Steven F. Hayward, Patriotism Is Not Enough

Out yesterday, at Amazon, Steven F. Hayward, Patriotism Is Not Enough: Harry Jaffa, Walter Berns, and the Arguments that Redefined American Conservatism.

Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise

*BUMPED.*

He's a professor at the Naval War College.

At Amazon, Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters.

Ben Garrison Toasts Marine Le Pen

Following-up from early today, "Marine Le Pen Wins Over Women Voters Who Feel Left Behind in France."

Here's Ben Garrison:

#LePen is Mightier than the Sword -New #BenGarrison #cartoon #frenchelection #Brexit #Islam #Veil #ImWithHer https://t.co/Oj98iIxEAZ pic.twitter.com/ZxdVsj2YA8

— BenGarrison Cartoons (@GrrrGraphics) February 22, 2017

Irvine's Teresa Johnston, 13, in Coma After Tree Falls on Her During Storm (VIDEO)

She needs your prayers.

At the Los Angeles Times, "13-year-old girl in coma after being hit by falling tree during storm."

Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name

The best book on Jim Crow segregation is Leon Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow.

But I've been seeing a lot more of Douglas Blackmon's book recently, given the current polarizing environment, so I suspect I should take a look.

At Amazon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.

ICYMI: Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns

At Amazon, Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.

Antony Beevor, Ardennes 1944

He's a prodigious historian.

At Amazon, Antony Beevor, Ardennes 1944: The Battle of the Bulge.

Samantha Hoopes Uncovered for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017 (VIDEO)

Via Theo Spark:

Westworld's Angela Sarafyan Wears Risqué Sheer Panel Dress Without Underwear for Vanity Fair and L'Oreal's Toast to Young Hollywood Party in Los Angeles

At London's Daily Mail, "You're Sheer-ly Not Serious! Westworld's Angela Sarafyan Goes Without Underwear Beneath See-Through Panel Dress at Hollywood Bash."

Shop Amazon Today

Thanks for supporting the blog!

Here, at Amazon, Today's Deals.

Also, Biofreeze Pain Relieving Gel - 4 Ounce Tube - Pack of 4.

And, AmazonBasics Apple Certified Lightning to USB Cable - 6 Feet (1.8 Meters) - White.

BONUS: Nick Adams, Retaking America: Crushing Political Correctness.

Trump Administration Outlines Plans for Sweeping Deportations of Illegal Aliens

Following-up, "Katie Pavlich: #Democrats Use Illegal Immigration to Stoke Fear."

At USA Today, "Homeland Security unveils sweeping plan to deport undocumented immigrants."

Katie Pavlich: #Democrats Use Illegal Immigration to Stoke Fear

Katie's cool.

Marine Le Pen Wins Over Women Voters Who Feel Left Behind in France

She's awesome.

At Bloomberg.

And at Blazing Cat Fur, "Marine Le Pen Refuses to Cover Herself for Muslim Poobah."

Audra Simpson, Mohawk Interruptus

*BUMPED.*

I'm telling you, the literature on Native Americans is among the most radical scholarship you'll find.

FWIW, at Amazon, Audra Simpson, Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States.

Professor Simpson's posted a link to the book's introduction on her faculty homepage.

'Feminist Witchcraft,' Mental Illness and the Demonic Dangers of the Occult

At the Other McCain.

'None Dare Call it Treason'

Actually, the first couple of chapters are chilling. It really hits home. John Stormer might as well have explaining Obama's America and the left's glorification of Islam.

Here, None Dare Call it Treason.

I have a copy. It's not "fake news."

A 1964 book claiming that communists had infiltrated all levels of government was that era's version of fake news https://t.co/V1K2wG4uCp

— NYT Metro Desk (@NYTMetro) January 11, 2017

Iceland, Where Murders Are Rare

But where this woman's disappearance has gripped the nation.

At NYT:

Killing of a young woman grips Iceland https://t.co/zDW0ZJE5w1

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 24, 2017

Never Trumpers Continue to Subvert Trump's Presidency

I want to get to Milo's resignation from Breitbart, and the debate on its causes, which is mind-boggling. But I'm tired from a long day. I promise to post on it later. (But see David Horowitz for now, in any case, "The Right Throws Milo to the Wolves: Why the Left Dominates the National Culture." Interesting that I wrote yesterday that "the left's fingerprints are all over this." The "right" is morphing into the "left.")

Meanwhile, here's VDH, "Seven Days in February":

Trumps’ critics, left and right, aim to bring about the cataclysm they predicted.

A 1964 political melodrama, Seven Days in May, envisioned a futuristic (1970s) failed military cabal that sought to sideline the president of the United States over his proposed nuclear-disarmament treaty with the Soviets.

Something far less dramatic but perhaps as disturbing as Hollywood fiction played out this February.

The Teeth-Gnashing of Deep Government

Currently, the political and media opponents of Donald Trump are seeking to subvert his presidency in a manner unprecedented in the recent history of American politics. The so-called resistance among EPA federal employees is trying to disrupt Trump administration reform; immigration activists promise to flood the judiciary to render executive orders inoperative.

Intelligence agencies had earlier leaked fake news briefings about the purported escapades of President-elect Trump in Moscow — stories that were quickly exposed as politically driven concoctions. Nearly one-third of House Democrats boycotted the Inauguration. Celebrities such as Ashley Judd and Madonna shouted obscenities to crowds of protesters; Madonna voiced her dreams of Trump’s death by saying she’d been thinking a lot about blowing up the White House.

But all that pushback was merely the clownish preliminary to the full-fledged assault in mid February.

Career intelligence officers leaked their own transcripts of a phone call that National Security Advisor–designate Michael Flynn had made to a Russian official.The media charge against Flynn was that he had nefariously talked to higher-ups in Russia before he took office. Obama-administration officials did much the same, before Inauguration Day 2009, and spoke with Syrian, Iranian, and Russian counterparts. But they faced no interference from the outgoing Bush administration.

No doubt the designated security officials of most incoming administrations do not wait until being sworn in to sound out foreign officials. Most plan to reset the policies of their predecessors. The question, then, arises: Why were former Obama-administration appointees or careerist officials tapping the phone calls of an incoming Trump designate (and Trump himself?) and then leaking the tapes to their pets in the press? For what purpose?

Indeed, Trump’s own proposed outreach to Russia so far is not quite of the magnitude of Obama’s in 2009, when the State Department staged the red-reset-button event to appease Putin; at the time, Russia was getting set to swallow the Crimea and all but absorb Eastern Ukraine. Trump certainly did not approve the sale of some 20 percent of North American uranium holdings to Russian interests, in the quid pro quo fashion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did, apparently in concert with Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation — and to general indifference of both the press and the intelligence community.

In addition, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that career intelligence officers have decided to withhold information from the president, on the apparent premise that he is unfit, in their view, to receive it. If true, that disclosure would mean that elements of the federal government are now actively opposing the duly elected president of the United States. That chilling assessment gains credence from the likelihood that the president’s private calls to Mexican and Australian heads of state were likewise recorded, and selected segments were leaked to suggest that Trump was either trigger-happy or a buffoon.

