Christy Clark, British Columbia's Conservative Premier, Backs Off Province's Carbon Tax (VIDEO)

Heh.

Canadian leftists must want this woman dead.

At the Los Angeles Times, with the hilariously biased headline, "British Columbia was once a leader in fighting climate change. Now, it's embracing fossil fuels":

British Columbia promotes itself as “Super, Natural,” and for many years it was praised for walking that talk.

Nearly a decade ago, the province enacted North America’s first tax on carbon emissions, putting it on the cutting edge of government efforts to fight climate change. The economy grew even as emissions declined. Climate activists around the world admired the move, but so did conservatives like former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who sought market-driven solutions.

Now, however, Canada’s West Coast is striving toward a very different kind of cutting edge: British Columbia is positioning itself to become a global leader in exporting fossil fuels, with plans to nearly triple crude oil exports through a controversial new pipeline and vastly expand production of liquefied natural gas to be sold in Asia.

And although the revenue-neutral carbon tax is still in place, the province’s current political leadership has halted the annual rate increases built into the original plan. Emissions, meanwhile, are rising again.

“They definitely have horses on either side of the wagon,” Tarika Powell, who studies fossil fuel exports for Sightline Institute, a Seattle think tank, said of the British Columbia government. “And they are going in opposite directions.”

In a province that has been influential in shaping environmental policy in Canada and beyond, the question is which horse will prevail — and one clue to the answer is expected to come next month, when Premier Christy Clark faces reelection.

Clark, who took office in 2011, leads the conservative but incongruously named BC Liberal Party. Her predecessor, Gordon Campbell, was also a member of that party, yet while Campbell pushed the carbon tax to approval in 2008 and still takes pride in it, Clark has shown little interest in climate leadership.

She instead has championed liquefied natural gas, which involves cooling natural gas into a dense liquid to make it easier and cheaper to ship.

If all 19 of the current LNG proposals in the province were built, according to Powell’s research, British Columbia would become the world’s largest LNG exporter many times over, dwarfing the current leaders, Qatar and Australia. Emissions from LNG terminals and refineries could drastically increase the level of greenhouse gas emissions within the province — and much of those emissions would be exempt from the carbon tax, according to analyses of Clark’s plans.

It was Clark who froze the carbon tax in 2012 and has refused to raise it since then, essentially ignoring the advice of a special task force she created to make recommendations. Although Clark does highlight the province’s leadership on the carbon tax, she has cited concerns among some business groups and others that increasing it would hurt the economy.

Her closest challenger next month, John Horgan of the New Democratic Party, has said he supports raising the carbon tax because “it’s the right thing to do,” and he has lashed out at Clark for accepting millions in campaign donations from fossil fuel companies and other industry groups.

Yet a New Democratic Party strategy document obtained and leaked by the BC Liberals made it clear that even Horgan’s party is wary of being cast as supporting tax increases, regardless of the benefits. It also expressed concerns that the province’s Green Party would peel away votes if it took no action.

“The BC Liberals will call it a tax increase — and they’ll holler from the rooftops in rural B.C.,” the leaked document said.

“We must holler back with: ‘Our plan puts more money in the pocket for a majority of B.C. families. Hers doesn’t. Our plan actually accomplishes the goals of a carbon tax — reducing carbon pollution. Hers doesn’t. Our plan creates good jobs that last in a more sustainable economy with more opportunities for the future. Hers doesn’t.’”

The political sensitivity over the carbon tax within the province is striking given its influence outside it...

Keep reading.

Dana Loesch: 'We the People' Have Had It with the New York Times

Following-up, "Dana Loesch: 'Old gray hag, we're coming for you...' (VIDEO)."

Stefan Molyneux Talks to Lauren Southern (VIDEO)

I'm having a problem with Ms. Lauren, in how she's on Twitter cheering out-and-out racist white supremacists. I'm not into that. (See the Modesto Bee, "White supremacist who created stir at Stanislaus State seen punching woman at Berkeley protest.")

And that's my problem with the so-called "alt-right" more broadly. Just because you can do or say something doesn't make it right, and that's particularly true with regards to race and racism. Some of the stuff at Taki's Magazine, for example, goes too far, and that publication's been doing this kind of thing way before Trump's MAGA movement attracted lots of such people last years.

So, while I really like her, I think Ms. Lauren needs to discern more carefully the bounds of political propriety.



PREVIOUSLY: "Lauren Southern Rocks Berkeley!"

Jennifer Delacruz's Tuesday Forecast

Well, it hasn't cooled off quite yet, but there's supposed to be an onshore flow of low pressure headed our way tomorrow. Perhaps it'll be a littler cooler. Either way, delightful weather.

Here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

The Four Issues Driving Trump's Populism

From VDH, at the New Criterion, "Populism, VIII: The unlikeliest populist":

Leftists deride the “bad” populism of angry and misdirected grievances lodged clumsily against educated and enlightened “elites,” often by the unsophisticated and the undereducated. Bad populism is fueled by ethnic, religious, or racial chauvinism, and typified by a purportedly “dark” tradition from Huey Long and Father Coughlin to George Wallace and Ross Perot.

Such retrograde populism to the liberal mind is to be contrasted with a “good” progressive populism of early-twentieth-century and liberal Minnesota or Wisconsin—solidarity through unions, redistributionist taxes, cooperatives, granges, and credit unions to protect against banks and corporations—now kept alive by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Good leftwing populism rails against supposedly culpable elites—those of the corporate world and moneyed interests—but not well-heeled intellectuals, liberal politicians, and the philanthropic class of George Soros, Bill Gates, or Warren Buffett, who make amends for their financial situations by redistributing their millions to the right causes.

The Right is similarly ambiguous about populism. “Bad” populists distrust government in sloppy fashion, failing to appreciate the intricacies of politics that understandably slow down change. “Bad” right-wing populists, given their unsophistication and wild emotions, are purportedly prone to dangerous excesses, American-firstism, social intolerance, and anti-capitalist bromides: think the pushback by the Tea Party or the Ron Paul zealots.

In contrast, “good” conservative populists are those who wish to trim the fat off complacent conservatism, reenergize the Republican Party with fresh ideas about small government and a return to social and cultural traditionalism, while avoiding compromise for compromise’s sake. Good populists for conservatives might include Ronald Reagan or even Ted Cruz.

Within these populist parameters, Trump appeared far more the “bad” or “dangerous” populist.

Despite Trump’s previously apolitical and elite background, he brilliantly figured out, even if cynically so, the populist discontent and its electoral ramifications that would erode the Democrats’ assumed unassailable “blue wall” that ran from Wisconsin to North Carolina. In contrast, sixteen other talented candidates, some of whom were far more experienced conservative politicians, over a year-long primary race lacked Trump’s intuition about the potential electoral benefits of courting such a large and apparently forgotten working-class population.

Critics would argue that Trump’s populist strategy was inauthentic, haphazard, and borne out of desperation: he initially had few other choices to win the Republican nomination.

