President Trump is Winning

Well, it's been a terrible week for Democrats, and it's going to be a lot worse for them if the memo comes out tomorrow, and that's looking likely. I loved the State of the Union. President Trump was a master, a great communicator if there ever was one, and he trolled the Democrats hard. The Nancy Pelosi memes alone were priceless.

More on that in a bit. Meanwhile, from Thomas Edsall, at the New York Times, "Trump Has Got Democrats Right Where He Wants Them" (also at Memeorandum):

.@Edsall: The greatest unknown is how immigration reform will influence the voting behavior of the white working class https://t.co/wVhbIsWwdF

— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) February 1, 2018

President Trump’s immigration proposal has put Democrats in a bind; they know it and he knows it.

Trump’s immigration “framework” — first outlined on Jan. 25 — represents an unusually sophisticated strategy. He proposes to more than double the number of Dreamers granted a path to citizenship, a significant concession to Democrats.

In return, he seeks approval of a set of policies strongly opposed by the left, each of which is designed to stem what Trump sees as a threatening increase in the nonwhite population of the United States.

What kind of numbers are we talking about? According to the Pew Research Center:

In 2014, immigrant women accounted for about 901,000 U.S. births, which marked a threefold increase from 1970 when immigrant women accounted for about 274,000 births. Meanwhile, the annual number of births to U.S.-born women dropped by 11 percent during that same time period, from 3.46 million in 1970 to 3.10 million in 2014.

There are now an estimated 690,000 registered Dreamers in the United States, all of whom were brought to this country as children before 2007. Trump’s offer would increase the number offered a path to citizenship to 1.8 million by adding those who are eligible for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), but who never registered.

For a Democratic Party whose electoral strength depends on Hispanic support (64 percent of Latinos identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party in 2016) preventing the deportation of the Dreamers and providing them with legal status has become a matter of political necessity.

Trump, acutely aware of the importance of DACA to Democrats, deliberately turned the status of Dreamers into a crisis on Sept. 5 when he ended the Dreamers program.

Since then, DACA has been the subject of constant debate and negotiation. Democrats have continued to threaten to shut down the government, when the Treasury runs out of money on Feb. 8, if no favorable agreement can be reached.

Trump’s proposal more than meets Democratic demands on DACA. But in return Trump wants Democrats to swallow three proposals of varying unpalatability.

First, the creation of a $25 billion fund for construction of a southern border wall to prevent illegal entry to the United States, primarily by undocumented Hispanics.

Second, a shift in immigration priorities from family reunification to a merit system granting entry to workers with relatively high skills. This would require limiting reunification preferences to minor children and spouses, while eliminating them for parents, siblings and adult children, what critics call “chain migration.” These steps would reduce immigration from developing countries: The two top countries of origin benefiting from family reunification policies are Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Third, an end to the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. The countries providing the largest numbers of immigrants under the lottery visa program, according to the State Department, are Cameroon, Congo, Liberia, Egypt, Iran, Nepal, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The greatest unknown is how immigration reform will influence the voting behavior of the white working class.

In a Jan. 29 Vox essay, “The math is clear: Democrats need to win more working-class white votes,” Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, writes that Democrats seeking to regain control of Congress may be forced to mute their opposition to Trump immigration provisions they find offensive.

Teixeira argues that:

The view that Democrats can get along without working-class white voters is simply wrong. It reflects wishful thinking and a rigid set of political priors — namely, that Democrats’ political problems always stem from insufficient motivation of base voters — more than a cold, hard look at what the electoral and demographic data say.

The problem for Democrats is that not only do they need to improve margins among white working-class voters but they cannot allow a repetition of the minority voting patterns in 2016. That year, black turnout fell to 59.6 percent from 66.6 percent in 2012; and Clinton won 66 percent of the Latino vote, five percentage points less than President Barack Obama in 2012.

Doug Jones’s December victory in the Alabama Senate race demonstrated how crucial black voters are to Democrats: In that close contest, African-Americans, 92 percent of whom voted for Jones, made up 29 percent of the electorate. They are 26 percent of the voting age population.

The conflicts the Trump proposals present for Democrats are most painful to Hispanic and black elected officials.

Brilliant. Freakin' brilliant. I love this president. I really do.

More.

Shop Today's Deals

At Amazon, New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

And see especially, Logitech Accessories.

More, Save on Avalon Humidifiers.

Also, Gowiss Backpack - Rated 20L / 33L - Most Durable Packable Convenient Lightweight Travel Hiking Backpack Daypack - Waterproof, Ultralight and Handy Foldable.

Here, Buck Knives 0119 Special Fixed Blade Knife with Leather Sheath - 75th Anniversary Edition.

And, Craftsman Adjustable Pneumatic Mechanics Swivel Seat (Black).

Still more, Rubbermaid RM-P2 2-Step Molded Plastic Stool with Non-Slip Step Treads, 300-Pound Capacity, Black Finish.

Plus, Cliff Bar Organic Blueberry Crisp, Blueberry Crisp (Case of 12) 2.4 Oz by Clif Bars.

BONUS: John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945.

Trump's Challenge is to Unify the Nation?

I don't think so.

If he could rally his base with red meat he'd be better off in the long run. As we saw with the left's reaction to the administration's offer of legalizing 1.8 so-called "Dreamers," nothing's going to satisfy the fanatical hate-addled left.

But see David Fahrenthold, at the Washington Post, FWIW (via Memeorandum), "Trump's steep challenge in his first State of the Union address: Uniting a fractured country":

President Trump will give his first State of the Union address at 9 p.m. Eastern time, talking up the U.S. economy and calling for bipartisanship — after a year in office during which his aggressive, mercurial politics often overshadowed the former and undermined the latter.

“For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government,” Trump plans to say, in a speech excerpt released by the White House on Tuesday evening.

In another excerpt, Trump will say “This is our New American Moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

Trump also intends to use the speech to call for a bipartisan deal on immigration. On Thursday he proposed a deal that would allow “dreamers” — young immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children — to be given a path to citizenship, in exchange for an increase in border-security funding and large cuts to legal immigration.

“So tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color, and creed,” Trump will say, according to the excerpts.

That tone will be markedly different from the one that Trump used in a Twitter messages earlier last week, in which he taunted the Senate’s top Democrat, Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) for not agreeing to a bipartisan immigration deal. That tweet came after a short-lived government shutdown, which ended when Democrats backed down.

“Cryin’ Chuck Schumer fully understands, especially after his humiliating defeat, that if there is no Wall, there is no DACA,” Trump wrote. “DACA” is an acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era program that allowed some “Dreamers” to avoid deportation.

And Trump’s call for bipartisanship and an end to division seemed unlikely to change the tone in Washington — where, in the hours leading up to Trump’s address, lawmakers seemed more divided than ever. One major cause was the fight over a House Intelligence Committee “memo” that purportedly raises questions about federal investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Many Republicans have used that memo, which was written by staff members of the committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), as a reason to question the validity of scrutiny of Trump and his staff by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The divisions over immigration will be visible in the gallery that overlooks the House chamber. More than 50 Democratic lawmakers have invited “dreamers” to attend as guests to dramatize their demand for legal status. In response, Republican Rep. Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.) tweeted that he had asked the Capitol Police to check all guests’ IDs, and arrest “any illegal aliens in attendance.”

In Trump’s box, he has guests who will highlight the threat posed by MS-13, a criminal gang active in both the United States and Central America. Trump’s guests will include a federal immigration agent who has investigated the gang, and two sets of parents whose children were killed by MS-13 members...

More at that top link.

Citizen Rose

Rose McGowan's new book, Brave, is out today.

Plus, her new reality show debuts tonight on E!, "Citizen Rose."

It's reviewed at the Los Angeles Times, "'Citizen Rose' keeps the #MeToo conversation, and Rose McGowan's career, alive."

And the book review, "In 'Brave,' Rose McGowan finally tells her whole story":

There is a moment in Rose McGowan's new documentary series when she learns that Harvey Weinstein has allegedly stolen the first half of her memoir, "Brave," months in advance of its publication.

"I can't tell you how violating it felt," she explains via voice-over. "It was like being back in that room with him all over again, only this time, it was the inside of my mind and not my body."

Readers of "Brave" will understand why the revelation so enraged McGowan. She does not hold back when writing about Weinstein, whom she refers to only as "The Monster."

Long before the Weinstein scandal broke, McGowan publicly alleged that she had been raped by a Hollywood producer. After other women came forward with allegations of abuse, McGowan named Weinstein. But "Brave" is the first time she has described the alleged attack. Weinstein has denied the allegations.

Midway through the memoir, the incident occupies an entire chapter called "Death of Self." At the 1997 Sundance Film Festival, Weinstein invited McGowan to his hotel room for a meeting. Just a few hours before, he had sat behind her at the premiere of her film "Going All the Way," in which she appeared topless.

Her manager insisted the meeting was important, she writes. "I was so new to the industry's upper echelon, I didn't know … what so many already knew, that he was a predator and I was walking into a trap."

Once she was inside his hotel room, Weinstein offered to show her the hot tub, and before long, she writes, he had pushed her into a steamy room and begun stripping her clothes off. After picking her up and putting her on the edge of the Jacuzzi, she writes, he forced her legs open and performed oral sex on her while masturbating. She pretended to have an orgasm in an attempt to end the experience.

"I did what so many who experience trauma do, I disassociated and left my body. Detached from my body, I hover up under the ceiling, watching myself sitting on the edge of the tub, against a wall, held in place by the Monster whose face is between my legs, trapped by a beast. In this tiny room with this huge man, my mind is blank. Wake up Rose; get out of here."

The alleged sexual assault was the culmination of years of torment for McGowan, and "Brave" begins at the beginning. Using a brash tone that will be familiar to the millions who follow her on Twitter, McGowan describes her life, starting with the girlhood years she spent in a religious cult ("I was told I was worth nothing in the eyes of God"), the eating disorder she suffered as a teen ("I was never able to get below 92 pounds"), and her decision to legally emancipate herself from her parents at 15.

Still, as she describes her formative years it is clear that McGowan, 44, has always viewed herself as a defiant spirit and still takes pride in the fact that she grew angry over being made to wear a pink smock at school while the boys got blue ones.

That was after her family split from the Children of God. McGowan's father led the Italian branch and McGowan remembers being forced to declare her acceptance of God, lest she be beaten. When she was 4 a cult elder spotted a wart on her thumb and sliced it off with a razor blade, beginning "a narrative that [messed] with my head for years, that of perfection as self-protection. I told myself if I were just perfect enough, I'd be okay."

When the cult began promoting sex between children and adults, McGowan's father decided to leave. After the family returned to America, where they split time between Oregon and Colorado, she felt out of place. Her schoolmates couldn't understand her odd upbringing and she lashed out, still describing their "proverbial white picket fence" backgrounds as equally dangerous, "a different kind of cult."

"I'm sure I was unnerving as a child because of my intensity. I know I was because I basically was the same as I am now, and I tend to unnerve people to this day."

A runaway at 13, McGowan lived for a year on the street. When she returned home, her father demanded $300 a month in rent so she began gigging as an extra for $35 a day. Before long, she'd moved to Hollywood, finding leading roles in movies like "Scream" and "Jawbreaker." She began dating high-profile men such as Marilyn Manson and director Robert Rodriguez, whom McGowan calls only "RR."

Her relationship with Manson, though oft-scrutinized in the press, was largely without conflict, blissful even, from her descriptions of Manson "painting watercolors of my Boston terriers while I was ordering glassware from Martha Stewart's online store."

This was not the case with "RR," whom McGowan met at the Cannes Film Festival while the filmmaker was still married. RR was at turns weirdly flattering — "I got you at your ripest," he told her — and intensely possessive. On the set of "Grindhouse," McGowan writes, RR would often fly into jealous rages, accusing her of secretly being in love with his collaborator, Quentin Tarantino. Then, after the movie was completed, RR sold it to Dimension Films, a division of the Weinstein Co.

"I can't tell you what it was like to be sold into the hands of the man who had assaulted me and scarred me for life," McGowan writes. "I had to do press events with the Monster and see photos of us together, his big fat paw pulling me in to his body."

More.

Dow Jones Drops for the First Time in 2018

Media outlets are publishing spectacular headlines as if the market crashed. This is nothing. The Dow lost 1.1 percent today, and apparently about .8 percent yesterday. Compare that to Black Monday in 1987, where the market lost almost 23 percent of its value in one day. Black Friday, October 24, 1929, saw a 22 percent decline, hence the "Wall Street Crash."

Here's the Wall Street Journal, "Dow Industrials Have Their Worst Day Since May." And at USA Today, "Dow's biggest 2-day drop since 2016 puts investors on edge as stock gauge briefly falls 400 points."

More, at Bloomberg, "Stocks Tumble, Bonds No Haven as Selloff Worsens: Markets Wrap." That's just not that big of a "tumble."

Seems to me media outlets are working to take a little luster off, if possible, the president's spin tonight at the State of the Union speech. Me, I'm quite bullish: My Roth IRA and 457b market fund have been growing wonderfully. I'm not worried at all. In fact I'm excited.

Kyra Santoro Invites You to Play (VIDEO)

The 2018 edition should be out any day now.

Selena Weber Photo Shoot

At Taxi Driver, "Selena Weber Nipple Slip on a Photo Shoot."

'Rock and Roll'

Been a long time...

Led Zeppelin people:

Laura Dunn

At the Other McCain, "Laura Dunn Is an Evil Liar":

When she was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin in 2004, Laura Dunn got drunk and had a ménage à trois with two guys. More than a year later, she decided she was a rape victim and filed a complaint with the university, and also reported the alleged rape to the campus police:

The investigation did not go well for Dunn. Because she reported the assault nearly a year-and-a-half after the event, one of the men had already graduated. The other insisted the encounter had been consensual, and since there were no witnesses or evidence, both the police and the university dropped the case. . . .
[Dunn] filed a Title IX sexual discrimination complaint with the [federal Education Department’s] Office for Civil Rights. Dunn accused the University of Wisconsin of multiple violations, including subjecting her to a hostile environment and failing to provide a “prompt and equitable resolution” of her case.
But in 2008, four years after the original incident, she received an 18-page letter from the Department of Education with the verdict: “Based on its investigation, OCR determined that there is insufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations made in the complaint.”

If you haven’t yet read Christina Hoff Sommers’ account of this case, read the whole thing now, because it is central to understanding why and how the Obama administration effectively abolished due-process protections for university students accused of sexual misconduct. Dunn’s story was featured in a 2010 National Public Radio report that portrayed her as a trustworthy and sympathetic victim. The NPR story inspired the infamous 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter to U.S. universities that was interpreted as a mandate to impose extreme policies that in effect denied due-process to accused students, so that any accusation of sexual misconduct was treated as tantamount to proof of guilt.

All because Laura Dunn was a drunk teenage slut. Excuse me if I seem a bit judgmental, but didn’t I just tell you to read the whole story?

Keep reading.

Indian Slavery

This is pretty fascinating -- and tells you something about how far down identity politics has infested historiography and cultural assimilation.

At NYT, "Indian Slavery Once Thrived in New Mexico. Latinos Are Finding Family Ties to It."

Latinos with roots in New Mexico are discovering ancestors who were Native American slaves, prompting new debates over identity https://t.co/B6VpNjXmq1

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 28, 2018

The Hateful Ideology and Rhetoric of Homosexual Rights

I get some mean and nasty homosexuals at my college. And to think, it's been 10 years since Proposition 8. Maybe a deep backlash is setting in, and none too soon.

Read Andrew "Milky Loads" Sullivan, at New York Magazine:

Andrew Sullivan: Since achieving marriage rights, there’s been a radicalization of the gay rights movement’s ideology and rhetoric https://t.co/naGSy5UjH4

— New York Magazine (@NYMag) January 28, 2018

"The sewer of most of Twitter is now so rank that even addicts have begun to realize that they are sinking in oceans of shitholery."

https://t.co/emm9BvPYSw via @intelligencer

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) January 26, 2018

"Social media has turned journalism into junk, has promoted addictive addlement in our brains, is wrecking our democracy, and slowly replacing life with pseudo-life."

https://t.co/emm9BvPYSw via @intelligencer

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) January 26, 2018

April Playmate Nina Daniele of the Day

At Drunken Stepfather, "Nina Daniele Big Tits Out for a Photo Shoot of the Day."

Jennifer Delacruz's Sunday Weather

We've got Santa Ana conditions coming. It's going to be hot and dry.

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

Democrat Adam Schiff Spearheads Efforts to Sabotage Release of Damaging FBI Memo

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "Operation Sabotage the Memo":

Operation Sabotage the Memo https://t.co/061ZCV19jM

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) January 26, 2018

Rep. Adam Schiff has many talents, though few compare to his ability to function as a human barometer of Democratic panic. The greater the level of Schiff hot, pressured air, the more trouble the party knows it’s in.

Mr. Schiff’s millibars have been popping ever since the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, on which he is ranking Democrat, last week voted to make a classified GOP memo about FBI election year abuses available to every House member. Mr. Schiff has spit and spun and apoplectically accused his Republican colleagues of everything short of treason. The memo, he insists, is “profoundly misleading,” not to mention “distorted” and “political,” and an attack on the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He initially tried to block his colleagues from reading it. Having failed, he’s now arguing Americans can know the full story only if they see the underlying classified documents.

This is highly convenient, given the Justice Department retains those documents and is as eager to make them public as a fox is to abandon the henhouse. Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes had to threaten a contempt citation simply to get permission for his committee to gain access, and even then investigators had to leave Capitol Hill to view them, and were allowed only to take notes. Mr. Nunes has no authority to declassify them. The best he can do in his continuing transparency efforts is to summarize their contents. Only in Schiff land is sunshine suddenly a pollutant.

The Schiff pressure gauge is outmatched only by the Justice Department and the FBI, which are now mobilizing their big guns to squelch the truth. That included a Wednesday Justice Department letter to Mr. Nunes—written by Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, designed as a memo to the media, copied to its allies in Washington, and immediately leaked to the public. And the department wonders why anyone doubts the integrity of all its hardworking professionals.

Mr. Boyd gets in his cheap shots, for instance slamming Mr. Nunes for moving to release a memo based on documents that Mr. Nunes hasn’t even “seen.” He apparently thinks Rep. Trey Gowdy —the experienced former federal prosecutor Mr. Nunes asked to conduct the review of those docs—isn’t qualified to judge questions of national security. He hyperventilates that it would be “reckless” for the committee to make its memo public without first letting the Justice Department review it and “advise [the committee] of the risk of harm to national security.” Put another way, it is Mr. Boyd’s position that the Justice Department gets to provide oversight of Congress. The Constitution has it the other way around.

The bigger, swampier game here is to rally media pressure, and to mau-mau Mr. Nunes into giving the department a veto over the memo’s release. Ask Sen. Chuck Grassley how that goes. Mr. Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, recently sent a referral to the department for a criminal probe into dossier author Christopher Steele. He then in good faith asked the department its views on an unclassified portion of that referral that he wants to make public. The department invented a classified reason to block public release, and has refused to budge for weeks.

The Boyd letter is also a first step toward a bigger prize: President Trump. Under House rules, a majority of the Intelligence Committee can vote to declassify the memo. Mr. Trump then has up to five days to object to its release. If he doesn’t object, the memo goes public. If he does, a majority of the House would have to vote to override him.

The shrieks of reckless harm and national security are designed to pressure Mr. Trump to object. And wait for it: In coming days the Justice Department’s protectors will gin up a separate, desperate claim that Mr. Trump will somehow be “interfering” in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe unless he objects to the release. According to this view, it is Mr. Trump’s obligation not just to sit by while the media and the Mueller team concoct their narrative, but to block any evidence that might undercut it...

HIllary Clinton Protected Top Aide Accused of Sexual Harassment in 2008

Hmm, this should be a blockbuster today.

 It's a NYT breaking scoop, "Hillary Clinton Chose to Shield a Top Adviser Accused of Harassment in 2008."

And at the Hill as well.

In addition to being a big story about harassment, this @maggieNYT @amychozick is another case study – of many – in Clinton refusal to discard associates regarded by many in her wide circle as toxichttps://t.co/GGMdMe8mvU

— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) January 26, 2018

Via @maggieNYT and @amychozick: "Hillary Clinton Chose to Shield a Top Adviser Accused of Harassment in 2008" https://t.co/JJ7HfxYnGi pic.twitter.com/AevncHhWm0

— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) January 26, 2018

Clinton protected top staffer accused of sexual harassment during 2008 campaign: report https://t.co/K84smjbpRf pic.twitter.com/C79rHHdvUr

— The Hill (@thehill) January 26, 2018

I find it hard to believe Hillary Clinton would stand by and protect someone accused of sexually harassing a young subordinate.

— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) January 26, 2018

Hillary Clinton protected a top staffer accused of sexual harassment during her 2008 presidential campaign, The New York Times reported Friday.

Clinton's then-senior faith adviser, Burns Strider, was accused in 2008 of sexually harassing a young female staffer, according to the Times. Instead of firing Strider, as Clinton's campaign manager recommended, the campaign kept him on, docked him several weeks of pay and ordered him to undergo counseling.

The young woman who accused him was moved to a new job.

Strider was accused by a woman who shared an office with him of rubbing her shoulders without permission, kissing her on the forehead and sending her a number of sexually suggestive emails. The woman shared the complaint with Patti Solis Doyle, Clinton's then-campaign manager, who brought it to the candidate's attention.

But Clinton personally requested that Strider remain on staff. The young woman signed a non-disclosure agreement upon leaving the campaign and declined to comment for the Times story...

Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life

At Amazon, Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

He's such a nice, thoughtful man. The more I listen to him the more I like him.

On Fox & Friends the other day:

Niall Ferguson, The Square and the Tower

At Amazon, Niall Ferguson, The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook.

Claudia Alende's in Black Mesh Top

At Taxi Driver, "Brazilian Model Claudia Alende's Big Boobs in Black Mesh Top."

Jay Leno Takes the Dodge Demon to Pomona Raceway

From last night's Jay Leno's Garage:

Wheelies in the 2018 @Dodge​ Demon.

Don't miss an all new episode of #JayLenosGarage​ TONIGHT at 10p on CNBC! pic.twitter.com/ZrBtWOL0Vb

— Jay Leno's Garage (@LenosGarage) January 25, 2018

Turns out they've got "street-legal" racing over there at Pomona, for $20.00. You have to meet the safety rules and specifications (one being which your car can't be faster than a 10-second quarter mile, heh). You wear a helmet if your car is faster that 14 seconds, which would be my Challenger V-6. But it's all cool and above board. Meaning safe.

Texas Tech’s Playboy Bunny Pages (1959-1981)

Heh.

At Instapundit, "IMAGINE THE EXPLODING MILLENNIAL HEADS IF THIS WERE ATTEMPTED TODAY: Playboy in the Yearbook: Texas Tech’s Bunny Pages (1959-1981)."