"In a world teetering on the brink of economic collapse and potential global conflict, the Biden administration has decided to wage war on… plastic forks. Yes, you read that correctly.
"As nations stockpile weapons and financial markets tremble, the White House is laser-focused on phasing out single-use plastics across federal departments.
"President Biden, apparently oblivious to the looming specter of World War III, has declared this crusade against disposable cutlery an “all-hands-on-deck response” to the “climate crisis.”
"One can’t help but wonder if those hands might be better employed addressing more pressing matters, like averting economic catastrophe or preventing nuclear armageddon.
“ 'The President is committed to taking ambitious actions… to end plastic pollution and is calling upon the global community to do the same,” the White House proudly proclaimed.
"Because clearly, what the global community needs right now is a united front against straws and sandwich bags.
"This grand plan aims to eliminate single-use plastics from federal food service operations, events, and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035. It’s comforting to know that as the world potentially crumbles around us, at least government employees will be sipping their coffee from eco-friendly mugs." . . .
Stilton's Place "Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to be her running mate in the upcoming election, and voters are excitedly proclaiming "Who the hell isthat?!"
"And the answer is he's a white guy from the Midwest and the Harris team thinks he'll bring in votes because, well shoot, you can't count on flyover country to vote for a radical Black woman, right? Also, they like the symbolism of a white man being seen as subordinate to a (vaguely) Black woman. If Kamala had chosen a Samoan lesbian in a wheelchair the optics just wouldn't have been as tasty.
"Walz is, of course, screamingly liberal and enjoys outdoor activities like watching BLM burn cities down while on his watch. He was late calling in the National Guard, and then allowed his daughter to "leak" the security plans so rioters would know which areas to avoid. And there's more damning stuff, but there's no need to list it here. We all knew he was a horrible candidate and a horrible human being when Kamala rightfully thought he belonged on her team.
"But thinking of the HARRIS - WALZ signs we'll soon see sprouting up in yards everywhere, it struck me that there was something rather musical about that combination of words.
Israel created a garden spot in this land; their enemies can only destroy. TD
view of the skyline of Israel's coastal city of Tel Aviv
"Israel’s Home Front Command has moved search and rescue forces to Tel Aviv and other cities in preparation for potential Iranian and Hezbollah attacks, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday.
"The Ram Battalion (668) of the IDF’s Search and Rescue Brigade (60th) has repositioned itself in Tel Aviv, the economic and cultural hub of Israel along the central Mediterranean coastline.
"The unit has moved near Menora Mivtachim Arena in the Yad Eliyahu neighborhood, where the Home Front Command’s rescue vehicles and trailers are stationed.
"Both Tehran and its Lebanese terror proxy have threatened to target military sites in the Tel Aviv area. The Ram Battalion would respond to any building collapses or other destruction.
"According to the IDF, rapid rescue teams have also been deployed to Haifa, the Haifa bay area and several cities in the south and center of the country.
"The deployment followed a recent situational assessment held by the Home Front Command.
"It was also decided to position a permanent battalion in the Red Sea resort town of Eilat, which has been targeted multiple times by Iran’s Yemeni terror proxy, the Houthis.
Underground parking lots to be converted to shelters
"Some Israeli municipalities are preparing to turn underground parking lots into emergency shelters in the event of a sustained wave of attacks from Iran and its terror proxies, Channel 12 reported on Tuesday." . . .
The Democrat legislator who championed the parent-stripping law is Rep. Leigh Finke, a man who insists that he is a transgender woman. He promotes the “trans refuge” law to encourage more irreversible transgender surgeries and hormone treatment for children and adults in the state.
Rep. Leigh Finke
"Gov. Tim Walz signed a law that strips parental protections from out-of-state teenagers and children who claim to want irreversible transgender medical treatment in Minnesota.
President Donald Trump’s campaign is eagerly spotlighting Walz’s pro-transgender advocacy, and is describing him as “#TamponTim.”
“As a woman, I think there is no greater threat to our health than leaders who support gender-transition surgeries for young minors, who support putting tampons in men’s bathrooms in public schools,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Tuesday. “Those are radical policies that Tim Walz supports.”. . .
This is Rep Leigh Finke who sponsored the "trans refuge" bill
which Tim Walz signed which made Minnesota a sanctuary state for "trans
kids" to receive s*x change treatments and surgeries.
pic.twitter.com/UB3f4tv3z4
An AFT report deplores a Henrico County, Virginia, parent for questioning the appropriateness of "I'm a Gay Wizard," a book in the school library, which depicts two boy characters having oral sex." . . .
"But this battle isn't about inclusion. Inclusion is a good thing. This is about indoctrination."
Issues & Insights"There’s a reason nobody expected far-left Kamala Harris to pick a far-left governor from a deep blue state as her running mate. It’s never worked.
"In the wake of Jimmy Carter’s crushing defeat in 1980 and repeated Democratic losses thereafter, the party decided that to win presidential elections they had to at least appear as moderates.
Bill Clinton won by labeling himself a “new Democrat” and picked Al Gore, then a fellow moderate Southerner. Gore in turn tapped Joe Lieberman as his running mate. Barack Obama tried to position himself to the right of John McCain and ran with Scranton Joe Biden. Hillary Clinton picked Virginia moderate Sen. Tim Kaine to balance the ideological scales. Biden ran as a sensible centrist with a talent for working both sides of the aisle (and picked Harris more as an insurance policy against impeachment than anything else).
Which is why pundits across the board expected Harris – in what amounts to the first important decision she has made as presidential candidate — to pick a more mainstream governor with cross-party appeal from a swing state like Arizona or Pennsylvania.
But the radicalized, hopeless woke Democratic party couldn’t bring itself to OK anyone like that. So instead, Harris decided to “balance” the ticket with another leftist.
As Axios reported today: “Many Republicans expressed surprise and relief at the choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, readying renewed ‘radical’ liberal attacks.”
No matter, it goes on, because “Walz has backing from many influential Democratic voices, including the progressive wing of the party which has at times turned on President Biden, especially over his handling of the war in Gaza.” . . .
As the use of “weird” gained traction, Republicans responded, pivoting to use the word against Harris and to describe trans and other LGBTQ people, as well as gender-nonconforming individuals. Anti-LGBTQ efforts, particularly those targeting trans people and drag performers, have been a major pillar of conservative legislation, campaigning and online rhetoric that can spill into real-life conflict.
Donald Trump Jr. has leaned heavily on redirecting the word “weird,” using it against Harris five times, including in a caption on a video of her high-fiving a drag performer. Libs of TikTok, one of the most followed far-right accounts on social media, has used “weird” as a pejorative in 14 posts since July 23, most of them alongside images and videos of drag performers and people displaying what some might perceive as gender nonconformity, like Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff with unshaven armpits and men wearing makeup." . . .
"So the story is out: Biden is seething, bitter, disgusted with Kamala's bad judgment in picking the buffoonish Tim Walz over more moderate Josh Shapiro, looking for a way to regain his grasp on power, and no longer motivated to do his job as president of the United States."
"Not too long ago, Joe Biden had it made. The Democrat convention was approaching, he had the delegates, and he was going to be the nominee.
"He rigged the Democrat primaries for himself, shut out all competition, kneecapped Bobby Kennedy's independent campaign, and if all else failed, tried through various means -- court and otherwise -- to eliminate his main rival, President Trump.
"But he got hit from a direction from which he wasn't looking -- his own party majordomos, who engineered his "easy way or hard way" ouster, ushering in Kamala Harris instead. Harris was stupid. Harris was his "insurance." But Harris had ideas of her own and ran away with it. Now she has risen in the polls as he hasn't and the mainstream media are in full-throated cheerleading mode in ways he never got.
"Now he's reportedly seething.
"Here's what President Trump's close advisor, Stephen Miller, tweeted out:
Buzz growing that Biden regrets caving to the coup after Kamala seismically botched the VP pick by surrendering to the Jew-haters. She showed tremendous cowardice exiling Shapiro for a socialist and Biden is fuming that he let donors extort him out by freezing his campaign funds.
. . . " Unlike Trump, Biden does plot, and he takes a lot of revenge on his enemies. If Democrats could plot against him, why wouldn't he plot back to take the whole miserable house of cards down, too? He probably will fail, and once again, stew in his bitterness.
"If so, couldn't happen to a nicer guy who did so much damage to our country. Biden set the rules on manipulating elections, and in the end got beaten by fellow Democrats at his own game, his own rules he thought he was master of." . . .
