'Apocalypse Store' Offers Essential Survival Goods to Survive Doomsday (VIDEO)

This reminds me of the post I wrote right after Obama's inauguration, "Worst Case Scenario? Preparing for Anarchy in America."

There's probably more of a worst case scenario today than there was back in 2009, heh.

Via Russia Toay (who else?):

Donald Trump Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson Wears Bullet Necklace on CNN (VIDEO)

Heh.

You gotta love this woman.

Watch: "Trump Spox Who Wore Bullet Necklace During Interview: ‘Maybe I’ll Wear a Fetus Next Time’."

Also at the Mirror UK, "Donald Trump spokesperson who wore bullet necklace says 'next time I'll wear a fetus'."

On cue, leftists freak out, at Gawker, for example, "Completely stable Donald Trump spokesperson wears necklace made from real bullets on CNN."

This lady's the best!

The liberals freaking out about my accessories are sexist. They only approve of women in pant suits and jackets. Oh, and tampon earrings.

— Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) December 30, 2015

House Democrats Move to Criminalize Criticism of Islam

From Robert Spencer, at FrontPage Magazine:

December 17, 2015 ought henceforth to be a date which will live in infamy, as that was the day that some of the leading Democrats in the House of Representatives came out in favor of the destruction of the First Amendment. Sponsored by among others, Muslim Congressmen Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, as well as Eleanor Holmes Norton, Loretta Sanchez, Charles Rangel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Kennedy, Al Green, Judy Chu, Debbie Dingell, Niki Tsongas, John Conyers, José Serrano, Hank Johnson, and many others, House Resolution 569 condemns “violence, bigotry, and hateful rhetoric towards Muslims in the United States.” The Resolution has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

That’s right: “violence, bigotry and hateful rhetoric.” The implications of those five words will fly by most people who read them, and the mainstream media, of course, will do nothing to elucidate them. But what H. Res. 569 does is conflate violence -- attacks on innocent civilians, which have no justification under any circumstances – with “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric,” which are identified on the basis of subjective judgments. The inclusion of condemnations of “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric” in this Resolution, while appearing to be high-minded, take on an ominous character when one recalls the fact that for years, Ellison, Carson, and his allies (including groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR) have been smearing any and all honest examination of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to incite hatred and violence as “bigotry” and “hateful rhetoric.” This Resolution is using the specter of violence against Muslims to try to quash legitimate research into the motives and goals of those who have vowed to destroy us, which will have the effect of allowing the jihad to advance unimpeded and unopposed...

More at that top link.

And this repulsive, un-American bill is here, "House Democrats Introduce Legislation Condemning Anti-Muslim Bigotry."

10 Factors That Will Probably Determine the White House Winner Next Year

Enough with all the political speculation, here's some real political science prognostication!

From Larry Sabato et al., at Sabato's Crystal Ball, "10 Factors That Will Determine the Next President":

Here’s a thought experiment: What if Republicans nominated the 2012 version of Mitt Romney — same fundraising, same baggage, same everything — at their 2016 convention? What sort of odds would that candidate have in 2016?

We suspect the candidate would be a small favorite at the start of the campaign. He would be running against a Democrat who lacked the power of incumbency, and he would be competing in an environment where the public was ready for a change: The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that about three-quarters of those surveyed wanted the next president to take a different approach to governing than President Obama, similar to how the public felt about how George W. Bush’s successor should act at a similar point in the 2008 campaign. It’s hard to precisely quantify, but there’s a generic desire for change that hampers a party the longer it stays in the White House. To satisfy that general feeling, a generic Republican might do the trick, which is why we cite Romney circa 2012 as an example of what could/should be enough to win the White House: A candidate who is largely average could flip a few percentage points of the national vote from the 2012 results, which is all it will take for the Republicans to win.

However, it’s quite unclear that the Republicans will produce a candidate of even the quality of Romney. After 2012, the party took a hard look at its inadequacies, producing a report that suggested the party needed to do more to reach out to nonwhite voters. Donald Trump, the GOP’s current polling leader, is not helping on that front. The Republican leadership is worried.

What follows is an exploration of 10 factors that will probably determine the White House winner next year. Some of these — many of them, in fact — suggest that the GOP should be seen as a narrow favorite. But a few factors, combined with the live possibility that the next Republican nominee will make Mitt Romney look like Ronald Reagan, indicate to us that, as we turn the page from 2015 to 2016, that the 2016 general election is still a coin flip...

