Donald Trump: 'To hell with the men. I want to set records with women...' (VIDEO)

He's just funny to listen to while speaking on the stump.

Watch, via AP, "Protesters Interrupt Trump Rally in Albuquerque: Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump rallied thousands of supporters during a stop in Albuquerque on Tuesday night as protesters tried to derail his speech..."

Also, at Politico, "The number of protesters [rioters] at the Trump rally was estimated in the hundreds..."

'Let Me Finish': Bill O'Reilly and Kirsten Powers Tangler Over Gender Dysphoria (VIDEO)

Kirsten Powers says that a transgender girl (born anatomically male) is "not a boy who wants to be a girl. It's a person who was born with male genitalia who experiences life as a woman -- or, as a female..."

O'Reilly and Powers are going at it over the Charlotte Observer's editorial last week, "Taking the fear out of bathrooms.

Watch, via Fox News, "Transgender bathroom controversy continues: The O'Reilly Factor' reacts to a new editorial in The Charlotte Observer."

Jackie Johnson's Morning Clouds Forecast

It's clearing up in the afternoons, and there's been some scattered showers. It rained overnight in Irvine. I tweeted a photo to Jackie Johnson, which she favorited.

More, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

My Uncle Leveled Hiroshima. We're Not Sorry

From James Martin, at USA Today, "My uncle never regretted dropping the atomic bomb because his action brought peace" (via Instapundit):

The Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated as many as 134,556 dead and missing Americans [in the event of a U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland]. A study for the office of War Secretary Henry Stimson put the figure at 400,000 to 800,000 dead GIs, with Japanese fatalities reckoned between five and 10 million military personnel and civilians. In addition to combat casualties, the more than 27,000 American POWs held by Japan were subject to immediate execution should the United States invade.

The nuclear attack on Hiroshima was terrible. All warfare is. The power unleashed by the splitting of the atom was monumental. But tragic as the bombing of Hiroshima was, it was also necessary. The alternative to Hiroshima would have been one of the bloodiest, if not the bloodiest, slaughter in human history. These facts were not far from my uncle’s mind on August 6, and they were near the surface of his consciousness in all the years after. He knew that his keen eye and steady hands helped spare untold lives on both sides of the conflict.

During the nearly 71 years since Hiroshima, the world has occasionally marched toward the nuclear abyss and wise men decided against the annihilation that attends the use of such weapons. Since then, the United States and other nations have reduced their stockpiles of nuclear warheads. God willing, wise men will continue to prevail if faced with the question of whether to use them.

These are the lessons the president should carry with him to Hiroshima. No apology is necessary for sparing Japan the unspeakable horror of an invasion to end the war. No contrition is needed for an act that preserved hundreds of thousands of lives...

RTWT.

'Male Feminism'

Heh.

I mentioned Matt McGorry the other day, here.

The whole "male feminism" thing is pretty hilarious, especially in that leftist dudes actually take it seriously.

So, who else to fisk the hell out these idiots than Robert Stacy McCain?

See, "On @MattMcGorry, @MeghanEMurphy and the ‘Male Feminist’ Problem."

The ‘Male Feminist’ Problem https://t.co/ubwVsaQ6ZZ

cc @instapundit @jamestaranto @Nero @AsheSchow @deanesmay #tcot pic.twitter.com/d4chS8ZKPT

— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) May 23, 2016

And buy Robert's book, Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature.

Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism

Boy, it's tough keeping up with all the latest terminology on the SJW left. Sheesh. I feel like an old man, lol.

See, Meghan Murphy, on Twitter:

Congratulations on your important contribution to the movement, @andizeisler #callmeawitch https://t.co/gtN36E5B0P pic.twitter.com/iYJ9s971m3

— Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) May 21, 2016

Hold on. There's more, from Penny White, at Feminist Current, "Why I no longer hate ‘TERFs’."

And the other day I came across Deep Green Resistance:

@Not_RSMcCain Have you seen Deep Green Resistance? -->
Radical Feminism Frequently Asked Questions https://t.co/dclol0ZFzA

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 22, 2016

Deep Green Resistance has been accused of transphobia because we have a difference of opinion about the definition of gender.

DGR does not condone dehumanization or violence against anyone, including people who describe themselves as trans. Universal human rights are universal. DGR has a strong code of conduct against violence and abuse. Anyone who violates that code is no longer a member of DGR.

Disagreeing with someone, however, is not a form of violence. And we have a big disagreement.

Radical feminists are critical of gender itself. We are not gender reformists–we are gender abolitionists. Without the socially constructed gender roles that form the basis of patriarchy, all people would be free to dress, behave, and love others in whatever way they wished, no matter what kind of body they had.

Patriarchy is a caste system which takes humans who are born biologically male or female and turns them into the social classes called men and women. Male people are made into men by socialization into masculinity, which is defined by a psychology based on emotional numbness and a dichotomy of self and other. This is also the psychology required by soldiers, which is why we don’t think you can be a peace activist without being a feminist.

Female socialization in patriarchy is a process of psychologically constraining and breaking girls—otherwise known as “grooming”—to create a class of compliant victims. Femininity is a set of behaviors that are, in essence, ritualized submission.

We see nothing in the creation of gender to celebrate or embrace. Patriarchy is a corrupt and brutal arrangement of power, and we want to see it dismantled so that the category of gender no longer exists. This is also our position on race and class. The categories are not natural: they only exist because hierarchical systems of power create them (see, for instance, Audrey Smedley’s book Race in North America). We want a world of justice and equality, where the material conditions that currently create race, class, and gender have been forever overcome.

Patriarchy facilitates the mining of female bodies for the benefit of men – for male sexual gratification, for cheap labor, and for reproduction. To take but one example, there are entire villages in India where all the women only have one kidney. Why? Because their husbands have sold the other one. Gender is not a feeling—it’s a human rights abuse against an entire class of people, “people called women.”[1]

We are not “transphobic.” We do, however, have a disagreement about what gender is. Genderists think that gender is natural, a product of biology. Radical feminists think gender is social, a product of male supremacy. Genderists think gender is an identity, an internal set of feelings people might have. Radical feminists think gender is a caste system, a set of material conditions into which one is born. Genderists think gender is a binary. Radical feminists think gender is a hierarchy, with men on top. Some genderists claim that gender is “fluid.” Radical feminists point out that there is nothing fluid about having your husband sell your kidney. So, yes, we have some big disagreements.

Radical feminists also believe that women have the right to define their boundaries and decide who is allowed in their space. We believe all oppressed groups have that right. We have been called transphobic because the women of DGR do not want men—people born male and socialized into masculinity—in women-only spaces. DGR stands with women in that decision.

Postcards from the Oppression Olympics, you might say, heh.

Trump Trolls, the Alt-Right, Neo-Reactionaries, and Anti-Semitism

New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman tweeted out Robert Kagan's recent essay the other day, and it's like a volcano erupted with the most vile anti-Semitism you've ever seen. I mean, seriously. It was nasty.

So, actually, this nasty stuff is now a thing, the putrid effluence of the far-right fever swamp of neo-reaction and identitarianism. It remains to be seen how generally widespread is the phenomenon. Some folks speculated that a few trolls were running the whole show, opening new accounts as fast as others were suspended, and using lists of prominent conservative Jews on the "Never Trump" bandwagon. I have no idea. Whatever the case, it's nasty and besmirches all the good things Donald Trump's bringing to the political system.

"This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots & salutes but with a television huckster." Robert Kagan https://t.co/9C8rBqyLbR

— Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) May 19, 2016

When is Trump going to condemn his backers' anti-Semitic attacks on journalists Jonathan Weisman,Julia Ioffe & more https://t.co/ER6CNQSIQC

— Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt) May 21, 2016

In any case, there's more from Claire Berlinski, at Ricochet, "American Anti-Semitism Breaks My Heart."

And from Jamie Kirchick, at Commentary, "Trump’s Terrifying Online Brigades":

When the journalist Julia Ioffe published a profile of Melania Trump for GQ, she had reason to expect that supporters of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee would be disappointed by its portrayal of Donald Trump’s third wife. “Her journey to marrying The Donald is like a fairy tale, or a too-crazy-to-believe rom-com,” Ioffe revealed. “It’s a story full of naked ambition, stunning beauty, a shockingly Trump-like dad, and even some family secrets.” What Ioffe, who is Jewish, did not expect was a torrent of anti-Semitic abuse and death threats.

On Twitter, the candidate’s anonymous backers superimposed images of Ioffe’s face over those of concentration camp inmates. On her voicemail, they left recordings of Hitler speeches. “This is not a heavily critical article. There is nothing in it that is untrue,” Ioffe told the Guardian. “If this is how Trump supporters swing into action, what happens when the press looks into corrupt dealings, for example, or is critical of his policies?”

It’s a good question. For any journalist or political figure who has been remotely critical of Donald Trump over the past year, Ioffe’s treatment came as no surprise. It was hardly news that his backers would traffic in this sort of filth—all the more so if the critic is Jewish, a woman, gay, or not white. Of course, crudity has always existed in American political life, on a bipartisan basis. But there is something new in the pervasive and relentless nastiness of Trump’s supporters, especially as they represent themselves online. While it’s certainly true that most of Trump’s supporters are neither racists nor anti-Semites, it appears to be the case that all of the racists and anti-Semites in this country (and many beyond) support Trump.

To take but one of countless examples, one of the most active pro-Trump Twitter accounts, with 27,000 followers, goes by the handle @Ricky_Vaughn99. Unlike many of his Internet brothers-in-arms, who utilize the likenesses of obscure interwar European fascists and nationalists as their avatars, this troll features the visage of actor Charlie Sheen from the film Major League. What he lacks in visible nostalgia for the Third Reich, @Ricky_Vaughn99 makes up for in his concern about “#whitegenocide,” interpreted as any sign of nonwhite racial advancement. “The Trump presidency will probably be bad for neocon jews, bad for liberal jews, but good for jews who are believers in the nation-state and American nationalism,” he told Armin Rosen, of Tablet magazine, via Twitter. Contrary to most Americans, @Ricky_Vaughn99 thrills at Trump’s every insult, derogatory comment, and affront. On his Twitter profile, he describes himself as a “free speech activist,” an identifier defiantly adopted as a mark of resistance against an alleged campaign by “SJWs” (social-justice warriors) to circumscribe the freedom of white men.

“Free speech activist” is a curiously prevalent appellation on the medium of Twitter for members of the “alt-right,” short for “alternative right,” a populist movement that has been emboldened and bolstered by the fortunes of the Trump campaign. Existing largely on the Internet, which makes the size of its following difficult to gauge, the alt-right is proudly ethno-nationalist, protectionist, isolationist, and culturally traditionalist. It takes intellectual guidance from publications and websites like American Renaissance, Radix Journal, Occidental Observer, Taki’s Magazine, and, increasingly, the popular news website Breitbart.com.

It was at Breitbart that, in March, an extensive article appeared defending the alt-right. While “establishment” conservative institutions and intellectuals have criticized the alt-right as little more than a bunch of gussied-up white supremacists, authors Milo Yiannopoulos and Allum Bokhari explained that these arbiters of good conservative taste have the alt-right all wrong. Praising the “youthful energy” and “taboo-defying rhetoric” of alt-right writers and activists, the two Breitbart columnists led readers through a sort of ideological safari, applying their own taxonomy to the various types of personalities who comprise this “dangerously bright” movement.

Their “Guide to the Alt Right” is a prolix defense of juvenile racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and other assorted bigotries as much-needed “provocation” to the enervated conservative movement. One might quickly object that when so much of the alt-right’s rhetoric consists of terms like “peak negro,” “Niggertech,” and “ovenworthy” (the latter meaning “anything that would be substantially improved by immediate incineration”), it becomes difficult to know where the “taboo-defying rhetoric” and intellectual “provocation” end and where the monstrousness begins.

Lest anyone take offense at these and other memes popularized by the dregs of the Internet (such as the cartoon of a hook-nosed Jewish caricature named “Shlomo Shekelburg” who cries, “Remember the 6 trillion, goyim!”) Yiannopoulos and Bokhari reassure their readers that the alt-right is harmless, the cheek of its younger cohort no different than that of the “60’s kids” who “shocked their parents with promiscuity, long hair and rock’n’roll.” Besides, the movement’s “true motivations,” they tell us, are “not racism, the restoration of monarchy or traditional gender roles, but lulz.” (“Lulz” is the Internet term to define the mocking laughter that arises from purposefully shocking someone else’s sense of decorum.)

Yiannopolous and Bokhari insist that the alt-right “is best defined by what it stands against rather than what it stands for.” This makes it the perfect intellectual base of the Trump campaign. Building walls, banning Muslims, “bombing the shit” out of people—there is nothing aspirational or positive about Trump, other than his vague and windy promise to “Make America Great Again.” In this important sense, Trump is truly an anomalous phenomenon, as he has replaced the perennially optimistic message of the American presidential campaign with something more suitable to Venezuela. Though we all have reason to be annoyed by the cultural resurgence of political correctness, the alt-right remedy is the oratorical inverse of the problem they claim they despise. Social-justice warriors needlessly shut down debate and proscribe certain words and ideas to assuage the feelings of allegedly vulnerable minority groups; the alt-right needlessly flings around racial epithets and Der Stürmer cartoons purely to transgress accepted social codes. And that’s only the most charitable explanation for their behavior, assuming as it does that they don’t “really” mean what they say.

But what about that element of the alt-right that actually does have a political agenda beyond annoying its adversaries? The primary alt-right constituency, according to Yiannopolous and Bokhari, consists of “natural conservatives,” largely white, male, middle-class Americans “who are unapologetically embracing a new identity politics that prioritizes the interests of their own demographic.” These voters are “conservative” not so much in the American sense as in the European one; they show no interest whatsoever in the GOP’s traditional free-market economic agenda of trade, low taxes, and flexible labor regulations, preferring instead a strongman leader promising trade protectionism, entitlement expansion, and the assertion of white male privilege.

Illiberalism is sweeping the globe. Coming from left or right—and, as evidenced in this country by Trump and socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, often converging in that place where extremes meet—political leaders and movements across the democratic world are advocating economic and ethnic nationalism, the closing of borders, the imposition of trade barriers, the dissolution of multilateral alliances, and accommodation with dictatorships. Our politics are becoming darker, our peoples more susceptible to the promises of demagogues, and the rise of an explicitly anti-democratic, pro-authoritarian right seems more possible in America than ever before...

More.

Note, though, that leftist anti-Semitism is far-and-away more widespread and heavily institutionalized than anything we've seen so far with the Trump trolls. The British Labour Party is currently mainstreaming anti-Semitic hatred on a scale that's shocked the United Kingdom. There's nothing remotely like this in terms of core establishment Jew-hated among folks on the so-called alt-right. Still, it's a terrible development and I expect that Trump himself is going to repudiate it forcefully as his campaign gears up for the GOP convention, especially considering major Jewish figures --- like Sheldon Adelson --- are primed to be significant sources of campaign finance for the Republican ticket, and Adelson's camp is said to be working in the background on Trump's upcoming visit to Israel. So, expect a major smackdown against the Trump trolls at the top levels of the campaign. Let the Democrats and British leftists stew in the bilge of anti-Zionist hatred. Conservatives must repudiate it root and branch.

Poll: Americans Divided on Transgender Bathrooms

I've been covering this issue in my classes, pointing out that the Democrats are deliberately inflaming the culture wars. Remember, Houstonians voted down the LGBT ballot measure 61 to 39 percent. And now the White House has forced the issue to the national level.

It's not about civil rights. It's about political and ideological power. And the country's going to be even more bitterly divided as a result.

At NYT, "Public Is Divided Over Transgender Bathroom Issue, Poll Shows":

Like I've Been Saying. Now There's Data: Public Is Divided Over #Transgender Bathrooms, Poll Shows. #Gender https://t.co/R2kOCunqyd

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 20, 2016

Wow. 6/10 Americans want state & local govts to decide transgender school bathroom policies, according to NYT poll. https://t.co/Gg7P8fA6ed

— Kelsey Harkness (@kelseyjharkness) May 20, 2016

The public is sharply divided along age, party and education lines over whether transgender people should be allowed to use public bathrooms that match their gender identity rather than their gender at birth, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

While less than a majority, 46 percent of Americans say they think that transgender people should be allowed to use only public restrooms corresponding to their gender at birth. A smaller number, 41 percent, think transgender people should be allowed to use the restroom that matches the gender they identify with.

Democrats, college graduates and those under the age of 45 are more supportive of allowing for gender identity in bathroom choice, while their counterparts take the opposite stance.

The nationwide poll was conducted after President Obama issued a directive to public schools last week outlining ways to avoid discrimination against transgender students. The Obama administration contends that the issue is a federal civil rights question, while some states, such as North Carolina, say it is an issue for individual states to decide.

Nearly six in 10 Americans say they think decisions about which bathroom transgender students can use in public schools should be left to individual state or local governments to decide. While a slim 51 percent majority of Democrats think it is a federal issue, more than three-quarters of Republicans say the matter should be decided at the state or local level.

While the public narrowly disagrees with Mr. Obama’s stance on transgender rights and the restroom policy, his overall job approval rating, at 50 percent, is at its highest level in more than three years. His approval rating briefly rose after his re-election in November 2012.

More.

Also, a summary of the data, at Newsmax:

* 46 percent believe transgender people should be allowed to use bathrooms based on their birth gender;

* 41 percent believe transgender people should be allowed to use bathrooms based on their gender identity.

CBS News reports breaking down the results by party lines and political beliefs, the poll finds:

* 65 percent of Republicans, 66 percent of conservatives believe transgender people should use bathrooms based on their birth gender;

* 60 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of liberals believe transgender people should use the bathroom of their gender identity.

Another question in the poll addressed whether federal government or state and local governments should be in charge of the bathroom issue:

* 57 percent believe state and local governments should decide;

* 35 percent believe the federal government should decide.

By party lines, according to the CBS News report:

* 77 percent of Republicans believe the decision should be left to state and local governments;

* 42 percent of Democrats believe state and local governments should decide;

* 57 percent of independent voters believe state and local governments should decide.

Fifty-one percent of Democrats favor the federal government deciding, while 31 percent of independent voters believe it should be up to the federal government. Comparatively, only 18 percent of Republicans favor the federal government weighing in on bathroom choice.

Progressive Racism: A History of Racial Truth, Dare, and Deception

From Colin Flaherty, at FrontPage Magazine, "David Horowitz’s new book sets the record straight on the Left's politics of destruction."

And buy the book, at Amazon, The Black Book of the American Left — Volume VI: Progressive Racism.

Pregnant Candice Swanepoel Posts Baby-Bump Photo to Instagram

Wild.

That's wonderful she having a baby too!

Boy Or Girl? Candice Reveals All: https://t.co/xQlJgIX7ts pic.twitter.com/FnlvPFc8GG

— VOGUE.CO.UK (@BritishVogue) May 18, 2016

How Putin Silences Dissent

This is great.

From Maria Lipman, at Foreign Affairs, "Inside the Kremlin’s Crackdown":

In December 2015, the Russian antigraft activist Alexey Navalny released a documentary in which he exposed the corrupt business dealings of the children of Yuri Chaika, Russia’s prosecutor general—the top law enforcement official in the country. In the film, Navalny accuses Chaika’s son Artem of “continuously exploit[ing] the protection that his father, the prosecutor general of the Russian Federation, gives him to extort from and steal other people’s companies.” Artem owns a five-star hotel in Greece with his father’s deputy’s ex-wife, who, according to Navalny, maintains close business ties with the wives of violent gang members in southern Russia. The film includes scenes from the inauguration of the hotel, a grand celebration attended by Russian politicians, businessmen, and pop stars. The documentary also details Artem’s involvement in a predatory takeover of a Siberian shipping company in 2002; after speaking out against Artem, the company’s former manager was found hanged.

The film has garnered more than 4.6 million views online. In a survey conducted by the Levada Center, an independent Russian polling and research organization, some 80 percent of those who had watched the film or heard about it said they thought Navalny’s allegations “appeared true” or were “fully credible.” Shortly after the film’s release, the Russian documentary film festival ArtDocFest awarded it a special prize, and Dmitry Gudkov, a federal lawmaker, filed a request with the Russian Investigative Committee, the Russian equivalent of the FBI, asking for an investigation into Navalny’s allegations.

The characters in this story—a whistleblower, an independent film festival, and an antiestablishment lawmaker—seem to contradict the West’s image of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia as unforgiving and authoritarian. Yet this is only part of the tale.

The rest is that the Kremlin has persecuted Navalny for years. He has been repeatedly prosecuted on what have appeared to be trumped-up embezzlement charges. He has spent months under house arrest, and although he is not currently imprisoned, he remains on a suspended sentence. His brother, who was named Navalny’s codefendant in a sham embezzlement case, has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison, and several of Navalny’s coworkers have been threatened or forced to flee Russia.

Navalny’s film went viral on the Internet, but Russia’s state-controlled national television largely ignored it. Chaika dismissed it as a political attack backed by an American businessman. And Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, when asked about the film, said its allegations were “of no interest to us whatsoever,” as they concerned Chaika’s children, not the prosecutor general himself. Yet in Russia, few believe that Artem became a rich business tycoon simply because he is a talented entrepreneur. An ascent like his takes a special kind of protection, one that his father likely provided. In fact, in 2011, when Artem’s name surfaced repeatedly in connection with an investigation of underground casinos in the Moscow region, which operated under the protection of local prosecutors, the case ended with no indictments—apparently thanks to his father’s influence.

Gudkov, for his part, has become a one-man opposition. Of the 450 members of the Duma, Russia’s parliament, he is the only one who does not pledge full allegiance to Putin. But after reading his request, the Investigative Committee decided to transfer the case to the office of the prosecutor general—that is, to Chaika himself—effectively burying it. No matter how solid the allegations against Chaika’s family may be, the Kremlin simply will not rely on the accusations of a liberal activist to hold them to account.

