New York City blows through $5 billion as mayor seeks 14,000 hotel rooms for migrants
by Richard Moorhead
Law Enforcement Today
Oct 15, 2024
Published by an old curmudgeon who came to America in 1936 as a refugee from Nazi Germany and proudly served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He is a former law enforcement officer and a retired professor of criminal justice who, in 1970, founded the Texas Narcotic Officers Association. BarkGrowlBite refuses to be politically correct. (Copyrighted articles are reproduced in accordance with the copyright laws of the U.S. Code, Title 17, Section 107.)
Elon Musk gave around $75 million to his pro-Donald Trump spending group in the span of three months, federal disclosures showed on Tuesday, underscoring how the billionaire has become crucial to the Republican candidate's efforts to win the Nov. 5 presidential election.
America PAC, which is focused on turning out voters in closely contested states that could decide the election, spent around $72 million of that in the July-September period, according to disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission.
That is more than any other pro-Trump super PAC focused on turning out voters. The Trump campaign is broadly reliant on outside groups for canvassing voters, meaning the super PAC founded by Musk - the world's richest man - plays an outsized role in the razor-thin election between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.
Musk, the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla, was the sole donor to the group in that period.
Musk, who has said he has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in the past, has taken a sharp turn to the right this election. He endorsed Trump in July and appeared with him at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
Musk's donations to America PAC propel him into the exclusive club of Republican mega donors, a list that also includes banking heir Timothy Mellon and casino billionaire Miriam Adelson.
However, Reuters reported earlier this month Musk has secretly funded a conservative political group for years, well before his public embrace of Trump.
America PAC declined to comment on the Musk donations. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
America PAC is focused on encouraging Americans who like Trump but don't always vote to cast ballots this cycle, a high-risk, labor-intensive strategy by the Trump campaign.
The group, which started its work later in the election than other PACs, has encountered some problems with hiring and its contractors. Since July, it has fired two major contractors it has hired to knock on doors.
It has also struggled to hire door knockers in several battleground states in part because by the time the PAC became operational many other canvassing groups had already staffed up, a half-dozen sources briefed on the issues told Reuters.
The group had around $4 million left on hand by the end of September, the filings show.
Separate filings earlier on Tuesday showed that Miriam Adelson, the casino magnate, donated $95 million to another pro-Trump super PAC, Preserve America PAC, in the same period.
BURLINGTON, N.C. — The Burlington Police Department (BPD) has significantly reduced its average response time to 911 calls by deploying a drone, which provides officers with real-time aerial video and information, WRAL reported.
The drone, stationed on the roof of the BPD Headquarters, can arrive at emergency scenes within three minutes, offering a safer and more informed response for officers and the community, according to the report.
Master Police Officer Matthew Cook, who operates the drone, highlighted its role in enhancing safety by giving officers a clear view of situations before arriving.
“That way [officers] are not going into a scene blind. They know what’s going on,” Cook told WRAL.
Assistant Chief Josh Light explained that the drone, which launched three months ago, has already proven effective, recalling a recent incident where it tracked a fleeing suspect through a house—something that would have been difficult on the ground.
“Normally officers would not even see the individual jump from that window,” Light said.
Given the success of the program, the department plans to add a second drone by Thanksgiving, according to the report. The drones, costing roughly $50,000 each, are funded through asset forfeiture money.
By Bob Walsh
J. Edgar Hoover must be turning over in his grave because of what has been happening to his beloved FBI
By Bob Walsh
By Bob Walsh
Fr. George Neville Rucker blamed God for his molestation of children.
By Bob Walsh
By Bob Walsh
By Bob Walsh
By Bob Walsh
Georgia reported that on their first day of in-person early voting yesterday the vote count was up 100% over previous totals. They had over 300,000 people vote early in person. If we are fortunate a lot of those were actually U S citizens who were voting legally, though that is hardly a sure thing.
Supporters of Harris accused Fox News of conducting an 'ambush' interview and argued that she did well.
The contentious high-drama interview between Fox News anchor Bret Baier and Vice President Kamala Harris drew immediate attention and reactions online after it aired on Wednesday night.
Baier tried to press Harris on a number of key issues but the vice president protested that he needed to let her finish her answers to the questions.
Meanwhile she tore into Donald Trump for being totally 'unfit to serve' as president for a second term because he's 'dangerous.'
It was a contentious 30 minutes as the current VP worked to distance herself from Biden, saying her presidency would not 'be a continuation' while defending the administration's policies.
The first testy moment started after a brawl over the Biden-Harris administration immigration policies.
'Kamala Harris just ran into a Bret Baier buzzsaw when asked about the number of illegal aliens in the country,' wrote conservative communicator Steve Guest as the interview aired.
Baier's interview style drew praise from former Fox News personality Megyn Kelly.
'Bret is crushing this and she is incapable of defending her deadly border policies,' she wrote.
Meanwhile, supporters of Harris accused Fox News of conducting an 'ambush' interview and argued that she did well.
'Kamala Harris (strong) handled an ambush Fox interview light years better than the hash Donald Trump (unstable) made of the Fox pep rally disguised as a town hall,' Harris campaign advisor David Plouffe wrote on X.com.
Brian Stelter, a media analyst from CNN described the interview as a positive result for Harris.
'A lot of viewers are going to come away saying, "Wow, she's willing to do that. That's a sign of toughness and strength,"' Stelter said in a clip shared by the Harris campaign on social media.
Others who were not big fans of Baier indicated they were impressed by his performance.
'I forgive Bret Baier. He's literally ending Kamala Harris's campaign before our very eyes!' wrote Vince Langman, a supporter of Trump.
At another point in the interview, Harris protested that Baier played the wrong clip when he asked her about Trump's comment about handling the 'enemy within' the country.
Others who were not big fans of Baier indicated they were impressed by his performance
Harris grew incredibly annoyed with Baier's interruptions
Others focused on Harris' body language as she grew incredibly annoyed with Baier's interruptions.
'Kamala Harris is wagging her finger and yelling during the Bret Baier interview. Wrote Minnesota Republican Dustin Grage. 'This is a total disaster for her.'
At one point, Harris reacted after Baier pointed out that over 70 percent of the country believed the country was headed in the wrong direction.
'You know and I both know what I’m talking about. You know and I both know what I’m talking about!' she said, pointing back at Trump.
'I actually don’t. What are you talking about?' Baier replied.
'TRAIN WRECK,' Trump's national press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on social media after the interview.
Other political strategists disagreed.
'Kamala Harris is the opposite of unflappable. She is self imploding & getting visibly angry because for the first time in 4 years she is facing a few tough questions,' wrote Republican political strategist Andrew Surabian.
'This is why they kept her in the basement. This is literally insane… I can’t believe how bad this went,' Republican strategist Ryan James Girdusky, wrote on social media adding, 'This is Kamala’s first interview like this and it was a disaster.'
Republicans who oppose Trump for president defended Harris.
'The View' co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Republican who opposes Trump said Harris did a sufficient job.
US Vice President and current Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris attends a rally in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
'There will be loyal Fox-News-viewing women who will walk away from Harris’ interview thinking: I don’t agree w/her much, but she’s not dumb like Trump told me, & she’s tough, despite what he’s said,' she wrote.
'She went into the lion's den and took them on and stood tall,' Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican campaigning for Harris wrote. 'She did not let them bait her at all - strong, confident, epic. She totally schooled Bret Baier.'
Other Harris supporters blamed Baier for being disrespectful to the vice president.
'Harris went into the Lion’s Den and got attacked. She pushed back and made her case. However — Brett’s disrespect was palpable,' wrote former Harris advisor Jamal Simmons.
Baier said on Fox News after the interview that Harris and her team arrived late to the interview and cut it short of what they agreed to.
'We were
supposed to start at 5:00 p.m. ... originally we were going to do 25 or
30 minutes, it came in and said well maybe 20. So, already getting
whittled down, then the vice president showed up about 5:15 p.m.' Baier
said.
Fox News host Bret Baier recalled with his panel how four people were waving their hands for the interview to end after his exclusive interview with Vice President Kamala Harris aired Wednesday. It was Harris first sit-down with the conservative network
Fox News host Bret Baier shared details about how Vice President Kamala Harris' team was desperately trying to get the Fox News interview to wrap up after their testy sit-down in Pennsylvania.
The Democratic presidential nominee joined Baier for an interview aired on the Fox News Channel's Special Report Wednesday evening. It was her first ever interview for the conservative network.
The pair spoke over each other numerous times as Baier grilled the 59-year-old vice president on multiple topics including immigration right out of the gate.
'I'm talking like four people waving their hands like "it's got to stop,"' Baier described to his panel about how the interview ended after it wrapped up.
'I had to dismount there at the end,' Baier shrugged.
'There are so many things and maybe she should do more of these,' he added.
In total, Harris' sit-down with Fox News lasted nearly 30 minutes where the pair clashed multiple times.
