Kendall Jenner See-Through

I haven't posted Ms. Kendall lately.

At Taxi Driver:

Kendall Jenner Braless in See-Through White T-Shirt - https://t.co/gkURcgyLPM - pic.twitter.com/txdUJbl1BC

— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) April 1, 2019

Alexis Ren Erotica

At Drunken Stepfather, "ALEXIS REN EROTICA OF THE DAY."

And on Twitter:

Sometimes I think I crave cities the way I crave the ocean and mountains. Each one has a different vibration, beating to its own drum. pic.twitter.com/uCdNvZBvvn

— Alexis Ren (@AlexisRenG) April 1, 2019

Battle Looms Over Gray Wolf Protection

This is interesting.

I don't support hunting wildlife simply for bragging rights and Instagram/ Twitter selfies. At one point there were millions of gray wolves covering every corner of the United States. Now, there's about 6,000. They're on the federal Endangered Species List. I don't have an opinion on whether federal protection is better or not, but it's worth considering. Conservatism is about conservation, and smart use of our natural resources is conservative.

In any case, at the Los Angles Times, "Plan to remove gray wolves from Endangered Species Act sparks battle":

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and environmentalists are at war over the agency’s latest plan to strip gray wolves of their federal protections and turn management of the often-reviled predators over to states and tribes. https://t.co/xgg8fQastb

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 28, 2019

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and environmentalists are at war over the agency’s latest plan to strip gray wolves of their federal protections and turn management of the often-reviled predators over to states and tribes.

“If the agency’s proposal gets finalized, we will see them in court,” Michael Robinson, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity said on Wednesday. “Delisting is simply out of the question.”

Surprisingly, however, in the latest chapter of a long-running battle to keep an estimated 6,000 gray wolves safe from trophy hunters and trappers, the center and the Humane Society of the United States are suggesting a compromise.

“We are proposing an alternate path forward — downlisting the gray wolf from federally endangered to threatened status,” said Brett Hartl, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. That action, he said, “would maintain federal protections the animal needs to survive in certain areas, while allowing states to share management oversight.”

His organization doesn’t oppose state management of wolves, but it does oppose hunting wolves for sport, he said. “Free-for-all hunting of wolves is not management, it’s slaughter.”

Similarly, Nick Arrivo, an attorney with the Humane Society of the United States, said, “We don’t oppose the idea of state management. The problem is that certain states like Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan have shown that they are not inclined to maintain healthy populations of gray wolves.”

Federal wildlife authorities removed protections from gray wolves in the Great Lakes region in 2011, allowing thousands of gray wolves in those three states to be hunted or trapped. The protections were restored by federal court decisions in 2014.

The prospect of removing wolf protections aroused rage yet again earlier this month when the Fish and Wildlife Service touted the species' recovery as "one of the greatest comebacks for an animal in U.S. conservation history,” a characterization that some conservation groups called misguided and premature.

David Bernhardt, acting secretary of the Department of Interior, said the plan to delist the species “puts us one step closer to transitioning the extraordinary effort that we have invested in gray wolf recovery to other species who actually need the protections of the Endangered Species Act, leaving the states to carry on the legacy of wolf conservation.”

However, the Humane Society, in a statement, warned that the plan catered “to a narrow group of special interests: the trophy hunters and trappers who want to kill wolves for bragging rights, social media opportunities and to increase deer and elk populations.”

It pointed out, for instance, that in November, “Americans were heartbroken” by the killing of the famous Yellowstone black wolf, Spitfire, by a trophy hunter in Montana.

It also argued that gray wolves are worth millions of dollars to the economies of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, studies show, because of the visitors they attract to national parks in the northern Rocky Mountains...

Keep reading.

Ben Shapiro, The Right Side of History

At Amazon, Ben Shapiro, The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great.

Ann Coulter, Godless

At Amazon, Ann Coulter, Godless: The Church of Liberalism.

DC McAllister Fired

From the Federalist, a website I rarely, if ever, read.

She was a little too unflitered, it turns out, especially when going after Meghan McCain, whose husband, Ben Domenech, a known plagiarist, is a co-founder.

