Deal of the Day: Ivation Electric Pressure Washer with Power Hose Nozzle Gun

At Amazon, Ivation Electric Pressure Washer 2200 PSI 1.8 GPM with Power Hose Nozzle Gun and Turbo Wand, All Parts Included, W/ Built in Soap Dispenser.

Plus, Save on Silhouette DIY Machines. More, Silhouette Cameo - Starter Bundle.

And, Tower Paddle Boards Adventurer 2 10'4: PACKAGE DEAL - New design includes front bungee, carrying handles on the nose and tail plus a 3 piece fiberglass paddle and pump; PORTABLE - Easy to store and transport; EXTREMELY RIGID - Weight limit of up to 350 lbs on the water. When fully inflated, it feels very similar to a hard board; 2-YEAR WARRANTY.

Also, from Jon A. Shields and Joshua M. Dunn Sr., Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University.

More, David Horowitz, One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy.

And, Kirsten Powers, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.

BONUS: Stuart Taylor, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.

U.S. Army Launches Investigation Into Free-Falling Humvees, Crashing to the Ground (VIDEO)

Definitely wild.

At USA Today, "Humvees dropped from sky smash to bits; Army investigating":

The 173rd Airborne Brigade is investigating what went wrong during an airborne drop that resulted in three Humvees free-falling to their destruction, as depicted in a widely-shared online video.

On April 11, the Army conducted a heavy drop and personnel airborne operation as part of exercise Saber Junction 16 at Hohenfels training area in Germany. About 150 supply bundles, vehicles, communications equipment and indirect weapons systems were dropped, according to Army spokesman Maj. Juan Martinez. But three Humvees slipped from their rigging as their parachutes deployed, plummeting hundreds of feet to the earth. Martinez said no one was hurt.

"The specific malfunctions that occurred on this day are under investigation," Martinez said in an email to Army Times. "There were multiple rehearsals and inspections of the equipment prior to mission execution. We cannot speculate on what went wrong until the investigation is complete."

Martinez also hinted at the severity of the issue, writing in a subsequent email that "this investigation will receive the highest priority."

The video, viewed more than 1 million times since U.S. Army W.T.F! moments posted it to Facebook, shows a couple of planes pass and drop their cargo without incident. The third plane's first item, one of the ill-fated vehicles, has its parachute deploy initially. But a few seconds after it leaves the aircraft, it slips free and falls off its platform.

Someone standing near the camera seems to instantly recognize what is happening, yelling "Ooo, Yeah! Yes!" as it slips. The person in the video laughs as the free-falling Humvee crashes into the ground and kicks up a cloud of smoke...

I've Finished Nicholas Stargardt's, The German War

It took me a little longer than I'd have liked, but I've finished Stargardt's masterful tome, The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945.

It's a phenomenal work using methods of the new social history, and applied to the Nazi regime it produces some pretty astounding revelations. Folks might read the review from MacGregor Knox, at WSJ, "The Reich Mind."

Impressive all around.

Austria's (Nationalist) Freedom Party Wins Handily in First Round of Presidential Election Vote (VIDEO)

Yes, the country's common sense Freedom Party is going to be smeared as "far-right" all the way up to the second round of voting, and don't be surprised to see leftist parties form alliances with so-called centrist "Christian Democrats" to block the election of Norbert Hofer. That's basically what happened in the recent French regional elections, with leftist and so-called center-right parties working together to stop Marine Le Pen's National Front.

At the Local, "FPÖ's Hofer wins 36.7% of vote, runoff likely":

Austria's anti-immigration far-right triumphed on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election, with candidates from the two governing parties failing to even make it into a May 22 runoff.

Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) won 36.7 of the vote, followed by Alexander van der Bellen backed by the Greens on 19.7 percent and independent candidate Irmgard Griss on 18.8 percent, projections showed.

From the governing coalition, Rudolf Hundstorfer from the Social Democrats (SPÖ) came joint fourth with just 11.2 percent, level with Andreas Khol from the People's Party (ÖVP).

The only candidate who fared worse than the main parties' candidates was Richard Lugner, an 83-year-old construction magnate and socialite married to a former Playboy model 57 years his junior, who won 2.3 percent.

The result, if confirmed, means that for the first time since 1945, Austria will not have a president backed by either the SPÖ or ÖVP.

Support for the two parties has been sliding for years and in the last general election in 2013 they only just garnered enough support to re-form Chancellor Werner Faymann's "grand coalition".

Austria also no longer has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union and Faymann's coalition, in power since 2008, has bickered over structural reforms.

The next general election is due in 2018. The FPÖ is currently leading national opinion polls with more than 30 percent of voter intentions, boosted by Europe's migrant crisis.

"This is the beginning of a new political era," FPÖ leader Heinz-Christian Strache said after what constitutes the best-ever result at federal level for the former party of the late, SS-admiring Joerg Haider...

More.

Yeah, progressives used to smear Jörg Haider as a Nazi back in the day, but he's having the last laugh from the grave now.

And here's the obligatory "far-right" headline at London's far-left Guardian, "Austrian far-right party wins first round of presidential election."

At the video above, notice how the screen-grab has Hofer raising his hand as in a Nazi salute - "Heil Hitler!"

You know, leftist fearmongering will only work so long. Across Europe you're seeing the nationalist backlash against the invasion of refu-jihadists and rape-fugees. Any time now a nationalist party is going to come to power in one of the leading European democracies, and there's going to be reckoning. Shoot, this could happen in Germany itself, the way Angela Merkel keeps doubling down on national surrender and suicide.

Deal of the Day: NordicTrack C 990 Treadmill

At Amazon, NordicTrack C 990 Treadmill: Stay in Control of your workout with a 7-Inch web-enabled touchscreen. Quickly view your speed, time, distance, calories burned, heart rate, incline, and decline on the large, easy-to-read display.

More, LifeStraw Personal Water Filter.

Plus, BLACK+DECKER MTC220 12-Inch Lithium Cordless 3-in-1 Trimmer/Edger and Mower, 20-volt (Battery-Powered).

And from Roger Kimball, Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education.

More, from Kim R. Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

Michael Walsh, The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West.

And Barry Rubin, Silent Revolution: How the Left Rose to Political Power and Cultural Dominance.

Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties.

BONUS: From Daniel Flynn, Why the Left Hates America: Exposing the Lies That Have Obscured Our Nation's Greatness.

Playboy Magazine: A First Look at Our April 2016 Cover with French Model Camille Rowe (VIDEO)

At Playboy, "A Visual Treat: Photos from Miss April 2016 Camille Rowe’s Pictorial." (More here.)

And watch, "Miss April 2016 Camille Rowe Looks Right at Home in Her Bunny Suit."

'Game of Thrones' Star Sophie Turner Attempts to Master Archery (VIDEO)

The new "Games of Thrones" season debuts tonight.

Meanwhile, via GQ, "Watch Sansa Stark Discover Her Inner Katniss Everdeen.

BONUS: "Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones Plays a Game of Wits (VIDEO)."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Theo's, "Cartoon Round Up..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – From Russia With Love."

Beware of Crazy Women in the Social Media Age

At the Other McCain, "Beware of Sex in the Social Media Age (Because the Internet Is Forever)":

So here we have Rosie, telling the world that she lives in North East Bedfordshire, where she is suffering from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder and — oh, by the way — she has vaginismus and was (allegedly) raped by Jason Lee Weight in June 2014.

Yeah, let’s just put that on the Internet, and also publish photos of yourself topless, Rosie. Because what could possibly go wrong?

Here’s a word parents need to teach their kids: “Crazy.”

What part of “crazy” do I need to explain here? The Internet is forever, boys and girls. Go ask former Rep. Anthony Weiner what he was thinking before he started sending photos of his penis to women. My old buddy Andrew Breitbart turned that into the biggest political story of 2011, and you might have thought former Rep. Anthony Weiner would have learned his lesson, but no, he got caught again in 2013 having some kind of perverted Internet fling with a sleazy admirer named Sydney Leathers.

My teenage sons got an earful of warnings after that. While I was reporting the breaking developments in the second WeinerGate scandal, it dawned on me that kids (and obviously, too many adults who should know better) are simply not thinking before they hit the “send” button on their text messages and emails. They are not thinking about the possible consequences of clicking the “publish” button on their social media accounts. Nor are people thinking about what they are doing in the real world in an age where everybody’s cellphone has a video camera, where anything a guy does in his dating relationships may become the subject of an online rant by an angry ex-girlfriend, where a guy meets a girl at a party and has what seems to him a consensual hookup only to discover, nearly two years later, that she’s telling the world that he’s a rapist.

Rosie’s account of that night is a classic “he-said/she-said” situation. Her story of that (allegedly) “horrific” June 2014 encounter seems entirely plausible, and Jason Lee Weight’s (alleged) behavior is indefensible. Rosie says she filed a report with police “a long time after” this encounter, but a lack of evidence made prosecution impossible. Because I am not a prosecutor or a detective or any sort of “activist,” however, the question of Jason Lee Weight’s guilt or innocence is not actually relevant to my point. Discussing this allegation in terms of “rape culture” is above my pay grade. What I am trying to do here, as a professional journalist, is to convey the reality of what sex means in the social media age. And what I am also trying to do, as a father of six, the youngest three of whom are teenagers, is to explain to parents, teachers and other responsible adults why young people must be warned very strongly about these dangers.

