Populist Nationalism

I've written about the populist surge a number of times since Donald Trump moved to the forefront of American politics in 2015. See, for example, "Donald Trump and American Populism," and "Populism Isn't a Threat to Democracy, But a Vibrant Manifestation of It."

But with his first week in office, President Trump is really --- and I mean really! --- shaking things up. He's making good on his campaign promises with an earnestness that's like brick-loads of freshness. I love it. But thinking about developments, especially the executive orders on refugees, the significance is now fully sinking in, especially for radical leftists horrified at the rapid changes before their eyes. Trump's been so substantial even arch "Never Trumper" Erick Erickson's largely on board, although he writes:

His campaign and those around him have been pretty explicit about their populist-nationalist bent. I think conservatives must resist the temptation to be constant cheerleaders and must resist the temptation to let President Trump be the standard bearer for a movement he really is not a part of.

Actually, I don't think any serious conservative thinks Trump's one of their own. My support, for example, has been to foster an ideological reaction, to have a force opposed to the left's fundamental transformation come to power. I've been pleased as punch since election day. No, I'm not down with everything Trump says or does. But that's besides the point. He's putting the brakes on leftist radicalism, and the country needed that more than anything else. He's saving our democracy, not destroying it. The Democrat-left was doing that just fine all by itself.

In any case, I do like that term "populist nationalism," which is a perfect label for the grassroots surge taking politics and policy back from reprehensible progressive elites. More freshness. I love it. And folks need to embrace it. That is, our kind of folks. They need to defend it. They need to throw the claims of "racism" and "Islamophobia" right back in the faces of progressives. As Robert Stacy McCain noted today, writing about Steven Bannon and Andrew Breitbart, this is TOTAL WAR finally unleashed on the left, including the Democrat-Media-Complex, and we're taking no prisoners.

Like I said, champion the moment. Defend the cause. The power of this populist revolution, lifting with it many conservative priorities as well (like this weekend's pro-life march in Washington), is saving the country from the clutches of leftist anti-Americanism. It's beautiful.

See also Breitbart, "The Hill: Steve Bannon's Populist Nationalist Focus Is America First."

'It took a while for Sports Illustrated to fully convert from exclusive Muhammed Ali cover stories to foreign lingerie models barely covered in Costa Rican hooker thongs...'

But the magic has landed, heh.

At WWTDD, "SI Now Porn, Finally."

Yes, and SI blesses us with the bodacious Nina Agdal in nothing but chain bikini strings, lol.

Refugees Detained at U.S. Airports, Prompting Legal Challenges to Trump's Immigration Order

I'm surprised green card holders are being detained, since they have a legal right to be here. (See Glenn Reynolds on that, "WELL, THIS IS STUPID: DHS Spox: Trump Muslim Ban Includes Green Card Holders.")

Honestly, though, I'm not all shaken up by this. See the long stream of articles at Memeorandum, including the New York Times.

And from Matt Pearce, via Twitter, linking the L.A. Times, "Confusion and consternation as new 'extreme vetting' policy blocks travel from several Muslim-majority countries":

Read this. What a massive story, with wide-ranging consequences that cross industries and touch thousands of lives. https://t.co/lPmhevijjr

— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) January 29, 2017

President Trump’s executive order suspending refugee arrivals and banning travel to the United States from several Muslim-majority countries spawned chaos and consternation across the globe Saturday, igniting legal challenges, trapping unwitting airline passengers and galvanizing anguished questions about core American values.

The abrupt ban ensnared people from all walks of life who were caught in transit or expecting to soon return to the U.S. — not only refugees but students on a break from studies, business travelers, tourists, concert musicians, even the bereaved who had gone home for funerals.

A group of advocacy organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a legal action against the policy on Saturday in New York, acting on behalf of two Iraqis who were stopped at John F. Kennedy Airport hours after the order was signed. The writ seeks the release of the two Iraqis, who held valid U.S. visas, unless the government can show lawful grounds for their detention.

One of the two detained Iraqis, Hameed Khalid Darwish, was an interpreter who had worked on behalf of the American government. Freed after 19 hours in custody, he wept as he spoke to reporters, thanking supporters and calling America “the land of freedom, the land of rights.”

The groups bringing the legal action, who also included the International Refugee Assistance Project and the National Immigration Law Center, said a separate motion sets the stage for a larger action involving other would-be refugees, visitors and immigrants stopped at other ports of entry.

“We’ll see you in court, Mr. Trump,” tweeted the ACLU’s national legal director, David Cole, after the writ was filed.

Arab American advocacy groups also were reacting to the new order, warning that it was disrupting travel all over the world.

“We see complete chaos in the way this has been implemented. … Individuals overseas have not been able to board airplanes and fly back into the United States,” Abed A. Ayoub, legal and policy director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said in a conference call with reporters Saturday morning.

This is tearing apart families. We have students overseas stuck there who can’t get back. We have students abroad who cannot return here at all,” he said.

Another legal challenge was in the works as well. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said it would file a federal lawsuit on behalf of more than 20 individuals challenging the order. The suit, to be filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Virginia, argues that the executive order is unconstitutional because of its apparent aim of singling out Muslims.

“There is no evidence that refugees — the most thoroughly vetted of all people entering our nation — are a threat to national security,” the group’s national litigation director, Lena F. Masri, said in a statement. “This is an order that is based on bigotry, not reality.”

The order, signed Friday by the president during a visit to the Pentagon, suspends all refugee entries for 120 days. In addition, it indefinitely blocks Syrian refugees, and bars entry to the U.S. for 90 days for those traveling from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Prominent Muslim figures raised their voices in opposition to the temporary refugee ban, saying children would be among those suffering the most from it. Nobel peace laureate Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban, said in a statement that she was “heartbroken” that Trump was closing the door on “children, mothers and fathers fleeing violence and war.”

On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said the travel ban covered holders of green cards, who are authorized to live and work in the U.S. Some reports have put the number of such permanent residents from the affected countries as high as half a million.

An administration official eventually said that current green card holders from the affected countries would be allowed to remain in the U.S. — but that those caught outside the country at the time of the ban’s imposition would have be allowed back in on a case-by-case basis. Those with business overseas will have to meet beforehand with a consular official.

Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway took to Twitter on Saturday to praise the directive, calling the president “a man of action and impact.”

“Promises made, promises kept,” she tweeted. “Shock to the system. And he’s just getting started.”

Get used to it. @POTUS is a man of action and impact.
Promises made, promises kept.
Shock to the system.
And he's just getting started https://t.co/AoUsZWClXt

— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) January 28, 2017

Other Than the San Bernardino Shootings? Hmm, Let Me See...

Heh, this is the best.

At Twitchy, "D’OH! NY Times WH correspondent asks for fact check on terrorism claim, tweeters oblige."

Other than San Bernardino shootings, has there been a terrorist attack involving a non-US-born attacker since 9/11?

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 28, 2017

Do click through, lol.

Unhinged Jessica Valenti: 'The War on Abortion is Just Beginning'

Here's Ms. Valenti, at the Guardian U.K.:

The war on abortion is just beginning | Jessica Valenti https://t.co/ApomJTiYh5

— Guardian news (@guardiannews) January 26, 2017

A common #MarchForLife sign: "I regret my abortion." But regretting a decision doesn't mean others shouldn't have the right to make one.

— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) January 27, 2017

I hope that journalists ask #MarchForLife protesters how they feel about women going to jail for abortion (which is already happening!)

— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) January 27, 2017

If you’ve ever wondered what the oft-used and much maligned word “patriarchy” looks like, you need look no further than a picture of Donald Trump, surrounded by white men, reinstating the global gag rule. The policy, which bans funding any international organization that dares to even talk about abortion, has contributed to thousands of women’s deaths across the globe.

The executive order was just the beginning. In the short time Trump has been president, his administration has set a disastrous course for women’s health and rights. On Tuesday, days after historic marches that put millions of women on the street globally, Republican congressmen introduced the first ever federal ‘heartbeat bill’ - a policy that would ban abortions after six weeks, well before most women even know they’re pregnant.

That same day, the House passed a bill that would make the dangerous and discriminatory Hyde Amendment – which prevents federal funds from covering abortion, even in cases of fetal abnormalities and maternal health issues – permanent. The bill, which targets poor women, would also impact abortion coverage for women with private insurance. Congressional republicans have even introduced a federal ‘personhood’ bill that would define life as beginning at conception.

While the bills will not likely get far, the new administration is sending a clear message – they’re keeping Trump’s promise to punish women who have abortions, and rolling back hard-won rights. These are far-reaching and radical policies that quite literally kill women. There is no overstating just how harmful they are.

So you’ll excuse me for laughing off recent suggestions that feminists embrace “pro-life” women in the name of inclusivity. You don’t get to feel bad about being banned from the treehouse when you’re in the middle of setting the trunk on fire...

Leftism (and feminism) is a death cult, and women like Valenti are the Joseph Mengeles of the movement.

In other words, the movement and its partisans are horrifying.

Still more at that top link, if you can be bothered, lol.

Josephine Skriver in Victoria's Secret Photoshoot in Santa Monica

At London's Daily Mail, "Playing without the boys! Josephine Skriver shows off her beach volleyball skills as Victoria's Secret models shoot sexy sporty set in Santa Monica."

John Hurt Has Died

Well, he'll always be remembered as "Winston" to me.

At London's Daily Mail, "Hollywood legend John Hurt dead: Two-time Oscar nominee and Elephant Man actor passes away aged 77 after battling cancer and suffering intestinal complaint."

That's four movie and television stars in four days: Mary Tyler Moore, Mike Connors, Barbara Hale (from "Perry Mason"), and Sir John.

Extreme Vetting (VIDEO)

Following-up, "President Trump Issues Executive Order Calling for 120-Day Pause on Refugee Admissions."

Here's Margaret Brennan, for CBS Evening News:

President Trump Issues Executive Order Calling for 120-Day Pause on Refugee Admissions

Trump's doing what Americans elected to do, and terror-coddling open-borders leftists are up in arms.

I'm loving it.

Oh, and not to forget, the U.S. will now give preference to Christians in the refugee program, and that's what you call sticking up for American values.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump signs order to temporarily shut nation's door to most refugees and start 'extreme vetting'":

Trump temporarily shuts U.S.'s door to most of the world's refugees and start "extreme vetting" https://t.co/MMpo3a5xKe pic.twitter.com/gbGD9jGLlt

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) January 27, 2017

Read the full text of Trump's executive order regarding visas, refugees and "extreme vetting": https://t.co/5B6PkVzYRw pic.twitter.com/GowoK2Xx9Z

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) January 28, 2017

President Trump signed an executive order Friday that temporarily halts the nation’s refugee program and ushers in the most sweeping changes in more than 40 years to how the U.S. welcomes the world’s most vulnerable people.

The order blocks all refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days and suspends the acceptance of refugees from war-torn Syria indefinitely.

“We want to ensure that we are not letting into our country the very threats that our soldiers are fighting overseas,” Trump said after swearing in new Defense Secretary James N. Mattis at the Pentagon.

Trump also blocked visa applicants entirely from a list of countries that the administration considers of major terrorism concern, including Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, until a new “extreme vetting” procedure for visa applicants can be launched.

The action capped Trump’s frenetic first week in the White House, as well as a busy day that included his first meeting with a foreign leader, British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Trump also spoke by phone for about an hour with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, attempting to soothe what has already become a tense relationship. And he swore in Mattis and signed a second directive that instructs the Pentagon to draw up a list of plans to upgrade equipment and improve training.

The U.S. has admitted more than 3.3 million refugees since 1975, including more than 80,000 refugees in the last year. Under Trump’s plan, those numbers will plummet to a trickle for the next several months. For the full fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, the order sets a cap of 50,000 refugees.

The order provides an exception for “religious minorities,” a category that could include Christians fleeing largely Muslim countries as well as other groups including Yazidis and Bahais that face persecution in the Mideast.

Trump said in an interview Friday with the Christian Broadcasting Network that the order will help Christians fleeing Syria enter the United States.

The order also expands the ability of local jurisdictions to block the settlement of refugees they object to. During the Obama administration, the federal government stopped efforts by some local officials to block refugee resettlements.

Trump’s action, seen as part of his campaign pledge to ban Muslims from entering the country, sparked an international outcry, given the historic role that the U.S. and other industrialized nations have long played in embracing victims of war and oppression. The last major change in U.S. refugee policy came during the Vietnamese resettlement programs of the mid-1970s.

In recent months, Trump has backed away from a blanket ban on Muslims and instead says he will focus on blocking people from countries linked to terrorism...

More.

FedEx Driver Shuts Down Flag Burning Protest in Iowa City (VIDEO)

Barstool Sports is loving it, "Protestors Try to Burn The American Flag in Iowa City, Hero FedEx Dude Saves the Day":

What a goddamn hero! FedEx guy! Do work buddy! A bunch of punk ass protestors doing punk ass protestor things like trying to burn the Amrican flag and the FedEx dude was having NONE OF IT. They picked the wrong day to protest in Iowa City. FedEx guy stopped delivering packages and saved the damn day. I wanna kiss that FedEx dude on the mouth...

More.

Flag burning sets off clash at pedestrian mall in Iowa. https://t.co/s3wHt7Rovd

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 27, 2017

This FedEx guy is my hero. Merica.pic.twitter.com/WEcS268m75

— Cloyd Rivers (@CloydRivers) January 27, 2017

Will Serena Throw Australian Open Title to Venus?

A few years back Venus Williams withdrew from the U.S. Open due to complications from Sjogren's Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder causing pain, fatigue, and extreme dryness of the eyes and mouth. Folks thought her career was over. I thought she'd had a pretty good run at the time.

But now Venus will play younger sister Serena in another pairing at the Australian Open. Serena's been the dominant sister for some time now, and she doesn't seem to be slowing down. But Venus is doing well of late, too. Indeed, I was surprised when I saw earlier reports on Venus making the semifinal round. So, will the younger Serena go easy this weekend, allowing her sister to have one last championship at one of the "Grand Slam" major tournaments? Who knows? People have speculated for years that the sisters rigged their matches. It's gotta be a nightmare playing your sister, especially as they seem so close.

We'll see. Maybe this won't be the last time the two face off?

At NYT, "A Final Match for Venus and Serena Williams. But Maybe Not the Last One":

A finals match for Venus and Serena Williams. But probably not final. https://t.co/Uxvfro9Tyz pic.twitter.com/q8RBWOYUMp

— NYT Sports (@NYTSports) January 27, 2017

MELBOURNE, Australia — The sibling rivalry, at least on the tennis tour, started right here at the Australian Open for the Williams sisters.

It was 1998, and older sister Venus beat younger sister Serena, 7-6 (4), 6-1, in a second-round match that — as intrusive as it felt to watch — surely drew more attention than any second-round match in history between a pair of Australian Open debutantes.

