DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Usha Vance said during an interview that aired Monday that critics of Republican Sen. JD Vance of Ohio focused on a “quip” about childless women to avoid discussing issues and policies that result in parents having a “really hard” time raising children. Democrats attacked Vance over comments about “childless cat ladies” in a Fox News interview and remarks in a July 2021 speech about women who didn’t have children that have resurfaced since former President Donald Trump chose the “Hillbilly Elegy” author to be his running mate. Vance told “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt that the then-Senate candidate had been explaining the difficulties of being a parent. “I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said and try to understand what the context was and all that, which is something I really wish people would do a little bit more often. And the reality is, he made a quip in service of making a point he wanted to the make that was substantive and it had actual meaning,” Usha Vance told Earhardt. Usha Vance Speaks Out On 'Childless Cat Lady' Controversy pic.twitter.com/OrJAS4xcQE— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 5, 2024 “And I just wish sometimes that people would talk about those things and that we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase because what he was really saying it can be really hard to be a parent in this country and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder,” Vance continued. “And we should be asking ourselves why is that true? What is it about our leadership and the way that they think about the world that makes it hard sometimes for parents? That’s the conversation that I really think we should have, and I understand why he was saying that.” Vance also pushed back on those who claimed the Republican vice-presidential nominee was trying to offend people with the comments. “JD absolutely at the time and today would never, ever, ever want to say something to hurt someone who was trying to have a family who really, you know, was struggling with that he made that clear at the time,” Vance said. “He has made that clear today and we have lots of friends who have been in that position. It is challenging and never, ever anything that anyone would want to mock or make fun of.” JD Vance made clear he excluded couples struggling with infertility from his criticism of the “childless left” in his 2021 speech, according to Snopes.com. “And I also understand there are a lot of other reasons why people may choose not to have families and many of those reasons are very good,” Usha Vance continued. “I think what I would say is let’s try to look at the real conversation he is trying to have and engage with it and understand for those of us who do have families, for the many of us who want to have families and for whom it’s really hard, what can we do to make it better? What can we do to make it easier to live in 2024?” Trump leads Vice President Kamala Harris by 0.8% in a national head-to-head matchup, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls from July 22 to Aug. 2, with Harris taking a slight lead of 0.2% when Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein and independent presidential candidates Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are included in surveys. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post ‘He Made a Quip in Service of Making a Point’: JD Vance’s Wife Speaks Out About ‘Childless Cat Ladies’ Comments appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The air crackled with tension in the nation’s capital as U.S. Park Police officers braced themselves at Columbus Circle for what would become a violent showdown against anti-Israel protesters. From my perch on the seventh floor of The Heritage Foundation’s nearby headquarters, I watched with a mixture of disbelief and dread July 24 as a sea of protesters marched down Massachusetts Avenue NE, just blocks from the Capitol. From outside Union Station, their derisive chants about Israel penetrated the building as I glared at their placards expressing rage toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke to Congress that day. But it wasn’t until I saw the first lick of flame near the Columbus Memorial Fountain in front of Union Station that I realized the true gravity of what was unfolding. Protesters lowered three American flags outside Washington’s historic train station and burned them alongside an effigy of Netanyahu. This was not the first time I saw an American flag burned in protest, and it probably won’t be the last. Yet it remains a revolting and disheartening sight all the same. Black smoke filled the afternoon sky as nylon withered and melted. I was filled with sorrow and became sick with grief. This wasn’t just about a piece of cloth—it was about everything that flag represented: My grandfather wore Old Glory in the fight against the spread of communism. At home, my father wore a flag patch as he served and protected our community. In the Boy Scouts of America, I retired dozens of American flags with honor and respect, holding each flag close to my heart and treating it with dignity. As both an Eagle Scout and the son and grandson of disabled veterans, Old Glory has come to have a significant place in my heart. The colors red, white, and blue—representative of valor, purity, and vigilance—remind us of the values on which we founded, fought for, and sustained our union. Similarly, the 50 stars and 13 stripes remind us of where we are as a nation, and how we got here. Since our nation’s founding, we have seen the American flag fly throughout war, famine, and disasters. We have seen it escort soldiers and servants alike to the grave. Throughout our history, so much was given for our flag—from the blood shed in combat to the minds shattered through post-traumatic stress disorder. And yet here I was witnessing its desecration right before my eyes. After the anti-Israel protesters finally dispersed, I ventured out with two colleagues to Union Station. There, amid the day’s destruction and chaos, we found her—Old Glory—reduced to ashes and tatters at the base of the pole on which she flew. What is left of one of three American flags lowered July 24 by anti-Israel protesters. (Tim Reynolds/The Daily Signal) Carefully, we gathered what remained of that one flag, vowing that this symbol of our nation would not be trampled under the feet of misguided idealists who fail to count the cost. That night, as I reflected on what transpired before my eyes, I wept for our nation. Today, I carry a fragment of that burned flag in my wallet—a reminder of both the price and the promise of liberty. We don’t let the American flag touch the ground. We retire her with honor. This is Old Glory. And in our hearts and actions, she will live forever. The post Saving Old Glory: Why I Recovered Our Flag After Anti-Israel Protesters Burned It appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Fetterman to Harris: Don't Pick Shapiro; UPDATE: Down to Two?

The Egyptology world has had its feathers ruffled by a contentious new study that claims that a 4,500-year-old pyramid was built using jaw-droppingly sophisticated technology, including a spectacular “hydraulic elevator”. According to the authors, the mind-blowing system enabled enormous building blocks to be floated from the floor to the pyramid's summit via a central shaft, like lava flowing upwards through a volcano - yet archaeologists remain convinced.The oldest of Egypt’s seven monumental pyramids, the Step Pyramid of Djoser stands on the Saqqara Plateau and is surrounded by several enormous ancient structures. Examining the pyramid and its associated infrastructure, the study authors suggest that the unified complex consists of a gigantic dam, a water treatment facility, and a water-powered lift, all of which were employed in tandem to enable the construction of the famous landmark.If correct, this would dramatically transform our understanding of ancient Egyptian engineering, implying a level of ingenuity that could have been applied to later monuments such as the Pyramids of Giza. However, the study’s findings have triggered a backlash from some of the field’s top scholars, which is why it’s important to break them down.Finding Number One: The DamA few hundred meters from the Step Pyramid lies a colossal 2-kilometer-long (1.2 miles) stone wall called Gisr el-Mudir. Considered the world’s oldest monumental stone structure, this mysterious barrier has been hypothesized to have functioned as a fortress, a cattle pen, or a royal celebratory arena, though there is little consensus on its original purpose.Reaching an altogether different conclusion, study author Dr Xavier Landreau from the research institute Paleotechnic told IFLScience that “the first key finding that we have uncovered is that the Saqqara Plateau was built beneath the watershed” for an area of land encompassing 15 square kilometers (5.8 square miles). Using paleoclimate data to calculate the quantity of water that would have flowed into the plateau 4,500 years ago, the researchers concluded that Gisr el-Mudir was well positioned to function as a huge dam.“When you examine the cross-section of the wall, you see that it has the technical signature of an open check dam with its transition filters,” says Landreau. “Show it to an Egyptologist and they will probably say ‘no, it’s just a classic wall’. But just show it to a hydraulics student in their second or third year and they would say ‘yes, of  course, it’s obvious [that it’s a dam]’.”Well, we showed it to one of the biggest names in Egyptology – Dr Zahi Hawass, the former Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs – and he reacted just as Landreau expected. “I’ve been excavating in Gisr El-Mudir for the last 12 years,” Hawass told IFLScience. “I found a new pyramid there, I found Old Kingdom tombs, I found statues. I just finished the excavation last May. There is not one single piece of evidence that I saw in my excavation to prove [that it was a dam].”How the Saqqara Plateau hydraulic system may have functioned. Image credit: Paleotechnic/PLOS ONEFinding Number Two: The Water Treatment FacilityWithin a moat surrounding the Djoser complex sits yet another extraordinary ancient feature known as the Deep Trench. Cut entirely out of the rock, this 400-meter-long (1,312 feet), 27-meter-deep (89 feet) channel represents another Egyptological mystery, yet the study authors say it displays all the characteristics of a water treatment plant.Interpreting these elements as a sedimentation basin, a retention basin, and a water purification system, the researchers suspect that Gisr el-Mudir and the Deep Trench may have been used in combination to deliver clean drinking water to the Saqqara Plateau while also providing hydropower for construction projects.Once again, Landreau insists that while this idea would likely seem “new to the Egyptological world, it’s actually extremely common in the field of hydraulics and water filtering, and we can find quite similar structures in the Roman world.”How the hydraulic system may have worked. Image credit: Paleotechnic/PLOS ONEFinding Number Three: The Hydraulic ElevatorThe most significant claim made by the study authors is that the water flowing out of the Deep Trench may have been used to cyclically fill and drain one of two shafts running up through the center of the Djoser pyramid, as a means of vertically transporting huge building blocks. “Below the Djoser complex there is a quite spectacular network of pipes,” explains Landreau. “There are seven kilometers of pipes entirely cut in the rock at a depth of 28 meters below the ground.”“We don’t know who dug it, when or how,” he says, although the researchers claim to have discovered that water could be transferred into this underground labyrinth from the Deep Trench in “at least three possible locations”. “If the water comes from the Deep Trench and reaches the central shaft, then the water will meet a stone blockage,” causing 28 meters worth of pressure to build up, Landreau says. The lithic impediment to which he refers is a large granite box, topped with a 2.7-tonne lid, and represents the key to this entire controversy.A reconstruction of the pyramid's underground pipes and central shaft. Image credit: Paleotechnic/PLOS ONEIndeed, it was Hawass who first discovered this box, concluding that it was the sarcophagus of Djoser – the pharaoh for whom the pyramid was built. With no mummy to be found inside, however, the famous Egyptologist and his colleagues assumed that the body had been stolen by tomb raiders – an all-too-common occurrence at ancient Egyptian sites.However, Landreau and his team's idea is drastically different, suggesting that the box was never a coffin but was instead a kind of plug that could be opened or closed to fill and drain the shaft. “The granite box’s architecture and its removable plug surrounded by limestone clay-bound blocks present the technical signature of a water outlet mechanism,” they write in their study.The central shaft of the Djoser Pyramid. Image credit: Paleotechnic/PLOS ONECalculating that the flow of water from Gisr el-Mudir and the Deep Trench would have been strong enough to power this hydraulic system, Landreau says “we have evidence that there was the possibility of a filling and draining cycle in this giant shaft – but why?”The most logical answer, he concludes, was to allow ancient architects to “load stones at the ground level and unload them at the top, and build the pyramid like a volcano from the center.”The proposed hydraulic lift in action. Image credit: Paleotechnic/PLOS ONEHawass thinks very strongly otherwise. “The shaft is a burial chamber. I discovered the sarcophagus in this burial chamber,” he says. “If you say the shaft was used for water you should see evidence now of water. But there is no evidence at all. It is a burial chamber shaft.”Like other archaeologists, Hawass also points to the fact that no historical sources mention the invention of such an elaborate system during the building of any Egyptian pyramid. “In the 26th dynasty, they restored the burial chamber. We discovered inscriptions telling us about that, and they never mentioned water at all,” he says.What The Egyptologists SaySeveral leading Egyptologists refused to be interviewed about this study, with one top scholar saying she didn’t want to speak on record about it as “no archaeologists think it’s plausible.” Echoing this statement, Hawass bluntly states that the team's “theory is completely wrong,” and that “there is no evidence at all that any pyramid in Egypt used water for transporting stones.”However, leaning on his paleoclimate data and hydraulic calculations, Landreau insists that everything reported in the study checks out, theoretically at least. Ultimately, he and his team don’t have the historical evidence to say that this really was how the Step Pyramid was built, but their observations indicate that “there is a possibility.” “For the progress of knowledge and science, we have to study such a possibility,” says Landreau.In response, Hawass bristles that “'maybe' can’t be used in archaeology. Archaeology depends on evidence.” Yet Landreau sticks to his guns, insisting that “the most important people to give their opinion on this article will be hydraulic engineers as they will be able to confirm the possible path of water - and I truly believe they will be in accordance with our findings.”The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance appears to have touched a nerve in the news media, because the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC are still obsessing over his 2021 comments about “childless cat ladies” with thinly-veiled rage. Corporate journalists have a habit of discussing their own reporting as though they’re talking about the weather. Back during the Stormy Daniels saga in 2018, for example, hosts on CNN and MSNBC would routinely remark how, for some reason, the story just wouldn’t go away. The same phenomenon is very much at play here. It’s been weeks now, and journalists still aren’t finished shrieking about the phrase “cat ladies.” On August 2, for example, MSNBC host Joy Reid laughed that Vance was “trying to squirm out of the cat ladies thing.” And just this Monday, longtime Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson called Vance’s remarks “the gift that keeps on giving” for the Harris campaign. Here’s a sampling of the media’s ongoing fixation on Vance’s remarks:  

Supreme Court justices rarely sit for news interviews....unless it’s to promote a book. Such was the case on Monday’s CBS Mornings with Justice Neil Gorsuch set to release one on Tuesday about how overregulation has harmed ordinary Americans.  Naturally, Gorusch was hit with the usual smears that come with being a conservative jurist, such as being too grounded in “ideology” as opposed to being “fair and impartial,” the reason why Americans of differing views hate each other, and refusing to rule so as to confer with “public perception” to avoid “real-world ramifications” (e.g. on abortion and affirmative action).     Co-host Gayle King even started the labeling before going to chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett’s interview: “Gorsuch was the first of three justices nominated by President Donald Trump that have established a solid conservative majority on the Court. Now, that conservative majority has ushered in monumental decisions on issues like abortion rights and presidential immunity.” Garrett started with the book and how Gorsuch “throws the book at the law.” The justice explained the book came about as he’s witnessed for nearly two decades how “ordinary Americans — decent, hard-working Americans” have been “caught up in the legal system”. He explained not only have “[f]ederal crimes have maybe doubled in our lifetime” and there are “more people serving life sentences today than we had serving any sentence in 1970 or thereabouts,” but “it would take years just to read” aloud the number of possible federal crimes. The justice argued this could have to do with the lack of “trust” between Americans, adding he’s “worr[ied]” that “more and more Americans think that people in the other political party are not just wrong — fine — but are evil. I worry when we are unable to speak to one another and listen to one another.” Instead of agreeing, Garrett implied right-leaning individuals are to blame: “But in a recent poll, 70 percent say Gorsuch and the other current justices contribute to that problem, deciding cases on ideology rather than being fair and impartial. On that, Gorsuch dissents respectfully.” Gorsuch pointed out a reality that goes far too often unacknowledged that he agreed in the last term with the liberal justices “something like 45 percent of the time.”  Garrett hit back by invoking abortion: But there are people who watch this right now and say I thought I understood what Roe v. Wade meant in our country. I thought I understand what affirmative action in college admission meant, and this court told me I didn’t understand what that meant and I wrongly relied on things that I thought were settled. What would you say to those? Gorsuch went back and forth with Garrett on both abortion and affirmative action, showing conservatives how to calmly demolish claims of the conservative thought being a scourge on America (click “expand”): GORSUCH: I would say those are deeply complex legal questions on which reasonable minds can, of course, and do disagree. And that when it comes to Roe v. Wade, for example, what did the court decide? Decided that we the people should answer that question, not nine people sitting in Washington, D.C. GARRETT: How about affirmative action? GORSUCH: Much the same thing. What did we decide? We decided that all people are created equal, that it’s not acceptable in this country to discriminate on the basis of race. GARRETT: And, for those who would say but I feel something’s been ripped away from me, you would say? GORSUCH: I would say that we’re taking it back to you. In a democracy, you’re in the driver’s seat. You’re the sovereign. Those famous three first words of the Constitution empower you. Do you really want me deciding everything for you? GARRETT: And for a woman in a state where she no longer has the rights she once relied on, is that cold comfort? GORSUCH: Major, all I can say is I don’t know better than you do on these questions. And that most major western democracies have decided these questions through the ballot box. As part of a brief aside on the left’s push to implement control of the court under the guise of an ethics code “in response in part to pricey travel paid for by Republican donors” (but nothing liberal justices have done), Garrett asked if Gorsuch and his colleagues to act more “to understand and care about its public perception.” Gorsuch gave a fascinating answer: You raise a really interesting question about the place that unelected judges have in a democracy. An