Irish Model Laura O'Grady

At Drunken Stepfather, "LAURA O’GRADY PINK FOR ST. PATRICK’S DAY OF THE DAY."

Victoria Justice Bikini Photos

At Hollywood Tuna, "More Victoria Justice and Her Hot Sister in Bikinis."

And on Twitter:

Bamboo rafting in Jamaica! Our guide Henry was the coolest & serenaded us w/ Bob Marley. Unforgettable day 😌 #fbf
📸: @themadisongrace pic.twitter.com/TuDm1So65c

— Victoria Justice (@VictoriaJustice) March 1, 2019

To the infinity pool & beyond!
Jamaica was a dream 💙🏝 #tbt pic.twitter.com/dXKzNCgPzV

— Victoria Justice (@VictoriaJustice) February 28, 2019

26.
Thank you all for the b day wishes. Seriously, I sincerely appreciate it more than you know. All my love ♥️ pic.twitter.com/HG4IgrQw8t

— Victoria Justice (@VictoriaJustice) February 19, 2019

Michelle Malkin at CPAC 2019 (VIDEO)

Leftist MSM outlets are aghast that Michelle Malkin would speak up for America, and especially for calling out the ghost of John McCain.

And see Michelle's comments at her blog, "CPAC at the Bridge."

Jennifer Delacruz's Rainy Saturday Forecast

I've missed blogging the lovely Ms. Jennifer.

Been busy with school and blogging's been light, but here's your beautiful weather lady.

More rain this weekend.

At ABC News 10 San Diego:

Democrats' 'Bullet Train' Has Effed Up People's Lives

Fucking Democrats.

They destroy everything they touch.

At LAT, "In Central Valley towns, California’s bullet train isn’t an idea: ‘It’s people’s lives’":

In Central Valley towns, California’s bullet train isn’t an idea: ‘It’s people’s lives’ https://t.co/SIeEOsP90g pic.twitter.com/Vekgs3jrjB

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) March 2, 2019

When Annie Williams heard that California’s plan for high-speed rail had been scaled back to 119 miles through the Central Valley, her head jerked back.

“Merced to Bakersfield? The good Lord himself can’t make sense of that,” she said. “After all our tears and making peace?”

The recent debate surrounding California’s transit future has reverberated statewide. But here in the Central Valley, the upheaval — like the bullet train itself — is real. Houses have been boarded up, businesses moved, vineyards torn out, a highway realigned.

Giant concrete structures rise from orchards waiting to hold up tracks that now seem further from existence.

Fairmead, the community where Williams lives, is the likely place that will face the most immediate uncertainties. It is in the “Y,” the planned fork from which some trains were to hurtle south toward Los Angeles or north to Merced, and others were to veer west to the Bay Area.

There is no library or market or gas station here; only three buildings in the town of about 1,500, including the church, aren’t people’s homes. Sheds lean, grass grows through porch slats and rains leave deep puddles on dirt and gravel roads.

Williams, who gives her age as “upwards of 70,” said this is a place where people “work hard to have a place just to lay their heads and have been taking care of each other since nigh the beginning of time.”

An early proposed high-speed rail would have leveled a neighborhood, including Williams’ home. But that was before community organizers Vickie Ortiz and Barbara Nelson rallied their neighbors.

Their nonprofit organization, Friends of Fairmead, held so many meetings to lobby state representatives for a different route that the women started greeting the rail agency’s regional director with familiar hugs. After nearly a decade of negotiating, they felt they were a breath away from a route that would move the school, spare the church, preserve more houses and bring the town a much-needed community center.

Then in mid-January, Gov. Gavin Newsom laid out plans to pull back on high-speed rail in the face of massive cost overruns.

“I think the community center is gone,” the lawyer for Friends of Fairmead said.

Ortiz is angry about all the years she watched people worry and fret about where they would go.

