THAT WILL LEAVE A MARK: Michaelah Montgomery Sets It Off at the Atlanta Trump-Vance Rally.

This is the single most savage moment of the 2024 campaign cycle 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/U1mK2sIsn3

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 3, 2024

Earlier: Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff cheated on his first wife with daughter Ella’s nanny Najen Naylor — and got her PREGNANT.

$100 MILLION HERE, $100 MILLION THERE, AND SOONER OR LATER, YOU’RE TALKING REAL MONEY: U.S. Government Has Sent $239 Million to Taliban Since 2021 Due to State Dept’s Vetting Failures, Report Reveals.

The U.S. government has inadvertently sent at least $239 million to the Taliban in development assistance since 2021, according to a new report. The oversight occurred because the State Department failed to properly vet award recipients.

Less than a year after it was reported that the Taliban established fake nonprofits to siphon millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Afghanistan, a new investigation by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reveals that the terrorist group has received hundreds of millions in development assistance due to inadequate vetting by the State Department. Since the 2021 U.S. military withdrawal, at least $239 million have likely filled the Taliban’s coffers.

And there’s the billions of dollars worth of military equipment we left when the Biden-Harris administration bugged out in 2021:

DISPATCHES FROM THE MEMORY HOLE: Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff cheated on his first wife with daughter Ella’s nanny Najen Naylor — and got her PREGNANT.

Kamala Harris’s husband’s first marriage ended after he got his children’s nanny pregnant, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff cheated on his first wife Kerstin with the blonde nanny, who also taught at their children’s pricey private school.

The woman, Najen Naylor, 47, did not deny the story when approached by DailyMail.com at her home in the New York millionaires’ playground, The Hamptons.

She would not comment, except to say, ‘I’m kind of freaked out right now.’

A close friend with direct knowledge of the affair and pregnancy told DailyMail.com that Naylor did not keep the child – though her social media shows a video of a mysterious baby girl named Brook in 2009, the year the baby would have been born.

Another  friend, Stacey Brooks, who mothered twin boys around the same time as Naylor was expecting, also did not deny any of the claims – but said she would not divulge further information without Naylor’s permission.

The incendiary news is said to be causing panic in Harris’s campaign, just as she has overtaken Donald Trump in several polls and as she ramps up her final push to win over voters in November.

Emhoff confirmed the story. “Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff acknowledged Saturday in a statement to CNN that he had an affair during his first marriage after the alleged details of the relationship were published by a British tabloid.”

To ask why a story like this was broken by “a British tabloid” and not the DNC-MSM is to answer the question.

UPDATE: When PR work replaces journalism: Doug Emhoff is pushing more men to advocate for abortion rights.

—Yamiche Alcindor, NBC News, May 8th. 

If the name sounds familiar: Remembering Yamiche Alcindor’s Greatest Hits.

Yamiche Alcindor, previously a White House correspondent for PBS, will be transitioning into a role covering Washington more broadly for NBC, the network announced Tuesday. She will continue to host Washington Week for PBS.

Over the years, Alcindor has built a reputation as one of the most partisan reporters in the mainstream press, using her seat in the White House briefing room as a soapbox for progressive politics, despite working for the taxpayer-funded, and ostensibly nonpartisan PBS.

Here’s a taste of what NBC will be getting out of its newest employee:

Not included: Yamiche Alcindor craps on Madison Cawthorn after he literally rises from his wheelchair to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

And given the topic, this post from October 27th, 2016 seems relevant: Buried Lede: Chris Matthews Does Journalism. Matthews Confronts NYT Reporter On Bias: Know Any Pro-Life Reporters? (Video):

“And really this is something I think that is kind of an effective argument,” NYT reporter Yamiche Alcindor told Matthews, referring to GOP nominee Donald Trump’s argument the “elite media” is biased against him and is helping rig the election. “Because people really do feel when they go and get the news that they are really getting it from these people who have some sort of plan to rig this election, or rig the economy, or don’t want to cover the real issues.”

* * * * * * * * *

Matthews interrupted: “Do you know anybody Yamiche at The New York Times who is pro-life?”

“That’s not a question I’m going to answer,” she laughed. “I have no idea.”

“Do you know anybody?” Matthews pressed. “Just, you don’t have to name names. Do you know anybody at the Times who is pro-life?”

“I have not asked my coworkers that question, I should say,” Alcindor replied.

“Oh that’s cute,” Matthews said.

As I wrote at the time, indeed it is. Shades of the deer in the headlights responses from Lesley Stahl, Andrea Mitchell and ABC Nightline host Dan Harris when asked in various television interviews if any conservatives work on the air at their respective networks.

MORE:

SHE DID THAT…

Loving these short, raw “courtesy of Kamala Harris” ads the Trump Super PAC is running in targeted swing areas.

Grocery bills, gas prices, border chaos, crime – very strong reminders of the issues that gave Kamala Harris a 35% approval rating. pic.twitter.com/v0tUUSYgkc

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) August 3, 2024

…And then cackled at your torment.

FAIR ENOUGH, BUT DON’T GET COCKY, EITHER: Don’t Fall For ‘Operation Demoralize.’ “It happens every single election,” William A. Jacobson writes. “They create a narrative that it’s over, that the Democrat’s going to win, that it’s hopeless for Republicans to do anything…. All I can say is, I warn you, this is Operation Demoralize and they’re very good at it, and it seems to be working.”

BUG OUT!

Убирайся!

WHY IS DNC-CNN SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? CNN Host Explains Why These Black Men Are Likely ‘Low Info Voters’ for Their Opinion of Kamala Harris.

Black guys at Harrisburg barbershop tell local CBS reporter that ⁦@KamalaHarris⁩ isn’t really black: “To me, no.” pic.twitter.com/cdZUX5UwEF

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) August 3, 2024

This brief segment yields a cornucopia of memes, none of them good ones for CNN, including:

And:

John Nolte wrote yesterday, “Well, the delusion is over. CNN has announced an end to the ludicrous fantasy. CNN Opinion is no more. And I mean ‘CNN Opinion’ is no more. Obviously CNN itself is all opinion, and lies and bullying to back up that opinion, but the vertical has shuttered.”

UPDATE:

2019. Charlamagne tells Kamala Harris that a lot of Black people question whether she is "Black enough." pic.twitter.com/p7GahAMgBR

— MAZE (@mazemoore) August 2, 2024

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Watch Out for August! Think July was historic? History says: beware the eighth month.

August isn’t just a month for natural disasters. Some of the biggest international crises have hit in the eighth month. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Bush 41 recovered quickly and formed an international coalition that went on to oust Hussein from Kuwait. The next August, Bush faced another international crisis, as old-guard Soviets unhappy with Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms placed the general secretary under house arrest. When Bush’s national security adviser Brent Scowcroft told the president about the coup, Bush complained that U.S. officials were surprised by the development. Scowcroft had the perfect retort: “Yes, so was Gorbachev.”

The final kind of August surprise has been scandal. Neither the Watergate burglary nor the original revelation of Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky happened in August, but the denouement of each scandal did. Nixon resigned in August 1974, elevating his unelected vice president Gerald Ford to the presidency. Clinton, faced with DNA evidence of his affair with Lewinsky on her infamous Gap blue dress, finally ended his repeated denials of the affair. He addressed the nation from the Map Room and confessed that “I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong.” Here, for once, August proved a respite. Clinton went to Martha’s Vineyard with his family in an attempt to repair the relationships damaged by his admission.

There likely isn’t an American alive who could imagine a month more tumultuous than this past July for presidential politics. By all rational odds, things will calm down from here. Still, history warns: don’t bet on it.

Read the whole thing.

IT’S A BIT UNORTHODOX, BUT WHY NOT GIVE IT A GO? Mary Katharine Ham Has an Urgent Suggestion for the Sunday Morning News Shows.

OLD AND BUSTED: The Manchurian Candidate.

The New Hotness? The Montrealian Candidate! Inside ‘disco dancer’ Kamala Harris’s high school years in Canada — and why she keeps tight-lipped about them.

STEVE GREEN: Now We Know Exactly How Israel Assassinated Hamas Chief, and I’m Laughing Inappropriately.

[Ismail] Haniyeh had been staying at a “heavily guarded complex” in Tehran, according to the New York Times — an official state guesthouse “run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.” Nevertheless, Israel was able to

• Ascertain which room Haniyeh used during his stays there.
• Slip a remote-detonated bomb under his mattress.
• Ascertain when Haniyeh was back in Tehran.
• Make bomb go boom while Haniyeh slept.

