LAUSD Teachers Reeling from 'Restorative Justice,' with Unruly Students Escaping Consequences for Their Actions

Tell me about it.

"Restorative justice" approaches on campus have basically repealed actual consequences for student misbehavior. It's been like this at my college for awhile, and it's not even formal policy. All kids have to do is cry "racism" and they'll get off scot-free.

Thank the radical left, and the Democrat Party, for this.

At LAT, "Why some LAUSD teachers are balking at a new approach to discipline problems":

In a South Los Angeles classroom, a boy hassles a girl. The teacher moves him to the back of the room, where he scowls, makes a paper airplane and repeatedly throws it against the wall. Two other boys wander around the class and then nearly come to blows.

"Don't you talk about my sister," one says to the other. The teacher steps between them.

When she tries to regain order, another boy tells her: "Screw you."

It's another day of disruption on this campus in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has been nationally hailed by the White House and others for its leadership in promoting more progressive school-discipline policies. The nation's second-largest school system was the first in California to ban suspensions for defiance and announced plans to roll out an alternative known as restorative justice, which seeks to resolve conflicts through talking circles and other methods to build trust.

The shift has brought dramatic changes: Suspensions districtwide plummeted to 0.55% last school year compared with 8% in 2007-08, and days lost to suspension also plunged, to 5,024 from 75,000 during that same period, according to the most recent data.

The district moved to ban suspensions amid national concern that they imperil academic achievement and disproportionately affect minorities, particularly African Americans.

But many teachers say their classrooms are reeling from unruly students who are escaping consequences for their actions.

They blame the district for failing to provide the staff and training needed to effectively shift to the new approach — and their complaints are backed up by L.A. schools Supt. Ramon Cortines. He said the new discipline policies, which were pushed through by the Board of Education and former Supt. John Deasy and which he supports, were poorly executed. He compared the implementation to the flawed effort to equip students and teachers with Apple tablets.

"I will compare it to the iPad," Cortines said. "You cannot piecemeal this kind of thing and think it is going to have the impact that it should have. Don't make a political statement and then don't have the wherewithal to back it up."

Keep reading.

And flashback, "'Restorative Justice' at Beach High School Questioned Amid Breakdown of Discipline."

Mayra Suarez Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Casting Call (VIDEO)

She's fabulous.

Mikhail Lesin, Former Aide to Vladimir Putin, Found Dead in Washington, D.C., Hotel

Well, it's not like anyone would have a motive, or anything.

This guy Lesin was the founder of Russia Today, the Russian government's propaganda network, so it's an intriguing story.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Former Putin Aide Mikhail Lesin Found Dead at D.C. Hotel."

Also at Euronews, "Putin's former aide found dead in Washington hotel."

Plus, at ABC News, via Mediagazer, "Creator of Russia Today and former Russian minister of press, Mikhail Lesin, found dead in Washington DC hotel."

In Frankfurt, Germany, Hot Dog Haters Are the Wurst

Heh.

At WSJ, "German sausage fans say U.N. is full of baloney; meat warning ‘nonsense’":

FRANKFURT—Here in the city that gave its name to the famous sausage, the World Health Organization’s warning against eating processed meats is hard to swallow.

The United Nations body last week said eating frankfurters and their ilk can cause cancer. To Germans, many of whom consider sausage and cured meats comfort food, that idea doesn’t go down well.

“It’s total nonsense,” said Simone Kluge while selling sausages to a line of customers in Frankfurt’s main market hall. “If it were true, every German would have already died of wurst,” she scoffed, using the German word for sausage.

Many cultures make sausages. Italian salami, Polish kielbasa, French saucisson and British bangers are widely known. But Germans have a special affinity for the oblong food.

Of 31 types listed in the U.S. National Hot Dog and Sausage Council’s online sausage glossary, 11 come from Germany and two more come from heavily Germanic Austria. Italy is a distant second place, with six varieties.

Germany has at least three museums devoted to sausages. Sausages were a hot potato in national elections two years ago and the language is peppered with sausage references.

In a make-or-break situation, Germans say: “It’s about the sausage.” For indifference, they say: “It’s sausage to me.”

