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Monday, August 19, 2024

Chicago Business Owners Board Up Shops in Anticipation of Violence During DNC

Townhall: It’s starting to look like 2020 in Chicago, as downtown businesses are preparing for next week’s Democratic National Convention by boarding up their storefronts. Thousands of pro-Hamas protesters and other activists are expected to descend on the city and store owners, many of whom have experience with past looters, are attempting to minimize the risk to their stores during the convention (Townhall). Georgie: Businesses in Downtown Chicago are now boarding up their stores in preparation for the Democratic National Convention. Owners are terrified Kamala Harris supporters may erupt in violence and loot their stores again. When Republicans were in Milwaukee, no businesses boarded up their buildings because Republican voters don’t steal (X). Nick Sortor: The Democrats are currently building a MASSIVE wall around their convention in Chicago. This is PEAK irony. I thought walls were racist, Kamala? What changed (X)? Blaire White: Chicago businesses are boarding up because of the DNC. Isn’t it funny how the party of tolerance and joy comes to town and everyone has to brace for violence (X)?

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Intervenes to Allow Anti-Israel Protesters Equipment, Stage for DNC Week

Chicago Tribune: Mayor Brandon Johnson personally intervened in a dispute between his own administration and a coalition of activist groups set for a massive protest at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, helping reverse the city’s denial of a permit to set up stages and sound systems for rallies in a park near the United Center, the coalition’s leader said Friday. The agreement, which was reached after hours of back-room negotiations between the parties, nullified an emergency motion filed in U.S. District Court earlier this week alleging the city had violated protestors’ First Amendment rights by restricting how the rallies could be staged (Chicago Tribune). National Review: An estimated 100,000 protesters from across the U.S. are expected to descend on the DNC (National Review).

Planned Parenthood to Offer Vasectomies, Abortions at DNC

Townhall: Abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood will offer free medication abortions and vasectomies during the Democratic National Convention (DNC). A mobile health center run by Planned Parenthood Great Rivers will set up shop near the convention and provide these services the first two days of the convention (Townhall). New York Times: It’s a way of showcasing how reproductive health care providers have had to get creative when operating in or near states like Missouri, which borders Illinois and has a near-total abortion ban. But it also underscores the way this convention, more than any other, is going to be a head-on display of a new, unbridled abortion politics (New York Times).

Jerry Bowyer to Businesses: Don’t Kill Your Future Customers

Jerry Bowyer: Last week, I joined a coalition of investors and asset managers who sent a letter urging Costco, Walmart, Kroger, and other pharmacies to think long and hard before caving in to pressure tactics urging them to sell the abortion drug mifepristone. Chief among the pressure groups is New York City’s pension plan and its comptroller, Brad Lander, who has been using the assets of the city’s pensioners to cajole the companies to sell the controversial and risky pill. According to Lander, investor “concerns include the company’s responsiveness to a growing market opportunity, its mitigation of potential reputational risks, and its commitment to maximizing sales and long-term shareholder value.” What investors is he talking about? All the pressure to sell the drug is coming from political actors, not financial ones… According to financial adviser David Bahnsen, “Regardless of anyone’s personal stance on abortion, there can be no question that it’s a politically contentious and legally fraught issue that divides the American public. Just as important, selling chemical abortion drugs undermines a retail pharmacy’s bottom line. Instead of selling a lifetime supply of everyday goods like diapers, cough syrup, groceries, toys, food, and clothing, a store settles for a one-time purchase that undermines a lifetime of opportunity” (WNG).

Kamala Harris, Tim Walz Campaign in Pennsylvania

Washington Post: Vice President Kamala Harris joined her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and their spouses on Sunday for a bus tour across a crucial part of this state, in a political show of force and call to action before Democrats kick off their national convention in Chicago (Washington Post). Hugh Hewitt: Kamala Harris was, is and will always be terrible on the stump. She has no natural gifts there and while her acceptance speech will be workmanlike –and her debate performance certain to include the words “Kamala Harris, for the people”– keep in mind Sam Mussabini’s response to Harold Abrahams’s request that the coach make the sprinter fast in “Chariots of Fire”: “You can’t put in what God left out.” Harris’s greatest strength is that she isn’t Joe Biden. But she is a radical San Francisco Democrat who came out of the box Friday proposing price controls and massive subsides for favored constituents trying to buy a first home, thus setting up a repeat of 2008 sub-prime crisis (X). Collin Rugg: Kamala Harris goes on very confusing rant, repeats herself multiple times while talking about “democracy.” Kamala, who didn’t get any votes in the Democrat primary, was lecturing a Pennsylvania crowd about “democracy” (X).

