.

* * * * * * * * *

Ronen Solomon, an Israeli defence analyst, said the former nuclear site was still a critical part of Iran’s nuclear supply chain.

“The [Israeli] idea is to cut the supply of ballistic missiles to use against Israel, and in the end to prevent Iran building a nuclear warhead,” he said.

Mr Solomon said the attack allowed Israel to bypass a veto from the West and Iran on hitting Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, such as Natanz. “This isn’t a nuclear facility, as Iran… called it a military facility, so that gave Israel a green light to attack it.”

He added: “Israel couldn’t target the enrichment, so it targeted the integration of the missile and the trigger of the bomb for the head of the missile, which is being tested at Taleghan 2.”

In his “World War III Tracker,” Steve Hayward wrote:

Regarding Israel’s strike on Iran, it appears Israel has acceded to American demands that it not strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, or its important oil infrastructure. This likely reflects not merely the usual timorousness of Democratic foreign and defense policy elites, but the more proximate driver of the upcoming election. Democrats are terrified that any escalation of the Middle East front will diminish further Kamala Harris’s chances of winning.

At The Free Press, Niall Ferguson writes,”the United States has lost all but a shred of the influence it once had over Israeli policy. Fact: As a share of Israeli national income, U.S. aid peaked at 22 percent in 1979. It’s now down to 0.6 percent.”

If so, why is Israel still taking its cues from the Biden-Harris White House as to what they can and cannot attack?

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

IT’S COME TO THIS: Liberals spread fake image of Kamala’s face superimposed on female Canadian McDonald’s employee who died of cancer in 2007.

A digitally altered image of Kamala Harris dressed as a McDonald’s employee has gone viral on social media, sparking debate over her recent claim that she once worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California. The photo, widely shared by some liberal users as supposed “proof” of Harris’s claim, is actually a modified image of a white Canadian woman who passed away from cancer in 2007.

The original photo is of Suzanne Bernier, who passed away from cancer in 2007, according to an archived webpage about her life.

Earlier: Meet the New York Times Source Who Claims Kamala Harris’s Late Mother Told Her That Her Daughter Worked at McDonald’s. She’s a Harris Campaign Surrogate Who’s Visited the White House.

Posted at 6:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

PAULINE KAEL, CALL YOUR OFFICE!

As Kael herself never said, “I live in a rather special world. I don’t know anyone with truck nuts. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

STEVE HAYWARD: Behind the Left’s Hitler Hysteria.

With the election possibly coming down to a margin of a few thousand votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, Harris can’t afford any attrition among progressive and young voters who ought to be in her pocket. Playing the Hitler Card is a desperate attempt to keep these voters from defecting or not voting at all.

Every person who plays the Hitler card, or drops an F-bomb needs to be asked how they would define fascism: Fascism, Again. An explainer, of sorts.

UPDATE: Tim Walz Calls Trump Madison Square Garden Attendees Nazis.

The most multicultural Nazis ever!

UPDATE: The Political “F” Word Will Backfire On Harris.

Yes, this week, with help from The Atlantic and New York Times reports of disgruntled former Trump staffers such as John Kelly making odd claims, Kamala Harris turned again to the tired account of how Trump is really like Hitler. Perhaps sensing that the campaign isn’t going far enough, The Atlantic published a breathless account by Anne Appelbaum of how Die Orange Führer is using the powers of all the great modern dictators. It was titled “Trump is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.”

For anyone who really believes this, I have some good psychological counselors I can recommend.

The fact is, though, that it’s not really working. As of October 26, 2024, the RealClearPolitics national average of polls has Trump beating Harris by 0.1% and 0.9% in the battleground states. He’s never polled better. And the betting markets average has a Trump victory at 60.5% with a Harris victory at 38.3%.

