Riots in the UK sparked by the murder of three little girls
This is a heartbreaking story: a knife-wielding 17-year-old murdered three little girls in a dance class, and severely wounded many others. Rumors that the murderer was a Muslim and illegal immigrant (or immigrant of any sort) turn out to have been false, but the rage is enormous and understandably so.
The murderer is actually the child of immigrants from Rwanda but he was born in Wales. A few days ago I read a couple of articles about the alleged murderer, and descriptions from those who knew him demonstrated a familiar pattern: he seems to have been a very quiet young man who may have been on the autism spectrum. His family were also devout Christians, not Muslims.
Although the rioters were probably mistaken about the perpetrator of this particular act of violence, the event has acted to trigger the release of some very understandable pent-up fury at the enormous amount of immigration in the UK, the government’s (both left and right) favoring of those immigrants, and the perception that the UK has changed its entire character and is losing its culture. The photos of the young girls – so vulnerable, innocent, and sweet – are especially poignant.
The voters recently elected a leftist government which is not going to give a hoot what the people the government labels as “far-right” think:
This is not protest, it is pure violence.
We will have a standing army of public duty officers.
We will ramp up criminal justice.
We will apply criminal law online as well as offline.
We will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities. pic.twitter.com/C1SmjJjo4R
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 5, 2024
If the Republicans are smart, they’ll have a field day making anti-Walz ads
I know, I know – the Stupid Party. But still …
He made into law something that the media has spent a week insisting Kamala doesn't want because they realize how unpopular it is. https://t.co/Gg28S2aocJ
— Sunny (@sunnyright) August 6, 2024
Tim Walz: Another Left-Wing Extremist pic.twitter.com/0Dv2m4cNH2
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) August 6, 2024
My view on it is it just highlights how radical Kamala Harris is. This is a person who listened to the Hamas wing of her own party and selecting a nominee.
This is a guy who’s proposed shipping more manufacturing jobs to China, who wants to make the American people more reliant on garbage energy instead of good American energy, and has proposed defunding the police just as Kamala Harris does. I think it’s interesting actually. They make an interesting team because, of course, Tim Walz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020. And then the few who got caught, Kamala Harris helped bail them out.
And from a comment at Legal Insurrection:
She picked the only person in the VP running not only to her left but who has less charisma than she does.
Tim Walz of Minnesota is Kamala’s running mate
With this choice, it seems that Harris is giving up the pretense – at least for the moment – of tacking to the middle. The bland-looking Walz (who is only 60 but appears older to me) is one of the most leftist governors in the US and perhaps the most leftist.
Actually, though, even “moderate” Democrats tend to be very far to the left these days, and the ones who aren’t have left the party like Tulsi Gabbard. But Walz was the most leftist of the serious contenders for the role of VP to Harris.
So why was he chosen? One obvious reason is to placate the base. But isn’t Harris herself already enough of a leftist to placate that base? Perhaps not. And perhaps nothing short of Ilhan Omar as a running mate would placate that base.
As for Shapiro, who would seem to have been the perfect candidate – relatively moderate, popular governor of swing state Pennsylvania – as I wrote a few days ago:
Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, makes some sense because the Democrats need Pennsylvania. But Shapiro has a big negative in terms of this particular race by this particular Democrat Party: he’s Jewish. …
… Would the costs of a Shapiro as VP candidate be greater than the benefits? That’s the calculus Harris and her advisors must weigh. She may end up avoiding the problem by choosing someone else, but it must be tempting to go with Shapiro because he would almost certainly deliver Pennsylvania.
Harris and/or those advising/controlling her must have decided the costs of Shapiro the Jew as running mate were too high. Then again, there’s at least a small chance that it was Shapiro who ultimately said “no” because the price of being a yes-man to whatever Harris did as president was too high for him.
And what of Kelly of Arizona? We didn’t hear too much about the process of that courtship and rejection, and probably won’t hear more about it.
I never quite got why Harris was thinking about Walz in the first place, because he brings so little to the ticket. He’s popular in Minnesota – I guess – but he doesn’t seem the least bit compelling to outsiders, and he’s not telegenic. He can easily be correctly labeled as quite far to the left, and his role in the riots of 2020 was abominable [written by John Hinderaker]:
As an American, I am horrified at Walz’s selection. He is small-minded, mean-spirited man. In one way, he will fit in with the Harris ticket: he ran a basement campaign for re-election in 2022, refusing to show up for debates with Republican Scott Jensen after the first one went badly. So Jensen was left debating an empty chair.
Walz’s character defects are considerable, but let’s leave it at this: he was largely responsible for the George Floyd riots that devastated Minneapolis and other cities, because he dithered for days rather than calling out the National Guard. By his own admission, he held off out of sympathy for the rioters’ cause.
We are still living with the consequences.Walz has a terrible record as governor. This post sums it up.
Under Walz, Minnesota became a high-crime state for the first time ever …
Under Walz, student achievement tumbled even as spending on schools skyrocketed …
Under Walz, per capita GDP in Minnesota fell below the national average, for the first time ever …
Under Walz, increases in energy costs have far outstripped the national average …
And under Walz, Minnesota has joined New York, California and Illinois as a state that people of all ages are fleeing …
That is Tim Walz’s record. It is every bit as bad as Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s, possibly worse. He is a far-left ideologue whose character includes not one redeeming quality. As an American, I am horrified at the thought of him being close to the seat of power.
Today when I first heard the news that the choice was Walz, I thought good, because he brings so little of value to the ticket. But then I thought maybe not so good, because maybe the choice of Walz means that the left thinks that this election is in the bag, by hook or by crook, and so there’s no need to appeal to the middle at all.
Then again, Kamala’s already so far to the left that Walz doesn’t push her any further. He’s also not likely to succeed her as president because of her disability and/or death, because were she to be elected in November she’d “only” be 60 (which, interestingly enough, is the same age as Walz).
So how much influence would Walz have as VP? Probably not all that much, for the simple reason that he and Harris are on the same page politically anyway.
Open thread 8/6/24
The difficulty of the moves in this video is nowhere near today’s. But I prefer this far more balletic style. Tourischeva is actually still my favorite gymnast ever. One of the things to keep in mind is that today’s gymnastics floors are very springy, more or less like trampolines, which helps with the height of the tumbling. The floor here just had a mat on it. Also, now the music is recorded rather than live:
Maduro almost certainly lost …
… but he’ll almost certainly stay in power:
This was a blowout; however, Maduro remains in control of the domestic media, the Supreme Court and the military which means he can lie and bully people into compliance. And that’s what he has been doing. Anyone refusing to go along with this stolen election is labeled a “fascist” and hundreds of people have been arrested for protesting the results.
Anyone who thought Maduro would run a fair election and willingly give up power was delusional.
Today I spent many hours organizing my closets
And getting rid of clothes I don’t wear and probably will never wear again.
In other words, I think perhaps my miniskirt days are over.
The project requires trying nearly everything on, which is always kind of puzzling. Certain things from twenty years ago fit fine; others don’t. And of course going through everything sparks memories: “This is what I wore when … ”
Fortunately, I’m not a hoarder; I’m about average in terms of my propensity to hold onto things. But I have much more clothing than I need, because it’s unusual these days to get dressed up. Where did I used to wear all those fancier clothes? Parties. Dates. Weddings (I still go to the occasional one, and so I haven’t gotten rid of everything). Theater or the ballet used to be a real dressup occasion, but not much anymore.
And don’t get me started on what people wear on airplanes these days. I remember a time when most women wore dresses and heels to get on a plane. Those days are so far gone that most people alive today haven’t a clue this used to be the case.
One of the side benefits of going through closets and getting rid of things is that I now have a bonanza of unused hangers. Then again, where will I put them?
As the economy worsens …
What a guy – is there anything he can’t do? Spooky action at a distance.
