Gold Star families issue strong rebuke of Harris
By Mark Alexander
web posted September 9, 2024
Media collusion in support of Democrat Party candidates has, for decades, been a staple of Demo election strategy. But with Big Tech and social media now a major part of that collaborative calculus — and their ability to reach virtually every American 24/7/365 — that bias is a far more formidable threat to American Liberty than at any time in our history.
To that end, we owe a debt of gratitude to former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who must have been inebriated when she outlined how Democrats collude with their Leftmedia propagandists to invent and propagate lies — and how they perfected it against Donald Trump from 2016 onward.
In a CNN interview in 2019, Pelosi defined a ruse in the Demos' black bag of political go-to tricks: "It's called a wrap-up smear. You make up something. Then you have the press write about it. And then you say, 'Everybody is writing about this charge.' It's a tool of an [authoritarian regime] to just have you always be talking about what you want them to be talking about."
Defying reality, Pelosi was suggesting this was a Republican tactic.
Of course, anyone with the most rudimentary cerebral capacity knows that Republicans can't "have the press write about" whatever they dictate and then use that as proof of their point. This insidious tactic belongs exclusively to the Democrats, whom the media have long favored.
In fact, a recent survey of journalists by political affiliation found that only 3.4% indicate they are Republican. And media platforms now excel at the systemic suppression of free speech.
That accounts for the vast chasm between Democrat and Republican trust of the media, particularly given that most "journalists" don't believe both sides of an issue should get equal coverage.
In another interview, Pelosi went into more detail about the "wrap-up smear" tactic: "It's a diversionary tactic. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You demonize, and then you ... smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you merchandise it, and then you write it, and they'll say, 'See, it's reported in the press that this, this, and this,' so they have that validation that the press reported the smear, and then it's called a wrap-up smear. 'Now I'm going to merchandise the press's report on the smear that we made.' It's a tactic."
Pelosi's "wrap-up smear" was precisely the tactic that former FBI Director James Comey seeded when orchestrating his fake-news press leaks to Leftmedia outlets in order to ensure that, by his own admission, a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate Russian collusion within the Trump campaign. Comey's sole objective was to set Trump up for a takedown.
But Demos say it's Trump who is a "threat to democracy"?
Pelosi's corrupt collusion tactics with the mainstream media amount to a gross betrayal of the First Amendment. The resulting perversion of the power of the press completely erodes the historic role it was intended to fill, providing a balanced and truthful check against political corruption. But most of the media has now hitched its wagon to that corruption.
And that brings me to the most recent example of the Demos' "wrap-up smear."
Last month Donald Trump was invited by the families of the 13 American Patriots who were killed at Kabul airport's Abbey Gate on 26 August 2021 to a solemn observance at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the dead. It was the first time these families had an opportunity to gather and formally honor their slain family members at Arlington.
These warriors were killed in a predictable attack just ahead of the Biden/Harris regime's disastrous military exfil from Afghanistan on 30 August 2021.
As I noted last week, "The Biden/Harris accelerated exfil timeline was predicated on their desire to take a victory lap to proclaim they ended the war before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 Islamist attack on our nation — which was the catalyst to launch Operation Enduring Freedom. But the only victory lap was the one taken by the Taliban celebrating 9/11 in our abandoned Kabul embassy and around the city, parading billions of dollars worth of our abandoned first-generation military equipment."
It was a disgraceful and deadly military retreat proudly approved by Kamala Harris, and neither Biden nor Harris have contacted all the families of the dead or publicly uttered their names in order to not remind their constituents of their long record of foreign policy failures. Their ineptitude subsequently empowered Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and more recently the Iranian surrogate attacks on Israel.
While Trump was at Arlington with Gold Star families, Biden was at the beach in Delaware, taking heat for not attending.
Thus, within hours of the Arlington observance, a diversionary Leftmedia "wrap-up smear" was seeded, and it propagated quickly.
Nate Jackson, wrote about that smear tactic, which was launched by NPR with the allegation that Trump's campaign staff "had a verbal and physical altercation Monday with an official at Arlington National Cemetery."
Given that Trump has the overwhelming support of Veterans and their families, Jackson noted that "editors in other Leftmedia newsrooms" now had a "golden opportunity to distract from what otherwise was a glaring reminder of the colossal Biden/Harris blunder" in Afghanistan, and they hoped it would also divert attention from the now well-documented stolen valor case against Harris's VP nominee, Tim Walz.
