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Sunday, August 4, 2024

Fetterman’s team warns Harris campaign about Josh Shapiro after years-old beef: report

Sen. John Fetterman’s advisers have reportedly badmouthed his home state governor Josh Shapiro to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign amid the veepstakes buzz.

Fetterman’s beef with Shapiro dates back to a lengthy rivalry the duo has had over the years and his concerns that the governor focuses too much on his own ambitions, according to Politico.

Specifically, the two feuded during their time together on Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons where Fetterman was often more inclined toward leniency.

The two clashed hard over how to handle the conviction of Lee and Dennis Horton, two brothers who were convicted in a 1993 robbery and shooting, per the report.

Fetterman was serving as lieutenant governor at the time, while Shapiro was the state’s attorney general in 2019 when the Horton brothers’ clemency case came before them.

Both brothers maintained their innocence, and the vote initially failed 2-3 in 2019, with Fetterman and Shapiro at odds. Shapiro had conveyed reservations about missing court documentation.

“The trajectory of my career in public service will be determined by their freedom or lack thereof,” Fetterman later told the Philadelphia Inquirer, hinting that he might challenge Shapiro if the then-attorney general ran for governor.

Shapiro later backed clemency for the brothers in December 2020 when the issue came up again.

But the ordeal left a bad taste in Fetterman’s mouth and his allies have given the Harris campaign his “unvarnished assessment” of Shapiro “that is not about policy differences or other public baggage,” Politico reported.

Other prominent Pennsylvania figures in the Democratic Party such as Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.) have sung Shapiro’s praises in public. Fetterman has been notably quiet.

The Post contacted Fetterman’s office and Shapiro’s team for comment.

“The governor evaluates every pardons case individually and on its merits and during his time as attorney general, he approved more pardons and commutations than all of his predecessors over the last 25 years, combined,” Shapiro spokesperson Will Simons told the outlet.

“He is proud of his record of delivering meaningful criminal justice reform while making Pennsylvania communities safer.”

Harris’ campaign has refrained from commenting on rumors as she and her team work to vet veep contenders.

At the moment Shapiro, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) are rumored to be among the top three choices she is contemplating.

Harris planned to meet with at least those three finalists Sunday at the Naval Observatory, the residency of the vice president, the Washington Post reported.

The vice president is expected to stump with her runningmate in Philadelphia on Tuesday. She had also officially locked down the delegates needed to secure her party’s nomination last Friday.

Shapiro, like some of the other VP contenders, had canceled events he had scheduled over the weekend amid Harris’ forthcoming high-stakes decision.

Some progressives have grumbled about Shapiro given his support for Israel in the Hamas war, which some strategists believe could potentially harm the ticket in Michigan particularly.

That’s prompted backlash from top Jewish Democrats who believe Shapiro is getting singled out because of his faith.

“These Progressives don’t want a Jew. Let’s say it out loud. Imagine if moderate Dems said they didn’t want a certain minority,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) wrote on X last week.

“The condemnations would be deafening. Yet now we hear much silence,” Moskowitz added.

Pennsylvania is widely regarded as one of the top seven battleground states and sports a critical 19 Electoral College votes.

https://nypost.com/2024/08/04/us-news/john-fettermans-team-warns-harris-campaign-about-josh-shapiro/

Now Kamala is being allowed by the press to run from the basement just like Biden

Kamala Harris hasn't done any press conferences or sit-down interviews.

She says she will debate Trump any time, yet when he offers a debate with the nearly same rules, on September 4, she runs and hides

Here are some simple questions the media should ask her, if they get a chance but won't, because they really don't care.

Will you accept the election if Trump wins or will you challenge it like Democrats did in 2000, 2004, and 2016?

Since you supported Biden's changes to Title IX, do you support men beating women to a pulp in the women's boxing matches at the Olympics?

Would you support a 15-week limit on abortions like Trump and most of the world or do you support unlimited abortions like China and North Korea?

Why haven't Democrats codified abortion laws when they have had complete control of the government several times in the last fifty years?

Does the Supreme Court or any court have the right to make laws or change the Constitution?

Hasn't it always been a blatant lie to call Roe v. Wade a "law" or Constitutional "right" when it was just a court ruling?

You complain that J.D. Vance would support Trump on everything. Can you tell the public where you took a stance on anything Biden did?

Why didn't you oppose all of Biden's executive orders opening the border if you support secure borders?

Why didn't Democrats pass strict border laws when they had complete control of the House, Senate, and White House in 2021 and 2022 since you blame Republicans for all the illegals coming across?

Do you still support lawless sanctuary cities and states?

Why didn't you apologize to border guards after falsely accusing them of "whipping" people?

Do you still support health care for illegals and Medicare for all? If not, why not, since you say it is a right?

Do you believe unelected bureaucrats should have the ability to issue unlimited regulations or do you think Congress should be responsible like the Constitution says?

Do you think a president has the right to dictatorially pay off student loans or does the power of the purse reside in Congress as the Constitution says?

Do you think poor and minority children should have freedom of choice of what schools to go to or should they be forced to stay in schools that perform poorly?

Didn't the media and others spread intentional lies for years that Trump colluded with Russia with no evidence?

Did you have any evidence that then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh did anything wrong when you sought to destroy him?

Should Joe Biden have gone to trial for illegally handling and taking classified documents for fifty years? If not, why not?

Shouldn't Biden quit lying about what Trump said at Charlottesville to gin up racial hate and violence?

Do you think it was proper that Biden took Hunter around the world collecting kickbacks and then lying that he had no involvement in Hunter's business dealings?

Isn't it disgusting that the media, Biden, the FBI, and 51 former intelligence officials intentionally lied about Hunter's laptop as they interfere in 2020 election?

Why do you and Biden continually lie that you inherited an economic disaster when the economy was growing rapidly when you took over?

Isn't it a fact that crude oil prices took off as soon as you were elected because you have said you want to stop producing oil? Don't those high prices contribute greatly to oil-producers Iran and Russia which allows them to fund wars and terrorism?

Do you really believe that changing to electric cars, school buses, and appliances will change the temperature and the climate? Do you have any scientific data that supports your beliefs?

I am sure that people could come up with thousands of more questions to ask Kamala but none will be asked. Instead the public will be gaslighted with pure propaganda about how great she is.

Sadly, most of the media and many voters don't care how extreme, destructive and radical that Kamala and other Democrats are. They seem willing to have the United States commit suicide from within.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/08/now_kamala_is_being_allowed_by_the_press_to_run_from_the_basement_just_like_biden_did_in_2020.html

Assassination Politics and the Abrupt Advent of Kamala Harris

By Victoria White Berger

Despite an ongoing range of congressional and independent efforts to get the truth out of the Secret Service and their “intelligence” confreres, we still don’t know what happened in Butler, PA, lacking conclusive, factual information behind the assassination attempt of former President Trump; nor do we know the extent of actors. Will we ever? Doubtful.

There are longstanding instances of reluctance to reveal true intelligence when it comes to assassinations or attempted assassinations. To this day, there remain many arguments surrounding Jack Kennedy’s killing. Records have still not been released to the public.

At present, the entire intelligence apparatus is mum on July 13, 2024—both Kimberly Cheatle (disgraced and forced to resign) and the present acting director were ambiguous with congressional investigators. FBI director Christopher Wray went so far as to desperately imply—which the bureau hastily retracted—that Trump wasn’t really even hit by a bullet.

The MSM, of course, are less than worthless in the effort to uncover the “facts” because they don’t want to. (Many of us believe that yes, Donald Trump would be dead were it not for divine intervention—what are the odds, really, that he survived without it?)

What we may strongly suspect is that there was, yes, a “they” behind the shots that almost killed Trump; a hostile CIA/FBI/DOJ knows it is the Deep State that Trump promises to eliminate. The persecution has been intense throughout these many years.

The progressive Democrats have been far and away the most vocal and hateful in their attitudes—despite what the MSM wants us to believe. They are already at it again, having (sort of) restrained themselves for a few days post-shooting (shamefully for our country, the same couldn’t be said of internet users).

None of this explains the specifics—the timing, the sheer oddity of the Secret Service’s engagement, and Joe Biden’s initial terrible, ridiculous and still ongoing reluctance to call a spade and spade and utter the word “assassination.” Kamala, tellingly, has tried to stay away from this discussion.

It seems unlikely that the 20-year-old suspect—as “they” tell us—was acting alone. Was he groomed, recruited, and encouraged by others? These “others” may be part of the “they.”

There’s been an obvious breakdown of Biden’s coalition, with no reason given from Biden on why he’s out. Biden’s very presidency was in immediate peril before July 16, for there were legitimate concerns over his mental state even in his own circles, and now he’s suddenly become a no-candidate, and is essentially a no-president—and we’re now in an unprecedented situation. An un-primaried, un-democratically-nominated, unqualified Kamala, heavily donor-financed via the retreating fiscal backside of Joe Biden is apparently going to be on the Democrat ticket.

Is any of this legal? We’re not clear on that, either. Why Kamala, why now?

“They” have tried everything—lawsuits, ballot removals, FBI raids—to rid themselves of Trump and none of it has been adequate, and was in fact reaching critical failure at the same time that Biden’s dementia was exposed to the masses during the debate; that exposure led to many in Biden’s electoral donor base threatening, or even stepping up, to withdraw funds. It was a house of cards from the start—Biden’s senility from the Oval Office —and that house was coming down rapidly.

“They” knew Trump would be the Republican nominee within the week. The RNC convention had all the ammo it needed—the pain of living under Democrats is very real for most Americans—and viewership of the convention would be millions worldwide. The Democrats were on the ropes; what could they possibly do?

Saturday July 13 may have been an expedient, shoddily planned act of desperation, to put it mildly. Maybe taking Trump out of the running, completely, was in their minds for a while; an “insurance policy,” as Peter Strzok might say.

All that seems consistent when you consider that “they” patched up an inferior, subpar force of Secret Service agents, supplemental and hastily put together, supposedly due to a Jill Biden appearance elsewhere; ignored basic and necessary protocols in assessing and securing the perimeters around President Trump; neglected to attend security briefings; refused the use of drones; and had eyes on the would-be assassin long before Trump took the stage.

We only know what little we do know because witnesses (and cameras) testify to this narrative.

There is little reason in giving the Biden administration, the Swamp, or persons unknown at this time, any benefit of the doubt; an election, a great possible shift in federal power, and likely much more is at stake.

So with Trump still here, “they” forced a Biden resignation and schemed Kamala onto the ticket; we didn’t expect a genius resolution though right? A few months to bury the July 13 stuff and distract the populace with an onslaught of Kamala. Possible?

Probably. There is a huge “climate” of serious criminal corruption in D.C. which insinuates into every powerful sector of this nation now. We really have only seen the edges of, for instance, the corruption with Ukraine. We have no idea of the extent of political payoffs between the Swamp and the media, and corporate interests, and even the courts. We know our taxes are being used as political tender. Trillions have gone straight down the drain… but what drain? Whose drain? Stupidity reigns.

In short, there is nothing fantastical in the hypothesis that the attempted assassination of former and putative President Trump was in fact a poorly executed political operation, if a very reactionary one, within the pressure of unfolding pre-election events. The brutal version: Kill Donald Trump while “they” had a chance and hold on to “their” presidential power before it might be decimated by an infuriated populace—in the election of Donald Trump in November.

This failed attempt on Trump’s life may actually have been the specific breaking point for Biden’s presidency/candidacy: with Trump still alive, Biden has to go. O’Biden’s handlers, and he clearly has them, said enough is enough, we need a new guy; now, there is a man who thinks himself president but has effectively been put to pasture by his own VP. In Kamala (for now) “they” have their new guy.

July 13 may have been, as characteristic of the work of the Biden/Harris regime, a bungled, inexpert attempt at a political change-a-roo, but here’s the bottom line: a failed assassination attempt is not a good political look during a presidential race for the presidency of America. This is a huge national security risk for all of us, from start to (wherever we) finish.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/08/assassination_politics_and_the_abrupt_advent_of_kamala_harris_a_query.html

Why Trump’s tariffs great for America

By Jack Hellner

The media, other Democrats and many supposedly smart businesspeople are railing against Trump’s proposed tariffs on China and making up how much they would theoretically cost the average American family. They usually say around $2,000 per year. The opposite is true.

As an article at ZeroHedge proclaims, “Trump’s China Tariffs: Extraordinarily Good For America.“ From the article (emphasis in original):

Trump is right. Although these levies would increase costs to American consumers, the costs would not be nearly as great as experts say. Moreover, there are other considerations, both economic and national security, favoring raising tariffs now.
Trump happens to be right about China. In February, speaking to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, he suggested he might impose tariffs greater than 60% on Chinese imports.
Critics from the American elite howl. “This is going to add price inflation across the board, all in the name of ‘tough guy’ election-year politics,” said Yael Ossowski of the Consumer Choice Center, in comments carried by Bloomberg.
“The long historical record demonstrates these are borne not by other countries, as Mr. Trump keeps insisting, but by American consumers and industries,” writes Steven R. Weisman of the Washington, D.C.-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, about tariffs.

I would think everyone would have learned from COVID what a disaster it is—and how costly—when so much of our supply chain depends on China, which has a government that hates us and wants China to overtake us as the most powerful country in the world.

