Month: September 2024

Authored by Katie Spence via The Epoch Times,

This year’s summer months were characterized by cold outdoor pools that eagerly welcomed guests, concrete that scorched the soles of bare feet, and popsicles that melted in the relentless, blazing heat.

In August, the European Commission’s Copernicus report found that the global average temperature had reached record highs in the past 12 months, an increase of 1.51 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Similarly, using satellite data, Roy Spencer and John Christy of the University of Alabama Huntsville determined that the average temperature in August was 0.88 degrees Celsius higher than the 30-year average from 1991–2020.

Extreme heat is not just an environmental crisis, it’s a serious threat to our public health—and communities across the country are struggling to respond,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a news release.

“What we’re facing today wasn’t what we were experiencing 30 or 40 years ago. This is a different world we are in.”

On Aug. 14, President Joe Biden released the National Heat Strategy for 2024–2030, fulfilling a July promise to take additional action to address increasing temperatures, which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states is primarily caused by human-induced increases in carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas.

“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net zero CO2 emissions,” Panmao Zhai, a Chinese climatologist, and co-chair of the IPCC Working Group I, stated in a press release.

“Limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants, especially methane, could have benefits both for health and the climate.”

Ned Nikolov, a physical scientist and researcher affiliated with Colorado State University, told The Epoch Times the IPCC is incorrect regarding CO2.

“The greenhouse theory claims that atmospheric composition is important,” Nikolov said.

“They are arguing that tiny increases of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cause global warming and that we must stop burning fossil fuel to avoid dangerous climate change.

“That is completely wrong.”

On Aug. 20, Nikolov and Karl Zeller, a retired U.S. Forest Service meteorologist, published their study that found that recent warming is not the result of increasing CO2.

Instead, after analyzing satellite data, the two researchers concluded that the Earth has warmed because it’s been absorbing more sunlight due to reduced global cloud cover.

Albedo and Climate

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Earth’s atmosphere is constantly working to balance the planet’s “energy budget”—the amount of energy entering and leaving it. After the Sun’s shortwave radiation—sunshine—reaches the Earth, the energy flows back into space as thermal radiation.

If this balance is disrupted, and more sunlight is absorbed or not enough heat escapes to space, Earth’s temperature will rise. An imbalance in the energy budget is known as radiative forcing, with the incoming radiation being shortwave and the outgoing radiation being longwave (or thermal).

Additionally, Earth’s albedo, the fraction of sunlight reflected back into space, impacts the amount of radiation that reaches the surface.

In its Sixth Assessment Report, the IPCC states that, due to increased atmospheric CO2 concentration from human greenhouse gas emissions, Earth’s energy budget is out of balance—more thermal energy is being trapped, resulting in elevated temperatures and warmer oceans.

A sign near Strasburg, N.D., on Jan. 11, 2024. Jack Dura/AP Photo

It also notes regarding the Earth’s albedo that, between 1950 and 1980, there was “evidence for a widespread decline of surface solar radiation (or dimming),” followed by “a partial recovery (brightening) at many observational sites thereafter.”

As to the cause, the IPCC states, “Multi-decadal variation in anthropogenic [human-caused] aerosol emissions are thought to be a major contributor (medium confidence), but multi-decadal variability in cloudiness may also have played a role.”

In addition, the IPCC said some studies show that “cloudiness” can play a role in “dimming” and “brightening.” But the contribution of aerosols and clouds to dimming and brightening is still debated, and “the origin of these trends is not fully understood.”

That, according to Nikolov, is where his study comes in.

Challenging the IPCC

“Climate is controlled by the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth and the amount of infrared energy emitted to space. These quantities—together with their differences—define Earth’s radiation budget,” NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) website states.

Since March of 2000, the NASA team has been collecting satellite data to examine the energy exchange between the Earth and space.

Using those measurements and a “novel climate-sensitivity model derived from independent NASA planetary data,” Nikolov and Zeller evaluated how Earth’s decreasing albedo impacted global temperature during the 21st century.

“CO2 is an invisible trace gas that does not interfere with sunlight. It’s believed to trap thermal radiation coming from the surface, but that’s a misconception because the absorption of longwave radiation by CO2 and heat-trapping are completely different physical processes. According to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, heat-trapping is impossible in an open system such as the atmosphere,” Nikolov said.

He added that while water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, it becomes visible when it condenses and forms clouds. And because clouds “reflect solar radiation back to space,” their impact on the climate is “measurable and significant.”

“Cloud formation is partially controlled by cosmic forces. When clouds decrease, the planetary albedo drops and more radiation reaches the surface, causing warmer temperatures.”

“In our paper, we show, using the best available observations from the [Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System] platform, that the warming of the last 24 years was entirely caused by the observed decrease of Earth’s albedo and not by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations as claimed by the IPCC.”

Figure 1. Monthly radiative anomalies derived from the CERES EBAF 4.2 dataset: (a) Earth’s global albedo calculated via dividing the reflected all-sky shortwave anomaly by the globally averaged incident solar flux at the TOA (i.e., the global insolation) and multiplying the resulting fraction by 100 to convert to a percent; (b) Earth’s absorbed solar flux calculated via multiplying the CERES reflected all-sky shortwave anomaly by −1 based on the fact that radiation absorption is opposite (and complimentary) to reflection. Courtesy of Ned Nikolov

Figure 7. Comparison between observed GSAT anomalies and CERES-reported changes in the Earth’s absorbed solar flux. The two data series, representing 13-month running means, are highly correlated with the absorbed SW flux, explaining 78% of the GSAT variation (R2 = 0.78). Also, GSAT lags the absorbed shortwave radiation between 0 and 9 months, which indicates that GSAT is controlled by changes in sunlight absorption. Courtesy of Ned Nikolov

Nikolov said that, in the greenhouse theory, atmospheric composition is “very important” for a planet’s global surface temperature.