But the smear campaign began to unravel before it could get to the wrap-up phase, when Iraq War Veteran Tulsi Gabbard, a former Demo congresswoman and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee — but now a Trump ally — was interviewed by CNN's Dana Bash. Asked about the alleged altercation, Gabbard responded: "What I saw was a very grave and somber remembrance and honoring of those lives that were lost, and I saw President Trump spending time — at the invitation of these Gold Star families — with them. He was there for a few hours. I did not see or hear about any kind of altercation until something came out in the news."
Then Gabbard, currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve, dropped a bomb on Bash:
I have seen a lot of the headlines and the stories and the concerns that people are raising about this. But, to me, as a soldier and as someone who has been deployed to different war zones in the world — and I have friends who are buried there at Section 60 — what is more outrageous to me is that there wasn't universal coverage of the momentous day of the third anniversary of the loss of these 13 Gold Star families and the outrage that they feel that they — that their loved ones are not getting the kind of coverage and memory that their great sacrifice deserves. That is what everyone should be outraged about.
Asked the same question by NBC's Kristen Welker on "Meet the Press," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a former Army Ranger who served both in Afghanistan and Iraq, responded likewise:
He didn't take campaign photos there. These families — Gold Star families — whose children died due to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's incompetence, invited him to the cemetery, and they asked him to take those photos. You know who those families also invited? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris — where were they? Joe Biden was sitting at a beach. Kamala Harris was sitting at her mansion in Washington, DC. She was four miles away — ten minutes. She could've gone to the cemetery and honored the sacrifice of those young men and women, but she hasn't. She never has spoken to them or taken a meeting with them.
Then, after Harris again claimed Trump "disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt," members of those Gold Star families spoke up with lengthy and scathing rebukes of Harris, broadsiding the Harris/Walz campaign's wrap-up smear tactic.
Darin Hoover, the father of Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover; Coral Doolittle, the mother of Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez; Jaclyn and Mark Schmitz, the mother and father of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz; Steve Nikoui, the father of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui; Jim McCollum, the father of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum; Herman Lopez, the father of Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez; and Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole Gee, also made videos criticizing Harris.
Summing up the sentiments of the parents, Darin Hoover said:
Kamala, we have been treated with the utmost respect, compassion, and understanding by President Trump, something you and Joe Biden have refused to do since August 26, 2021. Where were you and Joe Biden on August 26, 2024? Nowhere near Arlington Cemetery. You couldn't be bothered to be with us or even say our kids' names, just as you had done for the last three years. Neither one of you have called to speak with us or share in our grief. I wonder, Kamala, do you sleep at night securely in your bed, or do you have nightmares of our kids because it was your incompetence and negligence that got our kids murdered? It is you who sent out messages on social media that are outright lies. It is you that has disrespected our families. It is you who knows nothing about service and sacrifice. It is you that has divided this country. And, it is you who is unfit to be the commander-in-chief. These are the only memories we get to make with our son. And, it is you who is playing politics and trying to detract from our memories made that day.
As for the accusation that Trump was taking video for his campaign, Hoover corrected the record: "We are the ones that asked for the video and the pictures to be taken at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier."
Kamala your statement is nothing more than a political spin to help you look better in your presidential campaign against Donald Trump. You have never walked a single day in our shoes. Our kids were murdered because of your administration. And you are partly to blame for that as well. What happened at Arlington — President Trump was invited by those families who have their soldiers buried at Arlington.
Schmitz added that "one thing" Harris said was true: "No one should be running for president if they cannot honor military members, their families, as well as veterans. So, I guess that means you should step down, Kamala."
Recall that, in Harris's one and only softball interview with CNN since she bumped Biden out of the way, rather than answer probing questions, she smugly responded, "My values have not changed."
Clearly, in the wake of this attempted wrap-up smear at the expense of families of deceased military Patriots, her "values" reflect the worst in an American presidential candidate.
Consequently, let me once again remind potential Harris/Walz voters that they can stop the bloodshed.
The slaughter of thousands of men, women, and children in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Israel is the direct result of the Biden/Harris regime's lethal foreign policy ineptitude. The violent assaults on thousands of Americans by illegal aliens are the direct result of the "border czar's" lethal open border policy. The dramatic surge of violent crime across America is the direct result of the Biden/Harris war on cops and appeasement of thugs.
The blood of all those victims is on the hands of the Biden/Harris regime, and those who voted for them.
Next time you vote for a president, vote as if the lives of our Military Patriots and tens of thousands of innocent civilians depend on it. 
Mark Alexander is the executive editor of the Patriot Post.
