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Sunday, October 6, 2024

Harris makes no mention of accusations against husband, talks combating abuse in podcast

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke of strategies to curtail sexual and other types of domestic violence during an interview on a wildly popular podcast Sunday, but the accusations against her husband that surfaced last week never came up.

In Sunday’s episode of “Call Her Daddy,” Harris, 59, passionately recalled how she began her career as a prosecutor inspired to take on domestic abusers, but host Alex Cooper, 30, declined to press the veep on the thorny topic of her husband allegedly drunkenly hitting an ex-girlfriend, avoiding the issue altogether.

“The first thing that I would say to anyone going through it is tell someone that you trust. Don’t, don’t quietly suffer. You have done nothing wrong,” Harris said about advice she would give to victims of domestic violence.

“Often, the abuser will tell her that if she tells then something worse will happen, and that is usually wrong. And know that there are people that want you to be safe.”

While hearkening back to her efforts to combat abuse as San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, Harris reiterated the harrowing situation that first inspired her to become a prosecutor.

“We have to talk about it. Child sexual assault is something that far more people than the public discourse about it acknowledges,” Harris said while emphasizing the need to “not stigmatize it.”

“Abuse of anyone is something we should all take seriously, as opposed to saying it’s not our business. It’s something that we have to agree should not happen.”

Key to making the US a safer country for women is economics, Harris argued.

“When a woman, and in particular if she has children, if she is economically reliant on her abuser, she’s less likely to leave,” she said. “Most women will endure whatever personal, physical pain they must in order to make sure their kids have a roof over their head or food.”

Left unmentioned during the interview were the shocking accusations against the second gentleman Doug Emhoff from three friends of one of his ex-girlfriends, who claimed he became intoxicated and slapped her back in May 2012, as reported by the Daily Mail.

His reps later gave a flat denial to those accusations.

“This report is untrue,” an Emhoff spokesperson later told Semafor, adding that “any suggestion that he would or ever hit a woman is false.”

Back in August, Emhoff fessed up to having an affair during his first marriage, after the outlet reported that he cheated on her and got the nanny pregnant.

At times on the campaign trail, Harris has dubbed her rival, former President Donald Trump a “predator.” The GOP presidential nominee has faced a number of sexual misconduct allegations, all of which he has denied.

Trump was found liable by a jury for defamation and sexual abuse against writer E. Jean Carroll. The 78-year-old is appealing that verdict.

During her podcast appearance, Harris laced into Trump for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, ripping him for telling women, “I will be your protector.”

She also bristled when asked about Trump’s suggestion that she supports abortion “right up until birth, and even after birth.”

“That is so outrageously inaccurate, and it’s so insulting to suggest that would be happening and that women would be doing that. It’s not happening anywhere,” she said. “This guy is full of lies.”

Harris has often demurred when asked about the limitations she would enact on abortion, claiming that she would merely restore the policy first established in Roe v. Wade. Prior to the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Supreme Court precedent technically did not set gestational limits and instead deferred to the states and Congress.

At the moment, there are just over half a dozen states and Washington, DC, that do not impose gestational limitations on abortion, according to Axios.

Fewer than 1% of abortions took place in the US during or after 21 weeks of gestation back in 2021, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pro-life activists argue that data on late-term abortions is incomplete.

Killing babies after birth is illegal, but Trump appears to be referencing “comfort care” that abortion doctors sometimes administer to a baby that survives a botched abortion procedure — which is generally thought to be rare.

In the early 2000s, Congress passed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act to provide protections for fetuses and babies that survive abortions. Trump has blasted Democrats for scuttling efforts to strengthen those laws during his first term.

Harris also addressed GOP vice presidential hopeful JD Vance’s swipe at “childless cat ladies,” which she called “mean and mean-spirited” as well as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ diss at her for not having biological children.

“[There are] a whole lot of women out here who have a lot of love in their life, family in their life and children in their life. And I think it’s really important for women to lift each other up,” she rebutted.

“Call Her Daddy” was the second-best performing podcast on Spotify last year behind Joe Rogan’s podcast and topped the charts among women.

The podcast is known for featuring discussions about sex and advice for women.

https://nypost.com/2024/10/06/us-news/kamala-harris-talks-about-combating-abuse-makes-no-mention-of-accusations-against-husband-during-interview-on-sex-podcast/

"Hunger Games $hit": DHS Head Mayorkas Shops In Georgetown as Katrina-Like Disaster Unfolds In NC

A massive shitstorm has erupted for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas after he told reporters last week that FEMA "does not have the funds" for the remainder of the Atlantic hurricane season. Meanwhile, reports suggest the agency's resources were depleted to address Biden-Harris' open southern border policies that facilitated the greatest migrant invasion this nation has ever seen.

On Sunday morning, the latest power data for the US Southeast region showed that across North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georiga, more than 400,000 customers are without power.

Rescue operations in western North Carolina are continuing amid reports that FEMA hindered private citizens from flying aircraft and other ground-based operations to bring in supplies or conduct rescue operations. It's just been an epic mess by the federal government.

There are at least 227 deaths across six states after Hurricane Helene wiped entire towns off the face of the map in western North Carolina...

... DHS Mayorkas, impeached once for sparking the southern border crisis, ...

... was spotted at a luxury clothing shop in Georgetown on Saturday afternoon by one journo from Washington Free Beacon.

"... the Washington Free Beacon strolling through the mens section of Sid Mashburn, a high-end menswear store, surrounded by security. He appeared to purchase some items at the store, where suit jackets go for as much as three thousand dollars."

It appears Mayorkas wasn't in the emergency control room on Saturday, directing staff to address the twin crises unfolding across the nation. If that's weather-related disasters (and a looming one for next week) or migrant crisis blowing up for the Biden-Harris team, Mayorkas was out shopping for luxury clothes.

'Biden Urges Congress To Act Quickly As Disaster Relief Funding Runs Low'

by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Joe Biden urged Congress on Friday to expedite funding for the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) disaster loan program, warning that it will run out of money within weeks amid ongoing recovery efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

In a letter to Congress on Oct. 4, Biden warned that the SBA’s disaster loan program will run out of funding “in a matter of weeks and well before the Congress is planning to reconvene.”

“I warned the Congress of this potential shortfall even before Hurricane Helene landed on America’s shores,” the president stated, adding that he had requested more funding for SBA “multiple times” in the past months.

“Small businesses and individuals in affected areas depend on disaster loans as a critical lifeline during difficult times,” he said. “The Congress must act to restore this funding.”

The president did not specify the amount needed to replenish the disaster loan program.

The SBA offers low-interest loans to businesses, homeowners, and renters affected by declared disasters. Its loan program provides affected homeowners with up to $500,000 to repair their primary residence, and up to $2 million for businesses to cover disaster-related losses.

In his letter, Biden stated that while the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster relief fund has sufficient resources to meet its immediate needs for Hurricane Helene response efforts, it could face a shortfall by the end of the year.

FEMA and the Department of Defense have been carrying out “critical life-saving and life-sustaining missions” due to impacts from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 26.

Biden said that FEMA will continue to perform its missions “within present funding levels” but urged Congress to provide additional resources.

“Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs,” the president stated.

Biden traveled to North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia this week to tour areas severely impacted by the storm, which caused heavy flooding and widespread power outages.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Oct. 2 that FEMA does not have enough money to make it through the hurricane season.

“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas told reporters aboard Air Force One on Oct. 2.

Hurricane Helene barreled through the Southeast last week, making landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region. The storm hammered Florida’s Gulf Coast with record storm surges and brutal winds before pommeling the rest of the region with historic flooding, wiping out entire towns.

More than 150,000 households have registered for FEMA assistance, according to Frank Matranga, an agency representative. That number is expected to climb as rescue and recovery efforts continue.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-urges-congress-act-quickly-disaster-relief-funding-runs-low

Uncertainty Clouds North Carolina's 2024 Election After Helene: Here's What We Know

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

Officials in North Carolina warned that voting in some parts of the battleground state might be impacted due to Hurricane Helene’s impacts.

During Helene, critical infrastructure in large swaths of western North Carolina and especially parts of the Appalachian Mountain areas were damaged or totally destroyed.

“There may be polling places impacted by mudslides, there may be polling places inaccessible because of damaged roads, and there may be polling places with trees that have fallen on them,” Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told NPR on Tuesday.

How Many Voters Impacted?

According to the North Carolina elections board website, five county boards of elections were closed as of Thursday morning. That includes Avery, Buncombe, Mitchell, Watauga, and Yancey counties, it shows.

In Avery, Buncombe, and Watauga counties, elections staff are working or taking calls. The status of Mitchell and Yancey counties is not clear as the elections website lists them as “closed” with no other details.

The website also includes a breakdown by party among registered voters in the 25 counties designated as disaster zones. Some 480,000 voters are registered as Republican and 292,000 as Democratic.

Another 490,000 are unaffiliated with either major party, the elections website shows. Around 10,000 people are registered with third parties in the affected areas.

Key Dates

North Carolina’s voter registration deadline for the coming election is Oct. 11, or 25 days before the Nov. 4 election, although some voters can register in person at early voting sites during the early voting interval, lasting Oct. 17 to Nov. 2, according to the elections board website.

For mail-in voters, a county board of elections has to receive a completed voter registration application no later than 20 days before the general or primary election, the election board says. Meanwhile, the deadline to request an absentee ballot in the state is 5 p.m. ET on the Tuesday before Election Day, which falls on Oct. 29. The deadline to return a mail-in ballot is 7:30 p.m. ET on Election Day itself.

A tracking website provided by the University of Florida’s Election Lab shows that about 16,000 people have already cast early votes in the state. All of them are mail-in ballots.

Expected to Be Close

North Carolina is expected to be a key swing state in the 2024 election, coming four years after then-President Donald Trump, a Republican, narrowly defeated then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden by more than 70,000 votes, or 1.3 percent.

The Cook Political Report moved North Carolina to “toss-up” for the 2024 election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in August. Recent polls in the state have shown the two candidates are neck-in-neck with one another, it noted.

Both Harris and Trump have made numerous stops to the Tar Heel State this year.

‘Daunting’ Level of Uncertainty

On Tuesday, Brinson Bell, the state election director, described the storm as causing a “daunting” level of uncertainty, with early in-person voting scheduled to start in just over two weeks on Oct. 17. Still, she said the state is prepared to help voters navigate the emergency.

“We’ve battled through hurricanes and tropical storms and still held safe and secure elections, and we will do everything in our power to do so again,” Brinson Bell told reporters. “Mountain people are strong, and the election people who serve them are resilient and tough, too.”

Federal Officials, National Guard Deployed

More than 6,700 Army and Air National Guard members have been deployed to areas that were hard-hit by Hurricane Helene last month, while a federal official confirmed that more than 5,000 federal employees are responding.

Some 6,700 guardsmen from 16 states were activated, with more than 1,100 members being sent to North Carolina, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) said in a statement.

Frank Matranga, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), told reporters earlier this week that federal agencies have sent 5,000 personnel to help with the response in the southern United States, including more than 1,500 FEMA staff members.

“I cannot thank enough all of the people across this country, across the federal family, across private and nonprofit sectors that are dedicating their time and energy to help the people in impacted areas and especially help the people of Western North Carolina,” Matranga said in a news conference. “We know it’s a big job and we know there’s still work to do, but we are making steady progress.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uncertainty-clouds-north-carolinas-2024-election-after-helene-heres-what-we-know

Antisemitism is exploding — because we’re teaching hate in public schools

Monday marks the first anniversary of the Hamas slaughter of 1,300 innocent civilians in Israel. Yet as shocking as that attack was to the human conscience, the subsequent reaction to the massacre may be a more widespread and terrifying legacy.

The victim-blaming began almost immediately, as student groups at elite universities published florid diatribes downplaying the attack while the tortured bodies of women, children and the elderly were still being identified.

Columbia University students trumpeted “a counter-offensive” against Israel, the Palestinians’ “settler-colonial oppressor.” At Harvard, a consortium of 31 student groups said they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

Campus protests metastasized rapidly nationwide, with pro-Hamas demonstrators regularly invoking blood libel, the Holocaust and the elimination of the Jewish state.

But how did this prejudice go from zero to 60 seemingly overnight? Is there something about the American college experience that transforms students into antisemites when they move into their freshman dorms?

Radical professors and social media have played a role in fomenting this hatred. But in truth, the ideological seeds of extremism were planted long before freshman orientation — and usually paid for with public tax dollars.

Bigotry is not innate; it is learned.

And what has unfolded in higher education is the culmination of lessons taught during our students’ K-12 years, by elementary and high-school educators who have allowed antisemitism to flourish under the banner of progressive ideals.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives and ethnic studies curricula bear much of the blame. These programs teach children to categorize people as either “oppressed” or “oppressor,” assigning moral value based on characteristics like race, religion, immigration status and sexual preference.

They have conditioned our students to view society through the lens of constant conflict and subjugation, as they push harmful stereotypes of collective guilt and innocence.

In New York City, a teacher pushed anti-Israel propaganda on children as young as 4.Getty Images

Under the warped nature of this framework, Jews are coded as “privileged” because they are considered “white” — ignoring thousands of years of violent persecution as well as basic facts (almost 30% of the global Jewish population is non-white).

Race should not matter at all, of course, but it seems cruelty is appropriate when directed at deserving targets.

Examples abound of antisemitic rhetoric being not only tolerated in K-12 classrooms, but encouraged.

In New Jersey, the Passaic County Education Association held a “summer series” designed to arm teachers with pro-Palestinian propaganda for the classroom. One lesson glorified “heroic resistance to Zionism” — the very language terrorists use as they slaughter Israeli innocents.

Ethnic studies consultants advising school districts in California and Arizona have promoted “Preparing to Teach Palestine” toolkits, which instruct that Jews stole Israel from Palestinians, while the Qatar Foundation has provided teachers with maps that omit Israel from the Middle East altogether.

Last year teachers in Oakland, Calif. held an unsanctioned “teach-in” to create a publicly available teaching guide on “the liberation of Palestine” that my group, Parents Defending Education, has since uncovered in other districts nationwide.

In Oregon this spring, the Portland teachers’ union was caught promoting pro-Palestinian material intended for students as young as kindergarteners that describes Israelis as “colonial settlers” and labels their government as an “apartheid regime.” Other pamphlets in the collection go even further, referring to Hamas — a designated terrorist group — as a “Palestinian Resistance Force.”

In New York City, a teacher pushed anti-Israel propaganda on children as young as 4 with lessons on “land theft, displacement, and ethnic cleansing,” while in Maryland, a middle school teacher celebrated as a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team leader” was suspended (though later reinstated) for posting online that the Oct. 7 attack was a hoax and accusing Israelis of harvesting Palestinians’ organs.

The hateful response from American youth to the Oct. 7 massacre is gut-wrenching, but — considering what impressionable students are absorbing from trusted authority figures — perhaps unsurprising.

It is clearer than ever that far too many school administrators and teachers have twisted their privilege as educators into a tool for indoctrinating kids into an ideological agenda that fuels hate, rather than combats it.

After a year of once-unthinkable displays of Jew hatred and terror glorification, it is past time for elected officials at the local, state and federal levels to treat these incidents with the same gravity they do other forms of discrimination — and to attack the problem at its true source.

