Thursday, January 9, 2020

Bernie Sanders Scores the Coveted Emily Ratajkowski Covered Topless Endorsement (VIDEO)

Well, she's not covered topless in this video, but still.

How does make you feel to lust after the body of one of the world's most beautiful women when in the end she's really just down for the lumpenproletariat expropriated by the corporate hyenas of late-stage global capitalism?

Pfft.

I don't try to think about all the complicated stuff. Just fap off you losers, lol.


Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes

She's a great writer, Bridget Phetasy, at Quillette, "Ricky Gervais, Man of the People":

In a room filled with self-absorbed narcissists, one brave, slightly less self-absorbed narcissist had the balls to speak truth to power—and his name is Ricky Gervais.

If courage had a face, it would be a slightly overweight, pasty British multi-millionaire drinking a pint. Taking the stage to host his fifth and final (allegedly) Golden Globe Awards, Ricky spoke for us, the oppressed, six-figure earning, working middle-class, little guy.

I may not have ever flown on a private jet to a private island with a temple, but I got an upgrade to First Class once, and those warm nuts have a way of seducing you into believing anyone cares about your shitty takes. In fact it was on that flight I was inspired to become an opinion writer. I appreciate your hypocrisy, Hollywood, it makes me feel better about my own...
Read it all.

And the video from the broadcast is at the link.

Angry Black Lady Gets Angry at Celebrity Fitness Trainer Jillian Michaels, Who Suggested Lizzo's Morbid Obesity Isn't Something to Be Celebrating

Michaels is doubly guilty in that, yes, it's gauche to criticize someone's weight publicly, but it's particularly objectionable if the critic is white.


Tom Steyer Surges

Well, money buys political viability. Who knew?

At the Des Moines Register, "Is Tom Steyer surging? Businessman qualifies for Des Moines debate after polls show him in top 3 in Nevada, South Carolina":

WASHINGTON – Political activist Tom Steyer will be on the Democratic primary debate stage Tuesday, barely making the cut after surging in a Nevada and a South Carolina poll were released Thursday evening.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is leading in Nevada at 23%, according to a Fox News poll. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont follows at 17%. Steyer and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are tied in third place at 12%.

Pete Buttigieg, the former South Bend, Indiana mayor, trailed those four candidates at 6%, followed by entrepreneur Andrew Yang at 4%.

The Nevada poll was conducted Jan. 5 to Jan. 8, with 1,505 Nevada voters interviewed on both landlines and cellphones. Interviews were offered in English or Spanish. Of those interviewed, 635 identified as potential participants in the Democratic caucus. There is a margin of error plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In a separate Fox News South Carolina poll, Biden again led the pack with 36% support. Steyer is in second place with 15%, followed by Sanders at 14% and Warren at 10%.

The South Carolina poll was conducted Jan...
Also at Memeorandum.

South African Model Leah Sanders

At Drunken Stepfather, she's beautiful, "LEAH SANDERS SOUTH AFRICAN OF THE DAY."

'Juice Jacking'

Never heard of it before, but this totally makes sense.

At Instapundit, "USB IS TERRIBLY UNSECURE: Here’s why you should never use a public phone charger. “You could be the victim of ‘juice jacking’."

After Leaving '60 Minutes', Lara Logan Makes Comeback on 'Fox Nation' (VIDEO)

This woman is a beacon of truth and moral clarity, and of course it was too much for the MSM establishment hacks at CBS.

Flashback to 2012, "Lara Logan Speaks Truth to War on Terror."

And today, at LAT, "A combative Lara Logan plans a comeback on Fox News’ streaming service. Can she succeed?":


NEW YORK  —  Veteran foreign correspondent Lara Logan keeps a video of her Texas Hill Country home on her iPad. It shows the sunlight streaming through large trees on the five-acre property with only the sounds of chirping birds and an occasional truck passing by.

Logan, who risked her life being embedded in war-torn regions, has no desire to leave the bucolic domicile, even as she starts rebuilding her career as the host of a new documentary series — “Lara Logan Has No Agenda” — debuting Monday on the Fox News-operated streaming service Fox Nation.

“I don’t want to leave my children,” Logan, 48, said in a recent interview at a studio at Fox News headquarters in midtown Manhattan. “I don’t want to move to New York or Los Angeles. I live in a small town. I’m very happy there.”

No one would blame the former CBS News star for seeking some serenity after a turbulent decade. In February 2011, she was sexually assaulted on the streets of Cairo’s Tahrir Square while covering the celebration of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation.

Two years later, a serious mistake in a “60 Minutes” report that questioned the Obama administration’s response to the September 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, led to a diminished role for Logan on the venerable newsmagazine program. She took a significant cut in her $2-million-a-year salary, and her contract with CBS was not renewed in September 2018, a stunning downfall for an award-winning journalist and sought-after TV news talent.

But the South Africa native’s combination of grit, charisma and candor has kept her in the spotlight. She resurfaced in February in a 3 ½ hour interview on the podcast of her friend, former Navy SEAL Mike Ritland, in which she described the news media as predominantly left-leaning.

“The media is mostly liberal everywhere, not just the U.S.,” Logan said. “We’ve abandoned our pretense, or at least the effort, to be objective today.”

Right-wing websites and commentators latched onto her remarks, which went viral online. Invitations came from Fox News for her to appear as a guest with its President Trump-supporting prime-time hosts, who nightly accuse mainstream media outlets of liberal bias.

