Democrats' Nazi strategy isn't working, Harris super PAC points out



Kamala Harris suggested at her embarrassing CNN town hall last week that President Donald Trump is a fascist — her rhetorical capstone to a years-long campaign to characterize the Republican as both a threat to democracy and a suitable target for lawfare or worse. Her running mate soon joined liberal media propagandists likening Trump and his supporters, including a Holocaust survivor, to the Nazis of yesteryear. The Democratic National Committee lent a helping hand, projecting Nazi accusations outside Trump's Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden.

Democrats and their allies in the media have long employed Nazi and fascist analogies to defame, discredit, and isolate political opponents such as Barry Goldwater, President Ronald Reagan, President George W. Bush, and former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. These historically illiterate smears have not only served to spike rigorous debate, increase political polarization, and minimize the evils perpetrated by Adolf Hitler and his forces but have also proven largely ineffective.

A super PAC supporting Harris recently acknowledged as much.

Future Forward USA Action, touted earlier this month by the New York Times as "an ad-making laboratory" with a $700 million war chest, suggested in an email to Democrats regarding effective campaign messaging that playing up the Trump-as-fascist fiction in the final stretch before Election Day is a strategic blunder.

The New York Times indicated that the email noted in bold type, "Attacking Trump's Fascism Is Not That Persuasive."

Another line said, "'Trump Is Exhausted' Isn't Working."

'No wonder they're in hysterics.'

"Purely negative attacks on Trump's character are less effective than contrast messages that include positive details about Kamala Harris's plans to address the needs of everyday Americans," said the email.

According to Future Forward, Harris' suggestion that Trump is a fascist at her CNN town hall was only in "the 40th percentile on average for moving vote choice." She apparently would have been better off discussing Medicare expansion to include in-home care for geriatrics as she did previously on Howard Stern's show, which tested in the 95th percentile.

The trouble for Harris — besides the late notice about the inefficacy of her go-to smear — is that attacking Trump is easier than defending her record or her vision for America.

Even in those instances in which she has a policy to promote that she did not copy and paste from the defunct Biden campaign, such as the taxation policy she instead copied and pasted from the Trump campaign, Harris trips over her own tongue and into what Democratic strategist David Axelrod recently called "word salad city."

Facing such difficulties, ad hominem attacks might be the easier alternative, even if ineffective.

While the core sales pitch — Trump is bad — has remained the same throughout, the Times noted that Harris' team has tried some variations since the Democratic National Convention:

Ms. Harris's team had made it clear immediately after the Democratic National Convention that they planned to switch from the message that President Biden had used most, that Mr. Trump is a unique threat to the country. They argued that making Mr. Trump smaller in the minds of voters was crucial. In her convention speech, she called him an "unserious man" but warned that restoring him to power would have "extremely serious" consequences.

Judging from recent polls, the "unserious man" line of attack didn't work. This might account for why Harris went back to smearing Trump as "unhinged, unstable," and ultimately a fascist, blowing $10 million on a recent ad claiming the Republican is "too big a risk for America" — an ad that Future Forward indicated fared poorly.

Future Forward's email warned, "Focusing on Trump’s disturbing, ludicrous and outlandish behavior can be an effective lead-in to talking about substantive policy, but is not effective at moving vote choice on its own."

The weakness of Democrats' Nazi strategy is not exactly a well-kept secret.

In 2018, privacy lawyer and journalist Allan Richarz penned an op-ed for The Hill, stressing that "overwrought comparisons to the Nazis are both historically illiterate and an extreme strategic misstep."

Richarz warned that by branding Trump a Nazi, Democrats had committed to continuous escalation and a weakening of language.

"Now that Trump is 'actually Hitler,' any compromise by Democrats will be viewed as kowtowing to fascism. Conversely, sticking with the Nazism line of attack cheapens its effect and, frankly, makes its proponents come off as a little more than unhinged, something perhaps already at play given that a Gallup poll has put Trump at his highest approval rating to date," wrote Richarz.

Jay Cost, a Gerald R. Ford nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, noted, "Always a sign of struggle when the Super PAC has to yell at the campaign, but can only do it legally via the media."

