The Backlash Against de Blasio

From Matthew Vadum, at FrontPage Mag:

Cop-bashing New York mayor Bill de Blasio seems genuinely surprised at the ferocious backlash against him in light of the execution-style weekend killing of two local cops.

After spending the past year in office attacking police, the mayor is now scrambling to put the pin back into the grenade he threw into the local body politic. His crusade against the police goes back at least to his election campaign last year when he caustically criticized then-mayor Michael Bloomberg’s stop-and-frisk policy.

De Blasio is appealing for calm and for a temporary suspension of the ugly anti-police protests his incendiary rhetoric has spawned.

Strangely, this far-left radical who, like his ally in the White House never puts politics aside for the benefit of the community, is now asking New Yorkers to do precisely that.

So far the New York Police Department isn’t in a mood to forgive de Blasio who has teamed up with racial arsonist Al Sharpton to lay waste to what’s left of civil society in the Big Apple. Before the two murders Sharpton had been leading marches where the demonstrators chanted, “What do we want? Dead cops.” Taking cues from the Westboro Baptist Church, Sharpton followers showed up at one cop memorial service chanting and heckling the mourners.

NYPD union leaders have asked de Blasio to skip police funerals and a large gathering of cops turned their backs on the mayor as he showed up Saturday at the Brooklyn hospital where the lifeless bodies of officers Rafael Ramos, 40, and Wenjian Liu, 32, had been taken after they were shot dead by an adherent of the Religion of Peace.

The shooter, Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, was a Muslim apparently upset at what he believed were the racist killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. and Eric Garner in Staten Island. He indicated he was planning to kill “pigs,” and as Robert Spencer notes, “Brinsley’s Facebook page featured a photo of the Qur’an open to the eighth chapter, where Allah exhorts the believers to ‘strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah‘ (8:60).“

Since de Blasio was sworn in last New Year’s Day, New Yorkers have, in fits and starts, begun to realize that they elected a dangerously erratic Sandinista-loving radical as mayor. Although de Blasio’s reaction to the cop murders strikes many in the punditry as incompetent, they are being charitable. De Blasio’s behavior reflects his pathological,  hateful, profoundly anti-American ideology. He can’t conceal his contempt for those whose job it is to promote law and order.

This is what happens when a small-c communist becomes mayor of the nation’s greatest metropolis...

Keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Walter James Casper Slams NYPD in Solidarity with Murderous Left-Wing Anti-Cop Vigilantism."

Walter James Casper Slams NYPD in Solidarity with Murderous Left-Wing Anti-Cop Vigilantism

Repsac3's right in line with pro-violence Gordon Barnes, "Editor of CUNY's 'Advocate' Newspaper Calls for Anti-Cop Violence to 'Bring About New, More Egalitarian Paradigm...'" To say nothing of the student red guards, "Brandeis Red Guards Threaten Daniel Mael for Reporting Khadijah Lynch's Radical Anti-Police Diatribes."

Remember, de Blasio announced his solidarity with the New York anti-cop street protests, and now Walter James Casper's attacking the NYPD officers for exercising their free speech rights to protest the city's anti-cop mayor.

Typical anti-cop scumbag:

Opposition to Mayor de Blasio has literally reached new heights http://t.co/8AQqVwkZUE pic.twitter.com/Gjwm9qYjRB

— New York Post (@nypost) December 26, 2014

Disgusting, divisive, and just plain sad.@nypost

— Walter James Casper (@repsac3) December 26, 2014

Leftist hatred straight up. That's Repsac's life and ideology.

After Christmas Rule 5

Here's a few babes to brighten the holidays.

From the Other McCain, "Rule 5 Sunday: Winter Solstice Edition."

And at Egotastic, "Sabine Jemeljanova Bedroom Photoshoot for Zoo."

And check Sabine on Twitter.

More, at Zoo, "The Girls of ZOO 2015 Calendar!"

Also at the Rio Norte Line, "Rule 5: Vintage Christmas."

At the First Street Journal, "Rule 5 Blogging: From down under!"

And from Knuckledragging, "Your Good Morning Girl."

More, from 90 Miles from Tyranny, "Morning Mistress."

And at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See……is warmth created snow, you might just be a Warmist."

Soylent Siberia has "Coffee Creamer."

