Former President Donald Trump is safe following an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf course, and a “potential suspect” is in custody, US authorities have confirmed.
Secret Service agents spotted the barrel of a rifle poking through some bushes and opened fire at him, officials said. The FBI said Trump was 300-500 yards away at the time.
An AK47-style firearm and scope, along with two backpacks and a GoPro camera, were later found at the scene.
A witness reported seeing the suspect running from some bushes and jumping into a black Nissan car after the agents had fired at him multiple times.
We should know more in the next few days. It does seem clear, however, that after years of the Left telling people that Trump is evil and a “threat to democracy,” that there are plenty of unhinged Leftists who believe it to be their duty to prevent Trump from returning to the White House by any means necessary. Political violence in our nation is heavily weighted to one side.
This is the lesson that so many elected Republicans refuse to learn. Why has Florida shifted so quickly and firmly into a solid Republican state? Because DeSantis and other Florida Republicans actually governed according to their conservative beliefs and the beliefs they ran on.
But for the first time in recent political memory, the 2024 presidential race has left Florida as a comparative afterthought. Democrats here have tried to maintain momentum and voter intensity, but nearly every measurable factor indicates that Florida is not realistically in play for them in this year’s presidential contest.
“Are you happy we are a solid Republican state? It used to be …presidential elections, we would be on a razor’s edge about the state of Florida,” Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, told a crowd of the party faithful at a gathering last weekend at the Hard Rock Casino in South Florida. “Because if Republicans could not win the state of Florida, then you did not have a path to win the Electoral College.”
Florida has long been solidly red at the state level as Republicans built a now more than 1 million person voter registration advantage, and they remain firmly in control of nearly every lever of political power. But in the past, when huge sums of money flowed in during presidential races, the state was considered winnable for Democrats.
We saw this in Wisconsin. When Governor Walker and the legislative Republicans were first elected on a strong conservative platform, they immediately went into action. That first term was amazing and advanced dozens of key conservative initiatives like tax cuts, concealed carry, castle doctrine, regulatory reform, judicial reform, entitlement reform, and on and on and on. The result was that legions of voters came out to reelect Walker in the recall election and for a second term. Voters also elected strong Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature. The voters liked what they were getting.
Then what happened? In Walker’s second term, he and the legislative Republicans got soft. Their policies were weaker. They caved to the Democrats too often. They radically increased spending. Walker moderated as he tried to run for president and several of the legislative leaders did the same as they eyed higher office or aspired to be liked in the clubs of Madison.
The weakening in Walker’s second term led directly to his defeat against the Grey Man of Tony Evers. It wasn’t that Evers was a great candidate. It was that a lot of Republicans who voted for Walker three times were just not excited to vote a fourth. Walker wasn’t offering the bold conservative agenda that had brought him into office.
Meanwhile, in Florida, DeSantis remains a conservative powerhouse. He continues to push conservatism wherever possible and is an outspoken conservative voice. The result? Florida is no longer a swing state. It is solidly Republican.
When conservatives govern as conservatives, they win. Why? Because conservative policies work, and people vote for policies that work.
It is worth noting why this is an issue. The combination of lucrative union contracts, regulation, improvements in productivity, stagnant demand, and the rise of manufacturing prowess controlled by hostile nations have all combined to make heavy industrial manufacturing in America very difficult to make a profit. The union contracts and regulation lock American companies into a past that prevents them from adapting to the future. In this case, U.S. Steel is a vital American core business that must be kept on-shore. When war comes again on a large scale, we must be able to produce our own equipment and steel mills don’t spring up overnight.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has voiced his opposition to Nippon Steel buying U.S. Steel, but the federal government appears to be in no hurry to block the deal.
White House officials earlier this month did not deny that the president would formally block the acquisition. But the necessary report from the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has yet to be submitted to the White House.
“It’s their process — it’s independent,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday. “We have to see the recommendation from CFIUS. That’s the process.”
This story paints this as a victory, but it is not. It is the acceptance of a culture ruled by crooks and the people who coddle them at the expense of law-abiding citizens.
A year ago, America’s stores declared a shoplifting epidemic. They closed stores in major cities, hired extra security, locked up key merchandise and declared big losses in their financial statements.
This year, retailers are telling a very different story — or no story at all. It’s as if the shoplifting crisis suddenly vanished.
[…]
Last year, Target said a scourge of petty theft and organized groups stealing merchandise dented its profit by more than $500 million. Target also closed nine stores, saying “theft and organized retail crime” threatened worker and customer safety and made business unsustainable.
[…]
Stores have also added ways to prevent theft, which may have been effective at reducing the problem, even if they frustrated shoppers. Companies locked up products and removed self-checkout stations.
Former President Trump on Thursday called for ending taxes on overtime wages for individuals who work more than 40 hours a week, his latest proposal to slash individual taxes if he is reelected.
“We will end all taxes on overtime. You know what that means? Think of that. That gives people more of an incentive to work, it gives the companies a lot, it’s a lot easier to get the people,” Trump said at a rally in Arizona.
“The people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country, and for too long no one in Washington has been looking out for them,” he added.
The proposal would require congressional action. Trump did not offer additional details about how it would work.
The Harris campaign in a statement dismissed Trump’s proposal as “desperate,”
Trump is right in that it will encourage people to work more. It’s an instant raise for working overtime on top of a higher wage. It will also likely see a lot of people push to move to hourly wages instead of salaried. That eases pressure on businesses to layoff people when business is down because they can cut hours instead. Hourly employees are a much more variable expense than salaried ones.
In other news… the Harris campaign will be copying this proposal in a few weeks.
I get that parenting is stressful. We raised 4 children and for a good chunk of the time, we didn’t have a pot to pee in. But come on… people need to toughen up. We have created a culture of coddled whiners.
In a new advisory report, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is sounding the alarm on the realities of parenting today, revealing just how dire the situation is for millions of parents of children under 18. In his report, Murthy cites a bleak statistic issued by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2023: 41% of parents say that most days they are so stressed they cannot function and 48% call their stress “completely overwhelming.”
It seems the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated or worsened stressors that were already there, also creating new financial, childcare, and health concerns for so many parents. These stressors disproportionately affect low-income families and those in marginalized communities, who face increased discrimination and a lack of resources that only contributes to mental health concerns, including anxiety and depression.
With days until early voting begins, and two months before a victor is declared, this remains Donald Trump‘s race to lose.
Simply put, Americans prefer strength over weakness and commonsense fairness over wokeness.
It’s also a hard fact that Trump can cite more accomplishments from a successful first term than Harris, who despite her regret and reset, represents four more years of the present chaos and crisis.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was subpoenaed by the House Education Committee on Wednesday as part of the GOP lawmakers’ latest investigation into the Democratic presidential ticket, probing into an issue that has long been Walz’s kryptonite: child nutrition programs.
[…]
A Minnesota-based nonprofit, Feeding Our Future, is accused of misusing $250 million of taxpayer dollars from a COVID-19 relief fund intended to feed children in need.
Walz has not shied away from addressing the largest pandemic relief fraud in the nation, which happened right under his nose.
At a press conference in August, before being picked by Harris, Walz addressed his administration’s lack of fraud prevention and a scathing legislative audit that called the MDE’s oversight “inadequate.”
“I think what you’re seeing is if you commit fraud in Minnesota, you are going to be caught as you are going to go to prison,” Walz said. He pointed to administrative changes and safeguards to prevent future fraud, such as implementing an inspector general for the MDE.
The federal government charged over 70 defendants, five of whom have been convicted of fraud, while the rest await trial.
Feeding our Future benefited from the child nutrition program designed to aid hungry children during the pandemic, as schools and care facilities were shut down. Prosecutors allege Feeding our Future submitted fake names of children to the Department of Education to receive funds.
Walz and the other officials subpoenaed have until Sept. 18 to release the documents requested.
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Russia wants Kamala Harris to win the U.S. presidential election, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in a teasing comment that cited her “infectious” laugh as a reason to prefer her over Donald Trump.
Putin made the ironic remark a day after the U.S. Justice Department charged two Russian media executives over an alleged illegal scheme to influence the November election with pro-Russian propaganda.
Before President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, Putin had said earlier this year – in another comment widely seen as not to be taken at face value – that he preferred Biden over Trump because the former was a more predictable “old school” politician.
U.S. intelligence agencies believe Moscow actually wants Trump to win because he is less committed to supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia.
