'This is pathetic'

Stealing his homework...

'Drugs were my comfort'

PITTSBURGH—Billed as a kickoff bus tour on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, instead spent Aug. 18 in Beaver County in tightly controlled stops before heading to Chicago. Harris held a short rally at a private airport hangar surrounded by supporters—mostly members of local unions who were bused in for the event—before the vice president went to two retail stops and visited a phone bank before finishing the day at a local Sheetz gas station. Beaver County, west of Allegheny County and adjacent to the airport, was once a powerful component of the Democratic Party, filled with union families who worked at the steel mills in Aliquippa and Ambridge. As the Democratic Party shifted left, the voters moved toward the Republican Party. In 2020, then-President Donald Trump won the county over Joe Biden by nearly 20 percentage points. While some local Democrats thought the move was strategic, to show Harris was attempting to expand her universe, others were more cynical. They cited tight control of who attended the vice president’s planned events and the risk she would take doing an event in Pittsburgh and possibly facing her party’s pro-Hamas contingent, which has become politically vocal here. That movement, spearheaded by the Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America, came to a head recently when a proposed ballot question that would ban Pittsburgh from doing business with companies with financial ties to Israel spurred accusations of antisemitism and placed Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey on the hot seat. The Democratic Socialists of America’s Pittsburgh chapter submitted the petition to the city to put the question to voters this November. Gainey’s initial reaction as mayor was concern about the implications of a ban that would grind to a halt the city’s ability to deliver services. Gainey did not, however, publicly object to the ballot question. When the ballot petitions were handed in last week, it was discovered that over a dozen employees within Gainey’s administration had signed the petition—including Maria Montano, his director of communications. Within days, Montano stepped down from her position. Since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, Pittsburgh has become a hotbed of pro-Palestine protests, including an encampment that was set up on the grounds of the University of Pittsburgh. The city has also become a hotbed of vandalism to synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses, and the homes of Jewish residents in the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, where the massacre of 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue occurred almost six years ago. Several longtime Democrat strategists in Pennsylvania believe Harris avoided Pittsburgh for any of her stops and stuck close to the airport so she could avoid the possibility that protesters would interrupt her kickoff tour in an important battleground state. Many Harris supporters expressed disappointment in not being able to find a way to see her when she was in Beaver County. The details of her event were kept under lock and key until her arrival—given the distance of Beaver County to the city of Pittsburgh, it made it difficult for supporters to get there in enough time to see her. Harris was greeted at the airport by three congressional Democrats from Pennsylvania—Sen. Bob Casey and Reps. Chris Deluzio and Summer Lee—as well as Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato. Two Harris-Walz buses were parked there. Harris greeted her invited supporters by arriving to the beat of her campaign song, Beyonce’s “Freedom.” An Emerson College Polling/RealClearPennsylvania survey in the state’s presidential race found that 49% of voters said they support Trump and 48% said they support Harris. With undecided voters’ support allocated, Trump extended to a 2-point lead, 51% to 49%. With third-party candidates on the ballot, it was 47% Trump, 47% Harris. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Anatomy of a Harris Campaign Stop: No There There appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Subway Sandwich Revolt

Democratic vice presidential nominee, Governor Tim Walz (MN) appeared on the popular channel on the Chinese spy app TikTok this week and the fill-in co-hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe couldn’t get enough of it. Jonathan Lemire and Katty Kay gushed about the appeal of “Coach Walz” and how he was trying to peel support away from former President Trump among “lower-educated voters.” The duo kicked off the fourth hour of Morning Joe with a clip of Walz on Subway Takes, speaking into an MTA Metrocard (as if it was a microphone) about judging people’s gutter jobs and singing the Menards home improvement store jingle (Click “expand”): WALZ: My take is, the most neglected part of home ownership is the gutters. It's personal for me. KAREEM RAHMA: 100 percent agree. WALZ: I’ve had problems with gutters before, you get your basement wet, you get ice dams, they cause a lot of problems. RAHMA: It's not good. WALZ: No, it's not. But there are fixes. Now, the other dangerous thing is, when you live in Minnesota, fall is a great time of year, a lot of leaves. You got to get up on a ladder RAHMA: And they get stuck in the gutter. The leaves get stuck in a gutter. I've seen many a man fall off a ladder. WALZ: Many a man. Seriously. RAHMA: Many a man. WALZ: But there is a fix, you can put a gutter helmet over the top of it. RAHMA: A gutter helmet? WALZ: It covers it, it lets the water go through, keeps it out of your house. I see this all the time. RAHMA: How often do you like looking at gutters? WALZ: I look quite often, surprisingly. RAHMA: Like, you're inspecting? WALZ: I try not to be judgmental on people, but when I see a well-tended gutter. It says a lot about somebody, so. [Transition] RAHMA: Where do you buy your gutters. WALZ: The downspouts I bought at Menards. RAHMA (singing the jingle): Save big money at— WALZ (dully): Menards. That’s exactly right. RAHMA: That’s not how – That’s not – [Laughter] WALZ: I know, you’re right. I’m not getting – RAHMA: You’re going to leave me hanging like that? WALZ: No, no, you’re right. You’re right. Okay, you ready? [Sing Menard’s jingle] “That is Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz with his hot take on gutters and, Katty, gutter helmets,” boasted Lemire.     Kay responded with faux outrange that Walz talked about men falling off ladders when she supposedly put her own gutter helmet on recently. “Um, excuse me, by the way, a lot of women go up ladders to fix gutters, too,” she quipped. “I was up the other weekend putting the helmet on my gutters in Virginia, making sure the leaves don't fall in. So, Tim Walz, you missed something there.” Lemire went on to tout how what they had just watched “was a well-received clip on social media yesterday.” He opined that, “this is part of the appeal in Coach Walz as they refer to him in the campaign…He's a regular guy who is going to appeal to regular voters, particularly in areas that maybe have not voted Democrat in a while.” Things took a rather insulting turn when Kay said that Walz was trying to help the campaign reach out to “the one area that they are struggling with, younger male, lower-educated voters perhaps without a college degree.” In a posh British accent, Kay bloviated about how “lower-educated voters” was “an area where Donald Trump is doing very well. Walz definitely campaigning for those voters, trying to peel some of those away from Donald Trump.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC’s Morning Joe August 28, 2024 9:01:01 a.m. Eastern GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): My take is, the most neglected part of home ownership is the gutters. It's personal for me. KAREEM RAHMA: 100 percent agree. WALZ: I’ve had problems with gutters before, you get your basement wet, you get ice dams, they cause a lot of problems. RAHMA: It's not good. WALZ: No, it's not. But there are fixes. Now, the other dangerous thing is, when you live in Minnesota, fall is a great time of year, a lot of leaves. You got to get up on a ladder RAHMA: And they get stuck in the gutter. The leaves get stuck in a gutter. I've seen many a man fall off a ladder. WALZ: Many a man. Seriously. RAHMA: Many a man. WALZ: But there is a fix, you can put a gutter helmet over the top of it. RAHMA: A gutter helmet? WALZ: It covers it, it lets the water go through, keeps it out of your house. I see this all the time. RAHMA: How often do you like looking at gutters? WALZ: I look quite often, surprisingly. RAHMA: Like, you're inspecting? WALZ: I try not to be judgmental on people, but when I see a well-tended gutter. It says a lot about somebody, so. [Transition] RAHMA: Where do you buy your gutters. WALZ: The downspouts I bought at Menards. RAHMA (singing the jingle): Save big money at— WALZ (dully): Menards. That’s exactly right. RAHMA: That’s not how – That’s not – [Laughter] WALZ: I know, you’re right. I’m not getting – RAHMA: You’re going to leave me hanging like that? WALZ: No, no, you’re right. You’re right. Okay, you ready? [Sing Menard’s jingle] [Cuts back to live] JONATHAN LEMIRE: That is Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz with his hot take on gutters and, Katty, gutter helmets. KATTY KAY: Um, excuse me, by the way, a lot of women go up ladders to fix gutters, too. I was up the other weekend putting the helmet on my gutters in Virginia, making sure the leaves don't fall in. So, Tim Walz, you missed something there. LEMIRE: He did. That was a well-received clip on social media yesterday. But Katty, you did indeed point out a flaw perhaps. But certainly this is – and then singing the theme song at the end -- I mean, this is part of the appeal in Coach Walz as they refer to him in the campaign, that they feel like he's -- He's a regular guy who is going to appeal to regular voters, particularly in areas that maybe have not voted Democrat in a while. KAY: Yeah. And particularly, you know, the one area that they are struggling with, younger male, lower-educated voters perhaps without a college degree. That seems to be an area where Donald Trump is doing very well. Walz definitely campaigning for those voters, trying to peel some of those away from Donald Trump. LEMIRE: And some older voters, too, where they plan to deploy President Biden, including on Labor Day, that will be their first joint campaign appearance, Harris/Biden in Pittsburgh. So, welcome to the fourth hour of Morning Joe.

Unsurprisingly, the Trump-despising journalists at ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS devoted almost 28 minutes of breathless coverage on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to Biden-appointed special counsel Jack Smith filing a “superseding indictment” trying to resurrect his weaponized prosecution of the former president over the 2020 election. ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS all made it Story #1 on Tuesday night. The Big Three provided 11 minutes, 22 seconds of hype at night. Add PBS (4:36), and it’s 15 minutes, 58 seconds. The three networks offered another 12 minutes in the morning. Let’s put aside the legal ramifications, because these journalists acknowledge it will have no legal effect before the election. At this point, it’s quite obviously about creating political effects, with Biden’s Justice Department filing indictments to create negative news stories and narratives against the Republicans – up and down the ticket. It’s about loading up words like “criminal indictment” and. On CBS Evening News, Norah O’Donnell began the newscast with January 6 footage: “Breaking news: the new criminal indictment against Donald Trump just filed by special counsel Jack Smith, as the former president is once again accused of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss.” In almost five minutes of coverage, CBS employed the word “indictment” nine times. The PBS News Hour story used "indictment" eleven times. They talked of "conspiracies" and "co-conspirators" and "bogus claims" of voter fraud and a resulting "violent attack on the Capitol" on January 6 (it was "the deadly January 6th attack" on NPR this morning.) No one mentions a Capitol Police officer did the only killing that day.     Criticism of Jack Smith was rare. ABC and PBS merely explained what Smith was doing like they were on his publicity team. (Pierre Thomas read five words of Trump, that it was "ridiculous" and "an act of desperation.") There was no mention whatsoever of President Biden or his Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed Smith.  CBS allowed a couple of clips of Trump, but one was his Georgia phone call (shortened to just the "find votes" part). NBC was alone in letting anyone other than Trump speak, and that was running mate J.D. Vance. Laura Jarrett said "his new running mate, pouncing on that."  VANCE: I think it’s clearly an effort to try and do more election interference from Jack Smith. He should be ashamed of himself and it is one of the reasons we should win because he should not be anywhere near power. All of the networks could have Vance or many other Republican critics of Smith. ABC, CBS, and NBC all noted that the Justice Department usually discourages indictments within 60 days of an election, but none of them seemed to think it was cheesy to think within 70 days of an election was so much better.... PBS never mentioned any need to be considerate of an election. 

MSNBC host Jen Psaki's visage turned dour as Don Lemon reported what he found among voters and their response to Kamala Harris' presidential campaign. The former White House press secretary asked Lemon about his trip to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, during which he interviewed many Americans about whom they support for president. 'Many people, even people of color and women [are] saying that they're going to support Donald Trump.' "What are some of the things or trends that surprised you about some of those conversations?" she asked. "Well, I don't know about surprising, but it was certainly eye-opening to hear so many people, even people of color and women, saying that they're going to support Donald Trump. I'm not quite sure the polls are accurate as it relates to the tightening of the polls and who's gonna support who," Lemon responded. "There were a lot of black men, Jen, who said they were supporting Donald Trump simply because he gave them a stimulus check. He gave them $1,200 back when he was president. They did not somehow remember that the current president also gave them a stimulus check, except that his name wasn't on it," he continued. Lemon said that he told black men "time after time" that the check came from a Democratic Congress and that Trump slowed the issuance of the checks in order to put his name on them. "When they got the check, and his name was on it, they automatically thought that it came directly from Donald Trump, which I think is good marketing," said Lemon, who compared Trump's name on the checks to Trump putting his name on buildings. 'Many people did not know who she was.' "What about Harris? Did they have anything to say about her?" Psaki asked hopefully. "They did. Listen, it depends on where you are. We went to a number of different battleground states, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, we were in Michigan, Indiana, on our way obviously to Chicago, and it sort of depended on where you were," he replied. "For the most part in Pittsburgh or at the Jersey Shore, in Atlantic City, in Ohio, especially, many people did not know who she was, right? They weren't familiar with her, so I think she has to reintroduce herself to the public. "But for [Trump], I think that they thought he was better for the economy. And that again, he gave them, that he brought money into the community, or that he was on black people's side." Lemon went on to say he wasn't surprised by what he heard, but he believed the information the black voters were giving him was "all false" and "they didn't understand the correct reasons why they might vote." Lemon also claimed to have been the first person to publicly call Trump racist and said he still believes Trump is a racist. "Is it surprising to me that so many African-Americans are supporting him? A bit. But I also think that people tend to romanticize the past, and even though by most metrics the economy is doing better and it's on fire, what people do is they vote with prices. They vote with their wallets."Videos of the exchange were widely circulated online by many on the right. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

