Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

I've got a couple more books to finish on World War I to finish, as well as one on 19th century European imperialism in Africa, then I'm looking to go on a Roman empire jag. I've got a couple of novels lined up already, but I've had Edward Gibbon's classic tome on my shelf for almost 30 years. I need to wade through that thing and blow it out. I picked it up back at the time when Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers was the rage.

Once summer's over I'll switch gears a little. As noted, I'm teaching comparative politics this fall, and the German case plays large in my approach. It's going to be a blast.

In any case, at Amazon, Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Danielle Gersh's Beach Weather Forecast

What do you know? It's almost August already!

I start back at the college August 28th, so I'll be really enjoying these last few weeks of lollygagging around, lol.

Seriously, though, I'm going into the office early next week to work on my syllabi. In addition to U.S. politics, I'm teaching Introduction to Comparative Politics this semester, for the first time in years. It's going to be great!

In any case, here's the lovely Ms. Danielle with the forecast, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Thomas E. Ricks, Churchill and Orwell

At Amazon, Thomas E. Ricks, Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Toppled

At LAT, "Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigns after Supreme Court orders his dismissal in corruption case":

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigned Friday after the country's Supreme Court disqualified him from office due to corruption charges he and his family have been battling.

"Following the verdict, Nawaz Sharif has resigned from his responsibilities as prime minister," a spokesman for Sharif's office said in a statement.

The unanimous, five-judge ruling — delivered to a packed courtroom in the nation’s capital — came after an investigation into the family’s finances following the Panama Papers leak in 2015. Documents uncovered during the international media investigation linked Sharif’s children to offshore companies that had not been revealed in financial disclosures.

After the ensuing investigations, Judge Ejaz Afzal Khan said Sharif was no longer "eligible to be an honest member of the parliament.” The court had already recommended anti-corruption cases against Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz, her husband Safdar, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and others...

Also at NYT, "Pakistan, Ousting Leader, Dashes Hopes for Fuller Democracy."

Huntington Beach: U.S. Open of Surfing (VIDEO)

I used to live in Huntington Beach. This event is excellent.

And there's supposed to be big surf this weekend.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles

New White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci Cancels Politicon Appearance

I think he's got enough on his plate, rather than fly out to Pasadena for this cattle call.

You can always go see Ann Coulter's shtick, heh.

At LAT, "Anthony Scaramucci cancels weekend appearances at Politicon convention in Pasadena."

Leftists Freak Out on Twitter Over Trump's 'Police Brutality' Joke

At Blazing Cat Fur.

Watch, here's the comments, "President Trump: Don't be too nice."

Also, "Remarks by President Trump to Law Enforcement Officials on MS-13."

Los Angeles Times Links Priebus' Ouster to #GOP's Failure to Repeal #ObamaCare.

Disingenuous.

See how the placement of these articles implies a close link. Actually, Priebus' ouster and the failure of the health bill aren't closely related, but you'd think it was all of one piece by looking at the cover of this morning's paper.

Here's the article at the top, "Trump ousts Reince Priebus as chief of staff in latest White House shake-up."

And at left, "GOP confronts an inconvenient truth: Americans want a healthcare safety net."

Page placement tells you a lot about the thinking and agenda of the editors at the Times.

Top Brands in Tools and Home Improvement

At Amazon, Shop Wallpaper, Power Tools, Ceiling Fans, Lighting and Everything in Between.

Also, DEWALT DCK590L2 20-Volt MAX Li-Ion 3.0 Ah 5-Tool Combo Kit.

BONUS: Dominic Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and Revolution.

Jeff Grosso’s Favorite Skate Pic (VIDEO)

This is interesting, but pay attention to the second photo he talks about toward the end of the video. That's Steve Alba at the Upland Skatepark "combi-pool" circa 1981. Unbelievable.

Venezuela's Useful Idiots Have Gone Silent

This is great.

At CapX, "Venezuela's Useful Idiots Have Gone Quiet. I Wonder Why":

Socialists like to claim that “real” socialism has never been tried. There is a very simple reason for that: whenever a socialist experiment fails (as they invariably do), socialists, including those who have once endorsed the experiment in question, retroactively declare it “unreal”.

RTWT.

Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction

At Amazon, Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany.

Jennifer Delacruz's Humid Coastal Clouds Forecast

It's warm inland, with chances of thundershowers.

But otherwise, kinda cool weather for late July.

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

T.G. Otte, July Crisis

At Amazon, T.G. Otte, July Crisis: The World's Descent into War, Summer 1914.

S.L.A. Marshall, World War I

*BUMPED.*

The classic introductory text, at Amazon, S.L.A. Marshall, World War I.

Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War

*BUMPED.*

My copy came today yesterday Thursday last week a while ago, via Amazon, Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War.

'Lust for Life'

It's Lana Del Rey, featuring The Weeknd.

My son just digs Ms. Lana. He's going to take me to one of her concerts, heh.

Country Superstars Faith Hill and Tim McGraw Private Island in the Bahamas (VIDEO)

Via Vogue Italia.

Must be nice, heh.

Who Paid for the 'Trump Dossier'?

This is what I was talking about in my previous entry, "Katrina vanden Heuvel: 'Realism on Russia'."

We should be investigating the Democrats.

Here's Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "Have we had the whole "collusion" story completely backward?":

It has been 10 days since Democrats received the glorious news that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley would require Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort to explain their meeting with Russian operators at Trump Tower last year. The left was salivating at the prospect of watching two Trump insiders being grilled about Russian “collusion” under the klieg lights.

Yet Democrats now have meekly and noiselessly retreated, agreeing to let both men speak to the committee in private. Why would they so suddenly be willing to let go of this moment of political opportunity?

Fusion GPS. That’s the oppo-research outfit behind the infamous and discredited “Trump dossier,” ginned up by a former British spook. Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson also was supposed to testify at the Grassley hearing, where he might have been asked in public to reveal who hired him to put together the hit job on Mr. Trump, which was based largely on anonymous Russian sources. Turns out Democrats are willing to give up just about anything—including their Manafort moment—to protect Mr. Simpson from having to answer that question.

What if, all this time, Washington and the media have had the Russia collusion story backward? What if it wasn’t the Trump campaign playing footsie with the Vladimir Putin regime, but Democrats? The more we learn about Fusion, the more this seems a possibility.

We know Fusion is a for-hire political outfit, paid to dig up dirt on targets. This column first outed Fusion in 2012, detailing its efforts to tar a Mitt Romney donor. At the time Fusion insisted that the donor was “a legitimate subject of public records research.”

Mr. Grassley’s call for testimony has uncovered more such stories. Thor Halvorssen, a prominent human-rights activist, has submitted sworn testimony outlining a Fusion attempt to undercut his investigation of Venezuelan corruption. Mr. Halvorssen claims Fusion “devised smear campaigns, prepared dossiers containing false information,” and “carefully placed slanderous news items” to malign him and his activity.

William Browder, a banker who has worked to expose Mr. Putin’s crimes, testified to the Grassley committee on Thursday that he was the target of a similar campaign, saying that Fusion “spread false information” about him and his efforts. Fusion has admitted it was hired by a law firm representing a Russian company called Prevezon.

