New Zealand Christchurch Mosque Massacre (VIDEO)

I'm numb to this stuff by now.

This massacre of course is the perfect example of our polarized times, and especially so since the perp is a white nationalist. (And it must be said, but there'd be no focus on exterminationist ideologies had this been another mass jihad terrorist attack; see Robert Spencer's entry this morning, for example.)

In any case, I fully endorse the condemnations and sympathy that have been flooding out following the massacre. I'm especially heartened by the genuine good will shown by conservatives, especially since it's gonna be people on the American right who'll be demonized as fundamentally guilty for the acts of this lone extremist.

More on this throughout the day, but see the New Zealand Herald, "Christchurch mosque massacre: 49 confirmed dead in shootings; four arrested - three men, one woman."

And at Memeorandum, via Bellingcat, "Shitposting, Inspirational Terrorism, and the Christchurch Mosque Massacre."

Here's the obligatory leftist take blaming the alleged "right-wing media" for enabling "right-wing terrorism," which is somehow the world's "number one terrorist threat" (not). At Sydney Morning Herald, "Broken white men and the racist media that fuels their terrorism."

And at CNN:

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads.

The Axis of Anti-Semitism

This is the most amazing essay, seriously.

I've never read a more concise analysis of the global jihad threat, and not just to the Jews, but to Western civilization.

From Benjamin Kerstein, at Algemeiner, "Ilhan Omar and the Axis of Antisemitism":

Read @benj_kerstein on the axis of anti-Semitism now gathering against diaspora Jews. From the right, the left and Islam. Important piece. https://t.co/VMaKZrL0EQ

— Eli Lake (@EliLake) March 11, 2019

American Jews are facing a perfect storm of antisemitism. On the one side are the antisemites of the right: the hate that coalesced in the “Jews will not replace us” conspiracy chant at Charlottesville and then the horrific massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue. From the left comes the pathological intersectional hatred of Israel that extends into the hatred of the 90 percent or more of world Jewry that embraces Zionism and ultimately to the Jews themselves as a people. And finally the vulgar, debased antisemitism of much of the Muslim world, part religious and part nationalist, that may well be the most violent and threatening of the three.

What we are seeing is, in other words, the emergence of an axis of antisemitism; one that threatens not only the Jews, but American democracy itself.

It is the latter two forms of antisemitism that have resulted in the recent scandals involving Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and the wretched failure of the Democratic leadership in Congress to appropriately condemn her by name and antisemitism as a specific phenomenon, preferring instead to defer to their far-left and pass a pathetically watered-down resolution that elides the issue by dilution, effectively handing antisemitism its first ever legislative victory in the United States. In other words, this antisemitism, intersectional in nature, brutal in rhetoric, violent in discourse, now wields not inconsiderable political power.

The most violent faction of this axis of antisemitism is, one regrets to say, born of Islam. This religion, a descendant of Judaism itself, has always contained elements of antisemitism. Muhammad himself massacred the Jews of the Hijaz. The history of Jews in Muslim lands had its golden ages, but it also had a multitude of expulsions, forced conversions, and massacres. And it ended, we should not forget, in the expulsion of a million Jews who found refuge in the new Jewish state...

RTWT.

Tommy Orange, There There

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Tommy Orange, There There: A Novel.

Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion.

Robert Zubrin, The Case for Space

It's out May 14th, at Amazon, Robert Zubrin, The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility.

The Democrats and Anti-Semitism

So far, Noah Rothman's written the best piece on Ilhan Omar and the Democrats' turn to unbridled, unabashed anti-Jewish hatred, with special attention to the double standards of the House resolution condemning "all forms" of racism.

https://t.co/LMaOZ8aGfE

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) March 7, 2019

All bigotries matter. https://t.co/LMaOZ7T4R4 pic.twitter.com/n966ZO6W5X

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) March 7, 2019

We Can't Have Hot Bikini Baristas

Bummer:

'Bikini barista' coffee shop in #California has license revoked after city council deems outfits too revealing. 🙄 https://t.co/aMVw9i5dVb

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 9, 2019

Workers Suddenly Have More Power

At WaPo, the Trump economy is helping the working class proletariat lol.

