Monday, June 27, 2016

Frances Wang

Man, this lady was just bringing it home yesterday. She video'd the black bloc anarchists throttling the so-called "neo-Nazis," and especially captured the one dude getting rung-up on the back of his head with a 2x4.

Posted here, "'No Free Speech for Fascists!' — Leftist Extremists Launched Violent Attack at Sacramento Rally (VIDEO)."

And here's her bio, at ABC News 10 Sacramento:

Frances Wang joined the ABC10 reporting team in October 2015. She was born in San Francisco but grew up in Sacramento, which she considers home.

Frances has dreamed of being a journalist since she was kid after being interviewed by Walt Gray.

She's always been the most talkative of her peers, so her former teachers and classmates aren't surprised she became a reporter.

After graduating from St. Francis High School, she went on to become a Trojan at the University of Southern California. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors. During her time there, she also earned a second Bachelor's degree in Business Administration.

Most recently, Frances worked as a morning news reporter for KREM2 in Spokane, Wash., where she would cover breaking news one day and zip line through the mountains on live TV the next. She's also had internships at KABC-TV, CNN and E! News.

Frances' favorite part of her job is getting to know people she may not have met otherwise. She loves to tell stories about the amazing things people do for their communities.

In her free time, you can find her catching up on shows, trying out new restaurants, and struggling to get to the gym.


'Rock of Ages'

I picked my son up from work last night at midnight, and the Sound L.A. was jamming a fairly unusual playlist.

Def Leppard rarely airs during daytime prime-time drive-time, heh.

What a flashback to the '80s.




D'yer Mak'er
Led Zeppelin
12:34 AM

Don't Bring Me Down
Electric Light Orchestra
12:30 AM

Say You Love Me
Fleetwood Mac
12:26 AM

Come Sail Away
Styx
12:21 AM

Shake It Up
The Cars
12:17 AM

Rock of Ages
Def Leppard
12:10 AM

Killer Queen
Queen
12:08 AM

It's Only Rock 'N Roll (But I Like It)
The Rolling Stones
12:02 AM

Baba O'Riley
The Who
11:57 PM

Space Oddity
David Bowie
11:52 PM

Sweet Child O' Mine
Guns N' Roses
11:47 PM

The Logical Song
Supertramp
11:43 PM

Election '16 Bellwethers Ohio and Pennsylvania

From Salena Zito, at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Keep Your Eyes on Bellwethers Ohio & Pennsylvania":
Perception and reality are two different things in politics.

On paper, Republicans Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio should be losing in the polls in their U.S. Senate re-election races.

Both men have been hammered for a month over whether they will support their party's presumptive nominee, their opposition to voting on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee and their refusal to enact new gun legislation after the massacre in Orlando. Yet both are defying conventional political wisdom.

Toomey increased his lead over Democrat Katie McGinty by 8 percentage points in the latest Quinnipiac survey.

Portman's numbers improved by 9 points, placing him in a tie with Democrat Ted Strickland, a former governor who lost his re-election bid to John Kasich in 2010.

The two Republicans are competing in critical states that offer insight into whether Democrats can regain House and Senate majorities in November.

In short, if you want to know who will hold or retake the Senate majority, watch Toomey's battle with McGinty and Portman's with Strickland...
More.

Scenes from a Wedding

At the Other McCain:


Groveling Red Cross Takes Down 'Racist' Pool Safety Poster After One Single Complaint

At Biz Pac Review, "Red Cross apologizes for ‘super racist’ pool safety poster, as we all drown in an INSANE PC world."

Also at the Root, "Red Cross Apologizes After ‘Super Racist’ Pool-Safety Poster":
An American Red Cross signboard came under fire after showing white children being labeled as “cool” and the children of color as “not cool.”


'No Free Speech for Fascists!' — Leftist Extremists Launched Violent Attack at Sacramento Rally (VIDEO)

I don't shock easily, but the beginning of the video, when the black bloc anarchist, armed with a wooden club, smashes a protester in the side of the head, is mind-boggling.

Some of these activists from the Traditional Workers Party appeared indeed to be Nazis, as I found out after trolling around on Twitter yesterday. The only thing is, it was the leftists who started the violent attacks. Frankly, they set out to violently confront the so-called "white nationalists" and shut them down. So who's the extremist? Who's the real fascist?

