Lock 'em Up: Code Pink Protesters at Sessions Hearing Could Face Year in Prison

Fuck 'em.

The woman who laughed during the confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions was convicted and could face a year in prison https://t.co/yHfUsgB66R

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 4, 2017

Jackie Johnson's Increasing Clouds with Chance of Showers Forecast

It's going to be another spectacular day tomorrow, with sunny and warm conditions. But through the weekend we'll have a low pressure system coming in, with increasing clouds and possible showers. Here's the lovely Ms. Jackie and a robust red dress that accentuates her natural assets!

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Christine Brennan‏: #NFL Disses Colin Kaepernick While Embracing Athletes Accused of Sexual Assault

Hey, it's an interesting read.

Kaepernick's exercising his right to dissent when dissing the flag, no matter how vile his opinion. No NFL team will touch him. But a number of athletes accused of violent crimes against women, some caught on videotape, are riding high in the league.

I don't feel sorry for Kaep. That said, Mixon and some of the other thugs are sick and should've been given the cold shoulder.

At USA Today:

NFL welcomes those accused of sexual and physical assault, but not Colin Kaepernick. My @USATODAYsports column: https://t.co/EYY46wBeQI

— Christine Brennan (@cbrennansports) May 3, 2017

ICYMI: Naomi Schaefer Riley, The New Trail of Tears

Following-up from yesterday, "Ending the Trust System Will Do More for American Indians Than Changing the Name of the Washington Redskins."

At Amazon, Naomi Schaefer Riley, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians.

Ashley Graham for V Magazine

At London's Daily Mail, "'My cellulite does not define my worth!': Model Ashley Graham poses NUDE for V Magazine as she reveals she was 'disgusted' with her body as a teen."

And at V, "Body Beautiful: Ashley Graham Bares All to Tracee Ellis Ross."

Critics Tell 'Elitist' Jimmy Kimmel to Shut Up (VIDEO)

It's Charles Hurt, at the Washington Times, via Memeorandum, "Shut up, Jimmy Kimmel, you elitist creep."

Also, from the scum leftist TBogg, at Raw Story, via Memeorandum, "CNN panel goes off the rails after conservative calls Jimmy Kimmel's emotional healthcare appeal ‘cheap’."

Amber Lee's Warm Inland Forecast

We've got the May gray weather by the beaches, but as you move inland it's not only warmer, but near record temperatures in some locations.

It's definitely SoCal heaven right now.

Go out a grab a beer and enjoy it!

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

Mark Moyar, Strategic Failure

At Amazon, Mark Moyar, Strategic Failure: How President Obama’s Drone Warfare, Defense Cuts, and Military Amateurism Have Imperiled America.

Kendall Jenner Wore See-Through Gown and Thong to Met Gala

She's pretty wild.

At USA Today, "The time Kendall Jenner wore a visible thong to the #MetGala."

And at Taxi Driver, "Kendall Jenner Ass Cheeks at the Met Gala."

Can't Get Enough of Kate

Well, I certainly can't, heh.

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

We can't get enough of our cover girl. 💙 https://t.co/O0XifWcPUo pic.twitter.com/tMCEU66UOg

— SI Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) May 2, 2017

Out Today: Jocko Willink, Way of the Warrior Kid

At Amazon, Jocko Willink, Way of the Warrior Kid: From Wimpy to Warrior the Navy SEAL Way.

Adam Tooze, The Deluge

A major tome, at Amazon, Adam Tooze, The Deluge: The Great War, America and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931.

Ending the Trust System Will Do More for American Indians Than Changing the Name of the Washington Redskins

Naomi Schaefer Riley's the author of The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians.

Reading her book was one of the reasons I've been on the frontier America jag for the last few months.

And here she is with a great new video for Prager University.

Not to be missed. I love these clips:

I've Finished Fergus Bordewich's, Killing the White Man's Indian

Following-up, "I've Started Fergus Bordewich's, Killing the White Man's Indian."

I forgot to mention I'd finished the book, which is a shame, considering its sheer excellence.

At Amazon, Fergus Bordewich, Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century.

This book should be a required introductory text for any student of Native American history. If readers start only with Dee Brown's Bury My Heart, or Vine Deloria, Jr.'s, Custer Died for Your Sins, they're doing it wrong.

Bordewich is no conservative (nor Trumpian nationalist, for that matter). But he's fair and pragmatic, and he drops a few righteous barbs onto the far-left "settler colonial"-hating scholars and commentators.

It definitely deserves a spot on your bookshelf. A great volume.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, Trump vs. the Media

At Amazon, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, Trump vs. the Media.

How bad is the problem of media bias? The answer can be summed up in a few words: President Donald J. Trump. Whether you love or hate him, there's no question that Trump gained a huge amount of support for his willingness to criticize the media in harsh and unsparing terms. Yet, the media seem baffled by the fact they've lost the trust of the American people. They have responded by being extraordinarily defensive and doubling down on even more histrionic attacks. However, the American system has always depended on a strong and trusted media to hold those in power accountable. Journalist Mollie Hemingway looks at the impressive list of media failure that led us to this unique moment and asks: Is it possible for the media to recover their credibility before it's too late?

Glamour Model Elle Johnson Dubbed 'Too Sexy for Instagram'

Well, she got booted from Instragram, and then started promoting "FreeTheCleavage" on Twitter.

At Maxim, "#FreeTheCleavage model @_ElleJohnson gets booted off Instagram (again) for her sexy pics."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Glamour model dubbed 'too sexy for Instagram' is banned from the site for her VERY racy snaps - and says she feels like Doctor Dao who was thrown off a United Airlines flight."

Vulnerable Dems Aren't Pulling Punches

Well, offense is the best defense, as they say.

At National Journal, "Vulnerable Democrats Are Showing Little Fear of Trump":

.@AndreaDrusch explains why vulnerable red-state Dems aren't afraid to bash Trump https://t.co/bvArBqHKoV (free!)

— Kimberly Railey (@KimberlyRailey) May 1, 2017

Vul­ner­able Demo­crats aren’t pulling any punches cri­ti­ciz­ing Pres­id­ent Trump’s first months in of­fice. In­stead of veer­ing to the right—as many red-state Demo­crats have tried with little suc­cess in re­cent years—2018’s most en­dangered sen­at­ors have re­peatedly voted against Trump’s Cab­in­et nom­in­ees, helped fili­buster his Su­preme Court pick, and rat­cheted up their rhet­or­ic against policies they say hurt the middle class.

While these sen­at­ors still need to win back plenty of Trump voters ahead of the midterms, strategists say the moves re­flect a new real­ity for red-state Demo­crats. After three elec­tion cycles of dormancy, the Demo­crat­ic base could sud­denly play a sig­ni­fic­ant role in their reelec­tions, even in states Trump won hand­ily.

Point­ing to the House spe­cial elec­tion he’s work­ing on in Geor­gia, Demo­crat­ic poll­ster John An­za­lone said Demo­crats are already tak­ing note of an in­flux of voters who hadn’t par­ti­cip­ated in pre­vi­ous midterms—a trend that could dra­mat­ic­ally al­ter the polit­ic­al land­scape in red ter­rit­ory in two years.

“If that holds in­to 2018, we’re go­ing to see a voter uni­verse that’s dif­fer­ent from any­thing we’ve seen in God-knows how many midterms,” An­za­lone said in an in­ter­view last week. “That’s what we should be fo­cus­ing on as Demo­crats.”

Among vul­ner­able sen­at­ors, many of whom pledged to work with the new pres­id­ent after he was elec­ted, few are shy­ing away from at­tack­ing the pres­id­ent, even in places he just won.

Sen. Robert Ca­sey of Pennsylvania, long con­sidered a quiet cent­rist, raised eye­brows earli­er this spring when he took to Twit­ter cri­ti­ciz­ing the pres­id­ent and par­ti­cip­ated in a series of ram­bunc­tious town halls. Mem­bers of the Sen­ate Fin­ance Com­mit­tee, which in­cludes a hand­ful of vul­ner­able Demo­crats, boy­cot­ted a hear­ing for Trump’s picks to lead the de­part­ments of Justice, Health and Hu­man Ser­vices, and Treas­ury. And all but four Demo­crats joined with their lead­er­ship in a fili­buster of Trump’s Su­preme Court nom­in­ee, Neil Gor­such.

As law­makers re­turned from their April re­cess last week, red-state Demo­crats wasted no time lay­ing in­to short­com­ings of Trump’s first months. In a press con­fer­ence Tues­day, Sens. Ca­sey, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and Tammy Bald­win of Wis­con­sin each laid in­to the pres­id­ent for a lack of ac­tion on out­sourcing and trade. Asked wheth­er any ap­pet­ite re­mained to work with the White House, Stabenow said each of them had ini­tially been “hope­ful” about it in the be­gin­ning, but grown less op­tim­ist­ic throughout the course of the pres­id­ent’s first months.

That at­ti­tude has drawn praise from pro­gress­ive groups, who say frus­tra­tion with Trump is already driv­ing up their act­iv­ism in tra­di­tion­ally red ter­rit­ory...

I doubt Dems have much shot at taking back the Senate, especially if Trump continues to hold his main base of supporters heading into the 2018 midterms (as polls are now showing). (Dems are defending the majority of Senate seats up for reelection in 2018). But, political science shows that the president's party almost always loses seats in the midterms, so I'm not holding my breath. The Senate's vulnerable to a Democrat takeover, although the House not so much. It'll pay to refer to some of the Larry Sabato-style vote-prediction analyses in the months ahead.

But we'll see. We'll see.

I love politics right now. I love how the Democrats are all fucked up.

More.

Democrats Know Why Clinton Lost

Democrats know why they lost. Even Bill Clinton was warning of impending disaster, and thus he was all the more pissed once the results came it. It was the ultimate I told you so moment.

But autopsies continue to pour in, and if they've got some supreme pedigree, some establishment authority and gloss, the updated spin sort of excuses base Democrats of their stupidity. If they'd only known this before the election!

At McClatchy, "Democrats say they now know exactly why Clinton lost" (via Memeorandum):

A select group of top Dem strategists know why Clinton lost. Will the rest of the party listen to them? https://t.co/QnHAeYwdnw

— Alex Roarty (@Alex_Roarty) May 1, 2017

A select group of top Democratic Party strategists have used new data about last year’s presidential election to reach a startling conclusion about why Hillary Clinton lost. Now they just need to persuade the rest of the party they’re right.

Many Democrats have a shorthand explanation for Clinton’s defeat: Her base didn’t turn out, Donald Trump’s did and the difference was too much to overcome.

But new information shows that Clinton had a much bigger problem with voters who had supported President Barack Obama in 2012 but backed Trump four years later.

Those Obama-Trump voters, in fact, effectively accounted for more than two-thirds of the reason Clinton lost, according to Matt Canter, a senior vice president of the Democratic political firm Global Strategy Group. In his group’s analysis, about 70 percent of Clinton’s failure to reach Obama’s vote total in 2012 was because she lost these voters.

In recent months, Canter and other members of Global Strategy Group have delivered a detailed report of their findings to senators, congressmen, fellow operatives and think tank wonks – all part of an ongoing effort to educate party leaders about what the data says really happened in last year’s election.

“We have to make sure we learn the right lesson from 2016, that we don’t just draw the lesson that makes us feel good at night, make us sleep well at night,” Canter said.

His firm’s conclusion is shared broadly by other Democrats who have examined the data, including senior members of Clinton’s campaign and officials at the Democratic data and analytics firm Catalist. (The New York Times, doing its own analysis, reached a similar conclusion.)

More.

The Last Diversity Visa Lottery?

The diversity lottery is an abomination.

And seriously? Fourteen million people have puts their names in for it this year? God, what are the odds? Not much better than PowerBall, that's for sure.

At WaPo, "Despite Trump, millions hope to win what could be the last U.S. green card lottery":

Despite Trump, millions hope to win what could be the last U.S. green card lottery https://t.co/82b9tSwUax

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 1, 2017

On Tuesday, more than 14 million people around the world, including anxious applicants in the Washington area, will begin checking computers and smartphones in one of the strangest rituals of the U.S. immigration system. When the clock strikes noon in the nation’s capital, they will be able to visit a State Department website, enter their names, years of birth and 16-digit identification numbers. Then they will press “submit” to learn whether they have won one of the world’s most coveted contests: the U.S. green card lottery.

Each year, the Diversity Visa Lottery, as it is officially known, provides up to 55,000 randomly selected foreigners — fewer than 1 percent of those who enter the drawing — with permanent residency in the United States.

The current lottery coincides with an intense debate over immigration and comes amid policy changes that have made the country less welcoming to new arrivals. President Trump has cracked down on illegal immigration and pressed forward with plans to build a wall along the border with Mexico. He has issued executive orders targeting foreign workers, refugees and travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries.

But he hasn’t said a word about the green card lottery...

Keep reading.

And ICYMI, see Steven Camarota, at Foreign Affairs, "The Case Against Immigration: Why the United States Should Look Out for Itself."

Jackie Johnson's Continued Warming Forecast

As I was saying, it's paradise weather in SoCal.

Still warm with clear skies through the week, with the slightest chance of some clouds and moisture coming down from the north by Friday.

Here's the lovely Ms. Jackie to start off our weather week blogging, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles: