The possibility that Kamala Harris will become the second black president has energized many people.  In his New York Times column this week, John McWhorter contends that she should be considered biracial. This week Donald Trump faulted her for belatedly, in his opinion, claiming blackness when previously she emphasized her Indian heritage.  This article raises other questions about how her blackness could be viewed. According to Harris, if these tests are an impediment to attaining racial equity, they must be scrapped. Obama and Harris Similarities Both Obama and Harris are not only biracial but were raised by non-black mothers and grandmothers with absent black fathers.  Both also spent a significant share of their formative years outside the United States and those spent within were never in the large urban areas that typified the American black population of their childhoods.  Both had well-educated parents — Kamala’s have doctorates — and no relationship to the black working class when growing up.  Indeed, Kamala’s mother comes from a privileged Indian Brahmin family. (READ MORE from Robert Cherry: How Best To Fulfill King’s Aspirations) The leapfrogging of blacks with immigrant backgrounds over blacks who can trace their lineage to American slavery is widespread.  Black students from immigrant families may comprise 40 percent of the Ivy League black student population. In a 2021 interview, a descendant of slavery, Mariah Norman, discussed how children of immigrants dominated the black student environment at Harvard. She pointed to the Nigerian Students Association that claims 200 members, suggesting that one-third of Harvard’s black student body is in that club. And while the Black Students Association encompasses all, there wasn’t an organization solely for black students like Norman until students got together in 2021 and formed one. Both Obama and Harris embraced their latent blackness when in college.  Unlike President Biden or JD Vance (or Clarence Thomas) their attitudes as adults were not driven by the environment in which they lived in their formative years.  How does this shape their attitudes on racial policy? Obama and Harris Differences When President Obama moved to Chicago, he married a black woman from the working class and, as a community organizer, he learned first-hand the lived experience of the black urban populace.  This informed his race-related policies: support for charter schools, distinction between violent and non-violent crime, and a focus on occupational programs.  More generally, he emphasized creating equal opportunity for black Americans. By contrast, Harris never created any personal attachments with the black working class.  After graduating Howard, she gravitated to relationships with black celebrities, including Montel Williams.  This culminated with her very public relationship with sixty-year-old Willy Brown that was crucial to her political rise to SF District Attorney. Without any social anchor to the black working class, Harris was a tough-on-crime DA, aggressively prosecuting drug offenses.  And when liberal politics evolved so did she.  Now she is a strong proponent of abandoning equal-opportunity goals and instead focusing on equity. Near the end of the 2020 presidential campaign, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris tweeted a video entitled, “Equality vs. Equity.” It emphasized that equity is attained only when there are equal outcomes — when both the privileged and disadvantaged get to the top of the mountain. The video summed up the position of many progressives: Replace the goal of “equal opportunity” with the goal of “equal outcomes.” The Attack on Standards In the name of promoting equity, there are aggressive efforts to eliminate any standardized tests that stand in the way of black professional attainment: banning SAT/ACT scores to promote black enrollment in the most competitive schools; reducing the importance of MCAT and LSAT exams for entrance into medical and law schools, respectively.  Some states have even eliminated passing a state bar exam as a requirement for becoming a lawyer.  Medical associations have changed scoring on mid-school measures so that more black students could be accepted in prestigious residency programs. These attacks on standardized exams often focus on the ability of better-off white students being able to afford preparation classes and tutors.  While these efforts might raise SAT scores 50 points or so, they don’t explain why in 2020 the average white SAT score was 1104 while the black score was 927. Moreover, Brookings reported that while 15 percent of white test takers scored at least 650 on the math section — a score necessary for success in many STEM areas — only 2 percent of black test takers did so.  This study also noted that racial disparities were slightly larger on the LSAT exam. Large racial disparities also exist on a wide range of certification exams.  Nationally, 90.7 percent of white test takers eventually passed the social work clinical exam, while only 57 percent of black social workers eventually received passing scores.  In the mid-2010s, on a new education licensing test given in 31 states or jurisdictions, 55 percent of white candidates passed the math portion on their first try compared to 21.5 percent black test takers. A similar gap was seen on the reading and writing portions. (READ MORE: Demands for Reparations Hide Liberal Failures) According to Harris, if these tests are an impediment to attaining racial equity, they must be scrapped. An alternative strategy would require more effort at improving the educational attainment of young children because early gaps persist. requires providing in-house support services for at-risk families.  Visiting nursing programs can guide young mothers through pregnancy and the first years of their child’s lives.  Tutoring can be made available to improve school readiness of these children.  