By applying dimensional analysis to NASA’s data describing the environments of different planets and moons in the solar system—including Earth—Nikolov and Zeller discovered a new universal relationship across planetary bodies. This revealed that the atmosphere warms the surface not through longwave radiation emitted by greenhouse gases but through total pressure—adiabatically, without the loss or gain of heat—and that atmospheric composition has no effect on global temperature.

“Adiabatic heating (a.k.a. compression heating) is a well-known thermodynamic process. This revolutionary discovery about the physical nature of the atmospheric thermal effect (currently known as greenhouse effect) was published in [our] peer-reviewed literature in 2017,” Nikolov said.

“This is why when you get up in elevation, it gets cooler—either in the mountains or when you’re flying on an airplane—because the pressure drops with height.”

He compared the Moon’s surface temperature, as measured by NASA, compared to Earth’s global temperature to evaluate the thermal effect of the atmosphere.

“The data shows that the Moon is a perfect, airless equivalent of Earth because it orbits the Sun at the same distance as Earth but has no atmosphere. So, the temperature difference between Earth and the Moon gives us the net thermal effect of the Earth’s atmosphere.”

Nikolov found that the Moon was about 88 degrees Kelvin cooler on average than the Earth. That’s significant, he said.

“Currently, the greenhouse theory claims that without an atmosphere, the Earth would only be about 33 degrees colder than it is now. Some estimates even say only 18 degrees cooler.

“So, the present theory grossly underestimates the actual thermal effect of our atmosphere. However, this 88-degree thermal enhancement is due to total pressure.

“And that’s one of the fundamental differences between the greenhouse theory and our new climate concept.”

Through analyzing the Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI), “calculated as a difference between absorbed shortwave and outgoing longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere,” Nikolov and Zeller discovered that the scientific community had misinterpreted it.

“EEI is not caused by ‘heat-trapping’ resulting from increasing atmospheric greenhouse gasses as currently claimed, but ‘arises from adiabatic dissipation of thermal energy in ascending air parcels in the troposphere due to a decreasing atmospheric pressure with height,’” Nikolov said.

Specifically, using mathematics, Nikolov and Zeller showed that EEI is an “apparent phenomenon” rather than a “real imbalance,” which they said necessarily implies no long-term heat storage in the Earth system by increasing greenhouse gases and no “warming in the pipeline,” as claimed by the latest Report by the IPCC.

Where Are the Clouds?

Nikolov said Earth’s reduced cloud cover could have several causes, including galactic cosmic rays, solar wind, and interactions between the Sun’s and Earth’s magnetic fields.

“We have hypotheses about what’s driving the cloud cover changes, but we don’t have an exact mechanism or a conclusive theory,” Nikolov said.

“This is why we cannot mathematically describe it yet in a model to make predictions. ”

He called for “large-scale interdisciplinary research into the physical mechanisms controlling the Earth’s albedo and cloud physics,” as they are “the real drivers of climate on multi-decadal time scales.”

“The current climate science acknowledges that the clouds have been declining, and the Earth’s albedo has been decreasing, but they attribute it to an internal climate variability. This is incorrect! Changes of cloud cover and albedo are externally forced. Identifying this external forcing is where future research has to focus instead of studying carbon emissions and [greenhouse gas] radiative forcing,” Nikolov said.

Clouds are seen in Western Australia on June 14, 2024. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times

If rising global temperature was due to greenhouse gasses, there should have been more warming than observed, he said.

“The simple fact is that the solar forcing alone explains the entire warming of the 21st century and leaves no room for any anthropogenic forcing.

“This inconvenient truth for the UN’s Climate Agenda might explain the absence of discussion in the 2021 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report about the decrease of Earth’s albedo since 2000 observed by [NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System] and its impact on recent warming.”

In response to the question “Is the Sun causing global warming?” on its website, NASA states, “No. The Sun can influence Earth’s climate, but it isn’t responsible for the warming trend we’ve seen over recent decades.

“The Sun is a giver of life; it helps keep the planet warm enough for us to survive. We know subtle changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun are responsible for the comings and goings of the ice ages. But the warming we’ve seen in recent decades is too rapid to be linked to changes in Earth’s orbit and too large to be caused by solar activity.”

The IPCC did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment regarding Nikolov’s findings by the time of publication.

Gun manufacturing in the U.S. has been increasing steadily in recent years, with a significant spike during the pandemic.

According to the Violence Policy Center, there are almost five times as many gun manufacturers as there are colleges in the country.

This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Kayla Zhu, visualizes the number of Type 7 Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs) in each U.S. state in 2022, and the percentage increase in FFLs from 2017 to 2022. Type 7 FFLs are the basic federal license required to manufacture and sell guns and ammunition in America.

The data comes from the Violence Policy Center and reflects 2022 data.

Which U.S. States Have the Most Gun Manufacturers?

While most production is concentrated in the hands of a few key players, a majority of gun manufacturers actually don’t operate out of big commercial facilities, but instead, out of homes or offices.

Rank	State	Number of gun manufacturers	Increase (2017-2022)
1	Texas	2,321	78%
2	Florida	1,214	59%
3	Arizona	1,026	55%
4	North Carolina	737	70%
5	Ohio	715	51%
6	Pennsylvania	669	79%
7	Georgia	607	77%
8	California	580	6%
9	Colorado	573	56%
10	Utah	515	66%
11	Michigan	470	70%
12	Virginia	459	48%
13	Tennessee	454	74%
14	Missouri	440	41%
15	Oklahoma	437	42%
16	Idaho	432	62%
17	Washington	427	71%
18	Wisconsin	371	46%
19	New York	365	77%
20	South Carolina	347	78%
21	Indiana	323	53%
22	Alabama	323	50%
23	Arkansas	312	42%
24	Nevada	291	40%
25	Massachusetts	290	44%
26	Minnesota	274	42%
27	Illinois	267	25%
28	Louisiana	264	51%
29	Oregon	263	35%
30	Kentucky	255	70%
31	Kansas	254	58%
32	Montana	250	46%
33	Iowa	235	81%
34	New Hampshire	197	31%
35	Mississippi	193	40%
36	New Mexico	193	36%
37	Connecticut	193	14%
38	Wyoming	188	100%
39	Maryland	178	37%
40	West Virginia	150	85%
41	Maine	120	26%
42	Alaska	118	57%
43	South Dakota	117	121%
44	Nebraska	115	53%
45	Vermont	89	48%
46	North Dakota	68	325%
47	New Jersey	30	7%
48	Rhode Island	27	42%
49	Hawaii	15	114%
50	Delaware	12	71%

Texas, Florida, and Arizona, the three states with the most gun manufacturers in 2022, all have business-friendly policies including low or no income taxes and fewer regulations, as well as strong gun cultures.

Large firearms companies have also increasingly chosen to move their headquarters and production to red states, especially in the South.

Other Southern red states are capitalizing on this trend. In Oklahoma, just north of Texas, Governor Kevin Stitt has promoted the state’s “pro-Second Amendment” stance to attract more firearms manufacturers.

Out of the top five states with the most manufacturers, four (Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Ohio) have constitutional carry laws. These laws allow individuals to carry a firearm without a permit.

Many of these top states also do not require permits for people to carry concealed weapons, such as handguns, in public.

To learn about gun ownership in America, check out this graphic that shows how gun ownership rates in the U.S. have changed over the past decade.

Authored by Jack Phillis via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) said Sunday that he stands by claims that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have eaten pets.

During an interview on CNN, Vance was pressed on posts and statements he’s made on X about pet eating in the city, which has seen a surge of up to 20,000 Haitian immigrants in the past few years.

He said that the pet eating claims came “from firsthand accounts from my constituents.”

“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance told the outlet.

Responding to CNN’s questions about whether the allegations are false, Vance said, “We created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story.”

Over the past week, Vance and some conservative-leaning social media accounts have made memes on the topic including artificial intelligence-generated memes showing pets holding signs endorsing former President Donald Trump, who mentioned the allegations during last week’s debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

The mayor of Springfield and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine have repeatedly denied the reports, while the state’s attorney general said a police call confirmed the reports.

“I’d like to first say Springfield is still beautiful and your pets are safe in Springfield, Ohio. Safe,” Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said on NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo last week, adding that the pet-eating claims has created a “negative light” of the city.

“These claims are, they were just untrue. And we may mention that … we just don’t see reports of those,” Rue said of Trump’s remark.

On Sept. 11, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost wrote in a post on X, “There’s a recorded police call from a witness who saw immigrants capturing geese for food in Springfield.”

He also noted that citizens testified to city council about incidents of Haitian migrants killing geese.

On Sunday, DeWine, who runs a charity in Haiti, defended the Haitians in Springfield by saying that many of them are not in the United States illegally.

“I think it’s unfortunate that this came up. Let me tell you what we do know, though. What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal,” DeWine told ABC News. “They came to Springfield to work. Ohio is on the move, and Springfield has really made a great resurgence with a lot of companies coming in. These Haitians came in to work for these companies.”

“What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers,” he added. “They’re very happy to have them there, and frankly, that’s helped the economy. Now, are there problems connected? Well, sure. When you go from a population of 58,000 and add 15,000 people onto that, you’re going to have some challenges and some problems. And we’re addressing those.”

DeWine also said there are “legitimate problems” with the U.S. border and reiterated his support for Trump in the 2024 election.

Last week, the Trump campaign sought to highlight a police call made last month to a Clark County dispatcher about alleged geese-hunting in Springfield, although few details were provided. The Epoch Times could not independently verify the claims in the call and has contacted the sheriff’s department for comment.

Claims were also made during multiple Springfield town hall meetings by local residents.

“These Haitians are running into trash cans. They’re running into buildings. They’re flipping cars in the middle of the street, and I don’t know how like, y’all can be comfortable with this,” a resident, Anthony Harris, told city officials last month, although he did not provide any evidence or details. “They’re in the park, grabbing up ducks by the neck and cutting their heads off and eating them.”

Several bomb threats have also been made to various places across Springfield in recent days, including government buildings, hospitals, and schools.

The foreign exchange market, or forex (FX), is a global marketplace where currencies are traded between nations.

Forex is the largest and most liquid market in the world, with over $6.6 trillion traded every day. It has no centralized location, and no single government authority oversees it. Some of the most traded currencies are the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen, the Australian dollar, and the Swiss franc.

