Marxist Mayor Bill de Blasio Looking to Remove Pedestrian Plazas from Times Square

Now that's just weird. A perfect example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. He wants to crush the recreational opportunity of everyone to crack down on the activities of a few lewd people. Isn't that classic leftism? Marxism even, but then, de Blasio's a Marxist.

At the New York Times, "Mayor de Blasio Raises Prospect of Removing Times Square Pedestrian Plazas":

Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday that he would consider removing the pedestrian plazas from Times Square in a bid to restore order in the crowded streets of the Manhattan crossroads.

The move, which the mayor described as one of several options to be considered by a task force of New York City officials, would undo a signature accomplishment of Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose decision to close part of Times Square to vehicular traffic has been hailed as an influential innovation in urban design.

The plazas, which replaced portions of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, are popular with tourists, theatergoers and Midtown office workers.

But conditions in Times Square have recently come under scrutiny, with some New Yorkers complaining about the proliferation of street performers — including, most notably, topless women wearing body paint — who are said to be accosting pedestrians for tips for posing for photographs.

Mr. de Blasio has been keen to demonstrate that he is addressing the concerns, and on Thursday he announced a task force to consider ideas on how to better prevent activities that the city deems illegal or harmful to the area’s quality of life.

But the mayor, at a news conference in Queens, surprised many urban planners when he said he would give “a fresh look” to whether the pedestrian plazas should remain...

More.

Plus, ICYMI, "New York to Crack Down on Times Square's Topless Women."

Elizabeth Hurley on Twitter!

And Instagram, it turns out.

At London's Daily Mail, "Elizabeth Hurley puts on a busty display in revealing selfies while filming season two of The Royals."

A Cruella de Ville moment for Queen Helena #TheRoyals @TheRoyalsOnE @LionsgateTV pic.twitter.com/zlsRkQc7Nn

— Elizabeth Hurley (@ElizabethHurley) August 19, 2015

Kate Hudson Sports Bra and Hotpants

Hollywood hoochie!

At London's Daily Mail, "'My fitspiration girlfriend': Kate Hudson wears nothing but a sports bra and hotpants as she boasts of her workout with scantily clad pal."

Plus, I missed this, at TMZ, "Kate Hudson ON TOPLESS BEACH ... Punks Out."

PREVIOUSLY: "Stunning Kate Hudson Bikini Shot on Greek Island of Skiathos."

Jill Filipovic Attacks Twitchy as a 'Right Wing Hate Machine'

Well, Filipovic was no doubt trolling for some Twitchy traffic by attacking Twitchy.

Here, at Cosmopolitan, "The Right-Wing Hate Machine: Twitchy is not just a popular conservative website. It's also a harassment tool used to target liberal writers."

And the inevitable Twitchy response, "‘Tell me more about how thin your skin is’: Cosmo’s Jill Filipovic has had enough of ‘harassment tool’ Twitchy."

Unleash the #= http://t.co/5j8YvaFaNv

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) August 20, 2015

Watch how hard @JillFilipovic ignores, and thereby sanctions, the left’s horrific harassment of conservative women daily. #FeministFraud

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 20, 2015

#FeministFrauds tolerate harassment of conservative women because they think conservative women are asking for it.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 20, 2015

#FeministFrauds act like victims because that’s how they empower themselves. It’s easier than real effort.

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 20, 2015

If what @JillFilipovic is retweeting right now is what she considers “harassment,” she’s more delicate than I thought.

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) August 20, 2015

Seriously, people need to buck up. Words are not violence. Name-calling is childish but not life-threatening. Move on!

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) August 20, 2015

Greece Kos Refugees Receive Little Help and No Shelter

The Greek communists would make the Nazis proud.

At Der Spiegel, "Migrant Misery: Greek Island of Kos Makes Refugees Fend for Themselves":

Up to 600 people arrive each night on the Greek island of Kos, fleeing wars, oppression and hunger. When they arrive, they are often made to sleep outside with not sanitation facilities available. Greek authorities seem uninterested in improving the situation.

Along the beach promenade on the island of Kos, a small settlement of tents has sprung up. Colorful clothing flaps in the breeze, hanging from a palm tree after having been washed in the sea. In the shade beneath the tree sits a 14-person family from the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo. Children, the 65-year-old grandmother, the pregnant aunt: They're all there.

The women don't want to give their names or be photographed. But they do have something they want to share. "Will you just look at that!" says the grandmother, pointing to the broad, black overcoat that covers her body. It is covered in light-colored dust -- the product of having to spend the night outside, sleeping on a patch of dried-out grass.

The family's home back in Aleppo was destroyed just a few days ago after fighting in their neighborhood flared up again. Now, they are camped under a palm tree on a Greek vacation island with nothing to eat or drink. There is no toilet nearby, much less bathing facilities.

The grandmother once again points accusingly at the spot on her overcoat. Up until 10 hours ago, before her first night under the stars on the island of Kos, she was a proud woman. After leaving Aleppo with her children and grandchildren, she found hotel rooms in Turkey for the family and paid traffickers for the trip across the small strip of the Aegean Sea that separates Turkey's west coast from Greece's easternmost islands. Once they arrived, the family did what they could to find a hotel room on Kos, but nobody wanted to rent a room to them.

Suddenly, on the Greek island, the 65-year-old matron is someone who is unwelcome in the homes of respectable people, someone who the police drive out of the city center at night, someone who is beginning to smell due to a lack of facilities to wash. Someone whose clothes are dirty. "Are we really in Europe here?" she asks. She had expected respect and human dignity.

Like other Greek islands near the Turkish coastline, Kos has for months been experiencing a huge number of new arrivals. Around 600 people land on the shores of the island every day, says the Greek coast guard, in addition to those arriving on Chios, Samos, Lesbos and other nearby islands. The European Union's border agency, Frontex, announced last week that nearly 50,000 migrants arrived in Greece in July. That would be an enormous challenge for any country. But one gets the impression that Greece isn't even trying...

Keep reading.

Marine Le Pen Fights Father Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Legacy in Bid to Recast Anti-EU National Front

At the Wall Street Journal, "A Family Drama Splits Far Right in France":

PARIS— Marine Le Pen’s quest to transform the far-right National Front party from a fringe movement into a dominant force in European politics is hitting a fundamental obstacle: her own father.

The clash erupted during a closed-door meeting in early May when Ms. Le Pen attempted to muzzle the 87-year-old Jean-Marie, who had recently outraged the public by repeating his claim that Nazi gas chambers were a mere “detail” of history.

“Either you stop talking in the name of the National Front, or you stop making such statements,” Ms. Le Pen said, according to people in the room.

The response from Mr. Le Pen—the firebrand who had put the National Front on Europe’s political map decades before handing the torch to his daughter—was unequivocal.

“Never,” Mr. Le Pen said.

Months later, Ms. Le Pen finds herself locked in a political and legal battle to oust Mr. Le Pen from the party he helped found. In his defiance, the octogenarian is standing in the way of his daughter’s carefully laid plans to seize power in the heart of Europe.

Ms. Le Pen has tapped a groundswell of anti-European Union sentiment in France to position herself as a front-runner for French president in 2017—a prospect that sends shivers through the European establishment.

Currently a member of the European Parliament, Ms. Le Pen espouses pulling France out of the euro—with rhetoric more extreme than that of the far-left Syriza party in Greece, whose antiausterity platform contributed to the latest euro-membership crisis. She also campaigns to roll back key tenets of the EU, which she blames for the surge in immigration.

Ms. Le Pen’s success at the polls, however, ultimately hinges on whether the National Front can broaden its appeal to mainstream voters by removing the stain of World War II-era recriminations that have long made far-right parties taboo in Europe’s highest offices. That struggle is embodied in Ms. Le Pen’s tug of war with her father, a hero of Europe’s far right.

“She needs the votes of those who today are still uncomfortable with the National Front’s affiliation to right-wing extremist parties,” said Emmanuel Rivière, director at French polling agency TNS Sofres.

