Have Fears of Terrorism in 2016 Made the World Crazy?

Heh.

I don't think so. Populists worldwide are the sane ones. It's the leftist elites who continue to double-down who've gone off the deep end.

At Der Spiegel, "Apocalypse Now: A Year of Crises, Shocks and Fears of Terror":

Ansbach, Munich, Würzburg, Nice, Brussels -- in light of the many horrific news stories, many are asking: What's the matter with 2016?

Has the world gone mad? This question is occupying the minds of many people these days. It feels like the world is out of step, that multiple crises are encroaching upon us and that the distant world of international politics is about to get dangerously personal. How are we supposed to deal with the feeling of living in an era that we no longer seem to understand?

"I'm tired of living in interesting times," a Twitter user wrote several days ago. His words were retweeted more than 1,000 times. Everyday, people on social media ask: What is wrong with 2016? When will it be over? What more does it have in store for us?

This year, international political events have overlapped in an unsettling way. Something seems to be coalescing and brewing, though it's not yet clear what. Each new development seems to come a bit faster than the last. It may have begun with the Arab Spring in 2011, but it also continued with the wars in Libya and Syria and was further exacerbated by the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and the latest terrorist attacks. We are witnessing the destabilization of the world as we've known it since 1989.

When our phones began vibrating a week ago Friday with breaking news alerts about the military coup in Turkey, we were still processing our shock over the terrorist attack in Nice, France. Each shock fades quickly in light of the next one. On Sunday, a Syrian refugee detonated a bomb outside an outdoor concert in Ansbach, Germany. Last Friday, an 18-year-old student shot and killed nine people in Munich, most of them teenagers. And only days before that, a 17-year-old asylum-seeker in Würzburg attacked a group of Chinese tourists with an ax.

It was only a month ago that a majority of British voters decided to leave the European Union. The United States is shaken by racial unrest, the massacre in Orlando -- and the rise of the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

With that, 2016 was really only the worst year since 2015, the year of the great refugee crisis. And 2015 was only the worst year since 2014, the year of the war in Ukraine.

We are living in an age of shocks and crises that could well be traumatizing in their rapid succession and concentration, since it's not yet clear whether they're only a temporary jolt or the beginning of a trend with no end in sight. Of course, the sheer number of conflicts has remained constant in recent years. But there is much indication that we find ourselves in a new era of global instability. The biggest geopolitical stories of our time are the destabilization in the Middle East, the European security order and the European Union. In addition, there has been a societal shift in many Western countries: Many citizens are angry at the elites, because they see themselves as victims of globalization, free trade and migration. This anger has enabled the rise of political movements from the fringe to the mainstream in only a few years: Donald Trump, the Brexit movement, Front National and the Alternative for Germany, or AfD. The classic political camps are dissolving as the battle between the political left and the right is replaced by one between Isolationists and Internationalists.

Every now and then, there are phases in international politics during which more happens in the span of a few weeks than would otherwise happen in decades...

Still more.

ICYMI: Go back and read Douglas Murray's piece, "Europe's Jihad Summer."

Obama Rallies Democrats for Clinton

I'm not watching the convention at all tonight. I can't stand these people.

Once again, a live blog, at WSJ, "Tim Kaine accepts vice-presidential nod, attacks GOP nominee as untrustworthy."

I've gotten to the point where I mute the TV every time Obama speaks. I will listen to his speech tonight though. #DemsInPhilly

— Aleister (@AmericanGlob) July 28, 2016

I'm not watching any of these tonight. The #Democrats make me sick. I'll see the clips and commentary later. https://t.co/8aYTVDYjyl

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) July 28, 2016

Europe's Jihad Summer

Following-up, "An Abomination Against Islam and Christianity?"

