Sunday, August 25, 2024

‘Strategic Vagueness’ is the Democrats’ New ‘Switcheroo’

“Strategic vagueness” is merely the latest entry in the left’s lexicon to gloss an ancient political tactic to make it appear novel and, for some reason, more digestible.


Obviously, the Democrats’ first “switcheroo” occurred when their party’s powerbrokers unceremoniously removed President Joe Biden as their presidential nominee with all the finesse of a posh D.C. restaurant owner prying a ravenous rat off their back-alley dumpster; and replaced him with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Now, the Democrat elite confronted an equally daunting task: transforming their anointed candidate into presidential timber in the eyes of the general public. Given the effort the Democrat establishment put into prepping the first “switcheroo,” making V.P. Harris palatable to Democrat voters was a foregone conclusion. Indeed, every percentage point the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, raced ahead of Mr. Biden in the rematch was another nail in the latter’s political grave.

It was the old political adage writ large: offer someone death (Mr. Biden) and they will accept torture (Ms. Harris). Propelled by the threat of Trump redux, Democrat voters not only refused to complain about being disregarded by their party’s power brokers for the third time in three presidential elections, they welcomed President Biden’s jettisoning and embraced the V.P. Harris selection.

In so doing, the Democrat establishment had succeeded in turning their party’s presidential primaries into non-binding referendums: a process whereby Democrat voters provide an advisory role that their ruling power brokers may or may not take into consideration when they determine who will be “our democracy’s” nominee and their running mate. Of course, the Democrat establishment’s ultimate aim of turning general election voters into a rubber stamp of their party’s handpicked candidate was yet to be a fait accompli. Thus, the crux: how to transform, by any means fair or foul, V.P. Harris from a less-than-winning radical hack into the glorious savior of our nation that only an American ingrate and/or insurrectionist would oppose?

Knowing time was short, the Democrat elite could not allow an unforced error by the less than facile rhetorician V.P. Harris to disrupt the creation of her cult of personality. Doubtless recalling how “Uncle Joe” Stalin said more with a menacing smile than a policy tract in Pravda, the leftist powerbrokers protected V.P. Harris from interactions with the press, no matter how compliant the reporter or the outlet. Instead, they ensconced her in ads, staged events, and public appearances, all of which were tightly structured and scripted with an emphasis on reimagining V.P. Harris’ personality and, consequently, avoiding the pesky problem that the Biden-Harris administration’s policies are an abject failure. The “same values, different vision” trope is a prime example of the Democrat elite’s stop-gap solution to this problem.

It has proven highly successful.

But the Democrat elite is cagey enough to recognize that this, alone, will not adequately feed the electoral kitty. Despite the efforts of leftist powerbrokers, independent voters still expect a candidate to at least pretend to hold press conferences and provide policy prescriptions for what ails America. As a result, sooner or later, the Democrat establishment’s handpicked, presumptive presidential nominee—even one who received not a single delegate when they pursued the Oval Office over four years ago—would have to step forward from behind her political Praetorian guard and face the music, albeit the fawning paeans of an adoring press.

So, how could the Democrat elite protect their presidential candidate from being beaned by a stray softball query?

The new “switcheroo”: “strategic vagueness.”

In her report concerning V.P. Harris’ economic speech by Forbes reporter Alison Durkee, one can limn the contours and motivations of the Democrats’ new switcheroo.

While the vice president has quickly garnered Democrats’ support and risen in the polls, Harris has released few concrete policy proposals in the first few weeks of her campaign—drawing some criticism as a result – with her speech Friday expected to [have been] the most substantive remarks she’s given on policy so far. Her focus on the economy comes as polling has repeatedly shown it’s the most important issue to voters in this election cycle, with the vice president hoping to attract support amid low approval ratings for Biden’s handling of the economy.

Thus, V.P. Harris’ conundrum rears its ugly head: how to appeal to voters who intensely disliked “Bidenomics,” which V.P. Harris not only supported but helped impose. Having mystically transcended her record regarding the Biden-Harris economy in the polls so far, the V.P. has no intention of allowing reality to diminish some in the electorate’s vain hope she can repair the economy she helped impair in the first place. Enter the new “switcheroo” of “strategic vagueness”:

Harris’ economic agenda released Friday didn’t go fully in depth about her proposals, which The New York Times reports is by design. The Timesreported prior to Harris’ speech that the Harris campaign has adopted a “strategic vagueness” for her economic proposals, believing that being more of a “blank slate” will help ward off attacks and attract more support from business groups.

As if the woke corporate elite and Wall Street are not already on board with the Democrat Party and their nominee. In any event, “strategic vagueness” as the article notes is merely the latest entry in the left’s lexicon to gloss an ancient political tactic to make it appear novel and, for some reason, more digestible. Hence, the strategically vague, deliberately blank slate candidate, V.P Harris, expects their new switcheroo to capture four key objectives.

The first is to maintain or increase her distance from the policies of the Biden-Harris administration.

The second is to deceive, confuse, and confound voters; and allow them to read – accurately or otherwise – whatever they may glean in the nebulously expressed policy.

The third is to keep advancing a thin veneer of policy, all the while hoping to keep the campaign about personalities—namely, between the public’s view of the authentic former President Trump and the newly reimagined V.P. Harris.

And, the fourth is the most important, and where the ultimate ulterior aim of the new switcheroo manifests itself: because of the deliberate strategic vagueness of the Harris-Walz policy professions, if they win the election, the Democrats will claim the public voted for every radical policy the new administration implements.

It will be akin to how in 2020, candidate Biden professed to be a moderate; but as president Biden governed as a leftist zealot. Yet, if the Harris-Walz strategic vagueness proves successful, their new switcheroo of professing moderation in a campaign and imposing radicalism while in office will continue and exacerbate the disastrous policies of Bidenomics.

Some might argue that the Democrats’ new switcheroo is a temporary expedient due to V.P. Harris’ sudden usurpation of President Biden’s 2024 nomination and that more detailed policy proposals will follow for the American people to evaluate. They would be wrong. The Democrat elite’s cynicism is beyond question, as is their political practicality. The public revulsion over V.P. Harris’ price gouging statement will not impel a change of course to bring forth more detailed policy proposals. It will result in the Harris-Walz campaign being even more strategic vague, vacuous, and evasive—i.e., deceitful to the public.

Evidently, the leftist party purportedly saving “our democracy” believes detailed policy proposals are dangerous in the hands of voters. To leftist riven with cognitive dissonance and a compulsion to project their vices upon others, what is one more instance of strategic lying by omission in a presidential campaign that is nothing less than systemic deceit upon the public? “Our democracy”—translation: “our party”—must be saved by any means necessary!

There should be no vagueness about how dangerous it is to empower such duplicitous radicals to impose their new switcheroo.



X22, And we Know, and more- August 25

 




Liberalism Rots The Mind


If you watched the Democratic National Convention this week, you know what it means to have brain damage. I have nothing against people who have actual brain issues, but aside from eating lead paint chips while inhaling industrial-strength glue or playing professional football in the “slam your body into someone else as hard as possible as a substitute for actual tackling” era, the fastest way to do serious damage to your ability to think logically to immerse yourself in Democratic Party politics. Liberalism either attracts naturally low IQ people or it rots the mind.

If abortion were a living person, it would take out a restraining order against Democrats after this week. Aside from the psychopaths who insist they’re receiving coded messages from their favorite singer or actress, every speaker on the stage was as obsessed with abortion as Hunter Biden is with taking shirtless selfies with prostitutes while smoking crack. People weren’t this preoccupied with Beanie Babies when they had actual value. 

The women there talked about abortion with enthusiasm, even though there’s little chance any of them would ever find themselves in that position outside of an “I’m blind and have no sense of touch or smell” convention. Many people there looked like their inner monologue was “Duh.” They smoked a bunch of meth, played paintball, and told a tattoo artist to ink whatever random shape came to mind in each spot they were hit (and I’m not just talking about Ella Emhoff); whoever told young women that making their skin look like pajama bottoms should be sent to prison or hired to market everything since they can clearly sell anything.

As for the men, they love abortion too. They pretend they aren’t the “before” photo in a Low-T ad and might actually meet a woman one day. Until that day, they aren’t about to take any chances with their tube socks. “It’s just a clump of cotton, not a bootie,” they repeat to themselves on laundry day. 

These people are the ladies with a gravitational pull at Walmart who look like cottage cheese poured into spandex, walking around and judging everyone else. Pro-tip: If the only person who says you look good is you, as you insist it is so to other people, you don’t. 

That was that whole convention – people insisting they would do something they could easily do now but will only do it if they win. If they don’t, they turn into Eric Cartman and tell everyone where they can stuff it. 

The creatures on MSNBC and CNN saying Tim Walz was helping usher in a “new masculinity” is like saying Buffalo Bill in Silence from the Lambs was the model of a modern man because of how far he “tucked it back.” 

These people are gross and should be as trusted with power in the federal government as Doug Emhoff should be with the nanny. 

They pretended to care about the military, but with stolen valor Fraudie Murphy on the ticket, that is laughable. Did you notice how they managed to find ONE person he served with to say anything nice about him? Just one out of at least hundreds over 24 years. That kind of tells you all you need to know about Tim Walz.

Kamala’s speech was a nothing burger – “The pantsuit truly is empty,” as I put it in a column. 

Democrats managed to reinforce their love of themselves for four days, and now they’re going to sell it to normal people. Good luck with that. 