This is not 1977, the year I graduated high school. This is not 1983, the year I graduated college. It’s not 1989, the year I got married. Heck, it’s not even 2008, the year I left The Washington Times and embarked on a career as a freelance correspondent and blogger. Social media has exploded during the past decade, technology has advanced to the point where rapists are livestreaming their rapes on the Internet, where mass murderers publish their “manifestos” online before they commit their deadly rampages. What does this mean for “casual sex”? To quote the recently departed Prince: “Party over. Oops! Out of time.”

Welcome to 2016, boys and girls. There is no such thing as “privacy.”

Keep reading.

Setbacks Hobble U.S. Military Efforts in Iraq

Following-up from previously, "The Inherent Fallacy of Believing We Can Beat the Islamic State Without U.S. Ground Troops."

At the Los Angeles Times, "U.S. faces an uphill effort in helping build an Iraqi force that can retake Mosul":

As machine guns rattled Thursday from a nearby firing range, Iraqi recruits at this dusty base outside Baghdad trained on tactics, radios, firing mortars and tanks before a bevy of visiting Pentagon brass.

But off to the side, their trainers, mostly from Spain and Portugal, said the soldiers often show up late for training courses or don't show up at all.

"The last group we had here was a complete disaster," said Spanish army Maj. Ignacio "Nacho" Arias. "They would come and go without permission."

The troubles at this training base reflect broader difficulties in building an Iraqi ground force capable of pushing entrenched Islamic State fighters out of Mosul, the militants' self-declared capital in Iraq, a priority for the White House and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi's government.

The Pentagon announced in March 2015 that an Iraqi offensive on the strategic city was all but imminent. But those ambitious plans were repeatedly shelved as Iraqi troops struggled to push the militants out of smaller cities and towns.

Iraqi forces finally launched their long-delayed assault toward Mosul last month. It quickly stalled.

The sluggish pace has frustrated U.S. commanders and White House officials, who had hoped to recapture the heavily defended northern city and deal a decisive blow to the militants before President Obama leaves office in January.

Obama made it clear this week that he isn't very optimistic.

"My expectation is that by the end of the year, we will have created the conditions whereby Mosul will eventually fall," he said Monday in an interview with CBS News.

"We're not doing the fighting ourselves, but when we provide training, when we provide special forces who are backing them up, when we are gaining intelligence … what we've seen is we can continually tighten the noose," he added...

Actually, no.

We're not going to tighten the noose unless the U.S. commits to a substantially larger U.S. ground presence, and that's not likely to happen under this administration, and it might not happen under the next one.

But continue reading.

The Inherent Fallacy of Believing We Can Beat the Islamic State Without U.S. Ground Troops

From Kori Schake, at Foreign Policy, "No one — not Obama, Clinton, Trump, or Cruz — will dare to admit the obvious: We’re going to need to put boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria":

On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of 217 more troops to Iraq, as part of the fight against the Islamic State. As Secretary of Defense Ash Carter explained: “This will put Americans closer to the action.” Washington will also send Apache helicopters to Iraqi forces and pay $415 million in salaries for Kurdish troops and other “military needs” in the runup to retaking Mosul.

If you think this counts as getting tough in the fight against radical jihadis who have unsettled the Middle East and brought violence to the heart of Europe, you’re deluding yourself. Obama’s strategy for fighting the Islamic State is half-measures, at best: contributing U.S. military force at the margins of efforts by those most directly affected with loss of territory. The president prides himself on a minimalist approach, doing just about as much for Iraqi forces or the Syrian rebels as they could do for themselves. It amounts to an argument that he is preventing the moral hazard of other countries relying on the United States for their security. But that approach treats as costless two very important elements in fighting the Islamic State: confidence and time.

One of the emptiest canards in warfare is “there is no military solution.” Unless you fight to complete extermination, war always involves convincing your adversary to stop fighting. That is, to cede their political goals rather than continue using military force to attain them. Usually, that requires doing some fighting. Of course, adversaries tend not to give up if they think they’re winning or could win — which is why soldiers like the Powell Doctrine of committing large forces in order to demonstrate your political will to win.

It’s also why Obama’s incremental commitment of small numbers of troops — 300 advisors here, a specialized targeting team there — is so ineffective. It conveys the limits of Washington’s willingness to fight. The Islamic State, Bashar al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei all understand those limits and are acting accordingly. America’s allies get the message now, too, especially after the president wrote off Iraq and fought the war in Afghanistan halfheartedly. They will not step forward and commit the ground troops necessitated by Obama’s approach because they lack the confidence that Washington will see this difficult fight through...

A great piece.

Keep reading.

Hailey Clauson Answers Fast, Funny, and Provocative Questions While on Location in Beautiful Turks and Caicos (VIDEO)

She's so lovely.

Watch, at Sports Illustrated, SI Swimsuit Rapid Fire Questions Starring Cover Model Hailey Clauson."

At the click through, "Hailey Clauson In Nothing But Body Paint - Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2015 (VIDEO)."

