Democrats Accusing Donald Trump of Treason One Month Before He Takes Office

Like I said in my previous entry, we have a fake political system.

We also have a fake opposition party.

Here's Instapundit, with what should be fake news, "I REMEMBER WHEN TOSSING AROUND POLITICIZED CHARGES OF TREASON WAS BEYOND THE PALE OF DECENCY: Democrats already accusing Trump of “treason” a month before he takes office."

Astonishing! Fifty-Two Percent of Republicans Say Donald Trump Won the Popular Vote

Basically meaningless headline at the Washington Post, "A new poll shows an astonishing 52% of Republicans incorrectly think Trump won the popular vote."

And that's at the Monkey Cage blog, which is run by political scientists, who of all people know that most Americans --- not just Republicans --- have in fact minimal knowledge of politics. That's why the 52 percent figure is in fact not "astonishing." BFD. A bare majority thinks Trump won the popular vote? A probably higher percent of Democrats thinks Hillary Clinton should be president, despite the fact that we don't use the popular vote. That's why you've got idiot leftists like Martin Sheen pushing these fake propaganda videos agitating for the Republican electors to reject Donald Trump in tomorrow's voting.

We have a fake political system at this point.

A new poll shows an astonishing 52% of Republicans incorrectly think Trump won the popular vote https://t.co/PyIHuOeVSH

— Monkey Cage (@monkeycageblog) December 18, 2016

I refuse to accept your premises, values, assumptions, facts or legitimacy. #caring

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) December 18, 2016

Liberals decided that truth was merely a bourgeois construct.
Well, then we're down that. #caring

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) December 18, 2016

Libs want to think the "52% or Republicans" meme means Republicans are dumb.
What it really means is we refuse to play your game.#caring

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) December 18, 2016

Law, principles, facts ... the liberals have shown us none of those exist.
Now they don't.
There is only power.
Enjoy the world you made. pic.twitter.com/qHPozfU4YQ

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) December 18, 2016

'The First Cut is the Deepest'

So, I'm driving with my son the other day, coming home from the Obey warehouse sale in Irvine, and Sheryl Crow's "The First Cut is the Deepest" comes on the radio. My son laughed because I used to play the song all the time when the CD came out back in the day.

Turns out I've already blogged Cheryl Crow's video, "Try to Love Again..."

So here's a recent video from Rod Stewart, who also covered it:

I Like 'CBS This Morning'. My Wife Likes 'Good Morning America'.

I love CBS This Morning. I post videos from the show quite a bit.

But my wife can't stand Gayle King, who stars on CBS along with Norah O'Donnell and Charlie Rose.

In turn, I can't stand "GMA." George Stephanopoulos is not a journalist. He's a Democrat political hack. And Lara Spencer has got to be the biggest airhead on daytime television. She's like a grown forty-something year-old woman who comes off like she's still a giggly teenager. I can't stand her.

Well, "GMA's" coming under some tough competition, apparently.

See the Los Angeles Times, "Morning TV wars heat up as NBC and CBS gain on ABC's 'GMA'."

Christmas Wish List Featuring Lindsey Pelas

Heh.

Yes, she should be on the top of any wish list, heh.

At Egotastic!, "Santa, My Christmas Wish List Must Include Lindsey Pelas!"

Hat Tip: WWTDD, "Lindsey Pelas Mighty Ta-Tas and Shit Around the Web."

'Hate Spaces'

This is the kind of major post you don't see on blogs that much anymore.

From Miriam Elman, at Legal Insurrection, "Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus (Film Review)":

What’s happening to Jewish and pro-Israel students on many American universities and colleges from coast to coast is horribly ugly. On “hotspot campuses” the problem is only getting worse.

“Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus”, a new 70 minute documentary recently released by the organization Americans for Peace and Tolerance, chronicles the rampant anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activism prevalent on many of America’s institutions of higher learning.

