The Walz Pick: Was the Democrat 'deep bench' nothing but bottom scrapings? And will Tampon Tim be Eagleton-ed?

Damien Bennett can't figure out the Walz pick. 

Honestly, I can't. The Democrat 'deep bench' was nothing but bottom scrapings apparently. Can someone help me out here?

• Walz Describes GOP Ticket As 'Weird' August 6, 2024
• NPR: Democrats Embrace ‘Tampon Tim’ Walz Nickname August 7, 2024

• Tim Walz Chose Wedding Date to Coincide with Tiananmen Square Anniversary, Then Honeymooned in China August 7, 2024
  
• Tim Walz: ‘One Person’s Socialism Is Another Person’s Neighborliness’ August 6, 2024
  
  
• A-Walz: Kamala’s Running Mate Broke Pledge to Deploy To Iraq in 2005: ‘I Have A Responsibility To Serve … If Called On’ August 7, 2024
  
• timwalzforuscongress.org, March 20, 2005 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ...He has been previously deployed during his 23 years in the National Guard, including an eight month deployment during Operation Enduring Freedom. ... Although his tour of duty in Iraq might coincide with his campaign for Minnesota’s 1st Congressional seat, Walz is determined to stay in the race. “As Command Sergeant Major I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on. I am dedicated to serving my country to the best of my ability, whether that is in Washington DC or in Iraq.”
  
• National Guard Disputes Walz's Military Bio; CNN Calls Out 'Absolutely False' Claim Over Deployment August 8, 2024
  Minnesota National Guard spox Army Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Augé: Walz, Kamala Harris' vice presidential running mate, was demoted and did not retire as a command sergeant major as he has claimed for years - including on his official gubernatorial biography - as he failed to complete a 750-hour course in the Army's Sergeants Major Academy, a mandatory course for E-9s, the Army's highest enlisted rank. [N.B.: Anonymous MNG spox credibly challenges this claim at Task & Purpose.]
  CNN correspondent Tom Foreman: "[T]here is a difference between being in a combat area, being involved at a time of war and actually being in a position where people are shooting at you. There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in a position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was. So that is absolutely false... The campaign has essentially come forward to say, ‘Look, he had a long career, he would never want to purposely mislead people about this.’ It’s what campaigns tend to say."
• Harris Campaign Website Scrubs Walz’s Rank, Escalating Stolen Valor Scandal* August 8, 2024
  * There's plenty of phony (and this) in Walz's characterization of his military service, but using 'stolen valor' as a club is plain wrong. Stolen valor in law specifically refers to someone who "fraudulently holds himself or herself out to be a recipient of [various specific medals awarded for valor]." As far as I've read, Walz has made broad service and rank claims but has not claimed any medals, specifically not the medals covered in H.R.258. If you know different, please clue me, otherwise stick with the cold facts, not the hot rhetoric. If you argue a broader abstract concept of 'stolen valor' your blue friends will argue H.R.258.

There are quite a number of stories about his politics and record, a lot of gush but also a lot of onions -- actually bushels of onions, which are being reported on both defensively and also aggressively. That's a surprise. It's not one Walz hymn book.

Other than baggage Walz doesn't bring much to the ticket.

• Poll: Only 17% Of Americans View Tim Walz Positively August 6, 2024
  The 17 [favorable] and 12 [unfavorable] percent marks appear to be so low because many Americans (71 percent) have never heard of him before or are unsure how to rate him.
  
• Tim Walz Fails To Inspire Swing State Voters: ‘He Makes Tim Kaine [!] Look Exciting’ August 6, 2024
• MSNBC Data Guru Delivers Brutal Reality Check To Dems After Walz Pick August 6, 2024   
  MSNBC data analyst Steve Kornacki: “When you look at what Tim Walz actually pulled off to get elected, to get re-elected in 2022, it’s the Biden model, demographically, regionally. You go county by county, there’s not much variance between how Walz did and how Biden did. ... Now go into greater Minnesota, let’s take a look at, like, Stearns County here. Look, Walz lost this by 23 points. What did Biden lose it by? 23 points. And this is the kind of county, by the way, in Minnesota and across the Midwest here, that Democrats are hoping Walz will help them with. ... So, the Walz victory in 2022 looks like what is now a standard Democratic victory in Minnesota: Heavy reliance on the Twin Cities metro area and taking big losses in greater Minnesota. The Democrats’ hope is that he’s going to appeal to the blue-collar areas in these other three states [i.e., Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.], maybe he will, but when you look at what he’s done in Minnesota, you don’t quite see that."
• NBC Analyst: Walz Doesn’t Broaden Democrat AppealTo Blue-Collar Voters August 7, 2024

Low-to-no name recognition; no pull with vanishing key black, hispanic, Jewish, and youth demos; no base beyond metro Minnesota; no star power, no eye candy, no charisma, nothing compelling but his negatives.   

I don't get it. One theory is that Walz is so obviously the wrong choice that KA-mala easily made the pick.

 MSNBC’s Wallace: Kamala Harris ‘Is Running A Flawless Campaign’ August 6, 2024

I don't get it. Help me out. 

Let me close with a couplet of election year shit polls:

• Poll: Harris Outperforms Biden And Leads Trump Nationwide By 4 Points August 8, 2024
• National Poll Shows Trump/Vance +5 over Harris/A-Walz August 8, 2024
  

Fuck off, polls!

Trying to help Duncan out, Duncan answers as follows:

I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of Tampon Tim. However, the MSM has strong counter-narratives working full-time.