Prevezon employed one of the Russian operators who were at Trump Tower last year. The other Russian who attended that meeting, Rinat Akhmetshin, is a former Soviet counterintelligence officer. He has acknowledged in court documents that he makes his career out of opposition research, the same work Fusion does. And that he’s often hired by Kremlin-connected Russians to smear opponents.

We know that at the exact time Fusion was working with the Russians, the firm had also hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to dig up dirt on Mr. Trump. Mr. Steele compiled his material, according to his memos, based on allegations from unnamed Kremlin insiders and other Russians. Many of the claims sound eerily similar to the sort of “oppo” Mr. Akhmetshin peddled.

We know that Mr. Simpson is tight with Democrats. His current attorney, Joshua Levy, used to work in Congress as counsel to no less than Chuck Schumer. We know from a Grassley letter that Fusion has in the past sheltered its clients’ true identities by filtering money through law firms or shell companies (Bean LLC and Kernel LLC).

Word is Mr. Simpson has made clear he will appear for a voluntary committee interview only if he is not specifically asked who hired him to dig dirt on Mr. Trump. Democrats are going to the mat for him over that demand. Those on the Judiciary Committee pointedly did not sign letters in which Mr. Grassley demanded that Fusion reveal who hired it.

Here’s a thought: What if it was the Democratic National Committee or Hillary Clinton’s campaign? What if that money flowed from a political entity on the left, to a private law firm, to Fusion, to a British spook, and then to Russian sources? Moreover, what if those Kremlin-tied sources already knew about this dirt-digging, tipped off by Mr. Akhmetshin? What if they specifically made up claims to dupe Mr. Steele, to trick him into writing this dossier?

Fusion GPS, in an email, said that it “did not spread false information about William Browder.” The firm said it is cooperating with Congress and that “the president and his allies are desperately trying to smear Fusion GPS because it investigated Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.”

If the Russian intention was to sow chaos in the American political system, few things could have been more effective than that dossier, which ramped up an FBI investigation and sparked congressional probes and a special counsel, deeply wounding the president...

Katrina vanden Heuvel: 'Realism on Russia'

Well, we certainly need some realism, sheesh.

Here's Ms. Katrina, at the Nation:

We must investigate claims of Russian interference in the election, while also de-escalating a dangerous crisis.

The revelation that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer promising derogatory information on Hillary Clinton reaffirms the need for a full accounting of how our democracy may have been subverted in the 2016 election. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the claims of Russian interference in the election, of collusion with the Trump campaign, and the possibility of criminal malfeasance by President Trump or his associates is essential, and it must be allowed to reach its own conclusions without interference from the White House. Beyond protecting this existing investigation, Democrats should seek an independent commission to lay out steps for protecting the integrity of future elections.

None of this should be controversial. At the same time, there is another set of facts that needs to be reckoned with in this precarious moment—facts concerning the abject failure of US policies toward Russia and the dangerous path down which our two countries are currently headed. These facts also concern real and present threats and cannot be ignored. Indeed, the crisis we are now facing makes clear that it’s time to fundamentally rethink how we approach our relationship with Russia.

As US-Russian relations have deteriorated, the risk of a nuclear catastrophe—including the danger posed by a nuclear-armed North Korea—has risen to its highest level since the end of the Cold War. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists now rates the danger higher than when the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear device, in 1949. The new Cold War is punctuated by perilous military face-offs in three arenas: in Syria, in the skies over the Baltic Sea; on Russia’s western border, with 300,000 NATO troops on high alert and both Russia and NATO ramping up deployments and exercises; and in Ukraine. Between them, the United States and Russia possess nearly 14,000 nuclear weapons—more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal—and keep almost 2,000 of them on hair-trigger alert. So the extreme danger of nuclear war can only be reduced through cooperation between our two countries.

At the same time, the era of cyberwarfare has arrived without any of the agreed-upon rules that govern traditional war or, for that matter, nuclear deterrence. There is now a rising threat of hackers breaching not only e-mails and elections but also power grids, strategic warning systems, and command-and-control centers. For years, there has been discussion of the need to establish clear rules of the road for cyberwarfare. Now, reports of escalating interference make it imperative that cyberweapons, like conventional, chemical, and nuclear arms, ought to be controlled by means of a binding, verifiable treaty. Again, however, this cannot happen without a more constructive US-Russia relationship.

Given these significant threats, the escalation of tensions with Russia serves neither the national interest nor our national security. Expanding sanctions will only drive a wedge between the United States and the European Union, spur Russia to take retaliatory measures, and make it more difficult to negotiate. This moment calls for diplomacy and dialogue, not moral posturing and triumphalism.

Needless to say, rebuilding a working détente with Russia won’t be easy...

Actually, I think Democrat Party collusion and election interference needs to be investigated, but otherwise, a good piece.

Keep reading.

Charlotte McKinney in Saint-Tropez (PHOTOS)

On Twitter, "St. Tropez."

And at Drunken Stepfather, "CHARLOTTE MCKINNEY SLUTTY OF THE DAY":

Charlotte McKinney is on her knees half naked in Europe for the Leonardo DiCaprio sugar baby convention for the environment, where he brings out all the connected enough sluts for him to use as his next girlfriend if they jump through hoops proper….he brings out dozens of women to compete for his attention amongst themselves…it feeds his ego…and it’s pretty funny that all these sugar baby whores run to to the chance to be with Leo…because ultimately, all women are groupie whores attracted to the celebrity life…

BONUS: At Daily Mail, "Simply stunning! Charlotte McKinney rocks dark blue strapless mini dress with thigh slit at Miami brunch," and "Welcome to Miami! Charlotte McKinney showcases her flawless physique as she rocks Daisy Dukes for a beach holiday."

Indians Sweep Angels

The Angels' wildcard hopes took a real thwacking this week in Cleveland. It was brutal.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Angels on the brink after unraveling against Indians":

Last August in Cleveland, the Angels fell further below .500 than they had been in 17 seasons with Mike Scioscia presiding. The Indians swept them in four heavily delayed games, each muggy day threatened by rain, making for a miserable weekend and cross-country flight home.

The Angels’ record entering this series is improved and Northeast Ohio’s midsummer weather much more temperate, but the results have been no better.

After their seven-run comeback was negated in Tuesday’s 11th inning, the Angels unraveled during a tied seventh inning and lost 10-4 Wednesday.

They sank five games behind an American League wild-card spot. Only four games remain until Monday’s trade deadline, their decision day for whether to buy, sell or stand. Their season is on the brink.

“Usually, in the second half of the season, you start looking at the standings,” Mike Trout said. “But we can’t. We gotta go out there and play our game. Once we start looking at the standings, that’s when we’re gonna get in trouble, try to do too much.”

Trying not to do too much is Trout’s mantra. He says it after he homers, says it after he fails. The Angels as a team, though, do not have Trout’s talent. On top of ongoing offensive flaws, they are undermanned in the starting rotation, a group that Scioscia said Wednesday has been “patchwork” since the season’s start...