The fascination in their dynamic and their futures was there from the start in Melbourne Park, known then as Flinders Park when it had only one stadium with a retractable roof instead of three. A picture of Venus consoling Serena after the match was on the front page of The New York Times.

Though it would be tempting to label their Australian Open final on Saturday as a full-circle moment and to speculate that it might be their last meeting at this late a stage of a Grand Slam tournament, it seems best to resist the temptation.

The Williams sisters have taught us a lot about the limits of conventional tennis wisdom through the years. And so, even if 19 years have passed and Serena is now 35 and Venus 36, it is wise to avoid fencing them in again after they have run roughshod over so many other preconceptions.

“I watched Venus today celebrating after she won the semifinal like she was a 6-year-old girl, and it made you want to cry for joy just watching her,” said Marion Bartoli, a former Wimbledon champion. “Such a powerful image, and it makes you think about all those questions she was getting: ‘When are you retiring? Have you thought about retiring? How much longer?’

“You must let the champions decide when the right moment comes.”

The Williamses are both great champions, even if Serena is clearly the greater player with her 22 Grand Slam singles titles and her long run at No. 1, a spot she can reclaim from Angelique Kerber with a win Saturday....

*****

They have not played since the 2015 United States Open, when Serena won, 6-2, 1-6, 6-3, in a quarterfinal in which Venus attacked, often successfully, from the start but had no answer in the end for Serena’s ultimate weapon: her first serve.

Saturday’s final in Melbourne could be intriguing on multiple levels, in part because of the Australian public. Venus is viewed here, as elsewhere, as a sympathetic figure: the older sister who has handled the younger’s greater tennis success unselfishly and with dignity. And though both sisters have had to cope with major health problems and family tragedy, with the murder of their half sister Yetunde Price in 2003, Venus is the one whose tennis fortunes dipped more dramatically.

A seven-time Grand Slam singles champion and a former No. 1, she did not advance past the third round in any major event in singles from late 2011 to the end of the 2014 season.

She was a major star reduced to a minor role, largely because of an autoimmune disorder — Sjogren’s syndrome, diagnosed in 2011 — that sapped her strength and endurance. When Russian hackers breached the World Anti-Doping Agency’s databases last fall, it was revealed that Venus had needed 13 therapeutic-use exemptions for drugs in recent years.

The retirement questions to which Bartoli referred started during that period. But Venus’s ability to cope with her condition has improved, and after rejoining the top 10 in 2015, she reached the semifinals at Wimbledon last year and then the final here.

“She never even thought of the word retire,” said David Witt, her coach and hitting partner of 10 years. “I just think when she got diagnosed, it was a step back, a shock. She’s learned a lot about how to deal with it and her body, how to eat, how to manage it...

Still more.

What Donald Trump's Wall Says to the World (VIDEO)

From Patrick Buchanan, at Real Clear Politics, "What Trump's Wall Says to the World":

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall," wrote poet Robert Frost in the opening line of "Mending Walls."

And on the American left there is something like revulsion at the idea of the "beautiful wall" President Trump intends to build along the 1,900-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico.

The opposition's arguments are usually rooted in economics or practicality. The wall is unnecessary. It will not stop people from coming illegally. It costs too much.

Yet something deeper is afoot here. The idea of a permanent barrier between our countries goes to the heart of the divide between our two Americas on the most fundamental of questions.

Who are we? What is a nation? What does America stand for?

Those desperate to see the wall built, illegal immigration halted, and those here illegally deported, see the country they grew up in as dying, disappearing, with something strange and foreign taking its place.

It is not only that illegal migrants take jobs from Americans, that they commit crimes, or that so many require subsidized food, welfare, housing, education and health care. It is that they are changing our country. They are changing who we are...

Keep reading.

Blonde Bombshell: 'Baywatch' Babe Kelly Rohrbach in Lipsy Campaign

At London's Daily Mail, "Baywatch babe Kelly Rohrbach swaps her lifeguard suit for a skimpy bikini as she flaunts her buxom bust for new fashion campaign."

Erin Andrews Undergoes Surgery for Cervical Cancer

At Sports Illustrated, "Erin Andrews on Cancer Diagnosis, Hotel Stalker Trial."

Via Emily Kaplan:

From the trial to a cancer diagnosis, here's how @ErinAndrews found strength in the most difficult year of her life. https://t.co/KtdwO2DENw

— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) January 24, 2017

Thanks for all of the Twitter love. Touched by how many are touched by EA's story. A little backstory on the piece.. https://t.co/dBmfXb9v0Z

— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) January 24, 2017

The National Elite Nervous Breakdown

From JPod, at Commentary:

The National Elite Nervous Breakdown - by @jpodhoretz https://t.co/oytEkuaWcL pic.twitter.com/sxjdhmkzxI

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) January 26, 2017

It cannot go on like this. It’s been five days since the inaugural and the adrenalized, hypercaffeinated, speed-freak affect of the entire chattering class is beginning to seem like we’re living through Bob Woodward’s classic depiction in his book Wired of John Belushi’s final overcharged sleepless days before dying from a cocaine speedball overdose in 1981.

If every word out of Donald Trump’s mouth is greeted with shrieks of horror and rage and anger and despair and hysteria by his opponents, they are going to find it impossible to serve as any kind of effective opposition to him. If media spends their hours celebrating each other for the most creative or the most direct way in which to call Trump a liar, they are going to take their (our) taste for self-referential solipsism to a new level at which their capacity to communicate with their own readers and viewers will be fatally compromised. And just at the moment when they could find new audiences and new credibility in serving as an authoritative source of information in a sea of White House spin and outright disinformation.

This is where the follow-through on Saturday’s “women’s marches” will tell the tale. It would be a terrible mistake for conservatives, Republicans, and Trump supporters to pooh-pooh this mass event, which happened simultaneously in several cities and towns, with a gross turnout dwarfing any mass protest in American history. Dismissing three million people taking to the streets nationwide would be an act of willful blindness, and ascribing the march’s success to Soros money would be foolish.

Similarly, it would be wrong to assume those crowds even heard a single word of Madonna’s curses or cared one whit about the fight between the “check your privilege” activists and the offended/cowed Brooklynite feminists over whose march it was. It was no one’s march. It was everyone’s march. And it worked, I believe, for one reason: It had a simple message. That message: We don’t like Trump and his behavior toward women...

Actually, I'm totally impressed.

But it's still almost four years until the country votes again for the presidency. A lot can happen in that time, but if the left keeps up with mass protests, they could have a big effect on public opinion, especially with a hate-addled, Democrat-compliant mass media.

But keep reading.

Lily Aldridge in Cook Islands (VIDEO)

The new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit should be out in about a week.

Featuring the lovely Ms. Lily, via Theo Spark:



PREVIOUSLY: "Lily Aldridge Intimates Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017 (VIDEO)."