Deal of the Day: 55% Off Select MonsterRax Overhead Garage Storage Racks

These are cool racks.

At Amazon, MonsterRAX Overhead Heavy Duty Garage Storage Rack , White, 4' x 8'/24". Also, MonsterRAX - 2x8 Overhead Garage Storage Rack (24"-45").

More, Up to 40% Off Select Pebble Smartwatches. Also, Pebble Time Round 14mm Smartwatch for Apple/Android Devices - Silver/Stone.

And, Popular Kindle Best Sellers.

Plus, from Ann Coulter, ¡Adios, America! The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole. (And, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.)

Still more, from Victor Davis Hanson, Mexifornia: A State of Becoming, and The Decline and Fall of California: From Decadence to Destruction (Kindle Edition).

BONUS: Mark Krikorian, The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal.

It's Nice to Take a Day

A day off from politics.

From Mister H on Twitter:

It's nice to take a day from politics & news, in general, to see the world isn't as bad as it sometimes seems.

— Mister H (@ATHudd) April 23, 2016

And also, at Althouse, "Redbud, bluebell."

Why China Won't Overtake the United States

Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth have a great new scholarly article out at International Security, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in the Twenty-First Century: China’s Rise and the Fate of America’s Global Position."

And the authors have a shorter version for policymakers and general readers, at Foreign Affairs, "The Once and Future Superpower":

In forecasts of China’s future power position, much has been made of the country’s pressing domestic challenges: its slowing economy, polluted environment, widespread corruption, perilous financial markets, nonexistent social safety net, rapidly aging population, and restive middle class. But as harmful as these problems are, China’s true Achilles’ heel on the world stage is something else: its low level of technological expertise compared with the United States’. Relative to past rising powers, China has a much wider technological gap to close with the leading power. China may export container after container of high-tech goods, but in a world of globalized production, that doesn’t reveal much. Half of all Chinese exports consist of what economists call “processing trade,” meaning that parts are imported into China for assembly and then exported afterward. And the vast majority of these Chinese exports are directed not by Chinese firms but by corporations from more developed countries.

When looking at measures of technological prowess that better reflect the national origin of the expertise, China’s true position becomes clear. World Bank data on payments for the use of intellectual property, for example, indicate that the United States is far and away the leading source of innovative technologies, boasting $128 billion in receipts in 2013—more than four times as much as the country in second place, Japan. China, by contrast, imports technologies on a massive scale yet received less than $1 billion in receipts in 2013 for the use of its intellectual property. Another good indicator of the technological gap is the number of so-called triadic patents, those registered in the United States, Europe, and Japan. In 2012, nearly 14,000 such patents originated in the United States, compared with just under 2,000 in China. The distribution of highly influential articles in science and engineering—those in the top one percent of citations, as measured by the National Science Foundation—tells the same story, with the United States accounting for almost half of these articles, more than eight times China’s share. So does the breakdown of Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine. Since 1990, 114 have gone to U.S.-based researchers. China-based researchers have received two.

Precisely because the Chinese economy is so unlike the U.S. economy, the measure fueling expectations of a power shift, GDP, greatly underestimates the true economic gap between the two countries. For one thing, the immense destruction that China is now wreaking on its environment counts favorably toward its GDP, even though it will reduce economic capacity over time by shortening life spans and raising cleanup and health-care costs. For another thing, GDP was originally designed to measure mid-twentieth-century manufacturing economies, and so the more knowledge-based and global­ized a country’s production is, the more its GDP underestimates its economy’s true size.

A new statistic developed by the UN suggests the degree to which GDP inflates China’s relative power. Called “inclusive wealth,” this measure represents economists’ most systematic effort to date to calculate a state’s wealth. As a UN report explained, it counts a country’s stock of assets in three areas: “(i) manufactured capital (roads, buildings, machines, and equipment), (ii) human capital (skills, education, health), and (iii) natural capital (sub-soil resources, ecosystems, the atmosphere).” Added up, the United States’ inclusive wealth comes to almost $144 trillion—4.5 times China’s $32 trillion.

The true size of China’s economy relative to the United States’ may lie somewhere in between the numbers provided by GDP and inclusive wealth, and admittedly, the latter measure has yet to receive the same level of scrutiny as GDP. The problem with GDP, however, is that it measures a flow (typically, the value of goods and services produced in a year), whereas inclusive wealth measures a stock. As The Economist put it, “Gauging an economy by its GDP is like judging a company by its quarterly profits, without ever peeking at its balance-sheet.” Because inclusive wealth measures the pool of resources a government can conceivably draw on to achieve its strategic objectives, it is the more useful metric when thinking about geopolitical competition.

But no matter how one compares the size of the U.S. and Chinese economies, it is clear that the United States is far more capable of converting its resources into military might. In the past, rising states had levels of technological prowess similar to those of leading ones. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for example, the United States didn’t lag far behind the United Kingdom in terms of technology, nor did Germany lag far behind the erstwhile Allies during the interwar years, nor was the Soviet Union backward technologically compared with the United States during the early Cold War. This meant that when these challengers rose economically, they could soon mount a serious military challenge to the dominant power. China’s relative technological backwardness today, however, means that even if its economy continues to gain ground, it will not be easy for it to catch up militarily and become a true global strategic peer, as opposed to a merely a major player in its own neighborhood...

More.

The 'Islamophobia' Scam (VIDEO)

Via Jihad Watch, "Video: Robert Spencer explains the “Islamophobia” scam."

Reince Priebus Calls on GOP to Unite Behind Eventual Nominee

And of course he means Donald Trump.

At NYT, "Reince Priebus Calls on G.O.P. to Back Nominee, Even if It’s You-Know-Who":

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The head of the Republican National Committee implored leaders of his sharply divided party on Friday to rally behind their eventual presidential nominee, suggesting that they ignore Donald J. Trump’s assault on the nominating process.

Reince Priebus, the committee’s chairman, did not mention Mr. Trump by name when addressing the group’s members at the party’s spring meeting here, but he devoted much of his speech to the tensions created by the Republican front-runner.

“Now I know our candidates are going to say some things to attract attention,” Mr. Priebus said, in a barely veiled reference to Mr. Trump’s attacks on what he has called “a rigged” and “corrupt” nominating process.

“That’s part of politics,” Mr. Priebus said. “But we all need to get behind the nominee.”

Mr. Trump is not the nominee yet, but his considerable advantage in delegates and lead in overall votes has prompted some mainstream Republicans to come to terms with the likelihood that he is the favorite, however unthinkable it may once have been, to become their standard-bearer this fall.

Yet the lingering split between those Republicans willing to accept Mr. Trump, however reluctantly, and those ferociously opposed to his nomination was on vivid display at the beachside resort where the party gathered.

While Mr. Priebus was speaking to state chairmen and chairwomen and committee members in a second-floor ballroom, officials from the best-funded anti-Trump group were briefing reporters a floor below about its efforts to deny Mr. Trump delegates in the remaining contests and keep him from clinching a majority before the party’s convention in Cleveland in July.

More to the point, Katie Packer, the chairwoman of the group, Our Principles PAC, rejected Mr. Priebus’s implicit suggestion that Mr. Trump was worthy of carrying the party’s banner...

Keep reading.

Ivanka Trump Shows Off Post-Baby Body Less Than One Month After Giving Birth

She's a great lady.

At London's Daily Mail, "Got it, flaunt it! Ivanka Trump shows off her svelte post-baby body in a figure-hugging white dress less than a month after giving birth to her son Theodore James."

The Dictatorship of Virtue

At Amazon, from Richard Bernstein, Dictatorship of Virtue: How the Battle over Multiculturalism Is Reshaping Our Schools, Our Country, and Our Lives.

Also, from Roger Kimball, Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education.

More, from Kim R. Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left.

Michael Walsh, The Devil's Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West.

And Barry Rubin, Silent Revolution: How the Left Rose to Political Power and Cultural Dominance.

BONUS: Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties.

Donald Trump's Campaign Tells Republican Leaders He's Been 'Projecting an image...'

Following-up from previously, "Donald Trump Escalates 'Gender-Neutral' Bathroom Debate."

At AP, "Trump team tells GOP he has been ‘projecting an image’" (via Memeorandum):

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump's chief lieutenants told skeptical Republican leaders Thursday that the GOP front-runner has been "projecting an image" so far in the 2016 primary season and "the part that he's been playing is now evolving" in a way that will improve his standing among general election voters.

The message, delivered behind closed doors in a private briefing, is part of the campaign's intensifying effort to convince party leaders Trump will moderate his tone in the coming months to help deliver big electoral gains this fall, despite his contentious ways.

Even as his team pressed Trump's case, he raised fresh concern among some conservatives by speaking against North Carolina's "bathroom law," which directs transgender people to use the bathroom that matches the sex on their birth certificates. Trump also came out against the federal government's plan to replace President Andrew Jackson with the civil-rights figure Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

The developments came as the GOP's messy fight for the White House spilled into a seaside resort in south Florida. While candidates in both parties fanned out across the country before important primary contests in the Northeast, Hollywood's Diplomat Resort & Spa was transformed into a palm-treed political battleground.

Trump's newly hired senior aide, Paul Manafort, made the case to Republican National Committee members that Trump has two personalities: one in private and one onstage.

"When he's out on the stage, when he's talking about the kinds of things he's talking about on the stump, he's projecting an image that's for that purpose," Manafort said in a private briefing.

"You'll start to see more depth of the person, the real person. You'll see a real different guy," he said.