For example, CNN (sorry for the vulgarity) suggests the attacks on Walz's military service is just "Swift Boating" a la the anti-Kerry campaign.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/09/politics/tim-walz-service-swift-boat-attacks/index.html

When I ask my Lefty friends about Walz, they are mostly unaware of all the dirt this guy drags around. Narratives work until they don't (sharp as a tack Biden). So, a politically astute friend of mine thinks Walz will be Thomas Eagleton-ed...not necessarily for the same reason but something that is both sympathetic and disqualifying.

He suffered from bouts of depression throughout his life, resulting in several hospitalizations, which were kept secret from the public. When they were revealed, it humiliated the McGovern campaign, and Eagleton was forced to quit the race.

When you compare the MSM efforts to prop up the Harris/Walz campaign to your extensive collection of real Walz negatives just in this email, I too wonder how can people choose to be so stupid?

The "Gayest Olympics Ever": Twenty minutes into the future 2009 & 2024

 Damien Bennett can hardly be described as being impressed by the Olympic Games in Paris:

Twenty minutes into the future 2009:

We Are All Socialists Now [Newsweek] February 6, 2009

Twenty minutes into the future 2024:

‘Gayest Olympics Ever’: Paris Olympics Opens With Suggested Bisexual Threesome July 27, 2024

Hat tip to DH who clued me to #Paris2024.

Oh, and then there is this:

Apparent Drag ‘Parody Of Last Supper’ At Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony Sparks Controversy July 26, 2024

The Olympics said the performance was an “interpretation of the Greek God [of wine and festivity] Dionysus” to make “us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.”

These stupid f*cks -- a key feature of a Dionysian bacchanal was sparagmos:

"In Dionysian rite as represented in myth and literature, a living animal, or sometimes even a human being, is sacrificed by being dismembered. Sparagmos was frequently followed by omophagia (the eating of the raw flesh of the one dismembered)."

These stupid f*cks know nothing, absolutely nothing. Not a one with a passing acquaintance of Euripides:

Pentheus Torn Apart By His Mother Agave And Auntie Ino

Academia has given us generations of cos-play know-nothings preening around the edges of make-believe telling the rest of us what's what. Generations of morons, who, thankfully, haven't it in them to procreate. There is no fixing this. There's only 'wait them out to die out'.

Ladies and gents, something to paste in your God-Take-Me-Now photo album, courtesy of #Paris2024 -- future Jesus:

Twenty minutes behind and closing:

Dutch Beach Volleyball Pro And Convicted Child Rapist To Be Isolated At 2024 Olympics Amid Outcry July 26, 2024

Three's a Charm! Preparing for WORLD WAR III!

Didn't the Dems keep "screaming that Trump would start WW III"? asks Duncan.

From longtime reader Damian Bennett, we get the following answer: 

WORLD WAR III! 

White House: Trying To Keep Iran From Getting Nuclear Capabilities Via Diplomacy ‘HASN'T WORKED’ August 3, 2024
National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby: “The President has always maintained that we would prefer Iran not to have a nuclear weapon through diplomacy. But he has also made absolutely clear, our policy has been crystal, we will not allow Iran to achieve a nuclear weapons capability. We prefer to do that through diplomacy. That hasn’t worked. And frankly, that’s not really on the table right now. We haven’t been talking to Iran for quite some time, in terms of diplomacy. So, we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got other capabilities, other options available to the President, including potential military options. And the Department of Defense works on that every day. Obviously, we have been focused a lot on the Middle East. We have added resources from a military perspective to the Middle East and we’re talking about what we need to do to adjust given these recent threats, as well.”

Duh-huh. As if this wasn't obvious at least as far back as the 90s.

Too bad this brilliancy escaped them before they had channeled hundreds of BILLIONS in cash, credit, and sanctions relief into Allah's Atomic War Warchest.

Whu-wha-happened?

‘The Middle East Region Is Quieter Today Than It Has Been In Two Decades’ October 7, 2023
Just eight days ago, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking at The Atlantic Festival, rattled off a long list of positive developments in the Middle East, developments that were allowing the Biden administration to focus on other regions and other problems.

Brainiacs.

Close out:

“I think [Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War

The White House; The Executive Branch; The USA: Who's In Charge?

Kamala Harris may have chosen her vice-president. There is only one question regarding DC. Just one. Damian Bennett has only one question:

 Who's In Charge?

Biden/Harris drop a hint on next genius foreign policy move, hotly anticipated, three years dedicated in the making -- 

• 9/11 Mastermind [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] And Two Other Terrorists Awaiting Trial On Guantánamo Bay Strike Plea Deals July 31, 2024
  The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and two other terrorists being held in Guantánamo Bay will be spared the death penalty under a deal with prosecutors, it was revealed Wednesday. The announcement was a bitter pill to swallow for victims’ families who have anxiously awaited the conclusion of the case for nearly 24 years — many of whom felt death was the only appropriate punishment for the perpetrators of the heinous attacks.
  
• Biden's Pentagon Approves Plea Deal For 9/11 Conspirators But Won't Tell The Terms Of The Agreement July 31, 2024
  
• Lawmakers Slam Biden Admin Plea Deal That Spares Death Penalty For 9/11 Mastermind And Two Accomplices: ‘National Disgrace’ July 31, 2024
  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “The Biden-Harris Administration’s weakness in the face of sworn enemies of the American people apparently knows no bounds. The plea deal with terrorists – including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands of Americans – is a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice. The only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody.”
  Former President Donald Trump’s administration had ruled out any plea bargains with the suspected terrorists at Gitmo.
  
• Biden ‘Determined’ To Close Guantanamo Bay In Next 6 Months, WH Says — After LIFE IN PRISON PLEA DEAL For 9/11 Terrorists August 1, 2024
  
• White House Says BIDEN AND HARRIS HAD ‘NO ROLE’ In 9/11 Plea Deal Amid GOP Criticism August 1, 2024
  
• Biden's Involvement In Plea Deal With 9/11 Terrorists Now Under Probe August 2, 2024
  
• Biden Administration Makes Huge U-turn In Plea Deal Offer For 9/11 'Mastermind' That Sparked Outrage August 2, 2024
  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has dramatically revoked a proposed plea deal for the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Austin said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accomplices were no longer eligible for life sentences in prison without the prospect of the death penalty in return for a guilty plea. ... Austin also relieved the official responsible for the plea deal of her duties. Retired Brigadier General Susan K Escallier will no longer oversee the case, with Austin himself assuming responsibility for it.
  
• Memorandum For Susan Escallier, Convening Authority For Military Commissions August 2, 2024
  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009. Effective immediately, I hereby withdraw your authority in the above-referenced case to enter into a pre-trial agreement and reserve such authority to myself. 
  

WH says Biden and Harris knew nothing. A truly astonishing claim, unbelievable on its face but, considering the players, probably true, begging the Q: 

WHY did they know nothing? 

Dumpster Fire Chief Austin declares he's in charge. Judge Escallier gets hosed. [Clap wipes hands.] And there the circus ends. Please don't bring it up again. Move on. Move along. Get out of here.

I want to rage, but is this somehow more outrageous than the Biden cadaver presidency itself? If you want to rage, where to start? Once you start, there is no end. We are fighting powers that are themselves discombobulated, internally clueless, without a coordinating intelligence, that slosh about in a CYA culture. Powers that congeal into a massive, oozy, amoeboid sprawl that is both everywhere and, because unaccountable, nowhere. It has no one heart at which to strike the fell blow.

BFMTV Features Paul Reen and Other Guests Discussing Kamala Harris's Tim Walz Pick

The Republicans in France group's Paul Reen appears on the BFMTV channel with a number of other guests to discuss Kamala Harris's choice of Tim Walz for the vice-presidency.

Harris/Walz : le choix de la complémentarité ? - 06/08

La course pour la présidentielle se précise aux États-Unis avec le choix par Kamala Harris de son colistier. Il s'appelle Tim Walz. Le gouverneur du Minnesota s'en est dit honoré. Même Joe Biden a salué sa désignation. On y revient avec : Sonia Dridi, correspondante BFMTV à Washington D.C. (États-Unis). Fred Hoffman, porte-parole des "Democrats abroad France". Paul Reen, président de "Republicans in France". Malcolm Biiga, consultant et chroniqueur politique Le Nouvel Economiste. Et Ulysse Gosset, éditorialiste politique internationale BFMTV.

K. Harris "fière" de son choix de colistier - 06/08

Tim Walz, gouverneur du Minessota, est desormais le colistier qui a été choisi par Kamala Harris pour la campagne de l'éléction présidentielle américaine. Comment expliquer ce choix ? On y revient avec : Florian Poras, journaliste BFMTV. Sonia Dridi, correspondante BFMTV à Washington D.C. (États-Unis). Fred Hoffman, porte-parole des "Democrats abroad France". Paul Reen, président de "Republicans in France". Et Malcolm Biiga, consultant et chroniqueur politique Le Nouvel Economiste.

Only about 1% of the January 6 protesters actually entered the Capitol (often at the invitation of the Speaker's Capitol Police); In fact, it was the 99% who stayed out of the Capitol who heeded Trump's words

"Why then has the issue of Motive on January 6 been swept off the stage of public discourse?" asks George Shuster in The Real Motive for Jan. 6 (thanks to Evelyne Joslain):

If we examine the true Motive for ourselves, we soon discover that the repeated cries of "insurrection" have tried to stifle analysis of the actual January 6 Motive in favor of accepted "fact.” Despite that relentless attempt, or rather because of it, we should ask ourselves: just who actually had the Motive to disrupt the congressional deliberations taking place in the Capitol Building?

… because the Left has been so relentless to deflect consideration of actual Motive, it is useful to point out that there is an abundance of corroborating evidence. Here is a partial list:

1) Before January 6, it was the Democrat mayor of D.C. and the Democrat speaker who turned down Trump's offer of troops to protect the proceedings in the Capitol, thereby making the path for disruption more open.

2) After January 6, both the mayor and speaker turned D.C. into an armed military zone, with thousands of troops, heavy military equipment, barricades, and barbed wire. The disruption had already succeeded, and now it was useful to make vivid the false "insurrection" narrative. (It never came, and finally the pretense and waste of taxpayer dollars became too embarrassing to continue).

3) It was Democrats in the joint session who tried to truncate the proceedings.

4) When Trump talked to his supporters before they went over to the Capitol, he told them to do so "peacefully and patriotically” -- not the advice one would give if one wanted the proceedings disrupted.

5) Only about one percent of the protesters in D.C. actually entered the Capitol. If Trump's Motive was to disrupt the process, then he must be accounted one of the most ineffective "insurrectionists" of all time. In fact, it was the 99 percent who stayed out of the Capitol that followed his request.

6) Even among that one percent, video the Democrats tried to hide shows that many who entered the Capitol did so at the invitation of the Speaker's Capitol Police, who opened the doors for them and waved them in.

7) The Left not only tried to hide the fact Trump told his supporters beforehand to be peaceful, but also tried to suggest that Trump did nothing to discourage the disruption. A quick review of the timeline demonstrates the opposite. The first protester entered the Capitol at 2:12 P.M. Then:

     a) Just 26 minutes later, Trump tweeted: "Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay Peaceful.”

     b) At 3:13 Trump tweeted again "to remain peaceful.”

     c) At 4:17 Trump released a video in which he said: " ...you have to go home now. We have to have peace."

     d) At 6:01 Trump tweeted: "Go home with love & in peace."