However, Shapiro apparently had at least two strikes against him: He’s Jewish in a political party that is increasingly influenced by an über left, anti-Zionist, and even anti-Semitic, base and he is a strong supporter of Israel in its war against Hamas and potentially its other enemies including Iran.
. . ."VANCE: Kamala Harris has supported giving Medicare and Social Security benefits to illegal aliens.
So the question for the American people is, do you want to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare by giving it to illegal aliens? Because if so, Kamala Harris is your person.
If you want to preserve Social Security so that we don’t throw a generation of elderly Americans into poverty, then Donald Trump is your candidate.
And it’s very simple issue after issue.
Do you want an open border? If no, Donald Trump is your guy.
Do you want the American government to protect American citizens? If you do, then clearly, you have got to back Donald Trump.
Do you want a tax policy that promotes American workers and promotes building things in the United States of America? If so, you’ve got to vote for Donald Trump.
It’s really not complicated. On policy after policy, Kamala Harris is far to the left of even Joe Biden. She’s governed that way and she would do even worse if the American people give her a promotion.
"Vance then returned to a discussion of the open border under the Biden-Harris administration." . . .
Power Line: As an American, I am horrified at Walz’s selection.. . . "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."
. . ."The new rules published in a video mid-March include a softening of the contact ban. Members may use their “Bible-trained conscience” to decide on a “simple greeting” to a person removed from the congregation. It is no longer expected “to ignore him completely”." . . .
"Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide have eased the discipline for youth members after “serious wrongdoing”. The new guideline came within two weeks after the decision of the Oslo District Court in Norway to strip the Jehovahs of their official status as a registered faith community.
"The faith community seems to be trying to get a better position in the appeal case in Norway. The community came under attack for its rigid rules regarding discipline to “baptised minors”.
"Among Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is usual that children choose for baptism between 12 and 16 years. Religiously, they are seen as responsible members than, who can be disciplined. There have been cases of “disfellowship” after “serious wrongdoing”, resulting in “shunning”, isolation and contact bans. For individuals and families, this can be rigid and feel like psychological violence.
"For the Norwegian state, this practice is controversial because those “baptised minors” are legally still kids. The state feels responsible for protecting the minors. After complaints of psychological violence, the authorities decided in 2021 to rip the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Norway from the legal status, which they had since 1985. According to experts, this is the first time a faith community lost its legal position in Norway.
"This registration in Norway gives access to huge amounts of state subsidies. The monetary support is about NOK 16 million (1.3 million euros) every year. Over three years, together with interest, the JW demanded NOK 50 million (4.3 million euros).
"With the de-registration, the Jehovah’s Witnesses also lost the right to perform civil marriages. Traditionally, marriages were performed by the Lutheran state church. Nowadays, all recognised faith communities (including the Humanist Society) can perform civil marriage." . . .
Former Jehovah's Witnesses break silence about practice of shunning. . .“ 'If you’re in the organization, you understand the depression and despair,” said Kaye, who explained that when someone gets disfellowshipped, word spreads fast in the church. She admits that she once shunned her own father at the direction of the church.
. . ." “The moment they make an announcement, you’re not allowed to have contact with them whatsoever. You have to pretend they’re dead,” Kaye said. “That’s how they control the people. It’s a fear tactic. It’s to keep them in the cult, under their control.”. . .
One comment among several from TipVisual9341: "I have been shunned by my own son for the past 10 years since the organIzation said you can’t even talk to your own mother if she decides not to be in the cult!"
"Also, shun the 13 year old boy who has been disfellowshipped for reporting his JW molester to the police and trying to warn the congregation about him (google Jehovah's Witness two witness rule, child abuse).
"No talking to ex members or questioning anything written in a Watchtower magazines because this is, apparently, God’s method of giving us information in these “last days”.
"And we all can’t wait for the “new system” after Armageddon because 65% of us are on antidepressants and are looking forward to owning a pet tiger in the new world." . . .
"Looking to his legacy, Biden may recognize that if he tries to block Israel from doing what it must, he will pay a price. Americans will not remember well a president that chose to shield Hezbollah from assault and so preserve its ability to destroy Israel." c.g.
Caroline Glick. . ."On the face of things, since both Republicans and Democrats have played a role in forging the alliance – President Donald Trump through the Abraham Accords, and President Joe Biden by organizing the Arab states in support of intercepting Iran’s missiles and drones shot against Israel on April 14th – Netanyahu’s vision ought to really attract support from both sides of the aisle. The problem is that Trump and Biden view their regional alliance as a means to achieve opposite ends.
"Biden’s actions in the region are a continuation of those initiated by President Barack Obama and to understand his policies, they must be viewed in the context of Obama’s policies.
"Obama’s predecessors hoped to pay Iran off with a “grand bargain,” that could moderate its policies. That is, they believed Iran should change. In contrast, Obama believed the U.S. should change.
"Obama’s foreign policy was predicated on his anti-imperialist world view. Guided by its principles of Western culpability for the pathologies of the Middle East, Obama believed that Iran’s hostility towards the U.S. was justified. As he saw things, it was up to the U.S. to make amends to Iran by changing the way it operated in the Middle East.
"To accomplish this goal, Obama began realigning the U.S. towards Iran and its Sunni allies in the Muslim Brotherhood at the expense of Israel and the U.S.’s traditional Sunni Arab allies.
"Obama’s betrayal of both Israel and the Sunni Arabs brought the long estranged neighbors together. The Israeli-Sunni partnership was first brought to bear in the 2014 Hamas war against Israel. Obama sided with Hamas’s state sponsors Qatar and Turkey and insisted that Israel accept the terror regime’s ceasefire demands. Supported by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE, Netanyahu was able to withstand Obama’s pressure.
"The true birth of the Abraham alliance then, came without U.S. involvement, in response to the U.S.’s betrayal of Israel and the Sunni Arabs under the Obama administration.
"When Trump came into office, he abandoned Obama’s realignment and sought to rebuild America’s credibility in the eyes of its allies. To this end, Trump embraced the new Israeli-Sunni partnership using it as a means to rebuild U.S. credibility and reassert U.S. regional leadership." . . .
Gov. Tim Walz's reaction the BLM riots:
"A society that does not put equity and inclusion first will come to this result"
"This is who Kamala picked as her VP.
Tim Walz is a perfect choice for Kamala Harris. He let BLM rioters, arsonists, and looters rampage through his state and she encouraged donations to the bail fund for the few who were arrested. pic.twitter.com/xA9I6i6yfF
. . ."Conservatives on Tuesday accused Harris of caving to anti-Israel activists by declining to pick the popular swing-state governor.
“I think that they will have not picked Shapiro, frankly, out of the antisemitism in their own caucus, in their own party,” said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican vice-presidential nominee, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday before the decision was announced. “The far left doesn’t like the fact that he is a Jewish-American.”
"Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, slammed Walz for his endorsement of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of the most strident critics of Israel in the House and a vocal member of the progressive “Squad.”
“ 'Of particular concern for the American Jewish community is Governor Walz’s embrace of the most vicious anti-Israel and antisemitic member of Congress, Ilhan Omar,” Brooks stated. “Walz has endorsed and supported this notorious ‘Squad’ member for years, championing her as a ‘progressive leader’ in Congress.”
"Omar congratulated Walz on Tuesday for being selected as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee.
“ 'Our North Star state governor has signed universal school meals, paid family and sick leave, marijuana legalization and protections for reproductive rights into law,” wrote Omar, posting a photo of her together with Walz." . . .
. . .“ 'This vandalism has touched our hearts yet again,” Anne Frank House executive director Ronald Leopold said. “The statue reminds us of a young girl, with ambitions and dreams. A girl who was murdered simply because she was Jewish. The daubing of the statue today is even more painful, on the day that Anne Frank was arrested, exactly 80 years ago today.' ” . . .
Anne Frank (1959) Final MomentsPerhaps like how Israelis felt on Oct 7, 2023 as "Palestinians" invaded homes and villages to murder, rape, and torture families, including children. And they did it "with glee" as Douglas Murray said. TD
“Josh Shapiro sold his soul to be in contention for this nomination. And the Democrats sent a message that there is no place in the Democrat party for pro-Israel politicians. And that tells us how Kamala Harris will govern. She will govern to the lowest element of the Democratic Party when it comes to Israel.”
"Kamala Harris [or her handlers] has picked Tim Walz from Minnesota as her VP nominee. I’m completely shocked. The Democrats have been so strategic in what they’ve done, how they maneuvered Biden out of the race, how they installed Harris without her having to do an interview or any live vote by the delegates. This is a choice that I think is extremely risky. It really sets the stage for two major fault lines in our country.
