Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Britney Spears Stretching

I wonder how she's doing lately, with all her legal issues?

At Drunken Stepfather, "BRITNEY SPEARS DEEP STRETCH OF THE DAY."

'Suddenly, banks have been left grudgingly weighing the benefits of a party run by neo-Marxists, radical union leaders and lawmakers with a history of supporting communist regimes...'

You can't be serious?!

You gotta read this piece on Britain's Labor Party, and especially how open Labor is to what's essentially a communist political economy.

At the New York Times, "Jeremy Corbyn or No-Deal Brexit? The U.K. Might Have to Choose":

LONDON — He is the bane of bankers, a bearded, teetotaling socialist often derided in the British press and in Parliament for his efforts to suppress dissent inside the Labour Party and his radical plans to remake the British economy.

But in the unmitigated chaos of Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition Labour leader, is trying to remint himself as a safe pair of hands, and an unlikely salve to jittery British markets panicked by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plans for an abrupt split with the European Union.

And, surprisingly, it might be working.

“‘What method of execution would you prefer?’ is basically the question,” said David Willetts, a Conservative former minister who was once an aide to Margaret Thatcher. “Corbyn would in normal circumstances look like an off-the-scale risky gamble. However, Brexit is the single biggest change in Britain’s economic and political relations in 40 years, so Brexit itself is an off-the-scale economic gamble.”

With an early election looming, Mr. Johnson’s Conservative Party, once a friend to big business and a refuge for establishment figures of all types, has torched one convention after another, creating dust-ups with Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Court and Parliament. The prime minister’s proposed Brexit deal, proffered last week to Brussels, was met with so much dismay that most analysts believe he is fully resigned to Britain leaving the bloc without one.

That has turned Mr. Corbyn — a lifelong rabble-rouser and one of the most left-wing leaders in Labour’s century-long history — into an improbable figure of restraint. He is implacably opposed to a no-deal Brexit and promises a second referendum that could reverse the split altogether...
Keep reading.

Saturday, October 5, 2019

Amateur Rocks Black Dress (VIDEO)

Watch, "Amateur: The Hardest a Black Dress Has Ever Been Rocked."

James Bond Nostalgia

On Twitter:




The 'Just Society' of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

It's statist collectivism, socialism in all but name.

At Fox News, "AOC pushes national rent control, welfare for illegal immigrants in latest massive proposal":


Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is promoting a new package of left-wing economic policies, including national rent control and expanding welfare to illegal immigrants across the country, as part of a massive new proposal aiming to achieve a “just society.”

The freshman lawmaker, who champions the multi-trillion-dollar Green New Deal proposal to combat economic inequality and climate change, has now proposed a package of bills aimed at solving perceived economic injustice.

“A just society provides a living wage, safe working conditions, and healthcare. A just society acknowledges the value of immigrants to our communities. A just society guarantees safe, comfortable, and affordable housing,” the website for the package says. “By strengthening our social and economic foundations, we are preparing ourselves to embark on the journey to save our planet by rebuilding our economy and cultivate a just society.”

That “Just Society” proposals are made up of six different pieces of legislation that deal with issues including housing, welfare, poverty and human rights.

“The Place to Prosper Act” would prevent year-over-year rent increases of more than three percent. Meanwhile, “The Embrace Act” would allow illegal immigrants to claim the same welfare benefits as U.S. citizens and those immigrants here legally,

“Notwithstanding any other provision of law ... an individual who is an alien (without regard to the immigration status of that alien) may not be denied any Federal public benefit solely on the basis of the individual’s immigration status,” the bill reads.

A federal public benefit is defined as: “any grant, contract, loan, professional license, or commercial license provided by an agency of the United States or by appropriated funds of the United States; and...any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for which payments or assistance are provided to an individual, household, or family eligibility unit by an agency of the United States or by appropriated funds of the United States.”

A similar bill “The Mercy in Re-entry Act” uses similar language to stop the granting of public benefits based on whether a person was convicted of a criminal offense...
Yes, let's joke about what a "crazy person" she is, but imagine, if folks don't take this seriously, what will happen if the Democrats win power in 2020.

'The impeachment nightmare that House Democrats are so eagerly plunging the country into now is merely another outbreak of that party’s inability to accept the voters’ verdict of 2016...'

From Andrew Malcolm, at McClatchy, "Clinton and Russia didn’t take down Trump, so Democrats try Ukraine and impeachment":

Donald Trump’s unlikely victory was so shocking for Hillary Clinton and her lazy, overconfident campaign team and supporters that she was emotionally unable to compose herself for a concession speech until the next day.

Which suggests to many that voters made the correct choice for commander in chief, even if they have real doubts about Trump.

Clinton and her crowd have never recovered. Even before Trump took the oath and could perform an actual high crime or misdemeanor in office, an impeachment campaign was underway.