These tweets were removed by the social media censors. Why did they do so, if not to delete evidence that it was Trump who did not want the proceedings disrupted?

8) On the next day, shortly after Twitter temporarily unlocked his account, Trump released a video condemning the Capitol building disruption. He said he was "outraged," hardly the sentiments of a man who wanted the proceedings interrupted.

9) After the Capitol was cleared and the joint session reconvened, the statutory proceedings were truncated. The Democrats had achieved their disruption Motive.

10) It was the Democrats who later led the rewrite of the Electoral Count Act to remove the procedures that were interrupted on January 6.

11) Both before and after January 6, the Democrats have attempted in multiple channels to quash any claims of 2020 election irregularities, i.e. have pursued the same Motive as disrupting the January 6 joint session.

12) Disruption of government business they do not like is a consistent Democrat strategy, which they not only pursue but praise. Examples include the coordinated "absenteeism" of Democrat State legislators in Texas, disruption of legislative work in the Tennessee State House, disrupting meetings of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, praising Antifa and BLM attacks on Federal buildings, and pulling a fire alarm to prevent an unwanted vote in Congress.

In summary, corroborating evidence confirms just who had, and who had not, the Motive to disrupt the January 6 proceedings. The American People should not be deflected from exercising their own independent judgment on this question. They should realize that Trump was concerned about the 2020 election irregularities and wanted them aired on January 6, and still wants that evidence to be heard. It is the Democrats who resisted then, and still do.

Related: • The January 6 Protest Summarized in One Single Sentence
• Let's Stop Using the Words "Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Election"; It's Unprofessional Journalism
• The Central Absurd Inconsistency of the Ray Epps Conundrum Described in Two Sentences
• Kabuki Theater: the "top 12 strange, stand-out moments" of the January 6th Committee's interview with Ray Epps
• Déjà Vu All Over Again in the Banana Republic of Biden: No, the Democrats did not run better campaigns in 2022; they cheated, as usual
• Isn’t it strange that in Florida, with all those strict rules against cheating, the GOP red tsunami happened as predicted? The Democrats have again fixed, rigged, and stolen an election
• Let’s dispense with the myth that liberals are really against voter fraud; Voter fraud is actually an essential part of their election strategy
• If the Democrats learned anything from their 2016 debacle it’s that they didn’t cheat nearly enough
• What the January 6th protest actually reveals is the criminal determination of the Democrats to establish a one-party state at whatever the cost
• Democrats don't support voter fraud; they just worry about disenfranchising the deceased
• Voter ID: Apparently not allowing minorities to cheat is a form of racial oppression
• Of the 47 countries in Europe today — the nations and the continent that the Democrats are always telling us to emulate — 46 of them currently require government-issued photo IDs to vote
• Joe Biden, Why Are You Calling Denmark a White Supremacist Country? And You, Barack Obama: Why Are You Calling Africa a Racist Continent?
• 2020: an almost totalitarian effort by the national political and social media to suppress and ridicule any doubt of the accuracy of the election result
The DOJ and the FBI "have no conscience or soul": “There is a fervor to attack the J6 protesters, ruin their lives, and bankrupt them”
• "I believed a farrago of lies" Writes VIP Whose Leftist Half of the American Electorate was "Taken in By Full-Spectrum Propaganda" Regarding the Jan. 6 (Non-)Riots
• Our élites constantly lecture everyone about "disinformation," about "big lies", etc; They're the biggest liars of all, with zero accountability
• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party
• Voter Fraud: A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"
• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored
• How to Prevent America from Becoming a Totalitarian State

"An unfathomably brutal place": Much like Nazi Germany, the Japanese Empire was one of the most genocidal in world history

Japanese troops burying Chinese people alive during the Nanjing Massacre

The phrase “Nazi Germany” inspires a horrific set of images in the minds of most Westerners

writes the All That's Interesting history website in Andrew Lenoir's article on The Japanese Empire, One Of The Most Genocidal Regimes In History. (No Pasarán continues its yearly tradition of presenting an article on Hiroshima, Japan, and/or World War II every anniversary of the atomic bombing of that city — see previous entries at the bottom of this post.)

But when it comes to “Shōwa Japan” — the term used to designate the wartime Japanese Empire under Emperor Shōwa (or Hirohito) — the same phenomenon tends not to occur. And yet, Japanese war crimes during World War II were just as appalling as Nazi ones. [Actually, the Imperial Japanese Army was not just every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, they were far more lethal during Japan's "Reign of Terror", i.e., far worse.]

In the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese troops committed a number of atrocities across Asia. Some events are well documented, like the Rape of Nanking — also called the Nanjing Massacre — which left as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians dead. But there are also many lesser-known events, like the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Hong Kong, and the Manila Massacre.

[Tokyo's] tactics made World War II-era Japan an unfathomably brutal place. By some estimates, there were upwards of 40 million deaths in the Pacific Theater — about half of whom were civilians killed by Japan’s military. [During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost, reports Victor Davis Hanson.]

 … Following Japan’s opening to the West [in 1853], the Japanese launched one of the most rapid modernization efforts in history — and planted many seeds that would later mutate into Japanese war crimes during World War II. 

 … [In 1937], tensions between the Japanese and Chinese escalated into the Second Sino-Japanese War. This would be followed by the Pacific Theater of World War II (though some argue that the Pacific War essentially began at the same time the Second Sino-Japanese War did). The ensuing battles would lead to some of the worst war crimes of the century.

 … the Japanese Empire fought on [despite international condemnation], often resorting to brutal tactics to obtain victory. Their determination to win by any means was gruesomely illustrated when Japanese troops marched on the city of Nanking.