From the excellent Douglas Murray, at the Spectator U.K., "Europe’s terror summer: will politicians now accept the reality of Islamic terrorism?":

This weeks' cover: Summer of terror. Europe's leaders can't handle the crisis they created, says @DouglasKMurray pic.twitter.com/Rc2B1AiR9O

— The Spectator (@spectator) July 27, 2016

How is your Merkelsommer going? For now, Britain seems to be missing the worst. True, a couple of men of Middle Eastern appearance tried to abduct a soldier near his base in Norfolk for what was unlikely to have been an interfaith dialogue session. But Britain’s geographical good fortune, relative success in limiting weapons and our justified scepticism of the undiscriminating ‘open borders’ brigade mean that we have so far been spared the delights of what Angela Merkel’s growing army of critics refer to as her summer of terror.

It is now a fortnight since Mohammed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ploughed a truck along the Nice seafront, killing 84 people. The following Monday Mohammed Riyad, who said he was from Afghanistan but almost certainly came from Pakistan, screamed ‘Allahu Akbar’ while hacking with an axe at his fellow passengers on a Bavarian train. The next day another Mohammed, this time Mohamed Boufarkouch, shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ and stabbed a Frenchwoman and her three daughters (aged eight, 12 and 14) near Montpelier. Mixing things up a little, that Friday’s shooter in Munich was a child of Iranians called Ali David Sonboly. Skip forward a couple of days and a ‘-Syrian asylum seeker’ with a machete was hacking a pregnant woman to death in Stuttgart. The next day another ‘Syrian asylum seeker’, Mohammad Daleel, carried out a suicide bombing outside a bar in Ansbach, Bavaria. And a little over 24 hours later two men shouting the name of Isis entered a church in Rouen during Mass, took the nuns and congregation hostage and slaughtered the priest with a knife.

Although the public know what is going on, the media seems loath to find any connection between these events. Indeed, the same papers that blame an exaggerated spike in ‘hate crime’ on everyone who voted for Brexit seem unwilling to put the blame for these real and violent attacks on the individuals carrying them out. ‘Syrian man denied asylum killed in German blast’ was the Reuters headline on the Ansbach story, neatly turning the suicide bomber into the victim and the German asylum system into the perpetrator. As Reuters went on: ‘A 27-year-old Syrian man who had been denied asylum in Germany a year ago died on Sunday when a bomb he was carrying exploded outside a music festival.’ How terrible for him to lose his bomb in such a way.

The more complex story of the Munich shooter allowed everyone to double-down on their favourite explanations for violence. Inadequate welfare provisions, unsuitable town-planning and bullying were all wheeled out to explain why Ali David Sonboly started shooting in a McDonalds. Others were a little too keen to claim him as an Isis warrior, when it seems he wasn’t. The BBC got around the problem by excising the ‘Ali’ and all reports of his religion. Instead, speculation about the shooting happening on the fifth anniversary of Anders Breivik’s terrorist assault in Norway meant that every-one could ignore the Muslim eyewitness who heard Sonboly shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ and headline on Breivik instead. Meaning that in Europe in 2016 a child of Iranian parents can be portrayed as a white supremacist, while no amount of Mohameds shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ can be said to have any connection to Islam.

Sections of the media and political class seem determined to stop the public coming to any conclusions. But most of us probably did that a long time ago, and these conclusions are being reinforced on a daily basis.

For the time being, the acceptable thing is to blame Isis. There is sense in that. The German train attacker had an Isis flag at his home, the Ansbach bomber left a video pledging allegiance to the group, and at least one of the Rouen church attackers had tried to travel to Syria to join them. The extent to which the group is involved varies, and they undoubtedly talk up their capabilities, but their ability to inspire as well as direct will be a problem as long as they exist.

However, opinion polls show that the European public know that the problem is bigger than that. Before Isis there was al-Qaeda. After Isis there will be something else. A poll carried out two years before the Charlie Hebdo attacks showed that 74 per cent of the French public believe Islam to be an intolerant religion incompatible with the values of the French state. The reaction of most politicians to findings such as this is that the public don’t know enough about Islam or haven’t experienced enough Islam. On the contrary many French people — like the Christians of the Middle East — have experienced quite enough, and do not like it. Mainstream politicians cannot agree with this, not least because they (and Merkel in particular) are responsible for the massive upsurge of Muslim migration into Europe that is fundamentally changing its future. But this is a gap which they must at some point bridge...

Still more.

An Abomination Against Islam and Christianity?

