Democrats Continue Their Campaign of Chaos (VIDEO)

It's Ms. Laura Ingraham:

Today's Deal

Thanks for your support everybody! It means a lot.

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BONUS: John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America.

Could Election Day Disaster Strike the Democrats Again?

Well, I sure hope so, lol.

At McClatchy, "Nervous Democrats ask: Could Election Day disaster strike again?":

Nervous Democrats ask: Could Election Day disaster strike again? My story on the gnawing concern some party operatives feel that recent history might repeat itself in November https://t.co/Vci8tRaTzA

— Alex Roarty (@Alex_Roarty) October 10, 2018

It was this week two years ago that Hillary Clinton’s victory looked assured, when the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape of Donald Trump bragging about sexual assault appeared all but certain to end his campaign.

Jesse Ferguson remembers it well. The deputy press secretary for Clinton’s campaign also remembers what happened a month later.

It’s why this veteran Democratic operative can’t shake the feeling that, as promising as the next election looks for his party, it might still all turn out wrong.

“Election Day will either prove to me I have PTSD or show I’ve been living déjà vu,” Ferguson said. “I just don’t know which yet.”

Ferguson is one of many Democrats who felt the string of unexpected defeat in 2016 and are now closely — and nervously — watching the current election near its end, wondering if history will repeat itself. This year, instead of trying to win the presidency, Democrats have placed an onus on trying to gain 23 House seats and win a majority.

The anxiety isn’t universal, with many party leaders professing confidently and repeatedly that this year really is different.

But even some of them acknowledge the similarities between the current and previous election: Trump is unpopular and beset by scandal, Democrats hold leads in the polls, and some Republicans are openly pessimistic.

FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 76.9 percent chance of winning the House one month before Election Day. Their odds for Clinton’s victory two years ago? 71.4 percent.

The abundance of optimism brings back queasy memories for Jesse Lehrich, who worked on the Clinton campaign and remembers watching the returns come in from the Javits Center in New York.

“I was getting texts after the result was clear – including even from some political reporters and operatives – texting me, you know, ‘Are you guys starting to get nervous?’ or ‘What’s her most likely path?’” he said. “I was like, ‘What do you mean, starting to get nervous? What path? They just called Wisconsin. We lost.’”

“People were so slow to process that reality because they just hadn’t considered the possibility that Donald Trump was going to be the next president,” he continued.

Lehrich said he sees similarities between 2016 and 2018. But he said he thought Democrats were cognizant of the parallels and determined not to let up a month before the election, as many voters might have two years ago.

Other Democratic leaders aren’t so sure. Asked if he thought his party was overconfident, Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton responded flatly, “Yes.”

Democrats could win a lot of House seats, he said, or could still fall short of capturing a majority.

“The point is that we’ve got to realize that this not just some unstoppable blue wave but rather a lot of tough races that will be hard-fought victories,” Moulton said.

If Democrats are universally nervous about anything after 2016, it’s polling. The polls weren’t actually as favorable to Clinton and the Democrats as some remember, something 538’s Nate Silver and some other journalists pointed out at the time.

But Clinton’s decision not to campaign in a state she’d lose, Wisconsin, and the failure of pollsters everywhere to miss a wave of Trump supporters in red areas are mistakes Democrats are still grappling with today.

“Clearly last cycle, polling was off,” Ben Ray Lujan, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told reporters last month. “There were a lot of predictions that were made last cycle that didn’t come to fruition.”

Lujan emphasized in particular how pollsters missed the rural vote, calling it a “devastating mistake.” He said the DCCC has taken deliberate steps since 2016 to get it right this time around, but underscored a congressional majority still required a tooth-and-nail fight.

“So I’m confident with the team that’s been assembled, but I’m definitely cognizant of the fact we need to understand these models and understand the data for what it is,” he said...

Democrats are down dramatically on the "generic ballot" for the midterms (compared to weeks ago), but I'm not relying on polls. I'm simply going to wait until election night. I'll be thrilled to be pleasantly surprised if Republicans keep majority control, especially in the House.

But I'm not banking on anything and not getting emotional. Things are frankly unpredictable in American politics these days.

More.

Julia Majewska Photos

At Drunken Stepfather, "JULIA MAJEWSKA EROTIC NUDE PHOTOSHOOT OF THE DAY."

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.