Ms. Le Pen has punished her father by suspending his membership in the party and excluding him from a caucus she forged inside the European Parliament with other anti-EU forces. She tried to have the party’s rank-and-file vote on whether Mr. Le Pen should be stripped of his role as National Front’s honorary chairman, but a French court suspended the ballot. Ms. Le Pen released the results of the voided vote, which showed 94% of those voting wanted Mr. Le Pen out of the National Front.

On Thursday, Mr. Le Pen will appear before a National Front disciplinary hearing to decide whether he should be expelled from the party.

“Marine Le Pen killed the father,” said Wallerand de Saint Just, a former lawyer of Mr. Le Pen who currently serves as the party’s treasurer, adding: “Freud didn’t have it all wrong.”

Who knows, maybe the old man will buy the farm?

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in 2017, in any case, especially if the Europeans don't get their act together on the migration crisis.

Still more.

Illegal Immigration: More Identity Theft, More Murder, More Rape, and More Drug Dealing

All brought to you by the Obama-Dems.

At End of the American Dream:

Do we want to encourage drug dealers, violent gang members and serial rapists to come into this country? If not, why is that exactly what the Obama administration is doing? Thanks to very foolish U.S. government policies, it is incredibly difficult to immigrate to this country legally, but it is incredibly easy to immigrate to this country illegally. So we are keeping out large numbers of good, honest, hard working people at the same time that we have given a giant green light to criminals and lawbreakers. Does that make any sense at all?  We need an immigration system that forces everyone to come in through the front door.

Instead, we have made the process of getting in through the front door a complete and total nightmare and yet we have left the back door totally wide open.  And if the millions upon millions of lawbreakers that are coming in to this country illegally just took our jobs and drained our welfare system, perhaps it wouldn’t be that bad.  Unfortunately, that is not the case. In fact, illegal immigration has greatly contributed to rising violent crime rates all over the nation. Gang membership is exploding, Mexican drug cartels are operating in more of our communities than ever before, and identity theft by illegal immigrants is at epidemic levels. Something desperately needs to be done.

But instead, the Obama administration is trying to ram amnesty for illegal immigrants through Congress as quickly as possible. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill will cause unemployment to go up and wages to go down for many years. And by rewarding illegal immigration, the federal government will just encourage much more of it. But our politicians don’t really seem concerned with the consequences. In fact, the Senate is going to vote on the immigration bill without even reading it.

Instead of focusing on what we “owe” to those that have broken our laws by entering this country illegally, perhaps we should be talking about some of the horrible crimes that they have been committing while they have been living here...

Keep reading.

New Hole Opens Up at Site of Deadly 2013 Sinkhole Outside Tampa Bay, Florida (VIDEO)

I remember the sinkhole two years ago. It swallowed some guy up who was sleeping.

At the Tampa Bay Times, "Sinkhole reopens two years after it swallowed Seffner man sleeping in his bed."

And watch, at Fox News 13 Tampa, "Hole reopens at site of fatal sinkhole."

Labour Leader Candidate Jeremy Corbyn Invited Vile Anti-Semite Dyab Abou Jahjah to Parliament

Louise Mensch has another sensational journalist coup.

At her blog, Unfashionista, "‘Every dead British soldier is a victory’ – Jeremy Corbyn’s Parliamentary Guest."



And at the Sun UK, "CORBYN INVITED “FRIEND” TO PARLIAMENT WHO REJOICED IN DEATH OF UK SOLDIERS."

Corbyn was denying ever meeting Abou Jahjah late yesterday morning, but it looks like he couldn't deny the overwhelming evidence of his association.

At London's Daily Mail, "Corbyn finally admits he DID host Muslim firebrand who gloated at murder of British soldiers despite claiming he had never met him just hours earlier."

Palmyra Archaeologist Refused to Lead Islamic State to Antiquities

Following-up from previously, "Islamic State Beheads 82-Year-Old Antiquities Scholar in Palmyra, Syria."

At the Guardian UK, "Beheaded Syrian scholar refused to lead Isis to hidden Palmyra antiquities":

Khaled al-Asaad, 82, was interrogated by militants for a month before he was murdered in the ancient city.

The brutal murder of Khaled al-Asaad, 82, is the latest atrocity perpetrated by the jihadi group, which has captured a third of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared a “caliphate” on the territory it controls. It has also highlighted Isis’s habit of looting and selling antiquities to fund its activities – as well as destroying them.

Syrian state antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim said Asaad’s family had informed him that the scholar, who worked for more than 50 years as head of antiquities in Palmyra, was killed by Isis on Tuesday.

Asaad had been held for more than a month before being murdered. Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said he had learned from a Syrian source that the archaeologist had been interrogated by Isis about the location of treasures from Palmyra and had been executed when he refused to cooperate.

Isis captured the city from government forces in May but is not known to have damaged its monumental Roman-era ruins despite a reputation for destroying artefacts it views as idolatrous.

“Just imagine that such a scholar who gave such memorable services to the place and to history would be beheaded … and his corpse still hanging from one of the ancient columns in the centre of a square in Palmyra,” Abdulkarim said. “The continued presence of these criminals in this city is a curse and bad omen on [Palmyra] and every column and every archaeological piece in it.”

Keep reading.

Courtney Friel Makes Little Boy Cry on First Day of Pre-Kindergarten (VIDEO)

I was terrified when my mom dropped me off for the first day of preschool. I can remember to this day bawling and refusing to get out of the car. Kindergarten wasn't too bad.

At Twitchy, "Awww! Former Fox News anchor Courtney Friel accidentally made a 4-year-old cry on his first day of school [video]."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Courtney Friel makes kindergartner cry when she asks if he will miss his mom."

Ms. Friel is the 10:00pm anchor on KTLA News 5 Los Angeles, and was a former regular on Fox News in D.C.

Folks may remember her from back in 2009, "Courtney Friel, Political Scientist."

New York to Crack Down on Times Square's Topless Women

I heard about this on O'Reilly. He was talking to Kennedy and Katie Pavlich, who obviously didn't approve.

But see CBS News, "Topless women in Times Square breaking the law, NY governor says."

And watch, at CBS News 2 New York, "Topless In Times Square."

Still more at the Wall Street Journal, "N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo Joins Criticism of Times Square’s Topless Women."

'Britain is Frightened' — 'Draw Mohammed' Event Cancelled After Organizers Pressured by Security Services

The news out of Londonistan.

At Jihad Watch, "UK 'Draw Muhammad' exhibit canceled for fear of jihad terrorists."

And see Anne Marie Waters, at Big Government, "'Frightened' Britain Cancels Mohammed Cartoon Exhibit":

There’s a very real possibility that people could be hurt or killed – before, during, and after the event. This, together with the fact that our venue had indicated it wanted to pull out citing security and insurance concerns, and given the fear that people were feeling generally, the only responsible thing to do was to pull back and try to learn some lessons. I have not learned lessons as much as I have had my suspicions confirmed. There are two major messages to take on board from this episode: 1) Britain is a frightened nation, and 2) our freedom is not going away, it has gone.

Yes, cowering before Islamic jihad, right on the home soil. Amazing.

Keep reading.

The Far-Reaching Impact of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights

This is a big story, at the Los Angeles Times, "How a little-known education office has forced far-reaching changes to campus sex assault investigations":

For the last four years, a little-known civil rights office in the U.S. Department of Education has forced far-reaching changes in how the nation’s colleges and universities police, prosecute and punish sexual assaults on campus.

With a strong mandate from President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the office's lawyers have redefined campus sexual assault as a federal civil rights issue, changed the standard by which allegations must be judged and publicized the names of a growing number of schools under investigation for allegedly failing to respond properly to complaints of sexual misconduct.

"This is the first administration to call sexual violence a civil rights issue," said Catherine E. Lhamon, a former ACLU lawyer in Los Angeles who, as assistant secretary of Education, heads the Office for Civil Rights and has brought the style of an aggressive litigator to the once-staid education post.

"We don’t treat rape and sexual assault as seriously as we should," she said, citing surveys that found one-in-five women say they were victims of sexual assault or unwanted sexual contact in college. There is "a need to push the country forward."

Members of Congress and activists who fight unwanted sexual incidents on campus have praised the effort. College administrators grudgingly admit that the ratcheting up of pressure has changed a status quo in which some schools allowed perpetrators to go unpunished while failing to provide safety or support for victims.


But what some faculty, administrators and judges call an unyielding and one-sided approach by the government has provoked a backlash. Two weeks ago, a judge in San Diego rebuked the UC campus there for trampling the rights of an accused student.

"Some schools see OCR as a bully with enforcement powers," said Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, the lobby group for higher education.

"Universities are desperately trying to do the right thing, but these cases can be really difficult to resolve fairly. Often, you have two conflicting stories, no evidence, no witnesses, and it’s all combined with substance abuse."

University officials, many of whom will speak about the subject only on condition of anonymity, complain of heavy-handed pressure from Washington and a growing bureaucracy.
Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California and a former prosecutor and secretary of Homeland Security, warned in an article in the Yale Law & Policy Review published online this month that "a cottage industry is being created" on campuses dedicated to handling tasks that fall outside the expertise of colleges and universities.

"Rather than pushing institutions to become surrogates for the criminal justice system," she said, policymakers should ask if "more work should be done to improve that system’s handling and prosecution of sexual assault cases."

Under pressure from the Office for Civil Rights, campuses are rushing to set up a parallel legal system to investigate and rule upon murky encounters that often involve inebriated students. They must decide within 60 days whether it is "more likely than not" that an alleged perpetrator was guilty. And they make those decisions without many of the legal protections associated with a criminal trial.

The new procedures vary from school to school, but according to Harvard Law School professor Janet Halley and other critics, many do not allow the accused to know details of accusations against them, to question accusers, or to have lawyers participate in hearings. Many also allow only limited appeals of rulings by a campus administrator or outside expert.

The punishments can be a expulsion and a permanent notation on a student’s transcript, potentially life-altering penalties.

Critics call those moves dangerous procedural short circuits that have resulted in serious injustice.

"It’s tragic what the federal government has done," said Elizabeth Bartholet, a civil rights activist and professor at Harvard Law School. "They are creating a backlash against the very cause they are fighting for."

Bartholet and 27 other members of the Harvard law faculty objected publicly in October to a new university policy on sexual harassment and violence, adopted in the face of an investigation by the Office for Civil Rights...

What a disaster.

Still more (via Instapundit).

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo: Donald Trump Appeals to Americans Fed Up with Broken and Dishonest Political System (VIDEO)

An excellent segment from Monday night.

O'Reilly cuts through the baloney to nail down exactly what's bugging folks out there, and why Trump's still ahead in the polls.

Marco Rubio: My Vision for U.S. Foreign Policy

So, the Florida senator has a piece up at Foreign Affairs, "Restoring America’s Strength":

America’s status as the greatest and most influential nation on earth comes with certain inescapable realities. Among these are an abundance of enemies wishing to undermine us, numerous allies dependent on our strength and constancy, and the burden of knowing that every choice we make in exercising our power—even when we choose not to exercise it at all—has tremendous human and geopolitical consequences.

This has been true for at least 70 years, but never more so than today. As the world has grown more interconnected, American leadership has grown more critical to maintaining global order and defending our people’s interests, and as our economy has turned from national to international, domestic policy and foreign policy have become inseparable.

President Barack Obama has failed to recognize this. He entered office believing the United States was too engaged in too many places and that globalization had diminished the need for American power. He set to work peeling back the protective cover of American influence, stranding our allies, and deferring to the whims of nefarious regional powers. He has vacillated between leading recklessly and not leading at all, which has left the world more dangerous and America’s interests less secure.
It will take years for our next president to confront the residual effects of President Obama’s foreign and defense policies. Countering the spread of the self-declared Islamic State, for example, will require a broadened coalition of regional partners, increased U.S. involvement in the fight, and steady action to prevent the group’s expansion to other failed and failing states. Halting Iran’s regional expansionism and preventing its acquisition of a nuclear weapon will demand equal urgency and care.

The Middle East, however, is far from the only region with crises. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing’s attempts to dominate the South China Sea, resurgent despotism in South America, and the rise of new threats—from devastating cyberattacks to challenges in space — will all require the careful attention of America’s next president.

Each challenge will be made more difficult by President Obama’s slashing of hundreds of billions of dollars from the defense budget, which has left the U.S. Army on track to be at pre–World War II levels, the U.S. Navy at pre–World War I levels, and the U.S. Air Force with the smallest and oldest combat force in its history. Our next president must act immediately on entering office to begin rebuilding these capabilities.

The first and most important pillar of my foreign policy will be a renewal of American strength. This is an idea based on a simple truth: the world is at its safest when America is at its strongest. Physical strength and an active foreign policy to back it up are a means of preserving peace, not promoting conflict. Foreign involvement has never been a binary choice between perpetual war and passive indifference. The president has many tools to advance U.S. interests, and when used in proper balance, they will make it less likely that force will ever be required and will thus save lives rather than cost them.

My foreign policy would restore the post-1945 bipartisan presidential tradition of a strong and engaged America while adjusting it to meet the new realities of a globalized world. The foreign policy I propose has three pillars. Each can be best described through an example of a challenge we face in this new century, but they all reveal the need for all elements of American power—for a dynamic foreign policy that restores strength, promotes prosperity, and steers the world toward freedom.

I like it. I just wonder how Rubio's going to differentiate himself from the rest of the pack. With the exception of Rand Paul, pretty much all the GOP candidates will be hammering Obama's withdrawal from the world stage, and his appeasement of America's traditional adversaries.

Keep reading.

Drunken Stepfather's Got Your Evening Rule 5 Links

Here: "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY."

Plus, "Saki Kashima at Egotastic! All-Stars."

Obama's Environmental Pollution Agency

From Michelle Malkin, "Obama’s toxic Environmental Pollution Agency: Sexual predators, toxic dumps & data stonewalls":

Here in my adopted home state of Colorado, orange is the new Animas River thanks to the blithering idiots working under President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency.

It’s just the latest man-caused disaster from an out-of-control bureaucracy whose primary mission is not the Earth’s preservation, but self-preservation.

As always, the government cover-up compounds the crime — which is why the agency’s promise this week to investigate itself has residents across the Rocky Mountains in stitches. Or tears.

After the EPA and officials and their contract workers accidentally spilled three million gallons of pent-up toxic sludge on August 5 from a defunct mine in San Juan County that hadn’t operated since 1923, EPA apparatchiks delayed notifying residents for more than 24 hours. They vastly underestimated the volume and spill rate of gunk. Then, while refusing to release data, EPA head Gina McCarthy flew to the glowing river to fecklessly declare that the water “seems to be restoring itself.”

The cleanup costs for the Colorado spill alone are estimated at $30 billion. Small farmers, ranchers and tourist-related businesses will be reeling for years to come — yet the EPA is simultaneously pushing forward with Draconian ozone regulations (based on cherry-picked junk science) that will punish the state’s residents with no discernible health benefits.

If only Mother Nature could help wash away the institutionalized corruption that has been leaching from Obama’s EPA headquarters since Day One:

–BP oil spill data doctoring. Former White House Director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy Carol Browner and the EPA suffered no consequences after they repeatedly lied and cooked the books in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. Browner, who pulled the puppet strings of then-EPA head Lisa Jackson, misled the public about the scope of the disaster by falsely claiming that 75 percent of the spill was “completely gone from the system.” Then she falsely claimed that the administration’s initial report on the disaster was “peer-reviewed.”

