It's not really all that funny, considering that 1/2 the country is prepared to vote for whoever isn't Trump, and doesn't care about the consequences

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Harris Campaign Scared to Deploy Tim Walz For Hilariously Telling Reason

BONCHIE:

“While Donald Trump's running mate JD Vance has been barnstorming the country, doing dozens of events and interviews, Kamala Harris' would-be second-in-command has been kept in a box. While Tim Walz has awkwardly read a teleprompter a few times, he has yet to do a single interview or press conference. 

“That's a noticeable departure from how vice presidential nominees typically operate. They're supposed to be an attack dog. Someone who can go into the lion's den and put up a good fight. Vance has proven he can do that. Meanwhile, Walz is doing "white guy taco" videos and helping stage the gas station Dorito runs. To use a word the Minnesota governor has an affinity for, it's weird. 

“A new report is shedding some light on why Walz has been so confined, and it's both telling and hilarious.”

What about Tim? One of the issues that Harris world is currently working to address is how to deploy running mate TIM WALZ in the media. The danger in sending him out to do big solo interviews is that he might not have a full command of where Harris is on every issue. As someone pointed out to us last night, Harris talks about the “opportunity economy,” but if Walz were asked to define it, would he know how?

“Think about that. Kamala Harris' policy positions are so nebulous and undefined that her own running mate doesn't have a grasp of where she stands. This is a presidential ticket that has been together for a month, and Walz still can't be trusted to do interviews without possibly contradicting her. If this were a Saturday Night Live skit, what would be different?

“Here's the thing, though. Kamala Harris also doesn't have a grasp of where she stands. There's a reason her website still doesn't include a policy platform despite the Democratic National Convention having concluded. She is an awful politician hiding behind a teleprompter who doesn't hold a single principle other than her support for abortion until birth. Everything else is up in the air depending on what she thinks will help win her the election.

“The above article claims that Walz might not be able to define the phrase "opportunity economy," but I'd bet a lot of money that Kamala Harris can't either. It's nothing but an empty slogan meant to elicit an emotional response from people who vote based on vibes. The empress has no clothes. There is nothing behind the facade of the Harris campaign. It's being propelled by nothing but a biased press going along with the "joy" and "brat" gambit.

FWIW:

If you have a strong stomach and a taste for despair, read the Politico article Bonchie refers to, Playbook: Inside Harris’ big interview decision. This incompetent is still dithering about who she should sit down with for the single interview she intends to grant before Election Day. A black female interviewer, of course, but also one who is guaranteed to ask nothing but pleasant, softball questions: the Queen is definitely not going to grant her favor to that mean ol’ Lester Holt, who embarrassed her in 2021 by asking awkward questions about her role in the border disaster.

Can you imagine this pathetic creature sitting down to negotiations with Putin, say, or Xi? Or, for that matter, Albert II of Monoco?

Riverside sale price reported

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46 Terrace Avenue, priced at $2.695 million, has sold for $2.650. It’s interesting to see this property’s price history over the years. It was one of Mickster’s listings when it sold to a flipper for $902,042 (price war) in 2003, renovated, and put back on a few months later, selling for $1.775. Whoever bought it in 2007 at the crest of the boom didn’t fare so well, and had ti sell it fr $1.425 just two years later. The current owners, however, have done very well: they paid $1.6 for it, did nothing to it except strip it of its garish interior decorating scheme, and sold it for a million more. Not bad.

Monkeypox next?

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Federal judge rules HIV-positive individuals must be allowed to join the military

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled on Tuesday that the Pentagon’s arguments barring HIV-positive individuals from military service were not “supported by the evidence.”

“Even worse, they contribute to the ongoing stigma surrounding HIV-positive individuals while actively hampering the military’s own recruitment goals.”

The judge didn’t say how the opportunity to serve next to HIV positive individuals would spur recruiting, but does she really need to explain such an obvious conclusion?

For reference, here is a short list of medical conditions that CAN get you disqualified from military service:

  • Allergies

  • Colorblindness

  • Missing teeth

  • Asthma

  • 2 or more concussions in the last 12 months

  • ADD/ADHD

In defending its policy, the Defense Department listed that an asymptomatic HIV- positive individual still could pose risk to the military’s mission for they may not be taking their medicine on a regimented basis which could lead to their viral loads rising; HIV which is incurable could be transmitted to other service members either through “blood spatters or transfusions” and those living with HIV could suffer greater comorbidities impacting their health and ability to serve. 

The Pentagon also raised concerns that the military would endure “significant costs” in order to pay for the HIV treatment of HIV-positive individuals. Antiretroviral costs are estimated to be between $10,000 and $25,000 per person annually. 

However plaintiffs argued that defense’s cost concern is not based on a rational basis, since the military “does not base accession decisions on the cost of healthcare for any other recruits with any other health condition.” 

“Modern science has transformed the treatment of HIV, and this court has already ruled that asymptomatic HIV-positive individuals with undetectable viral loads who maintain treatment are capable of performing all of their military duties,” Brinkema ruled.

as approved by america’s bestest medical expert

Criminals

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Almost Half of NYC Bus Riders Don't Pay: An Explanation

Dennis Prager has thoughts:

On April 13, 2019, the Times ran this headline: "1 in 5 Bus Riders in New York City Evades the Fare, Far Worse Than Elsewhere."

In just five years, the percentage of New Yorkers who avoid paying their bus fare -- in other words, steal -- increased from 20% to 50%, a two-and-a-half times increase.

And why might that be? The answer is the same answer that explains virtually every awful development in American cities: moronic progressive ideas and the Democratic Party, the party that governs all our big cities.

As reported in the 2019 article, "Fare evasion was widespread and the reasons varied. Riders did not have exact change. They knew they would not get in trouble ..."

Let's deal with these reasons.

"Riders did not have exact change."

Are we to believe that two and a half times more New Yorkers lacked exact change in 2024 than in 2019? The "no exact change" excuse is typical of people who break laws -- they don't blame themselves; in fact, they regard themselves as perfectly innocent. This is precisely what almost all people who engage in criminal behavior -- from fare evasion to murder -- do: justify their behavior to themselves.

"They knew they would not get in trouble."

That's the real reason. And as we shall see, progressives ensure that fare evaders will not get in trouble.

If people believe they will get away with it, many, maybe even most, people will do bad things.

There are three reasons people desist from doing bad things:

Reason 1: They will be punished.

Progressives have done away with this crime prevention tool. In California, for example, progressives decided to make theft of up to $950 a misdemeanor. As a result, there is more theft of retail stores than at any time in modern California history.

The threat of punishment is why there is less fare evasion in London or Paris than in New York. As the 2019 Times article reported, "In London, where riders face fines as high as $1,300, the fare evasion rate on buses is only 1.5 percent." And in Paris, "the fare evasion rate for buses is 11 percent. ... The Paris transit system has 1,200 staff members dedicated to the problem and hands out about one million fines each year."

In December 2018, The Washington Post reported:

"The D.C. Council gave final approval this week to a measure decriminalizing Metro fare evasion. ... Council members and activists (said) decriminalization was an important step toward addressing disproportionate policing of African Americans who use the transit system. ...

“Proponents of the bill, the Metro Fare Evasion Decriminalization Amendment Act of 2018, pointed to a recent report from the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs that found between January 2016 and February 2018, 91 percent of Metro Transit Police citations and summons for fare evasion were issued to African Americans."

“91 percent of Metro Transit Police citations and summons for fare evasion were issued to African Americans." That’s an impressive statistic, but to be fair to our African American friends, at some point, the “chump factor” kicks in, and even reasonably honest individuals realize that, when a payment system — for transportation, retail shopping, groceries — has become voluntary, only chumps will pay, and who wants to be a chump?* Very uncool. Would I pay the “suggested toll” on highways if there were no cameras overhead capturing my license plate? Or income tax, if the enforcement branch of the IRS was disbanded? Hmmm.

Prager goes on to cite two other reasons for bad actors’ defiance of the law: a lack of conscience, and the demise of religion, but our society is long past being able to instill those virtues in our citizens; better we focus on punishment as a deterrent and gave up hope for the other two. We won’t do anything at all, of course, so Prager’s concluding warning is apt:

In a nutshell, the Times headline encapsulates one other aspect of modern life: The civil war in America and in the West is not just between the Left and the Right. It is between the Left and civilization.

There are still cities in some countries such as Norway and Switzerland where transit riders are trusted to pay for the benefit with limited (inspectors occasionally board and ask for proof of payment) — those cities are not ours, nor are their citizens like us; thanks to Europe’s open border policies, however, they soon will be.

*Besides, they’ve probably been tipped off by Eddie Murphy about the unfairness of it all:

Proving that you don't need an Ivy League law degree to be a drooling idiot; or a liar (UPDATED)

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I can handle things... I'm smart! Not like everybody says! Like, dumb! I'm smart... and I want respect!

Shot:

Dem Senator Says There Is ‘Moral Obligation’ To Quell Fears About ‘Migrant Crime Wave’

“You don’t have to feed into the irrational fear that Trump is trying to make people feel. And it is important to push back on this idea of a migrant crime wave,” Murphy told MSNBC host Chris Jansing. “We don’t have to accept that as the dominant narrative. Why? Because the data actually tells us that immigrants to this country commit crimes at a rate lower than natural-born Americans. Now, that is an inconvenient narrative for Fox News and for the Trump campaign, but it is true.”

Chaser:

Brutal Venezuelan Gangs Spill Over From Sanctuary Cities Into Unprepared Suburbs

Denver’s decision to welcome migrants with open arms is bringing bloodshed to the suburbs next door. A notorious Venezuelan prison gang has set up shop in Aurora, Colorado — even though the town wanted no part of the influx of asylum seekers in the first place.

Aurora — a quiet bedroom community with a population of 390,000 directly east of the Mile-High City — has become a base of operations for the brutal Tren de Aragua gang, which has seized multiple apartment complexes and set off a wave of violent crime.

Denver leads the nation in new migrant arrivals per-capita, with more than 40,000 arriving from the southern border since December 2022.

Jazz Shaw, HotAir:

Back in February, the Aurora City Council passed a resolution by a 7-3 margin declaring that they would not be providing shelter and services to illegal migrants. Unfortunately for them, the members of the Venezuelan prison gangs apparently didn't take out a subscription to the local newspapers. Tren de Aragua members migrated there in increasing numbers all summer and they immediately began "taking everything they could get their hands on" according to one local police chief. 

One gang leader who set up shop in Aurora became known as "the Cookie Monster." That may sound adorable, but don't be fooled. His actual name is Jhonardy Jose Pacheco-Chirino, but the gang refers to him as “Galleta, which is Spanish for "cookie." He and his gang members quickly took over a local apartment complex. When one resident objected and refused to surrender his apartment, the gang brutally beat him until he required hospitalization. In another incident, two people were wounded when a shooting broke out in the complex.

…. It's interesting to note that when the supposed "Cookie Monster" (who was a known "shot-caller" in the gang in Venezuela) crossed the border illegally in 2022, he was vetted by border authorities who reportedly "didn’t see anything concerning about his past" and released him into the country. Did they even bother to check his tattoos?

He apparently has quite a head for business, however. When "Cookie" and his thugs took over the Fitzsimons Place apartment complex, they beat up or chased off all of the paying tenants. They then began moving newly arrived gang members into the units and set up a retail theft ring robbing the local Walmart repeatedly. The new "tenants" were charged rent to stay there and operate with the gang. One investor who had a financial interest in the Fitzsimons Place complex told reporters that they had completely lost control of several apartment complexes in Aurora. Something more drastic clearly needs to be done. I feel a lot more sympathy for the people of Aurora than I do for the voters of Denver. Aurora never signed up to be a sanctuary city, but they're dealing with the brunt of the damage caused by this invasion nonetheless.

UPDATE: Not that anyone who’s familiar with this moron’s career needs further evidence of his duplicity, but Twitchy has assembled X posts detailing some of his more recent egregious lies.

Dem Sen. Chris Murphy Says He Can't Make Up Stories That Aren't True, Then Makes Up Untrue Stories

Yes, they hate America, and they're happy to prove it

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Ed Driscoll piles on:

Flashback: Kamala Harris Dismisses Kavanaugh’s Pocket Constitution: ‘That Book You Carry.’

Piers Morgan could not be reached for comment: Piers Morgan gets owned by Ben Shapiro, refers to Constitution as “your little book.”

What’s particularly galling is that the Constitution was drafted by one of the most amazing collection of men in history — whether by God or simple happenstance — and this ragtag group of mental pygmies has the arrogance to insist that they are qualified to “reimagine” and rewrite it in their own image.

We’re almost at the level of the lowest banana republic, with their lack of rule of law and ephemeral constitutions that change with each new ruling party; these people will ensure we join them.

And they're just warming up

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not to worry, vetted, neutral democrat observes can handle the workload by themselves, without help from those fascist republicans

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Wayne County Michigan: Only 50 Republicans Hired as Poll Watchers. “In a recent development in Wayne County, Michigan, more than 700 Republicans applied to be poll watchers for the upcoming elections. However, out of the 2,350 poll watchers hired, only 50 of them were Republicans. This stark contrast has raised concerns among the Republican community about fair representation and transparency in the polling process.”

Historically, Philadelphia Democrats have taken a different, more direct approach to ensuring victory, as demonstrated in 2008: