Space Shuttle External Tank Makes Long Slow Trip Through Streets of Los Angeles (VIDEO)

Following-up from previously, "Space Shuttle External Tank Arrives in Marina del Rey (VIDEO)."

Heh, this is really cool.

At LAist, "Photos: Giant Space Shuttle Fuel Tank Makes Its Way Through the Streets of L.A."

And check California Science Center on Twitter.

Russia Today Reporter Anna Baranova Attacked by Cowardly Masked Anarchist in Paris (VIDEO)

And actually, I'm not sure why one of the camera crew didn't go tackle that black bloc coward. They just let him get away with assault.

That is a shame.

ICYMI: Heather Mac Donald, The War on Cops

I've basically got a smorgasbord of books going right now, which is kinda fun, compared to the series of big tomes I read starting in January. But I've got to buckle down and finish some of these books I've got going, since there's some really good stuff in the pipeline.

At the top of the list is Heather Mac Donald's, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

How Gender Dysphoric Bathroom Access Became the Next Frontier in America's Culture Wars

Heh.

This issue shouldn't even be a thing. But leave it to leftists. For them, it's permanent revolution. There's never enough "progress."

At NYT, "Transgender Americans See Their Personal Battle Become a National Showdown":

.@nytimes Leftists rammed their postmodern gender dysphoria crap down our throats? #LGBTyranny

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 21, 2016

How a clash over bathrooms, an issue that appeared atop no national polls, became the next frontier in America’s fast-moving culture wars — and ultimately landed on the desk of the president — involves an array of players, some with law degrees, others still in high school.

The sweeping directive to public schools seemed to come out of nowhere. In fact, it was the product of years of study inside the government and a highly orchestrated campaign by advocates for gay and transgender people. Mindful of the role “Whites Only’’ bathrooms played in the civil rights battles of more than half a century ago, they have been maneuvering behind the scenes to press federal agencies, and ultimately Mr. Obama, to address a question that has roiled many school districts: Should those with differing anatomies share the same bathrooms?

The lobbying came to a head, according to people who were involved, in a hastily called April 1 meeting between top White House officials — led by Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser and one of his closest confidantes — and national leaders of the gay and transgender rights movement. North Carolina had just become the first state to explicitly bar transgender people from using the bathrooms of their choice.

“Transgender students are under attack in this country,” said Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based advocacy group that is active on the issue, summing up the message he sought to convey to Ms. Jarrett that day. “They need their federal government to stand up for them.”

Ms. Jarrett and her team, he said, listened politely, but “did not reveal much,” including the fact that a legal directive on transgender rights that had been in the works for months was about to be released.

When — or precisely how — Mr. Obama personally weighed in is not clear; the White House would not provide specifics. But two days before that meeting, scores of advocacy groups sent Mr. Obama a private letter, appealing to his sense of history as he nears the end of his presidency, in which he has already advanced gay and transgender rights on multiple fronts.

“Too many students — including every single transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming student in North Carolina — will go to sleep tonight dreading the next school day,” the groups wrote, telling him that “your legacy will be defined by the tone you have set and the personal leadership you have shown on these issues.”

The dispute in Palatine came amid increasing confusion for school districts over how to handle questions about bathroom access for transgender students. Officials at the Department of Education said it had received hundreds of requests for guidance — so many that advocates for gay and transgender rights, frustrated by the Obama administration’s failure to issue specific policy guidelines, decided to act on their own.

In August, several groups seeking protection for transgender people — including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Education Association and the National Center for Lesbian Rights — issued a 68-page guide for schools, hoping to provide a blueprint for the White House.

At the Department of Education, Catherine E. Lhamon, 44, a former civil rights litigator who runs the agency’s Office of Civil Rights — and has made aggressive use of a federal nondiscrimination law known as Title IX — was taking the lead. The department’s ruling in favor of Student A in November was the first time it had found any school district in violation of civil rights over transgender issues.

For Student A, the federal intervention has been life changing. Her mother, who requested anonymity to protect the privacy of her daughter, said she was close to finishing her junior year and had just gone to the prom with a group of friends. (She wore a “nice, expensive dress” with a lot of sparkles, her mother said.) Student A is starting to think about which college she might attend.

“She’s in her own teenaged world right now,” her mother said.

The ruling in Palatine reverberated across the Midwest. In the South Dakota Legislature, Republicans were so alarmed by the situation in Palatine that, in February, they passed a measure restricting bathroom access for transgender students — similar to the one that later became law in North Carolina. Opponents sent transgender South Dakotans to meet with Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican, and they believe that influenced his veto of the bill.