Keep reading for the 10 factors.

I hope Trump's the nominee, mainly because he's so unlike Mitt Romney, particularly in that the latter might have won in 2012 if he'd have adopted some of the former's pugnacity. Conservatives need a fighter, and while Trump's not really conservative, he's definitely fighting on those issues really dear to the conservative base. I mean, Diana West is a movement conservative, as is Ann Coulter, and they see Trump as a savior. [And I forget to mention Phyllis Schlafly --- Phyllis freakin' Schlafly!] Even Michelle Malkin, who's gone a few rounds with Trump (rather nasty rounds, in fact), concedes that she'd vote for Trump if he became the nominee, primarily because he'd indeed fight to reverse the diabolical damage leftists have inflicted on this country.

See also, "Voters Seek Vengeance Against Obama's 'Fundamental Transformation of America' (VIDEO)."

Two Suspects Arrested in Belgium in 'Paris-Style' Terror Plot for New Year's Eve (VIDEO)

At the Telegraph UK, "Belgian bikers arrested over 'plot for Paris-style attacks at New Year'."

And at WSJ, "Belgian Police Arrest Two on Terrorism Charges":

BRUSSELS—Belgian authorities said Tuesday they arrested two people on terrorism charges and broke up a plan for attacks during the holiday period, underlining fears of further mayhem in a Europe still unsettled over Islamic State’s deadly attacks in Paris last month.

Police seized Islamic State propaganda and military-style clothing but no explosives or arms in a series of raids Sunday and Monday in Brussels, Liège and the Flanders region of Belgium, prosecutors said.

The arrests were made amid stepped-up antiterrorism operations by Belgian authorities in the aftermath of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, which were planned by a Belgian national and carried out by a team that included several others with ties to Belgium, including the fugitive Salah Abdeslam, a French citizen who was born and lived in Brussels.

Belgium has conducted dozens of raids, questioned scores of people, and arrested nine people in connection with those attacks.

Belgian federal prosecutors said they hadn’t identified links between those investigations and the two new arrests, but said their continuing investigation would be looking for any connections.

Among the intended targets were the Grand Place, the Belgian capital’s central square and site of its largest Christmas market, and a nearby police station, according to a person briefed on the investigations.

The Grand Place, a Unesco heritage site and Brussels’ most important tourist site, was constructed in the 15th and 16th centuries and then rebuilt after being largely flattened in a 1695 bombardment by the French army.

Parts of the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations are also scheduled to take place in the area. Authorities said they didn’t have information about a specific date for the attacks.

Few details of the arrests or investigation were released, but prosecutors said there was a serious indication of planned terror attacks at several prominent locations in Brussels. Six people were initially detained in a series of raids in the capital and elsewhere in Belgium, but only two were arrested and charged...

More.

Yeah, they've gotta keep the lid on in Belgium. They've got it bad. See, "Bad Brussels' Sprouts: Belgium Has Become Center of European Terror."

New California Gun Laws for 2016 (VIDEO)

California's basically a Marxist regime at this point --- and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

President Obama's Legacy of Racial Divisiveness

From VDH, at Pajamas, "Bitter Clingers 2.0":

Clingers 1.0: “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Clingers 2.0: “Certain circumstances around being the first African-American president that might not have confronted a previous president, absolutel.  … If you are referring to specific strains in the Republican Party that suggest that somehow I'm different, I'm Muslim, I'm disloyal to the country, etc., which unfortunately is pretty far out there and gets some traction in certain pockets of the Republican Party, and that have been articulated by some of their elected officials, what I'd say there is that that's probably pretty specific to me and who I am and my background, and that in some ways I may represent change that worries them…. If you are living in a town that historically has relied on coal and you see coal jobs diminishing, you probably are going to be more susceptible to the argument that I've been wiping out the economy in your area .… I think if you are talking about the specific virulence of some of the opposition directed towards me, then, you know, that may be explained by the particulars of who I am.”

Barack Obama in the final stretch of his 2008 primary campaign explained away—off the record in an unguarded moment—his unpopularity in Pennsylvania. The problem then was a biased “them”—not so much the hard-left policies and principles of Barack Obama.

