As he does so often, Donald Trump accepted something he read or heard as gospel truth and repeated it as fact, this time in a Presidential debate, and was promptly ‘factchecked” and subsequently ridiculed. The back-ground: a large number of Haitian “migrants,” who may or may not be here legally, seem to have ended up in Springfield, Ohio. One resident complained that they were eating pet geese and cats, her claim went viral, and the meme-makers have had a field day…
…as you can see.
Wow.
Without intense preparation, without biased and complicit moderators helping her along, without being able to shift focus to an adversary, this is what Kamala Harris is. Here we have just a ten minute interview featuring soft-ball questions from a friendly Philidelphia journalist, and the result is evasiveness, gibberish and vacuous non-answers.
Some highlights:
Asked about the ephemeral “opportunity economy,” Harris says,
“For example, thinking about developing and creating an opportunity economy where it’s about investing in areas that really need a lot of work and maybe focusing on, again, the aspirations and the dreams but also just recognizing that at this moment in time some of this stuff we could take for granted years ago, we can’t take for granted anymore.”
Oh. What????
Here’s Harris filibustering the basic and easy question, “Talk about bringing down prices and making life more affordable for people. What are one or two specific things you have in mind for that?”…
Well, I’ll start with this. I grew up a middle-class kid. My mother raised my sister and me. She worked very hard. She was able to finally save up enough money to buy our first house when I was a teenager. I grew up in a community of hardworking people. You know, construction workers and nurses and teachers. I try to explain to some people who might not have had the same experience, but a lot of people will relate to this.
You know, I grew up in a neighborhood of people who were really proud of their lawn, you know, and I was raised to believe and to know that all people deserve dignity and that we as Americans have a beautiful character. You know, we have ambitions and aspirations and dreams, but not everyone necessarily has access to the resources that can help them fuel those dreams and ambitions. So, when I talk about building an opportunity economy, it is very much with the mind of investing in the ambitions and aspirations and the incredible work ethic of the American people and creating opportunity for people, for example, to start a small business.
The only competent response to that babbling is to repeat the question as if Harris had a coughing fit or something, which the interviewer did not.
Here’s another Harris gem: “My focus is very much about what we need to do over the next 10-20 years to catch up to the 21st century around, again, capacity, but also challenges.”
Right. I do a lot of public speaking, and if I ever hear myself talking like that, I will check myself into the hospital on suspicion of suffering a stroke.
This is the candidate the Democratic Party believed was so superior to all other options that she was nominated by acclamation, without having to face any opposition at all. Here I would typically add, “Democracy!” but “Idiocracy!” seems more apt.
___________
Can anyone explain this? The WordPress AI bot was apparently completely confused by Harris’s blather and told me to tag this post “Harry Potter,” “Football” “Dreams” and “Fantasy.”
This is a short one, but not am easy one, because bias is so likely to be involved.
Althouse posted the [I almost wrote “horrifying,” but that would be biasing you]clip above that has “surfaced” from a podcast earlier this year. (Isn’t it fascinating that virtually no one was paying attention to Harris most of the time until she was suddenly anointed?).
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Or can her supposed endorsement of astrology (which in my view is about like saying you worship the Greek gods) be excused as just typical politician pandering to a substantial voting block? Althouse links to a list of ten leaders who supposedly believed in astrology, a collection which I would take with about about a truckload of salt. The claim that Ronald Reagan “leaned on astrology for guidance” is particularly weak: he met with an astrologer once, and he indulged Nancy’s interest in the nonsense, as most loving spouses would.
One question that occurred to me as I looked at the list: what is the cut-off point before which it is fair to attribute an individual’s belief in astrology to the absence of scientific knowledge generally?
Over night, Israel’s largest labor union called for nationwide strike to push for a hostage deal, threatening to shut down “the entire Israeli economy” Tel Aviv’s international airport announced that it would halt departures and arrivals of flights for two hours, and intense protests have broken out in response to Israel’s military recovering the bodies of six hostages killed in Gaza. The protesters say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not done enough to protect the hostages. To be blunt, the protesters are ethics dunces and morons….much like the American students, Democrats, pundits and the Biden administration trying to pressure Israel into a ruinous cease-fire with Hamas.
Just because I would vote for a Muppet before I would vote for Kennedy, he accurately described not only why he has abandoned the corrupt and undemocratic Democratic Party, but why any Democrat with integrity should.
Ann Althouse chose basically the same excerpt from the speech that I would have, so I’ll give her the pointer on the official Ethics Quote of the Week:
There has never been a U.S. political party with so little integrity or a convention so thoroughly confused about its values, direction, who it wants to appeal to, and what its culture is.
The fact that the Convention prominently features vans giving out free abortions and vasectomies (it’s Planned Parenthood, not the party proper, but it doesn’t matter) sends as militant an anti-family message as it would be possible to send. Then there are the all-gender bathrooms, making up 5% of the facilities at the convention hall, which about 1.6% of the population have a “which bathroom do I use?” problem. More...
1. Talk about rank incompetence: the official platform approved by the Democratic Party had never been edited to remove references to “Biden’s second term,” which appeared 19 times. How can anyone trust a party to run a government/agency/ lemonade stand that is this careless? Apparently Democrats are beyond embarrassment.
2. And speaking of the platform, here is a section that defies parody:
What does “acknowledgement” even mean in this context except as blatant virtue-signalling to another aggrieved minority group? “We care, but we’re not giving you your land back!”? “Time immemorial” is historical nonsense: the tribes weren’t here as the Earth cooled, they came here from other places, almost always displacing—killing—other groups of people who were here before them. Facts Don’t Matter to this party.
3. No sitting President in modern history has been treated with such disrespect by his own party as President Biden, whose address to the convention was shunted along to well past prime time. By any previous standard, the current, retiring President would be guaranteed the most prestigious slot, but Biden’s shambling condition reminds non-cultish voters that this party lied to them for a year or more, so the fewer who saw Joe speak, the better. Used to push Joe’s address past 11 pm. EST was the babble of Kamala Harris’s childhood friends, among others.
3. To be fair, Joe justified the decision to minimize his visibility, ad-libbing, “Those protesters out in the street, they have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides.” “Those protesters” carried Hamas flags and were substantially in favor of killing Jews. The level of Democratic Party analysis of the war in Gaza is that “innocent people” are being killed, so war bad, soooo let Hamas survive until its next terror attack on Israel. BUT the Biden-Harris administration stands faithfully behind Israel, except when it doesn’t. Got it. It makes sense if you are stupid and not capable of paying attention.
4. Did you know Donald Trump lies all the time? Biden again repeated the false narrative that Trump called white supremacists in Charlottesville “very fine people.” It doesn’t matter how many times and how many sources have pronounced this false, the Democrats continue to repeat it. That is the essence of a Big Lie strategy….but they do it to save democracy, see, so channeling Goebbels is okay.
5. They started chanting “Lock him up!” during Hillary’s speech. How ironic—and again, telling. Locking Trump up has been the theme of the Democratic Party’s efforts to avoid the electoral defeat they have so thoroughly earned. Democracy! Again again, this is a party incapable of shame or embarrassment.
I just heard a commentator on MLB’s cable channel describe James McCann’s now famous act of continuing play after getting a fastball thrown in his face as “the John Wayning of the catcher position.”
Perfect. I enthusiastically endorse the transformation of “John Wayne” into a verb: it’s a much needed one. To John Wayne is to continue to pursue the completion of one’s commitment, assigned task, or duty despite obstacles, threats, pain, personal hardship and danger—even to the point of fanaticism, futility or certain failure.
The Duke would have loved his creation becoming a word to describe that iconic American character. I plan on doing my part to see that John Wayne, verb: John Wayned/John Wayning/ catches on.
This shouldn’t be hard to grasp: incompetence really does matter in a President, as does trust.
Kamala Harris had a private discussion with Benjamin Netanyahu, a head of state. Diplomacy 101 dictates that when sensitive matters are discussed, neither party to such discussion reveals the details of what is said, nor does either party make statements after the meeting that undermine either the relationship between the two individuals, nor their respective nations, nor the interests and objectives of those nations.
This isn’t hard, nor should it be.
But for Kamala Harris, it is. This is a problem.
Having met with the Israel Prime Minister, Harris initially said that the U.S. has an “unwavering commitment” to Israel, its right to exist and its security. She called Hamas a “brutal terrorist organization.” Then she said,
Say what you like about Donald Trump, and if it isn’t one of the Big Lies, I may well agree. But this….
…holding another rally in Butler is pure political genius, and gutsy too. Imagine if Booth had missed, and Abe had announced, “I’m going back to Ford’s Theater to see how that play turned out!”
John Wayne would have loved it…BOTH John Waynes, the real life political conservative, and the icon he played in movies. It’s the equivalent of Rooster Cogburn taking the reins in his teeth and charging at Lucky Ned Pepper and his gang. The message is “You don’t scare me, assholes, and here I come!”
It is political genius, and a great display of classic American defiance.
Bravo.
This morning, I was simultaneously listening in on CNN (hyping Harris absurdly), MSNBC (well, you know) and Fox News, where the morning trio of hyper-partisan clowns were hosting Trump in a 30 minute phone monologue. First, I got a laugh when a CNN reporter commented on Harris having to navigate the complexities of Israel’s war with Gaza (Hamas). He actually said, first, “This is a major issue for Harris” and five seconds later that “Republicans are trying to make an issue out of this.” Yes, Harris was one of the first Democrats to call for a cease fire in Gaza, essentially making sure Hamas’s adverse consequences for slaughtering and raping Israel civilians on October 7 were minimal, but because she was only a VP at the time, and, after all, Kamala Harris, Idiot, nobody paid much attention to how irresponsible that position was. It is an issue, of course, but CNN will try “Republicans pounce!” even when everyone should pounce.
Ethics Alarms 