Monday, March 11, 2019

Tommy Orange, There There

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Tommy Orange, There There: A Novel.



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Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion.



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Saturday, March 9, 2019

Robert Zubrin, The Case for Space

It's out May 14th, at Amazon, Robert Zubrin, The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility.



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The Democrats and Anti-Semitism

So far, Noah Rothman's written the best piece on Ilhan Omar and the Democrats' turn to unbridled, unabashed anti-Jewish hatred, with special attention to the double standards of the House resolution condemning "all forms" of racism.


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We Can't Have Hot Bikini Baristas

Bummer:


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Workers Suddenly Have More Power

At WaPo, the Trump economy is helping the working class proletariat lol.



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Seen on Facebook

Here:



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Lee Zeldin's Floor Speech Slamming Ilhan Omar and Democrats' Weaselly House Resolution Condemning 'All Forms' of Racism (VIDEO)

Seems there's a consensus that we've crossed a line in American politics, and the country's heading down a dark road. I've been reading one commentary after another on Ilhan Omar and the spineless Democrat House weasels, and I'm personally and deeply depressed. I thought I loathed the left, but seems there is no bottom to Democrat-leftist demonology.

Here's Congressman Lee Zeldin:

And at Fox News, "Rep. Zeldin Explains 'No' Vote on 'Watered Down,' 'Spineless' Anti-Hate Resolution."

Added, from Captain Ed:
Zeldin’s point about the resolution being “spineless” hits closest to the overall lesson from this episode, which is this: Nancy Pelosi’s power has entirely evaporated. Had Pelosi acted like a real caucus leader with authority, she would have immediately booted Omar from her seat on Foreign Relations and demanded a full apology, with a censuring resolution a consequence for lack of compliance. That is precisely what Kevin McCarthy did with Rep. Steve King after his white-supremacy comments despite having struggled to get his position as caucus leader just a few months ago.

Pelosi has had the reins of her caucus for two decades now, and yet couldn’t act. Pelosi just got faced down by a first-term backbencher and a small cadre of extremists in her caucus, mainly because she didn’t attempt to exercise any authority. She dithered and vacillated, perhaps mindful of the narrow circumstances that gave her the gavel in the first place in January. In that vacillation, the extremists took her measure and forced her to retreat. The result was Pelosi’s ridiculous “All Hate Matters” sham resolution for which Omar herself voted — while laughing at the absurdity.

Pelosi still holds the gavel, but it’s now purely symbolic. The lunatics and the anti-Semites are running the House Democratic asylum. Pelosi has no legs left on her leadership, and everyone knows it. That’s why Democrats want to talk about Republican dissenters to this grotesquerie rather than what really happened this week in the House. Zeldin’s just forcing everyone to confront reality.

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Meghan McCain in Tears Over Ilhan Omar's Anti-Semitism, Gets Attacked With Leftist Vitriol and Anti-Semitic Memes

Oh boy, did this get people fired up, and not in a good way.

And keep in mind, I'm not fan of Ms. Meghan.

At the Daily Beast, "Meghan McCain Breaks Down in Tears Over Ilhan Omar’s ‘Scary’ Israel Comments."

Here's the clip, and this vile anti-Semitic cartoon below:



More at Fox News, "Meghan McCain accuses Jewish artist of anti-Semitism after mocking her comments on Omar."


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Glencairn Whisky Glass

I need to get a set of these. They come highly recommended by Helen Smith at Intapundit.

At Amazon, Glencairn Whisky Glass Set of 4.

And Ms. Helen's book, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters.

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Thursday, March 7, 2019

'Under Pressure'

From Tuesday's drive-time, at 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles, Queen and David Bowie:




Sweet Dreams
EURYTHMICS
6:31am

Small Town
John Mellencamp
6:20am

Just Like Heaven
Cure
6:17am

Jane Says
Jane's Addiction
6:12am

Start Me Up
Rolling Stones
6:09am

Under Pressure
Queen & David Bowie
6:05am

The Middle
Jimmy Eat World
6:02am

Crazy Train
Ozzy Osbourne
5:55am


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Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Norman Podhoretz, Why Are Jews Liberals?

I donated my copy to the library a couple of years back, but maybe I shouldn't have. The Democrats are hatin' on the Jews like there's no tomorrow. We're going to see some partisan realignment in 2020's voting, or we should see some. If Jewish voters keep backing the racist Dems I'll be gobsmacked. *Shrugs.*

At Amazon, Norman Podhoretz, Why Are Jews Liberals?

And prompted by John Hinderaker's post, linked at Instapundit, "THEY’VE EMBRACED IT: John Hinderaker: Do The Democrats Hate Hate? No."
Like the Labour Party in Great Britain, the Democratic Party has become a haven for anti-Semites.
Seriously.



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Is 'War and Peace' the 'Greatest of All Novels'?

I don't think so, but then, it's been 30 years since I read that brick, lol.

At Amazon, Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (Penguin Classics, Deluxe Edition).

And at the New Criterion:


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Nazi Swastika at Newport Harbor High School Kegger Party

This is mind-boggling to me, but then, it's almost 75 years since the end of World War II and the defeat of the Nazis. Perhaps there's something to the effect of "historical amnesia" among today's youth. Still, the education system is doing Generation Z no favors. Sooner or later folks have to take responsibility, and some of these kids at the party could have their futures seriously effed up.

At the Los Angeles Times:

When Kaitlyn saw the Snapchat photos of fellow Orange County teenagers posing around a swastika made of red Solo cups, she immediately posted a screenshot to social media, expecting outrage.

Instead, she got a mixed response. Some people were offended by the display. But others said they were more surprised by the outcry — arguing that students, some posed with their arms raised in Nazi salutes, were just joking.