These narrow-minded clingers were supposedly not fond of Obama and similar others “who aren’t like them.” Thus, because of their parochialism, nativism, and fundamentalism, the unenlightened voters of Pennsylvania were unable to appreciate Obama’s message of “hope and change” and vero possumus—much less his landmark promises to return the Presidency to constitutional restraint, radically improve American health care, end the role of big money in politics, solve the “bad” Iraq war and win the “good” Afghan war, cool the planet and recede the seas, end government scandal, bridge the racial divide, balance the budget, reset relations with Russia, and win back the hearts and minds of the Muslim world.

For some reason, the under-educated voter seven years ago was skeptical that Obama would do any of that. Of course, Obama smeared the Clingers off the record, given that what he really thought of the white working class of Pennsylvania did not quite synch with his purported racial and class ecumenicalism.

Seven years later an unpopular (43% approval rate in the RealClearPolitics.com aggregate poll), lame-duck President Obama has come full circle in his angst and pouting. Now with no more elections looming, nothing apparently is off the record. He recently gave an interview with NPR, in which he offered a sort of Clingers 2.0 exegesis for his current poor approval ratings and absence of a legacy.

Once again the fault is with an ignorant “them” and their biases (e.g., “I may represent change that worries them”), not Obama’s own unimpressive record of governance.

A liberated Obama is more overt in his sense of victimization. Now he can be more explicit than his Clingers 1.0 indictment and quite openly allege that his family’s background and race best explain his plight...

More.

The most divisive president in American history. *SMH*.

Infrared Footage Shows Methane Spewing from Porter Ranch Gas Leak (VIDEO)

I've hesitated reporting on this story, but this infrared video is a trip.

Watch, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "The description for the video says the methane plumes were made visible by a 'specialized infrared camera operated by an Earthworks ITC-certified thermographer'."

Also, at CBS Evening News, "Methane gas leak creates ghost town in California."

Cold Weather in Southern California Expected to Continue This Week

My young son had a lab appointment yesterday to have blood drawn, and he was NPO after midnight. So we schlepped over there before 8:00am. The Odyssey van was frosted over and it took a few minutes before the windshield wipers took effect.

Interesting, especially in that it's been just as cold on the West Coast as it's been elsewhere across the country.

At the Los Angeles Times:

It’s been cold in Los Angeles, which means it’s time to break out the scarves, hats, parkas and gloves and dress up like Han Solo trekking across Hoth in “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Parts of Los Angeles will see overnight temperatures drop to around 40 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures in Santa Barbara County will plummet to the low 30s, which could result in damage to crops.

The cold snap is expected to last through the week, with freezing or near-freezing temperatures around dawn Wednesday and Thursday. Santa Ana winds in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and the Antelope Valley increase the fire risk Thursday and Friday, the weather service said.

Reaching for all those extra layers makes sense, even when temperatures hover in the low 60s, forecasters said.

"A lot of that has to do with the low humidity," said Emily Thornton, a meteorologist with the weather service in Oxnard. "Sea breezes come throughout the day and that can make it feel relatively cooler."

"I just moved here from Tennessee and I have noticed it can feel pretty cold here," she added...

Also, watch Kristen Keogh, at ABC News 10 San Diego.

David Cameron Defends Flood Record as Northern England Is Drenched (VIDEO)

At the New York Times:

LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron walked the flooded streets of York on Monday as Britain’s Environment Agency warned that the country needed “a complete rethink” of its flood defenses.

Thousands of people in the north of England spent another day dealing with what they called unprecedented flooding, with roads in York and in nearby Leeds still underwater and some electricity cut off. David Rooke, the deputy chief executive of the Environment Agency, said that “we are moving from known extremes to unknown extremes.”

Some scientists speculated that the effects of climate change could be evident in a year of record flooding. “We are having more severe floods in the U.K. than 10 years ago,” said Reza Ahmadian, a lecturer on water management at Cardiff University. “This is not something just happening in the U.K. — and we will see more and more of this.”

He added, “We need to be more creative about flood defenses.”

Mr. Ahmadian suggested that building temporary reservoirs for flood relief in less populated areas could be more effective than building ever-higher and more expensive flood walls, which “just create further problems downstream.”

Mr. Cameron defended the government’s record on flood defenses, saying that it had committed to spending 2.3 billion pounds, about $3.4 billion, over the next six years and that he would consider doing more.

“Let’s have a look and see whether more needs to be done and whether the flood defenses need to be made even higher than they are already,” he told Sky News. Over the weekend, he had deployed several hundred soldiers to help with flood defenses.