“I don’t want to talk political because I don’t do it very well,” Ortiz said. “But you know, you had a governor that was pushing-pushing-pushing for the high-speed train, and we started getting used to the idea that we can’t stop a train but maybe we can use it to help the community. But then you get another governor and he says: ‘No, I don’t want to do that anymore.’ My mouth was just open with shock.”

Nelson, however, said she felt relief.

Each week, she visits an elderly neighbor in the hospital who asks her the latest about whether the project will take her house.

“I’m going to tell her, ‘Sister Hughes, your house is safe.’ And we’ll find some other way to get our community center.”

Traveling south from Fairmead on California Route 99, there’s a stretch of highway through Fresno that’s smooth and new. Five bridges were torn down and rebuilt in order to move the road about 100 feet to make room for rail. The California Department of Transportation project cost about $290 million.

Along the Kings River, near the little town of Laton, the signs of coming bullet train infrastructure include felled orchards and giant earthen berms. (Local independent truck drivers got weeks of work hauling dirt for the project.)

Next to the Van Eyk family’s walnut grove, where crops once grew, is now a stretch of excavated earth marked by “No Trespassing” signs.

Randy Van Eyk was born and raised on a dairy farm outside of nearby Hanford. His wife, Anne, grew up in rural Northern California. They lived in the city of Visalia for 10 years, saving for a place like this — a big house on a country road where they live with their 7-year old daughter, Maddie, a Labrador retriever named Snickers and a giant cat.

Randy planted walnuts instead of more lucrative almonds, because he was 45 years old when they moved in and almonds need replanting every 20 years. He didn’t want to work that hard at 65. Walnut trees should outlive him.

“We figured this was our last stop unless Maddie put us in a home someday,” Anne said.

The first sign that high-speed rail might change that was a giant white X painted on the road near their mailbox.

They found other Xs at other intersections and drew a diagonal line that went through their frontyard .

Anne cried — and, she said, she never cries.

Her husband told her not to worry, that it would never really happen. But work crews arrived, neighbors moved and cranes dropped off giant pipes. In the end, they were the only residents on their road that didn’t have to sell property to the state.

“We’ll have people over, even from around here, and they’ll look around and say: “That’s from high-speed rail? You mean it’s real?’ People think it’s just some idea, something to fight about on the radio, but it’s people’s lives,” Randy said.

The argument for a high-speed train crossing the state was that it would bridge California’s inequalities.

Central Valley cities and towns have some of the most concentrated poverty in the state. The political vision was that it would connect them to the wealth and opportunities of the coast and bring higher paying jobs. It would cut down on the air pollution that gets trapped in the hot, flat valley.

Randy Van Eyk was opposed to the project because he thought it would bring wealthy tech workers who would displace farms and rural life. He also thought politicians would start the project and never finish, leaving the debris in the Central Valley.

“You see all the destruction?” he said. “People lost their homes and businesses. And for what?”

He said he has flashes of anger, but then looks around and takes a deep breath...

Likely Indictments Hang Over Benjamin Netanyahu and Imperil His Political Career

At LAT, "How will Netanyahu’s legal woes affect U.S.-Israeli relations and peace efforts?":

How will Netanyahu's legal woes affect U.S.-Israeli relations and peace efforts? https://t.co/xChELRpaGp

— L.A. Times World (@latimesworld) March 2, 2019

Even as likely indictments hang over Benjamin Netanyahu and imperil his political career, the embattled Israeli prime minister is receiving the enthusiastic endorsement of his good buddy and leader of the free world, Donald J. Trump.

“He has been a great prime minister,” President Trump said in Hanoi on Thursday after a nuclear summit with North Korea as plans to charge Netanyahu in three felony corruption cases were about to be announced in Jerusalem. “He's done a great job as prime minister. He's tough, he's smart, he's strong.”

