Far-Left Suspect Jarrod Shanahan Arrested in Brooklyn Bridge Attack on NYPD (VIDEO)

More from the left's war on law enforcement, at the New York Post, "‘Male Suspect #2’ in Brooklyn Bridge NYPD attack arrested."

The attack can be seen at this local update from CBS News New York:

Taylor Swift Was Freezing Cold While Performing for 'New Year's Rocking Eve'

I wasn't even watching television until 11:00pm, when I turned on the local news.

It's been cold all across the country this last week. No one's been spared the freezing temperatures. And as the local news segued into the delayed broadcast of the Times Square New Year's revelry, I was pretty surprised to see Taylor Swift strip down to nothing more than some "tuxedo" spandex pants and at little bikini-style top. I said to myself, "She must be freezing."

And sure enough, she was.

At London's Daily Mail, "'I'm freezing!' Taylor Swift shivers in tiny vest top as she leads Fergie, Charli XCX and One Direction at Times Square NYE bash."

Click through for photos.

BONUS: "Oh so Glamorous! Fergie looks incredible in FIVE different show-stopping outfits as she hosts Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve."

The Left is All About Revenge

I wrote on this previously, "From Ismaaiyl Brinsley to Barack Obama, Leftist Agenda All About Revenge Against Political Enemies."

Now here comes J.R. Dunn, at American Thinker, "The Left's Base Motive: Vengeance":

American leftism has gotten an awful lot of mileage by monopolizing the moral high ground. It is the sole force in American that favors the poor. The sole enemy of racism. The sole comforter of rape victims. The sole protector of defenseless Muslims. The sole guardian of the environment, and so on ad nauseum.

It all falls apart eventually -- with friends like the left, nobody needs enemies. But often overlooked is that fact that it’s bogus from the start. Any prolonged glance at the left reveals it to be an ideology of power, its major tool violence, its goal revenge.

Leftism has always been about revenge. The works of Marx are filled with fantasies of retribution and judgment. Their tone reeks of resentment and paranoia, with blame cast for even the most trivial. "The bourgeoisie,” Marx once declared in a letter to Engels, “will remember my carbuncles until their dying day.” That’s leftism in a nutshell.

The Paris communards of 1870, the first instance of an actual leftist government-in-being, immediately began shooting bourgeois on taking power, giving full rein to the European hatred for the middle class that is all but incomprehensible to Americans. That practice has been repeated by every hard left government that has ever taken power -- the USSR, communist China, Castroite Cuba, Pol Pot’s Kampuchea, down to minor examples such as Bela Kun’s Hungarian “Regime of Light” (1919), which reintroduced the Roman practice of decimation.

This unvarying tendency toward atrocity suggests that all these regimes had something in common, and it’s not that they all suffered from boils. It’s the lust for vengeance -- revenge for slights and crimes either real or imaginary,  that can be found in every leftist from Nechaev to Bill Ayers. No less than Barack Obama spilled that when, his back apparently against the wall in 2012, he began ranting about “voting for revenge”...

Even more base is the's left's fundamental tenet of ideological hatred. From that springs all else. And if you're outspoken about your views, the left will target you for retaliation. It's all hatred and revenge against those who buck the accepted ideological line.

Keep reading.

Mario Cuomo Dies at 82

Cuomo spoke at Fresno State back in 1992. Definitely an icon of traditional Democratic Party liberalism. No one could articulate the vision of liberal activist government as he could. He was an interesting man.

Here's the outstanding obituary, at the New York Times, "Mario Cuomo, Governor, Governor’s Father and an Eloquent Liberal Beacon, Dies at 82":

In an era when liberal thought was increasingly discredited, Mr. Cuomo, a man of large intellect and often unrestrained personality, celebrated it, challenging Ronald Reagan at the height of his presidency with an expansive and affirmative view of government and a message of compassion, tinged by the Roman Catholicism that was central to Mr. Cuomo’s identity.

A man of contradictions who enjoyed Socratic arguments with himself, Mr. Cuomo seemed to disdain politics even as he embraced it. “What an ugly business this is,” he liked to say. Yet he reveled in it, proving himself an uncommonly skilled politician and sometimes a ruthless one.