At the Washington Examiner:

The Federalist has parted ways with conservative writer @McAllisterDen after a bevy of complaints surrounding her attacks on Twitter of @yashar over his sexuality.https://t.co/Ni1hB0H2Kw

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) March 31, 2019

Just followed @McAllisterDen because anybody denounced as a "hater" by Meghan McCain must be good people.

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) March 31, 2019

What the Hell Happened to Rachel Maddow?

She was hardest hit by Trump's exoneration.

At Slate:

Rachel Maddow’s show this week has been a reminder that partisan paranoia has bipartisan appeal. https://t.co/Rmtuvyq53s via @slate

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) March 30, 2019

Sophie Mudd Red Bikini

At Drunken Stepfather, "SOPHIE MUDD BIG TITS OF THE DAY."

Previous Sophie Mudd blogging here.

No Dead Horses at Santa Anita on First Day Track Reopens (VIDEO)

Horses have been getting hurt and getting put down at Santa Anita. A lot of horses. It's become an animal rights issue.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Santa Anita breathes a sigh of relief after no horses die on first day back":

Seven horses draped in brightly colored silks thunder across the shadow of the splendid San Gabriel Mountains in a breathtaking combination of beauty and speed.

The small crowd is silent.

“I’m holding my breath,’’ says race-goer B.J. Ravitz.

It’s the first race at Santa Anita Park in nearly a month, a close contest, powerful animals dueling down the stretch, dirt flying, jockeys bobbing, high drama.

There are few cheers in a sea of stares.

“Everyone is worried about the horses,’’ said Abe Ravitz, the husband of B.J. “All I’m thinking is, if anything untoward happens today …”

The race ends clean, all seven horses crossing the finish line, and only then is there audible applause from the crowd, a reaction seemingly generated by the one outcome that everyone here is betting on.

No horse died.

“OK,” said racegoer Frank Reynoso, taking a deep breath. “That’s one.’’

It was that kind of a tightrope afternoon Friday as Santa Anita opened its doors for the first time since March 5, after 22 horses died in a little more than two months of its winter/spring meet, a 214% increase from the same span the year before.

The Stronach Group, owners of the track, has since made minor modifications to a track that was badly compromised with the unseasonably rainy winter weather. They also have revised medication policies and proposed prohibiting jockeys from using the whip unless for safety reasons.

But because there was no clear reason for the deaths, there could be no clear answers. That’s why so many people showed up at the track Friday with nerves jangling and fingers crossed.

For now, there is relief. In eight races, there were no fatalities, which brought a giant collective sigh. But everyone agrees that the healing of what’s arguably Southern California’s most picturesque sporting venue is just beginning.

“This is going to take a while,’’ said horse owner Samantha Siegel, sitting in a near-empty terrace section. “The public is probably a little shell-shocked at what’s going on. We’ve gotten a lot of bad exposure from everywhere. We’re going to need to go a long time without having something horrible happen.’’

The crowd was reminded of the trouble before even entering the track, as several dozen protesters stood on a grassy area outside the front gate waving signs and chanting.

“You say the track was safe to use but nothing’s changed, you bet, they lose,’’ they sang.

One of the signs read, “Stop Killing Horses.’’ One of the protesters was dressed in a horse’s head, and the message was clear.

“Horse racing needs to be abolished’’ said Heather Hamza, leading what she called a group of concerned citizens backed by the group known as Horseracing Wrongs. ‘’The world is watching this track. Every horse that is killed here will make big headlines. We need to be part of those headlines because we’re telling them to stop it.”

Hamza and her group urged the race-goers to look beyond the beauty of the sport.

‘’When you’re watching a horse race, it’s magnificent, it’s beautiful, it’s breathtaking,’’ she said. “But that doesn’t mean there’s not a dark, dirty, gritty underbelly behind it.’’

Once inside, fans were met with the usual promising announcements — “Welcome to Santa Anita Park! The track is fast and the turf course is firm!” — and folks cheered the return of ailing trumpeter Jay Cohen. But it wasn’t the same.

While the typically loud racetrack cheering returned in later races, there was a pall over the place as everyone tried to adjust...

Mackenzie Maynard's Sunday Forecast

At ABC News 10 San Diego:

Candice Swanepoel on Vacation in Tulum

At Drunken Stepfather, "CANDICE SWANEPOEL FLASH OF THE DAY."

Added: At Taxi Driver, "Candice Swanepoel Caught Topless on a Photo Shoot."

