Month: July 2024

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Across America, the backyard grills are out and fired up, along with the rich and complicated culture they unleash. Watching this unfold, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is this feature of the experience more than the culinary results that provides the main attraction to grilling.

I’ll put the most provocative point up front so you don’t have to dig through and find it. The backyard grill allows men a space of control in a society and culture in which such settings have otherwise dwindled to nearly none. Before you get angry and cite a thousand exceptions and qualifications, and I’m sure they are all valid, hear me out.

When I was growing up in Texas, my grandmother did all the cooking and the kitchen was her domain, no question. There was a sense that the men weren’t even allowed in there. I never once saw my grandfather open a cabinet or the refrigerator. His job was to provide the material blessings of the house for his wonderful wife and children to enjoy. And enjoy them they did.

She was a kind and generous cook. As I was very interested in the kitchen goings-on, she took me in as her protege, teaching me baking and so on. I love it but that was unusual. My cousins were never part of that experience.

And yet once a year, around the fourth of July, that house hosted an extended family event in which the barbecue came out. My grandfather donned a chef’s coat and hat, and held high his huge cooking tools. The fire was built and the smoke from the cooking meat, wood, and coals lifted high in the air and drifted to all the neighbors.

Despite all the theater, he was only making burgers and hot dogs but that didn’t stop the waves of adulation he would receive for his fine skills. There was always a round of applause after and he took bows.

As a kid, I wondered at the time how that made my grandmother feel, who cooked 1,000 meals for his one. And yet the embedded ethos of the table in those days was always to praise her mastery at every meal without exception. Looking back, she must have felt great pride that her beloved husband had one day to bask in the warmth of a grateful clan that had been fed by the work of his own hands.

It’s obvious that the sheer physicality of the grilling experience taps into a primordial longing in the human personality in general but it seems particularly appealing to men.

The clinical and anodyne experience of modern kitchens, particularly with electric this and that, does not satisfy that evolved desire to build a real fire and sear meat on it.

It’s there in all of us, just waiting for the right season and setting.

Men are never more in their element than when poking around on a fire in the backyard and hurling large pieces of meat this way and that. It’s beautiful to watch. The experience is undeniably gendered too. Even when I was young, the women would be in the kitchen preparing the rolls and salads, while the men would be in the backyard building the fire for the grill.

The conversations were different too: Men spoke of practical and even gritty things as the women spoke of impractical and idealistic dreams. The men would speak in sharper, less decorous, and blunter ways than they would otherwise talk in mixed company, and the women (I’m told) would be more revealing of thoughts and speculations they would not otherwise share with men present.

To be clear, this separation was not about “power,” as the post-structuralists would have it; it was never about force or exclusion. It was to the advantage of both, each group with its own space, however temporary, so that when the two came to dinner as the meal was served, they could meet on common ground, each group shaving off the gendered eccentricities in deference to the other.

The outdoor grill enables this in ways that cooking indoors simply does not. Consistent with my childhood experience, and probably with experience dating back to prehistoric times, the kitchen space was always the primary domain of the women in the household, probably because in prehistoric times the division of labor meant that men would hunt and women would prepare the food.

But with hunting (mostly) gone and the experience of food acquisition itself now nothing more than a shopping experience, men have lost their usefulness. The outdoor grill offers something of an outlet.

All that aside, the outdoor grill offers a respite from the tedium of kitchen duty and the luxury of restaurants. It’s something we can do ourselves, close to the roots of our species.

If you are reading this as an apartment dweller, you might be feeling a bit of pain right now. For the most part, you cannot grill. There is either no space or your lease does not allow it. Perhaps you can get by with an electric grill on your tiny porch but, honestly, is there any point to that overcooking in the kitchen? Not really. Not much, in my view.

The choice between owning and renting is a financial one but there are practical implications, among which is this one. Your home and backyard enable the grill. Maybe you use it just a few weeks a year or maybe for months but most apartment dwellers never have that option. In other words, people could be paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for the grill, but for many this is entirely worth it.

Again, I long ago concluded that nearly every seeming advantage of outdoor grilling can be recreated with the skilled use of ovens and stoves in the kitchen. Even the smoke flavor has an authentic answer with liquid smoke that can be added to iron skillets and dutch ovens. In any case, the culinary advantages of grilling are not the primary point. The point is to build a real fire and recreate in a safe way the days of yore as a means of working out something deep within us.

The choice of grill itself is a fascinating one. They range from the most primitive to the most elaborate. I recently witnessed two neighbors grilling at the same time. One had a small/medium aluminum circle cut in half with a top and bottom filled with coals and wood, with no controls, switches, dials, hoses, starters, hooks or cabinets or anything else. It was probably $40.

The other neighbor had an apparatus that was likely fancier and with more technological sophistication than existed inside. Its stainless steel exterior gleamed like a fine treasure. It was a marvel and it probably costs up to $4,000 (I’m seeing online prices for these up to $15,000).

But which one does a better job? Which one speaks most to the primal need? I don’t need to give you my answer. It seems obvious to me that the closer you get to the essence of the thing, the better off you are, so I would certainly go for the simple model, with no propane and only the coals. The more technology you add, the less it seems to achieve the goal, unless the main point is a Veblenian one of creating an ostentatious display for others.

There are other advantages to a simple round grill (called a Weber). People can stand around it instead of only in front of it. That provides a better and more adaptable social environment.

There are other options at some public parks, which provide grills for the public to use. Bring your own coals, tools, and meat and you have all you need. Of course that doesn’t quite achieve that sense of having a “cave of one’s own” but it’s something in any case.

The reason we drag all these out at this time of the year is not just that the weather is nice and everything is green and pretty in the United States. It’s also about recalling our past: the Revolutionary War, the Founding era, and generally remembering who we are and what kinds of things we did before all the innovations, good and bad, interrupted our sense of rooted meaning and memory.

