Month: August 2024

Like something straight out of a fairytale, the abandoned village of Houtouwan on Shengshan Island, part of the Shengsi Archipelago off the eastern coast of China, has recently become an internet sensation and an unusual travel hotspot. Houtouwan was once a prosperous fishing village, with a 1980s population of more than 3,000 residents. However, because of its remote and hard-to-access location, its residents started to move out in the ’90s. In 2002, the village was officially depopulated and merged into a nearby village. After decades of abandonment, empty houses in the ocean-facing, cliffside village – some of them still furnished – have been taken over by a blanket of lush climbing plants. A ghost village-turned-tourist hotspot The ghost village looks even more enchanting in misty weather. JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/AFP/Getty Images Houtouwan soared to fame among Chinese netizens in 2015 when a series of mesmerizing photographs of the deserted village went viral. Instead of celebrating its new-found popularity, the officials of Shengsi Archipelago were cautious of the impact brought by the sudden surge of tourists. “Our telephone lines are jammed and we are getting more tourists to Houtouwan,” Chen Bo, an official of Shengshan Island, said in an official statement at the time. “Houtouwan of Shengshan hasn’t been… CONTINUE READING…

WATCH: KJP Hilariously Can’t Name a “Specific Policy Achievement” of VP Harris In an absolutely hilarious and quite crushing Monday, August 12, White House Press Briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre was asked about Vice President Kamala Harris. Namely, she was asked if she could name a single policy achievement of the vice president and, quite hilariously, could not. As background, VP Harris had been tasked by President Joe Biden with addressing the “root causes” of illegal immigration from Central and South America into the United States. Illegal immigration, however, has remained a large problem for the Biden-Harris Administration. Harris, however, has refused to put forward a campaign platform or address her record as VP in a serious way. So, as she was named as President Joe Biden’s successor when he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, many in America are wondering what policies Vice President Harris supports and if they would be better or worse on the US-Mexico border than the Biden Administration has so far been. Amongst those who wanted to know about the border situation, or even VP Harris’s record in general, was a reporter at the Monday press briefing. That inquisitive reporter asked… CONTINUE READING…

In an absolutely hilarious moment on CNN, California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters wouldn’t stop messing with her wig while speaking about former President Donald Trump, repeatedly and constantly fidgeting with it on live TV. Her wig malfunction came as CNN’s Abby Phillip asked her about how Democrats plan to defeat Trump in November. Phillip’s question comes as more and more on the left, including the left’s media complex like CNN, grow disillusioned with President Joe Biden as a leader and a candidate due to his cognitive issues. Those issues were put on full display during his disastrous debate with former President Trump on June 27, a debate hosted by CNN. Philip asked, “They’ve seen President Biden, they’ve lived through his presidency, they’ve seen former President Trump, they’ve lived through his presidency, they’ve heard these arguments about democracy, about the fate of the election, and yet Trump is not only winning, but winning increasingly by a larger margin.” She continued, asking what Democrats plan to do next and if they plan on making a major change to their plans given Trump’s strong strategy. She asked, “So what is the plan among Democrats to change that trajectory? It sounds like you’re talking about and saying all the… CONTINUE READING…

Speaking during his X (formerly Twitter) space conversation with X owner and promoter Elon Musk on the night of Monday, August 12, former President Donald Trump spoke about how the assassination attempt on him that occurred during his Butler, PA, campaign rally in July increased his Christian faith. According to the former president, it was the very moment that the bullet struck him in the ear that he realized he was hit, which was the reason that he was able to get to the ground and to cover, with the Secret Service piling around him, so quickly. It was only after he got to the ground and the threat neutralized that he yelled, “Fight!” and was escorted off the stage. But in addition to knowing that he had been hit by a bullet, Trump knew that God was protecting him. According to former President Trump, the fact that he turned his head at just the right moment to dodge the assassin’s bullets without knowing they were headed his way shows that there is a God and that those who doubt God’s existence should reconsider their beliefs. Speaking about how he has seen his faith change in the wake of the… CONTINUE READING…

At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign, including its report vetting J.D. Vance as a vice presidential candidate. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what they received. Instead, Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post have written about a potential hack of the campaign and described what they had in broad terms. Their decisions stand in marked contrast to the 2016 presidential campaign, when a Russian hack exposed emails to and from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The website Wikileaks published a trove of the missives, which mainstream news organizations covered. Politico wrote over the weekend about receiving emails starting July 22 from a person identified as “Robert” that included a 271-page campaign document about Vance and a partial vetting report on Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who was also considered as a potential vice president. Both Politico and the Post said that two people had independently confirmed that the documents were authentic. “Like many such vetting documents,” the Times wrote of the Vance report, “they contained past statements with the potential to be embarrassing or damaging, such as Mr. Vance’s remarks casting aspersions on Mr. Trump.”… CONTINUE READING…

Back in the 1920s, a tourist village was established along the shore of Lago Epecuen, a salt lake some 600 kilometers southwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The resort town, named Villa Epucuen, soon had a railroad station, and it thrived for several decades, peaking in the 1970s with a population of more than 5,000. Around the same time, a long-term weather event was delivering far more rain than usual to the surrounding hills for years, and Lago Epecuen began to swell. In 1985, the salty waters broke through an earthen dam, and Villa Epecuen was doomed. A slow-growing flood consumed the town until it reached a depth of 10 meters (33 feet) in 1993. The wet weather later reversed, and the waters began to recede in 2009. AFP photographer Juan Mabromata recently visited the ruins of Villa Epecuen, met its sole inhabitant, and returned with these images.

Speaking during a Sunday, August 11 interview with Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. JD Vance, the 2024 running mate of former President Donald Trump, fired back at the attacks made on his wife, Usha Vance, characterizing them as racist nonsense from people she is more attractive than. That began with Karl asking him, “So, there’s been a lot of talk about racism and whatnot. You faced some really nasty stuff. I saw this thing that Nick Fuentes – of course, he’s an avowed white supremacist – he said, ‘What kind of a man marries somebody named Usha? Clearly, he doesn’t value his racial identity, his heritage.’ I mean this is racist garbage.” Vance, responding, said, “Yes, it is.” Karl then added, “But this is also a guy that dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago during this campaign.” Vance told him, defending Trump, “Well, and Donald Trump doesn’t know anything about and frankly doesn’t care for. But, yes, look, my – my attitude to these people attacking my wife is—she’s beautiful, she’s smart. What kind of man marries Usha? A very smart man and a very lucky man, importantly.” Continuing, as Karl told him, “Yes. Yes,” Vance said that… CONTINUE READING…

President Joe Biden recently appeared on CBS for an interview, seemingly admitting that high-ranking members of his own party had essentially forced him out of the 2024 presidential race. Biden stated that his struggling campaign had Democrats in downstream races concerned that it would hurt them if he remained in the race. After the late-June presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Democrats evidently lost faith in the president as their candidate as his declining mental acuity became indefensible. Subsequently, there were incessant calls for Biden to step down, which he eventually did last month, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden said in the interview, “The polls we had showed that it was the neck-and-neck race would have been down on the wire. But what happened was a number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races, and I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic you’d be interviewing about why did Nancy Pelosi say? Why did so and so…and I thought it’d be a real distraction.” Notably, Nancy Pelosi has been the subject of intense criticism following Biden’s… CONTINUE READING…

Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, outfoxed CNN anchor Dana Bash when he appeared on her “State of the Union” show on Sunday, August 11. He did so to attack Minnesota Gov. Walz for what Vance and many others argue were Walz’s lies about his military service. As background, Walz, who formerly served as a sergeant major in the Army National Guard, retired and dropped out despite having two years left on his contract when the unit was to be deployed to Iraq, with many saying that he left his men in the lurch by doing so. He has also lied about his military service, saying he carried weapons “in war” when he never served in combat or during a war. Many argue that those exaggerations of his service and his leaving service when it would have meant war show that he has engaged in “stolen valor.” His spat with Bash began when she tried to trick him into either denigrating Walz’s service or go back on his attacks. Doing so, Dana Bash said, “Governor Walz served 24 years, he even stayed after he could have retired because of 9/11, more than the country asked… CONTINUE READING…