And schools must refocus on teach methods, like phonics, that improve educational skills not social justice curricula. Unfortunately, Harris will continue the leftist approach to reduce standards that might help some of her fellow Howard graduates attain successful professional careers but help few urban working-class black children. The post Would a Harris Presidency Help Blacks? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The independent judiciary established by our Constitution has inspired the world. Even British law, which developed and preserved constitutional liberties, and whose firm sense of political rights inspired the American Founders, has only in the last two decades undertaken to separate its judiciary from Parliament’s supremacy. Hamilton would see this as part of a larger, general phenomenon, what he called “the ordinary depravity of human nature.” The Framers of the Constitution were keenly aware of how Britain’s constitution had failed them. Britain’s judiciary had no power to keep Parliament in check when it passed the Intolerable Acts and the other outrages to which the Declaration of Independence objected. Previously, the courts proved unable to rein in the Stuart kings’ grabs for supremacy; war resulted. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: Kamala Harris and the Legacy of Neville Chamberlain) The Framers sought to construct a government in which no one branch, not even the legislature elected by the people, not even the elected president, would be supreme. Of the three branches, the judiciary would be the one to hold fast to the peoples’ liberties even when strong political winds might blow through the Legislative and Executive Branches. Alexander Hamilton wrote of why we need a judiciary that is shielded from the political pressures from the other branches. No man can be sure that he may not be to-morrow the victim of a spirit of injustice, by which he may be a gainer to-day. And every man must now feel that the inevitable tendency of such a spirit is to sap the foundations of public and private confidence, and to introduce in its stead universal distrust and distress. Hamilton and Madison were both realists. They believed, reasonably, that no nation, no person is immune from corruption, and our institutions must be robust enough to survive with our Constitutional liberties intact. Madison wrote: If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. The main instrument in the government controlling itself is the judiciary, which must step in to contain government when it exceeds the limits the people set upon it in the Constitution. How can the judiciary not be taken hostage by political fads? Hamilton wrote of a crucial element: That inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the Constitution, and of individuals, which we perceive to be indispensable in the courts of justice, can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission. Periodical appointments, however regulated, or by whomsoever made, would, in some way or other, be fatal to their necessary independence. And so, from the inception of our Constitution, all federal judges have been appointed for life. Dismantling the Judiciary Kamala Harris poses as profound when she speaks of being unburdened by the past. She and the party that acclaims her free themselves from the knowledge and wisdom. Why? To devote themselves to something beyond their endless thirst for control would be inauthentic. That is who they are. That is what they offer us. Old Joe, ever more incoherent, has sealed his sorry legacy by setting himself against Hamilton and Madison. The last tune he (presumably) has chosen for his band to play as his ship sinks is Dismantling the Legacy of an Independent Federal Judiciary. Catchy tune, that. Old Joe’s handlers think to raise him to a level above Madison’s and Hamilton’s. His party, without the excuse of dementia, seems to want to wave this as a banner issue in their campaign to Save Democracy. Hamilton would see this as part of a larger, general phenomenon, what he called “the ordinary depravity of human nature.” With the foresight of genius, he, Madison, and the other Framers set our Constitution far above the machinations of such people, who they foresaw would arise. True, they have succeeded (to paraphrase Hamilton) in sapping the foundations of public and private confidence and introducing in its stead universal distrust and distress — more evidence of their foresight. (READ MORE: Let Us Recognize God’s Providential Hand) We, like the Framers, have faith in something deeper and more resilient. We can see the foresight of the Framers, and see that, strengthened by the evidence of their vision, it is now our turn to be the resilience upon which the whole American enterprise depends. Let us now show what saving democracy really means. The post The Crucial Importance of an Independent Judiciary appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris wants Americans to believe that she is not a progressive. Now that she’s heading the Democratic ticket, she’s all for securing the border. Over the past 10 or 15 years … the Democratic Party has radicalized, and “de facto unlimited immigration is now a litmus test” for its candidates. For many of us who’ve known her since the days she served as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, that’s a tall order. Harris has a history of embracing the most far-left policies possible, abandoning them when they become inconvenient and then maybe backtracking. As San Francisco district attorney, Harris famously refused to charge an accused cop-killer for a capital crime because she was against capital punishment. But when she ran for California attorney general, she said she would uphold California’s death penalty. (READ MORE from Debra J. Saunders: Bad Election Rules and Stupid Media Tricks) So when the presumptive Democratic nominee says she “will actually work to solve the problem” at the Southwest border, as she told supporters at a rally in Atlanta on Tuesday, don’t believe it. In 2019, during a Democratic presidential debate, Harris said she opposed former President Barack Obama’s Secure Communities program, which forwarded fingerprints taken by local law enforcement to ICE, because she feared that