Deal of the Day: Stuhrling Original Watches

At Amazon, Stuhrling Original Mens "Specialty Grand Regatta" Stainless Steel Professional Swiss Quartz Dive Watch.

More, Save on Stuhrling Original Watches.

Plus, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Complete Collection One [Blu-ray], and Steins Gate: Complete Series Classic [Blu-ray]. (Plus, scroll down for up to 61% off "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" and "Steins Gate: The Complete Series.")

And from Glenn Reynolds, An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths.

Still more, from James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century—Why America’s Greatest Days Are Yet to Come.

BONUS: From Professor Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means To Success In World Politics.

Donald Trump's Odds for First-Ballot Victory Improve After New York Primary (VIDEO)

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump celebrates Republican primary victory in New York, still railing against system":

Donald Trump roared to a huge victory Tuesday in New York's Republican primary, delivering a much-needed chance to reset his presidential campaign and retake the upper hand in the fight for the GOP nomination.

There had been little doubt Trump would carry his home state, where the real estate mogul is literally a household name: In giant letters and various forms, “Trump” adorns some of Manhattan's most exclusive properties.

The outcome was clear the instant that polls closed, with the front-runner leaping to an enormous lead that never wavered. With nearly all of the votes counted, Trump had 60% support, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 25% and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz with 15.

The key question was the size of Trump's victory and whether he would capture all of the delegates by winning 50% of the statewide vote and a majority in each of New York's 27 congressional districts. It appeared he would claim at least the overwhelmingly majority of the state's 95 delegates, with Kasich taking a handful.

The allocation was more than a matter of vanity or political perceptions. The GOP contest has become a hand-to-hand battle for delegates to the party's July convention in Cleveland, where they alone will choose the nominee to carry the party standard into the fall campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

It takes a majority, 1,237 delegates, to be assured of the nomination before the GOP gathering, which appears to be Trump's best hope as opponents work to stop him short and throw the convention open to one or another of his rivals.

Trump entered the day with 756 delegates, followed by Cruz with 559 and Kasich with 144. Trump's substantial gain eases his quest for the nomination but still leaves the outcome far from certain.

“The path forward is a high wire,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and speechwriter for former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson of California. “It is manageable, but there is no room for error on either side.”

Trump was blown out by Cruz in the last GOP contest, the April 5 primary in Wisconsin, and has been steadily losing ground to the senator's better-organized campaign ever since, as Republicans seat their national delegates at state- and district-level conventions across the country.

Still, of the three candidates remaining, Trump is the only one with a realistic chance of winning the nomination on the first ballot in Cleveland.

In an effort to steady his campaign, Trump recently shook up its staff, bringing in some of the very Washington establishment figures he once criticized. Amid the upheaval, his campaign field director, a political neophyte, resigned as Trump sought to professionalize his delegate wrangling under Paul J. Manafort, a former lobbyist and longtime Beltway insider, who quickly moved to consolidate and extend his power.

In one sign of Manafort's apparent influence, Trump has grown uncharacteristically restrained in his public comments, in a seeming effort to project a more presidential image. His victory speech Tuesday night was notably brief and absent the insults and braggadocio that characterized previous celebrations...

More.

Dr. Paul McHugh, Transgender is 'Mental Disorder'; Sex Change 'Biologically Impossible'

At CNS News, "Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is ‘Mental Disorder;' Sex Change ‘Biologically Impossible’."

And following the links takes is to McHugh, at WSJ, "Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution":

The government and media alliance advancing the transgender cause has gone into overdrive in recent weeks. On May 30, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare can pay for the "reassignment" surgery sought by the transgendered—those who say that they don't identify with their biological sex. Earlier last month Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that he was "open" to lifting a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military. Time magazine, seeing the trend, ran a cover story for its June 9 issue called "The Transgender Tipping Point: America's next civil rights frontier."

Yet policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention. This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.