Rolling Stones Concert Tour Canceled on Doctor's Orders

Mick Jagger is suffering from an unspecified illness, and the band expect to return to touring upon his recovery.

At TMZ (via Terri Peters):

Rolling Stones Concert Tour Canceled Because of Mick Jagger's Illness https://t.co/G83XPDVSbo

— TMZ (@TMZ) March 30, 2019

Albert Camus, The Rebel

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt.

And the old paperback Vintage copy is available here.

A Long, Strange Trip for the Volkswagen Bus

I had a V.W. bug in high school, and one of my best buddies had a bus.

It was just the culture back then, and we didn't think that much more of it besides being in the moment and being cool.

At the Los Angeles Times, "The Volkswagen Bus’ long, strange trip from hippie van to hot collectible":

Vintage Volkswagen Buses have become hot collectors' items, fetching record prices. But some California fans fear the cars may lose their free-spirit mystique, writes @gustavoarellano. https://t.co/AKRaQKSb6Y

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 28, 2019

“You see? You see? You see?” Enrique Aragon shouts over the loud purr of his 1966 Volkswagen 21-Window Deluxe Bus as he gestures toward gawkers yet again.

For the last hour, the 42-year-old electrician and member of the Boyle Heights-based Volksstyle Car Club has cruised Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena in his dominguero. And all along the ride, people won’t let him be.

AAA tow-truck drivers pull up and mouth, “Beautiful car!” Middle-aged couples in Ohio State sweatshirts wave from a bar. Bearded hipsters offer the thumbs-up. Children flash a peace sign.

Nearly everyone else just stares.

Aragon is used to it. His ’66 is a glimmering shrine to Southern California car culture. He spent three years and $45,000 to restore it from a shell with no wheels or seats to its current, showroom-ready state. It has a two-tone brown paint job that tapers into a V in the vehicle’s flat front. A ragtop that rolls up like a carpet to reveal a sunroof. A windshield that pops open into two sides. Porsche hubcaps. Pleather interior. Chrome all around.

And the Bus’ namesake piece de resistance: 21 windows that wrap around the sides, the roof and the back so that a ride inside feels like putting wheels on the Crystal Cathedral.

“People point all the time,” he says. “Everyone trips out because they don’t know they’re still around.”

In fact, the Volkswagen Bus never went away, although at times it has fallen sharply out of fashion. And it’s back like never before.

From 1950 to 1979, the German automaker churned out over 4.7 million of them under different names and models —Westfalia, Samba, Kombi, Transporter — to create one of the most beloved lines of cars worldwide. Its basic frame — a raised, boxy body, a weak engine in the back, bench seats on the inside, a plethora of windows — attracted a devoted worldwide following. Aficionados turned them into everything from surf wagons and homes to taxis and work trucks. Even movable beer gardens.

“It’s the most easily recognized van or commercial vehicle on the planet,” says Brian Moody, executive editor for Autotrader.com. “Low operating cost, low purchase cost when Volkswagen made them. Globally, you can talk to a Brazilian who has great VW Bus memories. A Mexican. A European. An Indian. Not everyone had a Mustang convertible.”

But over the last decade, this once-humble workhorse has become something it’s never been: one of the hottest gets in the vintage auto world.

The Instagram generation has popularized them through the hashtag #vanlife, in which you can scroll through over 4 million photos of people posing in gorgeous locations with immaculately staged Buses. Meanwhile, baby boomers with nostalgia in their hearts and retirement savings in their pockets have pushed prices to record-breaking levels — the current record holder is a ’65 auctioned off in 2017 for $302,500 — with no cooling in sight, leaving longtime fans like Aragon both amazed and upset.

“All these high prices happened because of the internet,” he says. “It killed it. People used to have to work for Buses. You had to go out and look. You had to wait. Now, people just throw money.”

Nowhere is the current Bus-collecting frenzy more pronounced than in Southern California — Orange County in particular — where an alternative Bus universe first blossomed in the 1960s. There, the vehicle became a part of the social fabric, thanks to the region’s surfer and Kustom Kulture scenes. The area’s temperate weather ensured that the Bus, which has a tendency to rust quickly, had a far longer life than in the Snow Belt...

Devin Brugman Morning

On Twitter:

Aloha 🐆🐆🐆 @MONDAYSWIMWEAR pic.twitter.com/valiPSZdf9

— Devin Brugman (@devinbrugman) February 27, 2019

Morning ✨ pic.twitter.com/fPbUNE5w2K

— Devin Brugman (@devinbrugman) March 12, 2019

The magic hour ✨ New @MONDAYSWIMWEAR coming soon pic.twitter.com/DKFKjv5Pwv

— Devin Brugman (@devinbrugman) March 14, 2019

Jennifer Delacruz's Weekend Forecast

Calm, cool weather, which I love.

Here's the fabulous Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

'Gropin' Joe' Biden Gets Dragged for His Decades of Perverted Sexual Harassment

From the lead at Memeorandum yesterday, "An Awkward Kiss Changed How I Saw Joe Biden."

Added: At the Other McCain, "‘Creepy Uncle Joe’ Gets Busted by #MeToo (Hint: She’s a Bernie Supporter)."

And from perhaps the best feminist writer working today, Rebecca Traister, "Joe Biden Isn’t the Answer":

I decided to take a break from writing "Newman!" jokes on Twitter & instead write a real piece about Biden, & how he embodies so many of the wrong choices made by a Democratic party in retreat for the past 50 years. "Newman!" jokes will recommence shortly: https://t.co/SD8cURvDL0

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) March 29, 2019

It’s still three months before the first Democratic debate, nearly a year before Super Tuesday, and he hasn’t even declared yet, but poll after presidential poll continues to show 76-year-old former vice-president Joe Biden leading an enormous, diverse, and talented Democratic field.

It’s almost poetically appropriate. Biden carries himself with the confidence of a winner, despite not having won, or even come close to winning, either of the previous presidential primaries he’s entered. He is the guy whose self-assured conviction that his authority will protect him from rebuke has always preceded him into any room, whose confident sense of his own entitlement repels potential objection like Gore-Tex repels rain. He is the gaffe-master, the affable fuck-up, and also, oddly, the politician who’s supposed to make us feel safe. He is the amiable, easygoing, handsy-but-harmless guy who’s never going to give you a hard time about your own handsiness or prejudice, who’s gonna make a folksy argument about enacting fundamentally restrictive policies.

For his whole career, Biden’s role has been to comfort the lost, prized, and most fondly imagined Democratic voter, the one who’s like him: that guy in the diner, that guy in Ohio, that guy who’s white and so put off by the changed terms of gendered and racial power in this country that decades ago he fled for the party that was working to roll back the social advancements that had robbed him of his easy hold on power. That guy who believed that the system worked best when it worked for him.

Biden is the Democrats’ answer to the hunger to “make America great again,” dressed up in liberal clothes. The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie has in fact argued that Biden’s racial politics have offered a form of Trumpism on the left, a “liberal cover to white backlash.” To that I would add, he has provided liberal cover to anti-feminist backlash, the kind of old-fashioned paternalism of powerful men who don’t take women’s claims to their reproductive, professional, or political autonomy particularly seriously, who walk through the world with a casual assurance that men’s access to and authority over women’s bodies is natural. In an attempt to win back That Guy, Joe Biden has himself, so very often, been That Guy.

Now it seems, That Guy is widely viewed as the best and safest candidate to get us out of this perilous and scary political period. But the irony is that so much of what is terrifying and dangerous about this time — the Trump administration, the ever more aggressive erosion of voting and reproductive rights, the crisis in criminal justice and yawning economic chasm between the rich and everyone else — are in fact problems that can in part be laid at the feet of Joe Biden himself, and the guys we’ve regularly been assured are Democrats’ only answer.

Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972, 18 years after Brown v. Board of Education, less than a decade after the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, and just three years after the Supreme Court case Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education would actually force many schools to fulfill the promise of integration put forth by Brown. Biden took office less than three weeks before Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court and a couple of years before the term “sexual harassment” would be coined by Lin Farley.

It was a period of intense partisan realignment, in response to the upheavals of the 1960s and early ’70s, in which the American left was nervously coalescing around the interests and increased liberties of racial minorities and women, the populations who were forming what would be the most reliable part of its base.

The right, meanwhile, was sucking strength from a backlash against disruptive social movements, growing fat and drunk on the language of piety and family values that would undergird its ultraconservative defense of the old power structures, self-righteously fueling up for the Reagan era. Republicans had, for the foreseeable future, won white men — America’s original citizens, the ones around whom our narratives and priorities are calibrated.

Rather than lean into an energetic defense of the values of liberty, equality, and inclusion that might define their role against the racist and anti-feminist backlash of the era, the Democratic Party appeared anxious to distance itself from being the feminized “mommy party,” and shunt to the side — rather than vigorously advocate for — the priorities of women, especially poor women, and people of color.

The party continued to be represented and led by mostly white men. And while officially Democrats remained on the progressive side, supporting reproductive rights, civil rights, and affirmative action, a contingent of Those Guys, Joe Biden notable among them, made folksy rationalizations for abrogating, rather than expanding and more fiercely protecting, new rights and protections. Those Guys soothed; Those Guys were familiar; Those Guys enjoyed their own power and wanted to reassure everyone that it wasn’t really going to be so dramatically reapportioned.

A young Joe Biden was reliably anti-abortion, claiming that Roe v. Wade “went too far” and that he did not believe that “a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.” He voted consistently for the Hyde Amendment, the 1976 legislative rider which forbid government-funded insurance programs from paying for abortion, making abortion all but inaccessible to poor people. In 1981, he proposed the “Biden Amendment,” prohibiting foreign aid to be used in any biomedical research related to abortion. The next year, he supported Jesse Helms’s amendment barring foreign NGOs receiving United States aid from using that aid to perform abortion. Biden was one of two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary to vote for the 1982 Hatch Amendment, which would have effectively nullified Roe by turning abortion rights back to federal and state legislatures. At the time, he expressed concern about whether he had “a right to impose” his anti-abortion views on the nation. Then he went ahead and imposed those views anyway.

Over the decades, Biden has evolved on the issue, yet into the 1990s and 2000s, he voted for the so-called “Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.” And he regularly declined to fully support the Freedom of Choice Act, which would have banned the wide variety of oppressive state restrictions on abortion.

Biden’s stances against women’s full reproductive freedom have been key to how he has proudly presented himself to the public. Even in the years since he has officially become pro-choice, he’s retained the sensibility first reflected in his comments about how women shouldn’t be wholly in charge of their own decisions, writing in his 2007 memoir that even though he’d vote against a constitutional amendment barring abortion, “I still vote against partial birth abortion and federal funding, and I’d like to make it easier for scared young mothers to choose not to have an abortion.” His is the language of restrictive authority dressed up as avuncular protectionism.

Biden wasn’t simply a comforter of patriarchal impulses toward controlling women’s bodies. Though he campaigned in 1972 as a strong supporter of civil rights, and initially voted in favor of school busing legislation intended to integrate schools in both the North and South, Biden changed his tune a couple of years into his Senate tenure. Faced with angry pressure from white constituents rearing back from integration measures that would mean busing white children into black neighborhoods, Biden previewed his anti-abortion agreement with Republican Jesse Helms by siding with him on anti-busing measures, calling the approach to school integration “a bankrupt concept” and “asinine policy.” Biden’s anti-busing stance offered an out for his Democratic colleagues, several of whom also turned on busing, helping to defeat the legislation.

In later decades, Biden’s legislative efforts reinforced other kinds of racial disparities...

Keep reading.

Hailey Clauson Stops Traffic (VIDEO)

Sports Illustrated pushed back the date of its swimsuit edition until May, supposed timed for the warmer summer season. So, still a couple of months away.

Meanwhile, here's the lovely Ms. Hailey:

Woman in Nike T-Shirt Takes it Off

Nice honkers.

Too big? #boobs #tits @ChetsAnAsshole pic.twitter.com/q8e1GPxnuL

— Big Breast Pics (@BigBreastPics) March 29, 2019

Go-Go's Guitarist Jane Wiedlin in her Birthday Suit

At Taxi Driver, "Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Go's in her Birthday Suit."

Albert Camus: Unfashionable Anti-Totalitarian

A great piece, at Quillette:

“Camus’s rejection of Marxism, and his doubts about the likely outcome of post-colonial revolutionary movements, were unpopular, principled, and lonely positions.” https://t.co/SKo3RWEecv

— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) March 27, 2019

Today, it is not unusual to see Albert Camus celebrated as the debonair existentialist — the handsome hero of the French Resistance, a great novelist, and a fine philosopher. But this reputation was only recently acquired. For much of his life, and in the years since his untimely death in 1960 aged just 46, Camus was deeply unfashionable among France’s leading intellectuals. In many quarters, he remains so.

