Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

'Feel It Still'

From Thursday morning's drive-time, at 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles, Portugal. The Man, "Feel It Still."


New Year's Day
U2
7:17am

Dani California
Red Hot Chili Peppers
7:13am

Down Under
Men At Work
7:09am

We Belong
Pat Benatar
7:06am

Plush
Stone Temple Pilots
6:54am

Africa
Toto
6:50am

Eye Of The Tiger
Survivor
6:46am

Feel It Still
Portugal The Man
6:44am

Cold As Ice
FOREIGNER
6:40am

Rio
Duran Duran
6:36am

Lithium
NIRVANA
6:23am

Don't You Forget About Me
Simple Minds
6:19am

Edge Of Seventeen
Stevie Nicks
6:19am

Myla Dal Besio Compilation 2018 (VIDEO)

She's a bit bustier than the usual Sports Illustrated models, heh.



Monday, March 25, 2019

'Marxism has come a long way, baby, by becoming the politics of choice of spoiled upper-class darlings who have never done any work in their lives...'

From Sarah Hoyt, at Pajamas, "After AOC Chases Amazon Jobs Away, Some New Yorkers Begin to Understand Socialism":
I was highly amused at reading this article: "Poll: 38 percent say Ocasio-Cortez 'villain' in New York losing Amazon HQ deal."

Apparently, New Yorkers are so badly educated that they didn’t understand the side effects of electing socialists.

You see, electing socialists always results in businesses moving away, disappearing, or never setting up in your town at all.

There are reasons for this, reasons usually tied in with how socialists view the world.

For instance, they don’t understand where money/wealth comes from.

It used to be, for old-time Marxists, that money was created by labor. That notion is crazy enough, since you can labor long and hard and not create anything of value. (See, for instance, my 13-year apprenticeship in writing commercially viable fiction.)  Or you can do very little labor and create something of great value. (C. S. Lewis’s Narnia chronicles were written in a freakishly short time for many writers.)

But Marxism has come a long way, baby, by becoming the politics of choice of spoiled upper-class darlings who have never done any work in their lives.

To them – judging by my kids' school books, my leftist colleagues' vagaries and, yes,  Alexandria Occasional Cortex’s eructation – wealth is something that just exists, kind of free-form. It can be stolen and hoarded, but not actually created in any sense of the word.

This is why socialists are convinced that we stole our wealth from the sh**holes of the world. (No, seriously. My kids’ history and geography books all said this.) Also, it’s why poor Occasional Cortex, whom no one ever accused of an overabundance of brains, thought that she was saving the people of New York money by chasing Amazon away...
RTWT.

Plus, more from Pajamas:


Democrats' Russia Collusion Hoax Was Just Another Elite Lie

From Kurt Schlichter, at Town Hall, "Trump Russia Collusion Treason Was All Just Another Elite Lie":

The Mueller report dropped and the liberal elite experienced the kind of intense, agonizing disappointment usually reserved for a Fredocon’s bride on her wedding night.

It’s important to remember exactly what nonsense the elite liars were trying to stuff down our throats, because in the aftermath of their humiliation they are busy trying to hide it via their goalpost-shifting three card monte act. Behold their original assertion:

Donald Trump was a willing agent of Vladimir Putin actively acting in concert with Russia to betray the United States and steal the election!

Wow. Those of us who are neither shameless liars nor blithering idiots – or, such as my congressjerk Ted Lieu, both – never bought into this transparently ridiculous notion. But the Democrats, their slobbering media suck-ups, and their conservagimp submissives did, or at least pretended to. Why? Because the dumpster fire ruling class they represent was outraged that we, the People, rejected its divine right to govern us when we chose a brash, pugnacious outsider over their designated monarch to-be, Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit.

This sham investigation was not anything like the administration of justice. It was part of, as people say but we’ve stopped being shocked when we hear it, a soft coup. It was a deliberate attempt by the powerful to use the levers of government to eliminate a threat to the ruling class’s hold on political power by manufacturing a false narrative with the active assistance of those in government and media whose whole job is to prevent these sorts of fascist shenanigans.

The damage to our country is hard to calculate right now. It will take a while to fully appreciate how this betrayal by our alleged betters has undermined the foundations of our Republic. But the signs are ominous. Normal people, those of us who build, feed, fuel and defend this country, have been awakened to the utterly incompetent and thoroughly venal nature of what Instapundit Glenn Reynolds correctly identifies as the U.S. franchise of a useless trans-national elite that prioritizes its own power and perks over the welfare of those is purportedly serves.

We’re woke now. We see that the people we’ve been electing – the people they allow us to elect – are really all the same. Only the labels are different, but the objective – their own money and influence – is identical. Except for Trump, who neither respects the elite nor plays by its shabby rules. And that’s why they threw away any pretens of honesty, integrity or respect for the rule of law to drive him out of the Oval Office they covet.

Let’s briefly touch on all the lives ruined on the way to this flaccid finale, especially the people swopped up in the search for a crime, any crime, in the neighborhood of the Bad Orange Man...
More.

President Trump and Republicans Attack Vile Democrats Amid Fallout from the Mueller Report (VIDEO)

At the Los Angeles Times, "Republicans and Democrats angle to take the offensive after Mueller report":

President Trump and congressional Republicans went on offense Monday by calling for new investigations into what they claim was political bias behind special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe, even as they heralded its conclusion exonerating Trump of colluding with Russia during the 2016 campaign.

Democrats, meanwhile, found themselves walking a political tightrope between pressing for further scrutiny into whether the president obstructed justice — a question left explicitly unanswered by Mueller — without appearing overzealous or overly focused on impeachment.

Trump’s response to the Mueller report was another example of the president’s ability to ignore the contradictions of his own actions and statements, and spin a narrative that paints him as both winner and victim.

After saying for months that Mueller was biased due to personal conflicts and describing the entire probe as a Democratic-inspired hoax and witch hunt, Trump has embraced its conclusions as legitimate and said Monday that Mueller acted “honorably” and that the investigation “was 100% the way it should’ve been.”

At the same time, however, he — and other Republicans — called for investigations into the investigators themselves. Though there are risks in undermining the credibility of a Republican-led process that cleared him of collusion, Trump nevertheless described unnamed people involved in the probe as “evil” and said they should now be “looked at.”

“What they did — it was a false narrative, it was a terrible thing,” Trump said. “We can never let this happen to another president again.”

For Trump, the past few days have unfolded as among the most satisfying of his presidency. First, he was cleared by Mueller of collusion with Russia; on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Trump’s support for Israel to Cyrus the Great; and then attorney Michael Avenatti, one of Trump’s loudest adversaries, was arrested for extortion and bank fraud.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who golfed with Trump in Florida over the weekend, said Monday that the president is “probably stronger today than at any time [in his] presidency. The cloud has been removed.”

Like Trump, Graham called for new investigations, as seemingly unlikely as they may be. He wants another special counsel to review what he called “the other side of the story,” including how the Justice Department approved surveillance of Trump campaign official Carter Page.

Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, listed several former intelligence and law enforcement officials who he claimed may have exaggerated evidence of conspiracy to initiate wiretaps in the Justice Department probe...
More.

Ben Shapiro Responds to Democrats' Reaction After the Mueller Report Lands (VIDEO)

Shapiro's got a new book out, at Amazon, The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great.

And at Fox News:



Joy Corrigan Cleavage

At Taxi Driver:


Also, at London's Daily Mail, "Joy Corrigan flaunts cleavage in low-cut red bodysuit with denim mini skirt for photoshoot in NYC."

Senator Lindsey Graham Holds Press Conference Blasting Democrats After Mueller Report (VIDEO)

At Hot Air, "Graham: It’s Time for Another Special Counsel to Get to The Bottom of the Carter Page FISA Warrant."

And the full press conference:



White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Mueller Report (VIDEO)

I'll have more on the whole thing, but see Ms. Sarah, on Fox News this morning:



Saturday, March 23, 2019

Today's Shopping

At Amazon, Today's Deals. Save on our top deals every day.

And especially, Hamilton Beach 49968 FlexBrew Connected Single-Serve Coffee Maker, with Amazon Dash Auto Replenishment for Coffee Pods.

Also, iRobot Roomba 640 Robot Vacuum – Good for Pet Hair, Carpets, Hard Floors, Self-Charging.

More, MuscleTech Phase8 Protein Powder, Sustained Release 8-Hour Protein Shake, Milk Chocolate, 73.7 Ounce.

Plus, Pendleton Men's Classic Fit Long Sleeve Board Shirt.

Still more, Carhartt Men's Arctic Quilt Lined Yukon Active Jacket J133.

Here, Meguiar's G55032SP Complete Car Care Kit.

BONUS: Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Hannah Arendt is the Philosopher for Right Now

From Lyndsey Stonebridge, at the New Criterion, "Arendt’s political philosophy, formed under Nazi persecution, is having a resurgence in our troubled age":


When Hannah Arendt was herded into Gurs, a detention camp in south-west France in May 1940, she did one of the most sensible things you can do when you are trapped in a real-life nightmare: she read – Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Clausewitz’s On War and, compulsively, the detective stories of Georges Simenon. Today people are reading Arendt to understand our own grimly bewildering predicament.

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Arendt’s 1951 masterpiece The Origins of Totalitarianism entered the US bestseller lists. Tweet-size nuggets of her warnings about post-truth political life have swirled through social media ever since. Arendt, the one time “illegal emigrant” (her words), historian of totalitarianism, analyst of the banality of administrative evil and advocate for new political beginnings, is currently the go-to political thinker for the second age of fascist brutality.

It is not just the opponents of far-right nationalism who are rediscovering her work. Germany’s far-right Alternative fΓΌr Deutschland (AfD) has attempted to garnish its claims to serious research with a half-quotation from Arendt. The AfD’s intellectual mission, in case you hadn’t guessed, is to create “clarity and transparency” in public discourse. They warn us sagely that power, according to Arendt, “becomes dangerous exactly where the public ends”. Power, Arendt also said, becomes dangerous when the capitalist elite align with the mob, when racism is allowed to take over the institutions of state, and when the aching loneliness of living in a fact-free atomised society sends people running towards whatever tawdry myth will keep them company.

It is true that Arendt loved the public space of politics for the robust clarity it gave to the business of living together. It is also true that she argued for a political republic based on common interest. These are both reasons why we should be reading her today. But her commitment to plurality is not an invitation to nationalism. Arendt wanted politics dragged into the light so that we might see each other for what we are. But that didn’t mean we had to accept what was evidently ruinous to politics itself, merely that we had to acknowledge that what we find most repellent actually exists – and then resist it.

And if there is one thing we have learned over the past two years it is that our political reality is not what we thought it was and still less what we would like it to be. Because the times she lived in were also dark, violent and unpredictable, and because she was smart, diligent and hardworking, Arendt was good at thinking quickly and accurately about the politically and morally unprecedented...
More.


Generation Incel

At the Other McCain, "Generation Incel: 15% of U.S. Males Ages 22-29 Had Zero Sex Partners Last Year":


A rising percentage of young American men report they are unable to find sexual partners, according to data from the General Social Survey (GSS) at the University of Chicago. The percentage of U.S. men 22-29 “reporting no sex in the past year” has increased more than 50% since 2009, from less than 10% to more than 15% of respondents in 2018, according to GSS data compiled by University of Virginia Professor W. Bradford Wilcox. The declining sexual activity of Millennial generation males has reversed normal behavioral patterns. Until 2010, young females in the GSS were more likely than males to report no sexual contact in the past year; now, the “no sex” number is significantly higher for under-30 men than women in the same age cohort...
RTWT.


Emma Roberts

At Drunken Stepfather, "EMMA ROBERTS BRA AND PANTIES OF THE DAY."

BONUS: "TOP 20 HOT NAKED ENOUGH INSTAGRAM MODELS FOR 20% OFF KUSHLY CBD OF THE DAY."

Democrats Crushed as Mueller Report Lands with a Thud

The big, big news yesterday.

I'm visiting my sister's house in Yucca Valley and she had on CNN all afternoon, so I watched for a while. I mean, even leftist Jeffrey Toobin says the report is a big victory for President Trump.