The Interior Department inspector general also singled out Browner for misrepresenting the White House’s blue-ribbon science panel, which opposed a six-month drilling moratorium, and exposed how she butchered their conclusions to justify the administration’s preordained policy agenda.

Browner, an inveterate left-wing crony lobbyist/activist, left office without so much as a wrist slap. Brazen data doctoring and destruction are her fortes. As EPA head during the Clinton administration in the 1990s, she was held in contempt by a federal judge after ordering a staffer to purge and delete her computer files. Browner had sought to evade a public disclosure lawsuit by conservative lawyer and author Mark Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation.

–Email evasion and transparency trouncing. While Browner was doing her dirty work as Obama’s unaccountable eco-czar, Jackson busied herself creating sock-puppet email personalities to circumvent public disclosure rules as the agency crafted radical climate-change policies in secret. She learned the tricks of the trade from Browner. Jackson admitted to using the pseudonym “Richard Windsor” on one of at least two separate secret government accounts. Competitive Enterprise Institute fellow Christopher Horner discovered the elaborate ruses in 2012. The agency had stonewalled Horner’s FOIA requests on the use of alias accounts at the agency; CEI sued to force the administration to comply.

In December 2012, Jackson resigned amid multiple investigations. Not a wrist slap. Not a scratch. In March of this year, a federal judge blasted the agency for avoiding a separate FOIA request by Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation related to sock-puppet email accounts created by Jackson and others “who may have delayed the release dates for hot-button environmental regulations until after the Nov. 6, 2012, presidential election.”

Apple Computer hired Jackson in 2013 (and all of her multiple personalities). Two months ago, the company proudly announced that it was promoting Jackson to “vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives” and head of the company’s “global government affairs and public policy teams.”

–Enabling sex predators and porn addicts. Last month, the EPA inspector general finally testified on Capitol Hill about the agency’s chronic mismanagement of alleged sexual perverts on the payroll. One employee “engaged in offensive and inappropriate behavior toward at least 16 women, most of whom were EPA co-workers,” the IG reported. Supervisors “were made aware of many of these actions and yet did nothing.”

Well, not exactly “nothing.” The employee was actually promoted to assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Homeland Security — a position he used to harass six more women...

More.

#BlackLivesMatter Organizer Shaun King's Racial Appropriation

He's not black.

See Big Government, "DID BLACK LIVES MATTER ORGANIZER SHAUN KING MISLEAD OPRAH WINFREY BY PRETENDING TO BE BIRACIAL?"

Also, "SHAUN KING DOESN’T REBUT STORY ABOUT HIS RACIAL HISTORY IN TWITTER MELTDOWN," and "MOREHOUSE COLLEGE DISTANCES ITSELF FROM #BLACKLIVESMATTER FRAUD SHAUN KING, OPRAH STILL SILENT."

 Oh boy that's juicy!

Still more at Twitchy, "‘I’m doubling down now’: Shaun King responds after accusations of being ‘new Rachel Dolezal’."

Top Aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin 'Likely Destroyed' Hillary Clinton's Blackberry

Keep in mind that the incriminating emails could be anywhere, not just on Clinton's Blackberry.

Glenn Reynolds evokes Watergate, "#COVERUP: Clinton aides’ BlackBerrys likely destroyed."

Donald Trump, Birthright Citizenship, and the 14th Amendment

I thought about this yesterday. Seems to me as long as "born or naturalized in the United States" is in the 14th Amendment, then it's going to take an extremely strained reading of it to deny that children of illegal immigrants are citizens of the U.S. at birth.

I'll have to refresh my constitutional law case knowledge a bit, but this piece from Ken Klukowski, at Big Government, is pretty compelling, and could convince me that Donald Trump's on solid ground. See, "CONSTITUTION DOESN’T MANDATE BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP":

Parts of Donald Trump’s immigration plan may raise serious constitutional questions, but the part that launched a media firestorm—ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens—does not.

The Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment does not confer citizenship on the children of foreigners, whether legal or illegal.

Media commentators have gotten this issue dead wrong. Fox News’s Judge Andrew Napolitano says the Fourteenth Amendment is “very clear” that its Citizenship Clause commands that any child born in America is automatically an American citizen.

That’s not the law. It has never been the law.

Under current immigration law—found at 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a)—a baby born on American soil to a (1) foreign ambassador, (2) head of state, or (3) foreign military prisoner is not an American citizen.

How is that possible? This is from the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1952 (INA), as it has been amended over the years. Is this federal law unconstitutional?

No. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Today’s debate turns on the six words, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

As captured in the movie Lincoln, the Thirteenth Amendment—which ended slavery—barely passed Congress because many Democrats supported slavery, and it was only through the political genius and resolve of Republican President Abraham Lincoln that the proposed amendment passed Congress in 1865, sending it to the states for ratification.

In 1866, Congress passed a Civil Rights Act to guarantee black Americans their constitutional rights as citizens, claiming that the Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment gave Congress the power to pass such laws. But many voted against the Civil Rights Act because they thought it exceeded Congress’s powers, and even many of its supporters doubted its legality.

The Civil Rights Act included a definition for national citizenship, to guarantee that former slaves would forever be free of the infamous Dred Scott decision which declared black people were not American citizens. That provision read, “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”

That was the original meaning of the jurisdiction language in the Fourteenth Amendment. A person who is “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States is a person who is “not subject to any foreign power”—that is, a person who was entirely native to the United States, not the citizen or subject of any foreign government. The same members of Congress who voted for the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 then voted to define citizenship for freed slaves in a federal law in 1866, then voted again months later in 1866—using only slightly different language—to put that definition of citizenship in the Constitution, language that was ultimately ratified by the states in 1868 as the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 1884, the Supreme Court in Elk v. Wilkins noted that the language of the Civil Rights Act was condensed and rephrased in the Fourteenth Amendment and that courts can therefore look to the Civil Rights Act to understand better the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court reasoned that if a person is a foreign citizen, then their children are likewise not constitutionally under the jurisdiction of the United States, and therefore not entitled to citizenship. In fact, the Court specifically then added that this rule is why the children of foreign ambassadors are not American citizens.

That is why Congress can specify that the children of foreign diplomats and foreign soldiers are not Americans by birth. They’re not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Congress’s INA does not grant them citizenship; federal law never has.

So why is a child born on American soil to foreign parents an American citizen by birth? Because the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause is a floor, not a ceiling. Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution, Congress has absolute power to make laws for immigration and for granting citizenship to foreigners. Congress’s current INA is far more generous than the Constitution requires. Congress could expand it to grant citizenship to every human being on earth, or narrow it to its constitutional minimum.

Media confusion on this issue is puzzling, because the greatest legal minds in this country have discussed the issue. (Just none of them were put on camera to explain it.) Scholars including Dr. John Eastman of Chapman University, and even Attorney General Edwin Meese—the godfather of constitutional conservatism in the law—reject the myth of birthright citizenship...

Still more.

Hillary Clinton Can't Handle #BlackLivesMatter (VIDEO)

Here's RedState's Leon Wolf, at the Washington Post, "#BlackLivesMatter is wasting its time with Democrats: The movement would be better off if it engaged with Republican candidates":

As a conservative who has advocated for criminal justice reform, I have a lot of admiration for the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which has been remarkably effective at raising awareness of the myriad ways that black Americans are treated differently — or, put more bluntly, treated worse — by law enforcement. Although I haven’t always agreed with their tactics or rhetoric, I have appreciated the movement’s tenacity and unwillingness to be mollified by platitudes and talking points from politicians who’ve attempted to co-opt them.

That’s why I think #BlackLivesMatter is wasting its time pressing Democrats for answers, or action. The party of big government can’t meet their demands.

For starters, the Democratic presidential contenders have done an infamously bad job of responding to #BlackLivesMatter protesters who’ve attended their events. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former governor Martin O’Malley were practically heckled off the stage at the Netroots Nation conference after they were unable to effectively articulate, let alone posit, concrete solutions to protesters’ concerns. Former secretary of state and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign has been similarly panned by #BlackLivesMatter leaders.