independent judiciary, our founders fought a revolution for it because they knew what it was like to have a judiciary that was responsive to the crown, to a whimsical king. They didn’t want that for this country. And the truth is, when you’re the man on the dock, you don’t want it either. A few minutes later and back live, Garrett huffed to the co-hosts that the justice didn’t “appear at all troubled by the decline in public confidence in the Supreme Court or the real-world ramifications of overturning decades of legal precedent.” Signaling his support for the packing the court crowd, Garrett huffed that such “[c]omfort with such contradictions, of course, is one of the things that comes with a lifetime”.     “Yeah, many people are questioning whether it should be a lifetime appointment,” King replied. Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers flashed his progressive stripes (and given he’s married to a lead producer for far-left, Clarence Thomas-hating HBO host, John Oliver) (click “expand”): DUTHIERS: Yeah, Major, I appreciate you pushing back on those issues because I thought it was sort of telling that the associate justice said, do you want me deciding everything for you? If you’re a woman, you will say — but you have decided. Even though you’re suggesting that you’re sending it back to the people, the Court made those decisions that had been precedents for over 50 years, Major. GARRETT: And what was once relied upon can no longer be. That’s the change. DUTHIERS: That’s right.  DUNCAN: Mmmmm. DUTHIERS: All right — DUNCAN: Prescient. DUTHIERS: — Major Garrett for us. DUNCAN: Great interview. To see the relevant CBS transcript from August 5, click here.

On his Saturday show, CNN host Michael Smerconish displayed video from a CBS reporter in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who went to a black barbershop and discovered there were black men there who questioned if Kamala Harris was authentically black.Oh no, they sound like Trump voters!  It was never this controversial when Biden said in 2020 "You ain't black" if you wouldn't vote for him.  Smerconish underlined Trump's inaccurate trolling comments before the National Association of Black Journalists convention about how Harris decided late in her career to identify as black. Smerconish wondered if Trump did this because "Harris's rollout has gone so well that he wanted to take control of the news cycle, even if he had to do so with a negative story." You could have just as easily suggested he did this to get out of the seemingly endless "Vance said childless cat lady" cycle.  His second theory was Trump was "narrowcasting in the black community" about Harris's "code switching" of racial identities. She's black sometimes, and Indian sometimes, even if she's both.  Next, Smerconish explained: "A Harrisburg Pennsylvania CBS network anchor went to a central Pennsylvania barbershop seeking some candid conversation among the revelations that some of the black men that he interviewed did not regard Harris as black." It turned out disappointing for Team Harris.   CBS REPORTER: Is Kamala going to make you a little more likely or less likely to vote Democrat? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on. Wait. Is Kamala black, yes or no? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to let her speak on it. But to me, no. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, is Kamala black, yes or no? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I share that same view. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Kamala blac, yes or no? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I heard she was. I heard she's half black and half Asian. Smerconish: "When I played that audio on my SiriusXM radio program on Thursday, many callers who self-identified as African American were quick to tell me that those men were the exception, not the rule. Some describe them as low-information voters no different than you'd find among whites." The CNN host pointed out Trump is outperforming other Republican presidential candidates for the black vote. Recent polling by the New York Times and Siena College shows him "capturing" 23 percent of the black vote, compared to just six percent for Mitt Romney in 2012, back when Joe Biden said Romney would "put y'all back in chains." When he turned to pundits, Tara Setmayer sounded her usual note: "Donald Trump has been a bigot and has an issue with people of race his entire career. So that's why he didn't go into that audience. He felt that he was in a hostile environment once they got aggressive questioning....that's why he went there. So I just wanted to make that very clear."

