What does Kamala Harris really stand for?

 Someone recently posted on X: “Trump’s Agenda is whatever the last adviser or billionaire told him to do…”  

Like so many attacks launched against the former president, it is not accurate. There are at least 10 core beliefs that have inspired candidate and President Donald Trump since he first considered running for the Oval Office, and which continue to headline his campaign.

Specifically, Trump has consistently fought to secure our border; reduce taxes; beef up law enforcement and make our streets safe; lighten regulation, allowing businesses to thrive; oppose unfair trade policies that send jobs overseas; strengthen our military; exit globalist treaties, such as the Paris climate accord, that disadvantage the U.S.; promote school choice; support Israel; and yes, make America great again.

Trump has steadfastly championed these policies, both on the campaign trail and when he was president. Because most of them make sense and are popular with most Americans, even Democrats have embraced some of these positions — for example, demanding fairer trade terms.

Recall how, during the 2016 campaign, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton suddenly reversed her stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade deal involving 11 Pacific Rim countries. Signaling her flip-flop, left-leaning Politico ran a piece titled: “Clinton raved about Trans-Pacific Partnership before she rejected it.”

We know what Trump stands for, and what he would do as president. But what about Kamala Harris? What does she believe in? Voters must wonder. When she ran for president in 2019, she backed a ban on fracking; mandatory gun buybacks, i.e. gun confiscation; taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for prison inmates; racial reparations; decriminalizing illegal immigration; defunding the police; eliminating Immigration and Customs Enforcement; “Medicare for All”; the Green New Deal; and allowing felons to vote.

Now Harris is denying that everything she ever did was the real her. For instance, her campaign says she no longer favors outlawing fracking. Her shift no doubt reflects the unpopularity of that stance in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state.

Her campaign has also said she didn’t really mean she supported defunding the police. When she said to defund the police, she really just meant that the police should be smarter and tougher.

But Harris is sticking to some of her extreme positions, such as reparations, at least for now. Let’s see whether she flip-flops on that as well, when her backers do some polling and discover that less than one third of Americans endorse paying Black people to make amends for slavery.

Democrats, aided by their allies in the liberal media, are reinventing the vice president. They are eager to hide all traces of her progressive positions and policies. They know that far-left candidates are unelectable nationally, which is why Democrat bosses conspired to sideline Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2020 even though the self-described Democratic socialist had won the popular vote in the party’s first three primary contests. 

Hence the frantic re-positioning of Harris on numerous controversial issues. Democrat pooh-bahs are thrilled that Harris was once a prosecutor and served as California’s attorney general, allowing them to present her as a law-and-order candidate. Unfortunately, her policy record during that phase of her career is just as confused as her campaign today.

For example, critics charge her with having supported Proposition 47, which reduced penalties on numerous crimes and arguably ushered in San Francisco’s current lawlessness. Others argue she cleverly refused to take a stance on important criminal justice issues during her tenure so as to avoid making unpopular choices.

Eventually, Harris will have to sit for a real interview. She will have to explain where she stands on a host of issues. It’s easy to escape scrutiny and avoid revealing your beliefs when you’re appearing before friendly groups like Black sororities and RuPaul’s Drag Race. But Harris will be exposed as a politician who swims with the polls and has no real core when she tries to explain her shifting views of fracking and “Medicare for All.”

So far, her campaign has successfully protected her from that kind of examination, redeploying tactics that similarly shielded Joe Biden during the 2020 race. Biden campaigned mainly from his basement, using COVID-19 as an excuse for not making more public appearances, Voters now know why: Even then, Biden was showing signs of mental impairment, which ultimately forced him out of this year’s race.

Americans will demand more from Harris. In recent weeks, the U.S. media has gone all out to whitewash and rewrite her past, hoping voters will forget that she was one of the most unpopular vice presidents in history. They have done a remarkable job bashing Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), taking the spotlight off a vulnerable Harris.

Democrats’ approach so far has been working. According to a recent Bloomberg-Morning Consult poll, the VP is running neck-and-neck with the former president in key swing states.

But it won’t last. Voters who are most concerned about the economy and immigration, the top two issues by a wide margin, heavily favor Trump.

The most telling question asked by this poll was this: “Have you seen, read, or heard anything about each of the following in the past week?” Concerning Harris, 49 percent of respondents answered, “Yes, and it was mostly positive” while 42 percent said it was mostly negative. About Trump, 37 percent said what they had heard was positive, while 54 percent said it was negative.

That is the liberal media putting its thumb on the scales. On the issues important to voters, as opposed to the valiant whitewashing efforts of the New York Times, MSNBC et al, Trump wins.  

The Trump campaign was wrong-footed by Joe Biden’s exit from the race. Now it is readying a tidal wave of negative advertising about Harris’s extremely unpopular and shifting positions. They will brand her as a lightweight and as inauthentic. The latter charge was also leveled against Hillary Clinton in 2016. It was true, it stuck and she lost. Kamala will suffer the same fate.

Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company. 

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4806927-what-does-kamala-harris-really-stand-for/

US Rejects Vietnam’s Request to Lift ‘Non-Market Economy’ Tag

 

• Vietnam has pushed Biden administration for upgraded status
• Decision follows boosting of diplomatic ties between nations

The Biden administration rejected Vietnam’s request to be classified officially as a “market economy,” a setback for the country’s efforts to boost exports to its most important market.

The trade-dependent Southeast Asian economy has pressed the administration to revise the status since the upgrade in diplomatic ties during a visit by President Joe Biden to Vietnam in September last year.

The “non-market” economy label mainly works against Vietnam when the US applies anti-dumping complaints. A change would have been a signal of closer ties at a time when the US is seeking to bolster relationships in the region as a counterweight to China.

“Despite Vietnam’s substantive reforms made over the past 20 years, the extensive government involvement in Vietnam’s economy distorts Vietnamese prices and costs and ultimately render them unusable for the purpose of calculating US antidumping duties,” the US Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration said in a statement.

Vietnam filed the request to the Commerce Department last September and has appealed directly to US officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, citing economic reforms made in recent years.

Vietnam, which has signed numerous free trade agreements, is making greater access to the US market a priority. Its total trade — exports and imports — is equivalent to about twice the size of its economy.

Changing Vietnam’s market status has drawn bipartisan Congressional push-back, with critics arguing Vietnam’s control over prices and production and subsidized enterprises threaten America’s manufacturing base.

The US in 2022 removed Vietnam from its monitoring list for currency manipulation, curbing the risk of higher tariffs. The country pledged last year not to use its foreign exchange policy to boost trade.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-02/us-rejects-vietnam-s-request-to-lift-non-market-economy-tag

Harris And The Bouncing Balloon Campaign

 by Sean Trende via RealClearPolitics,

We all know that this election will be different than any other election we’ve had in recent decades – how could it not be? This is a 100-day campaign through Election Day, and a 45-day campaign until early voting begins. The dynamics are fundamentally different than your average modern campaign.

I’ve been struggling to characterize exactly how the dynamics animating this campaign are different. What I’ve come up with is this: This campaign is a lot like the old kids’ game of “don’t let the balloon touch the ground.” In the event you aren’t familiar with that competition, the rules of the game are remarkably straightforward: Kids bounce a balloon around, and they do so until the balloon touches the ground. In the long run, kids can’t really win the game, as gravity inevitably wins out. But if the goal is to pass time while parents pull together some last minute aspect of the party, the kids can theoretically win.

Right now, Kamala Harris is in her honeymoon phase. She’s been elevated from the vice presidency to presumptive Democratic nominee. This has been accompanied by an improvement in her job approval as she rides a groundswell of good press and has the opportunity to re-introduce herself to the American public. Her stock has risen accordingly.

At the same time, she is probably too far to the left to win a general election. She hasn’t really shown Barack Obama’s knack for knowing when he needed to hedge his position or even rule out something to his left because it would alienate a key electoral constituency. To be sure, there are people who don’t really believe that “too far left” is a category that exists (a lot of people on the right believe something similar); if you’re one of them then the entire frame of this article and theory of the campaign are incorrect. But within that frame, having the election turn to a referendum on Harris’ positions and record, which really have been on the left flank of the Democratic Party, is the equivalent of the ball touching the ground. If those positions are what the election is about, her path to victory becomes much more complicated.

As I’ve written before, I don’t think Harris is probably viable over the course of a year-long campaign. There’s a reason she was polling at 3% (barely ahead of Andrew Yang) in the 2020 Democratic primary when she dropped out.

She doesn’t have to run a year-long campaign, though. As it turns out, events line up in the political calendar in such a way that it really is possible to keep the balloon bouncing. Consider: Harris will almost certainly pick her vice presidential candidate this week. She has a large number of attractive choices from which to select, which will earn her another week or two of positive press.

That gets us to mid-August, when the Democratic National Convention begins. It will likely be a carefully scripted, well-managed event. There’s little doubt that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton will all deliver well-crafted prime-time addresses to rally the party behind its new nominee, as will Harris and her running mate. She might not receive a bounce, since she’ll still be in her honeymoon phase, but the balloon will be saved from the floor once again.

Then, in mid-September, Trump will be sentenced following his conviction in the New York fraud/hush money case. Regardless of whether or not he receives jail time, it’s another distraction from any substantive discussion of the issues in 2024. The attention is diverted from Harris and falls on Trump in a relatively unflattering light. The ball is kept off the ground again; the election actually shapes up as a referendum on Trump at this point.

At that point, we begin to vote. With extended early voting timelines, Pennsylvania starts voting in mid-September, followed by Minnesota, New Mexico, and Virginia starting a few days later. At the beginning of October, Arizona, Georgia, and Ohio start accepting ballots.

In short, we can’t think of this campaign as a traditional campaign. It’s a sprint, and a shorter sprint than people acknowledge. Harris might not be able to keep the ball bouncing through November, but she might not have to. Events are lining up to at least keep things going through a sizeable chunk of what has now become an election season.

Sean Trende is senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics. He is a co-author of the 2014 Almanac of American Politics and author of The Lost Majority.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/harris-and-bouncing-balloon-campaign

Wayfair Execs Warn Home Goods Slowdown Mirrors 2008 GFC

 Increasing concerns over a US economic slowdown (or just a reminder a hard landing is still possible) triggered a broad selloff in global stocks overnight and into the US premarket session. 

Investors' anxieties soared late Thursday afternoon following dismal earnings reports from Amazon and Intel. Corporate earnings have so far indicated that US consumers are struggling, and it seems only a matter of time before Goldman Sachs advises clients to short stocks with the highest exposure to high-income consumers, already telling clients to short low- and mid-income consumer stocks in recent months. 

Highlighting comments from Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah, an earnings press release on Thursday stated, "Customers remain cautious in their spending on the home, and our credit card data suggests that the category correction now mirrors the magnitude of the peak to trough decline the home furnishing space experienced during the great financial crisis." 

In an interview with CNBC, Wayfair CFO Kate Gulliver warned, "We see declines that are similar to the declines that we saw in that 2008 to 2010 period and I think what that speaks to is that the category has been going through just a massive correction, a correction that we've previously only seen during a GDP recession."

Gulliver continued, "Obviously we're not technically in a GDP recession as a country right now, and so this is somewhat a unique thing to this category … we've seen that kind of recession-like correction in the category over the last few years."

Separately, Goldman's Scott Feiler told clients this AM, "The big topic all of a sudden the "last few days" is around the health of the consumer." 

Feiler said, "The slowdown has broadened out and picked up further in June/July, led by a lot of bellwethers. That alone should not be a huge debate. The debate should be intensity and whether it's priced in." 

As for Wayfair's second-quarter earnings report, Goldman's Eric Sheridan said, "Wayfair produced disappointing topline results as revenue declined nearly -2% YoY with demand softening through the quarter despite a successful Way Day in early May (up DD% vs. 2023) as consumers proved increasingly price sensitive and pulled back further outside of promotional events." 

Sheridan said, "We reiterate our Neutral rating and reduce our price target from $67 to $54 mainly from lower operating estimates." 

Meanwhile, darkening clouds continue to gather over the US economy following this AM's payroll report, which shows a big slowdown in employment and a higher unemployment rate, so much so that recession risks are rising. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wayfair-execs-warn-home-goods-slowdown-mirrors-2008-gfc

June US Factory Orders Plunge Most Since COVID Lockdowns

 After this week's 'soft' survey data signaled serious ugliness in the US manufacturing economy...

Source: Bloomberg

...this morning we get 'hard' data confirmation as US Factory Orders plunged 3.3% MoM in June (the biggest MoM drop since COVID lockdowns), dragging orders down 3.6% YoY (also the worst since COVID lockdowns)...

Source: Bloomberg

The final durable goods orders print was worse than the initial - down a shocking 6.7% MoM...

Source: Bloomberg

All of which is adding to the 'growth scare' narrative that has been quietly accelerating...

Source: Bloomberg

How long before The Fed is forced into dovish retreat (adjusting its two-cuts-by-year-end forecast to the market's four cuts!).

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/us-factory-orders-plunge-most-covid-lockdowns-june

Hillary Clinton Is The Biggest Donor To Extremist Climate Protesters In The UK

 by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

You know those posh blue and pink haired children that have got nothing better to do but glue themselves to the road and throw soup at Van Gough paintings? Hillary Clinton is funding them.

That is according to the Telegraph, which reports that financial disclosures from Hillary’s ‘Onward Together’ leftist think tank show it donated over half a million dollars in the past three years to the Climate Emergency Fund (CEF), which is the largest backer of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.

The report notes “The donations are the largest contribution by Mrs Clinton’s organisation to a non-profit in the last three years, and are funded by public contributions and the sale of merchandise from her online shop.”

Onward Together donated $300,000 to the CEF in 2021, and a further $200,000 in 2022. The money was then put into a fund and eventually used to pay for Just Stop Oil’s protests in the UK.

Just Stop Oil recently vandalised the prehistoric Stone Henge site in the UK, and has this week again been in the headlines for causing disruption at London’s Heathrow airport.

As we have previously highlighted, Just Stop Oil, an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion, is literally funded by billionaires. Shock troops for globalist technocrats pushing for the same ‘net zero’ agenda, they’re the ultimate creature of the establishment.

*  *  *

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/it-turns-out-hillary-clinton-biggest-donor-extremist-climate-protesters-uk

Biden admin freezes controversial migrant flight program after fraud revelations

The Biden administration has put a controversial program that allows tens of thousands of migrants from four nations to fly or travel directly into the U.S. on hold, after a report circulated internally showing significant amounts of fraud in the program.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Fox News Digital that "out of an abundance of caution" it has temporarily paused the issuing of advance travel authorizations for the program -- which allows up to 30,000 nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV) to travel into the U.S. each month and enter legally under the administration's use of parole if they meet certain conditions. 

A congressional source had told Fox News Digital the pause came in mid-July after an internal report unearthed large amounts of fraud in applications for those sponsoring the applicants. DHS said the pause was occurring as it reviewed sponsor applications. The issue with supporter filings, and not with the filings from the beneficiaries of the program themselves.

Dec. 19, 2023: A migrant flight takes off to Chicago from Texas. (Gov. Greg Abbott)

"DHS has review mechanisms in place to detect and prevent fraud and abuse in our immigration processes. DHS takes any abuse of its processes very seriously," a DHS spokesperson said. "Where fraud is identified, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will investigate and litigate applicable cases in immigration court and make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice." 

"Out of an abundance of caution, DHS has temporarily paused the issuance of advanced travel authorizations for new beneficiaries while it undertakes a review of supporter applications. DHS will restart application processing as quickly as possible, with appropriate safeguards," they said.

The program was initially announced for Venezuelans in October 2022, and allowed a limited number to fly or travel directly into the U.S. as long as they had not entered illegally, had a sponsor in the U.S., and passed certain biometric and biographical vetting. The program does not itself facilitate flights, and migrants are responsible for their own travel.

In January 2023, the administration announced that the program was expanding to include Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans and that the program would allow up to 30,000 people per month into the U.S. It allows for migrants to receive work permits and a two-year authorization to live in the U.S. and was announced alongside an expansion of Title 42 expulsions to include those nationalities.

A congressional source tells Fox News Digital that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) stopped issuing travel authorizations to Venezuelans on July 6 and authorizations for the three remaining nationalities on July 18.

The internal report found that forms from those applying for the program included social security numbers, addresses and phone numbers being used hundreds of times in some cases.

Parts of the report shared with Fox News Digital by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a conservative immigration group, showed that 100,948 forms were filled out by 3,218 serial sponsors -- those whose number appears on 20 or more forms.

This split shows DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with migrants at the southern border. ((Photo by Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images and Andrew Harnik/Getty Images))

It also found that 24 of the 1,000 most used numbers belonged to a dead person. Meanwhile, 100 physical addresses were used between 124 and 739 times on over 19,000 forms. Those addresses included storage units. One sponsor phone number was submitted on over 2,000 forms, and there were 2,839 forms with non-existent sponsor zip codes, according to the leak.

The report was created by the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate to ensure DHS can quickly respond to fraud in immigration benefits programs. Sponsors must pass security and background vetting and demonstrate financial resources to support the individual they are sponsoring.

DHS stressed to Fox News Digital that CHNV beneficiaries are "thoroughly screened and vetted prior to their arrival to the United States." 

"The multi-layered screening and vetting for advanced travel authorizations is separate from the screening of U.S.-based supporters," the spokesperson said. "DHS has not identified issues of concern relating to the screening and vetting of beneficiaries." 

The freeze is likely to raise additional questions from Republicans, who have alleged that the Biden administration’s use of parole is an abuse of congressionally-granted authority -- which limits the power to be used only for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.

"This is an indication that the administration was willing to cut every corner and endanger public safety in order to bring in as many illegal aliens as they could," Ira Mehlman, a spokesperson for FAIR, told Fox News Digital.

The administration is also using the CBP One app to allow 1,450 migrants to enter the U.S. via a port of entry each day. It recently announced a "parole in place" for spouses of illegal immigrants. 

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently said the program is a "safe and orderly way to reach the United States" and has "led to a reduction in numbers of those nationalities."

"It is a key element of our efforts to address the unprecedented level of migration throughout our hemisphere, and other countries around the world see it as a model to tackle the challenge of increased irregular migration that they too are experiencing," Mayorkas said.

DHS revealed this year that, as of October 2023, there were about 1.6 million applicants waiting for DHS approval to fly to the U.S. via the parole program.

A lawsuit challenging the program was shot down earlier this year, but Republican states who filed it have indicated they intend to appeal.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-freezes-controversial-migrant-flight-program-after-fraud-revelations