Buffalo and the Myth of Racist America

From Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "Democrats want to create another George Floyd moment."

Rally for Reefer

James B. Webb hasn't been commenting over here lately. I thought he'd fried his brain on coke so hard in Las Vegas that he just couldn't get it up mentally. But apparently the problem's not just the cocaine, but the messed-up Obama opium buzz itself. Old JBW's got the downer-shakes from the bad-shit Obama junk freak-out. That pinch musta been cut with some rat poison, or something. Cuz man, that buzz for "The One" is gone, really gone: "Brain Fatigue And Rage Deficiency."

JBW commented earlier, but he's still on a downer jive, and his mind ain't up to the quick commentary. The dude needs an intellectual fix, and fast. For example, at "Zach Galifianakis Gets Stoned On 'Real Time with Bill Maher'," notice the incoherence:

My favorite thing about you Don, is your totally legitimate tea party roots: your belief that adult Americans should be free to do whatever they wish, regardless of the harm to themselves, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.

Keep practicing what you preach and shine on, you crazy diamond!

This is interesting, and kinda sad too. The THC's left JBW, that old frisky sparring partner, intellectually impotent --- and I hope that's all!!

I've been to dozens of tea party events, and I've yet to see anyone campaigning for marijuana legalization. It's just not on the agenda. Sure, tea partiers have their libertarian contingents. But the stoners must be hanging out in the parking lot getting loaded. They haven't been protesting to "legalize it."

Can't say that for the "Rally for Sanity" fanatics, however. And these folks musta been tokin' large while drawing up these signs. "Legalize Pot." "2 Protect Children" and "Restore Sanity"?

I don't think so. See, "Why Prop 19 Would Make Bad Matters Worse."

And also, at Fox News, "Stewart's Rally for 'Sanity' Draws Insane Crowd":

“Good luck trying to get through that crowd to the stage.”

Those were the first words I heard within 15 minutes of joining the large crowd that flocked to the National Mall Saturday for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear hosted by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

To say that you couldn’t see the stage, or even hear it, wouldn’t be an exaggeration— many had to climb a tree (literally) to even catch a glimpse of the one jumbo TV screen.

“We did the march-of-the-penguins walk in the crowd for about an hour,” Georgetown University student Anam Raheem told me. “But it was too crowded; we had to turn back.”

Thousands of rally goers brought signs and costumes in support of politically hot-button issues.

“I came to meet some people,” said Mark Feeney, a resident of Buffalo, New York who sported a green outfit with a sign that displayed the benefits of marijuana. “But we have to be smart, not stupid. If we legalize pot, we’ll create more revenue and jobs.”

Although Proposition 19, which would legalize recreational marijuana in California, was one of the more common issues seen on signs, other topics were equally supported, such as abortion, equality for gays, space travel, and most vehemently, backlash against the Tea Party movement.

“I came to have fun,” Pennsylvania resident Eric Hafner said, “But we need to also show people that extremism is really overblown.”

And hey, man, don't bogart that joint!

Court Expected to Send Rifqa Bary Home to Near-Certain Death

World Net Daily has a report, "Christian Girl Begs State: Don't Let Them Kill Me! Judge Decides Fate of Honor Student, Cheerleader Who Fled Muslim Parents":

A young Christian runaway in foster care awaits her hearing tomorrow when Florida authorities will decide whether she will be forced to return to her Muslim parents – whom she says will kill her for converting to Christianity.

Also, Fox News is reporting, "Court Expected to Send Runaway Teen Home Despite Muslim Honor Killing Fears":

A 17-year-old girl who fled to Florida after converting from Islam to Christianity will almost certainly be forced to return home to Ohio, experts say, despite her fears that she will become the victim of an honor killing for abandoning her parents' faith.

Rifqa Bary, who hitchhiked to an Ohio bus station earlier this month and took a charter bus to Orlando, remains in protective custody with Florida's Department of Children and Families. A judge is expected to rule Friday on the jurisdiction of the case, but several legal experts contacted by FOXNews.com say the girl is bound to be sent back to Ohio.

The Fox piece interviews Phyllis Chesler:

Dr. Phyllis Chesler, an author and professor of psychology at the Richmond College of the City University of New York, said she believes Bary will be in danger if she is sent back to her parents.

"Anyone who converts from Islam is considered an apostate, and apostasy is a capital crime," Chesler wrote FOXNews.com. "If she is returned to her family, if she is lucky, they will isolate her, beat her, threaten her, and if she is not 'persuaded' to return to Islam, they will kill her. They have no choice."

Chesler, who wrote "Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?" for Middle East Quarterly, said the tradition of such slayings is not fully understood by most Americans, including those in law enforcement.

"She escaped from her family's brutal tyranny and shamed her family further through public exposure," Chesler said. "Muslim girls and women are killed for far less."

Here's what Phyllis wrote at her blog yesterday:

The mainstream American media simply refuses to cover the Islamification of the West. Publishers run scared when I mention this as a possible next book title of mine. Newspapers are reluctant to cover honor killings or attempted honor killings in America at all, or in an accurate and informed way. If and when they write about jihadist attacks against the West or honor killings in America, the information is often buried on a back page or is, amazingly, biased against the victim and/or sympathetic towards the killer–yes, even if he has confessed. Yes, even if his victim or victims are also people of color born into the Muslim faith.

Apparently, the victims win no sympathy even if they, too, have also been born in formerly colonized or “occupied” countries, are currently also immigrants of color, or Muslims. What matters is only who the perpetrator is. Muslim-on-Muslim crimes, including genocide, do not count.

As yet, I cannot find Rifqa’s amazing and important story anywhere in the national mainstream media. I know that Fox is working on a story because they’ve talked to me about the issues this case raises. Am I surprised? Not really. There was either no or very little coverage of the honor killings that took place in the last decade in North America in Cleveland, St. Clairsville, Toronto, Chicago, Jersey City, British Columbia, Scottsville, Ottawa, Toronto, Dallas, Atlanta, Oak Forest, Alexandria, Buffalo, Kingston, Canada, Roslyn. You may read about some of these honor killings in my study and in my many articles at this blogsite.

What is really going on?

The guiding, hypnotic template is Israel versus the Palestinians. The actual aggressors are seen as innocent, misunderstood, and noble, their real victims are seen as provocative, rebellious, evil or mentally ill–especially if they dare to fight back, run away, or expose the truth of the matter.

The Israelis are “Nazis” perpetrating a new “Holocaust” against the Palestinians. In the case of the incredibly brave Rifqa Bary, we now have a victim of a potential honor killing trying to save her own life–and she is being portrayed as “mentally ill” or as a liar. I am told that she is being characterized in the local Ohio media as unstable while her father is being portrayed as loving and caring.

See also, Jawa Report, "Extremist Ohio mosque becoming focus of Rifqa Bary custody dispute."

And from Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs:

* "Rifqa's Day in Court."

* "Terrorizing Rifqa Bary: Media Crimes and Misdemeanors and Immorality."

* "The Media Puts Rifqa and those trying to help her on trial: Orlando Sentinel Shills for Islamic Misogynists and Rifqa Bary's Promised Honor Killers, Continues to Prints their lies."

* "Rifqa Bary Before her Escape: Beatings, Brutality, Subjugation."

Woman Earns Several Job Offers After Handing Out Her Resume on the Street

This is great.

American individualism at work.

At People, "Buffalo Woman Hands Out Résumés on Street, Earns Over a Dozen Offers."

One woman earned several offers after handing her resumé out on the street http://t.co/a7lDMawpNz pic.twitter.com/1D9qX0MyS5

— People magazine (@people) August 23, 2015

'And I don't want the world to see me...'

My fall semester started yesterday, and I should be posting some drive-time music entries in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile, I heard the Goo Goo Dolls sometime over the summer, and I've had this song on my mind. When I looked it up I found this amazing live performance from July 4th, 2004, in Buffalo, New York. As noted at the Wikipedia page, "Over 60,000 fans attended the performance, braving a torrential downpour. The rain cleared in time for the Goo Goo Dolls to start the show, but during their performance of "January Friend", the rain began pouring down again, harder than before. The band played on, finishing the set, despite being pulled off stage briefly for a safety precaution and skipping three songs* that were on the original set list."

Pretty amazing:

NFL Playoff Picture

At the NFL homepage, "NFL Playoff Picture for 2012 Season."

And from Sam Farmer, at the Los Angeles Times, "By and bye, Adrian Peterson, others in NFL come tantalizingly close":

Two thousand steps forward.

Two big steps back.

On a Sunday when Minnesota's Adrian Peterson became the seventh NFL player to run for 2,000 yards — coming within nine of breaking Eric Dickerson's season rushing record — two teams backpedaled in a big way.

The Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers lost on the road, both blowing opportunities for first-round playoff byes.

Indianapolis beat Houston, 28-16, and the Vikings edged the Packers, 37-34, to earn the final playoff spot in the NFC.

Swooping in to secure those No. 2 seedings — which come with a week off — were San Francisco in the NFC and New England in the AFC.

The top seedings are Atlanta in the NFC and Denver in the AFC.

The Vikings' victory secured a first-round rematch Saturday night with Green Bay, this time at Lambeau Field.

The playoffs open Saturday with Cincinnati at Houston. On Sunday, Indianapolis plays at Baltimore, followed by Seattle at Washington.

The Redskins clinched the NFC East on Sunday night with a 28-18 victory over Dallas in a winner-take-all game. The Redskins won the division title for the first time since 1999, and are the first team since the 1996 Jacksonville Jaguars to make the playoffs after losing six of its first nine games.

That means the first round will feature a record three rookie quarterbacks: the Colts' Andrew Luck, and — in the same game — the Redskins' Robert Griffin III and the Seahawks' Russell Wilson.

Also, "Philadelphia Eagles fire Coach Andy Reid after 14 seasons." And, "Chicago Bears fire Coach Lovie Smith; Buffalo fires Chan Gailey."

Woman Survives Buffalo Attack at Yellowstone

Big animals!

Aasiya Hassan's Beheading an "Honor Killing"?

Well, the hyenas are out in the comments to my most recent post on the beheading of Aasiya Hassan, "Islamist Decapitation and Western Apologists." The intensity of the comments, which are not just analytical remarks, but crude ad hominem attacks, raises the question of why? What's at stake for these people, these nihilists who can see no fundamental distinctions in this crime?

Indeed, Repsac3 has distorted the basic issue out of all proportion, for example, on Mark Steyn's remark that, "If Muzzammil Hassan decapitated his [wife] as an Islamic ritual, then his entire professional life — Mister Moderate Muslim — was a lie." Steyn is not asking "if Hassan's beheading was an Islamic ritual killing"? He's indicating the stakes for allegedly "moderate" Muslims and cultural relativists in how the outcome of this Islamic barbarity is framed. Indeed, as the Buffalo News reports:

While Muslim leaders have urged against applying cultural stereotypes to the crime, advocates for women linked the killing to attitudes in Muslim societies.

“This was apparently a terroristic version of honor killing, a murder rooted in cultural notions about women’s subordination to men,” said Marcia Pappas, New York State president of the National Organization for Women.

She decried the scant national media attention paid to the story, which broke the same day as the commuter plane crash that killed 50 people in Clarence.

While domestic violence affects all cultures, Muslim women find it harder to break the silence about it because of a stigma, she said.

As I reported earlier, and citing Timothy Furnish's, "Beheading in the Name of Islam," Muzzammil Hassan's method of killing is rooted in ancient Muslim culture and tradition. Because Mrs. Hassan had just filed for divorce, the overwhelming likelihood is that Muzzammil would lose face among the Islamic communty's business investors if his wife's independence indicated dishonor to a Muslim man.

According to Phyllis Chesler in her update, "Cold, Premeditated, Ritual Murder. The Honor Killing of Aasiya Z. Hassan. Part Two," Aasiya Hassan's sister has spoken to the fact that Mrs. Hassan had been beaten and bruised over a period of 8 years. This violence is being seen as not simply "domestic violence," but Muslim-generated cultural subordination to the male head of household.

Indeed, think about it? Why beheading? Why did Muzzammil resort to the barbarity of beheading in killing his wife? WHY DIDN'T HE JUST SHOOT HER? That would be "American-style" if this man is so moderate and assimilated. No, this killing is not a case of spontaneous patriarchical rage? This is methodical, premeditated religious ritual. An understanding of this is found only within the context of medieval practice. Muzzammil deliberately chose the method of killing known around the world as THE CRIME OF CHOICE among the most extreme aderents to Islamist barbarity and terrorism. This is jihadi justice and honor in the home. Had Muzzammil indeed been so "moderate," he certainly wouldn't have risked the image of the assimmilated, secular Muslim community he cultivated by adopting a method of killing straight out the 8th century.

As one of the readers at Daniel Pipes' blog notes:

The hard question that needs to be asked here is how a supposedly "moderate" Muslim figure like Muzzammil Hassan ended up committing an act (an apparent honor killing) that represents one of the most barbaric attributes found in Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures.

Aasiya Hassan's independent actions brought dishonor upon the family pride of Muzzammil Hassan. While attorneys for Mr. Hassan reject the portrayal of pride and honor as motives for Mrs. Hassan's murder, some women's advocates remain convinced:

Advocates for women — some of them Muslims — have called for the community to acknowledge religious and cultural traditions that stigmatize divorce and heighten the danger of violence in divorce cases.

**********

UPDATE: Roger Gardner weighs in on this "debate":

Are we seriously going to debate this issue? Have we slipped that far down that slippery slope of multicultural pc nonsense? Have we abandoned all reason, all common sense, merely to show our respect to a bloodthirsty cult that poses as a legitimate religion? Have we learned nothing in all this time? Are we determined to continue our roles as useful idiots? Will we just ignore all that we have learned about the treacherous duplicity of the Muslim world, the evil machinations of its political arms, most noticeably in the recent scandals of that serpent's nest CAIR?

How can we seriously consider such a question? How can we still be this naive, this clueless, as to the nature of the enemy in our midst?

Was it murder? My God! What are we becoming? Are we now going to change our very vocabulary to suit our most recent - and most dangerous - immigrants?

To pose this as an either/or question presumes that there are two possible answers. And to make that preposterous presumption is to denigrate everything we stand for.

Yes, Roger, the leftists denigrate everything we stand for.

Odell Beckham Jr. Gets One-Game Suspension (VIDEO)

From Sam Farmer, at the Los Angeles Times, "NFL's one-game suspension of Giants' Odell Beckham Jr. feels a little like a wrist slap":

Odell Beckham Jr. got off easy.

The NFL suspended the New York Giants star receiver for one game Monday, a day after he blatantly and repeatedly tried to injure Carolina cornerback Josh Norman.

Beckham, flagged for three personal fouls in Sunday's 38-35 loss, was caught by TV cameras throwing a punch at Norman and later trying to land a helmet-to-helmet blow.

It was an embarrassing display for a league trying to repair its image in terms of player safety. Beckham paid two hefty fines as a rookie last season: $10,000 for kicking St. Louis linebacker Alec Ogletree and $11,025 for throwing his helmet to the turf in anger while protesting a late tackle out of bounds. Earlier this season, he threw a punch at Buffalo safety Duke Williams and it cost him $8,681.

There's no question Beckham is one of the most exciting players in the game. His Matrix-like one-handed touchdown catch last season will go down as one of the most acrobatic plays in NFL history. But Sunday's spectacle will take some time to live down...

More.

And watch, at the NFL's YouTube page, "Odell Beckham Jr. Suspended One Game."

Police Release Astonishing Hit-and-Run Videotape — Teenager Survives After Being Thrown Through the Air, Flipping Head-Over-Heels

Unreal.

Sometimes you just have to see things to believe them. I'm shocked this kid is still alive.

At New York Daily News, "Buffalo cops release surveillance video of wild hit-and-run accident; teen flipped head-over-heels by speeding madman (VIDEO)."

Holiday Shopping

*BUMPED.*

I should probably be promoting my Amazon sales. It's not that I've been slacking. It's the online remote instruction during the California lockdown (re-uppped lockdown, as it turns out). I'm swamped with work, a lot of it time-consuming, energy-wasting administrative work (paperwork), with people who are literally incompetent at their jobs.

Oh well, I don't blog for the money, obviously. But I love posting Amazon links, especially to books, as you can tell. 

So, if you're in the mood, you can shop my associates links, at the frequent Amazon sales blog posts, or at the banner links at the sidebar. It's much appreciated. Maybe I can afford some oysters and olives to go with the dressing for Thanksgiving dinner. (Just kidding, lol.)

At Amazon, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

More, Buck Knives 284 Bantam One-Hand Opening Folding Knife, and Buck Knives 110 Famous Folding Hunter Knife with Genuine Leather Sheath.

Here, Mountain House Classic Bucket - Freeze Dried Backpacking and Camping Food - 24 Servings.

Plus, Black Rifle Coffee Rounds (CAF (Medium, 2x Caffeine), 50 Count [Pods]).

Also, Jackery Portable Power Station Explorer 160, 167Wh Lithium Battery Solar Generator (Solar Panel Optional) Backup Power Supply with 110V/100W(Peak 150W) AC Outlet for Outdoors Camping Fishing Emergency. 

Still more, Stetson Men's Powder River 4X Buffalo Felt Cowboy Hat - Sbpwrv-754023 Mink.

BONUS: James Wesley Rawles, Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse Paperback. 

Moderating Comments

One of the hallmarks of this blog has been the free and open discussions in the comments section. Unfortunately, due to a number of generally abusive people who have been commenting here - and in particular, one fruity yet obssessed moral relativist who's got an unhealthy addiction to trolling for "gotchas" - I've had to enable comment moderation for the first time at American Power.

I know folks don't like comment moderation, because they've told me. This is just a temporary thing, however, and I'll be returning to regular commenting tomorrow or the next day. Respectable exchange of ideas and links is how bloggers create a virtual community, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I even appreciate interacting occasionally with some of whom I don't agree, as long as they stay within the bounds of decency.

This week, though, I will say that it's gotten to the point where my patience and tolerance were stretched thin - it's been quite an experience.

I remember reading Ann Althouse's page some time back, and she had gone to moderation. That's generally not like her, as Althouse has a reputation as having some the most vigorous comment threads in the blogosphere. One of the commenters at the thread pretty much summed up what it's like to have a tsumami of idiots flooding your blog:

Unfortunately, when moderation is off during a siege like this, some of us have seen how it is possible for one person to create havoc by posting dozens of irrelevant, highly personal, and often harrassing posts to various threads within the space of minutes.

I guess it is the blogger equivalent of a sustained denial of service attack.

Denial of service. That's really what it's all about. Folks should read over the Pam Spaulding's thread, as well as at Pandagon, where a lot of these crazed trolls originated.

I don't need to go on too much about these depraved vermin.

One of the most interesting things about all of this was not just Pam Spaulding's unhinged lies, but how the meme went from my alleged deceit and ignorance of conservative allegations of gay bestiality, to implicit allegations that conservatives engage in bestiality (here). That was followed, I kid you not, by an essay on "Donald the buffalo-humping moose," and then by a concavus chest-thumping victory dance for "for the nihilist, troll forces."

Seriously.

In any case, that's enough troll-feeding. As noted, comment moderation will be disabled soon, but I'll be deleting abusive comments and obssessive "gotchas" as they come in. If folks have a problem with American Power, they should start a blog and have a blast proving their godlessness to the world.

More later, dear readers ...

Democrats' Gun Control Agenda Not About Protecting Children

Here's the expert, Dana Loesch, "It's Not About Protecting Kids, It's About Banning Guns: Their response is to render you incapable of protecting them, took":

The Biden administration contradicted two separate commissions comprised of educators and security experts and reiterated that they have no intention of improving school security to protect students...

The Uvalde killer accessed the school through an unlocked door at Robb Elementary School. There was no outside force multiplier against unlawful entry, no known security system, and no SRO on campus.

The commissions recommended numerous security measures, including controlled ingress/egress, locking doors, SROs, and more. Democrats oppose improving security and instead stated that they were also focusing on basic 9mm handguns while again falsely proclaiming that people were disallowed cannon ownership during the Revolution. He made this remark to the press pool yesterday. Last week Senator Chuck Schumer tanked a school safety proposal instead choosing to advance only gun control measures.

Authorities admitted during Friday’s presser with Texas DPS that they were hesitant to enter the school for fear they’d be shot.

Meanwhile, more details about the Uvalde killer’s violent behavior are spilling into public. The killer tortured animals. He was known to cops, he drove around randomly shooting people with a bb gun and tried to fight random people in the park. He threatened online women with rape and murder. He stopped coming for work and dropped out of school. Through his job at Wendy’s he was able to save $4k for two rifles and ammunition (should we also boycott Wendy’s?). No one in his family seemed engaged enough to see the obvious troubling signs. No one said anything, just like in Buffalo. Just like in Parkland.

TWO REASONS WHY AGE RESTRICTIONS AND UBCs FAIL

The Uvalde killer had murderous intent. As his violent behavior escalated, are we really to believe that a proposal like an age increase would have removed his murderous intent? The killer in Las Vegas’s 2017 tragedy was 64 years-old. The Virginia Tech killer was 23 years old. Where is the guarantee that the Uvalde killer would simply wait — instead of going to the black market where the majority of criminals get their guns?

Our respondents (adult offenders living in Chicago or nearby) obtain most of their guns from their social network of personal connections. Rarely is the proximate source either direct purchase from a gun store, or theft. *Only about 60% of guns in the possession of respondents were obtained by purchase or trade. Other common arrangements include sharing guns and holding guns for others.

Gangs continue to play some role in Chicago in organizing gun buys and in distributing guns to members as needed.

More: Washington Post: Four out of five criminals obtain their guns illegally

More: Chicago Tribune: Survey: Crooks get guns from pals, don’t keep them long

70 percent said they got their guns from family, fellow gang members or through other social connections. Only two said they bought a gun at a store.

A study from the DOJ — Source and Use of Firearms Involved in Crimes: Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016:

About 1.3% of prisoners obtained a gun from a retail source and used it during their offense.

Handguns were the most common type of firearm possessed by state and federal prisoners (18% each); 11% of all prisoners used a handgun.

Among prisoners who possessed a gun during their offense, 90% did not obtain it from a retail source.

More from DOJ: Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms — the vast majority of felons obtain their weapons on the black market.

“ASSAULT WEAPONS” BANS

Are we to believe that a ban on a commonly-owned rifle responsible for the fewest number of homicides (even when compared to hands feet and fists?) would work? ...

Yet still Democrats propose another “Assault Weapons” ban when the first one didn’t work.

RAND:

We found no qualifying studies showing that bans on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines decreased any of the eight outcomes we investigated.

Propublica: “The senator says ‘the evidence is clear: the ban worked.’ Except there's no evidence it saved lives – and the researcher behind the key statistic Feinstein cites says it's an outdated figure that was based on a false assumption.”

LA Times: No, the assault weapons ban didn’t work: Impact Evaluation of the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994

The New York Times: “The Assault Weapon Myth”

School shootings are, thankfully, rare tragedies. Defensive gun use — when guns are used to protect and save lives — outnumbers criminal usage even by the most conservative estimates.

GUN-FREE ZONES

Schools have been gun-free zones since the 1990 passage of the Gun Free School Zones Act. The video of parents howling after they were blocked from going and saving their children is gutting. I read one mom broke free and hopped the fence to get into the school, totally unarmed, with nothing but her fierce nature as a mother to protect.

The people allowed to have the guns stood outside. If the government is going to demand a gun free zone anywhere they need to guarantee the safety of the people being disarmed — if at a school they should protect those kids with the same ferocity as that desperate mother and have the ability to do it — especially considering police have no legal obligation to protect your life...

Keep reading. 

Today's Shopping

At Amazon, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

And especially, #FollowMe Matching Velour Buffalo Plaid Lounge Robes Family, and Just Love Hooded Velour Robe for Women with Sherpa Lined Hood.

Here, 9007 LED Headlight Bulbs, DJI 4X4 HB5 All-in-One Headlights Conversion Kit Hi/Lo Dual Beam CREE Chips 150W 15000 Lumen 6000K Cool White - 1 Year Warranty.

More, Lifetime Faux Wood Adirondack Chair, Brown - 60064.

And, Pendleton Men's Long Sleeve Canyon Shirt.

Plus, Carhartt Men's Bartlett Jacket.

More here, Oscillating Space Heater – Ceramic Forced Fan Heating with Stay Cool Housing - Tower with Remote Control, Digital Thermostat, Timer, Large Temperature Display and Efficient ECO Mode - by Bovado USA.

Also, Samsung Electronics UN82MU8000 82-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2017 Model).

BONUS: Walter Kaufmann, ed., Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, Revised and Expanded Edition.

If You Think You Gonna Leave Then You Better Say So...

Tom Petty, "I Need to Know."

From yesterday morning's drive time, at The Sound LA:

8:01 - Roxanne by Police

8:04 - Before You Accuse Me by Eric Clapton

8:17 - In Your Eyes (new Blood) by Peter Gabriel

8:22 - Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix

8:26 - School's Out by Alice Cooper

8:29 - Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd

8:38 - For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield

8:48 - Rough Boys by Pete Townshend

8:52 - I Need To Know by Tom Petty

8:54 - Silly Love Songs by Paul Mccartney And Wings

9:00 - Who Do You Love by George Thorogood

Gauging Consequences for Republicans Who Backed Gay Marriage

At New York Times, "After Backing Gay Marriage, 4 in G.O.P. Face Voters’ Verdict":

A day and a half after he voted to legalize same-sex marriage, State Senator Mark J. Grisanti went to church.

There, across the pews at St. Rose of Lima in North Buffalo, sat 81-year-old Ann Deckop, and she felt betrayed, since Mr. Grisanti had vowed in 2008 that he was “inalterably” opposed to same-sex marriage.

“I voted for him and I’m writing a letter indicating that I will not be voting for him in the next election,” Ms. Deckop said.

But there was also Greg Fox, a 52-year-old technology industry salesman, who called Mr. Grisanti “a gentleman.”

“It’s important that we uphold Catholic values,” Mr. Fox said, before adding, “This is also 2011, so things change.”

And at the front of the church was the priest, who, Mr. Grisanti recalled, “put a hand over his heart and kind of pounded his chest, and pointed to me and smiled.” Mr. Grisanti said he was unsure what that meant.

Now, Mr. Grisanti and the three other Senate Republicans who provided votes necessary to legalize same-sex marriage in New York are confronting the uncertainty of how voters in their districts will react. Voter response will influence the balance of power in the New York Senate, where there are just two more Republicans than Democrats. And the events in New York also have national repercussions: because several Democratic-dominated states have already legalized same-sex marriage, gay-rights advocates increasingly need Republican support if they are to change local laws elsewhere in the country.

Some Republican donors, as well as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and leaders of the gay-rights movement, have promised to support the re-election campaigns of the four New York lawmakers. But the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposed to same-sex marriage, said it would spend $2 million in an effort to defeat the legislators, and key elements of the senators’ traditional political base have vowed to withdraw support.

“One thing I know for sure, these four people will not have the Conservative Party endorsement,” said Michael R. Long, chairman of the state Conservative Party. “That is certain.”

Keep your eyes out for these races. A cautionary warning for RINOs.

The Sinister Symmetry of CRT and GRT

From Andrew Sullivan today, on Substack, "The extremes of right and left on immigration are fueling each other":

The MSM rushed last weekend to explain the previously obscure conspiracy theory that motivated a mass-murderer on a shooting spree in a black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. We didn’t get to read the warped “manifesto” of the mass shooter, but we were told about its account of “Great Replacement Theory.” It posits that a shadowy, global elite (in this case — surprise! — Jewish) is deliberately fostering mass non-white immigration to dilute the voting power of white Americans. The goal is a minority-majority country in which the Republican Party is doomed by inexorable racial demographics, and a whole new multiracial society can be built on the smoldering ruins of “white supremacy.”

“Wait a minute!” as Homer Simpson might say. Haven’t I heard some of that kind of talk before? It’s coming back to me now. Here’s one devotee: “Folks like me who are Caucasian of European descent — for the first time in 2017 we’ll be an absolute minority in the United States of America. Absolutely minority … That’s not a bad thing. That’s a source of our strength.” Here’s another: “There’s nothing really [the Republicans] can do against this incredible demographic revolution.” And another: “The Republican majority has always been based upon whites and, in particular, white males … The bulwark of Republican electoral strength is disappearing.”

These quotes are from then-VP Joe Biden, Univision founder Jorge Ramos, and sassy Dem Party hack James Carville celebrating the implosion of white America. This was also the theory that drove the 2016 Clinton campaign to ignore white swing voters and focus instead on the non-white: “What I found fascinating about the primary was how we got into our different demographic lanes, and demographics were to some extent destiny,” was how the genius Robby Mook put it, before he helped elect Trump.

No, these people do not represent a secret conspiracy — let alone a Jewish one — to dilute the “whiteness” of America. There is nothing secret about it at all. The majority-minority enthusiasts represent instead a transparent movement to see Americans primarily in racial/generational terms, to view a multi-racial society as a zero-sum endeavor in which a gain for whites always means a loss for non-whites, and who therefore cheer the declining percentage of Americans who are deemed “white.”

Whole libraries could be constructed by the books outlining this thesis. It really got started with John Judis’ and Ruy Teixeira’s “The Emerging Democratic Majority” (2002), Sid Blumenthal’s “The Strange Death of Republican America” (2008), Carville’s “40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation” (2009), Ron Brownstein’s Next America project (2012), Paul Taylor’s “The Next America” (2014), and William Frey’s “Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America” (2014), to cite a few. All of them argue that mass immigration is a critical factor in making America majority non-white and therefore Democratic. And all of them are pretty much psyched.

When I say “psyched,” there is a spectrum. Here’s Michelle Goldberg not so long ago: “Right now America is tearing itself apart as an embittered white conservative minority clings to power, terrified at being swamped by a new multiracial polyglot majority” — and she “felt good” about that non-white future. Here’s Jen Rubin, reacting to the news last year that the Census found numbers of white people falling: “This is fabulous news. Now we need to prevent minority White rule.” And who can forget Michael Moore’s reaction to the same news “Best day ever in U.S. history.”

None of them seemed concerned that the thesis could boomerang on them. By “boomerang,” I mean racializing politics so aggressively that you actually help create and legitimize a racially white party — because of negative partisanship. In the words of Michael Barone: “When you keep telling white Americans that they will soon become a minority — a message that sometimes sounds like ‘hurry up and die’ — then many non-college graduate ‘deplorables’ may start acting like members of a self-conscious minority, and vote more cohesively.” Exactly.

And when this demographic prediction is combined with constant denigration of “white people,” and when a simple white majority is suddenly redefined as “white supremacy” — indistinguishable from the era of Jim Crow — then feelings might get, shall we say, “triggered.” If you demonize an entire race, you may at some point get the compliment returned. The more you raise racial consciousness among non-whites, the more you risk the same among whites. As Thomas Chatterton Williams warned: “so long as we fetishize race, we ensure that we will never be rid of the hierarchies it imposes.”

As for the GRT notion that demographic transformation was somehow imposed on America by cunning elites, there’s no real evidence for that. The key moment — the Immigration Act of 1965, which made non-white immigration a priority — was not deemed demographically revolutionary at the time. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach testified: “This bill is not designed to increase or accelerate the numbers of newcomers permitted to come to America.” Senator Edward Kennedy pledged:

The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.

His brother, Bobby, told the House subcommittee his prediction of Asian immigration under the bill: “I would say for the Asia-Pacific Triangle, it would be approximately 5,000, Mr. Chairman, after which immigration from that source would virtually disappear … we do not expect that there would be any great influx after that.” Emanuel Celler, House sponsor of the bill, insisted: “Quota immigration under the bill is likely to be more than 80 percent European.”

And yet by 1998, Patrick Reddy, a Democratic consultant, boasted that the act had “resulted in a wave of immigration from the Third World that should shift the nation in a more liberal direction within a generation. It will go down as the Kennedy family’s greatest gift to the Democratic Party.” And by 2018, 78 percent of immigrants were non-European, and Europeans made up a mere 9.8 percent of new green-card holders in 2020. As for Bobby Kennedy’s prediction of 5,000 immigrants from Asia, the number now is 14 million. Not a plot. Just a massive predictive error.

Mass illegal immigration has also lent legitimacy to gripes about rapid demographic change against the majority will. You could argue that the 1965 Act was a democratic process; but you can’t really say that about subsequent illegal immigration. The GOP liked the cheap labor; the Democrats believed that it would eventually help them win elections. That wasn’t a conspiracy, but it was a kind of anti-democratic mutual understanding — and you can’t blame someone for thinking it felt like one. Voters repeatedly voted for border control, but even Trump failed...

If we are to get past the kind of ugly violence and race essentialism in Great Replacement Theory, then we also need an antidote to the toxins of Critical Race Theory. The two illiberalisms are profoundly connected. They need each other. And, in their racialized heart, they are morally exactly the same.

 

In Wyoming, Likely End of Cheney Dynasty Will Close a Political Era (VIDEO)

Stick a fork in her. She's done.

At the New York Times, "If Representative Liz Cheney loses her primary on Tuesday, as is widely expected, the Cowboy State’s conservative tilt will take on a harder edge":

CODY, Wyo. — At an event last month honoring the 14,000 Japanese Americans who were once held at the Heart Mountain internment camp near here, Representative Liz Cheney was overcome with emotions, and a prolonged standing ovation wasn’t the only reason.

Her appearance — with her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as former Senator Alan Simpson and the children of Norman Mineta, a Democratic congressman turned transportation secretary who was sent to the camp when he was 10 — was part of a groundbreaking for the new Mineta-Simpson Institute. Ms. Cheney was moved, she said, by the presence of the survivors and by their enduring commitment to the country that imprisoned them during World War II.

There was something else, though, that got to the congresswoman during the bipartisan ceremony with party elders she was raised to revere. “It was just a whole combination of emotion,” she recalled in a recent interview.

As Ms. Cheney faces a near-certain defeat on Tuesday in her House primary, it is the likely end of the Cheneys’ two-generation dynasty in Wyoming as well as the passing of a less tribal and more clubby and substance-oriented brand of politics.

“We were a very powerful delegation, and we worked with the other side, that was key, because you couldn’t function if you didn’t,” recalled Mr. Simpson, now 90, fresh off being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and as tart-tongued as ever about his ancestral party. “My dad was senator and a governor, and if I ran again today as a Republican I’d get my ass beat — it’s not about heritage.”

He was elected to the Senate in 1978, the same year that Mr. Cheney won Wyoming’s at-large House seat, and they worked closely together, two Republicans battling on behalf of the country’s least populated state in an era when Democrats always controlled at least one chamber of Congress.

It’s not mere clout, however, that traditional Wyoming Republicans are pining for as they consider their gilded past and ponder the state’s less certain political and economic future. Before Tuesday’s election, which is likely to propel Harriet Hageman, who is backed by former President Donald J. Trump, to the House, the nostalgia in the state is running deeper than the Buffalo Bill Reservoir.

Mr. Cheney and Mr. Simpson were not only in the leadership of their respective chambers in the 1980s; they, along with Senator Malcolm Wallop, a Yale-educated cold warrior whose grandfather served in both the British House of Lords and the Wyoming Legislature, got along well and often appeared together as a delegation in a sort of road show across the sprawling state (“A small town with long streets,” as the Wyoming saying goes).

Even headier was the administration of President George Bush. Mr. Cheney became defense secretary, and his wife, Lynne, served as chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, while Mr. Simpson was both the second-ranking Senate Republican and one of the president’s closest friends. On top of that, the secretary of state at the time, James A. Baker III, spent summers on his Wyoming ranch, meaning two of the country’s top national security officials could be found doing unofficial promotional work for the state’s tourism industry.

“You’d have Army choppers snatching Cheney and Baker from fishing holes,” recalled Rob Wallace, who was Mr. Wallop’s chief of staff.

As conservative as the state was on the national level — Lyndon B. Johnson is the only Democrat to carry Wyoming in the past 70 years — the Wyoming Republican delegation worked effectively with two well-regarded Democratic governors in that same period, Ed Herschler and Mike Sullivan.

Now, Ms. Cheney hardly even speaks to the two other Wyomingites in Congress — Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, both Republicans — and has little contact with Gov. Mark Gordon. Ms. Lummis has endorsed Ms. Hageman. But Mr. Barrasso and Mr. Gordon, who are mainline Republicans in the Cheney tradition, have sought to maintain neutrality in hopes of avoiding Mr. Trump’s wrath.

“They’ve got to make their own choices and live with the choices that they make,” Ms. Cheney said about the two men, before adding: “There are too many people who think that somebody else will fix the problem, that we can stay on the sidelines and Trump will fade.”

Asked about the Cheney legacy in Wyoming, Mr. Barrasso and Mr. Gordon both declined to comment...

 

A Homosexual Civil Union Ends in Abduction

This is interesting, at the New York Times, "Which Mother for Isabella? Civil Union Ends in an Abduction and Questions":

MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Lisa A. Miller and her daughter, Isabella, started their fugitive lives here in the fall of 2009, disguised in the white scarves and long blue dresses of the Mennonites who spirited them out of the United States and adopting the aliases Sarah and Lydia.

Now 10, Isabella Miller-Jenkins has spent her last three birthdays on the run, “bouncing around the barrios of Nicaragua,” as one federal agent put it, a lively blond girl and her mother trying to blend in and elude the United States marshals who have traveled to the country in pursuit.

She can now chatter in Spanish, but her time in Nicaragua has often been lonely, those who have met her say, long on prayer but isolated. She has been told that she could be wrenched from her mother if they are caught. She has also been told that the other woman she once called “Mama,” Ms. Miller’s former partner from a civil union in Vermont that she has since renounced, cannot go to heaven because she lives in sin with women.

Isabella’s tumultuous life has embodied some of America’s bitterest culture wars — a choice, as Ms. Miller said in a courtroom plea, shortly before their desperate flight, “between two diametrically opposed worldviews on parentage and family.”

Isabella was 7 when she and Ms. Miller jumped into a car in Virginia, leaving behind their belongings and a family of pet hamsters to die without food or water. Supporters drove them to Buffalo, where they took a taxi to Canada and boarded a flight to Mexico and then Central America.

Ms. Miller, 44, is wanted by the F.B.I. and Interpol for international parental kidnapping. In their underground existence in this impoverished tropical country, she and Isabella have been helped by evangelical groups who endorse her decision to flee rather than to expose Isabella to the “homosexual lifestyle” of her other legal mother, Janet Jenkins.

In a tale filled with improbables, an Amish Mennonite sect known for simple living and avoiding politics has been drawn into the high-stakes criminal case: one of its pastors is facing trial in Vermont on Aug. 7 on charges of abetting the kidnapping.

The decade-long drama touches on some of the country’s most contentious social and legal questions, including the extension of civil union and marital rights to same-sex couples and what happens, in the courts and to children, when such unions dissolve.

In this case, the passions of any divorce were multiplied by Ms. Miller’s born-again conversion to conservative Christianity and her denouncing of lesbianism as an addiction. Ms. Miller repeatedly prevented Isabella’s court-ordered visits with Ms. Jenkins until an exasperated Vermont judge said he would transfer custody.

Man, they left the hamsters to die? That's harsh.

And it's more than an "addiction." It's a perversion. It's too bad Ms. Miller got involved in it in the first place. Things aren't likely to come out too well, no matter what happens. It'll be especially bad if the child has to grow up in that homosexual lifestyle after all. A tragedy.

Oh, and the key thing here is that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice, not an innate condition --- something that's going to rile the hate-addled progressives throughout the day.

Continue reading.

Burns, Oregon, Stays Warm and Welcoming as Circus of Outsiders Swarms Residents

Following-up on earlier entries, "LATEST: #Malheur Occupier David Fry Remains at Wildlife Refuge Along with Last Three Holdouts," and "'Hand Up Don't Shoot'! — Dueling LaVoy Finicum Protests at Harney County Courthouse in Burns, Oregon."

And now, at the New York Times, "An Unwanted Circus Descends, and an Oregon Town Strives to Stay Kind":

A circus prevails at the #MalheurRefuge occupation in #Oregon, but decency and kindness are holding their own too. https://t.co/UsTWwZXMsx

— Kirk Johnson (@kljohnso) February 1, 2016

BURNS, Ore. — Remote Western towns, in midwinter’s grip, definitely have some romance to them. But this one has become a circus tent: A giddy but tense crush of humanity has descended here in rural eastern Oregon, benefiting businesses and swamping them, filling bars, and making motel rooms unattainable amid a bizarre tide of guns, police, reporters and ideologues quoting (at length) from the United States Constitution.

That’s Burns.

There is no question things have been rough here. The armed occupation that began on Jan. 2 at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge outside town has dragged on, and tensions heightened last week with the fatal shooting of one of the most visible occupiers, LaVoy Finicum, by Oregon State Police troopers in an arrest that went bad.

The place is just crazily overrun. Every motel room within 70 miles is taken. Barstools are packed at the Central Pastime Tavern, with journalists and armed antigovernment protesters elbow to elbow, tucking down I.P.A.s and perhaps — for braver souls — the bull testicles on the bar menu. Hard to know, but there are probably also undercover F.B.I. agents now and then playing pool in the back, trying to appear like locals in boots and jeans under the mounted bighorn sheep and buffalo heads.

Residents have argued with each other over what to think about the occupiers and their goals, and they have wounded one another in the process.

Anxieties could ratchet up again this week, with a protest planned for Monday at the Harney County courthouse by self-styled patriot groups angry about Mr. Finicum’s death. The United States Marshals Office also said Sunday that one of the 11 people arrested in the standoff — Shawna Cox — had been released, though the authorities would not provide other details. A judge had previously said Ms. Cox could not leave custody until the occupation had ended.

But here’s the thing: For the most part, Burns has not stopped being warm and welcoming to outsiders, even as that has become harder to do. If you were going to spend nearly the entire month of January in a town of about 2,000 people — isolated by distance in the high eastern Oregon desert, and often with bad weather to boot — you could do a lot worse.

“We just decided to be kind,” said Leah Planinz, who owns Glory Days Pizza with her husband, Nick. She was perhaps talking partly about her philosophy, but more specifically about the restaurant’s overstuffed brown leather couch in the back near the arcade room...

Keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Burns, Oregon: Torn Apart by the Malheur Occupation," and "'Ambushed and Assassinated' — Residents in Burns, Oregon, React to Shooting Death of LaVoy Finicum."