Today's Deals

At Amazon, Gold Box Deals.

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BONUS: Mary Katharine Ham and Guy Benson, End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun).

'The View' Star Joy Behar Mocks Vice President Mike Pence for His Christian Faith (VIDEO)

Tomi Lahren speaks out against Joy Behar, at Fox News:

Angela Davis' Papers Acquired by Harvard

She's a communist. Actually, she's a communist with a large "C." But of course, media outlets will just call her an "activist," like the New York Times, "A New Home for Angela Davis's Papers (and Her 'Wanted' Poster)."

The papers of Angela Davis, just acquired by Harvard, trace her transformation from an obscure philosophy professor to an icon of the global left https://t.co/YpAetgW11H

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 13, 2018

Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library has acquired the papers of famed activist Angela Davis https://t.co/tcpAVUZskN cc: @RadInstitute

— Harvard University (@Harvard) February 14, 2018

Shaun White Completes the Comeback (VIDEO)

He won the gold medal last night, and today's he's apologizing for "gossip" comments about sexual harassment allegations?

Politics is the cancer of everything right now.

At LAT, "Shaun White saves best for last to win third halfpipe gold."

And at USA, "Shaun White apologizes for calling sexual harassment allegations 'gossip' after Olympic gold."

ADDED: From Christine Brennan, "As Shaun White cements legacy, why so little attention paid to sexual harassment allegations?" (Via Memeorandum.)

Chloe Kim Steals the Spotlight (VIDEO)

She's a good young lady.

At LAT, "Gold-medal winner Chloe Kim, a daughter of Korean immigrants, is a star in two cultures":

Shortly after winning gold in the Olympic halfpipe, Chloe Kim was ushered into a tent at the bottom of the hill to face a clutch of international reporters.

The 5-foot-3 Southern California snowboarder had delivered a stunning performance, doing tricks no other woman in her sport could do, but that wasn't the only reason she has become the breakout star of the 2018 Winter Games.

When a reporter asked a question in Korean, the 17-year-old quickly waved off the interpreter, saying: "I've got that."

Kim is a first-generation Korean American, the daughter of immigrants who settled in the greater Los Angeles area. She speaks both languages and, throughout her life, has made visits to family in this country.

That helps explain why her face has been splashed across local newspapers and television this week.

"It's so cool being here," she said. "Competing in my first Olympics in the country where my parents came from is insane."

This aspect of her Olympic experience has not only boosted her celebrity, it seems to have touched her in a personal way that extends beyond sport, perhaps helping her to reconcile a childhood spent straddling two cultures.

Kim said: "I definitely, when I was younger, struggled a little to understand my identity and who I wanted to be."

Not all the attention here has focused on her, not in a part of the world that has a reputation for producing, among other things, top-notch short-track speedskaters.

It was a big deal when Lim Hyo-jun earned the host nation's first gold medal in a 1,500-meter race last Saturday. But Kim quickly stole the spotlight with a historic performance at Phoenix Snow Park three days later.

In capturing gold, she became the first woman in Olympic history to land consecutive 1080s — two triple rotations. Her near-perfect score of 98.25 outdistanced silver medalist Liu Jiayu of China by almost 10 points.

"I feel like I got to represent both the U.S. and Korea today," she said.

The feeling, apparently, was mutual.

"The media has given her very glowing coverage because they see her as one of their own," said Peter Kim, a New Jersey native who works as an assistant English professor at Kookmin University in Seoul.

In particular, it seems that people here have responded to reports that her father, trained as an engineer, gave up his career to focus on Chloe and her snowboarding...

When she won the Gold, her dad reportedly said "this makes all the sacrifice worth it."

More.

Chicago Police Commander Paul Bauer Shot and Killed During 'Tactical Chase' of Armed Suspect (VIDEO)

This is really intense.

At the Chicago Tribune, "Chicago police Cmdr. Paul Bauer shot to death at Thompson Center in Loop."

Kate Upton Swept Into the Water During Photo Shoot for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue

Ed Driscoll has the story, from Daily Mail, "'Everybody was very scared': Kate Upton shares footage of frightening moment she got swept off rock by wave while TOPLESS during SI shoot."

Plus, some video:

'Blitzkrieg Bop'

From yesterday's drive-time, at the Jack F.M.

Blitzkreig Bop - Ramones
02/12/18
9:45 AM

Jimmy Buffett - Margaritaville
Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes
02/12/18
9:41 AM

Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
02/12/18
9:37 AM

ZZ Top - Legs
02/12/18
9:33 AM

Foo Fighters - Everlong
02/12/18
9:22 AM

Rod Stewart - Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?
Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?
02/12/18
9:16 AM

Kings Of Leon - Sex On Fire
02/12/18
9:13 AM

John Mellencamp - Pink Houses
02/12/18
9:08 AM

O.M.D - If You Leave
02/12/18
9:04 AM

Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead Or Alive
02/12/18
8:52 AM

Oasis - Champagne Supernova
02/12/18
8:46 AM

Queen - Fat Bottomed Girls
02/12/18
8:42 AM

The Cars - Just What I Needed
02/12/18
8:38 AM

Sports Illustrated's #MeToo Swimsuit Issue (VIDEO)

Sports Illustrated taking the heat for some alleged hypocrisy.

Is it feminist to openly celebrate women's bodies, or is it regressive, "objectifying" women solely to satisfy the patriarchal gaze (and to make massive amounts of money)?

I don't care, frankly. As long as women remain free to do as the wish, then it's all good. Once you start policing this stuff, banning soft-porn from the marketplace, it's all overreaction. (Think of the "lads' mags" in Britain, which were banned from the magazine racks, bringing an end to an era.

In any case, Paulina Porizkova's doing great!

Republicans Abandon Traditional Goal of Balanced Budget

Following-up from Sunday, "U.S. Budget Deficit Could Balloon to $1 Trillion This Year."

It's kinda like when you've lost the battle over waist-size: You say screw it and start wearing sweats all the time. You're never going to lose all those pounds you've packed on over the last few of years. You let yourself go.

That's what it is with the budget. America has let go. Of course, if something can't go on forever it won't. At some point America's going to have a budget reckoning. Bills are coming due. It's going to be a nasty political blowout at that time. We'll all be Mel Gibson in the "Road Warrior" at some point.

At WaPo, "Trump plan will drop GOP’s traditional goal of balancing budget within 10 years":

President Trump is remaking the Republican economic playbook in his own image, abandoning ideological consistency in ­favor of a debt-busting strategy that will upend how Washington taxes and spends trillions of dollars each year.