The city — today better known as Nanjing — was then the capital of China, as well as one of its wealthiest cities. But when Nanking fell on December 13, 1937, forces under the command of Emperor Hirohito’s uncle, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, surrounded the Chinese troops. The Japanese soldiers were allegedly commanded to “kill all the captives.” And then, the Rape of Nanking began.

What followed was a six-week massacre that may have killed over 300,000 people in the city. Up to 80,000 women and girls were raped, and many of these rape victims did not survive their assaults. Those who did live were often left mutilated. Indeed, the horrific stories of murder, rape, and torture are so numerous, one cannot possibly cover all of them in one article.

 … Another infamous story from the Nanjing Massacre is the “Contest to Kill 100 People Using a Sword.” As the name suggests, it was a competition between two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, to see who would be the first person to kill 100 Chinese people with a sword.

 … From accounts throughout the campaign in China, Japanese soldiers routinely slaughtered captured soldiers and civilians. As reported by Daqing Yang in an essay titled Diary of a Japanese Army Medical Doctor, 1937, this was an open secret. One doctor’s diary entry from 1937 described the machine-gunning of 80 “men and women of all ages” near Nanking.

Clearly acts of terrorism, these mass rapes and massacres can also be seen as a facet of genocidal violence perpetrated by the Japanese Empire. In many cases, the mutilated bodies of victims were left out for others to see, which undoubtedly had a horrific impact on the survivors left behind. 

 … In other war crimes, … it seems the cruelty had other practical purposes, like further advancing Japan’s scientific knowledge. Certain prisoners of war and civilians — most of whom were Chinese — were transported to facilities like Unit 731, where Japanese medical officers performed inhumane experiments on human beings before killing them.

 … One lingering accusation heard most often by American World War II veterans is that the Japanese were the worst to their captives of any Axis Power. Upon examination, there does seem to be some truth here. According to the MacArthur Memorial Education Programs, prisoners of war suffered a 4 percent death rate in Europe and a 27 percent death rate in the Pacific.

 … In one particularly brutal case of Japanese war crimes against Western prisoners, staff members at a Japanese university dissected downed American pilots — while they were still alive — as reported by the Daily Mail.

 … Though most people in the West understand the magnitude of the Nazi Holocaust and the European Theater in modern times, few grasp the extent of Japan’s brutality during World War II. Much like Nazi Germany, the Japanese Empire was one of the most genocidal in world history.

However, in the years since the war ended, Germany has made strides to confront its history. This includes prosecuting former Nazis, erecting memorials to Holocaust victims, preserving death camps, and making it illegal to deny that the systematic mass murder of 6 million Jews happened. But Japan has done comparatively little to address its war crimes.

Jeff Jacoby had this to say about the "

unfathomably brutal place"

:

Horrific as the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, President Truman’s other options would have cost more lives; in the Boston Globe,

Jeff

addresses the bloodiest land battle in the Pacific Theater for U.S. forces which ended only after the Nazi surrender and therefore after the end of the war in Europe.

Long before he won fame for his biographies of Douglas MacArthur, John F. Kennedy, and Winston Churchill, William Manchester was a young Marine corporal serving in the Pacific theater during World War II. He was severely wounded in the fighting on Okinawa, Japan, in June 1945, an experience he described in his wartime memoir, “Goodbye, Darkness.”

The violence on Okinawa was unimaginably savage. During the 12-week battle for the island, more than 12,500 Americans were killed and nearly 37,000 wounded. Japan’s losses were even more appalling. Determined to fight to the death rather than surrender the remote southern island, well over 100,000 Japanese soldiers were killed. The US Navy suffered the worst losses in its history. Waves of suicide attacks by Japanese aircraft resulted in the sinking of 34 American ships and the deaths of 5,000 US sailors. Bloody as the fighting was, however, everyone knew that it was only a foretaste of the losses Americans would sustain in a few months, when the climactic assault on Japan itself was expected to begin.

 … the bombings were the least deadly of the choices America faced. Every other option — invading Japan, increased firebombing, starving the Japanese into defeat, or letting the Soviet Union invade — would have killed even more people. The Bomb brought a quick end to the worst war in history. Awful as it was, Truman was right to use it.

As more and more shipwrecks from World War II are discovered (such as three sunken aircraft carriers from the Battle of Midway, one American, two Japanese), debate never ends regarding the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Related:
• Hiroshima 15: Examining the Issues Surrounding the Dropping of Atomic Bombs on Japan (Erik Svane) 

• Hiroshima 21: Didn't the Atomic Bombs Prevent the Red Army from Sweeping Through Western Europe and the Entire Continent from Falling Under Stalin's Iron Fist? 

• Hiroshima 17: During WWII, Japan Killed 7 Times More People (Most of Them Civilians) than They Lost (Victor Davis Hanson) 

• Hiroshima 18: The Imperial Japanese Army was every bit as evil as the Nazi SS, and more lethal (Trent Telenko)

• Hiroshima 19: The Horrific Treatment of Civilians During Japan's "Reign of Terror"

• Hiroshima 14: "I regard Hiroshima revisionism as the greatest hoax in American history" (Robert Maddox)

• Hiroshima 13: Although It Is Not Said Openly, Hiroshima Also Played a Purifying Role, IE the Baptism of a New Japan, the Event that Put an End to 50 Years of Crimes (Le Monde)

• Hiroshima 20: The Day the Pilot Who Led the Attack on Pearl Harbour Met the Pilot of the Enola Gay

• Hiroshima 12: Political Correctness in Japan: The comment "tramples on the feelings of victims", so… Shut the F**k Up and Lose Your Job! (re the forced resignation of Japan's defense (!) minister)