Since becoming president more than two years ago, Trump has been a loyal, unquestioning ally of Netanyahu and his right-wing Israeli government. He has taken numerous steps in favor of Israel and promised to look out for Netanyahu’s interests as his son-in-law and other administration officials seek a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump has called that long-elusive goal the “ultimate deal.” But Netanyahu’s political and legal predicament has added even more complexity to what was already a tortured, long-shot process.

Netanyahu, who has dominated Israeli politics for more than a decade, also faces a tough reelection bid. He is running for a fourth consecutive term as head of the government in voting that takes place in 40 days, on April 9.

The fate of Netanyahu and the still-secret U.S.-crafted peace plan are in many ways intertwined. How he fares in the final weeks of the election campaign, whether his party continues to hold on to its lead or slips substantially, is likely to influence whether he welcomes a peace plan or turns his back on any such effort to appeal to his hard-line, ultra-hawkish base, Israeli and American political analysts say.

Trump handed the project of writing a peace plan to son-in-law Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump Organization attorney named special envoy for the Middle East. The two this week ended a second tour through Persian Gulf states attempting to find support for their ideas, which some leaders in the region have rejected for appearing overly pro-Israeli, disregarding Palestinian demands.

Kushner said he would not make the plan public before the Israeli election. It could, however, be published in the postelection period, a frenzied time when, in Israel’s parliamentary system, political parties who have won seats make alliances in an attempt to form a government that selects the prime minister.

At that point, analysts said, Netanyahu could appeal to a broader group of politicians, insisting he was the best leader to make peace while not sacrificing Israel’s security or other interests.

“There is a devil’s theory that Kushner and company will try to do a rollout to help Bibi form a coalition,” said Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who teaches Middle East policy at Princeton University, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.

Or, if it would help Netanyahu more, Kushner “is likely to tiptoe back to Washington so he does not hurt Bibi,” Kurtzer said.

If Netanyahu loses in the election, there may be pressure for the Trump administration to delay releasing the peace plan to another date, if ever, because of the uncertainty and especially if a center-left government takes over, said Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East expert at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.

Yet if Netanyahu thinks his career depends on it, he could probably go harder right, Goldenberg and others said, which might render any peace plan dead on arrival because few governments and especially those in the Arab world would be willing to work with such a coalition.

Already, Netanyahu stunned many people in the U.S. and in Israel when he brought three extreme right-wing fringe parties into his coalition last week. One of the parties, Jewish Power, believes in Jewish supremacy and is led by disciples of Meir Kahane, the ultra-right-wing American-born rabbi who won a seat in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, before he was banned from politics in 1988 for advancing a racist agenda. He was assassinated two years later.

No criticism was forthcoming, however, from the Trump administration. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said that “we’re not about to get involved” in a democratic country’s election. Those statements came four days before Trump’s endorsement of the “tough, smart, strong” Netanyahu.

Prior to being formally indicted, Netanyahu is allowed to challenge the charges against him, which involve bribery and other corruption aimed at promoting his image and helping him hold on to power. If indicted, Netanyahu could continue to campaign, but whether he could serve effectively as prime minister remains unclear.

Initial polling after Atty. Gen. Avichai Mandelblit announced his intention to indict Thursday was grim for Netanyahu and his Likud Party...

Joseph E. Stiglitz, People, Power, and Profits

Interesting.

Stiglitz is a major economist.

Out April 23rd. Pre-order at Amazon, Joseph E. Stiglitz, People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent.

Isabel Sawhill, The Forgotten Americans

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Isabel Sawhill, The Forgotten Americans: An Economic Agenda for a Divided Nation.

Joan C. Williams, White Working Class

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Joan C. Williams, White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America.

AOC Threatens to Put 'Moderate' House Democrats on a 'List'

Lol, this woman just won't quit, and I love it!

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "NEW SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: House Dems explode in recriminations as AOC threatens to put moderates on “a list”."

And on Twitter, walking it back?

I didn’t say that they were putting themselves on a list for primaries.