Trump began his campaign with exceptional name recognition and seemingly with ample financial resources. Yet he lacked the connections of Jeb Bush to the Republican establishment and donor base, the grass-roots orthodox conservative movement’s fondness for Ted Cruz, the neoconservative brain trust that allied with Marco Rubio, and the organizations and reputations for pragmatic competence that governors such as Chris Christie, Rick Perry, or Scott Walker brought to the campaign.

Trump never possessed the mastery of the issues in the manner of Bobby Jindal or Rand Paul. Ben Carson was even more so the maverick political outsider. Nor was Trump as politically prepped as his fellow corporate newcomer Carly Fiorina. Despite his brand recognition, Trump’s long and successful experience in ad-hoc reality television, millions of dollars in free media attention, and personal wealth, he started the campaign at a disadvantage and so was ready to try any new approach to break out of the crowded pack—most prominently his inaugural rant about illegal immigration.

By 2012 standards, Trump, to the degree he had voiced a consistent political ideology, would likely have been considered the most liberal of the seventeen presidential candidates. In the recent past he had chided Mitt Romney for talking of self-deportation by illegal immigrants, praised a single-payer health system, and had at times campaigned to the left of both the past unsuccessful John McCain and Mitt Romney campaigns. Yet in 2016 Trump found a way to reassemble the remnants of what was left of the Tea Party/Ross Perot wing of the Republican Party.

Such desperation might explain his audacity and his willingness to campaign unconventionally if not crudely. Yet it does not altogether account for Trump’s choice to focus on what would become four resonant populist issues: trade/jobs, illegal immigration, a new nationalist foreign policy, and political correctness—the latter being the one issue that bound all the others as well. Trump’s initial emphasis on these concerns almost immediately set him apart from both his primary opponents and Hillary Clinton...

 Keep reading.

Chocolate Easter Candy

At Amazon, Shop Easter Chocolates.

BONUS: C.L. Lewis, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters.

Jennifer Delacruz's Easter Forecast

She's enough to bring you back all by herself.

Here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer's forecast from last night, at ABC News 10 San Diego:

The Christian Exodus From the Middle East

From Robin Wright, at the New Yorker, "War, Terrorism, and the Christian Exodus from the Middle East":

On #Easter, my @newyorker piece on massive exodus of Christians from #Mideast, cradle of the faith. Stunning numbers https://t.co/nioa8yO3tt

— Robin Wright (@wrightr) April 15, 2017

A decade ago, I spent Easter in Damascus. Big chocolate bunnies and baskets of pastel eggs decorated shop windows in the Old City. Both the Catholic and Orthodox Easters were celebrated, and all Syrians were given time off for both three-day holidays on sequential weekends. I stopped in the Umayyad Mosque, which was built in the eighth century and named after the first dynasty to lead the Islamic world. The head of John the Baptist is reputedly buried in a large domed sanctuary—although claims vary—on the mosque’s grounds. Muslims revere John as the Prophet Yahya, the name in Arabic. Because of his birth to a long-barren mother and an aged father, Muslim women who are having trouble getting pregnant come to pray at his tomb. I watched as Christian tourists visiting the shrine mingled with Muslim women.

At least half of Syria’s Christians have fled since then. The flight is so pronounced that, in 2013, Gregory III, the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, wrote an open letter to his flock: “Despite all your suffering, stay here! Don’t emigrate!”

“We exhort our faithful and call them to patience in these tribulations, especially in this tsunami of stifling, destructive, bloody and tragic crises of our Arab world, particularly in Syria, but also to different degrees in Egypt, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon,” he wrote. “Jesus tells us, ‘Fear not!’ “

Syria’s Christians are part of a mass exodus taking place throughout the Middle East, the cradle of the faith. Today, Christians are only about four per cent of the region’s more than four hundred million people—and probably less. They “have been subject to vicious murders at the hands of terrorist groups, forced out of their ancestral lands by civil wars, suffered societal intolerance fomented by Islamist groups, and subjected to institutional discrimination found in the legal codes and official practices of many Middle Eastern countries,” as several fellows at the Center for American Progress put it.

Last weekend, suicide bombings in two Egyptian Coptic churches in Alexandria and Tanta, sixty miles north of Cairo, killed almost four dozen Egyptians and injured another hundred. The Palm Sunday attacks, coming just weeks before Pope Francis is due to visit the country, led the Coptic Church to curtail Easter celebrations in a country that has the largest Christian population—some nine million people—in the Middle East. A pillar of the early faith, the Copts trace their origins to the voyage of the Apostle Mark to Alexandria.

“We can consider ourselves in a wave of persecution,” Bishop Anba Macarius, of the Minya diocese, who survived an assassination attempt in 2013, said on Thursday.

The isis affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula claimed credit for the attacks. In the past two years, it has carried out a series of gruesome killings of Christians, including the forced march of twenty-one Egyptian workers in Libya, all Coptic Christians, each clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, to a Mediterranean beach, where they were forced to kneel and then beheaded. isis threats against Christians have escalated since a suicide bombing on December 11th at St. Mark’s Cathedral, in Cairo, killed more than two dozen Egyptians. After a February attack that killed seven Christians on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, the majority of Copts have fled the Sinai, according to Human Rights Watch.

The largest exodus of Christians is in Iraq, where the group has been trapped in escalating sectarian clashes between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, targeted by an Al Qaeda franchise, and forced to flee by the Islamic State. “There were 1.3 million Christians in Iraq in 2003. We’re down by a million since then,” with hundreds more leaving each month, Bashar Warda, a Chaldean bishop in the northern city of Erbil, the Kurdish capital, told me last month. He was wearing a pink zucchetto skullcap and an amaranth sash tied around his black cassock. A large silver cross hung around his neck.

“It’s very hard to maintain a Christian presence now,” Warda said. “Families have ten reasons to leave and not one reason to stay. This is a critical time in our history in this land. We are desperate.”

Last month, I drove to Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and home for two millennia to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities. Within days of its conquest of Mosul, isis issued an ultimatum to Christians to either convert to Islam, pay an exorbitant and open-ended tax, or face death “by the sword.” Homes of Christians were marked by a large “N” for “Nassarah,” a term in the Koran for Christians.

Some thirty-five thousand Christians fled. Many of their homes were ransacked and then set alight. En route to Mosul, I passed other Christian villages, like Bartella, that had also emptied. Even gravestones at the local cemetery were bullet-ridden. In all, a hundred thousand Christians from across the Biblical Nineveh Plains are estimated to have abandoned their farmlands, villages, and towns for refuge in northern Kurdistan—or beyond Iraq’s borders...

Still more.

Lauren Southern Rocks Berkeley!

Following-up, "Trump Supporters Crush 'Anti-Fascist' Protesters in Berkeley (VIDEO)."

She's posted dozens of tweets and has produced a video report, which I'll blog later.

Meanwhile, this woman is hot, lol.

Pepper spray everywhere 👌🏻 pic.twitter.com/9EDLLL5cRq

— Lauren Southern (@Lauren_Southern) April 15, 2017

Trump Supporters Crush 'Anti-Fascist' Protesters in Berkeley (VIDEO)

At SF Gate, "Arrests made as protesters clash at pro-Trump rally in Berkeley."

And watch, at Associated Press, "Raw: Clashes at Pro and Anti-Trump Rallies."

