Brace yourselves — the Democratic National Convention is upon us! While this means the country’s main political party seeking to advance the cause of joy… and vasectomies and stuff.

The Babylon Bee has obtained an exclusive itinerary for the DNC and can confirm the following list of must-see moments everyone can look forward to:

1. The ceremonial lighting of a police precinct by Tim Walz and wife: A time-honored Democrat tradition

2. A 3-hour workshop on how to pronounce “Kamala”: Say it right, you racist!

3. Sacrifice to Moloch: The god of the DNC demands innocent blood.

4. Kamala’s dramatic first appearance by falling out of a coconut tree: She’s so charming!

5. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar narrating a special tribute to the brave Hamas paragliders of October 7: Their heroic acts will never be forgotten.

6. Chuck Schumer serving delegates delicious raw cheeseburgers: Chuck’s secret recipe!

7. TAMPON CANNON!: Staffers dressed as abortion pills will fire free tampons into the audience. Delightful!

8. AOC tragically dying once again at the mention of Jan 6: She’s died so many times already. Because of MAGA.

9. DNC leaders wondering if there’s still time to change candidates again: It’s never too late for another coup.

Don’t forget to tune in every night so you don’t miss out on all the latest shenanigans!

Babylon Bee

“This is going to be a great week, and I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible President Joe Biden, who will be speaking later tonight. Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do, we are forever grateful to you. Thank you, Joe,” Harris said.

“Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation. People from every corner of our country and every walk of life are here united by our shared vision for the future of our country, and this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we are moving forward,” Harris added.

“With optimism, hope, and faith, so guided by our love of country, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us, let us fight for the ideals we hold dear, and let us always remember when we fight, we win,” the vice president continued.

WATCH:

VIDEOS AT LINK……………

Several on X, formerly known as Twitter, called out Harris for being “weird” and laughing.

X-POSTS AT LINK…………………..

Harris has been handed bad news from three polls showing she is losing support.

Two of the polls put her behind former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, and a third put her behind the Republican presidential candidate.

Two polls of potential Pennsylvania voters, one by Cygnal and one by Emerson College, gave Trump a one-point lead in the key state with 19 Electoral College votes.

A separate poll from the Napolitan News Service gave the former president a one-point lead across the country.

After Joe Biden quit the race and gave Harris his support on July 21, Harris quickly became the Democratic Party’s front-runner for the presidency. At first, this gave Democrats a clear poll boost.

In more than a dozen national polls, Harris did better than Trump, and she became the favorite to win in November with many of the biggest bookies.

“Between August 12 and 14, RMG Research polled 2,708 likely voters across the United States for Napolitan News Service, which found Trump leading Harris by 46 percent to 45 percent. When undecided voters leaning one way were included, Trump’s margin extended to 49 percent against 47 percent, compared to the last RMG poll a week ago, which put both candidates on 49 percent,” Newsweek reported.

“A Cygnal poll of 800 likely voters in Pennsylvania, conducted on August 14-15, found 44 percent would back Trump in a presidential contest versus 43 percent for Harris and 5 percent for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump increased his polling by 2 points since the last Cygnal survey in July, while Kennedy saw his support fall by 4 points,” the outlet added.

It showed that Trump had a one-point lead over Harris, with 49% of the vote to 49% for Harris. This went up to 51% vs. 49% when people who aren’t sure but lean toward one candidate were added to that candidate’s pool.

When Kennedy was taken into account, Harris and Trump were tied with 47% of the vote, while the independent candidate had 3%.

According to the poll, voters under 40 were more likely to support Harris than Trump (61% to 36%). However, Trump had a bigger lead among voters 50 to 69 (57%) than among voters of any other age.

When it came to Protestant voters, Trump was ahead 58% to 40%, and when it came to Catholic voters, Trump was ahead 60% to 39%.

Eighty-four percent of atheist and agnostic voters chose Harris over thirteen percent, and 56 percent chose Harris over 39 percent of people who didn’t say what religion they followed.

“This is going to be a great week, and I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible President Joe Biden, who will be speaking later tonight. Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do, we are forever grateful to you. Thank you, Joe,” Harris said.

“Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation. People from every corner of our country and every walk of life are here united by our shared vision for the future of our country, and this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we are moving forward,” Harris added.

“With optimism, hope, and faith, so guided by our love of country, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us, let us fight for the ideals we hold dear, and let us always remember when we fight, we win,” the vice president continued.

WATCH:

VIDEOS AT LINK……………

Several on X, formerly known as Twitter, called out Harris for being “weird” and laughing.

X-POSTS AT LINK…………………..

Harris has been handed bad news from three polls showing she is losing support.

Two of the polls put her behind former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, and a third put her behind the Republican presidential candidate.

Two polls of potential Pennsylvania voters, one by Cygnal and one by Emerson College, gave Trump a one-point lead in the key state with 19 Electoral College votes.

A separate poll from the Napolitan News Service gave the former president a one-point lead across the country.

After Joe Biden quit the race and gave Harris his support on July 21, Harris quickly became the Democratic Party’s front-runner for the presidency. At first, this gave Democrats a clear poll boost.

In more than a dozen national polls, Harris did better than Trump, and she became the favorite to win in November with many of the biggest bookies.

“Between August 12 and 14, RMG Research polled 2,708 likely voters across the United States for Napolitan News Service, which found Trump leading Harris by 46 percent to 45 percent. When undecided voters leaning one way were included, Trump’s margin extended to 49 percent against 47 percent, compared to the last RMG poll a week ago, which put both candidates on 49 percent,” Newsweek reported.

“A Cygnal poll of 800 likely voters in Pennsylvania, conducted on August 14-15, found 44 percent would back Trump in a presidential contest versus 43 percent for Harris and 5 percent for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump increased his polling by 2 points since the last Cygnal survey in July, while Kennedy saw his support fall by 4 points,” the outlet added.

It showed that Trump had a one-point lead over Harris, with 49% of the vote to 49% for Harris. This went up to 51% vs. 49% when people who aren’t sure but lean toward one candidate were added to that candidate’s pool.

When Kennedy was taken into account, Harris and Trump were tied with 47% of the vote, while the independent candidate had 3%.

According to the poll, voters under 40 were more likely to support Harris than Trump (61% to 36%). However, Trump had a bigger lead among voters 50 to 69 (57%) than among voters of any other age.

When it came to Protestant voters, Trump was ahead 58% to 40%, and when it came to Catholic voters, Trump was ahead 60% to 39%.

Eighty-four percent of atheist and agnostic voters chose Harris over thirteen percent, and 56 percent chose Harris over 39 percent of people who didn’t say what religion they followed.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, made a surprise appearance at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night, taking the stage to thank President Joe Biden after he was reportedly shoved out of the race a month ago.

“This is going to be a great week, and I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible President Joe Biden, who will be speaking later tonight. Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation, and for all you will continue to do, we are forever grateful to you. Thank you, Joe,” Harris said.

“Looking out at everyone tonight, I see the beauty of our great nation. People from every corner of our country and every walk of life are here united by our shared vision for the future of our country, and this November, we will come together and declare with one voice, as one people, we are moving forward,” Harris added.

“With optimism, hope, and faith, so guided by our love of country, knowing we all have so much more in common than what separates us, let us fight for the ideals we hold dear, and let us always remember when we fight, we win,” the vice president continued.

The “rule of law” sits high on the altar of American culture as a core national value. Law in America is as pure as law can be—impartial, precise, and therefore unquestioned, like the 10 Commandments. The mandarins of law debate fine points such as judicial deference but almost never ask doctors, teachers, employers, or civic leaders whether law supports or hinders them.

But Americans in their everyday activities see a different reality. Law is so dense that it is unknowable, and so complex that even large companies with huge legal staffs can’t comply—more like the 10 Million Commandments. Instead of protecting against abuse, law has become tangles of tripwires that are gamed for selfish purposes. Instead of enhancing freedom, law causes Americans to be fearful and defensive.

The stark discrepancy between legal orthodoxy and legal dysfunction is why the new book by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze is so important. In Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, Gorsuch and Nitze make a long-overdue announcement—The legal emperor has no clothes.

Starting in the 1960s, the rule of law was transformed into an instruction manual. Instead of defining an open field of freedom, law replaced freedom. A small-town magician giving magic shows for children in local libraries with a pet bunny must now comply with the same rules as a circus, including getting a federal license, informing the agency in advance if the bunny travels, and developing a 28-page “disaster relief plan.” The magician got off easy compared to the family orchard in upstate New York, which keeps 13 clipboards to keep track of some 5,000 regulations. Too much law, as Gorsuch and Nitze described, has a similar effect as no law. People in power can exercise arbitrary power, as highlighted in their book:

—A fisherman scrapping out a living was convicted under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act—a financial records law—for misplacing three out of 72 marginally undersized fish. Eight years later, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction, but by then he had lost his income, his home, and years of health.

—When tech wunderkind Aaron Swartz hacked into an academic library and purloined articles from the 1940s without paying, prosecutors offered a plea bargain of several months in jail. When he refused, prosecutors increased the charges so that he might spend half a life behind bars. He later died by suicide.

The abuses of power in both these cases also reveals a philosophical abscess of modern law—the assumption that law should be enforced automatically, as if it were a software program, without application of human values. That’s why there’s a sense of pervasive unfairness.

Law’s quest for universal uniformity is crowding out our freedom to do things differently, or live our values. A Catholic foster child agency with a century of successful placements of needy children was cut-off from public referrals because its religious beliefs prevented it from working with gay married couples.

