Can Any Republican Defeat Ancient Socialist Crone Hillary Clinton?

From Kurt Schlichter, at Town Hall, "It’s pretty clear that Hillary is going to be the nominee of the Party of Elderly Socialist White People..."

Tory Voter in Tearful Question Time 'Now Supports Jeremy Corbyn' (VIDEO)

At the Independent UK, "Michelle Dorrell: Tory voter in tearful Question Time attack on government 'now supports Jeremy Corbyn'."

And watch, via BBC News:

U.S. and Japan Display Naval Forces in Show of Strength Off Tokyo Bay (VIDEO)

At USA Today, "U.S., Japanese naval forces stage show of strength."

And watch, via RT:



And, flashback from April, "U.S. and Japan Tighten Alliance in Face of Surging Threat from China."

NFL Network Airs Nude Bengals Players During Locker Room Interview

Heh, you'd think someone would have thought of this before going live, lol.

At the Hollywood Reporter.

Larry David's Bernie Sanders Impression (VIDEO)

At WSJ, "Watch Larry David’s Bernie Sanders Impression on ‘SNL’":

“Saturday Night Live” might have belonged to Tracy Morgan this week, but Larry David, the crotchety comedic mastermind from “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” nearly stole the show.

And watch, via CNN:

Television Networks Project Liberal Party Victory in Canada's National Elections

The Wall Street Journal's got an analysis, "Canada Networks Project Liberal Party Victory in National Elections":

OTTAWA—Canadian broadcast networks projected a victory for the centrist Liberal Party in national elections late Monday night.

Results from Atlantic Canada and early returns in vote-rich Ontario and Quebec gave an advantage to the Liberal Party, led by Justin Trudeau.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party campaigned on a track record of economic leadership, which he said put him in a better position to lead Canada out of its economic downturn.

But voters showed a strong desire for change, according to polls. Those same polls said before Monday’s vote that the favorite to win Monday’s election was relative newcomer Mr. Trudeau, 43 years old, who was tagged as “not ready to run” by the Harper campaign.

In the leadup to Monday’s election, voters expressed unease about their prospects, as Canada’s economy contracted in the first half of the year. While indicators point to a return to growth in the third quarter, Canada’s economy has still suffered the most of any advanced economy from the drop in prices for crude oil and other commodities.

That decline made it harder for Mr. Harper to run on the strength of his economic leadership. The country’s central bank has cut rates twice this year, and the Canadian dollar has weakened 20% versus the U.S. dollar since the start of the commodity-price rout.

Mr. Trudeau appealed to the 70%of voters who told pollsters they wanted a change. The son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Mr. Trudeau is a former high-school teacher who has never held a cabinet post or executive job.

He ran on a pledge to reduce income inequality and support the middle class, including by increasing tax rates for the top 1% of earners, and a plan to stimulate the economy with an infrastructure-spending plan of 60 billion Canadian dollars ($46 billion) over the 10 years, financed in part by deficits.

That plan contrasts with the approach of Mr. Harper, who sought to keep taxes low and promised to balance the budget.

Mr. Trudeau also signaled he aims to rebuild relations with Washington, which he and others have said are at a low ebb due to tensions over a slew of issues including the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, which was championed by Mr. Harper. The Liberal Party says it supports the Keystone XL pipeline project and that it would create jobs and help Canada’s energy patch...

Andrew Coyne Resigns as Opinion Editor at National Post After Newspaper Rejects Election Column

Just saw this right now, at the Toronto Star, "Andrew Coyne leaves editor role over National Post’s election endorsement."

And on Twitter:

So anyway… I have resigned as editor of Editorials and Comment for the National Post, effective immediately. I will remain a columnist.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

2. Postmedia executives and I had a professional disagreement. Their view was that the publication of a column by the editorial page editor…

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

3. … dissenting from the Post’s endorsement of the Conservatives would have confused readers and embarrassed the paper.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

4. My view was that that was what I was paid to do as a columnist: give my honest opinion on issues of public interest.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

5. I don’t see public disagreement as confusing. I see it as honest. Readers, in my view, are adults & understand that adults can disagree.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

7. To be clear, the owners and managers of a newspaper have a perfect right to set the paper’s editorial line as they wish.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

8. Likewise they have a perfect right to decide who and what they wish to publish in their pages.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

9. Nobody has a God-given right to be published and the country will get along very well without me telling them how to vote.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

10. My concerns were and are merely a) that there should be no suggestion that I was personally endorsing or voting for the Conservatives.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

11. And b) that I could not do my job as a columnist if I was obliged to stay silent where these conflicted with those of management.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

12. While Postmedia’s intervention was unprecedented in my experience, I could not allow the precedent to stand.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

13. So to protect my reputation and to preserve my editorial freedom as a columnist, I felt it necessary to resign the editorial position.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

14. I think that’s all I need to say on the subject. If anyone’s still interested, I will be voting for the NDP candidate in my riding.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

15. The short-form reasoning: the Conservatives don’t deserve to be re-elected, and the Liberals don’t deserve a majority.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

*6. The confusion, if any, would have been to have left the impression that the paper’s views were mine, or that my views were the paper’s.

— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) October 19, 2015

Liberal Party's Justin Trudeau Will Be Canada's Next Prime Minister

At Toronto's Globe and Mail, "Trudeau Liberals to form new government..."

And at the CBC, ".@PeterMansbridge announces CBC projection that Justin Trudeau will be Canada's next PM..."

PREVIOUSLY: "Canada's Liberal Party Jumps Out to Early Lead as Polls Close in Atlantic Canada."

Canada's Liberal Party Jumps Out to Early Lead as Polls Close in Atlantic Canada

Hope and change up North, at Toronto's National Post, "Canadian election 2015: Liberals in early lead after landslide in Atlantic Canada."

Also at the live blog, "Canadian election 2015: Live news, photos and analysis."

Eurotunnel Forced to Suspend Services After Muslim 'Migrants' Storm Terminals and Platforms in France

At Atlas Shrugs, "Eurotunnel SUSPENDS Trains After Muslim Migrants STORM Tunnel."

Also at Telegraph UK, "Eurotunnel stops trains after hundreds of migrants storm terminal in France."

Well, you wouldn't want to be too critical of the Muslims trying to get into Britain, lest you come off as "racist."

Palestinian Leaders Have Created a Culture of Death That's Motivating the Latest Violent Terrorism

I think Jeffrey Goldberg's phrase, "the stabbing intifada," really captures it.

And here's more, from Tzipi Hotovely, at the Wall Street Journal, "Abbas: ‘We Welcome Every Drop of Blood Spilled in Jerusalem’":

The latest surge of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis has come in the immediate wake of explicit calls by the Palestinian leadership to “spill blood.” This well-orchestrated campaign of violence follows many years in which Palestinian children have been taught to idolize the murder of Jews as a sacred value and to regard their own death in this “jihad” as the pinnacle of their aspirations.

Such violence has deep roots. It goes back to the rampages at the behest of Haj Amin al-Husseini, a Muslim activist and at one point grand mufti of Jerusalem, in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. It continued with the fedayeen Palestinian militants in the 1950s and ’60s, and evolved into the terrorism of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Fatah under Yasser Arafat and now Mahmoud Abbas. Anyone who claims that Palestinian terror against Jews dates only to 1967, or is a response to Israeli settlements, should become more informed of the conflict’s history.

Yet the apathy shown by the international community to the death-culture fostered by Palestinian elites, and the unbalanced manner in which subsequent violence is often treated by the international media—as if there is any kind of symmetry between terrorists and their victims—is doing long-term, and possibly irrevocable, harm to generations of Palestinians.

A few recent examples underscore the depth of the problem.

Keep reading.

Bella Thorne on Instagram

At Hollywood Tuna, "Now that Bella Thorne is officially 18 and her Instagram is no longer an LAPD sting operation waiting to happen, I can do things like repost the bikini pictures she puts up there."

Well, yeah, considering Ms. Thorne used to be on the Disney Channel's "Shake It Up!"

But she's 18 now, so there you go.

Hot Shots Calendar 2016 (VIDEO)

Last year some of these babes got some folks in trouble, "'Hot Shots' Calendar Under Fire for Photo Shoot on U.S. Military Base."

But they're still going strong, apparently.

Watch, "Hot Shots Calendar 2016 - Behind the Scenes."

The Overwhelmingly Female Press Corps Covering Hillary Clinton's Campaign

That's so sexist, heh.

At Politico, "The women in the van."

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds, "ANNALS OF MEDIA SEXISM: Hillary Clinton attracts a rarity on the campaign trail — an overwhelmingly female press corps."

Why Israel Will Never Be Able to Separate from the Palestinians

From Caroline Glick, at FrontPage Magazine, "KERRY, ISRAELI ARABS AND THE SEPARATION DELUSION."

And her latest book is most timely, at Amazon, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.

Syria Broadens Offensive

At WSJ, "Syrian Regime, Backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, Expands Ground Offensive to Aleppo":

Syrian pro-regime forces backed by Russian airstrikes have expanded their ground offensive to the strategic city of Aleppo, one of the clearest signs yet of how Russia’s recent military intervention has emboldened President Bashar al-Assad and his loyalists.

In the bitterly fought multi-sided war, Aleppo is among the most coveted prizes. Losing partial control of the city, which was once Syria’s largest and its commercial capital, was an embarrassment to the regime. But with the backing of Russian warplanes, Iranian forces and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Mr. Assad’s forces could now be in position to regain large parts of the city and the surrounding countryside.

“I suspect Assad always wanted to take back Aleppo because it is such an important city and retaking it has such strategic and symbolic importance,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based military and security think tank. “And it would deny the rebels a foothold in any major city.”

The battle for Aleppo, launched on Friday, is an extension of two weeks of other ground offensives in the provinces of Hama, Latakia and Homs aided by Iranian forces and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Mr. Assad is attempting to retake territory once considered out of his control, showing a new confidence with his growing international support.

Since Friday, the regime has netted a number of villages on the southern outskirts of the city and thousands of civilians are fleeing fighting in the area. On Sunday, the regime captured one additional village and U.S.-backed rebels destroyed two regime tanks using American-supplied weapons as they tried to stem the regime’s progress.

The regime appears to be advancing westward toward the strategic highway linking Aleppo with the capital Damascus, rebels said.

In a rare move, the offensive is being led by regime-allied Iranian fighters, according to Ahmad al-Ahmad, a spokesman for the moderate Islamist rebel group Faylaq al-Sham, which is involved in the battles.

Aleppo is about 30 miles south of the Turkish border and has been the site of battles between the rebels and regime since 2012. The countryside north of the city was one of the first areas where rebels gained a territorial foothold in the war, giving them access to border crossing with Turkey and a key road from the border that served as an important supply line.

The city of Aleppo is now divided in two, with an array of rebel factions controlling the eastern half and the regime holding the western half.

In July, Mr. Assad conceded that his forces were stretched too thin and could no longer defend the entire country, adding that priorities needed to be set. The acknowledgment came after years of desertions and draft dodgers and more than half the country slipping out of his control.

But Moscow’s intervention has allowed Mr. Assad to modify his earlier objective. Russian airstrikes are supporting his efforts to hold on to the stronghold around Damascus and to preserve a strategic corridor along the Lebanese border.

They are also aiding regime attempts to regain full control over the central provinces of Homs and Hama and the western region on the Mediterranean coast.

But Aleppo “is outside of the bounds one would think would be the point of restabilization for the regime,” said Christopher Kozak, a research analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank...

Keep reading.

The Paranoid, Supremacist Roots of the Stabbing Intifada

From Jeffrey Goldberg, at the Atlantic:

Knife attacks on Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere are not based on Palestinian frustration over settlements, but on something deeper.

*****

The current “stabbing Intifada” now taking place in Israel—a quasi-uprising in which young Palestinians have been trying, and occasionally succeeding, to kill Jews with knives—is prompted in good part by the same set of manipulated emotions that sparked the anti-Jewish riots of the 1920s: a deeply felt desire on the part of Palestinians to “protect” the Temple Mount from Jews.

When Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem in June of 1967 in response to a Jordanian attack, the first impulse of some Israelis was to assert Jewish rights atop the Mount. Between 1948, the year Israel achieved independence, and 1967, Jordan, then the occupying power in Jerusalem, banned Jews not only from the 35-acre Mount—which is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, the noble sanctuary—but also from the Western Wall below. When paratroopers took the Old City, they raised the Israeli flag atop the Dome of the Rock, but the Israeli defense minister, Moshe Dayan, ordered it taken down, and soon after promised leaders of the Muslim Waqf, the trust that controlled the mosque and the shrine, that Israel would not interfere in its activities. Since then, successive Israeli governments have maintained the status quo established by Dayan.

There is another status quo associated with the Temple Mount, however, that has been showing signs of weakening. This is a religious status quo. The mainstream rabbinical view for many years has been that Jews should not walk atop the Mount for fear of treading on the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple that, according to tradition, housed the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy of Holies is the room in which the Jewish high priest spoke the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable name of God, on Yom Kippur.

The exact location of the Holy of Holies is not known, and Muslim authorities have prevented archeologists from conducting any excavations on the Mount, in part out of fear that such explorations will uncover further evidence of a pre-Islamic Jewish presence. This mainstream rabbinical view concerning the Mount—that it should be the direction of Jewish prayer, rather than a place of Jewish prayer—has made the lives of Jerusalem’s temporal authorities easier, by keeping Muslim and Jewish worshippers separated.

In recent years, however, small groups of radical religious innovators who oppose the mainstream rabbinical view have sought to make the Mount, once again, a site of Jewish prayer. (Here is a New York Times Magazine story I wrote about these radical groups.) These activists have gained sympathizers among some far-right political figures in Israel, though the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not altered the separation-of-religions status quo.

Convincing Palestinians that the Israeli government is not trying to alter the status quo on the Mount has been difficult because many of  today’s Palestinian leaders, in the manner of the Palestinian leadership of the 1920s, actively market rumors that the Israeli government is seeking to establish atop the Mount a permanent Jewish presence.

The comments of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas—by general consensus the most moderate leader in the brief history of the Palestinian national movement—have been particularly harsh. Though Abbas has authorized Palestinian security services to work with their Israeli counterparts to combat extremist violence, his rhetoric has inflamed tensions. “Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every martyr will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God,” he said last month, as rumors about the Temple Mount swirled. He went on to say that Jews “have no right to desecrate the mosque with their dirty feet.” Taleb Abu Arrar, an Israeli Arab member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, argued publicly that Jews “desecrate” the Temple Mount by their presence. (Fourteen years ago, Yasser Arafat, then the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told me that “Jewish authorities are forging history by saying the Temple stood on the Haram al-Sharif. Their temple was somewhere else.”)

Keep reading.

Israel Builds Temporary Security Walls Between Jewish and 'Palestinian' Neighbourhoods (VIDEO)

Postcards from the "Palestinian" peace process, via France 24:



Also, at Israel Matzav, "Breaking: Five Israelis wounded as two 'Palestinian' terrorists open fire in BeerSheva - UPDATED."

American Dominance is Being Challenged

I've enjoyed reading the Economist less and less these past few years, as the formerly august news magazine has succumbed to collectivist progressivism.

But I'm amazingly pleased with this analysis. It's good.

See, "Great-power politics: The new game."

Trey Gowdy's Benghazi Committee Leads Today's Hillary-Helping Outrage News (VIDEO)

We were seeing a huge leftist push-back against the Benghazi hearings even before the dimwad Kevin McCarthy idiotically blurted that it was all about political attacks against Hillary. Sure, there's that, but Gowdy's carried out the hearings with the utmost professionalism, mostly in the furtherance of ferreting out the truth. And that's the most important thing, considering the epic lies the Obama White House fostered on the American people after the attack. Remember, the so-called racist anti-Muslim video? Heh, good times.

At at Politico, via Memeorandum, "‘These have been among the worst weeks of my life’."

And video, from yesterday's Face the Nation:

Legendary Teacher Rafe Esquith Fired by Los Angeles Board of Education

Truly fucking ridiculous, at LAT, "Rafe Esquith fired: Former Teacher of the Year accused of inappropriately touching minors."

Also, "Teacher Rafe Esquith's misconduct investigation is a high-profile test for LAUSD's 'tiger team'." Right. "Tiger team."

And at EdWeek:

Jay Mathews, an education columnist for the Washington Post, is one of the teacher's high-profile defenders; he stated in a Thursday column that he doesn't think Esquith could ever be guilty of any of the "fuzzy" accusations.

"I have been in Esquith's classroom many times, seen his joyful multi-media plays, interviewed him for hours and talked to his wife, many of his students and educators he has mentored," Mathews said. "I have never detected a trace of improper behavior ... This is a classic witch hunt."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES," and Theo Spark's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Cartoon Credit: A.F. Branco.

The Drone Papers (VIDEO)

There's a number of fascinating things about this new investigative report from the Intercept, "THE ASSASSINATION COMPLEX."

A lot of innocent people are being killed, for one thing, "Nearly nine out of 10 people who died in airstrikes were not the Americans' direct targets..."

The most interesting thing, though, is that had the CIA/Pentagon drone program advanced this far during the early days of the George W. Bush administration, we'd be hearing about "Nazi" targeted killings until the cows come home, and the mainstream collectivist media would be reporting cries for war crimes tribunals non-stop. But since it's Obama's drone program, crickets. I mean, Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, et al., are anti-Americans who like nothing more than to put American lives are risk to get their "scoops." And honestly, while I don't love the loss of innocents as collateral damage in the War on Terror, I have no problem taking out bloodthirsty jihadis, of which there's a never-ending supply. Greenwald, et al., see most of the terrorists as victims of America's imperial aggression.

So you can see why the whole thing's pretty amazing. See the full report, "The Drone Papers."

In any case, here's a segment from communist Amy Goodman's Democracy Now:

Radical Leftists Demand 'Justice for Palestinians' at Anti-Israel Protest in London (VIDEO)

Behold the complete moral bankruptcy of the contemporary "progressive" left. When you're protesting to defend Palestinians murdering innocent Jews with butcher knives and meat cleavers, there's something deeply wrong with your fundamental values.

Previously, "New Palestinian Intifada 'is drenched in the fever of martyrdom and faith-based hate...' (VIDEO)," and "Fanatical Palestinian Slams Car Into Bus Stop, Jumps Out and Hacks Israeli to Death (VIDEO)."

And at the video, hate-mongering ghoul George Galloway leads despicable, demonic leftists in London's anti-Israel demonstration, via Ruptly:

Competition Among Major Regional Players Fuels Rise of Islamic State

At WSJ, "Regional Discord Fuels Islamic State's Rise in Mideast":

Pretty much everyone in the Middle East is supposed to be fighting against Islamic State. Yet, the Sunni extremist group retains large swaths of Syria and Iraq and is spreading elsewhere in the region.

This isn’t because of its military might or strategic sophistication. The explanation is different: For most of the major players in the complicated conflicts ravaging the Middle East, the defeat of Islamic State remains a secondary goal, subordinate to more pressing objectives.

For some of these powers, Islamic State’s existence and its barbarism are actually useful, for now, because they serve as a lever in conflicts with more immediate and dangerous foes.

Though able to take advantage of sectarian fissures in Syrian and Iraqi societies to carve out a territory the size of the U.K., Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, isn’t strong enough to represent a conventional military threat to the region’s biggest nations.

But these countries do live in existential fear of some of their neighbors.

In particular, the Saudi-led bloc of Sunni Arab nations bitterly competes with Shiite-dominated Iran in what has become a zero-sum contest for influence—a contest that Russia has now entered on the Shiite side by supporting the Syrian regime.

That contest is also playing out in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been battling Iran-supported Houthi militants while Islamic State affiliates strengthen their position and attack both sides.

“Everyone hates their neighbor more than they hate ISIL,” said a senior Obama administration official.

Among the powers involved in the conflict, the U.S. is probably the only one, together with its European allies, focused on degrading and eventually destroying Islamic State as a primary goal.

But that effort, too is subordinated to the Obama administration’s overriding concern about preventing American casualties. This severely limits America’s ability to help forces fighting against Islamic State. It has also given rise to widespread theories claiming that Washington, too, doesn’t actually want the group to be defeated because it supposedly seeks to perpetuate regional instability.

The gap between American objectives and means has bolstered Islamic State’s narrative of invincibility, allowing it to draw thousands of recruits.

“We have an interest in defeating ISIS, but we don’t want to do that ourselves: We want other people to go in and lose their lives in doing it,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy...

More.

On Equality

George Will points us to Professor Harry G. Frankfurt's new book, On Equality.

And see will's full essay, at WaPo, "What Bernie Sanders doesn’t understand about economic equality."

Also, from Darleen Click, at Protein Wisdom, "George Will speaks the obvious to Bernie Sanders..."

Books Returned to Portland State Univeristy Library, with Unsigned Note, After 52 Years

I guess the guy didn't want to get hit with a book fine, so he left an unsigned note.

The flat rate for lost books is $110 replacement fee. Ouch.

At the Oregonian, "Borrower returns books 52 years late to Portland State University's library, with unsigned note."

Why Isn't America Working?

From JCCarlton, at the Arts Mechanical.

Linked there, at the Atlantic, "How America's Workforce Has Changed Since 1977."

Hat Tip: Sarah Hoyt, at Instapundit, "SOCIALISM IS THE ANSWER: Why Isn’t America Working? It always ends inequality by sharing poverty."

Niall Ferguson's New Biography of Henry Kissinger

I admire Kissinger greatly, and I'm as much intrigued by his theoretical legacy in (and for) political science as I am his historical legacy during the years in power.

Kissinger's weekend's essay at the Wall Street Journal is a classic piece of commentary that showcases the power and perception of his work. See, "A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse."

In any case, Niall Ferguson's new biography thus looks all the more interesting.

At Amazon, Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist.

How you approach this book will obviously be influenced by your ideological orientation, which is demonstrated by the couple of reviews I just read, one by Tom Rogan, at Free Beacon, "Kissinger in Full," and the other by Greg Grandin, at the Guardian, "Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist by Niall Ferguson review – a case of wobbly logic."

(Ferguson is interviewed at the Guardian as well, "Niall Ferguson interview: ‘Public life these days is a cascade of abuse’."

A Path Out of the Middle East Collapse

From Henry Kissinger, at the Wall Street Journal, "With Russia in Syria, a geopolitical structure that lasted four decades is in shambles. The U.S. needs a new strategy and priorities":

The debate about whether the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran regarding its nuclear program stabilized the Middle East’s strategic framework had barely begun when the region’s geopolitical framework collapsed. Russia’s unilateral military action in Syria is the latest symptom of the disintegration of the American role in stabilizing the Middle East order that emerged from the Arab-Israeli war of 1973.

In the aftermath of that conflict, Egypt abandoned its military ties with the Soviet Union and joined an American-backed negotiating process that produced peace treaties between Israel and Egypt, and Israel and Jordan, a United Nations-supervised disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria, which has been observed for over four decades (even by the parties of the Syrian civil war), and international support of Lebanon’s sovereign territorial integrity. Later, Saddam Hussein’s war to incorporate Kuwait into Iraq was defeated by an international coalition under U.S. leadership. American forces led the war against terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States were our allies in all these efforts. The Russian military presence disappeared from the region.

That geopolitical pattern is now in shambles. Four states in the region have ceased to function as sovereign. Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq have become targets for nonstate movements seeking to impose their rule. Over large swaths in Iraq and Syria, an ideologically radical religious army has declared itself the Islamic State (also called ISIS or ISIL) as an unrelenting foe of established world order. It seeks to replace the international system’s multiplicity of states with a caliphate, a single Islamic empire governed by Shariah law.

ISIS’ claim has given the millennium-old split between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam an apocalyptic dimension. The remaining Sunni states feel threatened by both the religious fervor of ISIS as well as by Shiite Iran, potentially the most powerful state in the region. Iran compounds its menace by presenting itself in a dual capacity. On one level, Iran acts as a legitimate Westphalian state conducting traditional diplomacy, even invoking the safeguards of the international system. At the same time, it organizes and guides nonstate actors seeking regional hegemony based on jihadist principles: Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria; Hamas in Gaza; the Houthis in Yemen.

Thus the Sunni Middle East risks engulfment by four concurrent sources: Shiite-governed Iran and its legacy of Persian imperialism; ideologically and religiously radical movements striving to overthrow prevalent political structures; conflicts within each state between ethnic and religious groups arbitrarily assembled after World War I into (now collapsing) states; and domestic pressures stemming from detrimental political, social and economic domestic policies.

The fate of Syria provides a vivid illustration...

Most excellent.

Keep reading.

2016 Election to Be Historic Ideological Battle

From Philip Klein, at the Washington Examiner, "Why the 2016 presidential race will be a historic ideological battle":

Republican and Democratic voters, making drastically different assumptions about the politics of the 2016 presidential race, are pulling their parties even further apart — setting the stage for a historic ideological battle in 2016.

Opening his MSNBC show shortly before the first Democratic debate, liberal Chris Hayes was ebullient.

Socialist insurgent Sen. Bernie Sanders has been rising in the polls and drawing huge crowds, and front-runner Hillary Clinton, rather than putting him on the defensive, has been eager to embrace a broad liberal policy agenda.

This has been a welcome development to Hayes, who noted that as a progressive who came of political age during the Bill Clinton era, he remembered "a time when the conventional wisdom in the Democratic Party was you needed to convince everyone that you weren't George McGovern, and you need to convince particularly white swing voters you weren't just going to hand out welfare to the other people that don't look like you. You're going to be tough on crime, you're going to fight wars, you're going to fly back to Arkansas to watch a man executed."

But this time around, things were different. "I still can't believe what I'm seeing," he said, gleefully.

Hayes was not alone among liberals celebrating the leftward shift within the Democratic Party. "The Elizabeth Warren wing of American politics has clearly shifted the center of gravity in the Democratic Party," the Progressive Change Campaign Committee boasted in a statement following the debate. "This was the first presidential debate in history where debt-free college, expanding Social Security benefits, breaking up Too Big To Fail banks, and criminal prosecution of Wall Street bankers were big issues."

What's happening in the Democratic Party is that President Obama's two election victories have given its voters confidence the demographics of the nation are working in their favor. Mitt Romney won the white vote by 20 points — the same margin as Ronald Reagan did in his landslide victory over Jimmy Carter — and yet this wasn't enough to overcome Obama's advantage with non-whites.

Democrats figure that the coalition of unmarried women, minority groups and young voters aren't going to back a Republican nominee who wants to defund Planned Parenthood, support voter ID laws, crack down on illegal immigration, oppose efforts to combat climate change, protest gay marriage, and so on. Given their growing confidence that the changing face of America is with them, Democratic voters feel more comfortable letting their liberal flag fly in a way that Bill Clinton would have never dreamed of. His ever-calculating spouse has made the calculation, in the words of the New York Times' Jonathan Martin, that "there's no gen[eral] election downside in aligning w[ith] the left."

Republicans, on the other hand, are making a completely different calculation. Looking ahead to the 2016 campaign, they see Hillary Clinton's numbers steadily tanking under an ethical cloud, as a growing number of Americans say they don't trust her. Polls have shown Republicans ahead of Clinton even in Pennsylvania, a blue state that has eluded GOP nominees for decades. They're confident that her weaknesses as a candidate have made the presidency ripe for the picking. Given this sense of optimism, they see no reason to settle...

I don't buy the demographic argument, since the explanation is pure politics, which is moving the ideology radically leftward, regardless of the demographic composition of the electorate. Indeed, it may be wishful thinking to expect demography to propel the Democrats forward under some elusive coalition of the ascendant --- mainly, because of historic low voter turnout among these constituencies.

But keep reading.

Obama Drops Afghanistan Exit Plan (VIDEO)

Lots of folks were mocking the clusterfuck Democrats on Twitter yesterday. No hope. No change. Just incompetence.

At the Wall Street Journal, "In Major Afghanistan Shift, Obama Drops Plan to Withdraw Most U.S. Forces":

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama said Thursday he was dropping plans to withdraw nearly all American troops from Afghanistan, reversing his long-held intention to exit the conflict before the end of his administration.

Mr. Obama said the U.S. will maintain the current American force of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of next year and keep at least 5,500 U.S. troops in the country after he leaves office in January 2017.

His announcement followed mounting pressure at home and abroad to change the U.S. strategy in response to escalating insurgent violence, including an assault by Taliban militants who temporarily seized control last month of the northern city of Kunduz, and a deeply uneven performance by Afghan forces.

Concerns that a steeper U.S. withdrawal would make Afghanistan vulnerable to extremists, as happened in Iraq with Islamic State militants after the U.S. drawdown there in 2011, also influenced Mr. Obama’s decision.

The new plan reflects the latest in a series of difficulties Mr. Obama has encountered in trying to follow through on his earliest campaign promises before leaving office.

“I know many of you have grown weary of this conflict,” Mr. Obama said, addressing Americans from the White House. But he added: “I’m firmly convinced that we should make this extra effort.”

Mr. Obama’s previous plan, in place since last year, called for steadily withdrawing the 9,800 U.S. troops through 2016 and leaving about 1,000 at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul by the time his term ends.

Under the new plan, the president said remaining U.S. troops will be stationed at points outside the Afghan capital, serving in Jalalabad in the east, Kandahar in the south, and at Bagram Air Field.

Mr. Obama said his decision capped a monthslong strategy review prompted by a deteriorating situation on the ground that raised alarm among U.S. commanders and U.S. allies.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had called for a larger U.S. and NATO troop presence than was previously foreseen. On Thursday he welcomed Mr. Obama’s move, saying: “America believes that a stable Afghanistan is in the interest of the world and of the region.”

Mr. Obama’s decision will result in a larger force than he has preferred, but about as small as military commanders believe necessary to support a continued U.S. presence devoted to both training and counterterrorism operations.

Many military officials prefer a larger U.S. force—up to the current 9,800, or at least 7,500 to 8,000. A force of 5,500 is only slightly more than what many military officials consider a minimal realistic option for carrying out the two operations.

But military commanders were heartened by the absence in Mr. Obama’s new plan of a strict time frame for the drawdown of U.S. forces, allowing them more flexibility than previous plans afforded. White House officials said it is possible the reduction to 5,500 won’t happen before Mr. Obama leaves office.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the new plan, which administration officials estimate will cost $14.6 billion a year, is “reasonable” under the current conditions in Afghanistan, though circumstances can change...

Still more.

Plus, the full administration press conference video, "The President Delivers a Statement on Afghanistan."

Rosie Jones, Melissa Debling, Beth Lily in Zoo's Sexiest Shoot Ever! (VIDEO)

Sweet babes.

Watch, "ZOO'S 600th issue: special edition with Melissa Debling, Rosie Jones and Beth Lily!"

'Were Your Children Human Beings' Before They Were Born? Debbie Wasserman Schultz Refuses to Answer (VIDEO)

She's scum.

Of course she refuse to answer the question, but if she had she'd have to admit that abortion is murder.

At the Daily Signal, "How a Pro-Choice Democrat Responded When Asked ‘Were Your Children Human Beings’ Before Birth?"

Watch, "Hey, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Were Your Children Human Beings Before They Were Born?"

Fanatical Palestinian Slams Car Into Bus Stop, Jumps Out and Hacks Israeli to Death (VIDEO)

Leftists support this terrorism and murder in the name of social justice.

At Hot Air, "Video: Palestinian terrorist runs over Israelis, hacks one to death."

The video's here.

Monstrous evil.

But that's the left for you.

Introducing the 'Democratic Socialist' Party

From David Harsanyi, at the Federalist.

PREVIOUSLY: "The S-Word — Socialism — Frightens a Lot of Americans."

Also, "Democrat Debate: America Now Has an Openly Socialist Party."

Palestinian Posing as Journalist Stabs Israeli Soldier with Knife (VIDEO)

At Weasel Zippers, "Palestinian Posing as Journalist With ‘Press’ Logo Stabs Israeli Soldier."

Mets' Daniel Murphy Steals 3rd Base, Sucking the Life Out of Dodgers' World Series Hopes (VIDEO)

I frankly didn't know what the heck happened.

But the Dodgers pulled the defense to the right and nobody covered third base after Zack Greinke walked left-hander Lucas Duda.

The play-by-play announcers noted how the crowd at Dodger Stadium was shocked silent. It was a definite turning point and the Dodgers never recovered.

The New York Times' headline captures it perfectly, "Daniel Murphy's Steal Caps Another Lost Dodgers Season."

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Did the Dodgers outsmart themselves right out of a title?"

The 2015 Coat Guide

At Amazon, Shop Fashion - Women's Coats & Jackets.

Plus, from Marc Thiessen, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack.

And ICYMI, Sean Naylor, Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command.

The S-Word — Socialism — Frightens a Lot of Americans

Not the Democrats. They love socialism.

At USA Today:

If Bernie Sanders were to win the Democratic presidential nomination, his chances of actually making it to the White House are somewhere between zero and nothing.

That, at least, is the view of some political observers. One of the reasons for their pessimism is Sanders’ political ideology: He’s a self-described "Democratic Socialist."

And the S-word frightens a lot of Americans.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in December 2011, shortly after the Occupy Wall Street protests, which highlighted the growing wealth gap between the rich and the poor, found half of all Americans still had a positive view of capitalism, while 60% had a negative perception of socialism.

“Socialism is a far more divisive word (than capitalism), with wide differences of opinion along racial, generational, socioeconomic and political lines,” Pew said.

“Fully nine-in-ten conservative Republicans (90%) view socialism negatively, while nearly six-in-ten liberal Democrats (59%) react positively. Low-income Americans are twice as likely as higher-income Americans to offer a positive assessment of socialism (43% among those with incomes under $30,000, 22% among those earning $75,000 or more).”

A Gallup survey this summer found similar anti-socialist views among American voters, half of whom said they wouldn't vote for a socialist candidate.

It's not hard to see why this is. For many Americans the word "socialism" still carries the associations with authoritarianism that it acquired during the Cold War. That explains why some opponents of Obama's Affordable Care Act were calling it the same thing Ronald Reagan called Medicare in 1961: "socialized medicine." Combine those negative Cold War associations with the fact that a significant portion of the American electorate wants to shrink government, limit spending, and cut taxes, and you realize that Bernie Sanders has his work cut out for him if he's going to proudly wave the socialist flag...

Keep reading.

PREVIOUSLY: "Democrat Debate: America Now Has an Openly Socialist Party."

Obama Lied, My Health Plan Died…Twice!

From Michelle Malkin:

It’s deja screwed all over again.

In the fall of 2013, our family received notice from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado that we could no longer keep our private health insurance plan because of “changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA).”

We liked our high-deductible preferred provider organization plan that allowed us to choose from a wide range of doctors. But Obamacare wouldn’t let us keep it. Reluctantly, and after great bureaucratic difficulty, my hubby and I enrolled in an individual market plan with Rocky Mountain Health, which offered a much narrower provider network than the Anthem PPO plan we had before the feds snuffed it out.

Thanks to “reform,” our two kids’ dental care was no longer covered, and we had our post-Obamacare insurance turned down at an urgent care clinic — something that had never happened before.

This summer came another bombshell.

In August, we were informed of the “discontinuation of your Rocky Mountain Individual and Family plan effective December 31, 2015.”

Over the past month, we have received several bold-faced notices alerting us that “IMPORTANT ACTION IS REQUIRED: YOU MUST CHOOSE A NEW INDIVIDUAL & FAMILY PLAN TO MAINTAIN YOUR HEALTH COVERAGE IN 2016.” The clock is ticking: open enrollment begins Nov. 1.

The coerced choices are pretty damned crummy. Individual market PPOs have evaporated. We are being shoved once again toward the Obamacare government health insurance exchange vortex known as Connect for Health Colorado (which should really be called “DISconnect from Health Colorado). Or into a narrow regional HMO.

So much for “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what,” eh, Mr. President?

Obama lied and our health plan has now died — twice...

Keep reading.

It's a terrible law. ObamaCare has screwed Americans across the board, and for what? The rate of uninsured isn't much better than before the law went into effect, despite the enormous costs and social dislocation. See Fox News, "Despite Health Reform, 32.3 Million Are Uninsured."

PREVIOUSLY: "ObamaCare Deductibles Set to Surge as High as $6,500."

'13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi'

I saw the trailer out a couple of months ago, but never posted. But now here comes the New York Times with an analysis of the film's impact on the presidential race.

See, "Timing of Movie About Benghazi Attack Could Test Clinton in Iowa Caucuses."