Officials in Leeds, about 25 miles southwest of York, criticized Mr. Cameron for not coming there and said his government blocked a more expensive flood-prevention plan in 2011. Judith Blake, the Labour Party leader of Leeds City Council, said the government had favored the south of England over the north, echoing the Yorkshire Evening Post, which wrote on its front page on Monday, “A northern powerhouse is nothing when it is under several feet of mucky water.”

Mr. Cameron rejected the claims of southern bias. “We spend more per head of the population on flood defenses in the north than we do in the south,” he said. “The key thing is to spend the money where it is needed.”

Also, at London's Daily Mail, "David Cameron faces the wrath of flood victims as he is heckled about government cuts during visit to flood hit-areas," and "Ancient Yorkshire bridge collapses in the floods as Storm Frank is set to bring MORE misery across Britain tonight with six inches of rain and 80mph winds on the way."

More, "Flood victims' homes are targeted by LOOTERS: Thieves steal from submerged properties as Storm Frank threatens six inches more rain and 80mph gales to pile more misery on embattled families."

Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister 'Made Keith Richards Look Like a Choirboy...'

By far the best obituary of the Motörhead frontman, at London's Daily Mail, "The rock wild man who made Keith Richards look like a choir boy: As Lemmy dies two days after being told he had aggressive cancer, it is only surprising that the hard-drinking Motorhead frontman managed to make it to 70."

Flashback, almost five years ago, "Ace of Spades — Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister Still Touring at 65."

Is the West Disintegrating?

From Pat Buchanan, at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Is the West done?":

On Jan. 1, 2002, the day that euro coins and bank notes entered into circulation, my column “Say goodbye to the mother continent” contained this pessimistic prognosis: “This European superstate will not endure but break apart on the barrier reef of nationalism. For when the hard times come, patriots will recapture control of their national destinies from Brussels bureaucrats to whom no one will ever give loyalty or love.”

The column described what was already happening.

“Europe is dying. There is not a single nation in all of Europe with a birth rate sufficient to keep its population alive except Muslim Albania.”

What was predicted 14 years ago has come to pass.

Migrants into Germany from the Middle and Near East reached 1 million in 2015. EU bribes to the Turks to keep Muslim migrants from crossing over to the Greek islands, thence into the Balkans and Central Europe, are unlikely to stop the flood.

My prediction that European “patriots will recapture control of their national destinies” looks even more probable today.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who almost lost a referendum on Scottish secession, is demanding a return of British sovereignty from the EU sufficient to satisfy his countrymen, who have been promised a vote on whether to abandon the European Union altogether.

Marine Le Pen's anti-EU National Front ran first in the first round of the 2015 French elections. Many Europeans believe she will make it into the final round of the next presidential election in 2017.

Anti-immigrant right-wing parties are making strides all across Europe, as the EU is bedeviled by a host of crises.

Mass migration into the EU is causing member nations to put up checkpoints and close borders. The Schengen Agreement on the free movement of goods and people is being ignored or openly violated.

Then there is the surge of sub-nationalism, as in Scotland, Catalonia, Flanders and Veneto, where people seek to disconnect from distant capitals that no longer speak for them and reconnect with languages, traditions and cultures that give more meaning to their lives.

Moreover, the migrants entering Europe, predominantly Islamic and Third World, are not assimilating as did the European and largely Christian immigrants to America of a century ago. The enclaves of Asians in Britain, Africans and Arabs around Paris, and Turks in and around Berlin seem to be British, French and German in name only. And some of their children are now heeding the call to jihad against the crusaders invading Muslim lands.

If these trends continue, and they seem to have accelerated in 2015, the idea of a United States of Europe dies, and with it, the EU...

Still more.

German Jihadist Returns from Syria and Gives Testimony

At Der Spiegel, "Back from the 'Caliphate': Returnee Says IS Recruiting for Terror Attacks in Germany":

Islamist extremist Harry S. wasn't in Syria for long. But during his stay there, he claims, Islamic State leaders repeatedly tried to recruit him to commit terror attacks in Germany. Security officials believe he could be telling the truth.

It was an early summer morning in the Syrian desert, with not a cloud in the sky, when Mohamed Mahmoud asked those gathered around him: "Here are some prisoners. Which of you wants to waste them?"