Workers suddenly have more power to demand higher pay and better jobs as the unemployment rate for workers without high school diplomas fell to 5.3 % last month a record low since ⁦@USDOL⁩ began tracking this 27 years ago https://t.co/WQkc3ESW3i

— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) March 9, 2019

Seen on Facebook

Here:

Lee Zeldin's Floor Speech Slamming Ilhan Omar and Democrats' Weaselly House Resolution Condemning 'All Forms' of Racism (VIDEO)

Seems there's a consensus that we've crossed a line in American politics, and the country's heading down a dark road. I've been reading one commentary after another on Ilhan Omar and the spineless Democrat House weasels, and I'm personally and deeply depressed. I thought I loathed the left, but seems there is no bottom to Democrat-leftist demonology.

The question for me today was whether it was possible to despise the #DemocratParty even more? Turns out, indeed it was. Yes indeed it was. 🤔 #IlhanOmar #Democrats #AntiSemitism #RadicalLeft

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 8, 2019

Here's Congressman Lee Zeldin:

H.Res.183 was spineless, watered down & filled w moral equivalency & double standards. Watch my floor speech explaining my NO vote to this resolution. Name names & remove Rep Omar from @HouseForeign. No double standards! pic.twitter.com/Rj17P6MHFI

— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) March 7, 2019

And at Fox News, "Rep. Zeldin Explains 'No' Vote on 'Watered Down,' 'Spineless' Anti-Hate Resolution."

Added, from Captain Ed:

Zeldin’s point about the resolution being “spineless” hits closest to the overall lesson from this episode, which is this: Nancy Pelosi’s power has entirely evaporated. Had Pelosi acted like a real caucus leader with authority, she would have immediately booted Omar from her seat on Foreign Relations and demanded a full apology, with a censuring resolution a consequence for lack of compliance. That is precisely what Kevin McCarthy did with Rep. Steve King after his white-supremacy comments despite having struggled to get his position as caucus leader just a few months ago.

Pelosi has had the reins of her caucus for two decades now, and yet couldn’t act. Pelosi just got faced down by a first-term backbencher and a small cadre of extremists in her caucus, mainly because she didn’t attempt to exercise any authority. She dithered and vacillated, perhaps mindful of the narrow circumstances that gave her the gavel in the first place in January. In that vacillation, the extremists took her measure and forced her to retreat. The result was Pelosi’s ridiculous “All Hate Matters” sham resolution for which Omar herself voted — while laughing at the absurdity.

Pelosi still holds the gavel, but it’s now purely symbolic. The lunatics and the anti-Semites are running the House Democratic asylum. Pelosi has no legs left on her leadership, and everyone knows it. That’s why Democrats want to talk about Republican dissenters to this grotesquerie rather than what really happened this week in the House. Zeldin’s just forcing everyone to confront reality.

Meghan McCain in Tears Over Ilhan Omar's Anti-Semitism, Gets Attacked With Leftist Vitriol and Anti-Semitic Memes

Oh boy, did this get people fired up, and not in a good way.

And keep in mind, I'm not fan of Ms. Meghan.

At the Daily Beast, "Meghan McCain Breaks Down in Tears Over Ilhan Omar’s ‘Scary’ Israel Comments."

Here's the clip, and this vile anti-Semitic cartoon below:

Don't care if it's "officially" anti-Semitic or not. But imagine reax to a cartoon mocking a white woman upset about anti-black racism that showed her in Afro wig & "Happy Kwanzaa" T-shirt, holding a slice of watermelon and a copy of "Roots," w/pile of black-themed books/DVDs pic.twitter.com/KUs9jqHM33

— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) March 9, 2019

Don't care if it's "officially" anti-Semitic or not. But imagine reax to a cartoon mocking a white woman upset about anti-black racism that showed her in Afro wig & "Happy Kwanzaa" T-shirt, holding a slice of watermelon and a copy of "Roots," w/pile of black-themed books/DVDs pic.twitter.com/KUs9jqHM33

— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) March 9, 2019

Do we really need a dialogue around why invoking the holocaust in this flip and dismissive fashion is hateful? A round table to uncover the anti-semitism in the penumbra of meaning here? Some moral clarity, please. This is point blank repulsive. @MeghanMcCain doesn’t deserve this https://t.co/M333YgsyjP

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) March 8, 2019

More at Fox News, "Meghan McCain accuses Jewish artist of anti-Semitism after mocking her comments on Omar."