Also at Drunken Stepfather, "MORNING HANGOVER DUMP OF THE DAY," and "ALESSANDRA AMBROSIO HAS NO NIPPLES FOR VOGUE BRAZIL OF THE DAY."

Proof Positive has "Friday Night Babe: Emily Wickersham!"

Ode has "A Very Merry Christmas Woodsterman Style (VIDEO)."

See also, the Hostages, "Big Boob Friday."

Also Daley Gator, "THE DALEYBABE."

Now from Wine, Women, and Politics as well, "Multiple exposure."

Front Army has "Rachel McDonald."

At Postal Dog, "Maitland Ward is my favorite Santa's helper."

Some history from Ms. EBL, "Mandy Rice Davies RIP and British Profuma Sex Scandal Affair Rule 5."

And In a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World has "Friday Pinups."

Finally, Bob Belvedere has "Tibby Muldoon."

Brandeis Red Guards Threaten Daniel Mael for Reporting Khadijah Lynch's Radical Anti-Police Diatribes

The American system of higher education remains the beachhead of leftist revolutionary agitation and indoctrination, and if you dare go against the radicals' party line you will be targeted for elimination.

Believe me, I know this personally. Always stand your ground and throw the "racism" allegations back in their faces.

Here's the background from previously, "Khadijah Lynch, Undergraduate Representative for Afro-American Studies at Brandies, Resigns After Outrageous Anti-Police Comments on Twitter."

And now check FrontPage Magazine, "Brandeis Students Threaten Journalist for Reporting Anti-Cop Statements":

Pro-Israel student activist and TruthRevolt contributor Daniel Mael has come under fire from campus progressives and fellow students for writing about a Brandeis student representative’s tweet declaring that she had “no sympathy” for the two NYPD officers murdered in Brooklyn Saturday. Since the story went viral, Mael has become the target of personal threats and a campaign to see him suspended or expelled from the school.

In his piece Saturday, Mael quoted multiple Twitter posts by Khadijah Lynch, at the time the Undergraduate Department Representative for Brandeis’ African and Afro-American Studies program, which expressed her lack of “sympathy” for the two police officers murdered earlier that day. “i have no sympathy for the nypd officers who were murdered today,” she wrote Saturday, followed by “lmao, all i just really dont have sympathy for the cops who were shot. i hate this racist fucking country.”

Mael followed the quotes with other inflammatory statements posted by Lynch, including posts asking “what the fuck even IS ‘non-violence’,” decrying “Zionism,” declaring “the fact that black people have not burned this country down is beyond me” and “I am in riot mode.”

TruthRevolt contacted Lynch for clarification about her statement about the NYPD officers; she responded by saying that any publication of her Twitter posts was “slander.” Mael reported that Lynch then returned to Twitter to say that she needed to “get my gun license. Asap.” and that “amerikkka needs an infitada” (a violent uprising).

This is the second time in recent weeks that TruthRevolt has been accused by left-wing activists of defamation for simply quoting them. The abortion activist and actress Lena Dunham went so far as to serve this publication with a cease and desist for reporting statement made in her own book.

When Mael’s article went viral, Brandeis officials distanced the school from Lynch’s comments, calling them “hurtful and disrespectful,” and African and Afro-American Studies Department Chair Chad Williams issued a statement announcing Lynch’s resignation from her position as student representative for the program. Williams also denounced online criticism of Lynch, which he described as “horrifically racist, sexist, Islamophobic and threatening physical violence.”

Now Brandeis students supportive of Lynch are attempting to start a movement to have Mael either suspended or expelled...

Keep reading.

And at Legal Insurrection, "Student Reporter under Attack at Brandeis Univ. for Reporting On anti-Police Tweets."

Californians Rising Up Against Obama's Lawless Open Borders Amnesty

Shoot, good thing.

Folks on the grassroots are standing up to Obama's lawlessness.

At LAT, "President Obama's executive action has served as a recruiting tool for groups opposing illegal immigration":

For years, Raul Rodriguez Jr. would let out an exasperated sigh, then move on, whenever he read or heard news about illegal immigration. But something clicked last summer when he saw reports of multitudes of Central Americans illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I've got to do something," Rodriguez, 72, said he told himself. "I've got to get off the couch and need to get people involved."

Rodriguez crafted signs denouncing illegal immigration for various rallies, including one in Murrieta a few days after busloads of Central American detainees were turned back amid vocal protests.

After President Obama announced his immigration reform plan last month, the Apple Valley resident started contacting congressional leaders to express his displeasure.

California's anti-illegal immigration movement has lost a lot of steam in the 20 years since voters passed Proposition 187, the ballot measure intended to deny taxpayer-funded services to those in the country illegally.

Polls consistently show that Californians don't see illegal immigration as the same type of threat they did in the 1990s, and a September USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll showed 73% of voters support some type of path to citizenship for those here illegally.

But the last few months have shown that the anti-illegal immigration forces remain small but potent — and a movement that backers hope will get stronger with Obama's action.

Tactics this time are changing. Robin Hvidston, president of We the People Rising, a Claremont organization, said her group and other California activists have focused on targeting congressional leaders outside the state because they know there's little they can do here.

"They see their only hope being the national government," said Roy H. Beck, who heads NumbersUSA, a powerful national advocacy group opposing illegal immigration. "They don't see a solution coming from inside California."

With Christmas Over, Millions of Gift Returns Begin

At the Wall Street Journal, "Purchases Boomerang Back to Retailers, Costing Them Dearly; Returns Are a ‘Dirty Business’":

The holidays may be over, but returns season is just getting started.

Ill-fitting sweaters, the wrong Frozen doll and unwanted accessories will be heading back to U.S. retailers, many in the same boxes they came in.

More than 20% of returns happen during the holiday season—about $60 billion in merchandise, according to Optoro, a logistics provider.

The U.S. Postal Service handled 3.2 million returns in the two weeks that followed last Christmas and said there will be even more this year. United Parcel Service Inc. expects to handle four million returns the first full week of January, up 15% from two years ago as online sales continue to grow.

“Returns in the e-commerce segment are a more important issue than they are in the typical retail channel, representing a larger percentage of overall sales,” said Mike Glenn, president and CEO of FedEx Corporate Services, on a recent call with analysts.

FedEx Corp. said it doesn’t provide projections.

Returns may be a boon for delivery companies, but they are a costly for retailers. Best Buy Co. estimates that returns, replacements and damaged goods represent about 10% of revenue and for the year cost the electronics retailer $400 million. The chain is trying to reduce those losses by selling more so-called open-box inventory online and at its stores around the country. Hudson’s Bay Co. , which owns Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, has tried to encourage customers to return products to its stores, so it can try to land another sale in the process.

“Returns—it is just a dirty business,” said Fred Poore, chief executive of logistics platform CommerceHub, which connects manufacturers with major retailers to fill online orders.

More.

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Big discounts, crowds, return fraud expected with post-Christmas sales":

Retailers girded themselves for the second busiest shopping day of the year, but the day after Christmas is also known for something less beneficial to the bottom line: hordes of returns.

Americans were expected to throng stores to give back unwanted holiday gifts, hoping to exchange the duds for cash, gift cards, store credit or other products.

The crowds will be intensified by deep, inventory-clearing discounts meant to lure shoppers and encourage returners to stay in stores...

The crowds at some stores, however, will likely encourage criminals to try their luck, according to experts.

Return fraud is expected to cost retailers $3.6 billion this holiday season, up from $3.4 billion last year and $2.9 billion in 2012, according to the National Retail Federation.

Over the full year, the practice costs companies nearly $11 billion.

This winter, one in every 20 returns is dubious, according to the trade group – a hefty figure considering that the average person returned nearly four gifts last year.

Several strategies are common. Perpetrators purchase items at a discount online or in a store and then return it at a competing retailer’s brick-and-mortar store for full value.

More retailers are allowing consumers to return merchandise in person that was bought on the Internet, according to the National Retail Federation. But more – 18.2% this year compared with 15.5% last year – are also saying that they have endured return fraud with e-receipts.

Some 3.5% of online purchases returned to stores are fraudulent, according to the group.

Other fraud perpetrators recruit store associates, using their employee discounts to score a deal on the product before returning it for the original price. More than eight in 10 companies said they have been victims of employee collusion.

Some use counterfeit receipts – a practice reported by a quarter of retailers. Others buy electronics, take out the valuable components inside, refill the hollowed-out technology with weights and then return it in the original packaging.

The switch is an offshoot of a common tactic known as wardrobing, in which customers return clothing that they have already worn. This year, nearly three-quarters of retailers said they fell victim to the strategy, up from 62% last year.

For the most part, retail experts don’t suspect average consumers. Instead, they finger organized retail crime groups, which tend to steal merchandise en masse and then resell it.

Such groups cost retailers nearly $30 billion a year, according to the trade group. Criminals are most active in Los Angeles, followed by Miami and then Chicago.

The National Retail Federation surveyed loss-prevention executives at 60 retailers – nearly 93% of respondents said their companies experienced returns of stolen merchandise in the past year.

“These knuckleheads know when to come in – they practice this and they’re good at it,” said Bob Moraca, vice president of loss prevention for the National Retail Federation.

Stephen Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers

I'm just blazing through this book, which I pulled down off my bookshelf while watching "Band of Brothers."

At Amazon, Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany.

Alternative Christmas Message 2014

Love the accent.

From Rosie Jones, at Zoo Today.

PREVIOUSLY: "Christmas with Rosie Jones."

Monkey in New Delhi Resuscitates Electrocuted Friend

You gotta watch this clip.

At AoSHQ, "Monkey Saves Dying Friend Morning Thread."

Year-End Deals at Amazon

If you're shopping, Shop Amazon Instant Video - Save Up to 55% on Digital Movies & TV Shows.

Sex and Drugs Helps Bristish Economy Overtake France

This calls for some Ian Dury, heh.

At the Telegraph UK, "Britain edges past France on world stage":

UK economy, boosted by the inclusion of sex and drugs in national accounts, overtakes France by a whisker to become the world's fifth largest economy.

Britain has overtaken France to become the world's fifth largest economy, new analysis shows.

A shake-up of the national accounts this summer, which showed the UK's downturn during the Great Recession was shorter and shallower than previously thought, helped Britain overtake the Gallic economy by a whisker this year.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said Britain's acceleration was also boosted by the inclusion of sex and drugs to UK growth. While the addition of prostitution and illegal drugs form part of new pan-European accounting standards, France has refused to comply with EU rules because it does not consider them to be "voluntary commercial activities".

Eric Dubois, a director at INSEE, France's statistics office, has described drug use as a "dependency" that does not involve "free will". He said prostitution was the result of "Mafia networks and trafficking illegal immigrants".

Official estimates show prostitution added about £5.7bn to the UK economy in 2013, while illegal drugs were worth about £6.62bn.

This helped the UK to overtake France by the narrowest of margins, the CEBR's analysis showed. UK gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to total $2.828 trillion (£1.816 trillion) this year, compared with French GDP of $2.827 trillion.

The CEBR expects Britain to pull further ahead of France in the coming years. This is despite concerns about the sustainability of the UK recovery raised after further data revisions this week showed growth in five out of the previous six quarters was weaker than thought.

Nominal UK GDP is expected to grow to $2.95 trillion in 2019, compared with $2.67 trillion in France.

More.

Oil's Swift Fall Raises Fortunes of U.S. Abroad

Transformations of global petroleum politics underway.

I love it!

At the New York Times, "Oil’s Swift Fall Raises Fortunes of U.S. Abroad":

BRUSSELS — A plunge in oil prices has sent tremors through the global political and economic order, setting off an abrupt shift in fortunes that has bolstered the interests of the United States and pushed several big oil-exporting nations — particularly those hostile to the West, like Russia, Iran and Venezuela — to the brink of financial crisis.

The nearly 50 percent decline in oil prices since June has had the most conspicuous impact on the Russian economy and President Vladimir V. Putin. The former finance minister Aleksei L. Kudrin, a longtime friend of Mr. Putin’s, warned this week of a “full-blown economic crisis” and called for better relations with Europe and the United States.

But the ripple effects are spreading much more broadly than that. The price plunge may also influence Iran’s deliberations over whether to agree to a deal on its nuclear program with the West; force the oil-rich nations of the Middle East to reassess their role in managing global supply; and give a boost to the economies of the biggest oil-consuming nations, notably the United States and China.

It might even have been a late factor in Cuba’s decision to seal a rapprochement with Washington.

After a precipitous drop, to less than $60 a barrel from around $115 a barrel in June, oil prices settled at a low level this week. Their fall, even if partly reversed, was so sharp and so quick as to unsettle plans and assumptions in many governments. That includes Mr. Putin’s apparent hope that Russia could weather Western sanctions over its intervention in Ukraine without serious economic harm, and Venezuela’s aspirations for continuing the free-spending policies of former President Hugo Chávez.

The price drop, said Edward N. Luttwak, a longtime Pentagon adviser and author of several books on geopolitical and economic strategy, “is knocking down America’s principal opponents without us even trying.” For Iran, which is estimated to be losing $1 billion a month because of the fall, it is as if Congress had passed the much tougher sanctions that the White House lobbied against, he said.

Iran has been hit so hard that its government, looking for ways to fill a widening hole in its budget, is offering young men the option of buying their way out of an obligatory two years of military service. “We are on the eve of a major crisis,” an Iranian economist, Hossein Raghfar, told the Etemaad newspaper on Sunday. “The government needs money badly.” ...

In many ways, the recent price fall really is the United States’ work, flowing to a large extent from a surge in American oil production through the development of alternative sources like shale.

By offsetting declines in conventional oil production, increases in shale oil output have allowed overall American crude oil production to rise to an average of about nine million barrels a day from five million a day in 2008, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. That four-million-barrel increase is more than either Iraq or Iran, the second- and third-largest OPEC producers after Saudi Arabia, produces each day, and it has put strong downward pressure on world prices...

That's what I'm talking about!

Keep reading.

Editor of CUNY's 'Advocate' Newspaper Calls for Anti-Cop Violence to 'Bring About New, More Egalitarian Paradigm...'

Shoot, we should give thanks to this dolt, Gordon Barnes, of the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), for so enthusiastically letting the cat out of the bag of leftist anti-cop vigilantism.

This is truly what the left is all about, but what so few of their cadres will of course honestly admit (since revolutionary leftism is today a stealth movement in which so-called "progressives" disguise the true intent of their bankrupt ideological program).

Here's Barnes' essay, at CUNY GC "Advocate," a far-left publication sporting an "A" for anarchy at its Twitter profile. See, "In Support of Violence." (And you gotta love how this dude Barnes boasts of studying in Havana, at the Instituto de Filosofía de Cuba, a clearinghouse of Marxist-Leninist ideological agitation.)

From the essay:

Calls for calm emanating from the upper strata of society are an attempt to mitigate the popular indignation that has long been bubbling under the surface of the society. The violence against property, that is destruction and theft, is only an unorganized form of something with the potential to be far more revolutionary and inspiring. To say that an all-out class war is on the horizon would be hyperbolic at this point, and maybe even myopic, but the undergirding social structures that position disenfranchised and working class peoples well below the dictatorship of capital are being pressured, the police being only one such institution. With increased organization, the Ferguson protests and riots do have the potential to transform from seemingly random attacks to ones that aim at puncturing the status quo. This is not a quixotic notion, it is within the realm of material possibilities, and activist-scholars should be lending their weight to this and other attendant struggles. The reliability and social productivity of voting for bourgeoisie parties is long dead. The demonstration turned riot, turned revolt, is the most effective means to bring about a new, more egalitarian social paradigm. While the current “unrest” in Ferguson and around the country is unlikely lead to any revolutionary impetus, it is a start. As people’s consciousness is transmuted from subservience to the prevailing ideologies of the elite to something related to their actual position in the society, drastic social change will become increasingly possible.

The death of Michael Brown has spurred this process and has fomented mass discontent with the government. Furthermore, the events in Ferguson have fomented the most visible resistance to the status quo in the United States. What is needed now is to take the next step from indiscriminate attacks to ones directly pointed at state power as well as at the lackeys and apologists who allow it to prosper. The transformative potential emanating from the protestors’ violence in Ferguson and elsewhere will not help recoup some “golden age” in the United States – there never was one – but can hopefully prove to be the kernel of radically altered social relations.

During the protests in New York City in the days after the decision to not indict Wilson, thousands took to the streets empathetically chanting “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” Some, however, went even further, shouting the slogan “Arms Up, Shoot Back!” The former statement represents an appeal to state authorities, namely the police, to cease its murderous rampage upon those living in this country. The latter, represents a challenge – albeit prematurely and an incendiary one, given the balance of forces – to those that currently wield power, and have the legal (fictitious) right to kill whom they see fit. Instead of attempting to demonize the rioters and looters by invoking the image and memory of Martin Luther King Jr., it would be more advantageous for those “progressives” in our society to understand the Ferguson protests as part of the same genealogy as the Deacons for Defense, Malcolm X, Robert F. Williams, and the Black Panthers. What is occurring in Ferguson is symptomatic of the social dislocation that has been ever present but has yet to ferment. When the state comes down on its citizenry violently, we must resist, with equitable violence if necessary. The attacks on property in Ferguson only need be redirected for a magnificent transformation of consciousness to come out of Michael Brown’s death. If not, then Brown’s death, the deaths of the aforementioned men, and the millions who suffered and died under the jackboot of state oppression in this country would have partially been lost in vain. Let us not protest the protestors, but express our solidarity, and our commitment to their struggle, which is invariably our own struggle. As we solidarize and join with the embattled communities in and around Ferguson, let us also remember to look beyond the provincial confines of our own state and express solidarity with others who struggle for a more just and equitable society, be they in Palestine, Mexico, or Burkina Faso. In the word of the late Burkinabé revolutionary Thomas Sankara, “It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future.”

RTWT.

Barnes announces that the "time for peace has passed."

Indeed, the violent revolutionary manifesto caught the attention of the folks at the New York Post, "CUNY newspaper editorial calls for violent protests":

A disturbing editorial in a CUNY grad-student newspaper calls for rioters protesting the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown to arm themselves and wage violent war with cops.

“The time for peace has passed,” says a revolutionary editorial titled “In Support of Violence” that was penned by editor-in-chief Gordon Barnes in the Dec. 3 issue of The Advocate...

More.

Just one more leftist to add to the long train of so-called "progressives" advocating radical anti-cop vigilantism.

The left's chickens came home to roost. And leftists are now on defense after the furious political backlash against their ideological program.

These people are disgusting, genuinely evil, the dregs of society --- pushing for the death of decency and civilization. Expose them. Repudiate them. Crush the bastards.

Radical Left Anti-Christian Hatred - UPDATED!!

I saw this idiot "Male Feminist" on Twitter somehow of late.

The sheer inanity of the handle caught my attention. So-called "male-feminists" are crazy.

Via Instapundit:




And you know, as I was saying, "Leftists can't wish you a Merry Christmas..."

UPDATE: Ms. EBL, in the comments, informs me that "Male Feminist" on Twitter is a parody account, and in that case, it's totally cool. Check this thread at AoSHQ for more.

Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West

In Germany, of all places.

At Der Spiegel, "The End of Tolerance? Anti-Muslim Movement Rattles Germany":

Disenchanted German citizens and right-wing extremists are joining forces to form a protest movement to fight what they see as the Islamization of the West. Is this the end of the long-praised German tolerance of recent years?

Felix Menzel is sitting in his study in an elegant villa in Dresden's Striesen neighborhood on a dark afternoon in early December. He's thinking about Europe. A portrait of Ernst Jünger, a favorite author of many German archconservatives is hung on the wall.

Menzel, 29, is a polite, unimposing man wearing corduroys and rimless glasses. He takes pains to come across as an intellectual, and avoids virulent rhetoric like "Foreigners out!" He prefers to talk about "Europe's Western soul," which, as he believes, includes Christianity and the legacy of antiquity, but not Islam. "I see serious threats coming our way from outside Europe. I feel especially pessimistic about the overpopulation of Africa and Asia," says Menzel, looking serious. "And I believe that what is unfolding in Iraq and Syria at the moment is a clear harbinger of the first global civil war."

Menzel, a media scholar, has been running the Blaue Narzisse (Blue Narcissus), a conservative right-wing magazine for high school and university students, for the last 10 years. His small magazine had attracted little interest until now. But that is about to change, at least if Menzel has his way. "The uprising of the masses that we have long yearned for is slowly getting underway," he writes on his magazine's website. "And this movement is moving toward the right."

In Dresden, at least, the sentiments expressed in the Blaue Narzisse have become more palpable in recent weeks. Protests staged each week on Mondays initially attracted only a few dozen to a few hundred people, but more recently the number of citizens taking to the streets has reached 10,000. The group, which calls itself Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (and goes by the German acronym Pegida), demonstrates against economic migrants and a supposed "cultural foreign domination of our country" -- whatever is meant by that.

What is going on in Germany, the world's second most popular destination for immigrants? Has the open-mindedness for which Germans had long been praised now ended? Are we seeing a return of the vague fear of being overwhelmed by immigrants that Germany experienced in the 1990s, when a hostel for asylum seekers was burned down? How large is the new right-wing movement, and will it remain limited to Dresden, or is it spreading nationwide?

So far, protests held under the Pegida label in other cities -- like Kassel and Würzburg -- have attracted only a few hundred people at a time. In fact, some of the protests attracted significantly larger numbers of counter-demonstrators. And while thousands of "patriotic Europeans" aim to take to the streets in Dresden again in the coming days, their counterparts in Germany's western states are taking a Christmas break. Pegida supporters are waiting until after the holidays to return to the streets in cities like Cologne, Düsseldorf and Unna.

Keep reading.

Christmas Eve in the Ardennes

Just now finishing up on "The Band of Brothers," so I guess this is appropriate.

At Legal Insurrection, "Christmas 1944: The Battle of the Bulge."

'The Interview' Now Available on Xbox Video

Damn. You gotta love 'Merica!

At the Hollywood Reporter, "'The Interview' Goes to YouTube, Google Play, XBox."

And video at CBS News Los Angeles, "Sony Agrees to Limited Release of 'The Interview'."

Saw Julia Roberts This Morning

In a beauty ad, for Lancome.

She's one of a kind. Style and perfection. And class.

Kelly Brook Christmas

Merry Christmas folks.

At London's Daily Mail, "She's definitely on Santa's naughty list! Kelly Brook shows off her ample assets as she performs a Christmas striptease."

Man, that woman has ample assets.

Despite Obama, Plunging Oil Prices Spur U.S. Economy to Stongest Growth in Decade

Just think how much stronger our economy would be doing if we had a pro-growth president.

At LAT, "U.S. growth is strongest in a decade":

The U.S. is rolling into the new year with impressive strength as plunging oil prices have ignited consumer spending and helped fuel the best stretch of growth in more than a decade — even as economies around the world are struggling.

A basketful of mostly upbeat economic data Tuesday pushed financial markets to record highs, with the Dow Jones industrial average breaking through the 18,000-point barrier for the first time.

Investors were spurred by a Commerce Department report that the U.S. economy expanded at a remarkable 5% annual rate in the third quarter, the fastest pace since 2003 and a far cry from the tepid growth that has plagued most of the recovery from the Great Recession.

"This is literally shoot-the-lights-out sort of stuff," said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Union Bank in New York. "This economy is pretty much roaring."

And the third quarter wasn't a fluke.

Total economic output, also known as gross domestic product, expanded at a 4.6% annual rate in the second quarter. It marks the first time the economy posted back-to-back quarters of more than 4.5% growth since 2003.

Economists don't expect the torrid pace to continue. The fourth quarter will probably keep the positive momentum, but at a more modest 2.5% to 3%.

With gasoline prices plummeting, Americans are feeling the difference in their bank accounts. Consumer spending jumped in November as incomes continued to rise.

And with a leading measure of consumer confidence on Tuesday hitting its highest level since 2007, signs point to strong spending carrying into next year, economists said.

"The U.S. economy prior to the oil price decline was doing reasonably well. It was chugging along," said Brian Bethune, chief economist at Alpha Economic Foresights.

"Then we get an accelerator, which is the drop in oil prices," he said. "It's equivalent to a big tax cut — and the tax cut is getting larger."

Although oil prices rose Tuesday — partly because strong U.S. growth signaled increased demand — they have fallen nearly 50% over the last six months.

That's caused the average price for a gallon of regular to drop to $2.38 a gallon, according to AAA. That's down 15 cents in just a week and 87 cents from a year ago.

The savings at the gas pump have boosted consumer spending, which rose 3.2% in the third quarter. Those figures beat an earlier estimate, and rose from 2.5% in the previous quarter. A big factor was an increase in spending on healthcare.

Heh. I just love it when the economy defies the leftist program of economic stagnation.

More.

EARLIER: "U.S. Fuel Costs Drop to Historic Lows, Thanks to Shale Oil Boom — And No Thanks to Obama!"