The devastation Hurricane Helene has wrought on much of Appalachia"and Western North Carolina in particular"presents an unfortunate occasion to examine what the U.S. military is doing to secure the American way of life. Unfortunately, the military's dismal response so far shows that they are unwilling to provide for the American people at a time of dire need. Days after Hurricane Helene, the Biden-Harris Administration finally activated up to 1,000 soldiers to support the delivery of food, water, and medicine to isolated communities. But these efforts are too little, too late. Compare this to the military's response after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when thousands of troops were mobilized within seven hours of receiving orders as the situation spiraled out of control
Jack Smith has failed in his quest to try Donald Trump before the 2024 election. So instead, the Special Counsel has bent ordinary procedure to get in one last shot, just weeks before voters go to the polls. ... ... The larger, if less obvious, headline is that Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he'll bend any rule, switch up on any practice " so long as he gets to chip away at Trump's electoral prospects. At this point, there's simply no defending Smith's conduct on any sort of principled or institutional basis. "But we need to know this stuff before we vote!" is a nice bumper sticker, but it's neither a response to nor an excuse for Smith's unprincipled, norm-breaking practice. (It also overlooks the fact that the Justice Department bears responsibility for taking over two and a half years to indict in the first place.)
Kamala Harris is roundly criticized for feeding America a steady diet of word salads. But what else can she do, given her impossible task of making the Democratic Party's progressive policies palatable to the American people? To appreciate Harris' challenge, note that none of her top surrogates have been able to square that circle either. There is no Democrat who makes you think, why can't our candidate just say that " as Sen. Tom Cotton and Vivek Ramaswamy do for Republicans while describing Donald Trump's policies. Harris' stand-ins may not get lost in the weeds of pablum, as Harris did last week when she told a crowd, "I grew up understanding the children of the community are the children of the community." But when they are not comparing Trump to Hitler, her representatives are as gauzy and incoherent as she is.
Blas Ford made up a story out of whole cloth.