But did you know that some currencies have been around for centuries?

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti highlights the 10 oldest currencies still traded today, according to various online sources.

The British Pound: Over 1,200 Years Old

The British pound, also known as the pound sterling, is the oldest currency still in use. It dates back to around 775 AD, during the Anglo-Saxon period, when silver pennies were first minted in what is now England.

The pound sterling became the official currency of England in the 12th century under King Henry II, with one pound originally representing a pound of silver.

After the British pound, the oldest currencies still used today are the Serbian dinar and the Russian ruble. Both were first introduced in the 13th century.

The U.S. dollar, the most traded currency in the world, was officially adopted in 1785.

To learn more about global currencies, check out this graphic that shows the world’s top reserve currencies as of Q1 2024.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

The Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services (DMV) and the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office both confirmed that the DMV has mistakenly registered more than 300 non-U.S. citizens to vote since 2021.

Officials with the Oregon Department of Transportation said on Sept. 14 that a data entry problem occurred when people who were not citizens applied for driver’s licenses.

An initial analysis by the Oregon Department of Transportation, which oversees the state’s DMV, revealed that 306 noncitizens were registered to vote, according to Kevin Glenn, a department spokesperson. Of those, two voted in elections since 2021.

“It’s basically a data entry issue,” Glenn said, explaining that when a DMV worker enters information about a person applying for a driver’s license or state ID, the worker can incorrectly code that the person has a U.S. birth certificate or passport when that person does not.

Responding to the report, the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office said in a statement that Secretary LaVonne Griffin-Valade has ordered an update to 0.01 percent of voter registrations.

“Residents impacted by this issue were noncitizens at the time they were erroneously registered. They will be notified by mail that they will not receive a ballot unless they demonstrate that they are eligible to vote,” her office stated, noting that only two people who were registered to vote have a voting history but that their citizenship status when they cast ballots is not known.

Her office “moved quickly to update the voter rolls,” Griffin-Valade said, noting that the DMV has to “take immediate action” to make sure noncitizens can’t vote.

“Automatic voter registration has been hugely beneficial for thousands of eligible Oregon voters to ensure access to our democracy,” the secretary said in her statement.

“I’m confident the DMV is rectifying this error and improving their process, so it doesn’t happen again.”

The mistake occurred in part because Oregon has allowed noncitizens to obtain driver’s licenses for the past several years, and the DMV automatically registers most people to vote when they obtain a license or other ID, according to Glenn.

A 2019 bill that was passed in the state Legislature allowed people in Oregon to get driver’s licenses without showing proof of citizenship. The law went into effect in 2021.

The administrator for the DMV, Amy Joyce, told The Oregonian that her office is trying to check for possible errors involving any other noncitizens and allowing them to vote.

State and federal laws prohibit non-U.S. citizens from voting in any elections.

Several state and federal lawmakers in Oregon called for further investigations after the issue was revealed.

State Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Democrat, said the U.S. Department of Justice should get involved and probe the issue.

“Any errors in this process are unacceptable, and the office of the Secretary of State must be held responsible for any such lapses. I will relentlessly defend our laws and safeguard the integrity of our elections,” she told the Oregon Capital Chronicle.

U.S. House Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) also called for an investigation, telling the paper that the DMV engaged in “total malpractice.”

“I am calling on the state to act quickly to remove these individuals from the rolls, conduct a full and transparent investigation into how this occurred, and provide concrete steps they are taking to remedy this issue and prevent it from happening again,” she said.

“However, I want to emphasize that this was a bureaucratic error by the Oregon DMV and not a systemic attempt to cheat the system by organizations or individuals.”

In recent weeks, other states have announced purges to voter rolls.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said that a recent review found that 597 people were registered to vote despite not being U.S. citizens.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced earlier this year that reviews showed that more than 6,500 possible noncitizens were removed from state voter rolls. More than 1,900 of those people had a history of voting, his office said.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

After the September 10, 2024, presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the Harris campaign became giddy.

And why not?

Pre-debate conventional wisdom had assured the country that underdog Harris would shock the nation with her endless wash/rinse/spin word salads of repeated phrases and memorized sound bites.

She supposedly would prove as shaky as Trump—the veteran of several presidential debates—would prove merciless in eviscerating her.

That did not happen. Post-debate polls of the first 24 hours showed clearly that the public felt Harris had won.

Why?

She stuck religiously to her pre-debate prep.

It was not difficult to anticipate what her tripartite script would be.

Joe Biden’s failed debate with Trump offered a model, along with the need to avoid Harris’s own known linguistic and cognitive liabilities:

One, Harris was told to bait the touchy Trump with smears and slights about his failed rallies, his racism, and his shaky businesses.

That way she could trigger him to lose his cool, go off-topic, rant, and turn off viewers.

And he did just that and often. Trump clearly did not prepare detailed answers, was not ready to be insulted, and was not reminded to relax—and smile, joke, and in Reaganesque fashion sluff off her certain slurs.

Two, she was not supposed to try thinking on her feet, no matter what the question asked.

Instead, Harris was always ordered to plug in her prepped and canned anecdotes, banalities, and bio-stories regardless of the topic or question. And she followed that off-topic boilerplate to spec.

Three, the campaign apparently knew they could rely on the moderators for four givens:

1. they were to fact-check Trump but never Harris. And they did that at least five times;

2. they were to demand follow-up answers from Trump to make him specifically answer the question addressed. And they did that numerous times, but not on a single occasion to Harris;

3. they were to ask Trump provocative questions to force him to deny that he was a racist, an insurrectionist, and an election denialist. But they were never to do so with Harris, whose many past outlandish statements, prevarications, flip-flops, and padded bio would have given the moderators similar rich fodder for cross-examination;

4. they would interrupt Trump to get him off tempo, but never Harris.

The result was that a cool, if not smug, Harris mostly smiled while an irate Trump scowled and raged.

Thus, to the millions who watched the slugfest, Harris seemed more “presidential” and therefore “won” the debate.

When the size of the huge television audience—some 67 million watched the debate—was announced, team Harris naturally assumed her win might bounce her even higher than did her initial July surge after the forced abdication of President Biden from the ticket.

But then strange post-debate developments followed…

Either a Tiny or No Bounce?

Harris did not receive the anticipated large bounce.

In fact, the polls still remain mostly even. She may have arrested Trump’s pre-debate surge a bit, but otherwise, a debate that polled so heavily in her favor oddly still seems to have made little difference in the still up-for-grabs race.

Stranger still, Harris, the supposedly clear winner, almost immediately asked for another debate. Her handlers suggested that this demand displayed newfound confidence from her win—as if an assured, second knockout debate would ensure her permanent pull away.

But Trump and others countered that it might have instead indicated the very opposite: that her pre-debate internal polls had shown the race was even or even had Trump leading and thus she still needed a second shot at derailing him, given her own team was not sure her single and transitory debate favorability would translate into any real lead.

The Debate Reset

Then in a day or two, other and far more significant realities emerged, resetting the debate—like a first date’s favorable first impression beginning to sour a day later upon further reflection.

As the debate clips were endlessly replayed on television, radio, and the blogosphere over the ensuing week, few, if any, favorable Harris soundbites popped up.

Harris, remember, was a veritable political unknown who was running a stealth campaign of media avoidance and running out the clock.

She had never really answered any questions addressed to her in the campaign. And in the debate, she presented her nothingness in confident fashion. But she ignored and snubbed both the toadish moderators and Trump at every turn.

Yet the public had tuned in only to receive just three answers from her that she had never previously offered them since her July anointment:

1. Why are you flipping—temporarily or permanently?—on almost every issue from your past positions?

2. If you are the candidate of change, why did you and President Biden as incumbents not make these changes the last three years—or at least promise now to make them in the next four months of your remaining tenures?

3. And what exactly will be your policies as president and the details of their proposed implementation?

Every time these questions in the debate were either stumbled upon by the moderators or demanded by Trump, Harris evaded by plugging in her memorized, smiley, and stonewalling non-answers.

Even leftist media outlets could not find video clips that would show a dominant Harris mastering any of these questions.

Furthermore, in the recycled visuals of the campaign, when Trump blustered and ranted, viewers now noticed that Harris had deliberately turned to him in scripted posturing. She pantomimed as if she were prepped by Hollywood actors—not just on memorizing canned trivialities but also giving fake moves and poses.

At times, Harris was a Rodin-like “Thinker,” looking contemplative with a strutting chin and propping it up with a closed hand. At times, with a wink-and-nod, she privately communicated to the audience their supposedly shared exasperation at her outrageous opponent. And at times she rolled her eyes, batted her eyelids, raised her eyebrows, and lip-synched her cynical disdain to 67 million viewers.

The net result?

The longer the debate was discussed, the more the far larger audience who had not watched the debate heard about it from friends or saw regurgitated media takes, so all the more the public came away thinking Harris was certainly slick and smooth, but otherwise empty, shallow, and smug.

And the more they saw clips of the scowling, snarling, and raving Trump, all the more they heard him blast an unresponsive Harris for the border, crime, the economy, and foreign policy—precisely the issues about which she was now failing to offer any of studied expertise.

The result was Trump, albeit in sometimes obnoxious fashion, reassured the country he could repeat what he did in 2017-21, while Harris confidently and professionally offered them little but sugary bios and platitudes.

Post Debate Meltdowns

After the debate, a now cocky Harris forgot her directions and thus only confirmed her pre-debate no-no’s. So, at a post-debate rally, the recidivist Harris reverted to what her handlers had told her was taboo: cackling and word salads.

In her first solo media interview in over 50 days with a preselected, left-wing local Philadelphia TV anchorman, Brian Taff, Harris actually plugged in her exact memorized debate riffs from a few nights earlier—even when they had nothing to do with the questions Taff asked.

When Harris realized that she could not answer a single one of his questions in the brief 10-minute softball interview, then, in deer-in-the-headlights fashion, she simply smiled, hand gestured, giggled, and sought refuge in her accustomed platitudes and circularities.

The net result was again reminding viewers of her debate inanity a few days earlier.

Yes, Harris has a good memory to recite prepped banalities and to bait and smear opponents while keeping cool with the help of moderators.

But otherwise, she shows no ability to think or speak on her feet—and zero knowledge of the key challenges facing any president.

The Immoderators

It was bad enough that the moderators intervened in the debate—and only on one side—to fact-check. But their fact-checks on at least three of their five occasions themselves needed to be fact-checked for mistakes, especially as the post-debate furor rose.

Moderator Linsey Davis went after Trump for his accurate claim that partial-birth abortions and the killing of a baby as it leaves the birth canal were legal.

Or as Ms. Fact-Checker arrogantly put it, “There is no state where it is legal in this country to kill a baby after it’s born.”

That was not true.

