Thursday, September 5, 2019
'Jumper'
Third Eye Blind.
Pretty Woman
Van Halen
8:43am
Don't You Want Me
Human League
8:39am
Starlight
Muse
8:34am
Life In The Fast Lane
Eagles
8:22am
Vacation
The Go-Gos
8:19am
In Bloom
Nirvana
8:15am
Just Like Heaven
Cure
8:11am
Paradise City
Guns N Roses
8:05am
PARADISE CITY
GUNS N ROSES
8:04am
Jumper
Third Eye Blind
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Chaos Excitement
From Thomas Edsall, at NYT, "The Trump Voters Whose ‘Need for Chaos’ Obliterates Everything Else":
Opinion | The Trump Voters Whose ‘Need for Chaos’ Obliterates Everything Else - The New York Times @Edsall with an insightful & frightening column that should inspire all of us to reform our politics to foster true democracy https://t.co/ffGOiH9S3D— Sal Albanese (@SalAlbaneseNYC) September 4, 2019
Over the four years during which he has dominated American political life, nearly three of them as president, Donald Trump has set a match again and again to chaos-inducing issues like racial hostility, authoritarianism and white identity politics.More.
Last week, at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, the winner of the best paper award in the Political Psychology division was “A ‘Need for Chaos’ and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced Democracies.”
The paper, which the award panel commended for its “ambitious scope, rigor, and creativity,” is the work of Michael Bang Petersen and Mathias Osmundsen, both political scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark, and Kevin Arceneaux, a political scientist at Temple.
It argues that a segment of the American electorate that was once peripheral is drawn to “chaos incitement” and that this segment has gained decisive influence through the rise of social media.
“The rise of social media provides the public with unprecedented power to craft and share new information with each other,” they write. In the political arena, this technological transformation allows the transmission of a type of information that portrays “political candidates or groups negatively” and has “a low evidential basis.” The “new information” transmitted on social media includes “conspiracy theories, fake news, discussions of political scandals and negative campaigns.”
The circulation of this type of information (which the authors label “hostile political rumors”) has been “linked to large-scale political outcomes within recent years such as the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
On a less cataclysmic level, the authors’ analysis helps explain the intensity of anti-establishment voting that drove Trump’s successful takeover of the Republican Party in the 2016 primaries.
The authors describe “chaos incitement” as a “strategy of last resort by marginalized status-seekers,” willing to adopt disruptive tactics. Trump, in turn, has consistently sought to strengthen the perception that America is in chaos, a perception that has enhanced his support while seeming to reinforce his claim that his predecessors, especially President Barack Obama, were failures.
Petersen, Osmundsen and Arceneaux find that those who meet their definition of having a “need for chaos” express that need by willingly spreading disinformation. Their goal is not to advance their own ideology but to undermine political elites, left and right, and to “mobilize others against politicians in general.” These disrupters do not “share rumors because they believe them to be true. For the core group, hostile political rumors are simply a tool to create havoc.”
And the abstract from the research paper:
The circulation of hostile political rumors (including but not limited to false news and conspiracy theories) has gained prominencein public debates across advanced democracies. Here, we provide the first comprehensive assessment of the psychological syndrome that elicits motivations to share hostile political rumors among citizens of democratic societies. Against the notion that sharing occurs to help one mainstream political actor in the increasingly polarized electoral competition against other mainstream actors, we demonstrate that sharing motivations are associated with ‘chaotic’ motivations to “burn down” the entire established democratic ‘cosmos’. We show that this extreme discontent is associated with motivations to share hostile political rumors, not because such rumors are viewed to be true but because they are believedto mobilize the audience against disliked elites. We introduce an individual difference measure, the “Need for Chaos”, to measure these motivations and illuminate their social causes, linked to frustrated status-seeking. Finally, we show that chaotic motivations are surprisingly widespread withinadvanced democracies, having some hold inup to 40 percent of the American national population.
Kirsten Dunst is Killing It!
At Drunken Stepfather, "KIRSTEN DUNST IS STILL INCREDIBLE OF THE DAY":
KIRSTEN DUNST is killing it on her new show, and not because she’s a 40 year old mom, with a mom body and a set of mom tits, but because she’s actually fucking good. It’s nice to see some of the “OLD GUARD” come back into the mix and have their breakout, or comeback performance that they will either be remembered by, or reminded of….
She is pretty much the last generation of talent that had to break through on an industry level...
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Whoopi Goldberg Goes Off on Debra Messing (VIDEO)
At the Daily Beast, via Memeorandum, "Whoopi Goldberg Goes Off on Debra Messing: ‘You Don’t Have the Right!’."
Monday, September 2, 2019
Lia Marie Johnson
At Celeb Jihad, "LIA MARIE JOHNSON MAKES HER DEBUT."
May 18th🥂 pic.twitter.com/ygBWZDLKQ8
— Lia Marie Johnson (@LiaMarieJohnson) May 8, 2018
Billie Eilish Erupts at Nylon Germany
Billie Eilish calls out 'Nylon Germany' over weird CGI cover https://t.co/bIrrBf2HDk pic.twitter.com/1K5tq675si— SPIN (@SPIN) August 31, 2019
"what the fuck is this shit" https://t.co/Umi8LMivvM— Exclaim! (@exclaimdotca) August 30, 2019
Nylon America is a different company than Nylon Germany and we strongly disagree with their decision to appropriate Billie Eilish's image without her consent. Nylon America is very sorry to Billie and her fans.
— NYLON (@NylonMag) August 30, 2019
My oldest son loves her, of course.
Here's a review from July, at LAT, "Billie Eilish, music’s biggest anti-pop star, returns home a hero."
Jennifer Delacruz's Holiday Forecast
And here's the hot Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Pete Buttigieg Was Rising. Then Came South Bend's Policing Crisis
At McClatchy, via Memeorandum, "plans to beef up campaign staff."
And NYT:
Pete Buttigieg Was Rising. Then Came South Bend’s Policing Crisis. https://t.co/cpVPX0dUCR— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) August 31, 2019
Beto F%!#*ing O'Rourke!
Sad.
Yeah, he f%!#*ing did, alright? 🤷♂️🙄 #Beto https://t.co/aatPmTMN2p
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 2, 2019
Beto O’Rourke is having a moment (again.) It stems from tragedy — the horrific mass shooting in his hometown of El Paso — but there it is. A rare and sorely needed chance for a do-over of sorts. https://t.co/aoNlWfbWz9
— Mark Z. Barabak (@markzbarabak) August 29, 2019
Sunday, September 1, 2019
Fresno's Racist Past
At LAT:
“The white girl whose behavior is at the heart of Fresno’s current racial debate remains on the cheer squad. The black girl who blew the whistle has been pulled out of school by her fearful mother” Blackface video raises ghosts of racist past https://t.co/QK0xlkKTix @marialaganga
— Hailey Branson-Potts (@haileybranson) September 1, 2019
Zoë Quinn Drives Game Maker Alec Holowka to Death
Death by ‘Social Justice’: Zoe Quinn Drives Game Maker #AlecHolowka to Suicide: https://t.co/QkihqzZLd2: Via @PatriarchTree
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) September 1, 2019
#SJWs #RadicalLeft 🤨 pic.twitter.com/cJq2piZ2Vc
This is what Mr. Holowka had to say about Zoe a few years ago. Too bad no one stood up for him when it counted.
— Ethan Ralph (@TheRalphRetort) September 1, 2019
Now he's dead and that crowd is back to blaming everyone but themselves. (h/t @GamesNosh) #ZoeBodyCount pic.twitter.com/HYZFSvI1rv
Hong Kong Police Beat Protesters (VIDEO)
Shake my head, I'd like to beat them with a baton sometimes.
I have to catch a few hours of sleep, but for those following #hongkong, make sure you’re following @HongKongFP @HongKongHermit @rhokilpatrick @fion_li @erinhale @EricCheungwc for dispatches from the protests— Milena Rodban (@MilenaRodban) September 1, 2019
Jennifer Delacruz's Hot Sunday Forecast
One of the best things about U.C. Santa Barbara, where I attended grad school, is that classes didn't start until the last week of September. I mean, talk about paradise: the beaches, the quaint old town shopping and dining, the carefree life of an academic climber.
Those were the days.
In any case, U.C. San Diego is nice too. You gotta love this weather.
Here's the dreamy Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Adrienne Levai Playboy Photoshoot
And Pmate Hunter, "Adrienn Levai in Playboy Set Scenic Strip Down."
Saturday, August 31, 2019
The Joke Police Are Looking to Strip Dave Chappelle of His Speech Rights
Have you watched the new Dave Chappelle special on Netflix? It's da bomb!
See Cold Fury, "Sticks and Stones."
Did I just watch Dave Chappelle save America from itself in 65 minutes on Netflix? pic.twitter.com/FCXgk2j4hX
— Bret Easton Ellis (@BretEastonEllis) August 29, 2019
Los Angeles Labor Day Weekend: Scorching in the Valleys, Perfect at the Beach
At the Los Angeles Times, "Labor Day weekend weather: Scorching in the valleys, perfect at the beach."
Angels Pitcher Tyler Skaggs O.D.'d on Fentanyl, Oxycodone, and Alcohol
I just knew it immediately when the news broke in July that Skaggs didn't die of natural causes. What exactly killed him? No one knew at the time. But it was suspicious and anyone with a brain probably had it figured out.
Prayers for his family and his soul.
At the Los Angeles Times, "Tyler Skaggs’ autopsy: Fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol led to death by choking on vomit."
And, "Details of Tyler Skaggs’ death could trigger legal battle with millions at stake":
Investigations into that question could determine whether the Angels and the family of one of their most popular players face off in legal proceedings that could take years and be worth tens of millions of dollars — or more.RTWT.