Nothing is guaranteed, but even left-wing Vox seems a bit dubious about choosing the “Trump is a fascist” strategy as a “closing argument.” Writer Christian Paz’s explainer piece about why the campaign took the Democrats’ road continually traveled explains that it has arisen from desperation: “According to polling, she’s been largely unable to make more inroads with independents or continue making gains with swing-state voters after an initial burst of support after taking up her party’s nomination.” And yet, Paz also observes that this iteration of “F” word bombing isn’t really that different from Joe Biden’s “democracy and Dobbs” approach, which wasn’t successful: “Based on Biden’s polling, that message wasn’t working.”

Exit question: Jewish People Attend Trump ‘Nazi’ Rally at Madison Square Garden. Didn’t They Get the Memo?

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

ALL THE VICE-PRESIDENT’S MEN: “Surprising and disappointing:” Woodward and Bernstein respond to Bezos blocking WaPo endorsement.

Two of the most famed reporters to ever work for the Washington Post are sounding off on owner Jeff Bezos‘ decision to squash any presidential endorsement from the paper.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the duo that broke the Watergate scandal for the paper and brought down the presidency of Richard Nixon*, called Bezos’ move “surprising and disappointing” in a joint statement.

“We respect the traditional independence of the editorial page, but this decision 11 days out from the 2024 presidential election ignores the Washington Post’s own overwhelming reportorial evidence on the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy,” they shared. “Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, the Washington Post’s news operation has used its abundant resources to rigorously investigate the danger and damage a second Trump presidency could cause to the future of American democracy and that makes this decision even more surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process.”

* In 2004, “Woodward [dismissed] both detractors and fans who contend that the media unseated a president. ‘To say that the press brought down Nixon, that’s horseshit,’ he says. ‘The press always plays a role, whether by being passive or by being aggressive, but it’s a mistake to overemphasize’ the media’s coverage.”

Despite that, as Joseph Campbell explored in 2022 in a textbook “Media Myth Alert:” Watergate at 50: Why the ‘heroic-journalist’ myth still defines the scandal.

Curiously, modern-day Posties, while angry with the paper, still want to keep getting their lucrative paychecks signed by Jeff Bezos:

Playing a factor in the calculus of that decision maybe the concern that their potential readers could be even dumber if they leave the Post and go elsewhere:

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

OLD AND BUSTED: England’s Great Train Robbery.

The New Hotness in Old Blighty? The Great Cheese Robbery! Massive Cheese Heist in London: Authorities Describe Thieves’ Plan as Brie-lliant.

There are con men, then there are con artists, and then there is the guy who passed himself off as a French cheese wholesaler and made off with 22 metric tons (48,488 pounds) of award-winning British cheddar. You have to admit; that’s fetamazing.

Thieves with a nose for fine cheese have pulled off a massive cheddar ripoff in London.

Neal’s Yard Dairy said a con artist posing as a wholesale distributor for a major French retailer had made off with 22 metric tons (48,488 pounds) of award-winning cheddar worth 300,000 British pounds ($390,000) before the company realized it had been scammed and reported the theft on Monday.

“The high monetary value of these cheeses likely made them a particular target for the thieves,” Neal’s Yard Dairy, a distributor, wholesaler, and retailer of British artisanal cheese, said in a statement.

Whoever this con artist is, he’s too gouda to be believed. While I’m not any more fondue of crooks than anyone else, you’ve got to admit, this took some chutzpah. One wonders if the mastermind planned this provolone, or if he had help. I mean, that’s a pretty sharp trick to pull off. I camembert an equally audacious act of thievery, anywhere. It almost has a roma-ntic vibe to it, doesn’t it? If you don’t think so, well, I suppose we can abrie to disabrie.

In their write-up of the incident, the BBC made sure to include the most important detail of the incident: “Westcombe Dairy’s maturing cave is equipped with cheddar-turning robot, nicknamed Tina the Turner.”

That’s absolutely adorable.

Posted at 2:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

RIGHT WING MEDIA BIAS WATCH: Brain-Dead — Morning Joe Touts Columnist’s Idea the Press Is ROUGHER On Kamala!

You can tell Donald Trump is winning and Kamala Harris is losing when Washington Post columnists like Eugene Robinson are lashing out at the liberal media, like they have failed to cover Donald Trump viciously enough, that they somehow haven’t played up former Trump aides calling him a fascist enough. This seems to ignore what the networks and newspapers did this week!

But they celebrated his angry anti-media column on Morning Joe on Friday. Mika Brzezinski read it with a thrill up her leg:

Somehow, it is apparently baked into this campaign that Trump is allowed to talk and act like a complete lunatic while Harris has to be perfect in every way. I don’t know the answer to the chicken-or-egg question — whether media coverage is leading public perception or vice versa — but the disparate treatment is glaring.

He’s actually claiming Kamala Harris gets rougher treatment than Trump. Does he need a Breathalyzer test?

As I wrote the week before last when Don Lemon went off on a similar tear, eschew the cockiness, but don’t most lefties wait until after the election is over before playing the “right-wing media bias” card?

Posted at 2:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: The Nation’s Interns Declare War on the Nation.

A brief Sunday morning Corner note, because here in the terminal throes of the strangest presidential campaign of the past half century, the surrealistic comedy is rushing by in a slipstream that makes it all too much to process — you have to get some of the funnier moments down in writing, or else all these memories will be gone for good, lost in time like tears in rain.

On September 23, the editors of the venerable ultraprogressive magazine the Nation endorsed Kamala Harris for president. That is not the story, because that is not noteworthy — the Nation has been endorsing far-Left Democrats for well over a century, during most of which time it was run by actual Communists. No, the story here is that, yesterday, the Nation‘s fall 2024 internship staff just published a collectively written counter-essay attacking their editors for selling out and endorsing Harris — and they published it in the Nation itself.

I’ll admit that my first reaction pretty much tracked with that of Ben Dreyfuss in the link provided above. (I would love to reprint it here, but Sunday feels like an inauspicious day to test standards of decency.) The interns’ piece instantly became the butt of jokes on social media last night, but I’ve noticed that some misunderstand why it’s being mocked and why every media professional with even a shred of self-respect is mocking it as well. It’s not that interns shouldn’t be allowed to write articles. It’s not that interns aren’t allowed to have opinions. (Ideally, they would not be dumb opinions, but, hey — it’s a sorting process.) It is that interns should not be ganging up to attack their own bosses in public. The lunatics aren’t running the asylum, at least not yet, but they are collectively organizing to dictate morality. I cannot even believe I have to point it out, but this is no way to run an organization.

I’m so old, I can remember when editors decided what articles a publication would run, before these new enlightened times in which publications leak like a sieve via their Slack channels and allowing interns a chance to upload their own sophomoric takes on a particular topic.

Exit question:

Posted at 1:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

ESCHEW ALL EPISTEMOLOGICAL STRUCTURES OF COCKSUREISM: Does Anyone Think Kamala Is Going to Win Anymore?

The obvious disclaimer about how close this election is and not to take anything for granted aside, does anyone think Kamala Harris is on the verge of winning this election? Like, legitimately? In the past few weeks, her lead in the RealClearPolitics averages has disappeared, and Trump now has the lead in the national average.

Sure, the polls could be wrong like they were in 2022, but just look at the Harris-Walz campaign lately. They’re enlisting celebrities to handle her final pitch and duping her supporters into thinking they’re about to see a Beyoncé concert to boost attendance at her rallies.

And of course, even the campaign rhetoric has become increasingly desperate and unhinged.

QED: Dems’ Closing Pitch to Young Men: Stop Being Fascist Oppressors and Vote Kamala.

It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off.

The Obamas certainly seem to have a particular message that they want to vent in the final days of the campaign. Barack Obama scolded black men for being misogynist in their lack of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris two weeks ago. This weekend, Michelle Obama scolded women for allowing themselves to be oppressed by their MAGA menfolk. The closing pitch from both Harris surrogates puts younger men squarely in the role of villain.