Glencairn Whisky Glass

I need to get a set of these. They come highly recommended by Helen Smith at Intapundit.

At Amazon, Glencairn Whisky Glass Set of 4.

And Ms. Helen's book, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters.

'Under Pressure'

From Tuesday's drive-time, at 93.1 Jack FM Los Angeles, Queen and David Bowie:

Sweet Dreams
EURYTHMICS
6:31am

Small Town
John Mellencamp
6:20am

Just Like Heaven
Cure
6:17am

Jane Says
Jane's Addiction
6:12am

Start Me Up
Rolling Stones
6:09am

Under Pressure
Queen & David Bowie
6:05am

The Middle
Jimmy Eat World
6:02am

Crazy Train
Ozzy Osbourne
5:55am

Norman Podhoretz, Why Are Jews Liberals?

I donated my copy to the library a couple of years back, but maybe I shouldn't have. The Democrats are hatin' on the Jews like there's no tomorrow. We're going to see some partisan realignment in 2020's voting, or we should see some. If Jewish voters keep backing the racist Dems I'll be gobsmacked. *Shrugs.*

At Amazon, Norman Podhoretz, Why Are Jews Liberals?

And prompted by John Hinderaker's post, linked at Instapundit, "THEY’VE EMBRACED IT: John Hinderaker: Do The Democrats Hate Hate? No."

Like the Labour Party in Great Britain, the Democratic Party has become a haven for anti-Semites.

Seriously.

Is 'War and Peace' the 'Greatest of All Novels'?

I don't think so, but then, it's been 30 years since I read that brick, lol.

At Amazon, Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (Penguin Classics, Deluxe Edition).

And at the New Criterion:

Just 150 years ago, in 1869, Tolstoy published the final installment of War and Peace, often regarded as the greatest of all novels. https://t.co/nuTW57V6At

— The New Criterion (@newcriterion) March 6, 2019

Nazi Swastika at Newport Harbor High School Kegger Party

This is mind-boggling to me, but then, it's almost 75 years since the end of World War II and the defeat of the Nazis. Perhaps there's something to the effect of "historical amnesia" among today's youth. Still, the education system is doing Generation Z no favors. Sooner or later folks have to take responsibility, and some of these kids at the party could have their futures seriously effed up.

At the Los Angeles Times:

Teens involved in swastika party apologize as outrage grows. ‘My actions were disgusting’ https://t.co/6dZfYjXtXt

— L.A. Times: L.A. Now (@LANow) March 5, 2019

“Ignorance is the soil from which evil takes root. When we get to a point where it’s elected officials appearing in blackface in younger days and younger people today making light of the Holocaust, it shows an incredible stressor on the civic fault lines” https://t.co/NS77ss2f6W

— Hailey Branson-Potts (@haileybranson) March 6, 2019

When Kaitlyn saw the Snapchat photos of fellow Orange County teenagers posing around a swastika made of red Solo cups, she immediately posted a screenshot to social media, expecting outrage.

Instead, she got a mixed response. Some people were offended by the display. But others said they were more surprised by the outcry — arguing that students, some posed with their arms raised in Nazi salutes, were just joking.

“How can these kids who have been educated about [the Holocaust] still find it funny?” said Kaitlyn, a 17-year-old student at a private Jewish school in Irvine.

The Holocaust is a standard topic covered in history classes, and “The Diary of Anne Frank” is often required high school reading. But with time, knowledge of the Nazi atrocities among young people has decreased. And some darker ideas are filling the void.

A study commissioned last year by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany showed that 66% of U.S. millennials did not know what the Auschwitz concentration camp was. Four in 10 millennials thought 2 million or fewer Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust; the actual number is around 6 million.

For people born after 2000, post-millennials, the Holocaust feels less real, as they’re less likely to hear from the ever-dwindling number of survivors and WWII veterans, said Edward Dunbar, a UCLA clinical professor who has researched hate crimes and violence for two decades.

“These forms of atrocities are fading far into the distance for young non-adults, adolescents and teenagers, and it’s no closer than the Civil War would be for them,” Dunbar said.

Brian Levin, director of Cal State San Bernardino's Center on Hate and Extremism, said revisionist history about issues like the Holocaust can eventually lead to hate crimes.

What’s most disturbing about incidents like the Costa Mesa party last weekend, he said, is that most of the students likely are not “hardened bigots” but that Nazi symbols have become so mainstreamed that their meaning has been diluted.

“What’s scary is that there’s far more ignorance in America than evil, but ignorance is the soil from which evil takes root,” Levin said. “When we get to a point where it’s elected officials appearing in blackface in their younger days and younger people today making light of the Holocaust, it shows an incredible stressor on the civic fault lines.”

The Orange County incident comes as hate crimes are spiking nationwide. From 2014 to 2017, anti-Semitic hate crimes rose 54%, according to the FBI.

Particularly alarming, experts on hate and extremism said, is the rise in incidents on school campuses. In California, there was a 65% increase in hate crimes on elementary and secondary school campuses from 2012 to 2017, according to a report by the state’s Department of Justice.

There has been a huge jump in recent years of reported “papering” incidents on high school and college campuses, with hate groups posting fliers with slogans like, “It’s OK to be white” and “protect your heritage,” Levin said.

The Orange County teenagers, who were attending a Costa Mesa house party, were far from the only ones to have invoked Nazi iconography or gestures.

In December, students at Matilija Junior High School in Ojai lay down on a field in the shape of a swastika and shared a photo in a group chat that included racist comments. In 2016, a sophomore at Shadow Hills High School came to class dressed as a Nazi on Halloween, and the school held sensitivity training after pictures of her circulated on Twitter and Snapchat.

High school students in New Jersey, Florida, Kansas and Georgia have been punished in recent years after posting photos of a beer pong-style drinking game called “Jews versus Nazis,” in which teams arrange plastic cups in the shape of swastikas and the Star of David.

After Kaitlyn, who did not want her last name used out of concern she would be targeted online, posted screenshots from the party, a friend texted her screenshots showing a Snapchat conversation among some of the students at the house that night. They were making insensitive jokes about the Holocaust.

“Yaaaa no, phones gonna die,” one student wrote. “Just like the Jews.”

The students had titled the conversation “master race.”

One said to be at the party posted an Instagram story with what initially looked like an apology, saying he was “very sorry for my actions as I am guilty by association.” In the next image, he wrote that he was just joking, that “last night was awesome” and that he had “absolutely no sympathy” for anybody who was offended. He claimed to be Jewish. Then he deleted his account...

I Was Assaulted at Berkeley Because I'm Conservative

Great, great piece from Hayden Williams, at USA Today:

I was assaulted at U.C. Berkeley because I'm conservative. Free speech is under attack. #HaydenWilliams #Berkeley #RadicalLeft 😣 https://t.co/WeQQXNkntv

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) March 7, 2019

And his attorney today at his arraignment demanding the "presumption of innocence," when it was all caught on video, lol. The dude will take a plea deal of some sort, but if it doesn't include time behind bars conservatives should riot just like leftists, heh.

Irony: Zachary Greenberg’s lawyer demanding the presumption of innocence “a right,” after her thug client was recorded on camera repeatedly punching a guy in the face over free speech, the victim’s right. Throw the book at him. https://t.co/b9bFZ0g4rg

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) March 6, 2019

Faith Goldy Interviews Michelle Malkin at CPAC (VIDEO)

Following-up, "And to Think, I Was Actually Following This Guy *SHRUGS*."

Faith Goldy's a correspondent for V-Dare now, I guess. I like both Faith and V-Dare. I just don't like so-called conservatives veering over into Nazism, which is what that idiot Nick Fuentes is doing.

Nice interview with Michelle, in any case:

And to Think, I Was Actually Following This Guy *SHRUGS*

It's Nicholas Fuentes, who I thought I'd give a follow a month or two ago, but then I saw him tweeting vile anti-Israel tropes, and dink! Unfollowed the f***er.

And for some reason, I just came across this editorial, out today, at the Iowa State Daily, "Editorial: Iowa State deserves the right to know about controversial speakers."

I'm not for punching Nazis, but I don't think top conservatives should be mainstreaming racist goons like this guy, and apparently Fuentes was getting some attention from "alt-right" icons at CPAC, including Faith Goldy, who I like (but who is too close to genuine racists).

In any case, we live in interesting times, as they say.

Completely unedited pic.twitter.com/l9psFUvwZg

— Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) March 3, 2019