Also, at KPIX CBS News 5 San Francisco, "Bloody Clashes As Trump Protesters, Supporters Exchange Blows At Berkeley Rally," and "Trump Supporter Insists Protest Wasn't Staged to Provoke Liberal Berkeley."

And at Instapundit, "The Antifa goons were so thoroughly outclassed, they were chased down and given wedgies."

Danielle Gersh's Glorious Easter Sunday Forecast

We're having fabulous weather, and it's going to continue through the weekend, with just slightly cooler temperatures tomorrow.

Here's the lovely Ms. Danielle, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Roger M. Carpenter, The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade

At Amazon, Roger M. Carpenter, The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade: The Three Thought Worlds of the Iroquois and the Huron, 1609-1650.

For three decades, Native American history has been dominated by two major themes. The first is "The Cant of Conquest," the notion that all native peoples who came into contact with Europeans suffered devastating effects due to disease, alcohol, and warfare. However, the argument can be made that in some cases native peoples controlled their own fortunes, at least for awhile. The other dominant theme is the "The Contest of Cultures," the idea that Native American history needs to be examined in the context of dealings with Europeans. Europeans changed the Americas, but this approach concerns colonialism and colonists as well as Native Americans.

The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade examines the changing worldviews of the Huron and the Iroquois in the first half of the seventeenth century, during a period of increasing European contact. From Samuel de Champlain’s armed encounter with the Iroquois, in 1609, to the dispersal of the Huron in the mid-seventeenth century, Carpenter’s book traces the evolving thought worlds of Iroquoian peoples.

The Iroquois and the Huron -- peoples with an intertwined history and many cultural similarities -- reacted differently to European contact. The Huron thought world began to change when the French initiated intense trade and missionary activity early in the seventeenth century. French missionary efforts resulted in a split within the Huron nation between traditionalists and Christian converts. By contrast, the Iroquois were interested primarily in trade with the newcomers. The Iroquois, like the Huron, accepted European trade goods, but unlike the Huron, they rejected European religion.

The Renewed, the Destroyed, and the Remade differs from other works of Native American history on several counts. Native American historiography has not been overly comparative. This work is a comparative history of two culturally similar Native American nations. It also differs in that, rather than another history of Native-European contacts, it is an Indian-centered history.

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Also, Best Sellers in Televisions.

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BONUS: Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815.

Robert M. Utley, A Life Wild and Perilous

Here's more on the "Mountain Men," from Robert Utley, who's a national treasure.

At Amazon, A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific.

And ICYMI, Robert M. Utley, The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890.

Winfred Blevins, Give Your Heart to the Hawks

This book's great! I picked up a copy.

Available at Amazon, Winfred Blevins, Give Your Heart to the Hawks: A Tribute to the Mountain Men.

North Korea Parades New Long-Range 'Frankenmissile' (VIDEO)

I've gotta say, those NoKo military parades are pretty impressive.

I know. I know. NoKo's actually a weak country, and frankly not an existential threat to the U.S. That said, you don't have too many militant ideological Cold War throwbacks around these days, so the gamesmanship is something to behold. Plus, it's Trump in office, and he means business when he says NoKo nukes ain't gonna happen.

At WSJ, via Memeorandum, "Pyongyang displays military hardware, including apparently new intercontinental ballistic missile":

North Korea showed off what appeared to be at least one new long-range missile at a military parade Saturday, as tensions simmer over the possibility of a military confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea.

The weaponry on show, which appeared to include a newly-modified intercontinental ballistic missile and two types of large launchers with never-before-seen missile canisters, is likely to trigger fresh concerns about the speed with which Pyongyang’s missile program has advanced in recent years.

A spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense declined to comment on the possible new military hardware, saying more time was needed to analyze the missiles.

But an expert on North Korean weapons said the new hardware appeared to be far more advanced than expected.

“We’re totally floored right now,” said Dave Schmerler, a research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif. “I was not expecting to see this many new missile designs.”

Mr. Schmerler called the new ICBM, which appeared to have elements of two other ICBMS, the KN-08 and KN-14 missiles, a “frankenmissile.”

Missile experts said the new capabilities, if confirmed, may increase Pyongyang’s options as it seeks to test-launch a ICBM able to deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental U.S., as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un indicated in a speech in January. U.S. President Donald Trump responded after that new-year speech, posting on Twitter: “It won’t happen!”

More.

Also, at the Diplomat, "North Korea's 2017 Military Parade Was a Big Deal. Here Are the Major Takeaways."

Guess Launches New Swimwear Collection with A Bikini A Day

Hey, Devin Brugman and Natasha Oakley continue to enjoy success.

Coming May 2017 ❤️ @ABikiniADay x #GUESSswim designed by @Tashoakley and @devinbrugman https://t.co/lgWkX8yU4E pic.twitter.com/0odPj523vi

— GUESS (@GUESS) April 6, 2017

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "Curves ahead! Devin Brugman and Natasha Oakley flaunt ample cleavage and taut torsos in skimpy swimwear."

Lars Maischak's Only a Symptom of a Larger Disease

Following-up from yesterday, "Wow! Federal Investigation of Fresno State History Professor Lars Maischak."

From Bruce Thornton, who's a Professor of Classics and Humanities at Fresno State University, at FrontPage Magazine, "Drain the Higher Ed. Swamp That Produced the 'Hang Trump' Prof.":

ALERT: @SecretService @FBI Please check out @LarsMaischak twitter feed filled with HATE-MONGERING towards President @realDonaldTrump & #GOP pic.twitter.com/Rv8uF0zUPJ

— slone (@slone) April 11, 2017

The uproar over a Fresno State history lecturer’s tweets about assassinating President Trump is understandable, but in the end the outrage is pointless. It’s doubtful the feds will charge the fellow, given how outlandish and obviously hyperbolic the tweets are. Nor is he likely to be fired. All the commotion has accomplished is to turn a nobody into a left-wing martyr persecuted for “speaking truth to power.”

The fact is, there is nothing this guy said that wouldn’t be applauded by most faculty in the social sciences and humanities, even if they don’t have his gumption to say so out loud. The politicized university is entering its fifth decade, and was already a done deal when Alan Bloom publicized it in his surprising 1987 bestseller The Closing of the American Mind. Thirty years later, focusing on the stupid statements of individual professors, or in this case lecturers, does nothing to get at the root of the problem. They are symptoms of deeper structural changes in the administrative apparatus of most colleges, and these changes in part have been responses to federal laws, particularly affirmative action, sexual harassment law, and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. With federal agency thugs backing campus leftists by threatening administrators with investigation or the reduction of federal funds, it has been easy to transform the university from a space for developing critical thinking and intellectual diversity, into a progressive propaganda organ and reeducation camp.

The most important of these government-backed instruments is “diversity.” This vacuous concept was created ex nihilo by Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in the 1979 Bakke vs. University of California decision as a way to protect admissions “set asides” for minorities without falling afoul of the law’s prohibition of quotas. Since only a “compelling state interest” could justify exceptions to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s ban on discrimination by race, which naked quotas obviously did, “diversity,” along with all its alleged social and educational boons, was by judicial fiat deemed a “state interest.” In 2003, Grutter vs. Bollinger, and again in the two Fisher vs. University of Texas cases (2013, 2016), the Supreme Court confirmed Powell’s legerdemain in order “to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body,” as Republican-appointed Justice Sandra Day O’Conner said in the first Fisher case.

Of course, there exists no coherent definition of “diversity,” and no empirical evidence demonstrating its power to improve educational outcomes or create “educational benefits.” If there were such pedagogical benefits from diversity, we would have long ago dismantled the 107 historically black colleges and universities. On the contrary, there is much evidence that mismatching applicants to universities damages minority students and segregates campuses into identity-politics enclaves.

But using race to privilege some applicants over others wasn’t just about admitting students. The campus infrastructure had to change, which meant the expansion of politicized identity-politics programs, departments, general education courses, and student-support administrative offices and services. As a result, the cultural Marxism ideology that created identity politics in the first place now permeates the university far beyond the classroom, and enables an intolerance for competing ideas, not to mention shutting down the “free play of the mind on all subjects” that Matthew Arnold identified as the core mission of liberal education. And this corruption is encouraged by federal law and its leverage of federal money that flows into higher education.

So the issue isn’t a two-bit adjunct and his juvenile tweets. All the rancorous attention being given to him may make some conservatives feel better, but it will do nothing other than turn a nobody into a somebody. This bad habit is indulged by conservative outlets like Fox News: to entertain their viewers, they dig up some second-rate professor or blogger, and bring him on a show to be slapped around by the host. But in that person’s world, he is now a star, with credibility and a megaphone he would have paid Fox to give him. Getting angry at such a person is like blaming a dog for the stinking mess it left on your lawn. Of course it stinks, that’s its nature. The real culprit is the neighbor too lazy or inconsiderate to walk his dog and clean up after it...

Actually, I love watching second-rate leftist professors getting beat up on Fox News, lol.

But he's got a point. And it's not just the neighbor who's too lazy to clean up the cultural Marxist crap. It's all the fence-sitting professors, some sympathetic to the left and some not, who stand by, refusing to put real liberal principles of free speech (and intellectual exchange) before rank leftist bullying. I know first-hand the costs of doing so. (I've been investigated and persecuted on my campus after standing up for conservative values, and shutting down idiot leftists.) But it must be done.

In any case, keep reading.

Easter and Passover: Both Holidays Are About the Dead Rising to New Life

A lovely essay for Easter weekend, which (this year) is also the end of Passover week.

From R.R. Reno, at WSJ, "The Profound Connection Between Easter and Passover."

Easter and Passover share a profound connection: They both are about the dead rising to new life https://t.co/Q65bymKEzt

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 14, 2017

Hat Tip: Dr. Carol Swain.

Journalist Goes Undercover in North Korea (PHOTOS)

At London's Daily Mail.

No photos of concentration camps (complaints about this on Twitter). But still, it's an amazing, excellent photo-essay:

Journalist goes undercover to capture a side of North Korea we rarely get to see https://t.co/YBDCKGakf1

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) April 14, 2017

Trump Plumps His 2020 Campaign War Chest

Trump's a man of massive ego, so being reelected in 2020 should be the ultimate goal. The ultimate validation.

And remember, if Roger Simon's right, it's going to be a cakewalk, heh.

At WaPo, via Memeorandum, "Trump's reelection stockpile grows as small donors keep giving."

Thanks to slew of fundraising emails, Trump/RNC raised $42.6 mil in Q1, more than 2x Obama/DNC eight years ago https://t.co/bGKCKXmNPY

— Matea Gold (@mateagold) April 14, 2017

Nationwide Protests Over Donald Trump's Tax Returns?

Well, ahem, the times they are a changin'.

Seems like there's a lot more pressing problems than worrying about the president's tax returns. And besides, it's not like he's not paying his fair share. Just ask the idiot Rachel Maddow about that.

Either way, see Instapundit, "THE TEA PARTIERS PROTESTED THEIR OWN TAXES. NOW LEFTIES ARE PROTESTING OVER SOMEONE ELSE’S: Nationwide marches set to protest Trump tax returns."

Tomi Lahren's the Biggest Whiny Baby (VIDEO)

She's been having a hard time of it since the fallout last month. See, "Tomi Lahren's Pro-Choice?"

She's whiny, and actually stupid, if she thought Glenn Beck was going to cut her loose without a battle.

At the Dallas Morning News, "'I will not lay down and play dead — ever,' Tomi Lahren tells 'Nightline'":

Tomi Lahren, the conservative commentator known for her incendiary quick takes, said Wednesday on Nightline that she's disappointed and hurt by her employer's actions since she voiced her "pro-choice" stance last month.

In an interview on The View, Lahren said she "can't sit here and be a hypocrite and say I'm for limited government but I think that the government should decide what women do with their bodies."

Days after she made the statement, her show on the The Blaze was put on hold. On Friday, Lahren filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against her former boss, Glenn Beck, and his right-wing media firm.

The Blaze said last week that Lahren has not been terminated.

In a prepared statement, a Blaze spokesman said, "It is puzzling that an employee who remains under contract  (and is still being paid) has sued us for being fired, especially when we continue to comply fully with the terms of our agreement with her."
The spokesman said also Beck would not comment directly on the suit.

Lahren is being paid through September when her contract is up, but told Nightline host Byron Pitts that she was blindsided and feels lost without her job.

"The way I look at things I’m not doing what I was contracted to do — produce a television show, political talk show — I no longer get to do that," she said. The suit also alleges that The Blaze won't allow Lahren to access her Facebook page, where she has 4.2 million followers. She has not posted on the page since March 19, two days after The View episode aired.

The 24-year-old told Nightline that she has been silenced and that her ability to communicate with her followers has been wrongfully taken away...

Shoot, she's getting paid. And she's got until September. Hey, maybe write a book while you're chillin'? Work on your tan or something?

Keep reading.

Jennifer Delacruz's Sunny and Warm Forecast

Ms. Jennifer's a hottie!

From last night, at ABC News 10 San Diego.

It's going to be lovely weather this weekend:

Trump Will Win Bigly in 2020

From Roger Simon, at Pajamas:

I have bad news for the mainstream media and the Democrats.  Time to stock up on absinthe or hightail it down to the medical marijuana store -- Donald Trump is going to be president for eight years.  Not only that, he will win reelection much more comfortably, easily winning the popular vote as well as the electoral college.

I'm not saying this because I am in the slightest bit psychic. I always lose in Vegas -- and don't even ask about the track. I'm also not saying it because Trump just had a good week, getting his Supreme Court pick through and taking it to Assad and ISIS, earning him a slight bump in the polls. (They don't mean anything now anyway.)

 I am saying it for same reason I predicted Trump would win his first term back in August 2015 -- simple observation of the scene. I should add observation from afar because I have the advantage of watching from Los Angeles. The view is too distorted in the nation's capital where, at least it seems from here, no one can stand each other. (That's okay. People in Hollywood are exactly the same.)

Yes, you can say I'm being stupid and rash to make such an early prediction, but that's just what I was accused of in 2015.  So go ahead and call me anything you want.  Make my day -- November 3, 2020.

Okay, but why?

