Senator Sessions Isn’t a Racist, His Left-Wing Accusers Are

From Sultan Knish, at FrontPage Magazine, "They’re coming for Sessions":

They’re coming for Senator Sessions. The Alabama Senator, soon to be Attorney General, has been denounced by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which bills its poison pen letter as coming from “civil and human rights organizations.” Just don’t ask which ones.

The “civil rights” organizations include the AFL-CIO, which had just denounced its own “ugly history of racism” last year, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, whose leaders have at times defended and excused the anti-Semitic and racist Islamic terror of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the National Council of La Raza, whose name means “The Race” and reflects its racialist agenda.

A thuggish union that concedes its own ugliness and two racist groups, one of which defends Islamic terrorists, are the worst possible people to pass any kind of judgment on Senator Sessions.

But it gets worse.

There’s the Center for Responsible Lending, funded by the Sandlers, who helped cause the economic crisis by peddling subprime mortgages. Lending doesn’t get more responsible than that. And there’s also the National Lawyers Guild, which started life as a Communist front group and arguably continues as such, praising North Korea’s “free healthcare and education systems.” Move over Cuba, North Korea has even more shovel-ready free health care for the oppressed comrades of the working class.

I don’t know why the Conference couldn’t manage to get Al Qaeda to sign on to their letter against Sessions. Maybe Osama bin Laden’s iPhone can’t get any bars at the bottom of the Arabian Sea.

But this motley crew of racists, traitors and terrorists has issued its ruling and found that, “Senator Sessions is the wrong person to serve as the U.S. Attorney General.”

The right person is Vladimir Lenin. Unfortunately he’s dead and not qualified to practice law.

You would think that the “144 undersigned organizations” representing billions in wealth and untold amounts of power and influence, could manage a more coherent smear campaign. Instead the letter rehashes the same old discredited smears. Senator Sessions’ joke about the KKK smoking pot is described as “speaking favorably about the Ku Klux Klan” even while admitting that “he was helpful in the Center’s successful effort to sue and bankrupt the Ku Klux.”

Sessions is accused of undermining “voting rights” by prosecuting the “voting rights activists” who were caught mailing hundreds of absentee ballots. These “voter suppression tactics targeting African Americans” came in response to complaints of fraud by African-American officials like Perry County Commissioner Reese Billingslea and John Kennard, Alabama's first black tax assessor, who said, "The only reason these people are hollering racism now is because they are in trouble for breaking the law."

Then under "Association with White Nationalist and Hate Groups," the letter, which seems to thrive on parading its own stupidity around, proves that Sessions must be a bigot because he had received awards from the "David Horowitz Freedom Center and Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy."

Sessions was honored by the Center for Security Policy at the Smithsonian Postal Museum with its Keeper of the Flame award, which recognizes “those individuals who devote their public careers to the propagation of democracy and the respect for individual rights throughout the world.”

Past recipients have included Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman, Garry Kasparov and Ronald Reagan.

Perhaps the Conference could specify which white nationalist hate group Lieberman and Kasparov belonged to.

Senator Sessions received the Annie Taylor Award from the Freedom Center in 2014. The next year’s recipient would go on to be African-American Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke.

It’s unknown which white nationalist hate group Clarke belongs to. Perhaps the Conference could ask the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose inept smear of Sessions it appears to have relied on, to tell them.

The Annie Taylor Award has gone to Iranian dissident Amir Fakhravar, journalist Oriana Fallaci, Baroness Caroline Cox and Democratic Senator Zell Miller. But perhaps the most notorious white supremacist to receive the award was Ward Connerly, the African-American chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute.

As smear campaigns go, the Conference’s letter is laughably terrible.

“Senator Sessions has a 30-year record of racial insensitivity,” it claims. That’s quite a claim and it isn’t backed up.  If Sessions had spent the last 30 years going around shouting racial slurs, you would think that there would be more evidence of that to present in the left’s poison pen letters.

The Conference insists that the Attorney General has to be approved of by “every member of the public”. If that were the case, we couldn’t get a single Attorney General approved.

It states that Sessions supporting the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder raises questions about his fitness. Is the Conference really demanding an Attorney General who won’t uphold Supreme Court decisions?

The Conference’s letter is short on facts and heavy on innuendo. It’s clueless about its own charges. And mostly it opposes Sessions because he doesn’t agree with its radical policy agenda. The letter accuses him of opposing illegal alien amnesty and being skeptical about Global Warming which, according to the letter, “disproportionately affect low-income families and communities of color.”

World ends. Minorities hardest hit.

Further evidence of Sessions’ unfitness is found in that he voted to defund Planned Parenthood, opposed a push for Green Energy and Obama’s pardons for drug dealers. In short, he’s guilty of being a conservative Republican, not a radical leftist.

That’s really why the Leadership Conference opposes him, but it can’t come out and say so. The failed effort to smear Sessions as a racist isn’t about his record; it’s about blocking anyone on the right while cynically abusing a serious accusation for partisan political gain. No one who knows Sessions, including one of the accusers who serves as the basis for many of these smears, believes that he is a racist.

Furthermore the accusations are coming from actual racists like La Raza and the ADC. The ADC honored Helen Thomas after she called for the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. It was where Ralph Nader insisted that, “Jews do not own the phrase anti-Semitism.” The Leadership Conference shows no signs of having a problem with any of this.

Senator Sessions isn’t a racist. His accusers are.

Kendall Jenner LOVE Advent 2016 (VIDEO)

Via Theo Spark.

I do love this young woman Kendall.

I don't know why. I'm supposed to viscerally dislike her, as she's part of the Kardashian klan and all, heh.

Jackie Johnson's Mild Midweek Forecast

Here's the lovely Ms. Jackie.

It's been a bit nippy in the early hours, but otherwise actually quite pleasant.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

University Student: We Shouldn't Take Finals Because Trump's Election Has Been Stressful

Heh.

Trump's triggering the college trigglypuffs, lol.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: University Student Demands We Shouldn’t Take Finals Because Trump’s Election Has Been Stressful":

Trump? You kids don’t know what real worry is like – when I was in school, our final exams were taken in the shadow of atomic war, nuclear winter, disco, and Fred Silverman’s NBC programming. Not to mention what was on the other channels...

Click through for the video.

Donald Trump's Conservative Cabinet (VIDEO)

Things are looking pretty good.

At LAT, "Step by step, Trump is assembling an administration far more conservative than his campaign":

Donald Trump expressed fondness during the presidential campaign for some of the big federal programs that serve the country’s most vulnerable, but whatever warmth he may feel does not seem to be shared by the people he is choosing to run them.

Monday’s selection of Ben Carson, the former pediatric neurosurgeon and Republican presidential hopeful, to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development was the latest move to fit the pattern of stocking the Cabinet with social conservatives deeply skeptical of the government agencies they will be asked to oversee.

Trump chose Carson despite the physician’s protest last month that he lacked the credentials needed to run a federal agency. As a child, Carson lived in what he has described as a housing project in Detroit. Since becoming a doctor, however, he has had little other direct experience with urban policy or housing issues.

He would assume a post overseeing an agency that was elevated to the Cabinet level as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society effort to combat poverty — something that Carson has declared an epic failure.

The job would test Carson’s management ability. The department, with an annual budget of $48 billion, oversees big development contracts and the distribution of lucrative grants to communities, and it has been historically susceptible to corruption in times of weak oversight.

During Ronald Reagan’s tenure, HUD money was regularly misappropriated to contractors with political ties, leading to multiple felony convictions. The agency’s standing in that administration seemed to be crystallized by Reagan’s failure to recognize his HUD secretary, Samuel Pierce, during an encounter at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in 1981. Reagan addressed Pierce as “Mr. Mayor.”

Carson’s first test at managing a complex, multi-state operation came in the presidential campaign. He proved gifted at raising money, building a small-donor network that was surpassed only by that of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

But Carson’s campaign and the network of allied super PACs that supported him also stood out for how little money they spent on campaigning and how much was plowed back into payments to contractors.

His lack of experience drew attacks from many prominent Democrats.

“I have serious concerns about Dr. Carson’s lack of expertise,” said incoming Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York. “Someone who is as anti-government as him is a strange fit for Housing secretary, to say the least.”

Schumer vowed Carson would be pushed during confirmation proceedings to prove he “is well versed in housing policy and has a vision for federal housing programs that meets the needs of Americans across the country.”

In Los Angeles, which works closely with the federal housing agency as it carries out a $23-million anti-homelessness initiative, one of the country’s largest such programs, Mayor Eric Garcetti was more cautious.

"Los Angeles stands at the forefront of the very challenges that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was created to tackle,” Garcetti said in an email. “I am hopeful that as a physician, Mr. Carson will create the much-needed connection between public health and community development in neighborhoods everywhere.”

In 2014, the last year for which full figures are available, 492,000 Californians received HUD-funded vouchers to help with rent. The city of Los Angeles received $52 million in community development grants from HUD that year.

In the Cabinet, Carson would join a list of social conservatives that includes Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Georgia Rep.Tom Price, and Betsy DeVos, who has been tapped to head the Education Department.

Price is a budget hawk and crusader for cutting Medicaid and Medicare, the latter of which Trump, in the campaign, said he opposed cutting. DeVos, the wealthy former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, is a strong backer of voucher programs, which provide tax money to families to spend on private schools...

Still more.

Shelby Steele, Shame

I bought this book when it came out, but I'm now engrossed in it.

Steele offers perhaps the best explanation yet of our current (crushing) era of political polarization; it's an  merciless indictment of radical left-wing identity politics.

Not to be missed, at Amazon, Shelby Steele, Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country.

Victor Davis Hanson on 'Uncommon Knowledge' (VIDEO)

I listened to this entire interview, over 40 minutes long, and it was worth every minute.

VDH is a national treasure.

His most recent book is The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost - From Ancient Greece to Iraq.

With Peter Robinson, for the Hoover Institution's "Uncommon Knowledge":

The New York Times Snubs Hillbilly Elegy

Big mistake.

I noticed that Hillbilly Elegy was at the top of the non-fiction bestsellers at the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, and I felt a hint of pride in having read it.

But turns out the New York Times refused to cite the J.D. Vance autobiography in its list of top books of 2016.

Pathetic.

See David Forsmark, at FrontPage Magazine, "One of the most talked-about memoirs of 2016 doesn't make the cut for 'notable' books."

Buy the book at Amazon.

Vietnam Veteran Dies With Maggots in His Wounds (VIDEO)

I can hardly believe this story, at the Tulsa World, "Physician assistant who resigned in wake of veteran's death rehired at another Oklahoma VA center."

And video, at Fox News, "4 quit VA facility after veteran with maggots in wound dies: Employees resign after investigation was conducted in Oklahoma; veteran Pete Hegseth reacts on 'America's Newsroom'."

Shop Amazon Home

Here, Home Gift Guide.

I love the Keurig Coffee Makers.

And don't forget your Cuisinart fine products.

BONUS: Bernard Bailyn, The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America--The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675.

Evelyn Taft's Slightly Cooler Forecast

Here's the weather with the lovely Ms. Evelyn, of whom I haven't blogged in a while.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

The Social Justice Left vs. the Identitarian Alt-Right

From Ben Sixsmith, who's just a kid, by the looks of his Twitter profile.

But he's good:

Both social justice warriors & Alt-Right shift to more extreme positions to gain social status (& clicks, media etc) https://t.co/YTMQc0SayI

— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) December 3, 2016

Shop Best Selling Products [BUMPED]

At Amazon, Shop Toys and Games, Electronics, Camera and Photo, and More!

BONUS: Adrian Goldsworthy, Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World.

The Radicals Have Taken Over Canadian Universities

Heh.

They've taken over the American universities, too!

But see Margaret Wente, at Toronto's Globe and Mail, "Academic Extremism Comes to Canada."

BONUS: At the Other McCain, "Amid Dow Boom, Liberal Media Gloom."

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Tonight!

It's at 10:00pm, on CBS.

12 Days of Deals

It's the twelve days of Christmas deals, at Amazon, "We’ll see your turtle doves, and raise you bookworms and music hounds. Whether the people on your list love the smell of a new bestseller, turning pages with a swipe of their finger, or just rocking out to the movie version’s soundtrack, we’ve got stuff for them all. Oh, and we’ve never been the types to read the last page first, but we do have one spoiler alert: today’s deals are awesome."

BONUS: Steve Fraser, The Limousine Liberal: How an Incendiary Image United the Right and Fractured America.

'Westworld' Loose Ends

Well, I figure we're going to see loose ends tied up next season, so nothing to lose sleep over.

But check LAT, "'Westworld' finale: We have questions."

I did wonder about this, though:

Who programmed Maeve to escape?

The biggest surprise from the finale was Ford’s secret desire to free his creations, which made him seem less like the evil lunatic this series has threaded since the pilot. Of course, he’s still a murdering psychopath who built a sexual assault theme park— despite knowing that his creations had, or could achieve, consciousness— but the last episode tried to right a few of his wrongs by exposing his plans for a robot revolt.

But if Ford engineered the escape plan, how much of this is about true sentience? We know for certain that the hosts have memories from past iterations of their characters; this was the entire purpose of Arnold’s maze. That being said, if Ford was the one who programmed Maeve’s exit from the park, does that rob her of her own organic desire to be free? Was the purpose of Maeve’s violent exit merely to distract from the bloodbath of Delos’ board executions?

And also, doesn’t unleashing an army of murderous robots still kind of make him an evil lunatic?

The bigger questions remain: Are Maeve’s thoughts entirely her own? Is her mission just beginning? And what’s next? Will she jump from park to park looking for her lost host child? Or will she take part in the new narrative that Ford built, the uprising at Westworld?

It was a little violent for me altogether, but I like the twists. I'm already looking forward to Season 2.



More at Vulture, "Westworld Season-Finale Recap: This World Doesn’t Belong to You."

Kasim Hafeez: 'Born to Hate Jews' (VIDEO)

YouTube banned this video from the site this morning, only to reinstate the clip after realizing it's an anti-hate video, not a hate video, which would be violate the service's terms.

Via Legal Insurrection, "YouTube Banned Prager U Video “Born to Hate Jews” – Reinstated After Protest and Petition."

And watch, "How do devout Muslims born in the West feel about Jews? How do they feel about Western values in general? Kasim Hafeez, who was raised a devout Muslim in England, explains."

Hopefully it won't get pulled, but if so, click on the LI link, where another video is embedded.

Death Toll Rises to 36 in Oakland Warehouse 'Ghost Ship' Fire (VIDEO)

Burning to death has gotta be one of the worst ways to go. Perhaps the black smoke overtook some of the victims first, and they passed out before being consumed in flames.

Either way, I'd rather be shot.

Don't mean to be morbid about it, but it's just so horrible.

In any case, at SF Gate, "‘Wobbly’ wall slows work at fire scene as death toll rises to 36":

The death toll in the devastating fire at a converted Oakland warehouse climbed to 36 Monday, and as emergency crews picked through the dangerously unstable rubble they said they found what they suspect is the area where the blaze started.

The number of victims recovered from the gutted building grew by three overnight, but work on retrieving more bodies was stopped around midnight because of a “wobbly” wall that made the situation dangerous for firefighters and Alameda County sheriff’s deputies, said Battalion Chief Melinda Drayton of the Oakland Fire Department. The wall was stabilized and work resumed at 9 a.m.

A few hours later, another wrinkle arose when the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. cut power to the area so potentially live power lines wouldn’t endanger workers as they brought in a crane to move the rubble. The outage was expected to affect between 50 and 500 customers in the Fruitvale area for as many as 12 hours, said Officer Johnna Watson, spokeswoman for the Oakland Police Department.

So far, a total of 11 victims have been identified and their families notified.

More, plus additional video, at the link.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi Announces Resignation (VIDEO)

That's major!

At WSJ, "Italy Rejects Reforms, Matteo Renzi Announces Resignation":

ROME—Italian voters on Sunday rejected constitutional changes backed by the government, prompting Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to announce his resignation and handing populists a victory in the heartland of Europe.

With 91% of votes counted, 59.7% of voters delivered a stinging rebuke to Mr. Renzi’s plan to overhaul Italy’s legislature to make it easier to pass laws, including measures meant to make the country more competitive.

Mr. Renzi said he would go to Italian President Sergio Mattarella Monday afternoon to tender his resignation.

“I take full responsibility for the defeat,” Mr. Renzi said in an address from Palazzo Chigi, the premier’s residence. The Italian people “have spoken in a clear and unequivocal way...we leave with no regrets,” he added.

The result means uncertainty in Italy, the European Union’s fourth-largest economy, as the bloc struggles to revive growth and define its future. Mr. Renzi’s resignation could clear the way for the formation of a caretaker government and, possibly, new parliamentary elections next year.

Among the biggest winners from Italy’s vote is the antiestablishment 5 Star Movement, which campaigned against Mr. Renzi and his agenda, saying more radical change is needed. The party has called for a nonbinding referendum on Italy’s euro membership. It also wants to abandon EU budget strictures and has said it might favor printing a parallel currency.

Public-opinion surveys indicate that roughly 30% of Italians would back 5 Star candidates if parliamentary elections were held now. That puts it neck-and-neck with Mr. Renzi’s Democratic Party and means it will have an influential voice and could even end up in power—an outcome that could ultimately threaten the integrity of the eurozone and its common currency.

Giampaolo Brunelli, a 43-year-old supporter of the 5 Star Movement, voted against the reform Sunday morning. “Renzi hasn’t done much to change this country—just like all the other politicians before him,” he said after voting in Rome.

Europe is facing a prolonged period of political upheaval, with elections also slated for 2017 in Germany, France and the Netherlands, all countries where economic anxiety, opposition to the EU and a surge in migration have fed growing support for populist parties.

Such sentiments were also at play in Austria on Sunday, when center-left candidate Alexander Van der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer in Austria’s presidential race by 53.3% to 46.7%, according to a final count of votes case on Sunday and a projection of mail-in ballot results.

The vote ended Mr. Hofer’s bid to become the first right-wing populist president in postwar Western Europe, but the election brought to light widespread discontent with the country’s political establishment. Like the other populists across the continent, Mr. Hofer wanted to roll back the power of the European Union, toughen border controls, crack down on the flow of refugees and migrants to Europe and improve relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin...

More.

I like how WSJ identifies Hofer's party as "right-wing populist" and not "far-right" like almost all of the pathetic leftist outlets always do.

More at Telegraph U.K., "Live — Matteo Renzi concedes defeat in Italian referendum and steps down as prime minister."

USC to Play Penn State in Rose Bowl 2017

I pulled my USC Rose Bowl post yesterday because I got confused about the process. (My apologies.)

But it's all clarified now.

USC will play Penn State on January 2nd in Pasadena.

Both teams have huge winning streaks. USC's got an 8-game winning streak since starting 1-3 on the season. Penn State's currently running a 9-game winning streak, so the Rose Bowl match-up promises to be one of the most exciting of the New Year's "Big 6."

See the USC Trojans sports page, "No. 9 USC Football To Play No. 5 Penn State In 2017 Rose Bowl."

And at LAT, "USC earns Rose Bowl berth, capping dramatic turnaround":

@LindseyThiry can you tell me how USC is in the rose bowl? I thought the winner of the PAC-12 goes. UW is 4 so why isn't it Colorado?

— Andrea Cajuste (@GoodLooknNSmart) December 4, 2016

After Pac-12 Champ goes to CFP, Rose Bowl takes next highest ranked team, which ended up being USC (Beat UW & CU, plus CU lost badly to UW) https://t.co/ZitiBZ96Jm

— Lindsey Thiry (@LindseyThiry) December 4, 2016

The return to the Rose Bowl culminates a stunning turnaround for USC, which lost 52-6 to Alabama in the season opener, then dropped games on the road to Stanford and Utah. The Trojans finished the season with a 9-3 record.

During that stretch, pundits speculated about Clay Helton’s job security in his first season as full-time coach, and Helton changed quarterbacks, entrusting the offense to Sam Darnold. The redshirt freshman quarterback dropped his first start to Utah on a late comeback, but he has not lost since, becoming one of the most effective quarterbacks in the nation.

USC dominated its last eight games, winning by an average margin of almost 20 points. It played in only one close game late, against Colorado, when USC turned the ball over four times. But USC still would’ve won that game by two scores if not for a late knee by JuJu Smith-Schuster, who opted to end the game rather than score an unnecessary touchdown.

USC and Penn State first met in the Rose Bowl in 1923, resulting in a 14-3 USC win. They didn't meet again until 2009 for a 38-24 USC win.

Neither team has been back to Rose Bowl since. In the interim, each team was rocked by some of the most crippling NCAA sanctions in the organization’s history — USC for its student-athletes accepting impermissible benefits, Penn State for its wide-ranging child sexual abuse scandal.

USC will make its record 34th appearance in the bowl game, where it has a 24-9 record. Penn State will make its fourth. It has gone 1-2 all-time.

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."




Also at Theo's, "Cartoon Roundup..."

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Money For Nothing."

'Queering God: Feminist and Queer Theology', at Swarthmore College

The campuses will be the craziest places in America for the next four years, at least. They were already crazy, but the coming Donald Trump administration is driving these kooks off the ledge.

At the Other McCain, "Guess What Swarthmore College Will Teach Your Children for $63,550 a Year?":

"We're here, we're queer, for $63,550 a year!"

Well, it helps to have a sense of humor about things, that's for sure.

High School Romance PSA (VIDEO)

At AdWeek, "Can You Figure Out the Mystery Inside This Remarkable Ad About High School Love?"

Via Hot Air, "Video: The “Evan” high-school romance ad":

All I’ll say is that sometimes you need to tip your cap to Team Blue for an advocacy job well done.

Click through to watch. And watch it before you read the articles. You'll never figure it out ahead of time!

Seriously. Just watch, lol.

Donald Trump Can Remake the Courts

One of the most exciting things for the coming year: what's going to happen at the Supreme Court, to say nothing of the lower federal courts.

I've been attending meetings on campus, and far-leftists in the sociology department are freaking out over the Supreme Court's threat to Roe vs. Wade, "marriage equality" (as if the Court's going to roll back not one but two recent decisions guaranteeing same-sex marriage), and homosexuals ("electroshock conversion therapy").

I mean really, they've gone hysterical. It's a serious problem on my campus, and around the nation as a whole.

In any case, at the Hill, "Trump gets chance to remake the courts":

President-elect Donald Trump has a chance to stack the courts with conservative judges, thrilling Republicans who suddenly have the opportunity to remake the judicial system.

Conservatives watched with dismay as Congress confirmed 327 of President Obama’s judicial nominees, fearing it would further entrench liberal control of the courts.

Now the tables have turned.

Trump could come into office with around 117 judicial vacancies to fill, and unlike Obama in his first term, will need only 51 votes in the Senate to confirm his nominees.

Democrats eliminated filibusters for most federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments in 2013. Now only a simple majority, rather than 60 votes, is required to advance a nominee.

It was a power play that helped Democrats confirm Obama’s court picks when they held the majority. Now Republicans stand to benefit from the rule change, as there will be little Senate Democrats can do in the minority to stop Trump’s nominees.

“What goes around comes around,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told The Hill this week.

“When you’re short-sighted and you think your majority is going to continue forever then you’re bound to be surprised when voters put you in the minority, so it counsels prudence and a longer view rather than short-term gratification.”

Republicans say Democrats only have Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to thank for the situation they will soon find themselves in.

“Here’s the irony of it: He changed the rules and we don’t want to break the rules to change the rules unlike what he did,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).

“He put us in this position, and I’m sure he thought a lot about it before he did it.”

Of the 99 current judicial vacancies, 13 are openings on courts of appeals and 85 are on district courts, according to the Alliance for Justice, which is tracking the data...

Keep reading.

And see, "Trump says he'll announce Supreme Court pick 'very soon'," and "Pence details Trump’s ambitious agenda for first 100 days."

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BONUS: Nicholas Eberstadt, Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis.

Austria Dodges a Bullet: Voters Reject Far-Right Candidate Norbert Hofer (VIDEO)

I don't care who Austria elects actually, although Norbert Hofer isn't so much "far-right" as "not-leftist," and that freaks out Europe's open-borders socialists.

I do care about Marine Le Pen's election, though, and don't actually expect her to win. Leftist parties will form a common front if she makes it to the final runoff, and they'll unify and elect an anti-rightist consensus candidate that purportedly rejects the "far-right hatred."

In any case, at Telegraph U.K., "Austria election: Norbert Hofer concedes defeat as independent rival takes clear lead in the polls":

Norbert Hofer, the leader of Austria’s far Right Freedom party, has conceded defeat in the country's presidential elections.

Mr Hofer, who would have been the first far-right leader in the European Union, accepted defeat after exit polls showedMr Van der Bellen, the Green party backed candidate, with 53.6 percent of the vote.

The projection put Mr Hofer on 46.4 percent. Electoral officials said votes left to count would not affect the result, although the margins may change slightly.

Keep reading.

I imagine that margin's a little to close for comfort for a lot of leftists. It's comfortable, but not a blowout. So-called far-rightists will be emboldened to double-up on their efforts, in Austrian and around the E.U.

Chip and Joanna Gaines, The Magnolia Story

Following up, "Boycott BuzzFeed."

And more from AoSHQ, "Religons of the World and What is Acceptable."

As they say, success is the best revenge, and it turns out that Chip and Joanna Gaines have a non-fiction bestseller, at Amazon, The Magnolia Story:

Are you ready to see your fixer upper?

These famous words are now synonymous with the dynamic husband-and-wife team Chip and Joanna Gaines, stars of HGTV’s Fixer Upper. As this question fills the airwaves with anticipation, their legions of fans continue to multiply and ask a different series of questions, like—Who are these people?What’s the secret to their success? And is Chip actually that funny in real life? By renovating homes in Waco, Texas, and changing lives in such a winsome and engaging way, Chip and Joanna have become more than just the stars of Fixer Upper, they have become America’s new best friends.

The Magnolia Story is the first book from Chip and Joanna, offering their fans a detailed look at their life together. From the very first renovation project they ever tackled together, to the project that nearly cost them everything; from the childhood memories that shaped them, to the twists and turns that led them to the life they share on the farm today.

They both attended Baylor University in Waco. However, their paths did not cross until Chip checked his car into the local Firestone tire shop where Joanna worked behind the counter. Even back then Chip was a serial entrepreneur who, among other things, ran a lawn care company, sold fireworks, and flipped houses. Soon they were married and living in their first fixer upper. Four children and countless renovations later, Joanna garners the attention of a television producer who notices her work on a blog one day...

Keep reading, at Amazon.

Oakland Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire

Horrific tragedy.

In fact, it's possibly criminal.

At LAT, "Site of deadly Oakland fire is known as the GhostShip."

So far, 4 bodies have been removed from the burned Oakland warehouse as cadaver dogs are brought in to help https://t.co/TNi6iunyrB pic.twitter.com/FCs5j8UJJs

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 4, 2016

Here's why officials don't know how many people died in the Oakland warehouse fire https://t.co/ahFsbIQ8TQ pic.twitter.com/bcQgADDEP5

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 4, 2016

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BONUS: Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money, and Power.

Ph.D. Student Allegedly Murders U.S.C. Professor Bosco Tjan, Co-Director of Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center

Absolutely horrific.

Seems like we get a story like this once a year at least. Remember UCLA had the murder-suicide shooting in June.

In any case, at LAT, "USC PhD student accused of fatally stabbing professor on campus."

The person suspected of stabbing a USC professor to death on campus yesterday is a 28-year-old PhD student https://t.co/2vQDossmyN pic.twitter.com/T1mvDycZrs

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 3, 2016

The USC psychology professor who was stabbed to death on campus joined the faculty in 2001. His name was Bosco Tjan. https://t.co/2vQDossmyN

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) December 3, 2016

Thanks to Everyone Who's Shopped Through My Amazon Links [BUMPED]

The response has been great!

I appreciate it so much. Remember I blog as a hobby. I have a regular job, heh.

But reader support on Amazon's been so good I feel like I must be doing something right.

Thanks again.

Here's the link for ongoing savings, Cyber Monday Deals and Specials.

BONUS: Out February 17th, from Steven Hayward, Patriotism Is Not Enough: Harry Jaffa, Walter Berns, and the Arguments that Redefined American Conservatism.

Bowe Bergdahl Asks Obama for Pardon

Just wow.

That takes some gumption, but then, Bergdahl's dad (seen hugging Obama in photos) is an Islamist, so maybe it's not a long shot after all.

At the Washington Examiner, "Bergdahl asks Obama to pardon him before Trump takes office."

Previous Bergdahl blogging here.

Democrats Risk Irrelevance If They Don't Change Their Ways

At U.S. News and World Report, "The Problems With the Left: Democrats risk becoming irrelevant if they don't change their ways":

Democrats have a policy problem too: the left's disconnect with voters on issues that matter is profound. For example, President Obama gave a cover-story interview to Rolling Stone magazine that came out this week on his legacy and the "path forward." Apparently the leader of the Democratic Party didn't think the "path forward" needed to include any discussion of defeating the Islamic State group, a strong national defense or reducing the burden of $20 trillion of national debt on young people. In fact, if you look at Pew Research's list of issues that the majority of voters described the day after the election as "very big problems," almost none of them – terrorism and crime, for starters – are mentioned by him.

On immigration, Obama did admit this: "It's going to be important for Democrats and immigration-rights activists to recognize that for the majority of the American people, borders mean something." For most Americans, Obama talking about border security is a day late and a dollar short. He defended the administration's "big-heartedness" when it came to immigration policy, but added that "we tend to dismiss people's concerns about making sure that immigration is lawful and orderly." What an understatement. Democrats paid dearly on Election Day for that tendency to be dismissive of people's concerns.

Exhibit 2 of the disconnect: "When I turn over the keys to the federal government to the next president of the United States, I can say without any equivocation that the country is a lot better off: The economy is stronger, the federal government works better and our standing in the world is higher," Obama said. But, polls show the American people feel the opposite. During the interview, Obama mentioned the Koch brothers and Fox News more than he mentioned race relations, tax reform or rebuilding infrastructure. At least he didn't get into access to bathrooms or gun control.

Instead, he engaged in long discussions of climate change and legalization of marijuana – Exhibits 3 and 4 – with Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner. I had broken my self-imposed boycott of Rolling Stone to read the interview – as a UVA graduate, I'm still disgusted at the way the magazine promoted the completely false story of a gang rape at the school. So don't get me started on Obama's praise for Rolling Stone's "great work."

Exhibit 5. Democrats should be grateful for Tim Ryan's wake-up call this week. Whether it's candidate recruitment across the United States, new leadership in Washington, or a pivot to issues that really matter to voters, the Democrats have a lot of work to do. If they don't start to change – and fast – they risk going beyond disconnected to irrelevant and insignificant.

RTWT.

Boycott BuzzFeed

At AoSHQ, "Boycott Part 1: Boycott All of Buzzfeed's Advertisers. Note Them, List Them, Write to Them Telling Them You'll Never buy Their Products Again Until They Cut all Ties With Buzzfeed."

Cited there: Paul Szoldra, of Business Insider:

Crap like that BuzzFeed piece is why so many people reflexively hate the media.

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) November 30, 2016

https://t.co/tmrOCGenUA pic.twitter.com/URYfCjg6IT

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) December 1, 2016

Also at Twitchy, "BuzzFeed’s New Excuse for the HGTV Story Isn’t Fooling Anyone."

J. D. Vance TED Talk: America's Forgotten Working Class (VIDEO)

I finished the book over the weekend.

See, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.

I can see why it's gotten such a buzz. I especially loved the last 60 or 70 pages, where Vance discusses his education, from Ohio State to Yale, as well as meeting his future wife. He drops a lot of sociological theory and such. I liked it.

Here's his TED talk from October. He's an interesting guy:

Splits in the 'Alt Right'

These people can just go away. Their 15 minutes are up.

Interesting take, though.

From Matt Pearce, at LAT, "The 'alt-right' splinters as supporters and critics agree it was white supremacy all along":

"When people start throwing Nazi salutes in public, it has a way of clarifying where everybody stands." https://t.co/34tOe68o69

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) November 30, 2016

When people start throwing Nazi salutes in public, it has a way of clarifying where everybody stands.

The loosely defined “alt-right” movement — made up of social-media-savvy white supremacists, neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, misogynists and other fringe figures who supported Donald Trump’s election — has splintered in recent weeks as less hard-core supporters distance themselves from the term.

At the same time, critics and media outlets have moved to avoid using the phrase “alt-right,” saying it’s a deceptive new term for old far-right ideologies that have traditionally been shunned in American public life.

And among die-hard fascists, the writing is on the wall.

“The alt-right is and has always been the same thing as it is right now – a white identity movement,” Andrew Anglin wrote at the Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi site. “Looks like we finally have this term for ourselves. Finally.”

The shift came after a meeting of white nationalists inside the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington on Nov. 19, where members threw Nazi salutes and shouted, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”

The man they were saluting was the white nationalist who coined the term “alternative right,” Richard Spencer, who had just given an anti-Semitic speech in which he quoted Nazi propaganda and called the United States a “white country.”

One white nationalist called it “the Heil Heard Around the World.” Coverage of the Nazi salutes went viral, and public reaction was severe.

Readers denounced news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, for not portraying Spencer and his supporters in a harsher light. The left-wing investigative magazine Mother Jones, which ran a deep profile of Spencer in October, was criticized for titling its piece, “Meet the Dapper White Nationalist Who Wins Even if Trump Loses.” The word “dapper” was soon removed from the headline.

Frustration also boiled over inside the mainstream media.

One Politico editor, Michael Hirsh, resigned last week after posting Spencer’s addresses on Facebook and telling followers to "Stop whining about Richard B. Spencer, Nazi, and exercise your rights as decent Americans,” according to comments first reported by the Daily Caller.

“He lives part of the time next door to me in Arlington. Our grandfathers brought baseball bats to Bund meetings,” Hirsh wrote, alluding to Jewish Americans who attacked Nazi sympathizers before World War II. “Want to join me?” (Politico’s top editors denounced Hirsh’s remarks.)

Trump himself disavowed the alt-right in a meeting with New York Times journalists, telling them, “It’s not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized I want to look into it and find out why.”

Among the alt-right’s less hard-core associates, the coverage of the Nazi salutes has been like a light suddenly turned on in a dark room. They scattered, issuing clarifications and recriminations along the way.

Paul Joseph Watson, an editor for the conspiracy-minded site InfoWars, said in July that he was “in the alt-right,” but then denied it last week, going on to argue that two different factions of the group had emerged.

“One is more accurately described as the New Right. These people like to wear MAGA [Make America Great Again] hats, create memes & have fun,” Watson wrote on Facebook, criticizing mainstream media for focusing on Trump’s racist supporters. “They include whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, gays and everyone else. These are the people who helped Trump win the election.

“The other faction likes to fester in dark corners of sub-reddits” — a reference to branches of the social-media site Reddit — “and obsess about Jews, racial superiority and Adolf Hitler. This is a tiny fringe minority. They had no impact on the election.”

Some white nationalists themselves have a term for the split: the alt-right versus the “alt-lite.”

White nationalists are alt-right and right-wing sites like Breitbart News and its chairman, the new White House advisor Stephen K. Bannon, are alt-lite, according to Brad Griffin, a white nationalist who blogs under the pen name Hunter Wallace at the site Occidental Dissent.

“Steve Bannon is the most important figure in the alt-lite,” Griffin wrote. “We all see Breitbart as the premier alt-lite website which has popularized a diluted version of our beliefs.”

Breitbart News, which channels a more nationalistic form of mainstream conservatism, gained notoriety over the last year both for implicitly supporting Trump’s candidacy and for Bannon’s proud announcement to Mother Jones in August, “We're the platform for the alt-right.”

Left-wing critics have called the site a front for white nationalism and anti-Semitism, which its staffers have vigorously denied...

The leftist media went batshit crazy over the "alt right" a couple of weeks ago, and leftists have glommed onto the "racist" meme like it was going out of style. And it's so stupid. It's like Paul Joseph Watson says, the genuine racists are at the fever swamps , a tiny fringe, with no influence whatsoever. But to progs you'd think we were back in the 1930s.

Perpetual Leftist Victims

Aww, isn't that precious?

Leftists are sad because their votes in the big urban strongholds and coastal enclaves "don't count."

Joan Walsh is such a loser. Eight years of attacking conservatives as flyover rubes and now the shoe's on the other foot.

I'm just all torn up about this.

Kneejerk animosity toward/dismissal of NY & CA, as if 60 million Americans are an asterisk inside an "elite" "bubble," is deep, dumb, ugly.

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) November 26, 2016

We have to change this. Our votes don't count. https://t.co/zMdpQZwx8K

— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) November 27, 2016

Please Say 'Merry Christmas'

It's December everybody!

It's a wonderful time of year!

Merry Christmas!

From Dennis Prager, one of the better Prager University videos I've seen:

Lauren Southern: Millennials Should Embrace Tradition (VIDEO)

She's a good lady.

She name checks Charles Murray's book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.

I Voted for Hillary. And Now I'm Going to Write for Breitbart

This is interesting.

It's Greg Ferenstein, who I've never heard of.

But trying to get a handle on what makes the other side tick sounds like a plan.

At Politico, "We can’t ignore the voices that put Trump in the White House. But maybe we can persuade them."

And here's the dude's first piece at Breitbart, "Ferenstein: My Search for Data on Trump Supporters and Racism."

Donald Trump and the Emoluments Clause

This has been something of a topic, but it hit home with I was having a discussion with my department chairwoman this week.

