As Elon Musk faces a 'cyberbullying' lawsuit from Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, threats from European Commission (for the 'crime' of talking to Donald Trump), and attacks from the Brazilian Supreme…

Vice President Harris on Thursday sat for her first highly anticipated interview since she launched her rapid-fire presidential campaign. The interview was conducted by CNN’s Dana Bash in primetime. Harris was joined by her running mate, Minnesota Gov Tim Walz, but the vice president fielded a bulk of the questions.

Conservative activists and media outlets took to X to share their thoughts on a clip of CNN's interview with Vice President Kamala Harris as she explained why her policy positions have changed since she took over the Democratic ticket for president.  In the clip of the interview, which will air Thursday night on CNN, anchor Dana Bash asked, "Generally speaking, how should voters look at some of the changes that you've made? … Is it because you have more experience now, and you...

Kamala Harris may have sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash for her first big interview since she became the Democratic presidential nominee last month, but that doesn’t mean she was willing to play the network’s game. Since getting the nomination, Harris and running mate Tim Walz have connected with voters mostly by doing rallies and working with content creators, while ignoring sit downs with legacy media outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and others.

"People tried to sue bands for their mistakes." The post ‘Fade to Black’: the Metallica song that divided their audience first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

The modern Democratic Party operates like a Mafia family. Like the Mob, Democrats have a specific organizational hierarchy. There are the grand bosses who sit atop the entire food chain, such as the Obamas and the Clintons. There are the trusted consiglieres, such as Attorney General Merrick Garland and outside super-lawyer Marc Elias. There are caporegimes, such as Govs. Gavin Newsom and Kathy Hochul. Heck, there was even a yearslong omerta vow of silence surrounding President Joe Biden’s obvious physical and mental decline. And then, as in any organized crime outfit, there are the street-level foot soldiers — the hit men. The role of the foot soldier is to dutifully execute the orders of his principals. Often, the foot soldier’s assigned tasks are less than reputable — intimidation, extortion, racketeering, and, yes, knocking off those rivals who pose a viable threat to the family’s territory or prestige. In the year 2024, so-called special counsel Jack Smith — yes, only so-called, as both Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge Aileen Cannon recently concluded — is the foot soldier par excellence for the Democratic Party, and the Democrat-lawfare complex that now serves as the party’s tip of the electoral spear. No one should have been under any preexisting illusions that Smith was a noble lawman dedicated to upholding a neutral rule of law. Smith, after all, charged a former president of the United States with violating the Espionage Act — the controversial World War I–era statute normally reserved for such extreme cases as those of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden. After this week, however, the jig is truly up: Smith’s naked politicking and electioneering has been exposed for all to see. But let’s first take a step back. Earlier this summer, Smith was rebuked by the courts in at least three distinct ways. First, in Fischer v. United States, a 6–3 Supreme Court majority held that a provision of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act pertaining to obstructing an “official proceeding,” found at 18 U.S.C. 1512, could not be used to charge participants in the Jan. 6 jamboree at the U.S. Capitol. Rather, that provision of Sarbox had to do with corporate fraud and impairment of physical documents — not with such constitutional events as the formal counting of Electoral College votes in Congress. Second, in Trump v. United States, a slightly altered 6–3 Supreme Court composition emphatically rejected Smith’s argument that a former president enjoys no immunity from criminal prosecution following his presidency. Rather, the court ruled, the president enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution for all plenary constitutional acts taken while in office, and a rebuttable presumption of immunity from prosecution for all “official” acts taken more broadly. Third, Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion in Trump v. United States suggested, and Judge Cannon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled, that Smith is not a legitimate U.S. Department of Justice special counsel because Congress has not properly established his office “by law.” Judge Cannon’s ruling thus tossed Smith’s Espionage Act case against former President Donald Trump, entailing a much-publicized classified document dispute at Mar-a-Lago. Smith is now appealing Cannon’s dismissal. The combined effect of these rapid-fire developments should have sent an unmistakable message to Smith: Abort your mission. This is doubly true given the impending November election, for which a certain criminal defendant will appear at the very top of the ballot. After all, the DOJ’s own internal Justice Manual stipulates that “federal prosecutors … may never make a decision regarding an investigation or prosecution, or select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges, for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.” Come again? Any reasonable prosecutor — or so-called prosecutor — would have conceded defeat and dropped the lawfare madness. Instead, in his superseding indictment filed this week in Washington, D.C., Smith doubled down in every possible way. Smith only made cosmetic changes to his original charging document, removing certain factual allegations that clearly involve a president’s plenary constitutional conduct but retaining other alleged acts that still fall under the broader scope of “official” presidential conduct. Astonishingly, Smith left in both his counts against Trump that invoke the very Sarbox provision the Supreme Court just held in Fischer cannot be invoked for Jan. 6–related prosecutions — including Smith’s anti-Trump case in Washington. And perhaps most offensive, the dimwitted Smith simply hasn’t gotten the memo: Like a spurned lover, he still thinks he’s a real “special counsel.” But he isn’t. Speaking as a lawyer myself: Smith is not very good at this whole law thing. He really ought to consider another profession. I hear the U.S. Secret Service is hiring. The American people can definitively send Smith — and the rest of the Democrat-lawfare complex — packing this November. To find out more about Josh Hammer and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM READ MORE: Robin DiAngelo’s Plagiarism Exposes the Fraud Behind ‘Anti-Racism’ What to Make of the Harris Campaign’s Embrace of Freedom Government Won’t Save Local Newsrooms The post Jack Smith, Democrat-Lawfare Complex Hit Man appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