In Over Ruled, Gorsuch and Nitze focus on how too much law enables abuses of authority. But replacing human responsibility with legal compliance also causes endemic failures in schools and other public activities. It’s the American version of central planning. Aides in nursing homes focus on paperwork instead of what elderly residents need. Employers don’t give job references and candid reviews for fear of a lawsuit. Schools and public agencies are largely unmanageable. Gold-plated building codes make “affordable housing” unaffordable. Getting a permit for a transmission line to Midwest wind farms can take a decade or longer.

For understandable reasons, Justice Gorsuch does not step over the line of separated powers to tell Congress and the president how to fix all this law. But it is not hard to glean the foundational principles that Justice Gorsuch believes should guide reform:

—Law must be knowable, not a trap for the unwary. This requires realigning law with intuitive norms of right and wrong conduct.

—Regulation should focus on avoiding public harms, not imposing one-size-fits-all uniformity on social activities.

—Legal enforcement must be proportional to the harm, not applied arbitrarily to ruin people for foot faults. Officials who abuse their power must be accountable.

—De-regulation is appropriate where law is not protecting any realistic public harm—such as requiring months of training to be licensed as a barber or hairdresser. But most regulatory micromanagement is cured not by deregulation but by simplification—replacing red tape with human responsibility and accountability.

Over Ruled is a powerful indictment by a sitting Supreme Court justice of a modern legal system that resembles a jungle instead of a framework for freedom. The message is loud and clear—American law is overdue for a spring cleaning.

Philip K. Howard is an author, attorney, and chair of Common Good. His new book is Everyday Freedom.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

To Reduce Political Violence, Fight Statism

by William Rampe | Aug 14, 2024 | POLITICS

The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13 — which killed one and seriously injured two bystanders — had a sobering and reflective effect on the political scene. While investigators are still determining the shooter’s motives, it is essential to note that the shooting follows an upward trend in political assassination attempts over the last few years.

This trend will continue as long as the state continues to occupy its predominant position in society. While the motives and backgrounds of actors have differed, most possessed an existential dread over the policies of their intended victims. To stop this type of violence, we have to first reduce the political anxiety of the American people.

This anxiety arises from the belief that the opposition poses such a threat — to democracy or religious liberty, for instance — that those who hold these values must take action to stop it. Although those who use this rhetoric rarely call for violence against their opponents, one could argue that the rhetoric itself condones violent action.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald made this point regarding Trump’s critics in a post on X: “If Trump is Hitler, who will build concentration camps for his critics and never permit another U.S. election — all of which they claim — why would they lament this attack and pray for his recovery?”

Greenwald is correct that hyperbolic language about Trump’s threat contradicts their condemnation of violence. However, using strong or combative language is sometimes necessary to reflect the seriousness of a political issue. Politicians at all levels have passed legislation that violates people’s individual rights; without a free press capable and willing to denounce these actions in strong terms, democracy cannot function.

As Vox’s Eric Levitz argues regarding Trump’s deportation plans, “Many undocumented immigrants were brought to the U.S. as children and know no other home. It seems reasonable to say that Trump presents a threat to their freedom.” The same goes for those who claim that President Biden’s gun control policies “attack the fabric of American liberty.”

Although both sentiments are somewhat exaggerated, they reflect that public policy affects fundamental aspects of people’s lives. Understandably, people would respond dramatically (and occasionally violently) to political decisions.

To some, this conclusion implies that violence will always exist in politics as long as people hold strong political values. This idea is true to some extent. Before the Civil War, there was no compromise over slavery that both sides would find morally acceptable, making conflict inevitable.

However, the majority of political contentions do not invoke the same moral questions as slavery did. Instead, they involve arbitrary impediments to the economic and social lives of citizens regarding issues that do not involve the rights of others.

The growth of government intervention in economics through an increase in total regulatory restrictions, the restrictions placed on parents attempting to choose the right school for their children, and prohibitions on drug use are just a few examples of the statist idea that federal, state and local governments should control personal choices. These restrictions inevitably lead to anger and anxiety in politics because they force citizens to enter the political realm — whether this involves town halls, school board meetings or protests on the street — to fight for their ability to make these decisions.

This politicization of personal choice is the essence of statism. In “The Roots of War,” Ayn Rand explained statism’s results: “The degree of statism in a country’s political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another.” 

These contentions would still occur in a free society, but they would be restricted to existential issues involving the rule of law and national defense, not disagreements over zoning or books in school libraries.

Indeed, the blame for political violence lies with those who commit it. However, the tensions created through the politicization of all areas of life inevitably lead to polarization that lays the foundation for violent acts to occur. The only method through which a society can reduce the chances of violence is to limit the state’s reach over individual choices.

The Democrat National Convention comes to Chicago to (officially) nominate their new and never before voted on (in the 2024 cycle) candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, for President of the United States. And her “stolen valor” but acceptable-to-the-Democrat-antisemitic-base, vice presidential candidate, Tim Walz.

Which makes this another good time to discuss the state of play for the 2024 presidential race.

The Real Clear Politics national average has Harris with a 1.2 percentage point advantage over former President Donald Trump. The average has been going up and down as of late; the irrational exuberance of the Democrats has ended, with the numbers beginning to settle.

Which is really good for me, since I am not sure I could take any more “Harris is surging, we are all doomed” commentary from my hyper online, poll-fixated Republican buddies, three of whom I had to coax down from their window ledges over the past few weeks.

Remember, for Harris to win the electoral college, she must be at least three points up on election day. (Assuming the polls are, this year, not underestimating Trump again, as they did in 2016 and 2020.) Indeed, if you look into the battleground state averages, Trump is up in Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and (most importantly) Pennsylvania. That’s the ball game right there, folks!

And President Joe Biden’s presidential approval is still at 41 percent. Making him, in the eyes of the nation, a failure, who is still very much attached to his vice president, Harris.

Now, in all the attention that has been paid to the bouncing polls, little attention has been paid to the underlying facts/issues of the coming election. As I have said before, these facts are: 1) the economy is bad; 2) the border is porous (with criminals, terrorists, and killers coming in, unvetted); 3) the world is in chaos (resulting in riots in the U.S.); and Harris is an obvious diversity pick of a candidate (based on Joe Biden’s own comments about his selection) who is noted for being disinterested in tackling those tasks handed her and awkwardly insincere, and has a crazy leftwing record to boot.

So, let’s project a little, shall we?

The DNC is projected to have tens of thousands (if not over one hundred thousand) of antisemitic Democrat protesters outside the convention in Chicago to protest U.S. funding for “Israel’s war in Gaza,” Axios’ Monica Eng reported. Violence is expected.

Maybe, just maybe, this coming violent chaos may interfere with the usual convention stage-managed show being planned by the Democrats? Maybe, just maybe, the nutballs running around, exposing themselves on the streets, destroying things, carrying around Hamas and Hezbollah flags, including the “Queers for Palestine” who can’t fathom that Palestine is not for them, the excessively unwashed, pierced, and tattooed violent protestors will not be helpful in appealing to the swing voters of the 2024 election.

Just like their predecessors in rioting weren’t very helpful in the 1968 election.

I am also projecting that the GOP will be focused on exposing Harris’ issues, like they have been doing since she was selected (but not elected). During the Olympics, the GOP cut back on advertising – per conventional wisdom – but now this will pick up steam. There are many excellent attack ads, including this one mentioned by my RedState colleague, that used Harris’ own words against her. (An unforced mistake by Harris.) She will also be tied to the horrendous record of the Biden administration, of which she is the NUMBER 2 (and who does Number 2 work for?), and from which she has made no real effort to separate herself by criticizing Biden publicly on a major issue. (Another mistake.)

I am also projecting that the MSM and the Democrats will keep their focus heavily on Donald Trump. When Trump says something at his free-wheeling rallies, or on social media, the usual process is that the MSM/Democrats edit the video or message/drops context/ignores obvious attempts at humor, or just flat-out lies about what Trump has said, trying to twist it into something to show that DONALD TRUMP IS (STILL) 

during his four-year term, the nation and the world were in a much better place than they are now. The Democrats need something new here because they have cried wolf too often, and no one not already on their team believes their BS anymore. But they won’t change; they believe their own propaganda. (Another mistake.)

I also project that because Harris and Walz are such dedicated leftists, they will continue to promote left-wing solutions to the problems that have arisen as a result of the terrible mismanagement of the Biden-Harris administration. You know, like their decision to promote price controls, a real winner of an idea.

It’s a bold strategy, Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for ’em.

Then we will have the debates. The bull in the china shop approach of Donald Trump vs. the cackling lightweight approach of Kamala Harris. Will Harris be able to do well? Maybe, but she will have to prepare for it, and tone down her word salads and laughter, something that she has been notoriously unwilling to do before.

The vice-presidential debate is pretty easy to call. JD Vance is not going to let up on the stolen valor of Tim Walz, an easily understandable criticism that is quite devasting to Walz with a normal, objective swing voter.

Then, there will be, as mentioned by another RedState colleague, the September Surprise – Judge Juan Merchan may well impose a jail sentence on Trump following the former president’s guilty verdicts on 34 counts of business fraud. This reappearance of obvious lawfare will work wonders — for the Trump campaign.

The closer we get to the election, the more the swing voters are forced to focus on the race and decide who wins it. It is then that they will be exposed, in some cases, for the first time, to many of the arguments made by both sides. They will be told that Donald Trump is the Devil and that Kamala Harris is the lefty diversity vice president of Joe Biden.

