Wednesday, August 28, 2024

August 28, 2024

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

Harris finally agrees to an interview, but she'll bring "Coach Walz" along . . . Vice President Kamala Harris will finally sit down for an interview later this week, nearly 40 days after she became the Democrats' de facto nominee, and she'll have her running mate by her side. Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will sit down with CNN anchor Dana Bash on Thursday as the vice president has been slammed for refusing to talk to the media or hold a press conference since being crowned the Democratic presidential nominee following President Joe Biden's exit from the 2024 race. It appears the interview will be pre-taped and will air at 9:00 p.m. ET, according to CNN. Daily Wire

Well, she'll finally have taken more questions from the Western press than Leonid Brezhnev. Actually, he may still be in the lead and have faced more hostile questions than Dana Bash is going to pose.

Harris assembled an army of strategists to plot her first interview

Politics

Trump says he has agreed to terms for ABC debate . . . Former President Trump said Tuesday he would participate in a Sept. 10 debate hosted by ABC News against Vice President Harris if the rules matched those in a CNN debate in June against President Biden. It marked the latest twist in a 24-hour whirlwind in which he raised the possibility of skipping the event because of its host and a disagreement over whether microphones would be muted. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had "reached an agreement" with presumably the Harris campaign. The Hill

Smith files new indictment in Trump Jan. 6 case, adjusting for immunity decision . . . Special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment in his case indicting former President Trump for his actions seeking to subvert the 2020 election, retaining the same charges but striking some elements of the case in the wake of the Supreme Court's immunity ruling. The Tuesday filing comes after Smith presented the case against the former president to a second grand jury, which had not previously heard the matter. It likewise concluded charges were warranted against the president. The Hill

Vance accuses special counsel of attempting to 'influence the election

Walz has history of rubbing elbows with nonprofit linked to Chinese intel . . . Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has a long history of attending events organized by members of a nonprofit with connections to a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence and intelligence agency, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found. Since 2018, Walz has attended multiple events hosted by members of the Chinese American Association of Minnesota (CAAM) and related organizations, including one 2022 fundraiser for his gubernatorial campaign, according to a DCNF review of dozens of Chinese government announcements, Chinese-language news reports and social media posts. Daily Caller

Why is there so little reporting on Walz's 30 trips to Communist China?

Biden-Harris admin "Trump-proofing" DOJ . . . The Biden-Harris administration has deployed a little-known hiring mechanism to staff key divisions of the Department of Justice (DOJ) ahead of the 2024 election. Hundreds of people, primarily lawyers and judges, have been appointed to the Environmental and Natural Resources (ENRD) and Antitrust and Immigration Review divisions of the DOJ using its "Schedule A" hiring authority since President Joe Biden took office. Schedule A hiring does not require appointments to be made on the basis of merit and appointments do not expire at the end of the current president's term. Daily Caller

Harris flip flops on EV mandate . . . Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign now claims she "does not support" Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates after years of supporting such mandates as a Senator and in her role in President Joe Biden's administration. According to The Spectator's Amber Duke, Harris's campaign sent an email to supporters on Tuesday claiming "Vice President Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate." The statement comes after years of Harris campaigning, championing, and supporting EV mandates that require automakers to produce and sell a certain percentage of EVs to American consumers. Breitbart

'He's got to pay a price': Unaired footage reveals Nancy Pelosi's Jan. 6 fury . . . Nancy Pelosi spent the duration of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack focused on ensuring Joe Biden would be certified president as soon as possible. Then she turned her attention to Donald Trump. "I just feel sick about what he did to the Capitol and the country today," Pelosi said as she slumped, visibly exhausted, in the back of her SUV in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 7. "He's got to pay a price for that." Politico

Group wants RFK Jr. investigated for cutting off head of a whale . . . Robert F Kennedy Jr faces calls from environmentalists for an investigation over a historic claim that he once cut the head off a dead beached whale with a chainsaw to take it home on the roof of his vehicle. A group that supports Kamala Harris for president says Mr Kennedy's alleged removal and transportation of the skull of the whale may have broken the law. Mr Kennedy, 70, has not commented on the incident, detailed by his daughter in an interview 12 years ago. BBC

The left will do all it can to under RFK Jr. now that he's with Trump. Sadly, this appears to include his own family.

Trump plans would add $4 trillion to deficits in the 10-year window, budget analysis shows . . . The Trump campaign's tax-and-spending plans would increase deficits by more than $4 trillion in the next 10 years, according to a prominent analysis. The Penn Wharton Budget Model formed its estimate by looking at three key proposals, including a push to extend the expiring parts of Mr. Trump's 2017 tax overhaul, a reduction of the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, and the elimination of income taxes on Social Security benefits. Washington Times

Trump says he would win California 'if Jesus came down and was the vote counter' . . . In an interview with Dr. Phil, Trump claimed that he had the potential to win the Democratic bastion of California, but only under certain conditions. "I look at California, I gave a speech… I had a crowd so big, I said, 'There's no way I could lose California,' but automatically they mark it down, if you're a Republican, as a loss, that you lose by five million votes," he claimed. "I said, 'Five million votes?' I guarantee: if Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California. OK?" Washington Examiner

Culture

Disney Seeks DEI Director, Offering Salary 4x The National Average . . . Disney is hiring a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) director who could earn up to four times the national average income pushing a far-left agenda. A job posting from the Walt Disney Company for a DEI director role advertises a minimum salary of $197,700 and a maximum salary of $241,500. The average American salary in 2024 is $59,428 annually. The new director will be tasked with advancing the company's left-wing program, and be required to "lead initiatives focused on specific dimensions of diversity," and "amplify DEI content and communicate progress." Daily Wire

And to think we once felt comfortable handing out kids over to Disney.

Home Depot partnered on elementary school curriculum that taught kids about pansexuals . . . Home Depot partnered with an LGBTQ program that provided elementary students with information on "pansexual" identities and being "nonbinary." In 2022, Home Depot announced one of its "Diversity Partnerships" was the Human Rights Campaign's "Welcoming Schools" program, which is a program to educate students on transgender and LGBTQ terms. The Welcoming Schools program offers K-12 lesson plans and other LGBTQ resources on its website – which were available before Home Depot announced the partnership. Fox Business

Patriotic Oklahoma student banned from flying American flag on his truck . . . An Oklahoma community showed up en masse at the town's high school armed with American flags on their vehicles in protest after a student was told he couldn't fly Old Glory from his truck on school grounds. Edmond North High School senior Caleb Horst said school administrators told him on Aug. 21 that he was banned from having the American flag waving freely on his pickup truck, despite the teen saying he's been "flying it for quite a while," according to KOCO. New York Post

National Security

Massachusetts GOP demands information on state's $1 billion in 'secret' migrant spending . . . Massachusetts Republicans have submitted a formal request with the state's government for information on the alleged "$1 billion in secret migrant crisis spending" as the Bay State grapples with the migrant crisis. In a release from the state's Republican Party, MassGOP, the group demanded that Gov. Maura Healey's administration provides a detailed cost breakdown of the toll that the migrant crisis has caused for the state's residents. Fox News

International

Israel launches a large-scale military operation in the West Bank . . . Israel launched a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, where its forces killed at least nine Palestinians and sealed off the volatile city of Jenin, according to Palestinian officials. Israel has carried out near-daily raids across the West Bank since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the ongoing war there. Israel says it is rooting out militants to prevent attacks on its citizens, while Palestinians in the West Bank fear it intends to broaden the war and forcibly displace them. Associated Press

Creeping through Hamas tunnels, Israeli commandos bumped into a hostage . . . The troops had been exploring the tunnel complex for days, guided by intelligence that there could be militants or hostages there, yet wary of walking into an ambush, Israeli military officials said. "We acted in a very careful and thorough way, because we knew we may meet terrorists, hostages or booby traps," one of the officials said. What they encountered instead was 52-year-old Qaid Farhan Al-Qadi, who had been a factory security guard at a kibbutz near Gaza when he was kidnapped by militants more than 10 months ago. Wall Street Journal

South Korea faces deepfake porn 'emergency' . . . South Korea's president has urged authorities to do more to "eradicate" the country's digital sex crime epidemic, amid a flood of deepfake pornography targeting young women. Authorities, journalists and social media users recently identified a large number of chat groups where members were creating and sharing sexually explicit "deepfake" images – including some of underage girls. Deepfakes are generated using artificial intelligence, and often combine the face of a real person with a fake body. BBC

Money

Travis and Jason Kelce sign $100m podcast deal . . . NFL stars Travis and Jason Kelce have signed a lucrative podcast deal with Amazon, reportedly worth $100m. The three-year deal, announced on Tuesday, gives the company's Wondery audio network exclusive multimedia rights to the brothers' popular New Heights podcast. The siblings launched the podcast in 2022 - interviewing celebrity guests and discussing their own lives - all with brotherly humor. BBC

Guilty Pleasures

Why badminton has become code for teen sex in Hong Kong . . . It may be an innocent enough racquet sport, but Hong Kong's Education Bureau has unintentionally given badminton a whole new meaning. In teaching materials it released last week, a module titled adolescents and intimate relationships for Secondary Year 3, suggested that teenagers who wanted to have sex with each other could "go out to play badminton together" instead. Meanwhile social media has been flooded with jokes centered around "playing badminton". "FWB [Friends with benefits]?? Friends with badminton," read one comment on Instagram that had more than 1,000 likes. BBC

At last, a reason to "play badminton."

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