From Harris:
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is blaming former President Trump for the latest negative jobs report — nearly a full term after he left office.
“Donald Trump failed Americans as president, costing our economy millions of jobs, and bringing us to the brink of recession,” Harris for President spokesperson James Singer said 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.”
Notice how she sandwiches Project 2025 in there, although Trump has never had anything to do with it and has explicitly disavowed it as well. But lies are Kamala’s stock in trade.
Speaking of stocks and trades, we now have this:
Nearly everything on Wall Street is tumbling Monday as fear about a slowing U.S. economy worsens and sets off another sell-off for financial markets around the world.
The S&P 500 was down by 2.4% in midday trading and on track for its worst day since 2022. The Dow Jones industrial average was reeling by 864 points, or 2.2%, as of 11:40 a.m. Eastern, and the Nasdaq composite slid 2.7%.The drops were just the latest in a sell-off that swept the globe. Japan’s Nikkei 225 helped start Monday by plunging 12.4% for its worst day since the Black Monday crash of 1987.
It was the first chance for traders in Tokyo to react to Friday’s report showing U.S. employers slowed their hiring last month by much more than economists expected. That was the latest piece of data on the U.S. economy to come in weaker than expected, and it’s all raised fear that the Federal Reserve has pressed the brakes on the U.S. economy by too much for too long through high interest rates in hopes of stifling inflation.
The Fed might end up reversing itself on that, increasing inflation.
For many years, pundits on the right have joked about predictions concerning the economy, putting in their headlines “unexpectedly.” It’s a joke because the newspaper reports almost always use that word, which makes “experts” sound like liars or fools or both. Is their constant failure to predict such things the result of stupidity, wishful thinking, and/or the fact that they’re propagandists?
More:
The weak jobs data also triggered what is known as the “Sahm Rule,” seen by many as a historically accurate recession indicator.
“The July jobs report is being viewed as a recession warning, and the markets are responding accordingly,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at the Dallas-based Comerica Bank.
With the jobless rate unexpectedly rising, the so-called Sahm rule is now in play.
Unexpectedly.
Here’s what Trump had to say:
“Of course there is a massive market downturn. Kamala is even worse than Crooked Joe,” Trump, 78, wrote on social media Monday morning — after the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 1,000 points in morning trading after closing down more than 600 points on Friday.
“Markets will NEVER accept the Radical Left Lunatic that DESTROYED San Francisco and California, as a whole. Next move, THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 2024! You can’t play games with MARKETS. KAMALA CRASH!!!” Trump added.
Open thread 8/5/24
It was Alaska
Commenter “om” was the one who guessed right about my trip: I went on a one-week cruise from Vancouver to Alaska. That sunset in yesterday’s photo was one of the highlights of the trip, and I almost missed seeing it.
Sunset comes late in the Alaskan summer. I was lying down in my cabin around 10:10 PM one evening. My cabin had something called a veranda, which is a small deck. I figured the last time I was on a ship was in the early 1960s, and I’d been wanting to go to Alaska for decades but now was finally doing it, and I thought it made sense to pay a little extra to be able to just step out and see the sights. After all, the scenery was the reason I was going.
So that evening when I was lying down, I happened to look out the window and see a tiny tinge of pink. It occurred to me that it might be a lovely sunset; I’d seen one two days before that was quite pretty. So I stepped out and, lo and behold, saw the most spectacular sunset I’d ever seen in my life. Here it is again in case you missed it:
This one is just of the sky, but it really emphasizes how incredibly intense the colors were:
Here’s another wonderful sight I saw from that veranda while cruising along Glacier Bay:
Why was I lying down that night? Well, for the entire cruise I had COVID. The experience was somewhat nasty but basically uneventful. However, it turned out to have been a really good thing that I got the cabin with that veranda, because I pretty much had to lay low.
To be continued in another post, with more photos …
The coup against Biden, according to Hersh
I don’t trust Seymour Hersh. But his report on how Biden was “convinced” to withdraw from the race, and how Harris became the nominee, is close to what I had already concluded for myself.
