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CHÍNH DANH LÀ GỌI ĐÚNG TÊN!Một sản phẩm kiểm duyệt của chế độ Biden-Harris là ‘Hội đồng Quản lý Thông tin Sai lạc’ (tạm ...
24/07/2024

CHÍNH DANH LÀ GỌI ĐÚNG TÊN!

Một sản phẩm kiểm duyệt của chế độ Biden-Harris là ‘Hội đồng Quản lý Thông tin Sai lạc’ (tạm dịch từ “Disinformation Governance Board”) trong Bộ Nội An, đã bị giáo sư Jonathan Turley tố giác tại chương 27 trong cuốn ‘The INDISPENSABLE RIGHT…” của ông.

Hôm nay, giáo sư Turley nói về phán quyết của một thẩm phán về việc viên chức cầm đầu Hội đồng DGB đó là con Nina Jankowicz đòi kiện Fox News về tội mạ lỵ. Tất cả chỉ là trò ngôn ngữ (giữa information, malinformation hay disinformation!) khi bọn gian cố dùng sai nội dung để che giấu âm mưu kiểm duyệt.

Năm xưa, Fox News vạch rõ mưu kiểm duyệt khi gọi “Disinformation Governance Board” là ‘Hội đồng Xuyên tạc Thông tin’ để có lý cớ kiểm duyệt thông tin. Được báo chí gọi là ‘Nàng Mary Poppins về phép Xuyên tạc’, con Nina liền kiện Fox News tội mạ lỵ, là defamation. Dù Hội đồng đốn mạt kia bị công luận phản đối dữ dội nên phải giải thể năm 2022, vụ kiện mới chỉ kết thúc khi Chánh án Colm Connolly ra phán quyết là Nina Jankowicz có ý kiểm duyệt bằng xuyên tạc chữ nghĩa!

Giáo sư Turley viện dẫn thuyết chính danh của Khổng tử để nói về việc phải dùng chữ nghĩa cho đúng. Trong lãnh vực tư tưởng, xuyên tạc là trò chơi chữ nghĩa mà, khi trang Dainamax này thường xuyên bị xuyên tạc để kiểm duyệt. Riết rồi quen!

https://jonathanturley.org/2024/07/24/call-it-censorship-a-court-rules-against-former-disinformation-czar-nina-jankowicz/

Call it Censorship: A Court Rules Against Former “Disinformation Czar” Nina Jankowicz

(Jonathan Turley - Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Politics - July 24, 2024)

Below is my column in the New York Post on the ruling against Nina Jankowicz in her defamation case. It turns out that calling opposing views defamation is no better than calling them disinformation.

Here is the column:

For free speech advocates, there are few images more chilling than that of Nina Jankowicz singing her now-infamous tune as “the Mary Poppins of Disinformation.”

The woman who would become known as the “Disinformation Czar” sang a cheerful TikTok parody of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” to rally people to the cause of censorship.

When the press caught wind of President Biden’s plan to appoint Jankowicz as head of the Department of Homeland Security’s new “disinformation board,” Fox News said she “intended to censor Americans’ speech.”

The backlash was swift. Plans for the board were suspended, and Jankowicz resigned in 2022. She then sued Fox News for defamation.

On Monday, the case was dismissed. But Chief Judge Colm Connolly, a Delaware Democrat, didn’t just say it was legally unfounded - he demolished the claims of figures like Jankowicz that they are really not engaged in censorship.

I was one of Jankowicz’s earliest and most vocal critics and she is discussed in my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” as part of the current growing anti-free speech movement in the United States.

The Biden administration has coordinated with social media and targeted the revenue of conservative, libertarian and other sites.

These figures gleefully worked to silence others with the support of millions in public dollars for years. Yet, when exposed to criticism, they often portrayed themselves as victims with an obliging and supportive media.

They all took a page from Mary Poppins, who “taught us the most wonderful word!” In this case, the word is “disinformation” and it is certainly not connected to “censorship.” Rather you are supposed to call the barring, blacklisting and throttling of opposing views “content moderation.”