I don’t play video games. My parents agreed that game controllers and TVs wouldn’t be a part of their children’s lives well before I came into the world, and while I played the occasional word game on a smartphone, video games were off limits.  The thing with video games is that, if they don’t get you early, you’re unlikely to be hooked later in life. At some point, my parents were no longer mandating that I didn’t play video games, but if I chose to waste time (and I’ve certainly wasted my fair share of time), I didn’t do it shooting down bad guys in a gaming universe. All of this is to say that I came across this news item on pure chance (thank you, Not the Bee).  On Aug. 23, Sony released a “5v5 first-person shooter” game (meaning Sony spent a lot of money on it) called Concord. It’s unclear exactly how much the company spent on it (although leaks suggest it was over $200 million), but what is clear is that it was a total flop. Within the first 24 hours, the game failed to break 700 players on PlayStation  — or even 1,000 concurrent players online within the first couple of days.  To put that into perspective for those of my readers who, like me, don’t pay attention to these things, Forbes’ Paul Tassi writes, “I’ve seen many rough releases in my time, and I cannot think of anything that compares to what’s happening with Concord here…. It’s such a low figure I’m genuinely trying to figure out if something is technically wrong with the numbers here.”  A brief perusal of X reveals exactly what went wrong. It wasn’t the numbers.  You see, Sony apparently decided that the gaming community was ready for a game that just oozes diversity and inclusion. The characters are a hodgepodge of pink hair, green skin, and pronouns; players noticed and did not approve. Sony did catch on eventually. Within the first 24 hours, Sony removed Concord’s LGBTQ+ and political tag from the game’s Steam page. That didn’t help. This isn’t the first time this has happened this year. When Warner Bros. released Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, gamers criticized it as woke. That game was considered the year’s worst flop until Concord.  The moral of the story is abundantly clear: DEI is not a great way to sell a video game. It turns out that when Americans head home from their corporate 9–5 job where they’re being forced to sit through DEI seminars and carefully tiptoe around HR departments, the last thing they want to do is pick through characters with an endless number of pronouns. They’ve had enough, and they are looking for an escape from all the craziness.  Evidently, that’s something that Hollywood and the gaming industry (which tend to be one and the same) haven’t yet figured out, despite the growing list of major feature films that have flopped due to woke messaging. The post Gamers Don’t Want to Deal With DEI appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