CBP Reveals Illegal Border Crossings Eclipse 12.5 Million During Biden/Harris Administration

Just the News: U.S. Customs and Border Protection released monthly border apprehension data on Friday, saying, “statistics show lowest southwest border encounters in nearly four years.” CBP also claimed illegal border crossings were down by 34% from June to July and the drop is due to a presidential proclamation issued in June. Troy Miller, a senior official performing the duties of the CBP Commissioner, said recent Biden-Harris policies led “to the lowest number of encounters along the southwest border in more than three years.” Despite these claims, the total number of apprehended illegal border crossers surpassed 10.5 million in July with two months left in the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That number excludes 2 million gotaways, those who illegally entered and evaded capture, bringing the total number to more than 12.5 million. That is greater than the individual populations of 45 states. If illegal border crossers were a state, they’d be the sixth most populous state ahead of Illinois (Just the News).

Supreme Court Dismisses Title IX Reform From Biden/Harris Administration

Fox News: The Supreme Court voted 5-4 Friday to reject a Biden administration emergency request to enforce portions of a new rule that includes protections from discrimination for transgender students under Title IX. The request would have permitted biological men in women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and dorms in 10 states where there are state-level and local-level rules in place to prevent it. The sweeping rule was issued in April and clarified that Title IX’s ban on “sex” discrimination in schools covers discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation and “pregnancy or related conditions.” The rule took effect Aug. 1, and, for the first time, the law stated that discrimination based on sex includes conduct related to a person’s gender identity (Fox News). Riley Gaines: In a 5-4 decision, SCOTUS has struck down the Biden-Harris administration’s rewrite of Title IX, which would have allowed men in women’s sports, bathrooms, locker rooms, dorms, and compelled speech. HUGE win. Onward (X)!

Elon Musk Closes X Office in Brazil for Refusing to Allow Government Censorship

BBC: X has closed its office in Brazil over a censorship row. The social media platform said a Brazilian Supreme Court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, threatened its legal representative in Brazil with arrest if it did not comply with his “censorship orders.” People in Brazil are still able to use X, billionaire Elon Musk’s platform said on Saturday. Mr. Moraes had ordered X accounts he has accused of spreading disinformation – many supporters of the former right-wing president Jair Bolsanaro – must be blocked while they are under investigation. After X owner Musk criticized Mr. Moraes, the judge ordered 100,000 reais ($19,774) fines a day for any account that X reactivated, and stressed the possible liability of the company’s legal representatives in Brazil if this were to happen. He also put Mr. Musk under investigation for charges including the obstruction of justice (BBC). Elon Musk: The decision to close the 𝕏 office in Brazil was difficult, but, if we had agreed to Alexandre’s (illegal) secret censorship and private information handover demands, there was no way we could explain our actions without being ashamed (X).

Antisemitism Report Shows Majority of Incidents Caused by Far-Left Activists

Just the News: A new analysis finds the political motivation of perpetrators skews decisively to the left, with extreme progressives far more likely to commit such attacks as compared to Islamists or far-right activists like neo-Nazis… The weekly Global Antisemitism Report published by the Combat Antisemitism Movement analyzed 113 incidents that targeted Jewish victims worldwide and found that 57.5% of the perpetrators were identified as far leftists, 22.1% of them were Islamists, 11.5% were unknown and 8.9% were done by far-right extremists (Just the News).

10.

Israel Eliminates Hezbollah’s Commander Fuad Shukr

Wall Street Journal: Fuad Shukr had eluded the U.S. for four decades, ever since a bombing killed 241 American servicemen in a Marine barracks in the Lebanese capital, which it says he helped plan. At the end of July, an Israeli airstrike found him on the seventh floor of a residential building not far away. The militant was one of the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hezbollah’s founders and most senior operatives, a longtime trusted friend of the leader Hassan Nasrallah who played a key role in developing the missile arsenal that has made Hezbollah the world’s best-armed nonstate militia. For the past 10 months, he had commanded the group’s increasingly intense cross-border skirmishing with Israel. Yet despite being one of the most important figures in Hezbollah’s history, he lived an almost invisible life, appearing only in small gatherings of the group’s trusted veterans. He emerged in public early this year to attend the funeral of a nephew killed fighting Israel—but only for a couple of minutes, an acquaintance said. Shukr was so secretive that Lebanese media outlets reporting on his death published photos of the wrong man (Wall Street Journal). Times of Israel: The Beirut airstrike that killed Hezbollah deputy leader Fuad Shukr last month came minutes after a telephone call telling the shadowy terror chief to go up from his second-floor office to his seventh-floor residence, where he was easier to target (Times of Israel).