FBI whistleblower Steve Friend has a warning in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Trump — and it’s not for former President Trump. “There was an exchange between deputy director Paul Abbate and Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, where to the layperson it seems reasonable the FBI wants to open up all avenues, remove the blindfold, have no blinders on, consider the fact that this could be assassination, this could be domestic terrorism,” Friend tells Jill Savage of “Blaze News Tonight.” However, to the non-layperson — this could mean something more sinister. “When you designate something as a domestic terrorist investigation, that enables you to make it classified, and when you have a classification code on there, you have to have a need to know in a security clearance,” Friend explains. Because of that, the FBI can withhold information. “The American people are not going to have the transparency that we ultimately need for this investigation,” he says. While the FBI’s actions are concerning, that’s not Savage’s only concern. “Lindsey Graham had a very concerning solution for the issues with the investigation,” Savage tells Friend. “We have encrypted apps of an assassin, a murderer, and we can’t get into them all these days after,” Graham said. “That needs to be fixed folks. I’m all for privacy, but to a point.” “What if, in the future, somebody’s using these apps to communicate with a foreign power. I think we need to know these things. We need to know them in real time,” he added. Friend says that Graham’s suggestion would effectively render the Fourth Amendment a “dead letter, at that point.” Graham’s use of the phrase “real time” is also concerning. “Real time, which means continually monitoring it,” Friend explains. “This is the government assuming that a tool will be used for ill, when it is just a tool. Because we don’t trust the government in this country. The job of law enforcement is not supposed to be easy. You’re supposed to have reasonable suspicion, probable cause, the burden is supposed to be there,” he adds. Want more from Blaze News Tonight?To enjoy more provocative opinions, expert analysis, and breaking stories you won’t see anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Here’s a story that aged worse than Joe Biden.It’s a PolitiFact “fact-check” of Brit Hume from four years ago. In retrospect, it’s a masterclass in how the media gaslights its readers while pretending to hold a torch for truth.I worked with Brit Hume for nearly 35 years at Fox News. Between hundreds of staff meetings and countless hours on air, I discovered Brit has a rare, almost annoying quality: He is virtually always right. He’s a man who speaks with precision, choosing his words carefully.Before the first debate in 2020 between Donald Trump and Biden, Brit had this to say: "Elderly people experiencing memory loss and other problems associated with age can go for periods, for hours at a time and be just fine.” He added, “I don’t think there’s any doubt Biden’s senile, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to show up tonight.”Brit was, once again, quite right. Biden was indeed senile, and it wasn’t apparent at the bruising interrupt-a-thon debate with Trump. Correct or not, however, Hume had committed the sin of calling the man-who-must-defeat-Trump “senile,” and that didn’t sit well with a press corps dedicated to Biden’s victory.PolitiFact could have easily found an expert who noticed what was painfully obvious to a casual observer four years ago: Joe Biden was slipping mentally.Enter PolitiFact, a fact-checking site widely accepted by the legacy media as an arbiter of truth. It’s run by the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism training and research group. Its motto? “Democracy needs journalism. Journalism needs Poynter.”Poynter is not just a few high-sounding liberals but a multimillion-dollar organization bankrolled by donors such as Google, Facebook, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.PolitiFact is what some might call part of the swamp, a “trusted” Washington outlet that is anything but. Its write-ups aren’t always wildly biased, but they are enough so that the following is no surprise. With that said, here’s how it distorts reality.Twist what someone says, then debunk the twisted versionBrit used the word “senile,” a common term for describing an older person showing signs of mental decline. It’s not a medical diagnosis; it’s everyday language. Webster defines it as: “relating to, exhibiting, or characteristic of old age; exhibiting a decline of cognitive abilities (such as memory) associated with old age.” It was a word that quite perfectly described Joe Biden four years ago.PolitiFact acknowledged this, saying, “Broadly, the term senile is defined as pertaining to old age,” and “often used by some people” in association with memory loss or diseases. Then it threw in a sneaky twist: “Senility is not a precise medical term but is often used in place of the more precise and accepted medical term of ‘dementia.’”Now that it'd magically transformed “senile” into “dementia” in Brit’s mouth, the article went on to debunk what he never said.Find experts who agreeAn honest journalist should do her best to consult with experts then give readers insight into where those experts stand. A dishonest one, like PolitiFact’s Miriam Valverde, instead uses them to disguise her opinion column as an honest, fact-checking article. To be clear, though, her assignment wasn’t actually to check facts but to “prove” Brit wrong. She found two geriatrics experts to bolster her case. One, Donald Jurivich, was so impressive that his title consumed 22 words: the Eva Gilbertson Distinguished Professor of Geriatrics and Chairman of Geriatrics at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Both experts assured us Biden didn’t have dementia.Valverde then also quoted Biden’s personal physician as saying, “Vice president Biden is a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” It’d be four years until the White House revealed Biden has never been given a cognitive test. Remember, you can’t fail a test you didn’t take.Of course, had she or PolitiFact had a shred of objectivity, they could have easily found an expert who noticed what was painfully obvious to a casual observer four years ago: Joe Biden was slipping mentally. Nope, all the experts agreed that up was down.One of the professors even defended Biden, saying he sometimes paused to “compensate for his stutter.” Can we stick a fork in this one as well? I’ve watched and listened to Joe Biden since the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, and I never once heard him stutter. If he did so his youth, it’s been behind him for at least 33 years. The “experts” knew this too, of course. They were just playing their role in hiding Biden’s cognitive decline.Call him raci… er, sexi… er, ageist!If you’re pretending to be an honest reporter, you can’t just go about calling people “ageist.” No, you find someone else to do it for you, like a ventriloquist with a particularly judgmental dummy.Valverde used the professor with the long title who said Brit’s comments were a “shameful display of ageism and ignorance.” And, in case you missed it the first time, she quoted him a second time, reminding us “the use of ‘senile’ is a pejorative descriptor and reflects unmitigated ageism.”It’s a pretty rich claim, especially considering that Brit is both the same age as Biden and readily admitted that he has “traces of this myself, I know what it feels like.” Fortunately for Brit, Joe Biden is a white male, so the experts were stuck with merely calling him a shameful ageist.I rate PolitiFact’s article as “mostly propaganda.”But this isn’t just a history lesson; they’re still with us and still up to the same shenanigans. A recent example: “Donald Trump stated on July 24, 2024 in a speech at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina: Vice President Kamala Harris ‘endorsed free taxpayer-funded government health care for illegal aliens.’” PolitiFact’s rating? “Mostly false.”PolitiFact’s case? In her full-throated defense (great video here) of health care for everyone residing in the United States — including illegal aliens — she didn’t specifically use the word “free.”The gaslighting continues.Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at Ken LaCorte’s Substack.

Comedians and actors will gather on a Zoom call Monday night in hopes of adding to a growing fundraising trend for Vice President Kamala Harris.After hosting other race-centric Zoom calls titled "white women for Kamala" and "white dudes for Kamala," the Harris campaign decided the online calls to action were successful enough to necessitate moving forward with the format.At 8 p.m. ET, a bevy of left-wing comedians will join an online call called "Comics for Kamala," with hopes of raising funds for the vice president who recently became the presidential candidate for the Democrats.'President Biden so graciously stepping aside and passing the torch has just energized so many people.'Ben Stiller, Jason Bateman, John Stamos, and Nick Offerman are some of the biggest celebrities signed up for the event, per Deadline. Other recognizable names include actors Jon Hamm ("Mad Men"), David Koechner ("Anchorman"), and Craig Robinson ("Brooklyn Nine-Nine").Known Democratic activists such as Patton Oswalt, Kathy Griffin, Tom Arnold, D.L. Hughley, and Rosie O'Donnell are also on the billing.The aforementioned "white dudes for Harris" call reportedly raised over $4 million after sporting celebrities like Jeff Bridges and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, along with politicians such as Democratic governors Tim Walz (Minn.) and Roy Cooper (N.C.). Participants shared different stories about being traumatized by the Trump presidency and expressed why they felt it was paramount that Harris get elected.For example, actor Josh Gad recalled crying over his children's bed when Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016."I'm not sure you guys can recall that feeling you had on the night of Tuesday, November 8, 2016. I remember that feeling. I stood over my kids' bed, and I wept," Gad said.BlazeTV's Alex Stein called the story "creepy" and "weird" and added "crying in front of your children is the least father-like thing you could ever do."Author Bridget Phetasy called the female version of the event a form of actual "white supremacy.""You have to believe you are better than everyone else and that it is up to you to lift up all of these people – these poor people who can't help themselves – and speak to everybody like they're toddlers," she told BlazeTV host Glenn Beck.Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell praised the events and later applauded the Democratic ticket for having new energy."President Biden so graciously stepping aside and passing the torch has just energized so many people," Swalwell said. "[Harris] likes to have fun, and part of who she is is her great laugh."The California Democrat praised the apparently whites-only events and said they set a "very high bar" for fundraisers moving forward. Swalwell added that he reached out to the owner of the comedy club Stand Up New York to help organize the August 5 event.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!