Tag: 2024 elections

Neither Harris Nor Her Party Perceives Any Constitutional Constraints on Gun Control

While this year’s Republican Party platform makes only a passing reference to Second Amendment rights, the platform approved at the Democratic National Convention this week does not mention them at all. But it does include eight references to “gun safety” and a section that brags about the Biden administration’s accomplishments in this area while laying out an agenda of additional firearm restrictions.

That treatment of this subject is similar to the approach that Democrats took in 2016, when their platform mentioned “the rights of responsible gun owners” but did not elucidate the basis of those rights, and in 2020, when the platform did not go even that far. The 2016 platform devoted a paragraph to gun control, which became two paragraphs in 2020 and has now expanded to five. Neither of the two most recent platforms so much as alludes to respect for gun rights.

By contrast, Democrats in 2000 promised to “respect the rights of hunters, sportsmen, and legitimate gun owners.” Four years later, after the gun issue, including Al Gore’s support for banning “assault weapons,” was widely blamed for contributing to George W. Bush’s election, Democrats promised to “protect Americans’ Second Amendment right to own firearms.” The 2008 and 2012 platforms included similar language, in both cases explicitly invoking the Second Amendment, which disappeared in the 2016 platform and now does not even seem like a dim memory for Democrats.

Whatever you make of former President Donald Trump’s evolution on gun rights, which seems to reflect political expendience rather than true conviction, he at least understands the importance of paying lip service to the Second Amendment. The current Democratic Party, by contrast, is intent on pushing gun control without acknowledging any constitutional limits on it.

“When I’m back in the Oval Office, no one will lay a finger on your firearms,” Trump promised at the National Rifle Association’s Great American Outdoor Show Presidential Forum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on February 9. “It’s not going to happen….Even as they turn America into a crime-ridden, gang-infested, terror-filled dumping ground, Joe Biden and his thugs will do everything in their power to confiscate your guns and annihilate your God-given right to self-defense. During my four years, nothing happened. And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield.”

In their platform, the Democrats quote those last four sentences, which they consider damning: “While he ‘did nothing,’ gun violence spiked: Trump oversaw the largest single-year increase in murders in history, including a 35 percent increase in gun murders. He refused to limit the use of high-capacity magazines after a Las Vegas shooter used a dozen 100-round magazines to kill 58 people. And, when confronted with horrific gun violence, he told families to ‘get over it.'”

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Dems Scramble To Walk Back Harris’ Price Control Scheme

Democrats are in damage control mode after Kamala Harris’ communist price control scheme received a harsh rebuke – including from the Washington Post, which characterized it as “populist gimmicks.“

Facing pressure to defend the plan, Democratic lawmakers are downplaying it as a pipe dream that has no chance of passing Congress, Politico reports.

The plan, unveiled as part of Harris’ first big economic policy speech, has become a focal talking point for Donald Trump and allies, who continue to frame it as “communist price controls.” Meanwhile, food industry officials and some left-of-center economists have warned that price controls could be detrimental, according to the report.

Central to the plan is a call for congress to pass the first-ever federal price gouging ban on food and grocery stores – mirroring legislation reintroduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) earlier this year, for which Warren was taken to task by CNBC‘s Joe Kernen.

Now, six Congressional Democrats and five Democratic aides tell Politico that they’ve been privately telling critics that the plan isn’t viable – and is instead a messaging tactic to to divert blame over inflation from the Biden-Harris administration.

Even many Democrats remain skeptical, or at least uncertain about how Harris would carry out her proposal, if elected. They’re still working on getting details, but many have left that for after the DNC. -Politico

“It’s clear to me these are very general, very lofty goals,” said one of the Democratic lawmakers.

“I honestly still don’t know how this would work,” said a second Democratic lawmaker.

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Cheerleaders of the Military-Industrial Complex

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have something in common.  They both embrace colossal Pentagon budgets and both celebrate the “lethality” of the U.S. military, which, they agree, must be the strongest, bestest, in the world.  They also agree on giving a blank check to Israel and its leaders to do whatever they want in Gaza to the Palestinians and will continue to provide whatever weapons Israel desires to kill massive numbers of Palestinians while flattening and destroying the Gaza Strip.