Jankowicz took that not-so-noble lie to a new level. After losing her job, she launched a campaign soliciting funds to sue those who called her a censor.

I was highly critical of these efforts as trying to use defamation as another tool to chill critics and shut down criticism.

It was a telling lawsuit, as Jankowicz simply labeled criticism of her as “defamation” - just as she labeled opposing views “disinformation.”

The objections to her work were called false and she insisted that she was really not seeking to censor people with her work.

Connolly made fast work of that effort. After holding that people are allowed to criticize Jankowicz as protected opinion, the court added:

“I agree that Jankowicz has not pleaded facts from which it could plausibly be inferred that the challenged statements regarding intended censorship by Jankowicz are not substantially true. On the contrary… censorship is commonly understood to encompass efforts to scrutinize and examine speech in order to suppress certain communications.

“The Disinformation Governance Board was formed precisely to examine citizens’ speech and, in coordination with the private sector, identify ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation.’ … that objective is fairly characterized as a form of censorship.”

Of course, in America’s burgeoning censorship infrastructure, the entire decision is likely to be viewed as some form of disinformation, misinformation or malinformation.

After all, even true facts can be deemed censorable by the Biden-Harris administration.

I testified previously before Congress on how Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure to include “our cognitive infrastructure.”

The resulting censorship efforts included combating “malinformation” - described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”

Thus, referring to Jankowicz as engaged in censorship on this defunct board may be true, but could still be treated as “malinformation.”

As I discuss in my book, these setbacks are unlikely to deter the corporate, academic and government figures aligned in our current anti-free speech movement. Millions of government and private dollars are flowing to universities and organizations engaged in targeting or blacklisting individuals and groups.

It is now a growing industry unto itself.

The new censors have gone corporate and mainstream. Silencing others is now a calling, a profession. They have literally made free speech into a commodity that can be packaged and controlled for profit.

Yet Confucius once said that “the beginning of wisdom is the ability to call things by their right names.” This opinion takes a large step toward such wisdom.

If figures like Jankowicz want to continue to make money silencing others, we can at least call them for what we believe they are: censors.

Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” (Turley appears as a legal analyst on Fox, but nothing in this column is written on behalf of Fox Corp.)

Here is the decision: Jankowicz v. Fox News Network

Below is my column in the New York Post on the ruling against Nina Jankowicz in her defamation case. It turns out that calling opposing views defamation is no better than calling them disinformatio…

CROWDSTRIKE TÌM RA THỦ PHẠM GÂY TÊ LIỆT!Bản tin của WSJ: CrowdStrike cho biết đã tìm ra bộ phận trong hệ thống nhu liệu ...
24/07/2024

CROWDSTRIKE TÌM RA THỦ PHẠM GÂY TÊ LIỆT!

Bản tin của WSJ: CrowdStrike cho biết đã tìm ra bộ phận trong hệ thống nhu liệu đã vì thiếu kiểm soát mà gây ra vụ ‘ngưng hoạt động’ vào tuần trước khi các doanh nghiệp dùng nhu liệu bảo đảm an toàn của CrowdStrike bị tê liệt.

https://www.wsj.com/business/crowdstrike-software-bug-global-tech-outage-96a9c937?mod=hp_lead_pos10

CrowdStrike Identifies Bug That Caused Global Tech Outage
An error in a quality-control tool led to release of flawed software update, cybersecurity firm says

(By Gareth Vipers - July 24, 2024 10:09 am ET)

Travelers waited for their luggage at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Tuesday. Photo: Christian Monterrosa/Bloomberg News

CrowdStrike CRWD -2.19%decrease; red down pointing triangle, the cybersecurity company that upended computer systems across the world last week, said it had identified the bug that led to outages for millions of Microsoft Windows users.

In an incident report published Wednesday, the company said a bug in a quality-control tool it uses to check system updates for mistakes allowed a critical flaw to be pushed to users’ machines.

That errant software update caused worldwide disruption Friday, leading to tens of thousands of flights being delayed or canceled, and paralyzing operations at businesses and organizations from financial institutions and government agencies to medical centers and school districts.

CrowdStrike’s stock has plunged in the days since. Chief Executive George Kurtz, who has apologized for the incident, has been summoned to testify before lawmakers.

Around 8.5 million devices were affected by the outage, CrowdStrike said in a statement on Monday. Many of those were part of wider corporate IT systems, meaning the impact was felt much more widely.

On Monday, the company warned customers that bad actors were trying to exploit the event. CrowdStrike said in a blog post it had identified a malicious file being sent around by hackers posing as a ‘quick fix’ to the problem.

The outage laid bare the risks of a world in which IT systems are increasingly intertwined and dependent on myriad software companies - many not household names.

Earlier: A major tech outage left thousands of flights delayed and businesses and financial firms across the world unable to access computing systems. A software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused the massive outage. Photo: Jose Sarmento Matos for WSJ

Write to Gareth Vipers at [email protected]

An error in a quality-control tool led to the release of a flawed software update, the cybersecurity firm said Wednesday.

MICHAEL RAMIREZ ÁC LIỆT!Nhân viên điều tra của SS:- Có phải Giám đốc Chaetle ở dưới đó không?- Thì tôi đã đoán là vì cái...
24/07/2024

MICHAEL RAMIREZ ÁC LIỆT!

Nhân viên điều tra của SS:
- Có phải Giám đốc Chaetle ở dưới đó không?
- Thì tôi đã đoán là vì cái mái dốc!

DỤNG CỤ VẬN ĐỘNG CỦA KAMALA LÀ MẠNG TIKTOK!Bản tin của Mathew Rice trên NY Sun cho thấy rủi ro từ phía Kamala Harris khi...
24/07/2024

DỤNG CỤ VẬN ĐỘNG CỦA KAMALA LÀ MẠNG TIKTOK!

Bản tin của Mathew Rice trên NY Sun cho thấy rủi ro từ phía Kamala Harris khi dùng mạng TikTok của Trung Cộng để tranh thủ quần chúng.

https://www.nysun.com/article/kamala-harris-sets-tiktok-on-fire-just-hours-after-becoming-nominee?lctg=1608334227&recognized_email=nguyenxnghia%40protonmail.com&newsletter-access

Politics -
Kamala Harris Sets TikTok on Fire Just Hours After Becoming Nominee

The use of pro-Harris hashtags has increased exponentially in just a number of days.
AP/Kiichiro Sato

MATTHEW RICE - Tuesday, July 23, 202415:01:36 pm

After declaring her presidential campaign Sunday, Vice President Harris is taking the popular social media app TikTok by storm, inspiring memes, songs, and newfound support for the Democratic candidate. In light of TikTok’s ties to Communist China, however, the surge of support for the likely Democratic party nominee on the app raises questions over whether the authorities at Beijing have their thumb on the scale.

In an election in which young people were expressing deep pessimism and frustration with their choices, the outpouring of apparent support for the vice president could help buoy her with a critical voting bloc.

For years, though, Congress has been investigating the social media titan and its parent company, ByteDance, for their ties to the Chinese Communist Party. At least one former employee has alleged that the algorithm used to curate videos feeds for young people around the world can be deployed to further the political aims of Communist China.

TikTok is a leading news source for young people, and caused some headaches for the Biden administration in the wake of Israel’s war against Hamas. The app amplified the voices of app users who denounced the president as a perpetrator of genocide, a white supremacist, and warmonger.

A Pew Research survey from 2023 found that one-third of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 39 use TikTok as their primary news source.

How young Americans consume media will be critical to this campaign, and Ms. Harris’ strong start on the social media app could help her dominate with young people - a demographic with which President Biden had been struggling for months.

Political professionals are already taking note of Ms. Harris’ apparently skyrocketing popularity on TikTok. CNN’s Van Jones, an ally of the vice president, says TikTok has helped Ms. Harris go from “cringe to cool” in the wake of her decision to jump into the race.

“There’s something happening that’s hard to quantify, because what’s happening on TikTok right now, is extraordinary,” Mr. Jones said. “All the things that were cringey about Kamala, her laugh, the coconut tree comment, being unburdened by what - all those weird things she’s said.”

Some of the “weird things” that Ms. Harris has said in the past have taken off online in pro-Harris circles. In a 2023 speech in which she was swearing in executive branch officials, Ms. Harris told a story about her mother that would later become a pillar of the Harris meme canon.

“My mother used to - she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’” Ms. Harris said with a laugh. “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

The coconut tree speech was one of the first odd moments for Ms. Harris that helped rally supporters. Before Mr. Biden dropped his reelection bid, Democrats on X, formerly known as Twitter, were putting emojis of coconuts and palm trees in their usernames.

On TikTok, the coconut tree speech has been omnipresent. The pop star Kesha has already posted two videos of her dancing with a mashup of Ms. Harris’ coconut line and one of her own songs. The two videos combined have garnered nearly one million likes, and nearly seven million views.

Interest in the 2024 election has shot up on the app, especially in Ms. Harris’ candidacy, after young voters have been telling pollsters for months that they were feeling apathetic and deeply disappointed that both Mr. Biden and President Trump were the two nominees again this year.

According to TikTok’s own data, hashtags tied to the 2024 election now take six of the top ten slots for more used hashtags this week. The number three slot is filled by and the number five slot is taken simply by .

The tag has been used in nearly 10,000 posts in just the last seven days, and have garnered more than 100 million views in that same time period. The tag has been used more than 5,000 times, getting 29 million views in the last week.

The use of another hashtag - - has, according to the analytics, taken off among young people. Use of that tag has increased 1,500 percent on Sunday alone, the day Ms. Harris announced her candidacy. The TikTok data shows that 81 percent of the posts using that hashtag came from TikTok users between the ages of 18 and 24.

Ms. Harris’ support on TikTok is especially lighthearted, including videos of her dancing, laughing, and cracking jokes. One video posted on the app on Monday shows Ms. Harris dancing and laughing in a drum line in 2019, when she was running in that cycle’s Democratic primary.

As Ms. Harris marches with the young drummers and dancers, the caption of the video says, “Kamala Harris on her way to the White House.” That video has already garnered 1.6 million likes.

The use of pro-Harris hashtags has increased exponentially in just a number of days.

'MONG LÀ CÓ ĐỨA THỬ BẮN NỮA, MÀ KHÔNG TRẬT'!Sau khi Donald Trump bị bắn hụt, một con giáo sư đại học Mỹ viết rằng ‘mong ...
24/07/2024

'MONG LÀ CÓ ĐỨA THỬ BẮN NỮA, MÀ KHÔNG TRẬT'!

Sau khi Donald Trump bị bắn hụt, một con giáo sư đại học Mỹ viết rằng ‘mong là có đứa thử nữa’. Nó còn giễu, ‘mà đừng bắn vào mái tóc giả’! Quyền tự do ngôn luận cho phép diễn tả nỗi hận thù hay sự giận dữ thành việc khích lệ tội ác?

Bài hôm nay của giáo sư Jonathan Turley nên làm ta suy nghĩ:

https://jonathanturley.org/2024/07/24/lets-hope-todays-events-inspire-others-rutgers-professor-under-fire-for-posting-on-trump-assassination-attempt/

“Let’s Hope Today’s Events Inspire Others”: Rutgers Professor Under Fire for Posting on Trump Assassination Attempt
(Jonathan Turley - Academia, Free Speech - July 24, 2024)

We have been following the controversies surrounding professors commenting on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Some of those responses have ranged from celebrations to spreading bizarre conspiracy theories. The latest controversy concerns Rutgers University Writing Program Assistant Teaching Professor Tracy Budd, who posted a Facebook message saying ”Let’s hope today’s events inspire others.” These postings raise difficult questions for universities in balancing free speech rights against statements viewed as endorsing violence.

Professor Budd is engaged in what I called “rage rhetoric” in my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” Indeed, she perfectly embodies the following from the beginning of the book:

“We are living in an age of rage. It permeates every aspect of our society and politics. Rage is liberating, even addictive. It allows us to say and do things that we would ordinarily avoid, even denounce in others. Rage is often found at the farthest extreme of reason. For those who agree with the underlying message, it is righteous and passionate. For those who disagree, it is dangerous and destabilizing.”

Like many on the left, Budd mocked the assassination attempt and seemed to regret that it was not successful. She added ”They shot his wig. Sad.”

For most of us, the comments are shocking, but shock is a relative concept in an age of rage. Budd, like many, does not appear to view Trump as a human being as much as a symbol or object. He is treated as devoid of human components from feelings to family. It is easier to call for the killing of a caricature than a person.

Budd is obviously part of the radical chic in higher education discussed in my book. She has worked at the Rutgers University Writing Program for 22 years.

Conservative sites like Campus Reform have noted that her Facebook account features a poster at a protest that reads: “Capitalism will kill us all. Gender is fake. Eat garbage. Be free.”

The posting is an example of the difficult questions that arise on social media. This was a comment made outside of the campus as a private person, not as an academic.

Yet, there have been calls for Budd to be fired.

My inclination is always to err on the side of free speech in such circumstances. The university can condemn it, but punishing political speech can place a university on a slippery slope.

Moreover, Rutgers is a public university subject to the First Amendment. I do not believe that disciplinary action would be upheld under these circumstances.

Rutgers could argue that this is a call for political violence. However, Professor Budd can insist that this is mere hyperbole and bad humor.

My concern is not with allowing Budd’s hateful speech, but the lack of consistency in how universities respond to such controversies.

Many conservative or libertarian professors find themselves suspended or under investigation for controversial tweets or jokes. Conversely, it is comparably rare to see such action against those on the left who use inflammatory language including professors advocating “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements.

The most analogous case is that of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. Yet, those extreme statements from the left are rarely subject to cancel campaigns or university actions.

Faculty and students often have little tolerance for even jokes from conservatives as they do alleged jokes by liberals like Budd.

For example, conservative North Carolina professor Dr. Mike Adams faced calls for termination for years with investigations and cancel campaigns. He repeatedly had to go to court to defend his right to continue to teach. He was then again targeted after an inflammatory tweet. He was done. Under pressure from the university, he agreed to resign with a settlement. Four years ago this month, Adams went home just days before his final day as a professor. He then committed su***de.

What are often portrayed as harmless jokes from the left are treated as threats from the right. That is the long reality of rage rhetoric; it is either righteous or dangerous depending on your perspective.

We have been following the controversies surrounding professors commenting on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Some of those responses have ranged from celebrations to …

ĐỒNG MINH HOA KỲ TẠI VÙNG ĐẤT HIỂMĐANG THĂM VÙNG ĐẤT HIỂM CỦA THỦ ĐÔ MỸ!Hội đồng Biên tập tờ New York Sun có một bài thấ...
24/07/2024

ĐỒNG MINH HOA KỲ TẠI VÙNG ĐẤT HIỂM
ĐANG THĂM VÙNG ĐẤT HIỂM CỦA THỦ ĐÔ MỸ!

Hội đồng Biên tập tờ New York Sun có một bài thấm thía về việc Thủ tướng Israel là Benjamin Netanyahu đang thăm viếng Hoa Kỳ, và đi vào vùng đất hiểm của thủ đô nước Mỹ: đoạn đường từ Quốc Hội đến Phủ Tổng thống!