Here's Louise Mensch, at Heat Street:

President-Elect @realDonaldTrump Addresses #Emoluments Clause, Promises to 'Leave' His Business https://t.co/gtZI6ZQ3b8

— Heat Street (@heatstreet) November 30, 2016

Also, via the Heritage Foundation, "Emoluments Clause."

Nice Lady

Heh.

Found on Twitter:

🎣 pic.twitter.com/humaz7jZvX

— Country Girls (@DownHomeGirls) November 28, 2016

Laura Ingraham Discusses Trump's Cabinet Picks and the Ohio State Jihad Attack (VIDEO)

She's so hot.

Via Fox Business News:

Amber Lee's Chilly Morning Forecast

It's been nippy this last few mornings.

I mean, I like it, but you better have a jacket with you, heh.

Via CBS News 2 Los Angeles, the lovely Ms. Amber:

Standing Rock is the Civil Rights Issue of Our Time

Heh.

Following-up from earlier, "Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Just Another Chance for Idiot Leftist Hijacking and Exploitation (VIDEO)."

Leftists have to constantly turn every protest into the "civil rights issue of our time," whether it's black lives matter, the latest hurricane (OMG Katrina George Bush racism!), or push-back against the war on terror's "backlash" against Muslims. You name it.

Here's one of radical left's biggest enviro-shills, Bill McKibben, at the Guardian U.K., "Standing Rock is the civil rights issue of our time – let's act accordingly":

Representatives of more 200 Indian nations have gathered at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in an effort to prevent construction of an oil pipeline that threatens the tribe’s water supply, not to mention the planet’s climate. It’s a remarkable encampment, perhaps the greatest show of indigenous unity in the continent’s history. If Trump Tower represents all that’s dark and greedy in America right now, Standing Rock is by contrast the moral center of the nation...

Amazing, but you'd think leftists actually won the election in November. This kind of demonizing rhetoric is a major reason why the Democrats lost.

The idiots aren't learning the lessons of defeat, apparently.

Cyber Monday Deals Week in Electronics

The Black Friday and Cyber Week shopping's going great!

Thanks everybody!

At Amazon, Shop Deals in TV, Video and Audio, Camera, Photo and Video, Computers and Accessories, Computer Software, Cell Phones and Accessories, Office Electronics, Musical Instruments, Electronics Accessories and More.

BONUS: AmazonBasics 6-Sheet Cross-Cut Paper and Credit Card Shredder.

Kendall Jenner Looks Spectacular at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

Here, "Kendall Jenner looks ravishing in racy red lingerie with matching thigh-high boots and feathered wings as she takes to the runway at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris."

Also, "The greatest show on earth! Gigi, Bella and Kendall join Angel veterans Alessandra and Adriana as a spectacular parade of the world's top supermodels kicks off the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris."

Don't Despair

This has been my message to students since the election. Don't despair. Move on with your life and enjoy the beauty. We've survived much greater challenges in the past. We'll survive four years (maybe eight) of Donald Trump.

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "Democracy’s Future? Don’t Despair!"

Democracy’s Future? Don’t Despair! - by @tobincommentary https://t.co/O05jiMBJqT pic.twitter.com/GOtyVTfMZb

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) November 30, 2016

Deal of the Day: Sony H.ear on Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphone

At Amazon, Sony H.ear on Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphone, Charcoal Black.

Also, in blue.

And shop DSLR Cameras.

More, Nikon D3400 w/ AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR (Black).

Also, Canon EOS Rebel T6i Digital SLR with EF-S 18-55mm IS STM Lens - Wi-Fi Enabled.

Plus, Amazon Echo - White.

More, shop for Amazon accessories.

BONUS: Out January 30th, from Anthony Esolen, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture.

It's Probably Better to Stay Off Social Media Right Now

Well, I don't even check Facebook. And on Twitter I don't seem to be growing my follower count. Nobody does the "follow Friday" roundups anymore. It's pretty hateful.

@flexlibris Just send them a copy of this ;-) pic.twitter.com/hOMKe5GMw5

— Data Janitor (@abditum) November 29, 2016

Related, and this is funny, "Southern Poverty Law Center invents lucrative new hate crime: The Trump Effect."

The SPLC's a hate group, straight up.

Hailey Clauson Black Friday

She's got the right idea.

Happy #BlackFriday… now time to go back to sleep 💤💋 pic.twitter.com/ovYQwjtpVi

— Hailey Clauson (@Hailey_Clauson) November 25, 2016

And see Drunken Stepfather, "HAILEY CLAUSON’S IN HER UNDERWEAR OF THE DAY."

Adriana Lima Road to the Runway for Victoria's Secret (VIDEO)

The fashion show airs Monday, December 5th, at 10:00pm.

I'll have babe-blogging coverage through the weekend.

Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Just Another Chance for Idiot Leftist Hijacking and Exploitation (VIDEO)

I do sympathize with the Indians, but when radical leftists hijack the protests to promote their own revolutionary/anti-capitalist agenda, they lose my support.

See the idiots Neil Young and Daryl Hannah, at the Guardian U.K., "The Standing Rock protests are a symbolic moment":

Standing together in prayer to protect water displays a deeply rooted awareness of life’s interconnected nature, and of the intrinsic value and import of traditional ways. This growing movement stems from love, it is the most human instinct to protect that which we love. An eager and engaged youth are at the core of this pipeline route resistance, learning from a population of elders who pass down unforgotten knowledge.

It is an awakening. All here together, with their non-native relatives, standing strong in the face of outrageous, unnecessary and violent aggression, on the part of militarized local and state law enforcement agencies and national guard, who are seemingly acting to protect the interests of the Dakota Access pipeline profiteers, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, above all other expressed concerns. They stand against corporate security forces, the county sheriff and the national guard. Standing while being hit with water cannons, mace, teargas, rubber bullets. Standing without weapons and praying, the water protectors endure human rights abuses in freezing temperatures. Supplies arrive from all over as the social media universe shares the heartbreaking news to the world, that an American corporate media is not free to report. Thus, it is the ugliness of corporate America, seen around the world...

Right.

The "ugliness of corporate America" made both of these two big stars in their heyday. And look at them: blithering idiots. And hypocrites too. I don't see them out there schlepping it in the sub-zero temperatures with the reservation's natives. At CBS News This Morning:

Why All That Dancing in the Streets of Miami?

From Humberto Fontova, at FrontPage Magazine:

Fidel Castro jailed and tortured political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin during the Great Terror. He murdered more Cubans in his first three years in power than Hitler murdered Germans during his first six.

Fidel Castro shattered — through mass-executions, mass-jailings, mass larceny and exile — virtually every family on the island of Cuba. Many opponents of the Castro regime qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history, having suffered prison camps, forced labor and torture chambers for a period three times as long in Fidel Castro’s Gulag as Alexander Solzhenitsyn suffered in Stalin’s Gulag.

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara beat ISIS to the game by over half a century. As early as January 1959 they were filming their murders for the media-shock value.

Fidel Castro also came closest of anyone in history to (wantonly) starting a worldwide nuclear war.

In the above process Fidel Castro converted a highly-civilized nation with a higher standard of living than much of Europe and swamped with immigrants into a slum/sewer ravaged by tropical diseases and with  the highest suicide rate in the Western hemisphere.

Over TWENTY TIMES as many people (and counting) have died trying to escape Castro’s Cuba as died trying to escape East Germany. Yet prior to Castroism Cuba received more immigrants per-capita than almost any nation on earth—more than the U.S. did including the Ellis Island years, in fact.

Fidel Castro helped train and fund practically every terror group on earth, from the Weathermen to Puerto Rico’s Macheteros, from Argentina’s Montoneros, to Colombia’s FARC, from the Black Panthers to the IRA and from the PLO to AL Fatah.

Would anyone guess any of the above from reading or listening to the mainstream media recently?

In fact, from their reactions, all that dancing in the streets of Miami’s Little Havana this week-end seems to strike some talking heads as odd, if not downright unseemly.

But prior to the big news this week-end many of those same celebrants could be found with itchy noses and red-rimmed eyes ambling amidst long rows of white crosses in Miami’s Cuban Memorial.  It’s a mini-Arlington cemetery of sorts, in honor of Fidel Castro’s murder victims.

The tombs are symbolic, however. Most of the bodies still lie in mass graves dug by bulldozers on the orders of the man whose family President Obama just consoled with an official note of condolence.

Some of those future celebrants were often found kneeling at the Cuban Memorial, others walking slowly, looking for a name. You might remember a similar scene from the opening frames of “Saving Private Ryan.” Many clutched rosaries. Many of the ladies would be pressing their faces into the breast of a young relative who drove them there, a relative who wrapped his arms around her spastically heaving shoulders.

Try as he might not to cry himself, this relative usually found that the sobs wracking his mother, grandmother or aunt were contagious. Yet he was often too young to remember the young face of his martyred father, grandfather, uncle, cousin -or even aunt, mother grandmother– the name they just recognized on the white cross.

“Fusilado” (firing squad execution) it says below the name– one word, but for most visitors to the Cuban Memorial a word loaded with traumatizing flashbacks.

On Christmas Eve 1961, Juana Diaz Figueroa spat in the face of the Castroite executioners who were binding and gagging her. They’d found her guilty of feeding and hiding “bandits.” (Castro and Che’s term for Cuban peasants who took up arms to fight their theft of their land to create Stalinist kolkhozes.) Farm collectivization was no more voluntary in Cuba than in the Ukraine. And Cuba’s kulaks had guns–at first anyway. Then the Kennedy-Khrushchev pact left them defenseless against Soviet tanks, helicopters and flame-throwers. When the blast from Castro’s firing squad demolished Juana Diaz’ face and torso, she was six months pregnant.

Rigoberto Hernandez was 17 when Castro’s prison guards dragged him from his jail cell, jerked his head back to gag him and started dragging him to the stake. Little “Rigo” pleaded his innocence to the very bloody end. But his pleas were garbled and difficult to understand. His struggles while being gagged and bound to the stake were also awkward. The boy had been a janitor in a Havana high school and was mentally retarded. His single mother had pleaded his case with hysterical sobs. She had begged, beseeched and finally proven to his “prosecutors” that it was a case of mistaken identity. Her only son, a boy in such a condition, couldn’t possibly have been “a CIA agent planting bombs.”

“Fuego!” and the firing squad volley riddled Rigo’s little bent body as he moaned and struggled awkwardly against his bounds, blindfold and gag. “We executive from Revolutionary conviction!” sneered the man whose peaceful death in bed President Obama seems to mourn.

Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets from the firing squad shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro’s theft of their humble family farm.

According to the scholars and researchers at the Cuba Archive, the Castro regime’s total death toll–from torture, prison beatings, firing squads, machine gunning of escapees, drownings, etc.–approaches 100,000. Cuba’s population in 1960 was 6.4 million. According to the human rights group Freedom House, 500,000 Cubans (young and old, male and female) have passed through Castro’s prison and forced-labor camps. This puts Fidel Castro political incarceration rate right up there with his hero Stalin’s.

It’s not enough that liberals refuse to acknowledge any justification for these Miami celebrations. No, on top of that here’s the type of thing the celebrants are accustomed to hearing from the media and famous Democrats:

“Viva Fidel! Viva Che!” (Two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination Jesse Jackson, bellowed while arm in arm with Fidel Castro himself in 1984.)

"Fidel Castro is very shy and sensitive, I frankly like him and regard him as a friend." (Democratic presidential candidate, Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, and “Conscience of the Democratic party,” George Mc Govern.)

“Fidel Castro first and foremost is and always has been a committed egalitarian. He wanted a system that provided the basic needs to all Cuba has superb systems of health care and universal education…We greeted each other as old friends.”  (Former President of the United States and official "Elder Statesman” of the Democratic party, Jimmy Carter.)

“Fidel Castro is old-fashioned, courtly–even paternal, a thoroughly fascinating figure!” (NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.)

“Fidel Castro could have been Cuba’s Elvis!” (Dan Rather)

"Castro's personal magnetism is still powerful, his presence is still commanding. Cuba has very high literacy, and Castro has brought great health care to his country." (Barbara Walters.)

 “Fidel Castro is one helluva guy!” (CNN founder Ted Turner.)

Ohio State University Jihad Attacker Praised al-Qaeda Preacher and Slammed America on Facebook Minutes Before Launching Campus Rampage (VIDEO)

At Pamela's, "Ohio State Jihadist Praised al Qaeda Imam and Slammed America on Facebook Minutes Before Attempting to Slaughter the Infidels."

And here's the video from last night's CBS Evening News. Kinda hard by this time to ask, "Gee, I wonder what motivated the attack?"

It's the jihad, stupid.

Barrett Brown Released

Heh.

At the Other McCain, "Notoriously Crazy Felon Barrett Brown Has Been Released From Federal Prison."

I tweeted earlier:

@PatriarchTree Barrett's out: https://t.co/3AkD6TCvT1

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 29, 2016

Back on the outside for the first time in 4 years, Barrett enjoys an Egg McMuffin. #FreeBB pic.twitter.com/bLbX21ZcTJ

— Free Barrett Brown (@FreeBarrett_) November 29, 2016

Save 20% on Digital SLR Cameras

Great for under the tree!

At Amazon, DSLR Cameras.

More, Nikon D3400 w/ AF-P DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR (Black).

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Amazon Echo on Sale for $139.99 $179.99 (Plus Free Shipping)

*BUMPED*

Hey, it's Cyber Monday [Shopping Week].

At Amazon, Amazon Echo - White.

And shop for Amazon accessories.

Have a great day!

*BUMPED*

Kellyanne Conway and Her Family Vacation at the Ritz Carlton in Key Biscayne, Florida

The inevitable Kellyanne Conway in a bathing suit coverage, heh.

At iOWNTHEWORLD, "Were We Interested in Kellyanne Conway in a Bathing Suit?"

Lolz.

Well somebody's interested in seeing the awesome lady in her swimming attire. It looks like she's having fun, although I'm not sure if she saw the paparazzi or not.

Peter Cozzens, The Earth Is Weeping

According to Victor Davis Hanson:

Peter Cozzens reminds us that tragedy, not melodrama, best characterizes the struggles for the American West. A moving narrative, substantial documentation, and even-handed analyses explain why The Earth is Weeping is the most lucid and reliable history of the Indian Wars in recent memory.

Hey, I love VDH.

Check Cozzens, at Amazon, The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West.

David Horowitz, The Politics of Bad Faith

All this ugly ideological warfare over the tyrant Fidel reminded me of David Horowitz's book, The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future.

And of course, shop Cyber Week at Amazon.

Favorite Reader Mail

I'm telling you, I've never seen this country so unhinged.

From Carlos Lozada of the Washington Post:

Now that the election is over, I've picked my favorite piece of 2016 reader mail, courtesy of Midge from upstate NY: pic.twitter.com/tv8LXIBygX

— Carlos Lozada (@CarlosLozadaWP) November 10, 2016

Justin Trudeau, Canada's Laughing Stock

I was gathering some links on Prime Minister Trudeau, and especially liked this one, from Terry Glavin, at Macleans, "Trudeau’s turn from cool to laughing stock":

To be perfectly fair, Trudeau did allow that Castro was a “controversial figure,” and nothing in his remarks was as explicit as the minor classic in the genre of dictator-worship that his brother Alexandre composed for the Toronto Star 10 years ago. Alexandre described Castro as “something of a superman. . . an expert on genetics, on automobile combustion engines, on stock markets. On everything.” As for the Cuban people: “They do occasionally complain, often as an adolescent might complain about a too strict and demanding father.”

