Hookers for Hillary

This is a thing?

Seriously.

At London's Daily Mail, "Hookers for Hillary: Nevada sex workers come out in favor of Clinton for president in 2016."

Also at Big Government, "‘HOOKERS FOR HILLARY': BUNNY RANCH EMPLOYEES ENDORSE HILLARY CLINTON."

San Diego Man Who Abandoned Son After Crash Gets 4-Year Prison Sentence

Hard to believe that anyone would let their own children die.

But this dude Angelo Fabiani drove recklessly, crashed and rolled, then let his son die in the hands of strangers.

At the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Dad who left boy in wreck gets prison: Young boy fell to ground when father unbuckled seatbelt, later died. The dad walked home."

Also ABC 10 News San Diego, "Man who left son to die after crash apologizes at his sentencing."

Sunday Cartoons

At Theo's, "Cartoon Roundup..."



Randy's Roundtable, "Friday Nite Funnies," and Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

Also at Lonely Con, "Saturday Funnies."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Crass Reunion."

Hundreds of Migrants Feared Dead After Boat Capsizes Off Coast of Libya

Video, at the Telegraph UK, "700 feared dead in Mediterranean boat capsize."

And at the Guardian, "700 migrants feared dead in Mediterranean shipwreck."

Mike Trout Youngest Player to Hit 100 Home Runs, Steal 100 Bases

Now if the rest of the team could just pick up the pace...

At LAT, "Angels star Mike Trout proves a tougher out during two-homer game":

Houston reliever Chad Qualls got two quick strikes on Mike Trout in the eighth inning of a tie game Friday night and threw two nasty pitches, down and in, to the Angels center fielder.

It’s the kind of at-bat that would have probably ended in either a strikeout or an out last season for Trout, who won the 2014 American League most valuable player award despite leading the league with 184 strikeouts and hitting .215 on two-strike counts.

Qualls threw two nasty pitches, down and in, but Trout was able to foul off the 0-2 and 1-2 deliveries. Qualls then tried to go up and away with his next pitch but caught too much of the plate, and Trout lined it into the right-center-field seats for a three-run home run that gave the Angels a 6-3 victory in Minute Maid Park.

Trout also hit a two-run homer on a full-count pitch in the sixth inning to become the youngest player in major league history -- at 23 years 251 days old -- with 100 homers and 100 stolen bases.

Trout is batting .444 on the season and .400 (eight for 20) on two-strike counts. He says his new early-in-the-count approach is the reason he’s feeling more comfortable with two strikes.

“When I get aggressive early in the count, it gets me ready for pitches later in the at-bat, as opposed to just letting one go by,” Trout said. “When I’m up there, I’m looking to drive the ball. First pitch, second pitch, if I just get my pitch, I’m going to try to swing at it.”

Trout, who hit .287 with 36 homers, 111 RBIs and 115 runs last season, came to spring training determined to cut down on his strikeouts, but he said it took a month of exhibition games for him to get comfortable with the idea...

More.

Former Playboy Model Michelle Manhart Fights to Protect American Flag from Hateful Leftists

At Big Government, "Police Detain Military Veteran Michelle Manhart for Taking Stomped Flag from Students."

Watch: "Michelle Manhart Arrested for Protecting US Flag from Desecration."

And at Right Wing News, "When This Female Air Force Vet Saw Protesters Stepping on the Flag, It Took Four Cops to Bring Her Down."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "Air Force veteran who posed for Playboy is tackled by cops and arrested for taking on protesters who were trampling on US flag."

At Esscurve, "AF Vet Michelle Manhart Wears Only Her Patriotism."

Hottest Lily Aldridge Outtakes

She's such a sweetie.

At Sports Illustrated:

Hot Holly Hagan

At Zoo, "Holly Hagan is hotter than ever before in her amazing new lingerie shoot!"

New Islamic State Video Shows Slaughter of Ethiopian Christians

At the New York Times, "ISIS Video Purports to Show Killing of Ethiopian Christians."

And note: The video doesn't "purport" to show anything. Christians are being murdered before our very eyes, this time in Ethiopia. Who's next?

And watch, at Bare Naked Islam, "Islamic State (ISIS) slaughters and beheads 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya (WARNING: Extremely graphic)."

A Tale of Two Justice Department Reports

A scathing review and analysis, from Heather Mac Donald, at the Weekly Standard, "Justice Is Blind: The case of dueling DOJ reports on Ferguson, Missouri":

Remember Michael Brown, the 18-year-old whose fatal shooting in Ferguson, Mo., last August triggered two waves of riots, a national protest movement, death threats against the officer who shot Brown, lamentations by college presidents regarding America’s enduring racial injustice, vilification of St. Louis prosecutor Robert McCulloch for not obtaining an indictment against the officer who shot Brown, a campaign to eliminate grand jury proceedings when police officers use deadly force, the assassination of two New York police officers, and a presidential task force to reform policing? The press and public leaders don’t appear to remember Brown, now that a Justice Department report has demolished the narrative that turned him into a martyr to police and prosecutor racism. His shooting is now mentioned in passing only as a prelude to a second Justice report, also released on March 4, that preserves the meme of a racist Ferguson police force, thus providing a substitute rationale for the summer and fall rioting.

Before the Justice Department report on the Brown shooting is consigned to total oblivion, it is worth examining its findings, as well as the strategies used to marginalize them, in some detail. They bear on the ecstatically received second Justice Department report on Ferguson police racism and on the larger discourse about policing and race.

Keep reading.

Video of Suge Knight 'Hit-and-Run' Released

At Telegraph UK, "Court shows CCTV footage showing former rap music mogul driving over two men with his pickup truck."

Gorilla Cracks Glass at Omaha Zoo

At KMTV Action 3 News Omaha, "Gorilla breaks glass at Nebraska Zoo."

It's pretty scary.

At the Santa Barbara Zoo, the silverbacks would sometimes sit by the glass, and if you knocked on it they'd knock back -- pounding it -- quite angrily.

Via Instapundit.

BONUS: Xeni Jardin, obviously no fan of zoos, takes the gorilla's side at Boing Boing, "Video: A captive Silverback Gorilla attacks some very foolish humans at the zoo."

Internal Revenue Service Places $70,000 Tax Lien on MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry

Because leftists like Harris-Perry want others to pay for their tyrannical collectivist redistribution schemes.

This is literally obscene.

At the Winston-Salem Journal, "Internal Revenue Service Places $70,00 Tax Lien on MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry."

And at Twitchy, "‘Epic burn’! These flashbacks make tax dodger Melissa Harris-Perry look even worse."

Shroud of Turin to Go on Display in Rare Exposition Expected to Attract Millions of Visitors

At Reuters, "Millions expected to view Turin Shroud in rare display."

And at Pajamas, "Shroud of Turin Goes on Display Tomorrow."

Josh Hamilton Files for Divorce

I've been real disappointed in Hamilton's play, but I've lately been quite sympathetic to him, and now even more so considering his pending divorce.

He's had tremendous support among the players, so that really tells you something. It's the Angels' ownership that's throwing him under the bus. And now comes news of problems on the home front.

At LAT, "Troubled Angels outfielder Josh Hamilton files for divorce in Texas." Also, "Angels' Josh Hamilton lists Newport mansion for sale at $16.5 million."

RELATED: At the Dallas Morning News, "Josh Hamilton's battle: From cocaine cravings and 26 tattoos to faith and Rangers."

Lady Gaga Flaunts Her figure in Tight Black Top and Latex Fishtail Skirt in Hollywood

Hey, no complaints here.

Catwoman glasses too!

At London's Daily Mail, "Lady Gaga flaunts her ample cleavage and pert derriere in tight black top and PVC fishtail skirt as she dines out in Hollywood."

Mexico's Auto Industry Accelerates

The fruits of free trade and global interdependence, to the consternation of anti-American, anti-globalization activists, to say nothing of anti-free trade protectionists.

And wow, the U.S. is running a $7 billion trade surplus with Mexico.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Giant Ford and Toyota investments help fuel Mexican auto industry boom":

Investment in the Mexican auto industry is soaring as automakers take advantage of low labor rates, an increasingly sophisticated workforce and a plethora of free trade agreements.

Ford Motor Co. said Friday that it will spend $2.5 billion to build and expand engine and transmission factories in the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Guanajuato, creating 3,800 jobs.

Ford’s investment follows Toyota Motor Corp.’s announcement earlier this week that it will spend $1 billion to construct a new factory in central Mexico, where it will build Corolla compact cars.

“The Mexican auto industry is coming of age,” said Mike Jackson, an analyst at IHS Automotive, an industry research firm.

To be sure, wages top the list of Mexico’s auto manufacturing advantages. Workers at the auto assembly plants south of the border earn an average $5.64 an hour compared to $27.78 for their U.S. counterparts, according to the Center for Automotive Research, an industry think tank in Ann Arbor, Mich. Those at the parts suppliers earn just $2.47 an hour. Workers at U.S. auto suppliers average $19.65.

But that’s just one factor, Jackson said. The Mexican auto industry is turning out more sophisticated vehicles than it could a decade ago. That’s why luxury automaker BMW also revealed plans for a $1-billion plant in San Luis Potosi last July. Mercedes-Benz and Nissan are building a joint, $1.4-billion plant in Aguascalientes. Audi is constructing a $1.3-billion factory near Puebla.

Altogether, auto companies and suppliers have announced almost $5.5 billion in factory expansion and construction so far this year, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

Ford aims “to make our vehicles even more fuel-efficient with a new generation of engines and transmissions our team in Mexico will build,” said Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of the Americas.

Already, Ford manufactures engines and assembles the Fiesta, Fusion and Lincoln MKZ in Mexico. The transmission plant to be built in Guanajuato will be Ford’s first in Mexico.

The Mexican auto industry has grown to the point at which it generate jobs beyond the assembly lines.

Automakers and suppliers report increasing reliance on Mexico for engineering, according to Jay Baron, chief executive of the Center for Automotive Research. That is turning the nation into a “key competitor” for high-paying white collar jobs provided by automotive research and development operations, he wrote in an industry report.

Baron and other analysts said Mexico’s auto industry growth is accelerated by a web of free trade agreements. The country has pacts with more than 40 nations that, combined, represent 70% of the world’s gross domestic product, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

The number of vehicles Mexico produces annually is expected to rise 54% from last year's level to nearly 5 million in 2022, according to IHS Automotive. U.S. production will rise 7% to a little more than 12 million during the same period.

Mexico's geography -- easy access to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans -- bolsters its position as an automotive export hub.

“No other country in the world boasts an equivalent export environment,” Baron said.

More.

The Presidency and the Culture Wars

An interesting piece, from Damon Linker, at the Week, "How the race for president became the ultimate battlefield in the culture war":

What if the whole national drama surrounding the American presidency — the canonization or demonization of the office-holder, the obsession with the commander-in-chief's every utterance, the nearly two-year-long beauty contest we call a presidential campaign — isn't really about politics at all?

It certainly sounds counterintuitive.

Reporters and pundits may focus on the horse race in their coverage of a campaign, but most would surely say that a presidential election contest is ultimately about political ideology and the policies flowing from it. The Republicans want to cut government spending, regulations, and taxes, increase spending on defense, and use American military power more aggressively. The Democrats want to increase government spending, regulations, and (by implication) taxes, while cutting defense spending and using American military power a teeny-tiny bit less frequently.

The election itself is about which ideology you support and which personality you prefer to serve as its champion.

That's certainly part of what's going on. But it's not all of it. Or even most of it. Or the core of it.

More than ever, presidential politics is about something other than politics. It's about culture, identity, signaling, and symbolism. In a country of 318 million people, in which there is no shared religious conviction, no shared ethnicity, and increasingly no common culture or moral consensus about marriage and sex, and in which the burden of what is typically a nation's greatest act of collective endeavor and sacrifice (war) has been offloaded to a tiny segment of the population that voluntarily bears the burden largely out of public sight and mind — in such a centerless country, with a media culture that fixates on image, style, and symbolism, a single nationwide quadrennial election in which every adult citizen can participate has taken on existential overtones.

More than affirming his or her ideology or policy proposals, we want to be able to look at a presidential candidate and say: "That's me. That's who I am. That's how I see America."

Keep reading.

Children Raised by Homosexual Couples at Serious Risk

From Oscar Robert Lopez, at American Thinker, "The Gay Marriage Wake-Up Call."

The Meaning of Their Service

From U.S. Marine Corps General (four star, retired) James Mattis, at the Wall Street Journal, "A retired four-star Marine Corps general on the clarifying effect of combat experience, the poison of cynicism and how veterans can help revive American optimism."