The Democrats think they will pitch a fast one, less than 100 days before the election, coronating a radical, not very smart candidate as a substitute for a clearly demented president. They plan to avoid any unscripted remarks by her and any interviews or debates. The wisdom of keeping her mouth shut is evident. How long can they hide the Obama-Kerry-Harris close ties with the nuclear-weapon-seeking, terrorist-supporting Islamists of Iran who want nothing more than to destroy America? How long can the press allow Harris to airbrush her very radical political record?

Harris

Following Biden’s disastrous failure in the CNN-sponsored debate and the subsequent failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump in which the U.S Secret Service was, at a minimum, grossly negligent or complicit as evidence about events continues to unfold, Biden suddenly withdrew from his reelection campaign and hours later endorsed Kamala Harris for the nomination. Every time either of the two appears in public, it’s a signal to the world how weak the U.S. is at the top. This week, for example, reporters covered the return of U.S. prisoners from Russia, another transaction in which we got innocent hostages in exchange for spies and murderers. Off the teleprompter, Harris engaged in her usual meaningless world salad. (Is she dysphasic, suffering from a brain dysfunction that makes it impossible for her to comprehend and speak language, drunk, or just stupid?):

This is just an extraordinary testament to the importance of having a president who understands the power of diplomacy and understands the strength that rests in understanding the significance of diplomacy and strengthening alliances.

(I can’t diagram this. Maybe your English major neighbor with the “Mamala Kamala” sign on her lawn can.)

After this brilliant insight, Biden, looking utterly confused, climbed the stairs to the now-empty plane that had transported the returnees. Quite obviously he mistook it for the short stairs he uses to embark AF1.

The press, as you might imagine, is working hard to hide her considerable flaws and boost her standing.

When Biden withdrew from running, Trump said the deal the two had to debate on CNN was over, and he’d wait to debate whoever the party actually nominated. After Harris formally received a voice vote nomination from delegates this week (with no other candidate allowed from which to choose), he offered to debate her on Fox. She refused. I doubt she’d debate him anywhere on any channel. The last time she was in a debate, Tulsi Gabbard easily eviscerated her.

To pretend she’s moving to the center from her very public and radical positions, unnamed spokesmen keep announcing that she’s flipped her positions (AP describes it as “calibrating her policy pitch”) away from them. She isn’t saying that she has, and it would be incredible if she has because her base is the most radical elements of the population. Mickey Kaus calls her the “Etch A Sketch” candidate. John Solomon details the policy positions and actions she’s taken, which she’s trying to obfuscate.

(Maybe we should set up a bingo game, marking whenever [pick the legacy media of your choice] deigns to let its readers know of any of these.)

Nothing provides more evidence that the White House is rudderless than the fact that the Secretary of Defense just overrode the plea agreement to give the three 9/11 monsters (one of whom slit Daniel Pearl’s neck and videotaped and published it) life imprisonment (somewhere not specified) instead of the death penalty. Clearly, he overrode the deal because of enormous blowback. I can’t recall another instance where the Secretary of Defense or any cabinet member intervened like this. Can you?

As Biden and Harris fumble along, Venezuelans overwhelmingly rejected the reelection bid of the Marxist president Maduro, who, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Chavez, has impoverished one of the once-richest countries in the hemisphere. He is using everything at his disposal to avoid ceding power and, except for Cuba and Honduras, other Latam leaders have denounced him, while leftist-led countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia reserved judgment. It is interesting to observe how today El Salvadorans are safer from crime than New Yorkers, and Argentinians are less hamstrung by the administrative state than Californians. (X provided an invaluable opportunity for Maduro’s opponents in real-time to show the world what the voters were doing and remains to my mind the biggest boost to accountability and democracy.) Still, it shows once again that you may vote yourself into socialism, but you have to fight to get out of it.

The Mullah’s Nightmare

Even more heartening than the rise of democracy and law in Latin America is the Israeli success this week in ridding the world of a number of terrorist thugs. Among those whose elimination for which we have confirmation are Brigadier General Amir ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace force in Damascus, Syria. Also eliminated in Damascus was Haji Habib Zadeh, another IRGC leader. Au revoir, too, to Mohammed Deif, leader of Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, one of the “masterminds” of the October 7 attack on Israel. Of greater significance than these assassinations were those of Fuad Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh. Shukr was responsible for the murder of 241 Marines in 1983. The U.S. announced a $5 million bounty of his life and then for forty-one years did nothing to avenge their murder. Two days after he killed 12 Israeli Druze children, he was killed by Israel.

The most significant and dramatic elimination was that of Ismail Haniyeh, killed in a guest house in the most secure area of Tehran. This has to have terrified the autocratic rulers of Iran. Initial reports were that Haniyeh (and his bodyguard) were eliminated by a pinpoint missile. Very James Bond-ish, but unlikely realistically. Iran now says a bomb had been placed under Haniyeh’s mattress some months ago and remotely detonated. The Telegraph account provides the details.

Iran is claiming that Mossad hired members of the IRGC’s Ansar al-Mahdi protection unit (the group tasked with the responsibility for the safety of high-ranking officials) to plant the bombs. According to this account, the agents involved were seen planting this bomb and two others in other rooms in the guest house, after which they fled the country.

A second official within the elite military forces of the IRGC told the Telegraph: “This is a humiliation for Iran and a huge security breach.”

The official said a working group had been established to come up with ideas to portray the assassination as not being a security breach.

“It’s still a question for everyone how it happened, I can’t make sense of it. There must be something higher up in the hierarchy that no one knows about,” he added.

There is now an internal blame game taking over the IRGC, with different sectors accusing each other of the failure, revealed the first official who spoke to The Telegraph. Esmail Qaani, the commander of the IRGC Quds force said the breach had ‘humiliated everyone’

Esmail Qaani, the commander of the IRGC Quds force, has been summoning people to be fired, arrested and possibly executed, he said. “The breach has humiliated everyone.”

The official added: “The Supreme Leader has summoned all the commanders several times over the past two days, he wants answers.

“For him, addressing the security breach is now more important than seeking revenge.”

The IRGC is currently evaluating its options for retaliation, with a direct strike on Tel Aviv being a primary consideration, which would involve Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies, the Telegraph understands.

The assassination of Haniyeh in the Iranian capital has intensified fears about Israel’s reach and influence within Iran.

I can imagine. It must be comforting to the U.S. Secret Service to see they aren’t the only security force corrupted by national foes or run by dolts. As the Middle East is hunkering down under threats from Iran, it’s worth noting that we, the U.S. taxpayers, have since the October 7 massacre given $896 million to Gaza (that is to say, Hamas, Iran’s proxy), and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has provided more than $1.5 billion in aid to Gaza and the West Bank since he assumed office.

Just as the press papers over Haniyeh’s record, they continue to refuse to acknowledge the pervasive and continuing placement of Iranian agents in positions of influence in our government, This week, Senator Tom Cotton and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik asked Harris about her adviser Phil Gordon’s connections to Ariane Tabatabai, “a senior Department of Defense official, reportedly involved in an operation to expand Tehran’s soft power in the United States.” Gordon and Tabatabai jointly authored articles promoting Iranian policies and interests, arguing for the cessation of sanctions on Iran, and Gordon is associated with the NIAC (National Iranian American Council), an Iranian influence operation. Biden complained that he was not given advance warnings of Israel’s trash-removal efforts, but why would Israel give advance notice to an ally so riddled with Iranian agents and sympathizers?

Almost uniformly, the Western press mourned Haniyeh as a “moderate.’ On October 7, he was filmed watching the slaughter of the innocents and smiling. It reminds us all of the Washington Post’s description of the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi as an “austere Islamic scholar.”

Netanyahu said last week,

…when Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons that could destroy Israel and threaten every American city -- every city that you come from -- we’re not only protecting ourselves, we’re protecting you… Israel has the ability to act inside Iran as it sees fit. At the same time Iran, for this and other reasons (not the least potential of losing fellow traveler influence agents the Mullahs have increasingly enjoyed inside the state department since 2008) has never had a stronger incentive to go for a nuclear breakout.

Well, maybe, but with their proxy leaders being dispatched in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and in Tehran’s most secure spot, the Mullahs might well have more immediate personal survival concerns.

As for the Democrats, their theme of the week was set by Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who called Republicans “weird,” and both their brainwashed base and the legacy media thought this was a nifty theme. It seems to have fallen by the wayside as it became an easy target for derision. The week ended with the Daily Mail revealing that the second gentleman’s first marriage broke up because he impregnated his children’s nanny.