More.

Behind the Scenes, Kate Moss and Kesewa Aboah, for #LOVE18 (VIDEO)

Kate Moss is still going strong, for LOVE.

Bo Krsmanovic and Hailey Clauson Chase Sasquatch (VIDEO)

Crazy.

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed

At Amazon, Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.

Let the Democrats Be the Trans Party: Trump Will Win Again

From George Neumayer, at the American Spectator, "Let the Dems Be the Transgender Party":

The other day, Bill Kristol, sounding like a spokesman for the ACLU, decried the theism of Donald Trump. “In America the president doesn’t tell us who or what or whether to worship,” he harrumphed on Twitter after Trump merely said that Americans worship God above government.

It is humorous to hear Edmund Burke-quoting “conservatives” peddling such pitiful liberal prattle, all while informing us that Trump isn’t a “real conservative.” Are they? As far as I can tell, most of them support the gay agenda, hold wishy-washy views on most contested cultural matters, support open borders, and second the propaganda about Islam as a religion of peace. And now they are even championing the bogus rights of cross-dressers in the military. These hawks are shocked that the commander-in-chief would command his generals to choose military strength over political correctness! How dare he.

Unlike these phonies, Trump doesn’t clear his throat with classical tags. He doesn’t make nerdy, self-conscious references to the “conservative movement.” But who cares as long as he is restoring common sense to the government? Without common sense, without respect for the natural order of things, “conservatism” is useless. It is just destructive liberalism at a slightly slower speed.

The classicists whom the Wills and the Kristols so pretentiously quote would have recognized the perennial conservatism in Trump’s common sense. They wouldn’t have recognized it in the me-too liberalism of the Never Trumpers.

Trump’s uncomplicated defense of common sense is nothing if not conservative. He doesn’t need “commissions” to tell him whether or not enlisting men who pretend to be women and women who pretend to be men hurts military readiness. Anyone with five senses and a functioning intellect can see that it does. It is only under the vast experiment against common sense that is liberalism could such obvious truths fall into disfavor.

Of course, the stupid party is joining the evil party in this experiment against common sense. And so a host of Republicans, along with pundits like Kristol, threw a wet blanket over the ban. According to this confederacy of dunces, Trump is making a grave political mistake. The Dems naturally agree and have announced to the press that they “welcome this culture war.”

Even West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, in a measure of how extreme the party has become, participated in this PC posturing. The Dems are forevermore the party of compulsory transgender bathrooms and taxpayer-financed mutilations...

More.

'Like Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, McCain then makes a thumbs-down gesture, killing the bill. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell watches on grimly with his arms folded, as other GOP senators hang their heads in disappointment...'

This is something else.

At BuzzFeed, "Watch The Shocking Moment John McCain Killed The Republican Health Care Bill: There is so much going on in this clip. I can't stop watching." (Safe link.)

And watch here, "I can't stop watching this: the moment McCain votes no with a 👎🏻. Watch Bernie notice what's happening. Then Look at McConnel's grim reax..."

The Essential #MichikoKakutani Reader

Michiko Kakutani, who I follow on Twitter, took a buyout after 38 years. That's a long career.

A sample of her reviews, at NYT, "38 Years on #Books: The Essential #MichikoKakutani Reader."

Beautiful Charlie Gard Has Died

This story makes me almost cry.

Following-up from the other day, "Our Son Charlie Gard Had a Real Chance of Getting Better."

See Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "BUT SARAH PALIN WAS THE CRAZY ONE FOR BELIEVING THAT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE INVARIABLY LEADS TO DEATH PANELS: Parents of baby Charlie Gard say he has passed away."

And at the Telegraph U.K., "Charlie Gard dies: Baby's life-support withdrawn in hospice as parents 'denied final wish'."

Senate Rejects #ObamaCare 'Skinny Repeal', 51-49, in Dramatic Light-Night Vote

I actually really liked "skinny repeal." It would have removed ObamaCare's individual and employer mandates, and it would have rescinded the medical device tax. I've said all along that protections for pre-existing conditions should remain. Plus, since I have a 21-year-old kid, I can see how allowing young people to remain on their parents insurance can be helpful (even though I still shake my head sometimes to think that 26-year-old Americans should be dependent on their parents, but wtf?).

In any case, even the skinny repeal got rejected, owing a lot to Sen. John McCain, who's generated some enormous animosity since last night.

In any case, at the New York Times (FWIW), "Senate Rejects Slimmed-Down Obamacare Repeal as McCain Votes No":

WASHINGTON — The Senate in the early hours of Friday morning rejected a new, scaled-down Republican plan to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, derailing the Republicans’ seven-year campaign to dismantle President Barack Obama’s signature health care law and dealing a huge political setback to President Trump.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, who just this week returned to the Senate after receiving a diagnosis of brain cancer, cast the decisive vote to defeat the proposal, joining two other Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in opposing it.

The 49-to-51 vote was also a humiliating setback for the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has nurtured his reputation as a master tactician and spent the last three months trying to devise a repeal bill that could win support from members of his caucus.

As the clock ticked toward the final vote, which took place around 1:30 a.m., suspense built on the Senate floor. Mr. McCain was engaged in a lengthy, animated conversation with Vice President Mike Pence, who had come to the Capitol expecting to cast the tiebreaking vote for the bill. A few minutes later, when Mr. McCain ambled over to the Democratic side of the chamber, he was embraced by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California. A little later Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, put her arm around Mr. McCain.

The roll had yet to be called, but the body language suggested that the Trump administration had failed in its effort to flip the Arizona senator whom President Trump hailed on Tuesday as an “American hero.’’

Many senators announced their votes in booming voices. Mr. McCain quietly signaled his vote with a thumbs-down gesture. He later offered an explanation on Twitter:

Skinny repeal fell short because it fell short of our promise to repeal & replace Obamacare w/ meaningful reform...

After the tally was final, Mr. Trump tweeted:

3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!

The truncated Republican plan that ultimately fell was far less than what Republicans once envisioned. Republican leaders, unable to overcome complaints from both moderate and conservative members of their caucus, said the skeletal plan was just a vehicle to permit negotiations with the House, which passed a much more ambitious repeal bill in early May.

The “skinny repeal” bill, as it became known at the Capitol this week, would still have had broad effects on health care. The bill would have increased the number of people who are uninsured by 15 million next year compared with current law, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Premiums for people buying insurance on their own would have increased roughly 20 percent, the budget office said...

More.

Also, at Politico, via Memeorandum, "How McCain tanked Obamacare repeal." And at the Los Angeles Times, "McCain's surprise vote doomed GOP healthcare bill, but did it open the door for Senate bipartisanship?" (No.)

Post-Hillary Democrats

This is good.

From Daniel Henninger, at WSJ, "The Post-Hillary Democrats: How in God’s name, the Democrats wonder, did we ever lose the 2016 election to HIM?":

On climate change, Democrats believe they know to the 10th decimal place that Earth is on the brink of an apocalypse. But by their own admission this week, they don’t have a clue about which way the wind is blowing with the American voter.

On Monday the Democrats released something called “A Better Deal,” a set of policy ideas to win back voters. Think of it as the party laying down the first quarter-mile of blacktop on its road back to power.

The short version of “A Better Deal” is that they would bust up corporate trusts (Teddy Roosevelt, circa 1902), ramp up public-works spending ( FDR, circa the Great Depression) and enact various tax credits (Washington, circa eternity).

The more interesting question here lies in the document’s unspoken subtext: How in God’s name did we lose a presidential election to . . . him?

In a recent Washington Post interview, one of Hillary Clinton’s closest advisers, Jake Sullivan, admits, “I am still losing sleep. I’m still thinking about what I could have done differently.” Who wouldn’t? What happened Nov. 8 was like losing five Super Bowls in one day.

Hillary Clinton has taken to citing one fact: “Remember, I did win more than three million [more] votes than my opponent.” True, notwithstanding the pesky two-centuries-old Electoral College vote, which she lost.

Here’s another fact that still poses a maddening question for many: Donald J. Trump got more than 62 million votes. It wasn’t long before Election Day that many political sophisticates wondered how Donald Trump would get 620 votes, much less 62 million—after the McCain slander, the “Access Hollywood” tape, the generalized ignorance.

A conventional explanation for the loss—and we know this because Chuck Schumer conventionalized it last weekend—is to blame her. “When you lose to somebody who has 40% popularity,” said Sen. Schumer, “you don’t blame other things—Comey, Russia—you blame yourself.”

This is rich. It’s almost oxymoronic. The reason Democrats lost to him is that they had an unelectable candidate. But if both parties were running “unelectable” candidates, then a lot of that day’s 138 million voters based their decisions on something more concrete than the personalities of two celebrities.

Hillary Clinton was running as the extension of Barack Obama’s two-term presidency. If the Democrats are now throwing her under the bus, Mr. Obama is down there with her.

The Obama presidency was a watershed for the Democratic Party for reasons having little to do with his historic candidacy. Mr. Obama moved his party significantly to the left, arguably as Ronald Reagan had moved his to the right. But those two buzzwords—left and right—have substantive meaning. In practice, the Obama years constituted an abrupt enhancement of state power. ObamaCare was the tip of the iceberg.

Barack Obama was as smooth as Bill Clinton was slick, and he used his eloquence to soften the hard edges of the many policy coercions by his Justice, Labor and Education departments and the omnipresent EPA.

In 2016, the Clintons, especially the ex-president, recognized the risks of running on this leftward legacy in a general election. Thus Hillary’s efforts to essentially talk and fog her way past that reality.

Still more.

Anthony Scaramucci Unloads on Reince Priebus in Profanity-Laced Interview at the New Yorker

So, a little while ago, I go to turn on the Diamondbacks at Cardinals on the MLB channel, and I get an error message saying the broadcast isn't available in my area (which is weird, since I live nowhere near St. Louis and the game wouldn't normally be blacked out). Okay, fine. It's happened before. I then go to click out of the channel and CNN pops up. My wife must have been watching it earlier, because I haven't watched CNN in months. It's four-o'clock and Erin Burnett's coming on with breaking news about Anthony Scaramucci. So I watched for a while. Then I click around the dial a little more and come back a few minutes later and she's got neocon never-Trumper Bill Kristol on. He's ranting about how unprecedented is this White House power struggle, even going so far as to suggest that Scaramucci's mentally unstable and should be denied an FBI security clearance. Then I flip over to Fox News. Martha MacCallum's got Dana Perino on. She argues that this kind of White House battle can only be decided by the president ultimately. Martha goes to a commercial and I flipped the off button.

At issue is this interview with Ryan Lizza, at the New Yorker, "Anthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon" (via Memeorandum):

On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn’t happy. Earlier in the night, I’d tweeted, citing a “senior White House official,” that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question—for me.

“Who leaked that to you?” he asked. I said I couldn’t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over,” he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he’s inherited in his new job. “I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can’t help themselves,” he said. “You’re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I’m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.”

In Scaramucci’s view, the fact that word of the dinner had reached a reporter was evidence that his rivals in the West Wing, particularly Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, were plotting against him. While they have publicly maintained that there is no bad blood between them, Scaramucci and Priebus have been feuding for months. After the election, Trump asked Scaramucci to join his Administration, and Scaramucci sold his company, SkyBridge Capital, in anticipation of taking on a senior role. But Priebus didn’t want him in the White House, and successfully blocked him for being appointed to a job until last week, when Trump offered him the communications job over Priebus’s vehement objections. In response to Scaramucci’s appointment, Sean Spicer, an ally of Priebus’s, resigned his position as press secretary. And in an additional slight to Priebus, the White House’s official announcement of Scaramucci’s hiring noted that he would report directly to the President, rather than to the chief of staff.

Scaramucci’s first public appearance as communications director was a slick and conciliatory performance at the lectern in the White House briefing room last Friday. He suggested it was time for the White House to turn a page. But since then, he has become obsessed with leaks and threatened to fire staffers if he discovers that they have given unauthorized information to reporters. Michael Short, a White House press aide considered close to Priebus, resigned on Tuesday after Scaramucci publicly spoke about firing him. Meanwhile, several damaging stories about Scaramucci have appeared in the press, and he blamed Priebus for most of them. Now, he wanted to know whom I had been talking to about his dinner with the President. Scaramucci, who initiated the call, did not ask for the conversation to be off the record or on background...

More.

At one point Scaramucci calls Priebus a "fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac..." And of course, this has all the chattering-leftist mouths agape across the establishment. Keep in mind that leftists will play up any Oval Office flame-war to the hilt. If this is seen as weakening the effectiveness of the administration, all the better. And they're going to play it all the more, because Scaramucci's been kicking ass. He's been taking down the fake news memes on the cable broadcasts and forwarding an extremely on-point and effective message for the president. Leftist will exploit any angle to take him down, and by extension take down his boss, President Trump.

More at Memeorandum.

Everything is high drama. Scarmucci's high drama, but he's pissed at how the president's been getting reamed and he's serious about cleaning house. He's serious about take the battle to the fake news outlets. That's what leftists hate. Let's see how this goes over the next few days, because if Scaramucci starts winning some victories, leftists'll be even more freaked out. Knives are sharpening at this minute as it is.

Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual

At Amazon, Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition).

Ayn Rand, The Return of the Primitive

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Ayn Rand, The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution.

Ayn Rand, We the Living

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Ayn Rand, We the Living (75th-Anniversary Edition).

Transgender Accommodations and Military Realities

Following-up from yesterday, "Read J.R. Salzman's Twitter Stream."

Here's Ryan Anderson, at the Daily Signal, "5 Good Reasons Why Transgender Accommodations Aren’t Compatible With Military Realities":

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that he was reversing an Obama-era policy that opened the military to people who identify as transgender.

That policy, announced during the last year of President Barack Obama’s second term, was scheduled to go into effect earlier this month, but Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced a six-month delay in its implementation to review whether it was in fact prudent given the nature of the military and its mission.