The outdoor grill offers the hope that we can find our way back to fundamentals again.

Though he separately assured staffers and governors on Wednesday that he’s staying in the race all the way to Election Day, President Biden has privately conceded to close allies that he must excel in his public appearances over the next several days if his campaign is to survive, according to the New York Times.  

Those upcoming events include weekend campaign stops in swing states Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but the most attention by far will be paid to a Friday night sit-down interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos. After taping the interview on Friday, July 5, ABC will provide a first glimpse of the conversation that evening via “World News Tonight with David Muir.” The full interview — after ABC’s edits — will air as a “primetime special” on Friday at 8pm ET, and again on Sunday morning’s “This Week.”  

In contrast to last week’s debate — when Americans who hadn’t been paying attention were shocked by Biden’s shuffling gait, periodic incoherence, weak voice and slack-jawed stares — the ABC interview will be pre-recorded, and it will be edited. However, seemingly in response to backlash about that taped-and-edited format, ABC has committed to releasing a full transcript of the interview on Friday.

As Fox News notes, that’s a decision with some significant historical context where both ABC and Stephanopoulos are concerned: 

In 2018, ABC News was heavily criticized for a massive editing job when former FBI Director James Comey sat down with Stephanopoulos for his first interview since he was abruptly fired by then-President Trump the previous year. The full transcript released by the network revealed it chose not to air several key moments during its Sunday night special, such as when Comey ripped former President Obama. 

Readers will naturally view the idea of a Stephanopoulos interview with justifiable wariness of soft-pitch questions and friendly editing. However, we’re in a different political world than last week, one where liberal media has abandoned its monolithic shielding of Biden’s mental health from public scrutiny. It’s a world where Stephanopoulos won’t be uniformly pressured by his peers and leftist mobs on social media to make Biden look “sharp as a tack,” to borrow the propaganda line that Biden’s defenders regularly employed in the months leading up to the debate.  

Biden is set to do his first post-debate interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Here’s George shouting over Nikki Haley last year when she questioned Biden’s ability to finish a second term: “How do you know Joe Biden is not going to finish his term? What is that based on?” pic.twitter.com/PT5vhVCUyy

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 2, 2024

To appreciate how much has changed, consider that the cornerstone leftist media institution — the New York Times — crossed the Rubicon last weekend. Its editorial board, noting Biden’s “infirmity” that Americans had “[seen] with their own eyes,” urged Biden to quit the race, saying that would be “the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now provide.”

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Boston Globe followed suit, along with columnists and pundits across the country, from Paul Krugman to James Carville and Joe Scarborough. Emboldened by the media’s lead, elected Democrats have started to issue their own pleas for Biden to quit, starting with Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett and Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva. A draft letter, intended to be signed by multiple members, is circulating on Capitol Hill. At least two House reps have publicly said Biden can’t win after what Americans saw in the debate. 

Given the debate-triggered earthquake that’s altered the leftist landscape, Stephanopoulos will likely feel significant pressure to act something like a real journalist, for once. Indeed, the interview could prove to be the most historically significant of his career. 

On the other side, Team Biden has every interest in molding the event to its benefit. On Wednesday night, the Daily Beast reported that Biden’s handlers are pulling on one very significant lever — the length of the interview, which will take place in Wisconsin as Biden is on the campaign trail:

The Beast has learned that behind the scenes there is deep concern inside ABC News’ upper echelons that Stephanopolous could get as little as 15 minutes to conduct what should be a searching interview offering insight into the president’s mental state...

One source suggested it would be more in the range of 20 minutes—still a relatively short period of time for even an accomplished interviewer to cover questions both over Biden’s cognitive state and his ability to stay in the campaign

The Biden campaign is forced to balance two huge risks. A longer interview increases the odds of a major Biden flub, while a shorter interview could anger Democrats who — wary of not only losing the White House but also suffering consequences up and down the ballot — are demanding that Biden quickly and urgently make a strong case that he’s mentally fit to serve another term. 

In the week following the debate, Biden’s response has disappointed Democratic leaders and major donors alike, with a senior campaign advisor telling the Washington Post that Biden had met widespread panic with “deafening silence.” 

This is Joe Biden ‘19 and ‘24. Until the debate the media tried to deny this. Who you gonna trust; them or your own lying eyes?! pic.twitter.com/y7xAeDMaGI

— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) June 29, 2024

His few efforts to shore up public opinion during that stretch have been terribly underwhelming. Attendees at a celebrity-laden fundraiser in the Hamptons on Saturday said Biden’s appearance only reinforced their deep worries about his fitness. The event was tightly orchestrated, and Biden did his speaking with the aid of a teleprompter, reminding attendees that he struggles to manage unscripted dialogue — even with a friendly audience. 

Similarly, when Biden took to a White House podium to address the Supreme Court ruling providing a large degree of legal immunity to former President Trump, he read from a teleprompter and left without taking any questions from the press.   

ABC is certain to garner high ratings on Friday night; Biden’s chance of prospering from the opportunity is much lower. 

Authored by Justin Smith via The Burning Platform blog,

Americans probably still have many good reasons to be proud of America, but as I sat thinking about what I would write to commemorate our Independence Day, they all seemed to evade me at the moment, given where we find our country today. And even tho’ we have seen some recent gains moving the country away from the Marxist-Maoist Democrat Party’s communist agenda and the plan to fundamentally transform America into something despicable, foreign and conquered, it will be for naught so long as the American people keep embracing corrupt politicians and act as tho’ the Bill of Rights are unimportant footnotes in Mad Magazine, written by President Alfred E. Newman, trudging into the years ahead unprincipled and immoral as ever.

