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Smith’s filing comes just in time for the Harris-Walz campaign to try and make Jan. 6 a top campaign issue. Vice President Kamala Harris made a post on X about Jan. 6 just hours before the filing was unsealed.
“On January 6, the former president incited an attack on our nation’s democracy because he didn’t like the outcome of the election,” Harris said in a post on X. “If you stand for country, democracy, and the rule of law — our campaign has a place for you.”
It also doesn’t hurt that Smith’s filing was conveniently unsealed hours after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz bombed in the vice presidential debate against Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Smith had to walk a fine line in creating this filing after the Supreme Court shot down his earlier lawfare attempts. That’s to say, the high court could once again squash Smith’s lawfare efforts if the charges he brought against Trump impinged on the established presidential immunity guidelines.
But Smith doesn’t care whether the substance of his motion is just, accurate, or even legal, because it’s never been about the rule of law — it’s always been about interfering in the election.
It has been nearly a week since Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina, and Joe Biden has finally announced on behalf of whoever is running the country that he has authorized 1,000 federal troops from Fort Bragg (I will never call it anything else), North Carolina, to assist in disaster relief operations a mere 250 miles away in Western North Carolina.
These 1,000 troops will constitute the overwhelming federal military disaster response in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.
According to the Department of Defense, the federal military involvement in this five-state catastrophe is minimal:
...
- Four helicopters with para-rescue teams are at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville, Tennessee.
- Eight Army helicopters and ten Navy helicopters were available at Fort Bragg on Monday.
- Thirty high-water vehicles are at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for reasons that are unclear.
The critical resources needed in the hardest hit areas of Western North Carolina are helicopters for getting stranded people out of danger and bringing supplies to areas cut off by flooding. As of this afternoon, the only military aircraft available are 11 from Florida, two from South Carolina, seven from Tennessee, and one from Virginia. Some of those may be in use in North Carolina as both Florida and South Carolina have sent National Guard contingents to North Carolina.
A lot of hard questions are being asked.
//
As an aside, Howard's story of petty bickering among local officials seems to be spot on; see Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC ordered out, threatened with arrest.
The Civil Rights Lawyer @johnbryanesq
·
People are flying their own helicopters in and actively rescuing people in NC and local government officials are threatening them with arrest. You don’t hate your government enough.
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7:01 AM · Oct 1, 2024 //
To qualify for federal military assistance after a disaster, the Stafford Act must be invoked. This requires a governor to request assistance under that law. Biden declared a state of emergency in North Carolina on September 26 which released some federal aid. Governor Roy Cooper made a Stafford Act request on September 27), but Biden delayed invoking the Stafford Act until today, Wednesday. //
Note the tasking includes a single Forward Support Company. This is rather astounding as that unit has extremely limited capabilities. It has an aid station, a field kitchen, about a half-dozen trucks, and vehicle repair section. What is needed in Western North Carolina is emergency generators, communications, heavy engineering equipment, medical support, cargo haul capability, and helicopters. Even though Fort Bragg has well over 100 helicopters, only eight have been tasked to assist in recovery and relief operations.
Why has the tap been turned off to military assistance for North Carolina and other battered states? One can't help but remember this statement by Biden.
Greg Price @greg_price11
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Reporter: "Do you have any words to the victims of the hurricane?"
Biden: "We've given everything that we have."
Reporter "Are there any more resources the federal government could be giving them?"
Biden: "No."
10:36 PM · Sep 29, 2024
And private helicopters flying rescue missions still outnumber military ones in the storm-blasted areas. //
In April 1991, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia gave the Alexander Meiklejohn Lecture at Brown University, in which he explored the idea of the U.S. Constitution.
“Unlike any other nation in the world, we consider ourselves bound together, not by genealogy or residence but by belief in certain principles; and the most important of those principles are set forth in the Constitution of the United States,” Justice Scalia said.
Referring to the Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1787, Justice Scalia added,
When else has a government been established, not by conquerors dividing up the spoils, or even by political parties parceling out the power, but by a four-month seminar consisting of many of the most erudite and politically experienced individuals in the nation?
The justice went on to remind his listeners why it’s critical each generation of Americans learn, know and love our Constitution.
“[The U.S. Supreme Court] cannot save the society from itself – because in the last analysis the Court is no more than the society itself,” Justice Scalia said, adding,
The Constitution will endure, in other words, only to the extent that it endures in your understanding and affection.
Howard said that his congresswoman was able to get two contracted helicopters for search and rescue, but he also pointed out that local authorities are stopping even the media from seeing how bad the destruction is. He related a story that sheriff’s deputies in the Lake Lure area wouldn’t let CNN video the devastation.
He also gave an example of the buck-passing that’s going on in North Carolina: //
Howard pointed out that some of his colleagues are funding their rescue missions out of their own pockets. At the same time, Air Force helicopters are grounded and personnel aren’t working because they’re awaiting Title 10 orders that aren’t coming from above. //
Howard said that he doesn’t “know what kind of conspiracy” is behind this bureaucratic nightmare. In my more cynical moments, I can’t help but wonder if Gov. Roy Cooper (D-N.C.) and the Biden-Harris administration are willing to let Republican voters in a reliably red part of the state fend for themselves — and die. I don’t want to believe that, but it’s hard to shake that gut feeling. //
“I hope these politicians get fired,” he concluded. “I hope people get pissed off. They'll probably kick me out of the state of North Carolina for doing this. But you know what? I don't care. Because if I can save one more life for it, it's f***ing worth it to me.”
If only politicians in D.C. and North Carolina cared this much.
[If only churches cared this much about saving people!]. //
Jeroboam Maximus Decimus Cassius
7 hours ago edited
Those in power do care about one aspect of this, though. If they slow walk rescue and recovery efforts, no actual polling [voting at polling places] can take place in the worst affected counties, all Republican, a mere month from now. This could give the swing state of NC to the Democrats and probably would hand the Senate seat in Florida to them as well. It might also make a difference in Georgia.
Taxpayer-funded data locked behind insurance firm's paywall //
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cannot reveal weather forecasts from a particularly accurate hurricane prediction model to the public that pays for the American government agency – because of a deal with a private insurance risk firm.
The model at issue is called the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) Corrected Consensus Approach (HCCA). In 2023, it was deemed in a National Hurricane Center (NHC) report [PDF] to be one of the two "best performers," the other being a model called IVCN (Intensity Variable Consensus).
The Biden administration has announced plans to reignite a shuttered Michigan nuclear power plant with a $1.5 billion loan that, combined with other nuclear announcements yesterday, suggests the US federal government is right now all in on nuclear energy.
The 800-megawatt Holtec Palisades plant, located on Michigan's southwest coast in a relatively low-populated area, shut down in 2022 mainly due to it struggling to afford to stay operational while competing against cheaper fossil fuels.
President Joe Biden was speaking at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut, calling for tougher gun control laws when he seemingly confused the audience by closing his speech with the phrase "God Save the Queen".
Videos of the president's unusual sign off quickly started circulating online, with social media users questioning what he meant.
The White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary, Olivia Dalton, later responded to reporters by saying the president was "commenting to someone in the crowd".
16 June 2023
The bomb caused runway damage and cancelled 80 flights. Thankfully it did not hurt anyone. //
Blackwing1 | October 2, 2024 at 2:36 pm
I so much want to insert a clip from “Falling Hare” where Bugs Bunny meets the Gremlin, who is pounding the nose of a bomb with a giant sledgehammer, and tells him, “To make these block-buster bombs go off, you have to hit them JUUUUUST right.” //
Hodge in reply to scooterjay. | October 2, 2024 at 3:06 pm
Nice math but you are way under-estimating just how many bombs were dropped during the War.
“World War II ended more than 79 years ago. But remnants of the intense airstrikes across Japan keep surfacing occasionally. The Self-Defense Forces reported that during the fiscal year 2023 alone, they disposed of 2,348 bombs, weighing a total of 41 tons.”
TargaGTS in reply to Joe-dallas. | October 2, 2024 at 1:38 pm
The wife and I went sailing around Denmark & Germany (through the Kiel Canal) in 2019. We tied up next to a weird looking Danish navy ship. So, I introduced myself to one of the sailors and asked what kind of ship it was. It was a bomb disposal ship. It’s outfitted with MADs (like what we use to detect subs underwater) and specialty sonar and it spends the year looking for unexploded WWII ordnance…and finds a LOT of it every year. They’ve even found WWI mustard gas shells. They apparently have similar land-based units that do the same thing. The ground is so soft in that part of Europe (probably not unlike where that airport sits), that these 500-lb would simply bury themselves meters-deep into the soil and sit there until some unsuspecting farmer or developer hit it with machinery. //
Hodge in reply to Joe-dallas. | October 2, 2024 at 2:52 pm
“Quite a few” is quite an understatement –
The zone rouge (English: red zone) is a chain of non-contiguous areas throughout northeastern France that the French government isolated after the First World War.
The zone rouge was defined just after the war as “Completely devastated. Damage to properties: 100%. Damage to Agriculture: 100%. Impossible to clean. Human life impossible”.
Each year, numerous unexploded shells are recovered from former WWI battlefields in what is known as the iron harvest. According to the Sécurité Civile, the French agency in charge of the land management of Zone Rouge, 300 to 700 more years at this current rate will be needed to clean the area completely. Some experiments conducted in 2005–06 discovered up to 300 shells per hectare (120 per acre) in the top 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) of soil in the worst areas.
Gabriel Noronha
@GLNoronha
·
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The missiles hitting Israel right now are the same ones Biden and Harris worked to lift UN sanctions on the first month he took office.
They said it would help promote diplomacy with Iran.
12:54 PM · Oct 1, 2024 //
Brytek
36 minutes ago
Wars end when you annihilate the opposition or force an unconditional surrender, wars on end begin with proportional responses. Perhaps Israel has learned anyone pushing a proportional response is not their friend and is in fact the worst kind of enemy to have, as all it does is bleed both sides whilst the “allies” military industrial complex sell weapons to both sides, while draining their own populations of wealth to fund it.
PM tells world to choose peace and battle ’Iranian curse’; vows to keep hitting Hezbollah; says Hamas must go; denounces UN; promises Israel ’won’t go gently into that good night’ //
The full text of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, September 27, 2024, as provided by the Prime Minister’s Office.
If the election were held today, Atlas calculates that Trump has a 75% chance of winning in the Electoral College. His odds improve if you take historical polling error into account.
China has been conducting intelligence-gathering operations in the United States for some time now. From spy balloons to fake students, China has been penetrating American institutions, monitoring American military operations, and pushing aircraft and ships closer and closer to American territorial waters. Those aren't the acts of an ally. These are the acts of a nation that is up to something. It's not clear what; China can surveil American military bases in the continental United States until their eyes bleed but, barring intercontinental ballistic missiles, they have no capacity to strike at those bases.
It's worth remembering China continues to make overtures to Russia - and Iran.
It turns out that Tim Walz may well have provided indirect support for the Wuhan Institute of Virology - yes, that Wuhan Institute of Virology:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13917247/tim-walz-hormel-institute-china-military-wuhan-lab.html
To be clear, this was not about mixing up dates. If I tell you I was at the World Trade Center on 9/11 but it turns out I was just in New York three months later, that would be an inexcusable lie. The event is the point in a situation like this, not the date. A person doesn't accidentally say they were in Hong Kong for the Tiananmen Square protests when they weren't. Walz has long lied about his background for personal gain, and this is just another example of that.
Past that, this idea that he was taking trips to China to teach students about democracy is absurd. That would be the last place one would take students if they wanted to learn about the topic. Whatever affinity Walz had for China, learning about democracy had nothing to do with it.
This is what Walz does. He lies about things and then tries to pretend to be a lovable goofball who just made an honest mistake. He does not "talk like everybody else." He talks like a pathological liar because he is one. The surest sign of it is how nervous he gets. Listen to how fast he's speaking and how much he stumbles over his talking points. He knows he's not telling the truth.
PetePatriot
4 hours ago
Lefty women: We are every bit the equals of men, but if you treat us like men are treated you are sexist because we expect to be treated differently because we are women. We deserve special privileges like we are always right no matter what.
Shoot me for noticing. //
Beemer4
4 hours ago
I read an article, written by a woman, a few years ago who said she had spent an extended period of time observing men interacting with other men. She spent time in coffeeshops, sporting goods stores, hardware stores, and so on where a woman was not unusual, but the clientele was predominately male. Her conclusion was that if a man treated a woman exactly the same as he would a man in the same situation ( giving advice on a product, how to do a repair) he would be accused of mansplaining. In short, if you really want to anger some women just give her exactly what she asked for.
The Daily Mail printed a second expose about Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff on Wednesday, reporting that in May 2012 Emhoff slapped a woman across the face "so hard she spun around" as the two waited for a taxi while leaving a party in Cannes. Emhoff had been dating the woman for about three months when the public incident occurred. But the piece also revealed additional information about Emhoff's relationship with Najen Naylor, a woman who worked as a teacher at the Emhoff kids' school and directly for the Emhoffs as a nanny. //
We need to know if Emhoff has been involved in any other domestic violence incidents, whether the police were called or not.
And, we need to know what Kamala Harris knew and when, and if she has ever engaged in any intimidation of these women as her career grew. Since Emhoff reportedly told Jane all about what happened with Naylor quite early in their relationship, he likely told Harris early on as well.
I'm constantly being told by corporate media, political activists, and entertainment creators that masculinity is evil, dangerous, and needs to be lessened, even feminized. I'm told that masculinity is toxic and that we need to teach boys early on that their more boyish mannerisms should be curbed and tamped down in order to be better and help make a more equal society.
Meanwhile, as my fellow men and I are villainized for merely existing as we are, we're given examples to emulate. We're shown men who are less aggressive, more caring, softer, empathetic, and focused on equality. This is the enlightened male. He's gentle and supportive. He listens and makes is open about his emotions.
He is the male feminist, and according to the mainstream left, he should be the ultimate goal for every man to be. //
The fact is, we're often told masculinity is a form of evil that has to be checked, but it's pretty obvious that a lack of masculinity causes a real issue, not just for society in general, which needs masculinity to function properly, but it causes an issue within men. When it's not present, something goes wrong, like a loose gear or a burnt out wire. These men suddenly become unmanly. They abuse women and display both emotional and physical cruelty to them.
The lack of masculinity is the issue, not the presence of it.
As usual, the proof is right in front of us, but it's highly unlikely that mainstream leftism will ever admit to it, which is par for the course. //
As you can see, there is a well-established pattern here. Make people believe you are a caring, empathetic man who understands the plight of women and will stand up for them. You will use your masculinity, not for the toxicity you see men often accused of, but to advance the cause of "equality." Then the facade drops and it's discovered that you're actually a massive piece of garbage.
A clear bias has been uncovered in the AI image creator Image Creator from Microsoft Bing, also known as Microsoft Designer. The online tool will allow the creation of images with Kamala Harris for President content, but will not allow the same for Donald Trump.
Frank Luntz
@FrankLuntz
·
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At the first commercial break, my #VPDebate focus group says by a 10-3 margin that JD Vance is winning.
That is a big deal since only 5 of them were leaning toward Trump-Vance when the debate began.
Last edited
10:17 PM · Oct 1, 2024
Frank Luntz
@FrankLuntz
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Replying to @FrankLuntz
Final focus group vote tonight after the #VPDebate: 12-2 in favor of JD Vance
10:54 PM · Oct 1, 2024
Ryan James Girdusky
@RyanGirdusky
·
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JD Vance is the first time a Republican VP ever received over 50% in an instant poll… and it oversampled Democrats by 5 points
12:17 AM · Oct 2, 2024
The Israel Air Force launched at least seven airstrikes against the Houthi port city of Hodeidah in retaliation to a ballistic missile fired at Tel Aviv. The strikes hit the port's tank farm and a power plant.
The Israel Defense Force's Chief of the General Staff, General Herzi Halevi, describes the action this way: “This is not a message, it is an action — an action that carries a message with it.”
Message indeed.
Last night, we saw another "action that carries a message with it." The Israel Defense Force crossed into southern Lebanon to eradicate the Hezbollah presence from where it has no right to be under UN Resolution 1701.
For decades, the Iranian regime has used Hezbollah and the Houthis as a shield to protect itself from its actions. The Houthis could be relied upon to close the Red Sea during a crisis and jack up shipping rates to pressure the civilized world to bow to Tehran. Hezbollah was Iran's ace-in-the-hole that made any decision by Israel to attack Iran's nuclear weapons infrastructure guaranteed to provoke an attack on Israeli cities by Hezbollah.
Israel has decided to break this strategic stalemate. //
Iran's main strategic partner, Russia, is mired in a war in Ukraine. It no longer has the weapons to send to Iran, and no sane person is in awe of Russia's military.
Hamas has totally collapsed, and its leadership is either dead or trying to find a clean pair of brown trousers in the bunker.
The failed April 13 Iranian missile and drone blitz of Israel reveals just how flimsy and inferior its offensive weaponry was when confronted by Israel's defenses. This further degraded Iran's ability to deter Israeli action.
The Hezbollah ally they have cultivated for a half-century has been decapitated like no other combatant in history. In the space of less than two weeks, the entire "middle management" of Hezbollah was gutted by a wave of exploding pagers and other electronic devices... //
Iran will now accelerate its move to nuclear breakout, but the air attack on Hodeidah, Yemen, and the removal of Hezbollah forces as a cohesive fighting unit sent another message.
The range circle depicts the distance from Tel Aviv to Hodeidah.
Iran's nuclear weapons project is within the range of Israeli air power, and they won't have to fly over Hezbollah-manned air defense sites in Lebanon to get to them.