Jackie Johnson's April Fools' Forecast

Tomorrow is April Fools' Day, although of course Ms. Johnson's forecast is on the up and up, heh.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Hillary Clinton Loses Her Cool with Greenpeace Activist (VIDEO)

She looks seriously pissed off.

"I am so sick, I am so sick ... of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I'm sick of it..."

Watch, at the Weekly Standard, "Hillary Blows Up at Greenpeace Activist." (Via Memeorandum.)

WATCH: Woman Videotapes Rare Florida Panther at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary (VIDEO)

This is really cool.

Watch, at KTVU News 2 San Francisco, "Video: Rare Florida panther startles woman."

And at the Orlando Sentinel, "Florida panther surprises woman at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary."

Deal of the Day: Select Yukon Outfitters Bags and Packs

At Amazon, Save on Select Yukon Outfitters Bags and Packs.

Also, Save on Coleman Camping Gear.

More, from Jon Shields and Joshua M. Dunn Sr., Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University.

Plus, Kim Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

BONUS: Kirsten Powers, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.

Socialite Jill Kelley Opens Up About David Petraeus Scandal (VIDEO)

Wild.

Via Fox News.



Previous Petraeus scandal blogging here.

Kate Bock Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Video 2016

Nice.



More SI babe-blogging here.

The Ridiculous Video of Donald Trump Campaign Manager 'Assaulting' Michelle Fields

It's from Piers Morgan, who's emerged as something of a bizarre booster of Donald Trump.

At London's Daily Mail:

.@piersmorgan to Michelle Fields: Toughen up, young lady — or choose a different job https://t.co/e64JX2nPnG pic.twitter.com/t3O5xeKmuy

— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) March 29, 2016

Gemma Atkinson Bikini Pics

I haven't posted on this lady in ages, and that's a shame, heh.

At WWTDD, "Gemma Atkinson in a Bikini."

The Ethnic Cleansing of Christians Around the World is One of the Great Crimes of Our Age

Wow, what a headline.

From Jonathan Sacks, at Telegraph UK, "We are facing an unprecedented age of terror: The ethnic cleansing of Christians around the world is one of the great crimes of our age."

Via Instapundit, who snarks (darkly), "Obama doesn’t seem that upset, though."

Amanda Carpenter's Emotional Denial of Ted Cruz Affair (VIDEO)

I'm not loving American politics too much of late.

I seriously doubt the least bit of impropriety on Amanda's part, and yet, she's worn down and groveling over her treatment, and rightly so. It's actually kind of sad.

Read all about it at Hot Air, "Amanda Carpenter: No, I didn’t have an affair with Ted Cruz."



PREVIOUSLY: "'I will not be intimidated' — Amanda Carpenter Decries 'Tabloid Trash' Allegations of Affair with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)."

The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty

From Eric Metaxas, out June 14th, If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty.

From the Amazon blurb:

If You Can Keep It is at once a thrilling review of America's uniqueness, and a sobering reminder that America's greatness cannot continue unless we truly understand what our founding fathers meant for us to be. The book includes a stirring call-to-action for every American to understand the ideals behind the "noble experiment in ordered liberty" that is America. It also paints a vivid picture of the tremendous fragility of that experiment and explains why that fragility has been dangerously forgotten—and in doing so it lays out our own responsibility to live those ideals and carry on those freedoms. Metaxas believes America is not a nation bounded by ethnic identity or geography, but rather by a radical and unprecedented idea, based upon liberty and freedom. It's time to reconnect to that idea before America loses the very foundation for what made it exceptional in the first place.

Pre-order here.

'Love Hurts'

From yesterday morning's drive-time, at the Sound L.A.

Nazareth:

Love Hurts
Nazareth
10:33 AM

Evil Woman
Electric Light Orchestra
10:29 AM

The Wanton Song
Led Zeppelin
10:25 AM

Killer Queen
Queen
10:22 AM

No Woman, No Cry
Bob Marley & The Wailers
10:15 AM

Venus and Mars / Rock Show / Jet
Paul McCartney & Wings
10:08 AM

Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
10:03 AM

Brussels Attacks Cast Light on Belgium's Identity Crisis

At Der Spiegel, "Postcard from a Failed State? Attacks Cast Light on Belgium's State Crisis":

Postcard from a Failed State? Attacks Cast Light on Belgium's State Crisis https://t.co/v5zJaajxmk #BrusselsAttacks

— SPIEGEL English (@SPIEGEL_English) March 27, 2016

With bombs set off in the airport and the subway system, the deadly Islamic State attacks on Brussels have struck the heart of the European Union. Belgium, once the nucleus of Europe, will now have to combat its reputation as a failed state.

Bart De Wever doesn't have much faith in his country. In fact, you can hardly call it a country, this artificial construct created sometime in the 19th century as the result of an accident of history, a power struggle among major powers. The centralized Belgian state is "slow, complicated and inefficient," says De Wever, one of the most powerful men in Belgian politics.

He represents a party that went into the last election campaigning for an end to this centralized state, and for an independent Flanders, which it argued would be more viable than Belgium, a broken construct.
De Wever heads the strongest party, the conservative right-wing New Flemish Alliance (N-VA). He is not part of the government, but rather the mayor of Antwerp, and yet he knows that people in Belgium pay very close attention to what he says. He's sitting under chandeliers in the Gothic city hall, in a room with dark wooden wall panels. It's a sunny Tuesday in February, four weeks before the Brussels attacks. Salah Abdeslam is still on the run, and police haven't tracked him down in Brussels' Molenbeek neighborhood yet. The government is still searching for the sole surviving Paris attacker but have been unsuccessful so far. The government is trying, but it hasn't turned up much yet. Belgium is receiving poor grades, but so is Europe.

De Wever calls German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy an "epochal mistake," and he complains that integration in Belgium already isn't working today. "This is our problem," he says. "We were unable to offer them a Flemish version of the American dream." His message is that Antwerp is still better off than Brussels, which could be called a cesspool.

De Wever likens the way politics is done in Brussels to the manner in which workers renovate the city's crumbling art nouveau buildings: some new wiring here, something patched up there. "Politicians in Belgium often work like craftsmen in old houses: they putter away without any sort of blueprint." De Wever, sitting in his office on a spring day in Antwerp, has little faith in this country. He doesn't know yet that his lack of confidence will later be confirmed in the worst of ways.

The attack on Brussels, on March 22, 2016, came from inside the country. More than 31 people died and more than 270 were injured, and the victims included people from more than 40 nations.

In the apartment where one of the perpetrators, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, had lived, at Rue Max Roos 4 in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels, police found about 200 liters of chemicals, detonators, a suitcase full of nails, an Islamic State (IS) flag and 15 kilograms of acetone peroxide, an explosive material. Najim Laachraoui, 24, who also lived there, was apparently a bombmaker of sorts for IS. Forensic investigators found his DNA on two of the explosive belts after the Paris attacks. The two men took a taxi to Brussels' Zaventem Airport, where they allowed no one to touch their luggage. Then, at 7:58 a.m., they blew themselves up. A nail bomb was detonated at Gate B, near the American Airlines ticket counter.

Khalid El Bakraoui, 27, Ibrahim's brother, blew himself up in a subway car at the Maelbeek metro station, near the European Commission building. It was 9:11 a.m.

The killers chose places of transit, sites where anyone could be targeted. An airport and a metro station are places where everyone goes. No place is safe. Forget it. That was their message.

IS Infrastructure in Europe

The attacks were delivered four days after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam. Investigators now know that it was a mistake to assume that IS, which claimed responsibility for the attack, favored the "lone wolf" approach. Since the Brussels bombings, it is clear that Islamic State has created its own infrastructure in Europe, under the radar of most intelligence services, cells consisting of first, second and third-tier militants. If the first tier is unable to act, the second tier takes over and prepares the next attack. The Brussels bombers were already involved in the Paris attacks. There were logistics experts who provided them with apartments and weapons, there were explosives experts and there were people who maintained communications with IS in Syria.

It's clear that there was a network on which Salah Abdeslam could rely. Documents from the Belgian and French authorities paint a picture of a tightknit group in which everyone protected everyone else, and that made the Belgian security forces look like fools. Salah apparently moved about freely in Molenbeek, where he even went to a barber. The mayor of Molenbeek says there is an "omertà" in the community, a code of silence reminiscent of the Mafia.

The groups are part of international networks, and the terrorists had an advantage over security services: They were perfectly in command of cooperation across European national borders...

Keep reading.

First Quarter GDP Growth Tracking at Just 0.9 Percent

Depression economics.

Next to global Islamic appeasement, meager economic growth (due to ideology and statism) will be the key Obama legacy.

At CBNC, "Shocker cuts to Q1 growth pace show faltering economy" (via Conservative Treehouse):

First-quarter growth is now tracking at just 0.9 percent, after new data showed surprising weakness in consumer spending and a wider-than-expected trade gap.

According to the CNBC/Moody's Analytics rapid update, economists now see the sluggish growth pace based on already reported data, down from 1.4 percent last week. According to the rapid update, economists have a median forecast of 1.6 percent growth in first-quarter GDP, which includes their estimates for data not yet released.

"It's not a polar vortex winter. You can't blame the weather this year. It's the consumer. I think there's a problem with the measurement but at the end of the day if the world were as good as we'd hoped, people would feel better and it's not showing up," said Diane Swonk of DS Economics.

Personal income rose 0.2 percent in February, a tenth above expectations, and spending was up 0.1 percent. But revisions to January's spending data wiped out earlier solid gains and showed spending marginally higher — at 0.1 percent from an earlier 0.5 percent.

Fourth-quarter GDP growth was reported at 1.4 percent Friday, revised up from 1 percent.

Economists had been hopeful the first quarter would show a snapback with growth above 2 percent, and some have been optimistic that weak manufacturing was beginning to show signs of bottoming.

They note the size of the revision to consumer spending is rare.

"It's not falling off the cliff. We're not in a recession but it's consistent with worry," said Swonk...

More.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi Endorsement of Donald Trump (VIDEO)

Via Fox News:

Germany Plans New Law to Require Migrants to Integrate and Learn German – Or Get Deported

At Blazing Cat Fur:

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maziere said he is intending to implement a new law that will require migrants to learn German and be part of society - or lose their permanent right of residency.

Many people in Germany have turned their backs to Chancellor Angela Merkel following her open-door refugee policy and turned towards the anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany.

The Alternative for Germany party (AFD) has developed an anti immigration stance over the past year, the party has made huge gains in popularity since the refugee crisis hit the EU and the group powered into three state legislatures...

Tanya Mityushina Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Sport Illustrated Swimsuit Video 2016

She's amazing.



PREVIOUSLY: "Tanya Mityushina Outtakes Sports Illustrated 2016 (VIDEO)."

Don Watkins and Yaron Brook, Equal Is Unfair

Out today.

At Amazon, Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.

Campus Administrators and Activists Don’t Like Yik Yak

Heh.

I'm not even on Yik Yak, but maybe I should be lol.

See Glenn Reynolds, "How PC culture is killing higher education":

The Emory protesters managed to fill a conference room and meet with Emory President James Wagner, but they don’t actually represent the feelings of Emory students overall. He observes: “On Yik Yak, a social media app popular among college students in large part because it permits anonymous speech, the Emory student reaction to the chalk controversy wasn’t mixed, as often happens when one views that platform during a campus controversy. It was clearly, overwhelmingly antagonistic to the student activists.”

Freed from a fear that student “activists” — and their allies in the university’s Student Life and Diversity offices — might punish them, students expressed their true feelings, and they demonstrate that the “activists” are a small, unrepresentative slice that is being indulged at the expense of the university as a whole. (This is probably why so many campus administrations and activists don’t like Yik Yak: It allows students to express themselves without fear of repercussions.)

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "Donald Trump Chalk Microaggressions."

Britney Spears Flaunts Bikini Body on Hawaii Vacation

At London's Daily Mail, "No Photoshop here! Britney Spears flaunts her bikini body as she vacations in Hawaii... after being accused of altering tanning pic."

Deal of the Day: NordicTrack GX 4.7 Exercise Bike

It's a beautiful bike.

At Amazon, NordicTrack GX 4.7 Exercise Bike: Step thru design. Innovative design eliminates the traditional bike base so it's easy to get on and off the recumbent bike. Get started on your workout quickly and easily.

Plus, Chamberlain Whisper Drive Garage Door Opener with MyQ Technology and Battery Backup.

Also, Save on Electronic Accessories from Anker.

BONUS: Laura Poitras, ed., Astro Noise: A Survival Guide for Living Under Total Surveillance.

Catholic Priest Thomas Uzhunnalil Crucified by Islamic State on Good Friday

It's almost unbelievable to me, but then it's all too predictable at the same time.

At London's Daily Mail, "ISIS 'crucifies Catholic priest on Good Friday' after kidnapping him from old people's home where four nuns were shot dead."

And at Pamela's, "Easter in the Islamic State: ISIS crucify Catholic priest." (Via Memeorandum.)

Tracing the Roots of a Modern Populism

From Salena Zito, at RCP (via Ed Driscoll at Instapundit):

VIENNA, Ohio - Frank Bellamy didn't realize he was getting caught up in a populist movement when he started paying attention last July to what Donald Trump said.

“I just knew that I felt as though he was speaking to me, about my pursuit of the American dream,” Bellamy said.

The black businessman, 62, stood in a crowd of several thousand people at a Mahoning Valley airport hangar with daughter Francesca, 11, waiting to hear the billionaire businessman speak.

All around him, very happy Trump supporters shared his enthusiasm. The anger that became a hallmark of recent Trump events infiltrated by protesters was absent. But that clearly was not true of this crowd's populist fervor.

Populism has been part of American politics almost since the country's beginnings.

In fact, it was a common characteristic of Democratic Party politics for ages. President Andrew Jackson famously invited a mob of supporters into the White House to celebrate his inauguration in 1829; table china was broken, furniture ruined and a huge block of cheese eaten (really).

Certainly, this represents a kind of populism.

The heyday of the Democrats' populism occurred at the turn of the 20th century when William Jennings Bryan co-opted the People's Party platform. Bryan's fiery “Cross of Gold” speech at the Democrats' 1896 convention in Chicago was populist to the core; it propelled Bryan to the top of the party's presidential ticket that year. He lost that election, just as he lost the elections of 1900 and 1908 when he again was the Democrats' standard-bearer.

So, populists have been nominated for president before by major political parties. They've just never won. Not yet.

Political scientist John Gerring suggests that Democrats did not shift away from their historic populist orientation until 1952. This, of course, followed the “Dixiecrat” populist rebellion of 1948 and preceded George Wallace's populist-oriented revolt from the party in 1968.

Given that politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, the Republican Party began integrating populist themes into its anti-statist worldview in the 1970s, according to Baylor University political science professor Curt Nichols: “This was a time when the Supreme Court was ruling against school prayer and for abortion. As one adviser of the time noted, ‘All things Catholic are good politics for Republicans.' ”

The outcome was unavoidable: Populist-based appeals ensued...

Keep reading.

Zito's been on the case for years. See this Twitter thread for an interesting discussion.

Donald Trump Chalk Microaggressions

It's getting to the point that it's almost embarrassing to admit that I'm a college professor, sheesh.

Fortunately, most of the PC leftist idiocy hasn't yet filtered down to the community college level, at least not at a level of critical mass. Most students in my classes aren't that hip on a lot of the stuff going on at the infected universities. They're often shocked at the inanities when we discuss current events in class.

Heh, maybe there's still hope.

At Fox News, "Students terrified by 'Trump 2016' chalk drawings."

And at Instapundit, "AN OPEN LETTER TO EMORY UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT JAMES WAGNER from Concerned Emory Alumni."

Terror in Pakistan: At Least 70 Killed as Taliban Jihadists Target Christians on Easter (VIDEO)

The number of fatalities keeps getting bigger.

At LAT, "Taliban says it targeted Christians in a park on Easter Sunday, killing 70."

Also, at Telegraph UK, "Pakistan terror attack: 72 dead after suicide bomber strikes children's play area in Lahore."

The Challenge of Easter

Such a beautiful essay, at WSJ.

#Easter resists commercialism because its story makes a radical claim, says @JamesMartinSJ https://t.co/CvDs06BmnJ pic.twitter.com/CoOSguNtwX

— WSJ Life & Culture (@WSJLife) March 26, 2016

.@JamesMartinSJ eloquent on Easter @WSJ https://t.co/wLD7zJ59sN pic.twitter.com/ZhsLbXLb1L

— Nick Ripatrazone (@nickripatrazone) March 26, 2016

The Consequences of Anti-Zionism

Israel-hatred will not spare you from Islamic jihad.

From Caroline Glick.

California Poll: Donald Trump Holds 2-1 Lead in Golden State, 38-19 Percent

Hmm, pretty impressive, but the 2-1 statistic includes Marco Rubio among the candidate choices. Cruz pops up to 27 percent with recalculation.

It's a new poll out from the Public Policy Institute of California.

See the Sacramento Bee, "Poll: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton lead in California":

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leads his GOP rivals in California less than three months before the primary, according to a statewide survey released late Wednesday.

The Public Policy Institute of California poll showed support for Trump at 38 percent among likely Republican voters, followed by Ted Cruz at 19 percent and John Kasich at 12 percent. Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who ended his presidential bid last week, received 12 percent in the poll taken March 6 to March 15.

With the totals recalculated to account for Rubio’s departure, Trump remained at 38 percent while support for Cruz grew to 27 percent and Kasich to 14 percent. Under that scenario, Trump, a billionaire businessman and political newcomer, bests the others with voters across all age, education, gender and income groups.

The survey comes as California Republicans, a beleaguered lot in this heavily Democratic state, find themselves in the unlikely situation of possibly deciding the fate of their presidential nominee on June 7. The Republican presidential primary, unlike down-ticket contests, is closed to all non-GOP voters...

Keep reading.

'Never Surrender'

Check out John Kelly, Never Surrender: Winston Churchill and Britain's Decision to Fight Nazi Germany in the Fateful Summer of 1940.

Republican Party Beltway Barnacles Are Right to Be Worried (VIDEO)

It's Pat Buchanan, at Fox News:

Don't Forget About Dana Loesch's New Book, Flyover Nation: You Can't Run a Country You've Never Been To

I'm excited to get my hands on a copy.

Pre-order, at Amazon, Flyover Nation: You Can't Run a Country You've Never Been To.

After Brussels, There's Really No Discussion of Who Our Enemy Is (VIDEO)

Here's Brian Lilley, at the Rebel Media. A great clip:

My Buddy Tyler Featured in NBC News L.A. Tweet on Mt. Sac Bomb Threat

Here's my buddy Tyler chilling during the bomb threat at Mt. San Antonio College.

A @MtSAC professor waits in the parking lot following the school's evacuation. Credit: Allie Frickert-Murashige pic.twitter.com/PS1vo2P2Jz

— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) March 24, 2016

#BREAKING: Mt. San Antonio College evacuated, Walnut HS locked down due to reported bomb threat.

— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) March 24, 2016

Background here, "Bomb Threat Forces Evacuation of Mt. San Antonio College."

Donald Trump Didn't Start the Wife-Baiting Political Attacks

Following-up, "Donald Trump Twitter War with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)."

Here's some background, at the S.D. Union-Tribune, "Trump threatens Cruz over naked Melania photo."

And see this great piece, from Milo Yiannopoulos, at Breitbart, "In Defense of Donald Trump’s Heidi Cruz Tweet":

The first point to be made is that Trump didn’t start the wife-baiting. Make America Awesome, a Trump-opposing PAC founded by the mannish Liz Mair, started circulating a particularly raunchy image of Melania Trump, urging GOP primary voters to back Cruz. While Cruz didn’t authorise the ad himself, it was retweeted by many of his supporters. As always, the super PACs acted like a ninja assassins for its candidate. “It wasn’t me, your honour – it was those dastardly, nefarious PACs!”

*****

Trump’s crass tweets and objectionable comments may not be comfortable reading for old-fashioned conservatives who appreciate decency and good manners, but they are helping to break the language codes that were primarily set up by the left, for the left. Trump is destroying old notions of what’s acceptable and unacceptable to say, and the primary losers of his new paradigm will be left-wingers and establishment types.

If Republicans learn anything from the unbelievable failure of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, it should be that “presidential” and “nice” don’t go together.  Isn’t it strange that elections follow the same rules as dating? Nice guys finish last.

Republicans typically reject the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality that has invaded our culture, but if you insist, we can add up to the attractiveness quotient of Cruz’s wife and all of his alleged mistresses and compare the total with Melania. That ought to at least earn him a participation trophy.

To beat Hillary, Republicans must focus on getting more people under the tent, which means snagging Democrats. Would Trump gain the support blue collar working Democrats by tearfully apologizing to Cruz after the senator’s minions attacked his wife? He could actually alienate them with that behaviour. Outside of the D.C beltway, respect is gained by standing up for yourself, and punching back twice as hard.

You also need balls to tame the beast of political progressivism. Trump is facing attackers from all sides. GOP establishment members planning convention shenanigans to steal the nomination, RINOs like Rick Wilson promising to vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump, and Soros-funded goons from Black Lives Matter and MoveOn planning attacks on the democratic process.  The Donald knows that the best defense is a good offense, and that’s exactly the style we need to win the election.

Trump isn’t just changing politics, he’s changing culture. The grievance wars have created a daily reality of fear for people who fall foul of the hyper-offended, even when the offense is unintentional. When actor Drake Bell cracked a joke about calling Caitlyn Jenner “Bruce,” he faced an internet lynch-mob of people who were offended on Jenner’s behalf and was forced to apologise.

Taking offense is a sort of one-upmanship. If you’re offended, especially on behalf of an allegedly “marginalized” group, it signals you’re a part of the educated, progressive elite. This, from people who’ve never read a book outside 2 years of a Gender Studies degree.