The Skaggs family and the Angels each have retained attorneys based in Texas, where Skaggs died July 1 on the first day of a team trip to play the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. The prospects of a wrongful-death lawsuit appear significant, given that the family‘s assertion in a statement Friday that they had learned the “circumstances surrounding Tyler’s death … may involve an employee of the Los Angeles Angels.”
That statement prompted Major League Baseball to launch an investigation. Police in Southlake, Texas — where the Angels were staying that night — have been investigating since Skaggs’ death. The attorney hired by the Skaggs family, Rusty Hardin, intends to pursue his own probe.
“We’re going to want to know how it came about that those drugs were ingested,” Hardin told The Times, “and whether or not others are responsible for what happened.”
The prospects of success for any wrongful death suit could depend on whether attorneys can identify a party besides Skaggs that might be at least partially responsible for his death, said Julie Cantor, who teaches law at UCLA.
“You need to have a wrongful act,” said Cantor, speaking generally because she has not reviewed any records in the Skaggs case...
Really Bad Joe Biden
At Twitchy:
'Oh my gosh this is really bad': A lot of details in Joe Biden's war story just don't add up https://t.co/X1CrcceQaR
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 29, 2019
Except almost every detail in the story appears to be incorrect. Based on interviews with more than a dozen U.S. troops, their commanders and Biden campaign officials, it appears as though the former vice president has jumbled elements of at least three actual events into one story of bravery, compassion and regret that never happened.
iden visited Kunar province in 2008 as a U.S. senator, not as vice president. The service member who performed the celebrated rescue that Biden described was a 20-year-old Army specialist, not a much older Navy captain. And that soldier, Kyle J. White, never had a Silver Star, or any other medal, pinned on him by Biden. At a White House ceremony six years after Biden’s visit, White stood at attention as President Barack Obama placed a Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, around his neck.
The upshot: In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony.
Lana Del Rey 'Doin' Time' (VIDEO)
At Consequence of Sound:
It’s attack of the 50 foot Lana Del Rey in the “Doin’ Time” video: https://t.co/jp63uydxvY #DOINTIME pic.twitter.com/tkG4mQP8s1
— Consequence of Sound (@consequence) August 29, 2019
Michelle Malkin National Book Tour
Her new book's at Amazon, Michelle Malkin, Open Borders Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction?
Email me if you'd like to have a meet up before her book signing.
The #AbolishICE mob is threatening our immigration enforcement agents & endangering us all. I'm taking #StandWithICE straight to sanctuary hellholes. Need patriots to join me. More to come==> https://t.co/aThvSvw6dG #openbordersinc #malkintour pic.twitter.com/MrO04IvcYI— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) August 28, 2019
Emily Ratajkowski Full Collection
And, "EMILY RATAJKOWSKI NUDE ULTIMATE COMPILATION."
New @inamoratawoman this week. pic.twitter.com/KdCozHgbGu
— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) August 18, 2019
Bebe Rexha
At Drunken Stepfather, "BEBE REXHA TOPLESS LABOR DAY OF THE DAY."
This is what 30 looks like. Happy Birthday to me! Self love. Body positivity. Unapologetically me. #Not20Anymore pic.twitter.com/FbFVeKDEUv
— Bebe Rexha (@BebeRexha) August 30, 2019
Picture dedicated to the music executive who said I am too old to be sexy. pic.twitter.com/56WmE4d01e
— Bebe Rexha (@BebeRexha) August 12, 2019
In the Mail: Kathleen Sears, Socialism 101
Available at Amazon, Kathleen Sears, Socialism 101: From the Bolsheviks and Karl Marx to Universal Healthcare and the Democratic Socialists, Everything You Need to Know about Socialism.
Jennifer Delacruz's Saturday Forecast
Still cool and relax, folks.
Here's the spectacular Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Thursday, August 29, 2019
'Jews are telling me they're taking off their yarmulkes on the subway platform...'
Read this entire thread, and at the Tablet below:
The attacks are against those clearly wearing Jewish attire, so most Jews don’t see anything different about their daily commute, while their Orthodox neighbor has to go incognito for fear of being thrown in front of a train.
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) August 29, 2019
Leave you with this: Everybody knows. Everybody knows. Everyone. No one gets a pass: https://t.co/jNUzUxTNA6
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) August 29, 2019
"I've never before heard of this 'Eve Fairbanks' creature..."
At Red State, "If You Want Civility You Just Might Be a Neo-Confederate and Because of That the Left Really Does Want You Dead."
And at Eve Fairbanks' homepage:
I grew up in Virginia a little girl mad about the American Civil War. On weekends I begged my father to take me to all the battlefields: Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Antietam. I was transfixed by the moral question the war addressed and the incredible change its end effected: a change we're still trying to make real...Leftists are truly deranged.
Via Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "NEW CIVILITY WATCH."
Azealia Banks
Azealia Banks is in Sweden and she is a MOOD.
— Annika H Rothstein (@truthandfiction) August 25, 2019
“This socialism shit is bogus” 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/EQJvM0yxMd
Dennis Prager Featured at the Los Angeles Times
See, "How a Los Angeles-based conservative became one of the internet’s biggest sensations."