All the latest is a Memeorandum, "AG Barr aims to release Mueller report ‘top-line’ conclusions Saturday night, won't ‘parse words, play games,’ source says."

And at Tucker Carlson's show last night, the analysis from Laura Ingraham:


Parenting and Privilege in College Admissions

At the Los Angeles Times, "A wiretap brings privilege and helicopter parenting to the fore in the college admissions scandal":


Gordon Caplan had a problem. Last year his teenage daughter was slogging her way through a series of practice ACTs. But her scores were unlikely to get her to where he believed she should be: a high school senior with a clutch of acceptance letters.

She needed a higher score.

Caplan, a high-powered lawyer from Greenwich, Conn., and his wife began talking with William “Rick” Singer, the admitted mastermind of the college admissions scandal that continues to dominate a national conversation about privilege and parenting.

According to transcripts of wiretapped conversations that were released by federal prosecutors when charges against 50 people — including Singer and Caplan — were announced, Caplan was concerned that his daughter might find out about the ruse.

“To be honest, I’m not worried about the moral issue here,” Caplan said. He was worried about discovery.

“If she’s caught doing that, you know, she’s finished.”

The Newport Beach admissions consultant told his client that their silence was key to achieving the desired outcome. Authorities say that Caplan, who declined to comment through his attorneys, then signed off on a $75,000 payment, which was masked as a donation to Singer’s foundation.

Wealthy parents have been going to great lengths to help their kids get into elite universities for years. But this well-documented — and viral — moment in the helicopter-parenting era indicates a willingness to go to greater extremes.

In an era of badly behaving bankers, entertainment and sports figures, and government officials who tweet first and think later, the cheating may seem like perversely logical behavior.

But experts in parenting say the win-at-all-costs attitude can have a pernicious effect on a child. When they try to clear the way for their children’s success, parents are essentially saying to their kids that they can’t do it on their own, a stance that may block the path to successful adulthood.

In an effort to ensure that his son was admitted to the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy at USC, Bill McGlashan allegedly paid Singer $250,000 to, among other things, fabricate a football career. Although McGlashan’s son’s high school didn’t have a football team, his son was suddenly a kicker. Authorities say the new addition to his list of achievements partially came thanks to Photoshop.

McGlashan, who founded and was fired last week from the private equity investment firm TPG Growth, had been called “one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent voices for ethical investing.”

According to the transcripts, McGlashan asked Singer, “Is there a way to do it in a way that he doesn’t know that happened?”

Singer told him that his son would know only that Singer was “going to get him some help.”

“That [networking] he would have no issue with,” McGlashan is quoted saying to Singer. “You lobbying for him.”

“No issue.”

But a slew of people who regularly interact with and study the behavior of frantic parents overwhelmingly disagree.

This kind of behavior can breed a helplessness in children who never face adversity or failure. That, in turn, can lead to increased anxiety and depression, said author and teacher Jessica Lahey, who regularly writes about parenting and is the author of a book titled “The Gift of Failure.”

Lahey recounted a recent visit to a college where she met the mother of a 20-year-old with diabetes. The mom still tracks her daughter’s blood sugar via a computer app and says she has no plans to stop. That’s an indication, Lahey said, the mother doesn’t think her daughter is capable of doing this seemingly basic task on her own...
Keep reading.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

'Don't You Want Me'

From yesterday's drive-time, at 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles, the Human League, "Don't You Want Me."



People Are People
Depeche Mode
8:51am

Learn To Fly
Foo Fighters
8:47am

Paranoid
Black Sabbath
8:45am

Paranoid
Black Sabbath
8:45am

Don't You Want Me
Human League
8:41am

Brain Stew
Green Day
8:38am
You Spin Me Round
Dead or Alive
8:34am

The Boys Of Summer
Don Henley
8:22am

Island In The Sun
WEEZER
8:19am


Tuesday, March 19, 2019

'Lose Yourself'

From last Thursday morning's drive-time, at 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles, Eminem's "Lose Yourself."


Rock N Me
Steve Miller Band
6:47am

Lose Yourself
Eminem
6:43am

Rag Doll
Aerosmith
6:39am

Hungry Like The Wolf
Duran Duran
6:35am

The Man Who Sold The World
Nirvana
6:23am

Play That Funky Music
Wild Cherry
6:20am

Paradise City
Guns N' Roses
6:13am

Don't Speak
NO Doubt
6:09am


Losing My Religion
REM
6:05am

Beast Of Burden
Rolling Stones
6:00am


Saturday, March 16, 2019

Chloe Bechini and Friend

At Drunken Stepfather, "Chloe Bechini and Friend Naked for Some Dude of the Day."

Plus, some woman takes of like four layers of clothing before you finally see her honkin breasts, lol.

Jennifer Delacruz's Hot Weekend Forecast

Wow, summer weather is here!

Let's see how long it lasts. It's not like we haven't had enough rain the cold this season, sheesh.



Gavin Newsome Issues Death Penalty Moratorium for California's Death Row

I'm not pleased.

At the Los Angeles Times:




One of Elisabeth Semel’s earliest memories of the death penalty in California was the 1960 execution of Caryl Chessman. She remembers seeing her father upset.

She became a criminal defense lawyer and went on to defend inmates convicted of capital crimes, running a death penalty clinic at UC Berkeley.

Kent Scheidegger, a former commercial lawyer, was inspired to join the fight for the death penalty after voters ousted California Chief Justice Rose Bird and two colleagues in 1986 for overturning death sentences.

He said the courts were thwarting the people’s will and he joined a pro-death penalty group to persuade judges to uphold death sentences.

Advocates and others on both sides went on to endure decades of frustration in California’s wrenching wars over the death penalty.

This week, Gov. Gavin Newsom put his own imprint on the saga, declaring a moratorium on executions while he was in office. But the death penalty remains lawful in California, and neither side is ready yet to lay down arms.

The battle started with a 1972 California Supreme Court decision that declared the state’s death penalty unconstitutional. The decision spared the lives of Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and more than 100 others.

Supporters of the death penalty gradually resurrected the law to pass constitutional muster, and California juries have condemned scores of people to die.

Bird and two other Democratic appointees to the Supreme Court were replaced with conservatives, and the newly formed court routinely upheld death sentences.

The state’s execution logjam broke with the 1992 lethal gassing of Robert Alton Harris, who had killed two teenage boys in San Diego. It was the state’s first execution in 25 years.

Another death row inmate, David Mason, was executed in the gas chamber the following year.

Then a federal court decision in 1996 forced the state to close the gas chamber and execute by lethal injection. Later that year, serial killer William Bonin died by the needle, four years after Harris. Executions continued sporadically.

By the time Republican appointee Ronald M. George was California’s chief justice, there was a massive backlog of death penalty appeals. The cost to the state of trying the cases and handling the appeals was crushing.

George, a former prosecutor who had previously defended California’s death penalty, declared the system “dysfunctional.” An inmate on death row was more likely to die from old age than execution, he said.

In all, 13 inmates have been executed in California since the restoration of the death penalty. More than 100 condemned inmates have died of natural causes or suicide during that time.

A state commission determined that the death penalty would work in California only if the state put in a massive infusion of money.

No one seemed inclined to provide that kind of money, but the death penalty remained on the books and death row began running out of room.

Actor Mike Farrell, a death penalty abolitionist, spent many execution nights outside San Quentin State Prison as peaceful protesters held candles and sang hymns.

He met with two California death row inmates before their executions, including Stanley Tookie Williams in 2005.

Williams, a former Los Angeles gang leader, was convicted of killing four people. In prison he wrote books for young people urging them to eschew gangs.

Farrell also met with then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, another actor, to plead for Williams’ life.

“I just don’t understand the point in killing this man,” Farrell recalled telling Schwarzenegger. “If you commit him to life in prison without parole, he can keep doing the work he is doing with kids.”

Schwarzenegger said Williams had to admit guilt and express remorse, Farrell said. Williams insisted he did not commit the murders and died by lethal injection...

Young Punk Cracks Egg on Head of Australia Senator Fraser Anning

This is all stupid, I'll tell you.

But, the kid deserves a beating. You don't assault someone without expecting to be taken down.

At Chicks on the Right, "VIDEO: Controversial Australian Senator Slaps Teen Across the Face After Stupid Prank Gone Wrong."

Actually, the prank didn't "go wrong." It went exactly as planned, which included the young punk using his smart for to capture the attack on video and perhaps later create a viral video.

Claire Lehman's supposed to some hip conservative intellectual of the dark web, or something. She's a pansy-assed bleeding heart, if her tweets over this incident are any clue.



Friday, March 15, 2019

Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies

Well, certainly a badly needed message.

From Arthur C. Brooks, at Amazon, Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt.



New Zealand Christchurch Mosque Massacre (VIDEO)

I'm numb to this stuff by now.

This massacre of course is the perfect example of our polarized times, and especially so since the perp is a white nationalist. (And it must be said, but there'd be no focus on exterminationist ideologies had this been another mass jihad terrorist attack; see Robert Spencer's entry this morning, for example.)

In any case, I fully endorse the condemnations and sympathy that have been flooding out following the massacre. I'm especially heartened by the genuine good will shown by conservatives, especially since it's gonna be people on the American right who'll be demonized as fundamentally guilty for the acts of this lone extremist.

More on this throughout the day, but see the New Zealand Herald, "Christchurch mosque massacre: 49 confirmed dead in shootings; four arrested - three men, one woman."

And at Memeorandum, via Bellingcat, "Shitposting, Inspirational Terrorism, and the Christchurch Mosque Massacre."

Here's the obligatory leftist take blaming the alleged "right-wing media" for enabling "right-wing terrorism," which is somehow the world's "number one terrorist threat" (not). At Sydney Morning Herald, "Broken white men and the racist media that fuels their terrorism."

And at CNN:



Tuesday, March 12, 2019

The Axis of Anti-Semitism

This is the most amazing essay, seriously.

I've never read a more concise analysis of the global jihad threat, and not just to the Jews, but to Western civilization.

From Benjamin Kerstein, at Algemeiner, "Ilhan Omar and the Axis of Antisemitism":

American Jews are facing a perfect storm of antisemitism. On the one side are the antisemites of the right: the hate that coalesced in the “Jews will not replace us” conspiracy chant at Charlottesville and then the horrific massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue. From the left comes the pathological intersectional hatred of Israel that extends into the hatred of the 90 percent or more of world Jewry that embraces Zionism and ultimately to the Jews themselves as a people. And finally the vulgar, debased antisemitism of much of the Muslim world, part religious and part nationalist, that may well be the most violent and threatening of the three.

What we are seeing is, in other words, the emergence of an axis of antisemitism; one that threatens not only the Jews, but American democracy itself.

It is the latter two forms of antisemitism that have resulted in the recent scandals involving Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and the wretched failure of the Democratic leadership in Congress to appropriately condemn her by name and antisemitism as a specific phenomenon, preferring instead to defer to their far-left and pass a pathetically watered-down resolution that elides the issue by dilution, effectively handing antisemitism its first ever legislative victory in the United States. In other words, this antisemitism, intersectional in nature, brutal in rhetoric, violent in discourse, now wields not inconsiderable political power.

The most violent faction of this axis of antisemitism is, one regrets to say, born of Islam. This religion, a descendant of Judaism itself, has always contained elements of antisemitism. Muhammad himself massacred the Jews of the Hijaz. The history of Jews in Muslim lands had its golden ages, but it also had a multitude of expulsions, forced conversions, and massacres. And it ended, we should not forget, in the expulsion of a million Jews who found refuge in the new Jewish state...
RTWT.

Monday, March 11, 2019

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.



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.


We Can't Have Hot Bikini Baristas

Bummer:


Workers Suddenly Have More Power

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



Seen on Facebook

Here:



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.

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."


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.

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


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.



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:


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...

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.


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:



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.


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."


Cardi B on a Yacht

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

She's crazy hot lol.


Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

*BUMPED.*

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



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.



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 RΓΆhrl, 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.

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:


Adam Makos, Spearhead

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



Hailey Clauson Brings the Heat (VIDEO)

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

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:



David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

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



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.



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:



Monday, March 4, 2019

Don Winslow, The Border

*BUMPED.*

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