This is the consensus that’s prevailed in politics and culture for more than a generation. There are only two significant forces that are putting up a fight against it: the anonymous pranksters of the internet, who reside on websites like 4chan and 8chan and delight in deliberately offending people, and Donald Trump...

Still more.

John Hawkins: No, I Will Not Vote for Donald J. Trump in a General Election

The proprietor of Right Wing News, at Town Hall:

I hammered John McCain and Mitt Romney so brutally during the GOP primaries that I was blackballed from the 2008 and 2012 Republican conventions in retaliation, but when the time came in the general election, I did vote Republican. I will never be a fan of John McCain or Mitt Romney, but I could at least embrace Reagan’s my “80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy” mantra and support them.

I cannot say the same about Donald J. Trump.

He’s not a good man, a Christian or a conservative and he doesn’t care about the Constitution, the country or as far I can tell, anything other than making money and hearing his name repeated as often as possible. If Matthew 7:16 is right and, “By their fruit you will recognize them,” what fruits has Donald J. Trump borne into the conservative movement? He’s managed to turn longtime allies against each other, good people are approving of despicable behavior they would have unhesitatingly condemned a year ago and the way he behaves is so childish and disgusting that 35% of Republicans and Republican leaning independents want a third party if he’s the nominee. Many Donald J. Trump fans assume these people who detest him so much are “establishment” Republicans. While it’s true that many members of the GOP establishment dislike Donald J. Trump (And others, like Chris Christie, Rick Scott and Scott Brown have endorsed him), the majority of people who oppose him are grassroots conservatives. Donald J. Trump may have more backers than anyone else in a divided field, but so far roughly two-thirds of Republicans have picked someone other than him as their candidate.

I don’t insult people for supporting or endorsing Donald J. Trump, I haven’t called for any blacklists, I’m not calling for the nomination to be taken from him at the convention and I’m not encouraging anyone to start a third party. In fact, I know there are many good conservatives who support Donald J. Trump. Unfortunately, when a third of the Republican Party rallies behind an unelectable, unstable, misogynistic, authoritarian conman who says any stupid thing that comes into his head, there is no escape for the rest of us from the ramifications of that decision...

Keep reading.

Body Cam Footage Shows Fatal Police Shooting of Mentally Disabled Man Freddy Centeno (VIDEO)

At KABC News 30 Fresno, "BODY CAM FOOTAGE: FREDDY CENTENO SHOT BY FRESNO POLICE," and "FRESNO POLICE RESPOND TO BODY CAM VIDEO OF FATAL SHOOTING OF FREDDY CENTENO."

And watch, at ABC Nightly News:

Donald Trump Twitter War with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)

This is the weirdest presidential primary I can remember, and it's not pretty.

At CBS Evening News:

Deal of the Day: Pebble Time Round Smartwatch

At Amazon, Pebble Time Round Smartwatch - Silver/Stone (20mm) (Certified Refurbished).

More, Save on Pebble Smartwatches.

And, Save on Puma Athletic Shoes.

Also from Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.

And Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.

BONUS: By Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945: Abridged Edition.

#BrusselsAttacks: Suspect Shot in Schaerbeek Raid (VIDEO)

See the live blog at Telegraph UK, "Images emerge of suspect from Schaerbeek raid being dragged away," and "Video purports to show man 'neutralised' in Brussels raid."

Also, "'Several explosions, man neutralised'."

Plus, at WSJ, "Two Shot as Belgium Intensifies Terror Sweep":

BRUSSELS—Belgian police carried out multiple raids and shot two people who resisted arrest on Friday as they broadened their investigations into the Islamic State terror network linked to the Brussels attacks and a plot foiled Thursday in France.

The Belgium prosecutor identified the second suicide bomber at the Brussels airport as Najim Laachraoui, a 24-year-old Belgian national of Moroccan descent who is believed to have been the bomb maker of both the Paris and Brussels attacks. His DNA traces were found on one of the suicide vests and one of the detonators used in Paris, as well as in the hideouts used by the Paris attackers before the assault.

Mr. Laachraoui traveled to Syria in 2013 and was charged in absentia in February for being a recruiter for Islamic State. U.S. officials said they were surprised that Mr. Laachraoui, one of the Islamic State’s most well known bomb makers, blew himself up in the Belgian attack. Some of these officials said they think he had little choice, and was clearly worried that authorities were moving in on him.

Officials said Islamic State has many experts in explosives and it isn’t clear how quickly another of their operatives will step into Mr. Laachraoui’s role.

The raids in Belgium on Friday followed the arrest of a man in France who had been convicted for terrorism and was said to be “in an advance stage” of planning an attack, in the latest example of the potential danger posed by the Brussels-based network responsible for the Brussels and Paris terror attacks.

French President François Hollande told reporters Friday that the network of terrorists that carried out the attacks in Paris and Brussels was “on the way to being destroyed” but there were “other networks” that constituted a threat.

“We have had results in tracking down the terrorists and, in Brussels as well as Paris, there have been a number of arrests made,” Mr. Hollande said.

On Thursday, French authorities arrested Reda Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman who was convicted of terrorism in absentia in Belgium last year, along with the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud. French police found explosives and weapons in his apartment.

Belgian police detained two people on Friday in connection to the suspected French plot. One of the men, identified by the Belgian prosecutors, as Tawfik A., was also shot in the leg at the time of his arrest during a house raid. A second suspect, Salah A., was arrested without injuries on Friday.

In another operation, in the Schaerbeek neighborhood of Brussels, police ended up shooting and arresting a man near a tram stop with a backpack that authorities thought was suspicious. The Belgian prosecutor’s office didn’t identify the man, who was injured in the leg.

A Belgian government official described the captured man as a “big fish” and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel canceled a planned event with Secretary of State John Kerry just as the Schaerbeek operation began, officials said...

More.

'I will not be intimidated' — Amanda Carpenter Decries 'Tabloid Trash' Allegations of Affair with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)

Oh boy this is sickening.

I've not even blogged the Ted Cruz/Donald Trump Twitter-spouses flame war, and you can see why.

At Mediaite, via Memeorandum, "Trump Supporter Derails CNN Segment by Accusing Fellow Guest of Having an Affair With Ted Cruz."

And on YouTube here.

Plus, at New York Magazine, "Trump-Backing Columnist Accuses Former Cruz Aide of Affair During Live CNN Interview." (Via Memeorandum.)

'Bathroom Battles' Erupt Over Transgender Issue

At WSJ:

RALEIGH, N. C.—A broad new law here requires transgender people to use the public bathroom corresponding to the gender on their birth certificate, a rebuke of a move by the state’s largest city and the latest skirmish in the “bathroom battles” popping up in statehouses and city halls.

North Carolina on Wednesday became the first state to enact legislation restricting access to sex-segregated facilities on the basis of sex assigned at birth, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. At least 13 other states are considering similar bills, according to the nonpartisan group.

Several big cities have moved in the opposite direction. Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order requiring city agencies to allow people to use the city’s 2,200 public restrooms based on their self-declared gender identity. Philadelphia recently required private businesses to use gender-neutral signs on single-occupancy bathrooms.

But Houston voters overwhelmingly rejected a ballot measure last year to extend nondiscrimination protections to gay and transgender people.

Ten states are considering “religious-freedom” laws, according to NCSL, which could allow businesses to refuse to work with gay couples on religious grounds. North Carolina approved a law last year allowing magistrates to opt out of performing same-sex marriages.