I said that by Dems distinguishing themselves by breaking off on procedural MTR votes, they were inadvertently making a list of targets for the GOP and for progressive advocates on their pro-ICE vote.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 1, 2019

Regime Change Wars Have Disastrous Consequences (VIDEO)

She sounds more like a Ron Paul Republican, lol.

But still, I like her. She's genuinely sincere and very attractive. I hope she gains a lot of traction in the primaries. It remains to be seen, but if she's not out in front at New Hampshire, then forget it. It's going to be a massive field of candidates.

#SayNoToWar pic.twitter.com/3sv7Takreb

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) March 1, 2019

Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens Are the New King and Queen of CPAC

Not everyone is thrilled about it, but what can you do? It's not like conservatives don't need some new leaders.

At the Daily Beast, "CPAC 2019: Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens Are the New King and Queen of the GOP Ball."

Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens took over #CPAC https://t.co/sR4AxmCQfZ

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 1, 2019

They’re young. She says that because they’re young. Not because they’re perfect Burkean conservatives. They’re young, they fight for America, and people like them promise us the future. #CPAC2019 🇺🇸 https://t.co/gVoy1u4pOa

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 1, 2019

Trump-Kim Summit Ends in Impasse and Uncertainty

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump says he still trusts Kim, but needed to 'walk away' from a bad nuclear deal":

Cool front-page photo of #PresidentTrump returning to the White House on Thursday. @LATimes #KAG #ThankYouTrump 👍🇺🇸🙏😎🤙 ⁦@steph93065⁩ pic.twitter.com/JxRYfcSxk0

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 1, 2019

The collapse of President Trump’s summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un left confusion in its wake Thursday, with each side blaming the other and no clear path forward in the nuclear standoff.

As Trump flew home from Hanoi, site of the abbreviated gathering, a growing outcry erupted in the United States over Trump’s defense of Kim in the 2017 death of American college student Otto Warmbier, whose family said he suffered brutal torture while imprisoned in North Korea.

But despite the president returning empty-handed, Trump’s political allies praised what they called his acumen in walking away rather than accepting a bad deal, and some analysts cited early signs that North Korea still wanted to keep open the lines of communication.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) took to the Senate floor to declare that Trump had made the right call.

“High-level diplomacy can carry high-level risks, but the president is to be commended for walking away when it became clear insufficient progress had been made on denuclearization,” McConnell said.

Trump cut short his summit with Kim earlier Thursday, rejecting the North Korean leader’s offer to dismantle a major nuclear complex in exchange for the removal of U.S.-led economic sanctions.

Trump said that the U.S. wanted more concessions from Kim and that talks would continue. But the president wouldn’t commit to holding a third summit after two high-profile meetings have failed to produce a concrete agreement on rolling back Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

“Sometimes you have to walk,” Trump said at a news conference in the Vietnamese capital before departing for Washington on Air Force One. “This was one of those times.”

Less than 12 hours later, a North Korean official took the rare step of holding a news conference to tell reporters: Kim made a “realistic proposal,” and it was the U.S. that was obstinate in its demands.

In a Hanoi hotel lobby after midnight, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said North Korea had proposed dismantling its main nuclear complex and permanently halting all nuclear and long-range missile testing in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions, but the U.S. was “not ready to accept our proposal.”

“Our principal stand will remain invariable and our proposal will never be changed,” he said.

“This proposal was the biggest denuclearization measure we can take at the present stage in relation to the current level of confidence between the DPRK and the United States,” Ri said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

In response to Ri's comments, a senior U.S. official said early Friday that while the North Korean delegation did not seek the lifting of all sanctions, it wanted to remove enough to gut the "maximum pressure" campaign of squeezing the country’s economy. The relaxation of sanctions would have freed government funds for more weapons development, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with State Department rules for speaking about negotiations.

"So to give many, many billions of dollars in sanctions relief would in effect put us in a position of subsidizing the ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea," the administration official told reporters traveling with Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo. "Now, they didn’t ask us to do that, but that is effectively the choice that we were presented with. "

As Trump flew home via Alaska, where he briefly addressed troops during a refueling stop at Elmendorf Air Force Base, even some supporters expressed dismay over Trump’s about-face on Warmbier, the 22-year-old who was held for 17 months by North Korea and died shortly after being returned home in a vegetative state.

At the time, the president decried Pyongyang’s “cruel dictatorship,” and had the student’s parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, as guests at his 2018 State of the Union address...

'Walk This Way'

From yesterday morning's drive-time, at 93.1 Jack FM, "Walk This Way" (Run DMC cover).

It's Still Rock & Roll To Me
Billy Joel
9:16am

Hold Me Now
Thompson Twins
9:11am

Take Me Out
Franz Ferdinand
9:07am

Little Red Corvette
PRINCE
9:02am

Landslide
Fleetwood Mac
8:52am

I Ran
Flock Of Seagulls
8:48am

Like A Stone
Audioslave
8:43am

Bette Davis Eyes
Kim Carnes
8:39am

Smells Like Teen Spirit
Nirvana
8:34am

Walk This Way
Run-D.M.C.
8:22am

Islamist Democrat Rashida Tlaib Calls Out Rep. Mark Meadows for Bringing 'Black Friend' to Committee Hearing (VIDEO)

Following-up from last night, "Michael Cohen's Opening Statement to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform (VIDEO)."

Background at the Daily Beast, FWIW, "Cohen Hearing Explodes After Rashida Tlaib Calls Out Mark Meadows’ ‘Black Friend’ Stunt."

And the videos:

Michael Cohen's Opening Statement to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform (VIDEO)

I was teaching all morning and early afternoon, and didn't get a chance to watch live.

Here's the video in any case. I'm going to watch it and have more to say later.

Via CNN:



Also at Memeorandum, "Michael Cohen's Testimony: Live Updates."

'You Got Lucky'

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, at 93.1 Jack FM, from last night while out with my older son.

"You Got Lucky."

Hold The Line
Toto
8:14pm

Still Haven't Found What...
U2
8:10pm

Safety Dance
Men Without Hats
8:05pm

Black Hole Sun
Soundgarden
8:02pm

In The Air Tonight
Phil Collins
7:49pm

Beverly Hills
Weezer
7:46pm

Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Queen
7:43pm

Let's Dance
David Bowie
7:39pm

Whatever It Takes
Imagine Dragons
7:36pm

You Got Lucky
Tom Petty
7:32pm

'Is It OK to Still Have Children?'

Man, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just won't quit, and thank goodness!

The woman's a godsend for American politics, heh.

Click through and watch the video at the link, "Ocasio-Cortez on Climate Change: ‘Is It OK to Still Have Children?’"

And at the New Republic, "Is It Cruel to Have Kids in the Era of Climate Change?":

If the looming 12-year deadline to confront climate change is missed, what purpose could life have in the face of an unavoidable, collective downfall? https://t.co/8kbWEf48b9

— The New Republic (@newrepublic) February 25, 2019

In one of his early works, the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche relayed an Ancient Greek legend about King Midas pursuing the satyr Silenus, a wise companion of the god Dionysus. When Midas finally captures Silenus, he asks him what “the best thing of all for men” is. “The very best thing for you is totally unreachable,” Silenus replies: “not to have been born, not to exist, to be nothing.”

Raphael Samuel, a 27-year-old from Mumbai, offered an echo of this argument to the BBC this month. Samuel plans to sue his parents for bringing him into a world of suffering without his consent. “Why should I suffer? Why must I be stuck in traffic? Why must I work? Why must I face wars? Why must I feel pain or depression? Why should I do anything when I don’t want to? Many questions. One answer,” Samuel wrote on his Facebook page: “Someone had you for their ‘pleasure.’”

Once, such thoughts might have seemed far-fetched or even self-indulgent. Today, however, similar reasoning—known as “antinatalism—seems to be spreading as potential future parents contemplate bringing children into a world climate change is likely to devastate. “Why did you have me?” Samuel asked his parents as a child. If the bleak scenarios about the planet’s future come to fruition, will parents have a satisfying answer to such questions?

Once, such thoughts might have seemed far-fetched or even self-indulgent. Today, however, similar reasoning—known as “antinatalism—seems to be spreading as potential future parents contemplate bringing children into a world climate change is likely to devastate. “Why did you have me?” Samuel asked his parents as a child. If the bleak scenarios about the planet’s future come to fruition, will parents have a satisfying answer to such questions?

The basic antinatalist argument is simple, albeit easily misunderstood. As philosopher David Benatar argued in a 2006 antinatalist treatise, life is full of suffering and strife, the moments of pleasure and happiness few, transitory, and elusive, and ultimately it all ends in death. This is not the same as saying that life is not worth living, if you happen to be alive—for one thing, living and then facing death can involve its own physical and emotional pain. The argument is rather that it would have been better never to have been born in the first place. Some lives can indeed be rather satisfactory, even rewarding. But as a potential future parent, you are taking a risk on your child’s behalf, because, Benatar kindly reminds us, “there is a wide range of appalling fates that can befall any child that is brought into existence: starvation, rape, abuse, assault, serious mental illness, infectious disease, malignancy, paralysis.”

Which brings us to a risk unique to the twenty-first century: climate change. According to the 2018 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, humanity has only 12 years left to prevent global warming from reaching levels that would result in the poverty of millions and the greatest displacement of people in the history of humanity as they flee extreme drought and floods. Such events also tend to involve violent conflict. The political community’s tepid response to climate change so far, with world leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsanaro refusing to acknowledge global warming as real, let alone as urgent, makes it hard to be optimistic. Given the very real possibility that life will be much worse for the next generation as a result of the global instability, some, recent trend pieces report, are thinking twice about becoming parents.

One might argue that, like Benatar’s catalogue of human suffering, this response is overly pessimistic. Hardship is nothing new. Life can be meaningful despite it, and sometimes even because of it. Strife gives you something to work towards, purpose; it’s what gives life meaning, not what makes it meaningless.

But if climate change causes wars to break out, would one still choose to birth children into a high likelihood of violent death? And if the looming 12-year deadline is missed, and further temperature increases become statistically inevitable, what purpose could life have in the face of an unavoidable, collective downfall? At least people living today still have the agency to change things. But bringing children into a decaying world, without even the opportunity to do something about it, seems a cruel fate to inflict on someone, especially your own child...

Still more.

But let's be honest: Leftists don't want more babies because they believe that growing populations will bring about the global warming apocalypse. If the current generation stops procreating we can save the planet. The good thing about this, I guess, is that sooner or later everyone dies. Yes, good people will die, but fortunately diabolical anti-human leftists will die too, so burn it all down. If humans are a cancer on the earth, and that's what leftists believe, then fuck 'em. Party like it's 2099. And f**kin' burn it all down.

After Five Failed Attempts to Escape Islamic State, This Yazidi Woman Tried One Last Time

At the Washington Post, "After five failed attempts to escape ISIS slavery, she tried one last time":

After five failed attempts to escape ISIS slavery, this Yazidi woman tried one last time: The details in this story are so horrific they are hard to read, but thank you @leloveluck for telling her important story. https://t.co/Y67iaE9rVq pic.twitter.com/uPspM02LRF

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) February 25, 2019

AMUDA, Syria — The walk to freedom lasted 53 hours, and the little boy cried all the way. It wasn’t their first escape attempt — she’d tried five times before to flee the Islamic State — but they would be shot on the spot if the militants caught them now.

They passed corpses in the darkness, and when exhaustion overwhelmed them, they huddled together and slept on the dusty path. Faryal whispered reassurances to her 5-year-old son, telling him that his grandparents were waiting and that, after four years as prisoners of the Islamic State, they were finally going home. He wouldn’t believe her.

“He was terrified,” she said, recounting their escape this month. “I held his hand and we just kept walking.”

As members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority, a largely Kurdish-speaking religious group, the pair had escaped what the United Nations has called a genocide. Islamic State militants kidnapped thousands of Yazidis on a single day in August 2014, massacring the men and dumping them in mass graves, and forcing the women into sexual slavery.

During her captivity, Faryal said she had six different owners, at times being passed on when a fighter wanted a new sexual partner or simply to settle a debt. “Monsters who treated us like animals,” is how she described them.

The atrocities committed against the Yazidis had initially prompted the United States to launch airstrikes against the militants and begin a military campaign to roll back the Islamic State’s caliphate that now, four years later, could end within days. U.S.-backed forces have the last Islamic State holdouts surrounded in the eastern Syrian hamlet of Baghouz.

In photographs, taken by aid workers on the night of her escape, a male companion hides his face but Faryal looks straight out at the camera. Her hazel eyes are fixed in a quiet stare. Her son’s face is wet with tears, and he’s sobbing. “I can’t put into words how I was feeling at that moment,” she said. “All I could think was: ‘Please, take me away from here.’ ”

Faryal, 20, told her story last week in the northern Syrian town of Amuda after being transferred there by the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces that rescued them. Throughout the interview, she kept a watchful eye on Hoshyar, her son, pulling him close as he cried and then trying, without success, to make him laugh. Details of her account were corroborated by members of her family in northern Iraq and through a team of Yazidi activists that had communicated with her secretly for months before the escape in attempts to smuggle her to safety.

Young child brutalized

The day before Faryal’s life changed forever in 2014 had dawned like any other in the Iraqi village of Tel Banat. She puttered around the house looking after her infant son Hoshyar, she recalled. By midday, the sun was roasting, and although rumors had swirled for weeks that Islamic State forces were drawing closer, few in Tel Banat were aware of the coming storm.

The Islamist militants arrived at dusk.

“We couldn’t run fast enough,” Faryal remembered, describing how she and 10 members of her extended family had piled into a car and joined an epic exodus. Yazidi towns and villages around Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq emptied within hours as more than 100,000 people fled to higher ground. Faryal and her husband, Hashem, made it only a few miles before militants blocked their path.

Yazidis have long faced persecution from more powerful religious groups for their beliefs, in part because of a false but commonly-held impression that they worship the sun, or the devil. There are fewer than 1 million Yazidis worldwide, and according to the United Nations, the Islamic State had intended to entirely wipe out those within their reach.

Yazidi men and boys who had reached puberty were separated from the women and other children and often shot dead at roadsides. Women were bused to temporary holding sites and then sold to Islamic State fighters at slave markets.

Islamic State clerics had decided that having slaves was religiously sanctioned, institutionalizing sexual violence across their caliphate. Women have reported being tied to beds during daily assaults. They were sold from man to man. Gang rape was common.

Many women and girls committed suicide in the opening months of captivity, according to Yazidi rights groups. Others harmed themselves to appear less appealing to fighters who might consider buying them.

Faryal recalled that an Islamic State fighter who was Iraqi and called himself Abu Kattab was her worst abuser. Hoshyar was abused, too, Faryal said. Abu Kattab beat him so badly there were hand prints on his face. Another had forced the boy’s arm onto a hot plate.

“He was so small, but for some reason the fighters hated him,” Faryal said. “I could never explain to him why.”

As the boy sat beside his mother last week, his eyes moved slowly from side to side as if scanning the room for threats. His blond hair was cut in jagged chunks. He did not speak and he did not smile...

More.

The Green New Mess (VIDEO)

An excellent segment, from Tucker Carlson: