End of Phoney War and Fall of France — #WorldWarII

The invasion of France began 74 years ago today.

At the World War II Database, "Invasion of France and the Low Countries: 10 May 1940 - 22 Jun 1940."

Counting Down the Obama Interregnum

From Peter Ferrara, at the American Spectator, "LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL: The passing of the Age of Obama":

Conservatives need to wake up and start thinking past the rapidly passing age of Obama. Increasingly likely every day is that voters this November will remove Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader. By electing a new Republican Senate majority, the voters will also render Barack Obama a lame duck, one of the lamest in history, as he will have no prayer of getting any of his legislative proposals — increasingly recognized as hard left — through Congress. (Despite his early national rhetoric, Obama doesn’t do bipartisanship.)

That new Republican Senate majority will also be a new check and balance on Obama’s appointment of federal judges, reversing the effect of the Reid rule change eliminating Republican judicial filibusters. That is especially crucial given that the five remaining Reagan/Bush appointees on the Court constitute the slimmest of majorities, with a couple of occasionally weak sisters among them. If just one of these five is replaced by another Elena Kagan or Sonia Sotomayor, the resulting shift from a Reagan majority on the Court to an Obama one would mean a longer-term Obama transformation of America.

Given the long-term cycles of American political history, Obama’s second midterm this year should be even worse for Democrats than the disastrous Obama first midterm in 2010. And the polls are bearing out that possibility.

The latest is a Pew/USA Today poll finding that 47 percent favor the Republican candidate for Congress in their district or state, while 43 percent favor the Democrat. That is a sharp turnaround from last October, when Democrats held a 6 point lead in the same generic midterm preference poll, 49 percent to 43 percent. The new Pew poll also finds a 16 point GOP lead among independent voters.

Moreover, the Pew poll finds that “65% would like to see the next President offer different policies and programs from the Obama Administration while 30 percent want Obama’s successor to offer similar policies,” as reported by Jason Riley in the May 5 Wall Street Journal.

In an April 27 Washington Post/ABC News poll, President Obama’s approval rating was down to an all-time low of 41 percent. That poll featured an 11 point Democratic advantage in the sample, which indicates further weakness in that Obama support, especially as compared to the 2010 midterm turnout rather than the 2012 turnout.

For context, in April 2010, President Obama’s job approval in that Washington Post/ABC News poll was 54 percent. In October 2010, just before the voters administered their first midterm beating to Democrats, Obama’s job approval was still 50 percent.

Similarly, the April Gallup poll showed an Obama approval rating of 43 percent, compared to an April 2010 Obama approval rating in that poll of 49 percent, and an early November 2010 approval rating of 44 percent. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found Obama’s job approval at 44 percent, compared to a May 11, 2010 approval of 50 percent, and an October 30, 2010 approval of 45 percent. So consistently in all these polls, Obama was doing better in 2010 just before that year’s Democrat blowout than he is doing this year.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll also found only 42 percent approval of Obama’s handling of the economy, lower than the 44 percent in the October 2010 poll. Most damning of all, 53 percent in the 2014 poll say it is more important to have Republican congressional majorities to check Obama’s policies, compared to 39 percent who believe it is more important to have Democratic congressional majorities to support those policies.

Bottom line in that poll, 45 percent say they plan to vote for Democratic candidates for Congress this fall, compared to 44 percent who say they plan to vote for Republican congressional candidates. But in October 2010, the Washington Post/ABC News poll showed Democrats with a 5-point advantage on that question, just before voters granted Republicans a 63-seat gain in the House, and a 6 to 7 seat gain in the Senate (depending on how you count the November 2010 affirmation of Scott Brown’s special election pickup of Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat).

These polls above, and state by state polls, are consistent with a Republican pickup in this fall’s midterm of as many as 10 Senate seats, establishing a new 55 to 45 Republican Senate majority, and 20 more House seats. To maximize that victory, Republicans need to campaign on a pro-growth platform of specific reforms to get America booming again as under Reagan. But in designing those proposals, conservative and Republican candidates, think tanks, publications, and policy intellectuals need to think past what can possibly be compromised with President Obama, and take their case for populist, pro-growth reforms directly to the people.

That sounds awesome!

And it's also in line with what I've been saying all year: The Democrats are going to get hammered. It's gonna be a bloodbath.

More at the link.

White Guys: We Suck and We're Sorry

Idiots.

Via Pat Dollard, "White Guys: ‘We Suck And We’re Sorry’ – Outrageous New Video That Apologizes For Years of ‘White Privilege’."

White Privilege: A term created by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons. #tcot #p2 #uniteblue #teaparty #tgdn

— Patrick Dollard (@PatDollard) May 11, 2014

The Revolting Truth: The Debate is Over

And the science is settled, so STFU.

Via Daley Gator:

#Ukraine Separatists Prepare for Referendum

Do you support the People's Republic of Donetsk?

At WSJ, "Pro-Russian Separatists Prepare for Referendum in Eastern Ukraine: Election Officials in Donetsk Set Up Polling Stations to Gather Independence Votes on Sunday":

DONETSK, Ukraine—Pro-Russia separatists in two eastern regions prepared polling stations for a referendum on Sunday intended to seal their independence from Ukraine but denounced as illegal by Kiev and the West.

At an "electoral commission" in downtown Donetsk, activists glued paper flags of their self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic over the Ukrainian coat of arms on ballot boxes and sealed them before sending them to polling stations.

Election officials say they have more than 1,500 voting stations across Donetsk alone, and even intend to hold the vote in the port city of Mariupol, where fighting Friday left several dead as Kiev tried to stamp its control there.

The separatists would have little chance of winning a free and fair vote, as a majority here want close ties with Russia but to remain part of Ukraine, polls show.

Although Kiev and the West say they won't recognize the referendum's result, it could allow the separatists to declare a de-facto divorce from Ukraine. That could lead to a descent into international isolation akin to the Russian-backed breakaway statelets in Moldova and Georgia. For the Donetsk region, whose heavy industries are dependent on exports, an international pariah status could cause serious economic pain. Barring Crimea-style annexation by Russia, in which Moscow publicly has expressed no interest, Donetsk People's Republic could find itself with crimped export markets and unemployment problems. Asked about this, Roman Lyagin, Donetsk People's Republic's election chief, said that "it's better to live in isolation than under occupations."

Keep reading.

Why do I sense that Putin won't in fact stay uninvolved. Well, actually, I have an idea, but we'll see.

Added: From Masha Gessen, at the Washington Post, "After carving up Ukraine, where will Putin turn next?"

The Wisconsin Gestapo

From George Will, at the Washington Post, "Wis. prosecutors abuse the law for partisan ends" (with the headline snagged from Elizabeth Price Foley at Instapundit).

The piece excoriates the Wisconsin Democrats' now-curtailed "John Doe" campaign finance investigations, which had virtually no chance of obtaining convictions. Their purpose was pure intimidation:

Liberals inveighing against “dark money” in politics mean money contributed anonymously to finance political advocacy. Donors’ anonymity thwarts liberals’ efforts to injure the livelihoods of identifiable conservatives by punishing them for their political participation and thereby deterring others from participating...

RTWT.

Virginia Hot Air Balloon Catches Fire, Crashes: 1 Body Recovered, 2 Unaccounted

Remind me never to ride in one of these hot air balloons. I've never really liked them, but this story seals the deal.

At London's Daily Mail, "'Help me, help me, sweet Jesus, help. I'm going to die': Desperate hunt for hot air balloon that hit power lanes, burst into flames and VANISHED as burning passengers screamed out for help."

Daily Mail indicates one body has been recovered.

Here's a local report at WTVR Virginia, "People still missing after hot-air balloon accident in Doswell."

And a report at ABC News:

Rep. Louie Gohmert Compares Hateful Homosexuals to Nazis

The video is here (hat tip: Memeorandum).