When Robert Kennedy Jr dropped out of the race and endorsed Donald Trump because of just how far down the anti-American rabbit hole Democrats have gone, it was a giant warning flair for everyone. Democrats love to claim the Republican Party has changed. However, Ronald Reagan could win the nomination today easily, as the party still supports the same ideals and principles it has for decades. The Democratic Party wouldn’t nominate John F. Kennedy and wouldn’t allow him to have a daytime speaking slot.

JFK was pro-America, pro-military, stood up to communism, cut taxes to stimulate the economy, and had no question about what a woman was. You can’t say any of those things about the party today.

Naturally, since Democrats were unable to refute anything RFK Jr said in announcing his support for Trump, they trotted out every unknown Kennedy they could find to sign a statement that, were Grandpa Joe Kennedy still alive, would get lobotomized. 

Put out by Kerry Kennedy, who had the “good judgment of character” to marry Andrew Cuomo for a while, it read, “We want an America filled with hope and bound together by a shared vision of a brighter future, a future defined by individual freedom, economic promise, and national pride. We believe in Harris and Walz. Our brother Bobby's decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story.”

Imagine being such a giant pile of post-digested food that you’d put out a statement on the “betrayal” of your father by your own brother because he has a different opinion on something than you do. Street-walking hookers have more dignity. 

And all for party politics, all for the cause of pre-teen genital mutilation and abortion. Did I mention how gross these people are? If I didn’t, I meant to. If I did, double it, then double it again. 

Liberalism rots the brain. This past week demonstrated the lengths those people will go to obtain power, and we have to be willing to fight as hard in the opposite direction as possible to ensure they never do again. 



In Communist Cuba, Elderly Left to Struggle on $10 Pensions

 On our recent holiday in Cuba Average monthly wage was $150 US 

After more than 60 years of communism, Cuba’s population is suffering with a broken health care system, plummeting birth rates, and economic collapse.

Cubans continue to flee a worsening economy in record numbers while the elderly have been left behind, fighting to survive on the communist regime’s $10 monthly pension and a critical lack of basic supplies.

Food, power, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical shortages have ignited persistent protests this year and driven Cuba’s ongoing exodus of working-age adults.

The result has been nothing short of devastating for the country’s retirees.

“It’s a nightmare in every direction. This is an SOS. Cuba is about to collapse in a fatal way,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez, a long-time anti-Cuban regime activist and president of the Democracy Movement in Miami.

“People can’t really imagine, especially from outside, making elderly people live in such inhumane conditions,” Sanchez told The Epoch Times.

“Because of the deterioration of the economy and the lack of interest of the Cuban regime, they aren’t helping those who need it,” he said. “Retirement pension maybe allows you to buy a dozen eggs a month. That’s it.”

With one of the oldest populations in Latin America, Cuba ranks high in its number of citizens older than 65 years, according to the Cuban Research Institute and Florida International University report.
 

The report noted the number of elderly dependents for every 100 working-age adults could soon reach 28 with the soaring volume of migrant outflows that began in 2022 expedited the problem.

U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 425,000 illegal immigrant Cubans during fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
 

An additional nearly 200,000 have been arrested in fiscal year 2024 through July.

These numbers have eclipsed previous large-scale migrations from Cuba to the United States, including the 1965–1973 Freedom Flights (approximately 300,000 Cubans) and the 1980 Mariel Boatlift (about 125,000 Cubans).

Plummeting birth rates have also fueled the acceleration of Cuba’s aging population for decades.

The trend became noticeable in the 1980s, but Cuba has been below replacement birth rates since 1978, according to an analysis published in the journal JSTOR.

study authors stated that fertility rates climbed past 30 births per thousand citizens for several years following Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.

However, once the initial optimism of the communist regime faded, that rate declined by the late 1960s.

As of 1980, Cuba’s birth rate plummeted to a historic low of 14 per thousand.

Image

An elderly woman shows a “libreta,” a ration card, which since 1963 has allowed Cubans to buy basic food supplies at subsidized prices, in Santiago de Cuba on July 10, 2013. The deterioration of the economy is leaving many struggling for survival. (--/AFP via Getty Images)

 
As of 2024, the site Macrotrends observed Cuba’s birth rate now stands at just over nine per thousand.

In 2023, the deputy head of Cuba’s state-run National Office of Statistics and Information, Juan Carlos Alfonso Frag, appeared on the television program “Mesa Redonda” to address concerns over Cuba’s aging population.

Frag said the country has endured low fertility and high mortality rates for four years straight.

Meanwhile, relatives of Cubans living on the island say the lack of food and medical supplies is creating daily survival challenges for their loved ones.

Living on as little as $10 a month from their government pension, Sanchez explained that people who are too old to work often lack proper medication and nutrition.

Sanchez said the country’s communist party isn’t interested in helping its most vulnerable citizens, many of whom are former supporters of Castro’s revolution or even worked for the communist party.