• Hiroshima 11: If Western elites cannot find perfection in history, they see no good at all; most never learned the narrative of WWII, only what was wrong about it (Victor Davis Hanson)

• Hiroshima 10: If Not for the Atom Bombs, Japan, as we know it today, would not exist (S L Sanger, author of “Working on the Bomb”)

• Hiroshima 9: Over one million warning leaflets were dropped over Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and 33 other Japanese cities 5 days before the Hiroshima bombing (Bill Whittle)

• Hiroshima 8: Was It Wrong to Use the Atom Bomb on Japan? (Father Wilson Miscamble)

• Hiroshima 7: Some Facts About Hiroshima and World War II That You Hear Neither From America's MSM, University Élites, and History Books, Nor From Japan's (New York Times)

• Hiroshima 16: Did Japan's top officers know a bomber was approaching Nagasaki, 5 hours beforehand, and do nothing?

• Hiroshima 6: "Lance or spear practice was a regular women's exercise to practice for the anticipated U.S. landing" (a Japanese American)

• Hiroshima 5: Japan's plans for defense involved mobilizing the civilian population, including women and children, for the customary suicidal battle tactics (Thomas Sowell)

• Hiroshima 4: "Les 300 000 morts d'Hiroshima ont épargné bien davantage de Japonais, qui auraient été écrasés sous des bombes ordinaires" (Charles de Gaulle)

• Hiroshima 3: A mainland invasion could have resulted in millions of Japanese deaths—and that's not counting civilians (Wall Street Journal)

• Hiroshima 2: Hand-wringing over Hiroshima is just virtue-signaling by people who never said a bad word about Stalin or Mao’s mass murders (Glenn Reynolds)

• Hiroshima 1: Unlike the ends of the majority of conflicts, World War II in the Pacific grew increasingly bloody as U.S. forces approached the Japanese homeland (Erik Svane)

BFMTV Pundits and a Pro-U.S. Blogger Analyze Joe Biden's Speech Live on French TV (Video)

Spéciale présidentielle américaine

Renoncement : Biden s'explique

Le président américain, Joe Biden, s'est exprimé depuis le prestigieux Bureau ovale, dans la Maison-Blanche, pour sa première prise de parole depuis le retrait de sa candidature.

1h59min|2024|

Diffusée le 25 juillet 2024 à 01h00 sur BFM TV

Disponible jusqu’au 8 novembre 2024

Voir la vidéo…

The View From Europe: If Kamala Harris is elected, she will be the most left-wing president in American history

A Danish newspaper warns that If Kamala Harris is elected, she will be the most left-wing American president ever.

The daily Berlingske Tidende has a reputation of being a bourgeois newspaper leaning right, but that does not mean that they are pro-Trump by any means. Another article, by Poul Høi (who is also known to castigate Donald Trump), titles that JD Vance called Kamala Harris a "childless cat lady"; He shouldn't have done that (here is JD Vance's reply to the "scandal").

Back to Helena Bang-Udesen's front-page article (update: mange tak til Sarah Hoyt) on Kamala Harris:

Kamala Harris' presidential campaign flopped in 2019 because she failed to articulate a strong political position. Now she almost has the Democratic nomination, but is struggling to make her mark in the political center. 

Kamala Harris has always had difficulty articulating her political position. 

Her previous announcements have gone in different directions, and the political uncertainty became the downfall of her campaign when she went for the nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2019. …

Karsenty: “You have to wonder who is in charge at the helm of the United States"

Twelve hours before he was a guest on CNews again — due to Joe Biden's bombshell announcement that he would not run for the 2024 elections — Philippe Karsenty had been a guest of the news channel that very Sunday morning to discuss the (p)resident's capacity to govern the nation. Sleepy Joe's decision hardly changes the issue, as you continue “to wonder who is in charge at the helm of the United States" and that, until January 2025…

Karsenty: “A President Who Cannot Stand for Re-Election and Who is Full of Resentment Is Something Very Dangerous""

Émission extraordinaire au Soir Info Été de CNews pour discuter la déclaration inatt5endue et explosive, de Joe Biden de ne pas se représenter aux élections de 2024.

Le porte-parole des «Republicans in France» Philippe Karsenty était l’invité de «Soir info été», ce dimanche 21 juillet sur CNEWS. Il s'est exprimé au sujet du retrait de la candidature de Joe Biden, président américain sortant, qui renonce à sa réélection sur fond de dissensions au sein même de son parti : «Un président qui ne peut pas se représenter et qui a de la rancœur, c'est très dangereux», a--t-il expliqué.

Khalil Rajehi de l'AFP:

Le président américain sortant, Joe Biden, a annoncé ce dimanche le retrait de sa candidature à l’élection présidentielle de novembre prochain, soutenant par la même occasion celle de sa vice-présidente Kamala Harris.

Originaire d’Oakland, dans la baie de San Francisco, Kamala Harris naît dans la Californie des années 1960, de parents immigrés. Sa mère indienne, chercheuse spécialiste du cancer du sein, aujourd’hui décédée, et son père jamaïcain, professeur d'économie, la plongent très tôt dans la lutte pour les droits civiques dans laquelle ils sont vivement impliqués. 

 Le parcours de Kamala Harris est d’ailleurs une histoire de premières fois. En 2010, elle devient la première femme noire et de descendance asiatique à devenir procureure générale de l'Etat de Californie. Idem en 2016 lorsque, suivant la vague de femmes accédant au Congrès, elle est la première femme élue sénatrice de son état de l'ouest américain.