On Monday, Trump is slated to announce a new budget plan that will no longer seek to eliminate the deficit over the next decade, forfeiting a major Republican goal, according to three people familiar with the document. The plan will call for a range of spending cuts that reduce the growth of the deficit by $3 trillion over 10 years, but it will not attempt to balance the federal budget, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the proposal before its official release.

The decision to relinquish the deficit goal comes after Trump pushed a $1.5 trillion tax cut through Congress late last year and signed a two-year budget deal last week that lifts federal spending limits by $500 billion, suspends for one year the ceiling on the national debt and is expected to lead to $1 trillion annual budget deficits.

The Republican turnaround on economic policy stands in sharp contrast to the party’s opposition to President Barack Obama’s stimulus program during the Great Recession. At that time, Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), now the speaker of the House, warned of a “debt crisis” and said that “spending is the problem.” Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, then a congressman from South Carolina, derided Obama’s spending plans as a “joke” and backed a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.

Now, GOP leaders are largely silent on the two issues that had preoccupied them for the past decade — total spending and the growth of federal entitlements — while Trump has signed legislation that will lavish cash upon both defense and domestic programs far beyond what he had earlier proposed.

On Sunday, amid a backlash from conservative groups, Mulvaney defended the decision, while acknowledging that ballooning deficits are “a very dangerous idea” and that he wouldn’t have voted for the legislation if he were still in Congress. In an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” he said that his job now is “to get the president’s agenda passed,” which included Pentagon funding that Democrats would allow only if the administration accepted big domestic spending increases.

On the same show, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said the bargain was unacceptable. “The swamp won,” he said. “And the American taxpayer lost.”

A month and a half before signing the spending legislation, Trump demonstrated similar ideological flexibility with his tax cut, shelving his campaign promise to focus on the “forgotten men and women” and signing a bill whose biggest benefits flow to corporations and the wealthy.

As Trump turns next to plans to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and overhaul U.S. trade policy, his disregard for the traditional Republican economic catechism will again be on display Monday with the release of his detailed spending plan...

More.

Also,  from Matt Kibbe, at Reason, "The Tea Party Is Officially Dead. It Was Killed by Partisan Politics."

Leftist Obsession with Russia is the New McCarthyism

At great piece, from Ted Galen Carpenter, at the National Interest, "Why Democrats Are Obsessed with Russia":

Progressives need to adopt a course correction. Those who sincerely believe their shrill rhetoric need to get a grip and not succumb to Russia Derangement Syndrome. Those who are cynically using the anti-Russia hysteria as a club with which to beat the Trump administration need to pause and consider how their actions are triggering a second “cold war” with the one power that has the military wherewithal to destroy America. In either case, their current behavior is doing their country a grave disservice.

Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason

At Amazon, Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies.

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BONUS: Leon Kass, Leading a Worthy Life: Finding Meaning in Modern Times.

Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Literature Like a Professor

This book's really good, heh.

At Amazon, Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines.

Jennifer Delacruz's Sunday Forecast

I know Sunday's half over, but I've missed my Ms. Jennifer blogging. She's so incredible!

At ABC 10 News San Diego:

Lais Ribeiro Sneak Peak (VIDEO)

For Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

We All Live on Campus Now

From Andrew Sullivan, a.k.a, "RawMuscleGlutes," at New York Magazine:

"The goal of our culture now is not the emancipation of the individual from the group, but the permanent definition of the individual by the group. We used to call this bigotry. Now we call it being woke."https://t.co/iHY9xqjNps via @intelligencer

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) February 9, 2018

Bari Weiss on 'Real Time with Bill Maher' (VIDEO)

She got some attention the other night on Twitter for her appearance on "Real Time." I don't know, she seems so young, heh.

Either way, she's the best writer at the New York Times right now. I'm blown away by the quality of her analysis. Every time.

Watch:

U.S. Budget Deficit Could Balloon to $1 Trillion This Year

I've long ago given up any hope that the political system, regardless of which party's in power, will get a handle on our perpetual budget deficits, and concomitantly, the national debt.

But a projected $1 trillion deficit for this year does seem like some apocalyptic milestone, my god.

At Forbes, "Trump's Federal Budget Deficit: $1 Trillion and Beyond."

And while I'm still in the neocon camp, I'm definitely in favor of winding down the Afghanistan deployment these days. It's just gone on too long. No once can say the U.S. didn't make an effort there, or at least some kind of effort. Perhaps a different strategy, or different historical circumstances (like no Iraq war in 2003), would have made things better.

In any case, I give props to Rand Paul on discussing the budgetary drawbacks of endless wars. A few years ago I would have blown off such talk. But not now. It'll be 17 years this November.

From Face the Nation this morning:

Circling the Drain

I don't think it's a question of if. California's a far-left basket case. A leftist, politically correct bureaucratic nightmare. Even San Francisco is witnessing an exodus of people these days.

This post, from Steven Hayward, at Power Line, has to be read in full at the link. It's amazing. Utterly mind-boggling.

See, "Is California Starting to Circle the Drain?"

Meghan Murphy Fights for Feminism — Feminism for Women

I've been reading Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy quite a bit lately. She's up in Vancouver, and she proudly represents the critical strand of "trans-exclusive" radical feminism, although I doubt she'd use that phrase to describe herself, because "TERF" is an epithet used by radical transgender identity activists to demonize opponents.

In any case, she's good. See her "Open Letter" to the British Columbia New Democratic Party, "Open Letter to the BC NDP regarding the conduct of BC NDP Vice President Morgane Oger":

This letter was sent along to the @bcndp one week ago, and the party has yet to respond. We request that the party condemn the bullying behaviour of Morgane Oger and his efforts to silence women's free speech https://t.co/stm54Ls3zS

— Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) February 10, 2018

Over 100 Canadians have signed on to a letter demanding the @bcndp condemn and address the bullying behaviour of its Vice President, Morgane Oger. Canadian politicians should protect feminist speech, not harass women into silence. https://t.co/Eg2o7Czny4 @BCNDPWomen

— Feminist Current (@FeministCurrent) February 10, 2018

Dear Sirs and Madams,

We — the undersigned — are Canadians deeply concerned with recent public statements and behaviour on the part of Morgane Oger, Vice President of the BC NDP.

