Alexis Ren Has Some Tough Preparation (VIDEO)

I didn't know, but Ms. Alexis has been on "Dancing With the Stars." She's something else.

See also, "Who is Alexis on Dancing with the Stars? Model brought DWTS viewers to tears with emotional dance."

And at Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Scott Greer, No Campus for White Men

Robert Stacy McCain posts on Professor Christine Fair, of Georgetown University.

See, "Anti-Male Georgetown Professor Uses Tumblr Blog to ‘Dox’ Her Critics."

And linked at the post is Scott Greer's appropriate book, No Campus for White Men.

Hillary Clinton Incites Violence Against Republicans (VIDEO)

I just wish this woman would go away and retire from public life. And I mean permanent retirement. Not even those twilight years interviews with Barbara Walters (or whoever's taken Ms. Barbara's place; Elizabeth Vargas? Who knows?)

In any case, she's detestable. I dislike her more every time she opens her yap.

At Twitchy, "‘AntiFa Gam Gam’? Nothing to see here, just Hillary Clinton inciting violence against Republicans [video]."

And watch:

Eugenia Cheng, The Art of Logic in an Illogical World

I started reading this, and it's good.

At Amazon, Eugenia Cheng, The Art of Logic in an Illogical World.

My Mom's Going to Be Okay

Here's some photos from the trip to Santa Rosa to visit my mom.

She's in pain from her broken sternum and she can't move around by herself. On Sunday, she was taken by ambulance over to an assisted nursery rehab facility, for about a week of physical therapy. After that, she should be back home in Yucca Valley. I'm praying for her. She was so happy that I made the trip up there to visit her.

And thanks for the support of my blog readers. I wish I could've posted updates while I was up there, but it wasn't convenient and I wanted to just enjoy being with my mom.

The top photo below is the view from the front drive at the hospital. The second photo down is the view of the nearby foothills from the fourth floor looking south. (It's really beautiful up there; I had no idea.) The third photo shows the roof of the emergency room trauma center helicopter landing pad, which is really cool. (I didn't see any copters land, but it's a wicked setup.) And at bottom is a selfie of yours truly. I don't post these to Twitter. I save them for the blog here, lol.

Thanks again for your support. It's much appreciated.

Happy Columbus Day

Here's the hilarious Steven Crowder, for Prager University:

It's Time to End Identity Politics

At the National Interest, "It Is Time to Debate — and End — Identity Politics":

It Is Time to Debate—and End—Identity Politics https://t.co/7cHwsBqMwr

— Mike Gonzalez (@Gundisalvus) October 8, 2018

America’s partition into mutually antagonistic identity groups has reached every nook and cranny of society, from sports to education , the corporate world and politics . It has never been openly debated or voted on by the American people, however.

Identity politics sparks emotional reactions both among its supporters and its detractors because it deals with the larger issues of our day. It is about what convinces people to band together in society and to agree to a common project.

Academics on both sides have spoken past each other, but Americans have never had a political debate on it. For that to happen, politicians on opposing sides would have to debate each other with specifics.

Yes, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton presented broad opposing views on identity politics in 2016—she for it, he against it—but there was no discussion of what it is, how it came about, whether it is a good or bad thing and, if the latter, how to end it.

It’s time to correct this oversight and have that political debate now. Identity politics is a new animal. It is very different from Martin Van Buren knowing how to secure the Dutch vote in the Hudson Valley, or Boss Tweed getting the Irish to vote Democrat.

It instead looks at America through a post–modernist lens of power struggles among groups based on race, ethnicity or sex, but where the individual loses agency. It resegregates America into subnational “protected” groupings whose members receive benefits simply as a consequence of group membership and in whose name self-appointed leaders demand unequal treatment. How this backdoor return to Plessy era distinctions has gone without argument is a major victory of the left that often goes unrecognized.

This is a view of America that diametrically opposes the “We Are All Created Equal” position. The two may be irreconcilable. It may very well be that, just as the country was not large enough in 1860 to encompass the master blueprints of slavery and abolition, America today cannot house these two opposing blueprints. One or the other must win in the (peaceful) marketplace of ideas.

John Locke and those he influenced —which includes the Founding Fathers of America and, two-and-a-half centuries later, the enemies of identity politics—are convinced to leave the state of nature and create a society by their mutual need to secure natural rights. One of the most basic of those rights is that we’re all “born free and equal,” in the words of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights.