.@latimes' attack on @prageru indicates how crucial the platform is in this climate. Lib MSM bashes @DennisPrager for making case for God-based moral system but deems @Google restricting access to their videos unnewsworthy making no mention in the article. https://t.co/OYG2UE862E pic.twitter.com/XMF2EBnvHB
— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) August 26, 2019
Halsey
And at Drunken Stepfather, "Halsey - Seen at Tatsu Ramen in NYC 8/27/19."
MY JAW DROPPED AT THIS LOOK!!!!!!!!! @halsey 😱😱😱
— Video Music Awards (@vmas) August 26, 2019
Find out if she wins TONIGHT at the #VMAs at 8p on @MTV ❤️ pic.twitter.com/ll0beJAQsP
.@halsey came to SERVE at the #VMAs this year! 🔥👏 pic.twitter.com/gsLYronWOo
— MTV (@MTV) August 26, 2019
Halsey is no sweet dream, but she's one hell of a sight. #VMAs pic.twitter.com/PKUyqLkDp9
— E! News (@enews) August 27, 2019
Monday, August 26, 2019
Is College a Good Investment?
In any case, here's Charlie Kirk for Prager University:
Michael Mann, 'Hockey Stick' Hoaxer, Loses Multi-Million Libel Suit in British Columbia
And MSE Creative Consulting, "The Iconic Image of the Global Warming Movement Is a Fraud."
RTWT. (Via Instapundit.)
Decriminalizing Hard Drugs
Seattle is in effect decriminalizing the use of hard drugs, @NickKristof writes. It is relying less on the criminal justice toolbox to deal with drug abuse and more on the public health toolbox. https://t.co/3YvnxDaxAM
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) August 23, 2019
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Jennifer Delacruz's Sunday Forecast
It's fabulous summer weather.
And here's the spectacular Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Paul Blustein, Schism
Out next month, at Amazon, Paul Blustein, Schism: China, America, and the Fracturing of the Global Trading System.
Dow Drops 623 Points as U.S.-China Trade War Escalates (VIDEO)
And ABC World News Tonight. Notice Trump's "I am the chosen one" comments:
....having fun. I was smiling as I looked up and around. The MANY reporters with me were smiling also. They knew the TRUTH...And yet when I saw the reporting, CNN, MSNBC and other Fake News outlets covered it as serious news & me thinking of myself as the Messiah. No more trust!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2019
Nazi Salute Video at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove
At the Los Angeles Times, "Nazi acts by youth loom over increasingly diverse Orange County":
In March, social media blew up with photos of a group of partying students from Newport Beach and Costa Mesa giving the Sieg Heil salute to a bunch of red plastic cups arranged into a swastika. School officials immediately condemned the images, notifying parents across the district what had happened and what they planned to do.It was an "off campus" event. Seems like the First Amendment protects their speech, although that's no defense for it.
The same month, school officials in Garden Grove were alerted to a group of Pacifica High School students raising the Nazi salute while singing a Nazi marching song at an off-campus athletic event.
Pacifica High administrators kept their situation quiet — which worked until this week, when the months-old recorded Snapchat video exploded online after it was sent to the Daily Beast.
Since Monday, Garden Grove Unified School District officials have learned of other videos and multiple allegations of students engaged in hate speech. The district has opened an investigation.
The students’ motivation and identities are unclear. But the images in Newport and Garden Grove reflect both a rise in such incidents nationwide and a conflict more specific to Orange County: tension between a rapidly diversifying populace and racist elements deeply seated in its history.
In September, at a football game in predominantly white Aliso Viejo, the visitors from a predominantly Latino high school in Santa Ana were met with signs of “Build the Wall” and “We love White,” according to the Santa Ana principal.
And white supremacist groups like the Rise Above Movement are giving a new voice to the bigotry of the skinheads and peckerwood gangs that long haunted Huntington Beach, Anaheim and working-class parts of the county. The group attacked counter-protesters and journalists at a rally in support of President Trump at Bolsa Chica State Beach in 2017.
The eight-second video from Garden Grove shows about a dozen Pacifica High school boys standing in what appears to be a banquet room giving the stiff-armed salute used in Nazi Germany, as the song “Erika,” written by German composer Herms Niel during Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power, plays in the background. At least one of the boys appears to sing the lyrics. One boy gets up and leaves, and another quickly drops his arm and sits down.
The video, taken before the start of an athletics banquet in November 2018, was originally shared among a small group of students on Snapchat. High school administrators learned of the video four months later and addressed the situation internally with the students appearing in the video and their families, Garden Grove Unified spokeswoman Abby Broyles said. School district officials did not know about the video until it surfaced Monday.
The students involved were disciplined, but officials declined to discuss the consequences they faced...
Still more.
Friday, August 23, 2019
Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning
At Amazon, Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.