A noodle soup without the soup? A chef doubles down on a sidelined dish.

Her segments were well-received by the Fox News audience, and host Sean Hannity even lobbied his bosses on the air to hire her. Logan’s newest assignment eventually followed.

Logan insists her remarks were not an attempt to position herself a politically partisan pundit for a polarized media age. Her commitment to Fox News is limited to her four-episode series. “I’m not trying to be an opinion person,” she said.

Logan believes viewers who stream her new program will see that it adheres to its “No Agenda” title, despite its association with the conservative-leaning network.

“I can’t control the media landscape,” Logan said. “What I can control is the work that I do. I’m going to do that the same way here the way I did it at ‘60 Minutes.’ To date nobody has tried to make me do anything other than that. Nobody.”

The first episode of “Lara Logan Has No Agenda” looks at immigration enforcement, largely from the perspective of U.S. border agents who work along the Rio Grande. But she also devotes significant time to depicting the dangers that undocumented migrants face, and avoids taking a side in the heated political debate surrounding the issue...
RTWT.

Devin Brugman Morning

Wake up to these things.



Click on the full image here.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Ilhan Omar Laughs While Sheila Jackson Lee Discusses U.S. Casualties in Iraq (VIDEO)

I mean, it just looks like she's unserious about this.

She's a U.S. Member of Congress.

In what for most people would be grave moment, she looks like she lining up for pictures at a high school dance, all laughs and giggles.

It's frankly abnormal.



Ukrainian Airliner May Have Been Shot Down in Iran

It's just too big of a coincidence for me, but it pays to be skeptical.

Maybe it was engine failure?

In any case, at the Conservative Treehouse, "Iran Refuses to Hand Over Black Box From Fatal Boeing Crash Near Tehran – Nose of SAM Missile Discovered Near Crash Site…"

And at New York Magazine, "It Sure Looks Like the Ukrainian Airliner May Have Been Accidentally Shot Down in Iran."





Remember, Russia Today is a Russian propaganda channel, although sometimes they post real news. (*Shrugs.*)

Turmoil in Middle East Upends Democrat Primaries

I think Dems are jockeying to see who's the most anti-American.

At the Los Angeles Times, "U.S.-Iran turmoil scrambles Democrats’ 2020 race, shifting focus to war and peace":

WASHINGTON  —  President Trump’s order for the targeted killing of a top Iranian general and Iran’s quick retaliation have scrambled the 2020 campaign, thrusting issues of war and peace to the center of a contest that so far has been dominated by domestic issues.
Iran’s launch of more than a dozen ballistic missiles against a U.S. military base in Iraq on Tuesday night guarantees that the political fallout from the killing of Gen. Qassem Suleimani will not fade any time soon.

“What’s happening in Iraq and Iran today was predictable,” former Vice President Joe Biden said at an event in Philadelphia as news of the attack broke. “Not exactly what’s happening but the chaos that’s ensuing,” he said, faulting Trump for both his past action — abandoning an international nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 — and his more recent decision last week ordering Suleimani’s death by an armed drone in Baghdad.

“I just pray to God as he goes through what’s happening, as we speak, that he’s listening to his military commanders for the first time because so far that has not been the case.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, opening a rally in Brooklyn Tuesday night, said of the retaliatory attacks, “This is a reminder of why we need to deescalate tension in the Middle East. The American people do not want a war with Iran.”

In the days before Iran’s strikes, the rising international tensions had abruptly sharpened Democrats’ disagreements about the U.S. role in the world, personified by the sparring between two front-runners for their party’s nomination — Biden, who’s had a hand in decades of U.S. foreign policy, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an anti-interventionist critic of those policies. Warren has echoed Sanders as she seeks to revive her flagging campaign.

The president’s strike order against Suleimani crystallized what Americans love or hate about Trump: It was the kind of impulsive show of force that fans embrace as tough-guy swagger, but critics fear as his dangerously erratic, even unhinged, behavior. “This brings together a lot of the critiques around Trump,” said Derek Chollet, a former Obama administration Pentagon official who is now executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund. “The weakening of our alliances, the haphazard process, the impulsive decision making, the almost fanatical desire to undo anything Barack Obama did, regardless of whether it is working or not.”

Trump’s decision, which surprised even his own military advisors, came just weeks before Democrats’ nominating contest begins with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, highlighting the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the top candidates.

Biden immediately embraced the opportunity to emphasize the value of his foreign policy experience in a world roiled by Trump’s “America first” policies, touching on his years in the Senate, including as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and as President Obama’s trusted wing man. He did so in Iowa on Saturday, but Tuesday he gave a more formal speech in New York.

Against a backdrop designed to exude presidential leadership — royal-blue draperies and a row of American flags — Biden promised relief from Trump-era chaos. “I understand better than anyone that the system will not hold unless we find ways to work together,” he said. To Democratic critics who dismiss his faith in his ability to work with Republicans, Biden said, “That’s not a naive or outdated way of thinking. That’s the genius and timelessness of our democratic system.”

Sanders has seized on the crisis to remind voters that he, unlike Biden, voted against the Iraq war and has long warned of the risks of U.S. interventions abroad.

“I have consistently opposed this dangerous path to war with Iran,” Sanders said at a recent Iowa stop. “We need to firmly commit to ending the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, in an orderly manner, not through a tweet.”

That message energizes his antiwar base but may be less appealing to party voters more broadly. A November CNN poll found that 48% of Democratic voters thought Biden was best equipped to handle foreign policy; 14% said Sanders was.

Warren has similarly expressed anti-interventionist sentiment, but Sanders’ supporters initially complained she wasn’t pointed enough in condemning Trump. That underscored the challenges she faces as she tries to appeal to Sanders supporters on the left while also appealing to more moderate voters.

Warren “wants to show contrast and pass the commander-in-chief test at the same time,” said Heather Hurlburt, a former Clinton administration foreign policy official at New America, a think tank.

For Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and an Afghanistan war veteran, the Middle East tumult is a double-edged sword, spotlighting his status as the only top-tier candidate who has served in the military, but also his political inexperience.

Whether the issue will continue to grab candidates’ and voters’ attention will hinge on the unpredictable fallout in coming days and weeks. Trump’s response to the Iranian attacks will be fraught with political risks, especially to the extent he is seen as having provoked the hostilities. Typically in campaign seasons, most polls find that foreign policy is not a high priority for voters more preoccupied with economic issues, but when American lives are at risk, the stakes rise.

In most national elections since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, issues of war and peace have been powerful factors. In 2002, Republicans benefited from the post-9/11 political environment under President George W. Bush, whose approval rating was over 60%, and the president’s party gained congressional seats in a midterm election for only the second time since 1934.

In 2004, Democrats’ growing opposition to the Iraq war helped propel Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, a Vietnam War veteran, to the presidential nomination. “I’m reporting for duty,” he said at the convention. But Republicans savagely misrepresented his military record, helping Bush to eke out a reelection victory.

Four years later, opposition to the war also helped vault first-term Sen. Barack Obama first to the party’s nomination over Sen. Hillary Clinton, who voted in 2002 to authorize the war, and then to victory over the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a hawkish supporter of the war.

When Clinton ran again in 2016, her early support for the war again was attacked by her primary opponent, this time Sanders. During the general election campaign against her, Trump tapped into Americans’ rising weariness with what he called “endless wars” and promised to bring troops home and to reduce America’s military role in the world.

To date, Democrats’ 2020 campaign had focused mostly on domestic issues — healthcare, income inequality, gun control and climate change — and on Trump’s fitness for office.


Celebrate David Bowie's Birthday

At Boing Boing, "Happy Bowiemas! Celebrate by listening to Bowie yucking it up impersonating other singers."

I miss him.

A Legitimate Contender, Establishment Democrats Afraid Bernie Sanders Could Win

Frankly, I hope he does win.

We'll have a very clear choice in November. And at least with Bernie, the rank-and-file won't be able to claim their party's "not socialist."

At the Associated Press:

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Increasingly alarmed that Bernie Sanders could become their party’s presidential nominee, establishment-minded Democrats are warning primary voters that the self-described democratic socialist would struggle to defeat President Donald Trump and hurt the party’s chances in premier House, Senate and governors’ races.

The urgent warnings come as Sanders shows new signs of strength on the ground in the first two states on the presidential primary calendar, Iowa and New Hampshire, backed by a dominant fundraising operation. The Vermont senator has largely escaped close scrutiny over the last year as his rivals doubted the quirky 78-year-old’s ability to win the nomination. But less than a month before Iowa’s kickoff caucuses, the doubters are being forced to take Sanders seriously.

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, previously a senior aide to President Barack Obama, warned Democrats that Sanders’ status as a democratic socialist and his unwavering support for “Medicare for All” won’t play well among swing voters in the states that matter most in 2020.

“You need a candidate with a message that can help us win swing voters in battleground states,” Emanuel said in an interview. “The degree of difficulty dramatically increases under a Bernie Sanders candidacy. It just gets a lot harder.”

The increasingly vocal concerns are coming from a number of political veterans tied to the Obama administration and the 2020 field’s moderate wing, including those backing former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet.

In some ways, the criticism is not surprising.

Sanders has spent decades fighting to transform the nation’s political and economic systems, creating a long list of political adversaries along the way. Many people connected to Hillary Clinton, for example, still blame Sanders for not working hard enough to support her after their long and bitter presidential primary feud in 2016. Some Democrats still accuse him of not being enough of a team player.

Sanders’ chief strategist Jeff Weaver dismissed the growing criticism as a reflection of the strength of his candidacy.

He raised more money than any other Democratic candidate in the last quarter — virtually all of it from small-dollar donors — and he’s considered a legitimate contender to win Iowa and New Hampshire next month...

'13 Minutes'

At the People's Cube, lol.



Does It Even Need to Be Asked?

At the Other McCain, "Democrats: Pro-Iran or Anti-American?"

Disgruntled 93-Year-Old Shoots Apartment Manager in Las Vegas (VIDEO)

Well, I'd like to shoot my apartment manager sometimes too, dang!

At London's Daily Mail, "Astonishing moment a 93-year-old man shoots an apartment complex manager in both legs out of revenge after his Las Vegas home was hit by flooding."

And at ABC 7 Eyewitness News Los Angeles:



CNN Attacks Babylon Bee

This is endlessly tickling.

At Instapundit, "HEH: CNN Attacks Babylon Bee: ‘The Internet Is Only Big Enough For One Fake News Site’."


