Yesterday's Best of Music 2014 Link was Bad

Sorry about that.

I appreciate the readers who've purchased items through American Power's Amazon shopping links. I don't pimp for dollars much around here, but I appreciate the cash earned through the Amazon sales program. Thanks again.

There's still time for Cyber Week shopping too!

Rolling Stone Apologizes for UVA Rape Story

This is not a good week for the rape-hysteria industry, to say the least.

Check Ashe Schow, who's been all over this:

Talk about a Friday news dumb, @RollingStone: http://t.co/cMndKwx1oZ

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) December 5, 2014

“One of my biggest fears... is that people will be unwilling to believe survivors in the future” http://t.co/qlkAeTTrHR cc: @AsheSchow

— CamEdwards (@CamEdwards) December 5, 2014

FLASHBACK: "If false, Rolling Stone story could set rape victims back decades” http://t.co/IwFMkOSONI

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) December 5, 2014

Don't become a fucking reporter if you're not willing to let the facts get in the way of a great story.

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) December 5, 2014

Also, worth noting that the Rolling Stone fauxpology puts the blame entirely on “Jackie" and none of it on itself. Because why not?

— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) December 5, 2014

Rolling Stone editor says trust in gang-rape accuser “misplaced” http://t.co/kh7g21OnP0

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) December 5, 2014

This was not a good week for real victims of rape

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) December 5, 2014

@AsheSchow This is what happens when you have journalists who think it's more important to push an agenda than checking facts

— Yeyo (@facerealitynow) December 5, 2014

FIFY RT @AmandaMarcotte: Oops. My bad. Sorry about accusing everyone of being rape truthers. That was childish & incorrect.

— F. Bill McMorris (@FBillMcMorris) December 5, 2014

Really, this is something else. Just wow. Virtually every "rape" meme spouted on the left is easily and furiously debunked. And then the hysterical rape "epidemic" mongers spout about how actually checking facts and debunking false leftist narratives is "rape denialism."

The left as a movement continues its historic descent into conspiracies, hysteria, and irrelevance. Man, it's been a rough six years for the so-called "coalition of the ascendant."

Video: New York Streets Flooded with Race-Mongering, Communist-Backed Protesters

Remember, at base this is a revolutionary communist movement. I'll never let this point slide.

Via CBS News New York, protesters hoisting signs from the Revolutionary Communist Party. And of course the Asian woman interviewed is wearing the obligatory Arafat keffiyeh, signifying the "revolutionary" struggle for "Palestinian" liberation. They're all a bunch of idiots and poseurs:

'Peak Oil' Debunked, Again

Love!

At the Wall Street Journal, "The world relearns that supply responds to necessity and price":

It has been 216 years since Thomas Malthus gave birth to the idea that mankind’s appetite for natural resources would outstrip nature’s capacity to supply them. There have since been regular warnings that the world is running out of soybeans, helium, chocolate, tunsgsten, you name it—and that population growth has become unsustainable. The warnings create a political or social panic for a while, only to be proved wrong.

The latest reckoning with reality is the end of the obsession with “peak oil,” which for years had serious people proclaiming that we were entering an era of permanent fossil fuels scarcity. It didn’t work out that way.

That’s a central lesson from this year’s dramatic fall in the price of oil, which reached $69.49 a barrel of Brent crude on Thursday from a June high of $112.12. As recently as early November, when oil hovered at $80, OPEC officials warned they would intervene to hold the price at $70. But Saudi officials conspicuously refused to support an output cut at last week’s OPEC meeting, and Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi has made clear that he’d be comfortable with lower prices.

The short-term Saudi calculation is to drive oil prices down to squeeze their geopolitical adversaries and higher-cost producers. That goes especially for their adversaries across the Persian Gulf in Iran, which depends on oil exports for over 40% of its revenues, and where the regime had designed its budget based on $100 oil.

The Saudis also hope to slow the explosive growth of U.S. production, which, thanks to the tapping of domestic shale resources through the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, has risen to some nine million barrels a day from five million in 2008. By some estimates, the price of oil needs to be as high as $90 a barrel for oil extracted from “tight” deposits such as shale, though oil market research firm IHS believes most tight oil wells have a break-even cost of between $50 and $69 dollars a barrel.

But even if the Saudi move slows U.S. drilling, the International Energy Agency forecasts that U.S. production will still surpass Saudi Arabia’s output of 9.7 million barrels a day, and overtake Russia’s 10.3 million, perhaps sometime next year. This would make America the world’s largest oil producer, which it was from the dawn of the oil age through 1974. Thanks to the fracking boom, the U.S. surpassed Russia as the world’s largest natural-gas producer in 2013.

All this is a useful reminder, as IHS’s Daniel Yergin told us the other day, that “technology responds to need and to price.” It was the same story in the 1970s, when the world responded to OPEC’s embargoes by exploiting new resources in Alaska and the North Sea, and again in the 1980s and 1990s, when offshore drilling became technologically feasible and economically profitable at ever-greater depths. And expect more from where that came, as the frackers continue to figure out how to drive down costs, and if new shale deposits in places such as Mexico, Ukraine and Argentina start to be exploited...

More.

Activists Seek 'New Civil Rights Movement' After Police Killings

Well, this is a big surprise.

At LAT, "Police killings prompt activists to seek 'new civil rights movement'":

The chants are angry, but simple: "I can't breathe!" "Hands up, don't shoot!" "Black lives matter!" They have echoed from the American heartland to the coasts in the wake of two recent grand jury decisions that cleared white policemen in the deaths of unarmed black men.

Now, activists are counting on the rage behind those words to spur a movement that would force the country to confront the interlocked issues of race and policing and press the government to automatically take control of cases of alleged police abuse.

"They're asking for something simple. They want to be treated the same," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said of protesters Thursday as he sought to calm a city where many were seething over a grand jury's decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, a white officer, in the death of Eric Garner.

Largely peaceful demonstrations broke out in New York soon after Wednesday's announcement of the Staten Island grand jury's decision. Protesters blocked major roads and gathered at landmark sites, including Times Square and Grand Central Terminal. Police made 83 arrests, mainly for minor offenses.

More large demonstrations erupted Thursday night in New York and throughout the nation, including in Boston, Washington, Pittsburgh and Chicago. As night fell in New York, helicopters thundered over lower Manhattan while protesters gathered in Foley Square, near the courthouse and police headquarters.

"It was a murder on video and there was no justice," said Mickey Thomas, a 21-year-old Hunter College student. "I definitely think we've had enough. I feel like there is a new civil rights movement."

Ida Dupont, a Pace University sociology professor specializing in criminology, said she too thought the Garner incident was an "open and shut case" with the video.

"It was so ridiculous to me that I had to be here today to show my outrage," Dupont said.

"I've been talking to my students about it," she said. "All the young people know something is seriously wrong."

Unfortunately, at base this is a revolutionary communist movement, which just ain't gonna fly after six years of the Obamunist!

It's Time to Hold the Protesters Accountable

From Ron Christie, at the Daily Beast:

Peaceful protest is fine. But burning, rioting, and looting are disgraceful—and they make for real-life victims we somehow never hear about.

As Americans gathered last week to give thanks, I remained perplexed by the destructive reaction by thousands who protested the decision of a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, not to indict a police officer for using lawful but deadly force to stop a teenager from assaulting him. Note that I did not indicate the race of the police officer or his assailant; physical and DNA evidence supported the claim that the teen had assaulted the officer and struggled for his gun. After charging at the officer, the teen was sadly but subsequently killed by the officer who feared for his life.

Agitators in the grievance and race-hustling industry—primarily embodied by Al Sharpton—were quick to portray the events in Ferguson as a modern-day Selma or Birmingham following the verdict. Last Sunday, Sharpton claimed the fight for justice was not over for Michael Brown, noting: “You won the first round, Mr. Prosecutor, but don’t take your gloves off. Justice will come to Ferguson.”

Never mind that the 12 jurors heard hours of testimony, studied DNA and forensic reports, and deliberated for several months before rendering their verdict. Justice was never the true goal of Sharpton and his ilk—instead they successfully constructed the false narrative that a white police officer executed a black teenager—a gentle giant—in cold blood.

And yet, what of the justice for those in Ferguson whose lives have been destroyed by the felonious activities of those who rioted, pillaged, and brought shame upon themselves for their wickedness? Just after the grand jury decision was announced, Louis Head, Brown’s stepfather, shouted “burn the bitch down” and other expletives. Rioting, shoplifting, and violent confrontation with the police took place shortly thereafter. Head, Sharpton, and thousands of protesters represent the worst of Ferguson—those seeking to advance a political agenda that America is an evil and racist country while accepting no personal responsibility for the violence and destruction they helped unleash.

More than 25 structures in Ferguson were burned, damaged, or destroyed in the wake of senseless mayhem following the grand jury verdict. Who will pay for the damage sustained by Sam Chow, an immigrant to United States 11 years ago who opened a restaurant in Ferguson in 2009 that sustained major damage in the riots? The pictures of destruction to Chow’s business are as heartbreaking as they are senseless.

Same with Natalie DuBose, an entrepreneur who opened Natalie’s Cakes and More in Ferguson after saving money following bake sales to start her own business. After the riots, her business was completely destroyed. While she is getting back on her feet through the generosity of strangers who have contributed more than $250,000, a more pointed question must be asked in the aftermath of Ferguson: Why do predominately black mobs get a free pass to riot and steal in response to a political outcome they disagree with?

Newark, Baltimore, and Philadelphia are just a handful of cities in the Northeast that have never fully recovered from damage sustained in riots in the late 1960s. Same with South Central Los Angeles in the aftermath of the verdict in which motorist Rodney King was beaten by police who were initially acquitted of charges in 1992. Rioting and looting ensued shortly after the verdict and racial tensions were tense across the United States for years to follow.

The case in Ferguson differs from King’s in that King never punched or charged police officers in their confrontation. Evidence led the grand jury not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in his use of force with Michael Brown as the facts indicated Brown had initiated and escalated physical contact with an armed police officer. The administration of justice dictated that the officer not be charged, given the lack of evidence to sustain a conviction at trial.

And yet, the temptation to stick with the narrative that Brown’s death is the new civil-rights struggle for justice in the 21st century is undercut by the substitution of facts to fit a political narrative for those seeking moral clarity. Where is the outrage of Sharpton regarding the death of Zemir Begic? You’ve never heard of Begic? The young immigrant who fled violence in Bosnia was driving home with his fiancée 20 miles away from Ferguson when a pack of black teens beat him to death with hammers early Sunday evening. Moral clarity would dictate that civil-rights and other civic leaders would speak out against such a senseless act of violence. The silence is deafening...

More.

Racial Protests Spread Across Country

At the Wall Street Journal, "Protests Spread Across Country Day After Eric Garner Grand-Jury Decision: Thousands of Demonstrators Gather in Lower Manhattan."

Also, "Social Media Help Fuel Protests After New York Officer Not Indicted Over Death of Eric Garner: Demonstrations in Wake of Grand-Jury Decision Are Echoed in Washington, Atlanta, Other Cities."

Franklin Foer, Leon Wieseltier Out at the New Republic

Mediagazer has the news of the big shakeup at the New Republic.

But don't miss this take from John Podhoretz, at Commentary, "You’ll Never Guess What Happened to This Magazine! Click Here for More!"

'What Breitbart News found after an investigation that lasted more than a month is that the details of Dunham's rape claim cannot be verified and that those details point to an innocent man who has had to hide his Facebook page and hire an attorney...'

This is just bizarre, at Big Journalism, "'LIKE HOLOCAUST DENIALISM': SLATE WRITER SLAMS BREITBART OVER DUNHAM INVESTIGATIVE PIECE."

Also, "INVESTIGATION: LENA DUNHAM ‘RAPED BY A REPUBLICAN’ STORY IN BESTSELLER COLLAPSES UNDER SCRUTINY."

Killing My Own Kid

This is awesome.

At Hot Air, "Video: The freaky deaky 'killing my own kid' prank."

The Global Shakeout from Plunging Oil

From Daniel Yergin, at the Wall Street Journal, "New supply—rather than demand—is dominating the market, and OPEC has been caught by surprise":

The decision by members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countrieson Thursday not to cut production reflects a profound shift in the world oil market. The demand for oil—by China and other emerging economies—is no longer the dominant factor. Instead, the surge in U.S. oil production, bolstered by additional new supply from Canada, is decisive. This surge is on a scale that most oil exporters had not anticipated. The turmoil in prices, with spasmodic plunges over the past few days, will likely continue.

Since 2008—when fear of “peak oil,” after which global output would supposedly decline, was the dominant motif—U.S. oil production has risen 80%, to nine million barrels daily. The U.S. increase alone is greater than the output of every OPEC country except Saudi Arabia.

The world has experienced sudden supply gushers before. In the early 1930s, a flood of oil from East Texas drove prices down to 10 cents a barrel—and desperate gas station owners offered chickens as premiums to bring in customers. In the late 1950s, the rapidly swelling flow of Mideast oil led to price cuts that triggered the formation of OPEC.

And in the first half of the 1980s, a surge in oil from the North Sea, Alaska’s North Slope and Mexico caused prices to plunge to $10 a barrel. That posed a much greater crisis for OPEC than today: Over those same years, global demand fell by more than two million barrels a day owing to a deep recession, greater conservation and the switch to coal from oil for electricity generation. This time world oil demand is still growing, but weakly.

For the past three years, oil prices hovered around $100 a barrel as disruptions in Libya, South Sudan and elsewhere, and sanctions on Iranian exports, eerily balanced out the production increases from the U.S. and Canada. But the slower global economic growth that became apparent a few months ago was accompanied by weaker demand for oil, just when Libya suddenly quadrupled output to almost a million barrels a day. The result: Prices weakened in September and then tumbled.

OPEC’s decision last week reflects the conviction of its “have” nations—the Persian Gulf countries, with very large financial reserves—that cutting output would mean losing market share, particularly to Iran and to what they see as Iran-dominated Iraq. Instead, they have adopted a strategy of leaving it to the market for now; OPEC is waiting, in the words of Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, for the oil market “to stabilize itself eventually.”

It is now clear that the new U.S. production is more resilient than anticipated. There has been a widespread view that at around $85 or $90 a barrel extracting “tight” oil from shale would no longer be economical. However, a new IHS analysis based on individual well data finds that 80% of new tight-oil production in 2015 would be economic between $50 and $69 a barrel. And companies will continue to improve technology and drive down costs...

Still more.

PREVIOUSLY: "Energy Quakes as OPEC Stands Pat."

Victoria's Secret Brought Its Annual Spectacular to London for First Time on Tuesday

A Wall Street Journal video, "Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Hits London."

Also at Victoria's Secret, "VS Live: Before the Fashion Show Promo":

The 2014 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show airs Tuesday, December 9 at 10/9c, on CBS, but you can get the excitement started an hour earlier by streaming our live pre-show coverage with the Angels and special guests. It all starts at 9/8C. In the meantime, watch this mash-up of some of our favorite moments from previous years.

Charles Krauthammer: New York's Eric Garner Decision 'Totally Incomprehensible'

From the incomparable Dr. Krauthammer, on yesterday's Special Report All-Star panel:

Israel in Trouble

Via Theo Spark, "A World Without Israel: Is Our Ally in Trouble?"