Quant à Donald Trump, selon CNews, 

«L'escroc Joe Biden n’était pas apte à se présenter à la présidence, n’est certainement pas apte à servir, et ne l’a jamais été !», a-t-il lancé dès le début de sa déclaration.

 … «Il n’a atteint le poste de président que grâce à des mensonges, de fausses infos (...). Tous ceux qui l'entouraient, y compris son médecin et les médias, savaient qu'il n'était pas capable d'être président, et il ne l'était pas», a ajouté l'ancien locataire de la Maison Blanche, récemment victime d'une tentative d'assassinat.

Dans son message, Donald Trump a également accusé Joe Biden d'être responsable des nombreux maux du pays.

«Regardez ce qu'il a fait, avec des millions de personnes qui traversent notre frontière, sans contrôle ni vérification, beaucoup provenant de prisons, d'établissements psychiatriques et un nombre record de terroristes», a poursuivi le candidat républicain sur son compte Truth Social, avant de conclure par sa phrasé favorite : «Make America Great Again.

Parmi les autres de invités Soir Info Été sur CNews, le journaliste Régis Le Sommier a déclaré que 

«Kamala Harris n'est pas le Barack Obama féminin».

En ce qui concerne Jean-Baptiste Soufron, l'avocat a affirmé que

«Ce qui se passe chez les démocrates américains, c'est aussi un changement de génération».

To return to Philippe Karsenty, he disagrees with Trump about Biden being the worst president in the history of the United States, saying that that "title" belongs to Barack Obama, "who has done much more damage to the free world than Joe Biden."

Why Does the NYT Ignore the "Changed Landscape" in Israel?

From Modi'in, an Israeli woman castigates the New York Times for its coverage (or lack thereof) of the current conflict in Palestine:

I write this as I mark Israeli Independence Day in the changed landscape of my neighborhood.

Across the street: the home of a soldier killed in Gaza. Up the block: those of three more fallen soldiers. The park next to the grocery store: dedicated to the memory of another fallen soldier. Inside, an amputee carries yogurt with his elbow because his lower arm is gone. Around the corner: the home of a young man murdered at the Tribe of Nova music festival on Oct. 7.

Nearby: the home of my former student who defended Kfar Aza kibbutz until Hamas terrorists shot him. He’s been in the I.C.U. for seven months. Past the park: the home of Noa Marciano, a soldier and hostage who was murdered in Al-Shifa Hospital. Overhead: the drone of warplanes.

We are still under attack from Hamas and Hezbollah. No one in Israel is out of the cross hairs. We’re not sleeping soundly at night. We won’t breathe deeply until the hostages and our soldiers come home.

I want to start a school for religious Muslim and Jewish girls. I plan to spend next year studying Arabic. I dream of a two-state solution.

I think your coverage of this war would look different if you took a walk in my neighborhood.

Sarah Greenberg
Modiin, Israel

"A much graver danger to democracy": Want a (Tiny) Chance for a Dialog with a Leftist? Send Them "The Secret of Trump’s Resurrection" by the NYT's Bret Stephens

Just as Barack Obama knew that he stood for hope, Trump knows that he stands for defiance.

If you wish to have an iota of a chance to explain the GOP's candidate to a leftist, don't hesitate to head over to the New York Times, of all places, and send them The Secret of Trump’s Resurrection by Bret Stephens, a man who admits to once writing a column titled “Donald Trump Is Finally Finished.”

How did Trump go from a disgraced has-been — even Fox News’s Laura Ingraham implied he was putting his “own grudges ahead of what’s good for the country” — to the man of destiny he had become even before he dodged that bullet on Saturday?

A simple explanation goes something like this: The G.O.P. ceased to be a normal political party in 2016 and became a cult of personality, less interested in winning elections than in burnishing the savior-victim myth of its charismatic leader. …

But this analysis, true to a point, falls short in at least three respects. It doesn’t give Trump the political credit he deserves. It fails to reckon with the Biden administration’s political blunders. And it reduces the Democrats’ problem to a Biden problem. Their problem is bigger than that.

First, Trump. Just as Barack Obama knew that he stood for hope, Trump knows that he stands for defiance. Defiance of what, or whom? Of the gatekeepers to cultural respectability in today’s America. And who, in the minds of Trump supporters, are they?

They are the reporters who said it was a “conspiracy theory” to suggest Covid emerged from a Chinese lab. Or the academic deans who insist every job applicant write D.E.I. statements and refuse to hire those who criticize them. Or the do-gooders who charge that Americans who want better control of the southern border are motivated by racism. Or the pundits who say, as one NBC contributor put it in 2016, that “100 percent of Trump voters are deplorable.” Or the journalists who claimed that “inflation is good for you.”

There is nobody in America whom the gatekeepers hate more than Trump. Ergo, there is nobody in America whom the haters of the gatekeepers love more than Trump. In his every beyond-the-pale, can-you-believe-he-said-that utterance, he signals his contempt for liberal pieties, his willingness to take the left’s slings and arrows, his willingness to be hated.

In MAGA world, all this translates into a picture of strength and a form of incorruptibility. Whatever else Trump stands for, he’s the sort of man who won’t be seduced into wanting to be loved by anyone.

Then there were Biden’s political blunders. One is obvious: He betrayed his implicit promise to be a one-term, transitional president. Had he stuck to it, he would have been spared the humiliation of last month’s debate and Democrats would not be the dispirited and divided party that they are today.

But Biden’s bigger blunder was the betrayal of his promise, made in his inaugural address, to end “this uncivil war that pits red against blue.” In September 2022, he delivered a blistering speech against “MAGA Republicans” whom he accused of threatening “the very foundations of our Republic.” But did he mean the Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — or those who were “MAGA Republicans” mainly by virtue of voting for Trump?

It wasn’t clear. A speech that should have distinguished the two wound up conflating them. It cast tens of millions of Americans as if they were enemies of democracy itself.

More foolish was the effort of Democrats to try to “defend democracy” by seeking to kick Trump’s name off ballots — a fine instance of destroying the village in order to save it — while pursuing Trump in court. Whatever the respective merits of the many cases against him, the bald effort to embarrass, paralyze and ultimately criminalize a political opponent smacked, to millions of Americans, as a much graver danger to democracy than, say, whether hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels constituted a campaign-finance violation.

“If his name was not Donald Trump, and if he wasn’t running for president — I’m the former A.G. in New York; I’m telling you that case would’ve never been brought,” Andrew Cuomo told Bill Maher last month. “And that’s what is offensive to people. And it should be. Because if there’s anything left, it’s belief in the justice system.”

Finally, the Democratic Party itself, which keeps insisting it’s morning in America when poll after poll shows a country that thinks it’s darkness at noon. On the eve of the pandemic in 2020, 45 percent of Americans were satisfied with the way things were going, according to Gallup, the highest percentage in 15 years. Now it’s 21 percent. That gap alone explains why Trump looks to be on his way to victory.

It’s a fact of politics that the demagogue’s success rests less in outright lying than it does in speaking in half-truths. So long as Democrats persist in seeing nothing of Trump but his lies and outrages, they’ll miss what makes him strong. And so long as they fail to recognize their own mistakes, they may be unable to avoid the real disaster coming their way.

Donald Trump and Manifest Destiny — by Évelyne Joslain

I am not in the habit of using the word "I" and writing my articles in the first person, and even less of advertising my own books, but current events force me to contravene these self-imposed rules.

In my latest book, La Guerre Culturelle (The Cultural War), I talk about the history of this war launched by the Left over two centuries ago against the peoples in Western nations attached to their traditions, to their national sovereignty, and to Western culture. I explain how, for the past century, this war is being waged ruthlessly in the United States by the neo-Marxist left, domestic enemy, continuing Gramsci's evil plan to infiltrate, subvert, and undermine institutions. Needless to say, I devote a large part to Donald Trump who embodies the accomplished cultural warrior who fights fiercely in the arena, facing the gladiators and the wild beasts of the hateful left. 

This metaphor has now become reality through bloodshed and an undefeated Trump, inviting us all to join the “fight”, with his raised fist against the background of the American flag, an unforgettable image. Trump seems to be the only prominent politician, the only Western leader (apart from Nigel Farage), to take into account this domestic conflict that others do not see and which they do not resist, unless it is to collaborate cowardly, as we have seen in France and the United Kingdom.

Trump is alone in encouraging us to fight this murderous left, not by using the Mafia means that said Left employs but by an implacable determination, thanks to us rightists having the numbers and the moral superiority.

Let's make no mistake, everywhere in our Western societies, Gramsci has emerged the winner. Gramsci's Cultural Marxism, the Frankfurt School, the “deconstructionists” and other notorious Marxists, allied with the globalist forces that populate the “deep states” of all Western countries, forming a “global swamp” of powerful and unelected people, has practically arrived at this victory for them which is also our planned suicide. In 2016, through his talent and the strength of his convictions alone, Trump succeeded in defeating Hillary Clinton, the candidate of the international left (including the European Union) and in accomplishing great things for his country, for the West (and for the entire planet), in a first term despite an unparalleled outburst against him from the left and pseudo-Republicans (RINOs) and like-minded Conservatives, offended by his “style”, his “personality”, or his mean tweets.

The people who have been harassing Trump since 2015 have tried everything, in vain, to destroy him: slander, baseless impeachment attempts, legal warfare (lawfare), idle accusations, shameless lies. The same creatures of the global deep state (which now decides the outcome of our elections and wants to rule our way of life) hate him because he embodies the only major obstacle to their total and irreversible victory. He is the man who has the will and the courage to stand against them to turn the situation around. Isn't that a good reason to eliminate him? It is exactly what far-left politicians have been encouraging in their murderous rhetoric. Joe Biden himself recently said it was “time to put Trump in a bullseye." Ever since they stole the 2020 election, the “Democrats”, that is to say the extreme left Marxists in power, have been accusing him from wanting to go back to the White House to do what they themselves do on a daily basis: the breaching of laws and of the Constitution, tyrannical government with censorship, tolerance and impunity for the worst crimes and for the organized violence that are committed by their supporters.

Trump arrived in a political landscape in ruins after Obama's disastrous presidency, adding a chapter to the doctrine of Manifest Destiny: an America protected by Providence even after the worst trials and that nothing can overcome in the nation's march forward.

This time, Providence has an embodiment. Its name is Donald John Trump.

Good-Bye, Friend: Lou Dobbs 1945-2024

Lou Dobbs at CPAC in 2017

Lou Dobbs, the Former FOX Business host of the (appropriately entitled) Lou Dobbs Tonight show, has died at the age of 78, writes David Rutz.

A statement posted on his X account called him a "fighter till the very end – fighting for what mattered to him the most, God, his family and the country."

"Lou's legacy will forever live on as a patriot and a great American. We ask for your prayers for Lou's wonderful wife Debi, children and grandchildren," it said.

 … Former President Trump, a longtime friend of Dobbs, eulogized him in a post on Truth Social on the same evening he will accept the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

"The Great Lou Dobbs has just passed away — A friend, and truly incredible Journalist, Reporter, and Talent," Trump wrote. "He understood the World, and what was ‘happening,’ better than others. Lou was unique in so many ways, and loved our Country. Our warmest condolences to his wonderful wife, Debi, and family. He will be greatly missed!