Here's the event announcement from BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), "NO “FREE SPEECH” FOR FASCISTS! Mass, militant demonstration shuts down Sacramento Neo-Nazi rally!":


PROTEST THE NAZIS/KKK IN SACRAMENTO!

No Racist Organizing in California!

No “Free Speech” for Fascists!

• SMASH FASCISM! NO PLATFORM FOR ORGANIZING RACIST VIOLENCE, MURDER, AND GENOCIDE!
• No Racist Demagogy! No Anti-Muslim Bigotry! No National Chauvinism, Fear Mongering, or Immigrant Scapegoating!
• Latina/o, Black, Native American, Arab, Asian, and White, Immigrants With and Without Papers, We are ALL Californians!
• Open the Borders! Full Citizenship Rights for All Undocumented Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum-Seekers Now!
• Build the New Independent, Integrated, Mass Militant Youth-Led Civil Rights and Immigrant Rights Movement!
Also, from Lee Stranahan, at Breitbart, "Officer: Left-Wing Extremists Started Sacramento Riot."

And get this, at the Sacramento Bee, "Activist Yvette Felarca says anti-fascist rally at the Capitol will prevent more violenceJun 26, 2016" (VIDEO):
Yvette Felarca, from the activist group By Any Means Necessary in Oakland, says their violent reaction to a white supremacist rally at the California Capitol Sunday will help prevent violence against immigrant communities by dissuading other supremacist groups from holding events.
The leftist MSM was lapping up the propaganda from this pig Felarca. Watch, at CNN, "Bloody protester: We took Nazis on."

Also, from Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, "VIDEO: THE INSANE SACRAMENTO NEO-NAZI/ANTI-FASCIST MELEE."

Frantic Efforts to Contain the Erskine Fire in Southern Sierra Nevada (VIDEO)

CBS News 2 Los Angeles has the video.

And from the front-page of today's L.A Times, "Kern County fire evacuees struggle with another trauma — uncertainty."



Babes for Trump

I noted the hashtag yesterday, "#TrumpGrilsBreaktheInterne." See, "Cristina Laila Breaks the Internet!"

And Heat Street has the follow-up, "‘Babes for Trump’ Want to Break the Internet."


Labour to Hold Vote of No-Confidence on Leader Jeremy Corbyn (VIDEO)

The best part of the Brexit vote is watching the left's global nuclear meltdown.

At Telegraph UK, "Labour crisis: Jeremy Corbyn sees 33 shadow ministers quit as new MP is told 'keep your phone on, you might be in the shadow cabinet by end of day'":


Jeremy Corbyn has lost more than half his Cabinet and seen more than 30 of his MPs revolt against his leadership over the last 48 hours.

Mr Corbyn has lost 20 of his 31 strong shadow cabinet and seen a further 13 shadow ministers resign this morning.

The rebels have criticised his performance in the EU referendum and he faces further resignations from the junior frontbench ranks amid fresh calls for him to stand down as leader.

Jeremy Corbyn's grip on the Labour leadership looked increasingly weak as Angela Eagle became the most senior member of his shadow cabinet to quit.

Shadow housing minister John Healey, shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy and shadow work and pensions secretary Owen Smith have all resigned - adding to the 12 shadow cabinet members Mr Corbyn lost on Sunday.

Sources said that Mr Corbyn will refuse to step down and will instead try and make public a planned secret vote on his future so that voters can see which MPs are trying to unseat him.

Mr Corbyn has been forced to promote a number of key allies as the revolt against his leadership intesnifies.

A number of the 2015 intake have joined the new shadow cabinet with just a year's experience on the job.

Late on Sunday evening Mr Corbyn issued a bullish statement and vowed to continue as leader despite the resignations. He said: "I am not going to betray the trust of those who voted for me – or the millions of supporters across the country who need Labour to represent them.

“Those who want to change Labour’s leadership will have to stand in a democratic election, in which I will be a candidate.

“Over the next 24 hours I will reshape my shadow cabinet and announce a new leadership team to take forward Labour’s campaign for a fairer Britain - and to get the best deal with Europe for our people.”
More.

And David Cameron's got a good sense of humor about things, considering.

HBO's John Oliver Slurs Boris Johnson as 'Shaved Orangutan' and David Cameron as 'Pig-F***er' (VIDEO)

Jeez, this lefty loon John Oliver makes Bill Maher look like Miss Manners.

Ed Driscoll has it, at Instapundit, "TIME-WARNER-HBO-CNN SPOKESMAN JOHN OLIVER CALLS BORIS JOHNSON A ‘SHAVED ORANGUTAN’ AND DAVID CAMERON A ‘PIG-F***ER’ IN NINE-MINUTE ANTI-BREXIT RANT ON US TV."

And watch, "John Oliver: Brexit Results - 'There Are No F*cking Do Overs' Last Week Tonight - June 26 2016 (HBO)."

Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Law (VIDEO)

I forgot we had another blockbuster case due this week.

Unfortunately, this one went the wrong way.

Jan Crawford has an analysis of the ruling, for CBS This Morning, at the video below.

And at LAT, "High court overturns Texas abortion restrictions":

The Supreme Court, in a victory for abortion-rights advocates, has limited the power of Texas and other states to restrict or effectively shut down clinics that offer the procedure.

The justices, by a 5-3 vote, said Monday that Texas lawmakers went too far by imposing unnecessary regulations that had forced most of the state’s abortion clinics to go out of business.

The decision is the court's clearest pronouncement since 1992 on abortion, and it makes clear that states may not impose health regulations that severely restrict the right to abortion...
More.

Also at Memeorandum.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Britain's Forgotten Voters - and Ours

From Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today:
America, too, is experiencing a populist upheaval, of which Donald Trump’s candidacy is more of a symptom than a cause.

So the post-Brexit number-crunching is over and it turns out that the decisive support for Britain’s leaving the EU came not from right-wing nationalists but from working-class Labour voters. This offers some lessons for British and European politicians — and for us in America, too.

Much of Britain’s prosperity in recent years has centered on London, which has done very well and become very pleased with itself. As Peter Mandler writes in Dissent, this turned out to be a problem. London occupies a huge place in British society — as if Washington, D.C., New York, Hollywood, and perhaps Silicon Valley were all in the same place. But that leaves the rest of the country feeling somewhat left out, and deeply suspicious of the people running things, especially as the people running things seem to hold the rest of the country in contempt, openly mocking the traditional, the middle-class, the non-Metropolitan.

Mandler writes, “London, a young, thriving, creative, cosmopolitan city, seems the model multicultural community, a great European capital. But it is also the home of all of Britain’s elites—the economic elites of “the City” (London’s Wall Street, international rather than European), a nearly hereditary professional caste of lawyers, journalists, publicists, and intellectuals, an increasingly hereditary caste of politicians, tight coteries of cultural movers-and-shakers richly sponsored by multinational corporations.”

The result, Mandler writes, is that “For the rest of the country has felt more and more excluded, not only from participation in the creativity and prosperity of London, but more crucially from power. . . . A majority of people around the United Kingdom are feeling like non-people, un-citizens, their lives jerked about like marionettes by wire-pullers far away. In those circumstances, very bad things indeed can be expected.”

Given a chance, these people seized an opportunity to give the wires a yank of their own. A lot of people felt powerless, and the political system not only didn’t address that, but seemed to glory in it.

But will leaders learn the lesson? It seems doubtful. As Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle observed about the post-Brexit reaction, they mostly seemed to double down. “The inability of those elites to grapple with the rich world’s populist moment has been on full display on social media. Journalists and academics seemed to feel that they had not made it sufficiently clear that people who oppose open borders are a bunch of racist rubes who couldn’t count to 20 with their shoes on, and hence will believe any daft thing they’re told. Given how badly this strategy had just failed, this seemed a strange time to be doubling down. . . . Or perhaps they were just unable to grasp what I noted in a column last week: that nationalism and place still matter, and that elites forget this at their peril. A lot people do not view their country the way some elites do: as though the nation were something like a rental apartment — a nice place to live, but if there are problems, or you just fancy a change, you’ll happily swap it for a new one. In many ways, members of the global professional class have started to identify more with each other than they have with the fellow residents of their own countries. Witness the emotional meltdown many American journalists have been having over Brexit.”
Keep reading.

And not surprisingly, Glenn gives a shout-out to Dana Loesch's new book at the piece.

Juan Uribe Testicular Contusion (VIDEO)

This game was a couple of weeks ago, but the Cleveland Indians' "Vote Tribe" Twitter feed just posted a photo of the man with some gold training shoes and a cigar.