Nhưng Netanyahu đã dày ‘kinh nghiệm chiến trường’ qua bao chuyến thăm viếng trước đây…

https://www.nysun.com/article/the-most-dangerous-ground-in-the-middle-east

Editorials
The Most Dangerous Ground in the Middle East

The premier of the Jewish state arrives on the Wing of Zion to a capital in turmoil.
AP/Andrew Harnik, file

Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks before a joint meeting of Congress on March 3, 2015. AP/Andrew Harnik, file

(THE NEW YORK SUN - Tuesday, July 23, 2024)

The day before Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech on Capitol Hill is a moment to mark what we have several times called the most dangerous ground in the Middle East. That’s the ground between the White House and the Congress. It’s where Mr. Netanyahu will be treading this week in his various meetings - including with the president, vice president, and, at Mar-a-Lago, the 45th president - and his speech to a joint meeting of the Congress.

It doesn’t bode well for the prospect of a new Democratic administration that neither the party’s outgoing or aspiring president managed to get someone to Joint Base Andrews to welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu as he alighted from his plane, 'the Wing of Zion'. The only democratic leader in the Middle East landed yesterday to be greeted by staff of Israel’s embassy. The various protocols being cited are unconvincing.

Plus, too, it seems that Vice President Harris won’t be attending Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. She’ll be on the campaign trail. In this she follows the vice president at the time, Joseph Biden, who failed to attend Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in 2015. In the speech, Mr. Netanyahu offered a warning against appeasing Iran. Senator Kaine didn’t attend either. He went on to be Secretary Clinton’s running mate. He’s skipping this iteration, too.

What the American public can take from this is increasingly clear - that today’s Democratic Party is growing uncomfortable welcoming a wartime leader of the Jewish state. Of our two major parties, the Democrats have become the less committed to a defense of Israel, withholding ammunition and seeking to micromanage its conduct of the war. It is more committed to nursing its left flank, where the “Squad” and others are rooting for Hamas.

Where does Ms. Harris stand? The Journal reports that she seeks a quick end to the fighting - by definition a victory for Hamas and Iran. Her expression of sympathy with anti-Israel protesters on college campuses, expressed the other day to the Nation magazine, indicates a jangled moral compass. More heartening is the warning by Speaker Johnson that those who disrupt Mr. Netanyahu’s speech will be thrown in the Capitol clink.

Our own hope is that all this will give Mr. Netanyahu a sense of liberation as he enters the House chamber Wednesday. It will be the fourth time he’s done so. He’s the only foreign leader to have spoken to a joint meeting that many times. Winston Churchill spoke to Congress three times. The third time, Churchill dilated on, among other things, his early backing of the Zionist idea. Mr. Netanyahu’s speeches sketched themes that are likely to be reprised.

The Israeli could start with warm remarks, possibly recognizing an individual, maybe Mr. Biden, with a friendly salute. In 2015 Mr. Netanyahu mentioned Senator Reid, the erstwhile Democratic majority leader, who was then ailing. The Israeli might extol the bipartisan nature of the commitment between Israel and America. In 1996, he got a bipartisan standing ovation when he vowed that Jerusalem would never - never, he repeated - be divided again.

Mr. Netanyahu then might mark the danger of abandoning the war aims of retrieving the Israelis and Americans held hostage and destroying Hamas and either seizing its leaders or getting them onto the ferry across the River Styx. Mr. Netanyahu could mark, again, the common themes in our history and faith. In 2015, he spoke of the bas-relief, directly across the House chamber from the podium, of Moses, who brought our most basic laws down from Sinai.

If Mr. Netanyahu does meet, as planned, with Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris, or both, we’d like to think they might get into particulars. It will be an important moment. The Democratic Party has drifted to the left of either the American or Israeli people. Ms. Harris, who appears likely to be the candidate, will be running against a candidate who, in President Trump, is a hero on Israel and set in motion a historic peace plan waiting to be finished.

The premier of the Jewish state arrives on the Wing of Zion to a capital in turmoil.

