Alan Taylor, William Cooper's Town

At Amazon, Alan Taylor, William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic.

Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody.

Evelyn Taft's Thursday Forecast

 It's been cool, overcast. Its' a nice break from the heat.

Here's the fabulous Ms. Evelyn, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Governor Kristi Noem Pushes Back (VIDEO)

 On the Ingrhram Angle, last night: 

Gad Saad, The Parasitic Mind

Gad Saad, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense.

Hunter Biden's Laptop Allegedly Features Photos of 'Underage Girls'

 At Big League Politics. "SHOCK CLAIM: Rudy Giuliani Says Hunter Biden Laptop Had Pictures of “Underage Girls,” Bizarre Texts."

RELATED: This is gold, Scaachi Koul, at BuzzFeed, via Memeorandum, "Jeffrey Toobin Can't Be The Only Person Masturbating On Work Zoom Calls."

Benjamin J. Cohen, Currency Power

At Amazon, Benjamin J. Cohen, Currency Power: Understanding Monetary Rivalry.

Everything is 'White Supremacist'

 Big eyerolls here, but it's absolutely true.

And it's the most stupid thing. I feel bad for white people, especially meekly progressive whites who are too afraid of being labeled "racist" (and having their lives destroyed) to stand up to the bullying. 

At NYT, "'White Supremacy' Once Meant David Duke and the Klan. Now It Refers to Much More":

THIS—>”’White Supremacy’ Once Meant David Duke and the Klan. Now It Refers to Much More.” The New York Times https://t.co/jhgUkDPq3H

— Christina Sommers (@CHSommers) October 17, 2020

"As July 4 and its barbecues arrived this year, the activist and former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick declared, “We reject your celebration of white supremacy.”

The movie star Mark Ruffalo said in February that Hollywood had been swimming for a century in “a homogeneous culture of white supremacy.”

The director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of New York City’s most prestigious museums, acknowledged this summer that his institution was grounded in white supremacy, while four blocks uptown, the curatorial staff of the Guggenheim decried a work culture suffused in it.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board issued an apology two weeks ago describing itself as “deeply rooted in white supremacy” for at least its first 80 years. In England, the British National Library’s Decolonising Working Group cautioned employees that a belief in “color blindness” or the view that “mankind is one human family” are examples of “covert white supremacy.”

In a time of plague and protest, two words — “white supremacy” — have poured into the rhetorical bloodstream with force and power. With President Trump’s overt use of racist rhetoric, a spate of police killings of Black people, and the rise of far-right extremist groups, many see the phrase as a more accurate way to describe today’s racial realities, with older descriptions like “bigotry” or “prejudice” considered too tame for such a raw moment.

News aggregators show a vast increase in the use of the term “white supremacy” (or “white supremacist”) compared with 10 years ago. The New York Times itself used the term fewer than 75 times in 2010, but nearly 700 times since the first of this year alone. Type the term into Twitter’s search engine and it pops up six, eight or 10 times each minute.

The meaning of the words has expanded, too. Ten years ago, white supremacy frequently described the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke, the neo-Nazi politician from Louisiana. Now it cuts a swath through the culture, describing an array of subjects: the mortgage lending policies of banks; a university’s reliance on SAT scores as a factor for admissions decisions; programs that teach poor people better nutrition; and a police department’s enforcement policies.

Yet the phrase is deeply contentious. Influential writers such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ibram X. Kendi, a Boston University professor, have embraced it, seeing in white supremacy an explanatory power that cuts through layers of euphemism to the core of American history and culture. It speaks to the reality, they say, of a nation built on slavery. To examine many aspects of American life once broadly seen as race neutral — such as mortgage lending or college faculty hiring — is to find a bedrock of white supremacy.

“It is not hyperbole to say that white supremacy is resting at the heart of American politics,” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor of Princeton, a socialist activist and professor of African-American studies, said in a speech in 2017.

But some Black scholars, businessmen and activists — on the right and the left — balk at the phrase. They hear in those words a sledgehammer that shocks and accuses, rather than explains. When so much is described as white supremacy, when the Ku Klux Klan and a museum art collection take the same descriptor, they say, the power of the phrase is lost.

Prof. Orlando Patterson, a sociologist at Harvard University who has written magisterial works on the nature of slavery and freedom, including about his native Jamaica, said it was too reminiscent of the phrases used to describe apartheid and Nazi Germany.

“It comes from anger and hopelessness and alienates rather than converts,” he said.

The label also discourages white and Black people from finding commonalities of experience that could move society forward,

Professor Patterson and others said. “It racializes a lot of problems that a lot of people face, even when race is not the answer,” Professor Patterson said.

Glenn C. Loury, a conservative-leaning economics professor at Brown University, hears in the term an attempt to spin a mythic narrative about a fallen America.

“So we declare structures of our country are implacably racist,” Professor Loury said. “On the other hand, we make appeals to have a conversation with that country which is mired in white supremacy? The logic escapes me.”

Then there are those whose cultural signposts are found outside the Black-white divide. The essayist Wesley Yang, the son of Korean immigrants and the author of “The Souls of Yellow Folk,” often examines racial identity and has found himself watching the debate over these words as if through a side window. Did this thing called white supremacy really so neatly define the lives of Black people and Latinos and Asians?

“The phrase is destructive of discourse,” he said. “Once you define it as something that has a ghostly essence, it’s nowhere and everywhere”..."

Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution

At Amazon, Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party Wins Landslide Election

This is not good. 

Have you paid attention to this woman? She's a budding leftist totalitarian, and New Zealand voters handed her at least three more years of power. Remember, she forced a major gun confiscation program following the Christchurch massacre in 2019, and New Zealand's coronavirus crackdown this year is perhaps the most draconian of any democracy on earth. 

And she's a creepy "Karen" type of woman who assumes she knows what's best for you. "Cringe" is only putting it mildly. 

At the New Zealand Herald, "Election results 2020: Labour's Jacinda Ardern wins second term, crushes National's Judith Collins; Winston Peters and NZ First out; Act's David Seymour and Greens' James Shaw and Marama Davidson get 10 MPs each."

The Sydney Morning Herald, "Victory an endorsement for Jacinda's steady hand in unsteady times." 

And the Guardian U.K., "New Zealand election 2020: Jacinda Ardern to govern New Zealand for second term after historic victory -- New Zealanders give Labour more votes than at any other election in past five decades."

Peter Schweizer, Profiles in Corruption

 Due out January 21, 2021, at Amazon, Peter Schweizer, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America's Progressive Elite.

Big Tech Censors Blockbuster Hunter Biden Exposé

 Definitely got the Streisand Effect going on here. 

Twitter made this an even bigger story by trying to block readers from sharing it. 

At WSJ, via Memeorandum, "Facebook, Twitter Limit Sharing of New York Post Articles That Biden Disputes."

And at today's New York Post, via Memeorandum, "Emails reveal how Hunter Biden tried to cash in big on behalf of family with Chinese firm."

This is big. We'll see how things play out. 

Also, at Instapundit, "AS THEY SHOULD: Twitter, Facebook face blowback after stopping circulation of NY Post story."

And Hot Air, "Biden Campaign Lashes Out at New York Post."

Washing Up

 Well, Twitter does have its uses. 

#RT if you like her big boobs! @BbtElle #tits #boobs pic.twitter.com/jGhoZ5o5te

— Big Breast Pics (@BigBreastPics) October 14, 2020

Bella Bikini

 She's a sweetie.

At Drunken Stepfather, "BELLA HADID BIRTHDAY BIKINI OF THE DAY."

David Horowitz, BLITZ

 At Amazon, David Horowitz, BLITZ: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win.

Michael Anton, The Stakes

At Amazon, Michael Anton, The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return.

Viral Ocean Spray 'Dreams' Star Nathan Apodaca

I saw it on Twitter the day it went viral, and boy did this guy gain fame fast.

At Hot Air, "Thanks to Nathan Apodaca Something Positive Happened on Social Media."

Jennifer Delacruz's Thursday Forecast

She's broadcasting from home again. For ABC 10 News San Diego:

Celebrities Strip Down for Voter Registration Campaign

I just love Sarah Silverman's dad, Schleppy!

this seems exceedingly desperate. https://t.co/BaIEX7aR8b

— Apollycalypse (@PollySpin) October 7, 2020

Jumbo's Clown Room

At LAT, "How out-of-work strippers made their show virtual and are ‘taking the power back’."

When the pandemic hit, a group of dancers from the East Hollywood strip club Jumbo’s Clown Room realized no one was coming to save them.

So, they got creative💃💃💃: https://t.co/6wur5v85oW

— LAT Entertainment (@latimesent) October 5, 2020