The movie's based on the book by Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi.

Behind the Scenes with Bathing Beauty Charlotte McKinney (VIDEO)

Watch, via Vanity Fair.

'Yes Means Yes' Invades High School Campuses in California

I saw something somewhere on the new "yes means yes" law being rammed down the throats of high school students, but now it's at the New York Times.

See, "For Teenagers, Sexual Consent Classes Add Layer of Complexity to Difficult Subject":

SAN FRANCISCO — The classroom of 10th graders had already learned about sexually transmitted diseases and various types of birth control. On this day, the 15- and 16-year-olds gathered around tables to discuss another topic: how and why to make sure each step in a sexual encounter is met with consent.

Consent from the person you are kissing — or more — is not merely silence or a lack of protest, Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco, told the students. They listened raptly, but several did not disguise how puzzled they felt.

“What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” asked Aidan Ryan, 16, who sat near the front of the room.

“Pretty much,” Ms. Zaloom answered. “It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.”

The “no means no” mantra of a generation ago is being eclipsed by “yes means yes” as more young people all over the country are told that they must have explicit permission from the object of their desire before they engage in any touching, kissing or other sexual activity. With Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature on a bill this month, California became the first state to require that all high school health education classes give lessons on affirmative consent, which includes explaining that someone who is drunk or asleep cannot grant consent.

Last year, California led the way in requiring colleges to use affirmative consent as the standard in campus disciplinary decisions, defining how and when people agree to have sex. More than a dozen legislatures in other states, including Maryland, Michigan and Utah, are considering similar legislation for colleges. One goal is to improve the way colleges and universities deal with accusations of rape and sexual assault and another is to reduce the number of young people who feel pressured into unwanted sexual conduct.

Critics say the lawmakers and advocates of affirmative consent are trying to draw a sharp line in what is essentially a gray zone, particularly for children and young adults who are grappling with their first feelings of romantic attraction. In he-said, she-said sexual assault cases, critics of affirmative consent say the policy puts an unfair burden of proof on the accused.

“There’s really no clear standard yet — what we have is a lot of ambiguity on how these standards really work in the court of law,” said John F. Banzhaf III, a professor at George Washington University Law School. “The standard is not logical — nobody really works that way. The problem with teaching this to high school students is that you are only going to sow more confusion. They are getting mixed messages depending where they go afterward.”

But Ms. Zaloom, who has taught high school students about sex for two decades, said she was grateful for the new standard, even as she acknowledged the students’ unease...

Yes, grateful. Because leftists are always grateful for more chances to destroy people's lives.

Still more.

Inside Zimbabwe's Business of Big-Game Hunting (VIDEO)

From CBS News This Morning, "Zimbabwe announced this week it would not charge a Minnesota dentist who hunted a popular lion. But the killing of Cecil the lion has brought worldwide attention to trophy hunting. Critics say the controversial practice is full of corruption."

Philippe Verdier, Top Weatherman at France Télévisions, Fired for Questioning Climate Change

At Telegraph UK, "France's top weatherman sparks storm over book questioning climate change":

Philippe Verdier, weather chief at France Télévisions, the country's state broadcaster, reportedly sent on "forced holiday" for releasing book accusing top climatologists of "taking the world hostage."

Every night, France's chief weatherman has told the nation how much wind, sun or rain they can expect the following day.
Now Philippe Verdier, a household name for his nightly forecasts on France 2, has been taken off air after a more controversial announcement - criticising the world's top climate change experts.

Mr Verdier claims in the book Climat Investigation (Climate Investigation) that leading climatologists and political leaders have “taken the world hostage” with misleading data.

In a promotional video, Mr Verdier said: “Every night I address five million French people to talk to you about the wind, the clouds and the sun. And yet there is something important, very important that I haven’t been able to tell you, because it’s neither the time nor the place to do so.”

He added: “We are hostage to a planetary scandal over climate change – a war machine whose aim is to keep us in fear.”

His outspoken views led France 2 to take him off the air starting this Monday. "I received a letter telling me not to come. I'm in shock," he told RTL radio. "This is a direct extension of what I say in my book, namely that any contrary views must be eliminated."

The book has been released at a particularly sensitive moment as Paris is due to host a crucial UN climate change conference in December...

Still more.

Charles Krauthammer: Bernie Sanders Helped Hillary Clinton Win Democrat Nomination (VIDEO)

Krauthammer makes it sound like Hillary's nomination's a done deal. I have no doubt, but this is interesting, especially in how all the Democrats circled the wagons to protect the party from the Republicans.

From Megyn Kelly's last night:

Blonde Beauty Elle Evans for Playboy

At Egotastic!, "CARL'S JR. BLONDE HOTTIE ELLE EVANS BUTT NAKED FOR PLAYBOY."

She's the beautiful hot babe in the new Carl's Jr. advertisement, "Tex Mex Bacon Thick Burger 'Border War' Video."

Casey Batchelor for Zoo Today (VIDEO)

Watch, "Casey Batchelor's sexy selfie strip shoot!"

Democrat Debate: America Now Has an Openly Socialist Party

From Jim Geraghty, at National Review, "The Debate Lesson: America Now Has an Openly Socialist Party":

Sure, this batch of candidates sounded like a bunch of loons. They contended socialism is mostly about standing up to the richest one percent and promoting entrepreneurs and small business; climate change is the biggest national security threat facing the nation; college educations should be free for everyone; all lives don’t matter, black lives do; Obama is simultaneously an enormously successful president in managing the economy and the middle class is collapsing and there’s a need for a “New New Deal” which is in fact an Old Old Idea, considering how FDR called for a Second New Deal in 1935. The audience in Nevada applauded higher taxes, believes that Hillary Clinton doesn’t need to answer any more questions, supports the complete shutdown of the NSA domestic surveillance program, and that Obamacare benefits should be extended to illegal immigrants. There are kindergarten classes with more realistic assessments of cost-benefit tradeoffs than the crowd watching this debate at the Wynn Las Vegas.

So yes, the candidates sounded like hard-Left, pie-in-the-sky, free-ice-cream-for-everyone, Socialist pander bears. But they do so because that is what the Democratic Party’s primary voters demand. Don’t blame them; blame the party rank-and-file that craves these promises, rhetoric, and worldview...

Keep reading.

Image Credit: The People's Cube.

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders Dominate First Democrat Debate (VIDEO)

Hardcore progressives, especially measured by social media interaction and Google searches, put Bernie Sanders way out in front. See Politico, "Sanders dominates social media during the debate," and Independent Journal, "Bernie Sanders Just Introduced Himself to America and America is Curious. Hot Damn, That Google Trend on the Right."

The consensus on the collective Obama-media was that Hillary Clinton dominated, which, with the above trends among partisan progs, is the story of this campaign. See the Week, "The most talked about candidate of the debate was Bernie Sanders — by a long shot."

Sanders' discussion of democratic socialism, seen below, really causes social media to explode.

More at the Wall Street Journal, "Hillary Clinton Confronts Critics at First Democratic Debate":

LAS VEGAS—Hillary Clinton on Tuesday went on offense in the first Democratic presidential debate on issues such as gun control, foreign policy and the Republican probe of her email server, while also punching back against a quartet of primary rivals seeking to knock her out of front-runner status.

The Democrats’ first matchup proved to nearly be as rough-and-tumble as the previous Republican debates, though the candidates also found several areas of agreement. Mrs. Clinton even got an assist from her main challenger, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said he wasn’t interested in discussing her private email server, which has bedeviled her campaign for months.

After spending months virtually ignoring her Democratic rivals, Mrs. Clinton aggressively tangled with her opponents, focusing on policy differences and highlighting her depth of experience.

She said Mr. Sanders wasn’t tough enough on guns, noting that he repeatedly opposed the Brady bill, which mandated background checks, and voted to give gun manufacturers immunity from lawsuits. She dismissed his explanation that the immunity bill was “large and complicated.”

“It wasn’t that complicated to me,” said Mrs. Clinton, who was also in the Senate at the time.

While Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders were center stage, the other three candidates—former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, and Lincoln Chafee, a former governor and senator from Rhode Island—also asserted themselves.

Mr. Chafee used his opening statement to note that he hasn’t suffered a “scandal,” a direct shot at Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who faced a series of probes during his administration.

Mrs. Clinton faced fire from all sides as her opponents questioned her judgment and her record in the U.S. Senate and the State Department. The other candidates also took aim at Mrs. Clinton’s vote to go to war in Iraq, the same issue that was a key factor in her loss in the 2008 Democratic primary race.

Mr. Sanders punched first, characterizing the Iraq war as the “worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country.” Mr. Chafee chimed in, questioning Mrs. Clinton’s “poor judgment calls.”

“If you’re going to make those poor judgment calls at a critical time in our history…that’s an indication of how someone will perform in the future,” Mr. Chafee said.

Mrs. Clinton, who has spent months answering questions about the private email server she used as secretary of state, offered a familiar defense, saying she had made a mistake but did nothing wrong, and quickly pivoted to saying the entire matter was driven by Republicans.

“It is a partisan vehicle, as admitted by the House majority leader…to drive down my poll numbers, big surprise,” she said, referring to a congressional committee investigating the matter. “I am still standing.”

She then got backup from Mr. Sanders, who said he agreed with her and said Americans want to hear about critical issues that affect their lives.

“The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” he said, to Mrs. Clinton’s delight. “Enough of the emails! Let’s talk about the real issues facing America.”

Equal Pay in Hollywood's Movie Industry (VIDEO)

At LAT, "With new equal-pay act, will Jennifer Lawrence get paid like Bradley Cooper?":

Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence was paid 7% of the profit on the 2013 ensemble film "American Hustle," a big payday for the A-list actress. But Bradley Cooper and two other male co-stars each earned 9%.

That's the kind of inequity potentially targeted by California's Fair Pay Act, which is aimed at leveling the compensation field between men and women. The bill, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this week, applies to businesses statewide but has particular resonance in Hollywood, where women have become increasingly vocal critics of the pay gap.

Indeed, the entertainment industry played a key role in pushing the bill forward. Patricia Arquette raised the issue of pay inequality while accepting the best supporting actress Oscar during this year's Academy Awards — a moment that the Fair Pay Act's author, state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), said gave the measure momentum.

Arquette said in an interview with The Times on Wednesday that the lower profit participation paid to Lawrence, which was disclosed in the leak of stolen emails from Sony Pictures Entertainment last year, exposed how women are routinely paid less than men in Hollywood...

Plus, watch at CBS News This Morning, "Oprah: Hollywood gender pay gap conversation has hit critical moment."

Moving the Goalposts: What Feminist 'Rape Culture' Discourse Is About

An epic post, from Robert Stacy McCain, at the Other McCain.

Cited there is Susan Shaw and Janet Lee, eds., Women's Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings.

I have a copy of the third edition, and I tweeted a photo of it to Robert. He asked if I'd just gotten my copy, and I said, "No, the radical lesbian feminist professor two offices down from mine left an old copy out in the hall, in a stack of free books."

And that's not a joke. Professor Rachel Hollenberg, from the Department of Philosophy, is two doors down from me. She's really hardcore, as you can tell, by a quick look at this conference program where she participated, in 2005, at Claremont Graduate School, "Queering the Discourse Conference."

(And notice how she marked up the contents page at the textbook, seen below. Boy, you really gotta highlight all the entries on oppression, lol.)

In any case, buy Robert's book, Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature.

I'll have more blogging tonight

Jenifer Van Vleck, Empire of the Air

She's Assistant Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University.

And here's her book, Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy.

Van Vleck’s first book, Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy, was published by Harvard University Press in 2013. It examines how aviation facilitated the United States’ rise as a global power—and transformed American visions of the world—from the Wright brothers through the jet age. Empire of the Air received the Gaddis Smith International Book Prize from Yale’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, and it was the runner-up for the Stuart Bernath Prize and the Myra Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

CNN Debate Ushers in New Phase of Democrat Party Campaign

The debate's tonight.

And at the Los Angeles Times, "Clinton and Sanders prepare for debate, and a new phase in the Democratic race":

Hillary Rodham Clinton was never going to waltz to the Democratic presidential nomination. The American political system doesn't work that way.

No one, however, expected a 74-year-old senator from tiny Vermont to emerge at this point as her strongest challenger. Not the party's wise men and women, not Clinton strategists. Not even the self-described Democratic socialist himself.

But Bernie Sanders' stunning fundraising success — his $26-million haul nearly matched Clinton's money machine over the summer — and his continuing capacity to draw huge crowds, including 13,000 Friday night in Tucson, seem to ensure he will stick around for months to come and, even if he falls short of the nomination, push Clinton and fellow Democrats in his leftward direction.

In recent weeks, Clinton has staked a number of positions that narrowed the gap between the two: opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, proposing tougher regulation of Wall Street, rejecting a trade deal she helped negotiate with Asian countries and calling for the repeal of a federal tax on high-end healthcare plans.

Clinton may have come to those positions of her own volition, but her timing ahead of Tuesday's first Democratic debate appears to be no accident, just as her increased willingness to take on Sanders, albeit obliquely, hardly seems coincidental.

"Everything that I am proposing, I have a way to pay for it," she said while campaigning last week in Iowa, no doubt mindful that Sanders' platform, which includes a call for universal healthcare coverage and free college tuition, carries a hefty price tag.

"You've got a proposal," Clinton challenged him, "tell us how you're going to pay for it."

Sanders' response has been to welcome Clinton alongside. Professing delight at Clinton's newfound opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, Sanders allowed that "it would have been more helpful to have her aboard a few months ago" when he was one of the loudest and loneliest voices in opposition.

Clinton, 67, remains a solid favorite to win the Democratic nomination, in large part because of her strong support among women, Latinos and African Americans, who make up much of the party base. For all the talk of discontent, 3 in 4 likely Democratic primary voters view Clinton positively, and the same number say they could see voting for her regardless of who they now support, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll.

But Sanders' rise and Clinton's struggle with controversies over her family's philanthropic foundation and the use of a private email server as secretary of State have seeded deep doubts about the front-runner and raised questions about both her political durability and personal veracity.

That has encouraged Vice President Joe Biden to seriously weigh a lightning entry into the race, a move that would instantly transform the contest from a race to catch Clinton — pitting Sanders against former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and the also-rans Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb — into a brawl between the party's two top heavyweights.

Many Democrats, perhaps envious of the boisterous GOP contest, are hankering for a fight...

Well, it's going to be interesting, in any case.

Still more.

Playboy Magazine to Stop Publishing Nude Photos of Women in 2016

Wow.

Talk about a changing media landscape.

At the New York Times, "Nudes Are Old News at Playboy":

Last month, Cory Jones, a top editor at Playboy, went to see its founder Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

In a wood-paneled dining room, with Picasso and de Kooning prints on the walls, Mr. Jones nervously presented a radical suggestion: the magazine, a leader of the revolution that helped take sex in America from furtive to ubiquitous, should stop publishing images of naked women.

Mr. Hefner, now 89, but still listed as editor in chief, agreed. As part of a redesign that will be unveiled next March, the print edition of Playboy will still feature women in provocative poses. But they will no longer be fully nude.

Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”

For a generation of American men, reading Playboy was a cultural rite, an illicit thrill consumed by flashlight. Now every teenage boy has an Internet-connected phone instead. Pornographic magazines, even those as storied as Playboy, have lost their shock value, their commercial value and their cultural relevance.

Playboy’s circulation has dropped from 5.6 million in 1975 to about 800,000 now, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. Many of the magazines that followed it have disappeared. Though detailed figures are not kept for adult magazines, many of those that remain exist in severely diminished form, available mostly in specialist stores. Penthouse, perhaps the most famous Playboy competitor, responded to the threat from digital pornography by turning even more explicit. It never recovered.

Previous efforts to revamp Playboy, as recently as three years ago, have never quite stuck. And those who have accused it of exploiting women are unlikely to be assuaged by a modest cover-up. But, according to its own research, Playboy’s logo is one of the most recognizable in the world, along with those of Apple and Nike. This time, as the magazine seeks to compete with younger outlets like Vice, Mr. Flanders said, it sought to answer a key question: “if you take nudity out, what’s left?”

It is difficult, in a media market that has been so fragmented by the web, to imagine the scope of Playboy’s influence at its peak...

Pretty amazing development.

Still more at the link.

Smuggling Refugees Into Europe: The Untold Story

From Hugh Eakin, at the New York Review, "The Terrible Flight from the Killing":

The movement to Europe should not have come as a surprise. According to the UN, in 2014 a record 14 million people were newly forced from their homes in armed conflicts worldwide, and much of the staggering increase was owing to the wars in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, more than half of the total pre-war population of 22 million was now uprooted. With the ravages of barrel-bombing by the Assad regime, the terror of the Islamic State, and the growing inability of the international community to deliver aid inside the country, more Syrians than ever before sought refuge abroad.

In the first four months of 2015 alone, another 700,000 fled, many to nearby countries, the highest rate of any time during the war. Meanwhile, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey, already overwhelmed with millions of Syrians, have been restricting entry, while the underfunded World Food Program has been drastically reducing food aid.

Other recent developments, though less noticed, had far-reaching effects of their own. Several countries in Africa, including Libya, and also many parts of Afghanistan, traditionally the world’s number one producer of refugees, have become increasingly unstable and violent in the months since international forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2014. At the same time, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey, which had together absorbed more than five million Afghans in recent years, had begun taking aggressive steps to send them home or prevent them from staying; by this summer, tens of thousands of Afghans were joining the Syrians trying to enter Europe.

For the refugees themselves, the journey to Europe—requiring a series of up-front payments to smugglers of human beings, often amounting to several thousand dollars—is enormously costly and fraught with danger. More than 2,800 people have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015 alone. Others have fallen sick or died in encampments in Greece or in the backs of trucks in Central Europe.

On August 27, Austrian police found an abandoned Volvo refrigeration truck packed with the bodies of seventy-one refugees who had paid smugglers to drive them from Hungary to Austria but had suffocated en route; a day later, Austrian police stopped another smuggler’s truck containing twenty-six refugees, including three children who had to be hospitalized for severe dehydration. And yet, every day, thousands more have set out from Turkey for the Greek islands, including the young Syrian boy Aylan, whose lifeless body washed up on shore in Turkey after a failed crossing on September 2, shocking the world.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Europe of turning the Mediterranean into a giant cemetery; Andreas Kamm, the longtime director of the Danish Refugee Council, said that, without major changes, Europe’s incoherent response was headed toward “Armageddon.” For her part, Chancellor Merkel said that, unless other member states were prepared to step up and share the burden, the very basis of the EU and its Schengen system of open internal borders would be at risk of collapse...

An excellent review of the issues I've been blogging about for months.

Keep reading.

And ICYMI, "'The Invasion of Europe'."

So, Looting is Legitimate Political Protest

From Matthew Vadum, at FrontPage Magazine, "Looting: Legitimate Political Protest?":

#BlackLivesMatter "Professor" Deray Mckesson maintains looting serves social and racial justice.

Looting is a great way to advance the increasingly violent, racist Black Lives Matter movement, an agitator is teaching students after being rewarded by the Left with a teaching gig at prestigious Yale University.

The words of Twitter star Deray Mckesson expose for the umpteenth time the lie that Black Lives Matter, whose members idolize unrepentant cop killers Mumia abu Jamal and Assata Shakur, is a law-abiding, peaceful movement and that those who loot and riot in its name are a fringe or unrelated element. Lawless violence and bloody insurrection are how Mckesson and his followers pursue their vision of so-called social justice.

Mckesson led a class that was discussing, "In Defense of Looting," an essay by Willie Osterweil whose bio at the New Inquiry website describes him as "a writer, editor, and member of the punk band Vulture Shit."

Johnetta Elzie (who calls herself ShordeeDooWhop on Twitter and uses the handle @Nettaaaaaaaa), who with Mckesson helped foment unrest in Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and other racial hotspots, live-tweeted the Oct. 3 lecture. The tweets suggest the talk was a mixture of black liberation theology, critical race theory, Marxism, and anarchism...

Keep reading.

Martin Luther King, Jr., they're not.

New Palestinian Intifada 'is drenched in the fever of martyrdom and faith-based hate...' (VIDEO)

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Clueless About a Religious War":

While the narrative about this latest outbreak of violence from critics of Israel is that it is all about the sins of the “occupation” and Israel denying hope to the Palestinians, what we hearing from them is a very different story. Read any of the accounts of the motivations of the people going into the streets to stab random Jews they encounter or the mobs in the West Bank who are seeking to set off confrontations with Israeli troops, and you don’t hear much about frustration about the peace process. The same applies to clips from Palestinian television that Palestine Media Watch provides. What you do see are accounts of Muslim religious fervor that is drenched in the fever of martyrdom and faith-based hate...

More.

And see, "Why Are Palestinians Doing It?"

Drunk UConn Student Student Who Demanded Mac and Cheese Has Apologized

Heh, what a story.

At USA Today, "UConn student apologizes for mac and cheese tirade."

Dramatic Rescue of Young Girl at Port Hueneme Pier (VIDEO)

Watch, at CBS News 2 Los Angles, "Girl 11, Critical Following Water Rescue at Hueneme Pier."

Jackie Johnson's Got Your Record-Heat Forecast

Well, they say tomorrow's going to be a little cooler, which would be fabulous. It's been hotter than hell this last few days, and today the humidity surged.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, the fabulous Jackie Johnson:

'Indigenous Peoples Day'

Stupid, spoiled, and entitled leftists.

They should try living the way "indigenous peoples" would be living had not Europeans settled North America.

At Truth Revolt, "Push to Change Columbus Day to 'Indigenous Peoples Day' Continues."

ADDED: At Twitchy, "Christopher Columbus bust in Detroit takes a hatchet to the head; Philly statue hit with profanity."

Leftism is an ideology of hate. Rabid hatred.

USC Fires Steve Sarkisian

Well, it's not like I was expecting him back anytime soon.

But the decision's final now, at the Los Angeles Times, "Steve Sarkisian fired as USC's football coach."