Meredith Hagner

Via Maxim:

Social Justice Authoritarianism: The New Religion of the Political Left

At Instapundit, Elizabeth Price Foley links to the power-packed essay at Medium, in April, from Aristotelis Orginos, "Social Justice Bullies: The Authoritarianism of Millennial Social Justice."

I read it about a month or two ago. Definitely a must-read piece that resides in the larger and growing canon on the American left's ideological overreach and vicious circular firing-squad implosion.

Police Find Decapitated Woman Inside Phoenix Home (VIDEO)

This is horrifying.

At the Arizona Republic, "Officers find woman's decapitated body, mutilated dogs in Phoenix" (at Memeorandum).

Also, watch at ABC News 10 Phoenix, "Woman, two dogs found decapitated in Phoenix home," and "Police arrest man who had cut off his arm, gouged out his eye."

Expect updates.

Students Take a Stab at Sword Swallowing

I don't know about this.

Sounds freakin' dangerous.

At WSJ, "Sword swallowers are on edge as TV and the Internet spur neophytes to guide sharp objects down their throats":

Don’t try this at home, the master of ceremonies of the Coney Island Circus Sideshow cautioned, and with good reason.

One performer was reclining on a bed of spikes. Another danced on a pile of broken glass. And his own “human blockhead” act involved hammering a nail into his nasal cavity.

Then there was Betty Bloomerz, who wore a black skirt and fishnet stockings as she moved playfully in time to Louis Prima’s swing classic “Sing, Sing, Sing.”

As about 30 spectators looked on in a small Brooklyn theater, Ms. Bloomerz tilted her head back, placed a foot-long blade into her mouth and, using her tongue, began to move it in time to the music. She let the sword drop downward until its metallic gold hilt came to rest near her bright red lips. Then she pulled it out with a flourish.

Point taken.

But Betty, whose real name is Kiri Hochendoner, wasn’t finished there. Also down her gullet went a wire hanger reshaped into an elongated oval, followed by two 20-inch blades, which she swallowed simultaneously.

“It’s all about safety here,” joked Ray Valenz, the MC. “Safety third!”

The crowd, which included children, shrieked and hooted with each grisly gulp.

Asked about the risks, Ms. Hochendoner, a sword swallower since 2008, said, “I’m not worried about it, I’m thinking about it.”

Specifically, she is focusing on relaxing her throat and esophagus. The more tense they are, the object-swallowing community says, the more chance of injury.

Dick Zigun, founder and artistic director of Coney Island USA, the nonprofit organization that operates the Coney Island sideshow and sideshow school, said he thinks sword swallowing might be his outfit’s most dangerous act.

“Knock on wood,” he said. “I’m very proud of the fact that 30 years into running the sideshow we have not had any major accidents here.”

He credits the school, which offers twice-yearly sword-swallowing classes, with making in-person instruction more available.

The number of professionals currently practicing the ancient art—believed to have originated in India 4,000 years ago—is a matter of debate. Mr. Zigun estimates about 150. Dan Meyer, a Tampa, Fla., practitioner who tracks the profession through his organization Sword Swallowers Association International, thinks the number is closer to a few dozen...

Ahem, I think I'll pass, lol.

Keep reading.

ADDED: Here's one of the dudes interviewed at the piece, Todd Robbins, doing it on YouTube.

Donald Trump Attacks Scott Walker at Oskaloosa Republican Rally (VIDEO)

He's going on the attack.

Watch, "Donald Trump Iowa Full Speech Presidential Rally Campaign."

Also at the Des Moines Register, "Trump's latest target in Iowa: Scott Walker."

And from the Guardian UK, "Donald Trump takes aim at Republican rival Scott Walker for Wisconsin record":

Des Moines Register's Henry Hahn in main auditorium covering event for us, I'm in overflow. Trump staff polite; Trump silent when he saw me.

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 25, 2015

Donald Trump on Saturday took shots at Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, the only Republican in a field of 16 who is leading the business mogul in Iowa polls.

Trump has surged in such polls nationwide, during a campaign in which he has caused controversy over immigration and with a widely condemned attack on the Vietnam war record of Senator John McCain.

On Saturday, Trump addressed a rally in Oskaloosa, Iowa from which his campaign had barred the Des Moines Register newspaper, which published a critical editorial about him. At the rally, he repeated several traditionally Democratic talking points in his argument against Walker, citing the governor’s record on infrastructure, education and healthcare among the reasons that he was unfit to be president.

Referring to a Walker supporter’s comment that Trump was a “dumb-dumb”, Trump said: “Today I read this horrible statement from a fundraiser about Trump, and I said, ‘Oh finally, I can attack, finally.”

“Wisconsin’s doing terribly,” Trump said. “First of all, it’s in turmoil, the roads are a disaster.”

He continued: “They projected a $1bn surplus, and it turns out to be a deficit of $2.2bn, and money all over the place, the schools are a disaster, and they’re fighting like crazy because there’s no money for the schools, the hospitals and education is a disaster, and he was totally in support of [controversial education policy] Common Core.”

The $2.2bn deficit cited by Trump actually refers to a “pre-budget estimate” of tax revenue compared with budget requests from Wisconsin state agencies, PolitiFact Wisconsin reported. Walker calculated a $3.6bn deficit when he took office, in order to justify cuts to public education and to limit unions’ bargaining power.

The state agency that calculates the pre-budget estimate found a $2.2bn shortfall in Wisconsin’s most recent budget cycle, which Walker oversaw. Wisconsin Republicans have blamed state Democrats for spreading the $2.2bn figure, despite using the same calculation themselves in previous years...

Keep reading. (Via Memorandum.)

Deutschephysik: Gotta Be a Parody Account, Right?

Even if it is parody, the hate in that "joke" about "tying down a beaner" just doesn't emerge from a vacuum.

Seriously, neo-Confederates might have a problem, but don't tell Stogie or he'll "block your ass."

It's still up on Twitter, amazingly.

The PKK: America's Marxist Ally in Iraq

This is a great piece.

I read it ungated on my iPhone last night, but it's behind the subscription wall now. No matter, just click through at the Google link and you can read it.

See, "A Personal War: America's Marxist Allies Against ISIS."

Democrats Struggle with #BlackLivesMatter

I think everybody struggles with #BlackLivesMatter, but to see the Democrats struggle is divine.

From Wesley Lowery and David Weigel, at WaPo, "Why Hillary Clinton and her rivals are struggling to grasp Black Lives Matter":

Amid the famous politicians, wealthy donors and top Democratic Party officials invited to New York last month to watch Hillary Rodham Clinton announce her presidential candidacy sat another VIP guest: a newcomer to politics, but a man whose presence at the event was sought by Clinton aides.

DeRay Mckesson, 30, one of the most visible organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement that has sprung up in the aftermath of protests in Ferguson, Mo., had received an invitation, and the campaign encouraged him to tweet his observations to his 178,000 followers.

He wasn’t impressed.

“I heard a lot of things. And nothing directly about black folk,” Mckesson wrote moments after the speech. “Coded language won’t cut it.”

Then, this week, Clinton rivals Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley each began a frenetic push to appease Black Lives Matter activists who are angry about the way the two men handled a demonstration by the group at a liberal conference last weekend. O’Malley, a former governor of Maryland, appeared on a black-oriented talk show to say he made a mistake, while Sanders, a senator from Vermont, called activists to request meetings.

The strained interactions demonstrate the extent to which a vibrant new force on the left has disrupted traditional presidential politics, creating challenges for Democratic candidates who are facing intense pressure to put police brutality and other race-
related issues on the front burner ahead of the 2016 election.

The rise of Black Lives Matter has presented opportunities for Clinton and her opponents, who are seeking to energize black voters to build on the multiethnic coalitions that twice elected Barack Obama. But the candidates have struggled to tap into a movement that has proved unpredictable and fiercely independent. It is a largely organic web of young African American activists — many of them unbound by partisan allegiances and largely un­affiliated with establishment groups such as the NAACP that typically forge close ties with Democrats.

Led by several dozen core activists, many of whom voted for the first time in 2008, Black Lives Matter has organized protests — at times drawing hundreds of participants — in more than two dozen cities and colleges. Many of the movement’s leading activists are among Twitter’s most influential users — with the ability to pump messages out to hundreds of thousands of people, often prompting topics to trend nationwide.

At times, they have pressured media outlets to cover stories surrounding race and justice, and they have leveled sharp critiques of politicians and celebrities that often go viral. In one such instance, activists blasted Clinton when she appeared at a black church near Ferguson last month and said that “all lives matter” — a phrase that struck the demonstrators as dismissive of the unique discrimination against African Americans by law enforcement officers.

The activists say they are ready to make their voices heard in the presidential race. Although they are pressuring candidates to talk more about police brutality, they say they intend to carve out a broader agenda encompassing other issues relating to systemic racism...

More.

Remember, though, #BlackLivesMatter is actually a revolutionary communist organization, and their program isn't about improving the lives of blacks. It's about overthrowing the entire U.S. "hegemonic" system.

Plus, hehe, see Mediaite, "DeRay McKesson: Leader, Activist, and Unrepentant Conspiracy-Monger."

After Awkward Exit, Josh Hamilton at Peace with the #Angels

From Helene Elliot, at the Los Angeles Times, "Rangers' Josh Hamilton is at peace, says he's not at odds with Angels":

#Angels lose, fall back into first-place tie with #Astros. Runs scored tonight: Josh Hamilton 2, Angels 2.

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) July 25, 2015

Josh Hamilton: "They booed me when I’m here, they boo me when I’m not here."

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) July 25, 2015

Josh Hamilton: booed in Texas in '13, Anaheim tonight. Albert Pujols would be "shocked" if he were booed in St Louis: http://t.co/ARNKPVOm7b

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) July 25, 2015

In explaining how #Angels wanted him far from team, Josh Hamilton dropped a Timbuktu reference: http://t.co/wmLYbMtiHg via @helenenothelen

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) July 25, 2015

Outfielder Josh Hamilton said he has found a sense of serenity in Texas, now that his brief and troubled stay as an Angel is behind him and he has been allowed to see his daughters since he filed for divorce from their mother. "I think that's been my biggest peace," he said, "to be able to focus on just my girls and baseball."

It's unlikely that his new tranquillity was greatly disturbed Friday in his first visit to Anaheim since the Angels traded him back to the Rangers in late April. Making his seventh straight start after recovering from hamstring and groin injuries, he was booed when he caught a fly ball in the first inning, drew jeers and cheers when he struck out swinging in the second inning, and triggered a similarly mixed reaction when he lined a double off the right-field fence in the fifth. "I wasn't dreading it," he said before Friday's game. "I'm not dreading it now."

There wasn't much to dread, really. The intensity of fans' emotions flared and faded quickly, perhaps signaling that like Hamilton — who hit only 31 home runs in two seasons with the Angels and experienced a substance abuse relapse last winter but escaped a suspension — they've moved on to a better emotional place.

"I hope it has worked out for him," Angels reliever Huston Street said. "I hope he's in a good place. More than anything, everybody in here wanted him to recover personally. Baseball aside, I think that was everybody's first priority."

Hamilton is batting .250 in 22 games after going two for four and scoring twice Friday. He has three home runs and eight runs batted in. He said he's feeling fine physically and mentally and is more comfortable in the batter's box since he has been playing consistently. He said he's happy being back with the Rangers, who lost him to the Angels on a five-year, $125-million free-agent deal, on which the Angels are still paying more than $60 million of the $80-plus-million that remained when they traded him back to Texas in April.

"Any time you spend time in a place, there's some sweat and work. It always means something coming back," he said during an informal pregame news conference in the Rangers' dugout. "But for a lot of years I played on this side against the Angels and went over there and played for a couple and back over here now. It feels normal to be on this side over here."

His path back there wasn't smooth. He said he had the blessing of then-Angels general manager Jerry Dipoto to undergo shoulder surgery in early February, even though it meant he wouldn't be ready for spring training. He went to Houston to rehab and await instructions on when to rejoin the team, not knowing the Angels didn't even designate a locker for him at their spring training facility in Tempe, Ariz.

"And as it got about a couple weeks before spring training, we asked when do they want me to show up and rehab and all that stuff," Hamilton said, referring to him and his agent, Mike Moye. "They said, 'Well, we don't want you to show up in the spring. You can rehab in Dallas, you can rehab in Houston, you can rehab in Timbuktu, just don't come.'"

That response, Hamilton said, left him "probably a little bit kind of scared, I guess you'd say, and fearful maybe as far as certainty and what was going on because after that there was no contact."

An Angels spokesman said Friday the club would have no comment. Dipoto did not return a message left by Times baseball writer Bill Shaikin...

I was angry at Hamilton's play as an Angel, but when I read up on him, and found out about his family troubles and lost promise, I became sympathetic. And then even more so when I saw how the Angels management trashed him and threw him aside like a used up cheeseburger wrapper. I can see why he has so much good will flowing his way now.

More.

And see, "Angels fall to Rangers and into tie with Astros for AL West lead."

Charlotte McKinney Casting Call (VIDEO)

She's much more shapely than Kate Upton, although Kate's a litter cuter, IMHO.

At Sports Illustrated, "Charlotte McKinney SI Swimsuit 2016 Casting Call."

Alfonzo Rachel Excoriates Baby-Butchers of Planned Parenthood!

At Pajamas Media, "Abortion Enthusiasts Cross New Line | ZoNation."

And ICYMI, "Crush Planned Parenthood."