Reparations Won't Make Blacks Whole
At LAT, "Slavery’s descendants say a reparations check won’t make the pain go away":
Many African Americans in South Carolina support reparations.— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 18, 2019
But others say that what they want just as much is for the country to grasp the painful history they live with every day. https://t.co/mYWRRcLeCt
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Five years before the first shots of the Civil War rang out from the harbor here in 1861, alderman Thomas Ryan and a business partner opened Ryan’s Mart at No. 6 Chalmers St.Keep reading.
Their merchandise was slaves: African men, women and children who were prodded, picked over and auctioned off to the highest bidders.
The finest adult males could fetch up to $1,600 apiece —$49,000 in today’s dollars. The most able-bodied women could sell for $1,400.
Today, the former showroom in Charleston’s historic quarter, hidden on a narrow lane of row houses blazing with pink blossoms and palmetto trees, serves as the home of the Old Slave Mart Museum.
The museum and other historic sites in the American South lay bare a shameful chapter in the nation’s past, one that’s getting new attention in the debate over whether the government should pay financial reparations to an estimated 40 million descendants of slaves.
Many African Americans in this part of South Carolina support reparations. But they say what they want just as much is for the country to grasp the painful history they live with every day.
Their ancestors often were separated from their children on the auction block. Women were raped by their white owners. Slaves were beaten for waking up too late, not working hard enough or trying to escape. They were stripped of their African names and given the last names of their masters.
The hardship and humiliation didn’t end when the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865. Black Americans continue to endure racist violence, entrenched poverty and inequities in areas such as education, employment and the criminal justice system.
“What the reparations debate is about is not so much people wanting to get money,” said Daniel Littlefield, a historian from Columbia, S.C. “Black people feel they deserve some acknowledgment of ongoing wrong.”
The reparations debate comes at an especially tense time. Since 2016, there’s been a nationwide rise in racially motivated hate crimes. Videos of police killings of African Americans have become all too common. President Trump’s attacks aimed at black leaders and immigrants have kept people on edge...
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Jarrett Stepman, The War on History
Megan Parry's Thursday Forecast
Here's the fabulous Ms. Megan, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
YouTube: Publisher or Public Forum?
Eric George explains, for Prager University:
Kate Bock Mega Babe (VIDEO)
Greenland
At the New York Times:
“Is this some sort of joke?” a former Danish prime minister asked. It was not. President Trump canceled his meeting with the prime minister of Denmark because she was not interested in selling Greenland.https://t.co/EV6R1sNnC4— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 21, 2019
And the trolling on Twitter. Jon Gabriel got picked up by POTUS and it's awesome.
Greenland in 10 years. pic.twitter.com/akqWowauyu
— jon gabriel (@exjon) August 15, 2019
I promise not to do this to Greenland! pic.twitter.com/03DdyVU6HA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019
— jon gabriel (@exjon) August 20, 2019
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Populism Rises Because the Left Has Become Unbearable
It's Piers Morgan, who I've liked but stopped paying attention to after he went on his gun-control jihad while still at CNN.
In any case, he's seen the light. I doubt that's changed his opinion on guns, but he's quite lucid on the problem facing all of us today, all of us in the Western industrial democracies where leftist PC-culture is destroying liberalism.
At RCP, "Piers Morgan: Populism Is Rising Because Liberals Have Become Unbearable":
The liberals get what they want, which is a humorless void where nothing happens, no one dares do anything or laugh about anything or behave in any way that doesn't suit their rigid way of leading a life. No thanks. So what's happening around the world? Populism is rising because people are fed up with the PC culture. They're fed up with snowflakery, they're fed up with people being offended by everything and they're gravitating towards forceful personalities who go: "This is all nonsense!"
Which, by the way, it is in most cases. So why are we surprised? I'm not surprised. It doesn't mean to say I agree with all of it, but it means I can understand it, and I understand why the liberals, my side, if you like, are getting it so horribly wrong. They just wanna tell people, not just how to lead their lives, but if you don't lead it the way I tell you to it's a kind of version of fascism. If you don't lead the life the way I'm telling you to then I'm going to ruin your life. I'm gonna scream abuse at you. I'm gonna get you fired from your job. I'm gonna get you hounded by your family and friends. I'm gonna make you the most disgusting human being in the world.
Christina Hendricks
At Celeb Jihad, "CHRISTINA HENDRICKS’ NUDE TITS ARE OUT OF CONTROL."
Position Players Pitching
I posted last month, for example, "Orioles Beat Angels in 16 Innings: Outfielder Stevie Wilkerson, Pitching 55 MPH, Records the Save (VIDEO)."
At USA Today, and third baseman Wade Boggs, back in 1997, below:
It's garbage time, all the time! MLB is seeing a historic spike in position players getting work on the mound. https://t.co/QYG7nQWT4A pic.twitter.com/mMIitzFZ5G
— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) August 21, 2019
Today In 1997: Wade Boggs uses his knuckleball to pitch a scoreless inning in a #Yankees 12-4 loss to the #Angels at Anaheim Stadium! #OTD #MLB #History pic.twitter.com/XndILRH90m
— Baseball by BSmile (@BSmile) August 20, 2019
Megan Parry's Wednesday Forecast
Here's the beautiful Ms. Megan, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
President Trump Blasts Jewish Democrats for 'Great Disloyalty' (VIDEO)
The story's at the New York Times, of course, "Trump Accuses Jewish Democrats of ‘Great Disloyalty’."