He was a tenacious debater and a spellbinding speaker at a time when political oratory seemed to be shrinking to the size of the television set. Delivering the keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, he eclipsed his party’s nominee, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, seizing on Reagan’s description of America as “a shining city on a hill” to portray the president as unaware of impoverished Americans. “Mr. President,” he said, “you ought to know that this nation is more a ‘tale of two cities’ than it is just a ‘shining city on a hill.’ ”

The speech was the high-water mark of his national political career, making him in many ways a more admired figure outside his state than in it.

RTWT. (Via Memeorandum.)

Thousands Brave Bitter Cold for 126th Rose Parade

At the Los Angeles Times:

Ronni Edens bobbed her head as a marching band passed. She's been coming to the parade for more than 30 years, and paused as she tried to nail down her favorite part.

While she was brainstorming, she waved at a man on a passing float. "Happy New Year!" he shouted.

She yelled it back.

"That's the best part," Edens said. "The best part is saying 'Happy New Year' to everyone, even though they're strangers. It's the best way to start a year."

Super-Tight Red Dress Saves 21-Year-Old Woman's Life in Car Accident

The dress was so tight it acted like a corset, protecting her vital organs.

At Telegraph UK, "My £35 little red dress saved my life, says crash victim":

Zoe Turner, 21, says the skin-tight dress she wore to at a Christmas party at Leeds United's ground stopped her bones piercing her organs.

Via Pat Dollard, "Tight Red Dress Saves Hottie’s Life In Car Crash."

New Year's Eve Banner Flying Over Times Square: DE BLASIO - APOLOGIZE TO THE NYPD!!

At Gateway Pundit, "Banner Bashing De Blasio Flies Over Times Square, “De Blasio Apologize to NYPD” (Video)."

NYPD on 'High Alert' as Leftists Plan 'Kill a Pig' Protests on New Year's Eve (VIDEO)

The left is literally waging all-out war on America's law enforcement, and New York City is like ground zero. At the video, Commissioner Bill Bratton says he's not leaving anything to chance.

At Jammie Wearing Fools, "Thanks, de Blasio! NYPD Facing “Kill a Pig Night” to Celebrate New Year":

Needless to say, the “mostly peaceful” protesters are preparing for a big night. Hope nobody interrupts Obama’s latest round of golf to give him the news.

The NYPD is investigating several threats to kill NYPD officers during New Year’s Eve celebrations, DNAinfo New York has learned.

Sources say there are several gang members on social media calling for New Year’s Eve to be “Kill a Pig Night” so that it will become “The New Year’s Eve Massacre 2014.”

The threats primarily come in tweets baring a host of vicious anti-NYPD hash tags including #@deadcopseveryday, #onlydeadcops, #wingsonpigs and #laughatyourdeaths, according to law enforcement sources.

One tweet reads: “Dear Police, Don’t think this cant happen again” accompanied by a photo of armed Blank Panthers from the 1960s and 1970s, sources say.

Police officials say the NYPD is taking all threats seriously, particularly in the wake of the Dec. 20 murder of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu. Their assassin, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, took to Instagram that morning announcing he was coming to New York to kill police officers.

Sources say the NYPD has received 63 threats since the shootings and there have been 16 arrests connected to them.

There are presently 23 open investigations into threats against NYPD officers, a source said.

ObamaCare's Annus Horribilis

From Michelle Malkin:

Obamacare's Annus Horribilis - the horrible year in review. Eat it, @DWStweets ==> http://t.co/JAUlYUiZ9M

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) December 31, 2014

There’s no candy coating the truth: ObamaCare has had a very terrible, horrible, crappy, none-too-happy year. What it really means is that the victims of Obamacare — taxpayers, health care consumers, health care providers, employers and employees — have had a hellish, nightmarish 2014.

RTWT.

Let's Have a National Conversation About the American Ghetto

From Michael Grable, at American Thinker, "A National Conversation about the American Ghetto":

The Left has long argued ad populum that disproportionately white police forces and disproportionately black prison populations prove American law enforcement institutionally racist.

That's essentially the perception behind, for example, the Left's long campaign against racial profiling as a police engagement technique.

Media sensationalism this year about two black deaths at the hands of white policemen inflamed the argument, while the president of the United States, the attorney general of the United States, the mayor of New York, and race-hustling entrepreneurs from Al Sharpton on down to any brother in the street with a bullhorn jumped on the black-while-walking bandwagon.

Here, however, is one standup law-enforcement professional, Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr., who begs to disagree.

Sheriff Clarke publicly condemns anti-police populism as the Left's deflection of an urban reality with which he's professionally all too familiar and for which the Left's all too politically responsible. "This deflects," says Sheriff Clarke:

against the real thing that we need to have a conversation about in this country and it's the American ghetto. And that's where most of the policing unfortunately has to be applied. The American ghetto has chronic poverty, high unemployment where people can't find meaningful work, and kids shackled to failing public schools ensuring that they won't reach their God-given potential. This creates a permanent underclass in this country and ensures that this group of people will continue to live life at the bottom. That's the kind of conversation that we need to have, as to how these failed liberal government policies have led to the creation and emergence of the welfare state. And that characterizes the American ghetto. Let's have that conversation and get off this nonsense that it's the policing profession that needs to be transformed. There's nothing wrong with the policing of, or institution of, policing in America.

The very civil rights movement with its war on poverty which was to have rectified American racism has, instead, perversely perpetuated it in the creation of a permanent underclass living life at the bottom of an urban ignorance, criminality, and violence which most requires the very policing against which its political beneficiaries now rail. That's a pretty "fundamental transformation" of at least one aspect of America. And it's a transformation of which no American should ever be anything but ashamed...

Keep reading.

Sad that.

Ignoring the Facts: How to Promote Lynch Mobs

From Thomas Sowell, at RCP, "Are Facts Obsolete?":

Some of us, who are old enough to remember the old television police series "Dragnet," may remember Sgt. Joe Friday saying, "Just the facts, ma'am." But that would be completely out of place today. Facts are becoming obsolete, as recent events have demonstrated.

What matters today is how well you can concoct a story that fits people's preconceptions and arouses their emotions. Politicians like New York mayor Bill de Blasio, professional demagogues like Al Sharpton and innumerable irresponsible people in the media have shown that they have great talent in promoting a lynch mob atmosphere toward the police.

Grand juries that examine hard facts live in a different world from mobs who listen to rhetoric and politicians who cater to the mobs.

During the controversy over the death of Trayvon Martin, for example, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus said that George Zimmerman had tracked Trayvon Martin down and shot him like a dog. The fact is that Zimmerman did not have to track down Trayvon Martin, who was sitting right on top of him, punching him till his face was bloody.

After the death of Michael Brown, members of the Congressional Black Caucus stood up in Congress, with their hands held up, saying "don't shoot." Although there were some who claimed that this is what Michael Brown said and did, there were other witnesses -- all black, by the way -- who said that Brown was charging toward the policeman when he was shot.

What was decisive was not what either set of witnesses said, but what the autopsy revealed, an autopsy involving three sets of forensic experts, including one representing Michael Brown's family. Witnesses can lie but the physical facts don't lie, even if politicians, mobs and the media prefer to take lies seriously.

The death of Eric Garner has likewise spawned stories having little relationship to facts. The story is that Garner died because a chokehold stopped his breathing. But Garner did not die with a policeman choking him.

He died later, in an ambulance where his heart stopped. He had a long medical history of various diseases, as well as a long criminal history. No doubt the stress of his capture did not do him any good, and he might well still be alive if he had not resisted arrest. But that was his choice.

Despite people who say blithely that the police need more "training," there is no "kinder and gentler" way to capture a 350-pound man, who is capable of inflicting grievous harm, and perhaps even death, on any of his would-be captors. The magic word "unarmed" means nothing in practice, however much the word may hype emotions...

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "BuzzFeed Busted for Pushing the 'Myth' of the Left's 'Dead Cops Chant'."

BuzzFeed Busted for Pushing the 'Myth' of the Left's 'Dead Cops Chant'

Walter James Casper pushes this meme all the time at his Twitter feed.

But Hugh Hewitt busted publisher Ben Smith on BuzzFeed's despicable meme that the left's "dead cop chant" is a myth. See, "Making a Little News on New Year’s Eve" (via Memeorandum).

So I taped an interview with Buzzfeed’s editor-in-chief Ben Smith this morning, one that led Ben to delete a front page headline splash for this story, and which triggered a bunch of follow-on stories among media reporters like The Daily Caller’s Al Weaver. Ben’s a good guest and willing to take hard questions, but I wouldn’t have just disappeared the header that we were discussing without a note to the readers. There’s also an interesting discussion of why I think Buzzfeed will “go left” in 2015 whether it wants to or not. Anyway, here’s the audio and transcript...

Yep. Busted. If you go to the BuzzFeed article the headline's been changed.

But check this dude's tweet below, from earlier this morning, as you can see the subheading, "Protesters Against Police Brutality Aren't Advocating for 'Dead Cops'."