Since the start of Putin’s third term in 2012, the Kremlin has grown increasingly intolerant of political and civic activism. But as the economist Sergei Guriev and the political scientist Daniel Treisman wrote in 2015, “new authoritarian” regimes, such as Putin’s, “can survive while employing relatively little violence against the public.” Instead, they rely on manipulation and intimidation, cultivating a sense that opposing the Kremlin is not just dangerous but also pointless.

So far, these tactics have served the Kremlin well. Now, however, Russia’s ongoing economic decline may present an obstacle. The combination of a drop in oil prices and a shortage of investment has already led to a decrease in living standards; unemployment is also likely to rise. This makes it tempting to predict that Putin’s regime will soon unravel, but it remains impossible to tell when or how or what will come next...

More.

Jason Derulo's Girlfriend Daphne Joy

At London's Daily Mail, "No room to wiggle, wiggle, wiggle! Jason Derulo's girlfriend Daphne Joy struggles to contain her ample assets as she puts on an eye-popping display in skimpy workout gear."

ADDED: "It's over! Bikini model Daphne Joy 'has split up with singer Jason Derulo' after dating for seven months."

Jackie Johnson's Clouds and Clearing Forecast

It's pleasant and mild. I'm not worried about getting a suntan or anything, so what the heck, lol?

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Colin Flaherty, 'White Girl Bleed A Lot'

I've got Flaherty's review of David Horowitz's new book, Progressive Racism, scheduled for a morning post.

But I just realized the Flaherty himself has published some interesting stuff on left-wing racism. See, at Amazon, 'White Girl Bleed A Lot': The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It.

Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe Under Federal Investigation for Illegal Campaign Contributions (VIDEO)

At CNN, via Memeorandum, "Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe under federal investigation for campaign contributions."

Plus, more at the video, "Officials: Virginia governor under FBI investigation."

More at Politico, "McAuliffe attorney denies knowledge of any DOJ probe" (via Memeorandum).

McAuliffe was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, from 2001 to 2005. He knows exactly what's going on. The Democrats have a history of taking illegal foreign contributions. Flashback to 1998, at the Washington Post, "Gore's Ties to Hsia Cast Shadow on 2000 Race."

RELATED: From Michelle Malkin, "The Chinagate/Buddhist temple cash skeletons in Gary Locke's closet."

Europe or America? Who's More Pro-Choice? (VIDEO)

Here's Elisha Krauss, for Prager University:

KCAL 9's Interview with Bernie Sanders in Irvine (VIDEO)

Local news coverage.

Folks were Feeling the Bern last night at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater:



Also at the O.C. Register, "Bernie Sanders in Orange County: Thousands turn out to hear him campaign against 'rigged' system."

Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War [BUMPED]

This looks quite good, perhaps for your Father's Day shopping.

At Amazon, Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War.

Deal of the Day: 65% Off Rosetta Stone Power Pack Language Learning Bundles

Bulk up your foreign language creds!

At Amazon, Save on Rosetta Stone Power Pack Sets.

Also, Coleman Montana 8-Person Tent.

BONUS: Father's Day 2016 - Lawn & Garden.

Facebook Reverses Ban on Conservative Lauren Southern (VIDEO)

At Heat Street, "Not only has Facebook reversed its ban on me, Twitter just verified me."

And watch, at the Rebel:

Britney Spears at 2016 Billboard Music Awards

At Yahoo, "#BritneySpears took the responsibility of opening the 2016 #BBMAs *very* seriously..."

And London's Daily Mail:

brb going to the gym #BBMAs https://t.co/TSJEqdbysU pic.twitter.com/wwKeOfE4et

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) May 23, 2016

Republicans Paying More Attention to Election Than Democrats

Well, you'd think so.

At Gallup (via Memeorandum.)

Republicans Paying More Attention to Election Than Democrats (Frank Newport / Gallup) https://t.co/Q4bwXc9V1l https://t.co/6SzGc9Cjt3

— memeorandum (@memeorandum) May 23, 2016

Democrats Freak Out - Donald Trump Surges

Look, all these recent polls are national head-to-head surveys. The real battles in the Electoral College, but still. It sure is nice to have the Dems sweating.

Following-up, "ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Dramatic Trend-Line Shows Donald Trump Passing Hillary Clinton (VIDEO)."

Here's today's New York Post, and it's hilarious!

Today's front page: Democrats are freaking out over a possible President Trump https://t.co/6AGg7VoQNP pic.twitter.com/iffMT13tXt

— New York Post (@nypost) May 23, 2016

Apology Tour: As Shadow of War Fades, Obama Visits Vietnam and Japan (VIDEO)

Ralph Peters spoke for me earlier with his comments on Obama's visit to Japan, "Lt. Col. Ralph Peters Slams Obama's Upcoming Visit to Hiroshima (VIDEO)."

Just going there represents an apology. He's the president of the United States. He dignifies the far-left, pacifist (and anti-American) demands for U.S. groveling.

And to top it off, O's visiting Communist Vietnam, which adds to his whirlwind tour of Marxist-Leninist regimes.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Obama heads to Vietnam and Japan to confront the ghosts of old wars amid turmoil in modern ones":

For nearly eight years, President Obama has struggled  to end wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Next week, he’ll finally succeed in closing chapters on two other ones instead – Vietnam and World War II.

Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and will meet with survivors of the atomic bombings that ended World War II. He will also travel to Vietnam, to whose communist government he is considering selling more weapons, a sign of how the U.S.-Vietnam relationship has blossomed in the decades since the war there ended.

For the president who promised to end two wars only to watch them persist, the end points this week in Vietnam and Japan — decades in the making — show just how hard that is, and how long peace could ultimately take.

“We’ve seen the difficulty or inability to disengage from the war on terror, including in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. “And he has seen that these U.S. commitments to protect friends and allies can be long-standing commitments, as evidenced by our continued presence in South Korea and Japan and Germany.”

Obama will pay heed to the past by promoting how far the alliances with Vietnam and Japan have come since the countries were bitter enemies of the U.S. He plans to highlight growing commercial ties in Vietnam, one of the 12 countries that are part of the massive Pacific Rim trade deal being negotiated. In Japan, where he will also meet with the heads of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, Obama's visit to Hiroshima is an opportunity to revisit his efforts toward nuclear nonproliferation.

“The very fact that the United States is traveling to Japan, that it’s now one of our closest allies in the world, and Vietnam, which is an emerging partner of ours, demonstrates how you are able to move beyond difficult history,” said White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes....

Obama may encounter some anti-American sentiment in Japan, where the arrest of an American suspected of killing a woman who disappeared last month has sparked outrage. Police say he's also suspected in her death but have not charged him.

On his final day in Japan, Obama will go to the city of Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb used in war in 1945. That bomb, and another dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killed at least 129,000 people and poisoned a generation with radiation.

Obama will pay tribute to the suffering and loss of war, aides say, though he won’t apologize for the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which he views as having been necessary to end the war and save the world from tyranny.

At the time, President Truman made a decision he believed was “consistent with our national security priorities,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in explaining Obama’s refusal to apologize. “He believed that lives on both sides of the conflict could be saved by dropping the bomb.”

Obama has offered a similar defense of his own decision to use armed drones in the fight against terrorists in the Middle East.