Sanchez said Cuba’s entrenched regime now complains it doesn’t have enough money to pay out the pensions, claiming the country’s finances are too tight.

“People are dying. Elderly people are fainting in the streets from a lack of nutrition,” he said.

The daily survival fight for Cuba’s older residents is personal for Sanchez.

Sending Help

Of retirement age himself, Sanchez has a close friend to whom he has sent medical equipment and other supplies on many occasions.

Most recently he shipped health care items after his friend broke a leg.

Even the most basic medical supplies are scarce in Cuba.

Sanchez described the situation his friend dealt with upon arriving at a hospital with his leg broken in three places.

Image

Exiled activist Ramon Saul Sanchez (3rd R), leader of the Democracy Movement, speaks during a press conference at a local restaurant in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami on Aug. 3, 2006. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

 

“They took a used cast they had propped up in the corner and put it around the knee. Then they put a piece of clothing to hold it in place and sent him home.”

When the leg didn’t heal, Sanchez’s friend was told by a doctor he'd need surgery.

“I had to send him everything for them [doctors] to do the surgery,“ Sanchez said with a heavy sigh. ”I’m literally talking about everything you need to do surgery.”

Without an urgent care package of antibiotics, bandages, stitches, and even anesthetics, Sanchez said his friend’s surgery wouldn’t have been possible.

Like so many, most of his friend’s family have either left the island or passed away.

Sanchez said his organization helps hundreds of Cubans in the same situation. Some have families in the United States that can ship supplies, but others are trapped and have no lifeline at all.

“We get calls like this every single day,” he said.

Author, co-founder, and spokesperson for the Cuban Democratic Directorate, Orlando GutiΓ©rrez-Boronat, confirmed this.

“There is a severe shortage of medication because the regime is bankrupted and has no credit anywhere in the world,” he told The Epoch Times via text.

Boronat said the elderly are now paying a disproportionate price for years of economic mismanagement at the hands of Cuba’s regime.

This is especially concerning in healthcare, given the higher number of medical conditions that afflict the elderly.

In response to the mounting crisis, Cuba’s President Miguel DΓ­az-Canel fired economic minister Alejandro Gil FernΓ‘ndez in March.
This is underscored by multiple reports of health care worker and water shortages at Cuban hospitals...

One analysis observed almost 95 percent of adults 60 and older have at least one chronic condition. Nearly 80 percent have two or more, according to research from the National Council on Aging.

“It is a well-known fact that the elderly population in Cuba able to be fed and dressed are receiving remittances from their families abroad,” Boronat said. “No retiree can live on the pension they receive.”

He added many of the homeless in Cuba are retirement-age individuals who lack external support.

Sanchez said even regime members are being abandoned as they age out of the workforce.

“People who fought for the [communist] revolution are coming forward now and saying ‘I gave my life for the revolution,’ we see it everywhere now,” he said.

image-5710907

An elderly man passes by a wall with a Cuban flag painted on it in Havana on May 22, 2023. The elderly in Cuba are paying a high price for economic mismanagement under a communist regime. Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images

Working Around the Regime

For Sanchez and other Cubans living in exile abroad, he said he has to be careful not to put his name on anything he sends to loved ones on the island.

He said that is because if you’re a persona non grata with the ruling party, whatever is sent will be confiscated.

Sanchez explained he has helped collect and ship containers of food, but it has to be done “in a concealed way,” so the items make it past Cuban customs.

He recently sent $500 worth of general supplies to the island.

In Miami, Sanchez said it’s common to find Cuba-specific stores that carry everything from medical supplies to appliances for those who want to ship items to their family.

“You’ll hear a lot, ‘Did you find someone to send the thermometer?’ or ‘How do I find someone to send orthopedic shoes?’” Sanchez said, echoing common conversations among Cuban exiles.

He said Cuba’s regime takes a sizeable cut of what comes into Cuba and the biggest challenge is getting critical supplies into the hands of those who need them.

While the United States doesn’t block efforts to send humanitarian aid, Sanchez said the communist party does.

“We are the main humanitarian source for the Cuban people. The American embargo doesn’t interfere with that.”

The group Human Rights Watch noted Cuba’s economic crisis is taking a heavy toll on residents. In addition to food and medicine shortages, blackouts are a significant problem.

In a 2023 events analysis, the organization stated Cubans suffered three-hour blackouts every day for several months, starting in February.

Illegal immigrants from Cuba line up to board a bus that will take them to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection station in Marathon, Fla., on Jan. 5, 2023. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Some Cuban officials blamed the U.S. embargo for the inability to obtain critical medicines, which has been a catch-all excuse for the government for decades.

But this explanation rings hollow for many since countries have been trading with Cuba for years, including biotech giants like China and Brazil.

“The health care of the population is not a priority to the regime. The segment of the people most severely hurt is the aging one, who need the most medications,” Boronat said.

