Port Neches-Groves Superintendent Dr. Rodney Cavness Says Obama's Transgender 'Dear Colleague' Letter Is Going in the Shredder — #TNACW

Heh.

The New American Civil War is on!

At KBMT 12 News Beaumont, Texas, "PN-G ISD Superintendent on Obama admin's transgender letter: It's going in the paper shredder":

PORT NECHES - Port Neches-Groves Superintendent Dr. Rodney Cavness on Thursday slammed the Obama administration's expected letter which is set to tell districts to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choosing.

The letter, first reported by the New York Times, will reportedly be delivered to every public school in the country -- including those in Southeast Texas.

The letter reportedly will warn school and district leaders if they do not allow transgender students to use the bathroom for whichever gender they identify, the schools may run the risk of lawsuits or lose funding.

The Times reported the letter would not have the force of law, but it would be signed by officials with the Department of Justice and the Department of Education.

Dr. Cavness did not mince words when telling 12News anchor Kevin Steele:

"I got news for President Barack Obama. He ain't my President and he can't tell me what to do. That letter (to be released to all public schools tomorrow) is going straight to the paper shredder. I have 5 daughters myself and I have 2,500 girls in my protection. Their moms and dads expect me to protect them. And that is what I am going to do. Now I don't want them bullied... but there are accommodations that can be made short of this. He (President Obama) is destroying the very fiber of this country. He is not a leader. He is a failure."

When asked if there was fear about molestation of children at the core of the superintendent's concerns, Cavness said he did not feel that way.

"I would say about molesters -- 99.9% (in the bathroom) certainly aren't."

The subject of transgender students and school bathrooms has become a hot topic in recent days...

OMG LOL! That's what I'm talkin' about, heh!

Here's my previous entry, "Obama Administration to Force Schools to Establish Co-Ed Restrooms and Locker Rooms."

And at Memeorandum.

Donald Trump Disavows Former Butler Who Allegedly Called for Obama to Be Killed

This is, of course, from David Corn, the far-left smear merchant who runs a cottage industry of character assassination against Republican presidential candidates. Who can forget the "47 percent" attack video that was the beginning of the end for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.

At Mother Jones, via Memeorandum, "On Facebook, Trump's Longtime Butler Calls for Obama to Be Killed."

And at the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, "Trump campaign disavows former butler for saying Obama should be killed."

Obama Administration to Force Schools to Establish Co-Ed Restrooms and Locker Rooms

These aren't "gender neutral" accommodations. They're "co-ed," since immutable differences between boys and girls (and men and women) aren't changing. So if a so-called "transgender" (actually "gender dysphoric") individual insists they're the opposite gender to to their birth sex, the administration's going to force school districts across the country to toe the line.

Hey, it's a brave new world out there.

At the New York Times, "U.S. Directs Public Schools to Allow Transgender Access to Restrooms":

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is planning to issue a sweeping directive telling every public school district in the country to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms that match their gender identity.

A letter to school districts will go out Friday, adding to a highly charged debate over transgender rights in the middle of the administration’s legal fight with North Carolina over the issue. The declaration — signed by Justice and Education department officials — will describe what schools should do to ensure that none of their students are discriminated against.

It does not have the force of law, but it contains an implicit threat: Schools that do not abide by the Obama administration’s interpretation of the law could face lawsuits or a loss of federal aid.

The move is certain to draw fresh criticism, particularly from Republicans, that the federal government is wading into local matters and imposing its own values on communities across the country that may not agree. It represents the latest example of the Obama administration using a combination of policies, lawsuits and public statements to change the civil rights landscape for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people.

After supporting the rights of gay people to marry, allowing them to serve openly in the military and prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against them, the administration is wading into the battle over bathrooms and siding with transgender people.

“No student should ever have to go through the experience of feeling unwelcome at school or on a college campus,” John B. King Jr., the secretary of the Department of Education, said in a statement. “We must ensure that our young people know that whoever they are or wherever they come from, they have the opportunity to get a great education in an environment free from discrimination, harassment and violence.”

Courts have not settled the question of whether the nation’s sex discrimination laws apply in matters of gender identity. But administration officials, emboldened by a federal appeals court ruling in Virginia last month, think they have the upper hand. This week, the Justice Department and North Carolina sued each other over a state law that restricts access to bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms. The letter to school districts had been in the works for months, Justice Department officials said.

“A school may not require transgender students to use facilities inconsistent with their gender identity or to use individual-user facilities when other students are not required to do so,” according to the letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times.

A school’s obligation under federal law “to ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns,” the letter states. “As is consistently recognized in civil rights cases, the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

As soon as a child’s parent or legal guardian asserts a gender identity for the student that “differs from previous representations or records,” the letter says, the child is to be treated accordingly — without any requirement for a medical diagnosis or birth certificate to be produced. It says that schools may — but are not required to — provide other restroom and locker room options to students who seek “additional privacy” for whatever reason...

Well, what a relief!

And it'll be hilarious when at schools across the country students request "additional privacy" in mass, to the extent that they leave the entire locker room to the gender dysphoric students.

We're all fucked up these days.

And oh boy, Republicans are going to have a field day with this in the general election. It's going to be the nationalization of the Houston LBGT referendum clusterfuck.

Via Memeorandum.

ICYMI: Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth

Following-up on my previous entry, "Do We Really Need to Save Capitalism?"

Rana Foroohar argues the financial system no longer serves the economic interests of average Americans. See, Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business.

But as I argued, it's the collapse of economic growth, and the collapse of the leftist (previously "liberal") consensus to pursue pro-growth policies (rather than identity politics), that explains increasing inequality and the decline in public support for "capitalism."

I posted on Robert Gordon's new book on Saturday, "Professor Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth."

Here's the Amazon link, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War.

And from the blurb:

In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from forty-five to seventy-two years. Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end?

Gordon challenges the view that economic growth can or will continue unabated, and he demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 can't be repeated. He contends that the nation's productivity growth, which has already slowed to a crawl, will be further held back by the vexing headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government. Gordon warns that the younger generation may be the first in American history that fails to exceed their parents' standard of living, and that rather than depend on the great advances of the past, we must find new solutions to overcome the challenges facing us.

The key is productivity growth. It's been slowing down since the 1970s. Its robust restoration is the key to reviving living standards. I'd like to see more popular discussion of that, in contrast to all the pathetic leftist hand-wringing about "super capitalism" and "financialization," blah, blah.

Do We Really Need to Save Capitalism?

Rana Foroohar seems to think so, at Time, "American Capitalism’s Great Crisis":

This week's @TIME cover: American Capitalism’s Great Crisis https://t.co/fJ3Y5Hxgz2 via @RanaForoohar pic.twitter.com/ttvrFfKkvh

— TIMEPolitics (@TIMEPolitics) May 12, 2016

This explains Bernie and Trump: https://t.co/j9yQZOwbjs

— Rana Foroohar (@RanaForoohar) May 12, 2016

A couple of weeks ago, a poll conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics found something startling: only 19% of Americans ages 18 to 29 identified themselves as “capitalists.” In the richest and most market-oriented country in the world, only 42% of that group said they “supported capitalism.” The numbers were higher among older people; still, only 26% considered themselves capitalists. A little over half supported the system as a whole.

This represents more than just millennials not minding the label “socialist” or disaffected middle-aged Americans tiring of an anemic recovery. This is a majority of citizens being uncomfortable with the country’s economic foundation—a system that over hundreds of years turned a fledgling society of farmers and prospectors into the most prosperous nation in human history. To be sure, polls measure feelings, not hard market data. But public sentiment reflects day-to-day economic reality. And the data (more on that later) shows Americans have plenty of concrete reasons to question their system.