More than that, though, he has spoken admiringly of Truman’s commitment to a new post-war order in which nations of the world worked together – the very kind of shift he has sought to enable the world to fight off crisis while still taking steps toward progress.

That new order was a marriage of “idealism to hardheaded realism, an acceptance of America’s power with a humility regarding America’s ability to control events around the world,” Obama wrote in his 2006 book “The Audacity of Hope.”

But the lessons of the 20th century wars only go so far, said [former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt] Campbell. They don’t necessarily provide a clear pathway for today’s leaders...

Hubble Space Telescope Watches Mars (VIDEO)

This is fantastic!

At NASA, on Twitter, ".@NASA_Hubble watches as Mars moves to opposition on 5/22; when it lines up with Earth & sun..."

And watch:

Michelle Fields Joins Huffington Post, Will Resume Covering Donald Trump

Heh.

At Gateway Pundit, "Hah! Liar Michelle Fields Gets Job at Huffington Post – Says She’s Going to Cover Trump Campaign Again."

Hah-Hah-Hah #Liar @michelleFields is working for #HuffPo now! #Perfect pic.twitter.com/4fZpbNueIp

— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) May 23, 2016

Haha😂😂😂

She's gonna be working at the Huff&Puff Post 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/X8YZh5slsf

— Villi Wilson (@Conservative_VW) May 23, 2016

Colonel Richard Kemp on Israel, the World's Most Moral Army (VIDEO)

Via Prager University:

David Horowitz Is Right

More on the "renegade Jew" backlash. From Pamela Geller, at Big Government, "On Trump and the Jews, David Horowitz Is Right."

Geller: On Trump and the Jews, David Horowitz Is Right - Breitbart https://t.co/qgZwKehYRt via @BreitbartNews

— Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) May 17, 2016

The ANC's Culture of Impunity in South Africa

From Jessica Piombo and Cherrel Africa, at Foreign Affairs, "Has South Africa Lost Its Way? The ANC's Unfulfilled Promise":

Under Zuma’s leadership, a culture of impunity has taken root at the highest levels of the ANC. https://t.co/OoLfVbjOJa

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) May 22, 2016

South Africa is in the middle of a period of political and economic unrest unlike anything the country has experienced since the end of apartheid in 1994. In March 2015, students at the University of Cape Town launched the #Rhodesmustfall campaign, aimed at bringing down a statue of the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Since then, students have regularly stormed the nation’s universities, labor unions have held strikes, and populist social movements have taken to the streets. The protesters have called for wholesale reform of the country’s economy and directly challenged the ruling African National Congress. And the ANC itself is in crisis, divided between supporters and detractors of South African President Jacob Zuma. On March 31, the country’s highest court ruled that Zuma had failed to uphold the constitution when he ignored a state order to repay government funds used in a $23 million upgrade to his private residence at Nkandla in KwaZulu Natal. And on April 29, the High Court in Pretoria ruled that the former head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Mokotedi Mpshe, had acted irrationally when he had dropped corruption charges against Zuma in 2009. Although the opposition failed in its bid to impeach Zuma, the National Assembly remains fractious and divided. The Nkandla revelations and growing dissatisfaction with Zuma have sparked broader protests about poor living standards, low economic growth, high unemployment, and political stagnation.

The roots of the current crisis lie in the country’s tortured past. Since the end of apartheid, the number of people who live in absolute poverty has fallen, and access to and quality of services has improved, but unemployment, crime, and housing remain the top three concerns of South Africans, as they have been since the mid-1990s. In fact, the gap between rich and poor has widened: South Africa’s Gini coefficient, a measure of economic inequality ranging from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality), increased from 0.62 in 2008 to 0.70 in 2013; by contrast, Brazil’s has fallen from 0.55 in 2009 to 0.53 in 2013. For all of those who expected great progress since 1994, the slow pace of change has been bitterly disappointing.

After the political stalemate of the late 1980s, the ANC made a bargain with the then ruling National Party: it would take power and focus on postapartheid reconciliation, while committing to economic policies that would disavow the appropriation of land and economic assets from the country’s white elite. In short, the ANC chose political power and social reconciliation over economic restitution and the redistribution of wealth.

The concessions hobbled the party during the critical years immediately following the end of apartheid, when economic restructuring could have had great impact. Apartheid policies had stripped the country of its natural wealth and impoverished its people, and the state had developed the capacity to provide services to only a small portion of the population. The government had pushed responsibility for the black majority to the Bantustans, self-governing territories that the architects of apartheid had established to house the country’s “African” populations. After the transition, the state had to expand its scope to include the millions it had previously excluded.

Yet political freedom did not lead to economic prosperity for the vast majority of South Africans. The ANC had not anticipated how much globalization had constrained the ability of the state to foster economic redistribution. What’s more, the ANC discovered that the state it had inherited lacked the resources to deliver on its 1994 campaign promise, “A Better Life for All.” The dual costs of maintaining the security apparatus and unequal welfare system necessary to sustain the apartheid state had drained the state’s coffers. The ANC had initially adopted a moderately redistributive economic program (the Reconstruction and Development Programme), but in mid-1996 it replaced this with Growth, Employment and Redistribution, which was modeled on the structural adjustment programs that the World Bank promoted in the 1980s. Many South Africans who had been deprived of basic services under apartheid continue to lack housing, electricity, water, and sanitation...

Keep reading.

Shaka Senghor, Writing My Wrongs

Robert Stacy McCain was snarking on idiot "male feminists" yesterday and tweeted out BuzzFeed's, "I Was a Thirsty Male Feminist for a Day and It Was Exhausting."

Matt McGorry, who I've never heard of, but is apparently starring in "Orange Is the New Black," posted selfies of himself reading hip progressive au courant titles, such as Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison, and Michelle Alexander's, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

Alexander's book's been out for a while and has had quite an impact (especially among leftists and on college campuses, like mine). But I hadn't heard of Senghor before. His book just came out in March.

The Guardian has more, "Shaka Senghor: the man with the American story no one wants to tell."

Deal of the Day: Save on Select Dream Chairs by Vivere

At Amazon, Vivere Original Dream Chair, Cherry Red, and Vivere Original Dream Chair, True Turquoise.

More, Green Apple, and Sand Dune.

Also, Sport-Brella Umbrella - Portable Sun and Weather Shelter.

And, Mountainsmith Genesee 4 Tent.

Plus, Kelty Redwing 50 Backpack.

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BONUS: Father's Day 2016 - Tools & Home Improvement.

ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Dramatic Trend-Line Shows Donald Trump Passing Hillary Clinton (VIDEO)

Here's the video, at ABC News, "Washington Post Poll Shows Tight Race for White House."

And here's the coverage, at WaPo, via Memeorandum, "Poll: Election 2016 shapes up as a contest of negatives."

And at ABC News, "A Post-Primary Rally Boosts Trump, Albeit with Challenges Aplenty (POLL)" (via Memeorandum).

And a Scribd document here, "A Post-Primary Rally Boosts Trump, Albeit with Challenges Aplenty."



Republicans are solidifying their support behind Donald Trump, while the Democrat race becomes more divisive and violent.

Amazingly (or not), MSM reporters like WaPo's Dan Balz downplay the overall trends to focus on Donald Trump's high negatives. But the fact is, survey trend-lines look really bad for Hillary Clinton:

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows a close contest in presidential election preferences, with Republicans lining up behind Donald Trump as their party’s presumptive nominee while the continued Democratic race is keeping Hillary Clinton’s side more unsettled.

Greater voter registration among Republicans is one factor: Clinton’s 6-point lead among all adults, 48-42 percent in a general election matchup, switches to essentially a dead heat among registered voters, 46 percent for Trump, 44 percent for Clinton. Regardless, the contest has tightened considerably since March, when Clinton led among registered voters by 9 points.

Trump’s enhanced competitiveness reflects consolidation in his support since his primary opponents dropped out, and it comes despite significant challenges to his candidacy. Fifty-eight percent of Americans call him unqualified to be president, 60 percent see him unfavorably overall, 76 percent think he doesn’t show enough respect for those he disagrees with and 64 percent say he should release his tax returns (with most feeling strongly about it). These include majorities of registered voters on each item, representing opportunities for Clinton.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, moreover, split 46-46 percent on whether or not Trump represents the core values of the party. That’s sharply improved from 29-56 percent in July, but it leaves the party still divided on a key measure of Trump’s suitability.

Clinton has challenges of her own – 53 percent of Americans (and 57 percent of registered voters) see her unfavorably, making this a matchup between the two most unpopular likely presidential candidates in the history of ABC/Post election polls, dating back to 1984.

Indeed, half of each candidate’s supporters are negative voters, saying they oppose the other candidate more than they support their own choice. Fewer than half on either side back their candidate strongly. And while 51 percent of Americans say they’d be satisfied with a Clinton - Trump race, 44 percent say they’d want a third-party candidate to run.

Most potential voters, though, seem committed in opposition, if not in support. Marking the level of cross-party antipathy in this contest, 86 percent of Trump supporters say they’d never consider voting for Clinton – and 86 percent of Clinton supporters say the same about Trump.

That's negative partisanship, which I've highlighted as one of the major elements of the current electoral environment, and something to keep an eye on through the fall. Indeed, it's negative partisanship that explains why Trump is consolidating Republican support so quickly and decisively since Ted Cruz dropped out.




More at Memeorandum.

Also at the Conservative Treehouse, "BOOM – Trump Leads Clinton In ABC/Washington Post Poll, Even With D+8 Poll Sample…"

And see Twitchy, "‘Hit the panic button, Hillary’: Latest polls show significant swing from Clinton to Trump."

Space Shuttle External Tank Makes Long Slow Trip Through Streets of Los Angeles (VIDEO)

Following-up from previously, "Space Shuttle External Tank Arrives in Marina del Rey (VIDEO)."

Heh, this is really cool.

At LAist, "Photos: Giant Space Shuttle Fuel Tank Makes Its Way Through the Streets of L.A."

And check California Science Center on Twitter.

Russia Today Reporter Anna Baranova Attacked by Cowardly Masked Anarchist in Paris (VIDEO)

And actually, I'm not sure why one of the camera crew didn't go tackle that black bloc coward. They just let him get away with assault.

That is a shame.

ICYMI: Heather Mac Donald, The War on Cops

I've basically got a smorgasbord of books going right now, which is kinda fun, compared to the series of big tomes I read starting in January. But I've got to buckle down and finish some of these books I've got going, since there's some really good stuff in the pipeline.

At the top of the list is Heather Mac Donald's, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

How Gender Dysphoric Bathroom Access Became the Next Frontier in America's Culture Wars

Heh.

This issue shouldn't even be a thing. But leave it to leftists. For them, it's permanent revolution. There's never enough "progress."

At NYT, "Transgender Americans See Their Personal Battle Become a National Showdown":

.@nytimes Leftists rammed their postmodern gender dysphoria crap down our throats? #LGBTyranny

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 21, 2016

How a clash over bathrooms, an issue that appeared atop no national polls, became the next frontier in America’s fast-moving culture wars — and ultimately landed on the desk of the president — involves an array of players, some with law degrees, others still in high school.

The sweeping directive to public schools seemed to come out of nowhere. In fact, it was the product of years of study inside the government and a highly orchestrated campaign by advocates for gay and transgender people. Mindful of the role “Whites Only’’ bathrooms played in the civil rights battles of more than half a century ago, they have been maneuvering behind the scenes to press federal agencies, and ultimately Mr. Obama, to address a question that has roiled many school districts: Should those with differing anatomies share the same bathrooms?

The lobbying came to a head, according to people who were involved, in a hastily called April 1 meeting between top White House officials — led by Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser and one of his closest confidantes — and national leaders of the gay and transgender rights movement. North Carolina had just become the first state to explicitly bar transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice.

“Transgender students are under attack in this country,” said Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based advocacy group that is active on the issue, summing up the message he sought to convey to Ms. Jarrett that day. “They need their federal government to stand up for them.”

Ms. Jarrett and her team, he said, listened politely, but “did not reveal much,” including the fact that a legal directive on transgender rights that had been in the works for months was about to be released.

When — or precisely how — Mr. Obama personally weighed in is not clear; the White House would not provide specifics. But two days before that meeting, scores of advocacy groups sent Mr. Obama a private letter, appealing to his sense of history as he nears the end of his presidency, in which he has already advanced gay and transgender rights on multiple fronts.

“Too many students — including every single transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming student in North Carolina — will go to sleep tonight dreading the next school day,” the groups wrote, telling him that “your legacy will be defined by the tone you have set and the personal leadership you have shown on these issues.”

The dispute in Palatine came amid increasing confusion for school districts over how to handle questions about bathroom access for transgender students. Officials at the Department of Education said it had received hundreds of requests for guidance — so many that advocates for gay and transgender rights, frustrated by the Obama administration’s failure to issue specific policy guidelines, decided to act on their own.

In August, several groups seeking protection for transgender people — including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Education Association and the National Center for Lesbian Rights — issued a 68-page guide for schools, hoping to provide a blueprint for the White House.

At the Department of Education, Catherine E. Lhamon, 44, a former civil rights litigator who runs the agency’s Office of Civil Rights — and has made aggressive use of a federal nondiscrimination law known as Title IX — was taking the lead. The department’s ruling in favor of Student A in November was the first time it had found any school district in violation of civil rights over transgender issues.

For Student A, the federal intervention has been life changing. Her mother, who requested anonymity to protect the privacy of her daughter, said she was close to finishing her junior year and had just gone to the prom with a group of friends. (She wore a “nice, expensive dress” with a lot of sparkles, her mother said.) Student A is starting to think about which college she might attend.

“She’s in her own teenaged world right now,” her mother said.

The ruling in Palatine reverberated across the Midwest. In the South Dakota Legislature, Republicans were so alarmed by the situation in Palatine that, in February, they passed a measure restricting bathroom access for transgender students — similar to the one that later became law in North Carolina. Opponents sent transgender South Dakotans to meet with Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican, and they believe that influenced his veto of the bill.

Among the visitors was Kendra Heathscott, who was 10 when she first met Mr. Daugaard, then the executive director of a social services organization that treats children with behavioral problems. In his office to lobby against the bathroom measure, she reintroduced herself. “He remembered me as a little boy,” she said.

In Wisconsin last year, another Republican-sponsored bathroom bill began to work its way through the Legislature, but was beaten back by transgender rights activists, many of them teenagers.

In rural north-central Florida, a retired veterinarian and cattle rancher named Harrell Phillips was alarmed one evening in March, when his 17-year-old son reported over dinner that he had encountered a transgender boy in the high school bathroom.

“I marched myself down to the principal,” said Dr. Phillips, who believes that “you are born into a sex that God chose you to be.”