Life expectancy in Cuba dropped from 78.07 years between 2014 and 2016 to 77.7 years between 2018 and 2020.

When asked why older residents don’t flee Cuba with their families, Sanchez said. “Many of them in retirement don’t have the resources to buy the tickets to get out. They live in a very dire condition.”

He said younger generations sell everything they own, except the clothes on their backs, just to leave.

Others roll the ultimate dice and cross the dangerous Straits of Florida for a shot at living outside the reach of communist Cuba.

Even older residents are willing to risk crossing the treacherous waters between Cuba and Florida, according to Sanchez.

He described a recent incident where he organized help to evacuate an abandoned elderly man who was starving in his home.

Tragically, the man died just two days after being taken to a hospital.




Whoever Is in Charge, Needs to Act: The Philippines and China Are on the Brink of War

 It is painful to recognize that the U.S. does not have a president who can fulfill a critical component of deterring a war between the Philippines and the PRC to which the U.S. will be a party.

The U.S. president has many responsibilities, one of his most important is to state what U.S. interests are and to issue warnings when hostile states encroach upon them.  When an American president speaks it comes with a unique authority that is unmatched in history.  When push comes to shove, the president has to speak—not the Secretaries of State or Defense, or their public affairs officers.  Given that President Biden is suffering from the onset of dementia and is no longer capable of meeting the demands of the office, this has profound costs for U.S. national security.  One result is that the American people and American allies do not have the authoritative voice necessary to deter aggression.  When the U.S. needs the president to draw the line in the sand and warn adversaries of the great costs of crossing it in order to deter a war that will involve the U.S., the president’s voice is absent.  The consequence is a void, a security vacuum, and America’s enemy, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), is filling it.  In essence, the sheriff is gone, and the bad guys can do what they want.

While many Americans are focused on the 2024 election, the Philippines is on the verge of war with the PRC.  The cause of this conflict is the PRC’s hyperaggression to achieve its objective of conquering the islands and shoals of the South China Sea while building many more to ensure absolute control.  While the PRC has been pursuing this Maritime Sovereignty Strategy for many decades, the form of that aggression has been gradual, but it is now quickening, escalating in intensity, and broadening in location.

On August 19, at least three collisions occurred between Coast Guard ships belonging to the PRC and the Philippines. As seen in video imagery and still pictures providentially recorded by the Philippines, the PRC first tore a hole 3.6 feet in diameter on the starboard side of a Philippine coast guard vessel.  Shortly thereafter, a PRC Coast Guard vessel rammed another Philippine coast guard ship twice, ripping a gap 2.5 feet long and 3 feet wide on the port side, again as reported by photographic evidence by the Philippines.  Fortunately, no one was killed in the incident.  But there is no question that these attacks were deliberate escalatory acts by the PRC in an effort to prevent the Philippines from exercising its sovereignty over its territory.  This is a direct violation of the 2002 Code of Conduct to which both states are a party, and a stark violation of the sovereignty of the Philippines.

The incidents occurred near Flat Island and Nanshan Island, which are a short distance from Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines has outposts.  In addition, the Philippines is attempting to block further reclamation efforts by the PRC at Sabina Shoal.  The Philippines said the collisions resulted from aggressive maneuvers by the PRC’s Coast Guard—a large and potent force on the front lines of Beijing’s Maritime Sovereignty efforts to enforce its claims in the South China Sea.  As is their pattern of prevarication, the PRC accused the Philippine coast guard of deliberately colliding with its ship.  A clear falsehood given the video evidence and the fact that the Chinese coast guard ships were 2-3 times the size of the smaller Philippine vessels.  The PRC is putting teeth in its illegal territorial claim to the Nine-Dash Line and trying to absolutely control the territory within it.  Moreover, Beijing is determined to break the Filipinos to force Manila out of its territory.  Right here, right now, the PRC is aggressing against the Philippines.

This matters to Americans because the Philippines is a 1951 treaty ally of the United States.  If the Philippines goes to war with the PRC, the U.S. is necessarily involved.  As such, the U.S. must deter this conflict from escalating to war, and that requires Presidential leadership that is lacking.  Second, this directly impacts Americans because Beijing’s aggressive ambitions will not stop if it successfully coerces the Philippines but will continue against other U.S. allies, partners, and other U.S. interests.  Third, the South China Sea and East China Sea are strategic bodies of water and critical for the world’s economy.  Trade through the East and South China Seas are estimated at $7.4 trillion, and critical for the PRC’s trade, as well as India’s and Japan’s.

While the PRC is using the stick to coerce the Philippines, it is employing the carrot to buy off Vietnam, a key actor in the South China Sea dispute.  General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee and State President To Lam, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, his spouse and a high-level Vietnamese delegation concluded on August 20 a three-day state visit to the PRC, where new trade and economic agreements were reached.  The PRC is attempting to secure the western flank of its illegal Nine-Dash Line claim while it aggresses on its eastern.  But Vietnam is not immune from the PRC’s aggression, and if Beijing is successful against Manila, Hanoi might be next.