To begin with, the media (his main opposition party) has completely blown it in less than the allotted one hundred days. By attacking Trump every which way at once, calling him a racist, sexist, homophobe, Islamophobe, isolationist and warmonger -- yes, the last two are completely contradictory, but that doesn't stop the geniuses in our Fourth Estate -- they have literally turned into the journalistic version of the boy who cried wolf.  No one believes them anymore, assuming they ever did in the first place.

And it's only going to get worse because the Trump-Russia scandal is an obvious dud while the Obama-Trump surveillance contretemps could have legs, as we say hereabouts.

The situation is even more dire for the Democratic Party itself...

I'm a little skeptical that Trump can survive the gauntlet Democrat-Media Complex a second time (his win last November still seems miraculous somehow), but I admire Roger's pluck.

In any case, still more.

Wow! Federal Investigation of Fresno State History Professor Lars Maischak

I attended Fresno State, but I'd never heard of this guy before. He posted some nasty tweets, and the blowback's been harsh.

At the Fresno Bee, "Fresno State says FBI, Secret Service probing professor’s tweets about President Trump." (Also at Twitchy, "Fresno State cooperating with feds in probe of lecturer who tweeted that ‘Trump must hang’.")

The idiot's taken his page down and apologized.

At Blazing Cat Fur, "'To save American democracy, Trump must hang': California professor apologizes for anti-Trump tweet."

Jennifer Griffin Reports on Afghanistan MOAB Attack (VIDEO)

Following-up, "MOAB."

Watch, at Fox News, "MOAB used for the first time in combat."

MOAB

It's the "massive ordnance air blast," a.k.a, the "mother of all bombs," which is actually pretty hilarious.

At CNN, via Memeorandum, "36 ISIS fighters killed by US ‘mother of all bombs’: Afghan official."

Leftists were horrified that the U.S. actually kills people over there, bad people, of course (a distinction lost on radical progs).

ISIS deserved it. Time to pay for their crimes.#MOAB
"Afghanistan" pic.twitter.com/tM1AE5DSum

— America First! (@America_1st_) April 13, 2017

Professor Eugene Volokh Discusses Freedon Speech on Campus (VIDEO)

Following-up from yesterday, "Eugene Volokh on the Individual Right to Bear Arms (VIDEO)."

He's an interesting guy.

Here's the video of his recent talk at the Reason Weekend, the annual shindig sponsored by the Reason Foundation:

Jeffrey Ostler, The Lakotas and the Black Hills

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Jeffrey Ostler, The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground.

Jackie Johnson's Chance of Showers Forecast

Hey, it was perfectly pleasant weather today. We've got a chance of showers tomorrow, with some clearing heading into the weekend.

Here's the lovely Ms. Jackie in a beautiful white dress, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Bret Stephens Quits WSJ for NYT

Stephens has been a rather vile "Never Trumper" this last year or two, so it's pretty natural for him to join up at the Old Gray Hag.

At Politico:

Bret Stephens leaves Wall Street Journal for New York Times https://t.co/G8j7Mu7O7M via @Hadas_Gold pic.twitter.com/x03JB2gtez

— POLITICO (@politico) April 12, 2017

Ongoing Promotions in Lawn and Garden

At Amazon, Lawn & Garden - Ongoing Promotions.

More, GreenWorks 25022 12 Amp Corded 20-Inch Lawn Mower.

Also, New Arrivals in Sports Apparel and Swimwear.

And, Mountain House Just In Case...Classic Assortment Bucket.

BONUS: Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West.

ICYMI: Susan Sleeper-Smith, et al., Why You Can't Teach United States History without American Indians

At Amazon, Susan Sleeper-Smith, et al., Why You Can't Teach United States History without American Indians.

Eugene Volokh on the Individual Right to Bear Arms (VIDEO)

Another outstanding video, from Prager University:

Current Populist Wave the Result of the 2008 Recession?

Actually, no.

But see Stephen Green, at Instapundit, "WASHINGTON PANEL: Populist Surge a Result of 2008 Recession":

Meh. This panel seems to have focused entirely on Marxist-flavored economic determinism, and ignored the cultural blowback in Red America after eight years of top-down Progressive do-goodism...

Fewer Illegal Crossings on Southern Border

Amazing how well a little enforcement works in deterring illegal immigration.

I just love this administration, and especially the new attorney general.

At LAT, "Rio Grande Valley is unusually quiet as Southwest border crossings drop to lowest point in at least 17 years."

Earlier, "Jeff Sessions' New Immigration Plan (VIDEO)."

Bo Krsmanovic for Maxim (VIDEO)

Following-up from Sunday, "Bo Krsmanovic Uncovered for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017 (VIDEO)."

Here's Maxim:

Jeff Sessions' New Immigration Plan (VIDEO)

At the Daily Beast, via Memeorandum, "Jeff Sessions's New Immigration Plan Is ‘F*cking Horrifying’."

This is the immigration plan that's not actually horrifying. You'll be charged with a felony if you're deported and try to come back in. Not horrifying. That's righteous.

More at ABC News 15 Phoenix:

New Deals. Every Day

At Amazon, Shop Today's Deals.

And going fast, M&M'S Easter Milk Chocolate Candy Party Size 42-Ounce Bag.

BONUS: Hans Kung, On Being a Christian, and Does God Exist? An Answer for Today.

Dodge Challenger Demon (VIDEO)

Unreal.

At Fox News, "The 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is an absolute beast":

The Demon makes the Hellcat look like a church mouse.

The wide-body Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is a barely street-legal drag racer with a V8 that can produce up to 840 HP and 770 pound-feet of torque, making it the most powerful American car ever. It’s also the quickest car in the world, with an NHRA certified 0-60 mph time of 2.3 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 9.65 seconds at 140 mph...

More.

What's it Take to Be 'Fully American'?

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump wants immigrants to 'share our values.' They say assimilation is much more complex":

What does it take to be "truly" American? Some say assimilation and shared values. Immigrants say that's complex. https://t.co/81r8oOPK4b

— Hailey Branson-Potts (@haileybranson) April 11, 2017

The foreign-born share of the U.S. population has quadrupled in the five decades since the establishment of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which ended a quota system based on national origin that favored white European immigrants. In 1960, 9.7 million foreign-born residents were living in the U.S. In 2014, there were 42.2 million, according to census data and the Pew Research Center.

Kevin Solis, who works for the immigration advocacy group Dream Team LA, said politicians’ statements about assimilation just add fuel to an already sensitive subject.

“When you say, ‘They need to assimilate,’ you’re already beginning with the false notion that they don’t want to, that they’re coming here as an invading force,” he said. “It’s coded in the sense that these are ‘other’ people, foreigners who want to do harm to our nation, and that’s not the case.”

Jim Chang, an information systems specialist from Irvine, recalled meeting with one of his son’s teacher; she kept repeating what he was saying.

“I know he was repeating, you know, saying it more than once because she was worried I didn’t understand,” Chang, 53, said.

Though he spoke English fairly well and understood it even better, Chang said his Korean accent meant he would always stick out.

“It doesn’t matter if you have 12 years or 20 years in the U.S. If they hear us sound a little different, they judge,” he said.

That’s something he said he believes his son, a fifth-grader, shouldn’t have to face. Chang speaks Korean to him, but his son, Jimmy, responds in English.

“I realize that we don’t plan to return to live in Korea. We belong in California now,” Chang said.

But Carmen Fought, a linguistics professor at Pitzer College, said that everyone has an accent regardless of how well they speak English. Whether it’s the Cajun or so-called “Minnesota nice” or “Bronx” or other accent not quite on the radar of American pop culture, everyone in the U.S. speaks with an accent, she said.

Not all accents, however, are perceived as equally American.

“A way of speaking that’s associated with a group that’s stigmatized is also going to be stigmatized,” Fought said. “There’s also going to be racism and prejudice against that way of speaking.”

Karen, a 24-year-old honor student at Cal State Fullerton, is an aspiring certified public accountant. She volunteers for the IRS — where her ability to speak Spanish is a major asset — helping low-income people fill out their taxes.

The night Trump was elected, Karen — a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, recipient who asked that her last name not be used because she fears deportation — suddenly felt as if she stood out even though she was an infant sleeping in the back seat of a car when she was brought to the U.S. illegally from Mexico.

Karen hasn't been back to Mexico since then but grew up in the overwhelmingly Latino community of Huntington Park, watching Spanish-language television with her grandmother and working in a Mexican restaurant.

Moving to Orange County for college was like moving to a different world, Karen said. At least until Trump’s election, she felt that she was safer as a college student than her parents, who have labor-oriented jobs.

Her younger brother is a DACA recipient also, and she had him move in with her so they could remove their parents’ address from their federal forms.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong anywhere,” she said. “In Mexico, I would be seen very differently because of my accent. It’s like, god, what do I do? If I were to go back, I wouldn’t have anything back there.”

“On the one side, the Hispanics tell you, ‘You’re way too American.’ On the other, you’ll have the Americans telling you you’re too Hispanic. It’s hard to be in the middle.”

“What makes me American? It’s not only the 24 years of my life,” she said. “It’s that this is all I know.”

We obviously need to scale back immigration, and drastically. It shouldn't even be controversial to have to assimilate into the dominate culture. The fact that these people are even questioning it, suggesting that they shouldn't be judged because they're illegal, is reprehensible.

Kate Bock Uncovered for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017 (VIDEO)

Here's the fabulous Ms. Kate, for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Daniel Justin Herman, Hell on the Range

At Amazon, Daniel Justin Herman, Hell on the Range: A Story of Honor, Conscience, and the American West.

In this lively account of Arizona’s Rim Country War of the 1880s—what others have called "The Pleasant Valley War"—historian Daniel Justin Herman explores a web of conflict involving Mormons, Texas cowboys, New Mexican sheepherders, Jewish merchants, and mixed-blood ranchers. Their story, contends Herman, offers a fresh perspective on Western violence, Western identity, and American cultural history.

At the heart of Arizona’s range war, argues Herman, was a conflict between cowboys’ code of honor and Mormons’ code of conscience. He investigates the sources of these attitudes, tracks them into the early twentieth century, and offers rich insights into the roots of American violence and peace.

Amber Lee's Increasing Chance of Showers Forecast

Here's the lovely Ms. Amber, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Shop History Books

At Amazon, Best in History.

More blogging tonight.

And thanks for your support. As always, it's greatly appreciated.

Felipe Moura Brasil: How Socialism Ruined My Country (VIDEO)

A great, great video!

At Prager University:

Dana Loesch: 'Old gray hag, we're coming for you...' (VIDEO)

Heh.

I love this!

At Instapundit, "THE STRUGGLE AGAINST FAKE NEWS: NRA-NYT war escalates: ‘Old gray hag, we’re coming for you’."

And here's the irrepressible Dana Loesch, for the National Rifle Assocation:

Heather Mac Donald, 'Get Up, Stand Up'

Following-up from yesterday, "Heather Mac Donald Shut Down by 'Black Lives Matter' Thugs at Claremont McKenna (VIDEO)."

Here she is, at City Journal, "All who cherish free expression, especially on campuses, must combat the growing zeal for censorship":

Where are the faculty? American college students are increasingly resorting to brute force, and sometimes criminal violence, to shut down ideas they don’t like. Yet when such travesties occur, the faculty are, with few exceptions, missing in action, though they have themselves been given the extraordinary privilege of tenure to protect their own liberty of thought and speech. It is time for them to take their heads out of the sand.

I was the target of such silencing tactics two days in a row last week, the more serious incident at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, and a less virulent one at UCLA.

The Rose Institute for State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna had invited me to meet with students and to give a talk about my book, The War on Cops, on April 6. Several calls went out on Facebook to “shut down” this “notorious white supremacist fascist Heather Mac Donald.” A Facebook post from “we, students of color at the Claremont Colleges” announced grandiosely that “as a community, we CANNOT and WILL NOT allow fascism to have a platform. We stand against all forms of oppression and we refuse to have Mac Donald speak.” A Facebook event titled “Shut Down Anti-Black Fascist Heather Mac Donald” and hosted by “Shut Down Anti-Black Fascists” encouraged students to protest the event because Mac Donald “condemns [the] Black Lives Matter movement,” “supports racist police officers,” and “supports increasing fascist ‘law and order.’” (My supposed fascism consists in trying to give voice to the thousands of law-abiding minority residents of high-crime areas who support the police and are desperate for more law-enforcement protection.)

The event organizers notified me a day before the speech that a protest was planned and that they were considering changing the venue from CMC’s Athenaeum to one with fewer glass windows and easier egress. When I arrived on campus, I was shuttled to what was in effect a safe house: a guest suite for campus visitors, with blinds drawn. I could hear the growing crowds chanting and drumming, but I could not see the auditorium that the protesters were surrounding. One female voice rose above the chants with particularly shrill hysteria. From the balcony, I saw a petite blonde female walk by, her face covered by a Palestinian head scarf and carrying an amplifier on her back for her bullhorn. A lookout was stationed about 40 yards away and students were seated on the stairway under my balcony, plotting strategy.

Since I never saw the events outside the Athenaeum, which remained the chosen venue, an excellent report from the student newspaper, the Student Life, provides details of the scene...

Sounds like a freakin' war zone. Sheesh.

Keep reading.

BONUS: Here's her book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

Shop Books

At Amazon, Best Books of April.

And see, Daniel J. Sharfstein, Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War.

Wendell H. Oswalt, This Land Was Theirs: A Study of Native North Americans.

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

Stephen Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West.

Elliott West, The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story.

Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West.

William C. Davis, The American Frontier: Pioneers, Settlers, and Cowboys 1800–1899.

Robert Bunting, The Pacific Raincoast: Environment and Culture of an American Eden.

S.C. Gwynne, Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History.

Nathaniel Philbrick, The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Bob Drury, The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend.

Andrés Reséndez, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America.

Dayton Duncan, Miles from Nowhere

At Amazon, Dayton Duncan, Miles from Nowhere: Tales from America's Contemporary Frontier.

Veterans Swim in Calming Waters (VIDEO)

A great story, from CBS Evening News:

Leonard Pitt, The Decline of the Californios

At Amazon, Leonard Pitt, The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846-1890.