On January 20th, Women’s Marches took place across North America. Initially fuelled by anger over Donald Trump’s election and boasts of sexual misconduct, this year the #Metoo campaign galvanized women around the world towards solidarity and action. No longer can we deny that women and girls everywhere continue to suffer abuse and harassment in every arena of life, at the hands of men.

In Vancouver, one woman who attended the march carried a sign reading:

“Transwomen are men. Truth is not hate. Don’t believe the hype — trans ideology is misogyny and homophobic. Woman is not a ‘feeling,’ a costume, or a performance of a stereotype. Woman is a biological reality. There is no ethical or moral reason to lie to soothe the male ego.

Do not cis-gender me. Stop the stereotypes. I am neither conforming nor non-conforming. My preferred prefix is neither cis nor trans. I am a female. Resist Orwellian Newspeak.”

After being posted to social media, a photo of the woman holding this sign went viral. She was subjected to numerous threats of violence and death as a result.

Oger shared the image online as well, publicly requesting the identity and address of the woman, stating intention to file a human rights complaint against her. On Facebook, Oger wrote:

“Apparently not everyone at the Vancouver Women’s March was equally enlightened about why trans women are women… A concerned citizen passed this photo on to me. This is hate speech. Anyone know who this person is? I’d like to speak to her.

… That person in the photo is free to have beliefs and to express those beliefs without breaking the law. I feel that she has overstepped. What this person has done is take things to the next step, like publishing it in a newspaper or distributing it in mailouts. I believe that what she has done is prohibited in BC. She is invited to contact me for a chat or email my office at morgane@morganeoger.ca.”

In a comment on the same post, Oger wrote:

“Who is a woman in Canada and British Columbia is not based on their plumbing but on our gender identity. Women are women because we say we are. Attributes usually associated with women are protected for all women, whether they possess them or not, like plumbing or biological function. We have six months for somebody to file a complaint against this woman on the basis of gender identity. But to do this, who she is needs to be known. If somebody knows who she is please email me the information at morgane@morganeoger.ca”

These comments equate to a public threat and defamation, and have led to further harassment of the woman in the photo. Oger has knowingly continued to fuel these threats and this harassment through ongoing, numerous posts on social media. We wonder why the BC NDP has yet to take action on this behaviour? In this case, the statements are particularly disturbing, as they have put an individual woman’s life and livelihood in danger.

Oger has referenced a “team of lawyers” on social media numerous times. One tweet read:

“The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld human rights tribunal rulings about hate speech twice. My legal team is confident that the act of publishing hateful material is the only test in this case and the material on that sign matches the hate test.”

In another, Oger stated:

“There are laws put in place to protect transgender people from transphobia. One such law bans the publishing of hate in public. I expect Canada’s laws to be applied.”

We are curious to know who this “team of lawyers” is and how they are being financed. Either Oger is in a financial position to hire a “team of lawyers” to bully and silence women who cannot afford such a luxury, or the lawyers in reference are the BC NDP’s legal team. Is the BC NDP using its government resources to persecute and harass citizens who disagree with their representatives? Does the BC NDP support Oger’s intention to potentially impoverish a woman by forcing her to hire “a team of lawyers” to defend her right to hold a sign Oger does not like at a women’s protest march?

We are concerned by these tactics and an expressed desire to silence those whose opinions conflict with those held by the Vice President of the BC NDP. We are concerned that many people have refrained from commenting on Oger’s behaviour or addressing it for fear of retribution, in large part due to the way Oger has responded with regard to this particular woman and her sign. Oger is leveraging political power in a deeply troubling way, with intention to intimidate fellow NDP members and constituents into fear and silence.

Politicians should expect that people will disagree with them — that is par for the course. But politicians should be gracious and deferential to their critics when those critics are just members of the public. Potential voters are being insulted, demeaned, bullied, and smeared by a representative of the NDP. This is not how Canadian politicians should handle conflict and disagreement. Instead of engaging in meaningful, principled debate, Oger invites and escalates conflict, is unable to negotiate or reach consensus with a large portion of voters, defames and insults them, targets individuals with relentless harassment and smear campaigns, and advocates that real, material harm be inflicted on them (i.e. loss of job, reputation, criminal charges, financial ruin, etc.). We would ask whether the BC NDP believes that this behaviour is reflective of the Party’s values, and the values of its constituents.

The woman who is being intimidated by Oger was expressing ideas and sentiments that are important and meaningful to her and to many other members of the Canadian public. All Canadians should feel comfortable expressing ideas that are meaningful and important to them, free from intimidation, bullying, and harassment.

“Gender identity” itself remains vaguely defined. It rests on an ideology that claims gender is innate, when in fact gender roles are socially imposed, based on biological sex, as a means to normalize the hierarchy that exists between men and women under patriarchy. Women’s sex-based rights, on the other hand, rest on material reality: we know that women in our society are discriminated against and subjected to male violence on account only of having been born female. We have judgments protecting women from discrimination based on things like pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, and breastfeeding, on the explicit reasoning that only one sex gives birth and only one sex breastfeeds. The notion that males can actually be female if they “feel” it or if they emulate feminine stereotypes conflicts with women’s sex-based rights as it not only reduces “woman” to something intangible and undefinable, but claims women’s oppression is rooted in “feeling” or personal identity rather than on biological sex. Challenges to the concept of “gender identity” should be not only acceptable but encouraged...

Keep reading.

Worst Flu Season in Almost a Decade (VIDEO)

It's not as bad this year as it was in 2009, apparently, when the 2009 swine flu pandemic, but it's been very bad nevertheless. Yours truly came down with a case a week ago Friday, and it's been 10 days not I've been fighting this. My semester started last week too, which was otherwise fine. I just had to be very medicated. I've be taking over the counter medications, but I stayed in bed all day yesterday, and frankly yesterday and today's the first days I've genuinely felt better. I got the flu shot too, in December, and I haven't come down with the flu for at least two or three years, so I was pretty surprised I got hit. Don't mess around if you're sick. If you have persistent high fever, can't breath, or fluid on the lungs, go to the doctor. Otherwise, get some rest.

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles, "High Schooler In Thousand Oaks Dies of Flu," and at the Los Angeles Times, "Flu deaths reach a high, but outbreak shows signs of easing."