At one point while sparring over immigration, Harris even said to the anchor ‘you have to let me finish' as he pressed her on the issue, trying to get her to answer very specific questions rather than revert back to some of her talking points.
It was one of several times throughout the interview where they spoke over each other, and the vice president asked the Fox News host to stop interrupting her.
At the very end of the interview on camera, Baier seated across from her, had to cut the vice president off once again stating 'Madam Vice President, they're giving me a hard wrap.'
During their interview, Harris and Baier repeatedly spoke over each other with the vice president at one point asking the Fox News host to let her finish answering a question
'Well I thank you for the time,' Harris promptly said ending it on a cordial sounding note.
Harris did the interview after a campaign event in Washington Crossing, PA before heading to Wisconsin Wednesday evening.
It was part of a busy campaign week for the vice president as she makes a series of stops in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin before she also heads to Georgia this weekend.
The testy interview took place as the vice president has been pressed to do more unscripted appearances and interviews as she tries to reach more voters.
After the interview aired, the Harris campaign posted a series of clips from the interview across social media as well as promoted moments of praise from commentators weighing in on Fox News and CNN after it aired.
After the vice president's plane landed Wednesday evening, campaign communications director Brian Fallon spoke with reporters traveling with the vice president's press pool briefly about the interview.
'We feel like like we definitely achieved what we set out to achieve in the sense that she was able to reach an audience that is probably been not exposed to the arguments she’s been making on the trail and she also got to show her toughness in standing tall against a hostile interviewer,' he said according to the pool report.
By Andrew Neil
Daily Mail
Oct 16, 2024
The momentum is back with Donald Trump and the Kamala Harris campaign is an increasingly unhappy, floundering ship with less than three weeks to go.
The first flutter of panic is beginning to grip the Harris-Walz presidential campaign and Team Trump is starting to believe that maybe their man might win after all.
The momentum is back with Donald Trump and the Kamala Harris campaign is an increasingly unhappy, floundering ship with less than three weeks to go.
But the Democrats are being forced to confront something even more existential than the possibility of defeat on November 5: that perhaps, for them, demography is not their party's destiny after all.
It's long been a comforting axiom of Democratic thinking that the more non-white America becomes, the more the Democrats are destined to be the natural party of government. After all, the Dems are backed by a comfortable majority of Hispanic and Asian voters plus an overwhelming majority of Black voters.
The more these minorities coalesce into a new American majority the more Democrats can expect to win elections. For the party's progressive wing it promised the ultimate triumph of identity politics: make race the most important feature of what defines people and future Democratic victories are in the bag.
The first flutter of panic is beginning to grip the Harris-Walz presidential campaign and Team Trump is starting to believe that maybe their man might win after all.
Except for one thing that Democratic strategists never saw coming: Americans of color are moving steadily to the right.
It is ironic that this has only dawned on Democrats in the midst of their first presidential election with a non-white and female candidate leading the ticket, which many in the party thought would seal its demographic destiny.
That they never saw it coming is illustrated by how they are flailing around trying to deal with it.
That Harris has a problem with black male voters has become apparent the longer the campaign has gone on. Barack Obama was wheeled out last week in Pittsburgh (second biggest conurbation in that most crucial of swing states, Pennsylvania) to admonish black men for their lack of enthusiasm for Harris.
Former President Obama scolded black men for supporting Trump. "That's not acceptable."
Too many black men, opined the former president, 'aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president' in a cack-handed intervention that did more harm than good.
When you're out to win over people's votes it's probably not a good idea to depict them as sexist, even misogynist. To ignore what might really explain black male disillusion with Democrats — sluggish wage growth, high housing costs, crime-ridden streets — might even be regarded as insulting.
Harris hasn't fared much better. She has rushed to be interviewed on a number of black-facing media outlets, brandishing so-called forgivable loans (the kind you likely won't have to repay) for minority small businesses and the federal decriminalizing of cannabis.
This implied black male votes could be bought with a mixture of cash and weed, which was demeaning as well as offensive.
No wonder Jim Clyburn, the black veteran Democratic congressman from South Carolina who saved Joe Biden's flailing primary campaign in 2020, said he remained seriously 'concerned about black men staying at home or voting for Trump' on November 5.
The problem is real — and growing. Remarkably, Harris has less support among black voters in this presidential election than Hillary Clinton when she lost to Trump in 2016.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll was stark in depicting the rightward drift among minority voters, especially men, above all men without college degrees.
Among non-college educated black voters in 2016, the Democrats won by a margin of almost 90 percentage points. This year, that's down to 65 percent, according to the NYT survey.
The Democratic loss among Hispanic voters is even greater: eight years ago, Democrats had a 41 percentage point advantage over the GOP among non-college educated Hispanics; now it's only projected to be 16 percent.
The Democratic loss among Hispanic voters is even greater: eight years ago, Democrats had a 41 percentage-point advantage over the GOP among non-college educated Hispanics; now that figure is only projected to be 16 percent.
Of course, a majority of people of color will still vote Democrat come November 5. But not by the traditional landslide majorities Democrats have usually enjoyed — and needed to secure overall victory.
Polling shows one in five black voters, two in five Hispanics and one in three voters of Asian heritage are now seriously disillusioned with the Democrats. Four years ago, Biden could count on 89 percent of the black vote in the key swing states. Harris's share in polls is currently 78 percent.
When less than one percentage point now separates the two presidential contenders in all seven swing states, that degree of minority defection from the Democrats could be crucial in securing a Trump victory.
Some will see in this a welcome comeuppance for Democrats and their obsession with identity politics. But the Democratic mistake was not so much an over reliance on identity as picking the wrong identity.
Turns out social class is more important than race among ordinary minority voters, contrary to recent fashionable academic theories and the airy prognostications of Democratic Party panjandrums.
Non-college educated minority voters share the same economic frustrations, even anger, as white working-class voters, which is why many are attracted to Trump.
Working class white and non-white voters think their wages rose faster under Trump than under Biden. Only 21 percent of Hispanic voters think Biden has helped them get on; but 38 percent think Trump did.
Minority disillusionment with Democrats is not helped by the growing perception that the party is in the grip of an affluent metropolitan elite that does not share the values of ordinary minority voters who, it turns out, have more class solidarity with working class whites than with the posh folk who now run the party they've hitherto voted for.
This points to perhaps the biggest mistake of all made by the Democratic elite: they proceeded to remold the party on the basis that voters of color were overwhelmingly progressive, like them. Whereas, in reality, minority voters are more likely to be moderate to conservative.
They are tough on crime because they are more likely to be its victims than affluent white folks.
They are not keen on transgender rights, especially when it involves allowing biological males to compete in women's sports.
They tend to be isolationist in foreign policy, preferring money to be spent at home on their problems rather than on overseas military adventures in which minorities will do a disproportionate amount of the fighting and end up filling a high percentage of the body bags.
The Biden administration thought laxer controls on the southern border was what Hispanic voters wanted and duly obliged. It shows just how out of touch it was.
Working class Hispanics, along with other minority voters, want tough border controls because their jobs — not those of the metropolitan elite — are the ones in jeopardy from uncontrolled illegal immigration. Which explains why 40 percent of black and Hispanic voters think all illegal immigrants should be deported and support building a border wall.
It's almost as if the Trump agenda was constructed with minority voters in mind.
It's baffling that Democratic Party strategists did not see this coming. After all, it's happened before. The backbone of the Democratic Party used be to blue-collar Americans of Irish, Italian and Polish descent. But over time, as they increased their stake in US society, they became more conservative.
Some even started to vote Republican. They were instrumental in Ronald Reagan's two presidential victories in 1980 and 1984. As an ex-Democrat himself, he proudly called them the Reagan Democrats.
I remember sitting in a spit-and-sawdust bar in upstate New York during the 1980 campaign. The clientele was distinctly blue-collar. A picture of John F. Kennedy hung proudly behind the bar.
'I guess folks here will be voting Democrat come the election,' I said to the barman.
'Oh no,' he replied. 'I'm voting Republican. Most of us are.'
His customers nodded in approval. It was then, in what was a close fought election, that I realized Reagan was likely to win.
That same phenomenon is now underway, this time with minority voters. It might still not be enough to secure Trump victory, for the rightward drift of minority voters is a process in its early days. And Harris's 'man problem' is matched by Trump's 'woman problem'.
But minority drift is causing Harris and her party no end of problems. Whatever the outcome of November 5, the Democrats can no longer take minority voters for granted — and their prospects of becoming the natural party of government are receding fast.
French President Emmanuel Macron (R) welcomes Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati (L) before a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on April 19, 2024.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged snipes Tuesday with French President Emmanuel Macron amid a public rift over Lebanon, where Israel is battling the Hezbollah terror group.
The barbs began when Macron upped the pressure on Israel to abide by United Nations decisions, telling his cabinet that “Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN.”
The statement referred to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly on a plan to partition the Holy Land into separate Jewish and Arab states.
France has repeatedly denounced alleged Israeli targeting of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, which includes a French contingent.
“Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN,” Macron added, as Israel wages a ground offensive against the Iran-backed Shiite terror group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where the UN peacekeepers are deployed. Israel has repeatedly urged UNIFIL to evacuate its forces from combat areas, but the force has rebuffed the pleas.
Macron’s comments from the closed-door meeting at the Élysée Palace were quoted by a participant who spoke to AFP and asked not to be named.
Netanyahu hit back at Macron’s comments, saying the country’s founding was achieved by the 1948 War of Independence, not a UN ruling.
“A reminder to the president of France: It was not the UN resolution that established the State of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the War of Independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors — including from the Vichy regime in France,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
The two men also spoke by phone, with Macron continuing to push for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon to get to a diplomatic settlement, which he called “the only one likely to meet Israel’s security requirements,” according to the Élysée Palace readout of the call.
In the Israeli readout, Netanyahu rejected calls for a ceasefire, and said he would only agree to an arrangement in which all Hezbollah forces are pushed out of a buffer zone on Israel’s border.
Netanyahu and the military have repeatedly insisted that there must be a buffer zone along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon that will have no presence of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, in line with a 2006 UN Security Council resolution.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu clarified [to Macron] that Israel would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide this and which does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping,” the statement from his office said.
Tensions have increased between Netanyahu and Macron, with the French leader last week insisting that stopping the export of weapons used by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon was the only way to stop the conflicts. Netanyahu called the suggestion “a disgrace.”
On the phone, Macron called for a ceasefire in Gaza to get all the hostages out and allow humanitarian aid in, his office said. He also expressed concern over settler violence and settlement construction in the West Bank.
Israel has faced international criticism over injuries and damage sustained in recent days by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has been deployed in Lebanon since the first of Israel’s four major ground offensives against its neighbor in 1978, but which Israel notes has done little to uphold its mandate of keeping armed members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah away from southern Lebanon.
At least five UNIFIL soldiers have been lightly injured in a spate of recent incidents that have also included shootings that the UN did not attribute to either Israel or Hezbollah.
On the phone Tuesday, Macron “expressed his indignation after several peacekeepers were wounded by Israeli forces in Naqoura and urged Israel to put an end to this unjustifiable targeting.”
Netanyahu again called Monday for the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon to move from certain areas near the Israeli border, while dismissing as “completely false” claims that Israeli forces deliberately targeted UNIFIL.
Later, UNIFIL’s mission spokesperson posted a video message on X, saying: “We are staying. We are in the south of Lebanon under a security council mandate, so it’s important to keep an international presence and to keep the UN flag in the area.”
Israel launched the offensive against Hezbollah late last month after a year of intensifying rocket, drone, and missile fire at northern Israeli towns and military positions by the Iran-backed group, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
Since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support its ally Hamas amid the war in Gaza following the Palestinian terror group’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel.
Some 60,000 residents of northern Israel were evacuated from towns near the Lebanon border shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, amid fears Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack and increasing rocket fire by the terror group.
The Axis surrendered in North Africa in May 1943. Maybe that was enough. Maybe the Allies should have sued for a negotiated settlement then. Afrika Korps prisoners are pictured.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is a decorated retired Army officer. He was supportive of Israel’s foray into Lebanon in the beginning. It would have been hard for him not to be, as Israel delivered justice for hundreds of U.S. and Allied military personnel murdered by Hezbollah in Lebanon and elsewhere. But his Oct. 12 phone call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant pivoted into this:
“The secretary strongly emphasized the importance of ensuring the safety and security of [United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon] UNIFIL forces and Lebanese Armed Forces and reinforced the need to pivot from military operations in Lebanon to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible. Sec. Austin also raised the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and stressed that steps must be taken to address it.”
There is a lot that remains troubling in those two sentences.
Israel seeks no conflict with either UNIFIL or the LAF. If they get out of the way, they will have no problem. The Israel Defense Forces is destroying Hezbollah’s vast arsenal in Southern Lebanon, doing the job that had been entrusted to both UNIFIL and the LAF, largely at the U.S. taxpayer’s expense. Between 2006 and 2022, according to the U.S. State Department, the LAF received more than $3 billion in U.S. funding. For UNIFIL, the United States pays about 25% of the tab (the United Nations wanted 26.94%, but Congress capped it). In 2023, the assessment was $143 million. But despite the infusion, both organizations failed in their stated mission, either out of fear or out of commonality with an internationally labeled terror organization.
