Al’s Afternoon Tea: Florida prepares, Kamala flops and Biden points a finger

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Welcome back for Al’s Afternoon Tea, our chance to connect and share the latest news.

Hurricane Milton is already wreaking havoc in Florida, western North Carolina is still in dire straits from Hurricane Helene, and the world is still waiting for Israel’s response to Iran’s attack. But in our top story, Taylor Swift went to the Kansas City Chiefs game last night to dispel rumors that she and Chiefs star Travis Kelce are having relationship issues.

Sorry. Couldn’t resist. But it will be interesting to see if the Media Research Center determines that the networks paid more attention to Swift than to Helene’s recovery effort.

#PrayforFlorida as Milton takes Dead Aim on Tampa

The prayers to allow Hurricane Milton to weaken before it makes landfall have worked. Milton has been relegated to category 4. The bad news? It is still a Category 4 and poses an “extremely dangerous threat,” and even if it weakens further to a Category 3 upon landfall, Milton will still deliver a blow to Florida all the way from Tampa to Orlando and beyond.

If Milton stays on its current track, it will be the first major hurricane to make a direct hit on Tampa since 1921. Mass evacuations are underway, but Governor Ron DeSantis warns that “time is running out.” DeSantis said Tuesday morning that the state is stocking up on fuel, that 8,000 National Guard troops are being activated and that tens of thousands of line workers, some from as far away as California, will be ready to restore power.

The hurricane’s track does offer a glimmer of good news: Milton will pass through Florida and into the Atlantic Ocean, sparing the areas destroyed by Helene.

In the meantime, FEMA may also want to send a few officers to Kamala Harris’ home. Yesterday she complained that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was not taking her calls. DeSantis said he knew nothing about Harris’ calls, and in a later appearance on Hannity blasted the vice president.

WOW: Governor DeSantis NUKES Kamala After She FREAKED Today And Attacked Him For Ignoring Her Calls:

“She is delusional. She has no role here. She has been VP for three years and has never contributed anything to this storm effort. She is politicizing the storm to save a failing campaign.” pic.twitter.com/GZQ5gGSThI

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 8, 2024

By the way, after the ruckus between Harris and DeSantis, Joe Biden tweeted that he had spoken to DeSantis about preparations for Milton.

Tonight I spoke with Florida Governor DeSantis and Tampa Mayor Castor for first-hand reports on the recovery from Hurricane Helene and preparations for Hurricane Milton.

My administration stands ready to support both Florida’s leaders and people with whatever further resources they need. pic.twitter.com/imXXVXQnoD

– President Biden (@POTUS) October 8, 2024

Standard tweet… or another dig at Harris?

Also keep an eye out in California

As we pray for those in Milton’s path and for those recovering from Helene, we might like to leave a prayer for California. A magnitude 4.0 earthquake centered in Ontario (in the Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles) struck Southern California on Sunday. While Californians generally dismiss 4.0 earthquakes as fluff, this one came just five days after a 3.1 quake in the region and a swarm of small earthquakes in the area on September 7. Malibu also experienced a 4.7 earthquake on September 12.

Are these just a sign of stress being released along the fault lines, or a harbinger of something worse?

The GOAT of the California earthquake industry, Dr. Lucy Jones, didn’t sweat the September swarm.

Today we are dealing with a small swarm in the Fontana Seismicity Lineation, a northeasterly line of many small earthquakes. Today we have M3.9, M3.5 and many M1s and M2s so far. I’ve seen this cluster in Fontana dozens of times in the decades I’ve been watching SoCal quakes.

—Dr. Lucy Jones (@DrLucyJones) September 7, 2024

After the Malibu earthquake, Jones told KTLA that there have been more earthquakes of 4.0 or greater in Southern California this year.ear than normal, bBut that doesn’t mean the ‘Big One’ is imminent.

But do her computer models take into account the fact that this is 2024? Seismologists also believe that Southern California has about a 75% chance of experiencing a 7.0 earthquake in the next 20 years.

Harris fumbles 60 Minutes interview

Kudos to 60 Minutes and Bill Whitaker for returning to the show’s roots and pushing Kamala Harris a bit — especially regarding border questions — in the interview that aired last night. Three times, Whitaker asked her if it was a mistake to allow millions of illegal immigrants into the country. Three times she dodged.

60 Minutes repeatedly asks Harris why the Biden/Harris administrator waited three years to take executive action to curb illegal crossings. She says they introduced a bill when they took office (that bill would have provided an eight-year path to amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants) and then… https://t.co/E3enPl3aTT

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 8, 2024

60 Minutes also pressed Harris on the fact that she did not actually earn the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

CBS: You actually got the nomination. Not a primary process. No votes. That’s not how our system was intended to work.

KAMALA: “I am proud to have earned this support.”

CBS: People don’t even know who you are.

KAMALA: “I’ve been participating in this race for 70 days!” pic.twitter.com/j0U3hiPExv

– Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 8, 2024

Harris messed up her answer, which is another reason why she’s not fit to sit behind the Resolute Desk. Think about it: How would Bill Clinton have handled that question if he had been in the situation Harris is in? Clinton is said to have leaned back in the chair and casually threw up his hands with a big grin. “Look, Bill. I was working all year to become Joe Biden’s running mate. Proud. No one expected anything different. He decided to resign, so I resigned. I was the only one performing.” Hands up again, another big grin as if to say, “What else was I supposed to do?”

What about Obama? He would become a professor of Whitaker, noting the unique circumstance of a nominee dropping out and how unfortunate it was that his party could not hold new primaries. He then reportedly pointed out that the country did not hold primaries for about 150 years, during which time nominees were selected directly by party delegates “just like me. And the country survived just fine.”

Hillary Clinton would have just stared at Whitaker like a mafia Don and said, “So? What difference does it make now?’

Meanwhile, Harris’ running mate Tim Walz is said to have doubled down on being (to use his word) a “knucklehead” in that same 60 Minutes interview. Even CBS News thinks blaming his blatant lies for why he spent so much time in China as “an idiot” is a weak strategy.

“Is that a misrepresentation, isn’t that more than just being a loser?” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has been criticized for making false claims about his trips to Asia in the 1980s. Walz dismissed it as a “knucklehead” in the VP debate. https://t.co/zZONUUCBaSI pic.twitter.com/XsxsKlpl0G

— 60 minutes (@60minutes) October 8, 2024

Think of this man in the Oval Office, where both the Great Emancipator and the Great Communicator have sat. Do we really want the Big Knucklehead? Yeah… it doesn’t quite work, does it?

Woodward: Biden blames Obama for Ukraine invasion

Washington muckraker Bob Woodward has released a new book called War, which chronicles Joe Biden’s war experiences, with some Donald Trump thrown in for good measure. (Probably because he actually wants to sell the book.)

However, all the buzz on social media this morning is about Woodward’s claim that Trump has spoken to Vladimir Putin seven times since leaving office. Here we go with the updated version of ‘TRUMP’S A PUTIN STOOGE’. That’s soooo 2016. Sure, the duo probably wasn’t talking about setting up tee times at Doral. But former presidents talking to world leaders isn’t exactly newsworthy. And given how much Trump likes to talk, seven times seems pretty scarce. Twice a year?

Receiving less attention, as you might expect, is another of Woodward’s revelations: that Joe Biden blames Barack Obama for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It started in 2014 when Obama let Putin take Crimea.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Biden complained that Obama did not do enough to stop Putin in 2014, when the Russian leader invaded Crimea. “They’re in 2014,” Biden told a friend. “That’s why we’re here. We’re screwing up. Barack never took Putin seriously.” Biden added: “We have done nothing. We have given Putin a license to continue!”

Bad moves involving Russia, take two…

Poor trading could result in the death of our service members

In 2022, the Cleveland Browns traded three first-round picks, two fourth-round picks and a third-round pick to the Houston Texans for quarterback Deshawn Watson. On Sunday there was talk of Watson being on the bench.

But here’s the good news for the Browns. That trade wasn’t the worst for an athlete in 2022. That honor goes to Biden and Harris for trading the Merchant of Death, Viktor Bout, to Russia for WNBA star Brittney Griner.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Bout is again active in the arms trade and mediates the sale of small arms to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. The article is behind a paywall, but National Review quotes WSJ saying the small arms deals are just the beginning. Houthi representatives also discussed other weapons the Russian side might sell, including Kornet anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons, the European official and other people familiar with the matter said.

Just three days ago, US aircraft attacked Houthi targets in Yemen. What happens the next time our pilots attack Yemen, if Bout manages to get more anti-aircraft weapons into Houthi hands?

This is yet another example of how this administration is endangering Americans through bad deals and decisions.

In the Stream menu

Stream contributor Chenyuan Snider has written a powerful “Letter to My Democratic Friends: The Truth Outweighs Party Identity.”

And Jules Gomes is back with the latest news from the Catholic Church: “Pope Francis seals succession by electing new pro-LGBT, Marxist cardinal electors.”

Al Perrotta is the Washington bureau chief of The Stream, co-author with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and co-author of the anti-terrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.

The post Al’s Afternoon Tea: Florida Prepares, Kamala Flops and Biden Points a Finger appeared first on The Stream.