KAMALA CHỦ TRƯƠNG NHỮNG GÌ?Hội đồng Biên tập WSJ có nhắc lại cũng không thừa vì dân Mỹ chậm hiểu mà chóng quên: một con ...
24/07/2024

KAMALA CHỦ TRƯƠNG NHỮNG GÌ?

Hội đồng Biên tập WSJ có nhắc lại cũng không thừa vì dân Mỹ chậm hiểu mà chóng quên: một con chính khách lưu manh của đảng Dân Chủ - lưu manh và Dân Chủ đang thành điệp ngữ - có tinh thần cực tả còn hơn… Bernie Sanders!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kamala-harris-steers-to-the-left-5f195c79?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

In Her Campaign Debut, Kamala Harris Steers Left
The implicit message of her first big campaign rally: Swing voters? Who needs ’em.

(By The Editorial Board - WSJ - Updated July 23, 2024 6:03 pm ET)

Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at West Allis Central High School during her first campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisc. on Tuesday Photo: kamil krzaczynski/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Does Kamala Harris think she’s going to win this election by firing up the Democratic base? That’s a serious question after watching her first campaign rally since President Biden’s sudden withdrawal from the 2024 race.

On Tuesday outside of Milwaukee, Ms. Harris was introduced by an “educator” with a doctorate who said that thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration, “I had almost all of my student-loan debt forgiven.”

And if that plank of progressive big government doesn’t appeal, Ms. Harris has others. The VP said she sees a future where “every worker has the freedom to join a union,” and “every person has affordable health care, affordable child care, and paid family leave,” and “every senior can retire with dignity.”

The promise is that Uncle Sam will deliver it all. She also pledged to sign federal laws to ban “assault weapons” and override state abortion limitations.

This is a strange strategy. Ms. Harris is talking as if she’s running in the Democratic primaries and trying to beat California Gov. Gavin Newsom for her party’s presidential nod. In reality she leapfrogged that fraught step and is going straight to the general election.

Mr. Biden’s abrupt resignation has handed her the great gift of the presidential nomination without the necessity of having to appeal to Democratic primary voters. Ms. Harris might enjoy more freedom to maneuver than any major-party nominee in a generation.

This gives her a rare opportunity to reintroduce herself to voters as she wants them to see her. What Ms. Harris stands for today is largely undefined, and she has about 100 days to answer the question.

But one of her vulnerabilities in November is that voters might view her, not without reason, as more of a left-winger than Mr. Biden. Her record in the Senate included supporting Bernie Sanders’s bill to outlaw private health insurance. She could instead be taking the opportunity to build a defense against what is surely the coming GOP assault to define her as a California progressive.

Yet in Milwaukee she sounded as if her main political task is to get Democrats enthused about finishing the pieces of Mr. Biden’s Build Back Better agenda that failed in the Democratic Senate. That means more government entitlements for healthcare, child care, and more progressive culture war.

Swing voters? Who needs ’em. Perhaps she will grow into her candidacy and realize that her challenge is to put some distance between herself and Mr. Biden, broaden her appeal past her old California constituents, and talk directly to “double haters” and moderates in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and other states in play.

Here are some ideas. She could swear off the tax increases that progressives always want to enact. She could say the Administration made a mistake on the border and pledge to fire Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

She could reverse her past support for a ban on oil and gas fracking, while arguing that consumers need low energy prices, and by the way the shale revolution means that the U.S. is no longer at risk of energy blackmail from hostile petrostates. She could say something nice about school choice, which would be a throwback to the Democratic Party position once taken by Barack Obama and Sen. Cory Booker.

Perhaps Ms. Harris is a true progressive believer and will run as one - in which case no one will be more delighted than Donald Trump. She also said in Milwaukee that she’d “stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans,” while claiming that Mr. Trump is planning to cut Social Security and Medicare. But if voters don’t believe this, given how prominently Mr. Trump has moved the GOP on abortion and entitlements, what does Ms. Harris have left?

The implicit message of her first big campaign rally: Swing voters? Who needs ’em.

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