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Not a single store in Milwaukee boarded up their businesses when thousands of Republicans came to the RNC.

These business owners are boarding up ahead of the DNC.

Why are Democrats always so violent? pic.twitter.com/jOz8ciX80I

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 18, 2024

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Though it was billed as a Pittsburgh kickoff bus tour on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, presidential candidate Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz instead spent Sunday afternoon in Beaver County in tightly controlled stops before heading to Chicago.

Harris held a short rally at a private airport hangar surrounded by supporters, mostly members of local unions who were bused in for the event, before she headed off to two retail stops and a phone bank.

Ed: I'd heard that the Harris campaign had begun busing reliable supporters to Astroturf these "grassroots" events. If so, they're smarter than they seem, although they may be outsmarting themselves. The reason you campaign in these areas is to get a personal connection to those voters, not just a sound bite and a photo op.

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Joy at the DNC… pic.twitter.com/w1edWX2FZ5

— @amuse (@amuse) August 19, 2024

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Gov. Tim Walz‘s (D-MN) administration approved a $100,000 contract to a left-wing group that has advocated defunding the police, documents show.

The documents, unearthed by the Daily Caller, show that Walz’s Labor And Industry Department in 2023 awarded the contract to Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha, a Minneapolis-based group. Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha, a workers-rights group that aims to “build a movement to win racial, gender and economic justice,” was awarded the state funds to “increase worker knowledge and understanding” of a new law that Walz approved, a press release shows.

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Thousands of people in Chicago are now in the March on the DNC: pic.twitter.com/28tR3vpLJy

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) August 19, 2024

DNC protesters have reached the security fence around the United Center/DNC. One person cut off a Secret Service sign off of the fence. pic.twitter.com/uolhYog7W0

— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) August 19, 2024

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Antisemitic coalitions powered the rise of Nazism. For the past half century, anti-Zionism has done even better forging Pan-Arab-Islamist coalitions in the Middle East, at the UN and within the Western democracies themselves.

This ideological war against the Jews and Israel differentiates it from other current conflicts, like the equally evil Russian invasion of Ukraine: Little Israel is the proxy for mightier America.

No intersectional campus coalitions celebrate Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine; no Russian thugs pursue Jews in Brooklyn, or burn Ukrainian flags with America’s.

That’s because anti-Zionism is the ideological arm of the civilizational struggle against what is left of the free world, with the United States as its ultimate target.

Ed: And they are aggregating at the DNC, where many of the delegates will sympathize with them and perhaps even demonstrate on their behalf inside the convention. 

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Protesters in Chicago who are marching against the DNC chant "F*ck the courts, f*ck the state, you can't make us procreate."

People dressed as abortion pills take part in the march. pic.twitter.com/xwmRAAjW8w

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) August 19, 2024

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And as I sit here with official DNC press passes swaying on a lanyard around my neck, cosplaying as the Fourth Estate for the first time in my life, I realize two things: (1) Wow, is it ever unbelievably easy to fake this, any moron could do it; (2) I might as well indulge my pretenses here on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, because I have to gin up excitement somehow, right?

Otherwise no excitement whatsoever was on offer at this afternoon’s protest on behalf of Palestine and Hamas at Union Park, a few blocks east of the security perimeter surrounding the United Center, where official festivities kick off tonight. (President Biden and Mayor Johnson are both speaking — both Brandons in one night, in a cosmic syzygy of incompetence.) But this morning, anyone hoping to see either outrage or glorious revolutionary rhetoric was instead greeted by a limp, surly, and emotionally fatigued crowd that agreed on only one thing other than Palestine: They want literally anybody else for president in 2024, and they have no answer to the ugly fact that they are not going to get it.

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NEW: The security perimeter at the DNC is an absolute joke. I've been waved through without showing ID, badge, pass, wristband, or anything.

Walked from the inner perimeter to the outer gate without so much as a glance.

This is just silly. pic.twitter.com/EXrmpHgrjU

— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) August 19, 2024

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“She would be very careful to make sure she was making a constructive contribution,” Mr. Klain said in an interview. “Most often when you’re vice president, that’s behind closed doors, so she did that. But I don’t think it’s a question of caution. I think it’s a question of loyalty and dedication and focus on the mission.”

At the same time, he acknowledged that she was not always well served by the White House. “We were all united behind the idea she should be successful. We just didn’t find the path to do it,” he said.

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This is crazy. Think about what Kamala is saying here.

As President, if a state passes a law on "reproductive healthcare" that Kamala doesn't think is constitutional, she will use her Department of Justice to stop the state from enforcing the law. pic.twitter.com/5RBqTCVJLt

— MAZE (@mazemoore) August 18, 2024

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“The word that everybody is using to describe tonight is bittersweet,” Wallace said before the convention was set to begin. “It’s just bitter. The fact of the matter is — I’m not saying Joe Biden is bitter — but, you know, it’s like you’ve been thrown out a window and as you’re falling, you go, ‘Gee it’s nice out here.’ No, he got thrown out of a window and, basically, he was forced.

“You know, there’s going to be a lot of talk tonight about how generous it was of him and selfless of him. He was basically forced out by Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries; and I suspect even the fact that there has been this surge of enthusiasm since he left and Kamala Harris took his place, that’s gotta be pretty tough, too. You got thrown out of a window and everybody’s applauding the person who’s now in the room.”

Ed: It's clear that Biden is, in fact, bitter. And he has good reason to be, but Biden also shouldn't have gone without a legit challenge in the primary either. He got hoist by his own petard, or at least the DNC's petard. 

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This feels like a Mel Brooks skit called 'The Giant Podium.' https://t.co/rkdFwEwUtR

— John Sexton (@verumserum) August 19, 2024

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Delaware Democratic Senator Chris Coons STUNS @JohnRobertsFox when he blames the media for pressuring Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race. pic.twitter.com/6Vu0PZ4vJe

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 19, 2024

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"Donald Trump claims that you were pushed out, put from the top of the ticket, and this amounts to a coup from your party. What do you make of these claims?"

BIDEN (COOKED): *confused* pic.twitter.com/Tvch0zQ7UV

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 19, 2024