So I tweeted:




Deal of the Day: AR Blue Clean AR390SS Cold Water Electric Pressure Washer

A nice summer item.

At Amazon, AR Blue Clean AR390SS 2000 psi Electric Pressure Washer with Spray Gun, Wand, 30' Hose & 35' Power Cord, Blue.

Also, Featured Deals in Outdoor Recreation.

Plus, KIND Bars, Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt, Gluten Free, 1.4 Ounce Bars, 12 Count.

More, from Alex Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.

Stephen Moore and Kathleen Hartnett White, Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy.

And Bob Zubrin, Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism.

BONUS: Dave Eggers, Zeitoun.

Cristina Laila Breaks the Internet!

There's a cool hashtag out today, #TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet. You got some real sweeties tweeting there, although I like Ms. Christina:


PREVIOUSLY: From Christina, "The Marxist Roots of 'Gender Neutral Restrooms'."

CBS News Battleground Tracker Poll: Trump Beats Clinton Among Voters Who Want Change (VIDEO)

CBS News Elections Director Anthony Salvanto breaks down the numbers and sees some pretty amazing disadvantages for Hillary Clinton, particularly on those things I mentioned in my last post, "on the issues of immigration and the corrupt political class," not to mention terrorism and political change.

This is an amazing video, especially in how Mr. Salvanto completely avoids taking leftist spin positions on the numbers. A breath of fresh air, frankly (particularly in that John Dickerson's a fairly hard-left political operative himself).

Watch:



Clinton Leads Trump 46 to 41 Percent in New WSJ/NBC News Poll

To gather from all the buzz at Memeorandum, you'd think Hillary Clinton had pulled out an insurmountable double-digit lead in the wake of Donald Trump's "horrible" couple of weeks following the Curiel comments and Orlando.

That's because WaPo has a sensational new poll out with Clinton expanding her lead over the bombastic Manhattan mogul, 51-39 percent. See Politico for the summary, "Clinton surges to 12-point lead in WaPo poll":
Hillary Clinton currently holds a double-digit lead over Donald Trump nationally, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday.

If the election were held today, 51 percent of respondents said they would vote for Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and 39 percent said they would vote for Trump...
There's clearly something wrong with the poll, and without digging through the internals (the folks at Hot Air usually do quite a thorough job of that), I'll bet they oversampled Democrats.

The fact is, there's been little change in the underlying structure of the horse race. If anything, Donald Trump's probably about tied with Clinton, since on the issues of immigration and the corrupt political class, the Brexit revolt in Britain tells us a whole lot about the electoral environment Clinton and the Democrats are facing. (An interesting hypothesis is whether there was some kind of Bradley Effect in the British voting. Recall with the Bradley Effect voters hide their true preferences from pollsters, to conceal more racialist sentiments and avoid the potential appearance of "bigotry").

At any rate, see WSJ, "Donald Trump Weathers Stormy Month, Loses Only 2 Points Versus Hillary Clinton":
Republican Donald Trump emerged relatively unscathed from one of the rockiest phases of his campaign, lagging rival Hillary Clinton by 5 percentage points but essentially tied when third-party candidates are included, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

The survey of 1,000 registered voters showed Mrs. Clinton leading 46% to 41% in a head-to-head matchup. Mrs. Clinton’s number held steady over the past month, while Mr. Trump’s standing dropped by 2 points since May. The survey was conducted June 19-23, a period of tumult within his campaign.

Mr. Trump over the past week fired his campaign manager and faced criticism from within his own party over weak fundraising numbers and lack of organization. Earlier in the month, he was the target of bipartisan ire for his focus on a federal judge’s ethnicity and his reaction to the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.

“Donald Trump has had the worst month one can imagine, but Clinton’s negatives are so high the net impact on the ballot is almost invisible,” said Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Fred Yang.
In a worrying sign for the former secretary of state, her advantage largely vanished when voters also get a choice of third-party candidates.

Mrs. Clinton’s lead fell to one point, at 39% to Mr. Trump’s 38%, when Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are part of the mix. With both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump saddled with low approval ratings, voters seem to be looking for alternatives. Together, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Stein were the choice of 16% of those who took part in the survey.