Among the visitors was Kendra Heathscott, who was 10 when she first met Mr. Daugaard, then the executive director of a social services organization that treats children with behavioral problems. In his office to lobby against the bathroom measure, she reintroduced herself. “He remembered me as a little boy,” she said.

In Wisconsin last year, another Republican-sponsored bathroom bill began to work its way through the Legislature, but was beaten back by transgender rights activists, many of them teenagers.

In rural north-central Florida, a retired veterinarian and cattle rancher named Harrell Phillips was alarmed one evening in March, when his 17-year-old son reported over dinner that he had encountered a transgender boy in the high school bathroom.

“I marched myself down to the principal,” said Dr. Phillips, who believes that “you are born into a sex that God chose you to be.”

The principal, and later the school superintendent, citing advice from lawyers, said there was nothing they could do. So Dr. Phillips turned to his best friend, a lawyer in Jacksonville, who introduced him to Roger Gannam of Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based Christian organization. Mr. Gannam represented Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses last year.

Mr. Gannam had just helped block a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance in Jacksonville, with an argument religious conservatives have been lately using to powerful effect: It would endanger women and young girls by allowing men — and even sexual predators — to pose as transgender and enter women’s bathrooms.

Ocala, where Dr. Phillips’s son attends school, is now embroiled in a fight much like the one that engulfed Palatine. The school board, at Mr. Gannam’s prodding, voted in April to require transgender students to use bathrooms that correspond with their biological sex.

One transgender young man there has been suspended for using the boys’ bathroom. The A.C.L.U. of Florida sued the day before the White House issued its directive, and last Sunday night, transgender activists and their allies held a strategy session in a church — with a sheriff’s deputy standing guard outside because attendees feared for their safety.

“It’s separate but equal, so they might as well put black and white up on the bathrooms, too,” said Beth Miller, the mother of 17-year-old Mathew Myers, formerly Madison, an R.O.T.C. student in Ocala who came out as transgender this fall by asking his sergeant to permit him to switch from a women’s uniform to one for men. The sergeant accommodated Mathew on the uniform, but the school required him to use the gender-neutral bathroom in the nurse’s office.

“I go to the guy’s bathroom all the time out in public, and no one cares,” Mathew said.

It's not "separate but equal," and it's a national disgrace, and rape of history, for leftists to appropriate the legacy of Jim Crow and slavery to push the homosexual and gender dysphoric licentiousness.

Still more.

Two Horses Die in Early Races of Preakness Saturday

And a jockey broke a collarbone.

It's a rough sport, man.

At WSJ:

Two horses die and jockey injured in early Preakness races https://t.co/mDGqVcUtDG

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 21, 2016

Kristen Keogh's Cool Saturday Forecast

It's cooler than normal temperatures, and the fact is we'll be heading into the normal June gloom pretty soon, so expect more of this.

At ABC News 10 San Diego:

Obama's Transgender Bathroom Guidance Totalitarianism

From USA Today's "Q & A" on the administration's "transgender bathroom guidance":

Q: What other federal rules govern the treatment of transgender students?

A: The guidance released Friday also addressed other issues and wrapped up a number of less formal interpretations that the Department of Education has made about transgender students. For example:

• Teachers and staff cannot use a transgender student's birth name or pronoun, and school records must reflect the student's chosen name and gender identity. The Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1972 gives parents the right to challenge inaccurate records.

• Schools with sex-segregated accommodations on overnight field trips must allow transgender students to sleep with students of their chosen gender. Like bathrooms, schools can offer single-occupancy sleeping rooms, but they may not require transgender students to use them unless all students have access to them.

• Athletic teams are allowed to segregate by sex — especially for contact sports — as long as they provide equal opportunities for both sexes. The guidance allows for discrimination based on standards of fair play, but those standards cannot "rely on overly broad generalizations or stereotypes" about transgender students, or be based solely on teammates being uncomfortable with their participation.

• School-sponsored extracurricular activities and social events — such as yearbook photos, school dances and graduation ceremonies — must allow transgender students to dress and participate according to their gender identity.

And see Laurie Higgins, at the Illinois Family Institute, "Emperor Obama Mandates Co-Ed Restrooms - and More":

As I have written ad nauseum, this issue is not centrally about restrooms. It is centrally about the reality and meaning of sex differences, which the left seeks to eradicate. (Ironically, when homosexuals claim they are attracted only to persons of the same sex, they affirm and emphasize the reality of sexual differentiation. The left, however, is rarely constrained by foolish inconsistency.)

The left’s disbelief in the twoness of the sexes defies objective reality. The left’s belief that subjective feelings about objective maleness or femaleness must trump objective maleness and femaleness in every context from potties to pronouns is a philosophical, political, moral, and theological assumption—not an objective fact. And it’s certainly not true.

This, my friends, is something wicked.

Alessandra Ambrosio in Cannes

At London's Daily Mail, "Alessandra Ambrosio goes braless in Cannes."

Also, "FYI Alessandra Ambrosio, we love you!"

Plus, a photo from the lady's Twitter feed:

Blue jean baby....L.A. lady.... 🎶🌾 📷: @jerome_duran pic.twitter.com/Rt6f3zdn0q

— Alessandra Ambrosio (@AngelAlessandra) May 20, 2016

The America We Once Knew Is Over and It Ain't Coming Back

Mike at Cold Fury's got the beat on the vital importance of Donald Trump's campaign, "Clarification":

It’s my own personal belief that America That Was was forever lost—thrown away, rather—long ago anyway, and there ain’t no bringing it back short of catastrophic upheaval and, most likely, bloodshed. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of Americans today don’t want it brought back. We’re a nation of ignoramuses and soft dupes, content to allow itself to be misgoverned by knaves, crooks, grifters, and con artists, of which the Republicrats are merely the other side of a very mean coin indeed. Reversing course on the path we’re currently on will never be accomplished by mere voting. If that was possible, voting would be illegal. As it is, it’s been rendered mostly irrelevant.

RTWT.

If you're a Republican voting for Hillary, you're no conservative.

And Mike's been down for Trump since Day One of the campaign. Check the archives for more.

Googe Doodle Honors Marxist Anti-American Yuri Kochiyama

When I first saw the doodle, I searched (Googled) Yuri Kochiyama and found out she was a rather reprehensible America-hating leftist. I was at work, though, and couldn't worry about it too much at the time. Lo and behold, though, this horrible woman's loathsome ideological background didn't go unnoticed. Lots of folks spoke out against her, particularly the part about how she endorsed Osama bin Laden as a great revolutionary hero.

In any case, Sara Hoyt posted on this that night, at Instapundit, "GOOGLE, BEING EVIL: Today Google is celebrating Yuri Kochyiama’s birthday."

And now here's more from Ed Driscoll, also at Instapundit, "HATING AMERICA AT GOOGLE: Yuri Kochiyama and the strange case of her being honored with a Google splash page on Thursday for her 95th birthday are explored by Jonathan S. Tobin at Commentary...":

"Remember that consciousness is power" - Yuri Kochiyama https://t.co/BfCF6060MT #GoogleDoodle #freedomfighter pic.twitter.com/AEh0suSUhj

— Global Fund forWomen (@GlobalFundWomen) May 19, 2016

As the Washington Free Beacon notes, a sympathetic biography of Kochiyama, Heartbeat of Struggle by Diane Carol Fujino, reveals that she didn’t so much sympathize with American Muslims as support the 9/11 attackers. While all decent people should sympathize with her experience during World War Two, it turned her against this country in a way that caused her to embrace radical Marxism and to support anyone who attacked America, including bin Laden. She came to believe that “the main terrorist and the main enemy of the world’s people is the U.S. government.” She also said, “I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire. To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire.”

What is most curious about the decision to honor Kochiyama is that the Google page about her noted that she was honored during March — which is Women’s History Month — by the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. So the Obama administration has as many questions to answer about this as Google.

At this late date, are there any questions left as to what Obama — and his allies at Google — think about the nation that naively entrusted them with so much power?

Now that is noteworthy, but not surprising at all. Americans elected an America-hating president in 2008, and reelected him in 2012. It's hate all the way down from the left, and this year's campaign is becoming a referendum on whether or not conservatives are willing to confront the left's ideological evil head on.

For more, go directly to Jonathan Tobin's Commentary piece, "Hating America at Google":

Yuri Kochiyama benefited from America’s freedoms and ultimately even saw the cause that affected her family — the internment issue — resolved in her favor. She agitated for many causes, some of which may have been just and others that were violent and destructive. Indeed, her biography shows backing for a laundry list of every ragtag radical anti-American, racialist, and pro-terror group to emerge after World War Two. She may have a place in the history of radicalism and even a footnote in the story of American women. But a woman who celebrated the mass murder of Americans and the admired the people who plotted that crime is not someone who should be celebrated or considered a role model for women, Asian Americans, or anyone else.

May 19th may have been Yuri Kochiyama’s birthday, but it should also have been the day that some of us started thinking a little differently about Google.