“Sausages to Germany are like pasta is to Italy,” said Andreas Fuhr, a master butcher selling his products at a weekly market in Frankfurt.

Sausages are so integral to the German diet that German Food and Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt quickly reacted to the WHO warning with a statement reassuring German consumers of their safety and he posed in the country’s biggest newspaper holding a platter piled with sausages.

“No one should be afraid of eating a bratwurst,” he declared, referring to the most ubiquitous sausage. “What counts is quantity,” he added. “Too much of something is always bad for health.”

Austria’s agriculture minister didn’t mince words, calling the WHO report “a farce.”

Two days after the WHO announcement, German newspapers were bursting with more than 200 articles about the wurst alert.

World-wide reaction to the WHO report was so vocal that the organization later issued a clarification that its finding “does not ask people to stop eating processed meats,” though eating less of them can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.

While the criticism of processed meats gnaws at many sausage fans, it was particularly biting in Frankfurt. “Examples of processed meat include hot dogs (frankfurters), ham, sausages, corned beef, and biltong,” the agency said.

“We won’t let the WHO simply kill off our fine Frankfurt sausages,” fumed Oliver Bergmann, a master butcher at Waibel Butcher shop in Frankfurt, who has been in the trade for 30 years...

Keep reading.

On Stalin's Team

I'm on a Soviet Union jag right now, especially biographies of Stalin.

I've been checking out Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick, whose latest book is On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics.

Melissa Debling for Zoo Today (VIDEO)

She's a sweetie.

Watch, "Melissa Debling's very rude strip!"

More.

Faisal Mohammed

Boy, authorities were quick to rule out terrorism. But I mean, a knife attack? Just a coincidence that there's a stabbing intifada going on right now in Israel, you think?

At Atlas Shrugs, "Knife Jihad at UC Merced: Faisal Mohammad identified as Muslim who went on ‘smiling’ stabbing spree at California University," and "UC Merced jihadi’s manifesto PRAISED ALLAH, cops say motive NOT TERRORISM."

Also at Jihad Watch, "Islamic State praises Muslim who stabbed four at UC Merced," and "UC Merced stabber “devout Muslim,” manifesto included “praise Allah,” beheading plan."

Gifts for the Trendsetter

At Amazon, Shop Holiday Home & Garden Gift Guide - Trendsetter.

Plus, ICYMI, from Fredrik Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam.

Ben Carson's Past Faces Deeper Questions (VIDEO)

Carson's getting the Herman Cain treatment, and it's harsh.

Enormous coverage at Memeorandum, "Exclusive: Carson claimed West Point ‘scholarship’ but never applied."

And at the Wall Street Journal, "In harsh light of presidential politics, parts of his inspirational biography are questioned":

The day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968, Ben Carson’s black classmates unleashed their anger and grief on white students who were a minority at Detroit’s Southwestern High.

Mr. Carson, then a junior with a key to a biology lab where he worked part time, told The Wall Street Journal last month that he protected a few white students from the attacks by hiding them there.

It is a dramatic account of courage and kindness, and it couldn’t be confirmed in interviews with a half-dozen of Mr. Carson’s classmates and his high school physics teacher. The students all remembered the riot. None recalled hearing about white students hiding in the biology lab, and Mr. Carson couldn’t remember any names of those he sheltered.

“It may have happened, but I didn’t see it myself or hear about it,” said Gregory Vartanian, a white classmate of Mr. Carson’s who served in the ROTC with Mr. Carson and is now a retired U.S. Marshal.

Mr. Carson’s biography, a rise from poverty to become a top neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University, is central to his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Now, his story—told in nine books and countless inspirational speeches over the past 25 years—has come under the harsh scrutiny of presidential politics, where rivals and media hunt for embellishments and omissions that can hobble a campaign.

In 2008, Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton said she was mistaken when she claimed she and her daughter, Chelsea, had come under sniper fire and had to run for cover during a trip to Bosnia in 1996 while she was first lady. A video of the trip unearthed after her comments showed no gunfire.

The threat to the Carson candidacy is that the inconsistencies or hard-to-check anecdotes, which were told long before he ever considered a presidential run, will put off voters only now getting to know him.

