Your First Look at Today's Top Stories

Having trouble viewing this email? View the web version.

Sponsored By

Friday, August 30, 2024

In light of the Labor Day Holiday coming up, we will take a break on Monday and return with Daybreak Insider on Tuesday. Have a great weekend.

Kamala Harris Fumbles on the Very First Question of Her CNN Interview

Just the News: Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris outlined her first priorities for day one in office if she’s elected to the White House in November, during an interview alongside her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Harris did not outline what executive actions she would take, but said her day one priorities included strengthening the middle class and the United States economy. Harris also claimed she would implement her plan for an “opportunity economy” which would bring down costs of “every day goods.” She would also invest in families, and invest in small businesses (Just the News). Frank Luntz: Kamala Harris was asked a specific question about what she would do on Day 1 if elected as POTUS. Her answer was so vague that it was essentially worthless. Not a good start (X). Reporter Ed Daugherty: Scott Jennings is lighting up this CNN clown car panel right now. JENNINGS: She took no responsibility for saying Biden was fine, that he was strong. Nobody believes that. PANEL MEMBER: “I do.” JENNINGS: “Then why isn’t he running” (X)? Reporter Brandon Straka: Dana Bash asks Kamala why she’s constantly flip flopped on her positions, then proceeds to offer her multiple choice answers. This isn’t even softball- this is tee ball (X). Charlie Kirk: Dana Bash asks Kamala why she hasn’t done all the things she wants to do already, as part of the Biden Administration. Once again, she can’t answer. Instead, a total non sequitur about some grandmother in Nevada and her receipts. They had a month to prepare for this question (X)!

Kamala Harris' Interview Revealed Her Inability to Articulate Stances on Issues

National Review: We have been waiting ever since the day Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race for Kamala Harris to sit down in front of a camera and take questions from an interviewer. And if nothing else, we have learned why: In the friendliest possible format — a joint interview with VP nominee and emotional-support midwesterner Tim Walz, conducted by Dana Bash with the delicacy of an ornithologist gently hand-feeding hatchling chicks — Harris has revealed that her gaseously mindless word-cloud of a campaign is in fact an accurate reflection of her own personal vacuousness. To be sure, Harris did not memorably self-destruct tonight. Whatever her failings, they are not those of Joe Biden, who couldn’t even articulate his words without slurring by the end. Her inarticulateness tonight was of the sort already known to be a Harris trademark, the endless jumble of nonsensical, comically vapid stock language. When she could fall back on a memorized list of talking points, she presented somewhat normally; the second she was required to respond directly to a question, then she began to spin out otiose nonsense like a pasta chef catering a Sicilian banquet. You could practically see the gears turning inside her head as she cast her eyes downward, stared laser-beams into the floor, and groped for cliches. She was more muted tonight than usual — her aides clearly ordered her never to display mirth under any circumstances, for fear the Kamala Kackle might emerge — and as a result, while she simulated sobriety for the most part, her body language was pronouncedly downbeat (National Review).

Kamala Harris Supported Removing Police Officers From Schools in 2019

Fox News: Vice President Kamala Harris advocated for the removal of police officers from schools in an effort to “demilitarize” school campuses, according to unearthed footage from 2019… Harris joined the 2019 Presidential Justice Forum at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, in October of that year before she dropped out of the 2020 race and was announced as President Biden’s running mate. A college student asked Harris how she would go about expunging the records of juveniles to allow them to attend college, including expunging “a criminal offense,” not “just a marijuana expungement” (Fox News). Parental activist Nicki Neily: Vice President Kamala Harris called for the removal of police officers from schools in an effort to “demilitarize” school campuses (X). Townhall: In the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, many school districts across the country ended their contracts with police departments. Last year, USA TODAY reported that more school districts were reversing course on this. Some school districts that had zero police presence decided to add officers to the schools, as well (Townhall).

University of Maryland Approves of Anti-Israel Protest Celebrating Anniversary of October 7

Daily Wire: The University of Maryland will allow the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine to take over a massive chunk of its campus on October 7, the anniversary of Hamas’ slaughter of 1,200 Israelis. SJP held a similar event on Tuesday, the university’s second day of classes, setting up 15,000 flags in the center of campus to “honor the 150,000+ martyrs who have lost their lives within the past year,” and holding speeches against “the zionist entity,” according to an SJP flier. Not even Hamas claims 150,000 people have been killed since Oct. 7, the terrorist group alleges that 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, but SJP says it uses a higher “estimate” because “the health ministry has been unable to keep count of the dead” (Daily Wire). Just the News: Rabbi Ari Israel told Jewish parents with students at the university, “We did voice our concerns with senior UMD leadership” and “apprised them of the emotional load SJP’s callous behavior will bear on our Jewish community if they protest on the greatest Jewish day of mourning and tragedy since the Holocaust” (Just the News).