The Associated Press obtained a recording of the closed-door exchange...

More.

Donald Trump Escalates 'Gender-Neutral' Bathroom Debate

Heh.

He's totally unpredictable. He said he didn't care what restroom Caitlyn Jenner uses at the Trump Tower, which is kind of going against all the conservative angst this last week or so over North Carolina's transgender legislation.

At Politico, "GOP culture war breaks out over transgender bathrooms: Trump escalates debate with his own shrug on an issue that has the GOP in fits":

Donald Trump says Caitlyn Jenner can use whatever bathroom she prefers in Trump Tower https://t.co/fGk0712mzz pic.twitter.com/XA8CdoPfOK

— CNN (@CNN) April 21, 2016

GOP culture war breaks out over transgender bathrooms https://t.co/6OiShWhsZ2 | Getty pic.twitter.com/NT9u1rVosW

— POLITICO (@politico) April 21, 2016

Donald Trump on Thursday freshly exposed the fissures dividing the Republican Party by responding to the transgender bathroom wars with a shrug — setting off a fierce response from Ted Cruz who accused the Republican front-runner of being no better than the “politically correct leftist elites.”

The latest front in the culture wars is now a bathroom stall. The raging debate over whether transgender people should be forced to use bathrooms of their gender at birth is acutely playing out within the GOP, and it’s now become a central topic on the presidential campaign trail.

Social conservatives see Big Business — once a close ally — becoming a pawn of the left, joining forces to convince Republican governors that anti-LGBT bills will kill their economy. Some more moderate Republicans, on the other hand, once again see the party picking divisive fights that will hurt them at the ballot box.

For Trump, the consummate businessman, it’s the chance to highlight the identity crisis of his adopted party.

“I will tell you. North Carolina did something that was very strong. And they’re paying a big price. There’s a lot of problems,” Trump observed on NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday, saying that he agreed with remarks from a commentator he did not name who said North Carolina should leave its laws as they are.

Alluding to businesses that have left the state or canceled plans to expand after North Carolina passed a law in March banning transgender people from using the facilities of their choice, Trump called it reason enough to “leave it the way it is.”

“There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go. They use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate,” Trump said. “There has been so little trouble. And the problem with what happened in North Carolina is the strife and the economic — I mean, the economic punishment that they’re taking.”

Sensing a chance to expose Trump as a phony Republican, Cruz pounced. He talked about Trump’s comment on Glenn Beck’s radio show. He talked about it at his morning rally. And then, for good measure, he issued a statement...

More.

Here's Drunken Stepfather: 'STEPLINKS OF THE DAY'

I'm always a little beat by this time on Thursdays.

I probably haven't had enough sleep for the week (I'm up at 5:15am on T-TH). And I'm done with my four-day stretch of teaching.

So, Here's Drunken Stepfather to get things off the ground for end-of-the-week blogging and into the Full Metal Weekend.

See, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY: Girls Not Wearing Bras – Showing Off Nipples (And More)."

BONUS: At Egotastic!, "'Game of Thrones' Red Head Hottie Sophie Turner Cleavage," and "Sara Sampaio Amazing Bikini Model."

'Take the Long Way Home'

From Tuesday afternoon's drive-time, at the Sound L.A.

I used to love Supertramp's "Breakfast in America." Actually, the album was a hit when I was getting into punk rock, so I pretty much dissed the record. But then in the summer of '79 I was on vacation at June Lake, and I was hiking around and I didn't have a Walkman or anything, and these construction guys were putting the frame up on a house with a boom box blaring the whole album. I was jonesin' for some tunes that week, because I was on vacation with my buddy's family (and it was a pretty structured situation), and I just sat on the side of the construction site and listened. I'll never forget that. I thought I didn't even like Supertramp, but I did.

Won't Get Fooled Again
The Who
5:10 PM

Young Americans
David Bowie
5:05 PM

I Want You to Want Me (Live)
Cheap Trick
4:53 PM

Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
Journey
4:48 PM

Miss You
The Rolling Stones
4:43 PM

The Boys of Summer
Don Henley

Take The Long Way Home
Supertramp
4:24 PM

American Girl
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
4:20 PM

Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen
Santana
4:15 PM

Beautiful Day
U2
4:08 PM

Black Water
The Doobie Brothers

Mother's Day Gifts

At Amazon, Shop - Mother's Day Store.

BONUS: From Helen Smith, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters.

Mexico's Baja California Won't Ban Bullfighting for Now

As soon as I started reading this piece I was reminded that my dad used to take me and my sisters to see the bull fights in Mexico. My younger sister and I used to mimic the Mexicans yelling their Spanish shout outs, Olé!!

At LAT, "Mexican state of Baja California balks, again, at banning bullfighting":

Fifteen minutes into a heated session on whether bullfighting should be banned in Baja California, legislator David Ruvalcaba proposed that the fate of the controversial but financially attractive sport needed further study.

Immediately the boos rang out, and half the crowded walked out.

For the third time this year, the Congress of the Mexican state of Baja California blinked in the face of banning a sport that has deep cultural roots in Mexico but is increasingly viewed as animal cruelty.

On Thursday, 12 legislators voted for the delay, eight opposed it and two abstained. And like that, bullfighting season will indeed begin Sunday in Tijuana.

Though they have repeatedly chosen not to vote on the issue, legislators here bristled at the notion, put forward by the bullfighting lobby, that the state does not have the power to regulate the sport.

“Of course we have the power to regulate the sport,” said legislator Juan Manuel Molina, though he allowed that that power carried the responsibility of exploring the ban further.

“It's a matter of culture and a matter of belief, but it's also a matter of humanity,” Molina said. “The spectacle is cruel.”

But Molina questioned how it was possibly fair to ban bullfighting while allowing other sports that claim Mexican heritage, such as cockfighting and the rodeo.

Animal rights groups have presented signature campaigns, celebrity endorsements and polls that purport to indicate overwhelming opposition to bullfighting as part of a public campaign against the sport, which has its roots in Spain and has been banned in some Latin American countries.

Bullfighting is increasingly unpopular in Mexico, according to the polling firm Parametria. In a 2015 poll, 73% of Mexican citizens supported a nationwide ban.

The Mexican states of Sonora and Coahuila, which border the U.S., have banned bullfighting, as has the southern state of Guerrero. But the sport remains popular in the capital, Mexico City, where the Plaza de Toros Mexico seats 48,000 spectators, the largest bull ring in the world.

On Sunday in Tijuana, the largest city in Baja California, the event will feature a rejoneador, a bullfighter on horseback, for the first bullfight of the season.

Built next to the sea and nearly adjacent to the border wall that separates it from California, the Tijuana bullfight ring is designed to appeal to Americans, even extending special offers to San Diego tourists: For a minimum of $200, guests will be whisked to the grounds of a winery on Saturday for a “Toros and Vino Event” that will feature two hours of private bullfights and a return trip across the border before the main event on Sunday.

If the ban is successful, the nearest bull ring near the Southwest border would be Chihuahua's La Esperanza...

 More.

Fresh Evidence Links Saudi Government to 9/11

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Flight Certificate of Would-Be Bomber Found in Embassy Envelope Buried Underground."

Judith Miller, 'I took America to war in Iraq. It was all me...'

Here's Judy Miller for Prager University, in a really outstanding video:

White Students Fear for Their Lives on Colleges Campuses

This is no joke.

See Jillian Kay Melchior, at Heat Street:

During protests, #Mizzou staffer feared walking on campus. @heatstreet has the exclusive: https://t.co/2oFStT2LBU pic.twitter.com/j57nvZYqWV

— Jillian Melchior (@JillianKayM) April 20, 2016

500 Migrants May Have Died After Boat Sinks in Mediterranean (VIDEO)

That's a horrific toll.

At Time, "500 Feared Dead After Migrant Boat Sinks in Mediterranean."

David Horowitz Replies to Slander

At FrontPage Magazine, "REPLY TO SLANDER":

Being defamed by a UCLA Vice Chancellor for defending the Jews.

Today a letter attacking me was sent to all members of the UCLA community – that would be nearly 50,000 people I think – by Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Jerry Kang. The Vice Chancellor’s letter attacked me as a “provocateur” who last year “put up hostile posters accusing two student organizations — the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — of being murderers and terrorists.” This is a lie.

Actually it is two lies. First, the posters posted last year targeted only Students for Justice in Palestine – not the Muslim Students Association. Kang obviously included MSA so that he could condemn me for employing what he called a “tactic of guilt by association, of using blacklists, of ethnic slander, and sensationalized images engineered to trigger racially-tinged fear.” (Calling people you don’t agree with racist seems to be a favored gutter tactic of activists on campuses like UCLA these days.)

Second the posters did not accuse SJP of being an organization of murderers and terrorists, as the Vice Chancellor claims. They accused SJP of being “Jew-haters” because they support the murderers and terrorists of Hamas, which they do. That is why the only words on the posters were “Students for Justice in Palestine” and “#Jew Haters.” In a public statement I also called on UCLA to remove the campus privileges and university funding of SJP because they are a hate group and their activities routinely violate UCLA’s “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance,” which Vice Chancellor Kang professes to champion.

Kang then accused me of compounding these sins by conducting a new poster campaign – launched yesterday - called “Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus.” The new posters listed the names of UCLA student and faculty activists who support SJP and BDS – the Hamas-inspired boycott movement, designed to strangle the Jewish state. Kang’s letter calls the posters “a focused, personalized intimidation that threatens specific members of our Bruin community.” There is no intimidation on the posters, just a list of names of activists who support SJP and BDS. Nonetheless, Kang went on to elaborate “if your name is plastered around campus, casting you as a murderer or terrorist, how could you stay focused on anything like learning, teaching, or research?” But the posters don’t cast those listed on them as murderers and terrorists, just activists from Students for Justice in Palestine who supported the BDS boycott campaign. BDS has been denounced by figures as liberal as Alan Dershowitz and Larry Summers as anti-Semitic. Kang sent a personal letter of support to all those named as activists in behalf of these anti-Semitic campaigns. He then went on to lecture everybody about diversity, tolerance and inclusion.

This disgraceful performance by a top university official demands a retraction and apology from the University of California and some serious reflection by Vice Chancellor Kang about the hateful content of his letter and the focused, personalized intimidation directed at myself and all those involved in putting up posters he happens to disagree with.

More.

Angry Protests Over Los Angeles Unified School District's Transgender Restroom Policy (VIDEO)

At KABC News 7 Los Angeles, "STUDENTS, PROTESTERS FIGHT OUTSIDE LA SCHOOL WITH GENDER-NEUTRAL BATHROOM."

Federal Appeals Court Rules in Favor of Transgender Student in Virginia Restroom Case

Like I've said, it's a transgender tipping point.

See Darleen Click, at Protein Wisdom, "Federal Court rules that biological sex is a myth":

Black is white; up is down; and ….

“You are a slow learner, Winston,” said O’Brien gently.

“How can I help it?” he blubbered. “How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”

“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.” (“1984” Orwell)

Jackie Johnson's Cooler but Pleasant Forecast

It's not too bad at all this week.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Katherine Heigle Wears Tight Black Shiny Pants with Stiletto Heels and Tailored Black Jacket Over Lacy Top in New York

She went on the Howard Stern Show on SiriusXM yesterday in New York.

She had some regrets.

At London's Daily Mail, "'I needed therapy': Katherine Heigl was left 'embarrassed' and shaken after infamous Emmy drama that soured her Grey's Anatomy career."

Former Red Sox Ace Curt Schilling Fired by ESPN for Transgender Comments on Facebook

Boy, talk about the transgender tipping point.

Moonbattery nails it, "Curt Schilling Commits More Thought Crime on Social Media."

The homosexual fascists were out for blood, at Outsports ("Outsports"?), via Memeorandum, "This is ESPN's Curt Schilling's disgusting view of transgender people."

More at NYT, via Memeorandum, "ESPN Fires Curt Schilling Over an Offensive Social Media Post."

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.

Deal of the Day: SINGER 3232 Simple Sewing Machine

At Amazon, SINGER 3232 Simple Sewing Machine with Automatic Needle Threader.

Plus, Up to 60% off select Belkin surge protectors, and Belkin 12 Outlet Home/Office Surge Protector with 10-Foot cord and Phone/Ethernet/Coaxial Protection plus Extended Cord.

Also, Up to 60% off Cuisinart.

And, from Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women.

Still more, recommended by R.S. McCain, Mimi Marinucci, Feminism Is Queer: The Intimate Connection between Queer and Feminist Theory - Expanded Edition.

BONUS: From Robert Stacy McCain, Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature.

Donald Trump Assails ‘Rigged’ Delegate System, Saying He Chooses Not to Exploit It (VIDEO)

Interesting thing is that all of Trump's bitchin' might actually work, heh.

At NYT:

Insisting that the delegate selection process is “corrupt and crooked,” Donald J. Trump offered a vivid example on Sunday to prove his point.

Imagine being wooed by Mr. Trump.

“Look, nobody has better toys than I do,” he told reporters at a hotel on Staten Island, where he pressed his case that the system was rigged against him. “I can put them in the best planes and bring them to the best resorts anywhere in the world.”

But Mr. Trump said that was unseemly.

“You’re basically buying these people,” he added. “You’re basically saying, ‘Delegate, listen, we’re going to send you to Mar-a-Lago on a Boeing 757, you’re going to use the spa, you’re going to this, you’re going to that, we want your vote.’ That’s a corrupt system.”

Mr. Trump’s comments were the latest salvo in an escalating war against the Republican National Committee over how delegates were being selected in the presidential race.

On Sunday, two days before New York’s primaries, Mr. Trump was the only Republican presidential candidate to campaign in the state, where polls showed him with a wide lead.

During his visit to Staten Island, a stronghold of his support, he accepted an award from the New York Veteran Police Association and spoke at a party brunch. At a rally in Poughkeepsie, he berated party officials once again...

More (via Memeorandum.)

Feminism vs. Fauxminism

Via Heat Street:

Feminism vs. Fauxminism--great new piece by @CathyYoung63 https://t.co/sZ0nHgXPWC

— Christina H. Sommers (@CHSommers) April 18, 2016