"Tim Walz is about as far left as you’re going to get. That tells us that that is how Kamala Harris will govern. If she gets elected president, there’s no turning back. It will be a hard left administration, even more so than Biden.
"So they have doubled down on socialism. They have doubled down on leftism. They have doubled down on all of those big government priorities. So that’s number one takeaway.
"Takeaway number two is this goes right to the heart of the Israel fault line in American politics.
"Josh Shapiro has been humiliated. He was forced, to be a contender, to disavow his Jewishness, to disavow his pro-Israel stances. He was not somebody ultimately Democrats were willing to have on the ticket because the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic base of the Democratic Party, the far left base, the people who were tearing down statues and defacing monuments and attacking anyone they think is Israeli, or anyone who is pro-Israeli, that is now who runs the party. This is now the party of the far left and the anti-Israel left." . . .
His offense: asserting in a 2021 Tucker Carlson interview that America is “effectively run … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives … and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
It seems that the Buckeye State’s junior senator was insulting heartbroken women suffering from infertility and that, per the wholly-Uniparty-owned Wall Street Journal editorial board, his remarks don’t “play well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republican, who will decide the presidential race.”
The Journal’s suggestion: hide behind the skirts of his attorney spouse, Usha, who “might help persuade swing voters that Mr. Vance respects women more than his comments have made it seem.”
. . . "Now, feminists drunk with “girl power” – and again abetted by girlie men – have upped the ante: They’re not just trying to run the country, but leveraging Vance’s comments out-of-context to dictate who gets the top job. But also thereby stepping up their scorched-Earth efforts to reshape social norms through an all-out assault on marriage, child-raising, and especially male family headship.
"The reticence of the male conservative cohort to defend Vance is reminiscent of the time, during the serial sexual assault character assassinations on conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh, Hawaiian harridan Mazie Hirono (another childless woman politician, allegedly a U.S. senator) memorably demanded that “the men in this country just shut up and step up.”
"Never mind that the GOP pajama boy wing’s pathetic, Lilliputian pandering on Vance is, in the Journal’s telling, inspired by concerns about an electoral cohort not even remotely “gettable” for Republicans. Cue Pew Research: “Women who have never been married are three times as likely to associate with the Democratic Party as with the Republican Party (72% vs. 24%).”
There appears to be a strange serendipity in that people who declare these men to be women also tend to feel Joe Biden has been a great President. Maybe even worthy of being on Mount Rushmore. TD
Women athletes should just say 'no' and refuse to compete against biologic men. No women, no competition, no games, no viewers, no revenue. The left won’t behave based on logic or common sense, but they will over money. Time to Bud Light the Olympics!
. . ."A female volleyball player was “left paralyzed with brain damage by transgender opponent who 'cackled with delight' after knocking her to ground.” A trans-female MMA fighter fractured the orbital socket of a biologic female MMA fighter about a decade ago.
"Trans apologists pooh-pooh an orbital fracture as no big deal despite the fact that it can cause blindness due optic nerve compression. Are they dismissing paralysis too?
"Biologic males competing against women turns Title IX and the entire women’s rights and empowerment movements upside down. Helen Reddy once sang, “I am woman, hear me roar.” Roaring about the injustice now will lead to personal and professional ruin via the woke police." . . .
. . ."Left-wing corporate media defend this travesty.
The biological profile of Khelif depicts a complex scenario. She has differences of sex development (DSD), a condition where she was born a woman and identifies as such. Her increased testosterone levels and XY chromosomes—characteristics commonly associated with male athletes—are the outcome of this disorder. The reason behind her disqualification from the 2023 World Boxing Championships was her excessive testosterone levels, which also caused her to fail a gender eligibility test.
"Sorry but XY chromosomes are male, not “commonly” male, even if the genitals are ambiguous. The National Institute of Health defines, “Females have two X chromosomes in their cells, while males have one X and one Y.”
It seems the IOC can’t define a woman, similar to Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who also can’t define a woman.
. . ."Boxers Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan, who prepared to face off in the final after mercilessly pounding women with their fists, agreed that hits below the belt would not be acceptable. "It's quite painful," Khalif said through an interpreter. "No one competing for the women's gold medal should have to experience being hit in the testicles.'"