After Young Women Dies of Drug Overdose, Whittier Votes to Shut Down Homeless Encampment, Impose Curfew (VIDEO)

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:



New Sophie Mudd Bikini Photos

At Drunken Stepfather, "SOPHIE MUDD BIG TITS OF THE DAY."

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Leave Your Pronouns!

At the door, that is.

It's Boy George, of Culture Club fame, at Instapundit, "WHEN YOUR GENDER-BLENDING CAMPAIGN HAS LOST BOY GEORGE."

And Twitchy, "Does he really want to hurt SJWs? Boy George wants everyone to ‘leave your pronouns at the door!’"


BONUS: Flashback to 1995, at NYT, "Boy George: Switching Pronouns."

Kim Ghattas, Black Wave

At Amazon, Kim Ghattas, Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East.



What Tehran is Likely to Do Next

I think we're at war already.

It's been proxy war for 40 years.

The latest is the rocket strikes on Iraqi military bases (targeting American personnel).

No casualties yet, but this latest conflagration is really just getting started. Neither side seems to want deescalation, and each side's target domestic audience is highly supportive of the action, and thus there's little political incentive to stand down.

I'll have more, as I always do.

In any case, from Ilan Goldenberg, at Foreign Affairs, "Will Iran’s Response to the Soleimani Strike Lead to War?":
Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, was one of the most influential and popular figures in the Islamic Republic and a particular nemesis of the United States. He led Iran’s campaign to arm and train Shiite militias in Iraq—militias responsible for the deaths of an estimated 600 American troops from 2003 to 2011— and became the chief purveyor of Iranian political influence in Iraq thereafter, most notably through his efforts to fight the Islamic State (ISIS). He drove Iran’s policies to arm and support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including by deploying an estimated 50,000 Shiite militia fighters to Syria. He was the point man for Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon, helping to supply the group with missiles and rockets to threaten Israel. He drove Iran’s strategy to arm the Houthis in Yemen. For all these reasons and more, Soleimani was a cult hero in Iran and across the region.

In short, the United States has taken a highly escalatory step in assassinating one of the most important and powerful men in the Middle East.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump argues that Soleimani was a terrorist and that assassinating him was a defensive action that stopped an imminent attack. Both of those assertions may or may not be true, but the United States would never have felt compelled to act against the Iranian general if not for the reckless policy the administration has pursued since it came into office. In May 2018, Trump left the Iran nuclear agreement and adopted a “maximum pressure” policy of economic sanctions on Iran. For a year, Iran responded with restraint in an effort to isolate the United States diplomatically and win economic concessions from other parties to the nuclear agreement.

But the restrained approach failed to yield material benefits. By May 2019, Tehran had chosen instead to breach the agreement and escalate tensions across the region. First came Iranian mine attacks against international shipping in May and June. Then Iran shot down a U.S. drone, nearly touching off an open conflict with the United States. In September, Iranian missiles struck the Abqaiq facility in Saudi Arabia—arguably the most important piece of oil infrastructure in the world. Shiite militia groups began launching rockets at U.S. bases in Iraq, ultimately leading to the death of an American contractor last week. Retaliatory U.S. strikes eventually brought us to the Soleimani assassination.

The most important question now is how will Iran respond. The Islamic Republic’s behavior over the past few months and over its long history suggests that it may not rush to retaliate. Rather, it will carefully and patiently choose an approach that it deems effective, and it will likely try to avoid an all-out war with the United States. Nonetheless, the events of the past few days demonstrate that the risk of miscalculation is incredibly high. Soleimani clearly didn’t believe that the United States was going to dramatically escalate or he wouldn’t have left himself so vulnerable, only a stone’s throw away from U.S. military forces in Iraq. For his part, Trump has been adamant about his lack of interest in starting a new war in the Middle East—and yet, here we are at the precipice.

The United States must, at a minimum, expect to find itself in conflict with Shiite militias in Iraq that will target U.S. forces, diplomats, and civilians. Iraq is the theater where the U.S. strike took place and therefore the most rational place for Iran to immediately respond. Moreover, the militia groups have already been escalating their activities over the past six months. They are among Iran’s most responsive proxies and will be highly motivated, given that Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, one of their top commanders, was killed in the strike along with Soleimani.

Whether a U.S. presence in Iraq is still viable remains an open question. The security situation, which has certainly now been complicated, is not the only problem. The assassination was such an extreme violation of Iraqi sovereignty—done unilaterally, without Iraqi government consent—that Iraqi officials will come under tremendous political pressure to eject U.S. forces. Many Iraqis have no love for either the United States or Iran. They just want to have their country back to themselves and fear being put in the middle of a U.S.-Iranian confrontation. The current situation could turn into a worst-case scenario for these citizens.

But a chaotic U.S. withdrawal under fire could also present real dangers. The mission to counter ISIS remains a going concern, and if the United States is forced to leave Iraq, that effort could suffer a serious blow. ISIS retains an underground presence and could take advantage of the chaos of an American withdrawal or a U.S.-Iranian conflict to improve its position in Iraq.

The repercussions of the assassination won’t necessarily be confined to Iraq. Lebanese Hezbollah, which enjoys a close relationship with Iran and is likely to be responsive to Iranian requests, could attack American targets in Lebanon. Even if Iran decides to avoid a major escalation in Lebanon, Hezbollah operatives are distributed throughout the Middle East and could attack the United States elsewhere in the region. Alternatively, Hezbollah may choose to launch missile attacks on Israeli territory, although this response is less likely. Hezbollah wants to avoid an all-out war with Israel that would devastate Lebanon, and the Trump administration has publicly taken credit for killing Soleimani, increasing the likelihood that a retaliatory strike will target the United States directly.

Iran could conduct missile strikes against U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates or against oil facilities in the Gulf. The accuracy of Iran’s missile strikes on the Abqaiq oil facility in September took the United States and the rest of the world by surprise, although Iran did purposefully attempt to keep the attack limited and symbolic. In the current climate, Iran could choose to become much more aggressive, calculating that in the arena of missile strikes it has been highly successful in landing blows while avoiding retaliation over the past six months.

We should also expect Iran to significantly accelerate its nuclear program. Since the Trump administration left the Iran nuclear agreement in May 2018, Iran has been quite restrained in its nuclear response. After a year of staying in the deal, in May 2019, Iran began to incrementally violate the agreement by taking small steps every 60 days. The next 60-day window ends next week, and it is hard to imagine restraint in the wake of Soleimani’s death. At a minimum, Iran will restart enriching uranium to 19.75 percent, a significant step toward weapons-grade uranium. It has recently threatened to go even further by walking away from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or kicking out inspectors. These would be profoundly dangerous moves, and until this week most analysts believed Tehran was unlikely to actually make them. Now they may well be on the table.

Perhaps the most provocative thing Iran could do is carry out a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland or attempt to kill a senior U.S. official of Soleimani’s stature...

Tucker Carlson: 'Civilization Itself Is Coming Apart' (VIDEO)

Watch the whole thing:

TikTok Hype House in Los Angeles

I can't even.

You have kids, and some very young adults, who are the world's leading influencers on TikTok, which I'm still figuring out. I had to ask my oldest son what's so great about it.

In any case, this piece is fascinating, and mind-boggling.

At NYT:


Charles Murray, Human Diversity

At Amazon, Charles Murray, Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class.



Playmate Iryna in Bikini and Wet T-Shirt (I Think)

This woman's unreal.

Salma Hayek Slays the Golden Globes (PHOTOS)

Wow.

Just wow.

Also, at the N.Y. Post, "Cleavage-happy stars let it all hang out at the 2020 Golden Globes."

BONUS: Madeline Osburn, at the Federalist, "Thanks to the Golden Globes, Boobs are Officially Back."

Monday, December 30, 2019

Armed Congregants Kill Gunman at Texas Church (VIDEO)

At the Other McCain, "UPDATE: Texas Church Shooter Identified as Homeless Criminal Keith Kinnunen."

ABC's report, with video, is here.

Playmate Iryna Loves the Ocean

And she's completely nude here.


'Black Jews'

Seen on Twitter.

This person deleted her account.

Bose QuietComfort Wireless Bluetooth Headphones

Noise-cancelling.

At Amazon, Bose QuietComfort 35 II Wireless Bluetooth Headphones, Noise-Cancelling, with Alexa voice control, enabled with Bose AR – Black.

BONUS: Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble: A Novel.

Trump's 'Failures'

It's VDH, at American Greatness:


Barack Obama's Book Recommendations

He's very well read.


'We're Not Safe as Jews in New York'

From Emma Green, at the Atlantic:


Trump Ties Obama as Most Admired Man in 2019 — Leftist Heads Explode Everywhere

Heh.

How could this be possible? Trump as admired as Obama? No way!

So says Gallup, to exploding leftist heads everywhere.

Via Memeorandum:


Olga's Monday Forecast

It's kind of dreary outside today.

I'm talking my young son up to Yucca Valley (by Joshua Tree) to visit my older sister for New Year's.

Thought there was going to be snow on the road today, but it's not looking too bad right now.

Here's the beautiful Ms. Olga, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:



Brooke Shields Bikini

At Drunken Stepfather, "BROOKE SHIELDS IN HER BIKINI OF THE DAY."

Ashley Roberts Abs

At London's Daily Mail:


Jennifer Lopez in Red Latex

At Taxi Driver:


Sunday, December 29, 2019

The Return of Pogroms to Jewish American Life

It's Batya Ungar-Sargon, at the Jewish Daily Forward, "Why No One Can Talk About The Attacks Against Orthodox Jews" (via Memeorandum):
After the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Shabbat that killed 11 people last year, and another fatal shooting at a shul in Poway, California six months later, one often heard that the great threat to Jews – even the only threat – comes from white supremacy. Conventional wisdom said it was the political right, and the right’s avatar in the White House, that was to blame for the rising levels of hate against Jews.

But the majority of the perpetrators of the Brooklyn attacks, and the suspects in Jersey City — who were killed in a shootout with the police — and now Monsey, were not white, leaving many at a loss about how to explain it or even talk about it. There is little evidence that these attacks are ideologically motivated, at least in terms of the ideologies of hate we are most familiar with.

And therein lies the trouble with talking about the violent attacks against Orthodox Jews: At a time when ideology seems to rein supreme in the chattering and political classes, the return of pogroms to Jewish life on American soil transcends ideology. In the fight against anti-Semitism, you don’t get to easily blame your traditional enemies — which, in the age of Trump, is a non-starter for most people.

Of course, the rise in anti-Semitism is not incidental to the times we live in. While the Brooklyn attackers are, at least according to demographic trends, extremely unlikely to be Trump supporters, our president, who has a penchant for anti-Semitic tropes, is a conspiracy theorist, and anti-Semitism often manifests as a conspiracy theory about secretive Jewish power.

But conspiracy theories flourish on the left as well in today’s day and age. They twist and torque those rigid ideologies to which so many are enslaved, reshaping the extremes from polar opposites into a horseshoe whose ends meet — again and again — to justify, excuse, or muzzle criticism of anti-Semitism.

It has resulted in a staggering, shameful silence when it comes to speaking out on behalf of the wave of pogroms against the Orthodox. For many people, it seems when they can’t blame the other side of the political aisle, they would rather say nothing at all.

This is not acceptable. The Jewish community’s most visible, vulnerable members need Americans to stand up and say “no more.” They need us to climb out of our trenches and find common ground to fight this ugly resurgence of anti-Jewish hatred.

We can only fight this fight together, because it is a pox on all of our houses. It is only by remembering what unites us as Americans that we can help our fellow Jews and, as “Maoz Tzur” suggests, hasten the time of salvation.

Leftists Allowing — Encouraging — Anti-Semitism to Flourish

From Karol Markowicz, at the New York Post, "How liberals are allowing anti-Semitism to flourish" (via Memeorandum):
I first wrote about the uptick [of anti-Semitic attacks] in May. The reason the city’s liberal political class was ignoring it, I ­argued, is that the criminals don’t fit their picture of Evil Bigots. They aren’t, for the most part, MAGA-hat wearing white guys with tiki torches. In fact, many of the attackers are people of color, as investigative reporting by Tablet’s Armin Rosen and others has shown.

Imagine if they were white ­nationalists. How much faster would the mayor and other city leaders have taken action?

“A lot of folks were told it was unacceptable to be anti-Semitic,” de Blasio said in May. “It was ­unacceptable to be racist, and now they’re getting more permission.” The message was subtle but unmistakable: De Blasio was trying to pin the attacks in bright-blue New York on President Trump.

Hizzoner didn’t surrender the fantasy for some time. In June, he said: “I want to be very, very clear, the violent threat, the threat that is ideological, is very much from the right.”

He left unclear how the Big ­Apple had come to be populated by ideological far-right types beating up on Jews. His comments ­underscored his inability to truly counter the type of street-level ­anti-Semitism spreading through the city.

Will he face the facts now? Or will Jews need to actually die, not just be pummeled, for our leaders to grasp the threat?

“Anti-Semitism is an attack on the values of our city — and we will confront it head-on,”

De Blasio tweeted after this latest round of violence against Jews. He has to stop beating around the bush. These attacks aren’t an ­attack on “our values.” They’re attacks on visibly Jewish people.

De Blasio needs to stop trying to find a “them” to be the opposite of his “us.” His juvenile obsession with having the right adversaries allows anti-Semitism to flourish.

I used to write about Europeans and their apathetic attitudes ­toward the Jew-hatred around them. Synagogues torched, Jews beaten — just another day on the Continent.

But now the demon is here, in America. Worse, it’s stalking Jews with increasing regularity in New York City, my city, home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel. Hizzoner’s vague universalist rhetoric obscures this raw reality.

And it isn’t just his ideological blinders. The mayor has also helped create an anti-police ­atmosphere, in which the vigilant presence of officers is considered a bad thing. At an anti-police rally last month, there were signs calling for violence against the NYPD.

De Blasio’s response? He insinuated that the idea that there’s anti-police sentiment in our city is, yes, another right-wing plot.

In 2020 I don’t want to read ­another column like this one...

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Lia Marie Johnson Slips on Instagram

At Taxi Driver, "Lia Marie Johnson Accidental Slip on Instagram."

White Voters See Doom Without Trump

People keep talking about "civil war" but I don't see that happening.

Conservatives will continue to flee the progressive urban enclaves and coastal states, and leftists will continue to cluster into "high-density" shithole municipalities (think San Francisco), drinking their Veuve Clicquot in million dollar townhomes, while moaning about "inequality."

That said, I love the "civil war" metaphor and, frankly, I won't mind if it becomes more than a metaphor (calling Kurt Schlichter).

At NYT, "‘Nothing Less Than a Civil War’: These White Voters on the Far Right See Doom Without Trump":

GOLDEN VALLEY, Ariz. — Great American Pizza & Subs, on a highway about 100 miles southeast of Las Vegas, was busier and Trumpier than usual. On any given day it serves “M.A.G.A. Subs” and “Liberty Bell Lasagna.” The “Second Amendment” pizza comes “loaded” with pepperoni and sausage. The dining room is covered in regalia praising President Trump.

But this October morning was “Trumpstock,” a small festival celebrating the president. The speakers included the local Republican congressman, Paul Gosar, and lesser-known conservative personalities. There was a fringe 2020 Senate candidate in Arizona who ran a website that published sexually explicit photos of women without their consent; a pro-Trump rapper whose lyrics include a racist slur aimed at Barack Obama; and a North Carolina activist who once said of Muslims, “I will kill every one of them before they get to me.”

All were welcome, except liberals.

“They label us white nationalists, or white supremacists,” volunteered Guy Taiho Decker, who drove from California to attend the event. A right-wing protester, he has previously been arrested on charges of making terrorist threats.

“There’s no such thing as a white supremacist, just like there’s no such thing as a unicorn,” Mr. Decker said. “We’re patriots.”

As Mr. Trump’s bid for re-election shifts into higher gear, his campaign hopes to recapture voters who drifted away from the party in 2018 and 2019: independents who embraced moderate Democratic candidates, suburban women tired of Mr. Trump’s personal conduct and working-class voters who haven’t benefited from his economic policies.

But if any group remains singularly loyal to Mr. Trump, it is the small but impassioned number of white voters on the far right, often in rural communities like Golden Valley, who extol him as a cultural champion reclaiming the country from undeserving outsiders.

These voters don’t passively tolerate Mr. Trump’s “build a wall” message or his ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries — they’re what motivates them. They see themselves in his fear-based identity politics, bolstered by conspiratorial rhetoric about caravans of immigrants and Democratic “coups.”

But events like it, as well as speaking engagements featuring far-right supporters of the president, have become part of the political landscape during the Trump era. Islamophobic taunts can be heard at his rallies. Hate speech and conspiracy theories are staples of some far-right websites. If Trumpstock was modest in size, it stood out as a sign of extremist public support for a sitting president.

And these supporters have electoral muscle in key areas: Mr. Trump outperformed Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, in rural parts of Arizona like Mohave County, where Golden Valley is located. Mr. Trump won 58,282 votes in the county, compared to 47,901 for Mr. Romney, though Mr. Romney carried the state by a much bigger vote margin.

Arizona will be a key battleground state in 2020: Democrats already flipped a Senate seat and a Tucson-based congressional district from red to blue in 2018. For Mr. Trump, big turnout from white voters in areas like Mohave County — and in rural parts of other battlegrounds like Florida, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia — could be a lifeline in a tight election.

“We like to call this the ‘Red Wall of Arizona,’” said Laurence Schiff, a psychiatrist and Republican campaign official in Mohave County who organizes in support of Mr. Trump’s campaign. “Winning the state starts here, with us.”

Grass-roots gatherings play a critical role in the modern culture of political organizing, firing up ardent supporters and cementing new ones. Small circles of Trump-supporting conservatives, often organized online and outside the traditional Republican Party apparatus, engage in more decentralized — and explicit — versions of the chest-beating that happens at Mr. Trump’s closely watched political rallies...
More.

College Football's Best Semifinals Yet

I've been waiting for today.

With the exception of last night --- and USC's loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes --- I haven't watched any bowl games. Today and New Year's day will be great.

At NYT, "College Football Playoff Offers Its Strongest Semifinals Yet":
Critics of the College Football Playoff system, now in its sixth year, often lament its made-for-TV artificiality, its subjective selection process and the role it has played in widening the gap between the sport’s haves and its have-nots.

In reply, proponents of the system need only point to this weekend.

The four best teams in college football will meet Saturday in the most appealing semifinals since the three-game playoff format debuted after the 2014 season. The only tough decisions the selection committee had to make this year were how to seed this a group that includes four of the nation’s top offenses, three undefeated teams, two previous playoff champions, and all four of the Heisman Trophy finalists.

How these particular teams got to this point is pretty easy to decode: They are led by four of the sport’s most talented quarterbacks. The best, undeniably, is Louisiana State’s Joe Burrow, who guided the Tigers to the top ranking and won the Heisman Trophy by a record-breaking margin. The other quarterbacks in the semifinals are Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts, the Heisman runner-up; Ohio State’s dual-threat Justin Fields, who has thrown 40 touchdowns and only one interception this season; and Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, who as a freshman led the Tigers to a win over Alabama in the national title game last season.

Here’s a closer look at the two matchups on Saturday...

You Don't Say? Rachel Maddow Rooted for the Steele Dossier to Be True

At the Other McCain, "The 2019 Media Credibility Bonfire."

BONUS: At AoSHQ, "Washington Post Columnist Rips Rachel Maddow for Promoting Steele Dossier Conspiracy Theories for Three Years."

More, at Legal Insurrection, "Again We Ask: Why Isn’t Rachel Maddow Treated Like Other Crazy Conspiracy Theorists?"


New York Anti-Semitic Attacks (VIDEO)

At CBS News 2 New York, via Memeorandum, "NYPD Investigating 9th Anti-Semitic Attack Reported This Week."

And on Twitter, be sure to read the entire Seth Mandel thread:





Alex Biston's Cold Saturday Forecast

It's wet and cold out there, although the Grapevine is open again if you're traveling north up I-5.

Here's the lovely Ms. Alex, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:



BONUS: "Jennifer Delacruz's Weather Forecast."

At Least the Boat Captain Wasn't Texting

Rita Panahi posted this video, which I missed if it went viral at the time (a couple of years ago). But man is this wild.


Click on the tweet for the link to the earlier story. Apparently the boat pilot was not texting on his phone.

Roundup: Emily Ratajkowski's Shots

At TMZ, "Emily Ratajkowski's Topless Shots."


Thursday, December 26, 2019

Jennifer Delacruz's Winter Storm Forecast

Lots more weather coverage for you, this time from our fabulous forecaster, Ms. Jennifer, at ABC News 10 San Diego:



Massive Storm Hits Southern California

Following-up, "Nasty SoCal Weather."



Nasty SoCal Weather

Bunch of highways closed over night, not least of all the I-5 over the Grapevine.

I'm glad I'm not traveling.


