Steve Hilton’s Hail Mary in Democrat-Dominated California

"California Republicans face a daunting political machine and entrenched electorate, but Steve Hilton’s provocative strategy may be their best chance to break through."

 American Greatness   

"And as we march into the 2028 cycle, California’s Democrats will continue to claim we need to tax and spend more, and if anyone disagrees, then they will be stigmatized as a MAGA Republican. The message works. It deflects accountability. It shall continue."

ChatGPT

"In California, the political script is passé. Every statewide election is the same story. The Democrat candidate gets around 60 percent of all votes, and the Republican gets 40 percent. The script is so predictable that voters have stopped paying attention. Even now, in this polarized, politicized era, if you ask a random person on the street who the two candidates are this year to become California’s next governor, they won’t know. In California, the average low-information voter doesn’t vote for a candidate; they vote for a party.

"That’s the milieu into which Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has thrown what in football is termed a “Hail Mary,” a long ball hurled toward an end zone receiver, thrown in the game’s closing seconds by a team that’s behind. Hilton’s just-released video ad features two attractive young women. By all appearances, one of them is about to seduce the other. “Just close your eyes,” the seductress says, “I’ll do all the work.” But then, “Surprise!” The camera pans downward to show the seductress is actually just guiding the other woman’s hand, marking a ballot to vote for Steve Hilton for governor.

"Of course, outrage has ensued. Democrats, joined by some Republicans, find it obscene and exploitative. Other Republicans are afraid it will “hurt the brand.” That’s rich. Republicans in California have no brand, and they have no strategy to win. They are politically irrelevant. Democrats dominate state politics. They don’t just have an edge over Republicans. They stomp the sh-t out of Republicans, year after year after year. Hilton should run more racy, spicy ads. He has nothing to lose.

"As it is, the opening act of the election is already underway, and the script hasn’t changed. On October 5, ballots were mailed to voters in California. By now, votes are already being cast. “Election season” has begun, with a month of voting, followed by a month of counting. What used to take a day now takes two months. And while some common sense candidates and common sense ballot initiatives may still have a chance in the one-party state, they will be tactical, temporary victories. In a few places, they may slow the machine down. But along the broad front, the machine will roll on, consolidating its power." . . . More.

Edward Ring is a senior fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is also the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. Ring is the author of Fixing California: Abundance, Pragmatism, Optimism (2021) and The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California (2022).

They Thought We Were SS — German Female POWs Didn't Expect This From U.S. Soldiers

WW2 Legends Files "In the final days of World War II, a group of German female military auxiliaries faced an unexpected moment of fear after being captured by American soldiers in Bavaria in May 1945. Mistaken suspicions that they might be connected to the SS created a tense situation that could have turned dangerous.

"But what happened next revealed a different side of wartime military conduct. An American counter-intelligence officer relied on documentation, careful questioning, and established procedures to distinguish ordinary German military auxiliaries from suspected SS personnel. "This historical story explores the fear, uncertainty, and human experiences of German female prisoners of war during the final days of World War II, and how evidence and due process helped prevent a potentially tragic misunderstanding. "What We Cover in This Video:

• The final days of World War II in southern Bavaria, Germany.
• The discovery of a Nazi concentration camp and its impact on American soldiers.
• Who the German female military auxiliaries were and the roles they served during the war.
• Why German female POWs feared being mistaken for SS personnel.
• The tense moment when American sentries became suspicious of the captured women.
• How a U.S. counter-intelligence officer investigated their identities.
• The use of military documents, questioning, and identification procedures.
• The historical significance of SS identification tattoos and blood-type markings.
• How a careful investigation prevented suspicion from becoming an unjust accusation.
• The women's later recollections of fear, uncertainty, and their encounters with American soldiers.
• A forgotten human story from the closing chapter of World War II.
• 
  

We used to look for tattoos to find murderers of Jews; now we look for purple hair. TD

Humor With Kamala: Political Commentators Diagnose Accent Reboot Failure After Detroit Speech

The Daily Skrape

"DETROIT, MI — America’s political commentariat reportedly abandoned elections, inflation, foreign policy, and every other issue Tuesday after discovering Kamala Harris may have sounded slightly different while speaking in Detroit, triggering what experts immediately classified as ERROR VP365: REGIONAL VOICE PACK DETECTED, sources have confirmed."