My favorite beach has been invaded by Portuguese men o’ war. Not soldiers, but some kind of jellyfish that are not actually jellyfish. I would prefer if it were an invasion of soldiers — at least you drown them in the sea. There is no way to drown a jellyfish. And their sting, against all odds, stings. So I have had to spend a few hours thinking about my next course of action. I want to be a better person, at least by the standards of the New York Times, the Post, and other Agenda 2030–worshipping media outlets. So these are my resolutions, and if you don’t like them, I have others: I will be a better black woman every day. I will post less fake news on my social networks, especially on Tinder. I will smile as I pay my taxes. I will repair anything I have broken at home, with the exception of relationships more than 15 years old.  I will help a kitten cross the street.   When in Rome, I will do what African illegal immigrants do. I will never again imply that Kamala Harris has a problem with alcohol. I will do all transatlantic trips on foot, except when the weather conditions are adverse, and I can afford the help of a single-wheel electric scooter.  When traveling, I will also not produce my own emissions until I reach my destination. I will redistribute all my poverty. I will take no more planes than those taken by UN leaders when they go somewhere in the world to tell us not to take planes. I will have nothing, and I will be happy. If I feel like it.  I will donate my bonsai collection to Aunt Wendy, who hates bonsai, to become more inclusive. I’ll get monkeypox. And, in solidarity with chickens, avian flu. And, why not, if dying is free and the WHO recommends it, I will also contract foot-and-mouth disease, leptospirosis, and any other disease that would make Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tremble with delight. I will no longer throw any bags full of bottle caps to the bottom of the sea. At least once a week, I will drape a sheet over the Coyote sculpture on my desk in solidarity with the Roadrunner.  I will practice circular economy: I will show my ass to the bank manager every end of month. I will go to the doctor regularly for a wokeism blood test. If on any occasion the level is below six million woke cells per microliter, I will undergo a sex change operation by a Bolivarian shaman who only uses rum as an anesthetic. When I run out of 30 possible genders, I will jump to the animal kingdom, change into a dog, and bite the hems off Donald Trump’s pants. I will donate my collection of extreme right-wing books to the Democratic Party stokers. Zero Heating Challenge: this winter we will warm myself with a slap in the face. The first one will go to my idiot neighbor on the fourth floor. I’ll join the gym and give my membership card to the skinniest neighbor in the building. I will drastically reduce my water consumption. I will replace it with whiskey. I will never again call the bloodthirsty dictator Maduro a bloodthirsty dictator. I will hitchhike to work. And I will tell my boss to present his complaints to daddy Antonio Guterres. I’ll make myself a T-shirt with the most LGBT character Disney manages to shoehorn into its next children’s production. I will empower my female coworkers by inviting them to dinner and urging them to pick up the tab. Zero Paper Challenge: I will write my articles in the misty bathroom mirror.  I will go to work in a miniskirt on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays.  I will no longer kill two birds with one stone. From now on, I will shoot them down with sustainable arguments. I will offset my carbon footprint by eating quinoa three times a week. On the days I eat meat, I will hug a cactus very tightly.  I will sit a progressive at my table every day. READ MORE: Politics Is Taking Over Life. The Way Out Is to Vote Wisely. Everything That Can Hurt You on the Beach Biden’s DNC Speech Revealed Kamala’s True Colors The post Resolutions for the Return From Vacation appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Thirty-nine days after launching her presidential bid, Kamala Harris finally allowed a journalist to interview her. Her decisions to bring along an emotional support human in Tim Walz and choose a no-Republicans-need-apply network in CNN reinforce the perception that she fears unscripted, uncontrolled environments. Dana Bash asked about her day-one agenda. Harris appeared flummoxed. “There are a number of things,” she answered followed by very little in terms of specifics. When pressed, she talked, again, in a general sense, of “implementing my plan,” “investing in the American family,” and “a number of things on day one.” She started an answer on her fracking flip-flop: “Let’s be clear: my values have not changed.” An honest translation might go something life: “Let’s be convoluted: political expediency is my ultimate value.” The talking-points mantra, relied at various points, clearly was “my values have not changed,” which perhaps works better as a retort than “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Her shortest answer worked as her best. When Bash asked her about Donald Trump’s calling into question her identity as a black woman, Harris offered: “Same old tired playbook.” Bash pressed her to expound on those four words, and a stingy Harris gave her just two more: “That’s it.” Whereas she pivoted from a chance to play the victim, Tim Walz rushed to do so. When confronted with saying he carried a weapon in war, the former public school teacher talked about his wife correcting him on bad grammar. Vice Caesar is not above the grammarians, either, but the controversy involved honesty rather than proper English. His mischaracterizations of his military record and the fertility treatment his wife used to conceive coaxed excuses rather than apologies. He declared that “I won’t apologize for speaking passionately” on guns and access to reproductive treatments, as though not his ethical lapses but political enthusiasms ignited the controversies. Harris confirmed that her upcoming debate amounts to her first time speaking to Donald Trump. She refused to disown the Biden economy when given the chance. She described the current president as “intelligent” and “smart”; Bash did not, in her big failing as interlocutor, ask her about his decline and when she first noticed it. She straddled the fence on the Middle East, saying, “Israel has a right to defend itself” as she conceded that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.” Like so many of her answers, and the 39-day gap between announcing her candidacy and taking an interview question, it left viewers wondering what she actually believes. It all bespoke a strategy of running out the clock without trying to make a play before Nov. 5. If journalists won’t ask, Harris certainly won’t tell. And if she does, she will do so in her native tongue. Harris speaks, as her first language, Platitude. She spoke of “a new way forward,” blah, blah, blah, “the climate crisis is real,” blah, blah, blah, “It is important to build consensus,” blah, blah, blah, “Stand true to our principles,” blah, blah, blah, “spent my career inviting diversity of opinion,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That, in a word, sums up the interview. It was neither helpful nor damaging but blah. The most common verbal reaction to the much-anticipated conversation, which probably lasted 30 minutes or less given the periodic breaks before its 9:49 p.m. Eastern time ending, from friends and foes was that: blah. Performances, of course, can elicit worse reactions than blah. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate appeared on CNN, the party faithful, of course, muttered a four-letter word other than “blah.” The post America Waited 39 Days for This? The Blah-ness of CNN’s Kamala & Tim Show appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from Sputnik News: ANKARA (Sputnik) – Russia and Ukraine almost reached an agreement at the talks in Istanbul in 2022, but a number of countries did not want the conflict to end, the speaker of the Grand National Assembly (parliament) of Turkiye, Numan Kurtulmus, said. At the end of November 2023, the head of the […]