The flurry of proposals on LGBT issues could be a backlash to changes playing out in federal court, particularly the recent legalization of gay marriage, said Maxine Eichner, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. But, she added, “The story with LGBT rights has been surprising—not in that there’s backlash given how quickly views on this issue have changed, but that there hasn’t been more backlash.”

The Republican National Committee, the Washington, D.C.-based group that sets the national Republican platform, is encouraging state legislatures to push back against what it describes as the Obama administration’s federal overreach on “gender identity politics,” particularly in schools.

The RNC adopted a resolution in February encouraging legislatures “to enact laws that protect student privacy and limit the use of restrooms, locker rooms and similar facilities to members of the sex to whom the facility is designated.”

The Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly passed the bathroom bill in an emergency session Wednesday night. The move came in response to an ordinance passed last month by the predominantly Democratic Charlotte City Council. State lawmakers debated, approved and had the signature of Republican Gov. Pat McCrory within 12 hours.

Civil-rights advocates say the fast track left no room for public debate and resulted in a mishmash that repeals local protections against discrimination based on race, national origin, sex and sexual orientation. These advocates say that means it puts at risk billions of dollars in federal Title IX funding, which goes to an array of public programs, including education, and prohibits discrimination...

More.

Plus, watch at ABC News, "Transgender Law Signed by NC Governor."

We're Seeing the 'Awful Legacy' of Obama's Presidency

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today, "Bill Clinton's inadvertent truth" (via Instapundit):

Monday night in Spokane, Wash., former President Bill Clinton praised his wife, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, by contrasting her to what he called "the awful legacy of the last eight years” under President Obama.

Although a Clinton spokesperson has since walked back Bill's apparent gaffe, that couldn’t have gone over well at the White House — or, at any rate, at the mansion in Cuba where President Obama was staying just then — but Clinton was right. Barack Obama has left an awful legacy, and the next president, whoever it is, will have a lot to deal with. Fortunately, the next president — whether it’s Hillary, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, or even Bernie Sanders — will probably be a better president.

For one example of Obama’s “awful legacy,” we need look no further than the terror attacks this week in Brussels. These attacks, which killed dozens and injured close to 200, were perpetrated by the Islamic State, the group that Obama once disparagingly called a “jayvee team.”

Well, for a jayvee team, they’ve done a lot of damage, in the Middle East and beyond, and it’s in large part because of Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq, which fulfilled a political promise, but which had the effect of squandering a decade of blood and treasure, and costing many thousands of lives.

As late as 2010, things were going sufficiently well in Iraq that the Obama Administration was bragging about what a huge success they had going there. But in his 2008 campaign, Obama had promised to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, and so it was essential that he do so before 2012, or his antiwar supporters would complain. So Obama pulled out. And that was a mistake...

Big mistake.

Keep reading.

Whites 'Losing Out' to Minorities Want Donald Trump to Win GOP Nomination

This is interesting, at WaPo, "Economic and racial anxiety: Two separate forces driving support for Donald Trump."

Of course, these findings will "confirm" leftist allegations of "racism" among Republican primary voters, although that's not what the data indicate.

Indeed, roughly this same demographic of Trump supporters is made up of old-line Democrat Party voters, a kinda inconvenient fact for idiot progs.

#BrusselsAttacks: Is America Next?

From Daniel Benjamin, at Politco, "Is America Next?":

When a bomb goes off in Europe, Americans shudder as if rocked by the blast. Whatever the geographical reality, post-industrial Old Europe—in Donald Rumsfeld’s deathless phrase—is, emotionally speaking, our nearest neighbor and closest peer. So if an explosion propels shattered glass and broken bodies in a Brussels airport, we instinctively expect it to happen here next.

We shouldn’t. While the jihadist threat is genuinely global, it is by no means equally distributed. There is, of course, no such thing as perfect security, and as we saw as recently as the San Bernardino shootings in December of last year, there are individuals in the United States who are prepared to commit violence against other Americans. But the European context underlying the attacks at Brussels Airport and the downtown Maelbeek subway station—one of alienated, underemployed and ghettoized Muslims as well as subpar security—differs dramatically from anything found in the United States...

Meh.

He hardly broaches jihad at all. As long as Muslims cling to the Koran for inspiration, they'll continue to launch terrorist jihad.

More.

Deal of the Day: Dirt Devil Vacuums

At Amazon, Dirt Devil Dynamite Plus Bagless Upright Vacuum with Tools, M084650RED.

And check the whole line, up to 68 percent off, Save on Dirt Devil Vacuums.

More, Backyard Birding & Wildlife.

BONUS: From Pamela Geller, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.

Can Jihad Terror Be Stopped?

Front page at the O.C. Register. What do you think? I'm not optimistic.

See, "Can it be stopped?"

Erick Stakelbeck, ISIS Exposed

Pick up your copy, at Amazon, ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam.

#BrusselsAttacks Expose U.S. Airport 'Soft Targets' (VIDEO)

At CBS News This Morning:

Donald Trump Calls for Temporary Ban on Muslim Immigration — #BrusselsAttacks (VIDEO)

The attacks are only going to send his poll numbers skyward.

At Politico, "Will terror help Trump? ISIS attacks have fueled mogul's rise, and they keep coming."

And watch, at CNN, "Donald Trump: We have no choice but to ban Muslims."

Kohl's to Close 9 Stores in California (VIDEO)

Seven are in South California, and three in the O.C.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:



More at the San Jose Mercury News, "Why Kohl's is closing 9 stores in California."

Kristin Cavallari Book Signing in Laguna Beach

At the O.C. Register, "Former 'Laguna Beach' reality TV star Kristin Cavallari returns home for book signing."

And at Egotastic!, "Kristin Cavallari Sweater Puppies for Book Signing."

BONUS: Flashback, "Kristin Cavallari Super Tight in Body-Hugging Blue Dress for 'Good Morning America'."

Oh My! Charles Krauthammer Slams Obama's Adolescent Cuban Holiday 'While the World Burns' (VIDEO)

This is vintage Krauthammer, lol.

With Bret Baier earlier today, via Free Beacon:

Terror Attacks Fuel Debate Over Migrants in Europe (VIDEO)

I'm past worrying about when people are going to wake up.

There's actually no outrage in Europe. It's all daisy-chains and hippie candles (and calls for French fries, oddly enough). The Paris piano-man's going to be singing "Imagine" in Maelbeek any minute now, no doubt. "Solidarity" will see us through, you know. There's no time for the "hate."

It's Pollyanna all the way around.

At the New York Times, "Brussels Attacks Fuel Debate Over Migrants in a Fractured Europe":

LONDON — It did not take long. Almost as soon as the bombs went off in Brussels on Tuesday morning, the new act of terrorism in the heart of Europe was employed in the bitter debate about the influx of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

Even before the identities and nationalities of the attackers were known, there was an immediate association in popular discourse between the attacks on the airport and subway station in Brussels and the migrant crisis. Right-wing politicians and average citizens alike raised concerns that groups like the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attacks, are slipping radicalized recruits, including European jihadists, through the vast migrant stream and into an unprepared Europe.

The murderous attacks in another European capital — just days after the Belgians finally tracked down the sole surviving suspect in a series of similarly coordinated attacks that killed 130 people in and around Paris in November — prompted new questions about European solidarity and security. And they came during a period of severe self-doubt about the European Union, with low growth, high unemployment, and the threat of a British exit from the bloc, to be decided in a June referendum.

