Jewish Groups Laud Congress for Including Anti-BDS Measure in Trade Bill

At Jewish Political News.

Plus, William Jacobson had a must-read post on this, at Legal Insurrection, "Anti-Israel profs helped deal BDS its biggest blow yet."

Hateful, murderous ghouls. Leftists.

Violent Anti-Uber Protests in France: Leftist Courtney Love Whines, 'Where Are the Police?'

It's in Paris, Lyon, Toulouse --- all over, heh.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Anti-Uber protests turn violent in France."

Also at London's Daily Mail, "French Uber protesters smash up Courtney Love's cab 'and take driver hostage'."

Yeah, Courtney Love's a freakin' far-left prog. And she's whining about "where are the police?"

Turns out she's always had a special fondness for the police, especially when they help her skate on potential murder charges. See WND, "COURTNEY LOVE AND THE SEATTLE COPS: Was Cobain murder investigation compromised by relationships?"

Dude @kanyewest we may turn back to the airport and hide out with u.picketers just attacked our car #ParisUberStrike pic.twitter.com/MtanurybOO

— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) June 25, 2015

they've ambushed our car and are holding our driver hostage. they're beating the cars with metal bats. this is France?? I'm safer in Baghdad

— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) June 25, 2015

they've ambushed our car and are holding our driver hostage. they're beating the cars with metal bats. this is France?? I'm safer in Baghdad

— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) June 25, 2015

Apple Pulls Civil War Games from App Store Because of Confederate Flag

At Truth Revolt, "BREAKING: Apple Pulls All Civil War Games Over Confederate Flag Controversy."

And at Touch Arcade, "Apple Removes All American Civil War Games From the App Store Because of the Confederate Flag."

UPDATE: It's looking like Apple has pulled everything from the App Store that features a Confederate flag, regardless of context. The reasoning Apple is sending developers is "...because it includes images of the confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways." We just spoke with Andrew from HexWar Games, who have released many historical strategy games. He insists, "We're in no way sympathetic to the use of the flag in an offensive way, we used it purely because historically that was the flag that was used at the time."

HexWar Games plans on attempting to re-submit their games using the lesser-known 1861 version of the Confederate flag. But, who knows if that will even be approved. No one is sure yet if Apple is banning all mention of the Confederacy, or just the specific image of the flag which has since become such a hot button issue in the USA...

Lots more at the link.

The reason this is a huge story is because of Apple's near-monopoly on structuring the popular culture, and debates about the popular culture. I like Apple products. My family uses Apple products and we're not tech geeks by any means. It's a good company. They're just a leftist company and they tremendous market power, and hence cultural influence.

Bar Refaeli Billboards Sending Cars Crashing Off the Road in Tel Aviv

Well, I can see why!

At Free Beacon, "Israeli Model Pics Sending Cars Off the Road in Tel Aviv."

And following the links, to the Times of Israel, "‘Eye-catching ads endanger drivers’":

Study along Tel Aviv’s main highway finds accident rates rise when huge billboards are on display.

Well, yeah. She's a dangerous babe, lol



FLASHBACK, "Babe Blogging: Bar Refaeli Sports Illustrated Video," and "Bar Refaeli Nude Underwear Advertisement."

Thanks to the Reader Who Bought John McManus's The Dead and Those About to Die

Thanks!

One of my readers picked up a copy of John McManus's book through my Amazon affiliate links! The reader also bought a few other books on the Normandy invasion and the wars in Europe.

I haven't been posting links as frequently since school let out, but don't feel shy about hitting the Amazon widget at the side bar if I'm lax in getting my book links posted. Thanks to everybody who's shopped!

Here's McManus's book, The Dead and Those About to Die: D-Day: The Big Red One at Omaha Beach.

Obama Has a Good Week

He has.

At WSJ:

So in the past day @POTUS secured #TPA, saw his signature achievement survive SCOTUS, and got to be White House bouncer. That's a good day.

— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) June 25, 2015

WASHINGTON — Twin victories for President Barack Obama this week on health care and trade cement a cornerstone of his legacy and give a rare jolt to a second-term White House that has struggled to advance its agenda.

The Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to uphold a key provision of Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act, coupled with Congress voting Wednesday to give him broad authority to negotiate new trade deals, go to the heart of his presidency.