“How can these kids who have been educated about [the Holocaust] still find it funny?” said Kaitlyn, a 17-year-old student at a private Jewish school in Irvine.

The Holocaust is a standard topic covered in history classes, and “The Diary of Anne Frank” is often required high school reading. But with time, knowledge of the Nazi atrocities among young people has decreased. And some darker ideas are filling the void.

A study commissioned last year by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany showed that 66% of U.S. millennials did not know what the Auschwitz concentration camp was. Four in 10 millennials thought 2 million or fewer Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust; the actual number is around 6 million.

For people born after 2000, post-millennials, the Holocaust feels less real, as they’re less likely to hear from the ever-dwindling number of survivors and WWII veterans, said Edward Dunbar, a UCLA clinical professor who has researched hate crimes and violence for two decades.

“These forms of atrocities are fading far into the distance for young non-adults, adolescents and teenagers, and it’s no closer than the Civil War would be for them,” Dunbar said.

Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardino's Center on Hate and Extremism, said revisionist history about issues like the Holocaust can eventually lead to hate crimes.

What’s most disturbing about incidents like the Costa Mesa party last weekend, he said, is that most of the students likely are not “hardened bigots” but that Nazi symbols have become so mainstreamed that their meaning has been diluted.

“What’s scary is that there’s far more ignorance in America than evil, but ignorance is the soil from which evil takes root,” Levin said. “When we get to a point where it’s elected officials appearing in blackface in their younger days and younger people today making light of the Holocaust, it shows an incredible stressor on the civic fault lines.”

The Orange County incident comes as hate crimes are spiking nationwide. From 2014 to 2017, anti-Semitic hate crimes rose 54%, according to the FBI.

Particularly alarming, experts on hate and extremism said, is the rise in incidents on school campuses. In California, there was a 65% increase in hate crimes on elementary and secondary school campuses from 2012 to 2017, according to a report by the state’s Department of Justice.

There has been a huge jump in recent years of reported “papering” incidents on high school and college campuses, with hate groups posting fliers with slogans like, “It’s OK to be white” and “protect your heritage,” Levin said.

The Orange County teenagers, who were attending a Costa Mesa house party, were far from the only ones to have invoked Nazi iconography or gestures.

In December, students at Matilija Junior High School in Ojai lay down on a field in the shape of a swastika and shared a photo in a group chat that included racist comments. In 2016, a sophomore at Shadow Hills High School came to class dressed as a Nazi on Halloween, and the school held sensitivity training after pictures of her circulated on Twitter and Snapchat.

High school students in New Jersey, Florida, Kansas and Georgia have been punished in recent years after posting photos of a beer pong-style drinking game called “Jews versus Nazis,” in which teams arrange plastic cups in the shape of swastikas and the Star of David.

After Kaitlyn, who did not want her last name used out of concern she would be targeted online, posted screenshots from the party, a friend texted her screenshots showing a Snapchat conversation among some of the students at the house that night. They were making insensitive jokes about the Holocaust.

“Yaaaa no, phones gonna die,” one student wrote. “Just like the Jews.”

The students had titled the conversation “master race.”

One said to be at the party posted an Instagram story with what initially looked like an apology, saying he was “very sorry for my actions as I am guilty by association.” In the next image, he wrote that he was just joking, that “last night was awesome” and that he had “absolutely no sympathy” for anybody who was offended. He claimed to be Jewish. Then he deleted his account...

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I Was Assaulted at Berkeley Because I'm Conservative

Great, great piece from Hayden Williams, at USA Today:


And his attorney today at his arraignment demanding the "presumption of innocence," when it was all caught on video, lol. The dude will take a plea deal of some sort, but if it doesn't include time behind bars conservatives should riot just like leftists, heh.


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Faith Goldy Interviews Michelle Malkin at CPAC (VIDEO)

Following-up, "And to Think, I Was Actually Following This Guy *SHRUGS*."

Faith Goldy's a correspondent for V-Dare now, I guess. I like both Faith and V-Dare. I just don't like so-called conservatives veering over into Nazism, which is what that idiot Nick Fuentes is doing.

Nice interview with Michelle, in any case:



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And to Think, I Was Actually Following This Guy *SHRUGS*

It's Nicholas Fuentes, who I thought I'd give a follow a month or two ago, but then I saw him tweeting vile anti-Israel tropes, and dink! Unfollowed the f***er.

And for some reason, I just came across this editorial, out today, at the Iowa State Daily, "Editorial: Iowa State deserves the right to know about controversial speakers."

I'm not for punching Nazis, but I don't think top conservatives should be mainstreaming racist goons like this guy, and apparently Fuentes was getting some attention from "alt-right" icons at CPAC, including Faith Goldy, who I like (but who is too close to genuine racists).

In any case, we live in interesting times, as they say.


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Batya Ungar-Sargon is Just Wow

Batya Ungar-Sargon writes for the Jewish Daily Forward, and this piece is incredible, at Memeorandum, "The Left Is Making Jews Choose: Our Progressive Values or Ourselves."


While reading it earlier I googled her and found that she's got a shady history, to put it mildly. What can you do? I followed her, in any case, but see this post, "Haredim in Ramapo: A Dishonest Account From a Dishonest Writer."


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Cardi B on a Yacht

At Drunken Stepfather, "Cardi B – Stripper on a Yacht."

She's crazy hot lol.


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Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing: A Novel.



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Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Thomas E. Ricks, Making the Corps

At Amazon, Thomas E. Ricks, Making the Corps: 10th Anniversary Edition with a New Afterword by the Author.



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Porsche is Trying to Reinvent Itself in the Wake of Germany's Diesel-Emissions Scandal

I don't love electric cars, but if any company could change my mind, it's Porsche. (Tesla's don't do it for me at all.)