David Reaboi, fellow at the Claremont Institute, responded to the Times report, tweeting, "This is insanity. Kamala spent over $10M on ads focused on 'Trump is Hitler/Fascist,' and her largest Super PAC said they barely moved the needle, if at all. No wonder they're in hysterics."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Russia and China are planning to build nuclear reactor on the moon to power settlements



Russia and China appear have to joint aspirations of building a nuclear reactor on the moon to power future settlements. According to Yuri Borisov, the CEO of Russia's equivalent to NASA, Roscosmos, the construction of the reactor would be part of an unmanned mission relying on those technological solutions the two nations intend to master in the latter half of this decade.

"Today, we are seriously considering a project to deliver to the moon and mount a power reactor there jointly with our Chinese partners somewhere between 2033 and 2035," Borisov said during a talk at the World Youth Festival in Krasnodar Krai, Russia.

The work on the reactor would be automated on account of radiation.

Reuters noted that nuclear power is regarded as necessary because solar panels apparently do not generate enough electricity to power future lunar settlements.

In addition to a nuclear reactor and an "interplanetary station" on the moon, Borisov suggested Russia was also "working on a space tugboat. This huge, cyclopean structure that would be able, thanks to a nuclear reactor and high-power turbines ... to transport large cargoes from one orbit to another, collect space debris, and engage in many other applications."

Russian state media noted that Roscosmos and China National Space Administration signed an agreement in March 2021 to cooperate on the development of an international lunar research station. To advance this project, Beijing plans on sending three missions, Chang'e 6, Chang'e 7, and Chang'e 8.

The construction of a nuclear reactor on the moon would be part of a subsequent series of lunar missions.

The initial lunar missions, scheduled to begin in 2026 and proceed through 2028, would test key technology and set the groundwork for a robotics base where experiments and research could be conducted remotely.

CNSA plans to launch a relay satellite to work in conjunction with the Chang'e 6 mission sometime this year, reported CNN.

China appears to have been emboldened in its cosmic pursuits after the successful construction of its orbital Tiangong space station in 2022 and its rover's journey to the dark side of the moon in 2019.

Gen. Stephen Whiting, the U.S. Space Command chief, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that space has become an "expanding security challenge" and that communist China was growing its "military space and counterspace abilities at a breathtaking pace," reported The Hill.

On Tuesday at the 2024 Space Summit, Whiting indicated that Russia, too, poses a "formidable" challenge to the U.S. in space even though its first lunar mission in decades, Luna 25, crashed into the moon's surface last year.

Newsweek indicated that Borisov's announcement of possible fission on the moon has the wonks at the Institute for the Study of War concerned about a fusion of Russia and China's long-term strategies.

The ISW, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., suggested that Borisov's remarks were "indicative of warming relations and Chinese willingness to foster a long-term strategic partnership with Russia to posture against and possibly threaten the West."

"A strategic space partnership with China suggests that Russia would be unlikely to use this or similar technology against China and that both states would mutually benefit from Russia's posturing against the West through space and satellite technology," added the ISW.

The strategic ties between China and Russia have been strengthening in recent years, especially economically.

The Straits Times noted that Sino-Russia trade hit a record high of $240 billion last year.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi said Thursday that the two powers have created "a new paradigm of great power relations that is completely different from that of old Cold War era."

According to Bonny Lin, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Russia's war against Ukraine has helped to solidify Moscow's relationship with Beijing.

Lin offered various reasons to account for this solidification, but noted that Western efforts to economically punish Russia over its invasion of Ukraine especially "amplified concerns in Beijing that Washington and its allies could be similarly unaccommodating toward Chinese designs on Taiwan."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Officials worry that foreign interests might be behind purchase of nearly $1 billion-worth of land around major USAF base



An investment group has snatched up roughly 52,000 acres of land — much of dubious agricultural value — around a critical U.S. Air Force base northeast of San Francisco.

These acquisitions and the investors' obscurity have government officials worried about possible ulterior motivations as well as security risks.

Travis Air Force Base in Solano County, on the southwestern edge of the Sacramento Valley, is known as the "Gateway to the Pacific." Its host unit is the 60th Air Mobility Wing and is home to the 621st Contingency Response Wing, the 349th Air Mobility Wing, and over 50 partner organizations. The base itself has just over 7,600 active USAF personnel and 4,250 Air Force Reserve personnel.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the investment group Flannery Associates has spent around $1 billion in recent years to become the largest landowner in Solano County, acquiring some 52,000 acres across 300 parcels of land near the base, 20 of which surround Travis.

The company has admitted in court filings to paying prices of "multiples of fair market value" for the land.

Solano County Supervisor Mitch Mashburn said, "The majority of the land they're purchasing is dry farmland. ... I don't see where that land can turn a profit to make it worth almost a billion dollars in investment."

Rio Vista Mayor Ronald Kott told the Journal, "Nobody can figure out who they are. ... Whatever they're doing—this looks like a very long-term play."

A spokesman for the base indicated that USAF officials "are aware of the multiple land purchases near the base and are actively working internally and externally with other agencies."

The USAF's Foreign Investment Risk Review Office has reportedly been looking into the group's acquisitions, but has not yet been able to determine precisely who is backing Flannery Associates.

An attorney for the group, whose CEO was listed with the California Secretary of State's Office as Andrew Lerner, claimed Flannery is controlled by American citizens and that 97% of its invested capital derives from U.S. investors. The remainder is allegedly from British and Irish investors.

"Any speculation that Flannery’s purchases are motivated by the proximity to Travis Air Force Base" is unfounded, the attorney told the Journal.

The group's attorney previously told Solano County that Flannery "is owned by a group of families looking to diversify their portfolio from equities into real assets, including agricultural land in the western United States," reported the Daily Republic.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), on the House Armed Services Committee's readiness panel, said, "We don’t know who Flannery is, and their extensive purchases do not make sense to anybody in the area. ... The fact that they're buying land purposefully right up to the fence at Travis raises significant questions."

This is not the first land grab in recent months to inspire concern.

The Washington Examiner recently noted that China, the U.S.'s preeminent adversary on the world stage, has been buying up vast swathes of American land. Whereas in 2011, when Chinese investors owned 69,295 acres of American land, by year-end 2021, they controlled nearly 400,000 acres.

A Beijing-linked group recently attempted to buy 300 acres of land, some 20 minutes away from the Grand Forks Air Force Base. This prompted bipartisan backlash as well as vexation amongst local airmen.

CNBC reported that Maj. Jeremy Fox circulated a memo inside the Air Force, claiming the purchase would both be a security threat to the U.S. and fit a pattern of "Chinese subnational espionage campaigns using commercial economic development projects to get close to Department of Defense installations."

Fox wrote, "Some of the most sensitive elements of Grand Forks exist with the digital uplinks and downlinks inherent with unmanned air systems and their interaction with space-based assets."

According to Fox, the USAF would be more or less unable to detect surveillance on drone and satellite transmissions being waged by potential Chinese actors.

"Passive collection of those signals would be undetectable, as the requirements to do so would merely require ordinary antennas tuned to the right collecting frequencies. ... This introduces a grave vulnerability to our Department of Defense installations and is incredibly compromising to US National Security," wrote Fox.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told the Examiner earlier this year, "Allowing Chinese companies with connections to the party-state to buy strategically important land in the United States is a national security threat. ... We need to treat the Chinese Communist Party for what it is — our greatest adversary."

Extra to land grabs, the Chinese regime has: agents conducting illegal police operations in the U.S. along with harassment and espionage campaigns; a hand in the deadly influx of fentanyl across the southern border via their informal partners in the Mexican cartels; and has flown reconnaissance flyovers through American skies.

Microsoft publicly revealed earlier this summer that the Chinese communist regime has also taken significant steps to undermine critical American infrastructure. These attacks — using malicious computer code that enables remote access to various devices — appear to be a pre-emptive attempt by the genocidal state to develop the upper hand should the two nations soon come to blows.

While attempting to corrode American capability and making clandestine incursions into the U.S., Chinese officials have also issued threats.

Concerning the land grabs in Solano County, Garamendi and fellow California Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson have pushed for a probe by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., reported the Journal.

The U.S. Agriculture Department has also pressed for answers concerning Flannery's backers.

The Journal indicated that local and federal officials' inability to learn the identities of those in the Flannery group is in part due to the fact that Delaware-registered LLCs, such as Flannery Associates, do not have to publicly disclose the identity of their owners.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Reactions to the FBI’s Raid on Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Debunked

Reactions to the FBI’s Raid on Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Debunked

How Americans Can Fight China’s Cold War Without Rules

A book by Air Force Gen. Robert Spalding, 'War Without Rules,' highlights how the CCP is willing to fight dirty to achieve global dominance.