The mission of our armed forces is winning wars and protecting the nation. So any personnel policy must prioritize military readiness and mission-critical purposes first.

Trump’s announcement that it would not be feasible to open the military to personnel who identify as transgender returns the military to the policy it had always observed, before the Obama administration’s 12th-hour, politically driven imposition of a transgender agenda.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can't be done alone. Find out more >>

As I explain in my forthcoming book “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” the best biology, psychology, and philosophy conclude that sex is a biological reality and that gender is the social expression of that reality.

The most helpful therapies for gender dysphoria focus not on achieving the impossible—changing bodies to conform to thoughts and feelings—but on helping people accept and even embrace the truth about their bodies and reality.

Unfortunately, 41 percent of people who identify as transgender will attempt suicide at some point in their lives, compared to 4.6 percent of the general population. And people who have had transition surgery are 19 times more likely than average to die by suicide.

People who identify as transgender suffer a host of mental health and social problems—including anxiety, depression, and substance abuse—at higher rates than the general population. Biology isn’t bigotry, and we need a sober and honest assessment of the human costs of getting human nature wrong.

So there were well-justified concerns that Obama was using the military to advance the latest social justice culture warrior agenda item—seeking to mainstream transgender identities and promote controversial therapies for gender dysphoria.

Obama’s policy change ignored the reality that placing individuals who might be at increased risk for suicide or other psychological injury in the most stressful situation imaginable—the battlefield—is reckless.

But even people who disagree about the underlying transgender issues should acknowledge that there are practical concerns for the military when it comes to people who identify as transgender.

Wednesday’s announcement reflects good reasons why transgender accommodations are incompatible with military realities. Here are just a few of the considerations...

Keep reading.

BONUS: Pre-order Anderson's book at Amazon, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.

Mengo Aluma Air Vent Magnetic Phone Holder

Cool unit.

At Amazon, Mengo Magnetic Air Vent Car Mount – Aluma Magnetic Phone Holder – Universally Compatible for iPhone Samsung HTC LG Phones – Strong Magnetic Vent Mount.

BONUS: Michael Mandelbaum, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the Twenty-first Century.

Rolling Stone Asks Why Justin Trudeau Can't Be President of the U.S.

The magazine's cover story reads, "Justin Trudeau: Canadian Prime Minister, Free World's Best Hope."

The problem: Of course, he's not. Canada isn't anywhere near the leader of the free world, Justin Trudeau or not.

Leftist are insane. More insane than ever.
See Twitchy, "Wow. Rolling Stone has a cover so bad even Chris Hayes calls it ‘unseemly’."

And here's Mark Steyn:

Kate Upton, Ashley Graham Soak Up the Sun (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

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Why Ohio Just Gave Donald Trump a Hero's Welcome

From Salena Zito, at the New York Post:

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — This town was on fire.

By 1 in the afternoon on Tuesday, every main thoroughfare downtown was filled with happy people heading toward the Covelli Centre. Folks dressed in red, white and blue crisscrossed the main grids as vendors sold “Make America Great Again” ball caps, American flags and bottles of water.

Thousands had filled the gravel parking lot to wait until the doors opened at 4, license plates revealing they had traveled from as far as Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to see the president speak directly to them in this Rust Belt city.

Music played on almost every corner as Donald Skowron, a retired Youngstown police officer, drove his green pickup truck up and down Champion Street — in the back, a 6-by-8-foot homemade wooden Trump-Pence sign straddling the bed of the truck, with two large Trump flags flowing from the top.

“I am very happy with the president’s performance so far,” said Skowron. “He has set the exact tone I was looking for, although I’ll be honest, I wish he didn’t tweet all of the time, but that is hardly anything to complain.”

Skowron said he is encouraged by reading about Trump’s constant meetings with industry leaders as well as union and trade members in trying to understand how to create jobs: “We have a president invested in trying to navigate between the people who create jobs and the men and women doing the jobs and how repealing regulations help both.”

Six months after Donald J. Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, he received a hero’s welcome in this town. The festive scene made a counter-visual to the daily nonstop press reports about investigations into members of his inner circle, Russian interference in last year’s election and the debate over ObamaCare.

Trump’s approval rating, according to Gallup, is 39 percent. Youngstown is the 39 percent.

On Monday, police said the advance ticket request of over 20,000 had exceeded the 6,000-seat capacity of the center, prompting the event coordinators to put a large screen outside the center for the overflow crowd...

Keep reading.

James Poulos, The Art of Being Free

At Amazon, James Poulos, The Art of Being Free: How Alexis de Tocqueville Can Save Us from Ourselves.

Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776.

John Lukacs, The Duel

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, John Lukacs, The Duel: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler.

Amber Lee's Less Humid High-Pressure Forecast

It's been mild.

Where's all the apocalyptic global warming we're always hearing about. It's been a positively mild summer in the O.C.

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

Read J.R. Salzman's Twitter Stream

Following-up from earlier, "President Trump Reverses Obama Administration's Transgender Military Policy."

Read this thread from J.R. Salzman, on Twitter, "I served in Iraq in 2006. For the first five months I was on a 12 man firebase out in the middle of nowhere in the desert."

Model Madison Headrick's Instagram Feed is One Long Summer Party

At GQ, "Meet your new favorite Instagram model, Madison Headrick."

Antje Utgaard

Fabulous, on Twitter.

And flashback from last year, "Antje Utgaard Dances in Her Underwear and Skinny Dips (VIDEO)."

Walter Lord, The Miracle of Dunkirk

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Walter Lord, The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation Dynamo.

Our Son Charlie Gard Had a Real Chance of Getting Better

At the Telegraph U.K., "Charlie Gard: Mother's full statement - 'we are so sorry that we couldn't save you'."

Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally

It's not out until 2018, but you can pre-order. Certainly a hot topic, heh.

At Amazon, Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.

President Trump Reverses Obama Administration's Transgender Military Policy

I was up at 6:00am, unusually for summer time. As always, I checked Twitter on my iPhone. Trump had just tweeted his announcement minutes before, and all hell was breaking loose.

Let's just say Russia's going to be on the back-burner today, heh. I don't watch cable news currently, but if you tune into CNN and MSNBC, you'll see leftists in outrage all day. It's going to be a great day.

At the Washington Examiner, "Trump: The military will no longer allow transgender people to serve 'in any capacity'." And at the Los Angeles Times, "Trump bars transgender people from serving 'in any capacity' in the U.S. military."

Also at the Hill, via Memeorandum, "Trump to ban transgender people from all military service."

Still more at Twitchy, "Uh oh! George Takei issues Resistance warning to Trump after military transgender ban."

Jack N. Rakove, Original Meanings

At Amazon, Jack N. Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution.

Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

This is a great book, out in a special edition.

At Amazon, Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition.

Brooke Shields for #LOVE18 (VIDEO)

I haven't seen much of Ms. Brooke in some time.

I always thought she was classy.

Senator John McCain Returns (VIDEO)

This is the state of our discourse.

Worse than ever. Simply no decency left in American politics.

At Twitchy, "‘I hope he dies right now’: John McCain returns to Senate following cancer diagnosis, begins The Triggering."

Look, he's long been the bane of conservatives, but I don't see folks on the right cheering his brain cancer.

Here's the full speech, "McCain returns to Senate floor."

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Hannity: 'Time for the American People to Draw a Line in the Sand...' (VIDEO)

Time for Americans to push back against the leftist fake news media onslaught.

You can see why leftists are desperate to take him out.

And like I said, leftists take notice. They tune in Hannity, especially on big breaking news days. They want to see how he's pushing back against their fake news memes, and they can't stand it.

From last night's show:

'Dunkirk' Booms at the Box Office

And that idiot sci-fi flick "Valerian," with top-model airhead Cara Delevingne, bombed.

At Deadline, "‘Dunkirk’ Takes Box Office by Storm With $55.4M No. 1 Spot for $105M+ Global Opening; ‘Valerian’ $23.5M Start – Int’l Box Office," and "‘Dunkirk’ Takes Warner Bros Past $1B; ‘Girls Trip’ Record Opening for Malcolm D. Lee; Reasons Why ‘Valerian’ Crashed."

Also at Hollywood Reporter, "Weekend Box Office: 'Dunkirk' Heads for $50M U.S. Debut; 'Valerian' Bombing":

Elsewhere, Universal's femme-centric 'Girls Trip' nabs a coveted A+ CinemaScore. And on Saturday, 'Wonder Woman' will overtake 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' to become the top-grossing domestic title of summer.

Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk easily won the Friday box-office battle with an estimated $19.8 million from 3,720 theaters for a projected $50 million debut, the best opening for a World War II movie in recent memory.

Dunkirk is getting a wide berth in Imax theaters and on 70mm screens (Imax's Friday share was a hefty $4.7 million). The critically acclaimed film, from Warner Bros., earned an A- CinemaScore and currently sports a 91 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Nolan's last film, Interstellar, debuted to nearly $50 million over the long Thanksgiving holiday in 2014, including $47.5 million for the three-day weekend. The Dark Knight Rises (2012) was his biggest opening ($160.9 million), followed by 2008's The Dark Knight ($158.4 million), 2005's Batman Begins ($73 million, including a three-day weekend of $48.7 million) and 2010's Inception ($62.8 million)...

More.

Go see this movie --- it's freakin' spectacular. And make sure you see it on IMAX 70mm. The critics are right: This film was made for viewing in the old fashioned way: A big screen, candy, popcorn, and a soda. You're on the edge of your seat through most of it. It's just phenomenal.

One-Time Cost of the Border Wall

Via Cousin Odie, at Woodsterman's, "L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-Libtard."

'Despite heavy censorship by the hopelessly ‘progressive’ government in Sweden the world has learned about the rape epidemic that is being enjoyed by their Muslim immigrant population which has earned the Scandinavian basket case the dubious title of rape capital of the world...'

At Cambrian Dissenters, "American Girl Has a Message for Muslims and the Women of Sweden."

Identity Politics, Equality and Marxism (VIDEO)

Here's the Roaming Millennial. She's a cool chick, lol.

Yes, social justice is cancer, and here's why. This video explains what social justice is & breaks down the problem with identity politics & the concept of justice vs. equality. Also SJWs are commies. Yeah.

Dodgers Need to Make a Move

Clayton Kershaw went on the DL this weekend, after his lower back injury flared up.

This could dampen the magic at Chavez Ravine.

Here's Bill Plaschke, at the Los Angeles Times, "With Kershaw on the shelf, it's time for Dodgers management to make a bold move":

With his best player hurting and the future of this special season teetering, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts initially claimed Monday that he was not going to lobby management to make a move to prop up Clayton Kershaw’s aching back.

“I can’t put the pressure on, I’m not going to put the pressure on,’’ he said.

But, then, boy, did he put the pressure on.

I had posed a question about a possible trade. The question did not include the name of a certain Texas Rangers pitcher who could be on the market before Monday’s trade deadline. Yet Robert brought up the name himself.

“Every team in baseball would like Yu Darvish,’’ he said during his pregame news conference. “Whether it happens or not, I just can’t speculate. It’s a fact we would be better with him, as would 29 other teams. If it happens or not, we’re still going to keep winning baseball games.’’

Roberts couldn’t have been any more clear if he had stuck his head out of the Dodger Stadium dugout, stared up into fifth-floor office windows and shouted, “Help!’

He wants it to happen. He wants something to happen. The feisty leader who epitomizes the Dodgers hustle and work ethic is unabashedly hoping that Kershaw’s strained back will lead baseball boss Andrew Friedman to acquire more pitching.

I’m with him. I’m with the idea that, after this hard-charging group of players has spent four months carving out what could be the greatest season in Los Angeles Dodgers history, management needs to finish the job.

They can’t let Kershaw’s back blow this. They can’t count on his return carrying this. They can’t believe that their team’s marvelous depth is deep enough for this. They’re going to have to be willing to dig deep into their crop of minor-league prospects to fix this, and it’s going to hurt, but it won’t be nearly as painful as watching an October crushed under the weight of a potentially unsteady star.

When Kershaw walked off the Dodger Stadium mound Sunday, the future of their joyous season dramatically changed. Their brilliant blueprint blew up. The magic paused. The nausea hit.

“Any time when something happens to Kersh, you’re going to feel sick in your stomach, that’s how I feel, I guarantee all the other people feel the same thing too,’’ said reliever Kenley Jansen...

More.

Nina Agdal Takes You Behind the Scenes of Her Dangerous Photoshoot in Mexico (VIDEO)

I think she's still my Number 1, lol.

Lovely.

At Sports Illustrated:

Kendall Jenner Poses Fully Nude Smoking Cigarette on Instagram

And this is causing a backlash?

At Harper's, "KENDALL JENNER POSES NUDE WHILE HOLDING A CIGARETTE IN HER LATEST INSTAGRAM POST."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Holy smoke! Naked Kendall Jenner poses under a chandelier while holding a cigarette (but insists doesn't have a nicotine addiction)."

But see Shape, "Kendall Jenner's Artsy Nude Photo Is Sending the Wrong Message About Smoking":

This black and white image makes smoking look sexy, and this dangerous habit is anything but.

And at Fox News, "Kendall Jenner's nude photo sparks backlash over 'glamorizing' smoking":

She just can’t keep away from controversy.

Kendall Jenner stripping off on social media is just another average day for the Victoria’s Secret model, but her latest shoot has raised eyebrows for the wrong reasons — because she posed with a cigarette.

Causing controversy is what these people do. Kendall is hot. But she's gotta keep it interesting by foisting all the faux controversies onto the social media-glamming public.

I just think she's a hot chick, lol.

Golfer Paige Spirinac Hits Back at New LPGA Dresscodes for Trying to 'Eliminate' Cleavage

She's on Twitter.

And at Daily Mail, "'This edict was put into place to eliminate cleavage': Professional golfer who was 'slut-shamed' by the LPGA hits back at the decision to bring in stricter dress code rules which bans plunging necklines and shorter skirts."