The relationship has arguably worsened in recent days. There’s video this week of a tense meeting between Clinton and #BlackLivesMatter activists in New Hampshire that shows her responding to a difficult question with: “Respectfully, if that is your position, then I will talk only to white people about how we are going to deal with the very real problems.” After being disrupted twice at recent speaking events by #BlackLivesMatter protesters, in an appearance on “Meet The Press” this Sunday, Sanders appeared to disavow an apology one of his staffers e-mailed to #BlackLivesMatter activists.

The effort to hold these politicians accountable is understandable when you consider that African Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic. But from another perspective, it seems clear that #BlackLivesMatter is looking for real answers in all the wrong places, and is in danger of being taken for granted in the long term by the Democratic Party...

Keep reading.

I don't know. The problem with Wolf is he buys into tons of the leftist narratives, and he even cites Eric Holder's widely criticized initial report on Ferguson's alleged "racist" policing, including the revenue-generating traffic enforcement policies in Ferguson that are no different from other municipalities around the country. He's right, though: The Democrats are losing it with #BlackLivesMatter.

In any case,  don't miss Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "Video: Hillary gets upbraided by #BlackLivesMatter activists for “mass incarceration system”," and "Dems start to face reality: Hillary is a terrible candidate."

Islamic State Beheads 82-Year-Old Antiquities Scholar in Palmyra, Syria

The guy was 82-years-old?

And he was an archaeologist?

Nothing shocks me anymore. Well, the only thing that's shocking is how far Islamic State has advanced. Glenn Back compares them outright to the Nazis, except saying that ISIS is a hundred times worse.

But hey, O gets to go golfing for Vernon Jordan's 80th birthday with Bill Clinton, so no worries. Everything's under control. Vernon's going see his 81st!

At the Telegraph UK, "Islamic State jihadis 'behead top archaeologist in Palmyra'."

Also at Reuters, "Islamic State militants behead archaeologist in Palmyra: Syrian official":

Islamic State (IS) militants beheaded an antiquities scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and hung his body on a column in a main square of the historic site, Syria's antiquities chief said on Tuesday.

I'd link the video, since we know there's a video of the beheading, but I don't see it posted anywhere, even at the hardcore uncensored jihadi terror porn sites. Maybe it's not out yet. No matter. We're inured to it. ISIS could blow up whole cities with nuclear weapons, major metropolitan areas, and that wouldn't cross any red lines. It's all pretty fucked up.

(Oh, and remember, not talking about it helps the Democrats, kinda like doing nothing about illegal immigration helps the Democrats. Depravity helps the Democrats, because they're the party of depravity, of death, of destruction, and the complete abandonment of anything resembling holy righteousness and the sublime.)

Former Subway Spokesman Jared Fogle Agrees to Plea Deal on Child Pornography Charges

At CNN, "Former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle is expected to plead guilty to charges related to possession of child pornography, two law enforcement officials told CNN."

And at USA Today, "Reports: Possible plea set for ex-Subway spokesman Jared Fogle" (autoplay video warning).

Just pitiful.

Sarah Palin on Greta Van Susteren's 'On the Record' (VIDEO)

I mentioned Ms. Palin's appearance at my previous entry, "Sarah Palin Heading to One America News Network."

And here's the video from yesterday's segment of "On the Record": "Gov. Sarah Palin: On Immigration, It's Tough to 'Trump' Trump - Greta - 8/18/15."

Yosemite Campers Killed by Falling Limb Identified as Two Teenagers from Tustin (VIDEO)

This was an already heartbreaking story. I blogged it here, "Massive Tree Limb Falls, Crushes Two Kids Camping at Yosemite."

Now there's a local angle that makes this even more sad. My youngest son's still in middle school.

Watch, at ABC News 7 Los Angeles, "2 KILLED BY FALLING TREE LIMB AT YOSEMITE IDENTIFIED AS ORANGE COUNTY TEENS":

Vigil 7pm tomorrow at Irvine's Northwood High. Honoring Justin Lee & Dragon Kim, killed by falling tree in Yosemite. pic.twitter.com/YFzLRyCwQ1

— Elex Michaelson (@ABC7Elex) August 18, 2015

TUSTIN, Calif. (KABC) -- Two minors who died when a limb from an oak tree fell on a tent at a Yosemite Valley Campground early Friday have been identified as high school students from Orange County.

Dragon Kim, 14, and Justin Lee, 15, died around 5 a.m. Friday when the tree fell on their tent at the Upper Pines Campground. A park spokesman said the teens were on a camping vacation with family.

"I heard a loud crash, a loud boom. It almost sounded like a gunshot when it came down. I heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs and I knew something was wrong," said witness Daniel Moore.

Both teenagers had attended Pioneer Middle School in Tustin and also played water polo together.

"I'm extremely sad and heartbroken to report that Dragon Kim and Justin Lee passed away over the weekend. The whole club sends their thoughts and prayers to the families of this tragedy," the Northwood Water Polo Club posted on Facebook.

Kim was a sophomore at Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana, where Lee was set to start next week.

Lissy Cunningham Page 3

On Twitter, RT'd by Alison Webster.

I posted Ms. Cunningham in April, "Rule 5 Sunday."

Carly Fiorina's Camp is Trying to Not Show the Sweat on Her Brow

She's sweating it?

There's no sweating up on the big stage!

Actually, she's just hoping to get up on that stage in the first place.

From Hadas Gold, at Politico, "Carly Fiorina’s play for varsity debate":

Carly Fiorina is in an all-out sprint to keep the momentum going at the polls in hopes of making it into CNN’s varsity debate next month, with recent numbers showing she’s gripping onto that stage by her fingertips.

Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO who has never held political office, got a boost on Tuesday as a CNN/ORC poll put her at 5 percent support, bumping Chris Christie out of the top 10.

CNN is taking the average of surveys released by 13 major polling operations between mid-July and Sept. 10 to determine the top 10 participants for the main event, while the remaining candidates who score at least 1 percent across their three best polls will participate in an earlier debate.

Pollsters say Fiorina is on track to make it to the big show on Sept. 16, as long as she is able to consistently score higher numbers in more polls.

Fiorina’s camp is trying to not show the sweat on Fiorina’s brow, even as she hustles. They know that one of her biggest liabilities is a lack of name recognition. So even as headlines have sprouted this week, condemning her executive record as far less than sterling, it still keeps Fiorina’s name out there. And after she delivered a commanding performance at the junior varsity Fox News debate earlier this month, Fiorina’s popping up everywhere, from the Iowa State Fair with her folksy plaid shirt and pork chop flipping, to a tour of Nevada and New Hampshire, for a breakneck schedule of town halls, meet-and-greets, and an education summit.

“We’re going to keep meeting with lots of voters, and answering every question,” said Sarah Isgur Flores, deputy campaign manager. “She wanted to introduce herself to voters,” said Flores on the debate response and good polls. “That was the goal. It’s accomplished.”

Getting to the main stage and delivering a repeat solid performance would be a further boost for Fiorina, showing that she deserves to be among the heavy-hitters. It would also be a test to see if she could break through the noise of Donald Trump, the spotlight hog of the first debate who prevented other candidates from getting their memorable moments.

And ICYMI, at BNI, "It’s taken two months, but the MSM is finally talking about the problem of presidential candidate Carly Fiorina being an apologist for Islam."

Actually, she gave excellent answers on defeating Islamic State in recent interviews. I think we need to hear her round it out on what Islam really is.

Angry Hillary Clinton Shuts Down Press Conference, Waves Arms, Attacks Reporters for Asking Questions About Emails (VIDEO)

I saw her waving her hands today, walking away shrugging with body-language saying, "It's not my problem, you low-life scum-sucking losers."

And frankly, she did, if not in so many words.

At the Hill, via Memeorandum, "Clinton pulls plug on testy presser over server questions."

There's more at RealClearVideo, with both video and transcripts of the exchange, "Fireworks: Hillary Clinton vs. Ed Henry: 'My Personal Emails Are Personal, Right?'" (Via Memeorandum.)

Even the radical leftists at MSNBC are fed up with Ms. Clinton's stonewall, as you can see at the video below. Frankly, John Nichols is a Bernie Sanders operative anyway, and obviously thinks Clinton's in bed with Wall Street.

Plus, Amy Chozick has the transcript from the very last moment of the exchange, at the New York Times, "For Hillary Clinton, Another Grilling About Emails":

At one point Mr. [Ed] Henry [from Fox News] asked Mrs. Clinton about an NBC News report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation may be able to recover some of the messages on the server and whether she had tried to wipe the server clean before handing it over to the F.B.I. That exchange follows:

Mr. Henry: Did you try to wipe the entire server?

Mrs. Clinton: My personal emails are my personal business, right? We went through a painstaking process and turned over 55,000 pages of anything we thought could be work-related. Under the law, that decision is made by the official. I was the official. I made those decisions, and as I just said over 1,200 of the emails have already been deemed not work-related. All I can tell you is in retrospect had I used a government account and I’d said: “You know what, let’s release everything. Let’s let everybody in America see what I did for four years,” we would have the same arguments.

Mr. Henry: Answer the question. Did you try to wipe the whole server? You didn’t answer the question.

Mrs. Clinton: I don’t. I have no idea, that’s why I turned it over.

Mr. Henry: You were the official in charge of it. Did you wipe the server?

Mrs. Clinton: What? With a cloth or something?

Mr. Henry: I don’t know. You know how it works digitally.

Mrs. Clinton: I don’t know how it works digitally at all.

Mr. Henry: So you didn’t try? You did not try?

Mrs. Clinton: Ed, I know you want to make a point and I can just repeat what I said.

Mr. Henry: It’s a simple question.

Mrs. Clinton: In order to be as cooperative as possible we have turned over the server. They can do whatever they want to with the server to figure out what is there and not there. That’s for the people investigating it to figure out. But we have turned over everything that was work-related, every single thing. Personal stuff, we did not. I had no obligation to do so and did not.

After that, Mrs. Clinton started to depart the gymnasium here, where she had just concluded a wide-ranging town hall meeting. A NBC News reporter shouted, “Is this an indication that this issue isn’t going to go away for the remainder of your campaign?”

But by then a visibly irritated Mrs. Clinton had already made her way toward the door. She threw a wristy wave goodbye to the press corps as she said, “Nobody talks to me about it other than you guys.”

And here's Ed Henry's report from tonight's Special Report on Fox, "Mainstream Media Hammer Hillary Over E-Mail Troubles."

FBI Working to Recover Hillary's Clinton's Deleted Emails

They say they're "optimistic." But we'll see. We'll see.

At Hot Air, "Oh yes: Sources tell NBC that FBI is optimistic it can recover data from Hillary’s wiped server; Update: Hillary dodges when asked if server was wiped."

Phoenix Apartment Complex Has No Air Conditioning

Unreal.

When I was in Phoenix back in 2010 to cover the immigration rallies, temperatures soared to over 100 degrees. It's so hot there, I can't believe that building codes would allow non-air conditioned apartment homes.

At ABC News 15 Phoenix, "Apartment complex in Phoenix has no air conditioning."

Sarah Palin Heading to One America News Network

Just saw Ms. Palin on Greta Van Susteren's "On the Record," which is supposedly the first time she's been on cable news in two months.

I like One America News. Tomi Larhen's show is cool, although I only watch it on YouTube. I haven't checked network availability through my cable provider yet, although the channel is expected to make a move on Fox News as the "next" conservative news network.

At Mediaite, "CONFIRMED: Sarah Palin Returns to Cable News."

 

The Rise of Sexual Fluidity

Heh.

I need to check, but I don't think Diane Lane's sexually fluid.

The topic came up when I tweeted out this WSJ report from last night, "Kristen Stewart, Miley Cyrus and the Rise of Sexual Fluidity."

See the exchange on Twitter, with R.S. McCain and Ms. EBL.

BONUS: "The Late Late Show Diane Lane on Craig Ferguson (VIDEO)."

Donald Trump Boosts Lead in New CNN Poll, Gains Favorability With Voters (VIDEO)

Very interesting findings.

Trump almost doubles the support that Jeb Bush gets (24 to 13 percent respectively), and perhaps more troubling for movement conservatives, Scott Walker's down to 8 percent at the poll.

See, "Post-debate, Trump pulls clear of competition" (at Memeorandum).

Go right to the survey internals here. Trump's doubled his support from June, and he beats all the other candidates on favorability. And he's destroying the competition on immigration and the economy, the hottest of hot-button issues this year.

Also at Hot Air, "Brutal: Jeb Bush sinks to 35/57 favorable rating among registered voters in new CNN poll."



That Echelon Insights poll from a week ago isn't looking like so much an outlier at all.

FLASHBACK: "Wham!! New Echelon Insights Poll Has Donald Trump at 29 Percent, Soaring Over GOP Field!"

Los Angeles Unified Hopes for a Good First Day Back to School

Oh boy.

I'm glad my kids don't go there, or a least my little kid. My 19-year-old graduated from Irvine High last year, and that was tough enough.

At the Los Angeles Times, "L.A. Unified looks for smoother tech operations this school year":

Getting students into the right classroom on the first day of school is a modest goal.

But it's a huge improvement over last year, when thousands of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District were left without class assignments and teachers couldn't even take roll.

Officials this week are trying to right two major technology debacles: a malfunctioning records system and a now-abandoned plan to provide iPads to all students.

Last year, the records system caused chaos at campuses around the district. The iPad project led to an ongoing FBI investigation. And both contributed to the departure of the superintendent and other top administrators.

As schools opened Tuesday, officials are hopeful that they've turned the corner on their technology fiascoes.

A recent spot check of district schools found about 3% of students still needed to be assigned classes. At Jefferson High School, south of downtown, only one student, a new arrival to the campus, was lacking a schedule.

This time last year, Jefferson couldn't determine how many students it had, and few, if any, had correct class assignments — let alone accurate transcripts or grade-point averages needed for college applications.

Although Jefferson may have been most affected, the system failed districtwide. It couldn't handle the volume of data or the complexity of tasks.

"We feel good that students are in the right classes," said Jefferson Principal Jack Foote. "We had kids pick up their schedules last week."

The student records system had seemed like a bargain at first — it was based on free computer code, obtained from Fresno Unified, which could be modified as needed. It was intended to unite all student records in one place, including attendance, course schedules, emergency contacts, past performance and special needs. Such coordination, officials hoped, would lead to faster and more appropriate services for students and more efficient business practices.

The new program, called My Integrated Student Information System (MISIS), cost $133 million to get on track. Officials set aside $80 million this year to pay for additional fixes.

Veteran school system lawyer Diane H. Pappas was placed in charge of salvaging the records system. She assembled consultants, district technicians, volunteers from the private sector and staffers from schools.

A software company might update a program two or three times a year, Pappas said, whereas the district has had to push through 100 fixes some weeks.

"We've been rebuilding on what was here," Pappas said. "MISIS was in a complete state of disarray."

More.

Note that the district had a graduation rate of 77 percent for the 2013-14 school year, an improvement from previous years, but still meaning that almost one fourth of all students don't receive a diploma. Irvine Unified has a 95 percent graduation rate, which is on the high side of statewide averages. You can see why families like living in Irvine.

Also, "The mismatch between LAUSD's diversity of students and teachers."

Donald Trump Shows Up for Jury Duty

He got no special treatment, although he was called to a jury after all.

At Politico, "Donald Trump shows up for jury duty, and causes a scene."

And at CBS News 2 New York, "Trump Reports for Jury Duty."

Eileen Javora's Got Your Tuesday Forecast

It's going to be a little cooler, especially later in the week. The Central Valley is still pretty scorching though, man. I used to live in Fresno and it's incredibly hot up there in the summer.

At KCRA News 3 Sacramento:

Yay! The #Angels Finally Win One!

Well, I wasn't optimistic last night when the Angels went up 2-1 after a C.J. Cron solo home run in the seventh inning. Frankly, Huston "Blown Save" Street makes me nervous, but he was able to nail it down for the win last night.

Okay, here comes Huston 'Blown Save' Street. Let's see if we can avoid another cluster tonight. #Angels

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 18, 2015

Yay! #Angels finally win one!

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 18, 2015

At the O.C. Register, "C.J. Cron hits key homer in Angels' much-needed 2-1 win over White Sox."

And watch, at MLB, "8/17/15: Cron hits go-ahead homer to give Angels win."

U.S. Army Skydiver Corey Hood Dies in Freak Accident at Chicago Air Show

At CBS News 2 Chicago, "One of Final Photos of Army Parachutist Shows Exuberance Before Fatal Jump."

And watch, at CBS Evening News, "Army skydiver dies after mid-air collision."

He was knocked unconscious, landed on a building, and then fell over the side, crashing on the ground below.

Yeah, a freak accident and a goddamned bummer.

Glenn Beck: Donald Trump's 'Record is Horrendous When It Comes to Conservative Principles' (VIDEO)

I wanna follow-up on this great post at Hot Air from yesterday, "Glenn Beck on Sean Hannity: We’re at an impasse because I don’t understand why conservatives trust Trump."

Take your time reading that entry, which provides an insightful take on the conservative splits over the Trump campaign.

For me, I don't pretend Trump's a conservative. I just like the way he's pushed illegal immigration to the top of the national policy agenda. I certainly don't know if I'd vote for Trump in the GOP primary. Shoot, California's primary is scheduled for June 7, 2016, which means the race could be decided by then in any case. The fact is, Trump's pulling the Republican field to the right on immigration. Voters will vote for those who they see as best representing their interests, and in this case border security and economic nationalism appear as top interests among conservatives (and a lot of independents, according to polls).

So, it turns out that Glenn Beck just can't buy Donald Trump as a genuine conservative, whereas Sean Hannity looks at Trump pragmatically, seeing him as the kinda guy who can turn the country around.

It's pretty compelling.

Watch: "Glenn Beck questions Donald Trump's popularity," and "Glenn Beck provides insight into America's struggles."

Heidi Klum's Still a Smokin' 10!

She's hot in my book!

At People, "Heidi Klum Fires Back at Donald Trump After He Says She's Not a 10 Anymore."

And then Heidi on Twitter, "#TrumpHasSpoken #sadly #9.99."

And at Althouse, "#HeidiTrumpsTrump."

BONUS: Flashback to 2011, "Heidi Klum Nude!"

What American Dream? Today's Young People Are Worse Off Under Obama-Democrats

At IBD, "Is the American Dream Dead for Millennials and Gen X?":

Seniors are 40% richer than seniors in 1989, but Gen X and millennials' wealth is down 30% from prior generations http://t.co/3wgQElFhI0

— Investors.com (@IBDinvestors) August 18, 2015

The 2008 financial crisis hit when Shelley Finke was a senior in college. "I remember completely freaking out to my dad, 'I'm never going to have a job,'" she said. "He had just bought a home that year, and he took a huge hit on it. It scared me to think about a house in that way."

Finke did get a job. And now she's house hunting, because her belief that paying rent is "throwing money out the window" outweighs the traumatic memory of the housing bubble bursting.

Even though she's doing all the right things — moving back in with her dad to save for a down payment, setting her sights on a town house rather than a single-family — Finke has one big strike against her.

Members of her generation, the millennials, and generation X, born just before them, have far less wealth than older folks.

Americans 62 and older were 40% wealthier in 2013 than people that age were in 1989, but the middle-aged and young were about 30% less wealthy, St. Louis Federal Reserve researchers noted in a recent report.

Young people just starting out almost never have as much wealth as those at the end of their careers. But the researchers broke down the numbers another way. In 1989, the median wealth of the old, middle-aged and young was $149,728, $153,759 and $19,830 (in 2013 dollars). In 2013, those figures had jumped for seniors, to $209,590, but fallen for the middle-aged and young, to $106,094 and $14,220.

Wealth matters in ways that earning power — jobs and wages — does not. This generational wealth gap is reshaping the economy. It's also making many younger people feel they have it worse than their parents — a cruel distortion of the American dream.
Finke says she's lucky. Her parents didn't go to college, but managed to help her finance her education. But she and her friends feel worse off than their parents.

"It always seems like we're living paycheck to paycheck, and it's hard to save," she said. "I don't know why it's been more of a struggle for us."

The St. Louis Fed researchers offer a few reasons.

'Straight Outta Compton' Not Showing in Compton

Heh.

It's not playing in N.W.A.'s hood.

Straight outta movie theaters.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "The hit film is not playing in its home city, which lacks a theater."

And ICYMI, "'Straight Outta Compton' Reviews Slam Overly-Long Sputtering Film That Leaves Out Group's Hate Speech," and "Ice Cube on Charges of Racism, Anti-Semitism: 'That's not who I'm about ... you can't discriminate...' (VIDEO)."

Rayne Ivanushka

At Egotastic!, "RAYNE IVANUSHKA BRONZED POOLSIDE TREATS!"

She's on Instagram as well.

Here's the Video of That Charlotte McKinney Photo Shoot for Galore Magazine

I blogged Ms. McKinney here, "Charlotte McKinney Photo Shoot for Galore Magazine."

And watch the video, which must have come out sometime afterwards, "Charlotte McKinney for Galore Mag."

Scott Walker at Iowa State Fair: 'I am not intimidated...' (VIDEO)

Here's the headline at Politico, via Memeorandum, "Scott Walker tries to make hay out of heckling incident."

Watch, "Scott Walker to Protester: 'I Am Not Intimidated'."

Also at Legal Insurrection. "Scott Walker Confronts Union Protesters at Iowa State Fair."

More Migrants Wash Up on Greek Island of Kos (VIDEO)

This really is a huge story, with tremendous implications for Europe. Especially interesting is the horrible treatment the migrants are getting, especially from the Greeks. And across Europe, getting a legal visa is a total long shot. But they keep coming.

Watch, at Euronews, "More Migrants Wash Up on Greek Island of Kos":

From a distance they almost look like holidaymakers.

But Monday morning's dinghy-load brought the latest batch of migrants to wash up on the Greek island of Kos after "crossing from nearby Turkey.

Like many, this particular group said they were from Syria. They want to travel to Hungary...

Illegal Immigrant Brian Omar Hyde Charged in Lehigh Acres Triple Homicide

The suspect's a 19-year-old from Belize, who illegally crossed the Texas-Mexico border, accused of the brutal murders of a 37-year-old woman, her 18-year-old pregnant daughter, and the daughter's 19-year-old boyfriend.

Bill O'Reilly highlighted the case as one more horrendous crime in his campaign for a "Kate's Law" in the U.S. Congress.

This is down in Ft. Myers, Florida.

At Breitbart, "Illegal Immigrant Charged with Murdering 3 Family Members and Unborn Child."

Plus, watch at NBC News 2 Ft. Myers, "Lehigh triple murder suspect in court," and "Lehigh Acres triple murder suspect: Who is Brian Hyde?"

Heinous murders committed by Illegal are happening at almost a daily basis. It's no wonder Donald Trump, whose signature issue is illegal immigration, is surging in the Republican primary campaign.

Public Safety Professor Jordan Omens Disciplined by Miramar College After Carrying Handgun Into Administrative Meeting

Hmm... I don't know.

