The Patriot Post® · Thursday: Below the Fold

By Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler ·
https://patriotpost.us/articles/109150-thursday-below-the-fold-2024-08-08

  • Tropical Storm Debby makes second landfall in South Carolina as dangerous flood threat continues (Fox Weather)

Politics

  • Cori Bush blows a gasket, threatens pro-Israelis: To the growing list of descriptors for Democrat Squadster Cori Bush — including “hypocrite” and “race-baiter” and “police-defunder” and “soon-to-be ex-congresswoman” — we can now safely affix “sore loser” and “Jew-hater.” Bush, the St. Louis rabble-rouser and BLMer who lost her primary election on Tuesday, used her concession speech to attack the nation’s largest pro-Israel lobbying organization, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), saying of the group, “All they did is radicalize me, so they need to be afraid.” Rather than doing some soul-searching about why her voters gave her the gate, Bush instead blamed the Jews: “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down,” she yelled, obviously sore about the group having put money toward her electoral defeat. “And let me put all of these corporations on notice: I’m coming after you, too!” Way to keep it classy, Cori.

  • Anti-Israel radicals vandalize AIPAC headquarters in Washington (National Review)

  • JD Vance’s epic Leftmedia troll: As if the Harris-Walz campaign didn’t have enough problems to contend with already, now its opponent is trolling the Left’s Praetorian Guard. As luck would have it, both Kamala Harris’s and JD Vance’s planes landed in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, around the same time yesterday, and Donald Trump’s veep pick figured he’d head over and console a gaggle of milquetoast media. “I figured I’d come by … I also thought you guys may get lonely, because the vice president doesn’t answer questions from reporters and hasn’t for 17 days,” he quipped. “Have they given you guys an explanation for why she won’t take questions from reporters? Nobody? Okay, great. Well, I hope that she’s changed her mind because it would be good for the American people, and I think it would be good for you all if she actually ran a real campaign instead of one from her basement with a teleprompter.” Indeed, as Bob Cusack, editor-in-chief of The Hill, noted this morning on Fox News, “The first time I interviewed former President Trump was at Trump Tower, and the staff said, ‘You’ve got 15 minutes.’ We got 80 minutes, because we were tough but fair. You can’t be afraid of the media and become president.”

  • Humor: “They got you in here too, huh?” says Biden as Dems lock Kamala in basement (Babylon Bee)

  • Kamala video shows her boasting about power: “You will be embarrassed in your community” (RedState)

  • Biden “not confident” there will be a peaceful transfer of power in first interview since dropping out of the race (NY Post)

  • When you’ve lost Jim Acosta: Not only does Team Kamala need to do a better job of vetting her veep nominees, but it also needs to do a better job of vetting surrogates. Exhibit A would be Tina Smith, a U.S. senator from Minnesota, who went on air yesterday on normally friendly CNN, ostensibly to compare and contrast Harris’s vice-presidential nominee with Trump’s. Unfortunately for Smith, she didn’t seem to know the first thing about JD Vance. Said Smith: “Well, here is Tim Walz, who enlisted when he was 17 years old. He served in the National Guard for 24 years. And I’m not aware of any military service that JD Vance has ever served. So let’s just make the comparison there.” And to this, CNN anchor Jim Acosta was forced to reply with a fact-check for the ages: “Well, he was in the Marines.” To which Smith sheepishly replied, “OK, pardon me for that.” Going forward, perhaps these weirdos should steer clear of their guy’s sketchy military record.

  • Humor: Tim Walz backs out of VP nomination after learning VPs sometimes have to deploy to dangerous places overseas (Babylon Bee)

  • Virginia enacting election integrity measures: Thanks to actions taken by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, Old Dominion residents will have greater confidence in the legitimacy of the commonwealth’s election outcomes. Yesterday, Youngkin issued an executive order directing the Department of Elections to remove “non-citizens who may have purposefully or accidentally registered to vote.” This has resulted in the removal of over 6,300 noncitizens from voter rolls. Furthermore, the department removed an additional 79,867 individuals who were either deceased or had moved out of state. In issuing his order, Youngkin stated, “This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, it’s an American and Virginian issue.” He added, “Every legal vote deserves to be counted without being watered down by illegal votes or inaccurate machines.” While Virginia does not require an ID to vote, it “is one of only three states in the nation that require those registering to vote to provide their full 9-digit social security number.” This helps in cleaning up voter rolls. Youngkin’s order also ensures that absentee ballots are only sent to those voters who request them, and returned absentee ballots will not be counted unless “the last four digits of a voter’s social security number and year of birth provided on the envelope are matched to the voter’s record in the statewide voter registration system.”