Representative Tulsi Gabbard Says She Met With Syrian Strongman Bashar Assad

At Hot Air, "Dem Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: Why, yes, I met with Assad on my freelance visit to Syria":

The people of Syria are crying for peace, asking the US to stop arming terrorist "rebels" who are destroying Syria. https://t.co/tu0O5ThBvc

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) January 25, 2017

I met these beautiful children at a shelter in Aleppo. The message I heard from the Syrian people there: Give peace a chance. #voicesofsyria pic.twitter.com/j9wjZ97ksU

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) January 25, 2017

My goodness. Logan Act violations are like Bigfoot sightings: Claims are made all the time but they’re never solid enough to convince anyone. In this case, we may have the equivalent of a real-life ‘Squatch in captivity. Quote:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

Gabbard went to Damascus not only without the endorsement of leaders in Congress, she went without their knowledge. Paul Ryan and Nancy Pelosi had no idea she was gone until after she’d arrived in Syria. It was the Ohio chapter of the Arab American Community Center for Economic and Social Services that footed the bill for her, apparently, which until today had been another mystery about Gabbard’s trip. Watch the clip below. It sounds like she went to Damascus to lend Assad moral support and to carry back talking points aimed at convincing Americans to take his side. Unless you want to argue that no “dispute” technically exists between the U.S. and Syria, which would be hard given the American aid provided to anti-Assad rebels, how is this not a Logan Act violation? Does being a member of Congress mean by definition that she enjoys the “authority of the United States” in carrying out freelance diplomacy?

A choice bit from her interview with Tapper below:

“When the opportunity arose to meet with [Assad], I did so because I felt it’s important that if we profess to truly care about the Syrian people, about their suffering, then we’ve got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there’s a possibility that we could achieve peace,” Gabbard said. “And that’s exactly what we’ve talked about.”

What do you mean “we”? The president speaks for Americans on foreign policy. Last week that was Obama, this week it’s Trump. Meeting with Assad is especially dubious since the U.S. broke off official diplomatic relations with his regime several years ago. It was the judgment of the White House that he’s a sufficiently monstrous human that the United States shouldn’t legitimize him by formally meeting with him. Gabbard, a member of Congress, had other ideas. By what authority does her judgment trump Trump’s?

Keep reading.

Model Kelly Klein Walks Streets of London Wearing Body Paint (VIDEO)

That is crazy!

At London's Daily Mail, "It's a bit nippy outside! Model struts down a busy high street in a painted top... but will anyone notice her bare chest? Body paint artist Sarah Ashleigh spent two hours painting the fake top on model; Beauty Kelly Klein then walked past dozens of people in Kensington, London."

Also at FHM, "Model Kelly Klein Walking Through the Streets of London in Just Body Paint is an Attention Grabber."

Yeah, that'll grab your attention alright, lol.

Unindicted Council on American-Islamic Relations Furious After President Trumps Bans Muslim Immigration

Ha!

This is too good, at Pamela's:

Hamas-CAIR enraged after Trump signs ‘Muslim Ban’ executive orders https://t.co/0rONcmdMoY pic.twitter.com/YKIuUUnpcf

— Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) January 25, 2017

Trump May Lift Ban on C.I.A. 'Black Site' Prisons

Wow!

This is major!

At the New York Times, "Trump Poised to Lift Ban on C.I.A. ‘Black Site’ Prisons":

NY Times reports Trump issuing exec order to re-open CIA black sites, bar ICRC access. #torture. Deplorable. https://t.co/WfvJZIshsz

— Craig Martin (@craigxmartin) January 25, 2017

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing a sweeping executive order that would clear the way for the C.I.A. to reopen overseas “black site” prisons, like those where it detained and tortured terrorism suspects before former President Barack Obama shut them down.

President Trump’s three-page draft order, titled “Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants” and obtained by The New York Times, would also undo many of the other restrictions on handling detainees that Mr. Obama put in place in response to policies of the George W. Bush administration.

If Mr. Trump signs the draft order, he would also revoke Mr. Obama’s directive to give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all detainees in American custody. That would be another step toward reopening secret prisons outside of the normal wartime rules established by the Geneva Conventions, although statutory obstacles would remain.

Mr. Obama tried to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and refused to send new detainees there, but the draft order directs the Pentagon to continue using the site “for the detention and trial of newly captured” detainees — including not just more people suspected of being members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, like the 41 remaining detainees, but also Islamic State detainees. It does not address legal problems that might raise.

The draft order does not direct any immediate reopening of C.I.A. prisons or revival of torture tactics, which are now banned by statute. But it sets up high-level policy reviews to make further recommendations in both areas to Mr. Trump, who vowed during the campaign to bring back waterboarding and a “hell of a lot worse” — not only because “torture works,” but because even “if it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway.”

Elisa Massimino, the director of Human Rights First, denounced the draft order as “flirting with a return to the ‘enhanced interrogation program’ and the environment that gave rise to it.” She noted that numerous retired military leaders have rejected torture as “illegal, immoral and damaging to national security,” and she said that many of Mr. Trump’s cabinet nominees had seemed to share that view in their confirmation testimony.

“It would be surprising and extremely troubling if the national security cabinet officials were to acquiesce in an order like that after the assurances that they gave in their confirmation hearings,” she said.

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to an email inquiring about the draft order, including when Mr. Trump may intend to sign it. But the order was accompanied by a one-page statement that criticized the Obama administration for having “refrained from exercising certain authorities” about detainees it said were critical to defending the country from “radical Islamism.”

Specifically, the draft order would revoke two executive orders about detainees that Mr. Obama issued in January 2009, shortly after his inauguration. One was Mr. Obama’s directive to close the Guantánamo prison and the other was his directive to end C.I.A. prisons, grant Red Cross access to all detainees and limit interrogators to the Army Field Manual techniques.

In their place, Mr. Trump’s draft order would resurrect a 2007 executive order issued by President Bush. It responded to a 2006 Supreme Court ruling about the Geneva Conventions that had put C.I.A. interrogators at risk of prosecution for war crimes, leading to a temporary halt of the agency’s “enhanced” interrogations program.

Mr. Bush’s 2007 order enabled the agency to resume a form of the program by specifically listing what sorts of prisoner abuses counted as war crimes. That made it safe for interrogators to use other tactics, like extended sleep deprivation, that were not on the list. Mr. Obama revoked that order as part of his 2009 overhaul of detention legal policy...

Keep reading.

America's Second Civil War

From Dennis Prager (I love Dennis Prager), at RealClearPolitics (via Stephen Green, at Instapundit):

It is time for our society to acknowledge a sad truth: America is currently fighting its second Civil War.

In fact, with the obvious and enormous exception of attitudes toward slavery, Americans are more divided morally, ideologically and politically today than they were during the Civil War. For that reason, just as the Great War came to be known as World War I once there was World War II, the Civil War will become known as the First Civil War when more Americans come to regard the current battle as the Second Civil War.

This Second Civil War, fortunately, differs in another critically important way: It has thus far been largely nonviolent. But given increasing left-wing violence, such as riots, the taking over of college presidents' offices and the illegal occupation of state capitols, nonviolence is not guaranteed to be a permanent characteristic of the Second Civil War.

There are those on both the left and right who call for American unity. But these calls are either naive or disingenuous. Unity was possible between the right and liberals, but not between the right and the left.

Liberalism -- which was anti-left, pro-American and deeply committed to the Judeo-Christian foundations of America; and which regarded the melting pot as the American ideal, fought for free speech for its opponents, regarded Western civilization as the greatest moral and artistic human achievement and viewed the celebration of racial identity as racism -- is now affirmed almost exclusively on the right and among a handful of people who don't call themselves conservative.

The left, however, is opposed to every one of those core principles of liberalism.

Like the left in every other country, the left in America essentially sees America as a racist, xenophobic, colonialist, imperialist, warmongering, money-worshipping, moronically religious nation.

Just as in Western Europe, the left in America seeks to erase America's Judeo-Christian foundations. The melting pot is regarded as nothing more than an anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic meme. The left suppresses free speech wherever possible for those who oppose it, labeling all non-left speech "hate speech." To cite only one example, if you think Shakespeare is the greatest playwright or Bach is the greatest composer, you are a proponent of dead white European males and therefore racist.

Without any important value held in common, how can there be unity between left and non-left? Obviously, there cannot...

Keep reading.

It's TNAC, "The New American Civil War," which I've been arguing for a while now.

President Trump's Executive Actions Bring Progressives Back to Earth

This is great.

At Roll Call:

Unless progressives can turn mass Trump outrage into real pressure and power, they're in for a long 4 years https://t.co/epaJk4hrVe pic.twitter.com/lx8uLNwtqO

— Roll Call (@rollcall) January 24, 2017

President Donald Trump’s opponents spent inauguration weekend invigorated by their show of strength in Washington and around the country, but Trump brought them back down to earth Monday and Tuesday with a couple flicks of his pen on executive actions that struck against much of what they hold dear.

Trump signed executive actions Tuesday forcing the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines to go forward. Years of progressive organizing against Keystone on the grounds of environmental and climate concerns succeeded in getting former President Barack Obama to cancel it in 2015.

A ferocious direct action campaign by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe attempted to physically block the pipeline from being built on their land. In addition to concerns about the climate and the use of fossil fuels generally, activists aimed to prevent their water from being made unusable by oil spills. The Army Corps of Engineers refused permission to extend the pipeline in December, giving activists hope that the fight was won.

Now those victories appear to have been temporary...

Twitter Celebrates Diverse Oscar Nominations After 2 Years of #OscarsSoWhite

At the New York Observer.

Whatever.

I actually want to see "La La Land," but I'm afraid I'll be called racist for patronizing the all-white leads, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (the movie garnered 14 nomination, tying a record, which I'm sure is racist too).

BLACK women are the majority in the best supporting actress category for the very first time! ✨ #OscarNoms pic.twitter.com/WIC6xtx740

— Sylvia Obell (@SylviaObell) January 24, 2017

Ted Cruz Owns Deadspin

Heh, this is pretty good.

At Red State:

Ted Cruz Owns Deadspin in Hilarious Tweets - This might be one of the best Twitter exchanges in a long time. De... https://t.co/LW259DYSWQ

— RedState (@RedState) January 25, 2017

White House Press Room Seating Chart

The Associated Press always gets front and center, although this year the organization was dissed on getting the first question, a first.

At Politico, "The White House press room seating chart."

As far as I can tell, this WH briefing room seating chart still stands for those wondering who is being called on https://t.co/PD8uZxNFy4

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) January 24, 2017

Amber Lee's Partly Cloudy Forecast

Looks like we'll be getting a break from the rains. We're more than double the average rain totals this season, which is awesome for tackling the drought.

Here's the lovely Ms. Amber:

#PresidentTrump Expected to Sign Order Banning Migrants from the Middle East

Well, it's a limited, temporary order.

But's it's exactly what he said he'd do during the campaign. Word is he'll sign an order to start building the wall with Mexico tomorrow as well.

Red meat, baby. Red meat.

All those protests, and the progressive marchers will be seething this week, as their most cherished policy priorities get smashed like a cheap piece of pottery.

#PresidentTrump to 'ban migrants from Syria; sign order on border wall tomorrow. #MAGA #TRUMP https://t.co/d75GwfWcvv

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 25, 2017

Rebecca Traister: The Women's March Was an 'Earth Shaking Triumph'

Leftists seem to have abandoned any talk about moderating their message, about reaching out to working class white voters, especially blue-collar men.

Rebecca Traister's freakin' hardcore, man. I read her piece on abortion rights a couple of weeks ago and it as like manifesto for infant genocide.

In any case, here's her latest, "The Future of the Left Is Female: Women’s rights are human rights, and women leaders are progressive leaders:

@PatriarchTree It's Rebecca Traister, again: The Future of the Left Is Female https://t.co/OTnSmBsT3t #WomensMarch

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 24, 2017

A lot of people predicted that women were going to change America’s political history in January of 2017. But pretty much no one anticipated that they’d be doing it as leaders of the resistance. On Saturday, millions of women and men — organized largely by young women of color — staged the largest one-day demonstration in political history, a show of international solidarity that let the world know that women will be heading up the opposition to Donald Trump and the white patriarchal order he represents. Women — and again, especially women of color, always progressivism’s most reliable and least recognized warriors, the women who did the most to stop the rise of Trump — were the ones taking progressive politics into the future.

The Women’s March, dreamed up by a couple of women with no organizing experience in the feverish, grief-addled hours after Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, and then organized by an expanded team in the span of about ten weeks, was an earth-shaking triumph.

According to early reports, it drew somewhere north of 680,000 to Washington, D.C., 750,000 to Los Angeles, 400,000 to New York City, 250,000 to Chicago, 100,000 each to Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, the Twin Cities, and Portland Oregon; and crowds of thousands to smaller cities, including 11,000 to Ann Arbor, 5,000 to Lexington, Kentucky, 8,000 to Honolulu, and 20,000 to Houston. There were 2,000 protesters in Anchorage, Alaska, and 1,000 in Jackson, Mississippi. Demonstrations took place on all seven continents, including Antarctica.

This mass turnout in support of liberty, sorority, and equality was conceived by women, led by women, and staged in the name of women. It also drew millions of men. It was a forceful pushback to the notion that because a woman just lost the American presidency, women should not be leading the politics of the left. Women, everyone saw on Saturday, are already leading the left, reframing what has historically been understood as the women’s movement as the face and body and energy of what is now the Resistance.

Plenty of factors made this effort so successful, but perhaps the biggest was the shock and horror that jolted portions of a long-complacent population awake after the election of Donald Trump. As it turns out, sometimes, It Takes a Villain. We’ve got one now; he lives in the White House, has the nuclear codes, and spent Saturday defending the size of his, er, inauguration crowds. In his first weeks in office, he might very well nominate an anti-choice Supreme Court nominee, begin deportations, repeal health-care reform, start the process of withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, and defund Planned Parenthood. He has already reinstated the Global Gag Rule.

Yes, Trump exposed himself as a villain long before the election, and for many on the day of the march, the question was: Where was this energy before November 8? Clearly, the vast majority of Saturday’s crowd had been Hillary Clinton supporters, at the very least in the general election if not in the primary. But it is also true that some of the apathy, some of the complacency, that many critics took as a reflection of Clinton’s “flawed” candidacy stemmed instead from the sense that Americans didn’t really need to panic or take to the streets on her behalf because she was going to win. She was going to win, the assumption went, because of course we are evolved enough that this guy could never get elected president and thus we were free to focus on the imperfections of the woman who was going to be the president.

Through this lens, those who had been out there before the election, wearing T-shirts, holding signs, and talking passionately about the sexism Clinton was facing or racist backlash toward Obama or the high stakes of this election for women and people of color were silly bed-wetters, Hill-bots, embarrassing in their fixations on “identity politics.” Those yelling about sexism were playing some dated “woman card”; those trying to explain how gender and race and class intersect were jargon-happy hysterics. There was a confidence that the country’s problems with women had been largely redressed, or at least were no longer so entrenched that we would have to put in extra work on behalf of the first one to be running for the White House. But that confidence was baseless, ahistorical. The country has a yuge problem with women, and Donald Trump is the cartoonish embodiment of that problem.

If a time traveler had been able to jump just 24 hours backward, from the night of November 8 to the night of November 7, to warn us what was about to happen, Election Day turnout would have looked a lot more like the march turnout, not just in numbers but in energy and purpose and passion. But since reverse time travel remains largely a right-wing goal, we got Donald Trump. Of course, we also got 4 million or more people to the streets on Saturday and a sense of the potential for the women’s movement to be both much larger and much broader than it’s ever been before...

Secret Service Agent Kerry O'Grady Won't 'Take a Bullet' for President Trump

It's not the biggest story of the day, but I definitely had to shake my head.

One joins the Secret Service to protect presidents regardless of party or politics. That's the essence of the job (and required by law). Or so it would seem.

First seen at Ms. EBL's, and also the Washington Examiner below:

Why isn't the answer to Special Agent #KerryOGrady's Trump Derangement #YoureFired? https://t.co/m13AlnzoyX#AsshatOfTheDay@AceofSpadesHQ pic.twitter.com/ntMwpG7IOw

— Evi L. Bloggerlady (@MsEBL) January 24, 2017

EXCLUSIVE: Senior Secret Service agent says she would "take jail time" rather than "take a bullet" for Donald Trump https://t.co/7WWfkFi0Sf pic.twitter.com/76v6N7VGqx

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 24, 2017

The Twitter Presidency

I've been in arguing about the coming Twitter presidency, in my classes, during my last couple of semesters. So this is interesting.

At USA Today:

#DonaldTrump's Twitter presidency. #PresidentTrump #TRUMP #MAGA https://t.co/O1rEbB1T2D

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 24, 2017

Should We Bring Back 'Big Stick' Dipomacy?

Professor Eliot Cohen's out with a new book, at Amazon, The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force.

And here's his op-ed at LAT from last week, "Should the U.S. still carry a ‘big stick’?":

To the extent that President-elect Donald Trump has articulated a coherent view of foreign affairs, it appears to be that the United States needs to reject most policies of the post-1945 period. NATO is a bad bargain; nuclear proliferation is a good thing; Russian President Vladimir Putin is an admirable fellow; great deals that advantage only us should replace free trade.

In his unique way, Trump is forcing a question that probably should have been up for debate 25 years ago: Should the United States stay a global power that maintains world order — including by force of arms, what Theodore Roosevelt famously called “the big stick”?

Curiously, the death of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not immediately occasion that debate. In the 1990s, keeping a global leadership role for the United States looked cheap — other nations, after all, paid for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In that conflict and America’s succeeding interventions in the former Yugoslavia, costs and casualties were low. Then in the early 2000s, Americans were understandably absorbed by the consequences of 9/11 and the ensuing wars and terror attacks. Now, for better or worse, the debate is upon us.

It is worth keeping some history in mind as we decide whether to reject the posture that the United States has maintained abroad for more than half a century.

*****

President Obama hoped to end the wars he had inherited in 2008. Instead, he launched America’s third war in Iraq, ramped up our deployments in Afghanistan, expanded by an order of magnitude our campaign of counter-terrorist assassination and ordered an air campaign against the Libyan government. He deployed warships near China’s man-made islands and began redeploying American forces to a frightened Eastern Europe. Reality, not ideology, overcame his principled reluctance to exerting American power.

The choice between global engagement and America First is bogus. As in the last century, our choice is whether to lead wisely, firmly and usually peacefully while we can, or to send men and women into harm’s way belatedly and bloodily when we must. Let us hope that the new president comes to understand that we need the “big stick” not “to make America great again,” but to keep a peace that is precious, fragile and worth protecting.

RTWT.

Donald Trump's Jacksonian Foreign Policy

Commenter S.D. (Bob) Plissken took issue with my entry last week on Tony Smith's America's Mission (and liberal internationalism):

Nope.

Let the other countries around the world find their own way to democracy. It's not our job. Our job is #MAGA. Straight up.

That's a common view. I've heard it a lot as a professor, usually from white working-class students, and sometimes ethnic minorities who want more spending on domestic social programs.

Well, at any rate, old S.D. (Bob) just might enjoy Walter Russell Mead's essay from inauguration day, at Foreign Affairs, "The Jacksonian Revolt: American Populism and the Liberal Order":

Since World War II, U.S. grand strategy has been shaped by two major schools of thought. https://t.co/mdCePwNtYr

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) January 23, 2017

The distinctively American populism Trump espouses is rooted in the thought and culture of the country’s first populist president, Andrew Jackson. For Jacksonians—who formed the core of Trump’s passionately supportive base—the United States is not a political entity created and defined by a set of intellectual propositions rooted in the Enlightenment and oriented toward the fulfillment of a universal mission. Rather, it is the nation-state of the American people, and its chief business lies at home. Jacksonians see American exceptionalism not as a function of the universal appeal of American ideas, or even as a function of a unique American vocation to transform the world, but rather as rooted in the country’s singular commitment to the equality and dignity of individual American citizens. The role of the U.S. government, Jacksonians believe, is to fulfill the country’s destiny by looking after the physical security and economic well-being of the American people in their national home—and to do that while interfering as little as possible with the individual freedom that makes the country unique.

Jacksonian populism is only intermittently concerned with foreign policy, and indeed it is only intermittently engaged with politics more generally. It took a particular combination of forces and trends to mobilize it this election cycle, and most of those were domestically focused. In seeking to explain the Jacksonian surge, commentators have looked to factors such as wage stagnation, the loss of good jobs for unskilled workers, the hollowing out of civic life, a rise in drug use—conditions many associate with life in blighted inner cities that have spread across much of the country. But this is a partial and incomplete view. Identity and culture have historically played a major role in American politics, and 2016 was no exception. Jacksonian America felt itself to be under siege, with its values under attack and its future under threat. Trump—flawed as many Jacksonians themselves believed him to be—seemed the only candidate willing to help fight for its survival.

For Jacksonian America, certain events galvanize intense interest and political engagement, however brief. One of these is war; when an enemy attacks, Jacksonians spring to the country’s defense. The most powerful driver of Jacksonian political engagement in domestic politics, similarly, is the perception that Jacksonians are being attacked by internal enemies, such as an elite cabal or immigrants from different backgrounds. Jacksonians worry about the U.S. government being taken over by malevolent forces bent on transforming the United States’ essential character. They are not obsessed with corruption, seeing it as an ineradicable part of politics. But they care deeply about what they see as perversion—when politicians try to use the government to oppress the people rather than protect them. And that is what many Jacksonians came to feel was happening in recent years, with powerful forces in the American elite, including the political establishments of both major parties, in cahoots against them.

Many Jacksonians came to believe that the American establishment was no longer reliably patriotic, with “patriotism” defined as an instinctive loyalty to the well-being and values of Jacksonian America. And they were not wholly wrong, by their lights. Many Americans with cosmopolitan sympathies see their main ethical imperative as working for the betterment of humanity in general. Jacksonians locate their moral community closer to home, in fellow citizens who share a common national bond. If the cosmopolitans see Jacksonians as backward and chauvinistic, Jacksonians return the favor by seeing the cosmopolitan elite as near treasonous—people who think it is morally questionable to put their own country, and its citizens, first.

Jacksonian distrust of elite patriotism has been increased by the country’s selective embrace of identity politics in recent decades. The contemporary American scene is filled with civic, political, and academic movements celebrating various ethnic, racial, gender, and religious identities. Elites have gradually welcomed demands for cultural recognition by African Americans, Hispanics, women, the LGBTQ community, Native Americans, Muslim Americans. Yet the situation is more complex for most Jacksonians, who don’t see themselves as fitting neatly into any of those categories...

