The Vatican has joined a growing list of those expressing disapproval of the opening ceremony of this year’s Summer Olympics in Paris because it featured a controversial drag show parody evoking “The Last Supper” with Jesus Christ and his apostles. “The Holy See was saddened by certain scenes at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games and cannot but join the voices raised in recent days to deplore the offense done to many Christians and believers of other religions,” the Vatican said in a press release, per Deadline. RELATED: GOP Senators Press Olympics To Amend Charter Over ‘Vulgar Mockery’ Of Christianity In Opening Ceremony “At a prestigious event where the whole world comes together to share common values, there should be no allusions ridiculing the religious convictions of many people,” it added. “The freedom of expression, which is clearly not called into question here, is limited by respect for others.” Those who lashed out in response to the performance include the French Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Robert Barron, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), NFL kicker Harrison Butker, and C Spire — a U.S. tech company that said it would be removing ads from the Olympics. ESPN reported the organizers of the games have apologized to anyone who took offense at the drag show performance, one of several acts during the opening ceremony, because it appeared to mock the biblical scene in “The Last Supper,” a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. [The ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance,” said Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps, adding, “We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense, we are really sorry.” WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI The ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, said the scene was meant to embrace “diversity” and inclusion. He also has reportedly claimed the scene had nothing to do with “The Last Supper,” but rather Greek mythology, as it included someone dressed as the Greek god Dionysus. First lady Jill Biden, who led the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremony, praised the show during a brunch for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. “It was spectacular,” she said, “… Every step of the way, I was thinking to myself, ‘Oh my God, oh my God. How are we going to top this?'”

A black Georgia activist became the center of attention at a rally for former president Donald Trump on Saturday when she riled the crowd in support of Trump and how his policies benefit black Americans. Trump introduced Conserve the Culture founder Michaelah Montgomery to an audience in Atlanta on Saturday. Trump met Montgomery earlier this year at a campaign stop at a Georgia  Chick-fil-A and called her “so smart, so sharp,” according to Fox News. “She grabbed me. She gave me a kiss,” Trump said after bringing her on stage. “I said, ‘I think I’m never going back home to the first lady.’” Montgomery then spoke and, in one portion of her speech, ripped into Vice President Kamala Harris for harming the black community and black families. “They don’t want to talk policy. They just want to use propaganda to steal your vote,” Montgomery said, referring to the Democratic Party. “The left is trying to tout this woman as a savior for the black community, but all she’s done is hurt the black community since she came into the game.” The conservative activist hit Harris for her past relationship with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, who helped Harris launch her political career. “See, the first step in destroying the black community is to dismantle the black family. So, aside from her record as a prosecutor, why don’t we ask Mrs. Willie Brown if Kamala Harris cares about black families?” Montgomery asked. WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI Montgomery went on to defend Trump for earlier remarks questioning Harris’ use of her racial background. “A few days ago, President Trump said he didn’t know Vice President Harris was a black woman. I’m trying to figure out what all the outrage is about because she’s only black when it’s time to get elected,” Montgomery said. “The same black people who are mad at Trump for being confused about her race, ethnicity, nationality, whatever are seemingly forgetting that, while you’re touting her as a savior for black people, she identifies as an Asian woman. She chose her side and it wasn’t ours.” Conserve the Culture founder Michaelah Montgomery BLASTS Kamala Harris, boosts President Trump at rally in Atlanta, GA pic.twitter.com/XhYsdTqLGQ — RSBN ?? (@RSBNetwork) August 3, 2024

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) denied that she made calls to coordinate an effort to pressure President Joe Biden into dropping out of the 2024 race. Journalist Lesley Stahl grilled Pelosi on the topic during an interview for CBS that aired weeks after Biden ended his re-election campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be his successor. “I did not call one person.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks with Lesley Stahl about her role in President Joe Biden's decision to drop out of the presidential race. https://t.co/BtvgDUKdYf pic.twitter.com/cnJ8ywR5sU — CBS Sunday Morning ? (@CBSSunday) August 3, 2024 “Please tell us what you told President Biden to persuade him to step aside,” Stahl said. “I’ve never shared any conversations with a president of the United States publicly, no,” Pelosi replied. “It’s said that he’s furious at you,” Stahl said. “Is he?” Pelosi shot back, “Well, he knows that I love him very much.” RELATED: Schumer Refuses To Say Whether He Pushed Biden To Exit 2024 Race After a poor debate performance, Democrats increasingly urged 81-year-old Biden to exit the 2024 race amid concerns about his age, mental health, and electability. CNN reported that Pelosi privately told Biden that polls showed he could not defeat former President Donald Trump and that he could hurt other members of his party in down-ticket races if he did not bow out. “I understand that you don’t want to own this,” Stahl said. “But it is so well-reported that you were the leader of a pressure campaign.” “No, I wasn’t a leader of any pressure party,” Pelosi said. “Well, let me say things that I didn’t do. I didn’t call one person. I did not call one person. I could always say to him, ‘I never called anybody.'” She continued, “What I’m saying is, I had confidence that the president would make the proper choice for our country, whatever that would be, and I said that. ‘Whatever that is, we’ll go with.'” Stahl also asked Pelosi if she had seen a “decline in” Biden and whether she thought he needed to step aside. “No,” Pelosi said. “My whole point was, whatever he decides, but we have to have a more aggressive campaign.” Harris, who formally entered the 2024 presidential race after receiving Biden’s endorsement, clinched the Democratic Party’s nomination on Friday. Polls conducted in the past few weeks have shown, on average, a close race between Harris and Trump in a general election face-off.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Sunday that despite intra-party tension between some Republicans, the party as a whole remains focused on beating Vice President Kamala Harris this fall. Cotton made the remarks during a Sunday interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” while discussing former President Donald Trump’s new opponent in the race. “What we all agree on, is what a disaster Kamala Harris would be as president,” Cotton said. “She is a dangerous San Francisco liberal, who wants to do things like take your health insurance away on the job and give it to illegal aliens because she wants to decriminalize illegal immigration into this country. That’s just the small tip of the iceberg of her radical views.” “We’re all united in the need to stop Kamala Harris,” he added. “Because if you think the last four years have been bad for your family, the worst is yet to come if Kamala Harris gets elected president.” Cotton said that the Trump Campaign has always known that the election was going to be close and suggested that she will start to see her numbers go down one she finally has to face the media. “She’s only been the nominee for two weeks now,” he said. “She hasn’t answered a single question, not one single question by the media, Ed. She’s only had one single unscripted moment, Thursday night at Andrews Air Force Base, welcoming those hostages back and she served up the kind of incomprehensible word salad for which she’s become famous. When she has to encounter the media, and I’m sure you’re going to insist that she does, she’s going to have to answer for things like why she wants to eliminate oil and gas production in this country, why she wants to ban gas powered cars, why she wants to confiscate private firearms.” “Kamala Harris has only been the nominee for two weeks and hasn’t answered a single question,” he continued. “When the American people get a better look at her and her radical positions, I think you’re gonna see that they don’t want her to continue the Biden-Harris legacy.” WATCH:

In U.S. history, there have been 59 presidential elections. That is enough of a data set to enable some pattern recognition.

The “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call last Monday night, with some 90,000 registered to participate, was surely a landmark in political history. Nearly 200 years ago, when the Democratic Party was being formed to elect and reelect Andrew Jackson, the entire American electorate, with exceptions, such as black New Englanders, property-owning black New Yorkers, and New Jersey widows, was made up of “white dudes.” Unlike most organizers of ethnic and demographic groups backing a party’s candidate, White Dudes for Harris founder Mark Greene has dim regard for his target group. “Man Box culture has positioned white men at the top of a bullying and rigid dominance-based culture of masculinity which teaches us that the only power that matters is the power we create over others,” Greene writes in an X post. “The result,” he goes on, “has been an economic, political and environmental disaster.” That’s a bit myopic, overlooking the outsize role American “white dudes” have played in ending slavery, inventing labor-reducing machinery, producing widespread prosperity, liberating millions from racist and communist totalitarianism, and opening political participation to others. Once upon a time, politicians appealed to “whites” as members of dozens of different ethnic groups. Blogger Matthew Yglesias unearthed a collage of 1972 campaign buttons for groups “for President Nixon” from, in alphabetical order, Armenians to WASPs, or white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. No mention of “dudes.” Today, gender is more relevant. “Gender polarization,” The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson wrote, “is the skeleton key of the 2024 election.” To which the Washington Examiner’s Conn Carroll replied, it “isn’t gender, it’s marriage.” In support of that proposition, he quoted exit poll findings that both married men and married women favor Republicans by similar, in this case statistically indistinguishable, margins (59%-39% and 56%-42%), while there are huge differences between unmarried men (52%-45% Republican) and unmarried women (68%-31% Democrat). Thompson noted a similarly wide divide in this year’s polling between divorced men (56% Trump) and single women (29% Trump). Those results are not atypical. The good news for Republicans is that three out of four groups favor their side. The good news for Democrats is that, in a society in which, contrary to the midcentury model, marriage is not universal, unmarried women are numerous and overwhelmingly on their side. That’s obviously the target for Democrats’ attacks on vice-presidential nominee JD Vance’s 2021 accusation that “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made” are leading Democrats to “profoundly anti-child” policies. It’s bad campaign tactics to slap derogatory labels on large demographic groups—remember former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables”?—and, of course, has dismayed many who did not choose to be childless. The personal may be political, but it can also be tender. In any case, childlessness has legitimately been in the news with the plunging fertility rate, down to 1.62 in 2023, well below the 2.1 replacement rate. This mirrors an increasing separation of the sexes, evident in less premarital sex and in political differences. “America’s new political war,” The Wall Street Journal reported, is between young men and young women. Under-30s of both sexes favored President Joe Biden in 2020. But this year, Wall Street Journal polls find young women favoring congressional Democrats 60% to 26%, while young men favor Republicans 49% to 37%. It’s also noteworthy, as the Manhattan Institute’s Kay Hymowitz and Heather Mac Donald wrote, that pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations are led and peopled largely by young women, in contrast to male-heavy demonstrations in the Vietnam era. This correlates with free-speech advocate Greg Lukianoff’s conclusion that left-wing students report poorer mental health than centrists or conservatives and that liberal young women report the most negative mental health. Why this should be the case when women are a large majority on campus is unclear, at least to me. Traditionally, women personally and politically have been more risk-averse than men, and that showed up in their slightly greater-than-average voting for incumbent parties: In the close elections of 1960 and ’68, polls showed them narrowly supporting incumbent Vice Presidents Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. Ronald Reagan’s upset victory in 1980 resulted in a wider gender gap, with women significantly more Democratic than men, apparently more averse to the risk of welfare spending cuts or a more assertive foreign policy. Today’s politics seems to have produced a different and wider gap—a vast gulf between unmarried women and other adults. Among young adults, there’s a wide and even geographical separation—women on campus or in malls, men off working or playing video games—which results in lower birth rates and polarized politics. In this environment, liberal politicians are suddenly comfortable participating in an all-white conclave like the “White Dudes for Harris” Zoom call. Weird. 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 That ‘White Dudes for Harris’ Zoom Call Was … Weird appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A kitten once seen dodging traffic and running away from everyone is now living out her dreams. ClaudieChatonsOrphelinsMontrealA tiny stray kitten was seen meowing and zigzagging across a busy street. Trying to dodge traffic and hide, she ran around in all directions.A few passersby from the neighborhood heard her cries and rushed to her rescue. "Alone without a mother, she was lost and panicking," Chatons Orphelins Montreal shared. "Several people jumped into action to help her."When they located the kitten, they found her hiding under a vehicle, refusing to come out. ChatonsOrphelinsMontrealThey surrounded the car and lay on the ground, trying to coax the kitten with food in their hands. Within seconds, the little one smelled the food and leaped for it.Despite being terrified, the kitten threw her face into the food, eagerly devouring it. When she was within reach, one of the rescuers picked her up to secure her while the kitten fought tooth and claw. She was very hungry when she was rescuedChatonsOrphelinsMontreal"Fortunately, she wasn't able to escape and was finally brought to safety."The kitten, named Claudie, was starving and just skin and bones. Though shaken after the ordeal, she seemed relieved to have food before her and scarfed it down in large bites. ChatonsOrphelinsMontreal"She ate as much as she could and fell asleep with a full belly. She was so lucky to have a group of people who came to her aid and saved her life."Chatons Orphelins Montreal stepped up to take Claudie, providing her with medical care and a loving foster home. They treated her for fleas and stomach troubles. At about two months old, she weighed less than one pound and had much growing to do. She warmed up to her people when she realized she was safeChatonsOrphelinsMontrealWith gentle strokes, the kitten lowered her guard, giving slow blinks, and let her foster mom wrap her in a blanket for cuddles. As she warmed up to people, she found her purr. Within days, her confidence grew, and she blossomed into a people-cat."She is very expressive with her ears and has a voracious appetite. She has gained a lot of strength and feels content and comfortable at her foster home." She came out of her shell at her foster homeChatonsOrphelinsMontrealAfter a few weeks of good food and care, Claudie has filled out nicely and finally caught up in size."She is both sweet and mischievous. She likes to follow her humans everywhere, curious about what they are doing. She is a ball of energy and can turn