Around these principles there emerged in the United States a creed and a culture which formed “One People.” Immigrants were expected to assimilate into such an overall national culture (which had geographic pockets to be sure), accept the creed and adapt to civic life.

To the supporters of identity politics, what causes Americans today to band into subnational clans is the need to tear down “structural racism” and the hegemony of white, male, able-bodied heterosexuals. And to advocates of identity politics, it was Lockean thought and the Founding Fathers’ creed and culture that produced white dominion.

As Courtney Jung, one of the leading thinkers of identity politics, once said, “One’s ability to get oneself heard in a democratic system crucially depends on whether one can claim membership in a group with a preexisting political weight, or forge a group identity with new political weight. In contemporary politics, race, gender and ethnicity have developed such a weight.”

Moreover, according to Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry on equality, “There is a danger of (strict) equality leading to uniformity, rather than to a respect for pluralism and democracy. In the contemporary debate, this complaint has been mainly articulated in feminist and multiculturalist theory.” Citing various studies, the entry says, “‘Equality’ can often mean the assimilation to a pre-existing and problematic ‘male’ or ‘white’ or ‘middle class’ norm. In short, domination and a fortiori inequality often arises [sic] out of an inability to appreciate and nurture differences—not out of a failure to see everyone as the same.”

Some Americans believe that the current division of their country into ethnic, racial and sexual groups (Hispanics, Asians, gender) responds to a grassroots desire to seek dignity and that such a dispensation was arrived at after transparent and political debate.

They would be very wrong on both counts...

Still more.

Michelle Malkin Shreds Christine Blasey Ford (VIDEO)

I'm really shaken by the events of the last few weeks, to the point of disgust. Extreme disgust.

The only silver lining is, of course, Kavanaugh's ultimate confirmation. I'm so pleased. The winning is so much sweet schadenfreude.

In any case, this video's great, from the ineffable Michelle Malkin:

Brett Kavanaugh Will Bring Change to the Supreme Court

Here's Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today, in an excellent piece based on reason not emotion, thank goodness.

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Brett Kavanaugh will bring change to the Supreme Court, but maybe not what you think https://t.co/Uyur75HASF via @usatoday

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) October 8, 2018

Mitch McConnell: I Never Thought of Quitting (VIDEO)

I've gained a lot of respect for Mitch McConnell. I wish I was as unflappable, but I'm not. At all. I get too emotional, or "passionate," as some might say.

But McConnell just stays the course, makes minimalist statements, and stays classy.

At Fox News:

Crux of a Cold Civil War

This piece needed some good editing (there's terrible punctuation, for example), but it otherwise expresses exceptionally well the nature of the "cold" civil war we're in.

At American Greatness, "Kavanaugh and the Crux of a Cold Civil War":

Kavanaugh and the Crux of a Cold Civil War https://t.co/9eyII4P8YF pic.twitter.com/7rhgtA8F8l

— American Greatness (@theamgreatness) October 7, 2018

We are in the midst of a cold civil war. The crux? Realizing politics is part of life, one side believes America is fundamentally a good country requiring some prudent improvements upon which reasonable minds may differ. On the other side, the Left, thinking politics is life, believes America is a hopelessly unjust nation requiring “fundamental transformation” and this is a point on which no reasonable minds can differ.

The Kavanaugh confirmation evinces the political abyss between us; and the bathetic depths to which this divide drives the Left to “win.”

Keep reading.

Inez

It's Inez Stepman (née Feltscher).

She's a beauty.

Guys, I also like to slay lewks. You don’t have to be a socialist in $3500 threads. pic.twitter.com/nrw4WJpN68

— Inez Stepman (@InezFeltscher) September 18, 2018

New Marisa Papen Photos

Following-up from July, "Belgian Model Marisa Papen Slammed by Religious Leaders for Posing Nude at Israel's Western Wall."

And here's some new pics, at Drunken Stepfather, "MARISA PAPEN NAKED MOTOCROSS EROTICA OF THE DAY."

At for Playboy Portugal, "New Cover: Marisa Papen."

U.S. Has Highest Share of Foreign-Born Since 1910

I'm teaching immigration in my classes this week, so I took note of this piece at the New York Times from a couple of weeks ago.

It's fascinating, especially the share of immigrants from Asia.