Nicole Neily is president and founder of Parents Defending Education.

https://nypost.com/2024/10/06/opinion/antisemitism-exploding-because-were-teaching-hate-in-school/

Biden’s forced end to port strike is a bad deal for consumers — and unions, too

So President Biden’s top aides swooped in with their renowned mediation skills, and saved the average American from a Christmas season of empty shelves and (even) higher prices stemming from a long dockworkers’ strike.

That’s the narrative the White House is peddling about its role in ending the three-day walkout.

Not so fast: Biden strong-armed the ports into a bad deal that in the long run will push up prices — and harm organized labor.

Last Tuesday, the 50,000-strong International Longshoremen’s Association (shouldn’t we call them longshorepeople?) struck against East Coast ports, including Port Authority of New York and New Jersey facilities, logjamming container shipments.

The ILA wanted a 77% raise over six years, and a freeze to automation of tasks. The ports, under the US Maritime Alliance, had proposed a 50% wage increase, and want more flexibility on automation.

So the deal Biden achieved last week — 62% raises — is a nice compromise, right?

No: Biden achieved the deal through coercion — coercion his administration is proud of.

On the strike’s third morning, The Washington Post reported, Biden’s Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, with the support of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Labor Secretary Julie Su, ended a call with port employers by telling them “he was going to tell Biden in about an hour that they had agreed to propose a new offer to the union…[T]he shipping executives had agreed to do no such thing.”

This was a barely veiled threat: I’m telling the president you already did this, so you better do it.

Unsurprisingly, the wage offer that the ports made under this duress is generous.

Yes, it’s reasonable for dockworkers to expect employers to make up for years of Biden-era inflation.

But this deal does more than that.

In 2018, before the last contract, a dockworker made $35 an hour. Today the hourly pay is $39; to keep up with inflation, it would need to be $44.

Assuming inflation remains around 2% annually — isn’t Kamala Harris saying that Biden beat inflation? — this $44 wage would be $50 by 2030.

Instead, dockworker pay will spike to $63 an hour. (Thanks to overtime and bonuses for working irregular schedules, more than half of New York-area dockworkers earn more than $150,000 a year.)

Port operators might agree to an above-inflation deal in return for concessions: Particularly, a union giveback on automation so that our ports operate more efficiently, like Europe’s do.

Maybe the operators and union would agree to automation that doesn’t involve job losses for anyone already employed — lowering port costs, and consumer prices, in the long run.

But the deal that Biden forced the operators to make leaves all that to be negotiated over the next few months.

With the dockworkers already having secured the good part of the deal — the $63 base pay — what gives them an incentive to offer anything in return?

Biden could have stopped the strike, and created an environment for fairer negotiations, by using the tool Congress gave him: the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows him to suspend a strike for 60 days if that strike will affect the nation’s health or safety.

Taft-Hartley, passed in 1947, is not anti-union.

Congress wisely determined in that era of increasingly powerful private-sector unions that if Americans were to maintain support for organized labor, unions couldn’t take the public hostage by refusing to perform critical tasks.

Biden insists he’s pro-union, but he’s eroding a law that protects unions against themselves — and protects union members from irresponsible union leaders.

The Biden administration thinks it will get political credit not just for averting new supply-chain disruptions, but for being pro-worker.

“By bluntly and unmistakably declaring he would not seek an injunction under Taft-Hartley, the president created space for collective bargaining,” Seth Harris, a former Biden adviser, told The Washington Post.

It’s the opposite: Both sides knew that Taft-Hartley is the law, and is thus the framework under which bargaining should occur.

Biden circumvented bargaining by making it clear which side he was on, and disregarding the law to help that side.

But favoring the ILA — with its history of Mafia ties and no-show and sweetheart jobs — is hardly a good example of enlightened worker advocacy.

The unchecked power of unions like the ILA is why people stopped liking unions around the 1970s.

Most people aren’t longshoremen, and they know they can’t take the economy hostage to ask for a raise.

They just want a fairer deal for everyone, no extortion necessary.

Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.

https://nypost.com/2024/10/06/opinion/bidens-forced-end-to-port-strike-is-a-bad-deal-for-us-all/

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