undocumented migrants might not report crimes, such as rape. She wasn’t tough; she was waffling. While her campaign argues that the veep now supports “the toughest deal to secure the border in decades,” and that Trump “is trying to stop her,” it’s hard to see how a Democrat who opposed Obama’s immigration enforcement efforts is tough on the border. (Yes, Trump told elected Republicans to vote against the bill Team Harris mentioned, but the Biden administration could have pushed through a big border bill during the president’s first two years, when Democrats also controlled Congress. Never happened.) Harris supported San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy, which protected illegal migrant drug dealers and gang-bangers from deportation. Not tough. Indeed, when Harris was district attorney, her office enrolled some illegal immigrants facing criminal charges in Back on Track, a job-training program — even though they could not work legally in the United States. When an illegal immigrant from Honduras who enrolled in Back on Track snatched a woman’s purse, Harris told the Los Angeles Times that enforcing federal immigration law was not the job of local authorities. In 2009, when it came to light that an undocumented migrant who had pleaded guilty to a drug felony was enrolled in Back on Track, Harris blamed a design flaw. After the bad press, Harris’ office announced it would not enroll new undocumented migrants in the jobs program. But she did not try to discover how many unemployable migrants remained in Back on Track, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported. While Harris did not utter the name of her boss once during her 20-minute speech, she campaigned by Joe Biden’s side throughout 2020. And I don’t think even Biden would say he has been tough on the border. “I think it’s safe to say six million people illegally have gotten into the United States under Biden, most of them let in,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies, told me, as he guesstimated a statistic that is hard to nail down. (READ MORE: Buzzfeed, Twitter Provide Two Black Eyes for Media) Over the past 10 or 15 years, Krikorian observed, the Democratic Party has radicalized, and “de facto unlimited immigration is now a litmus test” for its candidates. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post What Is Harris’s Pre-2024 Border History? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The Biden Defense Department has reached a plea deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, and two other 9/11 terrorists (Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi) who provided assistance to the 19 men who attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and who crashed the plane headed for the nation’s capital, that saves them from the death penalty. An NPR reporter suggested that “the Pentagon was motivated … because if Trump was elected, its very likely there would be no plea deal.” The families of 9/11 victims and Republican legislators decried the move as a demonstration of “weakness” and “cowardice in the face of terror,” and a “national disgrace.” (READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: Even More Echoes of 1968) Senator Lindsey Graham accused the Biden-Harris administration of becoming a “doormat for thugs and terrorists.” Sen. Ted Cruz called it a “disgrace” and a “complete and total miscarriage of justice.” Sen. Mitch McConnell called the plea deal “a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.” A retired NYPD officer whose wife was killed in the attacks, remarked, “The … families have waited for 23 years to have our day in court to put on the record what these animals did to our loved ones” and “they took that opportunity away from us.” The NYPD and New York firefighters feel “betrayed” by their own government. The murderers of nearly 3,000 people will serve life in prison. This, perhaps, is the final nail in the coffin of the Global War on Terror, which has ended with a humiliating American defeat in Afghanistan and now an unjust plea deal for 9/11 murderers — both courtesy of the Biden administration. President George W. Bush famously shouted among the ruins of the World Trade Center that the people who knocked down those buildings will hear from all of us. Indeed, they have. The Taliban who provided a base and refuge for Al Qaeda are back in power in Afghanistan, and the mastermind and accomplices of the 19 Islamic hijackers have avoided the just punishment of the death penalty for their role in the murderous attacks. A spokesperson reportedly said that the president and the White House played no role in the process. Perhaps. But as Harry Truman said, the buck stops there. A Biden spokesperson in September 2023 stated that the administration was “committed to ensuring that the military commissions process is fair and delivers justice to the victims, survivors, families, and those accused of crimes.” The plea deal doesn’t do any of that. The American Civil Liberties Union, however, praised the government’s decision as the “right call.” If the ACLU is for it, it can’t be good. Appeasing Murder Opponents of the death penalty will now rightly argue that if the masterminds of the 9/11 murders of nearly 3,000 people didn’t get the death penalty, no one should. And terrorists throughout the world have seen again the fecklessness and feebleness of a far-left U.S. administration that is run by Obama holdovers who prided themselves on apologizing for past American sins against the Islamic world. Perhaps they believe that this is part of our penance for those sins. We have reached an awful milestone, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, where the terrible words have been pronounced against us: “Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.” Three men who masterminded and assisted the murder of 2,976 people on American soil will now spend their remaining years in prison at American taxpayers’ expense. The very families who lost loved ones will be made to help pay for the murderers’ prison stays. Whoever signed-off on this plea deal should hang their heads in shame. Those who have waited 23 years for justice have been betrayed by their own government. (READ MORE: Trump’s Teddy Roosevelt Moment) An NPR reporter suggested that “the Pentagon was motivated by the possibility of a Trump presidency because if Trump was elected, its very likely there would be no plea deal.” Something tells me we will shortly hear what the former president thinks of this deal. The post The 9/11 Murderers Escape the Death Penalty appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Within 24 hours, Hezbollah’s most senior military commander and Hamas’ political leader were assassinated in the capitals of Lebanon and Iran, respectively. Israel took responsibility for the first strike but declined to comment on the second attack, despite accusations from Iran and Hamas. Iran’s involvement has mainly been through proxies such as Hezbollah. However, an attack on Iran’s capital will likely provoke a direct response.  These two deaths will likely provoke coordinated responses from militant actors and inevitably escalate war across the region. The first of these assassinations was Hezbollah’s leader Fuad Shukur, also known as Sayyid Muhsan. He was killed on Tuesday by a strike that hit a civilian area in Beirut, Lebanon. At least three other people were killed and dozens were injured. The Israeli military announced: Israeli Air Force fighter jets eliminated the Hezbollah terrorist organization’s most senior military commander and the head of its Strategic Unit, Fuad Shukr ‘Sayyid Muhsan,’ in the area of Beirut.  Shukur was a senior advisor to Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. He was also a member of Hezbollah’s highest military body. Israel claimed he was responsible for the deaths of the 12 children killed in a rocket attack in the Golan Heights on Saturday. He was also wanted by the U.S. government for the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, which killed hundreds of American military personnel and foreign service workers there on a peacekeeping mission.  Since the war in Gaza began, Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged missile attacks almost daily. For months, the conflict appeared unlikely to escalate, but the suspected Hezbollah strike on a Golan Heights soccer field July 26 killing 12 Israeli children, followed by Israel’s retaliatory strike in Lebanon’s capital, may change that. Hezbollah official Ali Ammar told Al-Manar TV, “[t]he Israeli enemy has committed a great stupid act in size, timing, and circumstances by targeting an entirely civilian area”… The Israeli enemy will pay a price for this sooner or later.” The second attack occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning, intensifying the situation. Ismail Haniyeh, the chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau was killed by an airstrike in Tehran, Iran.  Shortly before his death, he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Haniyeh briefly served as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2006 and a year later he established an independent Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip.  Haniyeh’s role as the political figurehead for Hamas made him a likely target. In April, an anonymous Israeli diplomat claimed “Israel is ready to go after any member of Hamas involved in violence.” Considering the ongoing conflict and statements like these, Iran and Hamas immediately blamed Israel, although there is no evidence of Israeli involvement, and they have not commented on the killing.  During the war in Gaza, Iran’s involvement has mainly been through proxies such as Hezbollah. However, an attack on Iran’s capital will likely provoke a direct response.  Senior Iranian officials have already pledged retaliation: The response to an assassination will indeed be special operations — harder and intended to instill deep regret in the perpetrator…. Don’t do anything you may regret.  When asked about the recent attacks, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the events underscored the “imperative of getting the cease-fire.” An anonymous Western diplomat is less optimistic claiming “[t]he events in Tehran and Beirut [will] push the entire Middle East to a devastating regional war.” The latest developments make peace negotiations appear increasingly unlikely. Instead, the stage is set for the conflict to escalate to unprecedented levels of direct confrontation. READ MORE from Colin Agostisi: Biden Proposes Reforms to Overhaul the Supreme Court READ MORE on Israel: The Palestinian Authority Is Jihadist Too Rescued Hostages are a Sobering Reminder of Israel’s Fight in Gaza   The post Deaths of Hamas and Hezbollah Leaders Doom Cease-Fire Hopes  appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Whistleblowers Tell Sen. Hawley Acting Secret Service Chief Personally Ordered Cuts Ahead of Trump Rally, Targeted Agents Who Raised Security Concerns https://t.co/DxWI8Bz4ga — Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) August 2, 2024

from We Are Change:  TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

The Olympics have become an ABSOLUTE DISGRACE. All athletes, corporations and viewers should permanently BOYCOTT the Olympics. The entire organization should be dismantled and rendered obsolete, then replaced by something different that respects WOMEN and HUMANITY. https://t.co/Qas1cNtfvv — HealthRanger (@HealthRanger) August 1, 2024

from Breitbart: Investigative journalist Gerald Posner — whose deeply researched studies of the murders of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. made him a preeminent authority on political assassinations — says he can understand why so many people think there’s “something fishy” about the official story of the assassination attempt against former President […]

?NON-CITIZENS REGISTERED IN GA? Footage obtained by @realmuckraker shows numerous non-citizens admitting to being registered voters. A staggering 14% of the non-citizens spoken to admitted to being registered to voters. pic.twitter.com/0p38irDBZH — Oversight Project (@OversightPR) July 31, 2024