Well, that's for sure. As I tweeted:

Heh, sweet spot for today's progressive zeitgeist! You go Google, lol. #YuriKochiyama https://t.co/TcSRJqU8O0

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 19, 2016

Deal of the Day: Save Big on Select Refurbished Samsung Display Monitors

At Amazon, Samsung S22E310H 21.5" Full-HD LED-backlit Monitor with Simple Stand (Certified Refurbished).

Also, Samsung 27-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor (S27E390H) Certified Refurbished, and Samsung 23.6-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor (S24E390HL-R) Certified Refurbished.

More, Save Save Big on Select E-Z UP Outdoor Canopies.

And, Optoma HD37 1080p DLP Home Theater Projector (Manufacturer Refurbished).

Still more, Father's Day BLACK+DECKER $10 off $50 Promotion.

Plus, Father's Day Makita $20 off $100 Promotion.

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

Jackie Johnson's Cool and Cloudy Forecast

Surprisingly chilly today.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles. (Love that black dress, by the way.)

Deal of the Day: Save Big on BioPEDIC Bed Pillow 4-Pack with Built-In Ultra-Fresh Technology

At Amazon, BioPEDIC 4-Pack Bed Pillows with Built-In Ultra-Fresh Anti-Odor Technology, Standard Size, White.

Also, Energizer Weatheready 3-LED Carabineer Rechargeable Crank Light, Red.

Still more, VIZIO SB3851-C0 38-Inch 5.1 Channel Sound Bar with Wireless Subwoofer and Satellite Speakers (Certified Refurbished)."

From Roger Simon's new book, I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already.

Plus, from Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left.

BONUS: Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don 't Trust Anyone Under 30).

Donald Trump Pivots on Immigration?

This is something I've talked about in my classes, especially since Trump met with the editorial board of the New York Times (and backed off his earlier statements on building the wall and deportation).

Trump needs to be careful not to alienate his core supporters. He can't back off too much from his tough-on-immigration theme.

Here's Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "Time: Here comes Donald Trump’s pivot on immigration."

And at Time Magazine, "Exclusive: Donald Trump Shifts Immigration Tone in Meeting with Hispanic Evangelical Leader":

No commitments to change policy

In a clear sign of a pivot towards the general election, Donald Trump privately discussed immigration policy on May 11 with a representative of the largest Hispanic evangelical association at Trump Tower.

The representative left the meeting expressing surprise at how supportive the presumptive Republican nominee had been. “Donald Trump showed a tremendous understanding and concern for the undocumented immigrants,” evangelical pastor Mario Bramnick. “We all came out really sensing his genuineness.”

Bramnick, a Cuban-American who advised Sen. Ted Cruz during the primary, came to the meeting as a representative of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), which has more than 40,000 member churches. The group’s leader, pastor Samuel Rodriguez Jr., has been openly critical of Trump’s plan to build a southern wall and deport with force the roughly 10 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. “It’s impossible,” Rodriguez says. “You’d have to have a Gestapo sort of apparatus, in the vein of World War II, putting people not on trains but airplanes.”

But in the meeting, Bramnick said Trump suggested a clear willingness to work with the Hispanic community. While Trump did not say he would revisit any of his policies, he signaled an openness to continue the conversation, Bramnick said...

Boy, that's like threading a needle. It's going to tricky getting this just right, attracting Hispanics but not throwing your massive white working-class base under the bus.

More.

'The first man who goes into the restroom with my daughter will not have to worry about surgery...'

Oh boy.

Things are getting crazy, and there's no signs things are letting up.

At Free Beacon, "College Reverses Firing of Ex-Army General After Transgender Bathroom Comments":

An all-male college in Virginia has reversed its decision to fire a prominent retired U.S. Army general hours after reports that he was removed over political correctness provoked outcry.

Hampden-Sydney College decided to offer Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin a one-year contract, walking back its decision to fire Boykin after he made controversial comments about transgender bathrooms that angered LGBT activists.

Fox News first reported Thursday that Boykin, an original member of the Delta Force who served as undersecretary of defense for intelligence under President George W. Bush, had been fired after nine years of teaching at the school after criticizing transgender bathrooms.

“The first man who goes into the restroom with my daughter will not have to worry about surgery,” Boykin said of the debate surrounding transgender bathroom rules during a speech to conservatives in March.

The comments angered LGBT activists, dozens of whom signed a letter demanding the college fire him. They accused him of calling for violence against transgenders, he said.

“I never said homosexuals. I never said transgenders,” he told Fox. “I was really talking about these perverts who would use this as a way to get into the bathrooms with our wives and daughters.”

He said he was fired without warning and without being afforded the opportunity to defend himself. A representative for the college told Fox that his contract was “simply not renewed” and denied that the comments about transgender bathrooms were the “determining factor” in his firing. The representative did, however, expressed concern that the statement “appeared to advocate or approve of violence.”

Also at Memeorandum, "College boots ex-Delta Force hero after complaint from LGBT activists."

Here We Go, Chicago 1968 Redux: Sanders Supporters Get Permits to Protest Democrat Convention in Philadelphia (VIDEO)

Senator Barbara Boxer, at the video, whines about how she felt "scared" by Bernie Sanders supporters.

Watch, "Sen. Boxer: I Felt Frightened, Physically Threatened While Sanders Supporters Booed Me."

Well, suck it up, sweetie. There's plenty more of that coming down the pike.

At WSJ, "Sanders Supporters Secure Rally Permit Near Democratic Convention in Philadelphia" (via Memeorandum):

Sanders Supporters Secure Rally Permit Near Democratic Convention in Philadelphia https://t.co/cqtvt64oQI https://t.co/E8DsZuweRz

— memeorandum (@memeorandum) May 20, 2016

Philadelphia has approved four demonstration permits in support of Sen. Bernie Sanders at the July Democratic National Convention — including a large rally planned near the convention’s epicenter.

One of the permits is for an event consisting of four days of all-day rallies at FDR Park in support of Mr. Sanders. The city said it expects 30,000 participants, and organizers said in an interview they hope turnout will be much higher.

The park is adjacent to the Wells Fargo Center, where many of the Democratic National Convention events will be held — raising the possibility of a large demonstration in support of Mr. Sanders just steps away from where delegates will officially select the Democratic nominee. A growing number of Democrats are concerned the convention could turn out to be divisive and disorderly due to activities planned by Sanders supporters.

The city has also granted permits to three smaller demonstrations at Thomas Paine Plaza, a few miles from the Wells Fargo Center. The city says it expects 2,000 to 3,000 participants at those events.

The events — which are being organized independent of campaign by supporters of Mr. Sanders — aim to call attention to support the Vermont Senator has received throughout the primary process and push for long-term changes in the way that the Democratic Party nominates candidates.

“The whole Bernie movement is an ideology. If Bernie wins the nomination, wins the presidency, that would be amazing. But even if Hillary does win the nomination, the movement has already started,” said Steve Okan Layne, who is helping organize one of the demonstrations...

Oh goody!

It's going to be fantastic! I can't wait for the Democrat Anarchist Socialist Communist 9/11 Truther BDS Convention, lol.

More.

'America Was Never Great'

Did you read the piece on Chomsky I posted the other day? See, "The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky."

I have students in my classes that cite Chomsky as one of their main ideological influences. It gives me a pit in my stomach, because I know then the students won't be open-minded, and literally nothing I teach --- including factual, scientific data and evidence on key issues, like "global warming" --- will even be considered.

So, here comes this black lady with the "America Was Never Great" hat. And she was wearing this while working at Home Depot? She'd be fired if I was in management. You're going to lose customers. There's no First Amendment issue at stake.

Sickening.

At Big Government, "Home Depot Employee’s ‘America Was Never Great’ Hat Sparks Outrage On Social Media."

.@HomeDepot Employee’s ‘America Was Never Great’ Hat Sparks Outrage - https://t.co/4IZ8YMEUBt pic.twitter.com/J4hgk12V1C

— Kelly (@KLSouth) May 20, 2016

And at Weasel Zippers, "Home Depot Employee and Bernie Supporter Wearing “America Was Never Great” Hat Photo Goes Viral, Stirs Up the Social Media Masses…"

Home Depot Employee Wearing “America Was Never Great” Hat Photo Goes Viral, Stirs Up The Social Media Masses… https://t.co/rzDkHx7h3H

— Weasel Zippers (@weaselzippers) May 20, 2016

And death threats too? Totally out of line, but not surprising. At the New York Times and Memeorandum:

'America Was Never Great' Hat Leads to Death Threats (@melechristopher / New York Times) https://t.co/lOHKJFTIv4 https://t.co/gKuWgMbA1w

— memeorandum (@memeorandum) May 20, 2016

'The Purge: Election Year' New Trailer (VIDEO)

Well, 2014's "The Purge: Anarchy" was a cool flick.

So now we have a sequel.

I tweeted out this piece from the Verge. The video trailer's at the link:

The new trailer for "The Purge: Election Year" invites you to keep America great: https://t.co/XPiUqFzvXa #ThePurgeElectionYear

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 19, 2016

Jackie Johnson's Fit Tips (VIDEO)

Well, when Ms. Johnson's not doing the weather she's working out to stay in shape for the lovely summer dresses she wears.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Jackie Johnson's Stubborn Marine Layer Forecast

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles: