This week, the Republican National Committee has been meeting to hammer out all of the policy provisions of its platform to be unveiled at the GOP convention in Milwaukee beginning on July 15. Generally speaking, that isn’t a process that trails in a whole lot of public attention. Let’s face it, nobody really even reads the party platforms much anymore. (READ MORE: Six States Put Abortion on the Ballot, With More to Follow) But this year is a little different. Delegates to the Republican National Convention can be assured that they’re going to be under a special sort of microscope as they assemble the 2024 platform. Why? Because with the burgeoning implosion of Joe Biden’s presidency and re-election effort, and the increasing collapse of the media/political gaslighting regime aimed at deceiving the American people as to his cognitive fitness, the other side is desperate for something to grab onto. Democrats Having Nothing to Run on in 2024 With or without Biden, the Democrats have nothing at all to run on. When more than 70 percent of the public is telling pollsters the country is on the wrong track, and with giant issues like inflation, immigration, and multiple wars across the globe (two of which are directly related to stupid American policy that enabled bad guys to make trouble), crime and a host of other social ills getting worse at a rapid pace, they’ve put themselves in a worse position than at any time since 1980. (READ MORE: Abortion Isn’t Funny) At least at that point, Jimmy Carter was still somewhat sentient. Carter ran a pretty vigorous campaign that year. He even held off a primary challenge from Ted Kennedy without denying him Secret Service protection or essentially kicking him out of the Democrat Party. Interestingly enough, though, Carter’s entire campaign in 1980 was a litany of warnings and threats about how awful Ronald Reagan was. The public didn’t buy it, mostly because Reagan’s record as governor of California was a whole lot shinier than Carter’s record as president. This election looks like 1980 on steroids, at least from the perspective of the middle of July. Of course, the 2022 election looked like 1994 on steroids at this point. Why didn’t it come down that way? One of the most common answers you’ll get is abortion. Abortion Is the Difference If you’ll recall, it was in June 2022 that the Dobbs decision leaked. It was a great victory for the pro-life movement that because of that monumental Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade went into the trash. Pro-lifers got what we were looking for — namely, that there is no God-given right enshrined in the Constitution to kill an unborn child, and that abortion should be handled as a public policy debate to be had at the state level. That’s quite possibly the biggest win the conservative movement has had this century. To be fair, that doesn’t say much; conservatism hasn’t been on a particular hot streak since we stopped partying like it’s 1999. And in perfect Stupid Party form, no sooner did Dobbs pass but Lindsey Graham found a bank of microphones and announced he was bringing a bill to institute a federal 15-week ban on abortions in the U.S. Senate. That bill was never, ever going to become law. It was pure performance art for Graham to bring it. And when he brought it, every pro-abortion group in America saw their fundraising supercharged and their dreams of beating Republicans in House and Senate races across the country got a special topping-off of rhetorical jet fuel. You will never, ever convince me that Graham bringing that bill was not a bit of sabotage by his pal Mitch McConnell, the most treacherous caucus leader any party has ever had, to kill the hopes of multiple conservative candidates in Senate races who would oppose him for another term in his perch. McConnell has been finding creative ways to shank conservative Senate candidates since he got the job leading the Senate GOP caucus in 2007. In 2022 he painted his masterpiece. Democrats Are Trying to Hold On to the Single Women And the effect was breathtaking. You’ve heard me note that the four most dispositive numbers in American life are the party preferences of married and single men and women (married men are R+20, married women are R+14, single men are R+7 and single women are D+37), and nowhere near enough attention is paid to what that means for culture and economics, not just politics, but let’s understand that those numbers come from exit polling in the 2022 election cycle. The Democrats are doing everything they can to solidify their hold on single women. Single women are becoming the new black vote in terms of a monolithic bloc of Dem voters, especially given that black men are fleeing the Democrats’ plantation in droves right now. And that means that if Biden holds on as the Dems’ nominee, he’ll run on abortion. If Biden goes and it’s Kamala Harris, she’ll run on abortion. If it’s Gretchen Whitmer, she’ll run on abortion — especially since that was her main message point when she beat Tudor Dixon in 2022 to be re-elected as governor of Michigan. No matter who they end up with, they’ll run on abortion. And they’re going to run on abortion down-ballot, too. Pro-lifers shouldn’t be scared of that. The Democrats’ position on abortion is, essentially, that everything up to infanticide is not only fair game but a political sacrament never to be questioned. Polling indicates that only one in six voters is behind such a disgusting, radical, evil position. And yet you will struggle to find a Democrat who will ever admit that there are times when abortion ought to be banned. In one of the few clarifying points during Donald Trump’s debate with Biden, you could see that come out fairly clearly: Forget about the question of legal scholars and Roe v. Wade. Trump did a good job selling the fact that the states are now in charge of abortion policy. What was so idiotic about Graham’s 15-week ban bill in 2022 was that it directly broke the promise inherent in the pro-life community’s argument about getting rid of Roe. Namely, we’d bring the issue back to the states and let Louisiana and Florida make different policies than Massachusetts and Oregon, and ultimately we’d see who’s right. Republicans Say They Are the Pro-Life Party Trump’s position is the one the RNC’s head honchos are trying to cement in the party platform. This emerged on Monday: The 2016 RNC platform mentioned the word “abortion” 35 times and backed a constitutional amendment to ban abortion: “[W]e assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed,” the RNC’s 2016 platform said. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.” The Republican Party did not release a platform in 2020. And the 2024 platform only mentions the word once. “We proudly stand for families and life,” the 2024 platform says. “We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied life or liberty without due process,” but it goes on to say, “the states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those rights.” The platform has been initially approved by the RNC committee, but is expected to go to a full vote Tuesday and be officially approved the first day of the Republican National Convention next week. It also goes on to express opposition to late-term abortion and support for “policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments).” This actually looks like a rare smart play by the Republican Party. What have they done here? Well, they’ve affirmed that the GOP is the pro-life party. They’ve also affirmed that it’s a party for decentralized power, rather than having everything dictated by Washington. Essentially, this platform plank says that California and New York shouldn’t dictate the terms of life in Mississippi and Kansas. But what it doesn’t do is offer much of anything the Democrats can latch onto. There is no Lindsey Graham poison-pill abortion bill. At least, not until Graham shows back up at a bank of microphones to reprise his role as an own-goal spoiler on McConnell’s behalf. Hopefully, with McConnell having said he’s giving up his role as caucus leader there won’t be any such sabotage. Don’t give them anything to run on where abortion is concerned. At least not in federal races. And I wouldn’t add this to the party platform, because it’s unwise to make any more news on the abortion issue than is necessary, but the GOP and the pro-life movement ought to be thinking about two action items on this subject going forward after the election. First, it needs to be an area of renewed and hardened focus that no organization sponsoring or facilitating abortions gets one red cent of federal funding. Take Planned Parenthood, for example, which receives some $60 million per year in Title IX funding and turned around almost $25 million during the 2022 cycle just through one of its PACs, Planned Parenthood Votes, almost every dime of which went to Democrats. Don’t make a big deal out of it during this election cycle, but if you’re able to hold the House and gain the Senate and the White House, zero out all funding for the Planned Parenthoods of the world and move that money to care pregnancy centers. It doesn’t even have anything to do with abortion – it has to do with basic political competence. You give your constituents’ tax dollars to your people. You don’t give it to the enemy. Period. Especially when the enemy is leading the league in giving puberty blockers to kids. And second, it’s time to begin moving past the status quo on this issue. The basic problem is you have an anti-life culture being spread through all of these institutions the Left controls. Describing all of the facets of that would turn this column into a book, or at least a book chapter (one which you might very well see if you pick up a copy of The Revivalist Agenda when it hits Amazon and other outlets this fall), but the upshot is that allowing the Democrats to proselytize abortion as a birth-control option given the current status quo is a recipe for weaponized dysfunction. I’ve never seen a poll on this, but I’ll bet none of our readers would disagree with me when I say that at least 75 percent of the women who’ve had an abortion, or at least who’ve had an abortion in the past decade, vote Democrat. That’s why we’ve gone from “safe, legal, and rare” to “shout your abortion.” And you aren’t going to get these women to change their minds by attacking them as baby killers. Not without changing the game. Here’s How We Change the Abortion Game Here’s how you do that, though it might take some time. Currently, medical science has advanced to the point where at 22 weeks or so, it’s within the competence of our health-care system to incubate a fetus to term and deliver it to the world a happy, healthy baby. If that 22 weeks can be ratcheted down to 15 weeks, you can then effectively eliminate abortion in practically every case. I’m leaving aside the question of mifepristone, and I’m doing so purposefully because that is a longer and more complicated issue. I’m talking about surgical abortions here, and the prospect of driving research dollars into successfully incubating fetuses at 15 weeks and taking them to term outside the womb. (READ MORE: Chemical Abortion Enables Democrat Anti-Life Agenda) Because taking the pharmaceutical abortion issue off the table, if you’re a woman with an unwanted pregnancy and medical science can, for essentially the same “user experience” (they knock you out and when you wake up, the baby is gone), save the baby for one of the oodles and scads of families begging to adopt a child and send you on your way, how can you turn that down? Who would choose an abortion over that? You really are a baby killer if that remains your position. Does it cost a lot more to do it this way? Yes. Will all of those adoptive families be willing and able to foot that bill? No. Can charitable and religious organizations take care of that cost? Probably not. Is there something