Not long before, Islamic State (IS) had taken the city of Palmyra, and now jihadists from Germany and Austria were to participate in the executions of some of the prisoners taken in the operation. They drove to the site of the executions in Toyota pick-ups, bringing along an IS camera team in order to document the atrocity in the city of antique ruins. Even then, Mohamed Mahmoud was known to German security officials for his repeated propaganda-video calls to join the jihad. On that early summer day in Palmyra, though, he didn't just incite others. He grabbed a Kalashnikov himself and began firing. That day, Mahmoud and his group of executioners are thought to have killed six or seven prisoners.

The story comes from someone who was in Palmyra on that day: Harry S., a 27-year-old from Bremen. "I saw it all," he says.

Harry S. returned to Germany from Syria and is now in investigative custody. He has told security officials everything about the brief time he spent with Islamic State and has also demonstrated his readiness to deliver extensive testimony to German public prosecutors. He stands accused of membership in a terrorist group. His lawyer Udo Würtz declined to offer a detailed response when contacted, but said of his client: "He wants to come clean."

German investigators are extremely interested in the testimony of the apparently repentant returnee, even as they are likely unsettled by what he has to say.

A Vital Witness

Harry S., after all, is more than just a witness to firing squads and decapitations. He also says that on several occasions, IS members tried to recruit volunteers for terrorist attacks in Germany. In the spring, just after he first arrived in Syria, he says that he and another Islamist from Bremen were asked if they could imagine perpetrating attacks in Germany. Later, when he was staying not far from Raqqa, the self-proclaimed Islamic State capital city, masked men drove up in a jeep. They too asked him if he was interested in bringing the jihad to his homeland. Harry S. says he told them that he wasn't prepared to do so.

Harry S. was only in IS controlled territory for three months. Yet he might nevertheless become a vital witness for German security officials. Since the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, fear of terrorism has risen across Europe, including in Germany, and security has been stepped up in train stations and airports. And the testimony from the Bremen returnee would seem to indicate that the fear is justified. Harry S. says that, during his time in the Syrian warzone, he frequently heard people talking about attacks in the West and says that pretty much every European jihadist was approached with the same questions he had been asked. "They want something that happens everywhere at the same time," Harry S. says.

Harry S.'s path from the Bremen quarter of Osterholz-Tenever to the jihadists of Islamic State was not particularly remarkable. His radicalization was similar to many other young, directionless men from European suburbs, from the Molenbeek district of Brussels to Lohberg in Dinslaken. In Tenever, some of the residential towers are up to 20 stories tall.

The son of parents from Ghana, Harry S. grew up in "difficult conditions," according to a court file. His father left the family just as he was entering puberty. Even though Harry S. initially only managed to graduate from a lower tier high school in Germany, he dreamed of returning to his parents' homeland and working as a construction engineer.

There was even a brief moment when it looked as though he was going to get control over his life. But then, in early 2010, he and some friends robbed a supermarket, getting away with €23,500, and flew to the island of Gran Canaria for a vacation. It wasn't long before the authorities were on to them and Harry S. was sentenced to two years behind bars for aggravated theft.

A Dangerous Radical

In prison, he met a Salafist named René Marc S., the "Emir of Gröpelingen" -- a man who Bremen officials consider to be a dangerous radical. It didn't take long before prison officials noticed a "change in character" in Harry S. According to prison records, he converted to Islam and expressed "radical sentiments" about world events. After his release, the new convert visited the Furqan Mosque (which has since been shut down) in the Gröpelingen neighborhood of Bremen. At the mosque, he became part of a Salafist clique which sent at least 16 adults and 11 children to Syria in 2014.

Harry S. tried to make the journey as well. From Istanbul, he flew in April 2014 to Gaziantep, a large Turkish city near the border with Syria, but his trip came to a premature end. Turkish authorities arrested him and sent him back to Bremen, where he told police that he had wanted to help out in Syrian refugee camps. The authorities didn't believe him and confiscated his passport in an effort to prevent him from making another attempt. On Tuesdays and Saturdays, he was required to report to the local police station.

But the authorities were still unable to prevent the Salafist from traveling to Syria to join the war. Harry S. simply grabbed an acquaintance's passport and, with another Islamist from Bremen, traveled overland via Vienna and Budapest. This time, there were no police waiting for him at the border to Syria. Instead, he was met by smugglers who brought him across the border to an IS safe house set up for new arrivals from around the world.

Harry S., a large man with broad shoulders, was trained as a fighter in Syria. He claims to have been drilled in training camps together with 50 other men: sit-ups, hours of standing in the sun and forced marches lasting the entire day. Those who gave up were locked up or beaten. His Kalashnikov, it was driven home to him, should become like his "third arm" and he was told to keep the weapon in bed with him while sleeping.

Once he finished training, he says he was to become a part of a special unit, a kind of suicide squad for house-to-house combat. Harry S. claims that, during his brief time in Syria, he was never sent into battle -- but he claims to know many young men, including Germans, who died in battle. "Luckily, I managed to get away," he says.

Still more.

Jeremy Corbyn's Hard Left Draws-Up 'Stalinist Plot' to Seize Control of Labour

It's almost like a parody, except it's not.

Corbyn's hard left even plan's "reeducation camps."

At London's Daily Mail, "Hard-Left's 'Stalinist plot' to seize control of Labour: Detailed blueprint by Corbyn's supporters show they will try to oust critics, take over policy making and hold Mao-style 'political education activity' programme."

More, "'Sack the mutineers!': Labour MP urges Jeremy Corbyn to start the new year with a shadow cabinet clear out."

And at the Independent UK, "Jeremy Corbyn to dismiss 'disloyal' shadow ministers in New Year reshuffle: Hilary Benn and Maria Eagle are among party heavyweights facing demotion in the first week of January."

New Poll Finds Americans Bitterly Divided Over Obama's Handling of the Country (VIDEO)

Sixty-nine percent of Americans are angry "about the way things are going in this country today."

And the public's bitterly divided over the president's legacy, with 37 percent saying Obama's had a positive impact on the country and 37 percent saying his impact's been negative.

Polarization, in a nutshell.

At CNN, "Full results: CNN/ORC poll on views of government."

Plus, watch CNN's Jim Acosta, "Americans divided over Obama legacy."

PREVIOUSLY: "Voters Seek Vengeance Against Obama's 'Fundamental Transformation of America' (VIDEO)."

New Year, New You — BUMPED

Start the new year off with fitness, health, nutrition, organization, wellness, money management, and more --- at Amazon.

Plus, from Donald Trump, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again.

Voters Seek Vengeance Against Obama's 'Fundamental Transformation of America' (VIDEO)

From Dan Spencer, at Red State, "Revenge Replaces Hope and Change" (via Memeorandum)":

Frank Luntz tells us that Trump supporters are not just angry. They want revenge. They seek vengeance for Obama’s fundamental transformation of America. These Trumpeteers see the Donald as the antidote for all that Obama has made wrong with America. Trump’s bombastic attacks on the Republican establishment, the mainstream media and his critics are cathartic for the millions who feel “silenced, ignored and even scorned by the governing and media elite.”

According to Luntz, to understand why Trump is so popular, you have to listen to why his supporters hate Obama so much. One only has to look at the Frank Luntz focus-group conducted on December 9 to see how much Trump supporters dislike Obama...

More at the link, and watch the full segment, from Face the Nation (with Luntz speaking from Las Vegas, where the December 15 debate was about to take place).

Richest Americans, on Both Left and Right, Shape Private Tax System to Save Billions

Well, an update from the class war, from the New York Times (who else?), "For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions":

WASHINGTON — The hedge fund magnates Daniel S. Loeb, Louis Moore Bacon and Steven A. Cohen have much in common. They have managed billions of dollars in capital, earning vast fortunes. They have invested millions in art — and millions more in political candidates.

Moreover, each has exploited an esoteric tax loophole that saved them millions in taxes. The trick? Route the money to Bermuda and back.

With inequality at its highest levels in nearly a century and public debate rising over whether the government should respond to it through higher taxes on the wealthy, the very richest Americans have financed a sophisticated and astonishingly effective apparatus for shielding their fortunes. Some call it the “income defense industry,” consisting of a high-priced phalanx of lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and anti-tax activists who exploit and defend a dizzying array of tax maneuvers, virtually none of them available to taxpayers of more modest means.

In recent years, this apparatus has become one of the most powerful avenues of influence for wealthy Americans of all political stripes, including Mr. Loeb and Mr. Cohen, who give heavily to Republicans, and the liberal billionaire George Soros, who has called for higher levies on the rich while at the same time using tax loopholes to bolster his own fortune.

All are among a small group providing much of the early cash for the 2016 presidential campaign.

Operating largely out of public view — in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service — the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans.

The impact on their own fortunes has been stark. Two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was elected president, the 400 highest-earning taxpayers in America paid nearly 27 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to I.R.S. data. By 2012, when President Obama was re-elected, that figure had fallen to less than 17 percent, which is just slightly more than the typical family making $100,000 annually, when payroll taxes are included for both groups.

The ultra-wealthy “literally pay millions of dollars for these services,” said Jeffrey A. Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites, “and save in the tens or hundreds of millions in taxes.”

Some of the biggest current tax battles are being waged by some of the most generous supporters of 2016 candidates. They include the families of the hedge fund investors Robert Mercer, who gives to Republicans, and James Simons, who gives to Democrats; as well as the options trader Jeffrey Yass, a libertarian-leaning donor to Republicans.

Mr. Yass’s firm is litigating what the agency deemed to be tens of millions of dollars in underpaid taxes. Renaissance Technologies, the hedge fund Mr. Simons founded and which Mr. Mercer helps run, is currently under review by the I.R.S. over a loophole that saved their fund an estimated $6.8 billion in taxes over roughly a decade, according to a Senate investigation. Some of these same families have also contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative groups that have attacked virtually any effort to raises taxes on the wealthy.

Some of the biggest current tax battles are being waged by some of the most generous supporters of 2016 candidates. They include the families of the hedge fund investors Robert Mercer, who gives to Republicans, and James Simons, who gives to Democrats; as well as the options trader Jeffrey Yass, a libertarian-leaning donor to Republicans.

Mr. Yass’s firm is litigating what the agency deemed to be tens of millions of dollars in underpaid taxes. Renaissance Technologies, the hedge fund Mr. Simons founded and which Mr. Mercer helps run, is currently under review by the I.R.S. over a loophole that saved their fund an estimated $6.8 billion in taxes over roughly a decade, according to a Senate investigation. Some of these same families have also contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to conservative groups that have attacked virtually any effort to raises taxes on the wealthy...

Notice how this isn't just a conservative or Republican phenomenon. George Soros is perhaps the most important puppet-master of the Democrat Party/radical left establishment. All of these people are gaming the system for all it's worth. The difference, at least for me, is that Democrats don't care about the corruption of their wealthy elites --- just look at the epic hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton, the Democrat front-runner.

No, it's going to take a constitutional conservative revolution to shake loose the barnacles of the Beltway political class. It's coming, though. I really feel significant change is coming.

More at the link.

Rita Ora Swimsuit in Miami

At Egotastic!, "Rita Ora Skin Tight Wet Swimsuit Headlights On in Miami."

Plus, "Rita Ora Black Bikini Tug In Miami, When Bikini Bottoms Go Wrong (Or Right)."

Donald Trump Isn’t a Fascist

He's a media-savvy know-nothing?

It's that any better?

Ask John Cassidy, at the New Yorker, "Donald Trump Isn’t a Fascist; He’s a Media-Savvy Know-Nothing":

With Donald Trump ending 2015 well ahead in the Republican primary polls, the debate about what his candidacy represents is intensifying. Pointing to favorable remarks about Vladimir Putin that Trump made recently, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said Sunday, on “Meet the Press,” “This is a man now flirting with authoritarianism. . . . This is a serious, serious matter.”

Some people have gone so far as to suggest that Trump, in whipping up popular resentments and stigmatizing immigrants and Muslims, is exhibiting Fascist tendencies. During the last Democratic debate, Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, said that America must never surrender its values “to the Fascist pleas of billionaires with big mouths.” Slate’s Jamelle Bouie has argued that “Fascist” is the label that best fits Trump, and the word has also cropped up in New Hampshire, where Trump is the front-runner. In a blog post, Jonathan P. Baird, an administrative law judge, noted that the candidate is popular with white supremacists and other hate groups, and wrote, “Trump is no conservative. He is not about conserving what is valuable in America’s laws and heritage. He has crossed enough lines to indicate he is something else altogether.”

That last statement is indisputable, but is “Fascism” the best way to describe the Trump phenomenon? I don’t think so...

Either do I, but a "know-nothing's' no better.

Trump's an American nationalist who's talking truth to power --- and taking it to the Beltway elite. All the prognostications that Trump was a flash-in-the-pan, that he'd be toast before the end of the year, proved false. The permanent political class has rotten eggs on its collective face. And I'd include John Cassidy as among the rotten elite toadies.

Still more, FWIW.