Camus came to widespread attention in 1942 with his publication of his novella The Stranger and a philosophical essay entitled “The Myth of Sisyphus.” The Stranger portrays a solitary passionless man wandering through a world without pattern or purpose. “The Myth of Sisyphus” grapples with the question, “Why not commit suicide?” Camus argued that we should not, but he finds little evidence of a justified purpose for human beings. If we cannot prove that some choices are better than others, he concludes, we can at least dedicate ourselves to the pursuit of experience. The austerity and boldness of these two works struck Camus’s contemporaries as remarkable and, within a short time, he became known as “the philosopher of the absurd,” and befriended France’s leading intellectual, Jean-Paul Sartre.

Camus did not take up arms in the struggle against the Nazi occupation, but during the war he was the editor of the underground newspaper of the Resistance, Combat. This job involved great personal risk and he would almost certainly have been imprisoned and shot, either by the Nazis or their French collaborators, had his role been uncovered. When the war ended, Camus gazed at the devastation of Europe and reflected. Over the subsequent years, his writing would change significantly as humanism and anti-totalitarianism became increasingly central to his thinking. His 1947 allegorical novel The Plague depicts not a solitary, alienated man, but a group of people struggling together against a plague in a small Algerian city. Here, human beings are willing to confront the absurdity of the universe, but they remain compassionate nonetheless, and strive to be kind and to care for each other. Then, in 1951, Camus published The Man in Revolt (later published in translation as The Rebel). Horrified by the crimes of Stalin and by the apologetics for his regime published by some of the Western Left’s most influential intellectuals, Camus sought to understand the justification of mass murder. It is a rich book, and not easily summarized, but two of Camus’s arguments proved particularly antagonizing to his peers.

First, Camus argued that commitment to a single, distant purpose endangers us all. The struggle for a perfect society in the future leads to as ruthless consequentialism that allows us to sacrifice countless people in the present. This fear is what led him to describe Marx as “the prophet of justice without mercy who lies, by mistake, in the unbeliever’s plot at Highgate Cemetery.” The faith of the Marxist in the promise of utopia, he observed, is every bit as powerful and irrational as that of the religious fanatic.

Second, Camus defended the proposition, explicitly denied by Marxists and Existentialists, that there exists a universal “human nature”—traits shared by all people, from which we can infer what is better or worse for all people and common ground upon which to form social bonds. Sartre, on the other hand, argued that we are the product of our choices and nothing more. Simone de Beauvoir summarized the Marxist view as her peers understood it: “There is no authentic human essence to be realized, no harmonious unity to be returned to, no unalienated humanity obscured by false mediations, no organized wholeness to be achieved. What we are and what we can become are open-ended projects to be constructed in the course of time.”

From his universalist humanism and skepticism about utopian ideologies, Camus developed an ethics in Man in Revolt that rejected revolution. Instead, Camus argued that moral progress arises from a rejection of injustice by people united in their recognition of that injustice. This kind of “revolt” is more restrained than the revolutionary impulse and shows mesure—it recognizes and respects human nature, attempts to improve things now, and accepts no limits on free speech and expression. When revolt is combined with the misguided belief that history has some unifying purpose and that human beings can be reshaped in the manner of wet clay, it declines into revolution. Revolution is unrestrained, it is démesure, and it leads inevitably to violence and cruelty.

Sartre and Beauvoir edited the leading French intellectual journal of their day, Les Temps Moderne, and they invited the activist and philosopher Francis Jeanson to review The Man in Revolt. The result was scathing. Jeanson’s article was mostly a series of ad hominem attacks which made no attempt to interpret Camus’s text charitably. Camus’s sins were clear: he had attacked Marxism, he had attacked revolution, and he had attacked the idea that human beings were infinitely malleable. For this, he was denounced as a counter-revolutionary.

Sartre then published an open letter addressed to Camus, that began, “Our friendship was not easy, but I will miss it.” Most of Sartre’s letter ignores the arguments in The Man in Revolt, and concentrates instead on itemizing Camus’s alleged personal failings, including the accusation that he was bourgeois. Camus did not respond to this criticism, because he did not see it as important. After all, it was the Marxists, not him, who believed that class determines what one may say. But it was a petty and laughable accusation even so: Sartre grew up in privilege, and he let other people manage his domestic matters all his life. Camus grew up in Algeria in poverty, where as a child he lived in a two-room apartment with his brother, uncle, grandmother, and deaf widowed mother who worked as a cleaning woman to support all of them.

Beauvoir’s attack on Camus was perhaps the most vicious of all...

Still more.

David Horowitz, Dark Agenda

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, David Horowitz, Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

Åsne Seierstad, Two Sisters

Available April 3rd, at Amazon, Åsne Seierstad, Two Sisters: A Father, His Daughters, and Their Journey into the Syrian Jihad.

Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts, Network Propaganda

At Amazon, Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts, Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics.

Leftists Destroy Everything (VIDEO)

Fantastic video!

Dennis Prager is a national treasure.

Watch:

'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.

'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:

Why Doesn't AOC Want to Vote on the Green New Deal?https://t.co/vlrYjH3ewN

— PJ Media (@PJMedia_com) March 25, 2019

The GOP’s whole game of wasting votes in Congress to target others “on the record”, for leg they have no intent to pass, is a disgrace.

Stop wasting the American peoples’ time + learn to govern. Our jobs aren’t for campaigning, & that’s exactly what these bluff-votes are for. https://t.co/ELzpQhlezo

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 23, 2019

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":

This is the @townhallcom column that I've waited two years to write ...💥🇺🇸

And that you waited two years to read !💥

Trump Russia Collusion Treason Was All Just Another Elite Lie 🐿🐀🌽🍆😂https://t.co/ZzevNhVtl9 pic.twitter.com/ySO59eWWB6

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) March 25, 2019

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:

Joy Corrigan Big Cleavage and Nipple Pokies - https://t.co/WwHxPOjixS - pic.twitter.com/uQgwr7C8b7

— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) March 25, 2019

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:

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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":

"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." https://t.co/S2jJqHWJxP

— Rhys Tranter (@RhysTranter) March 22, 2019

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 für 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":

"Since 2009, the percentage of U.S. males 20-29 'reporting no sex in the past year' has increased more than 50%." https://t.co/zfniJDtfeM

h/t @jackmurphylive @WilcoxNMP
cc @EdDriscoll @RationalMale @MsEBL pic.twitter.com/dzkML7d9yP

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) March 22, 2019

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":

A wiretap brings privilege and helicopter parenting to the fore in the college admissions scandal https://t.co/Xmitac00jq

— Benjamin Oreskes🦅 (@boreskes) March 21, 2019

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.

'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

'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

Francis Fukuyama, Identity

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Francis Fukuyama, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment.

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BONUS: Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.

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:

Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign an executive order to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in California, vowing that no prisoner in the state will be executed while he is in office. https://t.co/VfpVjGmv5I

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 13, 2019

Charles Manson, Rose Bird, Caryl Chessman and California’s wrenching death penalty debate https://t.co/3bNgt6s4j2

— maura dolan (@mauradolan) March 16, 2019

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.

Apparently this boy seen here being punched in the face by a sitting member of Parliament was then wrestled to the ground by Anning's thugs & lost consciousness. I have never felt more ashamed of being Australian. https://t.co/ZDo8mOmdgv

— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) March 16, 2019

I don't care if the kid egged him on the back of the head. He's a KID. It's an EGG.

FFS.

— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) March 16, 2019

Anyway defending Anning's response can fuck right off.

This is what they did to a CHILD.https://t.co/X9ky9YdvAH

— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) March 16, 2019

He shouldn’t assault other humans, regardless of political differences. They’ll hit you back. And he was looking for a Facebook post, the way he was recording it with his phone. So I’ve fucked myself right off apparently, sorry! You’d file charges for assault, be honest. Come on.

— AMERICAN POWER!! (@_Pax_Americana_) March 16, 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:

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads.

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":

Read @benj_kerstein on the axis of anti-Semitism now gathering against diaspora Jews. From the right, the left and Islam. Important piece. https://t.co/VMaKZrL0EQ

— Eli Lake (@EliLake) March 11, 2019

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.