And it sounds like Gohmert briefly mentions the Benham brothers' show cancellation, discussed at London's Daily Mail, "HGTV cancels home-flipping show before it even airs after twin hosts are exposed as anti-gay activists."

Sure, intolerant leftists are Nazis, but better to just describe them as murderous fascists to avoid going full Godwin.

The Left's 'Trigger' Totalitarianism

A great clip, at Reason, "Trigger Warnings, Campus Speech, and the Right to Not Be Offended."

This Bailey Loverin's a bleedin' airhead.



AP calls them "trauma warnings." Idiot progs are made of eggshells, heh: "TRAUMA WARNINGS MOVE FROM INTERNET TO IVORY TOWER."

Putin Is Trying to Take Over #Russia's Memories of WWII

From Julia Ioffe, at the New Republic:

This year, once again, the center of Moscow will be shut down as a military parade rumbles through Red Square and past a very serious Vladimir Putin. Ostensibly, it is to celebrate the 69th anniversary of the day when the Germans formally surrendered to the Soviets in Berlin. But the parade, now an annual affair, with its planes and its tanks and its trucks pulling intercontinental ballistic missiles through the city has become a cornerstone of Putinism, a way to bind the country with the only thing that its citizens still have in common.

This year, the day has become even more politicized. The orange and black ribbons that once held the medal commemorating victory in the war are now a symbol of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and of Putinists in Russia. There will be a victory parade in freshly annexed Crimea, too. Victory in the Great Patriotic War, as it’s known in Russia, has been used to justify the annexation of Crimea and to fight opposition to Putin at home. The war has somehow become Putin’s personal possession, the victory—his personal achievement.

This year, the holiday is even harder to celebrate for those that support neither Putin nor his foreign policy, but, unlike Putin, lived through it all. It is, after all, their memories of the war that make up the history of those bloody, hungry years; they are the bright and morbid pixels in the larger, increasingly manipulated picture.

Keep reading.

'Let’s hope the RNC sticks to its guns on this because we all remember the Candy Crowley debacle...'

Yes, we do.

From Elizabeth Price Foley, at Instapundit, "RNC Chair Reince Preibus has announced that the RNC is taking steps to demand greater balance in the 2016 presidential debates..."

Winning College-Application Letters on Economics and Finance — and Life and Love

At the New York Times, "Four Stand-Out College Essays About Money."

And read the essays, "Students and Money, in Their Own Words."

Which one's your favorite. They're all good, although I think Andy Duehren's by far the most accomplished writer.

Harvard's Black Mass

Just because you have the freedom to do something doesn't mean you should. And from what I'm reading, the purpose of this Black Mass is to perpetuate evil.

Here's the background at the Boston Globe, "Archdiocese assails plans for black mass by Harvard group."

And from Lisa Graas, "Satanic Temple conducting black mass at Harvard is actually atheist."

Satan! Fighting for your freedom to do evil since the Garden of Eden. Meet Satan, guest of atheists, @Harvard or not. pic.twitter.com/18h3ZUOE9q
— Lisa Graas (@CatholicLisa) May 9, 2014

Leave it to the atheists to pretend to be Satanists and claim that Catholics objecting to the mockery of Catholicism are "intolerant."
— Lisa Graas (@CatholicLisa) May 9, 2014

It takes a special kind of insanity to claim that Catholics who object to the mocking of Catholicism are "intolerant."
— Lisa Graas (@CatholicLisa) May 9, 2014

I'm intolerant of many things. Satan is definitely at the top of the list.
— Lisa Graas (@CatholicLisa) May 9, 2014

Illegal Immigrants Seek DREAM Center at Long Beach State

Here's the report, at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, "Building a DREAM Center: CSULB students seek resource center for the undocumented."

And from the letters to the editor yesterday, "Let’s provide college help to legal residents first":

Re “Building a DREAM Center: CSULB students seek resource center for the undocumented” (May 4):

It’s upsetting to read that $9 million is being given to undocumented-immigrant students attending colleges and universities in the California State University system and Cal State Long Beach.