“This is actually gigantic,” said Anita Dunn, one of Mr. Obama’s former top advisers. “They’ve had a very good week.”

Mr. Obama on Thursday also won a surprise favorable ruling from the high court allowing minorities to continue using a civil-rights era statute in housing discrimination lawsuits.

A Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage as early as Friday could also prove favorable for Mr. Obama. He has since 2012 voiced his support for gay marriage. The court, potentially, could find a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, in essence legalizing the practice nationwide.

But this week also could mark a turning point in Mr. Obama’s presidency, as he now faces the remaining 18 months in office with few, if any, additional big wins on the horizon.

The president’s next major agenda item—the conclusion of diplomatic talks with Iran—is unlikely to yield such a clear-cut victory. If Mr. Obama secures a final deal with Iran to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions, a firestorm of complaint and scrutiny from Congress and certain U.S. allies will follow.

The White House also faces a series of battles with the Republican-led Congress on fiscal issues, including highway funding, infrastructure spending and taxes. Republicans, meanwhile, vowed to continue to challenge the Affordable Care Act, even though Mr. Obama said Thursday’s Supreme Court decision ensures that the law “is here to stay.”

“The politicians who forced Obamacare on the American people now have a choice: Crow about Obamacare’s latest wobble toward the edge, or work with us to address the continuing negative impact of a 2,000-page law that continues to make life miserable for too many of the same people it purported to help,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said in a statement.

Mr. Obama, in remarks Thursday in the Rose Garden at the White House, said that the law is working but also that he was open to consulting with lawmakers to improve health care...

America Demonized as 'Racist Nation', Enabled by Compliant and Hateful Left-Wing Media

It's not just "white privilege" now, it's white supremacy, spewed wall-to-wall by leftists and Democrats, and distributed all over the world by a despicable, biased, and hateful far-left media establishment.

From the O'Reilly Factor. And stay with this until the end. O'Reilly gets pissed off and literally declares war on the radical left. He's going to hold these people "to account." Freakin' rights.

United Against Nuclear Iran Advertisement at CNN

This clip just ran during Wolf Blitzer's show on CNN, from United Against Nuclear Iran:



It's a terrible deal. See the New York Times, "IIran's Supreme Leader, Khamenei, Seems to Pull Back on Nuclear Talks":

TEHRAN — With exactly a week left before the deadline for a final agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program, the country’s supreme leader appeared to undercut several of the central agreements his negotiators have already reached with the West.

In a speech broadcast live on Iran state television, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, demanded that most sanctions be lifted before Tehran has dismantled part of its nuclear infrastructure and before international inspectors verify that the country is beginning to meet its commitments. He also ruled out any freeze on Iran’s sensitive nuclear enrichment for as long as a decade, as a preliminary understanding announced in April stipulates, and he repeated his refusal to allow inspections of Iranian military sites...

It's an awful agreement that, if implemented, would devastate U.S. national security interests.

Also at Toronto's National Post, "A nuclear deal with Iran no longer makes sense":

Iran is a theocratic state ruled by an unaccountable religious elite that operates behind an opaque wall largely impenetrable to outsiders. Reports have recently circulated in Iranian media indicating that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has undergone a series of operations for prostate cancer and may have only months to live. The situation is said to have unleashed a fierce power struggle over his successor, as opposing camps jostle for ultimate control. The fact the reports cannot be firmly verified underlines just how little certainty the West has in dealings with Tehran, and how much guesswork is involved in assessing its reliability, even at the highest international levels.

As if to confirm the unease, Iran’s parliament passed a bill on Tuesday banning access for United Nations inspectors to its military sites and nuclear scientists. Such access is essential to the proposed accord — only by an intense, unfettered ability to monitor its activities could Western powers be certain Iran was keeping its promises. Under the bill, UN experts would be allowed to carry out limited inspections under an existing agreement, but entry would be denied to military, security and non-nuclear sites, as would access to documents and scientists. At the same time, it demanded that all sanctions be lifted immediately, rather than raised gradually in tandem with evidence Tehran had met its commitments.

The bill still must be approved by the unelected Guardian Council headed by Khamenei. Any deal reached before the deadline next Tuesday could thus quickly be challenged by a new council of unknown outlook and aspirations. It would be a deal in the dark, with a shifting leadership obscured by a curtain of doubt and ambiguity...

After Charleston Shootings, Poll Highlights Race Dilemma for Republicans

This is interesting, at Reuters.

How Confederate Flag Controversy Shows We've Gone Nuts as a Culture

From John Ziegler, at Mediaite.

Steven Pinker on Taboos, Political Correctness, and Dissent

From guest blogger Greg Lukianoff, at Instapundit, "CAN’T SLEEP? WANT SOME VIDEO INFOTAINMENT? Then check out this FIRE interview with Steven Pinker on taboos, political correctness, and dissent":

Communist Laurie 'Red' Penny Kicked Off Facebook for Using Fake Name

She's a freak anyway.

At the Independent UK, "A journalist who used a pseudonym to avoid rape and death threats has been kicked off Facebook."

Journalist who used pseudonym to avoid rape threats kicked off Facebook http://t.co/HqrO7X9LEv pic.twitter.com/1iNuB2GGql

— The Independent (@Independent) June 25, 2015

Katy Perry Nearly Nude for New Moschino Ad

At London's Daily Mail, "Stripping down in style! Katy Perry bares her killer body in latest Moschino fashion campaign images - but she doesn't skip out on the accessories."

Citing Slave-Owner Descendant Ben Affleck, PBS Suspends ‘Finding Your Roots’

Well, the disgraced leftist slave-owner's descendant Affleck brings down a PBS franchise.

Way to go, you "special" privileged hack.

At the New York Times, "Citing Ben Affleck's 'Improper Influence,' PBS Suspends 'Finding Your Roots'":

PBS said on Wednesday that it was postponing a future season of “Finding Your Roots” after an investigation revealed that the actor Ben Affleck pressured producers into leaving out details about an ancestor of his who owned slaves.

PBS will not run the show’s third season until staffing changes are made, including hiring a fact checker, it said.

The show, which is hosted by the Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., traces family histories of celebrities and public figures, and has run for two seasons. The concern about Mr. Affleck’s relative surfaced in the WikiLeaks cache of hacked Sony emails after Mr. Gates asked a Sony executive for advice about a “megastar” who wanted to omit a detail about a slave-owning ancestor.

“We’ve never had anyone ever try to censor or edit what we found,” Mr. Gates wrote to a Sony executive, Michael Lynton, in July 2014. Mr. Gates added that this would violate PBS rules, and “once we open the door to censorship, we lose control of the brand.”...

PREVIOUSLY: "Harvard's Henry Louis Gates Under Fire at NPR for Coddling Ben Affleck on Slave Ancestry."

Illegal Immigrant Transgender Woman Demands Immediate Release of Transgendered Aliens Held in ICE Detention Centers!

Not a paroday, "UNDOCUMENTED TRANSGENDER WOMAN WHO INTERRUPTED PRESIDENT AT WHITE HOUSE PRIDE EVENT CALLS TO END DEPORTATION."

Harvard's Henry Louis Gates Under Fire at NPR for Coddling Ben Affleck on Slave Ancestry

From guest-blogger Ann Althouse, at Instapundit, "PBS ACCUSES HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. OF “IMPROPER JUDGMENT”."

The link's busted [it was busted but it's fixed now], but she's pointing to this piece at London's Daily Mail, "Harvard professor who covered up Ben Affleck's slave roots could be dropped from PBS after he is slammed by broadcaster for 'breaching standards'." (Also at Memeorandum.)

Gates is being made the scapegoat here, if you recall. The entire network is implicated, since Affleck can't stand that he's got slave-owning ancestry and he raised a ruckus about getting those portions of the documentary edited out of the broadcast. See, "Hollywood Leftist Ben Affleck Had Inconvenient Truth About Slave-Owning Ancestor Scrubbed from PBS 'Finding Your Roots' Segment."

Fanatical Leftist 'America Haters' Trying to Destroy the 'American Compact' (VIDEO)

An excellent talking points meme at yesterday's O'Reilly Factor, summarized at NewsBusters, "O’Reilly Blasts ‘America Haters’ for Trying to Undo ‘the American Compact’."

General Lee From 'Dukes of Hazzard' Losing Confederate Flag

There's literally a national frenzy taking over. We're zombified right now, and the left's bloodlust and vengeance is insatiable.

what a load of shiat. "Warner Bros. to cease licensing 'Dukes of Hazzard' toy cars with Confederate flags" http://t.co/5kbixGH9V4

— bash (@chkconfig) June 24, 2015

Warner Brothers will stop selling "Dukes of Hazzard" cars with Confederate flags http://t.co/7jEtA1iKF6 pic.twitter.com/IXT1vbiKf7

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) June 24, 2015

License nixed for models of "General Lee" from "The Dukes of Hazzard" http://t.co/kQ7TQlpxLw pic.twitter.com/TEejkbV2BN

— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) June 24, 2015

Apparently still legal, for a limited time http://t.co/V0D8rih0aa

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 23, 2015

Charlotte McKinney Photo Shoot for Galore Magazine

Heh, she's pretty awesome.

#CharlotteMcKinney Breaks Down "BOMBSHELL" & Looks Good Doing It @Char_mck http://t.co/QFwigCnXaS pic.twitter.com/One2VlGdty

— Galore (@TheGaloreMag) June 19, 2015

"It’s about more than your looks—it’s about your confidence." @Char_mck pic.twitter.com/LnmVesV9hv

— Galore (@TheGaloreMag) June 19, 2015

We can't handle our Bombshell 💗 Charlotte McKinney https://t.co/GVHWTiQDvQ

— Galore (@TheGaloreMag) June 19, 2015

"I’m not interested in just being the hot girl." @Char_mck pic.twitter.com/DoCXFpjJDC

— Galore (@TheGaloreMag) June 19, 2015

"I can feel bad about myself, especially if I start to pay attention to stupid comments on the Internet." @Char_mck pic.twitter.com/fA5FeNMtyc

— Galore (@TheGaloreMag) June 19, 2015

The South's Ideological Aggression: Property Rights in Slavery and the Outbreak of the Civil War

 ICYMI, "Response to Stogie at Saberpoint and 'Why the Civil War Was Not About Slavery...'"

The last round of interactions on Professor Livingston has fizzled out, and Stogie has tucked tail, not responding to further comments.

Indeed, he's pretty much announced his own personal secession. See "I am a Confederate," and "Survival in a Post-American World."

So, on to the next iteration, if Stogie's up for it. As I've argued, Professor Livingston's piece was mostly a smokescreen, filled with red herrings, designed to deflect attention away from the origins of the Civil War in Old South's white supremacist planter regime. The war was indeed about slavery. The Northern states had abolished slavery and sought to restrict its spread to the territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, and especially the Dred Scott decision, destroyed any accommodation that existed regulating the instituion. As Southerners pressed their ideological agenda for slavery, particularly the meme of states' rights, the ultimate irreconcilable differences boiled to a head.

Slavery was the basis for the outbreak of the war.

See Professor James Huston, at the Journal of Southern History, "Property Rights in Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War":

This article proposes an economic explanation for the Civil War --- an explanation based on the existence of a dual system of property rights. The thesis is that southern secession grew out of the irreconcilability of the two regimes of property rights: one in the South that recognized property in humans and one in the North that did not. As long as the United States was fragmented into small market areas these two regimes did not conflict; but the transportation revolution stitched market areas together, and no longer could the effects of slavery be confined to the South. Northerners recognized that, by means of a national market, the effects of the southern labor system could be transmitted to the North, depress the wages of free laborers, and thereby upset its economy. Northerners thereby felt compelled to constrict the effects of slavery. By the same token, southerners, who had placed vast amounts of wealth in slaves, opposed any restrictions on property rights and promptly demanded northern recognition of southern rights regarding slavery --- thereby expanding property rights in slaves from the local to the national arena. Northerners perceived this demand as ideological aggression, and it was the basis for their fears of the nationalization of slavery. Southerners were not going to allow any attack upon the property rights that gave them wealth and income; northerners could not allow southerners to win the battle over property rights because it would cause a fundamental recasting of northern society.

I'll link this over at Saberpoint. Perhaps Stogie will pause his hunkering down for a bit and engage in a new round of discussion.

And be sure to read Professor Huston's piece in its entirety.