I'm telling you, Irvine is practically Beijing west. The city is an Asian-majority burg, and it's trippy. Lots of folks wear hospital mask all the time, even while driving their cars (remember, the air quality in China is terrible). Also, lots of folks don't speak English. The kids are bilingual, but the parents, and for sure the grandparents, don't. I can go shopping, hitting two or three different stores, including Walmart, and not hear anyone speaking English.

At some point you'd like immigration rates to slow down, and remember, this is legal immigration. The numbers are too high. Assimilation is breaking down where I live. Let's slow things down. It's a national problem, but I'm seeing things close up right here in the O.C.

In any case, see "U.S. Has Highest Share of Foreign-Born Since 1910, With More Coming From Asia":

The foreign-born population in the U.S. has reached its highest share since 1910, according to government data, and the new arrivals are more likely to come from Asia and to have college degrees than those who arrived in past decades https://t.co/mqZE2cGOZt

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

WASHINGTON — The foreign-born population in the United States has reached its highest share since 1910, according to government data released Thursday, and the new arrivals are more likely to come from Asia and to have college degrees than those who arrived in past decades.

The Census Bureau’s figures for 2017 confirm a major shift in who is coming to the United States. For years newcomers tended to be from Latin America, but a Brookings Institution analysis of that data shows that 41 percent of the people who said they arrived since 2010 came from Asia. Just 39 percent were from Latin America. About 45 percent were college educated, the analysis found, compared with about 30 percent of those who came between 2000 and 2009.

“This is quite different from what we had thought,” said William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution who conducted the analysis. “We think of immigrants as being low-skilled workers from Latin America, but for recent arrivals that’s much less the case. People from Asia have overtaken people from Latin America.”

The new data was released as the nation’s changing demography has become a flash point in American politics. President Trump, and many Republicans, have sounded alarms about immigration and suggested the government needs to restrict both the number and types of people coming into the country.

The foreign-born population stood at 13.7 percent in 2017, or 44.5 million people, according to the data, compared with 13.5 percent in 2016...

Still more.

Shop Today's Deals

I'll be on the road today, heading to Santa Rosa, where my mom is hospitalized.

She was involved in a head-on collision last weekend on Highway 1. Apparently, my mom's husband lost control of the Chevy pickup and crossed over the double-yellow line into oncoming traffic. The truck was totaled. My mom broke her sternum and a rib. But she's been treated for lung cancer over the last few years. Her right lung was removed a couple of years back, and this summer she had chemotherapy and radiation for a growth found in her left lung. So, she's not so strong right now to begin with. It's hard for her to breathe. I've got to get up there to visit, because she's going to stay in the hospital for a few more days while doctors monitor a blood clot in her same lung. Oh boy, that's a lot isn't it?

Anyway, thanks for your support and prayers.

I might be able to do a little blogging over the weekend, depending on if I find a motel room up there. I'm just driving up early in the morning and I've got no reservations. I'll sleep in the car for one night if I have to, and then on Saturday perhaps I'll find a Motel 6.

Here's my Amazon links:

See, Today's Deals. New deals. Every day. Shop our Deal of the Day, Lightning Deals and more daily deals and limited-time sales.

And also, KIND Bars, Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt, Gluten Free, 1.4 Ounce Bars, 12 Count.

More, Buck Knives 284 Bantam One-Hand Opening Folding Knife, and Buck Knives 110 Famous Folding Hunter Knife with Genuine Leather Sheath.

Here, Mountain House Just in Case.Essential Bucket.

Plus, Koffee Kult Dark Roast Coffee Beans - Highest Quality Gourmet - Whole Bean Coffee - Fresh Roasted Coffee Beans, 32oz.

And, Samsung 65NU7300 65" NU7300 Smart 4K UHD TV 2018 with Surge Protector + Cleaning Kit (UN65NU7300).

BONUS: David Limbaugh, Jesus Is Risen: Paul and the Early Church.

Will the Democrats Wake Up?

This is great.

It reminds me of Theodore White, The Making of the President, 1960.

From Dan Balz, at WaPo, "Will the Democrats Wake Up Before 2020?":

From the Magazine: They have no unifying leader and no clear message — yet. Will the Democrats wake up before 2020?

A definitive inquiry into the state of the party. https://t.co/yGBu7cOIUb pic.twitter.com/QpgJezNKnY

— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 2, 2018

The Iowa State Fair is an obligatory stop on the road to the White House, a cultural and culinary festival of heartland sensibilities, varied livestock and all manner of unhealthy food. The stands that populate the fairgrounds offer such treats as deep-fried mac and cheese, deep-fried pickles and ice cream nachos, along with the traditional favorites of pork-on-a-stick and foot-long corn dogs. In the summer of 2015, Donald Trump descended on the fair from his helicopter and was mobbed by press and public. On a recent muggy August morning, the arrival of Steve Bullock is far less dramatic.

Bullock, 52, the second-term governor of Montana, is dressed in blue jeans, a blue button-down shirt and boots. He ambles down the main street of the fairgrounds virtually undetected. Only a few heads turn as he stops to talk with his friend Tom Miller, Iowa’s long-serving attorney general. Bullock’s political calling card these days is that he is a Democrat who won reelection by four points on the day that Trump was winning his state by 20 points. That won’t get you elected president, but it’s enough to start a conversation. Which is why Bullock is here in Des Moines in the summer of 2018: to start a conversation.

Next summer, the Iowa State Fair will be overrun by presidential candidates. This year, the pickings are slimmer — dark horses and lesser-knowns who might or might not eventually compete for the 2020 nomination. Among the Democrats who have decided to skip the fair are the big three: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Among those who have decided to show up are Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, who has already visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties; Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and former HUD secretary; Tom Steyer, the billionaire Californian on a mission to force impeachment proceedings against the president; and Michael Avenatti, the combative lawyer for adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. As a sign of the times, the swaggering Avenatti, who has never run for office, creates the biggest waves in Iowa with his message that Democrats will need a real fighter — hint! — to topple the president.

Each year, the Des Moines Register sponsors what it calls the Political Soapbox for state and national politicians. The venue consists of a small stage along the fairgrounds’ main drag, a sound system, a few bales of hay and folding chairs for spectators. Politicians take the stage for a few minutes, deliver a speech, answer questions and hope the buzz lasts long enough for them to make their way to see the famous butter cow. It does not always go well: In 2011, Mitt Romney, in a testy exchange with a fairgoer, uttered the famous line that “corporations are people, my friend,” which didn’t do much to create a regular-guy image. In 2015, Trump smartly gave helicopter rides to kids.

As Bullock takes the stage, he finds himself in competition with a children’s Big Wheel race nearby, which is another reason the Soapbox can be a humbling venue. Bullock makes a joke about the tiny three-wheelers screeching along the pavement, offers a few obligatory comments about his connections to Iowa — his mother happens to have been born in the state — and then begins to road-test a message. Trust in government has disappeared, he says. He blames it on lost faith in all institutions and the corrupting influence of money, particularly big money whose origins are hard to trace. He tells the audience, “If we want to address all of the other big issues in our electoral system, in our political system, if we really want to address income inequality, if we want to address health care, if we want to address rights, you’re not going to be able to do it until you’ve also addressed the way that money is corrupting our system.”

He talks about what he’s done in Montana, working with a Republican legislature. “If we can do this in Montana,” he says, “it underscores to me that, look, this isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue; this is an issue about the fundamental trust and faith in our government.” His short speech completed, he takes a few questions. The last person asks whether he plans to run for president. “The question is when will I decide if I’m going to do anything after I serve as governor,” he says playfully. Then more seriously he adds: “Look, I do think that I do have a story of how I’ve been able to bring people together, and I think that’s in part what our country desperately needs. … So right now, what I’m doing is listening, and that’s honestly as far as it goes.” Within 10 days, he will be in New Hampshire...

There's lots more, at the link.

Out Today: Tucker Carlson, Ship of Fools

At Amazon, Tucker Carlson, Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution.

Harvard Rated Asian-Americans Lower

I'm discussing civil rights in my American government classes this week, and I want to read and blog this blockbuster piece that was at the New York Times in June.

See, "Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits, Suit Says":

Breaking News: Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower on personal traits, according to an analysis by a group suing the school for bias https://t.co/rkb3pUi3Y7

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 15, 2018

Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university.

Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria. But the students’ personal ratings significantly dragged down their chances of being admitted, the analysis found.

The court documents, filed in federal court in Boston, also showed that Harvard conducted an internal investigation into its admissions policies in 2013 and found a bias against Asian-American applicants. But Harvard never made the findings public or acted on them.

Harvard, one of the most sought-after and selective universities in the country, admitted only 4.6 percent of its applicants this year. That has led to intense interest in the university’s closely guarded admissions process. Harvard had fought furiously over the last few months to keep secret the documents that were unsealed Friday.