The principal, and later the school superintendent, citing advice from lawyers, said there was nothing they could do. So Dr. Phillips turned to his best friend, a lawyer in Jacksonville, who introduced him to Roger Gannam of Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based Christian organization. Mr. Gannam represented Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses last year.

Mr. Gannam had just helped block a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance in Jacksonville, with an argument religious conservatives have been lately using to powerful effect: It would endanger women and young girls by allowing men — and even sexual predators — to pose as transgender and enter women’s bathrooms.

Ocala, where Dr. Phillips’s son attends school, is now embroiled in a fight much like the one that engulfed Palatine. The school board, at Mr. Gannam’s prodding, voted in April to require transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex.

One transgender young man there has been suspended for using the boys’ bathroom. The A.C.L.U. of Florida sued the day before the White House issued its directive, and last Sunday night, transgender activists and their allies held a strategy session in a church — with a sheriff’s deputy standing guard outside because attendees feared for their safety.

“It’s separate but equal, so they might as well put black and white up on the bathrooms, too,” said Beth Miller, the mother of 17-year-old Mathew Myers, formerly Madison, an R.O.T.C. student in Ocala who came out as transgender this fall by asking his sergeant to permit him to switch from a women’s uniform to one for men. The sergeant accommodated Mathew on the uniform, but the school required him to use the gender-neutral bathroom in the nurse’s office.

“I go to the guy’s bathroom all the time out in public, and no one cares,” Mathew said.

It's not "separate but equal," and it's a national disgrace, and rape of history, for leftists to appropriate the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery to push the homosexual and gender dysphoric licentiousness.

Still more.

Two Horses Die in Early Races of Preakness Saturday

And a jockey broke a collarbone.

It's a rough sport, man.

At WSJ:

Two horses die and jockey injured in early Preakness races https://t.co/mDGqVcUtDG

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 21, 2016

Kristen Keogh's Cool Saturday Forecast

It's cooler than normal temperatures, and the fact is we'll be heading into the normal June gloom pretty soon, so expect more of this.

At ABC News 10 San Diego:

Obama's Transgender Bathroom Guidance Totalitarianism

From USA Today's "Q & A" on the administration's "transgender bathroom guidance":

Q: What other federal rules govern the treatment of transgender students?

A: The guidance released Friday also addressed other issues and wrapped up a number of less formal interpretations that the Department of Education has made about transgender students. For example:

• Teachers and staff cannot use a transgender student's birth name or pronoun, and school records must reflect the student's chosen name and gender identity. The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1972 gives parents the right to challenge inaccurate records.

• Schools with sex-segregated accommodations on overnight field trips must allow transgender students to sleep with students of their chosen gender. Like bathrooms, schools can offer single-occupancy sleeping rooms, but they may not require transgender students to use them unless all students have access to them.

• Athletic teams are allowed to segregate by sex — especially for contact sports — as long as they provide equal opportunities for both sexes. The guidance allows for discrimination based on standards of fair play, but those standards cannot "rely on overly broad generalizations or stereotypes" about transgender students, or be based solely on teammates being uncomfortable with their participation.

• School-sponsored extracurricular activities and social events — such as yearbook photos, school dances and graduation ceremonies — must allow transgender students to dress and participate according to their gender identity.

And see Laurie Higgins, at the Illinois Family Institute, "Emperor Obama Mandates Co-Ed Restrooms - and More":

As I have written ad nauseum, this issue is not centrally about restrooms. It is centrally about the reality and meaning of sex differences, which the left seeks to eradicate. (Ironically, when homosexuals claim they are attracted only to persons of the same sex, they affirm and emphasize the reality of sexual differentiation. The left, however, is rarely constrained by foolish inconsistency.)

The left’s disbelief in the twoness of the sexes defies objective reality. The left’s belief that subjective feelings about objective maleness or femaleness must trump objective maleness and femaleness in every context from potties to pronouns is a philosophical, political, moral, and theological assumption—not an objective fact. And it’s certainly not true.

This, my friends, is something wicked.

Alessandra Ambrosio in Cannes

At London's Daily Mail, "Alessandra Ambrosio goes braless in Cannes."

Also, "FYI Alessandra Ambrosio, we love you!"

Plus, a photo from the lady's Twitter feed:

Blue jean baby....L.A. lady.... 🎶🌾 📷: @jerome_duran pic.twitter.com/Rt6f3zdn0q

— Alessandra Ambrosio (@AngelAlessandra) May 20, 2016

The America We Once Knew Is Over and It Ain't Coming Back

Mike at Cold Fury's got the beat on the vital importance of Donald Trump's campaign, "Clarification":

It’s my own personal belief that America That Was was forever lost—thrown away, rather—long ago anyway, and there ain’t no bringing it back short of catastrophic upheaval and, most likely, bloodshed. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of Americans today don’t want it brought back. We’re a nation of ignoramuses and soft dupes, content to allow itself to be misgoverned by knaves, crooks, grifters, and con artists, of which the Republicrats are merely the other side of a very mean coin indeed. Reversing course on the path we’re currently on will never be accomplished by mere voting. If that was possible, voting would be illegal. As it is, it’s been rendered mostly irrelevant.

RTWT.

If you're a Republican voting for Hillary, you're no conservative.

And Mike's been down for Trump since Day One of the campaign. Check the archives for more.

Googe Doodle Honors Marxist Anti-American Yuri Kochiyama

When I first saw the doodle, I searched (Googled) Yuri Kochiyama and found out she was a rather reprehensible America-hating leftist. I was at work, though, and couldn't worry about it too much at the time. Lo and behold, though, this horrible woman's loathsome ideological background didn't go unnoticed. Lots of folks spoke out against her, particularly the part about how she endorsed Osama bin Laden as a great revolutionary hero.

In any case, Sara Hoyt posted on this that night, at Instapundit, "GOOGLE, BEING EVIL: Today Google is celebrating Yuri Kochyiama’s birthday."

And now here's more from Ed Driscoll, also at Instapundit, "HATING AMERICA AT GOOGLE: Yuri Kochiyama and the strange case of her being honored with a Google splash page on Thursday for her 95th birthday are explored by Jonathan S. Tobin at Commentary...":

"Remember that consciousness is power" - Yuri Kochiyama https://t.co/BfCF6060MT #GoogleDoodle #freedomfighter pic.twitter.com/AEh0suSUhj

— Global Fund forWomen (@GlobalFundWomen) May 19, 2016

As the Washington Free Beacon notes, a sympathetic biography of Kochiyama, Heartbeat of Struggle by Diane Carol Fujino, reveals that she didn’t so much sympathize with American Muslims as support the 9/11 attackers. While all decent people should sympathize with her experience during World War Two, it turned her against this country in a way that caused her to embrace radical Marxism and to support anyone who attacked America, including bin Laden. She came to believe that “the main terrorist and the main enemy of the world’s people is the U.S. government.” She also said, “I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire. To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire.”

What is most curious about the decision to honor Kochiyama is that the Google page about her noted that she was honored during March — which is Women’s History Month — by the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. So the Obama administration has as many questions to answer about this as Google.

At this late date, are there any questions left as to what Obama — and his allies at Google — think about the nation that naively entrusted them with so much power?

Now that is noteworthy, but not surprising at all. Americans elected an America-hating president in 2008, and reelected him in 2012. It's hate all the way down from the left, and this year's campaign is becoming a referendum on whether or not conservatives are willing to confront the left's ideological evil head on.

For more, go directly to Jonathan Tobin's Commentary piece, "Hating America at Google":

Yuri Kochiyama benefited from America’s freedoms and ultimately even saw the cause that affected her family — the internment issue — resolved in her favor. She agitated for many causes, some of which may have been just and others that were violent and destructive. Indeed, her biography shows backing for a laundry list of every ragtag radical anti-American, racialist, and pro-terror group to emerge after World War Two. She may have a place in the history of radicalism and even a footnote in the story of American women. But a woman who celebrated the mass murder of Americans and the admired the people who plotted that crime is not someone who should be celebrated or considered a role model for women, Asian Americans, or anyone else.

May 19th may have been Yuri Kochiyama’s birthday, but it should also have been the day that some of us started thinking a little differently about Google.

Well, that's for sure. As I tweeted:

Heh, sweet spot for today's progressive zeitgeist! You go Google, lol. #YuriKochiyama https://t.co/TcSRJqU8O0

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 19, 2016

Deal of the Day: Save Big on Select Refurbished Samsung Display Monitors

At Amazon, Samsung S22E310H 21.5" Full-HD LED-backlit Monitor with Simple Stand (Certified Refurbished).

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And, Optoma HD37 1080p DLP Home Theater Projector (Manufacturer Refurbished).

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Jackie Johnson's Cool and Cloudy Forecast

Surprisingly chilly today.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles. (Love that black dress, by the way.)

Deal of the Day: Save Big on BioPEDIC Bed Pillow 4-Pack with Built-In Ultra-Fresh Technology

At Amazon, BioPEDIC 4-Pack Bed Pillows with Built-In Ultra-Fresh Anti-Odor Technology, Standard Size, White.

Also, Energizer Weatheready 3-LED Carabineer Rechargeable Crank Light, Red.

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From Roger Simon's new book, I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already.

Plus, from Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left.

BONUS: Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don 't Trust Anyone Under 30).

Donald Trump Pivots on Immigration?

This is something I've talked about in my classes, especially since Trump met with the editorial board of the New York Times (and backed off his earlier statements on building the wall and deportation).

Trump needs to be careful not to alienate his core supporters. He can't back off too much from his tough-on-immigration theme.

Here's Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "Time: Here comes Donald Trump’s pivot on immigration."

And at Time Magazine, "Exclusive: Donald Trump Shifts Immigration Tone in Meeting with Hispanic Evangelical Leader":

No commitments to change policy

In a clear sign of a pivot towards the general election, Donald Trump privately discussed immigration policy on May 11 with a representative of the largest Hispanic evangelical association at Trump Tower.

The representative left the meeting expressing surprise at how supportive the presumptive Republican nominee had been. “Donald Trump showed a tremendous understanding and concern for the undocumented immigrants,” evangelical pastor Mario Bramnick. “We all came out really sensing his genuineness.”

Bramnick, a Cuban-American who advised Sen. Ted Cruz during the primary, came to the meeting as a representative of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), which has more than 40,000 member churches. The group’s leader, pastor Samuel Rodriguez Jr., has been openly critical of Trump’s plan to build a southern wall and deport with force the roughly 10 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. “It’s impossible,” Rodriguez says. “You’d have to have a Gestapo sort of apparatus, in the vein of World War II, putting people not on trains but airplanes.”

But in the meeting, Bramnick said Trump suggested a clear willingness to work with the Hispanic community. While Trump did not say he would revisit any of his policies, he signaled an openness to continue the conversation, Bramnick said...

Boy, that's like threading a needle. It's going to tricky getting this just right, attracting Hispanics but not throwing your massive white working-class base under the bus.

More.

'The first man who goes into the restroom with my daughter will not have to worry about surgery...'

Oh boy.

Things are getting crazy, and there's no signs things are letting up.

At Free Beacon, "College Reverses Firing of Ex-Army General After Transgender Bathroom Comments":

An all-male college in Virginia has reversed its decision to fire a prominent retired U.S. Army general hours after reports that he was removed over political correctness provoked outcry.

Hampden-Sydney College decided to offer Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin a one-year contract, walking back its decision to fire Boykin after he made controversial comments about transgender bathrooms that angered LGBT activists.

Fox News first reported Thursday that Boykin, an original member of the Delta Force who served as undersecretary of defense for intelligence under President George W. Bush, had been fired after nine years of teaching at the school after criticizing transgender bathrooms.

“The first man who goes into the restroom with my daughter will not have to worry about surgery,” Boykin said of the debate surrounding transgender bathroom rules during a speech to conservatives in March.

The comments angered LGBT activists, dozens of whom signed a letter demanding the college fire him. They accused him of calling for violence against transgenders, he said.

“I never said homosexuals. I never said transgenders,” he told Fox. “I was really talking about these perverts who would use this as a way to get into the bathrooms with our wives and daughters.”

He said he was fired without warning and without being afforded the opportunity to defend himself. A representative for the college told Fox that his contract was “simply not renewed” and denied that the comments about transgender bathrooms were the “determining factor” in his firing. The representative did, however, expressed concern that the statement “appeared to advocate or approve of violence.”

Also at Memeorandum, "College boots ex-Delta Force hero after complaint from LGBT activists."

Here We Go, Chicago 1968 Redux: Sanders Supporters Get Permits to Protest Democrat Convention in Philadelphia (VIDEO)

Senator Barbara Boxer, at the video, whines about how she felt "scared" by Bernie Sanders supporters.

Watch, "Sen. Boxer: I Felt Frightened, Physically Threatened While Sanders Supporters Booed Me."

Well, suck it up, sweetie. There's plenty more of that coming down the pike.

At WSJ, "Sanders Supporters Secure Rally Permit Near Democratic Convention in Philadelphia" (via Memeorandum):

Sanders Supporters Secure Rally Permit Near Democratic Convention in Philadelphia https://t.co/cqtvt64oQI https://t.co/E8DsZuweRz

— memeorandum (@memeorandum) May 20, 2016

Philadelphia has approved four demonstration permits in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders at the July Democratic National Convention — including a large rally planned near the convention’s epicenter.

One of the permits is for an event consisting of four days of all-day rallies at FDR Park in support of Mr. Sanders. The city said it expects 30,000 participants, and organizers said in an interview they hope turnout will be much higher.

The park is adjacent to the Wells Fargo Center, where many of the Democratic National Convention events will be held — raising the possibility of a large demonstration in support of Mr. Sanders just steps away from where delegates will officially select the Democratic nominee. A growing number of Democrats are concerned the convention could turn out to be divisive and disorderly due to activities planned by Sanders supporters.

The city has also granted permits to three smaller demonstrations at Thomas Paine Plaza, a few miles from the Wells Fargo Center. The city says it expects 2,000 to 3,000 participants at those events.

The events — which are being organized independent of campaign by supporters of Mr. Sanders — aim to call attention to support the Vermont Senator has received throughout the primary process and push for long-term changes in the way that the Democratic Party nominates candidates.

“The whole Bernie movement is an ideology. If Bernie wins the nomination, wins the presidency, that would be amazing. But even if Hillary does win the nomination, the movement has already started,” said Steve Okan Layne, who is helping organize one of the demonstrations...

Oh goody!

It's going to be fantastic! I can't wait for the Democrat Anarchist Socialist Communist 9/11 Truther BDS Convention, lol.

More.