After decades of witnessing America hasten into a dark nightmare of an existence and an ever more uncertain, ill-prepared direction for the future of the country, under a fascist Marxist-Maoist regime, our reasons to be proud of this country have become practically non-existent, on this 4th of July, due to largely inadequate counters or no counterattacks at all to prevent or halt the constant and continuous assaults and attacks by America’s domestic terrorists and the enemies-from-within, as well as enemies from abroad. And as many prepare to celebrate America’s Independence Day, Americans should reflect on their own vision for the not so “united” United States of America and whether or not they love this nation enough to ensure its continued success and survival throughout the 21st century as the greatest nation on earth.

This is the nation that gave the world the marriage between the ideas of liberty and the equality of all under the law, which greatly enabled and facilitated the highest levels of individual liberty and the greatest economic prosperity ever seen throughout the entire history of mankind. This alone would ordinarily make America a very Exceptional nation indeed, if not for the advent of the new amerikkans who hate America’s founding, Her principles and Western civilization itself.

The American Flag is heavily worn, and its stars are faded today, after roughly 200 years of America being such an exceptional nation. Yes, we know She’s stood tall for many years, the best She could for 248 years, but a large segment of the American people — those with a long line of American ancestry as well as the newer generations of immigrants — have themselves diminished and torn asunder the luster of the idea of American Exceptionalism and that Shining City on the Hill that has so often been used across history to depict America, and in far too many instances they have sabotaged the country and American virtues and principles by way of numerous Machiavellian mechanisms, as seen for example in the 1913 Federal Reserve Bank Act, 1929 Stock Market Crash, 1965 Immigration Act, the Covid Pandemic, mail-in ballots, “Election Month” instead of “Election Day” and the New Green Deal.

Our nation emerged from the fire, fury and chaos of the War for Independence with the hopes of the people and a people determined to live free through their own capabilities and devices without the heavy, tyrannical hand of any government from that day on, but from the looks of things today, those hopes were dashed repeatedly across the ages. They revolted over a two percent tax hike on tea, and yet here we sit today taxed on every damned thing under the sun, including the property we supposedly own and the very damned air we breathe.

The average American has many more valid reasons to revolt today, than they had in 1776. Consider the Declaration of Independence, and then consider the current political malaise that has grabbed the American people by the cajones and seemingly just sucked the will and the life out of them, as they sit back ever complacent and apathetic as a Marxist-Maoist juggernaut rolls over their inalienable God-given rights as seen in Natural Law made by God the Creator. One can almost hear the bleating as one walks down Main Street USA.

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and intransient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Never in American history have we seen our country and its people so sorely abused and put upon. Never have the American people suffered such a long train of abuses and usurpations, as we are suffering through today under this Marxist-Maoist communist regime that has captured our government through and through. And it’s damned hard to be proud of a country that has allowed for this, that stands by this very moment watching as if the situation will somehow miraculously resolve itself, as the Democratic Party move ahead with the fundamental transformation of America into something foreign and antithetical to Her founding, a tyrannical Socialist Super-State

It’s damned hard to be proud of a country that is doing next to nothing to stop the treason on the southern border that allows millions of illegal aliens to cross each year, mostly military aged men from all across the world, from the socialist-loving people of Nicaragua, Mexico and El Salvador to nations hostile to America like China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and many others too — smuggling tons of China’s death dealing fentanyl into the country in the process. Yes, there’s nothing for the American people to be proud to see in a country that won’t stand up in the face of an existential threat, because its people have grown weak and complacent and obedient to their deaths, even with the Democrat Party admitting they plan to legitimize these illegal aliens and hand them “the right to vote”.

Yea — I can’t be too proud of America when She has nearly totally forgotten Her Veterans in far too many respects, as we see thousands of homeless Veterans trying to get help in vain, while the Veteran Administration Office is busy filing medical claims for Illegal Aliens [I shit You not] as explained in a recent article by Representative Greg Steube (R-FL).

How can anyone be proud of America when the tyrant in the Oval Office has weaponized the DOJ, the FBI and the IRS against his political opponents with impunity, giving a wink and a nod to Attorney Generals in every state that it’s open season on former President Donald Trump and any conservative or independent political leaders that currently are trying to fight back in any meaningful manner against the Biden regime’s anti-American agenda? No one should be proud to see this illegal and unconstitutional lawfare being utilized as tho’ it’s business as usual.

How can anyone be proud of a country that allows Government Agents to gun down innocent patriotic Americans such as Randy Weaver’s wife Vicki and his son Sammy, LaVoy Finicum and Ashli Babbitt under suspect and largely unwarranted circumstances?

And it sure as hell is hard to be proud of America, when so many of Her leaders seem to give more allegiance to foreign interests than they give to America, especially where the Bidens, Clintons and McConnells [and many others too] are concerned in regard to their respective dealings with China and Russia, especially when one looks at the millions handed to the Biden Crime Family by several Big Players in the Chinese Communist Party.

Are you proud of this America that has spent and manipulated us all into economic oblivion and a debt-based economy hell that forces everyone in a household to have to work a fulltime job and a parttime job too, since 2000, making the traders and top business executives even wealthier while everyone else goes bust? Are you proud of an America that has every ordinary citizen pinching pennies and scraping everything they can together, just to get by, when it was just sixty years ago that one man’s salary would still pay the rent/mortgage, utilities, gas for the car and groceries for a family of four.

It’s damned hard to be proud of a country that, despite the final defeat of Roe vs Wade, still promotes and facilitates the murder of millions of unborn babies, even up to them exiting the birth canal, as millions cry “a woman’s right to free reproduction”. How about they clamp their damned legs shut if they don’t want children, or get on the pill and make their sexual liaison wear a condom? Better yet, wouldn’t it be a fine thing and the right thing if they could be brave enough to allow the baby its life and give it to loving adoptive parents?

How can we be proud of America, when so many of Her people revel in their sick, demented, immoral perversions and deviancy and brainwash America’s children so deeply that twenty-five percent of that demographic now identifies as non-binary, homosexual or transsexual? What is there to be proud of in a country that enables minor children to be severely damaged both physically and psychologically for life, behind their parents’ back, and given transsexual gender therapy treatment? I’ll tell You what. NOTHING. Not one damned thing.

There’s nothing found in a country to instill pride, when its own churches wallow in the immoral ways of society and lend comfort to the deviant pervert heretics, even to the point of allowing “drag queens” to promote their sinful way of life before the congregants.

What pride is to be found in an America that has forgotten God and Her own founding virtues and principles?

No one believes this current situation or this current government’s agenda represent anything remotely close to the principles our ancestors fought to defend and preserve in 1776 or WWI and WWII.

“president” Joe aka Traitor Joe does not love America, or he would not be attempting to “fundamentally change” Her into something completely antithetical to every idea and principle She is founded upon. He wouldn’t be destroying our border security, our energy infrastructure, our economy and our families if he had the tiniest bit of concern or true love for America.

Yes. This 4th of July, it’s hard to feel proud of an America that has fallen so far from its beginning.

Americans must stop enabling the fools and knaves in the ranks of the Democrat Party Communists and RINOs to twist and manipulate the truth, and they can no longer remain so passive as these anti-Americans break the fine things so many have devoted their lives to build by way of their insane and asinine policies, that are purposely designed to destroy America. We will kneel and build them again, forcing our hearts and nerve and sinew to fight on long after we are worn out, and so, we hold on and continue when there is nothing in us except the will to enable and ensure that a free America will soon exist once more, after this next election. Afterward, if we are not compelled toward armed rebellion beforehand, we will untangle ourselves from the Marxist-Maoist tentacles and the mess the communist ideology has created within our system and, perhaps, return America and Her courage to Her resplendent magnificence and place of honor, in order that we may preserve freedom and individual liberty far into the future for our children and grandchildren and their children’s children, and many generations yet to come.

Now more than ever, America needs Her people to return to God and the principles upon which She was founded and to remember those things that made America great so many years ago, to understand that America still has the potential to be great again, far into the future, if only Her people will take a hard stand for true freedom and liberty for all.

Thinking of what America faced then and now, I think of the rousing speech Patrick Henry delivered to the Continental Congress in the spring of 1775. Henry concluded:

“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. … There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our Chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

“… Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Even more heart-wrenching are the final words of the Declaration of Independence, since every signer of this sacred document believed he was signing his own death warrant:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

My eternal allegiance is to God, Family and America, and for anyone who desires to rebuild America anew, we must pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

 Shares of Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly extended declines after Mass Eye and Ear, a Harvard-affiliated hospital, revealed in a new study published in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology that people prescribed semaglutide, sold as Ozempic and Wegovy (Novo), have an elevated risk of developing a “potentially blinding eye condition” called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). 

“The study found people with diabetes who had been prescribed semaglutide by their physician and then filled the prescription were more than four times more likely to be diagnosed with NAION,” Mass Eye and Ear wrote in a press release, adding, “Those who were overweight or had obesity and prescribed this drug were more than seven times more likely to get the diagnosis.” 

The study, which was led by Joseph Rizzo, MD, director of the Neuro-Ophthalmology Service at Mass Eye and Ear, wrote that the “use of these drugs has exploded throughout industrialized countries and they have provided very significant benefits in many ways, but future discussions between a patient and their physician should include NAION as a potential risk.” 

Rizzo said, “It is important to appreciate, however, that the increased risk relates to a disorder that is relatively uncommon.”

Rizzo disclosed that his research team analyzed thousands of medical records from Mass Eye and Ear to discover the connection between semaglutide and NAION:

The researchers analyzed the records of more than 17,000 Mass Eye and Ear patients treated over the six years since Ozempic was released and divided the patients in those who were diagnosed with either diabetes or overweight/ obesity. The researchers compared patients who had received prescriptions for semaglutide compared to those taking other diabetes or weight loss drugs. Then, they analyzed the rate of NAION diagnoses in the groups, which revealed the significant risk increases.

Rizzo noted several limitations to the study:

“Mass Eye and Ear sees an unusually high number of people with rare eye diseases, the study population is majority white, and the number of NAION cases seen over the six-year study period is relatively small. With small case numbers, statistics can change quickly.” 

Mahyar Etminan, a drug safety researcher at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Bloomberg, “This is a very serious condition, so if it were true, it changes the risk-benefit calculus.”

In the markets, shares of Novo Nordisk in Copenhagen extended their decline, dropping 2.6%, while Eli Lilly in New York fell by around 2%.

Earlier, both pharma companies fell after President Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders co-authored an opinion piece in USA Today, urging big pharma to slash the prices of anti-obesity drugs

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

It was only a couple of days ago that I reminded my readers that, if it was necessary to replace Joe Biden, the DNC would do what both politically parties consistently do: make the worst decision possible.

And now it looks like that’s exactly what’s happening.

On Wednesday the New York Times reported that President Biden was reconsidering his options for running, stating that he admitted to a key ally that salvaging his candidacy hinges on convincing the public he’s fit for the job after last week’s poor debate performance. Good luck with that…

He is still committed to re-election, the Times wrote, but recognizes that upcoming appearances—including an interview with George Stephanopoulos and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—are crucial.

“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” said the ally, speaking anonymously about the sensitive matter.

Also on Wednesday PredictIt polls for Kamala Harris to be next in line for the nomination shot through the roof, going limit up to $0.57 and leaving Biden at just $0.27 at one point.

Drudge Report has led with “It’s Her Party Now” and followed up by asking who Kamala’s running mate will be.

 

Later in the day, CNBC’s David Faber refuted the Times story about Biden considering withdrawing, possibly indicating one of the world’s most hilarious all-time backfires for the party of the Deep State: the Deep State is potentially running a shadow coup for the Democratic Party against its own sitting President, utilizing the media to fulfill their objectives.

Sleep with the dogs and you might catch fleas.

I can’t say I’m surprised, I wrote about this unfolding days ago, stating:

If there’s one political rule that always seems to hold true, it’s that both parties will wind up choosing the worst possible selection for whatever needs they seek to fulfill.

Anyway, every two years, we have a major round of elections, and every two years I’m stunned that the slate of candidates we put up for election are passed off as representing the best we can do on both sides of the aisle.

And every four years, it seems like there are always running jokes during the presidential election that most people would vote for literally anybody other than the two choices they are being given.

As someone who leans conservative, I hope this maxim of choosing the worst possible replacement continues to hold true when it comes to Joe Biden’s coming replacement.

If I had to guess, second to Hillary would be Kamala Harris because the Democrats probably feel like they “owe it” to her, not only for being current vice president but also for DEI purposes.

I can’t even begin to tell you how terrible either of these selections would be, not only for the country but for the Democratic Party. Both candidates are unbearable, and the country has already had their fill of both of them.

Clinton would be the closer race of the two, in my opinion, because if you recall correctly, Harris got curb-stomped during the Democratic primaries while making her run for president.

And, for the most part it appears the country still finds her detestable, which is great news for Donald Trump. Democrats may be carrying out a coup on their own President to replace him with the only human being on a planet full of 5 billion adults who may be capable of losing by a larger margin than Biden.

As a reminder, here’s some of Kamala’s pearls of wisdom while Vice President.

• “Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong.”

• “Today is today. And yesterday was for us today, but yesterday. And tomorrow will be for us today, but tomorrow. So live today so that what is coming today will be for you like yesterday today, only tomorrow.”

• “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’ You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

• “We also recognize just as it has been in the United States, for Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in the way of its impact has been the pandemic.” 

• “And so for years we have worked to expand investment in community banks because, you see, community banks specialize in providing loans and financial assistance to small business owners, in particular those in overlooked and underserved communities, including rural communities. And as the name suggests, community banks are in the community.”

And she’s not just a terrible replacement because she’s an airhead — she’s also a terrible pick because she shares responsibility for Biden’s horrific tenure as President. As Vice President, Harris has been integral to the administration’s decisions, from the handling of the border crisis as “Czar” (I’ll pause for laughter) to spiking inflation and awful foreign policy maneuvers. Her involvement in these areas implicates her in the administration’s failures and erodes her credibility as a change agent. Rather than representing a fresh start, her succession would likely be perceived as a continuation of the status quo, undermining confidence in her ability to steer the country in a new and more effective direction.

My only hope now is that Donald Trump selects Tulsi Gabbard as his VP pick. I wanted this before I heard the Kamala news today, but it would hit so much harder now, especially given how Tusli torched Kamala during the 2020 Democratic Primary debates.

In a fiery exchange during the debate, Gabbard delivered a devastating critique of Kamala Harris’s record as California’s Attorney General. Gabbard accused Harris of hypocrisy, highlighting her stringent policies on marijuana convictions despite admitting to using the drug herself. Gabbard also pointed out Harris’s role in blocking evidence that could have freed an innocent man from death row and her resistance to criminal justice reforms.

The confrontation left Harris visibly flustered, damaging her campaign’s narrative and raising questions about her progressive credentials. This moment was widely regarded as a significant blow to Harris’s bid for the nomination, showcasing Gabbard’s sharp debating skills and willingness to challenge the establishment.

Her entire Presidential run crashed and burned shortly thereafter.

And I think I speak for more than myself when I say I’d love to see a replay of that.

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French President Emmanuel Macron’s office issued a statement Wednesday urging “cool-headedness” and “moderation” aimed at the National Rally (RN) party and its supporters, after Marine Le Pen on Tuesday charged that Macron is leading an “administrative coup d’état” to make last-minute appointments, in order to throw up roadblocks should Jordan Bardella assume office as prime minister.

“It’s a form of administrative coup d’état,” denounced Le Pen, who described that Macron is seeking to “counter the vote of the electors, the result of the elections, by appointing people to [him], so that they prevent, within the State, from being able to lead the policy that the French want.”

“For people who give lessons in democracy to the whole world, it’s still surprising to act in this way,” she continued. “In these cases, it shouldn’t have been dissolved.”

However, opponents to Le Pen and those trying to prevent her party which is commonly referenced as the French ‘far right’ have claimed this kind of summer administration leadership shake-up “has always been done”.

Below is a partial list of rapid appointments by Macron over the last days, via Le Monde:

• a new military governor of Paris
• a new chief of staff of the air force
• new director of the European Union at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• three ambassadors were designated
• new administrators appointed over academic regions

The statement from Macron’s office ripped the accusation as false and misleading, and politically motivated.

“For sixty-six years, there have been appointments and movements every week, particularly in the summer, regardless of the political moments experienced by our institutions, and there is no plan that any of these provisions could change in the coming months,” the statement from the presidency said.

These tit-for-tat denunciations have come days before the RN could be poised to win an absolute majority in the National Assembly during a July 7 run-off. To review, below is how first round of the legislative elections went last Sunday:

• RN:33.1% of the vote
• New Popular Front: 28%
• Macron’s Ensemble coalition: 20%

However, France’s left-wing and centrist parties are in a rare moment of cooperation banding together, and pulling out all the stops, with the French political world now in the midst of intense horse-trading. In constituencies where three people qualified for the runoffs, the third-placed candidate can withdraw to boost the chances of another mainstream party defeating the far right.

An underrated story in this French election is young people’s total rejection of centrism.

Macron’s party wins among people aged 70+, and absolutely bombs with 18-24s. pic.twitter.com/b7JwNHrL7K

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) July 2, 2024

Bloomberg reports Wednesday that “Macron’s group, the left-wing New Popular Front and other parties opposed to the National Rally strategically pulled 223 candidates out of constituencies with more than two people in Sunday’s runoff vote in an effort to avoid splitting opposition to the far right.” The end result will be that “Le Pen’s party and its allies will be on the ballot in 214 districts where rivals have teamed up,” according to the report.

“I believe the National Rally can win the election Sunday with an absolute majority,” 28-year old Bardella, who is poised to become the youngest French prime minister in history, told BFM Television earlier this week. “I plan on putting together a government of national unity, based on this absolute majority, to carry out the recovery project that I presented to the country.” The RN has meanwhile been presenting itself as the only chance France has of preserving true democracy and staving off the “chaos of the far-left”—and everything it represents from lax borders to deepening military involvement in Ukraine.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Politico published a piece on Tuesday about how “Trump’s Plan for NATO Is Emerging”, which cites some on-the-record and unnamed sources to describe his approach towards the bloc if he’s re-elected. It’s based upon a policy brief that was written by Dr. Sumantra Maitra in February 2023 for the Trump-affiliated Center for Renewing America. Titled “Pivoting the US Away from Europe to a Dormant NATO”, it details how the US can get the EU to defend Europe while the US focuses on containing China in Asia.

The gist is that the US would pull funding from non-essential NATO activities that have nothing to do with defending the bloc from a Russian attack, which Maitra believes isn’t realistic anyhow owing to a lack of will and capability, thus enabling it to return to its core mission and reduce bureaucratic bloat. Everyone would be pressured to ramp up military spending in order to remain under the US’ nuclear umbrella, but sub-bloc coalitions would take responsibility for defending the eastern flank, not the US.

Maitra’s proposal is aimed at ending the era of European freeloading by abruptly shifting the burden for continental defense onto their shoulders, with the US then transforming into an “offshore balancer” vis-à-vis Eurasia (mostly with respect to China and Russia) and “a logistics provider of last resort” for the EU. As part of this transition, the EU would develop cross-border defense industries instead of retaining its purely national ones so as to improve interoperability, thus facilitating the US’ aforesaid logistics role.

As regards Politico’s piece, which builds upon Maitra’s policy brief in the ways that were just explained, Trump 2.0 would also reportedly halt NATO expansion while entertaining the idea of freezing the NATO-Russian proxy war along the Line of Contact. In principle, this approach would meet some of Russia’s security guarantee requests, thus possibly creating grounds for a pragmatic compromise. Suffice to say, Ukraine wouldn’t be allowed to join NATO, though it would still maintain military ties with the West.

Although the Biden Administration is controlled by liberal–globalists who believe that the US should continue letting the EU freeload off of it as a reward for their ideological alignment, military-strategic imperatives vis-a-vis China have already prompted the Pentagon to partially implement Trump’s plan. This has taken the form of promoting the rapid resumption of Germany’s military leadership in the EU via the “Fortress Europe” project, which the two preceding hyperlinked analyses describe at length.

In brief, the idea is for the US to rely on a German-led sub-bloc for containing Russia in Europe at the US’ behest as the US “Pivots (back) to Asia” to contain China, which would be facilitated by its “friendly rival” Poland’s comprehensive subordination as Berlin’s “junior partner”. Like Germany, Poland also wants to build the EU’s largest land force, and these two’s efforts can complement one another if they’re coordinated by the US through the aforementioned hierarchy.

The “military Schengen” that those two and the Netherlands agreed to in February, which was recently joined by France, could soon foreseeably expand to include the Baltic States and thus accelerate the construction of the planned “EU defense line” along the bloc’s eastern borders. These processes are already unfolding despite the Biden Administration’s ideological agenda precisely because the Pentagon realized that this is the most optimal way to maintain America’s military leadership in the New Cold War.

The US can’t remain mired in a European “forever war”, which is what the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine could become if Moscow doesn’t achieve a military breakthrough brought about by its lead in the “race of logistics”/ “war of attrition”, otherwise China’s rise would become uncontrollable. This explains why anti-Russian hawk Kaja Kallas said last month that Ukraine can achieve “victory” even without reconquering its lost regions while Biden said around the same time that it might not join NATO.

These are major concessions that scale back the West’s hitherto maximalist goals in that conflict, though they also coincided with more escalations such as openly letting Ukraine hit any targets inside of Russia, dispatching additional air defenses to Ukraine, and considering officially contracting PMCs there, et al.

This contradiction is accounted for by the struggle between the US’ ruling liberal-globalist faction and their comparatively less radical rivals who want to “Pivot (back) to Asia” as soon as possible.

The first wants a “forever war” in Europe for ideological reasons so as to unite the West around the US’ “moral leadership” since it frames the New Cold War as a battle between “democracies and autocracies”, while the second has more realists within their ranks who see everything geopolitically. Accordingly, the liberal-globalists prioritize containing Russia, while their rivals prioritize containing China. The growing friction between them at this crucial moment in the New Cold War is responsible for these mixed signals.

Nevertheless, while the outcome of their struggle remains unclear since a lot will depend on the US’ presidential election, the fact of the matter is that the Biden Administration has still presided over the partial implementation of Trump’s plan as was already explained. Supplementary evidence of this includes the EU’s first-ever “Defense Industry Strategy”, which Politico summarized here, thus showing that Maitra’s cross-border industrial proposal is being advanced in parallel with the sub-bloc one.

These military, political, and diplomatic developments are aimed at optimizing the US’ power projection given its limited industrial capabilities at present, newfound intense competition from the Sino–Russo Entente, and the latest strategic dynamics of the Ukrainian Conflict. These factors converged over the past year to push the Pentagon into independently promulgating some of the policies that Maitra suggested even if its policymakers might have been completely unaware of his suggestions.

If the liberal-globalists’ Democrat proxies remain in the White House, then Maitra’s vision will likely remain only partially implemented since it’s unlikely that the US would end the era of European freeloading due to that ruling clique’s ideological interests. If Trump returns, however, then everyone should expect that his plans will be more comprehensively implemented even if they might still ultimately fall somewhat short of their maximalist goals for presently unforeseeable reasons.