This guy might be over the line. He unholstered his weapon and placed it on the table facing the district administration. He's a cop, yeah. But that's gotta be provocative.

But then, administrators themselves may have overreacted.

At the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Professor takes gun to meeting, gets disciplined."

'Route 29 Batman' Killed When Hit by Motorist After Car Breaks Down on Interstate 70 (VIDEO)

Sad.

You never know when you're going to go, but for one thing, if you pull over on the highway, you've got to steer way away from traffic coming up from behind.

At the Washington Post, "Route 29 Batman is killed after his Batmobile breaks down along a Md. highway."

And at CBS News 13 Baltimore, "'Baltimore Batman' Fatally Struck By Car Off I-70."

Chelan Fires in Central Washington Destroy More Than 50 Structures

The heat wave has hit all across the Western United States, and the wildfires are out of control in Central Washington.

At the Seattle Times, "Chelan blazes: 900 firefighters, 100,000 acres, no end in sight."

And at KXLY News 4 Spokane:



RELATED: At the Boston Herald, "Western wildfires: Wind, heat, dry land fueling large blazes" (autoplay video warning).

Tony Alva on the Peaceful Warrior Way

I met up with Tony Alva and Christian Hosoi at the Bomb in a Bowl fingerboarding art show in Los Angeles, back in December 2013. It was the highlight of my son's brief fingerboarding career, heh.

I hadn't seen Tony in years, and frankly he seemed way more subdued. Somewhere, on Facebook I think, I'd read something about him overcoming substance abuse. Lord knows there was plenty of that back in the '70s and '80s, but I guess Tony was having some really difficult times.

This is all guesswork, since I haven't spent time with these guys lately. But he talks about it at this video clip from Vans Off the Wall, "Pass the Bucket with Tony Alva: Considered to be one of the the most influential skateboarders of all time, Tony Alva, an original Z-Boy, hit a bottom 4 years ago battling drug addiction and alcoholism."

The video's actually from 2007, so again, I can't confirm where Tony is right now with his life or recovery. I do know that he is perhaps the purest skateboarder ever, and thank goodness he's doing alright. Skated many times with him back in the day. And oh those were the days.

Watch that video. It's good.

Academic Fascism

From Walter Williams, at FrontPage Magazine, "The leftist cancer on our society -- funded by our own tax dollars":

George Orwell said, "There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them." If one wants to discover the truth of Orwell's statement, he need only step upon most college campuses.

Faculty leaders of the University of California consider certain statements racism and feel they should not be used in class. They call it micro-aggression. To them, micro-aggressive racist statements are: "America is the land of opportunity." That is seen as perpetuating the myth of meritocracy. "There is only one race, the human race." Such a statement is seen as denying the individual as a racial/cultural being. "I believe the most qualified person should get the job." That's "racist" because it gives the impression that "people of color are given extra unfair benefits because of their race."

These expressions don't exhaust the list of micro-aggressions. Other seemingly innocuous statements deemed unacceptable are: "Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough," "When I look at you, I don't see color," or "Affirmative action is racist." Perhaps worst of all is, "Where are you from or where were you born?" For more of this, see a document released by The College Fix (http://tinyurl.com/ne8ckqn) titled "Diversity in the Classroom," UCLA Diversity and Faculty Development.

This micro-aggression nonsense, called micro-totalitarianism by my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell (http://tinyurl.com/nxulxc), is nothing less than an attack on free speech. From the Nazis to the Stalinists, tyrants have always started out supporting free speech, and why is easy to understand. Speech is vital for the realization of their goals of command, control and confiscation. Free speech is a basic tool for indoctrination, propagandizing, proselytization. Once the leftists gain control, as they have at many universities, free speech becomes a liability and must be suppressed. This is increasingly the case on university campuses...

Keep reading.

College campuses are the beachheads of Marxist radical politicization and agitation. It's going to take a long time to take them back, but it can happen. Folks need to realize this is war.

#Angels Have Lost 17 of Last 23 Games, and Went 1-6 on Latest Road Trip

It's depressing.

The Angels were the hottest time in baseball before the All-Star break. Now it looks like they're heading into an epic post-All Star break collapse.

Last night Kole Calhoun hit a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning, but Huston "Blown Save" Street" couldn't close the deal. Former Angel Kendrys Morales hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the tenth.

Angel Manager Mike Scioscia needs to do something --- anything! --- to get this team back on track. This is ridiculous.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Angels fall to Royals, 4-3, in 10 innings, finish trip 1-6."

Tania Maria Quinones

At Playboy, "Tania Maria Quinones Works It for Playboy (VIDEO)."

At Least 19 Dead as Massive Terror Bombing Rocks Tourist Area in Bangkok (VIDEO)

So far, no one's claimed responsibility, although Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian al-Qaeda affiliate, claimed credit for the 2002 Bali nightclub attack that killed 202.

Watch, at CNN, "Bangkok explosion caught on camera."

Also, at London's Daily Mail, "Devastating Bangkok blast caught on camera: At least 27 dead and dozens injured as motorbike bomber targets tourists at shrine."

The Telegraph UK is reporting 19 people were killed, per police reports, "Bangkok bomb: Explosion close to Erawan shrine 'kills at least 19 people' including three foreigners - latest updates":

Reports of at least 81 injured and 19 killed after a bomb exploded at the Ratchaprasong intersection in central Bangkok. Follow the latest developments here.

More at the Washington Post, "Bomb explodes near busy Bangkok crossroads; at least 19 killed."

U.S. on Pace for Most Highway Traffic Deaths Since 2007

Here's former NTSB chairwoman Deborah Hersman, at CBS This Morning:



FLASHBACK: "Hey, Check Out NTSB's Smokin' Hottie Deborah Hersman."

Monday Afternoon Roundup of the Roundups

Okay, let's get the ball rolling with the Other McCain, "Feminism’s Radical Transvaluation."

He's working on a second edition of his book, but the first edition is going to be collector's item. Get yours here: Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature.

Also at the Other McCain, from Wombat Socho, "FMJRA 2.0: Automotive High School."

Now, at Maggie's Farm, "Monday morning links." Also, "Saturday morning links."

More, form Doug Ross at Director Blue, "Larwyn's Linx: The real email question: Did Hillary Clinton sell US secrets?"

Also at Director Blue, "The Top 300 Conservative Websites, August 2015." I've dropped down to 231 in the rankings, for reasons of which I'm not sure. More competition, for one thing, but then Memeorandum rarely links me anymore (I've fallen out of their algorithm), which means I don't get the kind of residual linkage as the old days, say 2008. Besides that, I have no clue. Rule 5 blogging's a niche market, heh.

In any case, at Gateway Pundit, "Environmentalists Post Photo of Scott Walker’s Decapitated Head on Facebook – Think It’s Cute."

And at Mad Jewess Woman, "Hillary Clinton’s Facelifts Will NEVER Change Her Evil Heart."

At Theo Spark's, "Lacking Energy...", and "Hamilton Air Show..."

And at Cold Fury, "I love the smell of desperation in the morning":

Donald Trump went back and forth with NBC host Chuck Todd on Sunday in one of his most combative interviews since announcing his presidential candidacy earlier this summer..."

More at Drunken Stepfather, "CAMILLA FORCHHAMMER CHRISTENSEN FOR LOVE AND LEMONS OF THE DAY."

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "ACTUAL CNN HEADLINE: ‘HILLARY CLINTON REVIVED AMERICA’S REPUTATION IN WORLD’."

Also at Free Beacon, "Tom Steyer-Funded California Green Jobs Measure Creates Less Than One-Tenth of Promised Jobs."

At Knuckledraggin', "Labrador Retriever – the most destructive breed ever."

From Warner Todd Huston, at Right Wing News, "Investigators Find 60 More Classified Emails Illegally sent From Hillary’s Private Email Server."

And at the College Fix, "College accused of racism for hanging a no-tolerance sign against ‘sagging pants’."

Okay, more blogging throughout the day.