This crisis of faith has had no more severe expression than the 2016 presidential campaign, which has turned on the questions of who, exactly, the system is working for and against, as well as why eight years and several trillions of dollars of stimulus on from the financial crisis, the economy is still growing so slowly. All the candidates have prescriptions: Sanders talks of breaking up big banks; Trump says hedge funders should pay higher taxes; Clinton wants to strengthen existing financial regulation. In Congress, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan remains committed to less regulation.

All of them are missing the point. America’s economic problems go far beyond rich bankers, too-big-to-fail financial institutions, hedge-fund billionaires, offshore tax avoidance or any particular outrage of the moment. In fact, each of these is symptomatic of a more nefarious condition that threatens, in equal measure, the very well-off and the very poor, the red and the blue. The U.S. system of market capitalism itself is broken. That problem, and what to do about it, is at the center of my book Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business, a three-year research and reporting effort from which this piece is adapted.

To understand how we got here, you have to understand the relationship between capital markets—meaning the financial system—and businesses. From the creation of a unified national bond and banking system in the U.S. in the late 1790s to the early 1970s, finance took individual and corporate savings and funneled them into productive enterprises, creating new jobs, new wealth and, ultimately, economic growth. Of course, there were plenty of blips along the way (most memorably the speculation leading up to the Great Depression, which was later curbed by regulation). But for the most part, finance—which today includes everything from banks and hedge funds to mutual funds, insurance firms, trading houses and such—essentially served business. It was a vital organ but not, for the most part, the central one.

Over the past few decades, finance has turned away from this traditional role. Academic research shows that only a fraction of all the money washing around the financial markets these days actually makes it to Main Street businesses. “The intermediation of household savings for productive investment in the business sector—the textbook description of the financial sector—constitutes only a minor share of the business of banking today,” according to academics Oscar Jorda, Alan Taylor and Moritz Schularick, who’ve studied the issue in detail. By their estimates and others, around 15% of capital coming from financial institutions today is used to fund business investments, whereas it would have been the majority of what banks did earlier in the 20th century.

“The trend varies slightly country by country, but the broad direction is clear,” says Adair Turner, a former British banking regulator and now chairman of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, a think tank backed by George Soros, among others. “Across all advanced economies, and the United States and the U.K. in particular, the role of the capital markets and the banking sector in funding new investment is decreasing.” Most of the money in the system is being used for lending against existing assets such as housing, stocks and bonds.

To get a sense of the size of this shift, consider that the financial sector now represents around 7% of the U.S. economy, up from about 4% in 1980. Despite currently taking around 25% of all corporate profits, it creates a mere 4% of all jobs. Trouble is, research by numerous academics as well as institutions like the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund shows that when finance gets that big, it starts to suck the economic air out of the room. In fact, finance starts having this adverse effect when it’s only half the size that it currently is in the U.S. Thanks to these changes, our economy is gradually becoming “a zero-sum game between financial wealth holders and the rest of America,” says former Goldman Sachs banker Wallace Turbeville, who runs a multiyear project on the rise of finance at the New York City—based nonprofit Demos.

It’s not just an American problem, either. Most of the world’s leading market economies are grappling with aspects of the same disease. Globally, free-market capitalism is coming under fire, as countries across Europe question its merits and emerging markets like Brazil, China and Singapore run their own forms of state-directed capitalism. An ideologically broad range of financiers and elite business managers—Warren Buffett, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Vanguard’s John Bogle, McKinsey’s Dominic Barton, Allianz’s Mohamed El-Erian and others—have started to speak out publicly about the need for a new and more inclusive type of capitalism, one that also helps businesses make better long-term decisions rather than focusing only on the next quarter. The Pope has become a vocal critic of modern market capitalism, lambasting the “idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy” in which “man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.”

During my 23 years in business and economic journalism, I’ve long wondered why our market system doesn’t serve companies, workers and consumers better than it does. For some time now, finance has been thought by most to be at the very top of the economic hierarchy, the most aspirational part of an advanced service economy that graduated from agriculture and manufacturing. But research shows just how the unintended consequences of this misguided belief have endangered the very system America has prided itself on exporting around the world.

America’s economic illness has a name: financialization. It’s an academic term for the trend by which Wall Street and its methods have come to reign supreme in America, permeating not just the financial industry but also much of American business. It includes everything from the growth in size and scope of finance and financial activity in the economy; to the rise of debt-fueled speculation over productive lending; to the ascendancy of shareholder value as the sole model for corporate governance; to the proliferation of risky, selfish thinking in both the private and public sectors; to the increasing political power of financiers and the CEOs they enrich; to the way in which a “markets know best” ideology remains the status quo. Financialization is a big, unfriendly word with broad, disconcerting implications.

University of Michigan professor Gerald Davis, one of the pre-eminent scholars of the trend, likens financialization to a “Copernican revolution” in which business has reoriented its orbit around the financial sector. This revolution is often blamed on bankers. But it was facilitated by shifts in public policy, from both sides of the aisle, and crafted by the government leaders, policymakers and regulators entrusted with keeping markets operating smoothly.

This is: "Economics for Dummy Leftists."

All the sources and experts cited are leftists. They hate capitalism, a term invented by Karl Marx to demonize free market economics.

The trend Faroohar is describing here is simply change. Markets and finance are changing, and innovation and concentration in the finance sector isn't a cause of growing inequality or the public despair over sluggishness.

What's harming the average worker, and preventing more regular people from improving their income and wealth, is stagnating GDP. The economy is growing at 0.5 percent. No wonder the titans of finance are the only ones who're better off. There's no rising tide to lift all boats. The Obama administration's obsessed with the phony campus rape crisis and gender neutral restrooms. Democrats don't care about improving the economic prospects of average Americans. Now that's depressing. And what's more depressing is how economically illiterate all these hacks are, from the so-called financial journalists quick to blame the "system" to the idiot Millennials who wouldn't know a production possibilities frontier if it hit them upside the head.

Keep reading, FWIW.

'American' identity is 'the most blatant microaggression...'

At Campus Reform.

College campuses are the most fervid hotbeds of leftist radicalism. From antiwar ideology, deconstruction, to Israel apartheid (now "anti-Zionism"), America's campuses have long been the breeding grounds of postmodern leftist hatred. Soon enough, the regressive bilge leaks into the mainstream culture.

Just being American is racist nowadays. I'm sure there'll be a "modern family" style television show on racist microaggressions soon enough.

#UVA #student calls ‘American’ identity ‘the most blatant microaggression’: https://t.co/PdeL2DKA9c pic.twitter.com/8fx52Qqq1V

— Campus Reform (@campusreform) May 11, 2016

Finished: Kim R. Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind

I finished The Closing of the Liberal Mind over the weekend.

The book's a quick read, but it's heavyweight in its implications. I'll be keeping my copy next to my bedside for a ready reference, and for periodic review. Especially good are Holmes' theory chapters, on the ideology of classical liberalism, and particularly on postmodern leftism and leftist authoritarianism. I can't recommend these enough, mainly because these chapters represent the best, most concise recent writings on the nature of the contemporary radical left, and the threat leftism poses to the American political and cultural order.

I have two quibbles: One, I was perturbed by Holmes' discussion of Dylann Roof, and especially how he mistakenly characterized Roof as a "white supremacist" who represents the "intolerance and bigotry" of "the right." Holmes writes that the 2015 Charleston attack "shows that a violent strain of racial hatred still exists on the far right in America." As readers may recall, I showed here that Roof isn't on the right. In fact, Roof's an "emo-prog" leftist, and frankly, the photo of Roof burning the American flag should have been enough evidence to figure that out without all of this about the "far right," a discussion which draws on leftist and MSM tropes seeking to demonize conservatives. I'll speak to Holmes about this personally if I meet him, perhaps at a book signing or something.

Two, Holmes provides a powerful explanation of why leftists are not liberals, offering a definition of what we normally refer to as "progressives" as "postmodern leftists." This is really perfect terminology, and easy to use. The problem is that Holmes, after offering these terms, in fact doesn't use them consistently himself. I didn't count, but Holmes used the term "progressive liberals" more than other other combination of terminology, which was frustrating because the whole point of his chapter 2, "The Rise of the Postmodern Left," was to reclaim "liberalism" for the classic meaning of the word as a political orientation favoring limits on government power, free exchange of ideas, free enterprise economics, and tolerance of political and religious differences. I was basically furrowing my brows throughout the book whenever Holmes abandoned his defined terminology and relapsed back into talking about postmodern radical leftists as "progressive liberals."

That's about it. As noted, I particularly enjoyed the book's parsimoniousness. It's largely a pleasure to read, and I had a couple of "aha" moments as well, always a good indicator of scholarly success.

In any case, I definitely recommend the book to my readers. It's a must-have item for your library.

Check it out at Amazon, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

How Marriage Influences Male Economic Success (VIDEO)

Here's Brad Wilcox, for Prager University.



And check out his study, "For Richer, For Poorer: How Family Structures Economic Success in America."

Here Comes the Anti-Trump Summer of Hate

From the inimitable Zombie, at Pajamas, "Inside the Anti-Trump Circus: Here Comes the Summer of Hate — Protest Outside Donald Trump's Appearance at the California Republican Convention, April 29, 2016."

Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose Hugged by Prime Minister Trudeau After Her Speech on Fort McMurray (VIDEO)

At the CBC, "Fort McMurray wildfire: Justin Trudeau to survey damage on Friday."

And watch, "Ambrose hugged by Trudeau after speech."

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory Defends State's So-Called 'Bathroom Bill' (VIDEO)

Watch, at CNN, "North Carolina governor defends bathroom law."

And at the Charlotte Observer, "Feds enter HB2 case against North Carolina with solid record of victories: But so-called Title VII lawsuits can take years to resolve."

BONUS: From Kelsey Harkness, at the Daily Signal, "51 Families Sue Over Illinois High School’s Transgender Bathroom Policy."

The culture war's really coming to a head. Frankly, the GOP should run on culture issues and turn the left's moral degeneracy into a national referendum. We could see Houston writ large.

Pew Research Center: America's Shrinking Middle Class

At Pew:

Who is "middle income" and "upper income" in 2014? https://t.co/jz76pj9h6y https://t.co/drKOo36oGw

— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) May 12, 2016

And at the Los Angeles Times:

From coast to coast, middle-class communities are shrinking https://t.co/wgdlO2qKj4 pic.twitter.com/Oh3aAzBqpA

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 12, 2016

Well, the Democrats promised hope and change. Folks are a bit tuckered out on the hope amid all this change.

Sheldon Adelson Thinks Donald Trump 'will be good for Israel...'

I think so too.

At the New York Times:

Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate, says he thinks Donald Trump “will be good for Israel.” https://t.co/5mYHQWskcr pic.twitter.com/ipicOvsCbn

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) May 6, 2016

Brittny Ward

She's a sweetie!

💋 pic.twitter.com/J0EIoi8h8w

— Brittny Ward (@brittnyward) April 11, 2016

More, "Jenson Button’s latest model Brittny Ward shows off her impressive bodywork: Playboy bunny gets steamy in exclusive Sun photoshoot."

General Michael Hayden: The Terrorist Threat Today vs. September 11 (VIDEO)

Via the American Enterprise Institution:

Jackie Johnson's Morning Clouds, Afternoon Sunshine Forecast

Today was a "typically sunny" day, but it's going to warm up through the weekend.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Assignment America: A Look at What Makes Texas Texas

At the New York Times.

Thank goodness some Americans are determined to preserve their heritage and values.

What makes Texas Texas https://t.co/jfY813VjmC pic.twitter.com/iyo61lciLh

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 7, 2016

Deal of the Day: Up to 50% Off Military and Tactical Boots

At Amazon, Bates Men's Ultra-Lites 8 Inches Tactical Sport Side-Zip Boot.

And more, Military & Tactical Boots.

Also, TaoTronics LED Desk Lamp, Gooseneck Table Lamp 7W, Touch Control, 7 Brightness Levels.

Plus, Save on Kimberly-Clark Kleenex Facial Tissue, White.

Still more, Introducing Amazon Oasis - Reimagined Design. Perfectly Balanced.

Also, Fire Tablet, 7" Display, Wi-Fi, 8 GB - Includes Special Offers, Black.

BONUS: Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won.

Obama to Visit Hiroshima; Talk of Atomic Bomb Apology Stirs Controversy (VIDEO)

I swear if Obama utters even the slightest inkling of an apology I think I'll just die.

The White House denied suggestions that O would apologize, but I'm not buying it.

At USA Today, "Obama to visit Hiroshima to promote nuke-free world."

CNN's Sara Murray Reports on Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll (VIDEO)

Following up, "Donald Trump Running Neck-and-Neck with Hillary Clinton in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania."

Medieval Reenactor Brings Down Drone with Spear (VIDEO)

Heh.

This is pretty good.

Donald Trump Running Neck-and-Neck with Hillary Clinton in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania

This is freakin' awesome, heh.

At Quinnipiac, "CLINTON-TRUMP CLOSE IN FLORIDA, OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA,QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY SWING STATE POLL FINDS."

And hey, the white working class voters the Democrats have consistently demonized? They're not loving Hillary at all:

Florida—Trump wins whites 52%—33%.

Pennsylvania—Trump wins whites 48%-37%.

Ohio—Trump wins whites 49%—32%.

More at Bloomberg:

Clinton-Trump Race Tight in Three Battlegrounds: Quinnipiac Poll https://t.co/qCv6AWsw8r via @bpolitics

— Jennifer S. Carroll (@MrsJSCarroll) May 11, 2016

I'm Going to Vote for Trump Though It Makes Me Want to Projectile Vomit (VIDEO)

Well, at least he's going to hold his nose and do the right thing. I suspect you'll see more and more so-called #NeverTrump folks do this as well. Those who don't in the end are grandstanding bitches.

From Kurt Schlichter, at Town Hall, "I intend to vote for Donald Trump, and just typing those words makes me throw up a little."

Hillary Clinton Crushed in Coal Country of West Virginia

Ouch.

At Instapundit, "CRACKS IN THE FOUNDATION: Clinton Faces Hard Reality Of Unity In Trump Country."

Click through for the Ruby Cramer piece at BuzzFeed.

also, striking scnes of anger at/resistance to HRC & WJC across W.Va. as Clinton promises to unify https://t.co/4ihYfjzpjp

— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) May 11, 2016

And extra harsh piling on, from the Hill. The Democrats are going to be nominating a train wreck of a standard-bearer. I love it!

West Va. exit polls show nearly half of Sanders voters would vote Trump in November https://t.co/V2e8mAxss6 pic.twitter.com/icEOju0RrY

— The Hill (@thehill) May 11, 2016

Jackie Johnson's Morning Clouds with Afternoon Sunshine Forecast

I'm forecasting some tight bright yellow dresses, heh.

Here's the lovely Jackie Johnson, via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Donald Trump Will Stop the Ongoing Destruction of Our Country

From Bruce Kesler, at Maggie's Farm, "Where does loyalty belong?":

I am from the school of loyalty belonging in God, family, country, in that order. When it comes to voting, my loyalty does not belong to any individual or political party. My vote belongs to me. And, I have an obligation to behave responsibly and sensibly with my vote.

In that vein, whether I am a lifelong Republican or conservative is important, but only in so far as my deeply held beliefs are furthered or protected. Many Republicans or conservatives are disaffected or in pique by the apparent triumph of Donald Trump. However, for me, Trump does not get my vote because I am a Republican or conservative but because the alternatives are far worse in a continuation of the Democrats' ongoing literal destruction of our ethics, our economy, and our national security, while in actuality doing relatively less to upraise the unfortunate than to tie them into being lackeys of the central government instead of their own initiative, compounded by our citizen poor being undercut by uncontrolled inflows of foreign competitors for jobs and public funds. To not vote is to vote for the continuation of the past 8-years of the outright assault on the very fiber of the United States...

Still more.

Heather Mac Donald, The War on Cops

This looks fantastic!

Heather Mac Donald has been absolutely on fire this last couple of years with her commentary and reporting on the insidious "Black Lives Matter" movement. Her new book is destined to be a blockbuster.

Awesome.

It's out June 21st.

Pre-order at Amazon, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

Hillary Clinton Revives the 'War on Women'

Heh.

The Dems are attacking Donald Trump as a misogynist, so they shouldn't be surprised when husband Bill's manifold sexual predations become inflammatory campaign fodder.

At the New York Times, "Hillary Clinton Says She Won't Respond to Donald Trump's Attacks About Her Husband":

Clinton paid $850,000 to Paula Jones to settle a long-running sexual harassment lawsuit #Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/KjZ3jkK057

— Immigrants☆4☆Trump (@immigrant4trump) May 10, 2016

After Donald J. Trump opened a line of attack on Hillary and Bill Clinton over the former president’s conduct toward women, Mrs. Clinton made clear on Monday that she did not intend to argue with Mr. Trump over the subject.

“I’m going to let him run his campaign however he chooses,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters after a campaign event in Northern Virginia.

In recent days, Mr. Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee, has invoked Mr. Clinton’s sexual past, describing Mrs. Clinton as an “enabler” and suggesting that she has no credibility to question his own treatment of women.

Asked on Monday if she thought she would at some point have to respond on the subject, Mrs. Clinton said, “I’m answering him on what I think voters care about.” She added that she had “been very clear that a lot of his rhetoric is not only reckless, it’s dangerous.”

“I’m running my campaign,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I’m not running against him. He’s doing a fine job of doing that himself.”

In other words, she's getting off the war on women topic, lest she gets burned.

Relatives of Top Nazi Leaders Had Themselves Sterilized to Prevent Giving Birth to 'Monsters'

Well, this is one of those times where I can't say I disagree.

My god.

Talk about a living hell, 24/7, 365 days a year, you'd never have any relief from being the offspring of the Nazis.

At London's Daily Mail, "Bad blood: Hermann Goering's niece reveals she had herself sterilised rather than risk giving birth to 'a monster' as relatives of infamous Nazis reveal how their family ties have blighted them."

And I'm reading The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS, so the imagery of evil here is all the more immediate and horrifying.

'Isis' — Muslim Student, Sponsored by CAIR, Breaks Silence on Rancho Cucamonga Yearbook Mishap (VIDEO)

Bare Naked Islam reports, "In CALIPHORNIA, if you think it’s cool to dress like an ISIS jihadi bride for your yearbook photo, this is what happens."

Actually, the yearbook staff made an honest mistake, albeit unfortunate, considering.

According to ABC 7 Los Angeles:

The school district said there was a student at Rancho Cucamonga High School named Isis Phillips, but she transferred earlier this year.

School officials also confirmed Zehlif was not the only person on two pages to have the wrong name under their picture.

"We are, at this point, involved in an investigation on how this could occur," said one spokesperson.

Some students said they think the mistake was being blown out of proportion.

"The yearbook is kind of notoriously known for, you know, mixing up names, making mistakes," said Ethan Espinoza, a student at the school.

But it's an issue that Zehlif takes seriously...

Of course. She's got the CAIR litigation jihadists to shake down the school district and propagandize this case into a wildly inflated instance of "Islamophobia."

More at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Muslim Student Wrongly Identified in Yearbook as ‘Isis’ Says She's 'Sad,' 'Embarrassed'."

CAIR "hasn't rule out" taking legal action, naturally.

Jackie Johnson's Tuesday Clearing Forecast

The lovely Jackie Johnson's back for this week's weather reporting.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley Moved to Tears by Fort McMurray Wildfires (VIDEO)

Well, I doubt Ezra Levant and the folks at the Rebel credit the premiere's sincerity here.

Via Telegraph UK:



PREVIOUSLY: "Eco-Freaks Exploit and Demonize Fossil Fuels During Ft. McMurray Wildfires (VIDEO)."

Natasha Oakley and Devin Brugman Black Bikinis in Miami (PHOTOS)

At Egotastic!, "Natasha Oakley and Devin Brugman Black Bikini Hotties."

Also, at London's Daily Mail, "'It's been a real struggle': Devin Brugman reveals her busty assets were the reason she and Natasha Oakley created an activewear line."

They're hot. Ms. Brugman is spectacular. Man.

FLASHBACK: "'A Bikini A Day' Founder Devin Brugman Blasts Bodacious Bikini in Miami Beach."

The 'Never Trump' Pouters

From David Horowitz, at Big Government, "The conservatives who have declared war on the primary victor are displaying a myopia that could be deadly in November when Donald Trump will lead Republicans against a party that has divided the country, destroyed its borders, empowered its enemies, and put 93 million Americans into dependency on the state":

The ‘Never Trump’ Pouters
Reckless disregard
Insanity instead of putting #AmericaFirst 🔽🔽https://t.co/BxND2fbe4G pic.twitter.com/WgLQqt1OQ9

— Kristin Billitere (@SpecialKMB1969) May 9, 2016

This reckless disregard for consequences is matched only by a blindness to what has made Trump the presumptive nominee. When he entered the Republican primaries a year ago, Trump was given no chance of surviving even the first contest, let alone becoming the Republican nominee. That was the view of all the experts, and especially those experts with the best records of prediction.

Trump — who had never held political office and had no experience in any political job — faced a field of sixteen tested political leaders, including nine governors and five senators from major states. Most of his political opponents were conservatives. During the primaries, several hundred million dollars were spent in negative campaign ads — nastier and more personal than in any Republican primary in memory. At least 60,000 of those ads were aimed at Trump, attacking him as a fraud, a corporate predator, a not-so-closet liberal, an ally of Hillary Clinton, indistinguishable from Barack Obama, an ignoramus, and too crass to be president (Bill Clinton, anyone?).

These negative ads were directed at Republican primary voters, a constituency well to the right of the party. These primary voters are a constituency that may be said to represent the heart of the conservative movement in America and are generally more politically engaged and informed than most Republican voters. Trump won their support. He won by millions of votes — more votes from this conservative heartland than any Republican in primary history. To describe Trump as ignorant — as so many Beltway intellectuals have — is merely to privilege book knowledge over real-world knowledge, not an especially wise way to judge political leaders.

A chorus of detractors has attempted to dismiss Trump’s political victory as representing a mere plurality of primary voters, but how many candidates have won outright majorities among a field of seventeen, or five, or even three? When the Republican primary contest was actually reduced to three, Trump beat the “true conservative,” Ted Cruz, with more than fifty percent of the votes. He did this in blue states and red states, in virtually all precincts and among all Republican demographics. He clinched the nomination by beating Cruz with an outright majority in conservative Indiana.

In opposing the clear choice of the Republican primary electorate, the “Never Trump” crowd is simply displaying their contempt for the most politically active Republican voters. This contempt was dramatically displayed during a CNN segment with Trump’s spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, and Bill Kristol, the self-appointed guru of a Third Party movement whose only result can be to split the Republican ticket and provide Hillary with her best shot at the presidency.

Pierson urged Kristol to help unify the Party behind its presumptive nominee. Kristol grinned and answered her: “You want leaders to become followers.” Could there be a more arrogant response? By what authority does Bill Kristol regard himself as a leader? Trump has the confidence of millions of highly committed and generally conservative Republican voters. That makes him a leader. Who does Bill Kristol lead except a coterie of inside-the-Beltway foreign policy interventionists, who supported the fiasco in Libya that opened the door to al-Qaeda and ISIS?

I say this as someone who has written three books supporting the intervention in Iraq and who thinks Trump is dead wrong on this issue. However, I also understand that the Bush administration did not defend the war the Democrats sabotaged, allowing its critics to turn it into a bad war in the eyes of the American people. Consequently, Trump’s attack on the intervention is a smart political move that will allow him to win over many Democrat, Independent, and even conservative voters who think Iraq was a mistake and do not appreciate the necessity of that war or the tragedy of the Democrats’ opposition to it. You can’t reverse historical judgments in election year sound bites. Understanding this, instinctively or otherwise, makes Trump politically smarter than his Washington detractors.

Conservatives like Kristol claim to oppose Trump on principles but then turn to Mitt Romney for a Third Party run. This is the same Mitt Romney who, as governor of Massachusetts, was the father of Obamacare but ran against Obamacare in 2012. So much for principles...

Keep reading.

I love David Horowitz.

I'm personally flabbergasted at how puerile and nasty these "Never Trump" pouters have become. They're off-putting, to say the very least.

Eco-Freaks Exploit and Demonize Fossil Fuels During Ft. McMurray Wildfires (VIDEO)

The sick far-left prog Elizabeth Kolbert exemplifies the leftist hatred, at the New Yorker, "Fort McMurray and the Fires of Climate Change."

And see even the mainstream (craven) take at LAT, "Wildfire at Fort McMurray quickly overtakes Canada's environmental debate."

Meanwhile, check out this killer video featuring Holly Nicholas, at the Rebel.

Facts. Those pesky facts leftists hate, lol.

Angela Davis, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle

I met Angela Davis at a book signing in Los Angeles years ago.

My older sister got to know her after attending one of her courses at San Francisco State. This was back in the 1980s. I was still a Democrat. Little did I know just how nasty a leftist Angela Davis is.

I read her autobiography at the time, but was still fawning and doe-eyed. Not so much now.

In any case, I picked up a copy of her book, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement.

Know your enemies, people. If you wonder why I read these books, even pay for them. I always make it a point to know my enemies, and to have read their works. I'm usually better read on all the collectivist cant than my faculty colleagues at work, to say nothing of the idiot trolls online.

I'll have more later, as always.

Deal of the Day: Eton Rugged Rukus Smartphone-Charging Speaker

Solar powered. Heh, that's pretty cool.

At Amazon, Eton Rugged Rukus The solar-powered, Bluetooth-ready, smartphone-charging speaker.

Also, NeverKink 5/8-Inch by 100-Feet Series 3000 Extra Heavy Duty Garden Hose.

More, from Katie Pavlich, Assault and Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women.

And Ann Coulter, Never Trust a Liberal Over 3-Especially a Republican.

Kate Obenshain, Divider-in-Chief: The Fraud of Hope and Change.

From Michelle Malkin, Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies.

BONUS: Jedediah Bila, Outnumbered: Chronicles of a Manhattan Conservative.

Facebook Routinely Censors Conservative Viewpoints

So what else is new?

I already hate Facebook. I use it to post links a couple of times a week, and that's it. Once my old high school classmates found me on the network, and they all turned about to be idiot progressives, that pretty much ruined the experience --- to say nothing of all the data tracking bullshit.

We're pretty much screwed in the social media age.

At Gizmodo, via Memeorandum, "Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News."

Actually, I saw this headline last night, at RWN, "BREAKING Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News."

Who Is the Mysterious Spaniard Leaking Game of Thrones Plots?

Heh.

I hate Game of Thrones spoilers!

At Heat Street, "Meet Frikidoctor, the Premiere Game of Thrones Spoiler."

Planned Parenthood Helping Transgender Patients With Sex Changes by Offering Hormone Treatment

I tweeted this story out the other day, from my iPhone.

Planned Parenthood isn't about family planning. It's about fomenting the cultural Marxist revolutionary overthrow of traditional order.

At Blazing Cat Fur.

Obama on Trump: 'This Isn't Entertainment...'

Heh.

From Ace, "Really asshole?"

Ampibia Evo Audio Bluetooth Wireless Shockproof Shower Speaker Radio: Bigger Speaker! Better Sound!

At Amazon, Ampibia Evo Audio Bluetooth Wireless Shockproof Shower Speaker Radio, IP67 Handsfree Portable 5W Speakerphone with Built in Mic, Premium Smooth Black Fully Waterproof Guaranteed!

Paul McCartney, in Interview, Compares Global Warming Skeptics to Holocaust Deniers

There's gotta be some law on celebrities that their brains go to jelly over "global warming" at some point in their careers. And I've been cutting Paul McCartney so much slack, heh.

Via Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "THE FOOL ON THE HILL."

Amber Lee's Monday Forecast

It's gonna be a nice day.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Pamela Geller Will Support Donald Trump

At the Daily Beast.

Pamela knows Trump will be better than anything the Democrats put up.

White House Press Corps Asks Obama Three Questions About Trump, None About Ben Rhodes.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "JUST THINK OF THEM AS DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES WITH BYLINES, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE."

Also, from Dan Nexon, at Duck of Minerva, "The White House Pushes for its Policies, and Other Surprises from Ben Rhodes."

Postmodern foreign policy.

FWIW, Samuels' appears to be walking a very fine line in the piece. /1

— Daniel Nexon (@dhnexon) May 6, 2016

Here's his inference from the 'grand deception' of focusing on the 2013-2015 round & critics are seizing upon: 2/ pic.twitter.com/HZeUSEoggj

— Daniel Nexon (@dhnexon) May 6, 2016

Here's the *only* supporting evidence he offers from Rhodes — which is not actually from the interview: 3/ pic.twitter.com/CIyRwOEzvC

— Daniel Nexon (@dhnexon) May 6, 2016

These are NOT the same argument. One is about trying to 'end cycles of conflict,' the other is about unravelling US alliances 4/

— Daniel Nexon (@dhnexon) May 6, 2016

This is basically just Samuels offering his own theory and wrapping it in orthogonal statements and evidence 5/

— Daniel Nexon (@dhnexon) May 6, 2016

Sarah Palin Endorses Paul Ryan Challenger Paul Nehlen (VIDEO)

Via Linda Suhler, on Twitter.

And on CNN this morning:



The full interview is here.

Orwell, Politics and the English Language

Everything's Orwellian these day.

Maybe folks might want to get up on the great essayist's writings.

At Amazon, George Orwell, Politics and the English Language and Other Essays.

Also, Why I Write.

BONUS: 1984. (The Erich Fromm afterword in this Signet pocket edition is excellent, reminding us that 1984 isn't just about totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union under Stalin. It's about us too.)

Hillary Clinton Apologizes to Laid-Off Miner for Comments on Putting 'Coal Companies Out of Business...' (VIDEO)

Here's the full video, at Yahoo, "Hillary Clinton apologizes to laid-off coal miner for comments."

And at WSJ, "Laid-Off Coal Worker Wants Explanation From Hillary Clinton":

WILLIAMSON, W.Va. – When Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton said in March that she would put a lot of coal miners out of business, Bo Copley took it personally.

On Monday, the laid-off coal worker from this struggling Appalachian community came face to face with the former secretary of state and called her to account for her remarks.

“I just want to know how you can say you’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs and then come in here and tell us how you’re going to be our friend,” Mr. Copley said.

During a roundtable discussion in a county that has been ravaged by coal-industry layoffs, Mrs. Clinton sought to make amends for remarks that sparked a furor in Appalachia. In March, she predicted that coal companies would be put out of business during a Clinton administration. She added that those workers should not be forgotten and spoke about her plans to boost the economy in coal country, but her comments landed with a thud here in Appalachia.

On Monday, the former secretary of state told Mr. Copley that she had misspoken. During a campaign stop in West Virginia, Mrs. Clinton said she meant to suggest that the area was on a path to continued job losses, but that she would act to boost the economy in this depressed region. In November, she released a $30 billion plan aimed at revitalizing communities dependent on coal production.

“What I said was totally out of context from what I meant,” Mrs. Clinton said. “It was a misstatement.”

Mr. Copley, who is 39, choked up as he showed Mrs. Clinton a picture of his family and spoke about other coal workers who have lost their livelihood.

“When you make comments like we’re going to put a lot of coal miners out jobs, these are the kind of people that you’re affecting,” he said.

Such an emotional and frank exchange is a rarity on the campaign trail, where candidates speak to friendly crowds and seldom are compelled to answer their detractors. Mrs. Clinton thanked Mr. Copley for raising the issue, saying “it’s important to put it out on the table.”

She added that regardless of whether West Virginia supports her, she would work to help the state, acknowledging that she faces a steep challenge in the Democratic primary there on May 10...

Still more.

Turn Your Desktop Computer or Laptop Into the Ultimate Sound System

At Amazon, AmazonBasics USB Powered Computer Speakers (A100).

Keep English. Vote Ron Unz!

Heh.

He's actually looking a little worse for the wear, but no doubt he's still got the fire down below.

At the San Francisco Chronicle, "Ron Unz’s U.S. Senate race raises concerns of splintered GOP vote":

Republican Ron Unz may have jumped into the high-profile race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, but he’s not drafting the speech he’s planning to deliver on the Senate floor in January.

“I’m an honest person, and I say what I believe,” said Unz, a Palo Alto software developer and entrepreneur who made an unsuccessful GOP primary bid for governor in 1994. “Sure, I could say I’m going to be the next senator, but that wouldn’t be honest.”

A Field Poll earlier this month shows just how tough a road Unz and other Republicans face in the Senate race, where only the top two finishers, regardless of party, advance to the November general election.

Democrat Kamala Harris, the state attorney general, leads the field at 27 percent among likely voters, followed by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, with 14 percent support. None of the top three Republicans — Unz, Walnut Creek attorney Tom Del Beccaro and Palo Alto mediator Duf Sundheim — had more than 5 percent backing.

Instead of being in it to win it, Unz is using his Senate run to battle a measure on the November ballot that would repeal much of 1998’s Proposition 227, an initiative he sponsored — and bankrolled — that banned bilingual education in California public schools.

Focusing primarily on repeal

Unz isn’t making a secret of his plan to shove aside many of the typical issues of the Senate race to focus on a measure that’s not even on the June 7 primary ballot. His campaign business card, for example, reads, “Keep English. Vote Ron Unz!”

“The overwhelming factor (for his Senate run) was the absurd effort by the Legislature to repeal Prop. 227,” Unz said.

When the Legislature overwhelmingly voted in 2014 for SB1174, which put the repeal on this November’s ballot, Unz first thought about organizing an opposition campaign.

“But I decided the best way to get focus (on the repeal) was to get into a race,” he said. “It gives me a platform.”

Unz took out papers for the Senate race on the Monday before the deadline and returned them two days later on March 16, the last day possible.

“I really had to scramble,” he said.

Unz’s spur-of-the-moment decision blew up the careful plans of the other Republicans in the race, Sundheim admitted.

Still more.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 50 Years Later

Interesting.

At the New Yorker, "The Cost of the Cultural Revolution, Fifty Years Later":

What effect did the Cultural Revolution have on China’s soul? https://t.co/6RGVaC2Q22 pic.twitter.com/Ww3tQm7Xlv

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) May 7, 2016

In 1979, three years after the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited the United States. At a state banquet, he was seated near the actress Shirley MacLaine, who told Deng how impressed she had been on a trip to China some years earlier. She recalled her conversation with a scientist who said that he was grateful to Mao Zedong for removing him from his campus and sending him, as Mao did millions of other intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution, to toil on a farm. Deng replied, “He was lying.”

May 16th marks the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution, when Chairman Mao launched China on a campaign to purify itself of saboteurs and apostates, to find the “representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army, and various spheres of culture” and drive them out with “the telescope and microscope of Mao Zedong Thought.” By the time the Cultural Revolution sputtered to a halt, there were many ways to tally its effects: about two hundred million people in the countryside suffered from chronic malnutrition, because the economy had been crippled; up to twenty million people had been uprooted and sent to the countryside; and up to one and a half million had been executed or driven to suicide. The taint of foreign ideas, real or imagined, was often the basis for an accusation; libraries of foreign texts were destroyed, and the British embassy was burned. When Xi Zhongxun—the father of China’s current President, Xi Jinping—was dragged before a crowd, he was accused, among other things, of having gazed at West Berlin through binoculars during a visit to East Germany.

In examining the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, the most difficult measurement cannot be quantified so precisely: What effect did the Cultural Revolution have on China’s soul? This is still not a subject that can be openly debated, at least not easily. The Communist Party strictly constrains discussion of the period for fear that it will lead to a full-scale reëxamination of Mao’s legacy, and of the Party’s role in Chinese history. In March, in anticipation of the anniversary, an editorial in the Global Times, a Party tabloid, warned against “small groups” seeking to create “a totally chaotic misunderstanding of the cultural revolution.” The editorial reminded people that “discussions strictly should not depart from the party’s decided politics or thinking.”

Nonetheless, in recent years, individuals have tried to reckon with the history and their roles in it. In January, 2014, alumni of the Experimental Middle School of Beijing Normal University apologized to their former teachers for their part in a surge of violence in August, 1966, when Bian Zhongyun, the deputy principal, was beaten to death. But such gestures are rare, and outsiders often find it hard to understand why survivors of the Cultural Revolution are loath to revisit an experience that shaped their lives so profoundly. One explanation is that the events of that period were so convoluted that many people feel the dual burdens of being both perpetrators and victims. Earlier this year, Bao Pu, a book publisher raised in Beijing and now based in Hong Kong, said, “Everyone feels he was a victim. If you look at them, you wonder, What the fuck were you doing in that situation? It was everyone else’s fault? You can’t blame everything on Mao. He was responsible, he was the mastermind, but in order to reach that level of social destruction—an entire generation has to reflect.”

China today is in the midst of another political fever, in the form of an anti-corruption crackdown and a harsh stifling of dissenting views. But it should not be mistaken for a replay of the Cultural Revolution. Even with thousands under arrest, the scale of suffering is of a different order, and shorthand comparisons run the risk of relieving the Cultural Revolution of its full horror. There are tactical differences as well: instead of unleashing the population to attack the Party, as Mao did in his call to “bombard the headquarters,” Xi Jinping has swung in the direction of tighter control, seeking to fortify the Party and his own grip on power. He has reorganized the top leadership to put himself at the center, suffocated liberal thinking and the media, and, for the first time, pursued critics of his government even when they are living outside mainland China. In recent months, Chinese security services have abducted opponents from Thailand, Myanmar, and Hong Kong...

What a terrible country.

Still more, FWIW.

Apple EarPods with Remote and Mic: Enhanced Bass Response, Resistant to Sweat and Water Damage

At Amazon, 100% Genuine Apple OEM EarPods with Remote and Mic with TrendON Headphone cell phone pouch case - Retail Packaging.

Blacks in Chicago See Neighborhoods Beset by Crime, Isolation, and Worry

Well, once again, to slightly paraphrase Glenn Reynolds, "WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF OFFICIAL FEAR, CRIME, AND NEIGHBORHOOD INSECURITY?"

Seriously, this is just terrible.

At the New York Times, "For Black Chicagoans, Isolation, Frustration and Worry":

African-Americans in Chicago see their neighborhoods beset by crime, isolation and worry https://t.co/nnbNLduJeO

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 6, 2016

Chicago, unsettled by a crime wave and a troubling police shooting, is in a grim mood. The outlook is clearly bleaker in some areas than others. African-Americans, especially, see their neighborhoods as beset by crime, bad schools and a host of obstacles to a better life for their children.

A survey of 1,123 Chicagoans from April 21 to May 3 found a majority of every race agreeing that the city has veered off course and that the mayor is not addressing their needs.

But when it comes to life in their neighborhoods, people in different groups describe substantially different experiences. Crime, for instance, is a greater concern for blacks in particular.

And in a city with a history of racial segregation, blacks see their neighborhoods as more isolated than people of other races do.

But the worst thing about their neighborhoods, and one of the biggest contrasts between blacks and other races in the poll, had to do with children.

When it comes to raising children, blacks and Hispanics see obstacles that most whites aren’t worried about.

Blacks and Hispanics are more likely to say they want to get out of their neighborhoods, and indeed, out of Chicago entirely.

Click through to view all the graphic data.

Donald Trump Supporters Rally in Temecula (VIDEO)

They've got a lot of great conservative folks out that way. Murrieta's right next door, where we had the huge immigration protests a couple of years back.

Watch, via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Peggy Noonan Rips the #NeverTrump Movement

Former Ted Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter, now at CNN, wasn't taking Noonan's piece too well. She was even lashing out at the Wall Street Journal.

Actually, I think Noonan gets it, and I say this in full knowledge that she's a stuffy elitist in her own right.

See, "Trump Was a Spark, Not the Fire":

God bless our beloved country as it again undergoes one of its quiet upheavals.

Donald Trump will receive the Republican nomination for the presidency and nothing will be the same. How we do politics in America is changed and will not be going back. The usual standards and expectations have been turned on their head, and more than one establishment has been routed.

A decent interval should be set aside for sheer astonishment.

We face six months of what will be a historically hellacious campaign. Yes, we picked the wrong time to stop taking opioids.

Before I go to larger issues I mention how everyone, especially the media, is blaming the media for Donald Trump’s rise. I hate to get in the way of their self-flagellation but that’s not how I see it. From the time he announced, they gave Mr. Trump unprecedented free media in long, live interviews, many by phone, some possibly from his bathtub. We’ll never know. It was a great boon to him and amounted, by one estimate, to nearly $2 billion worth of airtime.

But the media did not make Donald Trump’s allure, his allure made for big ratings. Mr. Trump was a draw from the beginning. If anyone had wanted to listen to Jeb Bush, cable networks would have been happy to show his rallies, too.

When Mr. Trump was on, ratings jumped, but it wasn’t only ratings, it was something else. It was the freak show at its zenith, it was great TV—you didn’t know what he was going to say next! He didn’t know! It was better than everyone else’s boring, prefabricated, airless, weightless, relentless word-saying—better than Ted Cruz, who seemed like someone who practiced sincere hand gestures in the mirror at night, better than Marco the moist robot, better than Hillary’s grim and horrifying attempts to chuckle like a person who chuckles.

And it was something else. TV producers were all sure he’d die on their show. They weren’t for Mr. Trump. By showing him they were revealing him: Look at this fatuous dope, see through him! They knew he’d quickly enough say something unforgivable, and if he said it on their air he died on their show! They took him down with the question! It was only after a solid six months of his not dying that they came to have qualms. They now understood they were helping him. Nothing he says is unforgivable to his supporters! Or, another way to put it, his fans would forgive anything so long as he promised to be what they want him to be, a human bomb that will explode by timer under a bench in Lafayette Park and take out all the people but leave the monuments standing.

In this regard today’s television producers remind me of the producers of 1969 who heard one day that Spiro Agnew, the idiotic new Republican vice president, was going to make a big speech lambasting the media for its liberal bias. They knew Agnew was about to make a fool of himself. Who would believe him? So they covered that speech all over the place, hyped it like you wouldn’t believe—no one in America didn’t hear about it. It made Agnew a sensation. The American people—“the silent majority”—saw it as Agnew did. “Nattering nabobs of negativism,” from the witty, alliterative pen of William Safire, entered the language.

The producers had projected their own loathing. They found out they and America loathed different things.

That’s a little like what happened this year with TV and Mr. Trump.

My, that wasn’t much of a defense, was it?

The Trump phenomenon itself would normally be big enough for any political cycle, but another story of equal size isn’t being sufficiently noticed and deserves mention. The Democratic base has become more liberal—we all know this part—but in a way the Republican base has, too. Or rather it is certainly busy updating what conservative means. The past few months, in state after state, one thing kept jumping out at me in primary exit polls. Democrats consistently characterize themselves as more liberal than in 2008, a big liberal year. This week in Indiana, 68% of Democratic voters called themselves liberal or very liberal. In 2008 that number was 39%. That’s a huge increase.

In South Carolina this year, 53% of Democrats called themselves very or somewhat liberal. Eight years ago that number was 44%—again, a significant jump. In Pennsylvania, 66% of respondents called themselves very or somewhat liberal. That number eight years ago was 50%.

The dynamic is repeated in other states. The Democratic Party is going left.

But look at the Republican side. However they characterize themselves, a majority of GOP voters now are supporting the candidate who has been to the left of the party’s established thinking on a host of issues—entitlement spending, trade, foreign policy. Mr. Trump’s colorfully emphatic stands on immigration have been portrayed as so wackily rightist that the nonrightist nature of his other, equally consequential positions has been obscured.

In my observation it is a mistake to think Mr. Trump’s supporters are so thick they don’t know his stands. They do.

It does not show an understanding of the moment to say Donald Trump by himself has changed the Republican Party. It is closer to the mark to say the base of the party is changing and Mr. Trump’s electric arrival on the scene made obvious what was already happening...

Keep reading.

Noonan basically says that voters gave Amanda Carpenter the boot along with all the other #NeverTrump ghouls. That's why Carpenter's dissing Noonan. And why Stephen Hayes is too, apparently, heh:

Long been an admirer of @Peggynoonannyc and look forward to each new column/book. But her zig-zagging on Trump is...confusing.

— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) May 7, 2016

A month ago, @Peggynoonannyc found Trump "nutty," occupied w/"subjects...small, petty, unworthy." Now she scolds ppl who won't support him?

— Stephen Hayes (@stephenfhayes) May 7, 2016

We live interesting times, that's for sure.

Kristen Keogh's Saturday Forecast

It's actually lovely weather today, especially for an outdoor workout.

At ABC 10 News San Diego:

Professor Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth

It's not on my short list, but it's definitely on my list.

Lots of buzz about this book, from Professor Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War.

History's Not on Hillary Clinton's Side

From Matt Bai, at Yahoo News, "Clinton has the map on her side, but history working against her":

If you want to experience the full-on contempt of the leftist intelligentsia right now, go on social media and suggest, as I did this week, that Donald Trump isn’t certain to get crushed in November. (Trump, in case you hadn’t noticed, brings out pretty much the worst in everybody.)

The way a lot of partisan Democrats see it, Hillary Clinton — despite a loss to Bernie Sanders in Indiana Tuesday — will soon lock down her party’s nomination, and the only way she finds herself even threatened by Trump is if the media decides to legitimize him so we all have something to talk about. The word I keep hearing from liberals is “layup.”

Clinton does, in fact, enter the general election season with some serious structural advantages. Having analyzed trends from the past six elections and factored in demographic shifts, Third Way, the leading centrist Democratic group, concluded that Clinton starts the campaign virtually assured of 237 electoral votes — 46 more than Trump and just 33 short of a majority.

And as you’ve probably heard, no candidate has ever overcome — or even tried to overcome — the kind of ugly impressions Trump has made on women and minority voters to this point. Next to him, Clinton polls like Santa Claus.

But if history is any guide, Clinton comes to the campaign with a structural disadvantage, too, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked. It may explain why she can’t seem to put Bernie Sanders away — and why the outcome in November is hardly assured.

I’ve gone through this history once or twice before, but it bears repeating: In 1947, Congress passed the 22nd Amendment, which said no one could be elected to the presidency more than twice.

In the 65 years since the last state ratified that amendment — comprising 16 elections, and six elections following an eight-year presidency — only one nominee has managed to win a third consecutive term for his party. That was George H.W. Bush, who overcame a double-digit deficit late in the campaign, thanks in part to one of the most ineffectual Democratic campaigns in history.

(And before you start with me, I know, Al Gore actually won, and in an alternate universe somewhere they are building his monument on the Tidal Basin in a climate that is, on average, four degrees cooler than the one we inhabit, but for purposes of this discussion, let’s just live in the here and now.)

The important question is why it’s proved so difficult for either side to win third terms. The most common explanation has to do with voter fatigue. Essentially, we’re told that voters get sick of having one party in office for eight years, and so the pendulum swings back.

I don’t find this theory especially persuasive. I’ve met an awful lot of voters over the years, and rarely have I heard anyone make the case that it was time for the other party to get a turn. It seems to me voters focus a lot more on the candidates themselves than on the parties they represent.

And this may get to the truer cause of the third-term conundrum. If you look back at elections over the past half century, what you find is that the parties of two-term incumbents almost always nominate the candidate who is nominally next in line. Of the six candidates who have sought third terms since 1960, five had previously served as either president or vice president. (The president was Gerald Ford, who ran for election in 1976 after having held the job for two-plus years.)

The outlier was John McCain, who, like Clinton, had been the runner-up in the last open election, and who ran in a year when the incumbent vice president was sitting it out.

It’s not hard to see how this happens. A two-term president has both the time and the muscle to set up someone who will carry on his legacy — while effectively boxing out challengers.

And because presidents almost always lose congressional seats and governorships in off-year elections, an eight-year presidency tends to decimate the ranks of worthy, younger successors from outside the establishment, anyway.

In other words, by the time a president gets done slogging his way through the peaks and troughs of eight years on the job, there aren’t a lot of new, exciting alternatives to whichever former rival or loyal No. 2 has been patiently waiting on the edge of the stage...

Well, Clinton would certainly have to defy historical trends going back to the 1990s, but I actually do think voter burnout with the party in power plays a key role here --- voter enthusiasm is almost always more fervent among partisans of the out party, and 2016 will showcase more partisan fever than we've seen in a long time, heh.

But keep reading, in any case.

We'll know how well all these election theories hold up this November. Nothing's locked down. Nothing's written in stone. It's going to be awesome, lol.

Conner Eldridge for U.S. Senate Offers Preview of Democrat Attacks to Come (VIDEO)

Heh.

It's gonna be an election for the ages. Seriously, this is going to be the most bitter, bruising, and abusive election in generations, and not just at the top of the ticket. Down-ballot races are going to be nasty!

At the New York Times, "In Arkansas, a Preview of Democratic Attacks to Come" (via Memeorandum):

It has not yet been seen on television, but the early notices for a digital advertisement from a Democratic candidate for the Senate from Arkansas, Conner Eldridge, suggest it could well become a blueprint for how other Democrats — incumbents and challengers alike — attack their Republican opponents by linking them to Donald J. Trump.

THE AD Highlighting some of Mr. Trump’s most misogynistic remarks, the ad alternates between those quotations and slowly spelling out the definition of the ad’s title: “Harassment.”

A white, blinking cursor on a black screen begins to peck out a dictionary’s entry for “harassment,” before the screen cuts to video and audio clips of Mr. Trump: “She ate like a pig.” “I’d look her right in that fat ugly face of hers.” The cursor continues typing the definition — “To subject someone to hostility” — before cutting again to the voice of Mr. Trump opining about a woman’s cosmetic surgery: “The boob job is terrible.”

This continues for a full minute before the cursor blinks ahead of a new phrase: “Trump enabler: Arkansas Senator John Boozman,” who is shown in a black-and-white photo as he is heard saying he will support the Republican nominee, “regardless of who we pick,” even if it is Mr. Trump.

THE IMPACT The two-minute ad was instantly seen as a preview of general-election attacks on down-ballot Republican candidates with Mr. Trump at the top of the ticket. It received even more attention on the right than on the left: “This is brutal,” wrote Erick Erickson, a conservative writer who opposes Mr. Trump’s candidacy. He called it a road map for how Democrats “are going to take back the Senate.”

THE TAKEAWAY Mr. Trump’s victory in the primary campaign has created a sense of worry and uncertainty for lower-level Republican candidates, unsure if he will drag them down or if they will need to hold onto his avid supporters to have a chance in November. The threat contained in this ad — effectively using Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Boozman’s own voices against them — could well prompt some Republicans to try to distance themselves from their presumptive nominee...

I think Republicans should just say bring it.

I mean, as much as leftists can smear Trump for misogyny, racism, Islamophobia, or whatever other slur-of-the-day, there's ten times the material available from Hillary and Bill Clinton's decades-long careers in the public eye. Just Hillary's years in the Obama State Department will provide so much brutal attack material, it's going to make the Democrat Party look like the key state-sponsor of Islamic State.

And Bill Clinton's misogyny can't be topped. Yeah, Hillary enabled it, despite her lies to the contrary. It's going to be mud-slinging and nasty all the way down. What a hoot. I can't wait for the fall campaign!

More.