Thurston Clarke, California Fault

At Amazon, Thurston Clarke, California Fault: Searching for the Spirit of a State Along the San Andreas.

Irina Shayk Uncovered for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017 (VIDEO)

Following-up from Sunday, "Irina Shayk Topless in Tahiti (VIDEO)."

At Sports Illustrated:

Jackie Johnson's Partly Cloudy Forecast

There'll be some scattered clouds this week, but the temperatures will be lovely.

And here's the lovely Ms. Jackie, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Gorsuch Sworn In

Following-up, "Neil Gorsuch Will Have Immediate Impact."

This is so big, it's not even fathomable.

And if Trump appoints two justices, it'll literally be an epochal victory for conservatism. Let's see if Kennedy steps down this summer, of which I heard rumbles.

In any case, at NYT:

Neil Gorsuch was sworn in as the 113th justice of the Supreme Court https://t.co/wTgfrLLZvx pic.twitter.com/9PDgzlKlwN

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 10, 2017

Heather Mac Donald Shut Down by 'Black Lives Matter' Thugs at Claremont McKenna (VIDEO)

I saw this at Heat Street earlier, "Seething Mob Shuts Down Speech by Pro-Cop Writer Heather Mac Donald as Event Turns Violent":

Black Lives Matter activists had planned the protest ahead of time, posting on Facebook that they intended to shut down the “anti-black” “fascist” Mac Donald. Their event called Mac Donald’s work “fascist ideologies and blatant anti-Blackness and white supremacy,” and claimed that “together, we can hold CMC accountable and prevent Mac Donald from spewing her racist, anti-Black, capitalist, imperialist, fascist agenda.”

And on Fox & Friends this morning.



BONUS: Here's her book, The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.

Lightning Deals Today

At Amazon, Gold Box and Lightning Deals.

More, Save on Invicta Watches.

Also, especially, Tower Paddle Boards Adventurer Inflatable 9'10" SUP Package.

BONUS: Bernard DeVoto, The Course of Empire.

James Wilson, The Earth Shall Weep

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, James Wilson, The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America.

Shop Outdoor Recreation

At Amazon, Outdoor Gear and Apparel for Every Occasion.

More, Shop Best Selling Products.

Also, Sports and Outdoors (Gift Guide).

And, Save on Books.

BONUS: Ganesh Sitaraman, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic.

Neil Gorsuch Will Have Immediate Impact

At LAT:

.@TerriGreenUSA Thank goodness: #Gorsuch's impact on divided Supreme Court will begin immediately: https://t.co/qRifPCQRDI

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 10, 2017

Syria Strikes Send Critical Message to North Korea, China, and Russia

From Judith Miller and Charles Duelfer, at Fox News, "Syria airstrikes: The critical message Trump sent to North Korea, China and Russia."

President Trump Calls Commanding Officers of Navy Ships

At ABC News:

Photos show president calling commanding officers of Navy ships that launched missiles on Syria to thank them, crew. https://t.co/wdpUBeXBSA pic.twitter.com/9HLKNKpuE1

— ABC News (@ABC) April 10, 2017

California's Crisis of the Interior

Following-up from yesterday, "Jerry Brown Wins $52 Billion Gasoline Tax in California (VIDEO)."

From Joel Kotkin, at the O.C. Register, a great piece, "The Other California: A Flyover State Within a State":

California may never secede, or divide into different states, but it has effectively split into entities that could not be more different. On one side is the much-celebrated, post-industrial, coastal California, beneficiary of both the Tech Boom 2.0 and a relentlessly inflating property market. The other California, located in the state’s interior, is still tied to basic industries like homebuilding, manufacturing, energy and agriculture. It is populated largely by working- and middle-class people who, overall, earn roughly half that of those on the coast.

Over the past decade or two, interior California has lost virtually all influence, as Silicon Valley and Bay Area progressives have come to dominate both state politics and state policy. “We don’t have seats at the table,” laments Richard Chapman, president and CEO of the Kern Economic Development Corporation. “We are a flyover state within a state.”

Virtually all the polices now embraced by Sacramento — from water and energy regulations to the embrace of sanctuary status and a $15-an-hour minimum wage — come right out of San Francisco central casting. Little consideration is given to the needs of the interior, and little respect is given to their economies.

San Francisco, for example, recently decided to not pump oil from land owned by the city in Kern County, although one wonders what the new rich in that region use to fill the tanks of their BMWs. California’s “enlightened” green policies help boost energy prices 50 percent above those of neighboring states, which makes a bigger difference in the less temperate interior, where many face longer commutes than workers in more compact coastal areas...

Keep reading.

Frank Pommersheim, Braid of Feathers

At Amazon, Frank Pommersheim, Braid of Feathers: American Indian Law and Contemporary Tribal Life.

John G. Bourke, An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre

At Amazon, John G. Bourke, An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre.

Brian W. Dippie, The Vanishing American

At Amazon, Brian W. Dippie, The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy.

Ralph K. Andrist, The Long Death

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Ralph K. Andrist, The Long Death: The Last Days of the Plains Indians.

Angels Mount Totally Improbable Come-From-Behind Victory Over Mariners

Dang!

I shouldn't be so skeptical of the Angels. They're on fire so far this season, and the Mariners just dropped a game that they in no way should have dropped.

I tweeted after Albert Pujols put one of the board with a solo shot early in the 9th inning:

.@PujolsFive's journey on the #RoadTo600 continues with #️⃣5️⃣9️⃣2️⃣! pic.twitter.com/8hMqAiDMGf

— Angels (@Angels) April 9, 2017

Nice, but not going to be enough for the win. #Shoemaker #Angels #Mariners #MLB https://t.co/dlLYMzBPBp

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) April 9, 2017

And then the Angels made the comeback. To call it improbable is putting it mildly:

Well, that was surprising. #Angels https://t.co/tVmeiixntz

— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) April 9, 2017

Angels score 7 in the 9th to win! Entering today, teams had lost 346 straight games when trailing by 6+ runs entering the 9th. pic.twitter.com/SrlMA4mP5A

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 9, 2017

Teams leading by 6+ runs entering 9th were 2,529-1 since 2011. The only loss was the Royals defeating the White Sox on May 28 last season. https://t.co/N87POMcA84

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 9, 2017

Shop Today's Deals

At Amazon, Today's Deals.

See especially, Rosetta Stone Level 1-5 Sets.

BONUS: Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Acting and Writing of History.

Rule 5 Sunday

No time for a huge roundup today. Just linking Pirate's Cove and 90 Miles from Tyranny.

See, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is a rising ocean encroaching on the land, you might just be a Warmist."

Plus, "Hot Pick of the Late Night," and "Morning Mistress."

BONUS: From last week, at the Other McCain, "Rule 5 Monday: Baseball Babes."

#MustFollow @vipgirls4free @saby292 @elisomed5 @vill_ha_dig @TMBbyCiccio @talktomeanytm @goodenough03 pic.twitter.com/ksa33ZjSbB

— ✨Lourdes Dean® 41K✨ (@LourdesDean88) March 22, 2017

Irina Shayk Topless in Tahiti (VIDEO)

This is a flashback to 2016, but as nice as ever:

Sailboat Crew Jumps Ship Milliseconds Before Boat Hits Redondo Beach Pier (VIDEO)

They're lucking they weren't smashed on the pylons.