Hezbollah’s use of drones is a nightmare for Israel’s defenses. Difficult to track and identify, these drones can overwhelm and evade even the most advanced air defense systems. This threat was realized on Sunday when more than a dozen IDF soldiers were injured in a drone attack. 

Bloomberg reported on Sunday that 18 soldiers were injured in a drone attack by Hezbollah. The drone assault in the northern Golan Heights comes as the Israel-Hamas conflict appears to be broadening. 

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the area between southern Lebanon and northern Israel due to skirmishes between IDF soldiers and Hezbollah fighters.

According to Yoni Tobin, an analyst for the hawkish think tank Jewish Institute for National Security of America, which has ties to Israel’s government and military, the Iran-backed terror group launched at least 130 suicide drones at Israel in June. Since the war began, the group launched 390 drones at Israel. The outbreak started in October of last year. 

“Hezbollah’s drones pose serious threats to Israel, given the size of these arsenals, the drones’ maneuverability, payloads, accuracy, and range, and Hezbollah’s domestic manufacturing capability,” Tobin wrote in a report. 

He said Hezbollah has at least 2,000 drones, mostly the Ababil-T suicide drone. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has suggested the group can manufacture drones and replenish stockpiles. 

The analyst pointed out that the built-in GPS systems of these kamikaze drones allow for a “high degree of accuracy” when navigating the modern battlefield. He noted that Hezbollah’s Iran-made Ababil and Shahed-129 drones have a range of over 100 kilometers and up to 1,800 kilometers, respectively. 

The threat range of the drones shows that conflict areas could easily spill over across the region. 

This week, Bloomberg spoke with Western officials who said China and Russia are working together to develop an attack drone similar to Iran’s Shahed drone. 

Tobin ended the note, explaining, “The United States should expeditiously provide Israel with all weapons systems, including Iron Dome kinetic interceptors and newer-model Apache combat helicopters, needed to intercept incoming Hezbollah drones.” 

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been withholding weapons and ammunition from Israel as it continues to battle Hamas. Axios reported last week that Biden’s team will be releasing 500-pound bombs that were put on hold in April.  

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Biden administration of withholding weapons transfers to Israel, in violation of stated promises that Washington would remove all restrictions on arms deliveries.

None of this indicates that peace is on the horizon. The world remains in turmoil while elderly President Biden likely enjoys his ice cream while members of his own party call for him to step down.

Authored by Iain Murray via The American Institute for Economic Research,

In 2023, the British Conservative Party decided to oust its leader, Boris Johnson, who had led them to a resounding electoral victory in 2019, over a slice of cake. He was succeeded by his Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss. I was delighted by this appointment; while Boris had been an excellent electoral leader, he didn’t have the grasp of the importance of free market economics that Mrs. Truss did. Yet fewer than fifty days later, the same forces that did for Boris did for her as well. The consequence, we will see soon, is likely electoral oblivion for the Conservative Party. 

In her book Ten Years to Save the West (Regnery), Mrs. Truss ably sets out just what has gone wrong for Britain and its most successful political party. She does so by explaining the difficulties she encountered at every stage in her Ministerial career, both from within the party and among the civil service advisers who were supposed to be working for her. 

In the education department, her attempts at small reforms around childcare were opposed at every step by what her then-boss, Michael Gove, called “the blob.” (Mr. Gove does not come out of this book without criticism, it has to be said.) The blob consists of a variety of civil service officials, charitable sector workers, journalists, and members of QUANGOs (“quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations”) who represent the institutional status quo. The book demonstrates that there are blobs for each area of government policy, perhaps all sub-blobs of one enormous plasmid that represents the latest form of the famous British establishment. 

At the education department, the environment department, and the Ministry of Justice, it became apparent that little could get done without the appropriate blob’s consent. As she says towards the end of her book, the victories she did achieve over her career were tiny in proportion to the amount of effort needed. 

It is worth noting, as Truss does on several occasions, that the blob is a relatively recent invention. When I worked in the British civil service in the 1990s, it was seen as a matter of principle that the civil servant did the Minister’s bidding without fear or favor, even if the Minister chose to reject the servant’s advice (the clue is in the name). Yet during the Blair/Brown governments the civil service became politicized and — more importantly — vast powers were given to QUANGOs in the name of depoliticizing an issue. Thus, monetary policy was given over to the Bank of England and the naming of judges was entrusted to the Judicial Appointments Commission. At the same time, the charitable sector became more and more dependent on government grants. So did the blob feed and grow. 

Mrs. Truss’ chief lament is that the successive Conservative governments of David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson himself did nothing to dismantle this new constitutional arrangement. Indeed, one of Cameron’s first acts was one of spectacular unilateral disarmament, by effectively giving over control of fiscal policy to a QUANGO called the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR.) With each such act, democratic accountability was removed from the process. 

Parallel to this lack of accountability, however, grew a bizarre reverence for the role of these institutions among the supposed watchmen of democracy, the press. The BBC and other media organs treat the pronouncements of the QUANGOs as if they handed down from the mountain, while the objections of conservative politicians (at least the few who still resist the blobs) are treated as venal and self-serving, despite them being the elected representatives of the people. 

It was this combination of forces that took down Liz Truss so quickly, despite her holding the highest office in the land. Interests at the Treasury, Bank of England, and OBR made a series of missteps following the Federal Reserve’s actions to raise interest rates following the post-COVID inflation that it had helped create and proceeded to blame the results on the Prime Minister’s modestly tax-cutting mini-budget, engaging in the recent British habit of briefing the press by leaks of memos and the like.  

Those missteps had led to a crisis in a financial instrument known as liability-driven investments (LDIs), which were basically a bet on low interest rates continuing. Officials at the Treasury were ignorant of the importance of LDIs to the British pensions industry, which led to a financial crisis. This establishment action was presented to the British public as the reaction of “the markets” to the mini-budget and led to the political crisis that brought down the Truss Ministry. Of course, it was nothing of the sort. 

The OBR comes in for particular criticism. Its forecasts are always presented to the British public as if one hundred percent accurate. Yet, as Mrs. Truss shows, they are always wrong. The economic blob is, she rightly states, deeply Keynesian in its approach. A dose of Hayek is needed. 

In American terms, it was the “deep state” that won. Yet, that administrative state is far more powerful in Britain than it is over here. It’s the reason so little works in Britain anymore, and the complete failure to do anything about it by Rishi Sunak, Mrs. Truss’ successor, is the underlying reason why his party is facing electoral oblivion. Yet, in its anger at the Conservatives, the British public looks likely to give the Labour Party, the party that created this monstrosity in the first place, a thumping majority. As the establishment figures in Britain’s satirical magazine Private Eye say, referring to a celebratory round of drinks, “Trebles all round!” 

The American edition of her memoir is therefore a warning Liz Truss extends to Americans — don’t let the administrative state get out of control and do your level best to reduce the powers it already has. She also warns against trying to use its power for “conservative ends” — the administrative state is deeply anti-conservative and will corrupt any who try to do so. 

While this is the main message of her book, there are other warnings embedded throughout. One that particularly appealed to me was her condemnation of the international environmental blob, and the way it has led the West to deindustrialize and thereby strengthen China. Indeed, perhaps the best idea she has is that free nations (specifically including Japan, a country for which she has a great deal of admiration) should form an “Economic NATO,” based on the power of free enterprise and free trade, to counter the power of China. Sadly, neither party’s dominant trade paradigm seems open to that idea, although I suspect it is the sort of thing that might paradoxically appeal to Donald Trump, should he win a second term. 

Another message relates to the more traditional NATO. Her warnings about the ambition and ruthlessness of Vladimir Putin’s Russia are stark. She leaves the reader without any doubt that the West must continue to support Ukraine against Russian aggression or face dire consequences. While this message might be unwelcome to America’s modern isolationists, it is a message that deserves a hearing. 

In her final chapter, Mrs. Truss outlines six lessons from her career.

Her first is that Conservatives must be conservative. A friend with insider knowledge recently described the British parliamentary Conservative party as being made up of one-third Blairites, one-third careerists, and only one-third genuine conservatives. Thanks to the power of candidate selection, exercised most aggressively by David Cameron and Rishi Sunak, it is likely that the genuine conservatives will not survive the electoral decimation that is coming their way. Those hoping for a conservative revival in Britain may have to look elsewhere than the Conservative Party. 

The other lessons are: 2), Dismantle the leftist state (one might add, while you still have time); and 3) restore democratic accountability. These two lessons are, as I have explained, the core of the book. One can see the third lesson reflected here in various legal efforts to corral American agencies, such as questioning the constitutionality of independent agencies. The second lesson, however, will take Congressional action, most importantly in cutting off the funding that is powering the American version of the blob. This leads to her fourth lesson: Conservatism must win across the free world, particularly in the United States of America. Given the way European and British elections are going, that particularly carries a lot of weight. 

Her final lessons are that we must reassert the nation state, given the role transnational progressivism plays in both destroying democratic accountability and empowering international versions of the blob, and rejecting the appeasement of the unfree powers, particularly Russia, China, and Iran. 

If the image you have of Liz Truss is of a hapless figure, perhaps promoted beyond her capability, I urge you to read this book. You will see instead that she is a strong conservative, betrayed by her allies, just like her predecessor, to an unrelenting progressive establishment. It is that establishment that needs to be destroyed.  

Authored by Newt Gingrich via RealClearPolicy,

Historic leaders often share something important in common. They are not born great. Their greatness is a result of a lifetime of difficulty and consequential choices.

As Jeremy S. Adams discussed in his book, “Lessons in Liberty,” this is especially true for remarkable Americans. In the book, Adams details the inspiring lives of extraordinary Americans and what we can learn from them today.

George Washington, for example, struggled his entire life to keep his temper under control. This lifelong effort made him a model for discipline and restraint. Clara Barton nursed her badly injured brother back to health when she was only 11 years old. This harrowing experience later equipped her with the skills and bravery to serve as a nurse in the Civil War. U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye was a 17-year-old Japanese American who lived in Hawaii when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The sneak attack angered him so much he joined the U.S. Army to fight in World War II.  Despite discrimination and hardship from the U.S. government, Inouye became a highly decorated soldier and longtime U.S. Senator.

I spoke with Adams about his book on a recent episode of Newt’s World. He is a serious scholar and educator. He teaches social studies and political science to highschoolers and students at the University of California at Bakersfield. He was the Daughters of the American Revolution 2014 California Teacher of the Year and a finalist for the Carlston Family Foundation Outstanding Teachers of America Award.

We talked about the personal wisdom of Washington, Barton, Inouye, and other extraordinary Americans. Adams said in his book that Americans need to “honor what is honorable, praise what is praiseworthy, and most of all, emulate which is highest and best, so we can take advantage of the miracle of human freedom.” While no historic figure is perfect, their fallibility makes them so worthy of our study.

Unfortunately, many young students in America are not learning about our great historical figures. Forty percent of Gen-Z members characterize the founding fathers as villains. Fifty percent of high schoolers say that their lives have little to no meaning, and only 52 percent of Americans would be willing to fight to defend the country.

Something disturbing is happening in classrooms across our country. Our nation’s young people are being influenced by viewpoints, values, and behaviors of people who hate America and the principles on which it was founded. As President Ronald Reagan said, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Each generation has a duty to renew and protect America and its values.

As we discussed on the podcast, America is also bigger than a singular party. It is bigger than any ideology. We are more than just Republicans or Democrats. We were more than federalists or anti-federalists. We are all Americans. The 10 men and women Adams discussed in his book were from different time periods and backgrounds. Some were liberal and some were conservative. But they all worked to make America great.

Importantly, none of them were personally born great. Their greatness was a choice. That is the key lesson of liberty.

For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.