A spokesman for Mr. Johnson said the Libertarian ticket expects to be on the ballot in all 50 states. A Green Party spokesman said the party expects to do at least as well as 2012, when Ms. Stein was on the ballot in 37 states.
Still more.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Heading Out for the Dana Loesch Book Signing at Politicon

I'll be spending the day in Pasadena at Politicon, which is supposed to be "the Comic-con of politics."

Here's the full write-up at the Riverside Press-Enterprise, "ELECTION 2016: Meet Politicon, the Comic-Con of politics":
Politicon is unique not only in its approach to politics, but who’s in the lineup. Conservative icons like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck will share the same buildings and sometimes the same stage as outspoken liberals like Cenk Uygur and Democratic talking heads like James Carville and Paul Begala.

Throw in high-profile politicians -- California Sen. Barbara Boxer, former Mexican President Vicente Fox and a possible Hillary Clinton running mate are scheduled to attend -- artwork displays, live podcast tapings, comedic performances, film screenings and book signings and you get a non-partisan event intended to be a political junkie’s nirvana...
Here's video from last year, "Highlights of Politicon 2015, Held in Los Angeles."

And check the website.

Here's Dana's bio from the lineup page:
Dana Loesch hosts her award-winning, nationally syndicated daily radio show, The Dana Show: The Conservative Alternative from Dallas, Texas where she also hosts “Dana” on The Blaze television network. Dana appears regularly on Fox News, ABC, CNN, among others, and has co-hosted on “The View.” She describes herself as a “conservatarian.”

Dana’s original brand of young, punk-rock, conservative irreverence has found a fast-growing audience in multiple mediums. Dana is listed in the top 40 of Talkers Magazine‘s top 100 “heavy hitters” and was named Missouri’s #1 Radio Personality in 2014. A former award-winning newspaper columnist (and notable blogger since 2001), Dana was ranked as one of the top 16 most powerful mothers online by Neilsen and one of the top 30 Under 30 according to the St. Louis Business Journal. Dana was the 2012 winner of Accuracy In Media’s Grassroots Journalism award as well as the inaugural Breitbart Spirit Award. Dana was one of the original Breitbart editors selected by her late friend and mentor, Andrew Breitbart, to head what was BigJournalism.com and helped break the Anthony Weiner scandal before departing in 2012. Her Best Selling book on gun control, Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America is on shelves now and is turning the tide in the gun debate. Mark Levin wrote of her book that it, “Obliterates every baseless argument made against the Second Amendment.” Sean Hannity quipped, “Buy this book before someone tries to ban it.” Michelle Malkin states, “WARNING: This book is explosive! Mother, wife, New Media warrior and political sharpshooter Dana Loesch confronts the ultimate war on women: gun control.”

Dana co-founded the tea party movement in St. Louis and speaks regularly on the subject of new media, gun control, anti-feminism, and grassroots. A native Missourian, she and her family now live in Texas.
I'm almost half way done with her new book, Flyover Nation. I just started reading it on Thursday, and I've been busy running around this last couple of days too. It's a quick read. Dana's a fabulous writer!

In any case, more blogging tonight or in the morning.

Have a great day!

VIDEO: David Horowitz on 'Progressive Racism'

This is the full clip from Horowitz's recent talk at the Wednesday Morning Club in Beverly Hills.

Watch, "Freedom Center president discusses his new book exposing the racial hatred at the heart of the American Left."

And score your copy, at Amazon, The Black Book of the American Left — Volume VI: Progressive Racism.

Progressive Racism photo 13232919_10209905139448121_3863362462882526139_n_zpsficbqwu3.jpg

Friday, June 24, 2016

Stagnating Capitalism

When I'm in the car listening to the Sound L.A., I keep hearing one of those "stop the I.R.S." ads promising to stave off some huge tax lien or wage garnishment. But the funny part that always trips me out is where the guy talks about "our current economic downturn." I mean, how many people buy that idea that we're in an "economic downturn"?

A lot, probably. But we're not.

We've been out of recession since June 2009, but super obviously, the country's economic prospects have not improved for untold millions of people. (Just ask all those white working class voters who've been swarming to Donald Trump's banner of "Make America Great Again.")

In any case, there's a new review essay on the economic crisis at the July/August 2016 issue of Foreign Affairs, "Capitalism in Crisis: What Went Wrong and What Comes Next."

One of the books there is by Paul Mason, Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future, which I've had my eye on for some time. But you know the story: I've got a lot on my plate, heh.