An FBI update on the shooting at a Trump rally included new photographs of a gun and backpack recovered in the investigation, as well as improvised explosive devices found in the car belonging to suspect Thomas Crooks. The agency also told reporters Wednesday that investigators still had not determined a motive for the Trump shooting. The agency has faced criticism for releasing information leading people to believe the alleged shooter was motived by right-wing beliefs before the acting director admitted in a congressional hearing that social media posts contradicted that narrative. In an update to reporters via phone call, the FBI said investigators still had not come to a conclusion about a motivation for the shooting that nearly killed former President Donald Trump. The agency added that there was no evidence of a co-conspirator in the case, nor was there evidence of foreign involvement. The FBI also released two photos of the gun and explosives found in the trunk of Crooks' car. Image Source: FBI press release Image Source: FBI press release Another image showed where Crooks climbed up on the roof of the building from which he shot at Trump, according to the FBI. The agency said that Crooks used an air conditioner unit and another utility box to get on the building. While the shooting only grazed the former president at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a Trump supporter behind him was shot to death and two others were seriously injured. The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned after public pressure over the failures to provide the former president with sufficient security. Trump has since begun to deliver rally speeches from behind a bulletproof glass shield. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Jac Marino Chen was just 5 years old when a family member sexually abused her. This tragic event would be the catalyst that launched Jac down a path of darkness most of us can only imagine. After years of confusion, strange supernatural experiences, and a series of toxic relationships, Jac found herself joining “a cult order called the Golden Dawn where [she] practiced ritual magic in a Freemason lodge.” “It was there that Jesus Christ met me in that darkness and saved me,” she tells Allie Beth Stuckey. Now, Jac is on a mission to share her testimony and spread the hope of the gospel. - YouTube www.youtube.com While Jac’s story really begins at age 5, it wasn’t until high school, when she entered into a series of toxic friendships and abusive romantic relationships, that she began learning about the New Age concepts that would eventually lead to her involvement in the occult. In one particular relationship with a Native American boy, Jac recalls “staying up all night on drugs on the reservation talking about aliens and ancestors and elements” — that is, when things “weren’t violent” between them. In her next relationship, Jac was introduced to “psychedelic drugs,” “New Age festivals,” “sexual liberation,” “polyamory,” “karma,” and the power of “crystals” and “moonlight.” These were essentially gateway ideas that led to the occult. “If you follow the New Age, you’ll find the occult,” Jac tells Allie. In the midst of getting deeper into dark spiritual practices, one day Jac “saw these tarot cards that were glowing” in a metaphysical shop. Believing she was divinely inspired, she purchased the deck and began to study the cards in depth. “They ended up being the Thoth tarot deck by a man named Aleister Crowley, and he’s known as the most wicked man who ever lived,” she explains, adding that Crowley “actually popularized a lot of wicked things here in America” — things too vile to even say aloud. “The next step was joining this Golden Dawn,” says Jac, noting that “Aleister Crowley was in the Golden Dawn — the original Golden Dawn” founded in the late 19th century. “I was living in L.A. at the time that had a [Golden Dawn] order where they practiced the same magical system.” When she was invited to the Freemason lodge the order used for meetings, “There was a woman on the top of the stairs waiting for [her] in a full black robe with a hood.” “I was put in a room. I was also put in a black robe. I had to wear red socks, and I was told not so much to pray but to meditate to prepare myself for this ritual,” Jac recalls, adding that at one point during the ceremony, “There was a sword put to [her] neck” to ensure she would never share the order’s secrets. What’s perhaps most shocking is that during this time of her life, Jac still thought she was a Christian. “I thought I was getting closer to Christ because that's what we were told. We would use the name Jesus Christ, but Jesus was someone that you become — someone that you attain to. I just thought I had a deeper understanding of what it meant to be Christian, but I was worshiping demons, and I was becoming more and more depraved sexually,” she reflects. “I got involved in sex magic,” she confesses, adding that the rituals the order practiced often involved blood, which “is seen as powerful.” Unsurprisingly, abortion, which Allie and Jac both acknowledged as “child sacrifice,” was another practice celebrated in the occult. “I didn't get to the point where [child sacrifice] was being practiced,” says Jac. “Praise God that I was saved before then, but if it had started, it would have made sense to me based on what I was fully believing and thought was good.” “That's what can be so disturbing about this. I thought it was good that you are god of your own body,” she laments, adding that the idea of abortion and using your blood for magical practices was heavily linked to the “women empowerment” and “self-empowerment” movements in our secularized culture today. Thankfully, the light of the real Jesus Christ was just around the corner for Jac. In a moment of terrifying darkness, God reached down and saved her. To hear Jac’s incredible story of salvation and learn how she escaped from the occult, watch the episode above. Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.