I've scoured the Independent's website, and I don't see a corresponding editorial to match the newspaper's front cover yesterday.

I'm racking my brain here to see what was the "abomination" against Islam?

The Independent's Lizzie Dearden authored the piece. The final print copy may have been edited after the front page image was posted, but still. It's no an "abomination" against Islam. It is Islam:

Tomorrow's @independent front page #tomorrowspaperstoday To subscribe to the daily edition: https://t.co/XF8VnDpHYF pic.twitter.com/YpFT8Jj29S

— The Independent (@Independent) July 26, 2016

Here's Lamblock on Twitter:

saw this picture earlier and thought it was a parody. May God have mercy on your souls. https://t.co/ySL5vYJK5Z

— #JeSuisJuive (@lamblock) July 26, 2016

And Douglas Murray also shocked at this:

'An abomination against Christianity and Islam' says Independent front-page about the beheading of a priest in a church during mass.

— Douglas Murray (@DouglasKMurray) July 26, 2016

Leftists Outraged After Donald Trump Says Russia Should 'Find' Hillary Clinton's 'Missing' Emails

Heh.

I had the press conference on this morning, but I was flipping back and forth between Fox News and CBS This Morning. It turns out we have a new outrage du jour.

See the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump Calls on Russia to Find Hillary Clinton's Missing Emails."

AP's got the comments at the video below.



And at the Los Angeles Times, "Donald Trump invites Russia to hack into Clinton's emails, an extraordinary step for a presidential nominee":

Donald Trump dared a foreign government to commit espionage on the U.S. to hurt his rival on Wednesday, smashing yet another taboo in American political discourse and behavior.

“Russia, if you're listening, I hope you’ll be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said, referring to deleted emails from the private account Hillary Clinton used as secretary of State. “I think you’ll probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Trump made the taunt during a lengthy and unusual news conference in Doral, Fla., in which he also suggested the Geneva Convention treaties protecting prisoners of war are outdated, told a reporter asking a question to “be quiet” and said the fact that the Democratic National Committee may have been hacked was because foreign leaders lack respect for the U.S. government...

More.

Also, the inevitable allegations of "criminal" statements, at the Daily Beast, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump's Call for Russia to Hack the U.S. Might Be a Felony."

Heh, still more, at Hot Air, "Today’s liberal hot take: Let’s charge Trump with a crime for asking Russia to find Hillary’s e-mails":

I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act but I will point out to you that Trump didn’t use the word “hack” this morning. He asked Russia to “find” her missing e-mails, which may sound like splitting hairs but would doubtless be flagged by his lawyers in court as proof that he wasn’t necessarily encouraging criminal activity. By “find” he could have meant obtaining them from a third-party who already has them. And he wasn’t talking about a prospective hack; he was assuming that they’d already harvested the contents of her private server years ago. He was encouraging a leak. The hack has, presumably, already happened...

More at that link.

And the last word goes to Katie Pavlich, on Twitter:

1) Outrage over Trump's comments re: Russia is laughable. Hillary had an unsecure, private server to store top secret info for "convenience"

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) July 27, 2016

2) The reality: Russians have already hacked everything on Hillary's private, unsecure server and they're already using it against us

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) July 27, 2016

3) If anyone "encouraged espionage," it was Hillary Clinton

— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) July 27, 2016

Père Jacques Hamel — 1930-2016 — Martyr of Islamic Terrorism

From Marine Le Pen's niece, Jean-Marie Le Pen's granddaughter, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen:

Père Jacques Hamel - 1930-2016 - Martyr du terrorisme islamique. pic.twitter.com/W53aOitK4r

— Marion Le Pen (@Marion_M_Le_Pen) July 27, 2016

RELATED: At the Mirror U.K, "Marine Le Pen's niece enrols in the ARMY as she calls on France to 'kill Islamism'," and Breitbart London, "Marion Le Pen: Christians Must Stand Up to Islam; Young Patriots Should Join the Military Like Me."

When Marine makes the presidential runoff next year, you're going to see the European left go into the biggest tizzy since George W. Bush took the U.S. to Iraq. It's going to be seismic. Radical leftists will pull out all the stops to destroy the French National Front.

