The Cable-Social Media Feedback Loop

Jonathan Martin is on to something I think, but few reporters outline current politics as such: the powerful role activist media plays in current partisan campaign mobilization.

Check this tweetstorm for the NYT piece, via Memeorandum, "You Don't Have to Be in Des Moines.' Democrats Expand Primary Map, Spurred by Social Media."

NEW: Morning from San Fran, where 14 (!) Dem candidates have gathered for the Calif Dem convention

At the same time, Biden is in...Ohio tonight.

How and why the 2020 race went national - and IA & NH have lost their stranglehold >>https://t.co/Sp2Azp600m pic.twitter.com/YLhPIgFXIe

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

Hope you’ll read the story, but this map from @jsonkao really paints the picture:

the Dem candidates have already visited over 30 states + territories for non-fundraising events.

And the year isn’t halfway done https://t.co/Sp2Azp600m pic.twitter.com/8qNLXPqzee

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

It’s not *just* Super Tuesday.

The nature of Dem coalition & Trump has made ‘20 the mirror of ‘08:

Obama spent 89 days in Iowa and won the nom in part bc he showed there he could win rural whites. Now the candidates must prove they have a message for, and can win, non-whites.

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

It’s hard to overstate how central the cable-social media feedback loop has become to this primary. Staff judge events in part on if cables went live from venue. And they’re fixated on creating settings& moments that can go viral.

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

Warren has won plaudits for her meaty policy proposals, but no candidate besides Biden has benefited as much from Trump. Why?

Because cable TV drives polling and cable is fixated on Mueller

After Warren called for impeachment her cable mentions soared and polling followed...

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

...and then Warren helped herself w a good turn at, wait for it, a *cable* town hall just 3 days after calling for impeachment post-Mueller report

It’s no accident polls show she’s doing best of any non-Biden candidate among the most engaged Dems: they’re glued to cable/social

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

BUT: The early states still thin the field@davidplouffe warns that campaigns are making a mistake if IA and NH aren’t their “the north star”

“If you need to come in third but you came in fifth you’ll say, ‘Shit, if only I had spent three or four more days in Iowa.’”

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 1, 2019

AND:

the new rules from the DNC on debate access will only incentivize candidates to focus more on breaking thru on TV and spending more on social/TV https://t.co/Sp2Azp600m

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) June 2, 2019

Mindy Robinson Patriotic

On Twitter:

#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/iFMcBZnWEi

— Mindy Robinson 🇺🇸 (@iheartmindy) May 31, 2019

Stacy Poole

On Twitter:

pic.twitter.com/cH7Q2RPZqp

— 🍀GODDESS (@duljc) June 1, 2019

And skim the topless fan page.

Bree Daniels on the Balcony

Check the photos.

And on Twitter.

Woman Changing

Amazing.

See, "Changing Clothes."

'Stray Cat Strut'

I haven't posted the Stray Cats for six years. See, "'Storm the Embassy'."

And I was just thinking about it after hearing "Stray Cat Strut" at 93.1 Jack FM while out to the bank.

Rocket Man
Elton John
2:04pm

Seven Nation Army
The White Stripes
1:54pm

You Shook Me All Night Long
AC/DC
1:50pm

Words
Missing Persons
1:46pm

November Rain
Guns N' Roses
1:40pm

Sweet Dreams
EURYTHMICS
1:37pm

Fat Bottomed Girls
Queen
1:32pm

Something Just Like This
Coldplay / The Chainsmokers
1:22pm

Tom Sawyer
Rush
1:17pm

I Will Die 4 U / Baby You're A Star
Prince
1:11pm

Comedown
Bush
1:06pm

If You Leave
O M D
1:01pm

Iron Man
Black Sabbath
12:51pm

Stressed Out
Twenty One Pilots
12:48pm

The Waiting
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
12:44pm.

"Stray Cat Strut" came on just before Tom Petty, but I'm just now checking the website and the playlist.

I saw the band twice at the Roxy in Hollywood back in the day.

The Stray Cats are the only band I can ever remember that botched a song on stage and had to start over. Brian Setzer forgot the lyrics --- it was probably "Rock This Town," now that I think about it --- and drummer Slim Jim Phantom banged his snare drum --- twap, twap!! --- stopped and looked over at Setzer with a look saying, "WTF man" (plus an eye-roll lol).

Bernard DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri

At Amazon, Bernard DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri.

Woke Los Angeles is the New Typhus Hotbed: Homeless Catastrophe Makes City of Angels Unlivable (VIDEO)

Why are Democrat-run cities such hellholes of infectious disease and humanitarian catastrophe?!!

And don't even get me going about San Francisco, where the current California Governor Gavin Newsome left behind a legacy of human feces, heroin junkies shooting up on the sidewalks, and progressive NIMBY losers turning away with indifference.

California really is a lost cause.

At the New American, "“Sky High” Piles of Trash Making Downtown Los Angeles Unlivable."

And the Los Angeles Times, "Rats and other vermin infest LAPD downtown station, sparking anger among officers."

LAPD Officers Diagnosed With Suspected Case of Typhus, Salmonella Typhi: Los Angeles has no formal rat abatement program. But, yay, we have the Olympics. https://t.co/pDVY4eJVtw via @nbcla

— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) June 1, 2019

When state officials inspected the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Division station last November, they uncovered rodent infestations and other unsanitary conditions at the facilities responsible for protecting skid row and other parts of downtown.

The conditions have now become the source of growing anger inside the station, with some officers threatening to seek transfers and city leaders scrambling to address the problems.

The issues at the Central Division come amid larger concerns about disease and filth across downtown, notably a vermin infestation at City Hall last year. One city employee was diagnosed with typhus, a disease that can be spread by rodents. City Hall workers said they saw fleas, rodent droppings and plants eaten by vermin in the building.

The California Department of Industrial Relations issued six violations and a $5,425 fine to the LAPD on May 14 and two violations and a $1,910 fine to the Department of General Services, records reviewed by The Times on Thursday show.

On Thursday, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the LAPD said they are working to resolve the problems. The division has 414 sworn officers — the largest number in the city.

“Our officers work hard every day to protect our city, and they deserve the best working conditions,” said Alex Comisar, a Garcetti spokesman. “Whether the issue is bad plumbing or something else, the mayor is working with the department to get to the bottom of this situation — and will take every possible step to protect the health and safety of all our employees.”

The department added: "The state’s report is concerning and we are taking steps to ensure the men and women who work for the Los Angeles Police Department can come to work in a healthy environment.”