of a Pandora’s Box that normalizing incubation over pregnancy would threaten? Absolutely — though we are going to soon come to that bridge regardless. On the other hand, we’re well below replacement when it comes to our national birth rate. Converting abortions into live births is probably the only way, barring a massive societal shift, to make a dent in that problem. And no, President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas, reeling in tens of millions of illegals from the Third World is not the answer. Holding your population while losing your culture is the opposite of winning as a civilization. But for now, the key is to give Democrats zero oxygen on abortion. Accomplishing that is tantamount to giving them zero oxygen at all. And maybe, just maybe, we might be seeing a GOP with enough smarts to be worthy of that wave election we didn’t get in 2022. The post Deny Them Abortion And It Doesn’t Matter Who The Dems Nominate appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

It’s like the old meme: (S)He loves me; (S)He loves me not. (S)He loves me; (S)He loves me not. All news media — written, digital, news articles, commentary, TV and radio interviews — obsess over one thing: Should Biden quit? Should he not quit? Should he quit? Should he not quit? He says he won’t quit. They say he will quit. He says he won’t quit. They say he will quit. (READ MORE: The Democrats’ Faustian Bargain With Biden) An amazing way to run the final four months of a presidential race. And, oh wow, his party, his acolytes, and he all deserve it! In spades they do. The Original Democrat Plan Was Biden That was their plan, wasn’t it? We can’t discuss the economy because it went down the toilet. We can’t discuss the border because we have more than ten million recently arrived illegals here, seemingly every day, with a border so porous that terrorists now come in droves (seeking a better life?). We can’t discuss immigration, what with “undocumented” South Americans abducting, raping, and murdering females, whether 12-year-old girls or mothers of five children on a morning run. We can’t discuss the “American Dream,” what with interest rates so high that young and even middle-aged couples cannot get into the housing market while those who do own homes dare not relocate by selling them and then having to trade in a 2.75 percent mortgage for a 7.5 percent. We can’t discuss fuel, now that gasoline prices have doubled, while heating and air conditioning have gone through the roof. We can’t discuss mandates to buy electric vehicles since consumers are not switching over. We can’t discuss gas stoves, or voters will throw them at us. We can’t tell blacks that, if they don’t vote for the Big Guy, then they ain’t black. We can’t pull the Scranton Joe baloney on Pennsylvanians and Ohioans who have lost their jobs amid his war on energy. We can’t speak proudly about the Big Guy’s foreign policy experience because, on his watch, we ran out of Afghanistan with our tails between our legs, sacrificing 13 American heroes and leaving behind for the Taliban butchers innocent Afghanis who translated for us and worked with us. We can’t brag that we kept peace on the Russia-Ukraine border as Trump had done, nor that we helped Ukraine fight back powerfully. Not only did we withhold consequential weapons, but we would not allow Poland to do so either. Even so, we managed to bleed our economy by allocating over $100 billion to Zekensky. (READ MORE: The Curtains Are Drawn on Biden and Europe’s Rulers) But that’s OK because we can implement Plan B: Tie Trump up with so many prosecutions and lawsuits that he won’t have a moment to campaign and will be getting found guilty from now through November. The news reporting barely will cover any issues during the last four months of the campaign. All they will focus on will be the Trump prosecutions, the Trump convictions. Interesting how things work out. He Shouldn’t Have Opened His Mouth We law professors always teach our students that “Bad facts make bad law.” That is, elegant fact conflicts lend themselves to simple, clear judicial holdings. By contrast, complex and mixed-up lawsuits often result in courts needing to hand down judgments that cover the crazy stuff in front of them. And then, because the law needed to resolve a mess, that became a precedent for more simple cases in the future. Biden and the Democrats undertook a comprehensive strategy of warfare against Trump fought with law weapons instead of guns — hence, “lawfare.” They went after him all over the place — New York, D.C., Florida, and Georgia — and even had judicial surrogates in places like Colorado and Maine in on the scheme. So they banned Trump from ballots, accused him of an insurrection that even his haters in the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) would not touch or allege, went after him for taking documents to his home (just as Biden, who was not prosecuted, had done), and sicced two crazy local prosecutors after him. To do that, they recruited a “special counsel” who was only a private citizen, not employed by the DOJ, and they did not seek the advice and consent of the Senate. They sent a DOJ guy from D.C. to help the befuddled New York Soros DA, who lets criminals loose through revolving doors every day. They lined up a hooker and convicted embezzler as their star witnesses in one case. They got a circus clown, steeped in an adulterous affair with a married guy whom she hired at mega-bucks to prosecute in Georgia. (READ MORE: Biden’s Conspicuous Decline is a Joke — On Us) The fix was in. The news was going to be focused on Trump’s trials and convictions from July 5 through Nov. 5. Biden and the Democrats could glide to an easy victory, with Biden choosing whatever basement he likes for campaigning. And then Biden made the biggest of mistakes: he opened his mouth in public. The End of Plan B Biden had been opening his mouth and spilling out exciting fiction and phony stories for