The transgendered suffer a disorder of "assumption" like those in other disorders familiar to psychiatrists. With the transgendered, the disordered assumption is that the individual differs from what seems given in nature—namely one's maleness or femaleness. Other kinds of disordered assumptions are held by those who suffer from anorexia and bulimia nervosa, where the assumption that departs from physical reality is the belief by the dangerously thin that they are overweight.

With body dysmorphic disorder, an often socially crippling condition, the individual is consumed by the assumption "I'm ugly." These disorders occur in subjects who have come to believe that some of their psycho-social conflicts or problems will be resolved if they can change the way that they appear to others. Such ideas work like ruling passions in their subjects' minds and tend to be accompanied by a solipsistic argument.

For the transgendered, this argument holds that one's feeling of "gender" is a conscious, subjective sense that, being in one's mind, cannot be questioned by others. The individual often seeks not just society's tolerance of this "personal truth" but affirmation of it. Here rests the support for "transgender equality," the demands for government payment for medical and surgical treatments, and for access to all sex-based public roles and privileges.

With this argument, advocates for the transgendered have persuaded several states—including California, New Jersey and Massachusetts—to pass laws barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor. That government can intrude into parents' rights to seek help in guiding their children indicates how powerful these advocates have become.

How to respond? Psychiatrists obviously must challenge the solipsistic concept that what is in the mind cannot be questioned. Disorders of consciousness, after all, represent psychiatry's domain; declaring them off-limits would eliminate the field. Many will recall how, in the 1990s, an accusation of parental sex abuse of children was deemed unquestionable by the solipsists of the "recovered memory" craze.

You won't hear it from those championing transgender equality, but controlled and follow-up studies reveal fundamental problems with this movement. When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London's Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings. Some 25% did have persisting feelings; what differentiates those individuals remains to be discerned...

Keep reading.

Kelsey Harkness on High School Girls and Gender Neutral Locker Rooms: 'Disagreement Does Not Equal Discrimination' (VIDEO)

Here's Ms. Harkness, at the Daily Signal, "Why These High School Girls Don’t Want a Transgender Student in Their Locker Room."

And with Dana Loesch:

'Transgender and unisex bathroom regulations empower terrible people...'

They do.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "DISPATCHES FROM THE LEFT’S WAR ON BATHROOMS."

Also, at KING 5 News Seattle, "Man in women's locker room cites gender rule."

Jackie Johnson's Sunny and Warm Wednesday Forecast

Jackie's back, and she brought some lovely weather with her.

It was quite reasonable today.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Jeffrey Lord, What America Needs

At Amazon, What America Needs: The Case for Trump.

BONUS: From Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal.

Kelly Rohrbach on Set as She Takes Over Pamela Anderson's Role of C. J. Parker in Film Version of the 'Baywatch' TV Show

Kelly Rorhbach is really cool. I've blogged her a number of times previously.

Now here's the latest, at London's Daily Mail, "C.J. Parker to the rescue! Kelly Rohrbach zips around Baywatch beach set in racy one-piece as filming rolls on."

Voting Irregularities: Over 100,000 New York Voters 'Vanish' Ahead of Primary Election Day (VIDEO)

Heh.

At the New York Observer, "Comptroller Will Audit New York City Board of Elections" (via Memeorandum):

Comptroller Scott Stringer is launching an audit of the city’s Board of Elections after reports of problems voting in today’s primary elections and the purging of more than 100,000 voters from rolls in Brooklyn.

“There is nothing more sacred in our nation than the right to vote, yet election after election, reports come in of people who were inexplicably purged from the polls, told to vote at the wrong location or unable to get in to their polling site,” Mr. Stringer said in a statement this afternoon. “The people of New York City have lost confidence that the Board of Elections can effectively administer elections and we intend to find out why the BOE is so consistently disorganized, chaotic and inefficient.”

In a letter to BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan, Mr. Stringer ticked off a litany of problems constituents had reported at the polls today, including one voter who reported arriving at 6 a.m., when voting begins, to find their Williamsburg polling site wasn’t open and wouldn’t be open any time soon. Voters have also complained of being sent to different poll sites or being given conflicting information, Mr. Stringer’s office noted.

“Comptrollers audit agencies, that’s why comptrollers are there,” Mr. Ryan said in a telephone issue. “If Comptroller Stringer believes that it is a worthy use of his agency resources to investigate the Board of Elections, we’re no different than any other city agency.”

Mr. Ryan insisted the voter problems Mr. Stringer and others had cited today were rare.

More.

'You make a grown man cry...'

From yesterday morning's drive-time, at the Sound L.A.

The Stones, "Start Me Up."

It started out as a reggae song, heh.

The infectious "thump" to the song was achieved using mixer Bob Clearmountain's famed "bathroom reverb", a process involving the recording of some of the song's vocal and drum tracks with a miked speaker in the bathroom of the Power Station recording studio in New York City.[2][4] It was there where final touches were added to the song, including Jagger's switch of the main lyrics from "start it up" to "start me up."

The song opens with what has since become a trademark riff for Richards. It is this, coupled with Charlie Watts' steady backbeat and Bill Wyman's echoing bass, that comprises most of the song. Lead guitarist Ronnie Wood can clearly be heard playing a layered variation of Richards' main riff (often live versions of the song are lengthened by giving Wood a solo near the middle of the song, pieces of which can be heard throughout the original recording). Throughout the song Jagger breaks in with a repeated bridge of "You make a grown man cry", followed by various pronouncements of his and his partner's sexual nature. Although the lyrics to the song might be read as double entendres referring to motorcycle racing, they are clearly sexual in nature.

Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
Billy Joel
10:37 AM

Money for Nothing
Dire Straits
10:30 AM

Fortunate Son
Creedence Clearwater Revival
10:27 AM

For the Love of Money
The O'Jays
10:24 AM

Moneytalks
AC/DC
10:20 AM

Sunny Afternoon
The Kinks
10:16 AM

Money
Pink Floyd
10:10 AM

Take the Money and Run
Steve Miller Band
10:07 AM

Lawyers, Guns and Money
Warren Zevon
10:04 AM

Taxman
The Beatles
10:02 AM

Start Me Up
The Rolling Stones

Ready for Love
Bad Company
9:46 AM

Election 2016 Sees Major Upheaval in Two-Party System

From Cathleen Decker, at LAT, "Strong Sanders and Trump runs reflect and inspire upheaval in Democratic and Republican parties":

Beyond the contentious backbiting of the presidential contest, the nation's major political parties are undergoing a dramatic and potentially long-lasting cultural shift.

Both of the outsider challengers — Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders — are campaigning in part against the parties they hope to lead. Both have gained much of their success from confounding what has been mainstream party thought for decades.

As the nominating battles move into their final phase, Sanders has yanked his party leftward — or, at a minimum, greatly hastened a change that was already underway. Trump has pushed against the Republican Party on issues as small as delegate selection and as large as foreign policy and brought with him ground troops to enforce his views. The second-place Republican, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has made a career of defying Republican leaders, even if Trump is now attacking him as part of the establishment.

The redefinition is occurring on a political landscape shaking from the continued aftershocks of the 2008 economic collapse. That territory has proved inhospitable, to different degrees, to more traditional politicians like Hillary Clinton and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, extending her nomination battle and blunting his candidacy.

"All things being equal, if you'd showed up from Mars you would think Hillary Clinton would have this wrapped up," said Lee Miringoff, a pollster at Marist College with long experience in presidential politics. "And you would have thought Kasich on paper would be stronger. But he's 1 for 30, and that was Ohio."

The lasting effect of the Great Recession is not the only force that has propelled the parties' movement. So, too, has the changing face of America. Among Democrats, a more youthful electorate has contributed to the success of Sanders' effort; among Republicans, blue-collar whites who in many cases feel threatened by the rise of other groups have powered Trump's campaign.

Tellingly, the outsider candidacies are in some cases sounding similar themes. Both Trump and Sanders, coming at it from opposite ideological sides, have pressed to reverse trade deals they say have gutted American manufacturing jobs. Both have called for other countries to begin paying more for the NATO military alliance. Both have criticized their respective parties for the way delegates, who will determine the nominations, are selected.

The lasting effect of the Great Recession is not the only force that has propelled the parties' movement. So, too, has the changing face of America. Among Democrats, a more youthful electorate has contributed to the success of Sanders' effort; among Republicans, blue-collar whites who in many cases feel threatened by the rise of other groups have powered Trump's campaign.

Tellingly, the outsider candidacies are in some cases sounding similar themes. Both Trump and Sanders, coming at it from opposite ideological sides, have pressed to reverse trade deals they say have gutted American manufacturing jobs. Both have called for other countries to begin paying more for the NATO military alliance. Both have criticized their respective parties for the way delegates, who will determine the nominations, are selected...

Notice that all of this upheaval does not augur a party realignment, but is perhaps a trend toward the deepening of decades-old tendencies toward partisan dealignment. It's really interesting.

More.

What Do Scientists Say About Climate Change?

At Prager University (via Truth Revolt).

It's Professor Richard Lindzen, who is reviled by the global warming alarmism industry for speaking too much sense, and having too much authority while he's at it.

Joby Warrick's Black Flags Wins Pulitzer for General Nonfiction

Boy, my reading list keeps getting longer, heh.

Check this Google link for all the Pulitzer coverage.

I hope to get to this one soon.

At Amazon, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS.

We're Gonna Win!

From Donald Trump's closing campaign stump speech in New York yesterday.

Epic is right.

Another fantastic "Winning!" screed by Trump to end his speech here in Buffalo. Says it or "win" 15 times here. pic.twitter.com/FaE4NaET8Z

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) April 19, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s Lead Narrows Among Democratic Primary Voters, Poll Says

This is pretty big.

From NBC News, via Memeorandum, "NBC/WSJ Poll: Clinton's National Lead Down to Two Points."

And from Janet Hook, at WSJ:

@AmPowerBlog most disagree, but I predict Sanders wins big & sends Dem into total turmoil. Get the popcorn

— Norman Gersman (@NormanGersman) April 18, 2016

Sen. Bernie Sanders has all but eliminated Hillary Clinton’s polling lead among Democratic voters nationwide, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has found, offering signs that she continues to struggle with the primary electorate at a time when she wanted to build strength for the general election.

Mr. Sanders for the first time is close to tying Mrs. Clinton, as 48% of Democratic primary voters picked him as their first choice for president, while 50% picked her. In a poll last month, Mrs. Clinton was ahead by nine percentage points, enjoying a 53%-to-44% edge.

A majority of states have already held their primary contests, and the Vermont senator’s surge in support likely comes too late for him to overcome Mrs. Clinton’s big lead in delegates to the summer nominating convention in Philadelphia. But the survey suggests that the long and bitter primary campaign has taken a toll on the former senator and secretary of state.

“As she is finishing this primary, she is not gaining strength,” said Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who conducted the survey with Democrat Fred Yang. “The cracks are showing, and she is losing strength.”

Mrs. Clinton’s saving grace is the weakness of her potential Republican opposition. The survey found that GOP front-runner Donald Trump would have a harder time consolidating his party behind him than she would hers. Some 38% of Republican primary voters said they couldn’t see themselves supporting the New York businessman, while 21% of Democrats said they couldn’t support Mrs. Clinton.

In a hypothetical general-election matchup, Mrs. Clinton outpolls Mr. Trump 50% to 39%, the survey found.

But for most voters, that would be a lesser-of-two-evils choice: 56% of both Trump and Clinton voters said their vote would be cast because they didn’t want the other candidate to win.

“For these voters, casting their ballot for president in 2016 is not about an idealistic vision of hope and change or a new day in America,” Mr. Yang said, “but, rather, a much more sober and pragmatic feeling as they check the box: It could be worse.”

Among Republicans, Mr. Trump has maintained his advantage as the field of candidates dwindled. He is the first choice of 40% of GOP primary voters, compared with 35% for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and 24% for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

But the poll would fuel his rivals’ argument that Mr. Trump would be the party’s weakest candidate against Mrs. Clinton in a general election: Mr. Cruz trails her by two points, 46% to 44%, in a hypothetical matchup, while Mr. Kasich outpolls her, 51% to 39%.

The two parties’ front-runners are making history with the negative feelings they inspire. The share of voters who feel negatively toward Mr. Trump, at 65%, or Mrs. Clinton, at 56%, is unprecedented for a major-party nominee. By comparison, President Barack Obama was viewed in a negative light by 43%, and Republican nominee Mitt Romney by 44%, at the end of the 2012 general-election campaign.

“America is on the path to electing the most unpopular president since 1948,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who also helped conduct the survey...

More.

'Feminism is ultimately about complete contempt for men, per se...'

At the Other McCain, "Feminism as Psychological Warfare (Because @FFigureFBust Asked)":

Notice how this is ultimately the punch line of all feminist "jokes"? https://t.co/acCm4tBGkR pic.twitter.com/yrujHynRzO

— FreeStacy (@Not_RSMcCain) April 18, 2016

Feminism is ultimately about complete contempt for men, per se. If you are a man, nothing you say is of interest to any feminist. Everything men do is bad and everything men say is wrong. This categorical certainty — the absolute moral and intellectual inferiority of males — is so commonly accepted among feminists that none of them ever question it, because they never even notice it, for the same reason fish don’t notice water.

$15 Minimum Wage Cruelty (VIDEO)

This is great.

Via ReasonTV:

Unraveling Emma Sky

She's the author of The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq.

And she's interviewed at Foreign Affairs. It's refreshing:

Patriotism Preps for a Comeback

From James Poulos, at Heat Street, "Making Patriotism Cool Again":

If Donald Trump is right about one thing, it’s that America doesn’t win enough. But aside from the obvious issue that we don’t want to live in a loser nation, there’s a follow-on problem even worse than the first. So many elites seem so phony and venal that patriotism has started to feel that way too. Exhibit A? Marco Rubio’s cheerful, red-blooded campaign tanked in the polls, even after he tried to spice it up with smackdowns. It goes downhill from there—as Trump himself makes painfully clear.

Fortunately, there’s good news. Even though Rubio’s fresh face was a false dawn, today’s rising generations are poised to do something even more important than making America great again. They’re going to make patriotism cooler—and more authentic in the bargain.

Now, there’s no doubt that trying to hype up classic and serious principles can lead to disaster. Everyone’s eyes roll when elites take a “hey, kids!” approach to citizenship, the Constitution, even the bare minimum of voting. Patriotically minded institutions can’t just save themselves.

Yet one of the many lines that has blurred away in our shadowy and uncertain times is the once-sturdy barrier between authentic cool and intentional cool. For Gen-Xers, that’s a bit of a shock. Even five years ago, it’s easy to guess, a musical theater production about the Revolutionary era would not have made anyone “down” with the Founders. Today, however, Hamilton is a runaway hit—precisely because it celebrates America in a deep way with a sharp edge, at a time when we’re all so hungry for that.

Of course, you can make a trend out of just about anything that sells, so get ready for hotshot director Zack Snyder to make good on his plans for a Washington movie in the kinetic, comic-book style of 300.

But Snyder’s scheme isn’t another one-off or part of a fleeting trend. It wasn’t so long ago that his lowbrow style would be seen as a hopeless mismatch with such highbrow material. For all the justifiable mockery aimed at our glut of superhero franchises, the flourishing graphic-novel trend that spawned them has actually done the culture a massive service: finding a way back to the sweet spot of middlebrow, which at its height—hello, Mad Max—can be as gripping, and potent a piece of art as opera or Shakespeare...

Keep reading.

Emilia Clarke for Vogue Australia May 2016 (VIDEO)

Photos at Drunken Stepfather, "VOGUE AUSTRALIA – MAY 2016."

She's a fabulous lady.