Harris is a microcosm of the Affirmative Action incompetent failures we now have in the millions and across half century and throughout the public and private sector; the vast majority selected not because they were the best qualified but for cosmetic and quota reasons. Affirmative Action Privilege in jobs, scholarships and politics. Meanwhile the cities have over 80% of public school children flunk the grade level proficiency tests; the can’t read or add but will be hired for skin color quotas. So many on welfare and gov income are being carried by so relatively few productive private sector taxpayers that it can’t be sustained much longer.
Well said Libertarian, my brother in law is a pilot for United, from a family of pilots, United is about as woke as they come in the airlines (yet, a good airline overall), and though I just can't make myself believe they would push an unqualified pilot based on their race, he says they are doing all they can to push that boundary. I have to think, ultimately, greed (not wanting to bankrupt the company with unqualified pilots) will win over virtue signaling (see how diverse we are).
Thanks Patrick. I liked this point in there also; “The core issue is that changing political mores have established the systematic promotion of the unqualified and sidelining of the competent.”
I read more of it. The disaster on the USS Bonhomme Richard sue to diversity was striking. As well as the risks due to air traffic control. Seems to me that a group representing 13% of the population, who comprises the vast majority of the 80% failures in urban math and reading grade level proficiency, and has institutional privilege for jobs; results in just what the article indicates around risks of “Diversity over Meritocracy”.
The incompetent deeply resent everyone else, and band together to get enough political power to get themselves appointed to positions where their incompetence actively threatens lives.
The Democratic Party promotes this weaponized resentment because it gets them votes.
"Man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of the love and esteem of men, and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt. The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults." - Pascal
Good article, using Kamala as an example, to expose how far removed from the truth that Leftists can get, to the extent that they get lost or entangled in their own lies. Kamala is a deep entanglement for them. Please God, may the paganDems soon crash and burn by the weight of their own pride/arrogance/ lies /deceptions/theft and pukish 'malarkey'.
Problem is, the polls before the 2022 midterms also showed the Democrats as extremely unpopular by 10 points. Somehow the vote counting comes out different. It’s not just that the Democrats are “comfortable” with lies. Hard to believe the nonchalance/ impunity unless at least some of them are confident that the fix is in against Republican resurgence, regardless.
Agreed. Here is something to think about, however... I live in MN and, Scott Jensen's complete intolerance regarding baby-killing aside, republicans were only 4% away from owning the Trifecta(Gov, SecState, AG). 20% of republicans did not vote.
Point: Vote early and often and get everyone you know off their asses.
We are making a big push in AZ to GET OUT THE GOP VOTE... to reanimate disaffected Republicans (as well as awakened bluedog Dems and Independents) and, if need be, to SHAME them into voting! By now any sentient, conservative- minded person - Republican or not - has got to see what the stakes are. It truly is 2024... or never.
From a distance I feel the AZ republican party is like GA and completely anti-America First; completely in the McCain camp. How else do you explain several election judges being threatened with felonies if they DIDN'T certify the last two elections?
"...you’ll see just how disconnected from reality the Democrats have become. They can’t handle the actual truth." Which is why I cancelled my subscription from The Free Press in honor of this space. Enriching NYC diehards who are insulated from the truth is something I cannot do.
The Democrat party rigged the 2016 primary against Bernie and should be noted.
Tulsi destroyed Kamala and she left the race shortly after that exchange.
I canceled the FP. The articles appeared to be assignments to ultra leftists to cover people they held in contempt, but were ordered to be neutral about, or "fair" or something. The articles were so superficial it was like the authors had based them on partial readings of at most one article in Wikipedia. I don't understand why leftist journalists have to always do that oozing condescension thing. It's like they feel compelled to use every article as an opportunity to insult their readers.
Yeah. The FP writers (most of them) are typical Leftist journos who are trying, sort of, to suppress their biases, but the condescension comes oozing through anyway. It is perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of today's Leftist, their absolute certainty about their own moral superiority.
They trot Douglass Murray out as eye candy to create the illusion of evenhandedness.
Appreciate the first hand knowledge that Sasha Stone brings to the analysis and forecast because it helps me understand the landscape and likely outcomes much better. Her essays are like a map on how to navigate the land of The Wizard of Oz.
I guess If this VP thing doesn’t work out for Kamala, she could always do a cooking show on cable. Her specialty, word salad!
Sasha, you rock. Wonderful piece.
Kamala’s kinda krazy. And your piece didn’t include How she goes through staff like toilet paper, seasoned, high level Dem white house operatives from Obama admin, cashed out after weeks of working with this scatterbrained VP.
I hope Biden runs with Harris, that they don’t get sidelined by their party. If they do, they’ll just get replaced by a watered-down version, Biden-lite, and all of the awful trends they’ve promoted will continue. They are so beatable. Hopefully they stick around to be beaten.
Comfortable lies describes the Left perfectly. Combine the mainstream media all too happy to promote those comfortable lies and that is exactly how someone as lightweight as Kamala Harris rises to the Vice Presidency.
The hard core thirty percent of voters who "vote blue no matter who" obsess over race and gender. Frankly the rest of the country does not. However the Democrat dilemma is that if you frustrate this core, while they'd never vote red, they will sit home.
That delicate dance of pleasing the core enough to motive them out the door to vote, without making a mistake that keeps them home, is how we end up with Kamala.
To a hard left communist such as Biden, core American values are extreme. He and his supporters are the antithesis of American values. They lie all the time, even when the truth woulld serve tham well.
"Gender is a (social) construct"? How about race? A "social construct" invented by Whites? Hey, everybody knows that!
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, the Sanskrit word "varna", typically translated as "caste", actually means "color". This is to say that race, in terms of skin color, was "invented" about 4000 years ago in India by non-Whites, on the basis of a genetic trait that was objectively observable. Oh well. Who needs reality when we have ideology? Never let the facts get in the way of a good story!
Given that Leftist Ideology is more about race than gender, it is past time for us to "take the bull by the horns" and "speak truth to ideology". Race is a social construct, invented by Whites? No, it isn't. As I have (I hope) said before, Leftist Ideology has its own Holy Trinity: fallacies, ignorance, and hate. What we have here, among the supposedly great and wise Lefty Thought Leaders, is ignorance. Or, what we have here is failure to self-educate.
“Never let the facts get in the way of a good story” is actually very quotable. Really pisses me off, though. Ordinary news thus competes with the fiction, I, um, try to write as fiction.
I actually got that from a screenwriter that I *hate*: whoever it was who wrote Brave Heart and Secretariat. The Battle of Stirling Bridge without a bridge? Ugh.
The left has one truth right - sex (the physical act) is a valid means of ascending the ranks. I wonder how many lower ranking women/transgender/gay politicos are out there right now planning out their path to the top and sequencing their "conquests" at just the right pace so that they too can be the right person for the moment. Boy, that's hard work.
Actually, promotion through sex acts might involve more skills than the traditional strategy of just kissing asses. Might even qualify as one of the few remaining meritocracies.
Yes, one could! LOL! Seriously though, I have known some women who leveraged their car-stopping beauty very successfully. It took them a lot of sustained effort over a number of years, but in the end, they achieved their goals. They earned my respect---their career path required high levels of innate gifts, intelligent strategies, and a lot of stamina. They also had to put up with a lot of mistreatment while they were rookies.
I seem to be missing something big, this morning, and either I must have had a stroke overnight or I’m beyond the writers’ thoughts. For example we all know Democrats want immigrants because they are expected to be Democrats, so Musk’s comment is stupid. Then too, why does anyone at all care in any way about Harris? What person could be less relevant, than an idiot who makes AOC look smart?
Ken, you overslept again. It’s 2024 and Biden/Harris won re-election since Trump was in jail, in-person voting was cancelled due to Covid 17 new variant, Mexico became the 51st state and our men are dying by the tens of thousands in a war with Russia in the Ukraine.
Joe, Kamala, Hillary and Donald are all unpopular to impartial, sane Americans.
Although Biden is a degenerate, it's difficult to determine whether he has managed to become more unpopular than Trump, because that would require accurate polling, if not a fair election.
The short list of alternatives have names that would have been fun to work with; eg “Val Demings leaps off cliff with the others”, “Keisha Lance’s Bottom again at presser”, and “Karen Bass says she’s no Karen but does have a big bass”.
Harris is a microcosm of the Affirmative Action incompetent failures we now have in the millions and across half century and throughout the public and private sector; the vast majority selected not because they were the best qualified but for cosmetic and quota reasons. Affirmative Action Privilege in jobs, scholarships and politics. Meanwhile the cities have over 80% of public school children flunk the grade level proficiency tests; the can’t read or add but will be hired for skin color quotas. So many on welfare and gov income are being carried by so relatively few productive private sector taxpayers that it can’t be sustained much longer.
Well said Libertarian, my brother in law is a pilot for United, from a family of pilots, United is about as woke as they come in the airlines (yet, a good airline overall), and though I just can't make myself believe they would push an unqualified pilot based on their race, he says they are doing all they can to push that boundary. I have to think, ultimately, greed (not wanting to bankrupt the company with unqualified pilots) will win over virtue signaling (see how diverse we are).
https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/06/01/complex-systems-wont-survive-the-competence-crisis/
Thanks Patrick. I liked this point in there also; “The core issue is that changing political mores have established the systematic promotion of the unqualified and sidelining of the competent.”
Excellent article! Thanks for posting it.
You're welcome. It explains so much.
I read more of it. The disaster on the USS Bonhomme Richard sue to diversity was striking. As well as the risks due to air traffic control. Seems to me that a group representing 13% of the population, who comprises the vast majority of the 80% failures in urban math and reading grade level proficiency, and has institutional privilege for jobs; results in just what the article indicates around risks of “Diversity over Meritocracy”.
The core of the problem is weaponized resentment.
The incompetent deeply resent everyone else, and band together to get enough political power to get themselves appointed to positions where their incompetence actively threatens lives.
The Democratic Party promotes this weaponized resentment because it gets them votes.
"Man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of the love and esteem of men, and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt. The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults." - Pascal
Good article, using Kamala as an example, to expose how far removed from the truth that Leftists can get, to the extent that they get lost or entangled in their own lies. Kamala is a deep entanglement for them. Please God, may the paganDems soon crash and burn by the weight of their own pride/arrogance/ lies /deceptions/theft and pukish 'malarkey'.
As an outsider I am amazed that Ms Gabbard was not the lead Democrat instead of the retard and bimbo who are running your country into the ground .
Gabbard skin was not dark enough; that simple, Amr.
No, Gabbard wasn't sufficiently on board with war and empire.
I love Tulsi Gabbard. She’s solid. Totally respect her.
I wish she would step up and be more direct to the basic failings of institutions. Agencies. Government.
Whatever.
She’s young. And has plenty of time.
But We could sure use her now Getting a good start of speaking to the disaster of government and what’s needed to correct it.
She could be so helpful. People listen to her. I know I do.
She’s a true force. I love her.
We need those in government to step and the rest of us have to do our share.
I treat no human as an oracle. I do not support politicians but policies. That said, I by and large support Gabbard over any realistic alternative.
Oh I agree. But just imagine. Tulsi in…. let’s clean up this government mess mode.
And this is how we are going to do it. Step by Step. Tulsi style.
Thanks
Problem is, the polls before the 2022 midterms also showed the Democrats as extremely unpopular by 10 points. Somehow the vote counting comes out different. It’s not just that the Democrats are “comfortable” with lies. Hard to believe the nonchalance/ impunity unless at least some of them are confident that the fix is in against Republican resurgence, regardless.
The fix is in, I have no doubt. I should have started a ballot printing/filling business when I had the chance.
Agreed. Here is something to think about, however... I live in MN and, Scott Jensen's complete intolerance regarding baby-killing aside, republicans were only 4% away from owning the Trifecta(Gov, SecState, AG). 20% of republicans did not vote.
Point: Vote early and often and get everyone you know off their asses.
We are making a big push in AZ to GET OUT THE GOP VOTE... to reanimate disaffected Republicans (as well as awakened bluedog Dems and Independents) and, if need be, to SHAME them into voting! By now any sentient, conservative- minded person - Republican or not - has got to see what the stakes are. It truly is 2024... or never.
From a distance I feel the AZ republican party is like GA and completely anti-America First; completely in the McCain camp. How else do you explain several election judges being threatened with felonies if they DIDN'T certify the last two elections?
Curious... Why do you think that? I love what she brings. What am I missing?
Convince me that Kamala Harris wasn't chosen because she is Biden's best insurance against assassination or other means of being removed from office.
"...you’ll see just how disconnected from reality the Democrats have become. They can’t handle the actual truth." Which is why I cancelled my subscription from The Free Press in honor of this space. Enriching NYC diehards who are insulated from the truth is something I cannot do.
The Democrat party rigged the 2016 primary against Bernie and should be noted.
Tulsi destroyed Kamala and she left the race shortly after that exchange.
Great post as usual! Have a wonderful weekend.
Yep, I'm about done with the FP, too...just wanted to stick around for a while to harass Bari and Nellie...somebody's gotta do it...
I canceled the FP. The articles appeared to be assignments to ultra leftists to cover people they held in contempt, but were ordered to be neutral about, or "fair" or something. The articles were so superficial it was like the authors had based them on partial readings of at most one article in Wikipedia. I don't understand why leftist journalists have to always do that oozing condescension thing. It's like they feel compelled to use every article as an opportunity to insult their readers.
Yeah. The FP writers (most of them) are typical Leftist journos who are trying, sort of, to suppress their biases, but the condescension comes oozing through anyway. It is perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of today's Leftist, their absolute certainty about their own moral superiority.
They trot Douglass Murray out as eye candy to create the illusion of evenhandedness.
Good on you for it.
Haha I did the same! TFP is so out of touch.
Same for me. Sasha’s Substack is much better than anything TFP has put out lately.
Very correct - UNIPARTY with left and right sides.
Appreciate the first hand knowledge that Sasha Stone brings to the analysis and forecast because it helps me understand the landscape and likely outcomes much better. Her essays are like a map on how to navigate the land of The Wizard of Oz.
I guess If this VP thing doesn’t work out for Kamala, she could always do a cooking show on cable. Her specialty, word salad!
Sasha, you rock. Wonderful piece.
Kamala’s kinda krazy. And your piece didn’t include How she goes through staff like toilet paper, seasoned, high level Dem white house operatives from Obama admin, cashed out after weeks of working with this scatterbrained VP.
I hope Biden runs with Harris, that they don’t get sidelined by their party. If they do, they’ll just get replaced by a watered-down version, Biden-lite, and all of the awful trends they’ve promoted will continue. They are so beatable. Hopefully they stick around to be beaten.
Comfortable lies describes the Left perfectly. Combine the mainstream media all too happy to promote those comfortable lies and that is exactly how someone as lightweight as Kamala Harris rises to the Vice Presidency.
The hard core thirty percent of voters who "vote blue no matter who" obsess over race and gender. Frankly the rest of the country does not. However the Democrat dilemma is that if you frustrate this core, while they'd never vote red, they will sit home.
That delicate dance of pleasing the core enough to motive them out the door to vote, without making a mistake that keeps them home, is how we end up with Kamala.
To a hard left communist such as Biden, core American values are extreme. He and his supporters are the antithesis of American values. They lie all the time, even when the truth woulld serve tham well.
"Gender is a (social) construct"? How about race? A "social construct" invented by Whites? Hey, everybody knows that!
Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, the Sanskrit word "varna", typically translated as "caste", actually means "color". This is to say that race, in terms of skin color, was "invented" about 4000 years ago in India by non-Whites, on the basis of a genetic trait that was objectively observable. Oh well. Who needs reality when we have ideology? Never let the facts get in the way of a good story!
I should have summed up.
Given that Leftist Ideology is more about race than gender, it is past time for us to "take the bull by the horns" and "speak truth to ideology". Race is a social construct, invented by Whites? No, it isn't. As I have (I hope) said before, Leftist Ideology has its own Holy Trinity: fallacies, ignorance, and hate. What we have here, among the supposedly great and wise Lefty Thought Leaders, is ignorance. Or, what we have here is failure to self-educate.
“Never let the facts get in the way of a good story” is actually very quotable. Really pisses me off, though. Ordinary news thus competes with the fiction, I, um, try to write as fiction.
I actually got that from a screenwriter that I *hate*: whoever it was who wrote Brave Heart and Secretariat. The Battle of Stirling Bridge without a bridge? Ugh.
The left has one truth right - sex (the physical act) is a valid means of ascending the ranks. I wonder how many lower ranking women/transgender/gay politicos are out there right now planning out their path to the top and sequencing their "conquests" at just the right pace so that they too can be the right person for the moment. Boy, that's hard work.
Actually, promotion through sex acts might involve more skills than the traditional strategy of just kissing asses. Might even qualify as one of the few remaining meritocracies.
One could argue that the former and the latter are one and the same.
Yes, one could! LOL! Seriously though, I have known some women who leveraged their car-stopping beauty very successfully. It took them a lot of sustained effort over a number of years, but in the end, they achieved their goals. They earned my respect---their career path required high levels of innate gifts, intelligent strategies, and a lot of stamina. They also had to put up with a lot of mistreatment while they were rookies.
I seem to be missing something big, this morning, and either I must have had a stroke overnight or I’m beyond the writers’ thoughts. For example we all know Democrats want immigrants because they are expected to be Democrats, so Musk’s comment is stupid. Then too, why does anyone at all care in any way about Harris? What person could be less relevant, than an idiot who makes AOC look smart?
I’m sure someone will explain.
Ken, you overslept again. It’s 2024 and Biden/Harris won re-election since Trump was in jail, in-person voting was cancelled due to Covid 17 new variant, Mexico became the 51st state and our men are dying by the tens of thousands in a war with Russia in the Ukraine.
Damn. I knew I shoulda stayed outa that bottle.
You do realize, Mexico would be the 50th state? Following Texas’ secession?
Snap. I didn’t factor that in.
Joe, Kamala, Hillary and Donald are all unpopular to impartial, sane Americans.
Although Biden is a degenerate, it's difficult to determine whether he has managed to become more unpopular than Trump, because that would require accurate polling, if not a fair election.
I am definitely both partial and insane by your def. Fortunately Idc what you think. Trump is The Man.
The short list of alternatives have names that would have been fun to work with; eg “Val Demings leaps off cliff with the others”, “Keisha Lance’s Bottom again at presser”, and “Karen Bass says she’s no Karen but does have a big bass”.
Very clever, Libertarian! LOL!