Uh, actually they are, and there are lots of examples, not just the video from Al Sharpton's "dead cops" protest in New York.

"Dead Cops" Chant A Myth http://t.co/OUtrDpl19a
— Chad Hill (@JavaChilly) December 31, 2014

Lies. That's all they have. Leftists are nothing but liars. You have to call them out, constantly and repeatedly. It takes time, but when they're busted their lies often do get further exposure on MSM outlets. It takes conservatives exponentially more effort to debunk the lies with the Obama-enabling media, but it can be done.

They're all despicable liars.

Violent Crime in L.A. Rose for First Time in 12 Years, LAPD Says

This year's been victorious for the left's forces of lawlessness and disruption. From soft-on-crime legislation to the anarchy in the streets, and to the radical left's all-out war on law enforcement, it's been a rough year for the bulwarks of decency and order.

The left wouldn't have it any other way.

At the Los Angeles Times, "L.A. violent crime rises for the first time in 12 years, LAPD says":

For more than a decade, the Los Angeles Police Department has pointed to year-end statistics showing big drops in crime as proof the agency was making the city safer.

But as 2014 draws to a close and the numbers show violent crime has climbed for the first time in 12 years, Chief Charlie Beck has struck a decidedly different note.

"One thing we've become trapped in doing is looking at crime year-to-year, month-to-month, day-to-day," Beck told reporters earlier this month. "When you do that you don't get a clear, overall picture."

His comments came after months of questions about the accuracy of the LAPD's crime data, which the department has long used to set crime-fighting strategies and assess the success or failure of various operations.

Through Saturday, LAPD figures showed a decline in property crimes, but more than a 12% jump in violent offenses over the same period last year. All four types of crime that account for the city's violence total had increased: Robberies and homicides were up slightly; rapes climbed 12.4%.

By far, the most dramatic rise was in aggravated assaults — serious attacks that typically involve a weapon or serious injury — which rose 24.2% compared with 2013.

The increase in assaults coincided with a Times investigation this summer that found that the LAPD significantly understated the city's true level of crime when it misclassified nearly 1,200 serious violent crimes as low-level offenses during a recent one-year period. The bulk of those errors were made when police recorded aggravated assaults as minor incidents...

More.

Socialists Hate God, Freedom, and America!

And they also hate cops.

Hate consumes.

@rsmccain @AmPowerBlog Hate, ultimately, consumes itself, and unfortunately, in the end.

— Joseph G. Simpson (@jg_simpson) December 31, 2014

Anais Zanotti: American Power's Woman of the Year for 2014

I almost forgot about AmPow's Woman of the Year!

In fact, I haven't even thought about it. I can't think of a genuine media sensation this year, unlike in 2013, when Emily Ratajkowski reigned supreme. And in 2012, Kate Upton took the top honors.

So, why Anais Zanotti?

In all of this year's babe blogging and Rule 5, Ms. Zanotti has evinced more of the "Ooh Ahh" factor than anyone else. She's fit and flirty, and not overexposed. Just a sweetie. She sky dives too!

I love Miami beach 💖 #selfie pic.twitter.com/bE8Nv2E4oQ

— Anais Zanotti (@anaiszanotti) July 11, 2014

More here, from the archives.

Also at WWTDD, "Anais Zanotti in a Bikini." And, "@PlayboyVzla pictorial this month."

And at Egotastic!, "Anais Zanotti Licks the Cream from the End of Summer’s Cone."

Get Fit New Year's Resolution

Shop for stuff to speed your fitness resolutions, at Amazon.

Evelyn Taft on Year-End's Record-Low Temperatures

The lovely Evelyn Taft, from KCBS Los Angeles, with the chilly weather forecast for CBS This Morning.

Longtime readers my recall Ms. Taft as a political scientist!



PREVIOUSLY: "The Coldest Rose Parade Ever."

Foreign Fighters Flow to Syria

Love this graphic, at the Washington Post.

Where foreign fighters in #Syria come from http://t.co/NTRbZapYHK pic.twitter.com/bKIYb5QUlo #Tunisia #Tunis #UK @duncanrobinson @conradhackett

— MinDoZa (@mindoza33) December 22, 2014

More 'Broken Windows' for Seattle: Police Seethe as Political Officials Rein in Prosecutions for 'Minor' Crimes

Seattle, a leftist utopia.

And the police aren't loving this policy of no prosecutions for so-called "minor" offenses. Once again, criminals get a free pass. It's a nationwide trend, apparently, and it's getting worse amid the left's all-out assault on law enforcement post-Ferguson.

At WSJ, "Seattle Police Chafe Under New Marching Orders: City Reins in Prosecution for Minor Crimes, Sends Some Offenders to Social Services Instead of Criminal Courts":

SEATTLE— Kathleen O’Toole, this city’s new police chief, recently visited some of her department’s stations to deliver an unusual message: It’s OK to arrest people who violently break the law.

Ms. O’Toole, who became head of the 1,350-officer force in June, said police showed admirable but excessive restraint when pelted with stones and bottles at a protest related to the death of Michael Brown, the Ferguson, Mo., black teen shot by a white officer. “If you get agitators who threaten the police or the public, you have to arrest them,” she said.

That a police chief felt the need to issue such instructions is a signal of the turmoil that has beset American law enforcement. After decades of aggressive policing and prosecution practices, combined with tough-on-crime legislation, there is increasing debate over whether those policies need to change. In recent months, that has taken an angry and at times violent turn, including the shooting of Mr. Brown and the execution-style killing of two New York City policemen.

The tactics many believe helped reduce American crime rates and make violent cities more habitable now appear to be at odds with a different set of consequences. Almost 80 million people, or nearly one-third of adult Americans, have an arrest or conviction record, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data. Among minorities, in particular, there is a mistrust of law enforcement.

These tensions are playing out in Seattle, a fast-growing city of more than 600,000 that is home to corporate giants such as Starbucks Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. The police department is under the scrutiny of a court-appointed monitor, the result of a 2012 Justice Department complaint accusing it of a pattern of using force that denied people’s constitutional rights.

Seattle’s political leadership, including City Attorney Peter Holmes, has moved to rein in police tactics and cut down on prosecutions for minor crimes.

Many police officers have chafed at the restrictions. Earlier this year, one officer cited dozens of people for smoking marijuana in public and wrote some of the tickets to the attention of “Petey Holmes.” Rates of serious crime have started to tick up.

Out of this contentious debate has emerged a possible third way, the joint brainchild of civil-rights activists and law-enforcement officials. The three-year-old program gives beat officers the option of diverting some offenders into social-service programs rather than the criminal courts.

Other locales are trying similar experiments. In Durham County, N.C., prosecutors, defense attorneys, police and judges are working to give youthful first-time offenders an option other than adult court and a criminal record. Authorities in New York, Philadelphia and some other cities have stepped away from making arrests for minor pot possession. Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn has directed officers to limit searches during traffic stops, which in the past produced arrests.

The collateral consequences of an arrest and conviction—which can include difficulty in getting a job, scholarship or loan many years later—are now “definitely on our radar screen,” said Steven Jansen, vice president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, a group representing thousands of prosecutors. “In the end, we have to ask, ‘Is this fair?’ ”

"Serious crime" is going up, but political officials are getting the "restorative justice" shakedown from leftist "civil rights activists" looking to weaken American law enforcement altogether.

This country is going to hell. Damn.

Continue reading.

Owner of L.A.'s Golden Road Brewing Better Start to 'Share His Profits More Equitably...'

Following-up from the the other day, "Los Angeles' Minimum Wage Hike Risks Driving Businesses to Nearby Cities."

No surprise, but leftist readers of the Times took issue, captured perfectly by this totalitarian letter to the editor, "Will a wage boost lift all boats or push jobs out of L.A.?":

To the editor: Golden Road Brewing head Tony Yanow asks, "Do you want to go somewhere you can make money, or do you want to go somewhere where they are stacking the cards against you?" I, an avid IPA aficionado, would respond that I would rather support a brewer who is willing to share his profits more equitably.

I applaud the entrepreneurial spirit of brewers like Yanow. They deserve their profits. Just how much do they think they need to make before they are willing to acknowledge the efforts of their employees by paying them a living wage?

I will be watching and making my decisions about where I enjoy my IPA. The greedy ones need to know they are not the only IPA experts in town.

Sharon Fane, Burbank

Well, she "applauds" them if they're willing to redistribute their earnings. Otherwise she just considers them "greedy" bastards. Typical anti-business leftist. Damn.

Surprisingly, the Times also published a much more sensible letter carefully laying out the logic of the marketplace, from Andrew Chawke in Sherman Oaks (at the link).