The article mentioned how difficult it is to attend college by paying tuition and working part-time. That is everyone’s dilemma attending college. It is very expensive, and students have to work to pay for it.

Why not give the $9 million to those students who also dream of attending college and can’t afford it but are legal residents?

This is just another example of undocumented immigrants draining the system. This is not what our state tax dollars are for. These individuals are illegal residents; therefore they don’t have Social Security numbers and don’t pay their fair share of taxes.

— Betty Garcia, Lakewood

Well, you would think.

But you can't say stuff like that nowadays without being attacked as racist.

Boko Haram: When Will the West Wake Up?

From Ayaan Hirsi Ali, at WSJ, "Boko Haram and the Kidnapped Schoolgirls":

Since the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria last month, the meaning of Boko Haram—the name used by the terrorist group that seized the girls—has become more widely known. The translation from the Hausa language is usually given in English-language media as "Western Education Is Forbidden," though "Non-Muslim Teaching Is Forbidden" might be more accurate.

But little attention has been paid to the group's formal Arabic name: Jam'at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-da'wa wal-Jihad. That roughly translates as "The Fellowship of the People of the Tradition for Preaching and Holy War." That's a lot less catchy than Boko Haram but significantly more revealing about the group and its mission. Far from being an aberration among Islamist terror groups, as some observers suggest, Boko Haram in its goals and methods is in fact all too representative.

The kidnapping of the schoolgirls throws into bold relief a central part of what the jihadists are about: the oppression of women. Boko Haram sincerely believes that girls are better off enslaved than educated. The terrorists' mission is no different from that of the Taliban assassin who shot and nearly killed 15-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai—as she rode a school bus home in 2012—because she advocated girls' education. As I know from experience, nothing is more anathema to the jihadists than equal and educated women.

How to explain this phenomenon to baffled Westerners, who these days seem more eager to smear the critics of jihadism as "Islamophobes" than to stand up for women's most basic rights? Where are the Muslim college-student organizations denouncing Boko Haram? Where is the outrage during Friday prayers? These girls' lives deserve more than a Twitter hashtag protest...

Keep reading.

Also at the Toronto Sun, "Boko Haram are the dark side of Islam."

RELATED: "Islamist Militants Kill Hundreds of Civilians in Northeastern Nigeria."

Irina Shayk Covered Topless for Sports Illustrated in Hawaii

Looks like she's having fun.

At London's Daily Mail, "Irina Shayk rolls around topless in the sand with male model as she shoots for Sports Illustrated in Hawaii."

And uncovered topless at Drunken Stepfather, "IRINA SHAYK TOPLESS ON THE BEACH OF THE DAY." (Some of the shots have been deleted, but scroll down at the second link.)

Republican Senators Challenge Janet Yellen

I taught congressional oversight today, so this is interesting.

At NYT, "With Elections Nearing, Republican Senators Take On Yellen on Jobs":

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Thursday sharply questioned Janet L. Yellen, chairwoman of the Federal Reserve, about the persistence of unemployment and the slow pace of the economic recovery during a hearing that highlighted the growing prominence of election-year considerations on Capitol Hill.

The hearing before the Senate Budget Committee flipped the standard script of congressional sessions in recent years with Ms. Yellen and her predecessor, Ben S. Bernanke. Generally, Democrats are the ones who fret about unemployment and the weak economy, while Republicans question whether the Fed will lose control of inflation or destabilize financial markets.

With the midterm elections approaching, however, Democrats are increasingly eager to claim credit for the progress of the economic recovery, while Republicans are emphasizing that the recovery remains weak and incomplete.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, was particularly critical of the Fed’s performance, sharply questioning Ms. Yellen’s statement that the labor market was showing signs of progress.

“We’ve got fewer people working today than there were in 2007 and the population has increased by 15 million,” he said. “So how is this progress? Please tell me.”