At Der Spiegel, "Electric Dreams: Porsche's Quest to Make Eco-Friendly Sports Cars":


The Porsche of the future is still so secret that it's not allowed off the company's premises without an elaborate disguise. Two fake exhaust pipes stick out the rear, while a green pollution badge adorns the windshield. It's all an act to mislead competitors. Under the hood, there's neither a combustion engine nor an injection system. Instead, there are two electric motors and a heavy battery.

So far, it's just a test vehicle inconspicuously parked in front of Porsche's development center in Weissach, near Stuttgart. Porsche, however, is planning to unveil its first electric car at the end of 2019, and revamp its brand from the ground up.

Even for the engineers responsible for its roll-out, the new e-model is a culture shock. Ever since the first sports car hit the pavement 70 years ago, the name Porsche has stood for flashy combustion engines that roar when drivers hit the gas. Poor emission values and high fuel consumption were practically part of the brand's DNA. But the company's new model, the Taycan, is emissions-free -- and it's as quiet as a toy car.

For Porsche, this means it's no longer competing with the likes of Ferrari, Maserati, BMW or Mercedes. It's now in a direct contest with Tesla, the pioneering electric-car company from California. "Our goal is to be a technological trailblazer," says Porsche CEO Oliver Blume.

The End of an Era

Blume's plans are more ambitious than those of other German automobile manufacturers. By 2025, he wants at least half of the cars Porsche sells to be electric. Five years later, according to the company's own forecasts, Porsche will hardly have any vehicles on its assembly line with conventional combustion engines.

In late 2018, the company's supervisory board resolved to outfit Porsche's best-selling car with an electric motor within the next few years. The new version of the Macan, a compact off-road vehicle, will soon be fully electric. For the petrol-powered model, there will be only an update. After that, the era of the gas-guzzler will gradually come to an end.

It's a billion-euro bet with enormous possibilities -- and enormous risk. If Blume's plan works out, Porsche could become an ecologically oriented sports-car company, a role model for the entire German automobile industry. It would be proof that the industry has learned its lesson after the diesel scandal -- in which Porsche's parent-company, the Volkswagen Group, was found to have tricked emissions tests to make its vehicles seem more environmentally friendly than they really were -- and that it has not entirely slept through the transition to electric mobility.

The problem, however, is that Porsche's offensive comes at a time of great uncertainty. Nobody knows whether the company will be able to sell enough of its new e-cars. The brand has many loyal fans with a penchant for combustion engines. Even one of Porsche's brand ambassadors, Walter Röhrl, an ex-rally driver, has said e-mobility is the "wrong track."

Porsche's Dirty Past

Meanwhile, demand in the world's two largest automotive markets, the United States and China, is slowing, and disputes are further weighing on business. If U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on his threats to impose punitive import tariffs on foreign cars, Porsche would be more adversely affected than other German manufacturers. The sports-car maker sells nearly a quarter of its vehicles in America, yet has none of its production facilities there. The result would be a sharp drop in profits.

Then there's the fact that Porsche, in its quest toward a clean future, is regularly confronted with its dirty past.

At the end of January, the carmaker filed self-indictments with Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) and the U.S. environmental authorities. The reason: Porsche's iconic 911 sports car was emitting more CO2 than the company had previously disclosed. And it wasn't just older models: its 2016 and 2017 models were affected as well. The authorities are now investigating whether Porsche's failure to disclose was a mere oversight -- or possibly Germany's next exhaust scandal. The Public Prosecutor's Office in Stuttgart has initiated a so-called inspection process. Porsche has added that it's continuing its own internal investigations.

Porsche is also still under pressure for its role in Germany's "Dieselgate" scandal. Three company employees are under investigation on suspicion of fraud and false advertising. And the case against them is getting stronger, sources familiar with the investigations say. The defendants have yet to be granted access to the evidence against them, but it is conceivable that charges will be filed against them in 2019, the sources add.

To this day, Porsche rejects any blame for the German diesel scandal. The company has remained firm on its assertion that it didn't build the motors in question itself, but rather bought them from its sister brand Audi. Porsche has even considered pursuing financial compensation from Audi to the tune of 200 million euros ($227 million)...
Combustion engines are the best, and it'd be sad if this environmental push destroyed the brand.

But what the hell? It's the culture we have now. Better for American car-makers, I guess. (*Shrugs.*)

Still more.

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Kim Strassel Interview with Harmeet Dillon at CPAC (VIDEO)

This is extremely fascinating.

Ms. Dillon is someone you'd definitely want on your side. She mentions Meghan Murphy's case at the interview, for example, as well as a bunch of other inside baseball on Silicon Valley ideological intolerance.

Good stuff:


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Adam Makos, Spearhead

At Amazon, Adam Makos, Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II.



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Hailey Clauson Brings the Heat (VIDEO)

She's a lovely tart, isn't she?

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:



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David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

At Amazon, David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present.



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Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth

Out today, at Amazon, Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America.



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The Slow Creep of Socialism (VIDEO)

Here's Dennis Prager, on Judge Jeanine's, from over the weekend when Prager was in D.C. for CPAC.

At Fox:



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Monday, March 4, 2019

Don Winslow, The Border

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Don Winslow, The Border: A Novel.




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Belgian Carnival Float Features Puppets of Grinning Jews and Money Bags

Following-up, "Labour Party MP Chris Williamson Warns of 'Dark Forces' Undermining Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn; Theresa May Calls for His Suspension (VIDEO)."

I shouldn't be so optimistic that citizens of democracies will rebuke the hate, if Belgium is any example.

