Politics

• Slappy second “gentleman” makes a #MeToo moment: Former Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently interviewed Doug Emhoff and gushed about the way he’s “reshaped the perception of masculinity.” If the new masculinity is embodied by knocking up the babysitter and slapping around the girlfriend, we’ll take a hard pass. “Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband assaulted his ex-girlfriend,” the UK’s Daily Mail reports. Emhoff “allegedly struck the woman in the face so hard she spun around, while waiting in a valet line late at night after a May 2012 Cannes Film Festival event in France.” This seems newsworthy, no? So why did it take a UK-based paper to break the story? And why is the Leftmedia lauding this guy as the new American male? Kamala Harris’s hubby is literally a girlfriend slapper. He’s the Forrest Gump character who apologizes to Jenny and blames it on “that lying sonofabitch Johnson.” As it turns out, the #MeToo movement was rooted in a kernel of truth: From Harvey Weinstein to Doug Emhoff, many leftist men really are scumbags.

• Biden and Harris finally show up for post-hurricane photo ops: Hurricane Helene is one of the worst natural disasters in our nation’s history, with at least 191 people dead amid a path of destruction across the Southeast. Word of this calamity seems to have finally reached Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the former having been on the beach over the weekend while the latter was hobnobbing in Hollywood. As the AP reports, Harris “handed out meals, embraced a shaken family and surveyed Hurricane Helene’s ‘extraordinary’ path of destruction through Georgia on Wednesday as she left the campaign trail to pledge federal help and personally take in scenes of toppled trees, damaged homes and lives upended.” Biden, meanwhile, visited North Carolina, where he said, “We have to jump-start this recovery process.” He added, “People are scared to death. This is urgent.” Better late than never, we suppose. But remember how the Leftmedia pilloried President George W. Bush for his so-called Katrina flyover? Where’s the outrage for this current AWOL administration? Biden and Harris are certainly mindful of the bad optics, which is why they’re now in phony photo-op mode.

• Politico defends Walz’s wild eyes: They’re not wild, they’re “passionate.” One of the most telling aspects of the vice-presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz was the stark difference in demeanor between the two — evident in each candidate’s body language and particularly their eyes. While Vance portrayed a steady confidence and command of the situation, Walz exuded the opposite. He looked nervous, flustered, and even fearful, which was especially communicated by his wild-eyed look. Enter Politico to run damage control. “Eye-popping can sometimes be a sign of surprise, but for Walz, it simply revealed his emotional intensity,” Politico wrote. “Early humans would have made such facial gestures to communicate strong emotions, like ‘danger is close.’ For Walz, it gave extra weight to his feelings and held our gaze.” One of the issues Walz was supposedly most passionate about was abortion. Meanwhile, Politico criticized Vance’s facial hair: “Voters see beards as (surprise, surprise) more masculine. That can be positive to some, reading as strength and competence. But to others, especially women, it can be negative, conveying aggression and opposition to feminist ideals.” Call us crazy, but we’ll take bearded confidence over wild-eyed radicalism.

• The VP debate had the expected impact: If a Republican cleans a Democrat’s clock but no one saw it, did it really happen? While the overwhelming consensus is that JD Vance whipped Tim Walz in Tuesday night’s VP debate, he apparently did so before a relatively small audience of about 43 million viewers. That’s quite a bit fewer than watched the 2020 debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. Vice-presidential picks rarely move the presidential needle, and that’s especially true when just a tiny sliver of the electorate is still undecided. Caveats apply, but a CNN survey says, “Of those who watched the debate, only 1% said it changed their minds about whom to vote for, and 13% said it made them reconsider who they would support but did not change their minds. The vast majority of debate viewers, 86%, said it would not affect their choice for president.” Do we wish more folks had tuned in? Sure. But winning even a poorly attended debate is a lot better than the alternative. And news of this will continue to trickle out and shape opinions in the days ahead.

• Humor: Walz clarifies that he meant the “Tiananmen Square Chinese Buffet” in Omaha, Nebraska (Babylon Bee)

• Humor: Eight more historical events Walz has claimed to be at (Babylon Bee)

• Meet Montana’s next U.S. senator: With so much attention being paid to the presidential race, we tend to give short shrift to the important stuff that’s happening down ballot. Such is certainly the case in Montana, where retired Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy is 5.8 points ahead of Democrat incumbent Jon Tester in the RCP average, and Sheehy just whipped him in a debate, so Tester is toast. “Well, Senator Tester knows all about backroom meetings,” said Sheehy in one of the debate’s most memorable moments. “He’s been taking them for 20 years as the number one recipient of lobbyist cash. The number one recipient of lobbyist cash in the whole country! Of all candidates, number one! So if you want to talk about backroom meetings, while I was fighting in Afghanistan, he was eating lobbyist steak in DC.” Ouch. Sheehy’s performance means that with the virtually guaranteed pickup of West Virginia’s Senate seat, where former Governor Jim Justice is 30 points ahead of his Democrat challenger to replace retiring Democrat Joe Manchin, Republicans will take the Senate. Good news on a Thursday.

• Gun sales have increased since Harris replaced Biden: Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz like to claim they are gun owners and are therefore pro-Second Amendment. It’s a transparent effort to blunt their call for disarming Americans of certain firearms and banning so-called “assault weapons.” Despite their phony boasts, it appears that many Americans see them as a threat to their Second Amendment rights. This is borne out from data showing an increase in the number of firearms purchased since Harris replaced Joe Biden on the Democrat ticket. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the number of background checks for gun sales has increased 1.3% since last September. Justin Anderson, the marketing director for Hyatt Guns in Charlotte, North Carolina, observed that gun owners don’t trust Harris. “Vice President Harris is the worst type of gun owner,” he contended. “She believes in her right to own a gun but wants to fully control and restrict other American citizens’ rights. That belief hasn’t been lost on the gun-buying public.”

Culture

• Transing doc also a pedophile: Who could have seen this coming? In the United Kingdom, the leading psychologist at Britain’s infamous Tavistock “transgender” clinic for kids has been fired after he pleaded guilty to pedophilia. His guilty plea let him avoid prison time. Dr. Ross Canade, who had been entrusted with youth mental health at the clinic, was caught grooming a schoolboy for sex in a park. As we have previously noted, sexual deviancy is one of the leading factors behind gender-bending proclivities. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that those engaged in sexual deviancy, such as pedophilia, would also be promoting sexual deviancy to young people. What makes this story even crazier is that although Canade has been fired from his job, he has not been suspended from his child psychologist profession.

• “Rubbing salt on 1,200 wounds”: Maryland leaders react to ruling that UMD students can hold October 7 vigils (WUSA)

• Homeschooling continues to increase across the U.S. post-pandemic (Christian Post)

Security

• Russia captures key eastern Ukrainian town: Russia’s war of attrition against Ukraine continues to grind on, and on Wednesday, Russian forces raised their flag over the key town of Vuhledar in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. Vuhledar, which once boasted a population of roughly 14,000, has effectively become a ghost town. Ukrainian forces pulled out of the town after they were under “threat of encirclement.” Taking this town represents a significant victory for Vladimir Putin’s aim of taking full control of the entire Donbas region. Vuhledar was strategically important from a geographic standpoint because it occupies the high ground in that area, allowing for greater control of the battlefield. With Ukraine’s forces being outmanned and outgunned, maintaining geographically strategic locations on the battlefield has been key to their ability to continue the fight. With the loss of Vuhledar, Ukraine has lost a potential bargaining chip for negotiating a settlement to end the war.

• Feds charge five Michigan college graduates from China found near military site (Just the News)

• Biden says he would oppose Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites (Just the News)

• IDF announces eight soldiers killed by Hezbollah during Lebanon ground operation (Jerusalem Post)

• Hezbollah was ready to invade en masse after October 7; IDF covertly raided 1,000 sites (Times of Israel)

Misc.

• Biden sends 1,000 Army troops to North Carolina for Helene response (USA Today)

• Federal judge rules deepfakes are protected under First Amendment in blow to California law (Just the News)

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