Here’s a discussion at RedState of Hersh’s description:
Here are the key points.
Biden’s staff, donors, and corporate media all covered up his declining condition. …
After the debate, donors panicked. …
According to Hersh’s latest reporting the Democrat inner circle plan was to keep Joe’s impairment covered up, apparently until he was re-elected …
The debate had made that impossible. Then:
The official story was that Biden had tested positive for COVID and had some symptoms, so was rushing back to Delaware to isolate. But everyone saw the writing on the wall, and the events in Las Vegas set off a cascade of events culminating just a few days later in Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 campaign.
[From Hersch]: “By Saturday, July 20, former President Barack Obama was deeply involved, and there was talk that he would place a call to Biden. It was not clear whether Biden had been examined or just what happened to him in Las Vegas. …
“‘The Big Three,’ the official said, referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, continued to be directly involved. ‘On Sunday morning,’ the official told me, with the approval of Pelosi and Schumer, ‘Obama called Biden after breakfast and said, Here’s the deal. We have Kamala’s approval to invoke the 25th Amendment.’” …
Within hours, Biden made the announcement that he was out.
Hersh adds that it’s not 100% certain that Harris will be the nominee, but it seems he’s wrong about that – at least, if this news is correct:
Vice President Kamala Harris has won enough delegate votes to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison announced Friday, though the results are not yet official.
The DNC will not make an official announcement of results until Monday evening, when the virtual voting process closes for delegates to this month’s Democratic National Convention.
I have a minor quibble, though, with calling this an outright coup, although it certainly has elements of a coup. But they have been using legal rather than illegal means to effect the switcheroo, whatever you want to call it: the 25th Amendment, which is far more flexible than most people realize and basically legalizes couplike action by a president’s own party and former supporters, with the VP heavily involved in the process (see this previous post of mine on the subject). Biden was placed there to begin with by much the same people who removed him, anyway.
Maybe Khalid Shaikh Mohammad isn’t going to get that plea deal after all
I guess the feedback on the plea deal was awful, because Secretary of Defense Austin has said not so fast:
The deal that stirred national outrage and took the death penalty off of the table has been revoked by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in a terse memo.
Secretary Austin III is now taking the lead on the case for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.
In his order, Austin relieved the official in charge of the military commission who had signed off on the original plea deals. …
No explanation was given on why this was not settled earlier before the deals were signed off and publicly released. …
The powerful House Armed Services Committee announced earlier Friday it was launching an investigation into the plea deals, which Chairman Mike Rogers, R.-La., called “unconscionable.”
Did Austin not know what was going on until it became public? Or did he not realize what outrage it would cause? Who’s minding the store here?
The reason it’s Austin, by the way, is that the trial is a military one and so the military is in charge.
And this is the ostensible reason the plea deal was settled in the first place:
[The defendants’] past torture is largely responsible for bogging down the case, since prosecutors and defense attorneys have been arguing for years over whether evidence obtained through torture is admissible in court. In a recent ruling that did not bode well for 9/11 prosecutors, a judge in another different Guantánamo case — the U.S.S. Cole warship bombing — threw out a confession because he said it was a product of torture.
That legal development may have played a role in the U.S. government deciding to settle the 9/11 case.
Who made the decision to settle?:
In a statement, the National Security Council said that “the President and the White House played no role in this process” and learned of the plea bargains on Wednesday.
No one bothered to tell them? And they didn’t bother to keep tabs on what was happening? Excuse me but, WTF? We are supposed to believe they are mind-bogglingly negligent – or they are just plain lying. They are fully capable of either or both, as we’ve learned many times before.
NOTE: I’ve previously written on the subject of the KSM case. Here’s a post that explains some of the reasons it’s taken so long – including that Obama wanted these people tried in civil courts rather than military courts. Astounding. Fortunately, he lost that fight.
I also have written quite a few posts on the subject of torture: see this one, for example.