The Culture War is First and Foremost a War of Words

This is great. It's Michael Knowles, for Prager University:

Our 'Cry Closet' Education System

The University of Utah has installed a "cry closet" for students to let it all out during finals week.

Funny, I don't remember needing to cry during finals. I was ecstatic the semester was coming to an end and I got some time off from school, sheesh.

Here's Mike Rowe, on Facebook, "Our Educational System is Under Attack."

And for Prager University:

Guadi Galano

At Editorials Fashions Trends, "Guadi Galano by John Joseph Estevez."

Out in Paperback: Omar El Akkad, American War

*BUMPED.*

I've been thinking about this book a lot, since more and more people are describing American politics as a genuine civil war.

At Amazon, out in paper, Omar El Akkad, American War.

It's a great book.

Democrat Party Revolutionaries Destroy Norms, Advocate Violence

From VDH, at National Review, "Revolution and Worse to Come":

Revolution and Worse to Come https://t.co/GH9xKTzfUx via @VDHanson pic.twitter.com/V5A8yAGh0G

— National Review (@NRO) April 25, 2018

On the domestic and foreign fronts, the Trump administration has prompted economic growth and restored U.S. deterrence. Polls show increased consumer confidence, and in some, Trump himself has gained ground. Yet good news is bad news to the Resistance and its strange continued efforts to stop an elected president in a way it failed to do in the 2016 election.

Indeed, the aim of the so-called Resistance to Donald J. Trump is ending Trump’s presidency by any means necessary before the 2020 election. Or, barring that, it seeks to so delegitimize him that he becomes presidentially impotent. It has been only 16 months since Trump took office and, in the spirit of revolutionary fervor, almost everything has been tried to derail him. Now we are entering uncharted territory — at a time when otherwise the country is improving and the legal exposure of Trump’s opponents increases daily.

First came the failed lawsuits after the election alleging voting-machine tampering. Then there was the doomed celebrity effort to convince some state electors not to follow their constitutional duty and to deny Trump the presidency — a gambit that, had it worked, would have wrecked the Constitution. Then came the pathetic congressional boycott of the inauguration and the shrill nationwide protests against the president.

Next was the sad effort to introduce articles of impeachment. After that came weird attempts to cite Trump for violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. That puerile con was followed by plans to declare him deranged and mentally unfit so that he could be removed under the 25th Amendment. From time to time, Obama holdovers in the DOJ, National Security Council, and FBI sought to leak information, or they refused to carry out presidential orders.

As the Resistance goes from one ploy to the next, it ignores its string of failed prior efforts, forgetting everything and learning nothing. State nullification is no longer neo-Confederate but an any-means-necessary progressive tool. Suing the government weekly is proof of revolutionary fides, not a waste of California’s taxpayer dollars.

Anti- and Never-Trump op-ed writers have long ago run out of superlatives. Trump is the worst, most, biggest — fill in the blank — in the history of the presidency, in the history of the world, worse even than Mao, Mussolini, Stalin, or Hitler. So if Trump is a Hitler who gassed 6 million or a Stalin who starved 20 million, then logically Trump deserves what exactly?The book industry is doing its part. Mythographer Michael Wolff’s hearsay Fire and Fury suggested that Trump was a dangerous child despised as much by his friends as by his enemies. As  FBI director, James Comey leaked confidential memos, lied to Congress, misled a FISA court, admitted that he based his handling of the Clinton-email investigation on the assumption she’d win the presidency, misinformed the president about the status of his investigation. And the now-former director book-tours the country slamming Trump hourly on the assumption that he would certainly not be former, if only his prior obsequious efforts to appease Trump had saved his job. Comey is building perjury cases against himself daily with each new disclosure that belie past sworn testimonies, but that is apparently less scary to him than simply ignoring Trump.

Robert Mueller and his “dream team” were long ago supposed to have discovered proof of Trump’s collusion with Russia. A year later, they have found nothing much to do with this mandate. Then the alternative scent was obstruction of justice. Then the chase took another detour to follow some sort of fraud or racketeering. Now the FBI is reduced to raiding Trump’s lawyer in an effort to root out the real story on Stormy Daniels. One wonders what might have happened had Michael Cohen panicked and destroyed 30,000 emails before Mueller seized his computers. No matter, Mueller’s legal army presses on, even as it leaves its own wounded on the battlefield, as resignations, reassignments, and retirements for improper conduct decimate the Obama-era FBI and DOJ hierarchies....

Trump has left the intelligence community unhinged....

Insidiously and incrementally, we are in the process of normalizing violence against the elected president of the United States. If all this fails to delegitimize Trump, fails to destroy his health, or fails to lead to a 2018 midterm Democratic sweep and subsequent impeachment, expect even greater threats of violence. The Resistance and rabid anti-Trumpers have lost confidence in the constitutional framework of elections, and they’ve flouted the tradition by which the opposition allows the in-power party to present its case to the court of public opinion.

Trump has left the intelligence community unhinged....

Still more.

Nine Journalists Among Dozens Killed by Kabul Bombs

Susan Page tweets AP:

This is a blow to our hopes for Afghanistan's future. May the journalists and the other victims of this bombing not be forgotten. https://t.co/KHfWyJyrnU

— Susan Page (@SusanPage) April 30, 2018

Nine journalists were killed today in a double suicide bombing in Kabul. The reporters had flocked to the scene of the first explosion. Then a terrorist in their midst, pretending to be a fellow journalist, detonated another bomb. https://t.co/9EOIBvcRN6

— Tricia L. Nadolny (@TriciaNadolny) April 30, 2018

And at the BBC, via Memeorandum, "Kabul bombings: Photographer Shah Marai among 25 dead."

ICYMI: Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest

At Amazon, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest.

Denise Austin Bikini Body

She's in great shape!

At London's Daily Mail, "Denise Austin on how she's kept her bikini body at 61... but 90s fitness video pro admits even she's battling the dreaded middle-aged spread."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."

And from A.F. Branco, "An Angry Master."

Jessica Lee Buchanan Hot Photo Shoot

At Drunken Stepfather, "JESSICA LEE BUCHANAN IN A HOT PHOTOSHOOT OF THE DAY."

Nina Agdal on Instagram

At Taxi Driver, "Nina Agdal Butt Naked on Instagram."

BONUS: At Drunken Stepfather, "THE UNCENSORED NINA AGDAL NUDES OF THE DAY."

Michelle Wolf and the White House Correspondents' Dinner

These people are not too smart. You can't keep denigrating and vilifying the very people who elected the current president. And you especially can't come off as mean and cold-hearted --- "caustic," in the words of some.

I didn't watch the dinner, which was apparently available on C-SPAN. I was reading and scrolling Twitter, and oh boy, that was some backlash against "comedienne" Michelle Wolf.

I did read the transcript, and I gotta say, she's not very funny. Maybe one or two lines might have gotten a laugh out of me, especially with a good delivery. But she was mean-spirited and foul-mouthed. It's just not very funny.

See WaPo, "AAnalysis: Michelle Wolf's caustic comedy routine at the White House correspondents' dinner, annotated."

Also, from Margaret Sullivan, "For the sake of journalism, stop the White House correspondents’ dinner."

And at Politico, "Journalists distance themselves from Correspondents’ Dinner after Wolf routine":

Comedian Michelle Wolf's biting routine at Saturday‘s 2018 White House Correspondents' Association dinner has triggered one of Washington's most recurring conversations: Is one night of pomp and politics worth the headaches that usually follow?

Almost immediately after Wolf, best known as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,“ left the stage at the Washington Hilton, those who pack into the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on a daily basis began to distance themselves from her performance. A number of journalists deemed her act too caustic.

"The spirit of the event had always been jokes that singe but don’t burn. Reporters who work with her daily appreciate that @presssec was there," NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell wrote on Twitter.

At its core, the dinner is supposed to be a celebration of the First Amendment, an opportunity to laud the young journalists who have won the association's scholarships, and a place to applaud the current journalists whose work illuminates the public's understanding of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“My goal in putting together last night's dinner was to unify the room and the country around journalism and the First Amendment and I shared what I believe about those subjects in my own remarks,” Margaret Talev, a Bloomberg correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, told POLITICO.

“The association by tradition does not preview or censor the entertainer's remarks,” Talev continued. “Some of them made me uncomfortable and did not embody the spirit of the night. And that is protected by the First Amendment. I appreciated Sarah Sanders for joining us at the head table and her grace through the program.”

A persistent criticism of the glitzy dinner is that it fuels perceptions of excessive chumminess between the press and the government officials they’re expected to hold accountable, a rationale that’s prompted the New York Times to back out more than a decade ago. But some journalists feared Saturday’s dinner could lead to a different perception, of being seen as the opposition to the president.

“If the #WHCD dinner did anything tonight, it made the chasm between journalists and those who don't trust us, even wider,” tweeted Meg Kinnard, a South Carolina-based reporter for The Associated Press. “And those of us based in the red states who work hard every day to prove our objectivity will have to deal with it.”

New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker concluded on Twitter after the event, “Unfortunately, I don't think we advanced the cause of journalism tonight.” And Baker suggested in a reply to comedian Kathy Griffin that he’d “vote to leave the comedy acts to comedy shows and stick to journalism at journalism dinners.”

"First Amendment would probably be OK without the dinner," CNBC's John Harwood added.

Still more, at Twitchy, "DAMN! AP’s Meg Kinnard dropped the MOTHER of all truth-bombs on the WHCD and Lefties can’t DEAL."

Erika Albonetti

At Drunken Stepfather, "Erika Albonetti’s Titties are Short Sighted of the Day."

Leftists Don't Care About Normal Americans

This is good, from Tom Trinko, at American Thinker, "What Leftists Stand For":

Historically, both sides of the political spectrum in America have supported the rule of law and the Constitution.  Additionally, other than the Democrats' longstanding racist oppression of black people, the positions held by both sides were generally differences that people of goodwill could hold.  For example, good people can disagree on just what the tax rates should be.

Since Roe v. Wade, that has changed, and the change has accelerated rapidly in the last eight years.  The left in America has openly embraced evil, rejected the rule of law, and denied that Americans they disagree with have constitutional rights.

That's why 2016 was a Flight 93 election: the political fight in America is no longer among people of good will, but between evil fascists and the American people.  Most of the people who vote for the Democrats have no idea what the left actually stands for due to the actions of the media, who hide the truth.

Here are some of the evils perpetrated or supported by large numbers of leftists so you can convince those Democrat voters to switch sides:

1. They support the right of the British government to use force to prevent parents from taking their child to see doctors who might be able to save their child's life if the British courts decide that it's in the best interest of the child to die.
2. They support killing the unborn who can feel pain by literally cutting them to pieces, but they demand prison time for someone who mistreats animals.
3. They want to kill unborn babies with Down syndrome.
4. They want to kill the elderly, who are no longer a benefit to society in the minds of leftists.
5. They deny the settled science that human life begins at conception.
6. They spend their money on themselves by having fewer children and condemn those who have more kids even when they pay for them.
7. They don't care that black women are three times as likely to abort as white women.
8. They don't care that cheap illegal labor hurts black people by denying them jobs.
9. They don't care that their fake climate crisis will drive up energy costs and hurt the poor, who are disproportionately people of color.
10. They declare that giving inner-city black parents the choice of sending their kids to a school where they will get a good education is "racist."
11. They don't care that thousands of blacks are shot each year in Democratic-run cities.
12. They deny witness reports by black crime victims that show that blacks are more likely to commit crimes, though most blacks are law-abiding, and demand that blacks be incarcerated at the same rate as all other groups, ensuring that blacks continue to suffer from black-on-black crime.
13. They want to take money from people who never owned slaves and give it to people who never were slaves.
14. They refuse to accept any election result that doesn't favor them.
15. They approve of Hillary colluding with Russia to get fake news on Trump and use that fake news during the election campaign.
16. They believe that illegals should be counted along with Americans when apportioning House seats.
17. They can't win elections, so they import immigrants and illegal aliens who will vote for them.
18. They want to give convicted child-molesters, murderers, rapists, and major drug-dealers the right to vote.
19. They work hard to keep the folks in the military from voting.
20. They support policies that increase people's dependence on government in order to get more votes, even though that subjects 21. people to miserable lives.
21. They believe they should be able to use the full power of the government to spy on their political opponents.
22. They believe that the judiciary can make up laws, and they reject the idea of separation of powers by endorsing "resistance" by the judiciary.
23. They believe that our rights flow from the government and that the government can change our rights as it sees fit.
24. They support discriminating against Asian-Americans based on their race.
25. They support discriminating against whites based on their race so long as leftist kids aren't discriminated against.
26. They reject equality of opportunity and embrace equality of result.
27. They think it's fine for politicians to decide not to enforce laws they don't like so long as leftists don't like those laws, but they would throw a fit if Texas ignored the Supreme Court ruling, not a law, that makes abortion legal.
28. They believe that the if the president is a leftist, he can ignore the Constitution, but if he's conservative, he can be prevented from doing anything leftist judges don't personally like.
29. They believe that the Constitution is whatever they want it to be, and they directly reject the idea that it should be interpreted in light of the intent of those who wrote and ratified it.
30. They believe that the press should be a propaganda machine that ignores stories that are bad for leftists and makes up fake news to endorse leftist views.

There's still lots more, at the link.

President Trump Should Defend the Executive Branch (VIDEO)

Kim Strassel had a great column in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "How Trump Takes on Obstruction."

She's a brilliant political analyst, and uncompromising against the left. I love her!

At Fox News, with Martha MacCallum:

Evelyn Taft's Weekend Weather Forecast

It's sure been nice. The sun's been making it out from behind the clouds and it's been comfortably warm.

Here's the lovely Ms. Evelyn, for KCAL News Channel 9:

Scarlett Johansson Busts Out Cleavage for Avengers Flashback Friday

She's still got it, dang!

At Popoholic:

Scarlett Johansson Bust Out Her Ginormous Cleavage For Avengers Flashback Friday, Woohoo! https://t.co/PpvaW2NZ4v #AvengersInfinityWar #BlackWidow #FBF pic.twitter.com/mPhjlquZ48

— Popoholic (@Popoholic) April 27, 2018

Trump Administration Set to Collide with California Over Automobile Fuel Emissions Standards

Hey, I love it.

California's ridiculously out of line with its global warming agenda. The pushback is long in coming and much needed.

At LAT, "Trump and California are set to collide head-on over fuel standards":

BREAKING: Trump admin plan would revoke California's authority to set fuel economy rules, and freeze 2020 mileage targets in place nationwide for six years. https://t.co/Qc2l9dvaXE

— Evan Halper (@evanhalper) April 27, 2018

The Trump administration is speeding toward all-out war with California over fuel economy rules for cars and SUVs, proposing to revoke the state's long-standing authority to enforce its own, tough rules on tailpipe emissions.

The move forms a key part of a proposal by Trump's environmental and transportation agencies to roll back the nation's fuel economy standards. The agencies plan to submit the proposal to the White House for review within days.

The plan would freeze fuel economy targets at the levels required for vehicles sold in 2020, and leave those in place through 2026, according to federal officials who have reviewed it. That would mark a dramatic retreat from existing law, which aimed to get the nation's fleet of cars and light trucks to an average fuel economy of 55 miles per gallon by 2025. Instead of average vehicle fuel economy ratcheting up to that level, it would stall out at 42 miles per gallon.

That would constitute the single biggest step the administration has taken to undermine efforts to combat climate change.

Cars and trucks recently surpassed electricity plants as America's biggest sources of the greenhouse gases that drive global warming. And unlike the electricity industry, in which market forces have pushed utilities toward cleaner energy, including natural gas and renewable sources, relatively low gasoline prices in recent years have led consumers to pay less attention to fuel economy when they buy new cars.

As a result, the steady increase in fuel mileage standards championed by the Obama administration in partnership with California represented the most powerful action the U.S. has taken to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The biggest gains have been projected to happen in the years that the Trump administration's plan would target.

The plan from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration remains a draft, and White House officials could decide to back away from a direct fight with California and like-minded states.

Within the administration, officials have disagreed about how far and how quickly to push changes in fuel economy rules, according to officials familiar with the discussions. Some officials attuned to the concerns of the auto industry have warned against a proposal that over-reaches and could lead to years of litigation and uncertainty. Others, aligned with EPA chief Scott Pruitt, have argued for a more aggressive push.

EPA spokesperson Liz Bowman declined to comment on the details of the draft plan.

"The Agency is continuing to work with NHTSA to develop a joint proposed rule and is looking forward to the interagency process," she wrote in an email.

Environmental groups and California officials already have vowed to fight the administration in court. But if the EPA plan prevails, it would be a crippling blow to efforts in California and other states to meet aggressive goals for climate action as well as for cleaning their air.

"I find this to be an outrageous intrusion," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in an email.

Salena Zito and Brad Todd, The Great Revolt

*BUMPED.*

This one's out May 8th. I can't wait to read it.

At Amazon, Salena Zito and Brad Todd, The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.

Alfie Evan's Miraculous Life

From Sohrab Ahmari, at Commentary, "A Miracle in Liverpool":

Alfie Evans's miraculous life bears witness against Europe's barbarous culture of death. My take. https://t.co/Ze5y4KyJ6O

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) April 24, 2018

Alfie Evans was supposed to die. On Monday evening, doctors at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool, England, removed the 23-month-old toddler’s respirator following an effective death sentence handed down by Britain’s High Court of Justice. The court ruled that “continued ventilatory support is no longer in Alfie’s best interest” and prohibited his parents from flying their baby to Rome’s Bambino Gesù hospital for additional treatment at the Italian government’s expense. An international outcry led by Pope Francis failed to move British authorities.

In his decision, Justice Anthony Hayden of the High Court predicted that, owing to a little-understood and rapidly progressing brain condition, “Alfie can not sustain his life on his own. It is the ventilator that has been keeping him alive for many months, he is unable to sustain his own respiratory effort.” Some 30 police officers were posted outside the hospital to prevent Alfie’s supporters from attempting to rescue him overnight, and his parents were barred from supplying their own oxygen.

The most mother and father could offer their son was skin-to-skin contact—and love. He was, as I say, supposed to die. But he didn’t. Alfie continued to breathe independently for five, ten, fifteen hours. As I write, he has been going strong for more than 21 hours. Under moral pressure, the hospital finally relented and offered some oxygen and fluids on Tuesday morning. Yet the fluids were subsequently withdrawn, a source familiar with the situation tells me.

The Italian government granted Alfie citizenship on Monday, and the following day Italian diplomats sought to evacuate him by military air ambulance from his death chamber at Alder Hey. That final legal hope was dashed Tuesday evening, after the court dismissed the Italian appeal. It is unlikely that Alfie will survive for much longer. Even so, what has transpired in Alfie’s room—between Alfie and his parents, Tom and Kate—is nothing short of a miracle of love. It is also a rebuke to the callous judges and experts who would substitute their own judgement for that of parents in matters of life and death.

The medical complexities of the case, played up by the court and its defenders, serve to obscure this basic moral principle. No one is asking the U.K. National Health Service to expend extraordinary resources to keep Alfie alive. All Alfie’s parents ask is to be allowed to seek treatment elsewhere—again, at Italian expense—even if such treatment proves to be futile in the end. The same principle was at stake in last year’s Charlie Gard case. Once more, British courts have distorted the relevant legal standard—“the best interests of the child”—to usurp parents’ natural rights.

Laws that were enacted to give children a voice when parents were divided, or to protect children against neglectful or abusive parents, are now being used against parents who are united and determined to keep their children alive. As London-based canon lawyer Ed Condon wrote recently in the Catholic Herald, U.K. courts have broadened the relevant statutes “to include disagreements between unified parents and other authorities, be they educational, medical, or governmental.”

Nor is it possible to rule out the baleful influence of the European culture of death in Alfie’s case. It is true that the hospital is not proactively terminating Alfie’s life. Even so, Justice Hayden’s decision is full of references to dying with “dignity,” a favorite euphemism of the euthanasia movement...