decades, virtually a Mark Twain on the stage. The fiction spewed to workers in Ohio’s and Pennsylvania’s coal industry that his dad and forebears worked in coal mines (actually, dad sold used cars). The uncle who got eaten by cannibals. How he drove 18-wheelers, saw a Pittsburgh bridge collapse, got arrested en route to Nelson Mandela, and graduated law school toward the top of his class (actually, 76th of 85). Lots of good yarns. But he never spun his yarns in front of a live audience of the millions who vote. It was always in front of a small group of Lions or Raccoons or a Ladies Auxiliary. They would lap it up. He would talk of how he is ready to take Trump out to the woodshed, how Mitt Romney would put all blacks back in chains, and how, if any black does not vote for him, then “you ain’t black.” He got so comfortable with the idea that he could safely say anything and get away with it that he did not contemplate that this time it would be live, on a stage in front of an entire country with rules assuring fairness. Yes, he often told about being a lifesaver who had encouraged children to play with his blond leg hairs, but the moderators here would not jump in to save him. Thus the end of Plan B. On one hand, the daily media are replete with the questions of the day: “Should he quit? Should he not quit? Well, really, should he quit? Or, maybe, should he not quit?” He says he won’t quit. But others say he will quit. Or they will make him quit. Still, he says he won’t quit. But they say maybe he will quit without knowing it. So he comes back and says G-d will keep him from quitting. Dr. Jill Ed.D. says he won’t quit. Kamala doesn’t care because, even if he does not quit, she becomes president if he wins. In the meantime, deeply problematic lawfare questions now are coming before the Supreme Court. Biden’s lawfare apparatus pushed the envelopes too hard, overplaying their hands. Consequently, many of their charges are moot, and others need to be relitigated and then appealed up the ladders before the trials even can begin. One by one, each trial moves toward November — and beyond. Even the one that got completed in New York is in jeopardy. Bragg and Marchan were sure they could nail at least that one before Nov. 5. Let’s see. And the days go by. The media attend more than ever before to “the signs.” They can’t avoid it anymore after covering up for decades, even during three years of a presidency. Forgotten names. Misstated facts. Historical anachronisms. At a time when they need a Democrat with stamina, they are left with a withered figure with stammer-na. The post The Biden Obsession: Should Quit, Won’t Quit, Should Quit, Won’t Quit appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Over the years, my tastes have become increasingly more narrow and singular so that what was once a host of “favorites” has dwindled to a core two or maybe three. My all-time favorite television show is the first season of True Detective — it’s the only thing that I can watch over and over again from start to finish. I find it to be a beautiful celebration of a fading America, particularly the nation’s southern heritage, and a well of insights into the human psyche and soul, the triumph of good over evil, and the necessity of absolute morality in a progressively relativistic and nihilistic world. While the show (and again, I am referring only to the first season) is layered with strong and intelligent dialogue, one of the more meaningful moments comes when detective Marty Hart (portrayed brilliantly by Woody Harrelson) asks his partner Rustin Cohle (played to perfection by Matthew McConaughey), “Do you think we’re bad men?” Cohle replies rather tersely, “The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.” While Cohle’s initial moral worldview differs starkly from my own, the line is still, in spirit, true. Men Are Meant to be Dangerous Men are meant to be dangerous, it is part of our purpose, breathed into our hearts by God Himself. This is why men join the army, it’s why men cook in pits of an open fire, it’s why men get such a kick out of setting off fireworks, and it’s why men love racing cars. More than just testing ourselves against dangerous situations, men are supposed to be dangerous. It’s why little boys turn every stick into a sword or a gun, it’s why men go to the firing range, it’s why men go into boxing or wrestling or fencing contests against each other, it’s why men enjoy films like The Godfather, Goodfellas, or Braveheart. Those movies are about dangerous men, and even though their moral codes may be flawed in some cases, they still do dangerous things to stick to those codes. That fact has become nearly taboo under the secular standards of today. Dangerous men are labeled “toxic” and ordered — often by feminists of the pantsuit variety, whiny newscasters of both sexes, butch lesbian types, or blue-haired, nose-ringed gender theory professors — to become more docile, more feminine. This phenomenon has been occurring since at least the 1980s (as my friend Dr. Carrie Gress carefully documents in her book The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us) and has now reached something of a crisis point. (READ MORE by Carrie Gress: Think the First Wave Is a Model for Women? Think Again.) What is often derided as “toxic masculinity” is, in fact, not masculinity at all, but an absence of masculinity. Certainly, rapists, kidnappers, sex-slavers, murderers, and the like are dangerous, but the threat they pose lies not in their masculinity but in their perversion, their sickliness. Such would be examples not of dangerous men but of men too weak to tame danger, allowing the thing to roam wild like a starving wolf. Of course, the inverse of this principle is equally true. Many men are blithely called “good” because they are harmless. But the harmlessness of this latter is just as unmanly as — and is indeed simply a variation of — the weakness of the former. While one type does not develop the strength to tame its dangerousness, the other does not develop the strength to be dangerous in the first place. The French moralist François de La Rochefoucauld wrote in 1665, “Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad, for any other goodness is usually merely inertia or lack of will-power.” The realities and consequences of these dual principles can be seen in our world today. Crime runs rampant with no one to put a halt to it while courageous men like Daniel Penny are arrested and declared too dangerous. Women are gaslit, coerced, bullied, and abused into pornography because the men with the gall to say “No” to porn are labeled fringe extremists. A frail, senile octogenarian is allowed to run the greatest nation in the world into the dirt and allow wars to break out across the globe because his political opponent is “mean.” (READ MORE: Senility, the Press, and a Tale of Two Presidents) Weak Men Cause Wars. Dangerous Men Prevent Them. In fact, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are prime examples of how this “dangerous men” principle operates. Last week, Biden mumbled and bumbled his way through a painful-to-watch ABC interview. He admitted that he pushed to expand to NATO, which predictably resulted in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago. During his clown show of a debate performance less than two weeks ago, Biden boasted of his calamitous Afghanistan withdrawal, which killed 13 Americans, left many more Americans stranded behind enemy lines, and dumped millions of dollars of military equipment right into the Taliban’s lap. This is a man who is only dangerous because he is weak. In contrast, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) shared a story recently about Trump negotiating, while president, with Taliban leadership to ensure a successful U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — the very event which Biden so horrendously botched less than eight months into his presidency. According to Hunt, Trump wanted a “conditional withdrawal,” and his chief condition was the safety of Americans. “If you harm a hair on a single American, I’m going to kill you,” Trump told the leader of the Taliban. He then stood up, took a photo from his pocket, and slapped it down on the table: It was a satellite photo of the Taliban leader’s own home. Nobody wants to mess with Michael Corleone, because he’s a dangerous man. Henry Hill is terrified of Jimmy Conway because he’s a dangerous man. Nobody crosses Tony Soprano, because he’s a dangerous man. Though only one example, Trump’s conversation with the Taliban leader is like a scene from a gangster film. Nobody wants to mess with Trump, because he’s a dangerous man. A weak man like Biden has overseen the rampant degeneration of the nation. Due to his weakness, wars have erupted in Europe and the Middle East, and China and North Korea are poised for aggressive expansion. Cohle’s maxim holds: Trump is the dangerous man we need to keep the other dangerous men from the door. The post ‘The World Needs Bad Men:’ The Good Thing about Dangerous Men like Donald Trump appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The Independent Journal Review highlighted this from the Daily Caller Foundation: Dr. Marc Siegel on Monday criticized the media for what he said was their inaccurate characterization of President Joe Biden’s “lapses” as “gaffes.” Corporate media’s years-long endeavor to suppress questions about Biden’s mental fitness faced a substantial setback after the president’s recent debate with former President Donald Trump. Siegel on “Fox & Friends” particularly noted the media’s description of Biden’s demonstration of “cognitive impairment” as mere “gaffes” was harmful to the president. “We started pointing this out four years ago. I mean, the media is pointing it out now. With all due respect to George Stephanopoulos. I was talking about this with Sean Hannity four years ago,” Siegel said. “Because that’s when it looked like we were starting to see signs of what’s called mild cognitive impairment. To the public now it looks like it’s progressed more. We don’t know. I’m not his doctor. I haven’t examined him.” “But there’s issues clearly with spatial orientation, with severe memory lapses,” he continued. “And another thing that the media did, which didn’t do him any favors, is call these gaffes. It’s not a gaffe if you have an error that’s related to something going on with your thinking, judgment, attention. These are really important things and the patient is always the last to know.” Dr. Siegel is 100 percent right about the media. As is Fox’s Sean Hannity, who has been on target for years in pointing out Biden’s cognitive problems. The real tell here is that with Biden’s problem now vividly on display in his debate with former President Trump and his ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos, the American people now get it entirely. (READ MORE: Biden Is Absolutely the New Thomas Eagleton) The mainstream media, which dominates the news, deliberately and willfully hid the truth of Biden’s deteriorating cognitive condition from the American people. If It Lied About Biden, Why Trust Anything Else the Media Says? As stories flood that all manner of Biden insiders knew there were problems but chose to ignore them or deny them outright, the credibility of the mainstream media itself is dangling by a thread. Why should the American people — not to mention the larger world — believe a single story about anything as reported by that media? All the business that former President Trump is some evil threat to democracy? A fairy tale meant to frighten voters into not voting for the Republican the media hates. Tax cuts are bad for the economy? Not true either, as was repeatedly demonstrated in the Reagan era when revenue went up. Cutting spending? That is good for the economy, not bad, as any head of a household can testify. Peace through strength? That would be