U.S. presidential leadership is needed now to state the PRC’s aggression will not stand.  Inconceivably though the Biden-Harris administration has chosen to gap U.S. Navy aircraft carrier presence in the Far East for just the second time in three years, after not gapping our carrier presence since 2003.  This is a clear message of weakness and only entices Xi Jinping and the CCP to unleash the PLA against our treaty ally.

To correct this the U.S. must now state that it will support Filipino efforts to maintain its sovereign territory by providing a strong arm to permit resupply of its outposts.  The U.S. must not permit the PRC to be successful in its effort to break the Philippines.  Much more can be done by the Philippines.  Manila can take a page out of Taiwan’s playbook.  On August 23rd, Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te made his first visit to Kinmen Island, which is just over a mile from the PRC’s coast, and one of the islands on the frontline of increasing tension with the PRC.  Lai has stated exactly what he should, Taiwan will not be intimidated by the PRC.  So senior Filipino leaders may travel to these outposts with the U.S. Ambassador and other senior U.S. officials and officials from Japan, South Korea, and Australia.  It is also in Vietnam’s interest to stand with the Philippines too.  Strong statements to this effect would be welcome.

It is painful to recognize the harsh truth that the U.S. does not have a president who can fulfill a critical component of deterring a war between the Philippines and the PRC to which the U.S. will be a party.  As the July Crisis that led to World War I started with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke and his wife in Sarajevo, so too World War III might start at Second Thomas Shoal.  The world is drifting into a conflict in the South China Sea.  Strong U.S. action is immediately necessary to deter it.  Whoever is acting for President Biden needs to respond today.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/25/whoever-is-in-charge-needs-to-act-the-philippines-and-china-are-on-the-brink-of-war/


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Tim Walz: Joe Biden 2.0


Democrat Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz keeps getting caught in lies. First, it was his military rank. He told us he retired as a ‘Command Sergeant Major,’ even though he was stripped of that rank because he never completed the requirements to achieve it. Then he talked about how he carried ‘weapons of war in a war,’ which turned out to be another fabrication -- the closest he got to a combat zone was Italy. Tellingly, when confronted with his fabulism, rather than admit his ‘inaccuracy,’ Walz doubled down, and declared defiantly that he was proud of his military service and refused to allow anyone to impugn it.

Then we learned about his arrest for a DUI, doing 95 mph in a 55 mph zone while running from the police. Although it was clear that ‘Tiny Tim’ was drunk as a lord (he had a blood alcohol level of .128, well above the legal limit of .1), he lied and said that he thought he was being chased by people who wanted to do him harm. (Can anyone say ‘paranoia’?) Yes, the incident occurred before he entered the political arena. When he did, his 2006 Senate campaign rewrote the event to exculpate him. Thats even more disturbing. It speaks to a long-standing pattern of deceit.

Most recently, Walz publicly campaigned for in vitro fertilization (IVF). He claimed it was because that’s how he and his wife were able to have their daughter, Hope, as Gwen Walz was unable to get pregnant in the usual fashion. Come to find out, Walz and his wife didn’t use IVF; they used another, very different method -- intrauterine insemination (IUI). IVF entails injecting sperm into an unfertilized egg in a Petri dish (extra utero); IUI is a method that injects sperm into the woman’s uterus during the time of ovulation.

Discriminating observers must certainly be asking themselves, ‘What’s the next lie/embellishment that Tiny Tim indulged in to pad his rΓ©sumΓ© and make himself seem more important?

Not only are Walz’s lies and exaggerations part of a disturbing pattern, they’re also eerie. He’s channeling another Democrat who, throughout his decades in politics, made a regular habit of lying, exaggerating, plagiarizing, and rewriting history to embellish and inflate his reputation. His name? Joe Biden.

Biden’s legacy of lying is legendary. Of course, the mainstream media will never address it, but it takes very little research to discover his history of histrionics, exaggeration, and prevarication. Perhaps the most infamous incident is from Ol’ Joe’s abortive Presidential campaign in 1988. He brazenly stole a speech from a Welsh politician, Neil Kinnock, as his own. When the plagiarism was discovered, a humiliated Biden had to drop out of the Presidential race altogether.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. He repeatedly lied about his son, Beau, dying in the Iraq war (tragically, he died of cancer in the United States); he lied about graduating in the top half of his law school class; he lied about his house burning down with his wife inside; he lied about growing up in a Puerto Rican community (he grew up in the Delaware suburbs); he lied about being an experienced driver of an 18-wheeler; and most recently, he repeated the well-debunked lie that when he took office, he inherited an inflation rate of 9% (government statistics document that it was 1.4% when he took office). The lies are legion - and yet, the media cover for him, either softening the truth or burying it completely.

The similarity between Walz and Biden is unsettling. Both have a compulsive need to enhance their images in the eyes of the public which speaks to an underlying personality deficit. Both seem compelled to enhance or inflate their perception in the eyes of the public, which could speak to strong conscious or unconscious feelings of inferiority, insecurity, and low self-esteem.

Certainly, Walz’s capering and cavorting every time he comes onstage is less than statesman-like. The exaggerated waving and hopping and contorted body movement reminds one of a circus clown, not a serious candidate for the second-highest office in the world.

Let's not forget who this man is. Walz let Minneapolis burn for three days amid unchecked rioting before finally calling in the National Guard. By then, it was too late. 1,500 businesses were destroyed; $500 million in damages were done; he abandoned an entire police precinct to vandals and looters. He aligned himself with the criminals who destroyed a once great city that has never recovered from this holocaust. As Vice President, along with extreme leftist Kamala, he could readily bring this devastation to every city in America by sympathizing with looters and criminals and vandals, and hamstringing law enforcement, just as he did in Minnesota.

Walz is the politician who said, “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.” The implications of that statement are breathtaking. Walz doesn’t condemn socialism, the most failed, abhorrent economic system in the history of the world; he embraces it as a ‘warm, fuzzy, neighborly’ way of life. Like so many others who are willfully ignorant of history, he sees socialism as a benign, even ‘friendly’ economic system that will make everyone happy. Ask the victims of Stalin’s purges how that worked out. Ask the millions of Chinese in forced labor camps. Ask the slaughtered victims of the Khmer Rouge. Americans should be horrified at Walz’s declaration, and it should set off alarm klaxons in the minds of every rational person in this country.

Today, America stands on the brink. Inflation is crippling everyday citizens; illegal immigrants are flooding the country. Unelected bureaucrats are dictating insane economic and environmental policies and regulations that are killing businesses.

On an international scale, we are witnessing two wars, either of which could escalate into World War III. Europe is in flames as two cultures clash. Islamic extremists have flooded cities and towns and are attempting to impose their religious ideologies on European natives; their aim is to supplant the religious and social freedoms of centuries with the repressive and violent mores of a jihadist culture.

These are serious times, more serious than any time since the height of the Cold War, when Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the podium of the United Nations and declared, “We will bury you!” to the West. Tensions were at an all-time high and the threat of a nuclear war was palpable.

We’ve reached a crisis level again today on both a national and international level. Like then, these times call for strong, intelligent, and determined leadership that commands the respect and, yes, the fear of world leaders who seek to undermine and destroy the United States at home and abroad. Not cackling clowns and bouncing buffoons. Can anyone seriously envision Kamala Harris and Tim Walz standing up to these challenges, facing down America’s enemies with any kind of strength or resolve? The Biden-Harris administration has been an abysmal failure on every front. On the other hand, Donald Trump has an impeccable record of success, economically, socially, and internationally. He has stood up to our enemies and stood up for our allies. He doesn’t suffer fools, and he has made it clear to world leaders that if you try to impose your will on the United States, he will push back, and push back hard.

Given everything we see today, there is no ‘choice’ for America. It’s Donald Trump for the survival of our country and a future of hope for our children.



Focus on Renewable Energy Spurs Concerns Over Supply-Demand Equation

 WHERE IS THE POWER COMING FROM?  WINDMILLS? SOLAR PANELS? BWAAAHAAA !


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The Kayenta Solar Plant in Kayenta, Ariz., on June 23, 2024. In late February, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it would begin plans to provide $76.5 million in federal financing to the Navajo Nation's Red Mesa Tapaha Solar Farm in southeast Utah. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Global electricity demand could increase by 30 percent to 75 percent by 2050, according to a US energy agency.

 
By John Haughey | August 03, 2024  Updated: August 06, 2024
 
The nation’s utilities generated 5 percent more electricity during the first six months of 2024 than in the first half of 2023 because of a hotter-than-normal start to summer and increasing power demands from the commercial sector, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its July Short-Term Energy Outlook.
 

Some fear that intermittent renewable energy from the sun, the wind, water pressure, and geothermal steam can’t reliably keep pace with rapidly growing energy demands without redundant fossil fuel generation unless battery storage and transmission technologies advance.

 

Renewable energy sources—solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydro—constitute nearly 95 percent of that added capacity and now generate more than 21 percent of the nation’s electricity, eclipsing coal as a source last year, the EIA said.

 

The EIA projects that global electricity demand could increase by 30 percent to more than 75 percent by 2050, with as much as two-thirds of electricity to come from nuclear and renewables.
 

The agency projects that U.S. power plants will produce 2 percent more electricity during the second half of 2024 than in 2023, with solar power adding 36 billion kilowatt-hours, a 42 percent increase over the new solar power added in all of 2023.

 

With the additions, the sun now generates nearly 4 percent of utility-scale electricity and powers 7 percent of the nation’s homes, the EIA said, citing solar energy as the nation’s “fastest-growing U.S. source” of electricity generation.

 

The Washington-based Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), which didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times, maintains that renewable energies are poised to dramatically accelerate, especially solar power.

 

SEIA said in May that there are 5 million solar installations now generating electricity nationwide, a 400-percent increase in less than a decade.
 

“This milestone comes just eight years after the U.S. reached 1 million installations in 2016,” SEIA said in a statement, noting that it took more than 40 years to get to 1 million installations after the first one came online in 1973.

 

SEIA, which represents 1,200 companies engaged in the $60 billion solar energy industry, maintains that solar power plants in the United States will double to 10 million by 2030 and triple to 15 million by 2034.

 

Its major solar projects list includes more than 7,050 proposed projects with the capacity to generate 250 gigawatts (GW)—1 GW equals 1 billion watts. According to SEIA, 97 percent of that energy is used in homes, with 36 GW installed through 2023.
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Solar panels are mounted on the roof of the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on Sept. 5, 2018. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

 
The May Energy Infrastructure Update from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), posted on July 15, shows that 50 “units” of solar totaling 2,517 megawatts (MW)—1 megawatt equals 1 million watts—went into service in May.
 
With wind and hydro, the three sources accounted for 94.23 percent of new capacity added to the grid in May, with natural gas kicking in less than 6 percent. At least 10 solar projects received preliminary nods during FERC’s July 25 meeting.

Sunny Prospects

Among the proposed solar projects being permitted is the largest ever planned in North America.
 
The Department of Interior said on July 25 that its Bureau of Land Management (BLM) had advanced nine solar projects on federal public lands in Nevada and Arizona with the potential to generate enough electricity to power 2 million homes.
 

Eight of the nine solar projects are in Nevada, and seven of these are part of the Esmeralda 7 Solar Project, located on 118 BLM-managed acres, 30 miles west of Tonopah, about halfway between Las Vegas and Reno.

 

BLM is accepting comments through Oct. 24 on the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the 185-square-mile project in Esmeralda County.
 

If approved, the seven projects would generate up to 6.2 GW, enough to power 1.6 million homes, making it the largest single-site solar generator in North America. The contiguous installations will each have a battery electric storage system of at least 500 megawatts (MW).

 

BLM on July 25 published the final Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed 5,100-acre Libra Solar Project in Nevada’s Mineral and Lyon counties that would generate 700 MW and have a 700 MW battery electric storage systems capacity.
 
The bureau also opened a 30-day public comment period on a draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed 1,400-acre Elisabeth Solar Project 65 miles east of Yuma, Arizona, within the Agua Caliente Solar Energy Zone. The project would produce as much as 270 MW of electricity and include 300 MW in battery electric storage systems. A virtual public meeting on the project will be held on Aug. 14.
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Wind turbine technician Terrill Stowe stands on the nacelle, which houses the gearbox and generator of a wind turbine, on the campus of Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, N.M., on July 11, 2024. (Andrew Marszal/AFP via Getty Images)

 

The Department of Interior notes there are an additional 70 utility-scale renewable energy projects in BLM’s permitting pipeline on public lands that could generate another 32 GW. The bureau is also initiating preliminary reviews of 166 solar and wind development projects and more than 40 applications for site testing, it said.

 

Renewable energies are emphasized in the Department of Energy’s proposed $51.4 billion fiscal year 2025 budget with little accommodation for fossil fuels.

 

The proposed spending plan earmarks $10.6 billion for clean energy programs, including $502 million for vehicle technologies, $318 million for solar, $280 million for bioenergy, $199 million for wind, and $179 million for hydrogen.

 

The annual outlays don’t include $77 billion in renewable energy incentives in 2021’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. There are also, potentially, billions available in tax credits for renewable energy through 2021’s CHIPS & Science Act and 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Storm Clouds on Horizon

While there are a growing number of proposals and a quickening pace of approvals, solar power—and renewables, overall—can’t keep pace with the United States’ growing demand for electricity, especially if fossil fuel-powered plants are removed before being replaced, utility and transmission system operators have said during House and Senate hearings.

 

Utilities and operators fear a disconnect between projected demand and the federal government’s power plant rules, liquified natural gas (LNG) export pause, public lands leasing policies, and near-total budgetary exclusion of fossil fuels, which generate 60 percent of the nation’s electricity.

 

The new EPA rules require coal plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent by 2039 or to be closed. There are about 200 coal-burning power plants that generate about 16 percent of the nation’s electricity that could be retired under the rule.

 

Twenty-five state attorneys general filed a lawsuit in May challenging the EPA’s power plant rules. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican favored to win November’s gubernatorial race, said the rules could close the state’s nine coal-fired plants before the power they consistently generate can be replaced by reliable alternatives.

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