PREVIOUSLY: "Europe's Terror Storm."

Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee Throw Alan Grayson Under the Bus!

Heh.

Following-up from yesterday, "Alan Grayson Threatens to Have Reporter Arrested After Question About Domestic Abuse Allegations."

He better go easy on those threats. He's not going to have any support on the progressive left, lol.

At WSJ, "Liberal Groups Withdraw Support for Florida Senate Candidate Following Abuse Allegations":

Two prominent liberal groups withdrew their endorsements of Rep. Alan Grayson in the Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat in Florida after his ex-wife disclosed police reports containing allegations of domestic abuse on Tuesday.

Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said in a joint statement that they were withdrawing their support for Mr. Grayson, the first rescission of an endorsement in the history of either group, after Mr. Grayson’s ex-wife released police reports to Politico alleging the lawmaker had abused her in a series of incidents from 1994 to 2014.

Copies of the police reports couldn’t immediately be independently obtained. A lawyer for Mr. Grayson said the reports were authentic, but didn’t accurately reflect what had occurred.

“This is more of the same nonsense and untrue allegations that we’ve heard for years,” Mark NeJame, an attorney representing Mr. Grayson, said Tuesday.

Mrs. Grayson wasn’t available for comment...

He's a bully and a blowhard. I hope he chokes on his own tears.

Democrats Completely Fumble National Security, Giving Donald Trump Huge Opening

The leftists in Philly have completely ignored national security. They won't even mention Islamic State.

Here's this from yesterday, at Politico, "PolitiFact: Democrats never mentioned terrorism on Day One of DNC."

That's a big mistake. Big. Even the leftist Washington Post is reporting the huge opening this gives Donald Trump.

From Jenna Johnson, "Democrats’ near-silence on national security may give Trump an opening":

PHILADELPHIA — Democrats opened their convention with an emphasis on inclusion and public service, and little mention of law and order or the rise of the Islamic State — a stark contrast to the Republicans’ focus on homeland security at their convention in Cleveland last week.

Hillary Clinton has made a strategic calculation to present an optimistic view of America and its place in the world as she is formally nominated this week. It’s a bet that voters will reject what her campaign calls the inaccurate fear-mongering of Republican nominee Donald Trump.

But some Democrats worry that the contrast could help Trump make up in rhetoric for a lack of traditional national security credentials.

“My hope is that people will see through this,” said Michèle Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official under President Obama and a Clinton supporter. “It’s policy by bumper sticker. There will be some people who will find the strength of his rhetoric very appealing.”

None of the prime-time speakers on the Democrats’ opening night, Monday, dwelled on security in the traditional sense — either U.S. military readiness or safety on the streets. On Tuesday, many Republicans jumped to say that the threat from the Islamic State went unmentioned.

Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort sent this Twitter message Tuesday morning, using another name for the Islamic State:

“Clinton Mentions at DNC Last Night: 208. Trump Mentions at DNC Last Night: 96. ISIS Mentions at DNC Last Night: 0 (!!!)”

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was pressed Tuesday about the silence from Monday night’s lineup of speakers on a major issue in the minds of voters — terrorism.

“This is not a problem that is going away. It needs an intelligent and resourced and fulsome strategy, but the wrong strategy is to split away our alliances and to divide our country,” Podesta said at a Wall Street Journal luncheon here. “We need everyone in this fight together.”

Several Democrats said the structure of the convention is deliberate, with an initial focus on bringing the divisive primary contest to a respectful close, as well as on Clinton’s biography as an advocate for children and families.

Her national security bona fides and an examination of where the country stands after nearly eight years of the Obama presidency are subjects for later in the week, several Democrats said, although there is an effort to avoid much mention of Clinton’s onetime support for the Iraq War.

Clinton’s attempt to offer a sunnier vision of American leadership comes along with a concerted strategy to make the case that she is more knowledgeable and experienced on national security issues...

More.

Democrat Party Operative Spills the Beans on the Left's Totalitarian 'Gun Control' Agenda

Heh.

This is pretty crazy.

It looks like James O'Keefe has pretty much destroyed this lady Mary Bayer's political career.

At the Rebel Media, "“You say sh*t like that and people buy into it” Democratic delegate admits 'gun control' is code for wanting to ban all guns."

The woman's on video saying "you gotta elect Democrats" to pass "common sense" gun control legislation, which is really just a "bait and switch" to get a total "ban" on firearms.

Pretty wild.

More at InforWars, "EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: CLINTON DELEGATE EXPLAINS HOW DEMOCRATS WILL BAN ALL GUNS."

And check this out, lol. Confronted with her own words and picture printed on a placard, she steals the sign and runs into a convenience store, protected by security.

INCREDIBLE video interaction: delegate caught on tape, starts crying , @tombrokaw reacts #ToCatchADelegate #DNCinPHL pic.twitter.com/SqKOYFQFNM

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) July 25, 2016

Heh. Now that's classic a Democrat Party operative!

Wednesday Cartoon

From A.F. Branco, "DNC Soft Sell."

Islamic Jihad Could Bring the National Right to Power Across Europe

Well, at this point, that's not such a bad idea. And remember, the "far-right" is an epithet used by elites to smear populists whose policies they don't like.

The "far-right" is really the center. It's leftists who've gone so far to the other side that they've had to lie about their socialist extremism.

But see Con Coughlin, at the Telegraph U.K., "Islamic terror could drive Europe into the arms of the far-Right":

In Germany, the government’s failure to grasp the public’s mounting resentment towards Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open door policy in handling the migrant crisis has caused the remarkable rise of the Alternative for Germany party, which won almost 25 per cent of the vote in a state election in Saxony-Anhalt in March, almost beating Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

In France, meanwhile, Front National leader Marine Le Pen has been quick to exploit the wave of anger directed towards President Francois Hollande over his handling of the terror threat. On Tuesday, commenting on the attack at Saint-Etienne-du Rouvray, she accused the entire French establishment, both Left and Right, of sharing “immense responsibility” for creating the circumstances in which Islamist terrorists can operate in France.

The prospect of Right-wing nationalists exercising real political power in France and Germany is one that even the most ardent Brexiteer will view with dismay.

But the longer Isil is able to maintain its terrorist offensive against Europe, then the more likely this becomes, especially if the fanatics continue to attack soft targets like the church selected in Tuesday’s attack.

For all the Republic’s secularist pretensions, Catholicism remains part of France’s national identity, and the murder of an elderly priest is just the kind of attack that could provoke sectarian tensions of the sort we are more used to seeing in the Middle East, as opposed to the heart of Europe.

This is just the kind of political chaos Isil wants to create in Europe, which is why its political leaders must steer clear of this simple but deadly trap.

Um, I think there's enough "political chaos" in Europe right now without worrying about being pushed by Islamic State. Growing "secularist pretensions" aren't the problem. Appeasement is. If it takes a nationalist party to beat back that syndrome, the Europeans will thank their lucky stars they found a recipe for survival.

What Will Barack Hussein Do After He Leaves Office?

Well, I'd like to never hear from him again, but I doubt that's going to happen, unfortunately.

This is an interesting piece, otherwise. Did you know former presidents get a $200,000 annual salary, plus an expense account on top of that? Yep. George W. Bush "received an allowance of nearly $1.1 million in 2015."

Heh. Must be rough.

At USA Today:

What will Obama do after the presidency? Hopefully go away. Far away. https://t.co/HPFvnuj4iw #DemsInPhilly

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) July 27, 2016

Two Bulls Escape Slaughterhouse in West Baltimore (VIDEO)

Heh.

I would've liked to have seen that.

At CBS News 13 Baltimore:

Was Bill Clinton 'Never Sexually Attracted' to Hillary?

Ann Althouse watched the convention on C-SPAN last night, and I guess she waited until this moment to blog her thoughts about it.

See, "Maybe watching the convention on C-SPAN isn't such a good idea":

The main thing last night — other than the ritual of the roll call (the cut-short ritual) — was a speech from Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was allowed to do his thing and talk and talk and talk. He went last and so: let Bill be Bill. Some people find him charming. But even those of us who do drift into when-will-it-end mode eventually or we've fallen asleep. Bill's idea for the speech was just to tell the story of his half century of life alongside of Hillary — tell it as if it's the most charming, beautiful tale of a guy from Arkansas who somehow got to weave his story together with the most hard-working do-gooder who ever appeared on Earth.

At Meadhouse, the feed got paused a few times to make comments about his failure to mention how he cheated on her time and again over the decades and how (we think) he's still doing it now. Was he never sexually attracted to her? Did they have an agreement about it and, if so, was it just don't let the public see what you are doing? These were topics of conversation during one of our many pauses.

Oh, he was attracted to her, it's just that Hillary alone wasn't enough to satiate his desires. Bill Clinton's a man of insatiable desires, heh.

Europe's Terror Storm

At WSJ, "François Hollande declares war on Islamic State. Does he mean it?"

I think he wants to mean it. But rescinding the call to strip citizenship from convicted jihadists belies resolve.

But from the editorial:

The proper response to Islamic State is to go on swift and decisive offense, beginning with the eradication of its strongholds in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Mr. Hollande may have declared war on Islamic State, but so far the fight has been more symbolic than strategic. Unless that changes, Tuesday’s attack in Normandy will merely be one more of many horrors to come.

Read the whole thing.

It sounds like WSJ's editors aren't sold on the need for a strong domestic surveillance state apparatus. But it's not that on the home front. France isn't clueless, or lacking the administrative apparatus. The jihadist, Adel Kermiche, had long been known to authorities and was being monitored with an ankle bracelet. He was captured in Turkey trying to make it to Syria to join the Islamic State. He served time behind bars. France should've deported the fucker. That's the problem. Too many Muslims in France. Yeah, destroy Islamic State, but don't neglect the enemy within. Get rid of the vermin.

Julian Assange Timed WikiLeaks Release to Harm Hillary Clinton (VIDEO)

Of course he did.

Assange is interviewed at Democracy Now! below.

And see the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Assange Timed WikiLeaks Release of Democratic Emails to Harm Hillary Clinton":

WASHINGTON — Six weeks before the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks published an archive of hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of the Democratic convention, the organization's founder, Julian Assange, foreshadowed the release — and made it clear that he hoped to harm Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the presidency.

Assange's remarks in a June 12 interview underscored that for all the drama of the discord that the disclosures have sown among supporters of Bernie Sanders — and of the unproven speculation that the Russian government provided the hacked data to WikiLeaks in order to help Donald Trump — the disclosures are also the latest chapter in the long-running tale of Assange's battles with the Obama administration.

In the interview, Assange told a British television host, Robert Peston of the ITV network, that his organization had obtained "emails related to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication," which he pronounced "great." He also suggested that he not only opposed her candidacy on policy grounds but also saw her as a personal foe.

At one point, Peston said: "Plainly, what you are saying, what you are publishing, hurts Hillary Clinton. Would you prefer Trump to be president?"

Assange replied that what Trump would do as president was "completely unpredictable." By contrast, he thought it was predictable that Clinton would wield power in two ways he found problematic.

First, citing his "personal perspective," Assange accused Clinton of having been among those pushing to indict him after WikiLeaks disseminated a quarter of a million diplomatic cables during her tenure as secretary of state.

"We do see her as a bit of a problem for freedom of the press more generally," Assange said.

(The cables, along with archives of military documents, were leaked by Pvt. Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning, who is serving a 35-year prison sentence. WikiLeaks also provided the documents to news outlets, including The New York Times. Despite a criminal investigation into Assange, he has not been charged; the status of that investigation is murky.)

In addition, Assange criticized Clinton for pushing to intervene in Libya in 2011 when Moammar Gadhafi was cracking down on Arab Spring protesters; he said that the result of the NATO air war was Libya's collapse into anarchy, enabling the Islamic State to flourish.

"She has a long history of being a liberal war hawk, and we presume she is going to proceed" with that approach if elected president, he said.

In February, Assange said in an essay that a vote for Clinton to become president amounted to "a vote for endless, stupid war."

Efforts to reach Assange for comment were unsuccessful, and a Clinton campaign spokesman did not respond to an inquiry. In November 2010, when WikiLeaks and its media partners began publishing the cables, Clinton strongly condemned it...

More.

Democrats Nominate Hillary Clinton (VIDEO)

Again, here's the Wall Street Journal's excellent live blog, "Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright to take the stage."

I'm not watching tonight.

I genuinely can't stand it. I can't stand these people.

Indeed, the only one I find myself minimally sympathetic to is Bernie Sanders, and that's surprising:

Los Angeles County Sand Fire Casts Ominous Pall Over Region (VIDEO)

There's been so much other news I've neglected to post on the Santa Clarita "Sand Fire."

Dave Swindle and Roger Simon tweeted photos. A charred sky is never very welcoming.

More, at LAT, "'The most frightening thing': 10,000 homes evacuated as Sand fire rages in Santa Clarita Valley":

There hung the sun, brazenly aglow in red. The sky around it, tinted a dusty rose. In the stifling air, ashes fluttered like snowflakes.

The effects of the Sand fire over the last few days have cast an ominous yet picturesque pall across the Los Angeles Basin, the sun and the moon eliciting comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Eye of Sauron” and apocalyptic films.

But up in the Santa Clarita Valley, the largest blaze in Los Angeles County this year was no photo op. Raging in the steep, rugged mountains and charring more than 35,000 acres, the Sand fire plowed through homes and sent thousands fleeing as it swept through a landscape of desiccated fuel. Explosive and swift, it melted cars, downed power lines and left the air thick with smoke.

“This is a big animal,” said Mike Wakoski, a spokesman for the multi-agency wildfire effort made up of nearly 3,000 firefighters. Wakoski warned that the fire was scorching an average of 10,000 football fields a day and that containment would be slow...

More.

Political Party Divisions: A Tale of Two Feuds (VIDEO)

Interesting, but I don't think comparing the divisions between the Democrats and Republicans works that well.

Even after the booing of Ted Cruz last week, it's clear that the Democrats have been way more divided. Frankly, Monday's convention looked like things were about to blow.

Oh well, see Cathleen Decker in any case, at LAT, "What's at stake in the Democratic and Republican family feuds":

If nothing else, the opening day of the Democratic National Convention showed that family feuds are not solely the province of the Republican Party.

Party stalwarts arrived onstage only to be treated dismissively — loudly so —  by many of the delegates. That followed a second day of protests by supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, the second-place finisher, who was booed by many of his own backers for suggesting they should cast their November ballots for the winner, Hillary Clinton.

That followed Florida delegates yelling at the party’s chairwoman, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on Monday morning, contributing to her decision to cancel her convention appearances.

“Brothers and sisters, this is the real world that we live in,” Sanders had implored his supporters as they booed.

Real world or not, it should come as no shock after the campaign season America has witnessed that chaos has been visited upon both political parties as they seek to put their best faces forward in four-day television extravaganzas.

But the lines of division are not the same in each party.

Republicans saw last week that their party has been taken over by Donald Trump, the real estate impresario whose improbable campaign defeated more than a dozen candidates who, in more normal times, could have found success.

Trump channeled the economic and cultural concerns of Americans who felt spurned by more traditional Republicans, attracting them with bombastic words and spraying insults across many voter groups.

He succeeded to the point that delegates to his Cleveland convention roundly booed when his second-place finisher, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, failed to endorse Trump, saying that people should vote their consciences.

The Democratic problem is the opposite in many ways: Rather than taking over the party, many supporters of Sanders here remain on the outside, protesting. They do so despite his dramatic successes in winning votes, raising money, successfully liberalizing the party platform and contributing to the deposing of Wasserman Schultz, who will leave her post at the conclusion of the convention, months before her term ended.

Both feuds also look very different outside the convention halls...

More.

Hardee's 'Fantasty' Bacon Three-Way Thickburger (VIDEO)

Heh.

There's a fairly obvious double entendre at this commercial.

At the caption, "With bacon strips, bacon jam, and bacon crumbles, this burger is a bacon lover's fantasy":



Carl's Jr.'s not running this ad on the West Coast, for shame, lol.