Donald Trump Arrives at Laredo International Airport in Private Jet to Talk Border Security (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Donald Trump Doubles Closest Competitor in Latest YouGov Poll of Republican Presidential Field."

Via Telegraph UK:

Donald Trump Doubles Closest Competitor in Latest YouGov Poll of Republican Presidential Field

Again, YouGov is not my favorite, although we'll be seeing lots more of these Internet panel surveys, so what can you do?

Here, "Donald Trump's support remains high following John McCain controversy" (at Memeorandum):

Donald Trump leads the GOP presidential field again this week, though controversial remarks about Sen. John McCain may have dented his popularity among Republicans.

Donald Trump’s rise in the Republican contest for the 2016 presidential nomination doesn’t appear to have been slowed much – at least not yet – by the recent controversy over his criticisms of Arizona Sen. John McCain’s war record last weekend. In fact, although Trump’s favorable ratings among Republicans have declined, he is still ahead – and far ahead – when Republicans are asked to choose among the 16 currently announced candidates.

In last week’s poll, Donald Trump received the highest favorable ratings of any candidate from Republicans, apparently helped by his tough position on illegal immigration. This week, however, Trump’s favorable ratings dropped 11 points, and his unfavorable rating has risen 15 points.

Florida Senator Marco Rubio is now the best-liked GOP candidate. 63% of Republicans view Rubio favorably, and just 17% are unfavorable. Newly-announced candidate Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin also is rated more favorably than Trump.

Trump’s 42% unfavorable rating from Republicans is the highest negative rating given to a GOP contender from partisans, though it is just about matched by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s 39% negative assessment. More Republicans like Trump than like Christie, who gets a 46% favorable rating from members of his own party.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s favorable ratings this week are similar to those of Trump, though fewer Republicans rate Bush unfavorably.

But there is clearly a core group of registered voters who identify as Republicans that has coalesced around Trump’s tough talk and proposals. He is even more clearly in first place than he was two weeks ago when Republicans are asked to choose among the current candidates. Two weeks ago, in the Economist/YouGov Poll, 27% of registered voters who identified as Republicans chose Trump as their first or second choice for the nomination. This week, 28% say he is their first choice, and another 10% rank him second...

Notice the emphasis on "core group of registered voters," which is signaling to the RINO mofos to watch out, the pitchforks are coming after the treasonous establishment.

More at the Hill, "Trump denies credentials to newspaper that called for him to end campaign."

And at the Atlantic, "There's No Stopping the Trump Show" (via Memeorandum).

Kathyrn Steinle's Murder Scrambles (and Inflames) the Debate on Illegal Immigration

A surprisingly good piece, from yesterday's Los Angeles Times, "San Francisco slaying upends immigration debate in 2016 presidential race":

The immigration debate in the 2016 presidential campaign unfolded along familiar lines: Republicans called for greater border security and Democrats called for expanded rights for those in the country illegally.

All that changed one blue-sky day at Pier 14 on San Francisco's world-famous Embarcadero. A 32-year-old woman was killed July 1 while strolling with her father near the Bay Bridge, allegedly by an immigrant with a lengthy rap sheet who was back in the country despite repeated deportations.

The death of Kathryn Steinle scrambled the political equation overnight, throwing immigration reform advocates on the defensive, fueling the anger of hard-liners and causing even supporters of San Francisco's liberal politics to pause and consider its status as a "sanctuary city" that generally refuses to turn over immigrants to federal law enforcement officials.

Democrats, notably Hillary Rodham Clinton, sought to strike a delicate balance, continuing to embrace a liberal immigration policy that is a top priority for their base while acknowledging that something went terribly awry in San Francisco. Republicans seized upon the tragedy as visceral proof of their contention that the Obama administration's failure to secure the border has left Americans unsafe.

The topic is fraught for the GOP, which needs to improve its standing with Latinos — a crucial and fast-growing bloc of voters — who have been alienated in the past by harsh rhetoric about immigrants living in this country illegally. At the same time, it also offers an opportunity to make inroads with moderate voters who may support the legalization of some immigrants but cannot fathom how a man with the suspect's record was ever freed to wander this city's streets.

"It's a powder keg," said Republican consultant Rob Stutzman. "People who are very sympathetic to 'Dreamers,' to people being treated fairly, are confounded by why the hell we can't keep criminals either in prison or the other side of the border." (Dreamers refer to people brought to the country illegally as minors.)

There's considerable finger-pointing over who bears responsibility for the release of Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, the felon who has been charged with killing Steinle. But political discourse — in the nation's capital, on talk radio and cable television, and on the campaign trail — has mostly focused on what responsibility San Francisco's status as a sanctuary city bears in the tragedy.

Several Republican candidates called for the federal government to punish the more than 200 jurisdictions that have declared themselves sanctuaries, which were created in part so that immigrants could cooperate with law enforcement without fear they would be deported.

Describing Steinle as a "precious young woman" who was failed by the system, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said that certain federal funds should be denied to jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities.

"If it's an act of defiance against the federal government, then they shouldn't take federal law enforcement money," Bush told reporters Thursday after visiting an online firm in San Francisco.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said that, if elected, he would reverse President Obama's executive orders that allow some who are in the country illegally to remain here, while former Texas Gov. Rick Perry called for using either executive order or congressional action to force sanctuary cities to provide immigration officials access to their prisons and holding facilities.

Last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced legislation that would require state and local agencies to notify immigration authorities when they arrest and detain anyone in the country illegally. Federal prison officials would also be required to give precedence to transfer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement over state and local authorities. Agencies that do not comply would forfeit some federal funding.

The House of Representatives voted Thursday, largely along party lines, to approve similar legislation.

Donald Trump, the businessman who kicked off his presidential bid last month with rhetoric labeling Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers, has seen his standing in the polls rise as he has hammered the issue. He has also been among the most vocal about Steinle's killing.

"This man, or this animal, that shot that wonderful, that beautiful woman in San Francisco, this guy was pushed back by Mexico," Trump told CNN this month. "Mexico pushes back people across the border that are criminals, that are drug dealers."

Some Republicans fear that Trump's inflammatory words are hijacking what could have been a productive dialogue about immigration policy.

"There could have been a very nice, thoughtful discussion," said Hector Barajas, a GOP operative in Sacramento who recently acquired half a dozen piñatas that look like Trump. "Now what it has become is a sideshow."

On the Democratic side, Clinton voiced support for the concept of sanctuary cities while blaming San Francisco officials for not cooperating with the federal government.

"Here's a case where we've deported, we've deported, we've deported," she said on CNN. "He ends back up in our country, and I think the city made a mistake."

The following day, her campaign released a statement reiterating the candidate's support for sanctuary cities and comprehensive immigration reform.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley appeared to criticize Clinton's stance but did not mention her by name.

"Local governments should not be blamed for the federal government's inability to fix our broken immigration system, nor should they be held responsible for doing the federal government's job," he said.

Homeless at the time of his arrest, Lopez-Sanchez pleaded not guilty to murder in the shooting and is being held in lieu of $5-million bail. He is a seven-time felon who has been deported to his native Mexico five times.

When Lopez-Sanchez, 52, finished serving a federal prison sentence in March, he was turned over to San Francisco on a 20-year-old bench warrant for a $20 marijuana sale. Prosecutors declined to file charges.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked to be notified prior to his release, but city officials did not comply because Lopez-Sanchez did not meet their criteria, set in 2013, for turning over people to immigration officials. He was freed.

In a jailhouse interview with KGO-TV, Lopez-Sanchez admitted to accidentally shooting a gun he found. He also said "he knew San Francisco was a sanctuary city where he would not be pursued by immigration officials," according to KGO...

Still more.

RELATED: From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Sanctuary Cities Show Why Immigration Won't Help Dems in 2016."

John Russell 'Rusty' Houser

The "Hate Watch" blog (of the SPLC) posted an entry at the Medium site, "Lafayette Theater Shooter Fan of Hitler, Neo-Nazis, and Anti-government Conspiracies."

From just skimming it, this dude Houser definitely looks more the stereotypical "far-right extremist" than Dylann Roof ever did, but when you're dealing with the radical left, facts don't matter. All you have to do is find a couple of social media posts, or a photo with the Confederate flag, and poof! You've got your poster boy for the "contemporary radical right."

Of course, people like this are literally lone wolf losers, exactly the opposite of the so-called "lone wolf" jihadists who're radicalized by Islamic State and al-Qaeda hate-preachers like the now-dead Anwar al-Awlaki. They're part of a real movement of global jihad with millions of adherents. The Lafayette shooter not so much.

American society, from the White House to the mainstream media to college classrooms across the land, is now increasingly infected with cultural Marxism, and so you'll never get accurate coverage of the nature of extremist threats in the country today. No mainstream conservative, for example, embraces anything even remotely resembling the pro-Nazi rants of a guy like Houser. Meanwhile, mainstream leftists hail all kinds of historical figures from 20th century Communism as icons of movement progressivism. These are just facts. And that's the harsh reality mainstream and traditional Americans face in this country, as normal values have been rebranded as deviant and where murderous leftist and Islamist ideologies are simply redefined in meaningless terms like "workplace violence" and so forth.

Oh, and this Houser dude had serious mental illness, but that will be discounted by the radical left ghouls as they demonize conservatives and exploit the murders to hammer down their hateful, gun-grabbing extremist agenda.

In any case, see the New York Times (FWIW), "Lafayette Shooting Adds Another Angry Face in the Gunmen’s Gallery":

LAFAYETTE, La. — It was about 20 minutes into the 7 p.m. showing of “Trainwreck” when moviegoers heard a couple of pops, like a sound effect glitch. But when the sounds rang out again it became horribly clear that this was something else entirely.

“From the reflection of the movie, the light, you could see his gun shining,” said Lucas Knepper, who was seated in the same mostly empty row as the man in the short-sleeve, button-down shirt who had begun firing at the 20 or so people in the theater. “And then you could see the flash coming from the chamber.”

Soon two young women lay fatally shot, nine other people were wounded, and with that, on Thursday night, Lafayette, which boasts of being the happiest city in the country, joined Chattanooga, Tenn.; Charleston, S.C.; Aurora, Colo.; Newtown, Conn., and so many others on the long list of cities scarred by gun violence. The gunman, John Russell Houser, became the latest figure in a gallery of angry men with weapons who walked into a movie theater, a church, a school or a workplace and shattered the lives of people there.

Accounts from acquaintances, law enforcement officials and court records portrayed Mr. Houser, 59, of Phenix City, Ala., who also took his own life, as a man with a diffuse collection of troubles and grievances — personal, political and social — who had a particular anger for women, liberals, the government and a changing world.

Because he had been accused of both domestic violence and soliciting arson, though never successfully prosecuted, he was denied a permit to carry a concealed pistol. His family repeatedly described him as violent and mentally ill; his mental health had been called into question going back decades, and he spent time in a hospital receiving psychiatric care. He vandalized the house he was evicted from last year, and tampered with the gas lines in a way that could have caused a fire or explosion.

Given his history, he should not have been allowed to own a gun, said Sheriff Heath D. Taylor of Russell County, where Mr. Houser lived.

President Obama has said repeatedly that each mass shooting cries out for stricter controls to keep mentally ill people and criminals from obtaining guns, but the issue has not resonated on the campaign trail.

The police identified the women Mr. Houser killed as Jillian E. Johnson, 33, who owned, with her husband, two stores that sell toys, jewelry and printed goods, and played in a bluegrass band; and Mayci Breaux, 21, recently a student at Louisiana State University at Eunice, who was soon to start radiology school at Lafayette General Hospital...

This Houser dude was a sick fucker, and I mean that in every sense of the word. And leftists are just as sick in exploiting the murderer's mental illness to score heinous political points.

God bless the families of these two wonderful women lost in this evil rampage. It was not "senseless violence." It was sick, evil murder the kind leftists just love. Call it what it is.

More at Memeorandum.

Change! Most Say Race Relations Worse After Years of Obama-Democrats, New Poll Finds

Change you can believe in.

At the New York Times, "Poll Finds Most in U.S. Hold Dim View of Race Relations":

My favorite part about the Obama era is all the racial healing.

— jon gabriel (@exjon) November 24, 2014

Seven years ago, in the gauzy afterglow of a stirring election night in Chicago, commentators dared ask whether the United States had finally begun to heal its divisions over race and atone for the original sin of slavery by electing its first black president. It has not. Not even close.

A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last week reveals that nearly six in 10 Americans, including heavy majorities of both whites and blacks, think race relations are generally bad, and that nearly four in 10 think the situation is getting worse. By comparison, two-thirds of Americans surveyed shortly after President Obama took office said they believed that race relations were generally good.

The swings in attitude have been particularly striking among African-Americans. During Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign, nearly 60 percent of blacks said race relations were generally bad, but that number was cut in half shortly after he won. It has now soared to 68 percent, the highest level of discontent among blacks during the Obama years and close to the numbers recorded in the aftermath of the riots that followed the 1992 acquittal of Los Angeles police officers charged in the beating of Rodney King.

Only a fifth of those surveyed said they thought race relations were improving, while about 40 percent of both blacks and whites said they were staying essentially the same....

The nationwide telephone poll of 1,205 people, which focused on racial concerns, was conducted from July 14 to July 19, at the midpoint of a year that has seen as much race-related strife and violence as perhaps any since the desegregation battles of the 1960s. It came one month after the massacre of nine black worshipers at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., apparently by a white supremacist, and after a yearlong series of shootings and harassment of blacks by white police officers that were captured by smartphone cameras.

The Charleston shootings, which took place during Bible study on June 17, generated a national outpouring of outrage and grief. The suspect’s embrace of the Confederate battle flag in Internet photographs prompted South Carolina’s Republican governor, Nikki R. Haley, and its Republican-controlled legislature to order the flag’s removal from the grounds of the State House in Columbia.

But despite the perception that the shootings inspired a moment of empathy and reconciliation, the poll suggests that attitudes toward the flag remain deeply divided between whites and blacks, and not just in the South.

When asked how they regarded the battle flag, 57 percent of whites said they considered it mostly an emblem of Southern pride, while 68 percent of blacks said they saw it more as a symbol of racism. The view that the flag represents heritage more than bigotry was shared by 65 percent of white Southerners, including three-fourths of white Southern men.

About four in 10 whites, and one in 10 blacks, said they disapproved of the decision to lower the flag in Columbia, while 52 percent of whites and 81 percent of blacks favored it. Nearly half of white Southerners disagreed with the decision. Four in 10 blacks said they would be less likely to shop with a retailer who sold Confederate flags and merchandise, but only 17 percent of whites said so.

“The Confederate flag is a part of history that should not just be thrown out the door,” said Mary Nordtome, 66, a white retired rancher from Fort Sumner, N.M., in a follow-up interview. “It really hurts me that we have to be so politically correct in everything.” She added, “Hate groups have distorted what the Confederate flag means and the history we should not forget.”

Mindy Zhu, a 19-year-old college student from Queens who is Asian, said the crusade against the Confederate flag, regardless of its meaning, posed a threat to free speech. “As soon as you start taking away a symbol for something, then you start taking away other people’s freedom,” she said.

In the aftermath of the Charleston shootings, many Americans were deeply moved when relatives of five of the victims told the suspect in the killings, Dylann Roof, at a court hearing that their faith directed them to forgive him. The poll found that about half of those surveyed, including 49 percent of whites and 41 percent of blacks, could not have brought themselves to do the same...

A bare majority agreed with Governor Haley's decision to remove the flag from state grounds --- even after those big majorities saying the flag represents a symbol of heritage. I think that's actually a sign of racial healing and acceptance: that a majority of Americans, despite a symbolic view of the Confederate flag, agreed that it's the right thing to do, removing it from public grounds. (Very similar to CNN's earlier findings on the exact same thing.)

Still more.

For leftists, of course, it doesn't stop there for this insane political correctness. I mean, now Connecticut Democrats are dropping the name of party founders Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson from their annual state fundraising dinner. See Rick Moran, at Pajamas, "Connecticut Dems Drop Jefferson, Jackson Names from Fundraising Dinner." You can't fit everything down the memory hole, although no doubt leftists will keep trying. (Via Memorandum.)

House of Dixie

Blogging's been light.

My sister was hospitalized on Sunday with a hideous MSRA infection. I drove up to L.A. yesterday to visit. She's going to be fine, and in fact she went home last night. Had me worried there for a minute, though, especially since she went to the ER straight from the airport, after just landing from attending a wedding in Ohio.

In any case, on the way home I stopped by Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena. The only thing I don't like about Vroman's is that it's too far away, heh.

Their current events section is spectacular. I could spend hundreds of dollars in one outing if I lost all restraint.

As it is I picked up just one book, Bruce Levine's The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South.

I've been reading up on the Civil Wall pretty much all summer now. And I've been shopping for books, both new and used, to augment my collection of Civil War history.

This Levine volume is fantastic, certainly one of the most exciting tomes yet. Chapter One, "The House of Dixie," is a tour de force of the antebellum South. Slavery is without a doubt the central institution in the region's politics, culture, economy, and history. Levine weaves his account with a deep social analysis backed by data to indicate the brutal financial hegemony of the Southern plantation elite.

A small percentage of the Confederacy's population, the planter elite was propped up by an ideology of anti-black racism that was almost universally endorsed among Southerners. Indeed, landless whites, and those who never owned slaves, were nevertheless some of the most vital human elements sustaining slave society. A great many, if not the majority, acutely identified with planter economic interests, and were encouraged by Southern aristocrats to strive toward joining their ranks in slave ownership. Even those who never owned slaves reinforced the system by serving as the Southern regime's Praetorian guard, the "rural patrols" who captured slaves wandering off the plantations without travel passes. These "common whites" held aspirations to "someday cross into" the "charmed circle" of the slaveholding masters. Slavery was the very core of the region's identity. Moreover, the nearly three-quarters of the non-slaveholding population had gained the suffrage by the mid-19th century, and they voted their interests in keeping the planter aristocracy in political power.

To deny the centrality of slavery to the South's identity is willful blindness. And to deny the core importance of slavery to the origins and outbreak of the war is outright dishonesty and debauchery.

The slave system was perpetuated by totalitarian politics and the reign of political violence. It was not uncommon for cotton-picking slaves to pick 500-600 pounds a day. Such a huge cornucopia would be impossible with wage laborers alone, who would simply walk off the job rather than be driven to the length of their endurance to pick so much. How was it possible to reap so much product? Well, through violence. Political violence at the end of a bullwhip. Frederick Law Olmsted, a landscape architect, journalist, and social critic back in the day, toured the region on horseback, and here's Levine's account of the role of violence Olmstead witnessed firsthand:

The northern traveler Frederick Law Olmsted witnessed this form of what masters called "slave management" in action one day. He was touring a plantation on horseback in the company of its overseer. As the two men rode along, they saw a black girl apparently trying to avoid her assigned tasks. The overseer promptly dismounted and "struck her thirty or forty blows across the shoulder with his tough, flexible, "raw-hide" whip, Olmstead recorded. "At every stroke the girl cringed and exclaimed, 'Yes sir!' or 'Ah sir!' or "Please sir!'" Unsatisfied that the young woman had yet learned her lesson, the overseer made her pull up her dress and lie down on the ground facing skyward. He then "continue to flog her with the raw-hide, across her naked loins and thighs, with as much strength as before." As he beat her, she lay "writhing, groveling, and screaming, 'Oh don't, sir! Oh, please stop master! Please sir! Please sir! Oh, that's enough, master! Oh, Lord! Oh master! Oh, God, master do stop! Oh God master! Oh God master!'"

It's no mystery that murderous violence, backed by state laws, kept the slave power afloat. Slavery wasn't incidental to the system. It was the key institution and it became the basis for the country's sectional crisis.

Of this there should be no dispute. But there is. There's dispute among Marxists and radical libertarians who attack Abraham Lincoln and the Union North as invaders and imperialists.

I've been over this many times. Neither North nor South elevated blacks to the status of whites in 19th century America. The key difference is white Northerners despised slavery. It upset their system of free labor, and owning humans demeaned those who proclaimed cosmological universal natural rights. As sectionalism heated up Northerners were right to fear the South's slave power efforts to expand slavery to the territories and eventually to the Northern states themselves.

This is why Northerners stood firm against the expansion of slavery. And President Lincoln refused to allow secession seeing it as a bid to make permanent a hegemonic, expansionist slaveholding power across the Southern territory of United States.

Stogie hates these facts, and if you push too hard on slavery and Southern white supremacy, he'll threaten you.

Indeed, he considers anyone who disagrees with his slave-backing views an "enemy." He attacked me as an enemy a while ago, and now he's at it again in a blog post, See, "Enemies: Max Boot and Jeff Jacoby Vomit Hatred Towards the South; Time to Ditch the GOP?"

Yeah, so everyone is an enemy who's not down with the totalitarian violence of the Southern plantation slave regime. It's not about "heritage." The debate's about basic human values. And supporters of the Confederacy who refuse to acknowledge the totality of the system, the violence and anti-black hatred, have none.

Here's the full link to Levine's book, which is a must-read: The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South.

Taking Down Ta-Nehisi Coates

I'm gaining a lot of respect for Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, who is also a regular columnist at Politico.

Here's his review of Ta-Nehisi Coates' new book, "The Toxic Worldview of Ta-Nehisi Coates."

Read it all at the link. (Via Memeorandum.)

I'm not running out to get a copy, although I expect I'll read it soon enough. I'm a firm believer of not hammering a book until I've read it, although I've read enough of Coates' writing to have a pretty good heads up.

If you're interested, FWIW, at Amazon, Between the World and Me.

Connecticut Professor Tried to Dissuade Student from Building Pistol-Firing Drone

It's a pretty wicked drone, actually.

And it's not like no one's ever heard of armed drones, or anything.

At the Hartford Courant, "CCSU Professor To 18-Year-Old: Making Gun-Firing Drone A 'Terrible Idea'."

Laura Wilkerson, Whose Son Was Killed by Illegal Alien, Thanks Donald Trump During Congressional Testimony

At the Wall Street Journal, "Mother of Man Killed by Illegal Immigrant Thanks Donald Trump."

And watch: "Laura Wilkerson on Donald Trump, 'Whether you love him or you don’t, I felt heard' (C-SPAN)."