Via CNN on Twitter:

These crew members managed to jump ship just seconds before their sailboat crashed into a California pier https://t.co/LUVVGVySgZ pic.twitter.com/v9MCgwziGi

— CNN (@CNN) April 9, 2017

Bo Krsmanovic Uncovered for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit 2017 (VIDEO)

She's incredible!

So Laura Ingraham's Not Thrilled With Trump's Syria Attack?

Apparently not, if this tweet is any indication. Indeed, I saw some buzz about how she was one of the "alt-right" commentators opposing the strike.

I love Ms. Laura, but on this point I suspect she's off.

Hope @realDonaldTrump reads this buried in @nytimes. pic.twitter.com/bXi2QIVnNV

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) April 9, 2017

Syrian Chemical Attack Survivor Hits Out at @CNN's Brooke Baldwin (VIDEO)

Boy, you think Ms. Brooke's tryna make Trump look bad, tryna delegitimize his administration?

This dude Kassem Eid ain't buying it. He's awesome!

At Daily Mail and CNN:



America, the indispensable nation.

Leftists hate that, lol.

'Tomahawk Missiles' Are Offensive to Native Americans?

I've been adding a #Tomahawk hashtag to all my Syria tweets, mostly because I think that's the coolest named ever for the long-range land-attack missiles. Plus, I know that progressives hate the idea of "appropriating" American Indian names for use in military armaments.

And what do you know? The obligatory leftist political correctness.

At Heat Street, "Prominent Editor Mocked for Saying ‘Tomahawk Missiles’ Are Offensive to Native Americans."

It's Clara Jefferey, Editor in Chief at Mother Jones, who's a bloody idiot.

That the missiles are callled tomahawks must enrage a lot of Native Americans

— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) April 8, 2017

Jerry Brown Wins $52 Billion Gasoline Tax in California (VIDEO)

Jerry Brown is the lamest of lame ducks. He's finishing his fourth term as Governor of California, cementing his legacy of clusterfuck moonbeam progressivism.

At the Los Angeles Times, "California Legislature votes to raise gas taxes, vehicle fees by $5.2 billion a year for road repairs and transit."

Video via KCRA News 3 Sacramento.

I've got another 10 to 15 years or so at the college, then retirement. A lifelong Californian, I'm constantly wondering which state would be best to relocate? Nevada? Texas? Idaho or Montana? Seriously. I want to get out to more of the classic West, and especially to a low-tax state that's big on gun rights.

More at WND, "FLEEING INSANITY -- THAT IS, LIBERALISM: Exclusive: Patrice Lewis cites increasing exodus of people from California, Chicago, NYC:

In 1972, when I was 10 years old, my father’s job was transferred from Buffalo, New York, to California. After endless cold Buffalo winters, the golden state seemed like a golden place, a land of golden opportunity. My parents built a house, my father built a successful career, and my brothers and I thrived.

That was then, this is now. California is going off the deep end. The gold has turned to brass. It has become the land of fruits and nuts, a caricature of its former glory, a place people seek to leave in droves before they run afoul of the latest insanity.

Consider just a few examples of recent lunacy:

* Public university to host talk on animal-based sex fetishes
* Claim: Trump ‘threatens mental health of young Californians’
* They’ll have a ‘gay’ old time: ‘Bordellos’ now in nursing homes?
* California just passed a law regulating cow farts
* New bill would criminalize pronoun usage in nursing homes
* California bans students from traveling to ‘anti-LGBT’ states

Perhaps unsurprisingly, middle class Californians are leaving the state in droves. Take a look at these words from a frustrated inhabitant:

Came to SoCal as a kid in 1969 … got married and had kids who now are in college (out of state). I worked my *** off to get where I am today, but my house goes on the market this spring. I’ve watched this state sink into the abyss of liberal insanity inch by inch, drop by drop.

There is no hope for the state of Kalifornia. The Dems and their insane view of this world have a super majority in the Senate and Assembly. Combined with a Dem governor, there is nothing they cannot get passed. Even the Republicans who end up getting into the minority party are squishy and put up little resistance.

This past summer the legislative branch passed a bunch of bills that finally broke my desire to stay here with my salary. Gov. Moonbeam signed into law a bill that forces the cattle industry (dairy and meat) into providing flatulent catching backpacks for all cows to wear, for their precious global warming efforts. He also signed a bill that permits early release of felons out of jail and has them live amongst the citizenry. Combine that with the draconian laws further limiting my Second Amendment rights by making ammunition costly and more difficult to obtain, making some of my firearms illegal to own, he has put more rights into criminals and made my family less safe to live here.

I am DONE. Good riddance. I am moving to a state that will appreciate my conservative, constitutional values.

This person’s lament echoes that of over a million (mostly middle-class) people who have departed California in recent decades. We were among them. My husband and I shook the California dust off our feet in 1992 and never looked back at that once-beautiful state.

But it’s not just California. Recent articles show a massive exodus from both New York City and Chicago as well.

What do these three locations (California, New York, Chicago) have in common? They are bastions of liberalism, cauldrons of experimental progressive policies, vanguards of whatever feel-good fiscally irresponsible nonsense disturbed minds can think up.

So when we read about populations draining out of certain locations, the conclusion is obvious. People aren’t fleeing New York or Chicago or California; people are fleeing liberalism. The festering cauldron of progressive thought ultimately makes places unlivable.

I’m honestly sorry for those freedom-loving conservatives who are unable (due to work or family commitments) to beat feet and flee the gold-plated state. And I welcome those honestly looking to escape the insidious poison. I do, however, bear a grudge with those who bring their poison with them and enthusiastically spread it to a new location, dragging everything down with them.

Keep reading.

BONUS: From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "WELL, THAT’S ONE WAY TO PUT IT: “California’s gas tax hike shows governor’s political skill” reads an AP headline this weekend."

H.R. McMaster Boots K. T. McFarland

Well, if the appointment as envoy to Singapore doesn't work out, K. T. McFarland can always head back to Fox News.

At Bloomberg, "McFarland to Exit White House as McMaster Consolidates Power":

K. T. McFarland has been asked to step down as deputy National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump after less than three months and is expected to be nominated as ambassador to Singapore, according to a person familiar with White House personnel moves.

The departure of the 65-year-old former Fox News commentator comes as Trump’s second National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, puts his own stamp on the National Security Council after taking over in February from retired General Michael Flynn.

McFarland proved not to be a good fit at the NSC, the person said, adding that Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly was involved in the decision as well.

Her removal follows a reorganization of the NSC in the past week that removed Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor, from the principals committee, the Cabinet-level interagency forum that advises the president on pressing security matters.

Other officials, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were brought back onto the committee as “regular attendees,” reversing a move made in January. The changes were outlined in a presidential memorandum dated April 4.

Former Goldman Sachs executive Dina Powell stays on as another deputy national security adviser, and a second person is expected to be named to a similar role to replace McFarland...

More (via Memeorandum).