Being mad that VP Harris is forgoing bad policy positions in favor of better policy position that are more proximate to their own is such a classic anti-anti vibe.

— Sarah Longwell (@SarahLongwell25) July 31, 2024

Here’s the thing. I believe in changing one’s mind. God knows, I’ve changed mine pretty dramatically and will continue to do so. I do not, however, trust that Harris’s pivot is sincere. It looks very much like an electoral strategy that will be discarded once the goal of getting elected is achieved.

A real change of mind is slow and painful. It’s triggered by something other than a need to get elected. People who can pivot on the drip of a hat when a presidential nomination looms are hardly sincere. They’ll say anything to get elected and then forget all about their promises the moment you vote for them.

“Yes, but Trump lies, too!” He does, and that’s why I’m not voting for him, thank you.

Political partisanship is a mental defect. If you can’t see your candidate or party in a clear-eyed way, you’ll be had over and over again.

I’ve decided, folks. I’m going to do my own literary translation of Vynnychenko’s Song of Israel and then publish it. I’ll bring both sides of my ancestry together in this project. The National Library of Israel says they can photocopy the original for me and it will cost all of $14.

The only existing translation was never published and it’s very word-for-word and plagued with mistakes. Vynnychenko’s biggest thing is the beauty of the language, and it deserves to be translated well. Of course, readers of this blog will not have to wait for publication. I’ll send the translation to everybody who is interested.

“Weird” was always a high compliment on the left. “Keep Portland weird” isn’t a reference to Portland being conservative, and everybody knows that. Bumper stickers of “Keep XYZ weird” usually appear on vehicles with Bernie stickers, hippie signage, and “be kind to cats.” Pink hair, piercings, unusual lifestyles, drag queens – this was all a hallmark of the left.

Three days into the Kamala campaign, though, the weird has become bad and quirkiness is ridiculed. Instead, the campaign features corporate drones on Zoom calls who chirp motivational slogans at thousands of tiny squares – pun intended.

Between having sex with furniture and sitting on a Zoom call, would anybody with an ounce of common sense choose Zoom? It’s unexpected that between being weird and going corporate the grandchildren of Woodstock chose corporate.

Why not, though? Democrats became the party of Wall Street and austerity, so why not the party of “bash the weirdo”?

Natalia is the daughter of a Russian aristocrat in the early years of the twentieth century. Aaron is the son of a Jewish tailor. In the Russian Empire, Jews lived in the Pale of Settlement and experienced every abuse and degradation one can imagine. The animosity towards Jews was stoked by the imperial authorities, which led to horrific pogroms in 1905. People like Natalia and Aaron belonged not only to different but to actively warring tribes.

But in Vynnychenko’s play The Song of Israel, they meet and fall in love. Their families oppose their union but the young couple stands strong in defense of its feelings. “All we want is to be persons. Human beings,” they say. “We don’t want to be Jews or Russians. We don’t want anything to do with religion, tradition, culture, or tribe. We are simply individuals.”

Finally, Aaron and Natalia manage to buckle their families’ will and get married. Of course, Aaron has to convert to Christianity first because it was still the Russian Empire, and only religious marriages counted. But they do get married, and have a cute little baby, and Aaron becomes a famous musician, and they are rich. Yay, right?

No, not yay. Blank-slatism was as stupid in 1922 when Vynnychenko wrote the play as it is today. Natalia’s and Aaron’s version of “imagine there’s no countries… and no religions, too” lasts them less than 2 years. They discover that they are not empty vessels for rootless, self-generating personhood. Religion, tradition, culture and tribe are inside them and always will be. Their plan to be “just people and not part of anything” becomes a source of tragedy not only for them and others.

Vynnychenko spent his life trying to bring about the “no countries and no religions” dream of socialism. But as an artist, he knew it was all bunkum. We are the continuation of the story of our family, tribe, and culture. And that’s a good thing.

Yes, there is an English translation of the play, and I’m holding in my hands what I believe is the only copy of it in existence. I want to figure out a way to scan, edit, and make it public. It needs major editing.

I’ll say it again: Democrats know who they need to mobilize to win. That’s why they’re tailoring their campaign to white women. Republicans need to mobilize white men but they’re too afraid of being called racist so they won’t make any specific appeal to that group.

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 29, 2024

I don’t know, I’m a white woman. A very persuadable white woman. And I’m seeing nothing but efforts to alienate me on the part of the Harris campaign. The condescending, pursed-lipped, scolding messages from black influencers, “OK, white women. Don’t mess this up!” raise my hackles. I switch off after that because it’s bloody insulting. And I’ve already seen several different such performances with some subservient basic broads responding, “Ready to follow orders!” Barf.

I’ve heard nothing about school closures and who’s going to take responsibility. I’ve heard nothing about gender mania and how it’s going to be removed from schools. I’ve heard nothing about how I’ll start paying less at the grocery store.

All I’m hearing from the Harris campaign is racismsexism, racismsexism, racismsexism. White dudes, white women, black and brown this and that. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, that’s all I’m getting. Maybe it’s different on TV but I don’t watch.

So I’m not sure where and how Dems are appealing to white women. I mean, they are appealing to those who were theirs to begin with but the ones who are persuadable either way (meaning, the ones with a functioning brain), not at all.

These are the percentages of votes Venezuela’s parties received in yesterday’s election:

I said the total would be 146%, so I’m clearly off. Not by much, though.

In case people don’t know, 146% was once announced as the percentage of Russians who voted for Putin.

Do Dems really want to run on 2020?

Kamala had a disgraceful 2019-2020, so why add the governor of Minnesota to the ticket to further remind voters of how massively Establishment Democrats screwed up in the crisis after George Floyd’s death?

https://www.stevesailer.net/p/tim-walz-for-vp

Because we barely remember what happened yesterday. Convincing people that Kamala’s actions in 2019-20 were phenomenal will take a few social media ads, a few articles in the press, and everybody will chant happily about how fantastic everything was, and riots? What riots?

I have somewhat disregarded my Q&As and the time has come to catch up, especially since there are good, juicy Qs coming in.

There must be a way to supply radioisotopes that does not involve paying for a gigantic bureaucracy whose Security Council this month is presided by Russia, of all evildoers. Why are we paying for a platform for Russia to lecture everybody on world peace and how to be a real democracy when with that money we could be glutting ourselves on radioisotopes? A quarter, I believe, of what we give in Foreign Aid goes to the UN. But why? We can bypass this unwieldy colossus and give the money directly to needy foreigners if the desire to do so overcomes us.

Also, Guterres is such a woke, pro-Russian sicko that it would be a blessing never to hear from him again.

I’m from the USSR, so I despise socialism. Chávez and Maduro impoverished the nation to such an extent that people leave in droves. Over 7 million left the country, which is staggering. Hunger, repression, torture of dissidents. Young people raped with sticks for protesting peacefully. The revolutionary government lets gangs of lumpen supporters rob, loot, and humiliate normal people. In short, it’s a socialist dictatorship. Nasty, brutal and at war with anything that isn’t gross, ugly and mean.

It would be great if Venezuela finally learned the lesson of socialism and moved on. Hispanic societies are historically enamored of socialism and will not relinquish this dream until they get to imbibe every last drop of its poison. And maybe not even then. Trying to prevent them from doing it for their own good only makes them mad. The US spent the entire Cold War preventing them, and they only pout and screech about imperialism. I say, give them complete freedom and accept zero refugees because other people’s experiments with socialism is not our problem.

These people, honestly:

To Win, Kamala Harris Must Reset The Democrat Immigration Narrative.

Harris has a once in a generation opportunity to win back Latino voters and the race but only if she leads her Party back from the brink. https://t.co/hQM4tHUYs0

— Mike Madrid (@madrid_mike) July 29, 2024

Narrative, narrative. It’s all about narrative. It’s all about finding the right words. The possibility that it isn’t about words but actions doesn’t even cross their minds.

I will confess that I did not manage to read the article in full because I got to the part where the author informs us that “illegal immigration rates are now lower than they were during the Trump administration”, and there’s a limit to how much lying anybody who is not a Democrat can process.

My friend @mikemadrid is right.

The Harris campaign and Biden admin have a glittering opportunity to steal the march on Trump on Venezuela.

Zip down to Miami, big speech on breaking the back of the corrupt Maduro regime. Freedom on the march.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 29, 2024

Yes, let’s totally do it and ensure that the socialist regime survives for the next 100 years in Venezuela.

Latin Americans despise the US and feel very contrarian to it. Whatever the US supports, they will oppose, and vice versa. The only good strategy is to stay out of it and let Venezuelans decide for themselves if they are fed up with the Bolivarian revolution or want more of it.

Also, a country where two elections in a row a large chunk of the population believes that the results were stolen or manipulated should truly stay away from discussing anybody else’s election results.