At JTA:


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Labour Party MP Chris Williamson Warns of 'Dark Forces' Undermining Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn; Theresa May Calls for His Suspension (VIDEO)

Background here, "Chris Williamson warned of 'dark forces' undermining Corbyn, as councillor joked about 'Jew process': Exclusive: Shocking recording reveals Cllr Jo Bird joked that 'due process' should be dubbed 'Jew process'."

And at the BBC, Williamson was indeed suspended, "Labour activists backlash over anti-Semitism row."

It's bizarre to me that hatred of Jews has become so mainstream and central to leftist politics, but it is what it is, and the bright side is that such hatred should keep them out of power. It should, that is, as long as the general electorate in democratic societies rebukes exterminationist ideological anti-Semitism.


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Lily Mo Sheen Simulating on Instagram

At Drunken Stepfather, "LILY MO SHEEN SIMULATING OF THE DAY."

And at WWTDD, "Who’d You Rather: Kate Beckinsale or Her [Sexed-Up] Daughter Lily Mo Sheen."

Her mom is Kate Beckinsale, who's apparently in a romantic relationship with Pete Davidson of SNL fame. Now that's one way to break out of psychiatric depression! (At London's Daily Mail, "Kate Beckinsale, 45, and Pete Davidson, 25, CONFIRM romance by passionately kissing in the stands at hockey game.")

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Irving Howe, World of Our Fathers

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, World of Our Fathers: The Journey of the East European Jews to America and the Life They Found and Made.

Also, inexpensive copies of the original 1990 paperback here.



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Sunday, March 3, 2019

Robin Holzken in the Bahamas (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:



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Denounce the Left's Idea That Free Speech is 'Violence'

From Jonathan Zimmerman, at the San Francisco Chronicle, "We must denounce the idea of speech as violence":
When the actor Jussie Smollett charged that two men shouting this is “MAGA country” had attacked him, also yelling racist and homophobic taunts, my fellow liberals were quick to blame the rise in such incidents on President Trump and his supporters who want to “Make American Great Again.”

Smollett was indicted by an Illinois grand jury on Feb. 20 for apparently faking the whole episode, but the larger trend is real: Hate crimes have spiked during the Trump era. And surely the president’s own bigoted rhetoric — Mexicans are rapists, Africans live in s—hole countries and so on — has something to do with that.

So why aren’t we also denouncing the culture of intolerance on America’s university campuses, where dissenting voices have faced physical attacks? And doesn’t our silence on that score make us partially responsible for the violence, just as Trump is complicit in hate crimes?

Consider the assault on a conservative activist last month at UC Berkeley, where he was displaying posters declaring “This is MAGA country” — which is what Smollett said his attackers shouted — and “Hate crime hoaxes hurt real victims.”

Two men accosted the conservative activist with expletives. One denounced him for “encouraging violence.” As if on cue, the second man then punched the activist in the face.

Noting that the incident took place on Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, epicenter of the university’s Free Speech Movement in 1964, school officials were quick to denounce it. “We strongly condemn violence and harassment of any sort, for any reason,” they said in a statement. “Our commitment to freedom of expression and belief is unwavering.” Friday, they announced an arrest...
More.

And at CBS News 5 San Francisco, "Man Arrested In Attack On Conservative Activist at UC Berkeley."



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California's High-Speed Rail Disaster Is a 'Shot Across the Bow for the Green New Deal' (VIDEO)

It really is.

What a total nightmare boondoggle. And now the news is that even the Bakersfield to Merced leg will run out of money before completion. Thanks Democrats!

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "If high-speed rail can’t make it in there, can it make it anywhere in America?"



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Los Angeles Students Are Surrounded by Violence — and Trauma

This is really a catastrophe, and it should be a national calamity, but Democrats won't talk about.

Why are Democrat cities such bastions of murder and mayhem?

And honestly, kudos to the Times for publishing this exposé.

At the Los Angeles Times, a must-read, "What it’s like to go to school when dozens have been killed nearby":


Jaleyah Collier had just said goodbye to Kevin Cleveland outside a doughnut shop a few blocks from Hawkins High School on a spring afternoon in 2017. Get home safe, she told him before walking away.

Minutes later someone drove into an alley nearby, got out of the car and asked Kevin, 17, and two others about their gang affiliation. The gunman then sprayed them with at least 10 rounds, killing Kevin and injuring the others.

Jaleyah, then a high school sophomore, barely had time to grieve when a month later, her best friend, Alex Lomeli, 18, was shot and killed when someone tried to rob a market about a mile from the same high school, located at 60th and Hoover streets.

In the early hours of Mother’s Day 2018, two other teens Jaleyah was close to, Monyae Jackson and La’marrion Upchurch, were walking home with friends, when they were fatally shot near Dymally High School.

Each of Jaleyah’s friends was killed within walking distance of public high schools in Los Angeles.

“You don’t know when it’s going to be a person’s last day,” said Jaleyah, a senior at the Community Health Advocates School, one of three small schools on the Hawkins campus. “[Kevin] woke up not knowing.”

The impact of that violence can be devastating and costly. Campuses have begun incorporating the inevitability of trauma into their curricula, addressing stress reduction and how to settle differences without resorting to violence. Students suffer symptoms resembling post-traumatic stress disorder and psychiatric social workers are now a staple at many campuses. Because there is too little mental health funding to meet the need, teachers and staff are often on the front lines in identifying the warning signs of emotionally needy students.

One concern is practical: getting safely to and from school, avoiding not just bullets but gang flashpoints, street harassment, hit-and-runs and muggings. With limited district busing, some students opt for public transportation or other ride-sharing options. On their journeys, they sometimes pass candle- and flower-filled memorials to fallen friends.

Sixteen-year-old Carl Hull, a sophomore at Dymally High School, starts his walk to school each morning by turning into an alley to avoid gang members who live on his street. Once, when he was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the blue L.A. Dodgers logo, they stopped him and asked about his affiliation — he’s not involved in gangs, he told them. Another morning, a few days after hearing gunfire near his house, he found a 9-millimeter bullet shell. Each day, he said, is “like a guessing game.”

Decades of research suggest that the effects of exposure to violence on teenagers are wide-ranging, and can result in anxiety, depression, anger, absences and an inability to concentrate in class.

Even if students didn’t know the victims, they see reminders on social media, memorial posts and the T-shirts friends and family wear in trying to raise funds for a funeral.

Jaleyah woke up on Mother’s Day to find her Instagram feed filled with posts about the shooting of Monyae and La’marrion, she said.

Children in high-crime areas are “losing more people in their youth than most of us have lost when we get to 30 or 40,” said Ferroll Robins, executive director of the nonprofit organization Loved Ones Victims Services, which provides counseling for victims of violence and their families.

“I do worry about what is going to happen to them emotionally, mentally, how bad are they really being scarred?” Robins said. “And how much of those scars are going to play into their life later?”

Jaleyah, a bubbly and energetic 17-year-old, prides herself on her resilience but resents that this constant drumbeat of loss is her reality. In the days after a friend dies, she is unable to concentrate in class, she said. She goes to the funerals, some during the school week. She’s nervous walking to school, afraid a man with a hoodie pulled over his head might be hiding a gun, afraid to walk in alleys or on side streets. She feels a jolt whenever she sees her slain friends’ photos or someone mentions them, reminded each time that their lives had ended too early.

Jason Powell knows he can’t begin teaching his English and music classes at Dymally, at 88th and San Pedro streets, until the kids can address the latest violence in their lives. Over the last five years, 105 people have been killed within a mile of the campus, the highest number surrounding any public high school in the county. Ten of the victims were 18 or younger.

Last year alone, 20 people were killed within a mile — about one every 2½ weeks. Sometimes they are current or former students, including Monyae.

After the deaths of La’marrion and Monyae, Powell gathered his ninth-graders in circles during class and asked them how they deal with pain. The students were used to sharing because they have these circles often on subjects both mundane and serious.

The exercise was intended to develop positive coping and conflict resolution skills. One by one, the students took turns sharing stories of loss. Similar scenes played out at several area schools where students had known the boys who were killed.

When a friend dies, “they come in welled up with emotion, they’re crying and there’s no way they can concentrate on the lesson at hand, so whatever’s on the board as far as the lesson plan, that means nothing,” Powell said. “They need more immediate help.”

Jaleyah said that seeing the therapist on campus didn’t help her, but that participating in similar community circles at Hawkins taught her how to voice her anger and channel it into action. “They give us a chance to speak and feel free [in] what we have to say, without being afraid,” Jaleyah said.

Sometimes the loss is unrelenting. As Dymally was preparing for graduation just weeks after former student Monyae’s death, there was more tragic news: Campus aide James Lamont Taylor was killed at 8:30 a.m., walking on the street about a mile from the school.

The journey their children take just getting to school is a source of stress also for parents.

Carl’s mom worries about him getting robbed or shot on the way to Dymally, or hit by a car while crossing the street. Her older son, Brian Hull, was killed in 2016 crossing the street near her home. She and Carl have grown used to hearing gunshots from their apartment in Broadway-Manchester, less than a mile from the high school. She’s afraid that when he walks down the alley behind their home to get to school, he’ll get hurt.

“I have real bad, heavy anxiety,” Latanya Hull said. One afternoon in September, she began to worry when Carl didn’t get home at the usual time. His phone was broken, so she couldn’t reach him. She called the school. Carl was there, they said, in after-school tutoring...
Lots more. (The interactive graphics interfere with the scrolling function. Be sure to scroll using the right side-bar.)

Posted by AmPowerBlog at 12:10 PM 1 comments
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Kelly Brook is Back in Lingerie

She's still fabulous!


Posted by AmPowerBlog at 11:50 AM 0 comments
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Democrat Voters Conflicted on Who Can Beat President Trump

The California primary is one year from today, and the L.A. Times kicked off a year of campaign coverage with a special section today.

And from Janet Hook's piece, "Democrats, facing a big candidate field, ask: Who can beat Trump?":

Marcus Scott is looking for a Democratic presidential candidate who will be rude to Donald Trump. Kara LaMarche wants an upbeat, positive approach. Ben Dion wants a nominee with experience and gravitas. Linds Jakows has had it with older white men in power.

Those voters, like fellow Democrats across the country, seek very different things in the big and growing presidential candidate field. But they share one top priority: Picking a nominee who will beat President Trump in 2020.

A year from now, on March 3, 2020, candidates will be competing for primary votes in California and eight other states in the first day of multistate voting. By then, the candidates will have been tested in the four early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, where Democrats already have a curbside seat for the parade of candidates campaigning there.

Between now and then, much of the debate seems certain to focus on the elusive quality labeled “electability.”

Parties always want to win, of course, but Democratic loathing of Trump has pushed finding a winner way up the priority scale this year, recent polls show. Democratic voters say they’d prefer a candidate who can beat Trump to one who agrees with their position on any particular issue.

Voters, however, have widely varying views about what electable means in 2020. To some, it is code for a safe, cautious choice — a centrist white male who presumably can speak to swing voters. To other Democrats, that’s a recipe for killing off excitement within the party’s young, diverse, progressive base, which needs to be mobilized to win in 2020.

The contrasting ideas about electability will come sharply into focus in the coming weeks if two late entrants to the 2020 race come off the sidelines. If former Rep. Beto O’Rourke jumps in, the 46-year-old Texan will represent a bid for generational change that could mobilize new voters in a way supporters compare to Barack Obama.

If Vice President Joe Biden runs, he will likely lean heavily on the case that his long experience makes the 76-year-old the party’s safest bet to win the White House.

“I believe he is the only person who could take on Trump and beat him,” said Dick Harpootlian, a South Carolina state senator and longtime Biden backer. “We’re going to need someone who can motivate the middle-of-the-road voter.”

Other Democrats believe the party must put up a candidate better equipped than the former vice president to speak to and harness the energy of the younger generation of voters that helped deliver victory to the party in the 2018 midterm elections.

“I truly believe this great nation is ready for change,” said Robyn Joppy, a business consultant who heard Biden speak at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Washington, D.C. “I love him. But I think his time has come and gone.”

How many candidates will be in the field by the time actual voting starts is anybody’s guess. For now, 13 have joined the field or formed an exploratory committee. Half are senators — Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

More candidates may soon get in the race, including former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, as well as Biden and O’Rourke.

The candidates are now pouring most of their effort into the four earliest-voting states. They face a daunting challenge when attention turns to California, because its large size gives a leg up to candidates who can afford television advertising.

Harris, Sanders and Biden, if he runs, could have an edge because they are already well known in the state. But because Democratic Party rules require all states to distribute their delegates proportionately, no candidate is likely to walk away with a lion’s share of California’s more than 400 convention delegates, the largest group from any state.

Most Democrats are highly confident of their ability to beat Trump in 2020, because of his low approval ratings and the high level of energy in their own ranks.

But a recent poll by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican firm, provides a warning against overconfidence on the part of Democrats. Nationally the poll found just 45% of respondents approved of the job Trump was doing. But he fared better — 50% approved of him — in 12 swing states important to his reelection (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin).

Some Democrats are skeptical about assessing candidates’ electability.
Posted by AmPowerBlog at 11:50 AM 0 comments
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Gigi Hadid Sheer Camisole Top

At Drunken Stepfather, "GIGI HADID NIPPLE OF THE DAY":
Gigi Hadid isn’t hot, despite all the media attention she gets, but at least she doesn’t look like this sharp edged dude that her sister looks like…

All these girls are a lot of fucking hype wit very little substance…they don’t offer the world shit and when I see them with their face injections all these years after they started…still probably under 25 years old…representing a dark time in modeling and spokesmodeling…I can’t help but wonder why they look like they are in their mid 40s…
Heh.
Posted by AmPowerBlog at 11:35 AM 0 comments
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Saturday, March 2, 2019

Irish Model Laura O'Grady

At Drunken Stepfather, "LAURA O’GRADY PINK FOR ST. PATRICK’S DAY OF THE DAY."

Posted by AmPowerBlog at 4:50 PM 0 comments
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Victoria Justice Bikini Photos

At Hollywood Tuna, "More Victoria Justice and Her Hot Sister in Bikinis."

And on Twitter:


Posted by AmPowerBlog at 9:55 AM 0 comments
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Michelle Malkin at CPAC 2019 (VIDEO)

Leftist MSM outlets are aghast that Michelle Malkin would speak up for America, and especially for calling out the ghost of John McCain.

And see Michelle's comments at her blog, "CPAC at the Bridge."



Posted by AmPowerBlog at 9:15 AM 0 comments
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Jennifer Delacruz's Rainy Saturday Forecast

I've missed blogging the lovely Ms. Jennifer.

Been busy with school and blogging's been light, but here's your beautiful weather lady.

More rain this weekend.

At ABC News 10 San Diego:


Posted by AmPowerBlog at 9:05 AM 0 comments
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Democrats' 'Bullet Train' Has Effed Up People's Lives

Fucking Democrats.

They destroy everything they touch.

At LAT, "In Central Valley towns, California’s bullet train isn’t an idea: ‘It’s people’s lives’":


When Annie Williams heard that California’s plan for high-speed rail had been scaled back to 119 miles through the Central Valley, her head jerked back.

“Merced to Bakersfield? The good Lord himself can’t make sense of that,” she said. “After all our tears and making peace?”

The recent debate surrounding California’s transit future has reverberated statewide. But here in the Central Valley, the upheaval — like the bullet train itself — is real. Houses have been boarded up, businesses moved, vineyards torn out, a highway realigned.

Giant concrete structures rise from orchards waiting to hold up tracks that now seem further from existence.

Fairmead, the community where Williams lives, is the likely place that will face the most immediate uncertainties. It is in the “Y,” the planned fork from which some trains were to hurtle south toward Los Angeles or north to Merced, and others were to veer west to the Bay Area.

There is no library or market or gas station here; only three buildings in the town of about 1,500, including the church, aren’t people’s homes. Sheds lean, grass grows through porch slats and rains leave deep puddles on dirt and gravel roads.

Williams, who gives her age as “upwards of 70,” said this is a place where people “work hard to have a place just to lay their heads and have been taking care of each other since nigh the beginning of time.”

An early proposed high-speed rail would have leveled a neighborhood, including Williams’ home. But that was before community organizers Vickie Ortiz and Barbara Nelson rallied their neighbors.

Their nonprofit organization, Friends of Fairmead, held so many meetings to lobby state representatives for a different route that the women started greeting the rail agency’s regional director with familiar hugs. After nearly a decade of negotiating, they felt they were a breath away from a route that would move the school, spare the church, preserve more houses and bring the town a much-needed community center.

Then in mid-January, Gov. Gavin Newsom laid out plans to pull back on high-speed rail in the face of massive cost overruns.

“I think the community center is gone,” the lawyer for Friends of Fairmead said.

Ortiz is angry about all the years she watched people worry and fret about where they would go.

“I don’t want to talk political because I don’t do it very well,” Ortiz said. “But you know, you had a governor that was pushing-pushing-pushing for the high-speed train, and we started getting used to the idea that we can’t stop a train but maybe we can use it to help the community. But then you get another governor and he says: ‘No, I don’t want to do that anymore.’ My mouth was just open with shock.”