Oddly, in early January, Senator Charles Schumer had essentially warned Trump that he would pay for his criticism of career intelligence officials. In an astounding shot across his bow, which was followed up by an onslaught in February, Schumer said: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. . . . So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

Schumer was evidently not disturbed about rogue intelligence agencies conspiring to destroy a shared political enemy — the president of the United States. What surprised him was how naïve Trump was in not assessing the anti-constitutional forces arrayed against him.

Trump-Removal Chic

The elite efforts to emasculate the president have sometimes taken on an eerie turn. The publisher-editor of the German weekly magazine Zeit raised the topic on German television of killing Trump to end the “Trump catastrophe.” So did British Sunday Times columnist India Knight, who tweeted, “The assassination is taking such a long time.” A former Obama Pentagon official, Rosa Brooks, recently mused about theoretical ways to remove Trump, including a military coup, should other avenues such as impeachment or medically forced removal fail: “The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders.”

The Atlantic now darkly warns that Trump is trying to create an autocracy. Former Weekly Standard editor in chief Bill Kristol suggested in a tweet that if he faced a choice (and under what surreal circumstances would that happen?) between the constitutionally, democratically elected president and career government officials’ efforts to thwart or remove him, he would come down on the side of the revolutionary, anti-democratic “deep state”: “Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it [emphasis added], prefer the deep state to the Trump state.” No doubt some readers interpreted that as a call to side with anti-constitutional forces against an elected U.S. president.

Hollywood stars such as Meryl Streep equate the president with brownshirts and assorted fascists. A CNN reporter announced that Trump was Hitlerian; another mused about his plane’s crashing. Prominent conservative legal scholar Richard Epstein recently called for Trump to resign after less than a month in office, largely on grounds that Trump’s rhetoric is unbridled and indiscreet — although Epstein cited no indictable or impeachable offenses that would justify the dispatch of a constitutionally elected president. Earlier, Republican columnists David Frum and Jennifer Rubin had theorized that the 25th Amendment might provide a way to remove Trump from office as unfit to serve. The New Republic published an unfounded theory, based on no empirical evidence, alleging that Trump suffers from neurosyphilis and thus is mentally not up to his office.

Former president Barack Obama — quite unlike prior presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, who all refrained from attacking their successors — is now reportedly ready to join the efforts of a well-funded political action committee to undermine the Trump presidency...

It's sickening.

I don't recognize American politics anymore. I don't recognize my country anymore.

But thank goodness for decent, clear-thinking people like VDH.

Keep reading.

Shop Today's Deals!

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Today's Deals.

And, Amazon Echo - Black.

BONUS: Robert M. Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865.

Also, Bernard Bailyn, The Origins of American Politics.

The Most Politically Dangerous Book

It's Nikolai Chernyshevsky, What Is to Be Done?

The most politically dangerous book you’ve never heard of https://t.co/urHQbA9z61 via @POLITICOMag pic.twitter.com/k6hCeijH2A

— POLITICO (@politico) December 12, 2016

Cuirasse du Carabinier — Waterloo

Here's the story, "Cuirass with Cannon-Ball Hole":

Armour of a cuirasse du carabinier holed by a cannonball at the battle of Waterloo pic.twitter.com/TBJ7rGPIVf

— History In Pictures (@historyepics) January 15, 2017

This is a French cuirass, a breastplate worn as body armour by French cavalry. The hole is from a British cannonball that smashed through the unlucky soldier’s chest. The Waterloo campaign was the first occasion that British troops found themselves face to face with Napoleon’s armoured cavalry, whose cuirasses and metal helmets made them a daunting foe.

Yet as the British would discover, even these armoured troopers were by no means invincible as this breastplate brings home with shocking force.

More.

'Alexa, stop!'

At WSJ, "Alexa, Stop Making Life Miserable for Anyone With a Similar Name!":

“I always liked my name, until Amazon gave it to a robot.” https://t.co/w5mG5rsj0A

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) January 27, 2017

“Alexa, stop!” Joanne Sussman screamed in her living room.

Immediately, the computer living inside her Amazon Echo speaker stopped playing her favorite music station. Simultaneously, Mrs. Sussman’s 24-year-old daughter, Alexa, froze on the stairs.

“What, mom? I’m taking the laundry down,” human Alexa shouted back. “What do you need?”

“I always liked my name, until Amazon gave it to a robot,” says Alexa Sussman, a recent New York University graduate who works in marketing.

The artificial-intelligence invasion is upon us, in the form of disembodied personal assistants we can give orders to, query and, in some cases, try to converse with. In hopes of getting us used to our new artificially intelligent family members, the technology companies behind them have given the machines mostly female names to go with their soothing voices.

Apple Inc. picked “Siri.” Microsoft Corp. chose “Cortana.” ( Alphabet Inc.’s Google opted to keep its software nonhuman, calling it “Assistant.”) Amazon.com Inc.’s choice, as it happens, was the 39th most popular girl’s name in the U.S. in 2006. That means in some homes the plan has backfired: The effort to make a gadget more humanlike has earned it human enemies.

In the Sussmans’ household in Levittown, N.Y., the confusion cuts both ways. Last week, when human Alexa’s father, Dean, asked her to grab some water from the kitchen, Amazon’s Alexa wanted to help, too. “Amazon’s choice for water is Fiji Natural Artesian Water, pack of 24. It’s $27.27, including tax. Would you like to buy it?”

When he told his daughter to move the living-room chair, Amazon’s Alexa yelped, “Ready to pair!” Robo-Alexa had a command for Mr. Sussman himself: “Go to the Bluetooth devices on your mobile device.”

The microphones in the $180 Amazon Echo and the smaller $50 Echo Dot are always listening for “Alexa,” which is their default “wake word,” the phrase causing it to start paying attention to commands. Amazon lets users change the wake word to “Echo,” “Amazon,” or, starting this week, “computer.”

But many users aren’t aware. The Sussmans found out about the setting a year after buying the device. They have decided to keep “Alexa” because they say they find it funny.


Amazon has sold more than 11 million Echos and Dots since 2015, Morgan Stanley estimates, and it is working with partners to put Alexa into other products, including Ford Motor Co. cars and General Electric Co. lamps.

Some human Alexas want nothing to do with her.

“Oh, your name is Alexa, like the Amazon thing?” Alexa Duncan, 33, says she hears all too often these days. She refuses to buy the Echo.

Amazon says it named its Alexa after the ancient Egyptian Library of Alexandria. The company hasn’t offered any formal apologies to the human Alexas.

Michelle Malkin Slams the Media's Thin-Skinned Reaction to Being Called the Enemy (VIDEO)

From Hannity's last night:

ICYMI: Scott Greer, No Campus for White Men

At Amazon, No Campus for White Men: The Transformation of Higher Education into Hateful Indoctrination.

The Screwed Generation Turns Socialist

This is one of the best reasons we have Donald Trump. He repudiates these losers like nothing. Besides, conservatism is the new counter-culture. These idiot socialist progs are uncool.

From Joel Kotkin, at the Daily Beast, "The Depression and WWII shaped the greatest generation, and postwar prosperity shaped the Baby Boomers. Millennials, battered by capitalism, move ever leftward":

Roughly half of Millennials have positive feelings about socialism, twice the rate of the previous generation https://t.co/ofqRdNCJpD

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 19, 2017

Increasingly American politics are driven by generational change. The election of Donald Trump was not just a triumph of whiter, heartland America. It also confirmed the still considerable voting power of the older generation. Yet over time, as those of us who have lived long enough well know, generations decline, and die off, and new ones ascend.

In this past election, those over 45 strongly favored Trump, while those younger than that cast their ballots for Clinton. Trump’s improbable victory, and the more significant GOP sweep across the country, demonstrated that the much-ballyhooed millennials simply are not yet sufficiently numerous or united enough to overcome the votes of the older generations.

Yet over time, the millennials—arguably the most progressive generation since the ’30s—could drive our politics not only leftward, but towards an increasingly socialist reality, overturning many of the very things that long have defined American life. This could presage a war of generations over everything from social mores to economics and could well define our politics for the next decade...

Hey, bring it on, lol.

And keep reading.

Playboy Playmate Elizabeth Elam (VIDEO)

Following-up from last week, "Playboy Magazine to Bring Back Nude Women."

Watch, "What Turns on March Playmate Elizabeth Elam?"

Milo Yiannopoulos Crashes

Well, I guess it was inevitable.

Milo's a modern Icarus who tried to fly too high and far, only to meltdown amid the onslaught of the politically correct masses.

Here's the second of his two Facebook posts today, attempting to save face (and save his career). Alas, the fury over his pedophilia comments is just too ferocious. See, "I am a gay man, and a child abuse victim" (at Memeorandum). And his earlier attempt at contrition, "A note for idiots (UPDATED)."

Not only has CPAC disinvited him, but Simon & Schuster cancelled his book contract. And if he gets the boot from Breitbart, which website staffers are pushing, it'll be the fastest fall of a political iconoclast I can remember.

Milo says he does not support pedophilia. https://t.co/8g2Q5klGw9

— Heat Street (@heatstreet) February 20, 2017

Simon & Schuster Cancels Milo Yiannopoulos's Book. Our full story. https://t.co/eDwpnx3qEf

— Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) February 20, 2017

And believe me, the left's fingerprints are all over this. See, Conservative Treehouse, "It’s Not About Milo – It’s About The Existential Threat That Milo Represents…"

Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890

Here's another traditional historian worth a read.

See Robert M. Utley, at Amazon, The Indian Frontier, 1846-1890.

Also, Robert M. Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891.

Far-Left Michelle Goldberg Says of the Trump Administration: 'It's Bad'

Years ago, I read Michelle Goldberg's book, The Means of Reproduction, and was horrified. She's about as far-left as you can be while still declaiming adherence to communism (as she does). And because of that background, anything of Goldberg's is automatically suspect. She's frankly a nutjob IMHO.

In any case, make what you want of this. Naturally, I think Trump's been about as awesome as you can get, for precisely the actions that have people like Goldberg pulling their hair out. Trump takes it to the left, and for that he's rightly considered a savior of our country.

So, FWIW, at Slate, "The First Month of Trump’s Presidency Has Been More Cruel and Destructive Than the Majority of Americans Feared." (Via Maggie's Farm and Memeorandum.)

https://t.co/ahgP88gDkf #PresidentsDay

— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) February 20, 2017

Allan Eckert, The Frontiersmen

Following-up from my last entry, "Hampton Sides, Blood and Thunder."

This is the kind of "heroism, ingenuity, and perseverance" I was talking about. See Allan Eckert, The Frontiersmen: A Narrative.

Eckert published a whole series of books, called "The Narratives of America."

See also, The Conquerors; Wilderness Empire: A Narrative; The Wilderness War; Gateway to Empire; and Twilight of Empire.

The point here is balance. I actually enjoy reading the radical leftist diatribes against racist, hegemonic "settler colonialism." It's just you need to have the intellectual firepower to fight back against the leftist haters. They're mostly communist who want a revolutionary destruction of the American regime. A lot of them (if not all of them) are simply exploiting the tragic Native American narrative for their own nihilist designs. So, again, just keep an open mind, read widely, and then hammer them back mercilessly when you have to.

(I'm going to read and nap all afternoon now; check back later for more blogging.)

Hampton Sides, Blood and Thunder

Years ago I picked up a copy of William C. Davis', The American Frontier: Pioneers, Settlers, and Cowboys 1800-1899. The book provides the most gung-ho account of the peopling of the West than anything else I've read, and it's a fantastic counterpoint to the dreary leftist academic hatred of racist "settler colonialism."

I'm reminded of the Davis tome as I see Hampton Sides' book, Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West.

I love stories of the West, especially proud, unabashed stories of American heroism, ingenuity, and perseverance. I think those are exactly the things leftists hate most, which makes me thrill to them all the more.

David Garrow, Liberty and Sexuality

Garrow's book is cited at the Los Angeles Times, "Norma McCorvey, once-anonymous plaintiff in landmark Roe vs. Wade abortion case, dies at 69."

The L.A. Times obituary, by the way, is much better, way more honest, than the New York Times's. A key point: McCorvey never had an abortion.

In any case, here's Garrow's book, Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade.

How the Southern Poverty Law Center Faked an Islamophobia Crisis

At FrontPage Magazine, "Fake News About Fake Group's Report About Fake 'Hate'":

Look out!  It’s another fake Islamophobia crisis.

“Huge Growth in Anti-Muslim Hate Groups During 2016: SPLC Report,” wails NBC News. “Watchdog: Number of anti-Muslim hate groups tripled since 2015,” FOX News bleats. ABC News vomits up this word salad. “Trump cited in report finding increase in US hate groups for 2nd year in a row.”

The SPLC stands for the Southern Poverty Law Center: an organization with slightly less credibility than Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and without the academic degree in greasepaint.

And you won’t believe the shameless way the SPLC faked its latest Islamophobia crisis.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest “hate group” sightings claims that the “number of anti-Muslim hate groups increased almost three-fold in 2016.”

That’s a lot of folds.

And there is both bad news and good news from its “Year in Hate and Extremism.”

First the good news.

Casa D’Ice Signs, the sign outside a bar in K-Mart Plaza in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, is no longer listed as a hate group. The sign outside the bar had been listed as a hate group by the SPLC for years. The owner of Casa D’Ice had been known for putting politically incorrect signs outside his bar. So the SPLC listed the “signs” as a hate group. (Even though there was only one sign.) Not the bar. That would have made too much sense.

Since then Casa D’Ice was sold and the SPLC has celebrated the defeat of another hate group. Even if the hate group was just a plastic sign outside a bar.

But the bad news, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is that anti-Muslim hate groups shot up from only 34 in 2015 to 101 in 2016.

What could possibly account for that growth? Statistical fakery so fake that a Vegas bookie would weep.

President Trump is on the cover of the SPLC’s latest Intelligence Report: a misnomer of a title from an organization whose intelligence gathering led it to list a bar sign as a hate group.

But there’s actually another phenomenon responsible for this startling rise reported by the SPLC.

The SPLC decided to count 45 chapters of Act for America as separate groups.

How do you get a sudden rise from 34 to 101 hate groups? It helps to suddenly add 45 chapters of one group. Act for America isn’t a hate group. It’s also just as obviously not 45 groups.

And it didn’t come into existence last year.

Act for America was only listed as one group in the 2015 list. It shot up to 45 now.

The SPLC this year listed the Los Angeles chapter of Act for America as a separate group. But the chapter has been around for quite a few years.

Furthermore Act for America boasts not 45, but 1,000 chapters across the country. Why list just 45 of them? Look at it from the SPLC’s perspective. Next year, it can add 200 chapters and claim that anti-Muslim hate groups once again tripled. And then it can do the same thing again the year after that.

That way the Southern Poverty Law Center can keep manufacturing an imaginary Islamophobia crisis.

Also added to the list is Altra Firearms: a gun store that ran an ad declaring that it wouldn’t sell firearms to Clinton supporters or Muslims. Like Casa D’Ice, this is another case of the SPLC demonstrating that it has no idea what distinguishes a store whose owner says politically incorrect things from a “group”.

The list has added Bosch Fawstin: an artist who was the target of the first ISIS terror attack in America during the assault on the Draw Mohammed cartoon contest. The SPLC announced that it was adding the Eisner nominated artist to its list of hate groups after he survived the attack.

The SPLC’s actions were obscene.

After the attack, Heidi Beirich, in charge of adding targets to the SPLC’s hate map, announced that she would be adding Bosch to the list because the Center now knows his location.

Indeed the SPLC makes a point of highlighting the locations of likely terrorist targets. And the Southern Poverty Law Center’s map of hate has been used by terrorists before.

Floyd Lee Corkins opened fire at the headquarters of the Family Research Council. The conservative Christian organization had been targeted by Corkins because of its appearance on the SPLC’s list.

"Southern Poverty Law lists anti-gay groups. I found them online,” Corkins later confessed to the FBI.

When Leo Johnson, the building’s African-American manager, attempted to stop Corkins, the SPLC shooter told Johnson that he didn’t like his politics and opened fire. The SPLC gunman had planned to kill everyone in the office, but Johnson’s heroic actions saved their lives. The African-American building manager was forced to undergo painful surgeries because of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate list.

Despite its role in the terror attack, the SPLC continues to target the Family Research Council.

None of the so-called “Anti-Muslim hate groups” listed by the SPLC have shot anyone. The SPLC has...

Still more.

President Trump's Agenda Includes Hitting Back — Hard

From David Horowitz's new book, Big Agenda: President Trump’s Plan to Save America.

Excerpt from Big Agenda in today's Philadelphia Inquirer: https://t.co/ROAQl98P0V

— David Horowitz (@horowitz39) February 19, 2017

Ironically, it was a billionaire businessman who broke the mold in the 2016 presidential campaign and brought a new voice into Republican politics. Donald Trump took up the cause of the forgotten working class, promising to restore America's industrial prowess and bring back the jobs that a corrupt elite with a globalist outlook had negotiated away in reckless trade deals that sent Americans to the back of the bus and squandered the prosperity they had created over generations.

Equally groundbreaking was Trump's bluntness in confronting the corruption of both parties for participating in a rigged system that left their constituencies out in the cold. The failure to secure the borders was a national disgrace in which both parties were complicit. In focusing on the criminal aliens who had not been blocked at the borders and were not deported, he broke the silence imposed by the politically correct party line. In calling Clinton a "crook," a "liar," and the enabler of a sexual predator, he took her off the pedestal on which her gender and the Democrats' fantasy of a Republican "war on women" had placed her. By speaking out against the Democrats' rape of the inner cities and their treatment of their black constituents as second-class citizens, Trump burst a bubble that had protected Democrats from the consequences of their actions and opened the ranks of the Republican Party to "people of color."

Trump's readiness to go for the Democrats' jugular rallied Republican voters frustrated by their leaders' long-running deference to Democratic outrages and their willingness to keep their party on the defensive. It was this rallying of the Republican troops, who turned out in record crowds during the campaign, that led Trump to call what he had created a "movement." It is a movement, first of all, anchored in its opposition to the Democrats' collectivism and in defense of individual liberty. Perhaps Trump's most significant innovation as a Republican candidate was the moral language he used to indict his Democratic opponent. Previously, Republicans would have been too polite to call their opponents liars and crooks - even when the evidence clearly showed that they were. If their opponent was a woman, they would never have dreamed of using such language, so deferential were they to the stringent rules of political correctness. Trump broke free of this constraint. But Republicans need to take this a step further and create a unifying theme that has a moral resonance with which they can characterize their opponents and level the political playing field.

That theme is individual freedom. The economic redistribution that progressives demand is not "fairness," as they maintain. Socialism is theft and a war on individual freedom. Compulsory public schools are not a service to minorities and the poor but are infringements on their freedom to choose an education that will allow them to pursue the American dream. Obamacare is objectionable not only because its mandates drive up the costs and diminish the quality of health care, as Republicans have argued. Far more important is that government-controlled health care takes away the freedom of individuals to manage their own health and secure their life chances. Onerous taxes and massive government debt are not accounting problems; they are a war on the ability of individuals to work for themselves instead of the government and are therefore an attack on individual freedom. This is the moral language Republicans need to use if they are going to defeat the progressive agenda...

Most excellent.

RTWT.

How Bureaucrats Are Fighting Voters for Control of Country

From Matthew Continetti, at Free Beacon, "Who Rules the United States?":

Who Rules the United States?: How bureaucrats are fighting the voters for control of our country https://t.co/FKo760mAiu pic.twitter.com/QxtRlb7Txd

— Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) February 18, 2017

Donald Trump was elected president last November by winning 306 electoral votes. He pledged to "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C., to overturn the system of politics that had left the nation's capital and major financial and tech centers flourishing but large swaths of the country mired in stagnation and decay. "What truly matters," he said in his Inaugural Address, "is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people."

Is it? By any historical and constitutional standard, "the people" elected Donald Trump and endorsed his program of nation-state populist reform. Yet over the last few weeks America has been in the throes of an unprecedented revolt. Not of the people against the government—that happened last year—but of the government against the people. What this says about the state of American democracy, and what it portends for the future, is incredibly disturbing.

There is, of course, the case of Michael Flynn. He made a lot of enemies inside the government during his career, suffice it to say. And when he exposed himself as vulnerable those enemies pounced. But consider the means: anonymous and possibly illegal leaks of private conversations. Yes, the conversation in question was with a foreign national. And no one doubts we spy on ambassadors. But we aren't supposed to spy on Americans without probable cause. And we most certainly are not supposed to disclose the results of our spying in the pages of the Washington Post because it suits a partisan or personal agenda.

Here was a case of current and former national security officials using their position, their sources, and their methods to crush a political enemy. And no one but supporters of the president seems to be disturbed. Why? Because we are meant to believe that the mysterious, elusive, nefarious, and to date unproven connection between Donald Trump and the Kremlin is more important than the norms of intelligence and the decisions of the voters.

But why should we believe that? And who elected these officials to make this judgment for us?

Nor is Flynn the only example of nameless bureaucrats working to undermine and ultimately overturn the results of last year's election. According to the New York Times, civil servants at the EPA are lobbying Congress to reject Donald Trump's nominee to run the agency. Is it because Scott Pruitt lacks qualifications? No. Is it because he is ethically compromised? Sorry. The reason for the opposition is that Pruitt is a critic of the way the EPA was run during the presidency of Barack Obama. He has a policy difference with the men and women who are soon to be his employees. Up until, oh, this month, the normal course of action was for civil servants to follow the direction of the political appointees who serve as proxies for the elected president.

How quaint. These days an architect of the overreaching and antidemocratic Waters of the U.S. regulation worries that her work will be overturned so she undertakes extraordinary means to defeat her potential boss. But a change in policy is a risk of democratic politics. Nowhere does it say in the Constitution that the decisions of government employees are to be unquestioned and preserved forever. Yet that is precisely the implication of this unprecedented protest. "I can't think of any other time when people in the bureaucracy have done this," a professor of government tells the paper. That sentence does not leave me feeling reassured.

Opposition to this president takes many forms. Senate Democrats have slowed confirmations to the most sluggish pace since George Washington. Much of the New York and Beltway media does really function as a sort of opposition party, to the degree that reporters celebrated the sacking of Flynn as a partisan victory for journalism. Discontent manifests itself in direct actions such as the Women's March.

But here's the difference. Legislative roadblocks, adversarial journalists, and public marches are typical of a constitutional democracy. They are spelled out in our founding documents: the Senate and its rules, and the rights to speech, a free press, and assembly. Where in those documents is it written that regulators have the right not to be questioned, opposed, overturned, or indeed fired, that intelligence analysts can just call up David Ignatius and spill the beans whenever they feel like it?

The last few weeks have confirmed that there are two systems of government in the United States. The first is the system of government outlined in the U.S. Constitution—its checks, its balances, its dispersion of power, its protection of individual rights. Donald Trump was elected to serve four years as the chief executive of this system. Whether you like it or not.

The second system is comprised of those elements not expressly addressed by the Founders. This is the permanent government, the so-called administrative state of bureaucracies, agencies, quasi-public organizations, and regulatory bodies and commissions, of rule-writers and the byzantine network of administrative law courts. This is the government of unelected judges with lifetime appointments who, far from comprising the "least dangerous branch," now presume to think they know more about America's national security interests than the man elected as commander in chief...

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "Obama's Shadow Presidency."

President Trump Invites Supporter on Stage During Florida Rally

Amazing.

How half this country feels about @realDonaldTrump.

Pure love and gratitude ❤🇺🇸💙#LoveTrumpsHate pic.twitter.com/efeqXEtQV8

— Steph (@steph93065) February 19, 2017

Why Isn't Norma McCorvey's Obituary Trending at Memeorandum, or Anywhere Else?

She's not trending because leftists couldn't care less about "Jane Roe," of the Supreme Court's notorious Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.

Leftists don't care because they used McCorvey like so many sanitary napkins stuffed down the throats of conservative activists. McCorvey was used, chewed up, and spit out. She had become a pro-life activist who spent the last couple of decades seeking to overturn the decision that bore her name. For that, McCorvey became essentially a non-person, no longer useful to a movement responsible for at least 50 million abortions since Harry Blackmun hellish ruling outlining a "woman's constitutional right" to terminate a "fetus" in the first three months of pregnancy. It's been a holocaust of "unwanted" pregnancies ever since.

McCorvey's death is frankly big news, important news. But you wouldn't know it by looking at Memeorandum, which is covered with all kinds of stories detailing treasonous leftist designs to bring down the democratically-elected government of Donald J. Trump.

Here's the New York Times' obituary, "Norma McCorvey, 'Roe' in Roe v. Wade, Is Dead at 69."

And at Memeorandum, crickets:



Her obituary's not trending on Twitter either.

She was thrown away by the left like a piece of trash. And that tells you something about the non-value of human life to anyone who proclaims they're a "progressive."

Report: Senior White House Officials Favor John Bolton for National Security Adviser.

At Instapundit, "I’D BE QUITE HAPPY WITH THAT MYSELF."

Me too.

PREVIOUSLY: "Trump to Interview Candidates for National Security Advisor."

(No word yet as to Trump's pick.)

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies." (Not posted yet.)



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

Cartoon Credit: Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – L’Chaim."

Obama's Shadow Presidency

From Matthew Vadum, at FrontPage Magazine, "Well-funded Organizing for Action promises to crack conservative skulls to halt the Trump agenda":

Former President Obama is waging war against the Trump administration through his generously funded agitation outfit, Organizing for Action, to defend his monumentally destructive record of failure and violent polarization.

It is a chilling reminder that the increasingly aggressive, in-your-face Left in this country is on the march.

Acclaimed author Paul Sperry writes in the New York Post:

Obama has an army of agitators — numbering more than 30,000 — who will fight his Republican successor at every turn of his historic presidency. And Obama will command them from a bunker less than two miles from the White House.

In what’s shaping up to be a highly unusual post-presidency, Obama isn’t just staying behind in Washington. He’s working behind the scenes to set up what will effectively be a shadow government to not only protect his threatened legacy, but to sabotage the incoming administration and its popular “America First” agenda.

What is Organizing for Action? It is a less violent version of Mussolini's black shirts and Hitler's brown shirts, or of the government-supported goon squads that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Castro brothers used to harass and intimidate their domestic opponents.

OfA isn't, strictly speaking, a new group. After the 2008 election, the group, then known as Organizing for America, was a phony grassroots campaign run by the Democratic National Committee that sought to replicate the community organizing techniques Obama learned from the teachings of his fellow Chicagoan, Saul Alinsky. OfA was created in large part because the White House could not legally use the 13 million e-mail addresses that the Obama campaign compiled in 2008.

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Edgar (D-Penn.), sounded the alarm about OfA in 2013, suggesting the group was dangerous to democracy. "If President Obama is serious about his often-expressed desire to rein in big money in politics, he should shut down Organizing for Action and disavow any plan to schedule regular meetings with its major donors," he said as president of the left-wing group Common Cause. "Access to the President should never be for sale."

"With its reported promise of quarterly presidential meetings for donors and 'bundlers' who raise $500,000, Organizing For Action apparently intends to extend and deepen the pay-to-play Washington culture that Barack Obama came to prominence pledging to end," Edgar said. "The White House's suggestion this week that this group will somehow be independent is laughable."

But Edgar’s admonitions were ignored and since then Organizing for Action has thrived and grown rich, just like the Obamas.

As FrontPage previously reported, Obama has rented a $5.3 million, 8,200-square-foot, walled mansion in Washington’s Embassy Row that he is using to command his community organizing cadres. Michelle Obama will join the former president there as will the Obama Foundation. To stay on track, Obama wants his former labor secretary, Tom Perez, to win the chairmanship of the DNC in a party election later this month. “It’s time to organize and fight, said Perez who appears to be gaining on frontrunner and jihadist Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.). “We must stand up to protect President Obama’s accomplishments,” adding, “We’re going to build the strongest grassroots organizing force this country has ever seen.”

No ex-president has ever done this before, sticking around the nation’s capital to vex and undermine his successor. Of course, Obama is unlike any president the United States has ever had. Even failed, self-righteous presidents like Jimmy Carter, who has occasionally taken shots at his successors, didn’t stay behind in Washington to obstruct and disrupt the new administration.

Organizing for Action, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors, is at the head of Obama’s network of left-wing nonprofit groups. OfA, Sperry warns, has “a growing war chest and more than 250 offices across the country.”

On its website, the group claims that there are “5 million Americans who’ve taken action” with OfA, and that those individuals “are part of a long line of people who stand up and take on the big fights for social justice, basic fairness, equal rights, and expanding opportunity.” Among its key issues are “turning up the heat on climate change deniers,” comprehensive immigration reform (which includes mass amnesty), “telling the stories of the millions who are seeing the life-saving benefits of Obamacare,” fighting for “a woman’s health care” which is “a basic right,” and redistributing wealth from those who earned it to those who didn’t.

OfA communications director Jesse Lehrich told Memphis-based WREG that the “grassroots energy that’s out there right now is palpable.” The group is “constantly hearing from volunteers who are excited to report about events they’re organizing around and all of the new people that want to get involved.”

Organizing for Action is drowning in money, by nonprofit standards.

By the end of 2014, OfA, which was formally incorporated only the year before, had taken in $40.4 million, $26 million of which was raised in 2014, according to the organization’s IRS filings. OfA’s big donors are members of the George Soros-founded Democracy Alliance, a donors’ consortium for left-wing billionaires devoted to radical political change. Among the DA members donating to OfA are: Ryan Smith ($476,260); Marcy Carsey ($250,000); Jon Stryker ($200,000); Paul Boskind ($105,000); Paul Egerman ($100,000); and Nick Hanauer ($50,000).

OfA also runs a project called the Community Organizing Institute (COI) which it says partners “with progressive groups and organizations to educate, engage, and collaborate.”

Organizing for Action describes COI in almost lyrical terms...

Still more.

Scott Greer, No Campus for White Men

I love this.

Out March 14th, at Amazon, Scott Greer, No Campus for White Men: The Transformation of Higher Education into Hateful Indoctrination.

Trump to Interview Candidates for National Security Advisor

Ambassador John Bolton's in the mix. I love that guy, especially the walrus mustache, heh.

Trump to interview four security adviser candidates on Sunday https://t.co/2DegUjExRG

— Capital Journal (@WSJPolitics) February 19, 2017

Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery

*BUMPED.*

I'm getting up to speed on all the recent hardcore leftist literature on Native Americans. As you can see with some of my other blogging (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, for example), radical research on indigenous people is a hugely popular and growing vein among the hate-America left.

In any case, at Amazon, Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America.

Social Justice vs. Heterosexuality

At the Other McCain, "Social Justice vs. Heterosexuality (and the Problem With ‘Male Feminists’)."

Worked in a little bit of Hayek here. https://t.co/VOYzS8yamU @FriedrichHayek

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) February 19, 2017

BTW, if a WV-based writer wanted to rip into Huntington University, I could offer suggestions. @donsurber https://t.co/VOYzS8yamU pic.twitter.com/H6NTsLJgi6

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) February 19, 2017

Campus Leftists Create New Generation of Conservatives

Don't know Charlie Peters, but he was tweeted by Matt Drudge:

PAPER: Culture of intolerance creating new generation of conservatives... https://t.co/z4nBNyVxSs

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) February 17, 2017

Nina Agdal is Maxim's Cover Girl for March 2017

Following-up from yesterday, "Nina Agdal Uncovered in Mexico (VIDEO)."

At Drunken Stepfather, "NINA AGDAL MAXIMIZES FOR MAXIM OF THE DAY."

Supermodel @NinaAgdal is Maxim's March 2017 cover girl. https://t.co/ptPrS8GDu6 pic.twitter.com/hjayHZrjAo

— Maxim (@MaximMag) February 14, 2017

The Leftist 'Deep State' Attacks and Undermines President Trump's Administration

It's much worse than it's portrayed at this NYT piece, although at least the Old Gray Lady broached the issue.

It's a bureaucratic revolt against the legitimately-elected government of Donald J. Trump.

Leftist Traitors: As Leaks Multiply, Fears of a ‘Deep State’ in America. #MAGA https://t.co/6kPSgPnNyf

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) February 17, 2017

James M. McPherson, Tried by War

*BUMPED.*

It's President's Day Weekend coming up, a three-day holiday weekend --- which is cool.

I'll have some President's Day blogging to go with it, heh.

Thanks for your support!

At Amazon, James M. McPherson, Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief.

Douglas Brinkley, Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America

At Amazon, Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America.

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound

At Amazon, Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era.

Barbara Palvin Stunning in Curaçao (VIDEO)

Via Theo Spark:

Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet

At Amazon, Steven Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration.

Nina Agdal Uncovered in Mexico (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated:



Also, at London's Daily Mail, "Nina Agdal shows off her sensational curves in nude corset-style gown."

The Democrats' Immigration Problem

From Thomas Edsall, at the New York Times:

Read @Edsall: The Democrats’ Immigration Problem. https://t.co/NRlduSAdJf

— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 16, 2017

Why is immigration such a problem for the Democratic Party?

The issue splits traditional Democratic constituencies. It pits groups with competing material interests against each other, but it also brings those with vested psychological interests into conflict as Hispanics, African-Americans, labor and liberal advocacy groups clash over their conception of territoriality, political ownership and cultural identity.

In the fall of 2015, as the presidential campaign began to heat up, Hillary Clinton broke with the Obama administration over its ongoing deportation of undocumented immigrants.

During an appearance on Telemundo on Oct. 5, Clinton told María Celeste Arrarás that Obama’s policies were too punitive:

I think we have to go back to being a much less harsh and aggressive enforcer. We need to, of course, take care of felons and violent people. I mean, that goes without saying. But I have met too many people in our country who were upright, productive people who maybe had some, you know, minor offense. Like, you know, maybe they were — arrested for speeding or they had some kind of — you know, one incident of drunk driving, something like that 25 years ago.

Clearly, Clinton’s attack on Obama’s relatively stringent deportation policy was devised to maximize Hispanic turnout in the 2016 election.

Did the strategy work? The evidence is mixed.

A comparison of national exit polls from 2008, 2012 and 2016 shows that Hispanic turnout grew slightly, from 9 percent of the total vote in 2008 to 10 percent in 2012 to 11 percent in 2016. But any gain that might have accrued to Clinton from the increase was eliminated by the fact that her margin of victory among Latinos, 66 percent, was 5 points below Obama’s haul in 2012.

In any analysis of the 2016 vote, it is difficult to separate the issues of immigration and free trade. In an October 2016 report, Pew found that Trump voters were decisively more hostile to both free trade agreements and immigration than the general public, and much more hostile than Clinton supporters.

A detailed analysis of exit polls in four key states that helped deliver the election to Donald Trump — Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — produced interesting findings not only about Hispanics, but also African-Americans — who are less supportive of liberal immigration policies than other core Democratic constituencies — and whites. In each of these states, opposition to immigration was higher than the national average.

Take Clinton’s performance in Florida. She should have benefited from the drop in the white share of the state’s electorate from 67 percent in 2012 to 62 percent in 2016. She did not, however, because her margin among whites, 32-64, fell significantly below that of Obama, 37-61. Black turnout grew modestly from 13 percent in 2012 to 14 percent in 2016, but Clinton’s margin among African Americans, 84-8, fell well below Obama’s, 99-1.

The same pattern held for Michigan, where the white share of the electorate fell from 77 percent in 2012 to 75 percent in 2016, but Clinton lost the white vote in Michigan by 21 points, 36-57, while Obama lost it by 11 points, 44-55.

The patterns are not the same in all the Trump states. In Pennsylvania, for example, the white vote, which went 56-40 for Trump over Clinton, increased from 78 percent in 2012 to 81 percent in 2016. This boosted Trump’s statewide totals so that he carried Pennsylvania by 68,236 votes out of 5.97 million cast. An additional factor in Clinton’s defeat there was a decline in black turnout from 13 percent of the electorate in 2012 to 10 percent in 2016.

Wisconsin stands out because there the racial and ethnic makeup of the electorate remained virtually the same from 2012 to 2016. The state shifted from blue to red for one reason: the swing among whites toward Trump. Trump won 53 percent of white Wisconsin voters to Clinton’s 42 percent, an 11-point margin, compared to the 3-point spread between Mitt Romney and Obama, 51-48...

Overall, public opinion on immigration — particularly the views of those opposed to immigration — played a crucial role in the outcome of the 2016 election. Among the 13 percent of voters who identified immigration as the most important issue, Trump won, 64-33.

This data demonstrates a key element in the politics of immigration...

More.

Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Life of Thomas Jefferson

It's Presidents' Day Weekend. I said I'd be blogging some presidential book, so here goes.

See Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., at Amazon, In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson.

Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton

The blurb for Sven Beckert, at Amazon, Empire of Cotton: A Global History.

The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners. Sven Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities that are with us today.

In a remarkably brief period, European entrepreneurs and powerful politicians recast the world’s most significant manufacturing industry, combining imperial expansion and slave labor with new machines and wage workers to make and remake global capitalism. The result is a book as unsettling as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist.

Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams

The blurb for Walter Johnson's book, at Amazon, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom.

When Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory, he envisioned an “empire for liberty” populated by self-sufficient white farmers. Cleared of Native Americans and the remnants of European empires by Andrew Jackson, the Mississippi Valley was transformed instead into a booming capitalist economy commanded by wealthy planters, powered by steam engines, and dependent on the coerced labor of slaves. River of Dark Dreams places the Cotton Kingdom at the center of worldwide webs of exchange and exploitation that extended across oceans and drove an insatiable hunger for new lands. This bold reaccounting dramatically alters our understanding of American slavery and its role in U.S. expansionism, global capitalism, and the upcoming Civil War.

Walter Johnson deftly traces the connections between the planters’ pro-slavery ideology, Atlantic commodity markets, and Southern schemes for global ascendency. Using slave narratives, popular literature, legal records, and personal correspondence, he recreates the harrowing details of daily life under cotton’s dark dominion. We meet the confidence men and gamblers who made the Valley shimmer with promise, the slave dealers, steamboat captains, and merchants who supplied the markets, the planters who wrung their civilization out of the minds and bodies of their human property, and the true believers who threatened the Union by trying to expand the Cotton Kingdom on a global scale.

But at the center of the story Johnson tells are the enslaved people who pulled down the forests, planted the fields, picked the cotton—who labored, suffered, and resisted on the dark underside of the American dream.

Donald Trump Press Conference: Making the President Great Again

From Michael Goodwin, at the New York Post, "Sorry media — this press conference played very different with Trump's supporters" (via Memeorandum):

Sorry media — Trump's press conference was a smash hit with his supporters https://t.co/2kVIVYxCfH via @nypost

— Michael Goodwin (@mgoodwin_nypost) February 17, 2017

Maybe it’s not a coincidence that Barnum & Bailey is folding its tents this year. After all, how could the circus possibly compete with Donald Trump?

The president proved once again that he is the greatest show on Earth. Lions and tigers and elephants are kid stuff next to his high wire act.

Next time, the White House ought to sell popcorn.

Amid feverish reports of chaos on his team and with Democrats fantasizing that Russia-gate is another Watergate, Trump took center stage to declare that reports of his demise are just more fake news.

Far from dead, he was positively exuberant. His performance at a marathon press conference Thursday was a must-see-TV spectacle as he mixed serious policy talk with standup comedy and took repeated pleasure in whacking his favorite piñata, the “dishonest media.”

“Russia is a ruse,” he insisted, before finally saying under questioning that he was not aware of anyone on his campaign having contact with Russian officials.

Trump’s detractors immediately panned the show as madness, but they missed the method behind it and proved they still don’t understand his appeal. Facing his first crisis in the Oval Office, he was unbowed in demonstrating his bare-knuckle intention to fight back.

He did it his way. Certainly no other president, and few politicians at any level in any time, would dare put on a show like that.

In front of cameras, and using the assembled press corps as props, he conducted a televised revival meeting to remind his supporters that he is still the man they elected. Ticking off a lengthy list of executive orders and other actions he has taken, he displayed serious fealty to his campaign promises...

Still more.

Danes Should Not Become the Minority in Denmark

Well, those racist Danes!

At Breitbart London, "Parliament: Danes Should Not Become the Minority in Denmark":

In some communities Danes are already the minority https://t.co/kozQYW3ZcC

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 15, 2017

The Folketing, Denmark’s unicameral parliament, has passed a resolution stating that Danes should not become minorities in Danish communities, as figures show the migrant and migrant-descended population are now a majority in Brøndby Strand and Odense.
“Parliament notes with concern that today there are areas in Denmark where the number of immigrants from non-Western countries and their descendants is over 50 percent,” the resolution states.

“It is parliament’s opinion that Danes should not be a minority in residential areas in Denmark.”

Denmark, like many other European countries, saw a surge in sexual assaults and harassment by migrants after they began to arrive in large numbers.

Rafi Ibrahim, a Syrian who has been settled in Denmark for many years, told reporters that the new arrivals find it difficult to control themselves around Western women.

“If they see a girl, they go nuts. They simply can’t handle it,” he said.

“In Syria and many other countries, it is not normal for a strange woman to smile at you. Those girls who are harassed aren’t necessarily scantily-dressed or drunk. Sometimes it is enough just to be a girl.”

Danish immigration minister Inger Støjberg confessed in late 2016 that “integration in Denmark has failed”, following a damning report on criminality and unemployment in thirty-one increasingly migrant-dominated ghettoes...

PREVIOUSLY: "Rotten in Denmark: 'Growing domestic consensus that large-scale Muslim immigration is incompatible with European social democracy...'"

Alan Taylor, William Cooper's Town

This is such an amazing book.

I really need to read it again. I read it back in grad school, shortly after it came out in 1996. A phenomenal work of history.

At Amazon, Alan Taylor, William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic.

Sebastian Gorka Responds to Attacks on His Credibility (VIDEO)

Gorka's a freakin' patriot.

Leftists have no credibility. All they have is character assassination, 24/7/365.

It's downright pathetic.

At Hannity's last night, and buy his book, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War.

Anonymous Spies Ousted Flynn. That's Deeply Worrying

Following-up from yesterday, "Trump Administration in Crisis."

From Damon Linker, at the Week:

The United States is much better off without Michael Flynn serving as national security adviser. But no one should be cheering the way he was brought down.

The whole episode is evidence of the precipitous and ongoing collapse of America's democratic institutions — not a sign of their resiliency. Flynn's ouster was a soft coup (or political assassination) engineered by anonymous intelligence community bureaucrats. The results might be salutary, but this isn't the way a liberal democracy is supposed to function.

Unelected intelligence analysts work for the president, not the other way around. Far too many Trump critics appear not to care that these intelligence agents leaked highly sensitive information to the press — mostly because Trump critics are pleased with the result. "Finally," they say, "someone took a stand to expose collusion between the Russians and a senior aide to the president!" It is indeed important that someone took such a stand. But it matters greatly who that someone is and how they take their stand. Members of the unelected, unaccountable intelligence community are not the right someone, especially when they target a senior aide to the president by leaking anonymously to newspapers the content of classified phone intercepts, where the unverified, unsubstantiated information can inflict politically fatal damage almost instantaneously...

Keep reading.

Tom Shillue: Stop Comparing Yourself to Others (VIDEO)

He's a wise dude.

For Prager University:

Bumps in the Road: Trump vs. Obama

At Truth Revolt, "Michelle Malkin: Bumps in the Road: Trump vs. Obama - Some perspective is in order."

ICYMI: Alexander Hill, The Red Army and the Second World War

At Amazon, Professor Alexander Hill, The Red Army and the Second World War.

Jackie Johnson's Storm Warning Forecast

Watch, at CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "Partly cloudy Thursday with clouds increasing and showers expected Friday. Jackie Johnson reports."

Kate Upton Makes Cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017

Well, I guess those "diva demands" didn't cost her after all.

She's simply spectacular, and Sports Illustrated knows who's its money-maker:

Kate Upton is 🔥 🔥 🔥 in #SISwim2017 https://t.co/wVRPR6wgPa pic.twitter.com/3BiiH3ecTa

— SI Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) February 15, 2017

Welcome back, Kate! 👙 😍 https://t.co/t0MikbwyWn pic.twitter.com/Xgp1rGK1Lh

— SI Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) February 15, 2017

Kate Upton tells all in her first interview as a three-time #SISwim cover model https://t.co/IhRtYe54SG pic.twitter.com/RpTMRuWZuF

— SI Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) February 15, 2017

OH hello Kate Upton! https://t.co/RaVyY5IjJH pic.twitter.com/oqTo6e6uK5

— SI Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) February 15, 2017

Caroline Glick, The Israeli Solution

President Trump is supposedly "backing off" the so-called "two-state solution" to the Middle East peace process.

We'll see, although this reminds me of Caroline Glick's book, The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East.

Aly Raisman Flexible, Strong and Barely Covered for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017

She's pretty amazing.

At Coed, "Aly Raisman in SI Swimsuit 2017."

Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution

I love this book.

I'm breaking out my copy today, in preparation for my lectures this week on the Revolution and the Constitutional Convention.

At Amazon, The Radicalism of the American Revolution.

More blogging tonight.

'Logan' (VIDEO)

The new "Wolverine" flick is out next month.

I love it!

New Guidelines Recommend Exercise, Over-the-Counter Medications for Back Pain

I'm picking up my walking regimen, hopefully to help with my own lower back pain, which is mostly from laying around in bed too much nights and weekends. I need to get out and walk, to work those muscles. It felt good on Sunday when I went for 90 minutes. I even got my heart rate up a little.

In any case, at USA Today, "Forget the drugs, the answer to back pain may be Tai chi, massage."

And here's Dr. Tara Narula, for CBS This Morning:

Trump Administration in Crisis

I normally wouldn't describe things as a "crisis," but one of the pieces I read yesterday noted that it wasn't just Michael Flynn. Democrats are out for blood. The leftist media is agitating and organizing to destroy the administration. It's a coup. Next on the chopping block is Kellyanne Conway. Then Reince Priebus. After that it's President Trump himself. Impeachment talk will escalate.

Of course, there's literally no evidence that U.S. security has been comprised. Leftists are just picking up where they left off during the transition. They're bringing back the "Russian card" to annihilate the newly sworn-in administration. They couldn't defeat the insurgent populist Trump in the election, so they'll use extra-electoral means. They're going to use extra-constitutional means, in fact, because the opposition to Trump is looking like an armed revolt. It's a rebellion. Street protests and anarchist violence are cheered by the progs in D.C. Campuses are the training grounds of the revolution. Far-left members of Congress demonize and delegitimize the elected government at every turn. Nancy Pelosi's Robespierre in a skirt.

Yesterday's Memeorandum thread was perhaps the longest series of articles on a single topic I've ever seen at the site. All alarmist too. Today's top headline is from the sensational yellow-journal rag, the New York Times, "Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence."

See Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, for more, "NYT: FBI probing Russian intel contacts with several Trump campaign officials."

And at Free Beacon, via Stephen Green at Instapundit, "SHADOW ADMINISTRATION: Former Obama Officials, Loyalists Waged Secret Campaign to Oust Flynn."

Also, from Glenn Reynolds, "YEAH, THE FLYNN RESIGNATION’S AN EMBARRASSMENT, but Obama had his failed appointments, often tinged with scandal..."

More at CBS This Morning, "Report: Trump associates repeatedly contacted Russia before election," and "Trump had known "for weeks" Gen. Flynn had misled White House."

Molly Haskell, Steven Spielberg

I suppose Steven Spielberg's a flaming leftist. I don't really know for sure. I do know that I'm inclined to forever cut him some slack, since he directed perhaps the greatest war movie of modern times, "Saving Private Ryan." What is more, "Band of Brothers" is perhaps the most important television miniseries every aired. I feel that strongly about these productions. The grit and realism of war, in both fiction and non-fiction portrayals, will be preserved for future generations. It's a monumental gift to history and memory.

In any case, at Amazon, Molly Haskell, Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films.

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo: Stunning Display of Dishonesty From the Left (VIDEO)

O'Reilly's really pissed off in this one, heh.

He hammers the radical left's enormous lies on the Trump administration's alleged "illegal immigration deportation regime."

Following up, "Hysteria and Sensationalism Falsely Spread 'Immigration Crackdown' Rumors."

The Case Against Contemporary Feminism

From Jia Tolentino, at the New Yorker.

And here's the subject Jessa Crispin, at Amazon, Why I Am Not A Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto.

Why I Am Not A Feminist is a radical, fearless call for revolution. It accuses the feminist movement of obliviousness, irrelevance, and cowardice—and demands nothing less than the total dismantling of a system of oppression.

Wrote about Jessa Crispin's WHY I AM NOT A FEMINIST, which I found wonderful, scathing & occasionally off its mark https://t.co/d2tabEwoZX

— Jia Tolentino (@jiatolentino) February 8, 2017