It is as stupid as Germany depending on Russia for so much of its energy needs. Or the U.S. and other countries essentially depending on Iran and Venezuela for some of their oil needs.

The same people who oppose these tariffs falsely predicted that Trump’s previous tariffs on China would cause inflation problems for U.S. consumers. That never happened, but facts haven’t mattered to the media and others for years. They stick to their talking points no matter what. They rewrite history or just ignore it.

Here are the facts about Trump’s previous tariffs from the same article:

In 2018, Trump imposed additional tariffs on China and analysts warned that prices in America would rise. Smart people in America, however, forgot that China had an incentive to effectively pay the tariffs: The Chinese government and exporters absorbed 75% to 81% of the cost of the additional levies. They did so primarily through the government increasing export and other subsidies and factories accepting lower profit margins.
“The Trump tariffs were barely noticed by U.S. businesses or consumers,” long-time trade expert Alan Tonelson told Gatestone. “They certainly did not raise inflation, and they certainly did not cut growth.”

Essentially, China ate most of the costs of the tariffs because, if it didn’t, its government-controlled economy would collapse.

The same people who oppose the tariffs are willing to let Americans pay excessively high prices for energy and everything else while they pretend they can control the climate. They’re the cause of high energy prices around the world and the reason Russia and Iran can finance wars and terrorism.

These supposedly smart people don’t even appear to understand that China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other countries don’t care about their carbon footprint and never will.

They are willing to destroy our great country because of theories!

And no one should believe that Kamala now supports fracking. After all, she believes impractical and expensive electric school buses will change the temperature of the planet.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/08/why_i_think_trump_s_tariffs_were_great_for_america.html

Guess Who Kamala Harris Blames For Disastrous Jobs Report?

Following last week's horrendous jobs report, the Kamala Harris campaign issued a statement blaming - you guessed it - Donald Trump!

"Donald Trump failed Americans as president, costing our economy millions of jobs, and bringing us to the brink of recession," said Harris for President spokesperson James Singer in a statement.

"Now, he’s promising even more damage with a Project 2025 agenda that will decimate the middle class and increase taxes on working families, while ripping away health care, raising prescription drug costs, and cutting Social Security and Medicare — all while making his billionaire donors richer."

According to Singer, "We’ve made significant progress, but Vice President Harris knows there’s more work to do to lower costs for families," and "will make building up the middle class the defining goal of her presidency, taking on greedy corporations that are price gouging consumers, banning hidden fees, and capping unfair rent increases and drug costs."

So - robotic talking points centered around blaming the guy who's been out of office for 3.5 years.

On Friday the Labor Department revealed that US job growth cooled sharply in July, while the unemployment rate unexpectedly rose to the highest level in nearly three years. According to the report, the US added just 114K payrolls, a huge miss to expectations of 175K and also a huge drop from the downward revised June print of 206K, now (as always ) revised to just 179K. This was the lowest print since December 2020 (at least prior to even more revisions)...

As we wrote in response, these being numbers published by the corrupt Biden, pardon Kamala Department of Goalseeked bullshit, the previous months were revised lower as usual, with May revised down by 2,000, from +218,000 to +216,000, and the change for June was revised down by 27,000, from +206,000 to +179,000. With these revisions, employment in May and June combined is 29,000 lower than previously reported. It gets better because as shown in the next chart shows, 5 of the past 6 months have now been revised lower.

But while we have long known that the real payrolls number is far worse than reported, what was the true shock in Friday's "data" is the long overdue admission that the US is effectively in a recession because as the rule named for pro-Biden/Kamala socialist Cluadia Sahm indicates, a recession has now been triggered. The rule, for those who don't remember is that a recession is effectively already underway if the unemployment rate (based on a three-month moving average) rises by half a percentage point from its low of the past year. And that's what just happened, with the unemployment rate surging 0.6% from the year's low.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/guess-who-kamala-harris-blames-disastrous-jobs-report

Transgender Or Intersex? Confusion Reigns Over The Gender Status Of Two Olympic Boxers

by Jonathan Turley,

On Saturday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued a surprising correction after claiming for a week that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-Ting were actually born women and have Differences in Sexual Development (DSD), a range of rare conditions in which a person’s genitalia do not necessarily match with their chromosomes or hormone levels. In this weekend’s column, I cited that IOC claim that Khelif is not a transgender athlete. Yet, there remains considerable confusion on how the IOC and the boxing governing body is framing this issue and the question of gender.

IOC chief Thomas Bach said: “We have two boxers… who were born as women, raised as women, who have passports as women, who have competed for many years as women. And this is a clear definition of a woman.”

Bach chastised critics and warned them not “confuse the two issues,” stressing that this was not “about the transgender issue.” However, he then confused many by saying “this is not a DSD case.”

The IOC later issued a correction:

In today’s IOC – Paris 2024 press briefing, IOC President Bach said: ‘But I repeat, here, this is not a DSD case, this is about a woman taking part in a women’s competition, and I think I have explained this many times.”
What was intended was:
‘But I repeat, here, this is not a transgender case, this is about a woman taking part in a women’s competition, and I think I have explained this many times.’

The key claim of the IOC is that both boxers were “born women.” Clearly, the identification on their passports (and how they were raised) can differ from country to country.

In 2023, the International Boxing Association (IBA) President Umar Kremlev explained the IBA’s decision to disqualify Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting and Algeria’s Imane Khelif from 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships. While there remains confusion on the testing used by the IBA (or the reliability of those tests), it issued this statement:

“Based on DNA tests, we identified a number of athletes who tried to trick their colleagues into posing as women. According to the results of the tests, it was proved that they have XY chromosomes. Such athletes were excluded from competition.”

Various media also did their own “fact checks” with outlets like USA Today stating that the “outcries from anti-trans celebrities and politicians” were based on false claims and the boxers were born women.

NBC also cited “attacks from anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives online who claim they’re transgender.” It stressed that the IBA could not be trusted since the group was banned by the IOC. (IBA was banned for corruption and financial related issues).

Notably, buried down in the CNN report on the controversy is a line that would seem significant that “Khelif… has not said she has DSD.”

In the meantime, IOC spokesman Mark Adams has said that these determinations are left up to each sport’s international governing body because “they know their sport and their discipline the best,” Adams added that “I hope we all agree that we’re not calling for people to go back to the days of sex testing which was a terrible, terrible thing to do. This involves real people and we’re talking about real people’s lives here.”

Yet, it seems odd that such major criteria of qualification would be left up to each governing body. There should be a consistent rule across the Olympics. Yet, the Human Rights Watch maintains that gender testing violates fundamental rights to privacy and dignity.

My friend Marc Siegel, Fox medical analyst, argues that the testing side can be a simple as a hormone swab.

Media is still insisting that these are not transgender athletes. Many articles cited GLAAD and InterACT. On Sunday, GLAAD was insisting that Khelif is not transgender, but is now referring to the DSD claim as something the IOC has maintained:

Imane Khelif is a woman.
Imane Khelif is not transgender and does not identify as intersex.
Because Imane Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 International Boxing Association (IBA) championship due to an unspecified gender eligibility test, which has different eligibility criteria than the IOC, there have been unconfirmed reports that she may have a variation in her sex traits, also known as differences of sexual development (DSDs).
DSDs are a group of conditions involving genes, hormones and reproductive organs. According to the NIH, some people with DSDs are raised as female but may have sex chromosomes other than XX, or elevated testosterone levels.
Athletes with variations in their sex traits, or DSDs, are not the same as transgender athletes. Conflating the two is inaccurate.
It is not verified that Imane Khelif has a variation in sex traits or DSDs.
If you are confused, you are not alone.

Legally, there continues to be a debate on the criteria used in these competitions. However, the GLADD statements seems to suggest that there is uncertainty on the underlying facts.

Some of the confusion may be due to the use of transgender versus intersex.

There is a difference between transgender athletes and intersex athletes.

Transgender refers to someone who has a gender identity that is not in alignment with their sex.

Intersex refers to someone who has reproductive anatomy or genes that align with conventional definitions of male or female, including different chromosomal profiles. ESPN explained that “an example is someone who is partially or completely insensitive to androgens, such as testosterone. They may be assigned female at birth but have XY chromosomes because of their body’s physiological insensitivity to androgens.”

The athletes defending these two boxers have supported the claim that they are intersex athletes who were born female but have chromosomal differences.

What is most striking about the boxing controversy is that there appears little agreement on the underlying facts and testing. It is not even clear what Khelif has claimed in the past on these issues. That seems curiously undefined and irregular for a classification criteria. That was brought home by the confusion of Bach himself in warning against confusion on the issues.

On Saturday, Khelif defeated another female contestant, Hungary’s Anna Luca Hamori and Taiwan fighter Lin Yu-Ting also won the day before to advance to the semi-finals.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/transgender-or-intersex-confusion-reigns-over-gender-status-two-olympic-boxers

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