. . . "One man yelled, “Just come back out as yourself!”

"Harris allegedly replied that it was 2026 and every regional speaking cadence deserved equal microphone time.

"Commentators immediately scheduled six more segments.

"By midnight, Democrats had learned nothing new about public policy but could identify seventeen competing theories about one sentence.

"As of press time, three networks were still arguing over whether the reboot failed or merely installed the Midwest expansion pack."

California Doing California

328 Hidden Tax Hikes Discovered on Local Ballots Across California

From the Golden State to the Goodbye State

"As California voters prepare for the November election, Reform California Chairman and State Assemblymember Carl DeMaio is sounding the alarm after Reform California identified 328 local tax hikes were identified on ballots across California.

"Many of these tax hikes are buried behind vague or misleading ballot language promising funding for popular priorities like “public safety,” “infrastructure,” and “community services” — without making the true cost to taxpayers clear.

“'This is how politicians get tax hikes passed — hide the price tag, use deceptive ballot language, and hope voters don’t read the fine print,” DeMaio said.

"Reform California is urging voters to carefully review every local measure on their ballot before voting and look beyond misleading titles and descriptions to understand what each measure will actually cost.

"COMING SOON: Reform California will release its county-by-county Plain English Voter Guides before October 1 and ahead of ballots arriving in voters’ mailboxes — identifying local tax hikes and providing recommendations on key measures appearing on the November ballot."    Got yours yet?   Some of the Books Discovered in California Schools

They Don’t Just Want to Stop Nick Shirley, They Want to Stop You

Chronicles   

"Whether California Democrats succeed in censoring free speech or merely get close to criminalizing it, the results are the same: they are protecting fraud and punishing those who expose it."

"In late August, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law assembly bill 2624, titled “Privacy for Immigration Support Services Providers.” The law expands access to California’s “Safe at Home” program, which keeps the home addresses of abuse victims out of public records, to the employees and volunteers of pro-immigration NGOs.

"This bill is more commonly known on the right as the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” a nickname brilliantly coined by Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, which points out that it is designed to stop the kind of citizen journalism Nick Shirley did to expose massive fraud in Minnesota, Ohio, and California.

“It could have a chilling effect on investigative journalism and protected speech,” State Senator Tony Strickland said on X. “The law allows at least $4,000 in damages for certain violations. We need to protect people from genuine threats, but we must also protect journalists and citizens who investigate government programs, expose waste and fraud involving taxpayers’ dollars, and hold government accountable.”

"Like most of the terrible laws Californians are now saddled with, this one began with good intentions. For over 25 years, California’s secretary of state has operated the so-called Safe At Home program for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, child abduction, and elder or dependent adult abuse by giving victims an alternate mailing address. That sounds like a good, decent, and reasonable idea.

"But, recently, it occurred to our one-party rulers that they could expand this program to protect their real true loves—crazed progressive sacred cows. So, they added abortion and “gender-affirming care” providers to the list. The Democrats’ most popular constituent bloc these days are illegal aliens and the NGOs that support them, like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA). CHIRLA made big bucks from the taxpayers of California—over $30 million per year before Donald Trump was re-elected—and they don’t like being exposed or having their gravy train disturbed." . . .  More.

The Collective Is the Enemy of Community

"The Democratic Socialists of America exploit young people’s longing for community, but socialism’s coercive collectivism destroys the voluntary relationships that sustain it."

American Greatness

"Is it not, as Nisbet avers, to make sure “man’s alienation from man must lead in time to man’s alienation from God,” and from community into the chill grip of the iron fist of the collective?"

ChatGPT

"Whether reflecting on the impersonal essence of “virtual reality” and the incessant stream of demands and anxieties it imposes upon our diurnal, increasingly alienated existence, or listening to the concerns of one’s fellow citizens, one hears a persistent leitmotif: the longing for true community, especially among the youth.

"One aspect of this longing has been well bruited: people’s gnawing sense that the myth of “virtual community” is an alienating illusion that increasingly leaves them numb and pining for personal engagements—the flesh-and-blood amities, intimacies, and sundry other encounters of true community.

"Exacerbating this sense of loss, especially among the young, people are very concerned about “affordability”—such as the inability to purchase a new home, rent an apartment, find an entry-level job, or keep the one they already have—due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and inflation. But too often overlooked is how the diminishment of these opportunities has reduced people’s personal interaction and the sense of community it brings.

"Indeed, when people, notably youth, talk about wanting to “shop locally,” support small businesses, or even reject “corporate” entities and their culture, it is not a complete rejection of capitalism. Indeed, one can clearly recognize young people’s embrace of free markets and small businesses. Yet, it is a practical complaint regarding its failures—one of which is its eclipse of community beneath an impersonal corporatism. (One can make the argument that today’s youth are essentially the political descendants of Jeffersonian Republicans, but I digress.)

"Naturally, one group that has not overlooked young people’s yearning for a greater sense of community is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). They exacerbate youth’s disaffection with the economy by equating corporatism and capitalism and proffer socialism as a virtuous panacea for economic ailments. And, for alienated people yearning for community, the DSA conflates and substitutes the collective for community.

"But the truth is the collective is the enemy of community." . . .  More...

Talarico’s campaign says he has the flu, which can be debilitating for him since he has Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder.

"We May Have an Answer to the 'Missing' Talarico Mystery. This Looks Bad. Really Bad."

. . . ""My sources are telling me Talarico is in a mental health facility," Pratt wrote on X. "His campaign has stopped actively planning events in the vital homestretch of the campaign."

"If this is true, this is actually a time to pray for Talarico. We should, of course, savagely mock his smug, awful campaign advisors, by all means...and while yes, of course, this would be disqualifying for Talarico's aspirations to be a Texas Senator, we must hold empathy for anyone undergoing crisis," he continued. 

"Campaigns are brutal, and not everybody is cut out for it," he added. "You need very thick skin. As much as I don't want Talarico anywhere near government, I also don't want wish him harm, and no political office is worth having a breakdown. His awful advisors are at fault for this. They pushed him to be something he isn't, and it didn't work." . . .

Did James Talarico disappear ... into a mental institution?  

"Then, on Sept. 30, Talarico appeared by video at a Hispanic business event he was supposed to have attended in person, and said he had come down with the flu and visited a Dallas clinic."  Ask the clinic? Oops; Hippa.

. . . "Equally great will be the pressure for Talarico to do an in-person appearance where he appears coherent and steady. That hasn’t happened either. If it does happen and comes with an equally coherent explanation for his absence, that still won't help his chances. If it’s confirmed, Democrat hopes of taking the Senate may be doomed, Talarico is likely toast, and all the dollars Democrats put into their hyperbolic claims about turning Texas blue go up in Texas barbecue smoke.". . 

Missing Persons Update: Talarico Spox Claims Video of Candidate Friday at Music Fest Is Real – RedState   "Steve Bannon tweeted, “Caroline Wren: Talarico was spotted this afternoon at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Because, of course, a large outdoor music festival would be your first stop after spending nearly two weeks allegedly on your deathbed. The flu doesn’t keep you off the campaign trail for 13 freaking days in the home stretch of a campaign. I don’t buy it. I think he had a complete mental breakdown. He couldn’t handle this campaign. I think he’s a weak person.” He had Hillary flu." .Doug Ross 

.Talarico Has Been Spotted. His Appearance Creates More Questions Than Answers.

Talarico’s campaign says he has the flu, which can be debilitating for him since he has Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disorder. 

The New York Post received messages from a private Slack channel showing that Talarico volunteers have started panicking over his disappearance:

. . . "A Texas Democrat within the Talarico race insisted that the nominee is “like, really sick.”

"Talarico has Type 1 diabetes (T1D), which is an autoimmune disorder unlike Type 2 diabetes. With T1D, when you get sick, the immune system targets and destroys beta cells in the pancreas.

"I have rheumatoid arthritis and Sjögren’s. Let me tell you that it is not hyperbole when I tell you it takes us with autoimmune disorders a long time to even recover from the common cold. We have a higher risk of more severe symptoms and complications.

"In December 2019, I came down with pneumonia. Even with antiviral medicine, it took me two weeks to even function a little bit and another week to fully function. But even after that, the fatigue stuck around.

"But the flu, stomach viruses, and severe colds can cause major blood glucose and insulin problems, which are dangerous for anyone with diabetes, especially T1D. Those illnesses can keep you from eating and drinking:

When you’re sick, your body manufactures its own additional glucose to provide energy to fight the infection. The flu may also cause your body to release the stress hormones adrenalin or cortisol, which reduce the effectiveness of insulin, the hormone responsible for lowering glucose levels. Combined, these two effects can result in high glucose levels that’s difficult to bring back to normal levels." . . .  More on this here...

Sergeant Charles Windolph's Chilling Eyewitness Report of Custer's Last Stand

Suppressed History   

"I Fought With Custer: The Story of Sergeant Windolph, Last Survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn" 

"Sergeant Charles Windolph was the last white survivor of the Battle of the Little Big Horn when he described it nearly seventy years later. A six-year veteran of the Seventh Cavalry, Windolph fought in Benteen’s troop on that fatal Sunday and recalls in vivid detail the battle that wiped out Custer’s command. Equally vivid is the evidence marshaled by Frazier and Robert Hunt on events leading up to the battle and on the investigation that followed."

The narrator follows the politically correct path, referring to the Sioux as "native Americans'; a term two Indians I have spoken with said to dislike. The term "Indians" is rich in American history and full of pride to them, (I'm a native American - born here; think they want to have me in their club?) leading one to suspect they do not care to be named by purple-haired and pierced puppets. The Tunnel Dweller

Talarico: This November, stop them before it’s too late

 LifeSiteNews

"“Texas voters need to know his record of voting against bans on irreversible sex changes for minors while cozying up to surgeons who performed them. Our ad exposes the truth behind the seminary student facade.” 

ChatGPT

"A new ad is taking aim at far-left Texas Democrat Senate nominee James Talarico’s record on LGBT issues, using artificial intelligence (AI) to depict the candidate as a gender “transition” surgeon looming over a little girl.

"The 30-second spot, created by American Principles Project (APP), evokes the famous 1964 “Daisy” ad from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign that depicted a little girl picking flower petals before implicitly being caught in a nuclear explosion. The APP version replaces the looming threat of the Cold War arms race with the transgender industry.

“She dreams of growing up, falling in love, becoming a mother,” a similarly voiced narrator says. “The trans industry preys on confused children. Irreversible puberty blockers. Cross-sex hormones. Sex-change surgeries. This November, stop them before it’s too late.” The ad cuts to the girl being prepped for surgery, with a surgeon looking down on her who removes his mask to reveal Talarico’s face before ending on a black screen displaying, “Vote for Ken Paxton on November 3.” . . . More.

If This Is True About James Talarico, He's Finished

 PJ Media  

"If the rumor is true, this would be a campaign-ending revelation. If it's false, one unscripted public appearance would kill it in minutes." 

Uncle Paul's Parodies

"Explosive rumors are circulating about the whereabouts of Texas State Rep. James Talarico (D-50th District), and if they prove true, his Senate campaign is over.

"Sara Gonzales of The Blaze reported Thursday that she had received a tip she was still working to confirm.

Gonzales didn't say what the information was, but GOP strategist Caroline Wren did, and what she's hearing, though unconfirmed, is huge.

"James Talarico is straight up missing one month before the election," Wren told Steve Bannon on Real America's Voice.

To recap, Talarico was last seen in Texas at a football game on Sept. 26. Invitations show New York City fundraisers with Robert De Niro on Sept. 28 and Sept. 29. Then, on Sept. 30, Talarico appeared by video at a Hispanic business event he was supposed to have attended in person, and said he had come down with the flu and visited a Dallas clinic. Wren concludes that account would put him in a Dallas medical clinic on the same night he was supposed to have been at a fundraiser in Manhattan.

Nobody has seen him in public since.

After Bannon floated the possibility that Talarico was simply off raising money in New York or Los Angeles, Wren said photos from those events would have surfaced by now.

Then she shared what her sources in Texas are telling her.

"I'm hearing that he checked himself into a mental institution, that he had a full-blown mental breakdown sometime around, I guess, September 29th or September 30th," she said." . . .

Talarico abducted by aliens - American Thinker   

"It gets even worse. According to Ed Morrisey, the Talarico campaign does not have a single event lined up for him for the rest of the month."

 

Spencer Pratt Shares What His Sources Have Told Him About James Talarico and If True? WOW. JUST WOW

 

Joelle Bayaa-Uzuri Espeut revealed [he]-she
 confronted him directly about his comments

Back in September before he disappeared: Paxton's Democratic rival James Talarico strikes different tone on trans rights at secret LGBTQ fundraiser | Daily Mail Online   "Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico struck a different tone on transgender rights after being confronted at a secret fundraiser, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Transgender activist Joelle Bayaa-Uzuri Espeut asked Talarico about a recent Fox News interview during which he said he was in favor of a national ban on gender surgery for minors and opposed trans athletes in women's sports.

"'I asked him directly about his comments [on] Fox News about the trans community, which upset a lot of people,' Espeut told the Daily Mail.

"Talarico was asked on Fox if he would vote as a senator in favor of a national ban on gender surgery for minors, and he replied, 'Absolutely.' 

"He also stated, 'I will oppose trans athletes playing in girls' sports if it risks safety or fairness.' 

"But after Espeut informed Talarico that his comments 'hurt' many in the transgender community, he tried to clarify what he meant to the audience. 

"Espeut told the Daily Mail that Talarico insisted that his position on transgender athletes playing in girls' sports had not changed, and that he believed it should be up to local officials to make the decision." . . . 

Talarico’s Pastor Predicts Candidate’s Mom May Move to DC to Help Him Keep Radical Views If He Wins 

 “His mother is a very strong woman and she will take him to town if he, after he gets elected, if he backs down,” the “reverend” says in the video, going so far as to predict something perhaps no one has ever heard about a U.S. Senate candidate before."

Genocide

The Israelis did what the allies did to Germany in WW2; the Gazans did to those areas of Israel what Germany did to Poland then as well. TD

 HISTORY  

. . . "Genocide’s “intent to destroy” separates it from other crimes of humanity such as ethnic cleansing, which aims at forcibly expelling a group from a geographic area (by killing, forced deportation and other methods)." . . .

Gaza was ethnically cleansed when all Jewish families were forced to walk away from homes and businesses they had established, turning the land over to the Gazans. TD  Expulsions and exoduses of Jews - Wikipedia

What is Genocide? | Holocaust Encyclopedia  "The word “genocide” did not exist prior to World War II. It is a specific term coined in 1942 by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959) and first used in print in his 1944 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In his book, Lemkin analyzed Nazi policies of systematic persecution and mass murder during World War II. His analysis included descriptions of the destruction of European Jews, which today is referred to as the Holocaust. He formed the word genocide by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. Lemkin defined “genocide” as "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.'". . . 