With respect to Iran, Harris appears to be even more hawkish than Trump, and indeed criticized him for not being aggressive enough with Iran’s leaders.  Harris is also a strong supporter of Ukraine, seeing war as its best option to defeat Russia, whereas Trump is more skeptical of war and more open to diplomacy with Putin and Russia.

This isn’t surprising.  Mainstream Democrats in DC are basically warmongering neo-conservatives on foreign policy, so a vote for Harris/Walz is a vote, as the “liberal” New York Times reported, for “muscular patriotism” (or, to paraphrase my wife, febrile and unapologetic nationalism).  This is Washington Beltway conformity at its finest, as organs such as the National Interest write unironic articles about cheerleading the wonders of the military-industrial complex (MIC).

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One More Whopper: Tim Walz Falsely Claimed He Was Named ‘Outstanding Young Nebraskan’ by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce

Kamala Harris’ vice presidential running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) was caught in another misrepresentation during his 2006 run for Congress, Alpha News reported Friday.

Walz, who was born and raised in Nebraska and enlisted in the Nebraska National Guard at seventeen, falsely claimed he had been named “Outstanding Young Nebraskan” by the Nebraska Chamber of Congress. After the chamber’s president sent a scathing letter to the Walz campaign a few days before the 2006 election, the campaign blamed a typographical error and claimed the award actually came from the Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce:

Alpha News excerpt:

In early 2006, when Walz ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, his campaign website stated that he had received an award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce for his contributions to the business community. This claim was refuted by Barry L. Kennedy, then-president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, who confirmed in a letter that Walz had never been the recipient of any such award.

“We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” Kennedy wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Alpha News.

Kennedy then requested that Walz remove the inaccurate claim.

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Thousands Of Undeliverable ‘Vote By Mail’ Ballots Were Cast On Aug 20 Primary Election

According to data obtained from the Florida Secretary of State’s office, and run through the National Change of Address and USPS systems, thousands of ballots that were undeliverable have been found to have been cast during the Aug 20 primary election in Pinellas County.

The data was run through investigate journalist Peter Bernegger’s ‘Titan’ system to match ballots listed as undeliverable, and still cast.

In one specific example, 6,375 ballots were cast where the voter had moved permanently out of state, and no longer able to vote in Florida elections. The ballots should have been returned as undeliverable.

In another example, 3,515 ballots were cast for voters who had moved and left no forwarding address.

In other words, there is no way these voters would have been able to cast a ballot that was never received.

These are just two examples of many more thousands of ballots that were listed as undeliverable.

Somehow, these ballots were harvested and cast.

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Be Prepared to Hear More about Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

Americans currently pay a wide variety of federal taxes on earned income, investment income, estates, gifts, alcohol, tobacco, and tariffs on numerous imports. Americans also pay state and local taxes on real property, personal property, retail sales, alcohol and tobacco.

No matter who becomes president in January 2025, Americans must be prepared for a great deal of heat—and perhaps some light—on taxes over the next year. At the top of the list will be former president Trump’s 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA), the provisions of which expire in December 2025. Congress must grapple with calls to extend many of the law’s provisions as the country faces continuing large federal budget deficits. It is unclear how the new 119th Congress may deal with TCJA expiration, and what the US tax code may look like after 2025.

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Evidence Revealed Of Possible Massive Hack Of Florida Election System During Aug 20 Primary

Something seems FUBAR in Florida’s elections. A massive amount of information is coming to light about a possible breach of VR Systems during the August 20th primary election in the state. VR Systems maintains Florida’s election data.

Many of the ‘MAGA’ supervisor of election candidates lost by huge margins.

2 of the 13 MAGA SOE Candidates won — Monroe and Seminole. But to be really correct, it was 2 out of the 9 who had primaries. There are 4 remaining with only general elections.

In addition to hundreds of thousands of fake ballots likely inserted into the system, it seems the system may have been breached as well.

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Foo Fighters Vow To Take “Appropriate Actions” Against Trump For Using ‘My Hero’ Song

The rock band Foo Fighters have stated that they will take “appropriate actions” against Donald Trump’s campaign after they used the song ‘My Hero’ to introduce Robert F. Kennedy Friday.

The epic moment took the internet by storm Friday night as RFK Jr officially endorsed Trump and joined him on stage, vowing to unite America.

Kennedy was greeted with a hero’s welcome at Trump’s rally in Glendale, Arizona.

However, Foo Fighters, fronted by Dave Grohl, issued a statement confirming they were not asked permission to use their hit and would not have granted it to Trump if they had been.

Billboard reports that a spokesman for the band said “Foo Fighters were not asked permission, and if they were, they would not have granted it.”

Furthermore, “appropriate actions are being taken” against the campaign, the spokesperson continued, adding that any royalties received as a result of this usage will be donated to the Harris/Walz campaign.

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It Hasn’t Worked Once, So Why Would A Politician Go All-In On Price Controls Now?

August 15th was the anniversary of the infamous “Nixon Shock”, when excessive spending and trade deficits had governments on the ropes, as prices climbed relentlessly, inflation soared into the double digits, while economic growth stalled.

In 1971 of that year, Nixon “temporarily” suspended convertibility of the US dollar for gold (still in effect), while simultaneously proclaiming a 90-day freeze on all wages and prices across the United States.

The stagflationary ’70s also saw Trudeau the 1st enact “The Anti-Inflation Act of 1975”, with his infamous “6 and 5” measures (a 6% cap on wage increases with a 5% cap on prices was supposed to put 1% back into the pocket of the peasants).

None of this worked, and as the lumpenpublic were mulched by higher prices and growing government, gold served as a barometer to it all – soaring from $35/oz at the time of the Nixon Shock to $850/oz in 1980 (that all-time high still won’t be exceeded in inflation adjusted terms until gold cracks about $2,580).

It took Paul Volcker  to get inflation under control with double-digit interest rates – (when the news came that he had been elevated from President of the New York Fed under Gerald Ford to Chairman by Jimmy Carter, Volcker’s wife burst into tears).

Today, 50 years later with a monetary regime that makes the ’70s look austere, double-digit interest rates are simply not an option – we’ve just seen a 5-sigma event nearly blow up the global monetary system from the BoJ nudging interest rates from the zero bound to 25bps.

With an unprecedented levels of monetary expansion and debt levels somewhere beyond nosebleed elevations, policy-makers and central bankers are trapped.

This is why we’re seeing a resurgence in popular rhetoric around the idea of price controls – everywhere from Jagmeet Singh here in Canada, who blames grocery store CEOs for inflation, to Dem nominee and incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris, channeling him with promises of food price controls as part of her election campaign.

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Obama’s Proxy Presidencies: No, You Can’t!

Mattieu Mabin, France 24’s Washington correspondent, reported on Barack Obama’s DNC 2024 speech Tuesday, noting:

It is remarkable to see how little Barack Obama has changed. What’s even more surprising is that, after leaving the White House nearly eight years ago, he can pick up his presidential rhetoric exactly where he left off, adding some required updates, and most notably, as if he were himself a candidate in 2024.

Oui, Monsieur Mabin, you’re right!  Barack Obama is, in effect, seeking his fourth term.

Obama served two terms as president from 2009 until 2017.  Following Donald Trump’s four years in the White House, Joe Biden was elected.  The Trump-Biden debate and Joe’s ouster as the 2024 candidate made it clear that Biden was not capable of being in charge for much of the past three and half years.  So who was? 

There are several candidates among the Democrat elite, among them the power pair, Bill and Hillary Clinton; Nancy Pelosi; Chuck Schumer; and Barack Obama.  There are certain indications that it was mostly the last.

Approximately three quarters of Biden’s key aides served under Obama. 

Biden’s key foreign policy posts (Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Wendy Sherman as deputy secretary of state, Victoria Nuland as undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Jon Finer as deputy national security adviser) were primarily promotions from the Obama administration.

Even the leftist Washington Post reported on January 5, 2021 that the “concern around Washington is that the same people who crafted and defended President Barack Obama’s foreign policy won’t be willing or able to recognize, much less rectify, its shortcomings. “

Those concerns have turned out to be well founded.

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