A recent tweet from the person most qualified to be President of the United States:
This gives me a chance to dredge up one of my favorite stories at the intersection of African and American politics…
Idi Amin sent a letter to Richard Nixon during the Watergate crisis: “When the stability of a nation is in danger, the only solution is, unfortunately, to imprison the leaders of the opposition.”
(from the book Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators by Riccardo Orizio)
Still in the news, if not the New York Times authorized version, “Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff slapped me in the face so hard I spun around … I’m disgusted by his fake ‘perfect spouse’ persona” (Daily Mail):
The woman, a successful New York attorney, is remaining anonymous, but decided to speak out after Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, denied the claims through a spokesman.
Emhoff’s accuser, who DailyMail.com is naming only as ‘Jane’, initially declined to comment on the record. But Emhoff’s denial, and his alleged hypocrisy by claiming to be a feminist in media interviews, finally became too much for her.
‘What’s frightening for a woman that’s been on the other end of it, is watching this completely fabricated persona being portrayed,’ Jane said.
‘He’s being held out to be the antithesis of who he actually is. And that is utterly shocking.’
But the second gentleman has since continued to brag about his long-held feminist values in softball media interviews arranged by the Harris presidential campaign.
‘Every time I see Doug on TV portraying the persona of a perfect spouse and non-toxic man, I wonder if Najen is watching too and feeling as disgusted as I am,’ Jane said.
(“Najen” is a reference to the Emhoff nanny who was apparently happy to do a lot of stuff that the wife wasn’t)
It is possible that Mx. Harris would not be permitted to be in Uganda beginning in 1972:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Asians_from_Uganda
Hi Phil,
Recently, you’ve posted quite a number of musings on Kamala (is my count of ~10 since September about right?). I’ve noticed that most of the posts don’t really cast her in a very positive way, but you never really come out and say you think she is: “stupid, a liar, a fraud, has no core beliefs/ideology, incompetent, a classic DEI hire by Joe Biden” etc. Most of your posts are sort of oblique criticisms. I’m wondering if you’ve considered summing it all up and expressing in a post what you really think about all the issues you touch on instead of what appears to be continuing series of insinuations? Elon Musk, Stanford’s Victor David Hanson and many others have posted some really interesting thoughts on her (all on X) that get to some of the issues that seem (?) to be relevant to you. You are clearly very engaged in what is going on and most of your posts highlight some really interesting issues, so might be interesting to hear your “real” thoughts too? Just a thought.
Anon: I don’t have faith in ability to know a political candidate from media sources and, of course, I am not sufficiently elite to be personally acquainted with any of the main cast of characters. Kamala Harris does seem remarkably unable to think on her feet, but maybe that doesn’t matter. Perhaps she is a deep thinker behind the scenes and will come up with written policies for her minions to implement.
Phil, with all due respect…your response gets to exactly what I was trying to say. I don’t expect you or anyone else to rely on media sources (for all the reasons you know just like we all do). That’s the wonderful thing now…there is plenty of unfiltered material to draw on (and you do this in your posts). Your postings over the past couple of months highlight that you are *very* well aware of what is going on, so why don’t you say what you really think instead of being oblique. To be clear, I’m not suggesting you should make a call on the election or what her minions may or may not do, but that you put down some “real” thoughts on her as a potential president. Use your good analysis and observations to make some conclusions. That’s much more interesting than just highlighting what many others have already observed (but…you are very good at doing that!).
Americans are situated differently so I don’t believe that I can make a blanket recommendation for how other people should vote. An open border enriches the elite and government workers while impoverishing the working class. So it doesn’t make sense to make a recommendation to all of my American brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters.
Plainly there are different standards in the U.S. depending on skin color. That’s true even here in Florida, apparently. Our most recent ballot invites us to confirm or reject DeSantis-appointed FL Supreme Court justices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Sasso is the white lady. She went to an undergrad school ranked in the top 30 among all U.S. universities (US News): University of FL. Then she went to the #28-ranked law school (also U of FL; Go Gators!).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renatha_Francis identifies as Black. She went to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_the_West_Indies and then to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Coastal_School_of_Law (“U.S. News & World Report ranks Coastal Law 147-193, its lowest law school ranking”).
So I think it is quite possible that Kamala Harris made it all the way to VP without being more qualified than a randomly selected Asian-American, for example.