Bowe Bergdahl Asks Obama for Pardon

Just wow.

That takes some gumption, but then, Bergdahl's dad (seen hugging Obama in photos) is an Islamist, so maybe it's not a long shot after all.

At the Washington Examiner, "Bergdahl asks Obama to pardon him before Trump takes office."

Previous Bergdahl blogging here.

Democrats Risk Irrelevance If They Don't Change Their Ways

At U.S. News and World Report, "The Problems With the Left: Democrats risk becoming irrelevant if they don't change their ways":

Democrats have a policy problem too: the left's disconnect with voters on issues that matter is profound. For example, President Obama gave a cover-story interview to Rolling Stone magazine that came out this week on his legacy and the "path forward." Apparently the leader of the Democratic Party didn't think the "path forward" needed to include any discussion of defeating the Islamic State group, a strong national defense or reducing the burden of $20 trillion of national debt on young people. In fact, if you look at Pew Research's list of issues that the majority of voters described the day after the election as "very big problems," almost none of them – terrorism and crime, for starters – are mentioned by him.

On immigration, Obama did admit this: "It's going to be important for Democrats and immigration-rights activists to recognize that for the majority of the American people, borders mean something." For most Americans, Obama talking about border security is a day late and a dollar short. He defended the administration's "big-heartedness" when it came to immigration policy, but added that "we tend to dismiss people's concerns about making sure that immigration is lawful and orderly." What an understatement. Democrats paid dearly on Election Day for that tendency to be dismissive of people's concerns.

Exhibit 2 of the disconnect: "When I turn over the keys to the federal government to the next president of the United States, I can say without any equivocation that the country is a lot better off: The economy is stronger, the federal government works better and our standing in the world is higher," Obama said. But, polls show the American people feel the opposite. During the interview, Obama mentioned the Koch brothers and Fox News more than he mentioned race relations, tax reform or rebuilding infrastructure. At least he didn't get into access to bathrooms or gun control.

Instead, he engaged in long discussions of climate change and legalization of marijuana – Exhibits 3 and 4 – with Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner. I had broken my self-imposed boycott of Rolling Stone to read the interview – as a UVA graduate, I'm still disgusted at the way the magazine promoted the completely false story of a gang rape at the school. So don't get me started on Obama's praise for Rolling Stone's "great work."

Exhibit 5. Democrats should be grateful for Tim Ryan's wake-up call this week. Whether it's candidate recruitment across the United States, new leadership in Washington, or a pivot to issues that really matter to voters, the Democrats have a lot of work to do. If they don't start to change – and fast – they risk going beyond disconnected to irrelevant and insignificant.

RTWT.

Boycott BuzzFeed

At AoSHQ, "Boycott Part 1: Boycott All of Buzzfeed's Advertisers. Note Them, List Them, Write to Them Telling Them You'll Never buy Their Products Again Until They Cut all Ties With Buzzfeed."

Cited there: Paul Szoldra, of Business Insider:

Crap like that BuzzFeed piece is why so many people reflexively hate the media.

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) November 30, 2016

https://t.co/tmrOCGenUA pic.twitter.com/URYfCjg6IT

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) December 1, 2016

Also at Twitchy, "BuzzFeed’s New Excuse for the HGTV Story Isn’t Fooling Anyone."

J. D. Vance TED Talk: America's Forgotten Working Class (VIDEO)

I finished the book over the weekend.

See, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

I can see why it's gotten such a buzz. I especially loved the last 60 or 70 pages, where Vance discusses his education, from Ohio State to Yale, as well as meeting his future wife. He drops a lot of sociological theory and such. I liked it.

Here's his TED talk from October. He's an interesting guy:

Splits in the 'Alt Right'

These people can just go away. Their 15 minutes are up.

Interesting take, though.

From Matt Pearce, at LAT, "The 'alt-right' splinters as supporters and critics agree it was white supremacy all along":

"When people start throwing Nazi salutes in public, it has a way of clarifying where everybody stands." https://t.co/34tOe68o69

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) November 30, 2016

When people start throwing Nazi salutes in public, it has a way of clarifying where everybody stands.

The loosely defined “alt-right” movement — made up of social-media-savvy white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, misogynists and other fringe figures who supported Donald Trump’s election — has splintered in recent weeks as less hard-core supporters distance themselves from the term.

At the same time, critics and media outlets have moved to avoid using the phrase “alt-right,” saying it’s a deceptive new term for old far-right ideologies that have traditionally been shunned in American public life.

And among die-hard fascists, the writing is on the wall.

“The alt-right is and has always been the same thing as it is right now – a white identity movement,” Andrew Anglin wrote at the Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi site. “Looks like we finally have this term for ourselves. Finally.”

The shift came after a meeting of white nationalists inside the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington on Nov. 19, where members threw Nazi salutes and shouted, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”

The man they were saluting was the white nationalist who coined the term “alternative right,” Richard Spencer, who had just given an anti-Semitic speech in which he quoted Nazi propaganda and called the United States a “white country.”

One white nationalist called it “the Heil Heard Around the World.” Coverage of the Nazi salutes went viral, and public reaction was severe.

Readers denounced news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, for not portraying Spencer and his supporters in a harsher light. The left-wing investigative magazine Mother Jones, which ran a deep profile of Spencer in October, was criticized for titling its piece, “Meet the Dapper White Nationalist Who Wins Even if Trump Loses.” The word “dapper” was soon removed from the headline.

Frustration also boiled over inside the mainstream media.

One Politico editor, Michael Hirsh, resigned last week after posting Spencer’s addresses on Facebook and telling followers to "Stop whining about Richard B. Spencer, Nazi, and exercise your rights as decent Americans,” according to comments first reported by the Daily Caller.

“He lives part of the time next door to me in Arlington. Our grandfathers brought baseball bats to Bund meetings,” Hirsh wrote, alluding to Jewish Americans who attacked Nazi sympathizers before World War II. “Want to join me?” (Politico’s top editors denounced Hirsh’s remarks.)

Trump himself disavowed the alt-right in a meeting with New York Times journalists, telling them, “It’s not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized I want to look into it and find out why.”

Among the alt-right’s less hard-core associates, the coverage of the Nazi salutes has been like a light suddenly turned on in a dark room. They scattered, issuing clarifications and recriminations along the way.

Paul Joseph Watson, an editor for the conspiracy-minded site InfoWars, said in July that he was “in the alt-right,” but then denied it last week, going on to argue that two different factions of the group had emerged.

“One is more accurately described as the New Right. These people like to wear MAGA [Make America Great Again] hats, create memes & have fun,” Watson wrote on Facebook, criticizing mainstream media for focusing on Trump’s racist supporters. “They include whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, gays and everyone else. These are the people who helped Trump win the election.

“The other faction likes to fester in dark corners of sub-reddits” — a reference to branches of the social-media site Reddit — “and obsess about Jews, racial superiority and Adolf Hitler. This is a tiny fringe minority. They had no impact on the election.”

Some white nationalists themselves have a term for the split: the alt-right versus the “alt-lite.”

White nationalists are alt-right and right-wing sites like Breitbart News and its chairman, the new White House advisor Stephen K. Bannon, are alt-lite, according to Brad Griffin, a white nationalist who blogs under the pen name Hunter Wallace at the site Occidental Dissent.

“Steve Bannon is the most important figure in the alt-lite,” Griffin wrote. “We all see Breitbart as the premier alt-lite website which has popularized a diluted version of our beliefs.”

Breitbart News, which channels a more nationalistic form of mainstream conservatism, gained notoriety over the last year both for implicitly supporting Trump’s candidacy and for Bannon’s proud announcement to Mother Jones in August, “We're the platform for the alt-right.”

Left-wing critics have called the site a front for white nationalism and anti-Semitism, which its staffers have vigorously denied...

The leftist media went batshit crazy over the "alt right" a couple of weeks ago, and leftists have glommed onto the "racist" meme like it was going out of style. And it's so stupid. It's like Paul Joseph Watson says, the genuine racists are at the fever swamps , a tiny fringe, with no influence whatsoever. But to progs you'd think we were back in the 1930s.

Perpetual Leftist Victims

Aww, isn't that precious?

Leftists are sad because their votes in the big urban strongholds and coastal enclaves "don't count."

Joan Walsh is such a loser. Eight years of attacking conservatives as flyover rubes and now the shoe's on the other foot.

I'm just all torn up about this.

Kneejerk animosity toward/dismissal of NY & CA, as if 60 million Americans are an asterisk inside an "elite" "bubble," is deep, dumb, ugly.

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) November 26, 2016

We have to change this. Our votes don't count. https://t.co/zMdpQZwx8K

— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) November 27, 2016

Please Say 'Merry Christmas'

It's December everybody!

It's a wonderful time of year!

Merry Christmas!

From Dennis Prager, one of the better Prager University videos I've seen:

Lauren Southern: Millennials Should Embrace Tradition (VIDEO)

She's a good lady.

She name checks Charles Murray's book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.

I Voted for Hillary. And Now I'm Going to Write for Breitbart

This is interesting.

It's Greg Ferenstein, who I've never heard of.

But trying to get a handle on what makes the other side tick sounds like a plan.

At Politico, "We can’t ignore the voices that put Trump in the White House. But maybe we can persuade them."

And here's the dude's first piece at Breitbart, "Ferenstein: My Search for Data on Trump Supporters and Racism."

Donald Trump and the Emoluments Clause

This has been something of a topic, but it hit home with I was having a discussion with my department chairwoman this week.

Here's Louise Mensch, at Heat Street:

President-Elect @realDonaldTrump Addresses #Emoluments Clause, Promises to 'Leave' His Business https://t.co/gtZI6ZQ3b8

— Heat Street (@heatstreet) November 30, 2016

Also, via the Heritage Foundation, "Emoluments Clause."

Nice Lady

Heh.

Found on Twitter:

🎣 pic.twitter.com/humaz7jZvX

— Country Girls (@DownHomeGirls) November 28, 2016

Laura Ingraham Discusses Trump's Cabinet Picks and the Ohio State Jihad Attack (VIDEO)

She's so hot.

Via Fox Business News:

Amber Lee's Chilly Morning Forecast

It's been nippy this last few mornings.

I mean, I like it, but you better have a jacket with you, heh.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles, the lovely Ms. Amber:

Standing Rock is the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time

Heh.

Following-up from earlier, "Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Just Another Chance for Idiot Leftist Hijacking and Exploitation (VIDEO)."

Leftists have to constantly turn every protest into the "civil rights issue of our time," whether it's black lives matter, the latest hurricane (OMG Katrina George Bush racism!), or push-back against the war on terror's "backlash" against Muslims. You name it.

Here's one of radical left's biggest enviro-shills, Bill McKibben, at the Guardian U.K., "Standing Rock is the civil rights issue of our time – let's act accordingly":

Representatives of more 200 Indian nations have gathered at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in an effort to prevent construction of an oil pipeline that threatens the tribe’s water supply, not to mention the planet’s climate. It’s a remarkable encampment, perhaps the greatest show of indigenous unity in the continent’s history. If Trump Tower represents all that’s dark and greedy in America right now, Standing Rock is by contrast the moral center of the nation...

Amazing, but you'd think leftists actually won the election in November. This kind of demonizing rhetoric is a major reason why the Democrats lost.

The idiots aren't learning the lessons of defeat, apparently.

Cyber Monday Deals Week in Electronics

The Black Friday and Cyber Week shopping's going great!

Thanks everybody!

At Amazon, Shop Deals in TV, Video and Audio, Camera, Photo and Video, Computers and Accessories, Computer Software, Cell Phones and Accessories, Office Electronics, Musical Instruments, Electronics Accessories and More.

BONUS: AmazonBasics 6-Sheet Cross-Cut Paper and Credit Card Shredder.

Kendall Jenner Looks Spectacular at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

Here, "Kendall Jenner looks ravishing in racy red lingerie with matching thigh-high boots and feathered wings as she takes to the runway at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris."

Also, "The greatest show on earth! Gigi, Bella and Kendall join Angel veterans Alessandra and Adriana as a spectacular parade of the world's top supermodels kicks off the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris."

Don't Despair

This has been my message to students since the election. Don't despair. Move on with your life and enjoy the beauty. We've survived much greater challenges in the past. We'll survive four years (maybe eight) of Donald Trump.

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Democracy’s Future? Don’t Despair!"

Democracy’s Future? Don’t Despair! - by @tobincommentary https://t.co/O05jiMBJqT pic.twitter.com/GOtyVTfMZb

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) November 30, 2016

Deal of the Day: Sony H.ear on Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphone

At Amazon, Sony H.ear on Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphone, Charcoal Black.

Also, in blue.

And shop DSLR Cameras.

More, Nikon D3400 w/ AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR (Black).

Also, Canon EOS Rebel T6i Digital SLR with EF-S 18-55mm IS STM Lens - Wi-Fi Enabled.

Plus, Amazon Echo - White.

More, shop for Amazon accessories.

BONUS: Out January 30th, from Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture.

It's Probably Better to Stay Off Social Media Right Now

Well, I don't even check Facebook. And on Twitter I don't seem to be growing my follower count. Nobody does the "follow Friday" roundups anymore. It's pretty hateful.

@flexlibris Just send them a copy of this ;-) pic.twitter.com/hOMKe5GMw5

— Data Janitor (@abditum) November 29, 2016

Related, and this is funny, "Southern Poverty Law Center invents lucrative new hate crime: The Trump Effect."

The SPLC's a hate group, straight up.

Hailey Clauson Black Friday

She's got the right idea.

Happy #BlackFriday… now time to go back to sleep 💤💋 pic.twitter.com/ovYQwjtpVi

— Hailey Clauson (@Hailey_Clauson) November 25, 2016

And see Drunken Stepfather, "HAILEY CLAUSON’S IN HER UNDERWEAR OF THE DAY."