Mr. Carson’s campaign manager, Barry Bennett, said Friday there was “no evidence” that any aspect of Mr. Carson’s biography wasn’t true. “There’s no facts saying they are not true. We are guilty until proven innocent,” he said. “You have no reason to believe that they are not true. There’s no evidence to point to the fact that they are even questionable.”

Still more.

Let's see how long he can hold out.

Leftists Are Losing the Culture Wars?

Actually, I don't believe leftists are losing the culture wars, although the left came out the big loser during this week's elections. It remains to be seen if we have an actual retrenchment in public policy. Homosexual marriage is here to stay, I'd say. Transsexuals using women's restrooms is a lunatic fringe issue that's only on the agenda in Democrat Party strongholds. And electing a Republican to the White House will have a dramatic effect in federal civil rights enforcement in the schools.

It's not just homosexuals and trannies, however.

See Molly Ball, at the Atlantic, "Liberals Are Losing the Culture Wars":

In Tuesday’s elections, voters rejected recreational marijuana, transgender rights, and illegal-immigrant sanctuaries; they reacted equivocally to gun-control arguments; and they handed a surprise victory to a Republican gubernatorial candidate who emphasized his opposition to gay marriage.

Democrats have become increasingly assertive in taking liberal social positions in recent years, believing that they enjoy majority support and even seeking to turn abortion and gay rights into electoral wedges against Republicans. But Tuesday’s results—and the broader trend of recent elections that have been generally disastrous for Democrats not named Barack Obama—call that view into question. Indeed, they suggest that the left has misread the electorate’s enthusiasm for social change, inviting a backlash from mainstream voters invested in the status quo.

Consider these results:

Ohio voters rejected a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana by a 30-point margin.

Voters in Houston—a strongly Democratic city—rejected by a 20-point margin a nondiscrimination ordinance that opponents said would lead to “men in women’s bathrooms.”

The San Francisco sheriff who had defended the city’s sanctuary policy after a sensational murder by an illegal immigrant was voted out.

Two Republican state senate candidates in Virginia were targeted by Everytown for Gun Safety, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s gun-control group. One won and one lost, leaving the chamber in GOP hands.

Matt Bevin, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Kentucky, pulled out a resounding victory that defied the polls after emphasizing social issues and championing Kim Davis, the county clerk who went to jail rather than issue same-sex marriage licenses. Bevin told the Washington Post on the eve of the vote that he’d initially planned to stress economic issues, but found that “this is what moves people.”

More.

U.S. Officials Suspect Islamic State Planted Bomb Aboard Russian Jetliner in Egypt (VIDEO)

Following-up from earlier, "Islamic State Claims Responsibility for Downed Russian Passenger Jet in Egypt (VIDEO)."

There were lots of doubts initially, but not so much now.

At Telegraph UK, "Russian plane crash: US intelligence suggests bomb was planted by Islamic State as Britain suspends Sharm el-Sheikh flights - latest news."

And here's Lester Holt, at NBC Nightly News:

America's Moral Crisis and Election 2015

D.C. McAllister, at the Federalist, uses Michael Walsh's, The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West, as a launchpad to analyze Tuesday massive repudiation of the Demonic-rats.

See, "America’s Crisis Isn’t What You Think":

In politics, as in all of life, it’s imperative to see our choices in that context. Distinguishing between heroes and villains is integral to us deciding what kind of society we want to be.

The True Nature of Our Crisis

This is how many voters are looking at the candidates running for president, even if they’re doing it unconsciously. They’re asking, who are the tricksters, the deceivers? Who are the support characters? Who are the healers? Most importantly, who will be the hero, the leader, who will stave off America’s enemies both from without and within? Who will defend her no matter the cost to himself? Who will love her and protect her? Who will heal her from the sickness that has spread throughout her body politic?

They can’t always define the sickness. Is it immigration, federal overreach, the education system, the debt, high taxes, political corruption, activist courts, all of the above? Whatever the issue, the conclusion is the same: America is in trouble. America is in crisis.

But what is the true nature of that crisis? Is it a fiscal crisis? A security crisis? A constitutional crisis? It’s all of these, but so much more. “The crisis in which the United States of America currently finds itself enmeshed is a moral crisis, which has engendered a crisis of cultural confidence, which in turn has begotten a fiscal crisis that threatens—no, guarantees—the destruction of the nation should we fail to address it,” Walsh writes.

This is an important point, because if you don’t see the crisis as a battle between good and evil—a moral crisis, as Walsh explains, that has been created by Leftist German philosophies (Hegel, Marx, Frankfurt School), subverting our culture by luring us into thinking there is no battle between good and evil (only a synthesis of both)...

Keep reading.

The left is truly diabolical, and the sheer depth of Tuesday's shellacking has even radical leftists questioning the sustainability of the Democrats as a national party.

Americans' Mood Darkened by Widespread Anger, New WSJ/NBC News Poll Finds

This is a fascinating poll, particularly in light of this week's election results.

America is deeply polarized, and not just over economics and the elitist establishment. At root here is a massive cultural divide. We've literally become two Americas, with the left militantly anti-religious and collectivist, and mainstream Americans and conservatives alienated by the nation's cultural rot. Homosexuality, race and "social justice," and murderous open borders have pushed regular people to the edge. It's not good for the country, and frankly, it's not good for the Democrats.

At WSJ, "WSJ/NBC Poll Finds Anger at Political System":

GOP primary voters are overwhelmingly unsettled by societal changes transforming the country, new WSJ/NBC poll finds https://t.co/vqGlIRPhkT

— Capital Journal (@WSJPolitics) November 4, 2015

Amy West, a 61-year-old retired schoolteacher, traces her frustration with the rest of the country to a local fight banning prayer at area schools more than a decade ago. “I have to have the Bible in my life,” she said.

A Republican from Vilonia, Ark., she plans to support Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in next year’s GOP presidential primary. She thinks he is best equipped to tackle her concerns, starting with the dwindling influence of religion in Americans’ daily lives.

Republican primary voters are overwhelmingly unsettled by societal changes transforming the country, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds, while Democratic primary voters describe themselves as proud that the country has moved further to protect the rights of minority groups and to accept gay marriage.

The results show that, in many ways, Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are being forced to tailor their messages for deeply disparate groups. If there is a unifying theme, it is anger at the political system, the Journal/NBC News poll suggests.

Some 71% of GOP primary voters agreed when asked whether they felt “out of place” in their own country and uneasy about widespread illegal immigration, the shrinking role of religion in public life and the growing acceptance of gay and lesbian rights. Among these GOP voters, 45% strongly agreed with that view, compared with just 12% among Democratic primary voters.

This sentiment is sending many GOP voters into the camps of candidates articulating their fears, including Mr. Cruz, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and businessman Donald Trump, whose slogan is “Make America Great Again.”

By contrast, three of four Democrats voiced pride in how the country “continues to make progress as a tolerant nation” that has taken significant steps to protect the rights of African-Americans and same-sex couples, and to change how women are viewed. Some 45% of Democrats strongly held that belief, compared with 10% among Republican primary voters.

This trend helps explain former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emphasis on gay rights and support for other societal changes. She announced her support for same-sex marriage in March 2013.

“Candidates for both parties can win their respective primaries by appealing to progress on the Democratic side and unease on the Republican side,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, of Hart Research Associates, which conducts the Journal/NBC survey with Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican firm...

Keep reading.

Californians Less Safe After Passage of Proposition 47

Crime's going to be a major issue in 2016, one more plank in the left's platform of culture war against America.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Sheriff Jim McDonnell: Thanks to Prop. 47, Californians are less safe than they were a year ago":

One year ago today, California voters adopted Proposition 47, changing drug possession and five other nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors. Proposition 47 was supposed to ease pressure on California's overflowing prisons and jails and open up funds for rehabilitation programs, along with education and victim services. But the state funds that were earmarked won't arrive until August 2016. Crime is up in many California communities. Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell says Prop. 47, though well-intended, is to blame.

RTWT.

Lily Aldridge Wears the Victoria's Secret Fantasy Bra 2015 (VIDEO)

The 2015 fashion show is December 8th.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Lily Aldridge reveals $2-million Victoria's Secret Fantasy Bra":

Talk about over-the-top underpinnings. Victoria’s Secret model Lily Aldridge revealed this year’s $2-million Fireworks Fantasy Bra at the company’s Third Street Promenade store in Santa Monica this week.