Holocaust: Concentration Camps, Deaths & Legacy | HISTORY    "The Holocaust was the state-sponsored persecution and mass murder of millions of European Jews, Romani people, the intellectually disabled, political dissidents and homosexuals by the German Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945.

The word “holocaust,” from the Greek words “holos” (whole) and “kaustos” (burned), was historically used to describe a sacrificial offering burned on an altar.

After years of Nazi rule in Germany, dictator Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution”—now known as the Holocaust—was carried out during World War II, with mass killing centers in concentration camps. About six million Jews and some five million others, targeted for racial, political, ideological and behavioral reasons, died in the Holocaust. More than one million of those who perished were children.

Historical Antisemitism

"Antisemitism in Europe did not begin with Adolf Hitler. Though use of the term itself dates only to the 1870s, there is evidence of hostility toward Jews long before the Holocaust—even as far back as the ancient world, when Roman authorities destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and forced Jews to leave Palestine." . . . 

Holocaust: Concentration Camps, Deaths & Legacy | HISTORY

UPDATE: Genocide Hypocrites   

"On October 7, 2023, Hamas killers slaughtered 1,200 people, more than two-thirds of them civilians, inside Israel. For the ensuing three weeks, they refused Israel's demands to turn over the 251 hostages and to surrender the architects of the massacre. No matter — within a day of the attacks, when Hamas gunmen were still fighting Israeli troops on Israeli soil, the American Left was already screaming "genocide!"

"They did not mean Hamas's intended genocide of Jews, a foretaste of which was seen when it launched a surprise invasion force of more than 4,000 terrorists some 15 miles into Israel. The killers were accompanied by some 2,000 "innocent" Gazan "civilians." All were bent on looting, murder, rape, torture, and hostage-taking of the defenseless.

"Nor did the "genocide" chorus refer to the more than 13,000 rockets, missiles, and drones launched from Gaza after October 7 that predominantly targeted Israeli civilian neighborhoods.

"What was most surreal about the charges of "genocide" against Israel — along with all the other slurs of "settler-colonialism," "apartheid," "occupation," "war crimes" — was that they so often came from elite first- and second-generation Middle Eastern immigrants to America. Yet these prominent American accusers have remained silent about whether their lurid accusations might far better reflect the sordid histories of their own homelands." . . . More.

UPDATE:

Townhall

Woke Grad School Ed Programs Explain Why Kids Can't Read

American kids lag behind those in many other peer nations thanks to the ideology pervading the schools that educate our teachers.

The Federalist

"Rather than wasting government funds — state and local spending, not to mention federal student loan dollars for teachers’ graduate degrees — to promote topics such as “queering elementary education,” give parents the education dollars and let them select the schooling option that meets their children’s needs."

. . . "But in the United States at least, another factor may help to explain students’ poor academic performance. A separate paper by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) illustrated the ideological obsessions within graduate schools of education, which train the next generation of teachers going into American classrooms.

The AEI study examined course reading materials and syllabi for master’s programs at 10 public graduate schools of education. As the paper notes, because many school districts pay higher wages to teachers with master’s degrees, these graduate schools have a ready-built pipeline of potential students.

Consider the titles of just some of the course readings in one school’s curriculum:

• “Is an Antiracist and Decolonizing Applied Linguistics Possible?” 
• “Theorizing Linguistic Racisms from a Language Ideological Perspective” 
• “Writing, Rioting, and Righting Como Negra: A Testimonio of Black Latinx Erasure in Bilingual Education”
• “Black Languaging [sic] as Anti-Racist Pedagogy in the World Language Classroom”
• “World Languages for Black Linguistic Reparations”
• “Toward an Anti-Racist Linguistic Anthropology: An Indigenous Response to White Supremacy.”

"Note that these are all titles from syllabi at the University of Texas, a publicly funded institution in a purportedly conservative state." . . More.