When Ms. Yellen responded that things were getting better, but were still not good, Mr. Sessions suggested the Fed should not overstate the improvement. “From the point of view of working Americans, this is the slowest, most anemic recovery that we’ve seen, ever,” he said. “Whatever we’re doing, we need to get better at it.”

More.

Here's Sessions' opening statement, "Jeff Sessions: Fed Stimulus Has Failed American Workers."

And a brief Yellen clip here (love the accent, heh), "Yellen Details Economic Views to Senate Panel."

Stephen Hayes on Condi Rice Protests: 'It's really a pathetic statement about the state of higher learning in America today...'

He's really animated.

And remember, the radical left has brought about this state of affairs:



PREVIOUSLY: "#LiberalRacism: Condoleezza Rice Bullied Out of Rutgers Commencement."

Corona del Mar High School Cracks Down on NFL-Style 'Prom Draft'

Because it "objectifies" girls and exacerbates the school's culture of "entitlement."

Kinda like white privilege, I guess.

At the O.C. Register, "High school boys hold 'draft' to pick prom dates":

In a world where asking a date to prom has become more romantic than asking for a partner’s hand in marriage, one group of high school boys has gone the opposite direction.

For years, junior and senior boys at Corona del Mar High School have selected their dates for the formal dance through an NFL-style “Prom Draft.” The school’s principal is now condemning the tradition, saying it has the potential to objectify or judge those involved.

Though the draft is not affiliated with the school and secret for the most part, some of the draft results were broadcast on Twitter, with pictures of sport-coated teens making their selections. One tweet posted by the senior class Twitter account joked the day before Thursday’s draft that “Many drafters on the prowl tomorrow for #freeagents so dress nice ladies.”

A rule book sent out in a tweet notes that “sophomores can be drafted,” and some pictures show girls’ names printed on the back of jerseys. The Twitter account has since been deactivated, but several students continued to chatter about it on Twitter in the days following the draft.

Sophomore Jessie Harris was one of the girls included in the draft and said the negative coverage it generated on Tuesday was unnecessary.

“I am part of the draft and am friends with many girls in the draft and yes, in some instances girls can be picked by appearance,” she wrote to the Register. “It is all just a fun way to decide who you will be going to prom with. It is not meant to harm those who are picked and I do not believe that it does. It is not, was never, and will never ever be used to objectify the girls at our school.”

Wow. Even the chicks on campus dig it. But hey, never let a little teenage prom-date innovation get in the way of good old bureaucratic authoritarianism!

Wait, the nearby Estancia High School campus feminists took to the barricades to denounce the objectification. Oh the humanity!

At neighboring Estancia High School, also in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, a club dedicated to discussing women’s rights issues released a statement saying the draft was “insulting.”

“Prom should be about having a fun time with your peers and celebrating the end of a successful academic year,” wrote senior Emily Flores, co-president of the Feminists United club at Estancia. “These boys must be very confused about the time we live in if they think that being asked to prom is such a high honor.”

Remember, this is Newport-Mesa Unified School District, afflicted by de facto segregation, so it's about inequality and the white hegemonic patriarchy!

I think this post is gonna qualifies for National Offend a Feminist Week, lol! (Indeed, no doubt Emily Flores is lesbian, heh.)

More at LAT, "Prom draft: Newport Beach boys rented venue to pick dates."

'It's obvious that the far left has decided there are no longer constraints on what it can do to anyone who disagrees with it. How did this happen? Who let the dogs out?...'

Well Obama, of course.

The Obama White House unleashed the forces of far-left intolerance.

See Daniel Henninger, at the Wall Street Journal, "Obama Unleashes the Left."

RELATED: At Legal Insurrection, "Anti-Israel Vassar student group focuses on race of crowd at my speech."



Yeah, the SJP at Vassar also deny Israel's right to exist, "NYU's Students for Justice in Palestine: Israel's Existence is 'Flagrant Violation' of International Law."

An ominous cloud of leftist intolerance has descended on America's campuses.

And leftism is literally a murderous ideology.