This is all according to local sources who spoke to the Times with the usual protection of anonymity.

As martyrdoms go, Haniyeh’s was delightfully ignominious — in no small part due to Israeli operational genius, plus serious failures on the part of Iranian intelligence and the dreaded Revolutionary Guard. I shouldn’t laugh, but I just can’t help it.

Iran has vowed to strike directly at Israel in retaliation, so please consider this a developing story.

Worst. Vrbo. Home. Ever:

PARTY OF YOUTH UPDATE: Jimmy Carter Says He’s Hanging On to Vote for Kamala Harris.

As his 100^th birthday nears, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has revealed his ultimate birthday wish—to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

Carter, who has been in hospice care since Feb. 2023, could make history on Oct. 1 as the first president to reach their [sic–Ed] 100^th birthday. But he told his family a bigger goal for him would be to see the defeat of Republican nominee Donald Trump, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

His grandson Jason Carter said he told his son Chip a few days ago, when asked whether he was trying to make it to his 100^th birthday, that he is “only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris.”

No need to worry, he’ll make it — one way or another:

Last month, Howie Carr wrote that Joe Biden has finally supplanted Carter as “the worst president, ever.” Both men may be looking to Kamala to best them in the Red Queen’s Race for that ignominious title. However, as Carr wrote:

The biggest difference between Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden was that Carter was at least trying to do the right thing by the United States of America.

Everything Biden’s handlers conspired to accomplish was designed to subvert not just American society, but western civilization in general.

That’s Kamala’s goal as well.

Flashback: “I see the contrast coming into view. Joe Biden is making Jimmy Carter look like a good president.”

Was this the moment when everything went pear-shaped?

MOVE ALONG CITIZENS, NOTHING TO SEE HERE: 72 Percent Of Voters Oppose Men In Women’s Sports, Don’t Realize Kamala Harris Supports It.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Why the man that ‘gets s— done’ might not be able to save Kamala Harris in the rust belt.

If Josh Shapiro has a political philosophy, it is to “get s— done”. The Pennsylvania governor constantly uses the phrase, whether he is repairing a collapsed highway in a matter of days, negotiating a budget through a divided legislature, or posting on TikTok.

He even keeps a mug stamped with the mantra on his desk.

While less inspiring than some political slogans, it has helped Mr Shapiro position himself as a down-to-earth dealmaker who cares more about results than politics.

Now Kamala Harris looks likely to ask the popular, plain-talking governor to get something else done: to win her the key battleground state of Pennsylvania in the forthcoming presidential election.

While she has yet to formally anoint a running mate,  there are several clues that suggest Mr Shapiro, one of an ambitious new generation of Democrats, is in pole position to be the Democrat’s vice-presidential nominee.

While Kamala is, as the Ministry of Truth AP would say, “calibrating her policy pitch” to downplay her far left views as she feigns tacking towards the center for the general election, Shapiro is also busy airbrushing his record to minimize the damage his presence on the ticket would cause from other extreme elements in the current version of the Democrats’ “Big Tent:” Josh Shapiro Doesn’t Want You To Know This About Him.

Shapiro now insists he supports a two-state solution.

“I was 20,” he said. “I have said for years, years before October 7, that I favor a two-state solution — Israelis and Palestinians living peacefully side-by-side, being able to determine their own futures and their own destiny.”

For sure, views can evolve, but Shapiro is also now sadly downplaying something he shouldn’t. In the same aforementioned op-ed, he identified himself as a former volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Today, however, his campaign is downplaying that.

“While he was in high school, Josh Shapiro was required to do a service project, which he and several classmates completed through a program that took them to a kibbutz in Israel where he worked on a farm and at a fishery,” Manuel Bonder, a spokesman for Shapiro, told The Times of Israel. “The program also included volunteering on service projects on an Israeli army base. At no time was he engaged in any military activities.”

Simultaneously, Shapiro’s volunteering for the IDF has been scrubbed from his Wikipedia page.

Imagine being so desperate to be chosen as Kamala Harris’s running mate that you would look at volunteering for the IDF as something not to be proud of because you’re trying to appease the antisemitic and anti-Zionist wing of the Democratic Party. This is the Democratic Party of today.

Or to put it more bluntly, as Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) tweeted on Thursday, “These Progressives don’t want a Jew. Let’s say it out loud. Imagine if moderate Dems said they didn’t want a certain minority. The condemnations would be deafening. Yet now we hear much silence.”

Incidentally, “Getting s___ done” apparently has all sorts of meanings for Shapiro:

AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: A recent graduate offers his thoughts on the 1966 Volkswagen Fastback Sedan:

RICK BEATO: A WHITER SHADE OF BURN (Video).

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Weird Edition.

DRAW THE LINE: Aerosmith retires from touring, citing permanent damage to Steven Tyler’s voice last year.

Aerosmith says Steven Tyler’s voice has been permanently damaged by a vocal cord injury last year and the band will no longer tour.

The iconic band behind hits like “Love in an Elevator” and “Livin’ on the Edge” posted a statement Friday announcing the cancellation of remaining dates on its tour and provided an update on Tyler’s voice.

“He has spent months tirelessly working on getting his voice to where it was before his injury. We’ve seen him struggling despite having the best medical team by his side. Sadly, it is clear, that a full recovery from his vocal injury is not possible,” the statement said. “We have made a heartbreaking and difficult, but necessary, decision — as a band of brothers — to retire from the touring stage.”

Tyler announced he injured his vocal cords in September during a show on its Peace Out: The Farewell Tour. Tyler said in an Instagram statement at the time that the injury caused bleeding but that he hoped the band would be back after postponing a few shows.

Hopefully the band can continue in the studio. Very worst case scenario, last year, it was reported that British singer Sam Brown, whose vocal chords were damaged in 2007, used the pitch correction software Melodyne so that she could sing again in the studio. Between resting his voice by not touring, pitch correction software and/or the latest advancements in vocal AI, perhaps Tyler can at least still make records.

JOHN NOLTE: Imploding CNN Shutters ‘Opinion’ Site (No One Read).

Well, the delusion is over. CNN has announced an end to the ludicrous fantasy. CNN Opinion is no more. And I mean “CNN Opinion” is no more. Obviously CNN itself is all opinion, and lies and bullying to back up that opinion, but the vertical has shuttered.

Now that I’m looking at CNN Opinion for the first time (that’s not a joke), you can tell it was nothing more than an affirmative action program for leftists like Dean Obeidallah—people who could never survive on merit.

Here are some of the more recent headlines:

• The galling mistake that led the US to its current debt problem
• How Billie Eilish is unleashing queer imagination
• The real significance of the Supreme Court’s ‘Chevron deference’ ruling
• Andrew McCarthy deserves to be taken seriously
• Dear Joe, it’s time to go
• The real loser in Thursday’s debate
• The female gaze is taking over page and screen, and it is hot
• My teenage son had an influencer in his class. This is what it was like
• Fighting antisemitism, one curl at a time

CNN paid for that shit.

Here’s how CNN’s valued opinion contributors were informed they might have to get real jobs now…

“Just a quick note to let you know that unfortunately CNN has decided to shut down the opinion section,” an opinion editor sent in an email, per the Hill. “I hope our paths cross elsewhere!”

That’s it. That was the whole goodbye.

Well, that’s par for the course at CNN. Flashback to 2022: CNN+ (hey, remember them?!) folded so quickly that some staffers actually received welcome packages after the network pulled the plug on it.

WE WE’RE THIS CLOSE IN GIVING HIM TO THE RUSSIANS:

Joe Biden climbed back up the stairs of an airplane he wasn't supposed to be on, as Kamala Harris and the Secret Service watched in disbelief. He clearly has no idea where he is or what he's doing. h/t @ianmSC pic.twitter.com/O82qcXyRzu

— @amuse (@amuse) August 2, 2024

OLD AND BUSTED: President Ash Carter.

The New Hotness: President Lloyd Austin: Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused 9/11 Mastermind, Accomplices.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday revoked a plea agreement made days earlier with the accused mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and two alleged accomplices.

The plea agreement, announced Wednesday, would have spared the three men from receiving the death penalty.

Instead, Austin relieved the overseer of the war court at Guantanamo Bay on Friday and announced in a memo that he had assumed control as the convening authority for military commissions.

“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009,” Austin wrote in the memo addressed to retired Brigadeer General Susan K. Escallier.

“Effective immediately, I hereby withdraw your authority in the above-referenced case to enter into a pre-trial agreement and reserve such authority to myself,” he said. “Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case.”