We featured the film’s trailer in a recent post and the movie premiered in NYC on November 30.

Last week, I had the opportunity to watch the film in its entirely. In this follow-up post, I review the documentary’s central themes and take-home messages.

A 10 minute clip prepared by executive producer, director and writer Avi Goldwasser for our use in this post is included below. Also included below is a statement from him exclusive for "Legal Insurrection."

Never Heard of Sam Kriss, But His Takedown of the Left's 'Russia Hacked the Election and Gave Us Donald Trump' Meme is the Best

I really don't get where the "game theory" part is coming in here, which is apparently what this dude Eric Garland, who went on a Twitter rant about Russian meddling in the election, argued.

But the response from this Sam Kriss dude is the best ever:

It’s possible that the Democratic National Committee leaks were caused by Russian hackers—but given that the hack took place thanks to John Podesta clicking on a link in a phishing email, displaying all the technological savvy of someone’s aunt extremely excited by the new iPhone she thinks she’s won, it could have been anyone. The “leaked” CIA concerns over Russian meddling were quite clearly leaked deliberately by the CIA itself, an organization not exactly famed for its commitment to the truth; they’re the conclusions of an investigation that hasn’t even happened yet and on which there’s no consensus even among the gang of petty Caligulas that calls itself the intelligence community. Still, it’s possible. Countries sometimes try to exert influence in each other’s internal affairs; it’s part of great-power politics, and it’s been happening for a very long time. When Americans meddled in Russia’s elections, it was by securing victory for Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s very own Donald Trump, a man who had sent in tanks to shell his own parliament. Leaked cables suggest that Hillary Clinton’s own State Department interfered with the political process in Haiti by suppressing a rise in the minimum wage. And American involvement in the politics of Chile, Guatemala, Indonesia, and Iran was mostly through military coups, sponsored by none other than the CIA. There was no question of these countries repeating their elections; anyone the generals didn’t like was tortured to death. Next to the mountain of corpses produced by America’s history of fixing foreign elections, a few hacked emails are entirely insignificant.

Whatever Russia did or didn’t do, the idea that its interference is what cost Hillary Clinton the election is utterly ludicrous and absolutely false. What cost Hillary Clinton the election can be summed up by a single line from Sen. Chuck Schumer, soon to be the country’s highest-ranking Democrat: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” As it turned out, he was fatally wrong. It wasn’t the Russians who told the Democratic Party to abandon the working-class people of all races who used to form its electoral base. It wasn’t the Russians who decided to run a presidential campaign that offered people nothing but blackmail—“vote for us or Dangerous Donald wins.” The Russians didn’t come up with awful tin-eared catchphrases like “I’m with her” or “America is already great.” The Russians never ordered the DNC to run one of the most widely despised people in the country, simply because she thought it was her turn. The Democrats did that all by themselves.

What the Russia obsession represents is a massive ethical failure on the part of American liberals. People really will suffer under President Trump—women, queer people, Muslims, poor people of every stripe. But so many in the centrist establishment don’t seem to care. They’re far too busy weaving themselves into intricate geopolitical power plays that don’t really exist, searching for a narrative that exonerates them from having let this happen, to do anything like real political work. They won’t accept that Trumpism is America, in all its blood-splattered horror—that the dry civics lesson of a democracy they love so much is capable of creating a monster. Decades of neoliberal policy disenfranchised people to the extent that Donald Trump could look like a savior; far better to just hide your bad conscience somewhere far away in Eastern Europe. It wasn’t us, it wasn’t our country, we were all duped by Putin. And if this means falling into reactionary paranoia, screaming red-faced about traitors and spies, slobbering embarrassingly over the incoherent rants of any two-bit con artist whose name isn’t Donald Trump—so be it. None of this will help anyone or achieve anything, but that’s not the point. And then, at the end, with nothing solved, they shrug at us like Eric Garland’s imagined game-theory version of Hillary Clinton. Jesus, what can you do?

Jeez, that wasn't hard, now was it?

Chrissy Teigen LOVE Advent 2016 (VIDEO)

Keeping the LOVE series alive, with Chrissy Teigen:

Is North Carolina a Sign for What’s Coming in Politics?

At Instapundit, "THE HORROR IS REPUBLICANS TREATING THEIR OPPONENTS LIKE DEMOCRATS DO."

North Carolina Republicans are moving to strip powers from Governor-elect Roy Cooper.

The background is here, at the Charlotte Observer, "Cooper pushes back against legislature’s move to limit his powers: Legislative Republicans clashed fiercely with Democratic Gov.-elect Roy Cooper Thursday as the House and Senate voted to sharply limit his appointment powers – and Cooper vowed to sue them.

Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed [BUMPED]

Here's a great gift idea!

At Amazon, Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.

Great Holiday Deals [BUMPED]

At Amazon, check this out, Samsung UN40JU6500 40-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2015 Model).

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BONUS: Jonathan Haslam, Near and Distant Neighbors: A New History of Soviet Intelligence.

'Tequila Sunrise'

From earlier this evening, when I was out picking up my wife from work, at the Sound L.A.:

Crocodile Rock
Elton John
7:48 PM

Jack & Diane
John Mellencamp
7:44 PM

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You
Sugarloaf
7:35 PM

Midnight Rider
The Allman Brothers Band
7:32 PM

Tequila Sunrise
Eagles
7:29 PM

Runnin' Down a Dream
Tom Petty
7:20 PM

The Joker
Steve Miller Band
7:16 PM

THE WASP
THE DOORS
7:12 PM

Another One Bites the Dust
Queen
7:08 PM

Hey, Hey, What Can I Do
Led Zeppelin
7:04 PM

Rock the Casbah
The Clash
7:01 PM

Obama Implicates Russia's Vladimir Putin in Cyberattacks Against the Democrats (VIDEO)

He's leaving office totally disgraced, reduced to spreading unverified, rank partisan allegations against his democratically-elected successor.

This is how far we've fallen the past eight years. We really need to make America great again, man.

At WSJ, tomorrow's front page, "Obama Suggests Russia’s Putin Had Role in Election Hacking":

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Friday implicated Russian President Vladimir Putin in cyberattacks designed to hurt Democrats in last month’s election, and he promised a “methodical” retaliation.

Mr. Obama said the U.S. intelligence he has seen “gives me great confidence” that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee and the email account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. Asked if he believes the Russian leader authorized the cyberattacks, he said, “not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin.”

“This happened at the highest levels of the Russian government,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference. “I will let you make that determination as to whether there are high-level Russian officials who go off rogue and decide to tamper with the U.S. election process without Vladimir Putin knowing about it.”

The president’s naming of Mr. Putin and his promised response escalates the public debate over cyberespionage’s effect on the campaign. Lawmakers of both parties are also vowing investigations. The confrontation could fuel growing tension between the White House and President-elect Donald Trump, who has raised skepticism about Russia’s role in the hacks and who Democrats argue benefited from the stolen, leaked emails.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday said of the Obama administration’s accusation that the U.S. “should either stop talking about it or finally produce some evidence; otherwise it looks highly unseemly,” according to Russian state news agencies.

Mrs. Clinton, speaking to campaign supporters Thursday, directly accused Mr. Putin of directing the attacks, saying he was motivated by her criticism of Russian elections in 2011 as “illegitimate,” according to an audiotape posted online by the New York Times.
Mr. Obama used Friday’s wide-ranging year-end news conference to trumpet his legacy, rattling off statistics showing improvements in health-care coverage and employment on his watch.

But the roughly 90-minute session was dominated from the outset by the Russia question. The president was vague about what form the U.S. response may take. With just five weeks left in office to order any retaliation, the president said some of it may be public while other aspects could be covert or only known by Moscow. Among the president’s options are declassifying more information or leveling charges at any people it believes carried out the attacks or assisted in them.

“Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to Russia or others not to do this to us because we can do stuff to you,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Obama, who has ordered the completion of a review of cyberattacks allegedly aimed at U.S. elections before he leaves office on Jan. 20, defended his administration’s response so far to the hacks.

Some critics have said Mr. Obama should have acted sooner and more aggressively. U.S. intelligence agencies issued a statement a month before the election saying they were “confident” the Russian government directed cyberintrusions into U.S. political organizations. But Mr. Obama said Friday that in September, when he encountered Mr. Putin at a meeting of world leaders in China, he addressed the issue of tampering with the voting process.

“I felt that the most effective way to ensure that that didn’t happen was to talk to him directly and tell him to cut it out, and there were going to be some serious consequences if he didn’t,” Mr. Obama said.

U.S. officials say Russian hackers were able to steal emails from Democratic political organizations and Mr. Podesta, but made a less aggressive effort to hack the computer networks of the Republican National Committee. Russia has denied the hacks.

Mr. Trump has called the U.S. intelligence assessment “ridiculous” and questioned its accuracy, reminding the public that the government’s claim before the Iraq war in 2003 that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction proved inaccurate. On Friday, Mr. Trump’s only comment on the subject came in a tweet, in which he mentioned that the cyberattack revealed intraparty Democratic tension during the primary campaign...

Keep reading.

Previously, "No Proof Russia's Behind the Alleged Election Hacks."

Deal of the Day: GoPro HERO

Wow.

Shop for $149.99, at Amazon, GoPro HERO+ LCD [Ecommerce Packaging].

Also, GoPro HERO Session Holiday Promo Kit.

And, GoPro Products and Accessories.

More, Up to 50% Off on Select Shopkins Toys and Games.

Plus, Save on Ninja Blenders. See especially, Ninja Kitchen System Pulse (BL201) for $48.99.

BONUS: Daniel Klaidman, Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency.

Joanna Krupa for BodyBlendz

At Maxim, "Joanna Krupa Bares All for Sultry NSFW Photo Shoot."

She's a stunning fine babe.

BONUS: At the Superficial, "Joanna Krupa in Playboy (Full Size version is NSFW)."

Ciara LOVE Advent 2016 (VIDEO)

Here's the latest in the LOVE series, featuring Ciara:

Epic Tucker Carlson Kurt Eichenwald Confrontation (VIDEO)

I missed it last night, but this has been a thing today.

Watch, the full clip via Fox News, "Tucker Carlson confronts Kurt Eichenwald and Newsweek's bias."

And then the dude went on at Twitter storm (slash) meltdown, with tons of deleted tweets, and then later tweets claiming he had an epileptic seizure. Man, that's something.

At Twitchy, "Kurt Eichenwald frantically deletes post-Tucker Carlson interview meltdown tweets; We’ve got them!; UPDATE: He’s still going (crazy); UPDATE: Claims seizure; Update: Continues post-seizure."

I thought the dude was basically unhinged in the weeks leading up to the election, but he's definitely gone off the rails now. It's a good idea for him to be off Twitter for a while. And I hope he's getting legal counsel.

Sheesh.

Also at NewsBusters, "Newsweek's Eichenwald Humiliates Himself After Trump Slam."

BONUS: At AoSHQ, "If You Thought Kurt Eichenwald Was Behaving Insanely During Tucker Carlson, You Gotta See Him After Tucker Carlson."

Democrats Actively Trying to Delegitimize President-Elect Donald Trump (VIDEO)

Here's the excellent opening monologue from Sean Hannity's show last night, "Hannity: It's time to stop undermining President-elect Trump: The left needs to admit that Trump won fair and square."

Stay with it until the end, where the video includes clips of Hillary Clinton alleging Donald Trump was attempting to destroy the "peaceful transfer of power."

Heh. Isn't that rich?

PREVIOUSLY: "Desperate Democrats Seeking to Deny Donald Trump the Oval Office (VIDEO)."

Jackie Johnson's Heavy Rainfall Forecast

It was raining a little today when I left work.

But it's supposed to really come down overnight.

Here's the lovely Ms. Jackie, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Training Workers for the New Economy

From Katherine S. Newman and Hella Winston, at the January/February 2017 issue of Foreign Affairs, "Make America Make Again":

Unlike the United States, Germany never abandoned vocational education. https://t.co/sODylrdnUM

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) December 15, 2016

Despite their many differences, the major candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential election managed to agree on at least one thing: manufacturing jobs must return to the United States. Last April, the Democratic contender Hillary Clinton told a crowd in Michigan, “We are builders, and we need to get back to building!” Her opponent in the Democratic primaries, Senator Bernie Sanders, said the manufacturing sector “must be rebuilt to expand the middle class.” And the Republican candidate Donald Trump bemoaned bad trade deals that he said had robbed the country of good jobs. “‘Made in America,’ remember?” he asked a rally in New Hampshire in September. “You’re seeing it less and less; we’re gonna bring it back.”

It’s true that many manufacturing jobs have left the United States, with the total number falling by about a third since 1980. But the news isn’t all bad. After decades of offshoring, U.S. manufacturing is undergoing something of a renaissance. Rising wages in developing countries, especially China, and increasing U.S. productivity have begun to make the United States much more attractive to manufacturers, who have added nearly half a million jobs since 2010.

But these jobs are not the same as the millions that have disappeared from the United States over the past four decades. Workers in contemporary manufacturing jobs are more likely to spend hours in front of a computer screen than in front of a hot furnace. To do so, they need to know simple programming, electrical engineering, and robotics. These are well-paying, middle-skill jobs that require technical qualifications—but not necessarily a four-year college degree. Between 2012 and 2022, these will account for half of all the new jobs created in the United States.

Yet the U.S. work force is woefully unprepared to take advantage of this opportunity. In New York State, for example, almost 25 percent of these jobs will likely go unfilled. According to a 2015 survey by the consulting firm Deloitte, 82 percent of manufacturing executives expect that they will be unable to hire enough people. The situation is all the more troubling when so many young people in the United States desperately need work.

There is a better way. In Germany, a “dual system” of vocational training that mixes classroom learning with work experience has helped drive the youth unemployment rate down to historic lows. The United States used to take a similar approach, but its commitment waned after decades of federal neglect and cultural antipathy to manual labor. It’s long past time to resurrect it.

NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE

In the years following World War II, the United States embraced vocational education. High schools prepared students for highly sought-after blue-collar work by training them to become aircraft mechanics or automotive repair technicians. The United States had hundreds of vocational schools where students studied welding, construction, and electrical engineering alongside a standard high school curriculum. These schools helped create a thriving blue-collar middle class.

But by the 1960s, white-collar positions had started to outstrip blue-collar jobs in number and prestige as the service sector came to dominate the economy. In 1963, Congress passed the Vocational Education Act, which provided federal funds to train students who were at an academic or socioeconomic disadvantage. The legislation was well intentioned but had the unintended consequence of encouraging the public to associate vocational education with troubled youth. A decade later, in 1972, the sociologist Richard Sennett found that many young people were embarrassed by their parents’ working-class origins and that older people felt at an increasing distance from their children as those children entered more prestigious jobs than their own. The stigma has stuck: parents in even very poor neighborhoods today believe that attending college is essential for a well-paying career and that middle-skill jobs are an inferior choice for their children. As a result, over the past four decades, the quality of technical education declined as investment in equipment and teacher training fell off, and private-sector interest has waned.

The move away from vocational education accelerated in the 1980s, when a 14-month-long recession triggered a crisis of confidence in U.S. education more generally...

Keep reading.