Fabulous Nina Agdal in Lingerie

Via Egotastic!, "Nina Agdal Fills Out a Bra and Other Fine Things to Ogle."

Japanese Unearth Remains, and Their Nation’s Past, on Guadalcanal

At the New York Times:

GUADALCANAL, Solomon Islands — Using a trowel to dig into the shadowy floor of the rain forest, pausing only to wipe away sweat and malaria-carrying mosquitoes, Atsushi Maeda holds up what he has traveled so far, to this South Pacific island, to find: a human bone, turned orange-brown with age.

Mr. Maeda, 21, was looking for the remains of missing Japanese soldiers at the site of one of World War II’s most ferocious battles. Others have done this work before him, mostly aging veterans or bereaved relatives. But he was with a group of mostly university students and young professionals, nearly all of them under 40 and without a direct connection to the soldiers killed here.

They had come to honor their countrymen, many of whom were no older than they are when they fell on the battlefield. The group was also searching for answers. “These young men who died here believed they were defending their family and loved ones,” said Mr. Maeda, a university junior in religious studies. “We need to rediscover their sacrifices and learn from them.”

As the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, there has been a surge in interest among young Japanese about the disastrous war that their nation has long tried to forget.

It is a phenomenon that crosses political lines, encompassing progressives who preach the futility of war as well as conservatives who question the historical record of Japan’s wartime atrocities. What these young people have in common is an urgent sense that they learned too little about the war, both from school, where classes focus on earlier Japanese history, and from tight-lipped family members, who prefer not to revisit a painful time.

Driving this nationwide pursuit into the past has been China’s hostility toward Japan over control of disputed East China Sea islands, known in China as the Diaoyu and in Japan as the Senkaku. Despite recent diplomatic maneuvering to ease tensions, anxiety about China’s rise remains strong in Japan.

“For the first time since 1945, Japan is facing a small but real possibility of conflict,” said Yurie Chiba, a magazine editor who organizes talks by veterans, has written about the new interest in World War II and argues that Japan must never go to war again. “This makes people want to learn more about those who fought in the war, to rediscover how horrible war can be.”

Continue reading.

The Cost of a False Narrative of Oppression

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary:

At a different moment in time, the decision of a Staten Island grand jury not to an indict a white police officer for using a choke hold on Eric Garner, an African-American who later died after being taken into custody, would not be much more than a local news item in New York. But coming as it did on the heels of the much-publicized decision of another grand jury in St. Louis County, Missouri not to indict another white cop in the shooting death of another black man, teenager Michael Brown, the Staten Island deliberations were immediately dragooned into service by mainstream media talking heads, African-American leaders, and President Obama to reinforce a narrative of oppression of blacks by white police.


Though each of these two decisions appear to stand on their own as being reasonable interpretations of the law, together they appear to justify the upsurge in demonstrations around the country protesting police behavior and asserting that blacks are being systematically victimized. But whatever one may think of these rulings or of the police, those who are hyping this story need not only to think carefully whether the story they are telling is true but also whether the net effects of their campaign against the police will hurt minorities far more than it help them.

The facts in the Staten Island case seem to be as straightforward as the Ferguson, Missouri incident were muddled. The confrontation was caught on a video taken by a cell phone and showed that a chokehold was employed. The New York City Police Department has banned chokeholds for use but they are not illegal. The grand jury clearly believed that the tragic result was not the result of a crime but observers may well wonder about the use of excessive force or why an unarmed man resisting arrest for a petty crime wound up dying in this manner.

But no more than in the Ferguson incident, the facts in that case are not really the point of the protests, the president’s statement, or what is being said about the case on the cable news networks. As awful as each of these stories may be, the willingness of the media to seize on every instance in which a white police officer kills a black civilian in order to make a point about race says more about the need of the left to fuel fears about racism for political advantage than a true flaw in the justice system or American society...

And that's a profoundly sad statement on the priorities of far-left politics in America.

Continue reading.

Walter James Casper Gets His Guy Fawkes Mask On!

Whoa!

Guy Fawkes is too well fed!

Reppy, man, you gotta lay off those major food binge-runs over to Mastic Sports Deli!

Obama Administration Exploits #Ferguson to Undermine Race Relations and Rule of Law

From David Limbaugh, at Town Hall:

I wish there were a way to address the Ferguson controversy without generating further controversy. But that's not an easy task.

I have believed for some time that the Obama administration has fanned the flames of racial tension in this country rather than attempt to extinguish them, despite its claims to the contrary. President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, in my view, have been the main culprits, which is exceedingly unfortunate, considering the opportunity their historic roles present for making great strides toward racial harmony.

The question is: Do these gentlemen truly want to promote racial harmony?

If President Obama were trying to alleviate racial tensions, would he have accused the police department in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of "acting stupidly" in arresting a friend of his, Harvard professor Henry Gates? The statement was stunningly inappropriate because he took sides reflexively without benefit of all the facts and because presidents have no business weighing in on such local matters. Does anyone doubt that race was at the forefront of Obama's mind?

But if there was any doubt, Obama removed it when "the main message" he chose to impart from the Trayvon Martin matter was implied in this bizarre statement: "My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

Fast-forward to the present and we learn that just days after the grand jury decided not to indict police officer Darren Wilson based on his shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the White House tweeted its endorsement of an article by Christopher Emdin, Ph.D., a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. The piece, "5 Ways to Teach About Michael Brown and Ferguson in the New School Year," appeared on The Huffington Post less than two weeks after the shooting incident and before all the facts were in and the grand jury was impaneled. In his introductory paragraphs, Emdin advises teachers and parents not to ignore these types of events: "Bringing the events in Ferguson to the classroom is not only best teaching practice but a way to establish powerful expectations for the academic year."

Parts of the article appear innocuous, such as the suggestion that teachers ask students what they have heard or know about Brown in order to "spark a powerful discussion that sets the tone for the school year." The teachers can use information gathered by the class to help "students unearth the facts, fiction, and mistruths in media coverage of the events in Ferguson."

Keep reading.

'It's said that Apple's Steve Jobs got away with never having license plates on his leased Mercedes by trading it in every few months, before the 90-day limit expired...'

I'm sure that was sweet.

The rest of us, who're supposed to affix license plates within 3 months, can't just go for the quarterly trade-in.

At LAT, "Why so many cars in California don't have license plates."

This is What Prosecutors Think Happened in Ferguson

Cool graphics, at the Independent UK, "Michael Brown shootings: This is what prosecutors think happened in Ferguson."

This is what prosecutors think happened in Ferguson when Michael Brown was shot http://t.co/L2CoOOlv20 pic.twitter.com/4ltNxnuWAr

— The Independent (@Independent) November 25, 2014

Angelina Jolie and Louis Zamperini

Interesting.

I'm looking forward to seeing this film.

Yesterday, at Vanity Fair, "Read Angelina Jolie’s Moving Reflection on Showing Unbroken to Louie Zamperini Before His Death":

Universal hosted a luncheon today at the the Metropolitan Club in Midtown Manhattan to celebrate Unbroken, director Angelina Jolie’s harrowing retelling of the story of W.W. II hero Louie Zamperini. Zamperini, a bombardier in the Pacific theater, survived a plane crash and nearly two grueling months stranded at sea, only to be captured by the Japanese and held in a P.O.W. camp for two and a half years. He passed away this past July, but Jolie, who became close with Zamperini while making the film, did have a chance to show him the finished product, a moment that she captured rather poignantly during a Q&A today...

Keep reading.

Orange County Register, Riverside Press-Enterprise Lay Off 100 Employees

I drive by the O.C. Register everyday on the way home from work. I always wonder how long the newspaper's marquee building will be there.

Perhaps not too much longer.

At LAT:

Freedom Communications, the parent company of the Orange County Register and the Riverside Press-Enterprise, is laying off about 100 non-newsroom employees Wednesday.

Former casino executive Richard Mirman, who became the Register’s publisher in October, sent a memo to employees Wednesday morning explaining that the cuts are part of an attempt "to 'right size' the business back to appropriate levels."

More.

Southern California Storm Breaks Records: Flood Watches in Effect

It's very nice to have sustained rainfall.

At LAT, "California rain: 'Six straight hours of rain,' and drought continues."

Another day of this and the weather's going to take a big dent out of that drought.

FDA Could Soon Rescind Ban on Blood Donations from Homosexual Men

Pray you'll never need a blood transfusion.

At WaPo, "Government could ease 31-year-old ban on blood donations from gay men."

RELATED: At NYT, "The AIDS epidemic in America is rapidly becoming concentrated among poor, young black and Hispanic men who have sex with men."

Well, hopefully these fellows won't be looking to make blood donations.

'Do We Achieve World Order Through Chaos or Insight?'

At Der Spiegel, "Interview with Henry Kissinger":

Henry Kissinger seems more youthful than his 91 years. He is focused and affable, but also guarded, ready at any time to defend himself or brusquely deflect overly critical questions. That, of course, should come as no surprise. While his intellect is widely respected, his political legacy is controversial. Over the years, repeated attempts have been made to try him for war crimes.

From 1969 to 1977, Kissinger served under President Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, first as national security advisor and then as secretary of state. In those roles, he also carried partial responsibility for the napalm bombings in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos the killed or maimed tens of thousands of civilians. Kissinger also backed the putsch against Salvador Allende in Chile and is accused of having had knowledge of CIA murder plots. Documents declassified just a few weeks ago show that Kissinger had drawn up secret plans to launch air strikes against Cuba. The idea got scrapped after Democrat Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976.

Nevertheless, Kissinger remains a man whose presence is often welcome in the White House, where he continues to advise presidents and secretaries of state to this day.

Little in Kissinger's early years hinted at his future meteoric rise in American politics. Born as Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Fürth, Germany in 1923, his Jewish family would later flee to the United States in 1938. After World War II, Kissinger went to Germany to assist in finding former members of the Gestapo. He later studied political science and became a professor at Harvard at the age of 40.

Kissinger recently published his 17th book, a work with the not exactly modest title "World Order." When preparing to sit down with us for an interview, he asked that "world order" be the topic. Despite his German roots and the fact that he reads DER SPIEGEL each week on his iPad, Kissinger prefers to speak in English. After 90 minutes together in New York, Kissinger says he's risked his neck with everything he's told us. But of course, a man like Kissinger knows precisely what he does and doesn't want to say...

Keep reading.

And here's the book, World Order.

What the New York Times Won't Tell You About Ferguson

From Heather Mac Donald, at National Review, "Finding Meaning in Ferguson":

The New York Times has now pronounced on the “meaning of the Ferguson riots.” A more perfect example of what the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan called “defining deviancy down” would be hard to find. The Times’ editorial encapsulates the elite narrative around the fatal police shooting of unarmed Michael Brown last August, and the mayhem that twice followed that shooting. Unfortunately, the editorial is also a harbinger of the poisonous anti-police ideology that will drive law-enforcement policy under the remainder of the Obama administration.

The Times cannot bring itself to say one word of condemnation against the savages who self-indulgently destroyed the livelihoods of struggling Ferguson, Mo., entrepreneurs and their employees last week. The real culprit behind the riots, in the Times’ view, is not the actual arsonists and looters but county prosecutor Robert McCulloch. McCulloch presented the shooting of 18-year-old Brown by Officer Darren Wilson to a St. Louis county grand jury; after hearing three months of testimony, the grand jury decided last Monday not to bring criminal charges against Wilson. The Times trots out the by now de rigueur and entirely ad hoc list of McCulloch’s alleged improprieties, turning the virtues of this grand jury — such as its thoroughness — into flaws. If the jurors had indicted Wilson, none of the riot apologists would have complained about the length of the process or the range of evidence presented.

To be sure, most grand-jury proceedings are pro forma and brief, because the evidence of the defendant’s guilt is so overwhelming, as Andrew McCarthy has explained. Here, however, McCulloch faced a dilemma. His own review of the case would have shown the unlikelihood of a conviction. Physical evidence discredited the initial inflammatory claims about Wilson attacking Brown and shooting him in the back, and Missouri law accords wide deference to police officers who use deadly force against a dangerous suspect. Not initiating any formal criminal inquiry against Wilson was politically impossible, however, especially since the eyewitness accounts that corroborated Wilson’s version of events would have remained unknown. (Not surprisingly, the six black witnesses who supported Wilson’s story did not go to the press or social media, unlike the witnesses who spread the early lies about Wilson’s behavior.) So McCulloch used the grand-jury proceeding as a way to get the entire dossier about the case into the public domain by bringing a broad range of evidence before the grand jury and then releasing it to the public after the proceeding ended — a legal arrangement.

The Times is silent about that evidence, of course. Blood and DNA traces demonstrated that Brown had initiated the altercation by attacking Wilson while Wilson was inside his car. Brown then tried to grab Wilson’s gun, presumably to shoot him. Such an assault on a law-enforcement officer is nearly as corrosive to the rule of law and a stable society as rioting. But to the mainstream media, it is apparently simply normal behavior not worth mentioning when a black teenager attacks a cop, just as it was apparently normal and beneath notice that Brown had strong-armed a box of cigarillos from a shopkeeper moments before Wilson accosted him for walking in the middle of the street. Amazingly, anyone who brought up that earlier videoed felony was accused of besmirching Brown’s character, even though the robbery was highly relevant to the encounter that followed (and showed that Brown did not have much character to besmirch in the first place, something his sealed juvenile records would likely have confirmed).

Even if we ignore the exculpatory evidence, it is absurd to blame the riots, as the Times does, on McCulloch’s management of the grand jury or the way he announced the verdict. There would have been rioting if the grand-jury proceeding had lasted one day, so long as it failed to indict Wilson for murder. It is unlikely that the rioters even listened to, much less carefully parsed, McCulloch’s post-verdict press conference, which the Times finds biased. It is equally absurd to imply that the grand jury’s decision not to indict resulted from unprofessional behavior on McCulloch’s part or from prejudice that somehow infected the proceedings. Not indicting officers for good-faith shootings in the course of their duty is the norm, not the exception. There have been no indictments of Missouri officers for shootings since 1991. Houston grand juries have cleared officers of shootings 288 consecutive times. The Brown verdict was par for the course and not the result of some flawed, partial process.

The Times then goes into blazing hyperbole about the reign of terror inflicted “daily” on blacks by the police in Ferguson and nationally. The Times coyly cites “news accounts” — i.e., its own– claiming that the police in Ferguson “systematically target poor and minority citizens for street and traffic stops — partly to generate fines.” The Times has no evidence of such systematic targeting, proof of which would require determining the rate at which blacks and whites violate traffic and other laws and then comparing those rates to their stop rates. Studies elsewhere have shown that blacks speed at higher rates than whites. Blacks likely also have lower rates of car registration and vehicle upkeep, for economic reasons. Moreover, if authorities are using traffic fines in order to generate revenue, they would presumably “target” the people most likely to be able to pay those fines, not the poorest residents of an area.

Even more fantastically, the Times claims that “the killing of young black men by police is a common feature of African-American life and a source of dread for black parents from coast to coast.” A “common feature”? This is pure hysteria, likely penned by Times columnist Charles Blow. The public could perhaps be forgiven for believing that “the killing of young black men by police is a common feature of African-American life,” given the media frenzy that follows every such rare police killing, compared to the silence that greets the daily homicides committed by blacks against other blacks. The press, however, should know better. According to published reports, the police kill roughly 200 blacks a year — most of them attacking the officer. In 2013, there were 6,261 black homicide victims in the U.S. The police could eliminate all fatal shootings without having any significant impact on the black homicide death rate. The killers of those black homicide victims are overwhelmingly other blacks, responsible for a death risk ten times that of whites in urban areas. In 2013, 5,375 blacks were arrested for homicide, which is greater than the number of whites and Hispanics combined (4,396), even though blacks are only 13 percent of the national population.

The Times trots out the misleading statistic published by ProPublica last month that young black males are 21 times more likely to be shot dead by police than young white males — a calculation that overlooks that young black men commit homicide at nearly ten times the rate of young white and Hispanic males combined. That astronomically higher homicide-commission rate means that police officers are going to be disproportionately in black neighborhoods to fight crime, where they will more likely encounter armed shooting suspects. If the black crime rate were the same as the white crime rate, the victims of police shootings would most certainly also be equal among the races. Asians are minorities, which, according to the Times’ ideology, should make them the target of police brutality. But they barely show up in police-shooting data because their crime rates are so low.

For the years 2005–2009, a significant portion of victims in the ProPublica study — 62 percent — were resisting arrest or assaulting an officer as Michael Brown did. The cop hatred that activists and press organs like the Times do their best to foment significantly increases the chances of such aggressive and dangerous behavior...

Wow.

Keep reading.

Democrats Paved the Way for Their Own Decline

Yeah, Obama built that.

 From Charlie Cook, at National Journal:

Governing is about making choices and facing consequences. Implicitly, to focus on certain things is to de-emphasize other things. The modern Democratic Party was effectively born during President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, reacting and dealing with the Great Depression. While books have been filled with the multitude of things that Roosevelt and his New Dealers did, if you boiled it down to its essence, it was helping people get back on their feet after the great stock-market crash of 1929 and the deep depression that resulted. In 2008, we faced the Great Recession, and like other financial meltdowns, it was deep and painful. At the tail end of the George W. Bush administration and in the early Obama years, financial markets were stabilized (the overwhelming majority of the Troubled Asset Relief Program funds have been repaid, with many of the investments yielding profits for Uncle Sam), and the Obama administration should be applauded for rescuing the automobile industry. But while those actions can be legitimately seen as a good start, we then saw a grand pivot to the environment and health care, with grave consequences for the party. At another time and in different fashion, both are important priorities, but the focus on these issues has effectively decimated the Democratic Party in specific areas and among specific voter blocs. The evidence is the difference in the partisan makeup of the Congress that will be sworn in next month, compared with the one from eight years ago.

RTWT.

It's gotta hurt.

Cyber Week

It's not just Monday.

Keep shopping all week at Amazon, Shop Amazon Cyber Monday Deals Week.

Why Was Miriam Carey Killed?

This is pretty intense, at the Washington Post, "How Miriam Carey's U-turn at a White House checkpoint led to her death."

And from Instapundit, "BECAUSE THEY’RE PROTECTORS OF THE POWERFUL, THE CAPITOL POLICE AND SECRET SERVICE GOT LESS BLOWBACK FOR THIS SHOOTING OF AN UNARMED BLACK WOMAN."

Ferguson Becoming a Revolutionary Tourist Wonderland

At IBD, "Ferguson's Potemkin Protests":

Key Ferguson fact: Nearly all the protesters arrested were from out of town http://t.co/eD4M6OV69O pic.twitter.com/Uk20vs6YCC

— IBDeditorials (@IBDeditorials) December 2, 2014

Revolutionary Tourism: As shattered glass, car fires and protests blight Ferguson, an interesting fact is emerging: Nearly all of the arrestees hollering revolution are from other cities. Obviously, this isn't about Michael Brown.

In the latest batch of radicals busted over the weekend for disturbing the peace in Ferguson, 15 of the 16 didn't even live in Ferguson. They were from places as far away as Chicago and New York.

It's no anomaly, either, but a pattern.

Police said that of the 51 protesters arrested in the protests of Aug. 19 and 20, 50 were from places like New York, Des Moines and Chicago.

They come from groups like the ANSWER Coalition, the New Black Panthers, the Revolutionary Communist Party, the Organization for Black Struggle and the Soros-linked U.S. Human Rights Network.

So any talk about riots and mayhem in Ferguson being a spontaneous uprising or a grass-roots civil society effort by Ferguson's locals is nonsense...

More.

Sisters in India Beat Up Three Men for Harassing Them

Via the BBC:

'Share the Wealth' Failing to Sell

From Michael Barone, at RCP, "Nobody Is Pushing Thomas Piketty's Policies to Combat Economic Inequality":

Last spring, you may remember, the French economist Thomas Piketty was all the rage in certain enlightened circles. His book "Capital" shot up to the No. 1 spot on bestseller lists, and many economists praised his statistics showing increased income and wealth inequality. Piketty argued that, absent a world war, returns to capital will exceed economic growth, inevitably producing growing inequality in the 21st century.

There are problems with Piketty's -- or anyone else's -- statistics. Reliance on U.S. income tax returns overlooks the fact that tax cuts encourage people to realize income and misses non-taxable income such as welfare and Social Security payments.

Still, there has clearly been a boom in the incomes and wealth of the top 1 percent here and worldwide. Piketty sees this as a threat to democracy. Liberal economists and pundits hoped that his revelations would finally get politicians to support policies like Piketty's 80 percent tax rate on high incomes and progressive tax on great wealth -- and get the masses to vote for them.

So far it hasn't happened here or just about anywhere.

You didn't see any campaign ads calling for Piketty taxes this fall. You didn't even see any ads hailing Democrats for having raised taxes on high earners in early 2013. Democratic candidates in seriously contested races didn't come close to advocating such policies.

You may have heard some Democrats bemoaning income inequality. The idea that the rich get richer while everyone else doesn't gets pretty wide agreement in the polls. So does the Democrats' one redistributionist policy -- raising the minimum wage.

As a policy to address inequality, though, it's rather pathetic. About half of minimum wage earners are not in the lowest fifth households in income. Even fewer are their own household's primary earner. Almost all economists agree that when the minimum wage is raised, some employees lose their jobs.

It is only slightly hyperbolic to say that an increased minimum wage is a transfer of income from fast-food customers to fast-food workers minus those who are replaced by kiosks. That's not a very effective way to sock it to the top 1 percent.

Even after the election, some Democrats argue that they didn't hit the issue hard enough. One Democrat's advice to President Obama, according to Politico, "is focus on income inequality, and talk about and propose things, and just be a fierce advocate of addressing the economic divide. That will leave people after two years saying the Democratic Party really stands for something."

"Propose things" -- but what? A recent Congressional Budget Office report shows that when you measure federal taxes paid minus federal transfers received (welfare, food stamps, Social Security, etc.), the top 20 percent of earners pay an average of $46,500. The next 20 percent pay an average of $700. The bottom three-fifths get back more than they pay. Plus, the U.S. already relies more heavily on the income tax for revenues than any other advanced economy nation.

In other words, America already has lots of economic redistribution. American voters evidently sense that more redistribution would sap economic growth. They're willing to throw a little to minimum wage earners, but they don't want to kill the geese laying the golden eggs.

Well, it's all crashing down for the idiot leftists, and it ain't over yet.

More.

Not Working for the Working Class

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today:

Working class white people don't like President Obama much. According to the latest Gallup poll, only 27% approve of him. That's 21 percentage points down since he took office in 2009.

A standard talking-point is that these voters don't like Obama because they're racist. But that assumes that the key word in "white working class" is "white." In fact, the key word is "working." After all, Obama isn't any blacker than he was in 2009.

A few Democratic pundits seem to get this. Writing in Mother Jones, Kevin Drum observes: "So who does the WWC take out its anger on? Largely, the answer is the poor. In particular, the undeserving poor. Liberals may hate this distinction, but it doesn't matter if we hate it. Lots of ordinary people make this distinction as a matter of simple common sense, and the WWC makes it more than any. That's because they're closer to it. For them, the poor aren't merely a set of statistics or a cause to be championed. They're the folks next door who don't do a lick of work but somehow keep getting government checks paid for by their tax dollars."

So if Democrats want to win back the white working class — and they kind of need to, if they want to win elections, because it's an enormous demographic — maybe they need to start thinking about honoring and encouraging work, rather than talking about race or class.

I doubt this is going to sink in much with the Democrat race-grievance establishment. But sooner or later someone will come along and say, "Hey, we can't win elections. We need to moderate our message." They did that back in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton was elected as a "moderate." He could at least talk the talk. After the midterms the Democrats have doubled down on far left-wing extremism. So it could be awhile, heh.

More.

Emily Ratajkowski Christmas Lingerie

Holy cow!

She's so lovely.

At Egotastic!, "Emily Ratajkowski Officially Opens the Christmas Lingerie Season."

Cyber Monday at Amazon: Camera, Photo, and Video

At Amazon, Shop Amazon - Cyber Monday Deals in Camera, Photo & Video.

Also, at CBS News, "Cyber Monday's potential impact after drop in Thanksgiving weekend sales."

GoFundMe Shuts Down Mad Jewess Woman's Darren Wilson Page

Pathetic.

At the Mad Jewess, "The Mad Jewess Opened @GoFundMe Campaign For #DarrenWilson, @GoFundMe Shut It Down":

This is why I hardly do anything like this on the net. If you are a right-winger or God forbid, a white cop defending his life, you will get nowhere on the net. This is why we should go “Ferguson” on all of the Fed buildings if we all had half a brain.

Also at Fire Andrea Mitchell, "GoFundMe removes conservative blogger’s fundraising page for Darren Wilson."

Penny Mordaunt's Naughty Cock Speech

At Telegraph UK, "Penny Mordaunt's naughty cock speech" (VIDEO):

It has been revealed that Penny Mordaunt, who is a Royal Navy reservist as well as Conservative communities minister, made a spoof speech to the House of Commons.

Ms Mordaunt, 41, used the word "c**k" six times and "lay" or "laid" five times during an address to Parliament on March 26, 2013.

Ostensibly the speech was delivered to highlight issues around the welfare of chickens, however Ms Mordaunt - who was made a minister in the communities department after she delivered the speech - has now disclosed that the real reason for making her address was a forfeit issued during a dinner in the officers' mess.

The MP for Portsmouth North said: "Some of my Marine training officers in Dartmouth thought it would be a good idea to break my ladylike persona by getting me to yell particularly rude words during the most gruelling part of our training.

"They failed but during our mess dinner at the end of the course, I was fined for a misdemeanour. The fine was to say a particular word, an abbreviation of cockerel, several times during a speech on the floor of the Commons, and mention all the names of the officers present."

While she fulfilled the wager, she has been criticised by Labour MPs for making a mockery of the Parliamentary system.

Enough With the Ferguson Pandering

At Blazing Cat Fur:

By embracing the 'need for change' premise promoted by Al Sharpton and company, the media is complicit in spreading the lie that America is racist and blacks are mistreated.

Theo's Monday Mopsies

Check out the babes at Theo Spark's.

Dark Days Ahead for #ObamaCare

From Elise Viebeck, at the Hill:

The Obama administration is facing a slew of healthcare challenges as the winter holidays approach.

While this fall has been a far cry from last year, when HealthCare.gov was melting down, 2014 has brought wholly unexpected problems to the fore for federal health officials and the White House.

Take the conflict surrounding Jonathan Gruber, the ObamaCare consultant whose suggestion that a "lack of transparency" and voters' "stupidity" helped the law pass, went viral.

Though Democrats have sought to distance themselves from Gruber, his remarks have become a new flashpoint in debate over healthcare reform, invigorating GOP critics as the party prepares to take control of the Senate.

Gruber has agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Dec. 9, in a final hearing for outgoing chairman and relentless administration antagonist Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

The gathering, also set to include Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn Tavenner, is sure to prove a distraction for the White House as officials try once again to keep a lid on opposition to the law.

Here are four additional challenges that the administration faces on healthcare this winter...

Keep reading.

Natasha Barnard

Some video, "Natasha Barnard's Sexy Outtakes for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit."

Also at Sports Illustrated.

Race Relations After Ferguson

Norah O'Donnell, a precious, pampered establishment leftist, sitting in for Bob Schieffer yesterday at "Face the Nation."

Ta-Nehisi Coates is interviewed. His name is pronounced to ryhmye with "Tallahassee."

"We have to get back to foundations" (of racism and theft of Native American land). These idiots will never move into the 21st century.

Here: "Will Ferguson change policing and race relations in America? (VIDEO)."

ANSWER Communists with Che Guevara Signs Lead Protest Against Walmart in Rancho Cordova (VIDEO)

From the Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento.

The Che signs can be seen at 1:35 minutes, exposing the big lie behind these so-called "minimum wage" protests.

These are the Bay Area ANSWER hordes, communist revolutionary protesters pushing for the expropriation of capital --- the "$16 billion in profits" --- from the Walmart corporate oppressors.

Frankly, I'm surprised the Che Guevara signs made it into the newscast. Usually the far-left press enables the idiot revolutionary agitators.



More at the Sacramento Bee, "UPDATE: Protests lead to arrests at a Rancho Cordova Walmart, Arden Fair mall."

CNN Pushed Bald-Face Lies to Keep Ferguson 'Peaceful Protest' Narrative Going

Naomi Schaefer Riley, at the New York Post, "CNN is lying when they say Ferguson protests were ‘peaceful’":

Here’s a quiz for you folks in the media: What happens if you’re out doing “man on the street” interviews but none of the men on the street fit your “narrative”?

If you’re CNN, you stop interviewing them.

It has been remarkable to watch the last few days as America’s self-styled “most trusted news network” has sent out teams of reporters to various areas of Ferguson, Mo., ostensibly to cover the protests there. While their cameramen are watching cars on fire and stores being looted, the reporters ramble on about how “most people here” are “peaceful protesters.”

Where are these peaceful protesters? The reporters can’t seem to find any. Instead, they turn to outside experts and some carefully vetted religious leaders to talk about “the real message” of the protests.

On Tuesday night, CNN correspondent Jason Carroll was reporting, “Most of the protesting we saw in front of the Ferguson Police Department tonight was peaceful.” Then as he started trying to explain the fires burning behind him, he was approached by three of the protesters, who proceeded to get in his face and yell at him because he was promoting a “certain narrative” — the police narrative. “You don’t understand!” one screamed.

Anchor Don Lemon quickly went elsewhere, saying he was worried about Carroll’s safety. When Lemon returned to Carroll later in the broadcast and asked him what the men were saying to him, Carroll refused to say. The reporter was stonewalling because, he explained, these men didn’t “represent” the peaceful protesters who were really the story...

Keep reading.

Epic! Thanksgiving Campaign Attack Ad Slams Obama for Two Minutes Straight (VIDEO)

Via Nice Deb, "A campaign video put out by the Conservative War Chest for Bill Cassidy, (poised to become the next Republican Senator from Louisiana,) nicely sums up the past few months."



RELATED: At Hot Air, "Landrieu not seeming to enjoy exciting runoff race."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



More at Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – America Held Hostage," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's Sunday Funnies."

CARTOON CREDIT: William Warren.

Emotional Support Animals

At Althouse, "So the lady getting on the plane with you seems to be carrying a duffel bag, 'But it turns out it wasn't a duffel bag'."