This kind of Disco Generation stupidity about Castro has been commonplace in establishment circles in Canada since Pierre’s time, and neither Alexandre’s gringo-splaining nor Justin’s aptitude for eulogy are sufficient to gloss over the many things Cubans have every right to complain about.

Any political activity outside the Communist Party of Cuba is a criminal offence. Political dissent of any kind is a criminal offence. Dissidents are spied on, harassed and roughed up by the Castros’ neighbourhood vigilante committees. Freedom of movement is non-existent. Last year, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) documented 8,616 cases of politically motivated arbitrary arrest. For all our Prime Minister’s accolades about Cuba’s health care system, basic medicines are scarce to non-existent. For all the claims about high literacy rates, Cubans are allowed to read only what the Castro crime family allows.

Raul Castro’s son Alejandro is the regime’s intelligence chief. His son-in-law, Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas, runs the Cuban military’s business operations, which now account for 60 per cent of the Cuban economy. The Castro regime owns and control the Cuban news media, which is adept at keeping Cubans in the dark. It wasn’t until 1999, for instance, that Cubans were permitted to know the details of Fidel’s family life: five sons they’d never heard of, all in their thirties.

Independent publications are classified as “enemy propaganda.” Citizen journalists are harassed and persecuted as American spies. Reporters Without Borders ranks Cuba at 171 out of 180 countries in press freedom, worse than Iran, worse than Saudi Arabia, worse than Zimbabwe.

So fine, let’s overlook the 5,600 Cubans Fidel Castro executed by firing squad, the 1,200 known to have been liquidated in extrajudicial murders, the tens of thousands dispatched to forced labour camps, or the fifth of the Cuban population that was either driven into the sea or fled the country in terror.

What is not so easy to overlook is that Fidel and Raúl Castro reneged on their promise of a return to constitutional democracy and early elections following the overthrow of the tyrant Fulgencio Batista. The Castros betrayed the revolutionary democrats and patriots who poured into Havana with them on that glorious January day in 1959. The Castros waged war on them in the Escambray Mountains until their final defeat in 1965, four full years after John F. Kennedy’s half-baked Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

After he solidified his base in Cuba’s Stalinist party–which had been allied with Batista, Castro’s apologists tend to conveniently forget, until the final months of 1958–Fidel Castro delivered Cuba to Moscow as a Soviet satrapy. He then pushed Russia to the brink of nuclear war with the United States in the terrifying 13-day Missile Crisis of 1962.

For all the parochial Canadian susceptibility to the propaganda myth that pits a shabby-bearded rebel in olive fatigues against the imperialist American hegemon, by the time he died on Friday night Castro was one of the richest men in Latin America. Ten years ago, when he was handing the presidency to Raúl, Forbes magazine calculated that Fidel’s personal wealth was already nearly a billion dollars.
In his twilight years, Castro was enjoying himself at his gaudy 30-hectare Punto Cero estate in Havana’s suburban Jaimanitas district, or occasionally retreating to his private yacht, or to his beachside house in Cayo Piedra, or to his house at La Caleta del Rosario with its private marina, or to his duck-hunting chalet at La Deseada.

Fidel Castro was not merely the “controversial figure” of Justin Trudeau’s encomium. He was first and foremost a traitor to the Cuban revolution. On that count alone, Castro’s death should not be mourned. It should be celebrated, loudly and happily.

Also, from Melissa Tweets:

Where the left, illustrated by Trudeau and Obama, fall short over and over: they just cannot admit evil exists.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) November 28, 2016

Listen, you morally vacuous dumbbutts, there is good and evil. Castro is not a victim of his childhood. He was a psychopathic murderer.

— Melissa Mackenzie 🌐 (@MelissaTweets) November 28, 2016

Still more at Reason, "Justin Trudeau, Castro's Death, and the Power of Twitter."

Don't Blame Racists for Electing Trump

From Jason Riley, at the Wall Street Journal, "Democrats Are Obsessed With Race. Donald Trump Isn’t":

Don't blame racists for electing Trump. Blame former Obama voters. https://t.co/reEBd5KlKx @WSJopinion @ManhattanInst @FoxNews

— Jason Riley (@jasonrileywsj) November 23, 2016

Since when does a weekend gathering of “nearly 275” white nationalists in a country of more than 320 million people warrant front-page coverage in major newspapers? Since the election of Donald Trump, apparently.

The same media outlets that insisted Mr. Trump wouldn’t beat Hillary Clinton have spent the past two weeks misleading the public about why he did. Breathless coverage of a neo-Nazi sideshow in the nation’s capital—where antiracism protesters almost outnumbered attendees, according to the Washington Post—helps liberals illustrate their preferred “basket of deplorables” explanation for Mrs. Clinton’s loss.

The reality is that Mr. Trump didn’t prevail on Election Day because of fake news stories or voter suppression or ascendant bigotry in America. He won because a lot of people who voted for Barack Obama in previous elections cast ballots for Mr. Trump this time. In Wisconsin, he dominated the Mississippi River Valley region on the state’s western border, which went for Mr. Obama in 2012. In Ohio’s Trumbull County, where the auto industry is a major employer and the population is 89% white, Mr. Obama beat Mitt Romney, 60% to 38%. This year, Trumbull went for Mr. Trump, 51% to 45%. Iowa went for Mr. Obama easily in 2008 and 2012, but this year Mr. Trump won the state by 10 points. Either these previous Obama supporters are closet racists or they’re voting on other issues...

Keep reading.

For Decades, Cuban Americans Longed to Return Home. But Now That Fidel's Dead, Not So Much

The thrill is gone, baby.

At LAT, "For decades, Cuban Americans have longed to return to a post-Castro Cuba. But now that Fidel is dead, many aren't so eager to go."

Post-Election Polarization: A Nation Divided

At CNN, "A nation divided, and is it ever":

More than 80% of Americans say US more deeply divided on major issues than in past several years, CNN/ORC poll says. https://t.co/2waDHMX1Z7

— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) November 27, 2016

(CNN) - After a bruising presidential election featuring the two least liked major-party candidates in recent history, more than 8-in-10 Americans say the country is more deeply divided on major issues this year than in the past several years, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. And more than half say they are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in the US.

The poll's findings, released Sunday, also suggest a sizable minority personally agree with both parties on at least some issues, and nearly 8-in-10 overall hope to see the GOP-controlled government incorporate some Democratic policies into its agenda....

In the wake of a surprising election night loss, Democrats express greater dissatisfaction with the way democracy in the US is working than do Republicans (63% of Democrats are dissatisfied vs. 47% of Republicans), but some of the Republican Party's core supporters express deeper dissatisfaction than the GOP as a whole.

Among white evangelicals, 60% say they are dissatisfied, 62% of rural Americans say the same, and whites without college degrees, a typically GOP-leaning group which broke heavily for Trump in the recent election, are broadly dissatisfied (61% vs. 52% among whites who hold college degrees).

The sense that the country is sharply riven is near universal, with 85% saying so overall, including 86% of independents, 85% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats. It's also sharply higher than it was in 2000 when the nation last elected a president who did not win the popular vote (64% thought the nation more sharply split then).

The share who see deeper divides now tops 8-in-10 across gender, racial, age and educational divides. The biggest difference on the question comes across ideological lines, with 91% of liberals saying the country is more divided on top issues compared with 80% of conservatives.