“There is a growing perception among European public opinion that E.U. leaders are not in control of the Continent’s terrorist threat,” said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk and consulting company. “Combined, these attacks will increase xenophobic and anti-immigration sentiment across the E.U., which has already been rising in light of the E.U.’s ongoing refugee crisis.”

Right-wing parties all over Europe, and especially the Alternative for Germany party, “have and will continue to conflate refugees with terrorism,” Mr. Rahman said. “This will in turn put more pressure on incumbent governments and limit their space for policy action to address Europe’s multiple crises.”

Nigel Farage, a leader of the populist, conservative U.K. Independence Party, said: “I think we’ve reached a point where we have to admit to ourselves, in Britain and France and much of the rest of Europe, that mass immigration and multicultural division has for now been a failure.”

The attacks will also put more strain on the deal brokered last week by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany with the Turkish government to restrict the migrant flow into Europe, in return for more liberal visa arrangements for travel into Europe by Turkish nationals. That deal was already being criticized as a security threat to Europe and had been questioned on humanitarian and legal grounds...

More.

Lightning Cables for Apple Devices

At Amazon, Shop Basics - Lightning Cables for Apple Devices.

Also, from Professor F.H. Buckley, The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America.

And from Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?

More, from Greg Gutfeld, How to Be Right: The Art of Being Persuasively Correct.

BONUS: From Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72.

ICYMI: Dana Loesch, Flyover Nation

She's so hot!

It's out June 21st.

At Amazon, Flyover Nation: You Can't Run a Country You've Never Been To.

Part-Choctaw Girl Removed from Loving Foster Home Under Indian Child Welfare Act (VIDEO)

Now this is just sad.

If you don't think the state (the American government) has too much power, think again.

The child considered the foster family as her real family, and the parents, Rusty and Summer Page of Santa Clarita, had begun the legal adoption process.

At LAist, "Child Taken From Foster Family Because of American Indian Heritage."

And watch, via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Not Happy With the Candidates? Try Out a New Country

Certainly.

Let's have masses of leftists emigrate. They always threaten but never do. Maybe this time will be different! Bye Susan Sarandon, Cher, and Roseanne Barr, heh!

At the New York Times:

On Feb. 15, Rob Calabrese, a Canadian radio disc jockey, launched a website inviting Americans to take refuge on a Nova Scotia island. The site, Cape Breton if Donald Trump Wins, has received 977,000 visits and so many inquiries about emigrating that it now offers a link to the Canadian government’s application. (President Obama even mentioned it during last week’s state dinner with Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister.) The site was, of course, a response to a familiar refrain, the threat to move abroad if politics doesn’t go your way. In the wake of primary victories by Hillary Clinton and Mr. Trump on Super Tuesday, people took to Twitter to vow to move to Canada, and the use of the search phrase “move to Canada” surged on Google.

The Association of Americans Resident Overseas estimates that eight million nonmilitary Americans currently live abroad, in more than 160 countries. While there are no reliable statistics about motives, few of the expatriates are believed to have left out of disgust with their politicians. Much more likely, they made a job-related move. Or retired to a warmer climate and friendlier economy. Or simply took a vacation and never came home.

Nan McElroy, for instance, had been working as a film and video editor in Atlanta when she visited Italy for the first time at the age of 40. She fell in love with the country, and ultimately moved to Venice 11 years ago. Now 60, she works as a sommelier and oarswoman, teaching people to row boats standing up in the Venetian style. “Even when it’s simple, it’s really complicated,” she said about emigrating. “You have to really want to do it.”

I asked Ms. McElroy and others familiar with expat life about the things Americans traveling abroad should do if they’re visiting a place with an eye to settling down. Here are several suggestions...

Keep reading.

BONUS: "Why you won't really move to Canada if Trump wins in November."

President Obama Pictured in Front of Revolutionary Che Guevara Mural in Cuba

At Weasel Zippers, "Obama Speaks In Front of Cuba’s Communist Dictatorship, Praises Their “Passion for Liberty”," and "FLASHBACK: When Castro & Che Guevara Tried to Kill Millions of Americans on Black Friday…"

PIC: Obama Stands In Front of Che Mural in Cuba https://t.co/wuIF8OBQCC pic.twitter.com/Fh2hdzcuVB

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 21, 2016

More, from Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "OBAMA GOES LIMP: “I take it that Obama was exploring the outer limits of his defiance of the Castro regime. It seems to represent another of the Obama administration’s great moments in diplomacy, but your guess is as good as mine,” Scott Johnson writes at Power Line."

PREVIOUSLY: "Barack's Adventures in Cuba-Land (VIDEO)."

Barack's Adventures in Cuba-Land (VIDEO)

Fulfilling some communist dreams.

See Katie Pavlich, "Obama's Cuba move is all about fulfilling long-time far-left, Marxist, progressive dreams while slamming America in the process."

Also, at Twitchy, "‘Classic Reality Moment’: Iowahawk Offers @POTUS An Important Reminder About Cuba," and "‘My God’: This Photo Of Obama In Cuba Symbolizes Our ‘Utter Humiliation’ [Video]."

And the Washington Post, "Raúl Castro, Obama spar on human rights, Guantanamo, views of US and Cuba."

And at CBS Evening News:

Was America Once Socialist?

Well, once upon a time. Think back. Way back, heh.

Here's Professor Larry Schweikart, for Prager University:

Hailey Clauson Mesh-Bikini Photos 'Too Hot' for Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit App

Well, yeah.

Freakin' unreal.

Here, "These Hailey Clauson photos were deemed 'too hot' for the SI Swimsuit app."

She's very lovely.

PREVIOUSLY: "Hailey Clauson Outtakes Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2016 (VIDEO)."

Deal of the Day: Save on Batman DVD and Blu-Ray Titles

At Amazon, Save on Batman DVDs.

"Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" premieres on March 25th, so I guess this is the promotional angle.

More, The Dark Knight Trilogy (Batman Begins / The Dark Knight / The Dark Knight Rises), and The Dark Knight Trilogy: Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-Ray.

Also, from Glen Weldon, The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture.

Barack Obama Will Not Meet the Invisible Cubans

From Christopher Dickey, at the Daily Beast, "Barack Obama Won't Meet the Real, Invisible Cubans."

Also, "Cubas Reforms Are a Myth."

.@BarackObama trip to Cuba is a giant exercise in self-regard that will legitimize and perpetuate the Castro dictatorship @rhodes44

— Jamie Kirchick (@jkirchick) March 20, 2016

Why It's Time for a Trump Revolution

From Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post.

And he's interviewed at Fox News, "New York Post columnist shares his thoughts on 'Fox & Friends'."

How David Brooks Created Donald Trump

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today (via Instapundit):

Political establishment denounced bourgeois Tea Party. Now, they must face raucous working-class Trumpsters.

Last week, in assessing the rise of Donald Trump, New York Times columnist David Brooks engaged in an uncharacteristic bit of self-reflection:

“Trump voters,” he wrote, “are a coalition of the dispossessed. They have suffered lost jobs, lost wages, lost dreams. The American system is not working for them, so naturally they are looking for something else. Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.” (Emphasis added.)

Well, it’s a lesson for a lot of people in the punditocracy, of whom Brooks — who famously endorsed Barack Obama after viewing his sharply creased pants — is just one. And if Brooks et al. had paid attention, the roots of the Trump phenomenon wouldn’t have been so difficult to fathom.

Brooks is, of course, horrified at Trump and his supporters, whom he finds childish, thuggish and contemptuous of the things that David Brooks likes about today’s America. It’s clear that he’d like a social/political revolution that was more refined, better-mannered, more focused on the Constitution and, well, more bourgeois as opposed to in-your-face and working class.

The thing is, we had that movement. It was the Tea Party movement. Unlike Brooks, I actually ventured out to “intermingle” with Tea Partiers at various events that I covered for PJTV.com, contributing commentary to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Examiner. As I reported from one event in Nashville, “Pundits claim the tea partiers are angry — and they are — but the most striking thing about the atmosphere in Nashville was how cheerful everyone seemed to be. I spoke with dozens of people, and the responses were surprisingly similar. Hardly any had ever been involved in politics before. Having gotten started, they were finding it to be not just worthwhile, but actually fun. Laughter rang out frequently, and when new-media mogul Andrew Breitbart held forth on a TV interview, a crowd gathered and broke into spontaneous applause. A year ago, many told me, they were depressed about the future of America. Watching television pundits talk about President Obama's transformative plans for big government, they felt alone, isolated and helpless. That changed when protests, organized by bloggers, met Mr. Obama a year ago in Denver, Colo., Mesa, Ariz., and Seattle, Wash. Then came CNBC talker Rick Santelli's famous on-air rant on Feb. 19, 2009, which gave the tea-party movement its name. Tea partiers are still angry at federal deficits, at Washington's habit of rewarding failure with handouts and punishing success with taxes and regulation, and the general incompetence that has marked the first year of the Obama presidency. But they're no longer depressed.”

Keep reading.

Veteran Older Reporters Are Being Forced From the Profession — Wahhh!

Heh.

From Robert Stacy McCain, at the Other McCain, "Fear and Loathing: ‘Kazika the Mad Jap’ Could Not Be Reached for Comment":

Here’s a headline:

What Happens to Journalists When No One Wants to Print Their Words Anymore? As newsrooms disappear, veteran older reporters are being forced from the profession. That’s bad for journalism — and democracy.

Please shut up. Nobody feels sorry for you, and probably nobody should. The idea that people are entitled to be employed in whatever field they choose to pursue, and that once they get hired, they then have a “right” to keep that job — that is what’s bad for democracy.

Newspapers were my life for more than 20 years. Deadline after deadline after deadline — from 1986 to 2008, that’s what it was about. From the day I talked myself into a job as a $4.50-an-hour staff writer at a tiny weekly in Austell, Georgia, until the day I quit the Washington Times after a decade as assistant national editor and Culture page editor, my life was all about deadlines. It was a job I loved except for when I hated it, but one scam I never bought into was the lofty illusion cherished by the Professional Journalism types who insisted that the rotten pay and miserable working conditions of the typical newspaper reporter were justified because we were doing What’s Good For Democracy.

Bovine excrement.

We were doing what was good for the advertisers and the publisher, and any benefit to Democracy was strictly incidental. Long before the Internet made it possible to have “metrics,” as they say, of reader interest, I realized that there was a disconnect between (a) the average journalist’s conception of his job, and (b) what most readers actually wanted to read. Two or three decades ago, there was a lot of puffy nonsense — the kind of stuff you’d read in Columbia Journalism Review or the monthly American Society of News Editors (ASNE) bulletin — about “community service” and “investigative journalism” and so forth, all of which amounted to your mother telling you to eat your broccoli.

Every major metro daily in the country was piling manpower into the kind of five-part “investigative” series (or “enterprise journalism”) cynics used to call “Pulitzer bait.” This always seemed to involve a pet liberal crusade — racism, environmentalism, homelessness, etc. — that would appeal to the sensibilities of the Professional Journalism types who think of their jobs as What’s Good For Democracy: “Eat your broccoli.”

Keep reading for "‘Kazika the Mad Jap’."

Dana Loesch Interviews Dr. Yaron Brook, CEO of the Ayn Rand Institute (VIDEO)

Dr. Brook is pretty sympathetic to Donald Trump, as a fighter, although not as a thinker and principled leader.

He's got a new book coming out, remember?

Here, Equal Is Unfair: America's Misguided Fight Against Income Inequality.

Amber Lee's Hazy-to-Sunshine Forecast

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Take an Extra 25% Off Men's Suiting and More

At Amazon, Shop Fashion - Extra 25% Off Men's Suiting and More .

Plus, from Jay Newton-Small, Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works.

From Emily Miller, Emily Gets Her Gun: …But Obama Wants to Take Yours.

And Dana Loesch, Flyover Nation: You Can't Run a Country You've Never Been To.

When Millennials Run the Workplace

Heh.

I have Millennials in my classrooms. So far, I don't have them in my conference rooms, lol.

At NYT, "What Happens When Millennials Run the Workplace?":

Joel Pavelski, 27, isn’t the first person who has lied to his boss to scam some time off work.

But inventing a friend’s funeral, when in fact he was building a treehouse — then blogging and tweeting about it to be sure everyone at the office noticed? That feels new.

Such was a recent management challenge at Mic, a five-year-old website in New York that is vying to become a leading news source created by and for millennials. Recent headlines include “Don’t Ban Muslims, Ban Hoverboards” and “When Men Draw Vaginas.”

“There’s 80 million millennials; we focus on the 40 that went to college,” said Chris Altchek, Mic’s 28-year-old chief executive.

But he is still working out how to manage many of the traits associated with his fellow millennials: a sense of entitlement, a tendency to overshare on social media, and frankness verging on insubordination.

Mic’s staff of 106 looks a lot like its target demographic: trim 20-somethings, with beards on the men and cute outfits on the women, who end every sentence with an exclamation point and use the word “literally” a lot.

Their crowded newsroom on Hudson Street has an aggressively playful vibe, like a middle-school fraternity house. Some ride hoverboards into the kitchen for the free snacks. Others wield Nerf dart guns or use a megaphone for ad hoc announcements. Dino, a white Maltese terrier owned by the lead designer, snuffles between desks.

Mr. Altchek is proud of the freewheeling office culture. “It helps us to have everyone speak out and best ideas rise to the top,” he said. “What that can feel like or sound like is rudeness. But I’d rather have a lot of people speaking their minds than a very controlled environment.”

But running an office made up exclusively of millennials, it turns out, is not without its snags. His philosophy was tested when Mr. Pavelski, Mic’s director of programming, requested a week off, ostensibly to attend a wake back home in Wisconsin. “I went to talk to Joel and said, ‘So sorry about your loss, take as much time as you need,’” Mr. Altchek said.

Then, several days later, he noticed Mr. Pavelski tweet a link to Medium, a popular blog for cathartic, personal essays. In a post titled, “How to Lose Your Mind and Build a Treehouse,” Mr. Pavelski wrote about feeling burned out at work and wanting to rebuild a childhood treehouse as therapy. The first line read, “I said that I was leaving town for a funeral, but I lied.”

“I was sort of taken aback,” Mr. Altchek said. “It’s not acceptable to be lied to.”

In a disciplinary meeting the next day, Mr. Pavelski’s supervisor acknowledged that he had been working grueling hours, so he was given another chance. Still, Mr. Altchek wanted to send a message. “Our feedback to him was, ‘This is not a three-strike policy, it’s a two-strike policy,’” he said...