RTWT.

Record Rainfall Swamps Southern California (VIDEO)

At the Los Angeles Times, "Widespread flooding, mudslides, evacuations as biggest storm in years batters California":

A #shocking scene in Placerita Canyon as a teen's car is washed away in fast moving water. More video & hear from witnesses at 11pm @ABC7 pic.twitter.com/L1O2tnbtcx

— Leanne Suter (@abc7leanne) January 23, 2017

WATCH: Rain creates spectacular waterfall in Dana Point https://t.co/hHHOA22P5F pic.twitter.com/xjHNBUN7rY

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) January 23, 2017

The third in a series of powerful winter storms unleashed a deluge in Southern California on Sunday, flooding numerous roads and freeways, setting new rainfall records and stranding some in dangerously rising waters.

Forecasters had predicted this storm would be the strongest and several years, and it didn't disappoint. While earlier storms produced periods of heavy showers, this one delivered several hours of sustained pounding rain, with damaging results.

Coastal areas of Los Angeles County were among the hardest hit, with Long Beach Airport setting a new all-time rainfall record, 3.87 inches. The intense rain was too much for local roads. Sunday afternoon, both the 110 Freeway in Carson and the 710 Freeway in Long Beach were shutdown due to extreme flooding that left cars stranded like islands in a lake.

In Long Beach and surrounding communities, dozens of intersections were flooded and some residents reported their parked cars were damaged as the rainwater kept rising. Across the region, several people were rescued from their cars and thousands lost power.

Brett Albright, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s office in San Diego, said the storm dumped as much as four inches of rain in some places.

“Today was very intense,” said Albright. “It’s not a normal event. It was definitely a culmination of the perfect circumstances: We had a very intense atmospheric river with a lot of moisture and an area of lift in the atmosphere right over coastal Los Angeles and Orange counties. It forced all of that moisture out.”

“It’s not often we see higher rainfall totals on the coast than in the mountains,” he said.

Southern California has been mired by a 5-year-drought. But this storm is part of a larger shift toward wetter conditions that began last fall. Since October 1, downtown L.A. has received more than 13 inches of rain -- 216% of normal rainfall for this period, which the National Weather Service said was 6.26 inches.

Officials said much of the Southland remains in drought, although recent storms are helping...

Keep reading.

More here, "Storm slams Southern California: Expect more flooding and thunderstorms."

Heh, the Left's Swearing-In' Ceremony

From Ben Garrison:

#WomensMarchLA after you've stamped your foot, shouted expletives, posted tweets with the new Iphone-now time for wine & TV with the 5 cats. pic.twitter.com/Yt553mz26m

— BenGarrison Cartoons (@GrrrGraphics) January 22, 2017

Leftist Unity Pledge

Communists love the Trump administration.

It gives them a new lease on life. Shoot, leftists should've been cheering the results on November 8th.

Will you take the Leftist #Unity Pledge? #solidarity #1u
"We'll be the right's worst enemy, not our own" pic.twitter.com/tFu2XEhZxM

— Workers World (@workersworld) January 22, 2017

Is it Okay to Punch a Nazi?

Well, it's okay if you're a leftists. It's totally cool.

Frankly, I imagine some conservatives or populists are fine with it as well. I hate to defend someone caught on video raising his hand in at "Heil Hitler' salute, but it is what it is. I wouldn't punch him (unless he punched me first.)

See Popehat, "On Punching Nazis."

And at the New York Times, "Attack on Alt-Right Leader Has Internet Asking: Is It O.K. to Punch a Nazi?"

Spencer gets punched at the video.

THANK GOD WE LIVE IN A TIME WHERE SOMEONE IS WILLING TO PUBLICLY PUNCH RICHARD SPENCER IN THE FACE

— T. Fivek (@fivek) January 23, 2017

FYI, if you know who the Nazi-punching hero is, keep your mouth shut. pic.twitter.com/PakYhOoqZn

— Still With Her (@feistybunnygirl) January 23, 2017

Whether you agree or disagree with punching Spencer, let's try not to frame Nazism as merely a "different opinion." (1/3)

— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) January 22, 2017

Libertarianism is a "different opinion." Nazism is an ideology of genocide; inimical to (and corrosive of) pluralist values. (2/3)

— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) January 22, 2017

And it is not so obvious to me that "freedom of speech" requires treating Nazis as legitimate participants in public discourse. (3/3)

— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) January 22, 2017

Neo-nazi Richard Spencer got punched—you can thank the Black Bloc. #IntelGroup https://t.co/raEkcy0h5Y

— #J20 (@Delo_Taylor) January 22, 2017

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also, at Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Roundup..."

Photo Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Short Fuse."

#WomensMarch Rule 5

I'm sure the leftist women's marchers will love some Sunday Rule 5.

At Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is a wonderful green space that should be paved over for a solar farm, you might just be a Warmist."

Also, at 90 Miles from Tyranny, "Morning Mistress," and "Hot Pick of the Late Night."

More, at Odie's, "Know That Beaver ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

At Knuckledraggin', "Your Good Morning Girl."

Goodsturr's, "GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (277th Issue) - Burlesque Queen Blaze Starr..."

Bro Bible, "Sexy Big Booty YouTuber Promises to Release Sextape Once She Gets One Million Subscribers," and "Pretty Sure That Kelly Brook’s Bikini Tops Here Are About Three Sizes Too Small for Her.

More, at Political Clown Parade, "Flowing Curves of Beauty."

Still more, at the Hostages, "BBF 2016 Championships."

Egotastic!, "Coco Loco Mamso on the Beach and Other Fine Things to Ogle."

At Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY," and "EMILY RATAJKOWSKI IN BED IN HER PANTIES OF THE DAY."

At WWTDD, "Sophie Marceau Goes Topless and Shit Around the Web."

And at the Other McCain, "Rule 5 Sunday: Siren (from last Sunday)."

PHOTO CREDIT: MSFW on Twitter.

Been Offline

I've been offline all day, except for some tweets staring around 1:45pm.

I tweeted from the Crossroads Café earlier. Recall I blogged about it during Christmas break. The restaurant has the "Stronger Together" sign in the front window. It's definitely a safe space for triggered leftists, lol.

I do love the town's rustic feel, especially the Western ghost town storefronts. Is that kitsch Americana? Althouse would have things to say about that, I'm sure.

In any case, I don't care much about the Women's March, although I fully support the protesters' rights to march. Of course I don't love the anarchist black bloc riots, which in fact are intricately related the the Women's March, although MSM clusterfucks pretend there's a hermetically sealed difference between the movements. There's not. The only difference is honesty. At least black bloc leftists are out front about their tendencies. They'll "burn it down" with all eyes upon them. The women's marcher's would also like to burn it down, but if you confronted them with that fact they'd deny it, accusing you of being a PRISON PLANET PYSCHO!!

Plus, it was a fake news day. I mean, the debate was over crowd size and whether Press Spokesman Sean Spicer acknowledged greater attendance today than yesterday, or greater attendance to O's inauguration in '09 than yesterday? I've seen a few tweets to that effect, but Memeorandum has the controversy and it's stupid. (It's especially stupid that MSM hacks have turned whatever comments made into the TOTAL COLLAPSE OF THE REPUBLIC).

It's not just fake news at this point, it's shitty maudlin comedy. I dread following the news for these next few years. Purported experts and media professionals will race one another to the lowest common denominator of imbecility. Mark my words on that.

The biggest fact of reality that folks need to grasp is now Donald Trump's in power. The leftist Democrats are not. For two years that should be powerful rebuttal that anything stupid leftists attempt to snark. They get no Brownie points. Just remind them they're losers. They've been repudiated, and badly. Hundreds of thousand of pink pussy feminist cunts won't change at thing, despite idiot Ashley Judd's unhinged rantings.

Joshua Tree, it's like the Old West out here. #MAGA pic.twitter.com/tNjIwBMQzJ

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 21, 2017

'House of Cards' Season 5 Premieres May 30th, 2017

This is the weirdest thing, because my mom was streaming season 2 for a few episodes before dinner. She asked me if I still wanted to watch inauguration coverage on CNN and I said, "No, I'm good. I mostly wanted to see the parade..." So, she says she wanted to "watch her show," and the next thing you know I'm watching that über Machiavellian schemer Frank Underwood. (For those into the series, we just finished the episode where hottie Kate Mara's character gets thrown under the subway, literally.)

In any case, my mom went to bed so I thought I start watching at season 1, episode 1. I know what you're thinking: "Oh my gosh, you haven't watched it yet?!! My word, it's so good, blah, blah..." Well, the fact is, I try not to watch too many shows --- they take up too much time, time I should be spending reading books, which I see as a far more valuable recreational endeavor, considering I'm a professor and all that.

But what the fuck? My mom got me interested. So, I just finished the first episode of season 1, and right now I'm pausing for a few minute to get a refill of wine, take a leak, and check Twitter and the blog. And what do I find online? This teaser tweet from Netflix on the debut of season 5, due 5-30-17.

In any case, more at Variety, "'House of Cards' Season 5 Gets Premiere Date, Teaser."

The full teaser video's at the link.

I got to get back to bingeing. I'll have more blogging later, heh.

We make the terror. pic.twitter.com/VpChwGOSMj

— House of Cards (@HouseofCards) January 20, 2017

Unhinged Anti-Trump Protester Screams 'NO!' as Donald Trump Inaugurated as President (VIDEO)

Seriously, these people are nuts.

At Twitchy, "‘Can’t get enough’! WATCH: This anti-Trump protester’s meltdown is one for the ages."

The left's collective reaction to #PresidentTrump's #Inauguration lol. https://t.co/dOMYSRffA7

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 20, 2017

HAHAHAHAH #MAGA #Inauguration #ProtestTheInauguration pic.twitter.com/r8Hd0jHJlr

— ≠The Frog God≠ (@FrogGod14) January 20, 2017

National Park Service Retweets Far-Left-Wing Inauguration Posts on Twitter

Federal agencies are prohibited from partisan activities, particularly political support or agitation for one party or another (although rules on employee political contributions have been trimmed by court rulings).

So this looks improper, to say the least, via Hadas Gold:

National Parks Service …. 👀https://t.co/J5mtu3Anit pic.twitter.com/0CjAGcBvqD

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) January 20, 2017

WATCH: Inaugural Address of President Donald J. Trump (VIDEO)

At the Washington Post, via Memeorandum, "Donald Trump's inaugural address: Full text as prepared for delivery."

Leftist heads are exploding at this address. I love it!

Leftist heads are exploding across the land. #Inauguration #DonaldTrump #MAGA

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 20, 2017

Custom Trump-Mobile

That's pretty wicked, heh.

A Palm Beach pastor is stopping traffic in DC with custom Trump-mobile https://t.co/TIm4hQvOJz pic.twitter.com/yBE385Ynfc

— AJC (@ajc) January 19, 2017

David Horowitz, Big Agenda

*BUMPED*

Horowitz's new book is in bookstores now.

And at Amazon, Big Agenda: President Trump’s Plan to Save America.

See also Truth Revolt, "Newsmax: Horowitz's 'Big Agenda' Reveals Trump's Coming D.C. 'Earthquake' - 'This book is a guide to fighting the opponents of the conservative restoration'."

The H2's Big Boob Friday Semi-Finals

These guys are the craziest.

Here, "BBF Semi-Finals V Redhead Edition."

Radical Leftists Sow Chaos Outside DeploraBall on Eve of Donald Trump's Inauguration

At the Washington Post, "Trump supporters, opponents clash outside ‘DeploraBall’ in downtown D.C.":

Officers deployed chemical spray as Trump supporters, opponents clashed outside "DeploraBall" in D.C. https://t.co/S18JtKk7IN

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 20, 2017

Clashes in United States Capitol between antifascists, police, and #Trump supporters the night before presidential #inauguration #disruptj20 pic.twitter.com/YS3bRR1ikz

— Unicorn Riot (@UR_Ninja) January 20, 2017

Protestors: "We refuse a fascist America " pic.twitter.com/yOi08JjFyj

— Clarence Williams (@nu1wcf) January 20, 2017

Anti-Trump protesters jeered and screamed at supporters of the president-elect outside the “DeploraBall” at the National Press Club on Thursday night, in one case throwing an object that struck a counterprotester in the head.

D.C. police closed the 1300 block of F Street NW to motor vehicles as hundreds of demonstrators filled the roadway. Some protesters raised their middle fingers and shouted obscenities and terms such as “racist” and Nazi” at those attending the celebratory ball on the eve of Trump’s inauguration.

A small group of protesters in hoods and black masks set a fire in the center of the street. Another fire was set in a trash can. A different group used a floodlight and stencil to project the phrases “Bragging about Grabbing a Woman’s Genitals” and “Impeach the Predatory President” onto the side of the Press Club building. Others inflated a 15-foot-tall white elephant with a banner attached that said “racism.”

Officers directed chemical spray at the crowd multiple times, starting around 9 p.m., after protesters began throwing trash at Trump supporters who were leaving the building. During an earlier clash, a man was struck in the back of the head by a thrown object.

About a half-dozen D.C. police officers surrounded him and escorted him behind police lines...

RTWT.

New Regime

A great post, yesterday, from Mark Steyn:

A New Dawn, A New Don https://t.co/sFY6nCXFsH #SteynOnAmerica #TheMarkSteynShow pic.twitter.com/68LgPw34Hx

— Mark Steyn (@MarkSteynOnline) January 20, 2017

Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East

*BUMPED.*

Okay, I'm well into Alexander Hill's, The Red Army and the Second World War. (I'll have more on it later.)

And from the footnotes, some excellent books on the World War II era.

See, for example, Evan Mawdsley, Thunder in the East: The Nazi-Soviet War 1941-1945.

#Inauguration Day

The photo's from November 9th at the West Wing.

For some reason, it's just now going viral. But my god, look at those smug sum-bitchs, lol.

Click on the tweet to see the hilarious responses. I swear if Donald Trump's even a one-term president the schadenfreude's going to last a lifetime.

Photo of the Decade, right here pic.twitter.com/yC7EqDf9zy

— The H2 (@TheH2) January 20, 2017

'Don of a New Day'

An unusual symmetry among the New York tabloids.

It's going to be a great day, like a national holiday.

Now this is rare. They match. pic.twitter.com/AKqiYouMWC

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) January 20, 2017

Ivanka Trump Arrives in Washington

What a day.

I don't think I can stay up all night, heh.

I'm at my mom's house. She's going to wake me up just in case. Festivities begin early for those of us on the West Coast.

Arriving in Washington DC with my family. A very special moment! #MAGA #Inauguration2017 pic.twitter.com/whZxJdFiQ3

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) January 19, 2017