Nelson, however, said she felt relief.

Each week, she visits an elderly neighbor in the hospital who asks her the latest about whether the project will take her house.

“I’m going to tell her, ‘Sister Hughes, your house is safe.’ And we’ll find some other way to get our community center.”

Traveling south from Fairmead on California Route 99, there’s a stretch of highway through Fresno that’s smooth and new. Five bridges were torn down and rebuilt in order to move the road about 100 feet to make room for rail. The California Department of Transportation project cost about $290 million.

Along the Kings River, near the little town of Laton, the signs of coming bullet train infrastructure include felled orchards and giant earthen berms. (Local independent truck drivers got weeks of work hauling dirt for the project.)

Next to the Van Eyk family’s walnut grove, where crops once grew, is now a stretch of excavated earth marked by “No Trespassing” signs.

Randy Van Eyk was born and raised on a dairy farm outside of nearby Hanford. His wife, Anne, grew up in rural Northern California. They lived in the city of Visalia for 10 years, saving for a place like this — a big house on a country road where they live with their 7-year old daughter, Maddie, a Labrador retriever named Snickers and a giant cat.

Randy planted walnuts instead of more lucrative almonds, because he was 45 years old when they moved in and almonds need replanting every 20 years. He didn’t want to work that hard at 65. Walnut trees should outlive him.

“We figured this was our last stop unless Maddie put us in a home someday,” Anne said.

The first sign that high-speed rail might change that was a giant white X painted on the road near their mailbox.

They found other Xs at other intersections and drew a diagonal line that went through their frontyard .

Anne cried — and, she said, she never cries.

Her husband told her not to worry, that it would never really happen. But work crews arrived, neighbors moved and cranes dropped off giant pipes. In the end, they were the only residents on their road that didn’t have to sell property to the state.

“We’ll have people over, even from around here, and they’ll look around and say: “That’s from high-speed rail? You mean it’s real?’ People think it’s just some idea, something to fight about on the radio, but it’s people’s lives,” Randy said.

The argument for a high-speed train crossing the state was that it would bridge California’s inequalities.

Central Valley cities and towns have some of the most concentrated poverty in the state. The political vision was that it would connect them to the wealth and opportunities of the coast and bring higher paying jobs. It would cut down on the air pollution that gets trapped in the hot, flat valley.

Randy Van Eyk was opposed to the project because he thought it would bring wealthy tech workers who would displace farms and rural life. He also thought politicians would start the project and never finish, leaving the debris in the Central Valley.

“You see all the destruction?” he said. “People lost their homes and businesses. And for what?”

He said he has flashes of anger, but then looks around and takes a deep breath...
Posted by AmPowerBlog at 8:50 AM 0 comments
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Likely Indictments Hang Over Benjamin Netanyahu and Imperil His Political Career

At LAT, "How will Netanyahu’s legal woes affect U.S.-Israeli relations and peace efforts?":


Even as likely indictments hang over Benjamin Netanyahu and imperil his political career, the embattled Israeli prime minister is receiving the enthusiastic endorsement of his good buddy and leader of the free world, Donald J. Trump.

“He has been a great prime minister,” President Trump said in Hanoi on Thursday after a nuclear summit with North Korea as plans to charge Netanyahu in three felony corruption cases were about to be announced in Jerusalem. “He's done a great job as prime minister. He's tough, he's smart, he's strong.”

Since becoming president more than two years ago, Trump has been a loyal, unquestioning ally of Netanyahu and his right-wing Israeli government. He has taken numerous steps in favor of Israel and promised to look out for Netanyahu’s interests as his son-in-law and other administration officials seek a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump has called that long-elusive goal the “ultimate deal.” But Netanyahu’s political and legal predicament has added even more complexity to what was already a tortured, long-shot process.

Netanyahu, who has dominated Israeli politics for more than a decade, also faces a tough reelection bid. He is running for a fourth consecutive term as head of the government in voting that takes place in 40 days, on April 9.

The fate of Netanyahu and the still-secret U.S.-crafted peace plan are in many ways intertwined. How he fares in the final weeks of the election campaign, whether his party continues to hold on to its lead or slips substantially, is likely to influence whether he welcomes a peace plan or turns his back on any such effort to appeal to his hard-line, ultra-hawkish base, Israeli and American political analysts say.

Trump handed the project of writing a peace plan to son-in-law Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump Organization attorney named special envoy for the Middle East. The two this week ended a second tour through Persian Gulf states attempting to find support for their ideas, which some leaders in the region have rejected for appearing overly pro-Israeli, disregarding Palestinian demands.

Kushner said he would not make the plan public before the Israeli election. It could, however, be published in the postelection period, a frenzied time when, in Israel’s parliamentary system, political parties who have won seats make alliances in an attempt to form a government that selects the prime minister.

At that point, analysts said, Netanyahu could appeal to a broader group of politicians, insisting he was the best leader to make peace while not sacrificing Israel’s security or other interests.

“There is a devil’s theory that Kushner and company will try to do a rollout to help Bibi form a coalition,” said Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who teaches Middle East policy at Princeton University, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.

Or, if it would help Netanyahu more, Kushner “is likely to tiptoe back to Washington so he does not hurt Bibi,” Kurtzer said.

If Netanyahu loses in the election, there may be pressure for the Trump administration to delay releasing the peace plan to another date, if ever, because of the uncertainty and especially if a center-left government takes over, said Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East expert at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.

Yet if Netanyahu thinks his career depends on it, he could probably go harder right, Goldenberg and others said, which might render any peace plan dead on arrival because few governments and especially those in the Arab world would be willing to work with such a coalition.

Already, Netanyahu stunned many people in the U.S. and in Israel when he brought three extreme right-wing fringe parties into his coalition last week. One of the parties, Jewish Power, believes in Jewish supremacy and is led by disciples of Meir Kahane, the ultra-right-wing American-born rabbi who won a seat in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, before he was banned from politics in 1988 for advancing a racist agenda. He was assassinated two years later.

No criticism was forthcoming, however, from the Trump administration. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said that “we’re not about to get involved” in a democratic country’s election. Those statements came four days before Trump’s endorsement of the “tough, smart, strong” Netanyahu.

Prior to being formally indicted, Netanyahu is allowed to challenge the charges against him, which involve bribery and other corruption aimed at promoting his image and helping him hold on to power. If indicted, Netanyahu could continue to campaign, but whether he could serve effectively as prime minister remains unclear.

Initial polling after Atty. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit announced his intention to indict Thursday was grim for Netanyahu and his Likud Party...
Posted by AmPowerBlog at 8:35 AM 0 comments
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Friday, March 1, 2019

Joseph E. Stiglitz, People, Power, and Profits

Interesting.

Stiglitz is a major economist.

Out April 23rd. Pre-order at Amazon, Joseph E. Stiglitz, People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent.



Posted by AmPowerBlog at 10:05 AM 0 comments
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Isabel Sawhill, The Forgotten Americans

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Isabel Sawhill, The Forgotten Americans: An Economic Agenda for a Divided Nation.



Posted by AmPowerBlog at 10:00 AM 0 comments
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Joan C. Williams, White Working Class

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Joan C. Williams, White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America.



Posted by AmPowerBlog at 10:00 AM 0 comments
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AOC Threatens to Put 'Moderate' House Democrats on a 'List'

Lol, this woman just won't quit, and I love it!

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: House Dems explode in recriminations as AOC threatens to put moderates on “a list”."

And on Twitter, walking it back?


Posted by AmPowerBlog at 9:59 AM 0 comments
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Regime Change Wars Have Disastrous Consequences (VIDEO)

She sounds more like a Ron Paul Republican, lol.

But still, I like her. She's genuinely sincere and very attractive. I hope she gains a lot of traction in the primaries. It remains to be seen, but if she's not out in front at New Hampshire, then forget it. It's going to be a massive field of candidates.




Posted by AmPowerBlog at 9:53 AM 0 comments
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Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens Are the New King and Queen of CPAC

Not everyone is thrilled about it, but what can you do? It's not like conservatives don't need some new leaders.

At the Daily Beast, "CPAC 2019: Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens Are the New King and Queen of the GOP Ball."


Posted by AmPowerBlog at 9:50 AM 1 comments
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Trump-Kim Summit Ends in Impasse and Uncertainty

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump says he still trusts Kim, but needed to 'walk away' from a bad nuclear deal":


The collapse of President Trump’s summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un left confusion in its wake Thursday, with each side blaming the other and no clear path forward in the nuclear standoff.

As Trump flew home from Hanoi, site of the abbreviated gathering, a growing outcry erupted in the United States over Trump’s defense of Kim in the 2017 death of American college student Otto Warmbier, whose family said he suffered brutal torture while imprisoned in North Korea.

But despite the president returning empty-handed, Trump’s political allies praised what they called his acumen in walking away rather than accepting a bad deal, and some analysts cited early signs that North Korea still wanted to keep open the lines of communication.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took to the Senate floor to declare that Trump had made the right call.

“High-level diplomacy can carry high-level risks, but the president is to be commended for walking away when it became clear insufficient progress had been made on denuclearization,” McConnell said.

Trump cut short his summit with Kim earlier Thursday, rejecting the North Korean leader’s offer to dismantle a major nuclear complex in exchange for the removal of U.S.-led economic sanctions.

Trump said that the U.S. wanted more concessions from Kim and that talks would continue. But the president wouldn’t commit to holding a third summit after two high-profile meetings have failed to produce a concrete agreement on rolling back Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

“Sometimes you have to walk,” Trump said at a news conference in the Vietnamese capital before departing for Washington on Air Force One. “This was one of those times.”

Less than 12 hours later, a North Korean official took the rare step of holding a news conference to tell reporters: Kim made a “realistic proposal,” and it was the U.S. that was obstinate in its demands.

In a Hanoi hotel lobby after midnight, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said North Korea had proposed dismantling its main nuclear complex and permanently halting all nuclear and long-range missile testing in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions, but the U.S. was “not ready to accept our proposal.”

“Our principal stand will remain invariable and our proposal will never be changed,” he said.

“This proposal was the biggest denuclearization measure we can take at the present stage in relation to the current level of confidence between the DPRK and the United States,” Ri said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In response to Ri's comments, a senior U.S. official said early Friday that while the North Korean delegation did not seek the lifting of all sanctions, it wanted to remove enough to gut the "maximum pressure" campaign of squeezing the country’s economy. The relaxation of sanctions would have freed government funds for more weapons development, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with State Department rules for speaking about negotiations.

"So to give many, many billions of dollars in sanctions relief would in effect put us in a position of subsidizing the ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea," the administration official told reporters traveling with Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo. "Now, they didn’t ask us to do that, but that is effectively the choice that we were presented with. "

As Trump flew home via Alaska, where he briefly addressed troops during a refueling stop at Elmendorf Air Force Base, even some supporters expressed dismay over Trump’s about-face on Warmbier, the 22-year-old who was held for 17 months by North Korea and died shortly after being returned home in a vegetative state.

At the time, the president decried Pyongyang’s “cruel dictatorship,” and had the student’s parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, as guests at his 2018 State of the Union address...

Posted by AmPowerBlog at 9:40 AM 0 comments
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