Trump Accuses Jewish Democrats of ‘Great Disloyalty’ via @juliehdavis https://t.co/ugcTHz0gBa— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) August 21, 2019
Here's the video, and Caroline Glick's response below:
I find it stunning that the left taking over the Democratic can libel the Jewish state, slander Israel's Jewish supporters in the US, use BDS to push American Jews out of public spaces and then attack @realDonaldTrump for calling them out.../— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
We are watching the Corbynization of the Dem party. Rather than protest and take the party back, American Jews are laying down and letting it happen and then deliberately misinterpreting Trump's words to accuse him of the very Jew hatred they refuse to fight on the left.../— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
Trump wasn't calling American Jews disloyal to America but to their interests as Jews. And he's right. American Jews have the right to the same freedoms as everyone else. BDS, that Tlaib, Omar, AOC, etc., are promoting aims to take those rights away.../— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
Trump speaks uncarefully but you have to really want to misunderstand him to believe he was calling Democratic Jews disloyal. Which brings us back to the Jewish Dems who don't want to see BDS, Tlaib, Omar, JVP, IfNotNow, etc. for what they are.../— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
Also at Memeorandum.By all means, stay in the Democrat party, but for heaven's sake, stop being doormats. Stop accepting the libels. Stand up for yourselves. BDS isn't about Israel. It's about you. Fight back.— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
What Happened to Bernie's Financial Backers?
Well, that was then.
Bernie's moment has passed. He's just one of a dozen or more socialists on the stage nowadays.
At the Los Angeles Times, "Bernie Sanders’ famed $27 donors are split in 2020’s sprawling Democratic field":
Bernie Sanders' famed $27 donors are split in 2020's sprawling Democratic field https://t.co/lZmUtzzYTR
— Seema (@LATSeema) August 21, 2019
Small-dollar donors made Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid one of the most successful insurgent campaigns in Democratic Party history, allowing him to be competitive with establishment favorite Hillary Clinton."Washed up."
But in the 2020 race, nearly 1.7 million, or more than 80%, of the donors who fueled his earlier run have stayed on the sidelines, according to a Times analysis of campaign finance disclosures through June 30.
The 2016 donors who are contributing this election cycle have given more than $32 million to the Democratic field. More than $16.2 million of that went to Sanders, making up about 45% of the money he has raised. But nearly as much went to his rivals, a sign of how split Democrats are as they try to figure out the best candidate to take on President Trump.
“Bernie’s washed up. I just think he’s too old,” Audrey Tieger, 68, said of the 77-year-old Sanders...
Sounds like a boxer passed his prime: "I coulda been a contendah!"
Keep reading.
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told
The '1619 Project' at the New York Times
I read the hard-copy "1619 Project" at the New York Times Magazine yesterday.
No universal healthcare.— NYT Magazine (@NYTmag) August 14, 2019
Highest rates of mass incarceration.
The brutality of capitalism.
An epidemic of sugar in our diets.
No aspect of modern American life has been untouched by slavery. These essays in our #1619project explain how https://t.co/Lq2z4ZKgqg (thread)
I was actually looking forward to it, and it's interesting and impressive.
It's also wrong.
The main problem is with the central goal and agenda of the entire enterprise, "to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation's birth year."
That is, to "rewrite" history with America's "original sin" as the singular variable that explains all consequent history of the United States, from the landing of the first black slaves sold in Virginia to the present day of political polarization, incessant racist recrimination, and the politics of Twitter call-out culture. Racism, slavery, white supremacy --- this is the "master" paradigm to understand where we are today, and of course, the master variable that implies only one way forward, the leftist Democrat way, the progressive big-government way, that demonizes and destroys the history of the tremendous courage and sacrifice of all Americans in making this nation --- and our exceptional national experiment --- the greatest in human history.
Like I said, there's a lot on this.
Start with Damon Linker, at the Week, "The New York Times surrenders to the left on race":
The New York Times surrenders to the left on race. https://t.co/YovTlDKyUq pic.twitter.com/hmb1FOZq6Y— Damon Linker (@DamonLinker) August 20, 2019
This [project] turns historical scholarship into propaganda for a left-wing political movement.Also very good is Rich Lowry, at the New York Post, "The left's vile smear of America's founding."
Saying so doesn't at all imply that journalists should refrain from drawing on the work of historians. But it does mean that when they do draw on that work, they should do so with caution and a fair amount of historiographical sophistication, realizing that no single narrative of the past is the indisputably right one, and that new interpretations that break sharply from a past consensus often go too far. That's especially true when the new claims advance a radical political agenda.
And the 1619 Project is all about advancing a radical political agenda. The message it aims to convey is clear: The United States is and always has been, from its very origin, a racist country infected by a white supremacist ideology that has birthed and nurtured institutions and systems — from Congress to capitalism — that systematically disadvantage black Americans. Political actors of the present have a simple choice: They can either embrace (invariably left-liberal or socialist) policies that will begin the process of dismantling these pervasive forms of structural injustice — or they can oppose doing so and ensure that the injustices continue, with toxic racism remaining where it has been for the past four centuries, at the very center of American life. Those are the choices.
You're either part of the solution or part of the problem.
That line is a paraphrase of Eldridge Cleaver, an early leader of the Black Panthers, the revolutionary black nationalist organization founded in 1966, and it's fitting to refer to him here, since the publication of the 1619 Project represents the definitive triumph of left-wing activism over journalistic skepticism, circumspection, and restraint at The New York Times — and not just at the NYTM, since the newspaper has promised to publish more contributions to the 1619 Project in the coming days and weeks. As if the content of last Sunday's paper wasn't evidence enough of this development, the leaked transcript of a recent town-hall meeting at the Times gives us an added glimpse of how reporters and editors now think and talk about race. Here is a representative comment addressed to executive editor Dean Baquet:
Staffer: I just feel like racism is in everything. It should be considered in our science reporting, in our culture reporting, in our national reporting. And so, to me, it's less about the individual instances of racism, and sort of how we're thinking about racism and white supremacy as the foundation of all of the systems in the country. And I think particularly as we are launching a 1619 Project, I feel like that's going to open us up to even more criticism from people who are like, "OK, well you're saying this, and you're producing this big project about this. But are you guys actually considering this in your daily reporting?" [Slate]Racism is in everything. White supremacy is the foundation of all of the systems in the country. Those are fairly extreme, unmodulated statements. Did Baquet respond by pointing out that, while racism exists and needs to receive coverage in the paper, there are many other ways to talk about America and its history — by placing it in international context, by highlighting aspects of the American past that go beyond race, by raising issues of class and ethnicity and gender, by engaging with contrary intellectual, cultural, and economic currents, social trends, and ways of understanding?
The left’s vile smear of America’s founding https://t.co/6ipY4rFGV6 pic.twitter.com/P2ebM6FwGm— NY Post Opinion (@NYPostOpinion) August 20, 2019
Plus, Dan McLaughlin has an incredible Twitter thread, which would be better for students to learn in school that NYT's slavery project --- and I don't exaggerate.
At Twitchy, "Class is in SESSION: Dan McLaughlin’s thread on American history makes New York Times look even more desperate."
That's one of the more obviously ahistorical claims in this piece, if you know anything at all about the history of British or American abolitionism or the origins of the American revolution. https://t.co/HariFOnJEk https://t.co/4q5sdTrZf1— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) August 19, 2019
Also, via Memeorandum, at Slate, "Who Got the Maddest About the New York Times’ Slavery Coverage?"
The Pulitzer Center has the pdf of Sunday's magazine, so no worry about the Times' paywall.
Kendra Sunderland Bikini Smokin' Reefer
On Twitter:
I feel blessed 💕 pic.twitter.com/zO1LokyJe7— Kendra Sunderland (@KSLibraryGirl) August 20, 2019
And flashback, "Kendra Sunderland, Former Oregon State University Student, Arrested After Making Porn Video in Campus Library."
Olympia Valance
At Drunken Stepfather, "POTENTIALLY OLYMPIA VALANCE NUDE OF THE DAY."
And at the Fappening, "Olympia Valance Nude Leaked."
Monday, August 12, 2019
Our Poisoned Information System
The system is poisoned all right, but it's not like the Old Gray Lady is completely innocent here. Dan Gainor points out the two-year long Russia conspiracy hoax as an example.
In any case, FWIW:
Strong column by @cwarzel. Begs the question: would things improve if all journalists got off Twitter? https://t.co/qEptXGel4X— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) August 11, 2019
Imagine the dystopia that is a country divided in a hashtag battle accusing a former president and the current president of staging the suicide of a pedophile emperor to cover up their child molestation.#TrumpBodyCount#ClintonBodyCount— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) August 10, 2019
This creates big incentives to game trending. Either:— Renee DiResta (@noUpside) August 10, 2019
1) press will cover it & amplify
2) press will debunk & still amplify, while creating controversy
3) press will very occasionally ignore,then conspiracy press will cover to ask why 🤔
if you make it trend, you make it true.
Mr. Epstein’s apparent suicide is, in many ways, the post-truth nightmare scenario. The sordid story contains almost all the hallmarks of stereotypical conspiratorial fodder: child sex-trafficking, powerful global political leaders, shadowy private jet flights, billionaires whose wealth cannot be explained. As a tale of corruption, it is so deeply intertwined with our current cultural and political rot that it feels, at times, almost too on-the-nose. The Epstein saga provides ammunition for everyone, leading one researcher to refer to Saturday’s news as the “Disinformation World Cup.”
At the heart of Saturday’s fiasco is Twitter, which has come to largely program the political conversation and much of the press. Twitter is magnetic during massive breaking stories; news junkies flock to it for up-to-the-second information. But early on, there’s often a vast discrepancy between the attention that is directed at the platform and the available information about the developing story. That gap is filled by speculation and, via its worst users, rumor-mongering and conspiracy theories.
On Saturday, Twitter’s trending algorithms hoovered up the worst of this detritus, curating, ranking and then placing it in the trending module on the right side of its website. Despite being a highly arbitrary and mostly “worthless metric,” trending topics on Twitter are often interpreted as a vague signal of the importance of a given subject.
There’s a decent chance that President Trump was using Twitter’s trending module when he retweeted a conspiratorial tweet tying the Clintons to Epstein’s death. At the time of Mr. Trump’s retweet, “Clintons” was the third trending topic in the United States. The specific tweet amplified by the president to his more than 60 million followers was prominently featured in the “Clintons” trending topic. And as Ashley Feinberg at Slate pointed out in June, the president appears to have a history of using trending to find and interact with tweets.
On Saturday afternoon, computational propaganda researcher Renée DiResta noted that the media’s close relationship with Twitter creates an incentive for propagandists and partisans to artificially inflate given hashtags. Almost as soon as #ClintonBodyCount began trending on Saturday, journalists took note and began lamenting the spread of this conspiracy theory — effectively turning it into a news story, and further amplifying the trend. “Any wayward tweet … can be elevated to an opinion worth paying attention to,” Ms. DiResta wrote. “If you make it trend, you make it true.”
That our public conversation has been uploaded onto tech platforms governed by opaque algorithms adds even more fodder for the conspiratorial minded. Anti-Trump Twitter pundits with hundreds of thousands of followers blamed “Russian bots” for the Clinton trending topic. On the far-right, pro-Trump sites like the Gateway Pundit (with a long track record of amplifying conspiracy theories) suggested that Twitter was suppressing and censoring the Clinton hashtags.
Where does this leave us? Nowhere good.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Democrat 'Talking Points' on Jeffrey Epstein Suicide
Via Conservative Treehouse, "Far-Left Panic Over Epstein’s “Suicide” – Shareblue Dispatches Urgent Talking Points For On-Line Activists…"
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Orange County Stabbing Rampage (VIDEO)
At LAT, "Suspect in Orange County knife rampage charged with four counts of murder."
Police said they were stunned by the cycle of events, which began at an apartment building in Garden Grove and then spread to businesses. https://t.co/2FuKcTET0g— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 8, 2019
Jeffrey Epstein's Suicide is 'Unfathomable'
At Instapundit, "OH, I DUNNO, I THINK I CAN FATHOM IT."
How does one commit suicide while on suicide watch...or was it not suicide? https://t.co/7PX3iHG9Ri
— ColorMeRed 🇺🇸 📌 (@ColorMeRed) August 10, 2019
That is difficult to believe. Epstein already made one suicide attempt and everyone knows that pedos are not very popular with the prison population. How many inmates could implicate several Presidents as well as a Prince of England not to mention many other high powered names?
— ColorMeRed 🇺🇸 📌 (@ColorMeRed) August 10, 2019
#ClintonBodyCount
On Twitter:
My God, they’re already covering it up. Twitter has completely replaced the hashtag #ClintonBodyCount with #TrumpBodyCount on the trending newsfeed even though the numbers were higher.
— Mindy Robinson 🇺🇸 (@iheartmindy) August 10, 2019
The media bias is UNREAL at this point. pic.twitter.com/38QBO7HBIB
People close to Epstein fear he was murdered...as Epstein told authorities someone tried to kill him in a previous incident weeks earlier. He was described as being in good spirits in recent days... https://t.co/J9QNSo1N2v
— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) August 10, 2019
The New Nativists: Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
It's all a Russia-back plot to spread disinformation, you see.
At the Old Gray Lady, FWIW:
Sweden views itself as a moral and progressive superpower, but an anti-immigration backlash has allowed right-wing populism to take hold. Aiding the rise in far-right, national sentiment: a global disinformation machine. https://t.co/YD1jn8oU3S
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 10, 2019
Brooke Baldwin Breaks Down
If you cry enough maybe something will be done, right?
At CNN:
Jeffrey Epstein Dead
Epstein was actually not on suicide watch when he died. But folks on Twitter are already alleging he was murdered. #EpsteinMurder and #TrumpBodyCount are among the almost exclusively Jeffrey Epstein trending topics.
And at the New York Times, via Memeoranum, "Jeffrey Epstein Dead in Suicide at Manhattan Jail, Officials Say."
And those trending topics weren't favorable to Democrats earlier today. What happened?
Funny how it always goes against conservatives.
it took the conspiracy people no time to go overdrive on peddling that the clintons killed epstein pic.twitter.com/MhJKPFoJQm
— Ali Breland (@alibreland) August 10, 2019