I would remind the gentle reader that the entire intelligence community united behind the lie of Russian collusion. I don’t believe a word they say. Putin, while also a liar, makes a good case for why Russia would support Harris. She is a fellow Marxist, stupid, and easily manipulated. If I were Putin, I would much prefer Harris as an adversary than the unpredictable, irascible, pro-American Capitalist, Trump.
Wow… are they reaching, or what? Is there any town in America that couldn’t be said to have a racist past or racist present? Heck, Milwaukee is one of the most racist cities I’ve ever experienced.
During a campaign stop at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in Howell, Michigan, Donald Trump suggested that deputies there should be deployed to the majority-Black city of Detroit.
“I’d love to have them working there during the election,” he told the group on August 20, standing in front of law enforcement officials and squad cars.
A week later, Trump held a “town hall” in La Crosse, Wisconsin. The next day, he rallied in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He will speak in the town of Mosinee, Wisconsin, on September 7.
These relatively small cities — spread across midwestern swing states and far from dense metropolitan areas — all have one thing in common: They are former “sundown” towns, where threats of Jim Crow-era violence enforced racial segregation.
Or, hear me out, Trump chooses communities that have a nearby airport and are full of Trump supporters. But that’s what the reporter here is actually saying, isn’t it? You rural rubes who don’t live in big cities and support Trump are all racists, aren’t you? That’s how the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) sees you.
With pomp and splendour, China has welcomed more than 50 Africans leaders to Beijing this week for a summit to strengthen ties at a time of increasing political and economic turmoil around the world.
“It appeals to their vanities,” Macharia Munene, a Kenya-based professor of international relations tells the BBC, referring to the red carpet welcome – spiced up with entertainment by dancers in colourful costumes – that the leaders received.
The optics were carefully choreographed to make the leaders feel that it is a meeting of equals.
Many of them – including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Kenya’s William Ruto – held one-to-one meetings with their Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and were given tours of Beijing and other cities at the heart of China’s development ahead of the summit.
As Prof Munene puts it, China’s aim is to show African leaders that “we are in the same boat, we are all victims of Western imperialism”.
Now, with Trump proposing the relocation of up to 100,000 federal jobs from Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia under his Agenda 47 plan, concerns about being abruptly moved are again troubling federal workers. The Republican’s proposals stir anxiety in the midst of an unusually competitive U.S. Senate race in heavily Democratic Maryland that could determine control of the Senate, with even the Republican candidate calling the plans “crazy.” The proposals also could hinder Trump’s chances to win Virginia, a state he lost in 2016 and 2020, where a U.S. Senate seat widely seen as safely Democratic is also on the ballot.
“It’s causing a lot of anxiety, a lot of discomfort within the workforce, as you are faced with these strong, negative, anti-federal worker stances and this uncertainty of what might happen to your job, your home and your livelihood,” said Dodson, who is acting vice president of American Federation of Government Employees local 3403, which represents the USDA’s Economic Research Service.
[…]
Businesses that provide services to the thousands of federal workers fear the ripple-effect threat of the proposed changes. At Census Auto Repair & Sales, for example, across the street from the U.S. Census Bureau’s headquarters in Suitland, Maryland, service manager Tay Gibson says his shop would feel the impact directly.
“I would hate to see the federal workers leave,” Gibson said. “That would be business leaving as well, and that would affect small businesses like myself.”
Every community sends vast sums of cash to Washington D.C. to support the federal government. It would be good for America to see those dollars spread around the country instead of being hoarded around D.C.
I read somewhere on X a while back that the inability of people to think through the secondary and tertiary impact of decisions is destroying us. I’ve thought a lot about that since.
Let’s take taxing unrealized gains. Setting aside, for a moment, the fact that the government is already too big and a tax like this is utterly unfair, let’s think through a couple of the possible – even likely – secondary and tertiary impacts if we did it.
Let’s say that I own a stock that goes up 20% in a year. Great! When the tax man comes for the tax on the “gains,” I don’t have the cash. What do I do? I sell some of the stock to raise the cash to pay the tax. The result is that the stock in which I’m invested declines (more shares for sale = lower stock price). The aggregate impact is to depress the equity market.
Furthermore, I am no longer a long-term investor. My horizon can no longer be more than a year, because then I need to get my cash out to pay taxes. So businesses make decisions based on that time horizon. The end of the year becomes a dynamic time of layoffs and juicing numbers to pay the first wave of investors and attract next year’s investors. Long term projects and employment become less attractive to investors.
If I’m a sole proprietor and I experience an increase in the theoretical valuation of my company (“theoretical” because valuation estimates are always a guess until there is a willing buyer and a willing seller), then I might need to sell off part of the company, lay off employees, and restrict investing in more growth because I need to pay the tax man. Again, the negative impact of these decisions is felt by employees and consumers.
All of this is assuming that such a tax does not bleed down to the middle-class, which it will. Taxes always expand once they are allowed to take root. In fact, we already have a tax on unrealized gains – the property tax. As some local bureaucrat tells you what he/she thinks your house is worth, you have to pay the tax on that valuation. The result is one of the most regressive taxes we have. Little old ladies on Social Security and disabled war veterans are losing their homes because those houses because they can’t afford the property taxes. They can’t afford those property taxes because the taxes are indexed to something that isn’t actually money that the owner can spend. This is why consumption taxes or income taxes work.
The impact of taxing unrealized gains is not going to be “soak the rich.” The rich will be fine. They have the ability to move money and make rational decisions to increase and preserve their wealth. The impact will be on the middle and lower classes who can’t afford the largesse of politicians.
“We can’t simply wave a magic wand and make encampments disappear. We also have to offer people a place to go,” San Jose’s Democratic Mayor Matt Mahan said. “My fear with the [Supreme Court] decision and the governor’s executive order is we could create a race to the bottom in which cities and counties focus their taxpayer dollars on simply shifting people to other jurisdictions.”
There are a few people who are homeless because of dire straits. A few more are homeless because of mental illness. The vast majority are homeless in California because they are drug addicts who choose to be homeless. They enjoy the transient, vagabond lifestyle that allows them to wallow through life in a drug-fueled haze.
Where these politicians fail is that they think that it is their responsibility to “offer people a place to go.” No, it isn’t. If you are an elected official, your responsibility is for the safety and well-being of your citizens, residents, and taxpayers. It is your responsibility to maintain a safe, clean, stable community for the benefit of the people living there. You don’t owe the homeless anything. There are a bevy of services, programs, and shelters available. They choose to eschew them because they prefer the homeless lifestyle.
Furthermore, it is not the duty or responsibility of the government to “offer people a place to go.” It the responsibility of those people to find a place to go. To work. To pay for housing. To pay for food. By easing the burdens of being homeless with free stuff, liberal politicians are not helping these people. They are making their lifestyle just comfortable enough for them to keep doing it. When being homeless becomes intolerable, then they will either get themselves together or they will end up in prison or dead. Hopefully they get themselves together. Either way, it is still ultimately their responsibility – not the responsibility of a community.
Were I a mayor (and this is probably one of the many reasons I am not a mayor), I would make it so uncomfortable to be homeless in my community that they move on to the next community. If enough communities do that and there is nowhere comfortable for them to be, then the homeless will start to fix the homeless problem.
Wow. I can’t say it better than the families themselves.
Gold Star families did not invite President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to Arlington National Cemetery by last week to commemorate the third anniversary of the attack at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan, a White House official and a Harris aide told NBC News, rebutting separate claims made Sunday by GOP Sen. Tom Cotton and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
The two were speaking about former President Donald Trump’s visit last week to Arlington National Cemetery, where he has drawn criticism for posing for photos with Gold Star families in a section of the cemetery where photos are traditionally prohibited.
Last week, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Trump’s visit was a “personal invitation by families.”
[…]
In one video, Darin Hoover addresses Harris directly, saying Trump treated the family with the “utmost respect” and asking where she and Biden were on “Aug. 26, 2024.” He said they were “nowhere near Arlington Cemetery. You couldn’t be bothered to be with us or say our kids’ names.”
In a statement accompanying the Trump campaign videos Sunday, members of the Gold Star families said they were “appalled” by Harris’ attempts to “politicize” Trump’s visit to the cemetery.
“President Trump was invited by us, the Gold Star families, to attend the solemn ceremonies commemorating the three-year anniversary of our children’s deaths,” the statement said. “He was there to honor their sacrifice, yet Vice President Harris has disgracefully twisted this sacred moment into a political ploy.”
Including an American. Meanwhile, Biden is on the beach, Harris is campaigning about “joy,” and Walz is ignoring questions about it. Our nation is being run my truly terrible people who don’t give a single crap about anyone unless it is to their political advantage.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said early Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of six hostages captured during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that ignited the Gaza war, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents had led a high-profile campaign for the captives’ release.
The military said the six were killed shortly before Israeli forces were to rescue them and that the bodies were found in a tunnel beneath the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The news sparked calls for mass protests by families of the hostages who said they could have been returned alive in a cease-fire deal.
Goldberg-Polin and four other hostages were taken from a music festival where Palestinian militants killed scores of people. The sixth was captured from a nearby farming community.
A U.S. Bureau of Prisons official said Cárdenas Guillén had been released from prison and was placed in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That would normally suggest he would be deported back to Mexico.
A Mexican official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Cárdenas Guillén faces two arrest warrants in Mexico, making it likely he would be detained upon arrival.
Cárdenas Guillén was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2010 and ordered to forfeit tens of millions of dollars. It was not clear why he did not serve his full sentence, but he had been extradited to the U.S. in January 2007.
With Court Victories, Conservatives Push Back on Biden Policies
Another way to write that could have been: “Courts Stop Biden’s Illegal and Unconstitutional Actions.” Or, “Many of Biden’s Key Policies Found Unconstitutional by Courts.”
But no… they have to frame it as conservatives pushing back.
by Owen | 0831, 30 Aug 2424 | Politics | 4 Comments
The thing that strikes me about Kamala Harris’ CNN interview is not really the content. Sure, there were the usual word salads, incomprehensible answers, and outright lies. We expect that. What strikes me is that the media is making a big deal of it. Why? The are making a big deal of it because it’s the only one.
She is a candidate for the highest office in the land and has been on the ticket for about a month. If she were competent, forceful, and confident that her worldview is what the people want, she should be trying to talk to MORE people, not less. She should be doing two or three interviews a week, holding press conferences, chatting with reporters after events, pressing palms with actual citizens and talking to them, etc. The fact that after over a month on the campaign trail and the media is trying to decipher her positions from a half-ass 18-minute interview like some sort of ancient riddle is insane.
If she wants the job, she should be interviewing for it like every other candidate in the history of our country.
Baldwin co-owns a $1.3 million DC penthouse condo with her partner, Wall Street private wealth management adviser Maria Brisbane but hasn’t included any of their jointly owned assets on her financial-disclosure reports — despite reporting the assets of her previous partner. In fact, Brisbane has never appeared on the senator’s reports.
The 2015 Tammy Baldwin might have objected to this arrangement.
[…]
Brisbane is the founder of Brisbane Group, whose archived website from when it was at Merrill Lynch (archived at the end of 2023) claimed to “enhance performance” by investing in “small biotechnology” companies.
Brisbane previously managed a “biotechnology mutual fund” at Merrill Lynch, where she was said to have an appreciation for cutting-edge research that informs her current investments in biotech companies. Brisbane is also on the Cancer Research and Treatment Fund board of directors, who “rapidly deploy funding to the frontlines of research.”
[…]
Baldwin said she “met privately” with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to “make a final pitch” for Wisconsin to win the Phase 2 Implementation Grant as a Biohealth Tech Hub.
The Wisconsin senator’s role in securing funding for biotech companies is no secret.
Baldwin also chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, which manages appropriations for the National Institutes for Health.
In 2018, a biotech CEO thanked Baldwin for her “support” after her firm received an award from one of the relevant NIH programs. That CEO, Ayla Annac, contributed nearly $4,000 to Baldwin, including more than $1,000 in the months before and after she thanked Baldwin. Baldwin also included Annac in the Business Leaders for Tammy coalition one month before the CEO thanked the senator for her help.
This is a really simple story. Baldwin’s partner – with whom she lives and shares a life – makes a very good living advising small biotech firms and their investors. Baldwin uses her position in government to help decide which firms will receive taxpayer-funded grants, protections, favoritism, etc. When the firms Baldwin supports get a pile of money, so do the investors and the person who advised them… Brisbane.
