Hofstadter quotes with some sympathy Hiram W. Evans, the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who, he says, summed up the major issue of the time ‘as a struggle between “the great mass of Americans of the old pioneer stock” and the “intellectually mongrelised Liberals.”’ ‘We are a movement,’ Evans wrote, ‘of the plain people, very weak in the matter of culture, intellectual support, and trained leadership. We are demanding, and we expect to win, a return of power into the hands of the everyday, not highly cultured, not overly intellectualised, but entirely unspoiled and not de-Americanised, average citizen of the old stock…. This is undoubtedly a weakness. It lays us open to the charge of being “hicks” and “rubes” and “drivers of second-hand Fords.” We admit it.’
Monday, August 5, 2024
Sunday, August 4, 2024
Trump reopens old feud in Georgia. Some Republicans are scratching their heads.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/03/trump-brian-kemp-georgia-00172564
“I’m sitting here scratching my head,” Bobby Saparow, a Republican operative and Brian Kemp’s former campaign manager, told POLITICO. “Attacking the popular governor of a pivotal swing state makes zero sense. If we want to actually unite, ask for the support of the guy who beat your endorsed primary opponent by 52 points and handily defeated Stacey Abrams.”
Trump’s Team Had a Harris Strategy. Then He Went Off-Script About Her Race.
Trump has been frustrated by the positive attention and massive cash haul Harris has attracted, people close to him said. His campaign was hoping to characterize her as being hard to pin down on policy, but instead Trump at a convention for Black journalists earlier in the week took this idea to the extreme and alleged Harris was hard to pin down on race.
The former president avoided going there during the Atlanta rally, but in front of thousands of his supporters, Trump went after Harris’s intellect, speaking abilities and the pronunciation of her first name.
“Ultimately the core of this election is about economic issues. Every time you’re not talking about that, you’re missing an opportunity to engage independent voters,” GOP pollster David Winston said. “Independents always decide who wins elections.”
The former president and 2024 GOP nominee told the audience at a National Association for Black Journalists conference in Chicago that Harris has misled voters by publicly identifying only with her Indian heritage, and he falsely claimed that “she happened to turn black” a few years ago.
Saturday, August 3, 2024
Trump may be on Egypt’s secret payroll with $10 million cash payment - Washington Post
https://www.jpost.com/international/article-813096
Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi may have given former US President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump a $10 million cash boost for his 2016 campaign, according to a Washington Post investigation.
The investigation found that only five days before Trump became president, an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service, the Research and Studies Center, asked a state-run bank in Cairo to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million.
Trump Criticizes Prisoner Swap, Claims U.S. Negotiators Are an ‘Embarrassment’
The Trump administration did participate in prisoner swaps, including a November 2019 deal in which two Western hostages, one American and one Australian, were freed by the Taliban after more than three years in captivity. In return, the Afghan government freed three high-profile Taliban members. In 2020, Iran released U.S. Navy veteran Michael White after nearly two years in custody as part of a prisoner deal negotiated with Iran. The U.S. freed a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, Matteo Taerri, a medical doctor who had been imprisoned on charges of evading sanctions.
More lies from Trump regarding Prisonrt exchange
Trump claimed only he could make the exchange and he never paid for any exchange
Facts First: Trump’s claim that he gave opposing countries “NOTHING” to secure the freedom of American prisoners is false. Though Trump obtained or helped to obtain the release of some Americans held abroad without having to release anyone in return, he also presided over at least four exchanges in which he approved the release of prisoners from US detention in exchange for foreign governments releasing Americans.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Israel’s Deterrent Strikes Against Its Enemies
Israel has a right to defend itself, but more than that it has the right and ample cause to defeat the terrorists who won’t let it live in peace.
Have babies for Russia: Putin presses women to embrace patriotism over feminism
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/07/30/russia-putin-antifeminism-women-children-society/
Vladimir Putin, who has long cultivated an aura of machismo as Russia’s strongman leader, is enlisting women to grow Russia’s population through childbirth and to rebuild his nation as a great power steeped in traditional family values — a campaign that is eroding equal rights and protections, human rights advocates and Russian feminists say.
“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven or eight children, and maybe even more,” Putin declared to an audience of ultraconservative religious and political figures who had convened in the State Kremlin Palace in November. “We should preserve and revive these wonderful traditions.”
Trump Buries Project 2025
The Democratic attacks on Project 2025 were laughable because Mr. Trump is never going to have a governing platform. Oh, and anyone who becomes a political liability to Mr. Trump is expendable.
This is a hard education for Mr. Roberts, who made a loud cause of opposing aid to Ukraine when that became the view of the likes of J.D. Vance. He also adopted the line that anyone who resisted the new right-wing populism of Mr. Trump was a nostalgic Reaganite who doesn’t “know what time it is.”
The lesson for Heritage, and other think tanks, is that it’s better to stick to your principles rather than court the political flavor of the day. And never trust a politician.
Trump Buries Project 2025
In case there was any political doubt, Trump campaign officials Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita shot the wounded in a joint statement on Tuesday. “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign,” they wrote. “It will not end well for you.” Bang, bang, bang, bang.
Murkowski slams Vance's 'childless cat ladies' comments as 'offensive' to women
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) hit her party's own vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), for what she called "offensive" comments about “childless cat ladies."
"If the Republican Party is trying to improve its image with women, I don't think that this is working," Murkowski told POLITICO, calling Vance's comments unfortunate, unnecessary and "offensive to many women."
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Hitler encourages Germans to have multiple children with the Mother’s Cross
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitler-institutes-the-mothers-cross
The German Reich needed a robust and growing population and encouraged couples to have large families. It started such encouragement early. Once members of the distaff wing of the Hitler Youth movement, the League of German Girls, turned 18, they became eligible for a branch called Faith and Beauty, which trained these girls in the art of becoming ideal mothers. One component of that ideal was fecundity. And so each year, in honor of his beloved mother, Klara, and in memory of her birthday, a gold medal was awarded to women with seven children, a silver to women with six, and a bronze to women with five.
J.D. Vance’s Basket of Deplorables
https://www.wsj.com/articles/j-d-vances-basket-of-deplorables-cf86985f?mod=trending_now_opn_5
One possibility is that at some level Mr. Vance really doesn’t respect people who make different life choices. Politicians often reveal their true beliefs when talking to supporters, as Hillary Clinton did when she sneered at the “basket of deplorables” who supported Mr. Trump in 2016.