The “dire humanitarian situation” in northern Gaza is a function of Hamas stealing aid which it sells at enormous profit (watch the video here or see @Imshin on X). Is Austin proposing Israel return to northern Gaza and carry out police functions against Hamas to protect the shipments? And what happened to the U.S.-built Gaza pier, the floating disaster that cost either $320 million or $230 million, depending on which Department of Defense report you read? Either seems a bit much for a four-month boondoggle that was canceled in July.
To be fair, Israel’s hostages—held in contravention of international humanitarian law (IHL) for more than a year, with no visits from “humanitarian” organizations and with no “humanitarian aid” from the United States or the international community—were mentioned: “the need to bring back all the hostages to their families as soon as possible.” There’ is nothing about a “dire situation” here, though.
Does Austin not think Israel is trying to do that? What would make it “possible” sooner rather than later? Does he think that talking to Hamas will do it? Just this month, U.S. officials said Hamas senior leader Yahya Sinwar is the primary impediment to a deal. And again, to be fair to Austin, he goes where the president goes, and U.S. President Joe Biden said the country is “doubling down” on negotiations.
Instead of doubling down, the administration should try a different path—one with which the secretary of defense should be familiar.
Maybe that was enough. Maybe the Allies should have sued for a negotiated settlement, offering the Germans … what? Autonomy for France and a promise never to take back Alsace? It was, after all, largely German-speaking and not terribly happy with France anyhow.
Maybe that was the time to offer the Nazis a deal they could live with; after all, a lot of civilians had already been killed.
Maybe they’d only keep half the concentration camps.
President Franklin Roosevelt was a very mixed bag for Jews, to put it kindly. But on unconditional surrender, he was right, opposing half-measures for temporary quiet in Europe that might have been mistaken for “peace.”
Back to the present: Negotiations work best when the parties agree on an endgame and discuss, even acrimoniously, how to get there. Israel seeks security for its people; the removal of the military and political power of Hamas and now Hezbollah as well; and the return of the hostages. As long as Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and friends believe the endgame is the destruction of Israel, their surrender is necessary.
There was nothing then and there is nothing now to negotiate with evil.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
By Robert Ringer
RobertRinger.com
Oct 15, 2024
Kamala has been embarrassing herself with a plethora of hard-hitting interviews on such intellectual platforms as “Call Her Daddy,” “The View,” “The Howard Stern Show,” and Colbert the Clown that only serve to remind voters that she has yet to do a serious interview or press conference.
With his calm, cool, articulate performance in the vice-presidential debate, JD Vance stunned those who had bought into the Dems’ childish narrative that he was weird. This may have been the first vice-presidential debate in history to make a difference in how people vote, because with Donald Trump being a 78-year-old moving target — literally — the next person in line matters more than usual. In addition, Vance’s lack of political experience is a plus to those of us who believe government is the true enemy of the people.
Kudos aside, I would have liked to have seen Vance handle a couple of hot-button questions more forcefully. In his effort to appease the enemies of freedom (always a bad idea), he fell into the a priori trap. What I am referring to is when a questioner states her opinion as a premise, as both CBS moderators did with at least two questions, the presumption is that everyone agrees with that premise. It’s a cute trick if you can get away with it, and Democrats have been getting away with it for decades.
Moderator Norah O’Donnell started off by referencing hurricane Helene, then did a sharp left turn and converted it into a question about so-called climate change: “Scientists say climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger, and more deadly because of the historic rainfall. … Senator, what responsibility would the Trump administration have to try and reduce the impact of climate change?”
This one had a priori written all over it. The cold, hard fact is that many highly respected scientists do not agree with the leftists’ climate-change narrative. The facts — as opposed to the opinions of a moderator — make it clear that climate change as an existential threat to mankind is a gigantic hoax, an insidious way of giving government unlimited control over everyone’s life. Vance should not be afraid to say this out loud, clearly and authoritatively.
The other a priori question put to Vance was the tiresome babble about January 6 and refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election. The facts about January 6 and the 2020 election have long been readily available to everyone — “peacefully and patriotically protest” … the first insurrection in history carried out with zero weapons … the supposed leader of an insurrection requesting 10,000 National Guard troops … etc., etc., etc. Both Vance and Trump should state these facts quickly and in a straightforward manner whenever this a priori question is raised.
Thankfully, the debates are behind us and Democrats are now in full panic mode. They had to lock Timmy in the basement after he blurted out that he wants to get rid of the Electoral College, and Kamala has been embarrassing herself with a plethora of hard-hitting interviews on such intellectual platforms as “Call Her Daddy,” “The View,” “The Howard Stern Show,” and Colbert the Clown that only serve to remind voters that she has yet to do a serious interview or press conference. We’re now in the homestretch and Democrats appear determined to try to keep their latest puppet candidate away from any serious questions. They figure that if it worked for a bumbling old fool like Biden, it should work this time around for a bumbling younger fool like Kamala.
As to the outcome of all this nonsense, I have repeatedly said that I believe Donald Trump is way out in front on the legal vote, but I still am not confident that Republicans will be successful in quashing the tsunami of fraudulent votes Democrats are planning to unleash on Americans over the next three weeks. It’s sure to get very, very ugly. But let’s be optimistic and assume Republicans succeed in overcoming the Democrat cheat machine and Donald Trump is actually declared the winner. Then what?
I’ll probably lose a lot of subscribers for saying this, but it’s a mistake to believe Trump can return the United States to its once dominant position as a beacon of liberty, prosperity, and military strength in a single term. The damage that has been done will take generations to repair if it can be repaired at all. The reality is that the economy is on life support, millions of illegals roam freely throughout the country, the deep state is firmly entrenched, and, perhaps most important of all, the United States has become unmoored from its founding principles.
Even so, Trump would be infinitely better than another Democrat puppet president. When Biden and Harris did the embarrassing fake news conference on Hurricane Milton, it was a stark reminder that Joe has been the perfect puppet for Democrats, because he’s dumb, demented, and devoid of a moral compass. Kamala is also dumb (actually, dumber even than Biden) and devoid of a moral compass, but she’s not demented. Instead, she’s genuinely repulsive, which is why it has been virtually impossible for Democrats to create an artificial persona for her that is palatable to voters.
That said, even though everyone, on both the right and the left, realizes that running Kamala for president is a gigantic scam, we should not lose sight of the puzzling fact that half the population will vote for her anyway. If you can figure out why, be sure to let me know. In the meantime, millions of us can take solace in the fact that we were lucky enough to live through a time when America was unquestionably the shining city on a hill with an unbudgeable moral foundation.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
It’s obvious she has been played for a chump, that she was sandbagged into play-acting “the candidate” by an odd coalition of the distraught and the desperate — that is, the many agency blobsters who fear prison and the perfidious politicians such as Pelosi, Schumer, Mitch the Turtle, the Clintons, and Obama, paid to cover for the blob, often doing it badly, who fear the judgment of history, as well as the loss of their fortunes. Distraught and desperate characters make foolish decisions.
About thirty seconds after “Joe Biden” vowed to stay in the 2024 race, a delegation of these panicked pols paid him a call and passed him the black spot, knowing he could not credibly front for the massive election cheat underway. He was barely able to front for the previous one in 2020, when every lever of power got pulled to-the-max to conceal the truth about the steal, and to severely punish those who dared to murmur doubts about the election’s freeness and fairness.
How did they decide that Kamala would do any better? I assure you we will find out when the party explodes in recriminations sometime after November 5. It will probably turn out to look like the 2017 movie, The Death of Stalin, a frantic vaudeville of scheming buffoons oblivious to mundane doings of the suffering nation they pretend to serve. Unlike Nikita Khrushchev in 1953, Kamala did not prevail among this gang of squabbling clowns by force of personality or guile. She was merely a default setting as veep, arrived at to present the illusion of continuity and solidarity where none existed. She was not even involved in the backstage action. I doubt that anyone even asked her if she wanted the assignment — she was only notified after-the-fact. Thus, all the drinking.
The outstanding question: will the Democratic Party actually go ahead and attempt to execute an election steal despite growing evidence of a developing Trump landslide that might obviate it? The works are already in motion. The mail-in ballots went out long ago and early votes are getting cast by the day. The overseas ballots that require no US address or voter verification are flooding in by the millions and four years of open borders has 10-million illegal aliens (at a minimum) dispersed around the nation, great gobs of them planted in swing states, processed through the DMVs and social services — with the requisite automatic voter registration — their ballots already pre-bundled for harvest.
It could go a few ways. One is, just let’er rip, harvest all those fake votes, stuff the drop-boxes, flood the zone, and do it all right in America’s face as if to say: we can do whatever we want. . . to get whatever we want. . . and you can’t stop us. That is probably the point where blue America finds out exactly what the Second Amendment was designed for. You might also expect a whole lot of state-organized resistance, especially in the populous red ones, Texas, Florida, real court cases over fraud this time, contested certification.
Or, the election could come out a hopeless unresolvable muddle. There’s no precedent for this and no provision in the Constitution, but you can imagine the Supreme Court having to decide a necessary do-over minus all recent gimmicks, paper ballots only, voters with proof of citizenship only, all voting on one re-scheduled election day before January 1. This novelty would be something apart from the clunky Congressional machinery established for settling electoral college disputes, since it is predicated on various states’ inability to determine their electoral college vote in the first place, based on patent irregularity and fraud.
You could also imagine a period of disorder so deep and grave that the regime behind “Joe Biden” declares martial law. . . or, alternately the military — the martial institution — has to take matters into its own hands, shoving aside even “Joe Biden” and his filthy retinue. Appalling to consider, I’m sure, but these things happen in history, and the Party of Chaos has set enough mischief in motion to wreck the election and wreck the country. Call it catastrophizing, if you will. There it is.
But to step back from that abyss, it appears that Mr. Trump’s momentum accelerates by the day, that he is becoming, at last, an implacable, irresistible juggernaut who will, perforce, overcome all the gimmicks, traps, and frauds arrayed against him. Kamala seems to think so. Have you ever seen such resignation, such loserdom-in-action as her recent performance on CBS’s 60-Minutes, or her pitiful admission on ABC’s The View that she couldn’t think of anything she would do differently beyond the excellent management of national affairs under “Joe Biden” (and herself as veep). Surely that said it all. She has nothing, brings nothing.
Long ago, she was a pretty girl with a law degree and an infectious laugh on the fringes of local politics in San Francisco. The winds of fortune blew her this way and that way until she ended up way over her head, used by the reprobates around her as a mere device to stay out of jail. She ends as an historical prank on her own country. It must be deeply demoralizing to be used like that in front of the whole world.
Texas Windstorm Insurance Association officials argued they needed a 10% rate increase to help insure a growing number of policyholders.
Homes destroyed by a tornado that moved through Round Rock on March 21, 2022. The state's insurance commissioner on Monday denied a request by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the state's insurer of last resort for coastal residents and businesses, for a 10% rate increase.
Texas’ chief insurance regulator has shot down a proposed 10% insurance rate hike for many Gulf Coast homeowners and business owners.
Texas Insurance Commissioner Cassie Brown on Monday rejected the increase for residential and business policyholders sought by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the state’s insurer of last resort for homes and businesses on the Gulf Coast.
Such an increase “would be unjust and unfair because of the hardships (it) would impose on the coast,” Brown wrote in a Monday filing rejecting the proposed increase. Brown cited school district officials, business groups and property owners who testified in public meetings that the increase would be unaffordable.
State Rep. Todd Hunter, a Corpus Christi Republican who rallied opposition to the proposed increase, celebrated its denial.
“The coast won,” Hunter said in a video posted Monday on the social media site X.
Brown’s rejection comes as Texas property owners face some of the highest insurance premiums in the nation and lawmakers eye ways to rein in those costs. Homeowners’ insurance rates in Texas grew by more than 23% last year, outpacing every other state, according to an S&P Global analysis — the result of numerous extreme weather events as well as rising property values.
As coastal property owners have struggled to find coverage through private insurers in recent years, they’ve increasingly sought wind and hail insurance through TWIA — which basically pools private property and casualty insurers who provide policies to properties in the state’s 14 coastal counties as well as a portion of Harris County, the state’s most populous urban county.
TWIA officials argued the association needed more revenue to provide coverage to a growing base of policyholders and cover higher construction and labor costs to repair damage from storms. But they acknowledged a 10% increase wouldn’t be enough to completely cover those costs.
TWIA’s board of directors approved the proposed increase in August in the wake of Hurricane Beryl — estimated to have caused at least $2.5 billion worth of damage in Texas, according to CoreLogic. As of this month, the association had paid out nearly $259 million in claims resulting from that storm. TWIA officials expect the association will eventually empty a $450 million reserve fund to pay Beryl-related claims.
A rate increase would only “exacerbate the burdens” faced by coastal property owners still recovering from Hurricane Beryl, Brown said.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan have signaled they want lawmakers to tackle the state’s rising insurance costs when they convene in Austin next year. Brown noted TWIA’s funding will likely get a fresh look then.
“We look forward to working with lawmakers to address these important issues to ensure that TWIA has the financial capacity to pay claims for our policyholders when they need us,” said Aaron Taylor, TWIA’s senior legislative and external affairs specialist.