Now, billionaire Tom Steyer and noisy segments of that Democratic caucus have finally succeeded in forcing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to launch the preliminary impeachment inquiry, which — news flash! — has actually been playing out in the House Judiciary Committee since mid-summer. The Ukraine phone call is the cover story for a foregone impeachment conclusion.

It’s never surprising anymore that politicians alter their tune with each day’s changing climate. Here’s Pelosi last March:

“Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.”

Here’s Pelosi last week: “Right now, we have to strike while the iron is hot.”

The president’s high crime she professed to see even before the July Ukraine phone transcript emerged was Trump pressuring Ukraine’s president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. Ukraine’s president has denied any quid pro quo or feeling any pressure from Trump.

Here’s an amazing irony that somehow hasn’t attracted the same volume of media attention: That same Joe Biden is currently on the presidential campaign trail, boasting that, in fact, as a sitting vice president he did threaten Ukraine with a quid pro quo loss of aid if it didn’t fire the prosecutor investigating an energy company that was paying Biden’s son $50,000 a month for something. Biden succeeded.

This latest assault on Trump was sparked by a whistleblower alleging, albeit secondhand, that the president personally was pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, a possible opponent next year. Turns out, the informant is a CIA employee, giving credence to a prescient 2017 warning from Sen. Chuck Schumer when Trump first criticized intelligence agencies.

“Let me tell you,” Schumer said, “You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

Realistically, neither of these impeachment inquiries will accomplish anything. That is, beyond drowning out any other attempts at newsmaking to impress voters...
More.

Xi Jinping Jonesin' for Maoism

This is interesting.

From Elizabeth Economy, at Foreign Affairs, "China’s Neo-Maoist Moment: How Xi Jinping Is Using China’s Past to Accomplish What His Predecessors Could Not":

Few countries commemorate historical milestones with the zeal of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and 2019 offers a bonanza of celebratory opportunities: 40 years since Deng Xiaoping launched the economic reforms that opened China to the rest of the world; 40 years since China and the United States established diplomatic relations; and, on October 1, 70 years since the founding of the PRC. These events provide the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opportunities to laud past achievements, legitimize the course it has set for the country, and rally support for challenges yet to come. And as Chinese President Xi Jinping surveys the country’s progress, he can point to any number of extraordinary economic, social, and geopolitical achievements.

Outside observers tend to credit the Deng-era reforms for China’s meteoric rise. But Xi and the rest of the Chinese leadership are more focused on the earliest years of the PRC—when Mao Zedong sat at the helm of the Communist Party. Like Mao, Xi has prioritized strengthening the party, inculcating collective socialist values, and rooting out nonbelievers. Like Mao, who invoked “domestic and foreign reactionaries” to build nationalist sentiment and solidify the party’s legitimacy, Xi has adopted a consistent refrain of unspecified but “ubiquitous” internal and external threats. And like Mao, Xi has encouraged the creation of a cult of personality around himself.

Yet Xi has revived the methods and symbols of Maoism not in service of a return to the past but in order to advance his own transformative agenda, one that seeks to ensure that all political, social, and economic activity within, and increasingly outside of, China serves the interests of the CCP. He is creating a model that reasserts the power of the Communist Party; progressively erases the distinction between public and private in both the political and economic spheres; and seeks to integrate foreign actors, including private businesses, more deeply into a system of CCP values and institutions. Xi also aspires to accomplish what Mao and his successors could not: to render irrelevant the political and physical boundaries separating Taiwan and Hong Kong from the mainland, and to offer China as a legitimate model for other countries disinclined toward liberal democracy.

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1949

Party ideology increasingly pervades everyday life in China, narrowing the space for the expression of alternative views. The government heavily censors the Internet; limits foreign television content; and has called for schools to be “strongholds of Party leadership,” punishing professors for using unapproved texts or “defaming the rule of the Communist Party.” At the same time, Xi’s contribution to CCP theory, known as Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, is pumped relentlessly through the system: more than 100 institutes devoted to Xi Jinping Thought have sprung up over the past few years; a phone app, Study Strong Country, offers mandatory quizzes for party members on Xi’s thoughts and activities; and even college entrance exams now feature political questions tied to the leader’s campaigns and sayings—a practice, journalist Zheping Huang notes, that was popular during Mao’s tenure.

The CCP also seeks to shape the daily choices of its citizens, influencing their behavior to better reflect the interests of the party. One element of this enterprise is the social credit system, an ambitious experiment in social engineering designed to evaluate the trustworthiness of Chinese citizens and condition their behavior through punishments and rewards. Underway in more than 40 pilot programs throughout the country, the social credit system is slated to be rolled out nationally in 2020. As the China scholar Rogier Creemers has observed, this system is about “doing things that are right and incentivizing things that are right. But right is not something that people get to sort out for themselves. It doesn’t call upon individual moral autonomy, rather it calls upon obeisance to, and compliance with, a certain state-defined version of the good.”

In one pilot program in eastern China, for example, people receive points for donating bone marrow or performing other good deeds, but lose points for late payment of bills or traffic tickets. Other programs penalize citizens for participating in protests. While much of this tracking and accounting is done with technology, the CCP has also revived Mao-era tactics: paying elderly residents to report on the behavior of their neighbors, publicly celebrating model citizens while shaming those who fall short. As one government document noted, the objective of the social credit system is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.” It is a motto that can be taken literally: in 2017, more than six million Chinese were barred from air travel as a result of social credit misdeeds...
A nightmare, and this is the country with designs for regional, if not global, hegemony.

See previously, "China's Military Power."


Friday, October 4, 2019

Angry Joe Biden (VIDEO)

Boy, ask him about his influence peddling and does he really get pissed off.


President Trump Warns Speaker Pelosi: White House Won't Cooperate Until Full House Votes on Impeachment

This is how it's done.

At the Epoch Times, "White House to Send Pelosi Letter Refusing Compliance With Demands Until Impeachment Inquiry Vote."

Hannity: Release the Biden-Ukraine Phone Transcript (VIDEO)

Hannity's on it:



Megan Parry's Friday Forecast

It's cooled down a bit.

Here's the wonderful Ms. Megan, for ABC News 10 San Diego:



Happy Devin Brugman

She's still got it.


What Did Adam Schiff Know and When Did He Know It?

Here's the great Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "Schiff’s Shifty Timeline":

If the latest impeachment push continues to backfire, Democrats can thank their duplicitous House Intelligence chairman, Adam Schiff.

The New York Times reported this week that the “whistleblower” who set off the latest inquisition provided an “early warning” to Mr. Schiff’s committee that he or she was filing a complaint over Donald Trump’s July 25 call to Ukraine’s president. The media is now at pains to stress that whistleblowers do sometimes reach out to Congress, that all “procedures” were followed, and that what really matters is the accusation that Mr. Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.

Actually, it matters a great deal that Mr. Schiff knew about this early and withheld it deliberately from both the public and his House colleagues. He used his advance information to lay the groundwork steadily for later exploitation of the issue. He went so far as to charge the White House with a coverup—of a complaint he already knew about. The timeline of this orchestrated campaign is another knock to the legitimacy of the so-called impeachment inquiry. If the public can’t trust Mr. Schiff to be honest about the origins of his information, why should they trust his claim that the information itself is serious?
RTWT.

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Katie Bell

I have no idea who this woman is, but some conservatives on Twitter have been retweeting her.


Stacy Poole

Seen on Twitter:

[Update: You gotta click on the photos to see Ms. Stacy's humongous rack in all its glory.]


Democrats Will Destroy America’s Energy Sector … And Economy

At Issues & Insights:



China's Military Power

At the Los Angeles Times, "The military might showed off at China’s 70th anniversary parade moved some Chinese to tears. Here’s why."

And watch this astonishing video, seriously:


Missouri Executes Russell Bucklew

I covered the Eighth Amendment in my classes today and shared this story with my students. From the piece:

Bucklew's girlfriend, Stephanie Ray, left him on Valentine's Day 1996. Over the next few weeks, according to court records, he harassed her, cut her with a knife and punched her in the face.

Ray feared for her life and the lives of her children, so she moved into the Cape Girardeau County mobile home that her new boyfriend, Michael Sanders, shared with his children.

On March 21, after stealing his nephew's car and taking two pistols, handcuffs and duct tape from his brother, Bucklew followed Ray to Sanders' home. Sanders confronted Bucklew with a shotgun inside the home. Bucklew fired two shots, one piercing Sanders' lung. He bled to death.

Bucklew then shot at Sanders' 6-year-old son and missed. Court records say he struck Ray in the face with the pistol, handcuffed her and dragged her to his car. He later raped Ray before heading north on Interstate 55.

A trooper spotted Bucklew's car and eventually became engaged in a gunfight near St. Louis. Both men were wounded. Bucklew later escaped from the Cape Girardeau County Jail. He attacked Ray's mother and her boyfriend with a hammer before being recaptured.

Pilate and another attorney for Bucklew, Jeremy Weis, said in a statement that Bucklew was remorseful for his crimes.

Morley Swingle, who was Cape Girardeau County prosecutor when the crimes occurred, said they were among the most heinous of his career.

"He is probably the most pure sociopath I ever prosecuted," Swingle said of Bucklew. "He was relentless in the way he came after his victims."
A human piece of garbage, the guy was on death row for 23 years. Boy, did he ever enjoy some due process, sheesh.

Five Observations on the Politics of Impeachment

From Sean Trende, at RCP:


Plus: