'I was just lucky enough to be facing the right direction'

'No injuries were reported'

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The border crisis could reach new heights or largely remain unchanged if Vice President Kamala Harris ends up winning the presidential election on Nov. 5, border hawks warn. President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race Sunday and immediately endorsed Harris, making her the leading contender to snag the party’s delegates and the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. Harris’ past voting record in the Senate, comments she’s made about federal immigration authorities, and recent actions taken in the White House all signal a sharp pivot left if she were to win the election by defeating former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. “I would say more of the same or potentially even worse,” Eric Ruark, research director for NumbersUSA, a group that works toward limiting illegal immigration, said in a conversation with the Daily Caller News Foundation about possible border policy changes if Harris were to replace Biden. “Biden had a history of being at least rhetorically against illegal immigration.” “Harris has yet to come out and say, ‘It’s a crime and we need to enforce the law,’” Ruark said. “Clearly, she was tasked with addressing the border crisis by President Biden, and her approach was basically to say, ‘Don’t come.’ That was the extent of her policy approach.” NumbersUSA publishes “report cards” on every lawmaker in Congress, evaluating how each performs on immigration and other border security issues. During her short time in the Senate representing California before leaving for the White House, Harris earned a grade of F-, the lowest possible score. The then-senator earned failing grades for votes on immigration-related issues such as border security, interior enforcement, refugee management, and amnesty, according to NumbersUSA. NumbersUSA highlighted Harris’ 2019 co-sponsorship of the RAIDER Act, which would have blocked Trump’s construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and her 2019 co-sponsorship of the FACE Act, which would have made it more difficult for Trump to continue to build the wall. The organization also graded her vote against the Secure and Protect Act which, it argues, would have positively reformed the so-called Flores Settlement Agreement. Other border hawks expressed trepidation over Harris’ enforcement record related to illegal immigration through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Kamala Harris wasn’t just Biden’s Border Czar, she was his Abolish ICE Director—directing the agency in charge of enforcing our immigration laws to willfully violate them,” RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement, said. “Now that Biden is out of the picture, she is sure to return to some of the most insane anti-enforcement positions that we’ve ever seen from an elected official.” As illegal border crossings quickly climbed early in the Biden administration’s tenure, the president tapped Kamala to lead an effort to address the root causes of unlawful migration from Central America, a position many described as “border czar.” However, Border Patrol encounters with illegal aliens at the southern border went on to reach recording-setting levels, according to the latest U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. [Both ICE and CBP are part of the Department of Homeland Security.] Enforcement experts have noted that the root causes of illegal immigration remain unaddressed and lawmakers in Congress have sought to hold Harris specifically responsible for the ongoing border crisis. Harris also was heavily criticized for taking so long to visit the southern border. “The choice in November will now be even more clear—mass deportation or mass release of illegal aliens and violent criminals into American communities,” Hauman said. Harris compared ICE, a government agency, to the Ku Klux Klan during a November 2018 Senate confirmation hearing. She asked Ron Vitiello, then Trump’s nominee to lead the agency, if he knew there was a “perception” among Latino immigrants that ICE agents operate like Klan members. As a California senator, Harris also suggested during a June 2018 media interview that ICE essentially should be abolished and rebuilt again “from scratch.” Upon election to the White House, the Biden-Harris administration oversaw a monumental overhaul of Trump policies that beefed up border and interior enforcement. Biden took 89 executive actions that specifically reversed or began the process of reversing Trump’s immigration policies, according to an analysis by the Migration Policy Institute. The White House immediately halted construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and shuttered Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, which had largely eliminated asylum fraud by keeping asylum-seekers in Mexico while their cases were adjudicated. The administration also attempted to enforce a 100-day moratorium on all deportations. To be successful in his reelection bid, Ruark said, the Republican nominee would need to do more than offer criticisms of Harris and instead put forward a policy platform on how his new administration would hit the ground running on Day One to “undo the damage” the Biden administration did to border security. In his Republican National Convention speech last week, Trump promised the “largest deportation operation” in the country’s history, completed construction of the border wall, and other hardline approaches to border security. One local leader near the southern border noted the incredible burden that Biden’s border crisis has placed on the district he represents. “Under Biden with the open border, we had over 150,000 people dropped in the streets here in San Diego County from a period of about eight or nine months,” San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, a Republican, said Monday. “It put pressure on our law enforcement, put pressure on our hospitals and shelters, and we bore all the burden of these people just freely and willingly able to cross the border,” Desmond said, noting that Biden had assigned Harris to address the crisis. “She has failed us on the border.” Desmond noted that the border crisis isn’t a “red or blue” issue, but something that’s been affecting everyone in his district, particularly those with homes near the border who’ve had to deal with a constant flow of asylum-seekers passing through their property. Since Biden withdrew from the race Sunday and endorsed Harris, a growing number of Democrat leaders have gotten in line behind the vice president’s fledgling candidacy, establishing her as the presumptive nominee before the DNC convenes Aug. 19 in Chicago. “What we’ve seen from her career in the Senate and the public statements she’s made, it would only get worse,” Ruark said of the border situation. “As bad as things are, they can get worse, and that’s something we should all realize.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post America’s Border Crisis Could Get Whole Lot Worse Under Kamala Harris, Experts Say appeared first on The Daily Signal.

TONIGHT on “The Tony Kinnett Cast,” we dive into the half-hearted attempts to revivify Vice President Kamala Harris into a leader, instead of the deeply controversial and lackluster prosecutor, senator, and vice president her legacy has defined. U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigns before an expected bipartisan impeachment vote in the Senate—could Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas be next? Jim Pfaff, president of The Conservative Caucus, joins us to deliver his thoughts on the viability of a Harris presidential campaign and his advice for the Trump/Vance campaign. We air our interview from the floor of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee with Attorney General Todd Rokita of Indiana delving into his record and how liberal media outlets covered it. Lastly, we cut through the weedy nightmare of breaking news and faking news in the modern era of “social media first” coverage with news aggregator RawsAlerts.Catch the LIVE radio show and livestream weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on The Daily Signal’s YouTube, X, or Facebook. The post WATCH: ‘Cringemala Harris’ – The Tony Kinnett Cast Ep. 142 appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The United States is a republic with decision-making power held by elected legislators representing the people. Yet many of the biggest decisions affecting the lives of Americans are made by unelected bureaucrats.In recent years, we have seen the administrative state going to levels never seen before, making decisions that Congress never told bureaucrats to make. This includes the Biden administration continuing its student loan forgiveness efforts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s nationwide eviction moratorium, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule to help kill off gas-powered cars. The EPA car rule helps illustrate the extent of the problems. It’s a shocking attack on freedom to try and limit what cars people can drive, and it’s ludicrously expensive. The agency’s projected compliance cost of the rule is a whopping $760 billion. To put this cost in context, the projected cost of the 2009 stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was $787 billion.Therefore, the EPA, without Congress speaking on whether it wants the agency to impose such a major change in policy, is imposing compliance costs in this one rule roughly equivalent to the cost of one of the biggest pieces of legislation passed by Congress in our history. The modern administrative state has been a serious problem long before the Biden administration, though. It has undermined our republican form of government with executive branch bureaucrats often serving as the prime decision-makers rather than our elected representatives. Early 20th-century progressive leaders like President Woodrow Wilson who helped assemble the administrative state were bent on advancing executive branch expertise and power. In fact, Wilson himself had a shocking disdain for voters and specific groups of citizens.Our country is looking more like the nation envisioned by Wilson and less like the republic envisioned by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, we must restore representative government. And reform must start with Congress, which created the agencies and the rulemaking process in the first place.Reform is never easy. Plenty of people want to keep power within the agencies and give them a blank regulatory check to aid the ideological ambitions of those who seek greater governmental control. However, one important solution isn’t difficult: Congress should establish in law some boundaries for agency power. For example, Congress should prohibit agencies from issuing rules outside their demonstrated regulatory expertise, unless clearly authorized to do so. After all, one of the biggest justifications for agency rulemaking is the alleged expertise of agencies. If they don’t have the expertise on certain issues, then it follows that Congress didn’t want them to promulgate rules on those matters.That’s common sense, as are many other boundaries. For example, absent clear authority from Congress, it would be absurd to think lawmakers wanted agencies to equate shutting down businesses with regulating them, as the EPA is doing with its new power plant rule. The rule is creating infeasible requirements that necessarily will lead to plant closures.It would also defy common sense to think Congress, without saying so clearly, is OK with an agency banning or limiting the availability of certain types of goods, such as cars; reshaping an entire industry; or doing an end-run around Congress because it’s tired of waiting on legislators to pass a law. Therefore, legislators should make it clear that such rules are prohibited unless clearly authorized by law. It’s helpful that the judicial branch has recently put some limits on agency rulemaking power. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court got rid of what was known as the Chevron doctrine, which was a judicial creation that required courts to give deference to agencies’ often expansive interpretations of ambiguous laws they administer. This helped to make it easier for agencies to achieve their policy objectives by favoring bureaucrats over the people challenging the agencies in court.Now that this favoritism is gone, it should make it tougher for agencies. However, make no mistake, it won’t stop sweeping and egregious rules, in part because legislation often provides vague or general authority to agencies that they can take advantage of, even if it is obviously inconsistent with congressional intent.More relevant to putting a stop to sweeping rules is the “major questions” doctrine. The Supreme Court has said there are “extraordinary cases … in which the ‘history and the breadth of the authority that [the agency] has asserted,’ and the ‘economic and political significance’ of that assertion, provide a ‘reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress’ meant to confer such authority.” In these instances, an agency must have a “‘clear congressional authorization’ for the power it claims.” Even with the existence of the major questions doctrine, new legislation from Congress is required because a congressionally passed law can provide clear prohibitions of agency actions and far more comprehensive protection from agency abuses than the judicial branch. Statutory language should serve as a first line of defense against agencies ignoring the will of Congress and, thereby, the will of the voters. When asked what kind of nation the Framers of the Constitution created, Benjamin Franklin answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.”If we are going to keep our republic, then we need Congress to step up with major reforms to stop the abuses of the administrative state. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Overreaching Power of the Bureaucracy Is Destroying Our Representative Government appeared first on The Daily Signal.

While Americans attempt to grapple with the ongoing chaos of the 2024 election, House Republicans have been quietly doing the work of putting together and passing spending bills for the next fiscal year. What the endgame for those bills will be remains an open and important question—one that could last into next year. With the gross national debt rapidly approaching $35 trillion and the Biden-Harris administration misusing tax dollars on a massive scale, it’s vitally important for Congress to show fiscal restraint and rein in the out-of-control executive branch. Although the bills working their way to the House floor haven’t been perfect, they contain many significant policy wins for conservatives, including: Defunding identity-obsessed Equity Action Plans implemented across the federal government by the current administration.  Blocking the administration’s abortion promotion at the Department of Defense. Placing commonsense rules on earmark spending requests to stop most wasteful and inappropriate items. Stopping the administration’s “climate disclosure rule” that would use financial regulation as a backdoor to a massive environmental power grab. Defunding contributions to the corrupt United Nations, including the pro-abortion Population Fund and the pro-Hamas U.N. Relief and Works Agency. Blocking grants that provide direct support to migrant caravans in Central and South America working their way to the southern border. Ending costly and illegal student loan write-off schemes. Protecting workers’ rights by blocking the administration’s attempt to blow up independent contracting. Defunding the administration’s use of “special envoys” to push leftist ideology overseas. Derailing support for California’s bullet train boondoggle. On the spending side, it’s no secret that the annual process is usually a vehicle for fraudulent gimmicks and deals that are good for Washington, but bad for taxpayers. The House Appropriations Committee has stepped up with a number of judicious reductions to federal bloat, such as: A 31% cut to the Economic Development Administration, which involves government picking winners and losers. A $1.5 billion cut to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which promotes “green” energy and imposes regulations on consumer appliances. Reducing Environmental Protection Agency state and local grants by $749 million. Under the Biden-Harris administration, these grants promote “environmental justice” and climate schemes. Taking $11 billion from the federal Department of Education, which is a bastion of leftist power and control. Shrinking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by $1.7 billion, striking a blow against the increasingly politicized Big Science complex. Defunding the Title X family planning program and stopping any taxpayer support for abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood. A 30% cut to foreign “development assistance.” Reducing excessive subsidies to mass transit agencies by $1.3 billion. Cutting the Department of Housing and Urban Development (which is primarily a welfare agency) by $5.2 billion. However, putting the policy gains and spending reductions in House legislation into law could prove nearly impossible under current circumstances. Despite the economic damage caused by high levels of inflationary deficit spending and surging interest payments on the national debt, the Senate is leaning into the worst habits of the swamp. Senators are set to include $34 billion of phony “emergency” spending and have almost no guardrails on pork barrel spending requests. With Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, there will be little incentive to agree to the reforms and savings passed by House Republicans. Most years, initial bickering between the parties leads to missed deadlines, but results in a multi-thousand-page “omnibus” package loaded with goodies for political insiders. It’s clear that President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., want to continue the status quo of a federal government that spends too much and uses the nation’s institutions to promote leftist ideology. An omnibus package would maintain that through September 2025, which should be considered unacceptable. Instead, the House should consider aiming for an extension of current spending (known as a continuing resolution) that would go beyond the postelection “lame duck” session and last into early 2025. That would ensure retiring and defeated lawmakers and an unaccountable president are not controlling the outcome of federal funding priorities for time they are not elected to represent their constituencies. The November elections could yield a conservative governing majority, which would make it possible to enact and even build on the current House bills. That would be an important first step toward restoring sanity in the nation’s capital. The post House Spending Bills Bring Conservative Wins, But Face Thorny Path Ahead appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Listeners to “The Breakfast Club” radio show and podcast called in Tuesday to criticize Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris over policies they said are “destroying” black Americans. President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race Sunday and endorsed Harris to take his place atop the Democratic ticket after consistently dismal polling and doubts about his mental fitness. Back-to-back callers to “The Breakfast Club,” a popular hip-hop show, expressed concern that Democrat policies are harming black Americans, suggesting Harris wouldn’t be a significant improvement over Biden. WATCH: 'They're Ruining Our Country': Callers Trash Dems, Kamala Harris On Popular Hip-Hop Show pic.twitter.com/dmOHkMoVGs— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 23, 2024 “OK, so first let me say I’m so happy to see a woman running for president and I’m grateful for that,” a caller named Iris said. “However, I was on the fence even with Biden running again because everyone talks about, ‘Oh, let’s get the black vote, let’s get the black vote.’ And they get the black vote and nothing changes. When I say nothing, I mean our education system. Our children are suffering in New York City public schools.” “And let’s talk about services. My brother is a paraplegic; he got hit by a drunk driver. Very hard for him to get services,” Iris continued before touching on illegal immigration. “And I understand that they allow the migrants to come in, but they come in and they just overwhelm them with services, and they forget about the people that are already here. So what’s going to change with that?” “What are they going to do with the black agenda to help our children that are struggling in New York City public schools?” Iris asked. “They’re not even on the same level as other kids in other countries, and that’s what my concern is. So is something going to change because Kamala is running instead of Biden? Like help me out, we’re confused here.” The border crisis could worsen under Harris if she becomes president as her past voting record in the Senate, remarks she has made about federal immigration authorities, and moves she has made while vice president indicate a sharp move to the left, border hawks told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Monday. “I don’t think America is ready for a female president. You know what, I’m a black man and I absolutely do not want another Democratic president in there,” a caller named Cali said. “I think we should give the Republicans another try. There’s a lot of agendas that the Democratic Party has kind of put into place that I don’t support. I think they’re destroying the black man, they’re destroying the black family, I think they’re ruining our country. If you’re living in New York like I am, man, this place is a financial nightmare, not to mention crime.” “I think if we put Trump back in there, man, it’s going to be amazing. Kamala cannot do what he’s going to do to bring this country back to where it needs to be,” Cali added. “And this is not a race thing because that’s the No. 1 thing they like to say when they talk about Trump and how he’s a criminal and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don’t think any of that matters. His policy is what we need to focus on, and he’s going to get us back where we need to go. Kamala is not ready.” Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post ‘They’re Ruining Our Country’: Callers Trash Dems, Kamala Harris on Popular Hip-Hop Show appeared first on The Daily Signal.