At least six states make no restrictions of any kind on abortion, and thus, admittedly, on rare occasions, infants can be terminated who leave the birth canal.

Protection to ensure that such deaths never happen was vetoed by Democrats in Congress. Worse still, Harris’s own running mate Tim Walz as governor stopped Minnesota state legislation that would have outlawed the killing of an infant delivered viable and alive during or after an abortion procedure.

The moderators also fact-checked Trump’s assertion that crime was higher under Biden Harris than during his tenure and his allegation that many large cities do not fully or timely report crime statistics to federal tabulators.

Yet Trump was right on both counts. And only days later, the nation was reminded of just that when the Biden-Harris Department of Justice released recent crime statistics showing crime is still elevated—and still quite higher than when Biden-Harris took office.

The post-debate outrage further increased. It was further remembered that the two fact-checkers sat mum while Harris spun her own whoppers: that no military personnel were posted abroad in combat zones (just ask those often attacked in bases in Syria and Iraq, in Africa, or on patrol in the Red Sea).

And the two partisans kept silent when Harris repeated the long-ago fact-checked lies about Charlotteville, “bloodbath,” Project 2025, and Trump’s supposed support for a federal abortion ban.

Journalists after the debate tried to rescue Harris by jumping on Trump for other supposed lies, such as alleging Harris had supported government-provided transgendered conversion treatments for illegal aliens and prisoners. But then, post-debate, Harris’s own prior written endorsements for just that appeared.

While Harris’s campaign and liberal influencers were claiming that the moderators were not fact-checkers, one of the two, Linsey Davis, admitted she was not only a proud fact-checker, but along with her co-moderator David Muir had become one.

The reason was because of ABC’s desire to not let Trump supposedly promulgate falsehoods as he had in Joe Biden’s disastrous and career-ending June debate.

ABC apparently felt the earlier CNN moderators on that occasion were seen as too neutral and that being disinterested was a bad thing. Instead, in the Muir/Davis warped view, Biden lost that debate not because of his visible dementia but supposedly due to Trump’s exaggerations (which Biden himself matched if not exceeded).

In other words, Davis inadvertently admitted that after Democratic nominee Biden had crashed his career in a debate with Trump, ABC would now correct CNN’s supposed laxity in being too disinterested.

So, ABC’s moderators would become actively involved in the debate—and did so as the debate postmortem showed in clear partisan fashion.

Translated? One could take the Davis confession to mean the Democratic-Media fusion lost one debate by playing by traditional debate rules of moderator non-interference – and learned from that loss never to be so fair again.

Debate Incest?

The post-debate detritus mounted.

Senior Disney executive Dana Walden—who helps oversee ABC—is known as one of Harris’s “extraordinary friends” and, as reported, has been for at least 30 years. Their respective husbands have been close pals for even longer. Walden has been a steady contributor to Harris’s state and federal campaigns for over twenty years.

And it was disclosed that Harris and moderator Davis were national sorority sisters, a connection that sounded terrible, but after a fair debate, no one would have known what to make of it.

So, in normal times, no one would have noticed these conflicts of interest. After all, in the incestuous corporate/politics/media ecosystem of the bicoastal left, everyone either went to school, knows, does business with and profits from, dates, or is married to everyone else.

But given the clear bias of ABC in the post-debate environment, these relationships only further tainted the debate’s credibility.

Prairie-fire Madness

As the embarrassments of Harris’s debate and her post-debate evasions became better known, the moderators’ bias more fully exposed, the incest of ABC aired, and the lack of a debate “victory” bounce acknowledged, the irate right-wing blogosphere struck back.

On the rationale that if the left-wing network had “rigged” the debate and the moderators tipped the scales, then it too would reply in like kind. The result was a barrage of post-debate rumors, conspiracies, and false revelations—the discredited fact-checkers be damned.

Within days, fables floated by bloggers and often Trump himself that Harris was wearing high-tech receiver-earrings to facilitate stealthy prompts and directions from her off-stage handlers. Other rumors spread that her calmness was only a symptom that she had been given the debate questions in advance, or so an anonymous source claimed. Trump and his supporters then insisted that he was widely recognized by the public as the “winner” of the debate.

No evidence has yet emerged to prove any of these allegations.

Harris was likely wearing earrings that only remotely looked like a brand that doubles as a receiver.

There is no proof, at least yet from ABC or the Harris campaign, that Harris, in Donna Brazile/Hillary Clinton/CNN fashion of old, had received either the topics or the general outlines of the debate questions in advance.

And the polls uniformly really did show that Trump was felt by the public to have lost the debate—even though Harris had not really profited much from it.

But what was missed by the left’s outrage over the swirling rumors of conspiracies was that its own behavior had seeded such hysterias.

When moderators are not just biased but proudly explain why they are biased, and when such favoritism does demonstrably warp a presidential debate, then those on their receiving end naturally fire back with conspiracies of their own.

An interesting question arises over which is worse: the founded and proven conspiracy of the moderators in undisclosed but preplanned determination to hammer only Trump, or the frenzied reaction to believe fables consistent with the demonstrable bias of ABC and its moderators’ intention to warp the debate?

The Way Not Forward?

What is the result of this debate mess?

No sane conservative will or should ever do another national debate on any ABC venue.

If they were wise, Republicans should never agree to any televised debate moderated by ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, PBS, NPR, or CNN again, given the history of liberal moderator bias. The names of Donna Brazile, Candy Crowley, David Muir, and Linsey Davis should serve as sufficient warnings.

If the presidential candidates still insist on debating their opponents, they then should agree only to the classical rules of debating—and with only mute timekeepers present instead of loud-mouth, egocentric moderators in the following fashion:

• An opening 5-minute statement;

• A 3-minute rebuttal of opponent’s similar statement;

• A 2-minute rebuttal of the rebuttal;

• All to be repeated over eight or nine topics in a 90-minute debate, with mouth-shut timekeepers keeping each candidate within his time limits.

So, no more of these televised travesties, even when, as in this case, they boomerang on their fixers.

Tucker Carlson said the quiet part out loud in a brief comment last last week. Uncomfortable truths about the “party of democracy”…

“If they think that there’s a chance that Trump could win decisively enough in November that they can’t steal it, then I think their only option there is to in some way throw the society into chaos as they did during COVID which was the pretext for changing the way we vote and letting people vote anonymously without IDs and drop boxes and a month before the election.”

We all know what happened then (and we, the people, acquiesced so quickly):

“They completely changed everything allowing Mark Zuckerberg to spend $400 million to control the mechanics of the election. That would not have been allowed except under a state of national emergency provided them by the virus they created in a lab in Wuhan, COVID.”

So, given what they have shown themselves capable of, who can really argue they would not do it (or worse) again:

“It’s pretty simple. If they feel like they’re gonna lose we will have some kind of crisis. I think it’s most likely to be a war with Iran which they want anyway, but who knows.”

Watch the full comment by Tucker Carlson below:

Tucker Carlson: “If they think that there’s a chance that Trump could win decisively enough in November that they can’t steal it, then I think their only option there is to in some way throw the society into chaos as they did during COVID which was the pretext for changing the… pic.twitter.com/e3mAkQPo8T

— Camus (@newstart_2024) September 14, 2024

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Joe Biden said on Monday that the Secret Service needs more personnel after a probable assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump a day earlier.

Speaking to reporters in the morning, Biden said he did not yet have a full report of the Sunday attempt at Trump’s Florida golf course and that he was thankful the former president was fine.

“Thank God the president is OK,” he said, referring to Trump.

“The service needs more help,” Biden told reporters as he departed the White House for Delaware. “Congress should respond to their need.

“They may decide whether they need more personnel or not.”

Biden isn’t the only elected U.S. official calling for more Secret Service resources since the second assassination attempt on Trump.

“Two assassination attempts in 60 days on a former President & the Republican nominee is unacceptable,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote on social media platform X. “The Secret Service must come to Congress tomorrow, tell us what resources are needed to expand the protective perimeter, & lets allocate it in a bipartisan vote the same day.”

The FBI told The Epoch Times on Sunday that it is investigating the incident as an “apparent assassination attempt,” and few details have been released by the agency since then.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and other law enforcement officials told a news conference around the same time that Secret Service agents encountered the alleged shooter after discovering a rifle muzzle sticking through a chain-link fence on the outer perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach County, Florida. The agent then engaged with the suspect, who fled the scene, according to the officials.

The suspect, who has not been publicly identified by law enforcement, was captured by sheriff’s officials in Marion County, the sheriff said.

Photos released during the news conference showed an AK-style rifle, a GoPro camera, and two backpacks near the fence. One of the photos appeared to show the rifle sticking through the fence.

During the news conference, Bradshaw, the sheriff, said that security at the Trump golf course was limited because he isn’t the sitting president. But he said that the agency had “provided exactly what the protection should have been.”

“I would imagine the next time [Trump] comes on a golf course, there will probably be … more people around the perimeter,” Bradshaw said.

Trump survived an assassination attempt in July as he was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, although his right ear was struck. One person died and two others were injured in the shooting, which the FBI said was carried out by Thomas Matthew Crooks.

After that incident, questions were raised about the Secret Service and whether it did enough to secure the rally site.

On Sunday, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said they were briefed about the probable assassination attempt in Florida, with both saying they were grateful that Trump wasn’t harmed.

“I am deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump today. As we gather the facts, I will be clear: I condemn political violence. We all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence,” said Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

She added that she commends the Secret Service and law enforcement “for their vigilance” and that the Biden administration “will ensure the Secret Service has every resource, capability, and protective measure necessary to carry out its critical mission.”

Trump, meanwhile, thanked law enforcement and the Secret Service for their response in a Truth Social post issued late Sunday.

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), also expressed gratitude that Trump had not been hurt.

“I’m glad President Trump is safe,” Vance wrote on X.

“I spoke to him before the news was public and he was, amazingly, in good spirits. Still much we don’t know, but I’ll be hugging my kids extra tight tonight and saying a prayer of gratitude.”

Britain and the United States have been talking up a new ‘axis of evil’ – and they tend to identify it as consisting of ‘pariah’ states Russian, Iran and North Korea. All of them are under far-reaching US-led sanctions, but in the process these countries have increasingly cooperated to the extent they’ve been more and more isolated on a global stage.

Last week’s major Washington accusation that Iran has transferred ballistic missiles to Russia gave way to new weekend allegations that Moscow is in return aiding in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

Bloomberg reported over the weekend just after UK Prime Minister Ken Starmer’s visit to Washington, “The US and UK are increasingly concerned that Russia is sharing with Iran secret information and technology that could bring it closer to being able to build nuclear weapons, in exchange for Tehran providing Moscow with ballistic missiles for its war in Ukraine.”

“The Kremlin has increased its cooperation with Iran over its ambitions to obtain atomic weapons in recent months, according to Western officials familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss assessments that haven’t been made public,” the report said.

There’s a widespread perception that Tehran is pushing to achieve nuclear weapons status in response to its ongoing showdown with Israel, and in connection to Gaza events.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also lately highlighted potential Russia-Iran nuclear cooperation, saying days ago: “For its part, Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information.”

He has accused both countries of sowing “even greater insecurity” around the world. And G7 countries warned last week that Iran’s enriched uranium and nuclear program “continued to grow significantly, without any credible civilian justification.”

Russia, which is among the world’s two countries possessing the most nuclear warheads (alongside the United States), has the technical knowhow and components to potentially help Iran bring a bomb to completion. 

Iran has meanwhile claimed it has demonstrated “restraint” and is taking a ‘moderate’ path…

Iran has shown restraint after Israeli killing of Hamas leader, president says: In wide-ranging press conference, Masoud Pezeshkian also addresses questions on Russia, Houthis and nuclear plans

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said Tehran… https://t.co/ZEurbpWUHu

— alphaBETA (@alphaBETA_XXL) September 16, 2024

But still, the rhetoric of Western officials and reports are filled with speculation and “what ifs” – but their biggest claims lack for evidence. At this point Iran is also denying that it has sent Russia ballistic missiles, despite Washington’s insistence that it has.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Beep, Beep!

“Donald Trump is looking increasingly likely to be the winner of the presidential race. I have long held that the globalists will wrap up an economic collapse or a world war and throw it in Trump’s lap.”

– Brandon Smith

This time, the shooter lives to do some ‘splainin’. Do you wonder if he might get around to ‘splainin’ his role with the shady non-governmental orgs (NGOs) supported by the CIA who enabled his travels to Ukraine and his efforts there recruiting global mutts to fight for the Nazi-ish Azov Battalion? Perhaps he might rat-out actual government officials who assisted him in his colorful misadventures? As Ed Snowden remarked on “X”, wannabe Trump assassin Ryan Routh has “something of an Oswald vibe” — meaning, well-groomed by the intel boys, to be used as required.

Perhaps we’ll find out — if nothing fatal happens to befall Mr. Routh while in custody — how exactly he learned Mr. Trump would be on the links that afternoon? The candidate’s round of golf that day was supposedly a snap decision known only amongst his innermost circle. Or how did Mr. Routh figure out the most advantageous fairway to lay at for a clear shot?

The FBI is on the case, you may be reassured to know.

Things political are speeding up with the autumnal quickening. The blob is truly and deeply a’fright. So many blobsters will be liable to pay for their multitudinous crimes against the people of this country if Mr. Trump squeaks back into power that such a future is unthinkable to them. And yet, nothing has worked to deactivate this. . . this golden golem stalking the land. Nothing to show for the immense catalog of lawfare cases concocted to drain his wealth and stuff him into a prison cell — and astounding how amateurish they all were! Engoron and Merchan, two boobies hatched out of Judicial Error Central. Fani Willis, a walking-talking banana peel! Merrick Garland, saving democracy one abuse of power at a time!

The Butler, PA, head-shot op came awfully close to eliminating their, uh, problem, but no cigar. The Palm Beach golf course ambush had a Peter Sellers vibe, wouldn’t you agree? With the rifle muzzle poking through the shrubbery behind a fence. What next? A pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and cyanide? Maybe try to drop an anvil on Mr. Trump’s head from a passing airplane?

(Beep-beep. . . woosh!)

Somebody do something!!! The blob is shrieking to its minions from the sub-basement bunkers at Langley to the salons of Georgetown, to the US Embassy in Ukraine. Well, there’s always World War Three! And it looks like just such a romp is about to be instigated. You may have seen the photo last week of “Joe Biden” meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a big conference table, talking-up a plan to give Ukraine the green light to rain long-range missiles deep into Russia. Meaning, let NATO technicians work the targeting console to send US or British made rockets any old place over there? Like, Red Square? Or the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg? Find an actual Ukrainian to push the launch button.

How is that not a direct attack on Russia by NATO? Well, of course it is exactly that. Russia’s chief executive, Mr. Putin, clarified it for the Globalist Neocon cohort infesting NATO that such an action would bring. . . “consequences.” That is a word the Neocons are no longer acquainted with; it has been such a long time since they’ve crossed its path, like its boon companion, “truth,” also missing-in-action these days. And, to be fair, Mr. Putin did not specify what the consequences might be, not even a simple metaphor like a mushroom cloud, or an ashtray.

How did they even get “Joe Biden” off the beach for that photo op? It is understood by everyone over ten-years-old in America that “JB” is not available for duty anymore. The “out-to-lunch” sign hangs permanently on the doorknob of the Oval Office now. The USA does not have a functioning chief-of-state for the first time in 235 years. After 2021, some sort of unelected, informal Politburu that self-assembled in the White House, like a clot from a Covid Vaccine shot, is running our affairs. Maybe Kamala Harris has a clue who is in that outfit. Or somebody in the news median could ask her (if she ever gets around to holding an actual news conference, where the questions are not previewed or scripted.) Anyone dare ask?

Kamala Harris is strangely missing from the front page of The New York Times this morning.

Is that a little ominous?

The debate is behind her. There will not be another, apparently. There is nothing about her schedule on the official campaign website. Has she entered fade-away mode? Is it all over now except for the ballot harvesting and the, uh, little adjustments to the Dominion vote-counting machines? Has the drinking started again?