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is believed to be the main conspirator in al-Qaeda’s 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, and two co-conspirators had agreed to plead guilty with the U.S. military justice system.

In more news from President Austin: US sending aircraft carrier, warships and fighter squadron to Middle East as region braces for Iranian retaliation.

On Friday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group, which is currently operating in the Gulf of Oman, according to a statement from Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh.

In addition, destroyers and cruisers capable of ballistic missile defense will also be sent to the Middle East and the Mediterranean Sea. The statement does not say which warships have been sent, but two US destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea took part in intercepting the barrage of strikes Iran launched against Israel in April.

Austin also ordered the deployment of a fighter squadron to the region, Singh said.

President Austin jokes aside, who is running the show in DC with Biden being non compos mentis? Because otherwise:

How it started: How Joe Biden Is Positioning Himself as a Modern FDR.

—Time magazine, October 28th, 2020.

How it’s going: “Jill Biden is becoming the Edith Wilson of America.”

—The Boston Herald, July 6th, 2024.

HOW IT STARTED: In December of 2009, SF Weekly had this classic Fox Butterfield-esque line: “Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, [San Francisco’s] homeless problem is worse than any comparable city’s.”

How it’s going: San Francisco Mayor Orders City Staffers to Offer Homeless Bus Tickets Out of Town.

For several years, San Francisco has struggled with crime, drug abuse, and homelessness, which was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The degradation and talk of a “doom loop” has turned away tourists and driven out businesses.

In 2022, the Coalition on Homelessness sued the city, accusing it of violating its rules for removing camps. At one point, the city was hit with a wave of suspicious lawsuits from homeless residents who claimed that city workers had illegally disposed of their valuables – electronics, “priceless” baseball card and stamp collections, art, and “business prototypes.” In early 2023, a federal judge blocked the city from clearing camps.

That changed with the Supreme Court’s ruling in June. During a debate last month, Breed vowed to take action against the sprawling homeless camps that have taken over city parks and sidewalks. “Effective August, we are going to be very aggressive and assertive in moving encampments, which may even include criminal penalties,” she said, according to the San Francisco Standard.

In addition to directing staff to offer relocation services to the homeless, Breed is also requiring police officers, firefighters, and paramedics to carry handouts with information about the city’s relocation services. The city will also establish a tracking system that will publish data about the effectiveness of its relocation efforts.

I’m so old, I can remember when San Fransisco leftists purported to be against bussing.

QUEEN KAMALA CROWNED: Kamala Harris is officially crowned as the Democratic nominee to take on Donald Trump.

OLD AND BUSTED: From Bauhaus to Our House.

The New Hotness? From Bauhaus to Our Skatepark! Mark Judge test rides The Beautiful New Carver Bauhaus Skateboard.

It’s a perfect fit for a skateboard. Because the German Bauhaus Movement (1919-1933) combined fine art and functional craft, many of its most lasting works were not necessarily painting and sculpture, but furniture, craft and home design. Marcel Breuer, Marianne Brandt, and others created the minimalism that would influence the furniture and utensils of the 1950s-60s, and architects such as Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe were the forefathers of the International Style that still exists in architecture.

The Carvehaus art design is two circles, red and blue, intersecting, with a curve of yellow where they overlap. It signals pure early-20th century modernism. As is always the case with Carvers, the patented deck, truck and wheels are top flight—industrial, indestructible, archetypal and beautiful; Bauhaus masterpieces themselves. For me modernism has also always had a profound spiritual power. Although the movement is considered an artistic break from the past, and it was, there’s also something godly and familiar in the shapes and designs. Carl Jung was right that there are archetypes that have always existed that we don’t create but can discover. It’s why Piet Mondrian’s squares seem both new and familiar, why Picasso hits us with something new yet also buried deep in the psyche, why Rothko’s shapes evoke not just radicalism but contemplation. It’s why minimalism in music such as the composer Philip Glass can be both soulful and surprising. As Chesterton said, the Christian can believe in both fate and free will.

As Mies van der Rohe never said, God is in the gnarliness. Read the whole thing.

HOW IT STARTED: How Joe Biden Is Positioning Himself as a Modern FDR.

—Time magazine, October 28th, 2020.

How it’s going: Welcome to the Harris-Biden Recession.

—Matt Margolis, PJ Media, today.

Flashback: Milton Friedman’s Revenge.