Eminem's Daughter Hailie Scott Posts Bikini Photo on Instagram

At People:

Eminem's Daughter Hailie, 23, Shares Sexy Bikini Pic from New Year's Vacation https://t.co/NO3PByWQZL

— People (@people) January 4, 2019

Also, at GCeleb, "Eminem’s Daughter Does The Instagram Bikini Thing Too."

And, at the Mirror U.K.:

Eminem's daughter Hailie Scott Mathers is an Instagram sensation https://t.co/2qy6S7Rbey pic.twitter.com/PX7pO6Pm6T

— Mirror Celeb (@MirrorCeleb) January 4, 2019

Yellow Vest Update

Clarie Berlinski rattled off a long thread last night on the violence of the yellow vest protesters.

They're anarcho-nihilists, basically, and Berlinski's mad because she thinks Macron's a pussy, he's caving to the street scum, and his political cowardice will strengthen the "far right." So, she calls for more authoritarian responses to the protests as a way to prevent "real" right-wing authoritarians from coming to power.

@threadreaderapp , would you please unroll this? Thank you very much for being a good bot.

— Claire Berlinski (@ClaireBerlinski) January 8, 2019

Hello you can read it here: Thread by @ClaireBerlinski: "I agree completely with @NTenzer when he says that violence is consubstantial with this movement. It's not the word I wo […]" https://t.co/zwj2JwOKf9
Share this if you think it's interesting. 🤖

— Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) January 8, 2019

And some of the things that have been happening this last weekend, although given Ms. Claire's animated exasperation, I doubt media reports can replace being on the ground in Paris and watching local media coverage in real time:

At the Local (France), "VIDEO: Protesters attack French ministry with forklift truck."

More:

Yellow vests: France to crack down on unsanctioned protests https://t.co/ACOI7GLrUz

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 7, 2019

7 January 2019

Christophe Dettinger: Boxer surrenders after clash with riot police in Paris

PHOTO: A former professional boxer who was filmed at the weekend punching a police officer on a bridge in Paris during a "yellow vest"... https://t.co/yKwxeUvfhC

— Maria Battles (@maria_battles) January 8, 2019

Facebook, Twitter Work With Conservatives to Manage Political Speech on Their Platforms

This is interesting.

If you're wondering why @CNN's Thought Police commissar @oliverdarcy is throwing a tantrum today, it involves this WSJ article. https://t.co/yE0qL3luW7

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) January 8, 2019

What in the world? Ali Akbar isn't exactly a traditional conservative activist. He's aligned with fringe pro-Trump voices on the right. Why is @jack seeking advice from him? https://t.co/lrQxNMiG3m

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) January 8, 2019

I worked for McCain in 2008 and also as a high level Convention staffer working as a liaison between Secret Service and the campaign.

Cofounded the Tea Party movement.

Over 150 mainstream conservative groups have sponsored my events.

Oliver Darcy is trying to deplatform me. pic.twitter.com/ZCOcbFWp3S

— Ali Alexander (@ali) January 8, 2019

A Year of Shunning and Lawsuits at a Canadian University

It's Lindsay Shepherd, at Quillette, "Thoughtcrime and Punishment."

Her story is familiar, but I hadn't heard about her being shunned in her last semester or so of graduate school, which would violate all kinds of civil rights regulations if professors did this on my campus:

New @QuilletteM
Lindsay Shepherd @NewWorldHominin describes her excommunication at @Laurier after she blew the whistle on Nathan Rambukkana and the diversity-enforcement officials who convened her star chamber https://t.co/5BB8wUR6RA

— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) January 8, 2019

...in another one of my courses, our last three classes (which were to consist of graduate student presentations) were nominally “cancelled.” In fact, they went on behind closed doors: The professor changed the program structure, so that students could invite whoever they wanted to attend their own class presentations—which effectively meant that every other student in the class attended everyone else’s presentations, with me being excluded from all of them. This was a way of shunning me—singling me out so that I would miss the opportunity to learn from and discuss the presentations of my colleagues...

RTWT.

George Packer, The Unwinding

At Amazon, George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America.

Jennifer Delacruz's Tuesday Forecast

It's been mild this week, thankfully. I was freezing last week out in Yucca Valley, sheesh.

Here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer with today's forecast.

Taylor Swift at the Golden Globe After-Party (PHOTOS)

She's nice.

Taylor Swift Bustier And More Cleavagy Than Ever? Yes Please! https://t.co/XL6nsXB3z3 #TaylorSwift #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/6HKDJsU7qw

— Popoholic (@Popoholic) January 8, 2019

Bikini Roundup

At Egotastic!, "Weekend Bikini Roundup: Ridiculously Sexy Model Bods in Beautiful Bikinis to Start the Year."

Izabel Goulart is unbelievably hot, dang!

Barbara Palvin Starts the Year (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Federico Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History

Hmm, this looks worth a look.

At Amazon, Federico Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History.

Mark Lilla, The Shipwrecked Mind

Following up, "How to Write About the Right."

At Amazon, Mark Lilla, The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction.

Megan Parry's Monday Forecast

At ABC News 10 San Diego:

How to Write About the Right

Leftists will always characterize and attack the new populist-nationalist right as racist and xenophobic. That's a given. It's political correctness on steroids and the left's given assumption is one of the very fault-lines of the new politics of identity across the world.

For me, when someone calls me racist I blow it off and throw it back in their faces. Play by the left's rules. They hate that and it confounds and flusters them.

In any case, Professor Mark Lilla had a nice piece at the New York Review in December, "Two Roads for the New French Right." It elicited the typical Pavlovian attacks from the left. See, "How to Write About the Right: An Exchange."

Two Roads for the New French Right | by Mark Lilla | The New York Review of Books https://t.co/fIXJZ1mL1x

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) December 20, 2018

Mark Lilla: the Left is always accusing the Right, and their defenders (including me), of being nativist, and they are totally wrong. Now let me tell you about The Great Replacement that is going on in Europe. https://t.co/sbgn6Djaee

— Cas Mudde 📢 (@CasMudde) January 4, 2019

And Lilla's response:

Writing about the political right has never been harder. Different kinds of right-wing ideologies and political formations are proliferating and shaking liberal governments around the world, as Greil Marcus points out. This makes it difficult to keep track of all the developments, distinguish them, and establish the connections between them. At the same time, liberal and left forces that want to resist these developments are increasingly hostile to learning anything that does not conform to their settled ideas about the right. A misplaced wokeness works like Ambien, dulling our curiosity and willingness to engage, and thrusting us into an intellectual twilight where the only thing we see is the familiar specter of white supremacy...

Keep reading.

Julia Roberts Rebuffs Politics on the Red Carpet

Good for her.

She looked spectacular, and I didn't watch the show. I hate the leftist politics. It should be about the art, not the leftist virtue signalling.

(See "Moral Preening, Identity Politics Win Big at Golden Globes.")

#Homecoming star and #GoldenGlobes nominee Julia Roberts says she doesn't have a speech prepared https://t.co/BbwbPst27A pic.twitter.com/gLAIQQGH9w

— Variety (@Variety) January 7, 2019

Julia Roberts does not age. EVER. #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/FN6uxdWHH6

— Amy Kaplan (@PhotoAmy33) January 7, 2019

Julia Roberts, wearing the pants #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/mRlFi5yVBn

— Vanessa Friedman (@VVFriedman) January 7, 2019

Anne Claire Bousquet.

At Drunken Stepfather, "ANNE-CLAIRE BOUSQUET SAYS SHE’S A MODEL, SO HERE ARE HER TITS OF THE DAY."

(More photos: "Anne-Claire Bousquet shot in the French Riviera, in Le Pradet, France by Guillaume Gaubert.")

BONUS: "GOLDEN GLOBES ROUNDUP OF THE DAY."

Brazil's Primal Scream for Freedom

From Mary Anastasia O'Grady, at WSJ, "Brazil's Primal Scream":

‘Socialism just didn’t work out around here.’ Brazil wants to try something new, writes @MaryAnastasiaOG https://t.co/TQ6IhZ1aDH

— MaryAnastasiaO'Grady (@MaryAnastasiaOG) January 7, 2019

In the days after Jair Bolsonaro won the October runoff contest to become president-elect of Brazil, I received some notable mail from supporters offended by the negative media coverage of their choice for a new chief executive.

A letter from a man in São Paulo, who described himself as “a gay person,” read: For the “first time in my life I voted [with conviction] . . . on both the first and the second round. I woke up 6AM on two cold Sundays happily doing it. I voted for Bolsonaro emotionally and with gratitude in my heart.”

Behind the emotion there was reason. This is “the first time a government [will provide] freedom of market and freedom of choice to us. . . . By that I mean understanding that’s what people want and realizing that’s what will drive the economic direction in this new administration.”

On Tuesday the center-right Mr. Bolsonaro became Brazil’s 36th president. As I read inauguration coverage here in the south of the country I wondered if the new president grasps the soaring expectations he has created. Brazil has let go a primal scream for freedom.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s critics claim that his “right wing” views, shaped by his experience in the military, will put Brazil’s liberal democracy at risk. In the lead-up to the vote, this media hysteria reached a fevered pitch.

It hasn’t diminished. But it has lost its force, in part because it has exposed the bias of the chattering classes, at home and abroad. Brazilians rightly ask where these champions of democracy were when the Workers’ Party governments of former Presidents Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva and Dilma Rousseff were financing the Cuban military dictatorship and its satellite Venezuela.

Brazil’s institutions have matured in the 30-plus years since the end of its own military government. This has been a democratic process, driven by civil society’s thirst for pluralism, tolerance and self-government.

The judiciary and federal law enforcement are increasingly independent. Proof of progress is the federal investigation dubbed Operation Car Wash, which exposed the corruption of a range of powerful business executives and high-ranking politicians in a landmark bribery case. So blind was Lady Justice that even the popular Mr. da Silva couldn’t escape responsibility for his role in the scheme. He’s now in jail.

The same institutions are more than likely to check a power-hungry president on the right. It won’t take as long either. The establishment fawned over Lula. Mr. Bolsonaro will be on a short leash.

The legitimate concern is whether the new president can deliver on his promises to better protect human life and to shrink a monster state that devours dreams.

The São Paulo letter-writer put it bluntly: “Socialism just didn’t work out around here.” Another letter came from a man in Europe who had emigrated seven years ago because Brazil was a dead end.

Still more.

Danielle Gersh's Weekend Forecast

Here's the lovely Ms. Danielle from last night. We had some storm and flood warnings for early this morning.

The Virtue of Nationalism

Yoram Hazony's book is available at Amazon, The Virtue of Nationalism.

And at Prager University:

The Character That Matters

I really like Roger Kimball, although sometimes American Greatness grates.

In any case, an excellent piece.

RTWT:

Further thoughts about the "character issue" @theamgreatness https://t.co/nOTNQO0oLA

— Roger Kimball (@rogerkimball) January 5, 2019

Democrats Best Hope

In my classes, I argued throughout 2018 that Joe Biden would be a formidable, if not the best, challenger to President Trump in 2020. That's the case Biden's himself is making.

He's smart. Old. But smart.

And we'll see if he runs. That more than just about any of the identity politics candidates will it interesting.

At NYT:

Joe Biden has indicated that he is leaning toward running for president in 2020 and will likely make a decision within the next 2 weeks, according to Democrats who have spoken to him https://t.co/qa8pPc0YHI

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 6, 2019