WPATH Said Trans Treatments Were 'Medically Necessary' Just to Get Insurance Coverage

Megalodon was slightly faster than a great white according to a new study that looked at sharks’ denticles as an indicator of their hunting speed. Despite the significant difference between the enormous estimated size of megalodon and its comparatively smaller extant relative, both were estimated to hunt at a pace comparable to that of an average human jogger – so you’d have quite the upper hand if they tried pursuing you on land.You may have heard the old adage that dolphins are smooth like olives while a shark is a bit like velvet, smooth one way and coarse the other. This is a reference to their bizarre skin that’s covered in dermal denticles: V-shaped structures that are more comparable to teeth than scales.Swimming around with modified teeth for skin is thought to decrease drag and turbulence for sharks, meaning they can glide through the water faster and without creating as much noise. Given that different species exhibit different denticles, that got scientists wondering if the denticles themselves could be an indicator of hunting speed in sharks. And if you’re going to study shark hunting speeds from their tooth skin, why stop at the ones still alive today?The researchers looked at previous studies that have estimated the size and spacing of Otodus megalodon denticles, which found them to be similar to that of the extant great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias. They were then able to take this data, and denticle data from several modern shark species, to estimate speed by focusing on ridge spacing and the drag reduction efficiency of each species’ denticle structure, as well as the sharks’ body lengths.The results showed that megalodon was likely hunting at speeds of 5.9 meters (19.4 feet) per second, meanwhile the extant great white swims at a close second of 5.7 meters (18.7 feet) per second. So, in a race of megalodon Vs great white, megalodon would be the winner – but only just. However, both behemoths were bested by the shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) that, by their denticle estimations, is theoretically clocking hunting speeds of 10.5 meters (34.4 feet) per second. Zoomin'.The study marks a scientific first in using X-ray CT to reveal the detailed three-dimensional surface morphology of white shark denticles, and it’s hoped this information could inspire new riblets – a type of structure used to reduce drag in fluid dynamics – that can be adapted to perform at a wide range of speeds. It also welcomes a new approach for estimating the swimming speeds of sharks that can be applied even to extinct species, meaning the theoretical animal Olympics just got even wilder.The study is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

The liberal media were in full spin mode Tuesday as they ramped up their full-throated support for Vice President Kamala Harris, trying desperately to make her appealing to voters. While CNN had tried to use Gen Z slang to woo younger voters, ABC’s The View was insisting that she was somehow a “moderate,” with no evidence nor explanation. Ignoring the fact that President Biden had picked a running mate on how well she would help sure up the liberal base (since he was framed as the moderate Democrat) – as well as on the basis of her being a diversity hire, pretend independent co-host Sara Haines scoffed that “the big attack” on her, “in addition to the dirty things, are ‘she's too liberal. She's too liberal.’” She thought it was “very rich” for people to call Harris far-left because former President Trump picked Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) to be his running mate: That is a very rich comment on her right now, because what Trump did was name J.D. Vance and – as you said – he's further right. He’s Project 2025. He is the Heritage Foundation. He is the MAGA agenda. He had a chance to do something else and said here the convention was just a doubling down on extreme agenda.     Haines proceeded to gush about how Harris was supposedly speaking to independents like her: Vice President Harris is really – and this is my -- I don't have input but what I'm seeing only looking at moderate beloved Democrats and what that says to me is, for the person saying you're too extreme, she's the only one that's actually checking in with the American public. 43 percent of this country identifies as independents. They are more moderate than the minority extremes would like you to think. By minority I mean partisan extremes. But the country is in the middle. She's saying, ‘I see you as voters.’ So, it’s not just political strategy. I feel like she's thinking about people like me when she's picking her vice presidential candidate. “Well, to be clear, she's pretty moderate also. She's pretty moderate also,” staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) chimed in. Hostin also tried to throw herself in there by suggesting “former prosecutors aren’t leftist.” Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin only lightly opposed her fellow cast members. “And for what it's worth, I think moderate probably on the left-wing side,” she said. “I don't think any Republicans see her as moderate.” “But I do think it’s a very wise idea to find a moderate vice president to open it to the biggest voting bloc,” Farah Griffin commended. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View July 23, 2024 11:08:02 a.m. Eastern (…) SARA HAINES: One thing I also really love is, right now, the big attack for her, in addition to the dirty things, are ‘she's too liberal. She's too liberal.’ That is a very rich comment on her right now, because what Trump did was name J.D. Vance and – as you said – he's further right. He’s Project 2025. He is the Heritage Foundation. He is the MAGA agenda. He had a chance to do something else and said here the convention was just a doubling down on extreme agenda. Vice President Harris is really – and this is my -- I don't have input but what I'm seeing only looking at moderate beloved Democrats and what that says to me is, for the person saying you're too extreme, she's the only one that's actually checking in with the American public. 43 percent of this country identifies as independents. They are more moderate than the minority extremes would like you to think. By minority I mean partisan extremes. But the country is in the middle. She's saying, ‘I see you as voters.’ So, it’s not just political strategy. I feel like she's thinking about people like me when she's picking her vice presidential candidate. SONNY HOSTIN: Well, to be clear, she's pretty moderate also. She's pretty moderate also. HAINES: Yeah, but I’m saying that doesn't hold water when you look at what she’s doing. HOSTIN: Yeah, but former prosecutors aren’t leftist. ALYSSA AFRAH GRIFFIN: And for what it's worth, I think moderate probably on the left-wing side. I don't think any Republicans see her as moderate. But I do think it’s a very wise idea to find a moderate vice president to open it to the biggest voting bloc. (…)