He should have fired him on the spot. He lied. And blogged about lying. How much more insubordinate can you be?

But keep reading, in any case.

Donald Trump and Counter-Jihad

From Danusha Goska, at American Thinker (via Blazing Cat Fur):

Counter-jihadis are frustrated people. We see truths that others ignore. Jihad's death toll increases daily. We hope for a turning point, perhaps a charismatic public champion or a social media icon to propagate our movement.

The perfect public relations gimmick can change the landscape overnight. Relatively few people were thinking about, or donating money for research to cure amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in spring of 2014. By summer of 2014, a social media fund-raising gimmick called "the ice bucket challenge" inspired millions to participate in raising $115 million for ALS -- five times more than had been raised the year before. Counter-jihad needs that moment: when the landscape changes, and millions join the cause.

One might think that high-profile jihad attacks, such as 9-11, or ISIS' sexual enslavement of girls, might create a public relations tsunami, bringing leaders into the counter-jihad camp. Alas, the opposite has occurred. "Islam is peace," President George W. Bush said six days after 9-11, speaking in a mosque, accompanied by CAIR. "ISIL is not Islamic," said Barack Obama on September 10, 2014.

In 2010, a New Jersey Muslim man who had raped and tortured his arranged, teenage wife was exonerated by a New Jersey judge, on the grounds that the husband's behavior was consistent with Islamic belief and practice. Also in 2010, Derek Fenton was fired from New Jersey Transit for burning three pages from a Koran. In both cases, Americans applied sharia's standards. In spite of these events in his own state, Governor Chris Christie insisted that any question of sharia in the U.S. is nonsense. "This sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies."

Americans, beneficiaries of the freedom of speech as granted in the first amendment, inheritors of Western Civilization and its emphasis on truth as the highest value, now engage in the same process of decoding of news items that slaves of the Soviet system used to resort to. We hear of an explosion, a stabbing, a plot or a decapitation – the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2014 decapitation in Moore, Oklahoma, the July, 2015 shootings in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the November 2015 UC Merced stabbing – and we all wonder when and if we will learn the suspect's name. The name is not released for hours or days. Officials rush to insist that the incident was not terrorism, but, rather, workplace violence.

Tremendous resentment, confusion and frustration are building up. People are angry. People are afraid. People don't know whom to trust.

But wait! There's good news. Very good news. The rhetorical landscape has slowly changed since 9/11.

Fifteen years ago, there were far more people who were eager to play the cultural relativism card and excuse away jihad and gender apartheid. As time has gone on, more and more people, in spite of the PC indoctrination that permeates schools, churches, politics and media, have concluded that there is something about Islam that poses a challenge. People are eager to learn more. When I give talks about Islam, audiences grant me a uniquely intense level of focus and concern. Audiences are much more likely now than in the past to have self-educated, and to know the differences between Islam and other world faiths, and to be able to refute standard-issue apologias for jihad.

The gap still exists, though, between average people's openness and awareness and the elite. Political correctness demonizes and punishes people who speak the truth about Islam. Heroes like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders must wear Kevlar and be surrounded by armed guards. Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller are targeted and slandered by the incorrectly named Southern Poverty Law Center...

Keep reading.

Geller and Spencer aren't particularly big fans of Trump. So that prompts the question: Who will be our counter-jihad presidential champion?

Babe Roundup

Sorry, not doing a huge Rule 5 roundup like days of yore.

They take a lot of time and my forearm's still sore from repetitive stress.

Here's a few babe blogging links to keep the spirit alive:

At WWTDD, "Emily Ratajkowski Got a Gift Basket," and "Irina Shayk Tits Are Serious."

Plus, at Drunken Stepfather, "IRINA SHAYK FOR BRAS OF THE DAY," and "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY."

Also at Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is a field perfect for a solar project funded by the federal government, you might just be a Warmist."

See Wirecutter, "Must be rehearsing for her wedding night."

90 Miles From Tyranny has "Hot Pick of the Late Night."

At College Pill, "30 Super Hot Bikini Babes That Will Make You Crave For Summer!" (Via Linkiest.)

More, at Bro Bible, "Please Watch This Middle School Chick Fall Victim to the Biggest Track and Field Fail in Recorded History."

Also, at the Hostages, "Big Boob Friday™."

BONUS: From Dana Pico, "Rule 5 Blogging: Basic Combat Training," and the Other McCain, "Rule 5 Sunday: Looking Back, All I Did Was Look Away."

Don’t Blame Trump for Divisiveness When the Left Says Stuff Like This

From Heather Mac Donald, at National Review:

Commentators on MSNBC and CNN have been shedding crocodile tears over Donald Trump’s “divisive rhetoric” and lamenting his failure to unify the country. This sudden concern for national unity is rather hard to take from the same worthies who have incessantly glorified the Black Lives Matter movement over the last year and a half.

Let’s dip into the rhetoric of a garden-variety Black Lives Matter march that I observed last October on Fifth Avenue in New York City. It featured “F**k the Police,” “Murderer Cops,” and “Racism Is the Disease, Revolution Is the Cure” T-shirts, “Stop Police Terror” signs, and “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Racist Cops Have Got to Go” chants.

What about the rhetoric of Black Lives Matter leaders? Last October, DeRay Mckesson, one of the self-appointed spokesmen for Black Lives Matter, led a seminar at the Yale Divinity School, while his BLM ally, Johnetta Elzie (ShordeeDooWhop), tweeted about the proceedings. Mckesson (now running for mayor of Baltimore) had assigned an essay, “In Defense of Looting,” which justified the August 2014 Ferguson riots as “getting straight to the heart of the problem of the police, property, and white supremacy.” Elzie’s tweeted reporting on the class included “If you put me in a cage you’re damn right I’m going to break some glass” and “Looting for me isn’t violent, it’s an expression of anger.” (Let’s hope Baltimore residents do their homework before voting.)

President Obama routinely claims that the police and the criminal-justice system treat blacks differently than whites — an allegation without any empirical support. Last October, he defended the Black Lives Matter movement on the ground that “there is a specific problem that is happening in the African-American community that is not happening in other communities.” And might that “specific problem” be drive-by shootings, which happen virtually exclusively in black communities, mowing down innocent children and drawing disproportionate police presence? Of course not. Obama was referring to the alleged problem of racist cops’ mowing down black men. In fact, a police officer is two and a half times more likely to be killed by a black man than a black man is to be killed by a police officer. Blacks make up a lower percentage of victims of police shootings — 26 percent — than their astronomical violent-crime rates would predict. And the percentage of white and Hispanic homicide deaths from police shootings (12 percent) is much higher than the percentage of black homicide deaths from cop gunfire (4 percent).

The rhetoric of Democratic presidential contenders is just as incendiary. Hillary Clinton says it’s a “reality” that cops see black lives as “cheap.” Bernie Sanders says the killing of unarmed black people by police officers has been going on “decade after decade after decade.” In fact, among the 36 “unarmed” black men killed by the police last year (compared with 31 unarmed white men), a large percentage had been trying to grab the officer’s gun, were pummeling the officer with his own equipment, or were otherwise so viciously fighting with the arresting officer as to legitimately put him in fear for his life.

Black Lives Matter ideology, eagerly embraced by media and political elites, has created a volatile, dangerous atmosphere in urban areas when officers make an arrest...

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And see Mac Donald excoriate Trump as well, "Trump’s ‘Riot’ Comments Disqualify Him from the Presidency."