The LAPD announced late Wednesday that an employee who fell ill at the downtown LAPD station had contracted the strain of bacteria that causes typhoid fever and was being treated for the condition. The LAPD confirmed that a second employee had a lower intestinal infection, but a specific diagnosis has not been determined...

What a nightmare.

Still more at the link.

Alex Morgan Behind the Scenes (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2019:

Italian Fashion Model Chiara Bianchino

At Drunken Stepfather, "CHIARA BIANCHINO NAKED OF THE DAY."

Kara Del Toro Lingerie

At Drunken Stepfather, "KARA DEL TORO LINGERIE OF THE DAY."

BONUS: "Maxim Model Kara Del Toro Unveils Her Scorching Hot Bikini Body in Mexico."

Gillette's Woke Transgender Son Shaving for the First Time Advertisement (VIDEO)

So lame.

Megham Murphy nails it, at Feminist Current, "The ‘intersectional’ masses celebrating Gillette’s new ad reveal their empty politics":

"Much less amusing is the fact that not only multi-billion dollar companies, but LGBT 'allies,' are pushing young people down an incredibly harmful path without any concern for the consequences." https://t.co/2UXVnseluo

— Feminist Current (@FeministCurrent) May 31, 2019

In their ongoing attempts to use politically correct politics to sell razors, Gillette has hit another home run. This time, the company produced an ad depicting a father helping his daughter learn how to shave.

Naturally, there is a woke twist. The daughter, named Samson, is “trans,” and we are meant to understand she is a man. The ad, called “First Shave,” begins with Samson saying, “Growing up, I was always trying to figure out what kind of man I would become.” While we could choose to read this as a celebration of a supportive father, lovingly teaching his child the rituals of entering manhood, it makes far more sense to read this as a company’s attempt to glom onto the most saleable trend right now: transgenderism.

To be clear, I have little interest in criticizing this father and child, who are clearly doing their best in a culture that finds the most superficial, profitable solutions for personal, cultural, or social problems.

Parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place, as they are told over and over again, by a multitude of institutions, including public schools, governments, mainstream media, LGBTQ organizations, the medical establishment, and the pharmaceutical industry, that if their child announces they are either transgender or literally the opposite sex, they must affirm this assertion and support their child to transition, or be labelled abusive, oppressive, or even responsible for mental illness and suicidal ideation.

Children and teenagers are inundated with propaganda telling them that it’s possible to be born in the wrong body; that if they don’t feel perfectly comfortable with rigid gender roles, they must actually be the opposite sex (a scientific impossibility); and that if they feel either a desire to have the body of the opposite sex or to reject the gender stereotypes associated with that sex, their only option for a happy life is to transition. Telling young people that their only route towards fulfillment lies in numerous cosmetic surgeries and a lifetime of hormones that destroy their bodies and render them sterile and unable to experience sexual pleasure is irresponsible, cruel, and dangerous. Yet this is what Gillette is selling. Or rather, using in order to sell.

Initially, I was confused as to why a company that sells shaving products to men would imagine their consumer base would be propelled to buy more Gillette products by imagery of a young woman shaving. I suspect most men don’t buy into gender identity ideology, and certainly “transmen” are not a large enough group to support any jump in sales. But apparently their last ad, which aimed to associate the company with the #MeToo movement, by demonstrating “good masculinity” vs “bad masculinity,” actually did succeed in broadening their audience (despite the fact that thousands of men hated the ad). I suppose the assumption is that new audiences will translate to new consumers, in the long term.

I’m not an ad executive and I certainly have no idea how to make money (I mean, look at my career choice…), but if all this attention from liberals and the media translates into dollars, good for Gillette, I guess… That is their goal, after all. What I find most amusing about this ad and the conversation happening around it online, though, is the way it is being universally celebrated as “progress” by people who will, in the same breath, claim to be “intersectional” — a term intended to communicate a commitment to understanding the intersections of race, class, and gender on individual people’s lives. So, people who are using a concept that is intended to be critical of capitalism (i.e. the thing responsible for class oppression) and gender in order to sell themselves to the world as Very Good and Righteous are celebrating the most brazen co-optation of the most regressive ideology, by a company owned by Procter & Gamble. L-o-fucking-l, you chumps.

What is much less amusing, of course, is the fact that not only multi-billion dollar companies, but LGBT “allies,” are pushing young people down an incredibly harmful path (one that will lead them right into the hands of other multi-billion dollar companies, of course) without any concern for the consequences...

Still more at that top link.

Peter Caddick-Adams on D-Day (VIDEO)

This is great!

Here's the book, at Amazon, Peter Caddick-Adams, Sand and Steel: A New History of D-Day.

And at Prager University:

Sponsors Bail on Fresno Grizzlies After Class AAA Affiliate Showed Memorial Day Tribute Video

I love this video!

Good on the Grizzlies!

Let's just hope the woke sponsors just chill the fuck out and get with the patriotic program. Don't cave to the censoring Democrat Party left.

At LAT, "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez video spurs more sponsors to drop Fresno Grizzlies."

And USA Today, "Fresno Grizzlies losing major sponsors in aftermath of offensive Ocasio-Cortez video."

Disneyland Manages Wait Times at the New Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

Disney's now gone all woke with corporate social justice policies, and CEO Bob Igor's a fool.

But their crowd management techniques for the new attraction are definitely putting paying customers first. Everything's pricey, but heh, you gotta pay the price to feel nice.

At LAT, "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge forces Disney to tap eons of crowd-control expertise":

Disneyland first wrestled with crowding on opening day in 1955 when restaurants ran out of food and drinks, lines formed at the bathrooms and visitors sneaked in with counterfeit tickets.

In the 1960s, Disneyland pioneered the use of stanchions and tape to create switchback queues for waiting visitors and provided entertainment to pass the time. The park took another swipe at the problem two decades ago, when it introduced “Fastpass,” the virtual queueing system.

But the opening this weekend of the biggest expansion in park history — the 14-acre Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge — pushed Walt Disney Co. to launch perhaps its most comprehensive crowd-easing effort yet, in effect acknowledging that the 18.7 million people estimated to have visited Disneyland last year is a record primed for breaking.

“It’s always been an area of work for us because we know intuitively that it does impact the experience,” said Kris Theiler, vice president of Disneyland Park. ”By coming at it from a comprehensive perspective, we’re able to make some really big impacts.”

On Friday, the first day that the expansion was opened to the public, the hard-core Star Wars fans for the most part moved about the $1-billion land with ease. But the lines to the only operating ride as well as the cantina and the most anticipated shops — attractions in their own right — fluctuated from brief to excruciatingly long.

Giovanni Peraza, a recent high school graduate from Chandler, Ariz., complained that he waited an hour to ride the interactive Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. “It was too long,” he said.

But Karen Covington and her husband, Bill, from Del Mar said they were happily surprised that their wait for the ride was only 25 minutes.

“They are doing a good job of crowd control,” Bill Covington said.

“I hope it stays this way,” Karen added.

To keep crowds from creating gridlock, Star Wars employees directed parkgoers to move in a counterclockwise direction, starting at the Millennium Falcon ride and circling to the Middle Eastern styled marketplace.

About 90 minutes after the land opened, workers were seen putting black tape on the ground to create switchback lines near the opening of Savi’s Workshop, where visitors can build their own lightsaber. At about the same time, Oga’s Cantina, the space-themed pub, reached capacity and only allowed new entrants when the crowds thinned.

Disneyland executives, who stood by to assess the opening day, said they saw no surprises.

“It happened exactly as we thought it would,” said Josh D’Amaro, president of Disneyland Resort.

Anticipating an out-of-this-world demand for the fictional land, Disneyland required parkgoers to book a four-hour reservation period to visit the Star Wars expansion during the first three weeks. Visitors were given colored wristbands to identify those who were allowed in and those whose allotted four hours had run out.

When the reservation period for a Star Wars land visitor ended, the guest was not allowed to board an attraction or enter a shop and was told: “Your credentials have expired.”

The reservation system allowed the park to control how many people are in the Star Wars land at any given time. But even with such restrictions on guests, the wait time for the Millennium Falcon ride fluctuated Friday from 20 minutes to 70 minutes.

Disneyland is the second-most visited theme park in the world behind Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Florida, according to an annual attendance study by the Los Angeles consulting firm Aecom and Themed Entertainment Assn., a trade group for theme park designers and producers. Disneyland drew 18.7 million visitors last year while the Magic Kingdom hosted 20.9 million visitors, both up 2% from the year before.

Disney doesn’t release daily attendance figures, although longtime Walt Disney Imagineering art director Kim Irvine recently revealed that Disneyland attendance of 65,000 is a “normal” day. During holiday seasons, Disneyland has had to temporarily shut its gates from time to time when the park reached capacity, a ceiling that has never been publicly disclosed but some insiders have said is about 80,000 visitors.

Some industry experts say crowding worsened at Disneyland after the resort began in 2009 to offer monthly payment plans to make it easier for more visitors to afford annual passes.

Such passes range in price from $400 to $1,400.

To cope with the expected crowds during the 60th anniversary of the park in 2015, Disneyland opened up behind-the-scenes pathways to direct crowds around gridlock areas.

A year later, the theme park adopted a “demand pricing” policy that lowered admission ticket prices on a typically slow day — maybe a Wednesday in September — and increased prices on high-demand days. Disney portrayed the move as a crowd-management technique.

A study by the Los Angeles Times found that the queues at the park grew longer even after the dynamic pricing scheme was adopted.

In 2015, only three years after the Walt Disney Co. acquired Lucasfilm for $4 billion, the theme park announced plans for a $1-billion land based on the blockbuster Star Wars sci-fi franchise...

Still more.

The Left’s Empathy Deficit Came Home to Roost -- In Australia

The Chronicle of Higher Education did a recent feature on Quillette, with the totally unexceptional knee-jerk headline, "The Academy’s New Favorite Hate-Read: Is ‘Quillette’ an island of sanity — or reactionary conservatism for the Ph.D. set?"

(It's behind the paywall, but you get the gist of it from the embedded tweet there.)

Claire Lehmann's the founder and editor-in-chief, and it turns out she's a darned good writer and analyst. I enjoyed this piece from a couple of weeks back on the Australian national elections.

See, "At Australian Ballot Boxes, the Left’s Empathy Deficit Came Home to Roost":

For as long as champagne socialists incessantly attack the values & cultural tastes of working class folk, centre-left parties cannot take their votes for granted. My piece on the Australian election result https://t.co/51UeV6M2Yg

— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) May 20, 2019

The result of Saturday’s federal election in Australia is being treated as the most staggering political shocker in my country since World War II. Scott Morrison, leading the Liberal Party, looks to have won a majority government—a result that defies three years of opinion polling, bookie’s odds and media commentary.

In the aftermath, analysts on both sides are trying to explain what went wrong for the centre-left Australian Labor Party, and what went right for the centre-right Liberals. Some attribute the result to Morrison’s personal likeability, and his successful targeting of the “quiet Australian” demographic—the silent majority whose members feel they rarely have a voice, except at the ballot box. Others cast the result as Australia’s Hilary-Clinton moment: Bill Shorten, who resigned following Saturday’s loss, was, like Clinton, an unpopular political insider who generated little enthusiasm among his party’s traditional constituencies. In 2010 and again in 2013, he roiled the Labor Party by supporting two separate internal coups, machinations that cast him as a self-promoter instead of a team player.

The swing against Labor was particularly pronounced in the northeastern state of Queensland—which is more rural and socially conservative than the rest of Australia. Many of Queensland’s working-class voters opposed Labor’s greener-than-thou climate-change policies, not a surprise given that the state generates half of all the metallurgical coal burned in the world’s blast furnaces. Queensland’s rejection of Labor carried a particularly painful symbolic sting for Shorten, given that this is the part of Australia where his party was founded by 19th century sheep shearers meeting under a ghost gum tree. In 1899, the world’s first Labor government was sworn into the Queensland parliament. Shorten’s “wipe-out” in Queensland demonstrates what has become of the party’s brand among working-class people 120 years later.

*   *   *

Picture a dinner party where half the guests are university graduates with prestigious white-collar jobs, with the other half consisting of people who are trade workers, barmaids, cleaners and labourers. While one side of the table trades racy jokes and uninhibited banter, the other half tut-tuts this “problematic” discourse.

These two groups both represent traditional constituencies of mainstream centre-left parties—including the Labour Party in the UK, the Democrats in the United States, and the NDP in Canada. Yet they have increasingly divergent attitudes and interests—even if champagne socialists paper over these differences with airy slogans about allyship and solidarity.

Progressive politicians like to assume that, on election day at least, blue-collar workers and urban progressives will bridge their differences, and make common cause to support leftist economic policies. This assumption might once have been warranted. But it certainly isn’t now—in large part because the intellectuals, activists and media pundits who present the most visible face of modern leftism are the same people openly attacking the values and cultural tastes of working and middle-class voters. And thanks to social media (and the caustic news-media culture that social media has encouraged and normalized), these attacks are no longer confined to dinner-party titterings and university lecture halls. Brigid Delaney, a senior writer for Guardian Australia, responded to Saturday’s election result with a column about how Australia has shown itself to be “rotten.” One well-known Australian feminist and op-ed writer, Clementine Ford, has been fond of Tweeting sentiments such as “All men are scum and must die.” Former Australian Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, who also has served as a high-profile newspaper columnist, argues that even many mainstream political positions—such as expressing concern about the Chinese government’s rising regional influence—are a smokescreen for racism.

In an interview conducted on Sunday morning, Deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek opined that if only her party had more time to explain to the various groups how much they’d all benefit from Labor’s plans, Australians would have realized how fortunate they’d be with a Labor government, and Shorten would’ve become Prime Minister. Such attitudes are patronizing, for they implicitly serve to place blame at the feet of voters, who apparently are too ignorant to know what’s good for them.

What the election actually shows us is that the so-called quiet Australians, whether they are tradies (to use the Australian term) in Penrith, retirees in Bundaberg, or small business owners in Newcastle, are tired of incessant scolding from their purported superiors. Condescension isn’t a good look for a political movement.

Taking stock of real voters’ needs would require elites to exhibit a spirit of empathic understanding—such as by way of acknowledging that blue-collar workers have good reason to vote down parties whose policies would destroy blue-collar jobs; or that legal immigrants might oppose opening up a nation’s border to migrants who arrive illegally. More broadly, the modern progressive left has lost touch with the fact that what ordinary people want from their government is a spirit of respect, dignity and hope for the future. While the fetish for hectoring and moral puritanism has become popular in rarefied corners of arts and academia, it is deeply off-putting to voters whose sense of self extends beyond cultish ideological tribalism.

*   *   *

The class-based realignment of party politics isn’t unique to my country. All over the world, left-wing parties increasingly are being co-opted by politicians who reflect the attitudes and priorities of voters with higher incomes and education levels, while right-wing parties increasingly attract blue-collar workers who’ve become alienated by parties that once championed the little guy. It’s been three years since Donald Trump became the Republican presidential nominee, and so this phenomenon no longer can be described as new or dismissed as transient. Yet progressives seem to imagine that it can be dispelled, as if by a magic spell, simply by incanting the right hash tags or bleating mantras about anti-racism...

Keep reading.

Rick Perlstein, Nixonland

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.

Iggy Azalea Leaked

At Buzzfeed, "Iggy Azalea Says She's 'Disturbed' by Men's Reactions to Topless Photos Leaking on Social Media."

Iggy Azalea Says That She'll Be Pressing Charges After Topless Pictures Were Posted On Social Media https://t.co/E7Wz6wqCqN

— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) May 29, 2019

Yeah, I'm sure she's really upset. (*Eye-roll here.*)

And at Drunken Stepfather, "IGGY AZLALEA JANKED UP TITS OF THE DAY."

'Self-Esteem'

From Thursday morning's drive-time, the Offspring, at 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles.

Under The Bridge
Red Hot Chili Peppers
6:45am

The Chain
Fleetwood Mac
6:41am

Send Me An Angel
Real Life
6:37am

Daughter
Pearl Jam
6:33am

When Doves Cry
PRINCE
6:22am

White Wedding
Billy Idol
6:18am

I Need To Know
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
6:15am

Demons
Imagine Dragons
6:12am

Animal
Def Leppard
6:08am

Lovesong
Cure
6:05am

Self Esteem
OFFSPRING
5:53am

Mark Levin, Unfreedom of the Press

At Amazon, Mark Levin, Unfreedom of the Press.

Emily Ratajkowski Protests Alabama

She'll use just about any excuse to take her clothes off, sheesh.

pic.twitter.com/zsW1C7p2fQ

— Emily Ratajkowski (@emrata) May 16, 2019

Emily Ratajkowski poses naked to decry '25 old white men' who voted to ban abortion in Alabama https://t.co/QciL501cpv

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) May 17, 2019

University Libraries Are Seeing Precipitous Declines in the Use of the Books on Their Shelves

Well, few students read, at least on my campus. It's very hard to get them to complete their assignments, especially in the introductory American government class. And you rarely see a student reading a book while out walking around the campus. The ratio is a least 20-to-1 with students using mobile phones over reading.

I notice when a student has a book. It's so rare.

At Instapundit, "CHANGE: The Books of College Libraries Are Turning Into Wallpaper."

Marine Le Pen's National Rally Tops Vote in EU Elections (VIDEO)

At the Guardian U.K., "EU vote confirms French far right as Macron's main opposition."

Carla Guetta Photos

At Drunken Stepfather, "CARLA GUETTA TOPLESS NUDE MODEL OF THE DAY."

Natasha Summer Rose Bikini

She's tasty.

Drape yourself in soft, romantic hues for the sweetest looking summer 🍉 @tashoakley wears the Clovelly Bikini in Summer Rose. https://t.co/HESdTnpulg x #Summer19 #MondaySwimwear pic.twitter.com/DWOPWUCDfO

— Monday Swimwear (@MONDAYSWIMWEAR) May 13, 2019

Out in Paper: Richard Powers, The Overstory

At Amazon, Richard Powers, The Overstory: A Novel.

Danielle Gersh's Memorial Day Forecast

Not the best beach weather today.

Here's the lovely Ms. Danielle, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles.

Old Row Babe

Seen on Twitter:

FAU

IG @kimplausible pic.twitter.com/jvOjccimOd

— Old Row Rad Chicks (@OldRowRadChicks) May 27, 2019

Leftist Millenarianism and the Green New Deal

This is a great piece, a scary piece.

From David Adler, at Quillette, "Straight to Hell: Millenarianism and the Green New Deal":

“The Green New Deal is a reminder that many Americans are desperate for salvation and that religion is no longer slaking this thirst.” https://t.co/uGxCP2aPXH

— Quillette (@Quillette) May 23, 2019

With the Green New Deal, secular apocalyptic ideas have entered the mainstream of American politics. Millenarian thinking has always been present in the US, but it was avowedly religious. Today, those warning of the imminent Apocalypse are not just cranks in sandwich boards on street corners; they are seated in Congress. The radical millenarian ideas that flourished in the Middle Ages or unstable European societies in the early twentieth century can now be found at the heart of the Democratic party.

Read the whole thing --- it's very well done.

'Robert Mueller's partisan team spent 22 months and $34 million only to conclude the obvious: that Trump did not collude with Russia...'

Yep.

It's VDH, in one of the best, most succinct pieces on the left's #RussiaGate conspiracy.

At RCP, "Federal Rats Are Fleeing the Sinking Collusion Ship":

The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative was always implausible.

One, the Washington swamp of fixers such as Paul Manafort and John and Tony Podesta was mostly bipartisan and predated Trump.

Two, the Trump administration's Russia policies were far tougher on Vladimir Putin than were those of Barack Obama. Trump confronted Russia in Syria, upped defense spending, increased sanctions and kept the price of oil down through massive new U.S. energy production. He did not engineer a Russian "reset" or get caught on a hot mic offering a self-interested hiatus in tensions with Russia in order to help his own re-election bid.

Three, Russia has a long history of trying to warp U.S. elections that both predated Trump and earned only prior lukewarm pushback from the Obama administration.

Three, Russia has a long history of trying to warp U.S. elections that both predated Trump and earned only prior lukewarm pushback from the Obama administration.

It's also worth remembering that President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation had been recipients of Russian and Russian-related largesse -- ostensibly because Hillary Clinton had used her influence as Secretary of State under Obama to ease resistance to Russian acquisitions of North American uranium holdings.

As far as alleged Russian collusion goes, Hillary Clinton used three firewalls -- the Democratic National Committee, the Perkins Coie law firm and the Fusion GPS strategic intelligence firm -- to hide her campaign's payments to British national Christopher Steele to find dirt on Trump and his campaign; in other words, to collude. Steele in turn collected his purchased Russian sources to aggregate unverified allegations against Trump. He then spread the gossip within government agencies to ensure that the smears were leaked to the media -- and with a government seal of approval.

No wonder that special counsel Robert Mueller's partisan team spent 22 months and $34 million only to conclude the obvious: that Trump did not collude with Russia.

Mueller's failure to find collusion prompts an important question. If the Steele dossier -- the basis for unfounded charges that Trump colluded with Russia -- was fraudulent, then how and why did the Clinton campaign, hand in glove with top Obama administration officials, use such silly trash and smears to unleash the powers of government against Trump's campaign, transition team and early presidency?

The question is not an idle one.

There may well have occurred a near coup attempt by high-ranking officials to destroy a campaign and then to remove an elected president. Likewise, top officials may have engaged in serial lying to federal investigators, perjury, the misleading of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the illegal insertion of informants into a political campaign, the leaking of classified documents and the obstruction of justice.

So, how can we tell that the former accusers are now terrified of becoming the accused? Because suddenly the usual band of former Obama officials and Trump accusers have largely given up on their allegations that Trump was or is a Russian asset.

Instead, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Rod Rosenstein are now beginning to accuse each other of wrongdoing.

Even their progressive media handlers are starting to sense the desperation in their new yarns -- and the possibility that these hired-gun analysts or guests were themselves guilty of crimes and were using their media platforms to fashion their own defense.

The end of the Mueller melodrama has marked the beginning of real fear in Washington...

Still more.

Nancy Pelosi Drunk Video is Preview of 2020

The video's still up.

See, "Watch: Politics Watchdog Video of Drunk Nancy Pelosi."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "A doctored video of Nancy Pelosi shows social media giants ill-prepared for 2020":

Hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi addressed a conference Wednesday, a distorted video of the California Democrat’s conversation began spreading across the internet.

The manipulated clip, slowed to make Pelosi sound as if she were slurring her words, racked up millions of views on Facebook the following day. It was posted to YouTube, and on Thursday night was given a boost on Twitter when Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer and former mayor of New York, shared a link with his 318,000 followers.

By Friday, the three social media giants were forced to respond to this viral instance of political fakery. How they dealt with the issue, three years after being blindsided by a wave of fake news and disinformation in the 2016 election cycle, may serve as a harbinger of what’s to come in 2020.

And for those who had hoped that new technology, stricter standards and the full attention of these powerful Silicon Valley companies might stem the tide of lies, the case of the Pelosi video does not bode well.

Facebook, where the clip found its largest audience, refused to take it down. A spokesperson for the company said that the video does not violate Facebook’s Community Standards, adding in a statement that “we don't have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true.”

Instead, Facebook ran the video through its official fake news process, codified since the company admitted it had a problem in late 2016. It submitted the clip to a third-party fact-checking company, which rated it “false.” Following that judgment, the company drastically decreased how often the video is automatically displayed in users’ newsfeeds and appended an info box below it linking to articles that say that the clip is a fake.

“We work hard to find the right balance between encouraging free expression and promoting a safe and authentic community,” the spokesperson said. “We believe that reducing the distribution of inauthentic content strikes that balance. But just because something is allowed to be on Facebook doesn’t mean it should get distribution. In other words, we allow people to post it as a form of expression, but we're not going to show it at the top of News Feed.”

YouTube deleted all copies of the video on its site after being notified of its existence following a Washington Post report on the video. The company said in a statement that the clip violated its policies, and added that it did not “surface prominently” on the site or in search results.

The Google-owned video platform said last year that it was tweaking its algorithms to promote more authoritative news sources. The company also introduced panels similar to Facebook’s info boxes that appear below videos dealing with common conspiracy theories or produced by state-run media outlets to give viewers more context, though a Buzzfeed investigation in January found that they were inconsistently used.

Twitter declined to comment on the Pelosi clip in particular and has not taken formal action...

You know, who's helping who here?

I noted yesterday that Big Tech had deep-sixed the video in search results, not only Facebook, but Twitter and YouTube as well. I had to dig around myself to find it, and that took a while.

So, a parody video that's a literally laugh riot, of a public figure who can't claim libel, because such speech is protected, gets full censorship on offer from her political allies. That's practically a political contribution, which is regulated under federal law.

It's more than antitrust as a basis for regulation of Big Tech. It's also political racketeering, influence-peddling, and campaign finance violations.

We're in a political war. And it's the left that's waging it against normal Americans. Don't ever let the leftist media tell you otherwise.

More at that top link.

Ian McEwan, Atonement

At Amazon, Ian McEwan, Atonement: A Novel.

Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch.

Why U.S. Intelligence Agencies Must Adapt or Fail

From Amy Zegart and Michael Morell, at Foreign Affairs, "Spies, Lies, and Algorithms":

“The U.S. intelligence community can develop the best strategy for intelligence in a new technological era, but if it ever loses its reputation for objectivity, nonpartisanship, and professionalism, it will lose its value to the nation.”https://t.co/mJb3jaXcO5

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) May 21, 2019

For U.S. intelligence agencies, the twenty-first century began with a shock, when 19 al Qaeda operatives hijacked four planes and perpetrated the deadliest attack ever on U.S. soil. In the wake of the attack, the intelligence community mobilized with one overriding goal: preventing another 9/11. The CIA, the National Security Agency, and the 15 other components of the U.S. intelligence community restructured, reformed, and retooled. Congress appropriated billions of dollars to support the transformation.

That effort paid off. In the nearly two decades that U.S. intelligence agencies have been focused on fighting terrorists, they have foiled numerous plots to attack the U.S. homeland, tracked down Osama bin Laden, helped eliminate the Islamic State’s caliphate, and found terrorists hiding everywhere from Afghan caves to Brussels apartment complexes. This has arguably been one of the most successful periods in the history of American intelligence.

But today, confronted with new threats that go well beyond terrorism, U.S. intelligence agencies face another moment of reckoning. From biotechnology and nanotechnology to quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI), rapid technological change is giving U.S. adversaries new capabilities and eroding traditional U.S. intelligence advantages. The U.S. intelligence community must adapt to these shifts or risk failure as the nation’s first line of defense.

Although U.S. intelligence agencies have taken initial steps in the right direction, they are not moving fast enough. In fact, the first intelligence breakdown of this new era has already come: the failure to quickly identify and fully grasp the magnitude of Russia’s use of social media to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. That breakdown should serve as a wake-up call. The trends it reflects warrant a wholesale reimagining of how the intelligence community operates. Getting there will require capitalizing on the United States’ unique strengths, making tough organizational changes, and rebuilding trust with U.S. technology companies.

A WARNING SIGN

Russia’s multifaceted “active measures” campaign ahead of the 2016 election was designed to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, sow divisions in American society, and boost public support for one presidential candidate over another. Much of this effort did not go undetected for long. Almost immediately, U.S. intelligence agencies noticed Russian cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the sharing of stolen information with platforms such as WikiLeaks, and attempts to penetrate state and local voting systems. Pointing to these events, intelligence officials warned President Barack Obama well before the election that the United States was under attack.

Yet the intelligence agencies missed Russia’s most important tool: the weaponization of social media. Studies commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of a Russian “troll farm” show that the social media operation designed to undermine the U.S. electoral process may have begun as early as 2012 and was well under way by 2014. But although U.S. intelligence officials knew that Russia had used social media as a propaganda tool against its own citizens and its neighbors, particularly Ukraine, it took them at least two years to realize that similar efforts were being made in the United States. This lapse deprived the president of valuable time to fully understand Moscow’s intentions and develop policy options before the election ever began.

In October 2016, one month before the election, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and Jeh Johnson, the secretary of homeland security, took the unusual step of issuing a public statement about Russia’s interference in the election. Even then, the full extent of the Russian effort eluded U.S. intelligence; the statement did not mention social media at all. Johnson later stated that Russia’s social media operation “was something . . . that we were just beginning to see.” Likewise, Clapper wrote in his memoir that “in the summer of 2015, it would never have occurred to us that low-level Russian intelligence operatives might be posing as Americans on social media.” Indeed, the intelligence community did not understand the magnitude of the attack, which reached more than 120 million U.S. citizens, until well after the election. The Senate Intelligence Committee noted in 2018 that its own bipartisan investigation “exposed a far more extensive Russian effort to manipulate social media outlets to sow discord and to interfere in the 2016 election and American society” than the U.S. intelligence community had found even as late as 2017.

It was with good reason that the intelligence agencies did not have their collection systems trained on social media content within the United States, but Russia’s social media attack was carried out by Russian nationals operating on Russian soil. They were assisted by several Russian intelligence operatives sent to the United States in 2014, with the express goal of studying how to make Moscow’s social media campaign more effective. Whether the Kremlin tipped the balance in a close presidential race will never be known. What is clear, however, is that Russia’s nefarious use of social media went undetected by U.S. intelligence for too long and that this failure is just a preview of what lies ahead if the intelligence community doesn’t adapt to today’s rapid technological breakthroughs...

Keep reading.

Megan Parry's Weekend Weather

Hopefully the rain clears up, sheesh.

At ABC News 10 San Diego:

Watch: Politics Watchdog Video of Drunk Nancy Pelosi

Neither Google nor Facebook will let you search for this video. I had to go in and find Politics Watchdog and scroll down.

And people wonder why the fury at leftist social media and tech?

Watch, "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on President Trump walking out infrastructure meeting: 'It was very, very, very strange'."

Who knows how long this will be available. Leftist media outlets are in a rage, raging to have Facebook take it down.

At the Guardian U.K., via Memorandum, "Facebook refuses to delete fake Pelosi video spread by Trump supporters."

And at WaPo, "Pelosi videos manipulated to make her appear drunk are being shared on social media."

She does sound drunk, lol. What a freakin' masterpiece!

Donna Tartt, The Secret History

At Amazon, Donna Tartt, The Secret History: A Novel.

President Trump Gives Attorney General Authority to Declassify Information About Origins of Russia Probe

At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Trump Gives Attorney General Sweeping Power in Review of 2016 Campaign Inquiry."

I love this, heh.

Media that in lockstep spent years publishing and legitimizing false accusations of their shared political enemy being a traitor who colluded with Russia now appear to be discovering the seriousness of the charge they peddled. https://t.co/yH9SWX09B5

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 23, 2019

LOL. Our media, which are fully implicated in the dangerous conspiracy theory of treasonous collusion with Russia, are upset that some adults recognized immediately the problems with using law enforcement and intel to destroy political opponents. https://t.co/xuAU0bd3x5

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 24, 2019

these people spent years falsely accusing Trump of *treasonous collusion with Russia* and are upset that the term might be uttered in conjunction with those who willfully and dangerously perpetuated the false accusation/Russia hoax against the nation’s duly elected president. https://t.co/dzYndopfvE

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 24, 2019

So no need for media and others to worry in the slightest about an investigation into how probe started, and why some contacts with targets preceded that start date! https://t.co/lg0IHoSuM6

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) May 24, 2019

Top Fashion Model Helena Lu

She's got Vogue covers under her portfolio.

At Drunken Stepfather, "HELENA LU TITTIES OF THE DAY."

Britain's Watershed Moment (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Theresa May Resigns (VIDEO)."

Pat Condell is so astonishing spot-on it's ridiculous.

Watch:

Theresa May Resigns (VIDEO)

Well, maybe that #TheresaMayResign hashtag pushed her over the edge.

At the Guardian U.K., "Theresa May announces she will resign on 7 June."

And the full video of her speech is here, "Prime minister Theresa May’s resignation speech in full."

Victor Davis Hanson, The Case for Trump

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Victor Davis Hanson, The Case for Trump.

Theresa May Faces Pressure to Resign After Push for Second Referendum on Brexit (VIDEO)

Actually, I can't believe she still leads the government.

The Leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, resigned from the cabinet in a harsh blow to the prime minister.

Frankly, May's leadership's been a disaster. I'll be glad when she's ousted.

At the Guardian U.K., "Andrea Leadsom quits over Theresa May's Brexit bill: Leader of house known to be unhappy with some of 10 concessions set out by PM."

And a live blog, "May 'could announce departure date on Friday' – politics live: Prime minister replies after Leadsom quits as leader of the House of Commons."



Also, at the BBC, "Brexit: Theresa May resists calls from MPs to resign."

Haley Kalil Intimates at the 2019 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (VIDEO)

The new collection is up.

Actually, I'm not down with the chick in the burkini, but as long as they keep posting the big-breasted babes, it's all good, lol.

Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism

At Amazon, Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World.

Big Sexy Woman

Seen on Twitter:

Big sexy curves! #boobs #tits @ChetsAnAsshole pic.twitter.com/RuSy3Cqjku

— Big Breast Pics (@BigBreastPics) May 22, 2019

Jocko Willink Extreme Ownership (VIDEO)

This dude is rad!

At Amazon, Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (New Edition).

And at Prager University:

Demi Lovato in Leopard Swimsuit

At Taxi Driver:

Demi Lovato in Leopard Bikini Round 2 - https://t.co/NBLj7XkQZu pic.twitter.com/wvGPs2MGrj

— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) May 14, 2019

Margot Robbie in One-Piece White Swimsuit (PHOTOS)

She looks great!

At Drunken Stepfather, "MARGOT ROBBIE HARD NIPPLES OF THE DAY."

President Trump Walks Out on Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer (VIDEO)

We can't spare this man --- he fights!

At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "Trump Walks Out on Pelosi and Schumer After 3 Minutes."



Also at WaPo, "Trump abruptly ends infrastructure meeting with Democrats after Pelosi says he is ‘engaged in a coverup’."

Louis Hyman, Temp

This book is great!

At Amazon, Louis Hyman, Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary.

India's Untouchables

I studied the "untouchables" in college. They're now call "Dalits," but not much has changed, apparently, and voters are fed-up with campaign promises.

At LAT, "India’s lower-caste Dalits, who helped elect Modi, now threaten to oust him":

Dalit voters say Modi has failed to keep his economic pledges, while others point to growing caste-based violence and a perception that Modi’s government has diluted some legal protections for Dalits. https://t.co/zRBwn7AKzi

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) May 17, 2019

In 2014, Mukesh Kumar, like much of India’s underclass, had pinned his hopes on Narendra Modi, who became prime minister after his party won elections in a landslide.

Today, Kumar regrets voting for him.

“In five years there should have been so much progress, but nothing has changed,” said Kumar, 26, a municipal sanitation worker who earns about $200 per month sweeping the streets of Varanasi, one of the holiest cities in Hinduism.

“Modi is only building roads,” he said. “What about those of us who are cleaning those roads? We are right where we were, dying in the heat of the sun, burning on the streets.”

Kumar belongs to the Dalit community, formerly known as the “untouchables,” the lowest level of India’s ancient caste hierarchy — and in the last election an important part of the historic victory by Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Though the party, known by its initials BJP, was traditionally seen as catering to upper-caste Hindus and the business elite, it won 40 of the 84 parliamentary seats reserved for Dalits, primarily on Modi’s promises of economic development for all.

Now as Modi seeks a second five-year term in multi-stage national elections whose results are expected Thursday, Dalits are once again expected to play a crucial role.

But here in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, many Dalit voters say Modi has failed to keep his economic pledges, while others point to growing caste-based violence and a perception that Modi’s government has diluted some legal protections for Dalits.

“In 2014 and through the early part of Modi’s tenure, the BJP was trying to use more inclusive language, saying that Modi cuts across all castes and communities,” said Neelanjan Sircar, a senior visiting fellow at the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi think tank. “That has significantly shifted, and in the last couple of years there has been noticeable caste polarization.”

India’s constitution in 1950 outlawed caste-based discrimination and enshrined affirmative action for Dalits. But the country’s 200 million Dalits are still often denied access to basic rights such as public water sources and in some areas are still banned from marrying into higher castes or even sharing food with them.

Many are confined to the most menial jobs, such as cleaning sewers by hand, a practice euphemistically called manual scavenging.

In cities and villages, Dalits are often shunted into separate enclaves like the 1,000-person shantytown where Kumar lives, in the Ravindrapuri neighborhood of Varanasi, which runs alongside a newly paved road with recently installed LED street lamps.

The residents of the shanties say Varanasi’s progress has not made it to their doorsteps. They complain of a paucity of jobs, stagnant income, rising prices and a lack of water.

One day recently, just outside the labyrinth of tightly packed, one-room brick homes, five hogs feasted on rotting garbage that had spilled onto the side of the road. A statue of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the Dalit author of India’s constitution, stood a few hundred feet away just outside Ravindrapuri.

In 2014, Modi ran for Parliament from Varanasi, a nod to his Hindu values, and won by a large margin. Soon afterward, he established an office down the road in Ravindrapuri and embarked on ambitious plans to clean the city and the banks of the Ganges River, boost tourism and build new roads.

A partnership with the Japanese government was meant to transform Varanasi into a high-tech “smart city” in the image of Kyoto. Little of that has materialized.

Though Modi is still expected to win comfortably in Varanasi — which votes on Sunday, the last stage of the election — some analysts see his party losing ground in Uttar Pradesh. The state holds 80 of the 543 seats in India’s Parliament, 71 of which the party won in 2014.

Dalits account for roughly one-fifth of the voters in the state, and surveys by the independent Center for the Study of Developing Societies showed Dalit support for the BJP falling from 31% in January 2018 to 22% in May 2018, the most recent month for which figures were available.

The suicides of two Dalit university students in 2016 and 2017 made national headlines...

Still more.

Rebecca's Traister's Fury

She's got a new book out called Good and Mad, and she's sure personifying it.

Not a nice woman. On Twitter:

Once again, I was mad on television. I am also available for weddings and bat mitzvahs. I’m really the life of the party, I think you’ll find https://t.co/2hD24kcH10

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 16, 2019

Many people do WANT to get an abortion, for personal, emotional, health & economic reasons. Many are prevented from doing so. Abortion is not always tragic or hard & for some is a relief, salvation of body, family. Also: none of this matters. It should simply be free & on demand. https://t.co/0zkzXhblzM

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 16, 2019

I wrote about abortion and rage. https://t.co/Al4VQ0Rz8o

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 17, 2019

“Some say Democrats are angry...well I don’t believe it.” This man is gonna be the end of me. I’m curious how he thinks any reform of the founding inequalities he so dutifully mentions in the first excerpt was achieved...rainbows, smiles, & affable affection for the oppressors? https://t.co/PyPbOBep9r

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 18, 2019

Who IS this guy, suggesting that anger many feel at injustice & inequity & the suffering they cause is same as Trump’s punitive fury on behalf of himself & white patriarchal power? Anger at injustice has catalyzed transformative change; “unity” has not. Joe is deeply wrong.

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 18, 2019

I wrote a book about this. It’s good, easy reading & it doesn’t bite; I wish Biden would read it. Along with @ProfessorCrunk & @schemaly & all the historians who have told the story of how angry people have spent their lives working to remake this nation. https://t.co/eYpS2YQ592

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 18, 2019

One more: he’s a politician. A purported expert IN POLITICS. Who does he think elected a Democratic house, historic numbers of first time candidates—many of them openly raging—LAST YEAR in the biggest wave since 1974? People in search of cheery unity with the Republican Party?

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 18, 2019

Okay that’s it. I’m going to take my clenched fist, hard heart and spewing hate and use them to bake 48 chocolate cupcakes for my father in law’s 90th birthday.

— Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) May 18, 2019

Clown Show: Bill de Blasio Officially Launches 2020 Presidential Bid

There's now 23 Democrats in the presidential primary field. Running for president is a grift at this point.

At the N.Y. Post, "Bill de Blasio officially launches 2020 presidential campaign."

Today's cover: Bill de Blasio officially launches 2020 presidential campaign pic.twitter.com/g973kWfGJ3

— New York Post (@nypost) May 16, 2019

Noah Rothman, Unjust

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Noah Rothman, Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America.

The Case for Israel Has to Be Made Over and Over (Because of the Left's Incessant Demonization)

From Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for Prager University:

San Diego Hash Oil Labs

Jennifer Delacruz reports, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

Black Woman Facing Murder Charge for Pushing Elderly Man Off Las Vegas Bus (VIDEO)

The old guy asked her to be more respectful, and the black bitch murdered him, pushed him right off the bus. Damn!

At ABC News:

A 74-year-old man who was pushed off a Las Vegas bus -- allegedly by a woman he had told to "be nicer" -- has died from injuries he suffered when he hit the sidewalk, and the 25-year-old suspect has been charged with his murder. https://t.co/2K8HTD5fnx pic.twitter.com/gN0y9qMtVx

— ABC News (@ABC) May 16, 2019

Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down

The movie's been at Showtime on rotation this month, plus I watched it on Netflix as well.

So I decided to finally pick up and read the copy I bought back in 2002 after seeing the movie in theaters. It's gripping. I haven't put it down this week.

At Amazon, Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War.

Amazing Woman

Nude, she's taking care of herself in bed.

Plus, gif featuring a hot busty blonde.

Battleground Pennsylvania

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump and Biden, potential 2020 rivals, both head to Pennsylvania, a key battleground":

President Trump and @JoeBiden have twin obsessions: with each other and with the state of Pennsylvania. w @elistokols https://t.co/5rEpeD26am

— Janet Hook (@hookjan) May 17, 2019

President Trump and Joe Biden have twin obsessions: with each other and with the state of Pennsylvania.

Like iron filings to a magnet, both will be drawn in the coming days to Pennsylvania, which was key to Trump’s victory in 2016 and would be central to almost any scenario for a Democratic victory in the 2020 presidential campaign.

Their trips — Biden on Saturday, Trump on Monday — elevate an emerging rivalry that has them locked in a wrestler’s grip long before Democrats even choose a nominee.

Trump, fearing Biden poses the most serious threat in industrial states like Pennsylvania, is trying to diminish him with a barrage of tweets and derisive comments. Biden welcomes the attention and sees it as validating his central argument to Democratic voters: that he’s the candidate best equipped to beat Trump.

Together they are paying little attention to the 22 other Democrats running for the party’s presidential nomination, acting as if the starting gun has already been fired on the general election.

Their Pennsylvania itineraries are emblematic of their competing political strategies. Trump, aiming to energize the white working-class voters who brought him to victory, plans to hold a rally in rural Lycoming County in the central part of the state, which went for Trump by nearly 45 percentage points in 2016.

Biden, hoping to make up for his party’s 2016 shortfall among black and working-class voters, will hold his first large-scale 2020 campaign rally in Philadelphia, a bastion of black Democratic strength. Biden’s first campaign event was a union-heavy affair in Pittsburgh three weeks ago, when he threw down the glove before the president.

“If I’m going to be able to beat Donald Trump in 2020, it’s going to happen here,” he said.

Trump’s visit, during which he is slated to campaign for a GOP candidate in a special election who looks to be a shoo-in, comes at a perilous time politically. Public surveys show Biden leading the president in this crucial battleground. The latest Quinnipiac University poll in Pennsylvania found Biden out-polls Trump 53% to 42%, with especially wide margins among independent voters and women.

The Trump team’s own polling shows him trailing in the state.

That’s a far cry from his stunning 2016 victory in Pennsylvania, which, along with narrow wins in Wisconsin and Michigan, demolished Democrats’ “blue wall” of support across the industrial heartland. Not since 1988 had a Republican presidential nominee carried Pennsylvania or Michigan. Wisconsin hadn’t voted for a Republican nominee since 1984.

But Trump’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania was only about 44,000 votes out of about 6 million cast.

Ever since that upset, warning signs for the GOP have been flashing in Pennsylvania. In special elections in 2017, Democrats flipped some long-held GOP local offices, and Democrat Conor Lamb, a centrist, won a House seat in the heart of Trump country. The 2018 midterm election was a statewide blowout as Democrats won the U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races by double-digit margins.

Moving to get a grip on the situation, the Trump political team a few weeks ago traveled to Harrisburg, Pa., for a meeting with Republican National Committee and state GOP officials to address concerns over party infrastructure, organizational readiness and their string of losses, according to two officials with knowledge of the meeting.

The Trump campaign officials — including David Urban, who oversaw Trump’s 2016 operation in Pennsylvania, and Trump 2020 political directors Bill Stepien and Chris Carr — “came to make it clear that they’ll be running the show,” one attendee said.

Trump’s hope for holding on to the state depends heavily on galvanizing Trump voters who may not have turned out in 2018...

Still more.