any moving thing into a toy." Her playful side quickly emergedChatonsOrphelinsMontreal"She zooms around after feathers and can keep herself entertained for a long time with little crinkle balls.""She may be tiny but has a diva-like attitude. She meows at her humans when she thinks they aren't paying enough attention to her, and she prefers sleeping next to them, on their face or in the crook of their neck at night. Sometimes, she wakes them up by licking their nose in the morning." ChatonsOrphelinsMontrealClaudie switches on her purr engine the moment she's petted and relishes every play session with her people. She doesn't allow closed doors and isn't shy about expressing her "opinions.""She wants to be with her humans at all times." She's blossomed into a happy, boisterous young catChatonsOrphelinsMontreal"She enjoys napping in front of the window and spying on the neighbors. If she smells food, she wakes up and comes running."The former stray found on the busy street is now thriving in foster care, doing what she loves and living out her dreams. ChatonsOrphelinsMontrealShare this story with your friends. More on Claudie and Chatons Orphelins Montreal on Facebook and Instagram.Related story: Big Tom Cat Comes to a House for Food One Day, Changing the Course of His Life

Many people have come to feel or believe — even against their will — that technology is now the one unstoppable force in the world. I think that the root of this techno-fatalism, which is the animating force behind both the optimist and pessimist versions on display today, is a judgment that tech wins out over everything else because, unlike everything else, tech stands on its own shoulders — it’s reliant on no foundation other than its own. We’ll continue to spin around in confusion until we understand that tech is not the ouroboros. It is not perfectly recursive, self-reliant, and self-referential. The ground truth about tech is that it depends — like all else, when you look carefully — on faith. Looking deeper, lurking around the heart of this judgment that tech is uniquely self-propagating or recursive is a still more radical idea: Technology simply is the recursively self-propagating, that which exists and grows and advances without having to rely on, defer to, or pay tribute to its origins. You can think here of George Soros’ famous recursivity theory, which led him to his unique position of power, wealth, and influence today. At a more ancient level, you can think of the ouroboros, the mythical snake eating its tail, a pre-eminent alchemist and occultist symbol. The post of the day belongs to @vikhyatk, formerly of Amazon Web Services and now at Moondream AI. In it, he suggests an old entry in Sam Altman’s blog “fully explains OpenAI’s vibe.” The line from Altman is this: Successful people create companies. More successful people create countries. The most successful people create religions. But it’s a quote, or at least a citation. Here’s the rest of Altman’s 2013 post: I heard this from Qi Lu; I'm not sure what the source is. It got me thinking, though – the most successful founders do not set out to create companies. They are on a mission to create something closer to a religion, and at some point it turns out that forming a company is the easiest way to do so. In general, the big companies don't come from pivots, and I think this is most of the reason why. Now is the right time to resurface that old post. Some of us have been warning for years now that the unfolding of events today depends on technological and theological matters because these are interlinked in a way that digital tech specifically reveals in new and dramatic ways. More Americans are catching on to this, but many still struggle to make heads or tails of the phenomenon, much less come to grips with it and coordinate an effective response. We’ll continue to spin around in confusion until we understand that tech is not the ouroboros. It is not perfectly recursive, self-reliant, and self-referential. The ground truth about tech is that it depends — like all else, when you look carefully — on faith. And the question facing all tech companies is exactly what faith they demand of you: faith in what, exactly, to be precise. Some insist that it’s just faith in tech itself, but that’s a parlor trick. From a certain distance, the ouroboros looks like a deity. But it’s really a simulation of one — a perpetual evasion of our created origin and therefore of our Creator. The longing for a meta-religion that overcomes all the pesky details and commitments concerning our origins and our Creator can be powerful, in tech as much as anywhere else, and the occult worship of alchemically powerful recursivity feeds that longing as much as anything else. But tech's reliance on the longing for religions — for gods to worship, on the one hand, and for the power and authority that comes from inventing new systems and structures of worship — reflects a deep-seated human longing for something much more visceral and specific than a meta-religion that spins you forever in a cosmic Möbius strip. The simulation of the infinite isn’t enough to satisfy — or even spiritually nourish — human hearts. For tech really to advance in a direction that strengthens and protects our hearts and their deepest, purest longings, it will have to receive with humility the reality that the temptation to keep churning out new gods, new cults, and new spiritual scams will lead more to ruin than spiritual riches. It will have to locate its religious foundations somewhere spiritual seeds can grow and the spiritual footing is firm. On rock, so to speak, and not sand, silicon or otherwise.

Crazy Nancy Pelosi Suggests an 'Interesting' Addition to Mount Rushmore (WATCH)