Doesn’t that seem a little risky, considering the circumstances?

The good news is that this message will resonate in one key demo: the Womens Studies majors subset of college graduates. The bad news is that the young-men demo is a lot larger. And the really bad news is that Kamala already had a lock on the Womens Studies majors.

Exit quote: “I’ll be doggoned if I can figure out to whom this appeals, other than fellow tone-deaf progressives. And again, they’re already on board. It’s as if Democrats want to lose young men for a generation. Perhaps they do, and that is indeed a bold strategy, Cotton.”

C’mon — the Dems have carefully wargamed this through, and found the way to keep young men onboard: Tim Walz and AOC to play football video game on Twitch in appeal to young men.

Vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez planned to stream themselves playing an American football video game against each other on Sunday as the two Democrats continued their party’s efforts to secure votes from young men just nine days before the White House election.

Walz and Ocasio-Cortez were scheduled to face each other on Twitch platform at 3pm ET in the latest edition of the Madden game after a recent NBC News survey found the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris had a lead of two percentage points over Donald Trump with young male registered voters.

Despite the edge, Democrats have polled better among the demographic in previous election cycles, creating concern among the party.

And playing computer football — while actual NFL games are on TV — will do the trick? But why would AOC be promoting the NFL, given its enormous carbon footprint? That doesn’t seem very Green Nude Eel-y to me. (Unless, heaven forefend, that was all simply a pose to attract as much media attention during her “new socialist ‘it girl'” heyday in 2019. Nahh, couldn’t be.)

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS: The Worst News Outlet of the Week — A Look Back at the Week in Dysfunctional News.

 The Contenders:

NEWSWEEK – Jumping out of the gate was the news magazine with consistent fractured approaches to Donald Trump’s foray into the fast food business (He didn’t work a full shift!) as if they felt he was actually an employee (He didn’t wear a hairnet!). They had over a dozen pieces on this visit alone, and more regarding the E. Coli outbreak. One post was taken down after they suggested that the store where Trump was had been involved. One report worked to debunk an image put out on Truth Social showing Trump as a Pittsburgh Steeler.

CBS – “60 Minutes” finally came out with a comment about the editing scandal of the Kamala Harris interview. They managed to say Trump’s comments on it were false while admitting he was correct. Norah O’Donnell decided to toss any pretense of objectivity, repeatedly covering the campaigns with glowing praise of Harris and critical commentary about Trump. Then she was raving from Kamala’s Houston rally.

CNN – While promoting any garbage story that qualified as an October Surprise hit on Trump, at the same time, they would shut down an attempt to bring up Doug Emhoff’s issues with women. The network pushed a false claim that new abortion laws have increased infant mortality. Bonus points: Jake Tapper being oddly focused on Arnold Palmer’s manhood and repeatedly bringing up the topic to Speaker Mike Johnson.

Click over to see the winner, who is not one of the above.

 

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

OLD AND BUSTED: Kamala Harris Mocks Audience Members for Proclaiming ‘Jesus Is Lord,’ Says ‘You’re at the Wrong Rally.’

The New Hotness?

Kamala, born in Oakland and raised in Montreal is dusting off Hillary’s circa 2007 “don’t feel no ways tired” faux-southern drawl to pander. Flashback to a classic Hot Air “Vent” clip from back then featuring Bryan Preston and Michelle Malkin:

Posted at 12:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

KEEP ROCKIN’! NYT: Daughter of LA Times Owner Nixed Paper’s Endorsement of Kamala Because She Wasn’t Sufficiently Anti-Zionist.

Thousands of readers canceled subscriptions. Three members of the editorial board resigned. Nearly 200 staff members signed an open letter to management demanding an explanation, complaining that the decision this close to the election had undermined the news organization’s trust with readers. The Times’s News Guild, the newsroom’s union, lodged a protest. In social media posts and subsequent interviews with his own news organization, Dr. Soon-Shiong framed the choice as an attempt at neutrality.

But in a statement on Saturday that was swiftly challenged by the paper, his daughter, Nika Soon-Shiong, 31, a progressive political activist who has frequently been accused of trying to meddle in the paper’s news coverage, said the decision was motivated by Ms. Harris’s continued support for Israel in its war in Gaza.

“Our family made the joint decision not to endorse a Presidential candidate. This was the first and only time I have been involved in the process,” Ms. Soon-Shiong, who has no formal role at the paper, said in a statement to The New York Times. “As a citizen of a country openly financing genocide, and as a family that experienced South African Apartheid, the endorsement was an opportunity to repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children.”

In a statement, Dr. Soon-Shiong said the daughter did not speak for the paper.

“Nika speaks in her own personal capacity regarding her opinion, as every community member has the right to do,” the owner said, according to a spokeswoman. “She does not have any role at The L.A. Times, nor does she participate in any decision or discussion with the editorial board, as has been made clear many times.”

The editor of editorials, who was among those who have resigned, said she was taken aback by the daughter’s assertion.

“If that was the reason that Dr. Soon-Shiong blocked an endorsement of Kamala Harris, it was not communicated to me or the editorial writers,” Mariel Garza, who resigned on Tuesday, said in a statement. “If the family’s goal was to ‘repudiate justifications for the widespread targeting of journalists and ongoing war on children,’ remaining silent did not accomplish that.”

Over the past six years, writers and editors have increasingly chafed at interference by Dr. Soon-Shiong, 72, and his family in the newsroom, where owners are generally regarded less as proprietors with the right to impose their personal views than as guardians of a public trust.

I assume there’s more than a little, “This means you too, Sulzberger” in that last paragraph, given the numerous collective temper tantrums from the Gray Lady’s young coddled staffers in recent years.

Speaking of media temper tantrums, ever since Glenn started it, we’ve been using the “Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense” tag for years now. And rather helpfully, the past week’s meltdowns at the L.A. Times and WaPo have really driven that point home: Barred From Endorsing Kamala Harris, Journalists Freak Out and Quit Their Jobs.

(Classical reference in headline.)

UPDATE: At the Huffington Post: Newspapers: No Endorsement Is Absolutely An Endorsement. By not endorsing a candidate, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times have chosen Donald Trump.

Indeed, and Trump should act accordingly in his stump speeches this week.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 27th, 2024

October 26, 2024

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Harvard Doctor Confirms that Human ‘Brains Need Meat.’ Dr Georgia Ede, a Harvard-trained nutritional and metabolic psychiatrist, says eating meat is essential for good mental health.

Well, that explains the behavior of those who avoid it.

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2024

TONIGHT ON THIS WEEK’S EPISODE OF HBO’S VEEP:

Paging through intelligence reports just weeks after she was sworn in as vice president, Kamala Harris was struck by the way two female foreign leaders were described. The reports used adjectives that, in her view, were rarely used to describe male leaders.

Ms. Harris, the first woman to hold her office, ordered up a review that scrutinized multiple years of briefing reports from various intelligence agencies, looking for possible gender bias.

The study found some questionable word choices but no widespread pattern, according to a senior intelligence official, one of five who requested anonymity to discuss the review. (None would disclose the words flagged by Ms. Harris because the reports were classified.)

Still, the exercise had an impact: Intelligence officials added a new training class for analysts on how to judge and assess female foreign leaders, according to another official.

The episode proved to be a preview of Ms. Harris’s priorities.

You said it, Gray Lady. As Zaid Jilani tweets, “Kamala Harris got access to intelligence reports and this is what she did? I feel like this is a parody of a liberal.

Posted at 5:13 pm by Ed Driscoll on Oct 26th, 2024
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