And from the comments:

This is getting crazy. Yesterday, a lady sat next to me on a flight from Denver to Newark. She had a small dog that she let out of her cage after a few hours. The dog took a crap on her side and she stepped in it. She cleaned up as best she could, but the smell lingered.

Rich Lowry on 'Meet the Press'

Quite a sensation.

Leftists are all gobsmacked, at Memeorandum.

Video via Legal Insurrection, "Lessons of #Ferguson: Don’t Rob Convenience Store, Fight With and Try to Take Cop’s Gun":

Sunday Rule 5

I'm behind on my Rule 5 blogging. Been reading and watching movies this weekend, for the most part. And eating too, lol.

Here we go, at Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is a horrible Gaia killing plastic water bottle, you might just be a Warmist."

At the Other McCain (from last Sunday), "Rule 5 Sunday: Wax Ecstatic."

At Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY."

And at Knuckledraggin', "Quick, which one would you rather?"

Also at First Street Journal, "Rule 5 Blogging: American Soldiers!"

And from Proof Positive, "...the Obligatory SF 49er Cheerleader4 NO Saints," and "*Best of the Web*."

At Ode's, "Detective Quiz ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

From Doug Hagin, "THE DALEYBABE SAYUKI MATSUMOTO."

And from Blackmailers Don't Shoot, "#ShirtGate Rule 5: Chicks in Space!"

At Soylent, "Your Sunday Coffee Creamer."

More at 90 Miles From Tyranny, "Morning Mistress."

At Maggie's Farm, "Saturday morning links."

Also, from Egotastic!, "Humpday Huzzah! Ewa Sonnet Glamour Model Honey Dripping Hotness."

Check Goodstuff's, "GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (166th Issue): the history of Catwoman (aka Selina Kyle)."

In a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World has the "Friday Pinup."

And at Randy's Roundtable, "Thanksgiving Football In Dallas."

BONUS: At Popaholic, "Daily Addictions."

St. Louis Rams: 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot'

At Fire Andrea Mitchell, "Pitiful. St. Louis Rams come out of tunnel in hands up don’t shoot pose."

St. Louis Rams players raise arms in apparent show of solidarity with #Ferguson protesters: http://t.co/dBLRMihdGB pic.twitter.com/kickTDkemN

— ABC News (@ABC) November 30, 2014

How Obama Marginalized the Democratic Party

I can't get enough of this meme!

From Ed Morrissey, at the Fiscal Times:

Chuck Schumer let the cat out of the bag on Monday, but only Democrats found his remarks surprising in the least. Schumer, a member of the Senate Democratic caucus leadership that will have to transition to the minority in January, tried to acknowledge the verdict delivered by voters three weeks earlier.

In a defense of big-government solutions, Schumer allowed that Democrats let their enthusiasm for nanny-state policies get the best of them in 2009, after winning the presidential election, the House, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

“Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them,” declared the senior Senator from New York. At the time, the middle class had just experienced the economic shock of their lives, and the election was a mandate to change direction from Bush-era economic policies, Schumer told the National Press Club. “We took their mandate,” Schumer explained, “and put all focus on the wrong problem – healthcare reform.”

That’s not to say that Obamacare itself was a mistake, Schumer took care to add, but that the rush to pass a big nanny-state program ahead of economic issues in the middle of a crisis made Democrats appear out of touch with voters. “We should have done it. We just shouldn't have done it first,” Schumer explained.

“We were in the middle of a recession. People were hurting and saying, 'What about me? I'm losing my job. It's not health care that bothers me. What about me?’" Even worse, Schumer argued, the program only provided benefits to “about 5 percent of the electorate,” while “only about a third of the uninsured are even registered to vote.”

Coming from a senior member of Democratic Party leadership, the admission that Democrats blew it with Obamacare contradicts everything the party has argued since the 2010 midterms...

More.

Energy Quakes as OPEC Stands Pat

Lots going on in energy markets this week.

Here's WSJ, "Oil Stocks and the Currencies of Major Oil-Producing Nations Tumble":

Energy company stocks and the currencies of major oil-producing nations stumbled Friday as OPEC’s decision to maintain crude output levels despite a glut rippled across the globe.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ decision knocked down U.S. benchmark oil prices on Friday by 10% to $66.15 a barrel, the lowest level since September 2009.

Uneasy investors dumped energy stocks. Among the hardest hit were U.S. domestic oil producers including Continental Resources Co., the biggest producer in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale. Its shares plunged on Friday nearly 20%, to $40.98.

Exxon Mobil Corp. fell 4.2%, BP PLC dropped 5.5% and Royal Dutch Shell PLC lost 7%, all in abbreviated New York trading.

Currencies of most major oil producing nations, including Russia, Nigeria and Canada, weakened. The Russian ruble tumbled almost 3% to an all-time low of 50.57 to the dollar, before recovering slightly. The Mexican peso slid to its weakest level versus the greenback in more than two years. Russia said it would revise or cut government spending.

Pascal Menges, a portfolio manager with Lombard Odier in Switzerland who has shares in U.S. shale oil producers, said OPEC’s decision “created a very uncomfortable situation” for oil companies that must decide whether to curb investments. He predicts the global oil oversupply will decline over the winter and U.S. production growth will slow, preventing prices from falling much more.

If that is the case, he said, the least-indebted North American shale companies should stay profitable. Still, he said, he has cut his fund’s investments in oil producers, moving some of the money to companies that buy and process oil.

This is economic warfare. And frankly, a last gasp from OPEC, as markets will reach equilibrium. Established U.S. producers will keep producing and investing. OPEC's income will decline along with the all of the rest.

According to the article:

Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, a trade group, said in a statement that low crude oil prices will impact some U.S. and global operations. Still, he expects prices to eventually stabilize. “We are confident the market will find an equilibrium,” he said.

Keep reading.

Thanksgiving: The Birth of the Democrat Party

Too true.

From Doug Ross:

CARTOON: Thanksgiving -- the Birth of the Democrat Party http://t.co/jSXDdkrBFY #TurkeyDay pic.twitter.com/XfSNongXuE

— Doug Ross (@directorblue) November 27, 2014

Emblem (or Epitaph) for the Inner City Family

Seen on Twitter:

Ouch!! RT "@OlegZeltser: Just saying... pic.twitter.com/rA1kHjzv6i"

— LincolnHeadPenney (@HappiKamper) November 30, 2014

Thief Caught on Camera Stealing Holiday Home Deliveries in Yorba Linda (VIDEO)

Another leftist social justice warrior.

At CBS Los Angeles, "Caught On Camera: Brazen Thief Steals Packages From Front Porch In Yorba Linda."

Boycotting Walmart: Social Justice Warriors Are Too Enlightened to Let Poor Pay Lower Prices

From Kevin Williamson, at National Review, "Who Boycotts Wal-Mart?":

Columbia County, Ark. — There’s no sign of it here in Magnolia, Ark., but the boycott season is upon us, and graduates of Princeton and Bryn Mawr are demanding “justice” from Wal-Mart, which is not in the justice business but in the groceries, clothes, and car-batteries business. It is easy to scoff, but I am ready to start taking the social-justice warriors’ insipid rhetoric seriously — as soon as two things happen: First, I want to hear from the Wal-Mart-protesting riffraff a definition of “justice” that is something that does not boil down to “I Get What I Want, Irrespective of Other Concerns.”

Second, I want to turn on the radio and hear Jay-Z boasting about his new Timex.

It is remarkable that Wal-Mart, a company that makes a modest profit margin (typically between 3 percent and 3.5 percent) selling ordinary people ordinary goods at low prices, is the great hate totem for the well-heeled Left, whose best-known celebrity spokesclowns would not be caught so much as downwind from a Supercenter, while at the same time, nobody is out with placards and illiterate slogans and generally risible moral posturing in front of boutiques dealing in Rolex, Prada, Hermès, et al. It’s almost as if there is a motive at work here other than that which is stated by our big-box-bashing friends on the left and their A-list human bullhorns.

What might that be?

More.

The left is intent to make life worse for everyone else.

'This headline is exactly why nobody watches CNN...'

At Twitchy, "‘Your bias is showing': CNN tweet on Darren Wilson resignation keeps race front and center."

A Review of Bob Dylan at the Beacon Theater

At NYT, "Bob Dylan, Not Looking Back":

Mr. Dylan has replaced the fluidity and arrogance of youth with a more genuine, lived-in sense that he has nothing to lose and no one but himself to please. He doesn’t soften what he sees; he inhabits it, baleful and acute.

Businesses, Police Fear Rise in Shoplifting After Passage of Proposition 47

Well, when you release convicted armed robbers, crack dealers, meth heads, drug addicts and "petty" thieves onto the streets, you have good reason to worry!

Via CBS Sacramento:

Proposition 47 reduced the penalties and sentences for low-level drug and property crimes. This means shoplifting, forgery, fraud, and petty theft can now be treated as misdemeanors instead of felons, allowing some criminals in jail to go free.

Not In Time to Save the Democrats: Poll Finds Americans Optimistic

Fifty-two percent of Americans said things are going well.

Hate-Filled Leftists React to Darren Wilson Announcing His Wife's Pregnancy

It's all they've got.

Leftism is an ideology of hatred. It's Repsac's ideology.

At Truth Revolt.

So this cousin f*ckin Neanderthal Darren Wilson is gonna have a baby. Just what the world needs: A bouncing bundle of racism.

— Vision (@VisionPoet) November 26, 2014

Shopping Brawls on Black Friday

Just crazy.

At ABC News:



More at PBS: "News Wrap: Black Friday inspires shopping, protests."

Communist Agitators in Ferguson: We Want Darren Wilson Dead

From CBS correspondent Johnathan Blakely:

Via Twitchy, "‘Oh the irony’: Protesters in Ferguson chant in favor of ‘communist revolution’ [Vine]."

Another chant from this same outside group: "Who do we want? Darren Wilson! How do we want him? Dead!" #Ferguson pic.twitter.com/7wpWsgBbwa

— Jonathan Blakely (@JonathanBlakely) November 29, 2014

BECAUSE 'SOCIAL JUSTICE' IS ALL ABOUT MAKING THE CHILDREN CRY

Yep, that's about it.

Making people miserable. That's the left in action.

At Instapundit, "Kids Singing At #Seattle’s Christmas Tree Lighting Surrounded by Protesters, All Now Crying."

Ben Howe: 'I'd Have Shot Mike Brown Right In His Face'

I guess Ben Howe took some flak for this.

Give me a gun. Put me in Darren Wilson’s shoes. I’d have shot Mike Brown right in his face.
— Ben Howe (@BenHowe) November 26, 2014

Here's his response, at Red State, "Why I Said I’d Have Shot Michael Brown in the Face."

Supposedly leftists, had they been in Officer Wilson's shoes, would have let "Big Mike" snatch the gun and shoot them. They wouldn't want to be seen as "racist" for defending themselves. Of course, in the real world things don't work out like that. Leftists simply need something to decry as "racist." Indeed, the left is what's wrong with this country. We're going downhill with these f-kers in office. And the culture's already gone to hell. At this point you just got to stock up and batten down the hatches. Shoot the bastards if they try to break down the doors.

More at Memeorandum.

Ferguson Protesters Disprupt Black Friday Shopping

Well, if these idiots get in your face maybe you'll be able to take a couple of them out.

At USA Today, "Arrests across nation as protesters target Black Friday."

And from AP, "Raw: Protests Erupt in Malls, Streets," and CBS News, "Ferguson protestors disrupt Black Friday shopping (VIDEO)."

Cyber Monday Deals Week

Keep shopping, at Amazon, Shop Amazon Cyber Monday Deals Week.

California Tax-Hike Orgy on the Ballot in 2016

More reasons to move to Texas, as if anyone needed them.

At LAT, "Big state tax decisions lie ahead for California voters":

Picking a new president might not be the only crucial issue before California voters at the polls in two years' time.

They could be faced with as many as four competing initiatives asking them to extend, increase or create taxes that would raise billions of dollars in new state revenues.

Loose coalitions of labor unions and community groups already are researching, polling and building support to extend a temporary boost in top income tax brackets and a sales tax increase passed in 2012. Other groups are working to create grass-roots support for raising commercial property taxes.

Additionally, a team led by Tom Steyer, a billionaire hedge fund manager from San Francisco, probably will qualify a crude-oil-extraction tax initiative for 2016. And health and child-welfare advocates are pondering a possible $2-a-pack increase in cigarette taxes.

"We anticipate there will be a revenue measure," said Anthony Thigpenn, president of California Calls, a Los Angeles-based coalition of 37 community organizations around the state.

He said that passage of the income tax measure, Proposition 30, two years ago, wasn't enough to put the state on a stable financial footing.

"Proposition 30 stopped the bleeding but didn't restore all the cuts made, even given that the economy is better," Thigpenn said. "It was only the beginning of the discussion."

The state needs such a conversation about how to keep climbing out of the Great Recession, agreed Laphonza Butler, state council president of the 700,000-member Service Employees International Union.

"We have to make choices about investments, revenues and services," she said. "How do we stabilize the state for many years to come?"

Influential business lobbies at the Capitol don't see it that way. Butler's push for more money to pay for schools, roads and health and other programs, if it happens, would make an already expensive California even more costly and slow job creation, they contend.

The hardest fought battle could be over an attempt to change how the state's 36-year-old landmark property tax initiative, Proposition 13, treats commercial property, predicted Rex Hime, president of the California Business Properties Assn.

Currently, buildings and land get reassessed by tax appraisers only when there's a turnover of more than 50% in ownership.

"It will be Armageddon. It will be a huge, huge battle," Hime said.

The oil industry also is ready for a fight with Steyer, who said the state is missing out on $2 billion in new revenues because it's the only major oil-producing state that doesn't collect on every barrel of crude pumped from the ground.

"We haven't seen any indication he has changed his view and his plan to spend some of his wealth trying to persuade Californians to increase taxes on energy," said Tupper Hull, a spokesman for the Western States Petroleum Assn.

Tobacco companies — which spent more than $50 million to defeat a 2012 initiative that would have raised taxes by $1 a pack — are honing their message, arguing that new taxes would be costly to retailers and spur cigarette smuggling.

Health groups and other proponents said they need higher levies on each pack — or even e-cigarettes — to recoup more than $1 billion in revenues lost because fewer people smoke.

Liberal Democrats in the Legislature also are considering an extension of the top state income tax brackets. That boost helped erase a $26-billion budget deficit that Gov. Jerry Brown inherited from his predecessor, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Since then, the state treasury has accumulated a small surplus that the Legislative Analyst forecasts to grow to $4.2 billion by July.

Brown has made numerous public statements emphasizing that Proposition 30 was a temporary fix. Nevertheless, tax-hike proponents suggest that some sort of deal still could be made with the governor and business groups to keep the tax temporary but extend it beyond its current 2018 expiration date.

More.

Black Friday Deals

At Amazon.

'I got six kids to feed!' — Trapped Driver Pushes #Ferguson Protester Off I-5 For Making Him Late For Work (Video)

More from the "tolerant," "respectful" progressives on the collectivist left.

Via Gateway Pundit:

'Non-Black Allies' Told to 'Refrain from Taking Up Space' at Vigil for Michael Brown in Toronto

Demonizing white people is the rage now on the "tolerant," "progressive" left.

At London's Daily Mail, "The controversial rules for white people who were told ‘not to take up space’ at Michael Brown vigil in Toronto."