Adam Turner

Over the weekend, I took my daughter and her best friend on a day trip from Northern Virginia to Hico, West Virginia. In a matter of 120 minutes, you pass from one of the statistically wealthiest areas in the United States to some of the most destitute roadside neighborhoods you’ll see in the region. The friend asked why it’s like this in West Virginia, and all I could think to say in response was, “All your friends back in Northern Virginia, what do their parents do for work?” It didn’t take her long. She responded, “Oh like mostly the Pentagon, Boeing, and I know a few kids whose parents go out to Quantico.” That’s not an answer to why West Virginia is more poor, but it does explain the wealth of Northern Virginia. Connection to the federal government is an economy of its own, and the tentacles of federal money cover 61 square miles and ten counties known as the DMV.

Billions of dollars float through Virginia and Maryland in the form of federal grants for research and development related to technology, medicine, education, and much more. What that means is that there is seldom a microchip, vaccine, weapons system, satellite, or AI tool that hasn’t benefited directly or indirectly from taxpayer dollars somewhere in its development. Government funds have strings attached

While this arrangement between the public and private sectors has historically been a boon to the United States in a global economy, there is a real risk to American innovation if certain norms are busted by lawmakers looking to score political points. The federal government could seize control of most patents in AI, microchip tech, and pharmaceuticals using a legal tool known as “march-in rights.”

As recently as last week, the Biden administration is under pressure from Democratic lawmakers to use march-in rights to lower pharmaceutical drug prices. This authority, granted by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, empowers the government to take over patents on products developed using federal funding if those products are not reasonably available to the public.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Angus King (I-Maine), along with Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, urging them to quickly finalize the guidance on federal “march-in rights.”

These Democrats think the use of march-in rights is a straightforward way to lower consumer drug prices and would have observers believe the political upside is a mere coincidence in an election year. The norms around “march-in rights” are essential.

This power exists but has never been used before, despite several petitions for the government to do so in recent decades. Like most powers the federal government acquires, there are good reasons it came to pass. The Bayh-Dole Act was originally designed to encourage the commercialization of technological innovation by allowing universities and small businesses to retain patent rights on products developed with federal funding.

This led to the development of many new technologies and medicines ranging from a chemotherapy drug for cancer patients called Taxol to the common allergy medication Allegra and even next-generation firefighting drones.

A federal agency can theoretically leverage march-in rights and grant licenses for a product funded by taxpayer dollars if these four conditions are met:

The current licensee has failed or is unlikely to achieve the “practical application” of the invention. Action is required to address “health or safety needs.” The product is needed to fulfill “public use requirements” as stipulated by federal regulations. The product is not being predominantly “manufactured” within the United States.

It should come as no surprise that the Biden administration is not keen on letting the market determine drug prices. The Biden administration recently debuted a framework for how it might make use of the Bayh-Dole Act to start setting prices on a narrow subset of drugs. What could go wrong? (Everything.)

Most consumer drugs on the market are the result of multiple patents held by developers rather than researchers funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. The latter scenario is one with the ever-present potential of government intervention and seizure of the patent.

That potential is what spooks innovators across the most vital sectors in the American economy. In ventures where the risk is high, firms are less inclined to make major investments. A fine example of this is when the Federal Communications Commission introduced regulatory uncertainty into the broadband sector, which led to a 10% decline in private-sector investments toward broadband. Consumers nationwide saw reduced network coverage and reliability.

This can happen in the artificial intelligence space, microchips, and cloud computing. Federal dollars are everywhere in these industries. Large companies like AMD, Intel, and Nvidia receive federal funding for AI or semiconductor research and could be subject to march-in rights once the dam breaks on its use. The government might justify seizing patents if it determines that the public interest or national security is at stake.

Consider the situation if China were to finally invade or blockade Taiwan, a small neighbor that produces 90% of the global supply of advanced chip technology. This would be a real emergency for consumer products and sensitive government tech used for national security. The same goes for the global race to develop AI technology using federal funds for R&D. If AI is produced and isn’t being deployed in a way that benefits the United States during a potential foreign war, the government could step in using march-in rights on products created through the Bayh-Dole Act.

In these scenarios, with all the norms restricting the government’s use of march-in rights to seize patents shattered, you could see a dramatic decline in the vitality of American tech innovation. Even worse, you could see the government attempt to actively control these patented technologies and award them to domestic partners who will be the most cooperative with the government when pushed.

Say what you will about Apple, but it’s a company that frustrates the U.S. federal government with its dogmatic approach to consumer privacy and walled garden systems. We need more of that, not less.

With so much next-generation technology being developed in the D.C. area with government dollars as a subsidy, we must strongly resist calls in Congress to wield march-in rights inappropriately. Drug prices should be lower, but in market economies, there are better paths to take such as streamlining the approval of generics, expanding the use of Health Savings Accounts, and importing prescription drugs from foreign competitors.

Here’s an important segment of the social engineering component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed under the Obama presidency:

The ACA provides a strong emphasis on preventive medicine and primary care through insurance reform, increased reimbursement for primary care providers, funding to educate these providers, and incentives to attract providers into primary care. The Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are especially well prepared to educate providers on the use of evidence-based preventive care and to assist the U.S. healthcare system in its transformation toward this model.

In other words, under the rubric of preventative medicine, millions of people who might not have gone to see a doctor prior to ACA are being encouraged to go.  To meet the cost of those millions of new patients, new institutions like urgent care centers are springing up.  Physicians’ Assistants (P.A.s) and Nurse Practitioners (N.P.s) are being used to treat these people as well as more serious cases.  The medical schools do not turn out enough M.D.s to treat the 30 million people (new “patients”) who are being channeled into the American health care system.  As my primary care doctor (an M.D.) told me, there is increasing pressure on him to have a practice of only very sick people.  He frankly told me that he does not want the stress of treating only the very sick all day, every day.

So, in the post-ACA morass, we have too many people going to see M.D.s who don’t need an M.D.  We have too many very sick people that have to wait a very long time to get an appointment with an M.D.  And…we have increasing numbers of P.A.s and N.P.s supervising the care of very sick people.  With millions of dollars pouring into the health care system from the federal government, it becomes a boon to hospital income to have less qualified personnel who need to be paid less than M.D.s.  It’s a morass depicting itself as “needed reform.”  From the Hippocratic Oath to do the least harm, the health care world has shifted to the “principle” see the most people and diminish the quality of health care.  There is a trade-off between the numbers served, which increases, and the quality of care and professionalism, which decreases.

When this writer had major heart surgery in 2020, instead of a second surgeon being present during the surgery, as had been the case for heart surgeries and all major surgeries for many decades, a P.A. was included.  Even while I waited on my stretcher to be wheeled into the operating room, I asked the nurse in charge why I did not see a second surgeon as part of the assembled team.  This paradigm shift was in the official surgery summary report.

Additionally, the heart surgery wing of the major New York City hospital (where many of the patients had life-or-death issues) was headed up by an N.P. and a P.A.  Only five years before, I was in the gastrointestinal wing of the same hospital for surgery, where the majority of cases were less life-threatening than the cardio wing, but an M.D. was always in charge and sometimes visited my room, once with a team of residents who were learning about the post-surgical progress.  Five years later, other than a one- minute visit by my surgeon and a five-minute visit by my anesthesiologist over a six-day period, only one M.D. appeared in my hospital room along with my assigned P.A., with their sole purpose being to tell me when I would be discharged.

This shift in attentiveness and expertise was, I believe, at least in part because of the shifts in emphasis regarding health care priorities brought on by Obama’s legislation regarding health care.

Governmental statements summarizing the ACA are obscurely written but can be “translated.”  For example, the National Institutes of Health writes, “Accountability for care may be spread across provider types and over a period of time, which incentivizes those providers to work together and integrate services and provides some degree of risk transfer.”  In English, this means that the ACA discourages individual medical practices.  This would of course mean that patients could be scheduled to see more than one doctor in a given visit, and this would cut costs.

A second change noted by the NIH regarding health care delivery under the ACA states, “Groups of providers (e.g., accountable care organizations or ACOs) with access to data and information systems, and the people who can interpret those data and information, can better provide and coordinate care, and manage costs given the risk and accountability.”  The translation: government payouts incentivize greater use of computerization in the health care system.  This writer’s wife at one point had a cardiologist who sat behind his desk and took notes about what she said, and he looked at his computer most of the time.  Sometimes he came out from behind his desk and looked in her mouth using the light from the flashlight in his iPhone.  At no point did he ever listen to her heart or lungs with a stethoscope.

A health care organization advertising in NYC says that elderly people will like their examination centers because doctors will listen to them (notice: the ad does not say “examine them”) while an assistant to the doctor takes notes on his tablet.  Cost-cutting becomes a higher priority under the ACA.

Not only is the practice of medicine being affected clinically, but the wider use of N.P.s under Obamacare is part of the federal government’s attempt to extend the tentacles of its power into the home under a disguise of “caring.”  An article about the increased use of N.P.s under Obamacare states, “Nursing’s emphasis on preventive healthcare can be traced to Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing, first published in 1859.  She recognized that patient care must first be focused on providing a healthy home environment which she described as having pure air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness, and light.”

According to the writers, increased involvement of N.P.s beautifully connects medicine with the environmental goals of having a healthy, clean, environmentally safe home.  Do the writers of this pro-N.P. article remember when M.D.s normally would make house calls?  Do they believe that homes became healthier and more environmentally sound during the 1940s?

Are you satisfied?  The ACA is a case of monumental overreach and complexity.  The reorganization of medical practice has been less than satisfying.  Costs have risen.  Service has declined.  Life expectancy in the USA declined 2.6 years from 2019 to 2021.  National government-run health care continues to be a non-starter.

E. Jeffrey Ludwig, American Thinker

The socialists funneling ideas to Harris have put together an economic plan redolent of Venezuela or, indeed, the Soviet Union.

Don’t cry for me, Argentina.

Cry for Kamala the Kamunist.

It took them a while, it’s true, but at least Argentina has someone with a rudimentary knowledge of economics in charge.

Indeed, Javier Milei, one of my favorite leaders on the world stage today (along with Viktor Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu, Georgia Meloni, and Nayib Bukele) is a Trump-like dynamo. If I had a more developed entrepreneurial bent, I would try marketing a line of Milei chainsaws in the United States. Just as he took a chainsaw (sometimes literally) to excessive spending, regulation, and bureaucracy in Argentina, so my Milei Chainsaws could be employed against waste, fraud, and abuse here across the fruited plain. Milei’s robust policies have put Argentina on the runway to economic success. They have slashed inflation—some 200% when he took office—and his abolition of rent control—surprise, surprise—has sparked a 195% rise in available housing stock.

Meanwhile, the socialists funneling ideas to Harris have put together an economic plan redolent of Venezuela or, indeed, the Soviet Union. Its centerpiece revolves around centrally promulgated and enforced wage and price controls—a recipe for shortages and inflation.

The plan itself has been ridiculed across the ideological spectrum, from CNN to The Wall Street Journal. “Harris’ plan to stop price gouging,” quoth CNN in a masterpiece of understatement, “could create more problems than it solves.”

The WSJ was a bit franker. For one thing, there is “no evidence that supermarkets or other food retailers are gouging anyone. Food prices are higher than they were before the Biden Presidency, but that is because of inflation.”

And who caused that inflation, Kemo Sabe? The man with the keys to the money duplicating machine, Joe Biden or his handlers.

Moreover, “fixing prices is a recipe for shortages, as controls would discourage grocery suppliers. Voilà, empty store shelves. Price controls have led to shortages everywhere they’ve been tried, from Moscow to Caracas.”

Some of the propaganda press—The New York Times, MSNBC, etc—have been working overtime to keep up a brave face. The low hum you hear is the hydrogen pumps shooting gas into the leaky balloon of the Democrat consortium. As I have noted ever since Kamala was plucked out of the bin marked “ridiculous” and dusted off as the mannequin’s understudy, the intoxicating paroxysms of glee that convulsed the left-leaning media pundits was but a sugar-high. It induced feelings of giddiness but could not last. I thought it would probably linger through the DNC convention next week, but the manic phase is already passing the stupor consequent on the sudden drop in energy has set in.

The depressive funk is not helped by the Harris campaign’s strategy of “out-of-sight-out-of-mind.” They concluded that it worked with Joe Biden in 2020, and so they thought they would try it again. But there is no COVID emergency to shut the country down this time around and it is pretty clear that the Dems’ basement strategy cannot be successfully dusted off and applied to Kamala. True, she is nearly as inarticulate as Biden, but the public will not put up with the Wizard of Oz gambit a second time.

Besides, Team Trump is wheeling out all sorts of embarrassing things that will destroy Harris if they are not effectively answered. For example, a clip of Harris discussing her support of the government taking over private patents by fiat has surfaced and is being industriously circulated.

I will snatch their patents, so that we [the American government] will take over.

Yes we can do that!

The question is: ‘Do you have the will to do it’!?

I have the will to do it.

Noted.

I almost feel sorry for Harris, emphasis on the adverb. Reports are that 100,000 protestors are set to converge on Chicago next week to torch the city and torment Democrat convention-goers. Will it be a bigger, badder version of what happened in Chicago in 1968? That time, golden boy Eugene McCarthy went in on a cloud of fairy dust and came out of the convention 20 points behind Nixon.

Efforts to paint Trump and JD as “weird” have failed miserably, as have the embarrassing efforts to gild the Harris-Walz socialist platform and history of failure by stealing various Trump ideas like exempting tips from federal income tax.

Even more damaging have been the mounting attacks by conservatives on the whole Harris-Walz concession. Governor Walz has turned out to be a special kind of liability, a sick freak who orders schools to put tampons in boys’ bathrooms while sitting back and watching Minneapolis burn as the BLM rioters rampaged through the city. His patina of plaid, dad-like folksiness is completely belied by his sympathy for Communist China not to mention his personal inclinations.

Why was Walz picked as Harris’s running mate in the first place? One midwestern friend might have hit upon the answer. Tim Walz, he said, was what the coastal elites of this country believe a midwesterner looks and acts like. He has all the “progressive” attitudes of the left, but he articulates them accoutered in a more string-tie, aw-shucks manner

I expected a certain amount of small-caliber fire by now, but it turns out that Trump supporters are already pounding Harris-Walz with heavy artillery. For example, speaking on “The Five” just a few days ago, Greg Gutfeld utterly vaporized Harris’s record on the border, inflation, and other issues.

What’s coming will not be pretty. But I predict that it will be cathartic. It’s hard to know just how much of a hose Trump’s victory will be for the rank Augean stables of Democrat incumbency. Doubtless, many clumps of ordure will remain. Many, however, will be flushed into the impatient, rushing currents of change. I am looking forward to it.

Roger Kimball, American Greatness

Much of human history has been defined by the actions of around 50 to 70 empires that once ruled large swathes of people across vast chunks of the globe. Each of these empires, whether large or small, for ill or for good, has influenced world history. It’s hard to say which has had the greatest impact on society — it is, after all, somewhat subjective and hard to measure — but some have undeniably shaped the course of human history, forever and irrevocably. Here are six such empires, from the mighty Persians to the globe-spanning British.

Persian Empire

Around 550 BCE, Cyrus II of Persia — later to be known as Cyrus the Great — conquered a number of neighboring kingdoms, including Media and Babylon, and brought them together under his control. In so doing, he founded the first Persian Empire, also known as the Achaemenid Empire. Centered in modern-day Iran, it became one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Egypt and the Balkans to parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. For more than two centuries, the empire was a global center of culture, religion, science, arts, and technology. But then came the Persian ruler Xerxes, whose failed invasion of Greece in 480 BCE brought about a period of decline.

Weakened, the Persian Empire eventually fell in 330 BCE at the hands of the invading armies of Alexander the Great of Macedonia.

Roman Empire

Following a period of unrest and civil wars — including the assassination of Julius Caesar — the Roman Republic came to an end and Augustus Caesar was crowned the first ruler of the new Roman Empire in 27 BCE. At its height in 117 CE, Rome controlled all the land from Western Europe to the Middle East, and was the most powerful political and military entity the world had yet seen. The impact of the Roman Empire on the modern world is hard to overstate. Our art, architecture, laws, technology, and engineering — even the very words we speak — have all been heavily influenced by the ancient Romans.

But even an empire as mighty as Rome was destined to fall. A series of Gothic invasions heralded a general decline, and in 476 CE, the Western Roman Empire fell. The Eastern Roman Empire — also known as the Byzantine Empire — remained until 1453, but the glory days of the Roman Empire had reached their end.

Han Dynasty

Founded in 206 BCE and established by a commoner named Liu Bang, the Han dynasty was the second great imperial dynasty of China. It spanned more than four centuries and is considered a golden age in Chinese history. Despite much political turbulence, the dynasty helped cement Confucianism as the state religion and opened up a world-changing trade route with Europe: the Silk Road.

The Han dynasty is also known for its many innovations that shaped the world as we know it today. Developments in everything from record-keeping to agriculture and health care had a global impact, while inventions such as the rudder, the blast furnace, the wheelbarrow, suspension bridges, and paper forever changed the way we live.

Mongol Empire

At the height of its powers, the Mongol Empire covered around 9 million square miles, making it the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever seen. The empire was founded by Genghis Khan, a former tribal leader, in 1206. Genghis’ early victories gave him control of the whole of what is now Mongolia. He and his fearsome armies then engaged in a period of aggressive expansion that conquered most of Eurasia, leaving a trail of ruin in its wake. But the Mongol Empire was far more complex than its notorious hordes would suggest.

Under Genghis and his successors, the Mongols reformed his people’s laws, created a military-feudal form of government, and enhanced trade (including along the Silk Road) throughout his conquered territories. His armies, meanwhile, were quick to adopt advanced technologies of the time, such as powerful siege weapons and possibly gunpowder, while perfecting their mounted hit-and-run tactics. The Mongols were also innovators who, through their expansion, helped introduce military technology to new lands, including their famed composite bow and stirrups.

Ottoman Empire

From humble beginnings as a provincial principality in Anatolia (part of modern-day Turkey), the Ottoman Empire rose to become one of the most powerful and long-lasting empires in history, spanning an incredible six centuries from the early 1300s to the aftermath of World War I. The Islamic superpower ruled large swathes of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North Africa, and reached the height of its powers under the appropriately named Suleiman the Magnificent.

Suleiman, who ruled the empire from 1520 to 1566, brought about a golden age of geographic expansion, trade, economic growth, and huge cultural and artistic developments, while forging an empire that embraced ethnic diversity and religious tolerance.

British Empire

The British Empire remains the largest empire the world has ever seen. Beginning with overseas colonies in the Americas in the 16th century, British expansion then accelerated in the 18th century, particularly in Asia. With the aid of the London-based East India Company, the empire established trading posts around the world, which in turn developed into a worldwide system of dependencies, including colonies and protectorates.

At its height in the early 20th century, the British Empire covered around 25% of the world’s land surface, including large parts of North America, Australia, Africa, and Asia. In 1913, it ruled over some 412 million inhabitants in its entirety — about 23% of the world’s population at the time.

Such a vast territory was unsustainable, however, and, as more and more nations fought for their independence, the empire began to crumble. But the influence of the British Empire upon the world was massive — and remains a hugely controversial subject. Once a source of pride in Britain, the nation’s imperial past is now more often seen as a dark and often brutal period of colonialism. Since the decline of the empire, more than 60 countries have gained their independence from the United Kingdom.