Alexis Ren Causing Outrage on Instagram

She's on the cover of Maxim for August, "Instababe extraordinaire Alexis Ren is Maxim's August cover girl."

And at the Daily Star, "Alexis Ren causes OUTRAGE among fans after grinding against her own reflection: A SERIOUSLY hot Instagram video featuring a nearly nude Alexis Ren has had viewers getting hot under the collar," and "Instagram vixen oils up bare boobs in topless rooftop tease."

More, at Drunken Stepfather, "ALEXIS REN’S CASUAL INSTAGRAM PIC OF THE DAY."

Ashley McGuire, Sex Scandal

At Amazon, Ashley McGuire, Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female.

Donald Trump's Boy Scout Speech (VIDEO)

Yawn.

This is an organization that's caved to the leftist homosexual agenda, even after winning at the Supreme Court way back in 2000 (Boy Scouts v. Dale).

Their advocates criticizing the president can suck it.

The full speech is here, "Trump speaks at Boy Scouts gathering (full remarks)."

And at U.S. News, "Former Boy Scouts Condemn Trump Jamboree Speech: Some want a formal apology after the president delivered a politically tinged speech to the Boy Scouts":

A number of former Boy Scouts are blasting President Donald Trump following his speech to nearly 40,000 young members of the organization on Monday, branding the address as classless and nauseating.

President Donald Trump spoke to the 2017 National Scout Jamboree in Glen Jean, West Virginia, and while he opened with a pledge to avoid partisan Washington politics, Trump delivered the crowd a healthy dose.

"By the way, just a question. Did President Obama ever come to a jamboree?" Trump asked of his predecessor at one point.

Former President Barack Obama was not a Boy Scout, but was reportedly a member of the Indonesian Scout Association. He recorded a video message for the jamboree in 2010.

Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were Boy Scouts, joining a number of other commanders in chief. Trump was not a member of the organization.

Trump's speech went on to echo his 2016 presidential campaign, criticizing Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton and boasting of his victory.

The Boy Scouts of America released a statement late Monday to a BuzzFeed News reporter asking about the political nature of Trump's speech. The organization, leadership said, is "wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy."

"The sitting U.S. president serves as the BSA's honorary president. It is our long-standing custom to invite the U.S. President to the National Jamboree," the group said.

But Trump's speech broke from a long-standing presidential tradition of delivering remarks tailored to themes of citizenship and service. The teen boys gathered to hear the president, though, did not seem to mind. The group reportedly met Trump with chants and cheers, and the president drew supportive boos from the crowd at his mention of the "fake media" and Obama.

The president's comments, however, did offend some. Current and former Boy Scouts – ranging from lawmakers to concerned parents – condemned Trump's speech on social media, and some went as far as to criticize the organization itself...

More.

Also, at the Hill, via Memeorandum, "Boos for Obama as Trump speaks at Boy Scout jamboree." And at the BBC, "Trump boy scout Jamboree speech angers parents."

Still more, at New York Magazine, "The 14 Most Inappropriate Moments From Trump’s Speech at the Boy Scout Jamboree":

“Who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts?” President Trump asked the 40,000 people gathered in Glen Jean, West Virginia, on Monday for the Boy Scout Jamboree.

The answer is President Trump. The event, which occurs every four years, was attended by about 24,000 boys, ages 12 to 18, but Trump treated it like a raucous campaign rally. During a rambling, 35-minute speech, he playfully threatened a member of his cabinet about getting the votes to repeal Obamacare, recounted his election win in great detail, and attacked President Obama...

I can dig it, lol.

Movie Studios Won't Make Many More Films Like 'Dunkirk'

Or, maybe they will.

Perhaps the astonishing Christopher Nolan epic convinces producers to invest in more magisterial movies such as this.

But see Megan McArdle, at Bloomberg, "'Dunkirk' and the Great Films That Won't Be Made":

Studios' big productions are so expensive that they are rarely risky. Or interesting.

I was perhaps unreasonably excited to see "Dunkirk," Christopher Nolan’s new movie about the evacuation of British forces from a French beach during World War II. The historical event on which it is based is astonishing: unable to get enough warships close to the beach to load their fleeing troops, the British government mobilized a flotilla of small private craft, which ultimately helped evacuate more than 330,000 soldiers ahead of the German army. I was eager to see what one of my favorite directors would do with the story.

He did not disappoint. This nearly flawless film put me on the edge of my seat for two hours. It is the best thing I’ve seen about war since the stunning opening of "Saving Private Ryan" -- and Nolan, bless him, is not prey to Steven Spielberg’s compulsion to mar his creations by slopping them over with speechy goo.

As with all of Nolan’s films, it’s emotionally distant from its characters. Cillian Murphy plays an officer credited only as “Shivering Soldier,” and none of the characters have much in the way of backstory or goals, other than survival. Matt Zoller Seitz calls it an “Ant Farm Picture,” a portrait of society in which individuals are almost incidental. That’s rather the point.

A lesser director would have given in to the temptation to make this a story about the righteous crusade against the Germans, men fighting other men, but Nolan shows us a world in which the enemy is a plane, a torpedo, the water and the flying bullets, and men are reduced to little more than their rage to live.

The result is less a war film than a disaster movie. An exquisite disaster movie. I didn’t expect such a vivid and visceral illustration of how quickly a ship can sink, or just how difficult it is to hit a target in the sky. I left the theater almost too overwhelmed to talk.

Having recovered, I began to wonder why we can’t have more pictures like "Dunkirk." The easy answer is, of course, that there is only one Christopher Nolan, and only so many people willing to give him $150 million to spend putting thousands of extras and some World War II-era ordnance onto a French beach. But the easy answer is incomplete.

It is getting rarer for a genius like Nolan to be given substantial sums of money to put their vision on the screen. Instead, the substantial sums go to “franchise films.” The pursuit of blockbuster movies is becoming less of an act of creation, and more an exercise in brand management. Franchises generate box office revenue, merchandising revenue and what economists call option value: "Furious 7" does not simply bring ticket revenue for the studio, but also the ability to make more revenue through Fast and Furious Episodes 8, 9, 10 and onward to "The Fast and the Furious 987."

Naturally, such valuable properties cannot be left to the quirky whims of some individual; studios have intervened more and more heavily to ensure that no director goes too far off the rails. As with other markets where mass franchises have taken over, the result is a sort of flattening of the available quality: There aren’t so many truly awful blockbusters being made anymore, but there aren’t so many truly great ones either. Indeed, there aren’t so many big movies being made at all, because studios find it much more attractive to rake in cash off of a predictable comic book film with a big global audience than to make risky bets on greatness.

In some ways it looks like a return to the studio system of yore, with its factory-like control over every aspect of production. But in the old days, the studios were mostly making lots of cheap films fast. The studios could afford to permit a little more variance, a little more creativity and serendipity, because the bets were reasonably small, and even an oddball picture might find an audience somewhere. But if the old studio system was a well diversified industry placing lots of bets -- the cinematic equivalent of an index fund -- the modern system is looking more and more like a hedge fund taking a few giant positions. When all the bets are potential firm-killers, the investment committee is going to want to oversee every detail, leaving less room for genius to emerge, much less thrive.

One reason "Dunkirk" is such a joy is that here is a film in which the deadening hand of the committee is nowhere evident...

More.

Max Hastings, Inferno

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Max Hastings, Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945.

Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945.

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Far-Left Democrats Attempt 'Better Deal' Rebranding

This is so stupid.

The Democrats don't care about the white working-class. It's a far-left identity-driven party now. Even Bernie Sanders is out of sorts with large segments of the Democrats' radical base.

This is showboating for the elections.

At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, Chuck Schumer, "A Better Deal for American Workers."

And at Scared Monkey, via Memeorandum, "Democrats Launch Economic Agenda Ahead of 2018 Campaign … Better Deal, More like a RAW DEAL":

After getting thoroughly whipped in the 2018 elections and proving no message to the American people except “resist” Trump, Democrats now claim they are going to launch a new economic agenda ahead of the 2018 midterm elections called … a Better Deal. WOW, did they stay up all night thinking about this one? Who honestly thinks that Democrats believe or will provide this so-called “better deal?” This is just a lame attempt by Democrats to lie to the blue collar, working, middle class of America, naming in the blue-wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that they lost in 2016. This is yet another attempt by Democrats to try and show that they have not become the Socialist party. With the stock market at all-time highs and jobs being created under Donald Trump, what are they talking about, a better deal? All the lame GOP controlled House and Senate has to do is pass real tax reform and the economy will heat up like never before.

The Democrats have long forgot the hard working, blue collar workers of America and they know it. No cute lie is going to work now. This is a completely contrived attempt to fool voters into thinking the Democrats actually side with workers. So to understand the Democrats, are they saying that the 8 years of Obama was an economic failure? Maybe Democrats should not have passed so may regulations that destroyed business.

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate will unveil a broad economic agenda Monday, hoping to unite the disparate wings of their caucuses and win back working-class voters who fled the party last year.

The party’s messaging strategy is the culmination of months of internal meetings and polling after a disappointing 2016 election that left Democrats reeling and many complaining they had no message to offer the public other than being against President Donald Trump.

“The number one thing that we did wrong is we didn’t tell people what we stood for,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

To fill that void, Democrats are adding pitches aimed at battling corporate overreach to an economic platform that already includes a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan and paid family leave. Party leaders are also proposing a new independent agency to oversee prescription drug prices similar to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau launched by Sen. Elizabeth Warren as well as an independent “competition advocate” that would police corporate mergers.

More at Pirate's Cove, "Dems Settle On New Slogan: 'A Better Deal' Or Something."

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

At Amazon, William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany.

Jennifer Delacruz's Cloud-Cover and Thunderstorms Forecast

That monsoonal moisture's really tripping up the weather to the south.

I was in all day reading, so not to big of an effect on me. But this is bizarre.

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

Keleigh Sperry Red Bikini In Miami

At London's Daily Mail, "Making a splash! Miles Teller's model girlfriend Keleigh Sperry stuns in patterned bikini as she cools off in Miami."

Kevin Wilson, Blood and Fears

At Amazon, Kevin Wilson, Blood and Fears: How America's Bomber Boys of the 8th Air Force Saved World War II.

Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

Well, I must say that's a good skill to have, heh.

At Amazon, Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.

I've Finished American War

That's why blogging's been light today.

I watched some baseball and finished reading this book.

At Amazon, Omar El Akkad, American War: A Novel.

I'd definitely recommend the book. It's a fairly quick read, for one thing. But mostly I find the premise of the novel --- a new civil war in this country --- extremely fascinating. Akkad's a good writer, and while some of the personal story-lines were too long and detailed for me, they do tend to link back nicely together in subsequent episodes. There's no loose ends. Some initial details are left out, though, or I skimmed over them in my reading. For example, the Southwest United States is now a Mexican protectorate --- basically, exactly what the radical leftists Reconquista types are always agitating about. But there's no discussion of a war with Mexico, where the U.S. gives back the land. Also, the leftist ontology of the entire book will turn off some conservatives. The new "American war" --- which takes place in 2075 --- is the result of the North being taking over by radical environmentalists who ban fossil fuels. Climate change has left parts of the country underwater by this time, like all of Florida. Even the most hardcore leftist climate alarmists don't make such preposterous arguments, however. We're talking hundreds of years from now before the very worst effects of the doomsday climate scenarios would come into effect. Florida's not going to be washed into the sea 55 years from now.

Still, readers will identify with the rebels in the South, especially the main character Sarat, who becomes an assassin after both her parents are killed. Akkad's to be praised for his realism throughout. And while the book makes the Southern rebels extremely sympathetic, in reviews I've read critics have identified with the North, even going so far as demonizing Sarat's character. That's not how I read it all. I read this as if it could be me. I could be fighting against the North as if I was fighting against all that's evil in the world. And since I see this country currently breaking up --- we're in a cold civil war now --- it's easy to become invested in the outcome in the book.

But that's all I'll say, since I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

Check out the book, at Amazon.

The Palestinian Mountain of Hate

Following-up, "Omar al-Abed, Hamas-Allied Terrorist, Murders Three Israelis in Jihad Knife Attack in West Bank's Halamish Settlement (VIDEO)."

From Liel Leibovitz, at the Tablet, "How the Noble Sanctuary, sacred to Jews and Christians as the Temple Mount, was transformed into a megaphone for bigotry, murder, and genocide":

Tens of thousands of faithful Muslims pack Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque every week. Things have been particularly tense in the holy site this week, after Palestinian terrorists murdered two Israeli police officers last Friday. Israel responded by putting up metal detectors, an act that led thousands of Palestinians to riot and assualt Israeli soldiers with rocks, bottles, and clubs.

What could make folks gathered for prayer so rowdy? Listen in on some of the mosque’s sermons, and the answer becomes painfully obvious.

“The Israelites,” roared Khaled al-Mughrabi, one of al-Aqsa’s top preachers, in the summer of 2015, “have a holiday, Passover. Every holiday, each group would look for a small child. They would kidnap the child, steal him, and put him inside a barrel, called ‘the barrel of nails.’ They would put the small child inside the barrel, and his body would be pierced by the nails. At the bottom of the barrel they would put a faucet, and that faucet would run with the boy’s blood. This is because Satan demanded of them, in return to doing everything they want, that they eat bread kneaded with the blood of children.”

When they’re not ritually slaughtering babes, Mughrabi said on other occasions, the Jews have a full agenda of evil: they’re the real culprits behind the 9/11 attacks, are planning to take over the world, and are actual blood-drinking vampires, which is why the industry they control, Hollywood, loves making so many movies about the Jew Dracula.

Not to be outdone, Ekrima Sa’id Sabri, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, is fond of using the mosque to talk about one of his favorite topics, the Holocaust. Which, to hear the renowned sheikh tell it, never happened. “Six million Jews dead? No way, they were much fewer,” he told an interviewer. “Let’s stop with this fairytale exploited by Israel to capture international solidarity. It is not my fault if Hitler hated Jews, indeed they were hated a little everywhere.”

 Still more, but you get the idea.