one of the oldest principles in history. And on and on go the examples. The point now is that the whole Biden episode has finally ripped off the mask that pretends to present the mainstream media as truth-tellers when in fact, as the media’s behavior in the Biden episode has plainly demonstrated the media is more than capable of hiding the truth if doing so pushes and protects the media’s political agenda. (READ MORE from Jeff Lord: Four Days in July) Now, with the mental deterioration of the sitting president of the United States out there for all to see? As it were from the old tale, the media emperor has no clothes. This is exactly why the late Rush Limbaugh was so emphatic about the importance of conservative media. It is why our own R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. created The American Spectator. It is why William F. Buckley Jr. created National Review, why Christopher Ruddy created Newsmax and Rupert Murdoch Fox News. And on and on. Conservative media has evolved as the one place in America where Americans can go to get the unvarnished truth about the events of the day. And as the revelation of just how the liberal mainstream media protected Joe Biden becomes clear, the behind-the-scenes of how this game works is vividly out there for all Americans to see. (READ MORE: Establishment Media: The Dog That Did Not Bark) Whatever else Joe Biden’s condition may be, it has had a serious — if forced — truth-telling effect on the mainstream media. Thanks, Joe! The post Biden Is Outing the Mainstream Media appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

During a recent call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the United Kingdom’s newly elected Prime Minister Kier Starmer (Labour) stressed that he supported a Palestinian state, and could recognize one early in the process towards statehood. Meanwhile, the new Foreign Secretary David Lammy claimed that the Labour Party would “work with partners to seek Palestinian recognition.” Lammy has also bizarrely stated that he wants “to get back to a balanced position on Israel and Gaza.” However, it looks like Labour’s tilting the country towards a more “pro-Palestinian” stance might be overshadowed by Parliament’s new squad of sorts: Five independent candidates that ran and won on anti-Israel platforms. This independent bloc matched the number of seats won by Nigel Farage’s Reform party and exceeded those won by the Green party and Plaid Cymru party (at four each). Pro-Palestine Independents Defeat Labour Party Candidates Shockat Adam won as an independent for Leicester South by 979 votes, defeating a 13-year incumbent former Labor Member of Parliametn (MP) John Ashworth. Upon his victory, Adam proclaimed “This is for Gaza.” Adam has accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza, and called the Labor party “pro-genocide.” He also posted an “election scorecard” on X, stating that he supports an immediate ceasefire, recognizing a Palestinian State, respecting the decisions of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice (presumably against Israel), ending weapons sales to Israel, the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and “return[ing] stolen land to Palestinians.” He then posted a picture of him meeting Rabbi Elhanan Beck, the late leader of the fringe anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox group Neturei Karta. Neturei Karta’s more infamous moments include holding a vigil for Yasser Arafat, visiting with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iranian leaders, and engaging in Holocaust denial. (READ MORE: Keir Starmer’s Win Signals the UK’s New Leftist Course) Ayoub Khan won as an independent for Birmingham, Perry Barr by 507 votes, defeating 23-year incumbent former Labor MP Khalid Mahmood. Khan stated that he specifically resigned from the Liberal Democratic party and ran as an independent so that he could be more vocal on Gaza. He re-posted a post stating that he “calls for an immediate ceasefire, end in arms sales to Israel, and recognition of a Palestinian state.” Khan also called for an “Arms embargo now!” on Israel. He additionally reposted Fiona Lali, the self-described “national campaigns coordinator for the revolutionary communist party,” who had stated she would run in the election as an independent because England’s political establishment financially supports Israel’s “war crimes against the Palestinians.” He also supports a ceasefire in Gaza. Khan had also questioned Israeli reports that Palestinians committed rapes and burned babies on Oct. 7, asking “What do they think we are? Fools?” Adnan Hussein won as an independent for Blackburn by approximately 132 votes. Upon victory, Hussain shouted to supporters: “We will raise our voice for Gaza! We will continue to fight, until death, inshallah!” He also parrots the genocide canard against Israel: In another victory speech, he stated that “we are here on the back of a genocide, and if that’s giving us the opportunity to unite our community, then we must grasp it, we must take it…,” and as part of his platform, he stated “I say no to supporting a genocide.” In another victory celebration, he stood amidst a crowd that called for the destruction of Israel while chanting “Free free Palestine,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Iqbal Hussein Mohammed won as an independent for Dewsbury and Batley. He also perpetuates the lie that Israel committed genocide by stating during his campaign that “[a] vote for labor is a vote for genocide.” (READ MORE: The Curtains Are Drawn on Biden and Europe’s Rulers) And last but certainly not least, Jeremy Corbyn won as an independent for Islington North. Upon victory, Corbyn posted: “Our message to the government: we are a movement for Palestine, and we are never, ever going away.” Speaking at a mosque after his victory, Corbyn stated, “This is a victory also for those of us that believe in peace, those of us that believe in the rights of the Palestinian people to be able to live in peace, to end the bombardment, to end the sale of weapons, to end the destruction of Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.” On election day, Corbyn posted that “Palestine is on the ballot” and promised that if re-elected he would support “an end to the occupation of Palestine.” Corbyn also called for “the unconditional and immediate recognition of the state of Palestine.” He also called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide” and called for the new government to end arms sales to Israel. He recently accused Israel of committing “apartheid,” “occupation,” and “oppression” toward the Palestinians. Corbyn also called for Israel’s immediate ceasefire in Gaza. (READ MORE: The Palestinian Authority Is Jihadist Too) Will these new independent MPs pressure the new Labour government to be even more pro-Palestinian? Will we see a new antisemitism scandal emerge in Parliament, similar to the one that rocked Labour and ultimately forced out Corbyn as leader? This new squad in Parliament is poised to hamstring any further British support for Israel’s war against Hamas. The post UK Parliament Gets Its Own Pro-Palestinian Squad appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The history of literature and journalism is full of great authors who have published their works in serialized form in magazines and newspapers. Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, G. K. Chesterton, Itxu Díaz, and Fedor Dostoievski, are just some of the stars of world literature who frequent this particular way of reaching readers. I know that this year The American Spectator tried to hire Dostoevsky, Flaubert, and even Dickens, with the intention that they might elaborate an interesting summer saga to enliven readers’ vacations. As usual with literature’s greats, always arrogant, despot, and distant, none of them responded with anything other than silence. Silent as tombs. So the task was entrusted to the aforementioned Spanish writer Itxu Díaz, to the relief of readers, since at the end of June they were terrified when the rumor spread that the assignment could go to Paulo Coelho and his idiotic breakfast mug philosophy. Díaz does not possess the charismatic surname of Dostoevsky, the literary magic of Dickens, nor the narrative ability of Flaubert. Instead, he shares with Chesterton a deep respect and love for wine and beer, which may explain in the coming weeks some of the articles in this summer satire that begins today, dedicated to commenting on the uses and customs of summer, and the clichés of daily vacation life. (READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: After July 4th: You Could Have Been Born Elsewhere) Unfortunately, Díaz, that cretin, does not have the legion of followers that Chesterton has today, perhaps because, unlike the Londoner, he is not yet dead, at least at the time of writing these lines. Nor has anyone translated his works into Russian, but he enjoys spectacular popularity in certain Polynesian islands, and in almost all of Antarctica. A recent National Geographic documentary confirmed that none of Antarctica’s penguins wanted to miss his summer chronicles published in previous years in this magazine. I myself froze the first time I saw the sight of a hundred thousand penguins reading The American Spectator atop huge mountains of ice. Let it go, let it go. Can’t hold it back anymore (did you read it singing?). This Calls for a Summer Vacation The task is not an easy one. The author cannot give himself up to the comfort of engineering summer experiences from the comfort of his bed. It is necessary to get off the couch and live each summer experience intensely. To put it more clearly: It is necessary to work. Perhaps this is why Barack Obama was not suitable to take care of this saga of articles. For Itxu Díaz it will be necessary to walk straight down to the sand, to the lion’s mouth, to the soul of the summer, and bravely shell out all those things that make our summers the way they are. (READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: My Good Friend Bad Luck) Only so, will you be forced to decipher the sophisticated mechanism of opening sunscreen (without breaking your nails), surviving a visit to an amusement park, learning how to flirt with a foreign woman without speaking her language, hunting a shark, or anything else that bites, managing to spread a towel on a windy day, discovering the art of seasonal cycling, getting into the cocktail academy, buying a bathing suit in a mall full of drunken tourists, or throwing yourself downstream to go water hiking, among other experiences, whatever that form of suicide may be called. I take it with the serenity of an anthropologist, with the confidence of a lion tamer, and with the coldness of a freezer manufacturer. I know my obligations as a professional faker and I am convinced that I will not let you down, at least I will not let you down any more than I have let you down so far. (READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: Stupid Summer Activities VI: The Suitcase) Every week we have a date with summer satire. You can laugh if you feel like it, but I will be very serious, as always. And now, if you’ll excuse me, and don’t take this metaphorically, my caipirinha is getting warm. The post A Summer of Satire: Let It Go, Let It Go. Can’t Hold It Back Anymore! appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

What a difference a century makes. One hundred years ago, America was entering into its quadrennial presidential election campaign under circumstances quite different from those facing us today. We can only hope that someday history might repeat itself. Republican incumbent President Calvin Coolidge was facing Democratic challenger John W. Davis. An accidental president, Coolidge had acceded to the presidency on the death of Warren Harding in 1923 and was still in something of a honeymoon period as the 1924 campaign began. As a solid conservative Republican, Coolidge had won a succession of Massachusetts elections, serving as town alderman, state senator, lieutenant governor, and governor. (READ MORE from Garland S. Tucker III: A Prophet Without Honor: The Legacy of John W. Davis) In 1919, he achieved national prominence for his successful diffusion of the Boston police strike with his terse declaration, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.” In 1920, the GOP convention nominated Coolidge as Harding’s running mate as the party sought a return to “normalcy.” While the country was still getting acquainted with President Coolidge in 1924, two impressions were already indelibly stamped on voters’ minds. Coolidge was firmly committed to continuing the conservative policies of Warren Harding including tax reduction and limited government. In addition, it was clear to voters by 1924 that Calvin Coolidge was a man of unimpeachable integrity. He was the embodiment of classic New England virtues: Honesty, thrift, lack of pretense, dignity, and common sense. The taint of the emerging Harding scandals left Coolidge unscathed. John W. Davis was also an accidental candidate. He had risen from West Virginia obscurity as a young congressman to serve as solicitor general, as an ambassador to Great Britain, and as a successful Wall Street lawyer. In 1924, the Democratic party was bitterly divided between the urban, Catholic forces led by New York Governor Al Smith and the rural, Protestant faction led by William G. McAdoo. When the convention deadlocked for an unprecedented 102 ballots, Davis was nominated on the 103rd ballot and charged with bringing some sense of unity to the unruly Democrats. While Davis was not well known among voters, he — like Coolidge —  presented two defining attributes. He was from the conservative wing of the Democratic party, which had long championed Jeffersonian values of limited government. In addition to establishing an impressive record of accomplishment as a constitutional lawyer, Davis was seen as a man of deep integrity, who might bring unity to the fractured Democrats. As columnist Walter Lippmann noted, “Davis’ nomination was the result of confidence in his character rather than of studied agreement with his views.” At the campaign’s outset, several things became quite clear. There were a few substantial differences between Coolidge and Davis. The Democrats’ best issue should have been corruption, but Coolidge was able to stand apart from the Harding scandals. Davis boldly denounced the Ku Klux Klan, which was a significant factor both nationally and within the Democratic Party, and urged Coolidge to follow suit. Coolidge declined to respond to Davis’ challenge, but Coolidge’s record on civil rights made clear his opposition to the Klan. On matters of tax policy and limited government, there was virtually no difference between the two candidates. As the old progressive Democratic war horse, William Jennings Bryan lamented, “Davis is a man of fine character. So is Coolidge. There is no difference between them.” Their only significant policy difference was over tariffs. Coolidge was a pro-tariff Republican, while Davis was a traditional Democrat free-trader. Both men spoke eloquently of tax policy in moral terms. Coolidge believed, “The wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful.” (READ MORE: Debt: The Most Predictable Crisis in U.S. History) Davis voiced a similar view, “Taxation can justly be levied for no purpose other than to provide revenue for the support of the government. To tax one person, class, or section to provide revenue for the benefit of another is none the less robbery because done under the form of law and called taxation.” Coolidge sounded the same note, “The collection of any taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare is only a species of legalized larceny.” Both men believed in Coolidge’s moralistic conclusion, “I favor the policy of economy not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people.” As the campaign unfolded in the fall of 1924, Coolidge was clearly dealt a winning hand. A strong economy, the advantages of incumbency, a united GOP, and successful fundraising all favored Coolidge, and he played his hand flawlessly. Davis’ campaign was hampered by a fractured Democratic party, an absence of defining policy differences with Coolidge, and Coolidge’s popular incumbency. Perhaps the defining characteristic of this race was the civility and dignity with which these two men conducted themselves. Columnist Fred Barnes captured it: There was something more to Coolidge and Davis. They grew up in small towns — Coolidge in Vermont, Davis in West Virginia — and were gentlemen admired for their personal integrity and unblemished morality. Coolidge was famous for being terse. Davis was noted for his graciousness. They were neither mean-spirited nor power hungry. I can’t recall a presidential race in modern times between two such honorable men. We can only hope that someday history might repeat itself. Garland S. Tucker III, retired Chairman/CEO Triangle Capital Corporation, author of Conservative Heroes: Fourteen Leaders Who Shaped America- Jefferson to Reagan (ISI Books) and The High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge and the 1924 Election (Emerald Books). The post The Remarkable 1924 Coolidge vs. Davis Campaign appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Biden is now called “Big Boy” by the deep state! Biden is done. https://t.co/ah8gEdU9zU — Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) July 9, 2024

If you thought the COVID shots were bad enough, brace yourself — things just got worse. A new study has found a “statistically significant” loss of life expectancy after two or more doses. Specifically, the @McCulloughFund reported, “The subjects vaccinated with two doses lost… pic.twitter.com/LCdBdmPgSg — The Vigilant Fox ? (@VigilantFox) July 8, 2024