Security

  • Another Secret Service fail: As if the Secret Service needed another reason to hang its collective head… A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General says that on the fateful morning of January 6, 2021, the agency’s canine teams failed to detect a “viable” pipe bomb that had been placed outside the Democratic National Committee building ahead of then-VP-elect Kamala Harris’s visit. Hey, when in doubt, blame man’s best friends. And given the agency’s more recent and more catastrophic failure to protect Donald Trump at a July 13 campaign rally, we wonder how many years it’ll take that crackerjack watchdog to “determine” that the Secret Service failed to detect a sniper on that sloped roof in Butler, Pennsylvania.

  • Jordanian who tried to get into Quantico was on terror watch list: Back in May, two Jordanians attempted to illegally enter Marine Corps Base Quantico in a box truck. The men were stopped and arrested after they tried to leave an entry checkpoint. At the time, the two claimed they were making deliveries for Amazon. Both Jordanians were found to be in the country illegally. One of the them, Hasan Yousef Hamdan, “was on a terror watchlist,” a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer confirmed. A month prior to the incident, Hamdan was apprehended in southern California by U.S. Border Patrol after illegally crossing the border. He was released the next day after being given a court summons whose date isn’t until 2026. The other Jordanian, Mohammed Khair Hassan Dabous, overstayed a student visa, which expired last year. However, it was confirmed that he did work for Amazon, and the box truck did contain Amazon packages. Furthermore, the Joint Terrorism Task Force has dubiously determined that neither man poses a safety or security risk. Both men posted bond and are facing federal trespassing charges and deportation proceedings.

  • Key Homeland agency warns agents that Iran, proxies may try to cross border to attack United States (Just the News)

  • Taylor Swift ISIS suspects planned to drive bomb-laden car into crowd, were hired as stadium security (NY Post)

  • Chinese communist, military writings reveal plans for strategic influence operations through TikTok (Washington Times)

  • In a surprise attack, Ukraine sends a large force into western Russia (NPR)

Tech

  • Net neutrality blocked: The Biden administration’s attempt to impose political control over the Internet was blocked by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rule overstepped the agency’s regulatory authority. As The Wall Street Journal put it, “Welcome to the post-Chevron world.” Yes, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the Chevron doctrine, the courts are no longer bound to follow federal agencies’ “expert” interpretation of congressional law. In this case, Biden’s FCC had asserted that Title II of the 1934 Communications Act gave the commission authority to regulate broadband rates. The Sixth Circuit rejected that interpretation and pointed to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which “created a new category of ‘information service’” that differentiates Internet providers from common carriers. The Court’s ruling states, “An agency may issue regulations only to the extent that Congress permits it. The more an agency asks of a statute, in short, the more it must show in the statute to support its rule.”

  • Boeing Starliner debacle: Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the two astronauts who traveled to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on its maiden voyage, must be wondering if they didn’t actually end up on Gilligan’s Island. Their originally scheduled eight-day mission has extended to over 60 days. Once in space, the Starliner developed some concerning issues — helium leaks and thruster failures — leaving the astronauts effectively stranded at the space station. Attempts to find a fix have thus far failed. And the latest news is that the earliest the astronauts could be heading back to Earth is February 2025. That is when Boeing’s rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX CrewDragon, will be ready to launch for a rescue. However, that will still be challenging, as compatibility issues will have to be overcome.

Culture

  • Ohio SAFE Act wins in court, takes effect (Washington Stand)

  • Harvard must face anti-Semitism lawsuit after school “failed its Jewish students” (Washington Free Beacon)

  • Climate ecofascists trash Lionel Messi’s $12 million mansion (NY Post)

  • Abortions in the U.S. have increased since Roe v. Wade was overturned (National Review)

  • Policy: It’s time Republicans really put family first (Daily Signal)

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.