ZoNation: Hands Up, Can't Breathe

Via Theo Spark:

Total Control with Joy Corrigan

At Maxim, "Joy Corrigan Can’t Sit Still."

Elizabeth Warren's 'Festival of Hypocrisy'

Here's Charles Krauthammer on Senator Warren's grandstanding for the 2016 presidential primaries.

Camarillo Springs Mudslides

More from the big "Pineapple Express" that tore through the Southland today.

At CBS News Los Angeles:

Bill Whittle's Firewall: The New Barbarism

He the best!

Orange County's Catherine Keefe, an Obama Supporter, Slams ObamaCare as 'Hurting My Family...'

A great personal essay, and eminently depresssing.

From Ms. Keefe, at the Washington Post, "I’m an Obama supporter. But Obamacare has hurt my family":

What Obamacare hasn’t eliminated is worry: We’re deeply concerned about our ability to get quality medical care from doctors we trust. The day may soon come when we can’t afford the plans our doctors accept, or we’ll have to wait hours to seen. Will the best doctors flock to a cash-only model? How long can a good doctor be satisfied with the $39.75 the insurance company paid her for my annual check up a few months ago?

We had thought that our work and businesses had paid us enough to live on in these older years — but we’re discovering we didn’t account for such dramatic increases in health care costs. Medical expenses already gobble up 20 percent of our income. In 2015, if we keep the same plans, our premiums will rise $95 a month. We have no choice to opt out of the required pediatric dentistry or maternity coverage we’ll never use, so we’ll eventually have to settle for less generous policies, with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. My husband isn’t required by law to insure his one employee, though he feels it’s the right thing to do. As costs continue to rise, we may have to direct him to buy his own health insurance at his own cost.

We’ve already started the dance of enrollment all over again and are having a hard time finding partners. As I write this, the “Find a Provider” link on the Covered California website offers 2014 health providers, but not 2015, even though we’re shopping for 2015 insurance policies. Ditto Blue Shield. Administrators at our medical group won’t say yet if they’ll remain with Blue Shield. At least this year, we think we know the steps to the dance. Let the music begin.

A bleedin' nightmare. ObamaCare has objectively made healthcare in American worse.

But RTWT.

'I Am the Walrus'

From last night, while picking up my son from work, at the Sound L.A.

Peace of Mind
Boston
5:55 PM

Hitch a Ride
Boston
5:51 PM

Shake It Up
The Cars
5:41 PM

You're All I've Got Tonight
The Cars
5:37 PM

Dangerous Type
The Cars
5:33 PM

I Am the Walrus
The Beatles
5:21 PM

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
The Beatles
5:19 PM

Come Together
The Beatles
5:15 PM

Runnin' Down a Dream
Tom Petty
5:10 PM

Free Fallin'
Tom Petty
5:05 PM

REFUGEE
TOM PETTY
5:01 PM

Non-employment: The Vanishing Male Worker

This is kinda sad.

At NYT, "The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind":

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Frank Walsh still pays dues to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but more than four years have passed since his name was called at the union hall where the few available jobs are distributed. Mr. Walsh, his wife and two children live on her part-time income and a small inheritance from his mother, which is running out.

Sitting in the food court at a mall near his Maryland home, he sees that some of the restaurants are hiring. He says he can’t wait much longer to find a job. But he’s not ready yet.

“I’d work for them, but they’re only willing to pay $10 an hour,” he said, pointing at a Chick-fil-A that probably pays most of its workers less than that. “I’m 49 with two kids — $10 just isn’t going to cut it.”

Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list.

As the economy slowly recovers from the Great Recession, many of those men and women are eager to find work and willing to make large sacrifices to do so. Many others, however, are choosing not to work, according to a New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll that provides a detailed look at the lives of the 30 million Americans 25 to 54 who are without jobs.

Many men, in particular, have decided that low-wage work will not improve their lives, in part because deep changes in American society have made it easier for them to live without working. These changes include the availability of federal disability benefits; the decline of marriage, which means fewer men provide for children; and the rise of the Internet, which has reduced the isolation of unemployment.

At the same time, it has become harder for men to find higher-paying jobs. Foreign competition and technological advances have eliminated many of the jobs in which high school graduates like Mr. Walsh once could earn $40 an hour, or more. The poll found that 85 percent of prime-age men without jobs do not have bachelor’s degrees. And 34 percent said they had criminal records, making it hard to find any work.

The resulting absence of millions of potential workers has serious consequences not just for the men and their families but for the nation as a whole. A smaller work force is likely to lead to a slower-growing economy, and will leave a smaller share of the population to cover the cost of government, even as a larger share seeks help.

“They’re not working, because it’s not paying them enough to work,” said Alan B. Krueger, a leading labor economist and a professor at Princeton. “And that means the economy is going to be smaller than it otherwise would be.”

Keep reading.

Storm Slams Southern California

It's the so-called "Pineapple Express."

Whatever it's called, it's putting a serious dent in the California drought.

At LAT, "Live updates: Southland storm brings heavy rain, rockslides, flood warnings."

Plus, "Mudslides batter Southern California residents who suffered through fires," and "L.A. storm: Walkway falls on car; roof collapses."

Also at ABC7 Los Angeles ,"HEAVY RAIN PROMPTS FLASH FLOOD WARNING FOR LA REGION."

The Left's War Against Justice and Peace

From David Horowitz, at FrontPage Magazine:

When rioters and “protesters” defend criminals and attack the police it is not a protest. It is an attack. When radicals and rioters defend the guilty and attempt to prosecute the innocent, it is not a protest. It is an attack. When they make race an issue when it is clearly not an issue, it is an attack. When whites are regarded as guilty before the fact and blacks guiltless even after the facts show they are guilty, it is not a protest; it is an attack. It is a calculated attack and the target is America, is us.

“No Justice, No Peace!” is the cry of modern lynch mobs. It means “Our Justice, Or Else” – or else we will burn your city down. Or else we will burn your system down. This is the agenda of the left in the streets and of their supporters in the White House and the Democratic Party:

“We are going to fundamentally transform the United States of America: your system of justice, your system of governance and your system of laws. If we can’t do that, we are going to burn it down.”

Conservatives need to stop dropping their jaws when progressives say “My mind is made up don’t confuse me with the facts” – and mean it. Conservatives need to recognize that the only facts that matter to progressives are the ones that justify their attacks. The mobs who have occupied our streets are not protesting injustice. They are a lynch mob demanding their due. They want officers of the law handcuffed and hung, and criminals (aka “political prisoners”) set free. They want honest juries disbanded, and racist judgments the rule.

Understand that our president and his chief civil rights officer, who are encouraging the “protests,” are racists, as is the Democratic Party which exerts monopoly control over every major inner city in America. Why else would Obama and Holder look to Al Sharpton, who is certainly the nation’s most prominent racist, as their chief adviser on race relations?

Al Sharpton is author of the fundamental transformation of the civil rights movement into a racial lynch mob, which took place decades ago. It probably began with the teenager Tawana Brawley, who accused white cops of raping her because she was afraid of being beaten by her mother when she failed to come home. Sharpton led the charge, whose self-appointed posses ruined these officers’ careers and lives. The progressive phrase of the day was: “Even if Tawana Brawley was lying, she was telling the truth.” (Because white men regularly raped black women – a bigger lie than Brawley’s own tall tale.)

Sharpton has made his career as a slanderer of whites in too many cases to list. Think only of the innocent Duke LaCrosse players whose careers and reputations he and his minions destroyed for a year while defending their criminal accuser who was black. Think of Paula Deen, who voted for Obama and gave millions of her self-made fortune to poor black children, but was falsely and successfully framed as a racist by Sharpton and Co., until her multi-million dollar empire lay in ruins. Nor are apologies ever necessary for black lynchers like Sharpton. There are probably more cases like this of whites who have been destroyed by black racists than there are of blacks being shot for being black by law enforcement officers. And there are surely a lot more cases of blacks being shot for being black by other blacks...

More.

Oh My! White Millennials Abandon Obama!

Now that's some hope and change!

At Gallup, "Obama Loses Support Among White Millennials":

President Barack Obama's job approval rating in 2014 among white 18- to 29-year-olds is 34%, three points higher than among whites aged 30 and older. This is the narrowest approval gap between the president's previously strong support base of white millennials and older white Americans since Obama took office.

Just look at this as a key barometer of how The One has alienated white America. If you can't keep the hipster Millenials, who can you keep?

More.

America's Worst Homosexual Power Couple

From Jamie Kirchick, at the Daily Beast, "The Rise and Fall of Chris Hughes and Sean Eldridge, America’s Worst Gay Power Couple":

Contrary to the popular narrative, TNR did not “die” last week. Its demise as a thoughtful journal of liberal (in the classical sense of the word) thought was foreordained the day Hughes purchased the magazine. And the signs that he would destroy The New Republic as we knew it were clear for anyone willing to take off their ideological blinders. For behind the seemingly accomplished, smart, and creative prodigy that supposedly is Chris Hughes lies a deeply insecure man with few accomplishments to his name and a heavy burden to prove his self, not to mention net, worth. Hughes’s wealth and status owe little to his ingenuity as a supposed Facebook “co-founder” but rather his luck at being in the right place at the right time...

Heh.

RTWT.

Enhanced Interrogations Saved Lives

At the Wall Street Journal, "Ex-CIA Directors: Interrogations Saved Lives."

And ICYMI, "Andrea Tantaros is Awesome!"

LeBron James Puts Arm Around Duchess of Cambridge, Breaks Royal Protocol

At Telegraph UK, "Kate's reaction to LeBron James' royal protocol error" (VIDEO).

And the Los Angeles Times, "What did LeBron James do wrong while posing with the royal couple?"

People don't get it's not OK for LeBron James to slide his hand down Kate's waist not b/c she's a princess, but b/c she's a woman #feminism

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) December 9, 2014

Would it be OK for #LeBron to get all feely on another woman who didn't invite it, but Kate should suck it up because she's royal? WTF?

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) December 9, 2014

#LeBron doing *this* is not OK, not because Kate's a princess, but because she's a woman. #feminism pic.twitter.com/Pct1sY9kJY

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) December 9, 2014

Democrats Lost the South via Culture War and Elitism

They're such stuck up, contemptuous assholes.

From Timothy Carney, at the Washington Examiner.

The Death of OPEC

At Astute Bloggers, "$50 Per Barrel Oil Is Coming: 'OPEC No Longer Exists In Any Meaningful Sense'."

Andrea Tantaros is Awesome!

Ms. Tantaros' response to the left's CIA torture report is so dead on it's practically the last word you need to hear on the despicable Democrat traitors.

And this of course explains why the hate-addled, treasonous fever swamp progs have gone ballistic, at Memeorandum.

Here's the clip, on YouTube.

And here she is on Twitter, reporting on the left's predictably depraved attacks:

I can always tell when I'm hitting a nerve and some truth bc the lefty front groups send mass emails out for people to tweet me mean things.

— Andrea Tantaros (@AndreaTantaros) December 10, 2014

Americans will die bc of this memo while US becomes intel pariah. Progressives are children. They should never be trusted w natl security.

— Andrea Tantaros (@AndreaTantaros) December 10, 2014

Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7

On sale, at Amazon, Shop Amazon - Save $25 on the all-new Fire HD 7.

How the Nation is Failing Today's Troops and Veterans

At the Military Times, "America's Military: A Force Adrift":

For many of the war-weary troops who deployed to combat zones over and over again for 13 years, the end of an era of war in Iraq and Afghanistan is good news.

But for Marine Sgt. Zack Cantu and other service members, it's a total morale killer. For many of them, particularly the young grunts and others in combat arms specialties, it's the realization that they may never go into battle for their country and their comrades.

"Most people in [the Marine Corps] are in because of the wars," said the 25-year-old Cantu, a former infantryman at Camp Pendleton, California. Cantu has retrained as a telephone system and computer repairer, a specialty more likely to survive as the service downsizes.

"Now, everyone's coming to the realization, 'It's probably not going to happen for me,'" he said.

The wars against America's enemies gave troops like Cantu a noble purpose. Their training had focus, their sacrifices were appreciated by a largely grateful nation. That gratitude was reflected from the White House to the citizen in the street, all of whom heaped praise upon military members for their service.

Congress lavished generous pay increases and expanded benefits on them while spending deeply to provide the gear and weapons they needed. Recruiters raced to grow the size of the services, and society vowed to never again undervalue the 1 percent of the country who stepped forward to keep them safe.

Today, however, that gratitude seems to be dwindling. The services have weathered several years of deep cuts in funding and tens of thousands of troops have been unceremoniously given the boot. Many still in uniform and seeking to retire from the military fear the same fate, as those cuts are not yet complete.

A Military Times survey of 2,300 active-duty troops found morale indicators on the decline in nearly every aspect of military life. Troops report significantly lower overall job satisfaction, diminished respect for their superiors, and a declining interest in re-enlistment now compared to just five years ago.

Today's service members say they feel underpaid, under-equipped and under-appreciated, the survey data show. After 13 years of war, the all-volunteer military is entering an era fraught with uncertainty and a growing sense that the force has been left adrift.

One trend to emerge from the annual Military Times survey is "that the mission mattered more to the military than to the civilian," said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who studies the military. "For the civilian world, it might have been easier to psychologically move on and say, 'Well, we are cutting our losses.' But the military feels very differently. Those losses have names and faces attached to [them]."

Keep reading.

U.S. Losing Global Influence

On Obama's watch.

At IBD, "Obama Blamed for Decline In U.S. Global Leadership: Poll."