And watch, at PBS News Hour:

Telegenic Warrior

The Old Gray Lady had a big piece on Dana Loesch last weekend, "The National Rifle Association’s Telegenic Warrior":

The National Rifle Association’s Telegenic Warrior https://t.co/aTrCAC3O1w

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) January 20, 2018

For as long as Ms. Loesch can remember, the world has been a scary place. She was born Dana Eaton in 1978 in Hematite, Mo., a small community about 40 miles south of St. Louis. Her parents divorced when she was in kindergarten and she has not spoken to her father in more than a decade. Her mother worked three jobs after they moved to nearby Festus, Mo., bringing home bags of granola bars after her shift at a local granola factory. Ms. Loesch said she spent school-day afternoons at home alone or with an aunt.

“Now, you could say it was like a meth ’hood,” Ms. Loesch said of her old neighborhood. “People were fighting. It was kind of crazy. It wasn’t the most stable of childhoods.”

Ms. Loesch mostly found refuge at her grandparents’ home in Annapolis, Mo., a town of about 450 people nestled in the rural Ozarks. Her family voted for Democrats. Her grandfather hunted deer and raccoon. Despite episodes of violence, Ms. Loesch idealized summers in Annapolis in “Flyover Country.” In the book, she recalled her grandfather standing on the porch one night with a shotgun in his hands. Ms. Loesch’s aunt had just arrived; her estranged husband had threatened to kill her.

“Looking back,” Ms. Loesch said, “I think I always wanted to know that I was safe.”

In the late 1990s, Ms. Loesch attended Webster University in suburban St. Louis, studying journalism, but dropped out after she got pregnant. In 2000, she married Chris Loesch, the baby’s father: a musician and son of a preacher who now manages her career. They attend weekly services at the Church of Christ. And on Halloween they give a party that harks back to more pleasant childhood memories. “Halloween was big with her mom,” said Leigh Wambsganns, a friend. Last October Ms. Loesch said she dressed as Wonder Woman.

As a new parent in St. Louis, she blogged about motherhood and began her long-running radio program, “The Dana Show.” She became disillusioned with Democratic politics, though, in the wake of President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. She helped found the St. Louis Tea Party, organizing protests and speaking at rallies. And, in 2010, she joined Andrew Breitbart at his website, one of several new voices railing against establishment politics and media bias.

After Mr. Breitbart died in 2012, Ms. Loesch clashed with Steve Bannon, the former Trump ally who had been named executive chair of Breitbart News. She sued to get out of her contract. In 2014, she moved to Dallas to work for The Blaze.

Ms. Loesch’s particular brand of attack proved unpalatable to mainstream audiences. In 2012, CNN, which had hired her as a political commentator, distanced itself from comments she made on her radio show supporting a group of Marines who urinated on dead Taliban soldiers. She claims the reporting of her comments was “disingenuous.” A year later, she was banned from the now defunct “Piers Morgan Live” after getting into a Twitter fight with the host. “I thought we made up,” she said. “But then we started fighting again.”

And, in 2016, Ms. Loesch expressed personal ire at Kayleigh McEnany, now the spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. Ms. McEnany had chided a friend of Ms. Loesch’s for not supporting Mr. Trump, then a Republican candidate, during a CNN segment. “Babycakes, this was more than just going on television and flashing your pearly whites and your flat chest, red dress, over-sprayed bleach blond hair,” Ms. Loesch told radio listeners.

This time, it seemed, she had gone too far. Ms. McEnany was undergoing treatment for a genetic predisposition to breast cancer. Both Ms. Loesch and Ms. McEnany declined to discuss the matter.

Home on the Range

Ms. Loesch’s performance for the N.R.A. has had more polish. Last April, she was featured in a recruiting ad for the organization called “Violence of Lies.” Scenes of street violence and protests flashed onscreen as Ms. Loesch called for citizens to fight media bias and liberal politicians with the “clenched fist of truth.” (The N.R.A. also released an ad in 2017 aimed at The New York Times, claiming media bias.)

According to Andrew Arulanandam, the N.R.A.’s managing director of public affairs, the message was “inspired” by the chief executive, Wayne LaPierre Jr., whose association donated $30 million in campaign support to Mr. Trump. According to news reports, the N.R.A. may have a connection to the investigation of Russia’s involvement in the election. “Violence of Lies” has been viewed nearly three million times on YouTube alone.

“Dana comes across clearly to our members and gun owners,” Mr. Arulanandam said.

But even some in those groups found the video unnecessarily, even dangerously, incendiary. An online petition was circulated, demanding Facebook remove it. On Twitter, DeRay Mckesson, a Black Lives Matter activist, called the video “an open call to violence to protect white supremacy.” In response, Ms. Loesch challenged him to come on her show and “tell me to my face I’m a racist.” He didn’t, saying Ms. Loesch seeks to use opponents as a foil.

“I don’t believe that she was really talking to me,” he said in an interview. “She was using me to rile up the base.” Last week Ms. Loesch said she had no interest in speaking with Mr. Mckesson.

Ms. Loesch’s boss, Mr. LaPierre, has a history of inflammatory rhetoric at the N.R.A., which has five million members. In 1995, he was forced to apologize after President George H. W. Bush canceled his N.R.A. membership in protest. The N.R.A. had sent out a fund-raising letter calling law enforcement “jackbooted government thugs” who threatened to hurt Americans. “That is what they do,” said Representative Kathleen Rice, a Democrat of New York, who has sparred with Ms. Loesch, also on Twitter. “The N.R.A says their members are under attack.”

Radical Left Attacks the New York Times

I saw this at Memeorandum yesterday, "The Left’s War Against the New York Times."

Interestingly, Memeorandum also curated this throwback piece on Judy Miller at New York Magazine, from over a decade ago, "The Source of the Trouble."

So, there's some good Friday night reading for you.

Emotional Support Hamster Flushed Down the Toilet

Well, perhaps it's better to get a larger animal --- like a peacock --- to avoid traumatic situations like this.

At the Miami Herald, "Bad info from Spirit Air led me to flush pet hamster down airport toilet, student says" (via Memeorandum):

Bad info from Spirit Air led me to flush pet hamster down airport toilet, student says https://t.co/Qw6RF47CQR Via @DavidOvalle305 pic.twitter.com/2PQ4ZmwgHh

— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) February 8, 2018

Before Belen Aldecosea flew home from from college to South Florida, she twice called Spirit Airlines to ensure she could bring along a special guest: Pebbles, her pet dwarf hamster. No problem, the airline told her.

But when Aldecosea arrived at the Baltimore airport, Spirit refused to allow the tiny animal on the flight.

With her only friends hours away at campus, Aldecosea was stuck. She says an airline representative suggested flushing Pebbles down an airport toilet, a step that Spirit denies. Panicked and needing to return home promptly to deal with a medical issue, Aldecosea unsuccessfully tried renting a car and agonized for hours before doing the unthinkable.

She flushed Pebbles.

“She was scared. I was scared. It was horrifying trying to put her in the toilet,” Aldecosea said. “I was emotional. I was crying. I sat there for a good 10 minutes crying in the stall.”

Aldecosea, 21, of Miami Beach, is now considering filing a lawsuit against Spirit over the conflicting instructions that wound up pressuring her into making an anguished decision with a pet certified by her doctor as an emotional support animal. She shared her story with the Miami Herald weeks after the story of an emotional support peacock — denied entrance to a United Airlines flight — went viral on the Internet.

This case is much different, said her South Florida attorney, Adam Goodman. “This wasn’t a giant peacock that could pose a danger to other passengers. This was a tiny cute harmless hamster that could fit in the palm of her hand,” he said.

A spokesman for Spirit acknowledged the airline mistakenly told her that Pebbles was allowed. But he denied that a Spirit employee recommended the option of disposing of her pet in an airport restroom.

“To be clear, at no point did any of our agents suggest this guest (or any other for that matter) should flush or otherwise injure an animal,” spokesman Derek Dombrowski said...

More.

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Also, Stork Craft Hoop Glider and Ottoman Set, Espresso/Beige.

Here, DRESHOW 4 Pack Headbands Vintage Elastic Printed Head Wrap Stretchy Moisture Hairband Twisted Cute Hair Accessories.

And, Columbia Men's Glennaker Lake Front-Zip Rain Jacket with Hideaway Hood.

More here, G.H. Bass & Co. Men's Larson Penny Loafer.

Plus, CLIF BAR - Energy Bar - Cool Mint Chocolate - With Caffeine (2.4 Ounce Protein Bar, 12 Count).

BONUS: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, In the First Circle.

Dow Closes 20 Points Down as Volatility Remains

At Barron's, "Dow Drops 20 Points on Late Rush for the Exit."

Plus:

Why stocks still have room to rise https://t.co/KScPuZCD66

— Barron's (@barronsonline) February 7, 2018

Alexis Ren Intimates for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit (VIDEO)

She's really fine.

Sharyl Attkisson on Surveillance Abuse and Incurious Journalists (VIDEO)

From Fox News:

Hate Speech Police in Britain

I missed this earlier.

From the typically outstanding Pat Condell:

Katie Hopkins in South Africa (VIDEO)

At the Rebel:



ADDED: "SHOCK: Katie Hopkins detained at South Africa airport," and "Katie Hopkins in South Africa: Is “freedom fighter” Malema “afraid of meeting a little white woman?”

Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong to Buy Los Angeles Times

At the Los Angeles Times, via Memeorandum, "Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong reaches deal to buy L.A. Times, San Diego Union-Tribune."

Also, "Who is Patrick Soon-Shiong? An L.A. billionaire with big ideas — and mixed achievements."

Who is Patrick Soon-Shiong, the man who has agreed to buy the L.A. Times? An L.A. billionaire with big ideas — and mixed achievements https://t.co/akjyq23zJb pic.twitter.com/MeALqYUIOP

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) February 7, 2018

Plus, background:

Interesting time for the Times: Union Is Formed at Los Angeles Times and Publisher Put on Leave https://t.co/qYZf8mMUEs

— Hannah Fleishman (@hbfleishman) January 22, 2018

Amid newsroom clashes, Los Angeles Times becomes its own story https://t.co/m3oxdwNkwE

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 27, 2018

Finally read this HuffPo piece on Tronc's secret LAT scab shop. This is NUTS.https://t.co/wu92lVAVBt

— Chris Labarthe (@chris_labarthe) January 28, 2018

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.

Also, Samsung 75" Class UN75MU6300FXZA (74.5" Actual Diagonal Size) MU6300 Series 4K UHD TV.

And, Craftsman 450-Piece Mechanic's Tool Set.

More, O-Cedar EasyWring Microfiber Spin Mop and Bucket Floor Cleaning System.

Here, Lysol Disinfectant Spray, Early Morning Breeze, 57oz (3X19oz).

Plus, Large Beach-Towel Pool-Towel in Cabana Stripe, 4-Pack, 100% Cotton, Easy Care, Maximum Softness and Absorbency (30" x 60") - by Utopia Towels (Variety).

Still more, Cafe Break-Resistant Plastic 20oz Restaurant-Quality Beverage Tumblers - Set of 16 in 4 Assorted Colors.

More here, Armor All Extreme Tire Shine (22 oz.) - 2 Pack.

BONUS: Roger Kimball (Editor),‎ Saving the Republic: The Fate of Freedom in the Age of the Administrative State.

Here's the 'Repulsive' Campaign Ad in the Illinois Governor's Race (VIDEO)

It's not "repulsive."

Just talking about the kind of issues facing the electorate today gets you labeled an extremist or something.

At Politico, "Incendiary ad fuels primary challenge to Illinois governor," and "'Repulsive' campaign ad creates firestorm in Illinois."



Also, at the Chicago Tribune, "Rauner challenger Ives says she's 'a little bit surprised' about 'hysteria' around controversial TV ad."

The Coup Against America

From Sultan Knish, at FrontPage Mag, "The Memo Reveals the Coup against America":

The Memo Reveals the Coup Against America

The memo isn’t treasonous. It reveals a treasonous effort by the Dems to use our intel agencies to rig an election

No vital intel sources were compromised at Yahoo News. And no Yahoo News agents were killed 🙄https://t.co/IEow3JLSiK

— Jewhadi™ (@JewhadiTM) February 3, 2018

The Democrats and the media spent a week lying to the American people about the “memo.”

The memo was full of "classified information" and releasing” it would expose “our spying methods." By “our,” they didn’t mean American spying methods. They meant Obama’s spying methods.

A former White House Ethics Lawyer claimed that the Nunes memo would undermine "national security." On MSNBC, Senator Chris Van Hollen threatened that if the memo is released, the FBI and DOJ “will refuse to share information with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees."

Senator Cory Booker howled that releasing the memo was "treasonous" and might be "revealing sources and methods" and even "endangering fellow Americans in the intelligence community."

The memo isn’t treasonous. It reveals a treasonous effort by the Democrats to use our intelligence agencies to rig an election and overturn the will of the voters.

The only two “sources” are Christopher Steele, who was funded by the Clinton campaign, and a Yahoo News article, that were used to obtain a FISA warrant against a Trump associate. That Yahoo story came from Michael Isikoff, the reporter who knew about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky but suppressed it. It was based on more leaks from Steele which the FBI and DOJ chose to ignore. Steele’s identity was already well known. The only new source revealed is Yahoo News.

No vital intelligence sources were compromised at Yahoo News. And no Yahoo News agents were killed.

The media spent a week lying to Americans about the dangers of the memo because it didn’t want them to find out what was inside. Today, the media and Dems switched from claiming that the memo was full of “classified information” that might get CIA agents killed to insisting that it was a dud and didn’t matter. Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive.

On Thursday, the narrative was that the memo would devastate our national security and no one should ever be allowed to read it. By Friday, the new narrative was that the memo tells us nothing important and we shouldn’t even bother reading it. The lies change, but suppressing the memo remains the goal.

Rep. Nadler, infamous for securing pardons for Weather Underground bombers, got caught between narratives when he insisted that the memo was “overhyped,” but suggested that it “endangers national security.” "I don't think anybody will be terribly shocked by what's in the memo," he told CNN.

And requested an emergency meeting of the House Judiciary Committee – a body he will head if Democrats win the mid-term elections.

Calling emergency meetings is not the response to an “overhyped” and non-shocking memo.

There is no legitimately classified information in the Nunes memo. But it does endanger a number of “Americans” in the “intelligence community” who colluded with the Clinton campaign against America.

It endangers former FBI Director Comey, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and the current FBI General Counsel Dana Boente who had previously served as the Acting Attorney General. These men and women had allegedly signed FISA applications that were at best misleading and at worst badly tainted.

The Clinton campaign had enlisted figures in the FBI and the DOJ to manipulate an election. The coup against America operated as a “state within a state” inside the United States government.

“The political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials,” the memo informs us. But they did not reveal on the FISA application that their core evidence came from the Clinton campaign. Sources were certainly being protected. But they were Clinton sources.

The memo reveals that without the Steele dossier there would have been no eavesdropping on Carter Page, the Trump associate targeted in this particular case. “Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.” But the FISA application neglected to mention that its primary source had been paid by the Clinton campaign, was unverified and would continue to be unverified.

FBI Director Comey testified that he had told President Trump that the dossier was "unverified." Yet the "unverified" piece of opposition research was used as the basis for a FISA application.

As Rep. Jim Jordan noted, “FBI takes ‘salacious and unverified’ dossier to secret court to get secret warrant to spy on a fellow American, and FBI doesn't tell the court that the DNC/Clinton campaign paid for that dossier. And they did that FOUR times.”

"There's been no evidence of a corrupt evidence to obtain warrants against people in the Trump campaign," Rep. Adam Schiff insisted. That’s why he tried to block the release of the evidence.

The evidence was unverified opposition research. Its source had been paid by the Clinton campaign. Not only had Steele been indirectly working for the Clinton campaign (when he wasn’t being paid by the FBI), but he made no secret of his own political agenda to stop Trump.

"In September 2016, Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” the memo informs us.

That’s former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr whose wife was being paid by an organization hired by the Clinton campaign to investigate Trump. Ohr then passed along his wife's opposition research to the FBI. The evidence couldn’t be any more corrupt than that.

Steele was passionate about Trump “not being president.” So were his handlers who ignored his leaks to the media until he “was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations—an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI.” His previous meetings, including the one that allegedly generated the Yahoo News article, were ignored.

Tainted investigations are nothing new. Law enforcement is as fallible as any other profession. But the memo reveals a snapshot of just how many top figures colluded in this corrupted and tainted effort.

What drove them to violate professional ethical norms and legal requirements in the FISA applications?

Top DOJ and FBI officials shared Steele’s “passion,” and that of his ultimate employer, Hillary Clinton, to stop Donald Trump at all costs. And they’re still trying to use the Mueller investigation to overturn the election results in a government coup that makes Watergate look like a children’s tea party,

Former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is already under investigation. He’s suspected of trying to sit on the Wiener emails until the election was over. This alleged failed cover-up triggered the Comey letter which hurt Hillary worse than a timely revelation would have. McCabe’s wife had financial links to the Clintons.

Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was an Obama holdover who had foolishly tried to use the DOJ to go to war with President Trump. Both Yates and Dana Boente were Obama and Holder choices. During the groundless prosecution of the former Republican governor of Virginia, Boente had declared, “No one is above the law.” We’ll see if that’s true with everyone who signed the FISA applications.

If Boente signed false or misleading FISA applications, he should be removed as FBI General Counsel.

The memo is only the first crack in the wall. But it’s grounds for an investigation that will expose the abuses that led to eavesdropping on Trump officials. And the motives of those who perpetuated them.

A Washington Post piece suggested that just releasing the memo alone would allow Mueller to charge President Trump with "obstruction of justice." That’s how badly they want to get Trump.

A clear and simple fact emerges from the memo.

Top figures in the DOJ and the FBI, some loyal to Obama and Hillary, abused the FISA process in the hopes of influencing or reversing the results of an election by targeting their political opponents. The tool that they used for the job came from the Clinton campaign. Using America’s intelligence services to destroy and defeat a political opponent running for president is the worst possible abuse of power and an unprecedented threat to a democratic system of free open elections.

We have been treated to frequent lectures about the independence of the DOJ and the FBI. But our country isn’t based around government institutions that are independent of oversight by elected officials. When unelected officials have more power than elected officials, that’s tyranny.

A Justice Department that acts as the Praetorian Guard for a political campaign is committing a coup and engaging in treason. The complex ways that the Steele dossier was laundered from the Clinton campaign to a FISA application is evidence of a conspiracy by both the DOJ and the Clinton campaign.

It’s time for us to learn about all the FISA abuses, the list of NSA unmasking requests of Trump officials by Obama officials and the eavesdropping on members of Congress. We deserve to know the truth.

The memo has been released. Now it’s time to release everything.

Jemma Lucy in Black Cocktail Dress

At Taxi Driver, "Busty British Reality Star Jemma Lucy Braless Pokies in Black Cocktail Dress."

Memo Day

It's memo day, and partisan spin day.

However it all spins out, the fact is the GOP's making a political comeback in 2018, or so it appears in public opinion polls. The Democrats are desperate, to say nothing of their hard-left media allies.

At NYT, via Memorandum, "House Republicans Release Secret Memo Accusing Russia Investigators of Bias."

And from Austin Bay, at Instapundit, "THE FISA MEMO: Read the whole thing."

I turned on CNN for about an hour this morning, breaking my cable news boycott temporarily, and folks over there were pretty disgusting with the Republicans, but nothing was said that convinces me that the Democrats won't be harmed by its release --- and that's good.

Watching Europe Fall

Really, this woman's brilliant.

Grab a cup of coffee and do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing.

Katie Hopkins giving a recent address, somewhere in the U.S.:

Laura Moriarty, American Heart

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Laura Moriarty, American Heart.

A book on the dystopian future where Muslims are rounded up into internment camps, it turns out the totalitarian left has launched a campaign of destruction. See Quillette, "Buy Banned Books."

Hey, if the left hates it, I'm sure I'll love it!

"These storms increasingly erupt when any white writer, living in a multicultural society, dares to write a character outside their ethnic group." https://t.co/viKKCYN8qn pic.twitter.com/kNtkuz1EhI

— Quillette Magazine (@QuilletteM) January 30, 2018

President Trump to 'OK' Release of Classified GOP Intelligence Memo

This is great!

A report at CBS Evening News, "Controversial surveillance memo expected to be released."

At the Los Angeles Times, FWIW, "Trump's approval will ensure controversial memo will see the light of day despite warnings from intelligence officials":

President Trump is prepared to approve the release of a controversial Republican-drafted memo about secret government surveillance as soon as Friday, a step that would put him at odds with his top national security officials but could give him a new tool to undermine public confidence in the Russia investigation.

The White House might not seek any changes to the classified document, a senior administration official said Thursday, even though FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats have expressed concern about its contents.

"The president is OK with it," the official said. "I doubt there will be any redactions. It's in Congress' hands after that."

The FBI publicly warned Wednesday that it had "grave concerns" about the memo's accuracy, a highly unusual challenge to the White House. Coats has privately expressed similar concerns to the White House, saying the release could set a troubling precedent for revealing classified information, according to another U.S. official...

RTWT.

Hannity: President Trump Delivered Soaring First State of the Union Address (VIDEO)

The Democrats have nothing. They're nihilists.

From Hannity's show last night. It's good:

Emily DiDonato Gives You a Taste (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Sports illustrated Swimsuit Rookie of the Year Voting

Alexis Ren's in the running.

#SISwim 2018 ROOKIES: You may recognize her from Instagram, but there's so much more to @AlexisRenG. https://t.co/1p4s0rFAeF pic.twitter.com/oFyWcjPMon

— SI Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) January 29, 2018

Voting ends tomorrow.

Joe Kennedy Limp Dick

Tomi Larhen apologized, but you gotta love it, heh.

Here’s Fox News contributor @TomiLahren referring to a Democratic congressman as “that little limp dick.” Some very insightful and professional political commentary. pic.twitter.com/CtnfAGCXyX

— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) February 1, 2018

Demi Lovato's Big News

On Twitter.

I think she's offering wellness therapy as part of her new album tour, or something?

She's fabulous, either way.

Big news coming soon....... pic.twitter.com/cbztwiWBd8

— Demi Lovato (@ddlovato) January 30, 2018

Kera Lester Showing Off

At Drunken Stepfather, "Kera Lester Naked of the Day."

Guess Co-Founder Paul Marciano Denies Kate Upton Allegations

At Fox News, and elsewhere:

Kate Upton accuses Guess co-founder Paul Marciano of sexual misconduct https://t.co/9FUHwXaGrf

— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 1, 2018

Kate Upton Accuses Guess Founder Paul Marciano of Sexual Harassment. https://t.co/wEVM0PlQDQ pic.twitter.com/6NUW1xS6r3

— THE FASHION LAW (@TheFashionLaw) February 1, 2018

Kate Upton Wants to Tell Full Story of Accusing Guess Jeans' Paul Marciano of Sexual Abuse https://t.co/w7CZ2QF1Vt

— TMZ (@TMZ) February 1, 2018

About That 2018 Democrat Midterms Rout?

At WaPo, "That upcoming Democratic rout? Suddenly, it’s looking far less certain":

Analysis: That upcoming Democratic rout? Suddenly, it’s looking far less certain. https://t.co/p2yPW8QeKD

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 1, 2018

There have been a lot of positive signs for Democrats’ chances in 2018 over the past few months: A series of special elections in which the party vastly improved on its performance in past contests, though without always seeing a victory as a result. A widening gap in the “generic ballot” poll question, asking people if they prefer to vote for the Democrats or the Republicans in the upcoming House contests. And, of course, President Trump’s ongoing unpopularity.

Mix those ingredients together, and the result is a midterm election that looks like it could be awfully good for the still-battered party. This has led to a surge of enthusiasm on the left about a seemingly inevitable blue wave sweeping over Washington, bringing the Democrats back to power.

But those trends aren’t as stable as they seem.

Consider the generic ballot question. In RealClearPolitics’ average of polling, the Democrats had a stunning 13-point advantage over the Republicans in late December. Since then, though, that advantage has plunged.

The Democratic advantage now is 7.3 points — still big, but the lowest it has been since last July.

At the same time, Trump’s getting more popular. He hit a low in approval last December, too. He’s still unpopular — but since that low he’s seen a four-point increase in approval according to the RealClearPolitics average. His net approval rating — those who approve minus those who don’t — has risen from minus-21 to minus-13.

Those still aren’t great numbers, but there’s a correlation between a president’s approval and how his party fares in House races. As Trump’s approval rises, so do his party’s chances in November.

Then there’s money. On Thursday morning, The Post reported that the Republican National Committee had substantially outraised the Democrats in 2017. The RNC and its House and Senate committees raised a total of nearly $289 million last year. The Democrats raised a combined $258 million — but the Democratic National Committee raised only $64.5 million to the RNC’s $123 million.

As we will write in nearly every article about the 2018 elections until, say, August, it’s still early. Lots of time to raise money, lots of time for movement in the polls. But the question is how those polls will move. Recent polls have shown an improvement in perceptions of the Republican tax bill, for example, which could both be driving the recent increase in the party’s overall polling and could suggest a longer-term improvement is in the offing...

The Democrats are totally freakin' out. The State of the Union speech was phenomenal and leftists have seen the future. It's not bright for them. (They're already unglued, so I can't say they've become any more unglued than they already are; perhaps they're just showing it more?)

More at the link.

When Dreamer Platitudes Whitewash Bloody Reality

From Michelle Malkin, "'Dreamers' and Demons":

Michelle Malkin: 'Dreamers' and Demons https://t.co/V1vNre1jhY

— John Oliver (@sokeijarhead) February 1, 2018

Xinran Ji, 24, had big dreams. But demons demolished them.

The bright hopes of young Xinran Ji, a University of Southern California engineering student from Inner Mongolia, died in 2014 at the hands of a then-19-year-old "Dreamer" and his thug pals. Mexican illegal alien Jonathan DelCarmen, who first jumped the southern border at age 12, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last summer in the savage robbery and fatal beating of Ji -- who was walking home from a study group after midnight.

No, it wasn't President Trump, ICE agents, Republicans or conservative talk show hosts who racially profiled Xinran Ji. It was "Dreamer" DelCarmen and his partners in crime: Alberto Ochoa, 17, Andrew Garcia, 18, and Alejandra Guerrero, 16. The gangsters targeted Ji because he was Asian and assumed he "must have money." Guerrero had sent Facebook messages about wanting to "flock" (rob) white and Chinese people. Off-campus neighborhoods around USC are dominated by Mexican Mafia affiliates that target foreign students and shake down local businesses owned by law-abiding immigrants.

"Dreamer" DelCarmen and his friends stalked Ji on a street corner in south central L.A. before bashing him in the head with a baseball bat and a wrench. The attack was caught on multiple security cameras. Ji managed to stagger home to his apartment, leaving a quarter-mile trail of blood behind him.

Sometime during the night, Xinran Ji died in his bed. And the aspirations of his family, who sacrificed everything to send him to America to pursue his studies, perished with him.

"Dreamer" DelCarmen and his friends drove off to a nearby beach to rob two more innocent people in a city and state that have defiantly declared themselves "sanctuaries" for people in the United States illegally -- not for the best and brightest like Xinran Ji, but for lawless barbarians like Jonathan DelCarmen.

"It's like heaven fell down," Ji's father told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli at Garcia's sentencing hearing.

"His life was taken by these demons," Ji's aunt added. "They robbed and killed an innocent youth with very vicious means, and this was inhuman."

Garcia received life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ji's parents' sentence was far worse: a brutal, violent and permanent separation from their only child. In Washington, D.C., however, some families matter more than others. And victims of indiscriminate open borders, like Xinran Ji, don't exist.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, proud promoter of sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants, led more than two dozen Democrats in turning the State of the Union address into "Take an Illegal Alien to Work Day."

Platitudes whitewash bloody reality.

"I want to be clear: DREAMers are Americans," declared Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who invited an illegal alien from El Salvador who now works at Apple. "They contribute to our economy, our communities and our strength and stability as a nation."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., brought a Mexican illegal alien, Cesar Montelongo, now enrolled in the M.D.-Ph.D. program at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.

"I hope Cesar's presence reminds President Trump what's at stake in the debate over DACA: the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent young people who want to contribute to our country's future."

Democrats and pro-amnesty radicals protest any glint of sunlight shed on the destructive consequences of not enforcing our nation's immigration laws. They claim it's unfair to focus on single cases or "anecdotes," even as they promote DACA recipients as a holy, unassailable class of "honor roll students, star athletes, talented artists and valedictorians."

This propaganda, to which open-borders Republicans have fecklessly capitulated, is an offense to decency and truth...

More.

This is What the Democratic Party Has Become

From Ann Coulter, "Democrats Boo America":

NEW COLUMN IS POSTED! DEMOCRATS BOO AMERICA https://t.co/gFCVYctd19

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) January 31, 2018

Democrats Boo America https://t.co/qqlc2S5PVH

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 1, 2018

Unlike the president, I don't call everything "incredible," but Trump's State of the Union address was incredible, beautifully delivered. (This guy could have a future in television!)

As proof, I cite every single media outlet bitterly complaining after the speech that, as MSNBC's chyron put it: "TRUMP FAILS TO MENTION RUSSIA'S ELECTION MEDDLING IN STATE OF THE UNION."

He did not address the elephant in the room!

A lot of people don't like Trump, but no one was thinking that. It's only an elephant in your room, media. This is the very definition of solipsistic.

What did they want him to say? "I confess!"? Then they would have complained that the speech was all about him. There would be five Mueller deputies going over the speech, line by line.

If that's all they got, it was a great speech.

The media claimed that Trump tricked them into reporting that his address was going to be bipartisan -- and then double-crossed them by delivering a "divisive" speech.


To be sure, there were a few partisan flourishes, galling to both sides.

Points Liberals Hate:

-- "Beautiful clean coal";

-- The end of Obamacare's individual mandate;

-- Keeping Guantanamo open; and

-- Firing useless government employees working for the Veterans Administration.

Points Conservatives Hate:

-- Amnesty;

-- Pointless wars; and

-- Any policy Trump mentioned when the camera flashed to Ivanka.

Altogether, these partisan remarks consumed about seven minutes of an 80-minute speech.

The bulk of Trump's address celebrated:

-- A booming economy;


-- Companies bringing jobs home;

-- Low black unemployment;

-- The flag;

-- The national motto;

-- God;

-- Rebuilding roads and bridges;

-- Law enforcement;

-- The life of a child born to an opioid addict;

-- The military;

-- Veterans; and

-- Getting the best immigrants we can.

I'm trying to imagine FDR opposing any of that. But according to today's Democrats, those issues are "divisive." (Calling the president a "racist" 2 million times a day -- that's not particularly divisive.)

Democrats have apparently decided that the magic of immigration-created demographic transformation means the future is theirs! They no longer have to worry about middle-of-the-road voters, independents, undecideds -- or really any Americans at all.

The entire party has embraced Harvard law professor Mark Tushnet's advice (offered back when he thought Trump was going to lose): "The culture wars are over; they lost, we won. ... F*ck Anthony Kennedy." (No asterisk in the original.)

Drawing on his family's mystique, Rep. Joseph Kennedy III delivered the Democratic rebuttal while standing in an auto body shop in front of a broken-down car. The only thing missing was a wet girl in the back seat, seaweed in her hair, desperately scratching at the windshield.

To drive home the point that the Democratic Party is not a moribund carcass with nothing but memories, next year Chelsea Clinton should give the response. Then Hillary, followed by Amy Carter.

Kennedy began by unironically denouncing privilege and celebrity. (As everyone knows, Democrats cannot STAND celebrity!) He then devoted the lion's share of his speech to the Democrats' pet issues: transgenders and foreigners. This is a party so completely insulated from the concerns of normal people that it is now dedicating itself to exotic micro-issues...

More.

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.

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