Biden Was Aware the Pier in Gaza Would Fail Before Construction, Force it Through Anyway

Katie Pavlich: A new Inspector General report shows President Joe Biden was warned that building a “humanitarian pier” in the Gaza Strip would fail as a result of rough seas and other logistical issues. Biden ignored the warnings and for the sake of virtue signaling, demanded the $230 million taxpayer funded pier be built anyway… Making matters worse, Gazans didn’t want the pier a warning issued before construction and Biden demanded the project move forward (Townhall). I24News: US staff warned that the Gaza aid pier would fail, but Biden reportedly ordered it built anyway. After costing more than $230 million, operating for only 20 days, and delivering just a third of its intended cargo (X).

After 1,000 Interviews, Federal Agents Have No Motive of Trump’s Shooter

National Review: Deceased gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks’s motivation for attempting to assassinate former president Donald Trump last month remains a mystery to the FBI, despite the agency conducting nearly 1,000 interviews for its ongoing investigation into Crooks’s attack. FBI special agent Kevin Rojek gave an update Wednesday on the investigation’s findings up to this point, including Crooks’s searches for Trump and President Joe Biden, his 2024 presidential rival at the time, and the conventions for both major parties…The FBI has interviewed nearly 1,000 people and conducted an extensive analysis of Crooks’s searches from 2019–24 during its investigation (National Review). New York Post: Investigators determined that Crooks espoused a “mixture of ideologies” but didn’t appear to have a “definitive” world view, with Rojek saying investigators had found “valuable insight into his mindset but not a motive” (New York Post).

Illegal Immigrants in California Attempt to Overtake School Busses Filled With Children

Daily Mail: A group of as many as 20 migrants tried to board school buses filled with kids in southern California. The migrants attempted to board buses along two school routes twice this week at the stop near Highway 94 and Cochera, per the Jamul-Dulzura Union School District in San Diego County. Superintendent Liz Bystedt said in a letter to parents that on Tuesday three migrants were walking in the middle of the highway, trying to stop one of the district’s school buses and forcing it to go around the group. Then on Wednesday morning, about 20 migrants rushed at one bus as it was picking up students from the same stop. Parents who were present say they helped the bus driver ensure that none of the migrants boarded the bus (Daily Mail), End Wokeness: Illegal aliens tried to hijack 2 buses full of kids in San Diego. Border Czar Harris owns this mess (X).

U.S. Surgeon General Issues Advisory About the Stress Load on Parents

Townhall: U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory Wednesday warning about the mental health dangers of parenting due to the high levels of stress associated with arguably the most important job in the world. Murthy pointed to a survey from the American Psychological Association finding that 48 percent of parents say most days their stress is completely overwhelming. Forty-one percent of parents, meanwhile, said their stress level is so high they cannot function (Townhall). US Surgeon Genera Vivek Murthy: The stress and mental health challenges faced by parents, just like loneliness, workplace well-being and the impact of social media on youth mental health, aren’t always visible, but they can take a steep toll. It’s time to recognize they constitute a serious public health concern for our country. Parents who feel pushed to the brink deserve more than platitudes. They need tangible support. That’s why I am issuing a surgeon general’s advisory to call attention to the stress and mental health concerns facing parents and caregivers and to lay out what we can do to address them (New York Times).

GOP Look to Tie ID Voting Bill Into Government Funding Bill

Hill: A conservative-backed push for stricter proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting could complicate efforts to avert a government shutdown next month. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have acknowledged a stopgap of some kind, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), will be necessary to keep the government funded past Sept. 30 (Hill). Rep. Chip Roy: 85 percent of Americans think only citizens should vote. What’s the issue here, DC (X)? Sen. Mike Lee: Thank you, Speaker Johnson, for giving serious consideration to attaching the SAVE Act to the September spending bill. Let’s get this done (X)!

10.

Leftist Climate Change Policies Cost Far Too Much for Minuscule Returns

Wall Street Journal: Even Democrats don’t want to hear about climate change. The words were barely mentioned at the convention, and every transcript I examined omitted the once obligatory Biden modifier “existential.” The reason isn’t a mystery. Joe Biden’s policies are having not the slightest effect on climate change and yet somebody will still have to pay Ford’s $130,000 in losses per electric vehicle in the first quarter. This sum, a calculation shows, is equal to $64.80 per gallon of gasoline saved over four years of average driving. And yes, this amounts to a ludicrously costly subsidy to somebody else to use the gasoline that EV drivers are paid to forgo (Wall Street Journal). Albert Mohler: So there were 1,500 climate policies that were studied in 41 different countries, and only 63 of 1,500 had what you can argue is a measurable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions tied to, it is argued, climate change, rising temperatures and all the rest. I’m not saying that climate change isn’t happening… I think that given a rational worldview, and of course I would put the Christian worldview at the forefront of this, you would have people making trade-off decisions in a rational, reasonable, humble way. We’d be saying that cutting this is good. How we get there without, for instance, threatening human flourishing, how we get there without massive trade-offs that are unacceptable to human beings, how we get there, honestly, that’s going to be a very difficult process and it’s one in which you’re going to have a lot of failures and you’re going to have to do a lot of adjustments because reality is a lot more complex than many people want to admit (Briefing).