Crafted by the 125-year-old Geneva-based luxury jeweler Mouawad, the bejeweled brassiere, inspired by Victoria’s Secret's new Very Sexy Flirt demi bra, is encrusted with more than 6,500 precious stones, including diamonds, blue topaz, yellow sapphires and pink quartz, set in 18-karat gold, with a red garnet and blue topaz centerpiece. The bra comes with an equally spectacular coordinating belt that can be worn over any panty. Weighing in at a total of 1,300 carats, the set took nearly 700 hours to make.

In 1996, Claudia Schiffer debuted the very first, and least expensive, $1-million Fantasy Bra, while Gisele Bundchen modeled the most pricey version in 2000 — a $15-million satin bra embellished with more than 1,300 diamonds and rubies — so the 2015 design falls on the lower end of the price spectrum, historically speaking...

More at London's Daily Mail, "Ready for the catwalk! Lily Aldridge dazzles in stunning behind the scenes images from her Victoria's Secret Fantasy Bra shoot."

Benjamin Golden, Fired Taco Bell Marketing Manager, Remorseful After Attacking Uber Driver (VIDEO)

Following-up from the other day, "Uber Driver Attacked by Drunk Passenger in Costa Mesa (VIDEO)."

The dude was fired by Taco Bell, and now he's remorseful?

Why Depraved Leftist Democrats Lost on Houston Transsexual Bathroom Ordinance (VIDEO)

From Kelsey Harkness, at the Daily Signal, "Why LGBT Advocates Think They Lost in Houston Election":

Failing to pass the Houston Equal Rights Protection Ordinance Tuesday night came as a blow to LGBT advocates, who have won recent victories at the U.S. Supreme Court and beyond.

“We are disappointed with today’s outcome,” said a coalition of partners that make up Houston Unites, the group behind the sexual orientation and gender identity measure. “We’ve learned some important lessons, as well.”

On Wednesday, members of the campaign and LGBT supporters shared some of those lessons, dissecting what went wrong in Houston, which voted for President Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008, and how they can prevent it from happening again.

Here’s a brief recap.

The biggest hurdle LGBT groups say they failed to overcome was the branding of the Houston Equal Rights Protection Ordinance as “the bathroom bill.”

Dominic Holden, a BuzzFeed news reporter, spoke to people on the ground before the vote who appeared to be under the impression that bill was entirely about bathrooms.

“Bathrooms are the hot-ticket item—that’s what everybody is talking about,” Cory Alters, a Houston resident, told BuzzFeed. “I don’t want girls in my bathroom, and girls don’t want guys in their bathroom.”

The Houston Equal Rights Protection Ordinance (HERO) would have created legal protections in 15 categories. Sexual orientation and gender identity were two of those categories.

Opponents focused on that angle, branding HERO as a “bathroom bill.” Their fear was that the inclusion of sexual identity could allow persons with biological male bodies who identify as women to use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-specific facilities, without having legally changed their names or undergone surgery or hormone treatment....

Similar to how LGBT analyzed why they lost, conservatives say they won by pushing both the “bathroom bill” narrative and connecting with “real people”—including minorities—on the ground...

Dave Welch, executive director of the Houston Area Pastor Council, another group that’s been fighting the ordinance for the past 18 months called the outcome a “victory of common decency.” In an email to The Daily Signal, he said:

The victory of common decency in defeating this ordinance is a reminder to pastors across the country that together and united, our voices can make a difference, even when outnumbered by a massive propaganda campaign and vastly outspent. These ordinances that are part of a national campaign of the Human Rights Campaign in their attempt to force their radical anti-faith, anti-family, anti-freedom agenda on local communities can be defeated, so we hope this encourages pastors and citizens around the country.

Ultimately, the people in Houston decided against the measure by a 62-38 margin. That margin, supporters say, is an honest reflection of the city’s values...

Feminism: How a Privileged Elite Can Claim Permanent Victimhood

Here's Robert's book, Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature.

And at the Other McCain:

COLLEGE 2015: My Advice for Male Students https://t.co/B3AjGDXGrj @DateOffCampus @g56yu @instapundit @AsheSchow pic.twitter.com/YbVcuEYKCu

— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) November 4, 2015

No matter how rich her parents are, no matter what the tuition was at her prestigious private prep school or how elite the university she attends, a feminist always believes she is a victim of male supremacy. She’s got a trust fund, a luxury car and spends her holidays at the family vacation home, but she knows she is oppressed by patriarchy, and that guy over there? The poor slob sweating his life away for an hourly wage? He is a beneficiary of male privilege, who oppresses her by his mere existence.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

If you reject these categorical claims — if do not view the world through feminist lenses — you are a misogynist, a sexist, a rape apologist...

Keep reading.

Democrats Brutal Shellacking 2015

I guess this would be Shellacking 3.0, after 2010 and 2014.

Even far-left WaPo blogger Greg Sargent can't disguise the damage to the Democrat brand, this late stage in the Obama administration trainwreck.

See, "A brutal reality check for the Democratic Party" (at Memeorandum):

The news that Tea Party Republican Matt Bevin snatched the Kentucky governor’s mansion away from Democrats is a particularly stark reminder of how deep a hole Democrats have dug for themselves at the state level, and of the consequences that could have for the long-term success of the liberal and Democratic agenda...

There's a bunch of bullshit filler and blah, blah about how great ObamaCare is in Kentucky, or something, and then he continues:

The broader point is that the Kentucky loss underscores once again that there are serious policy consequences to the profound deficit Democrats face on the level of the states. As I’ve reported, Democrats are well aware of this and are trying to something about it: it’s conceivable that by the end of this decade, the picture could look very different. But last night is a reminder of the stakes involved.

See the whole thing at Memeorandum.

Meanwhile, from Peter Suderman, at Reason, "Yesterday’s Election: A Challenge for Democrats—and a Crisis for Politics."

Matt Bevin Kentucky Victory Underscores Democrat Downfall Under Obama (VIDEO)

Following-up from this morning, "Conservatives Roll Up Huge Victories Across the Country."

Democrats are the biggest statist assholes. Losers and depraved statist assholes.

More, from Guy Benson, at Town Hall, via Memeorandum, "Analysis: Bevin Win in Kentucky Underscores Decimated Democratic Party Under Obama":

Last night's off-year elections produced a number of noteworthy outcomes, none larger than Republican Matt Bevin's upset victory in Kentucky's gubernatorial race. Bevin ran as a hard-charging outsider conservative, warts and all. Public polls gave his opponent, Democrat Jack Conway, a modest but stable lead throughout the race's home stretch, averaging out to a three-point Conway advantage in a three-way contest. They were off by double digits. Bevin won handily....

Bevin, boosted by a massive investment from national Republicans and help from his former nemisis Mitch McConnell, nationalized the race, tying Conway to President Obama at every opportunity -- on coal, on school choice, on social issues, and especially on Obamacare. Democrats have cited Kentucky as a model of the law's success, touting its functioning exchange, improved insured rate, and the unequivocal support of the state's term-limited governor. Here's the timeless advice he dispensed to his party as Kentuckians went to the polls yesterday:

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear says Democrats will run on Obamacare in 2016 and “pound the Republicans into dust.”

Oops. Matt Bevin ran as an unflinching opponent of the promise-shattering, cost-increasing law, and pounded Beshear's would-be successor into dust. Democrats reacted by chalking their loss up to the "unexpected headwinds of Trump-mania," a hilarious piece of trolling. Also swept away by the anti-Obama current was a Democratic "rising star" seen by many as a viable challenger to Sen. Rand Paul. Oops, again. Bevin becomes just the second Republican governor of Kentucky in approximately four decades. His Lieutenant Governor, Jenean Hampton, is the first non-white politician ever elected to statewide office. A black woman. Elected by Republicans. With Bevin's victory, Republicans are now set to control 32 governorships, compared to Democrats' 17 (Alaska's independent governor was opposed by Republicans, but endorsed by Sarah Palin). Barack Obama has proven quite adept at getting himself elected, but has acted as a one-man wrecking ball to his party's electoral performance across all levels of government...

Click through for the whole thing, including embedded tweets.

Also at Legal Insurrection, "Bevin Wins – Reports of the death of the Tea Party prove greatly exaggerated" (via Memeorandum).