The documents came out as part of a lawsuit charging Harvard with systematically discriminating against Asian-Americans, in violation of civil rights law. The suit says that Harvard imposes what is in effect a soft quota of “racial balancing.” This keeps the numbers of Asian-Americans artificially low, while advancing less qualified white, black and Hispanic applicants, the plaintiffs contend.

The findings come at a time when issues of race, ethnicity, admission, testing and equal access to education are confronting schools across the country, from selective public high schools like Stuyvesant High School in New York to elite private colleges. Many Ivy League schools, not just Harvard, have had similar ratios of Asian-American, black, white and Hispanic students for years, despite fluctuations in application rates and qualifications, raising questions about how those numbers are arrived at and whether they represent unspoken quotas.

Harvard and the group suing it have presented sharply divergent views of what constitutes a fair admissions process.

“It turns out that the suspicions of Asian-American alumni, students and applicants were right all along,” the group, Students for Fair Admissions, said in a court document laying out the analysis. “Harvard today engages in the same kind of discrimination and stereotyping that it used to justify quotas on Jewish applicants in the 1920s and 1930s.”

Harvard vigorously disagreed on Friday, saying that its own expert analysis showed no discrimination and that seeking diversity is a valuable part of student selection. The university lashed out at the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, Edward Blum, accusing him of using Harvard to replay a previous challenge to affirmative action in college admissions, Fisher v. the University of Texas at Austin. In its 2016 decision in that case, the Supreme Court ruled that race could be used as one of many factors in admissions.

“Thorough and comprehensive analysis of the data and evidence makes clear that Harvard College does not discriminate against applicants from any group, including Asian-Americans, whose rate of admission has grown 29 percent over the last decade,” Harvard said in a statement. “Mr. Blum and his organization’s incomplete and misleading data analysis paint a dangerously inaccurate picture of Harvard College’s whole-person admissions process by omitting critical data and information factors.”

In court papers, Harvard said that a statistical analysis could not capture the many intangible factors that go into Harvard admissions. Harvard said that the plaintiffs’ expert, Peter Arcidiacono, a Duke University economist, had mined the data to his advantage by taking out applicants who were favored because they were legacies, athletes, the children of staff and the like, including Asian-Americans. In response, the plaintiffs said their expert had factored out these applicants because he wanted to look at the pure effect of race on admissions, unclouded by other factors.

Both sides filed papers Friday asking for summary judgment, an immediate ruling in their favor. If the judge denies those requests, as is likely, a trial has been scheduled for October. If it goes on to the Supreme Court, it could upend decades of affirmative action policies at colleges and universities across the country.

Harvard is not the only Ivy League school facing pressure to admit more Asian-American students. Princeton and Cornell and others also have high numbers of Asian-American applicants. Yet their share of Asian-Americans students is comparable with Harvard’s.

In Friday’s court papers, the plaintiffs describe a shaping process that begins before students even apply, when Harvard buys data about PSAT scores and G.P.A.s, according to the plaintiffs’ motion. It is well documented that these scores vary by race.

The plaintiffs’ analysis was based on data extracted from the records of more than 160,000 applicants who applied for admission over six cycles from 2000 to 2015...

Keep reading.

Decent Democrats?

Following-up from last night, "Have Democrats Any Decency?"

Here's the astounding Derek Hunter, at Town Hall, "Is There a Decent Democrat Left in America?":

Derek Hunter - Is There A Decent Democrat Left In America? https://t.co/Lrjs3bFLfX

— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) September 27, 2018

The attempted character assassination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh has brought out the worst in Democrats, every Democrat, everywhere. They’ve convicted a good and decent man of things he wasn’t even falsely accused of, so desperate are progressives to stop someone who believes the Constitution means what it says from sitting on the Supreme Court. From elected officials to unelected Democrats with media credentials, the last two weeks have exposed the Democratic Party as a gaggle of guttersnipes willing to destroy a man for the “crime” of disagreeing with them politically. After watching this unfold, you really have to wonder one thing: Is there a single decent, honest Democrat left in the United States?

The circus Democratic Senators created surrounding the Kavanaugh nomination should serve as a scarlet letter on every single one of them for the rest of their lives and should stain the buildings they’ll fund in their states with our tax dollars with will bare their names. It’s a disgrace...

Keep reading.

Barbara Palvin Rocks (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.