* “Candidate, Moderate Thyself: Conservatives are right to complain about the blatant bias of ABC’s debate moderators, but the bigger problem was Donald Trump’s undisciplined performance.” (Heather Mac Donald, City Journal)
From the article — Yes, the moderators of ABC’s debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were egregiously biased in favor of Harris. Yes, Harris recycled patent lies about Trump without the slightest pushback from the referees—that Trump has embraced the supposedly infamous Project 2025, that he supports a national abortion ban, that he called the anti-Semitic and racist demonstrators in Charlottesville in 2019 “fine people,” that he refused leases to black would-be renters. (The New York Times lauded the ABC team as a “model for real-time fact-checking.”)
But a low-information voter who, incredibly, still has not made up her mind about the election could easily decide for Harris on the basis of Tuesday’s debate. Trump put all his worst traits on display—his narcissism, his gratuitous nastiness, and above all, his penchant for using hyperbole as a substitute for argument.
* “Kamala Harris: ‘My Values’ Say Pro-Life Laws Are ‘Immoral’” (Ben Johnson, Washington Stand)
From the article — Harris, who boasted she “brings values” to the White House, then repeated one of the many shopworn phrases she said during the debate: “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.” Christians have held that abortion violates their faith, and should be illegal, for 2,000 years. Orthodox Jews also say they hold a pro-life faith. The Satanic Temple regards abortion as a sacrament.
As she has throughout the campaign, Harris promised to impose abortion on all 50 states by force. “I pledge to you when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law,” she said. “But, understand, if Donald Trump were to be re-elected, he will sign a national abortion ban. Understand, in his Project 2025, there would be a national abortion ban.”
The Biden-Harris administration has endorsed a bill that goes beyond Roe, allowing abortion until birth nationwide. The Democratic Party platform also supports taxpayer-funded abortions in the United States and around the world.
* “The Truth About World War II” (Victor Davis Hanson, The Free Press)
From the article — In a recent and now widely seen Tucker Carlson interview, a guest historian named Darryl Cooper casually presented a surprising number of flawed theories about World War II. He focused his misstatements on the respective roles of Winston Churchill’s Britain and Adolf Hitler’s Germany—especially in matters of the treatment and fate of Russian prisoners, the Holocaust, the systematic slaughtering of Jews, strategic bombing, and the nature of Winston Churchill.
Because of the size of the audience Carlson introduced him to, and because of the gravity of Cooper’s falsehoods, his assertions deserve a response.
* “The Uniparty Turns Literal” (Mark Steyn)
From the article — I thought Cheney was an homme sérieux. But, in the end, he wasn’t. The Bush years have to be accounted a terrible failure, in which the leadership of the then dominant superpower was unable to grasp the simplest of truths – not least about the need for strategic clarity. Under Cheney, America launched wars with no war aims, in which it deluded itself that “smart bombs” counted for more than will. Meanwhile, on the home front, the rate of Muslim immigration to America doubled …because it was more important to show the world how nice we are than to consider the cultural consequences of demographic transformation. So the west spent twenty years fighting over the most barren and worthless sod on the planet, while surrendering Malmö and Marseille, Rotterdam and Nottingham, and Lewiston-Auburn, Maine. This is what happens when you have a political class almost entirely disconnected from the rhythms of real life in real countries.
So Trump has performed a great service in driving the likes of Cheney to vote Kamala. The feeble charade of TweedleDem vs TweedleRep is designed to obscure the central fact of end-stage western “democracy” – that, on anything that really matters, nothing can be permitted to change. Thus, having Dick Cheney and Ilhan Omar formally on the same team is very helpful. Trump has driven the “respectable” political class to make the Uniparty literal, and its consolidation has freed up space for an actual second party.
* “Migrants flooding NYC’s justice system — making up ‘75% of arrests in Midtown’ — as ‘pathetic’ sanctuary city laws handcuff cops.” (New York Post)
From the article — The problem is made much worse by sanctuary city laws that mean New York cops aren’t allowed to work with ICE on cases in which they believe suspects are in the country illegally. Additionally, the NYPD says it is barred from tracking the immigration status of offenders. This makes it almost impossible for authorities to get their arms around the problem, experts and sources on the ground say.
“New York City eliminated a tool to get rid of violent criminals. What a mess,” Jim Quinn, a veteran former prosecutor at the Queens District Attorney’s Office, told The Post. “The sanctuary city law is pathetic. It’s disgusting. It’s crazy.” Making matters worse, police sources say, word has gotten out in the shelters about the city’s lax bail guidelines — meaning migrants know they’re going to get kicked back onto the street quickly after they’re nabbed.
Bonus picks for this week? Yes, here’s a couple:
* “Why America’s Soaring Debt Is Biggest Threat to US Dollar” (Daniel Lacalle, Daily Signal)
* “The Return of Anti-History: Podcasts are not reviving history, as is often claimed these days. They are mostly drowning it in a tidal wave of blather, at best sloppy, at worst mendacious.” (Niall Ferguson, The Free Press)