Nice Rack

Not the guns, lol.


Can a Family of Four Enjoy a Major Sporting Event in Orange County/Los Angeles for $100 for Tickets, Food, and Parking?

My favorite games are Saturday nights at Anaheim Stadium, where Angels games are followed by fireworks. We sit up on the top deck usually, and tickets are about $50 bucks for the whole family, sometimes less. (Once in a while we'll get field level, but my wife likes sitting up top, as she's not craning her neck every which way for foul balls and what not.) I get hot dogs, peanuts, and beer --- then I hand my wallet over to the family for the rest of the night, lol.

In any case, a great piece, at the Los Angeles Times, "Good luck getting a family of four into a professional sport for $100 — not in good seats, but any seats":

A lifetime of sports fandom often starts with that first vision of the towering stadium before you, that first peek at the vibrant green grass of a ballpark, that first chance to see star players up close on the court and even closer on a gigantic video screen, that first moment to stand and scream for your team.

“We do remember that first ballgame our parents, our friend, our Scout troop might have taken us to,” said Andy Dolich, who has run marketing operations for teams in all five major North American sports. “It’s one of those indelible memories for tens of millions of people.”

That experience has become all but unaffordable for the typical family in the Los Angeles area.

As teams focus on maximizing revenue from the current generation of fans, they risk losing a future generation of fans, particularly at a time when kids limited to experiencing games on a screen might well prefer Fortnite to ESPN.

The arms race to turn athletic venues into opulent cash machines — with gourmet dining, finely appointed luxury suites, VIP seats within sweating distance of the action, and video boards suited for Hollywood premieres — has all but left the common fan behind. Good luck getting a family of four into a game for $100 — not in good seats, mind you, but in any seats.

Dolich is a former chief operating officer of the San Francisco 49ers and Golden State Warriors and a former president of business operations for the Memphis Grizzlies. He now runs a sports consultant firm, and he is worried for an industry in which kids are increasingly priced out.

“You’re not yelling. You’re not screaming. You’re just not going,” Dolich said. “That, I think, is the most pernicious part of it.”

The median income for a family of four in Los Angeles County is $78,673, according to the USC Price Center for Social Innovation. After accounting for the costs of housing, child care, health care, food, transportation and taxes, that family would be left with $3,413 in discretionary income for the year, $284 per month.

Elly Schoen, data and project manager at the Price Center, said it would be “reasonable” to consider $100 as a price point for a family day at a sporting event.

“You’re thinking about going out to one or two games a year,” Schoen said, “and you’re thinking about spending about half your monthly discretionary income on that kind of family outing.”

The Times asked the 11 major professional teams that call Los Angeles and Orange County home whether a family of four could attend a weekend game for $100 — tickets, parking, and something to eat and drink. When prices exceeded that amount, The Times asked teams what the most affordable option for a family might be.

The Angels are the only team that guarantees any family can get to a weekend game for that amount. The team offers a $44 family pack that includes four field-level tickets, four hot dogs, and four soft drinks. Parking at Angel Stadium is $10.

The Sparks offer a $100 family pack that includes tickets, food and autograph vouchers, with parking for an additional $10. The Galaxy offer a family deal for $128, including a $10 concession credit and souvenirs but not food or parking.

The Ducks have a weekend family pack at $120, not including parking. The Kings have a family pack at $220, which includes family activities before Saturday games and a skating session at the team’s training facility.

LAFC offers 200 first-come, first-served tickets at $22 each, with discounted food and drinks in that section.

The Clippers sell $10 tickets at Staples Center on game day — first come, first served, with 50 to 200 tickets available for each game. They also provide the 120,000 participants in their Jr. Clippers youth basketball program with a free ticket to one game each season; parents pay for their game tickets.

The Lakers suggested the option of their minor league affiliate, the South Bay Lakers. The team plays at the Lakers’ team headquarters in El Segundo, where parking is free, and a $125 family pack includes $40 in food and beverage credit.

The Chargers and Rams both noted that training camp is free, often with interactive activities designed for families. The lowest single-game price this season is $35 for the Rams and $70 for the Chargers, although the Chargers anticipate a lower price when they move into the larger Sofi Stadium next season.

The Dodgers declined requests to participate in the survey. According to the initial 2020 single-game prices posted on the team website last month, the Dodgers are selling tickets for as low as $10 to the two midweek Freeway Series exhibition games. The Dodgers are selling $21 tickets for only one weekend game next season; the minimum price for all others is $30...
Keep reading.

How Sam Mendes Made '1917'

I'd go see this one, but it's in limited release until January.

I love war films.

At NYT:

When the director Sam Mendes was a young boy, he and his father often traveled to the West Indies to visit his grandfather Alfred Mendes, a novelist. Sam, who had been brought up in North London, found his grandfather to be quite exotic: The small and wiry World War I veteran would sing opera in a booming Trinidadian accent, traipse around his creaky Colonial house in shorts and flip-flops and vigorously greet each morning with a pre-dawn plunge into the sea.

Alfred Mendes also had a tendency to obsessively wash his hands, always for several minutes at a time, to the point where Sam and his cousins noticed that above all his other quirks. “We would laugh at him,” the director recalled, “until I asked my dad, ‘Why does Granddad Alfie wash his hands so much?’ And he said, ‘Oh, he remembers the mud of the trenches during the war, and the fact that he could never get clean.’”

That’s when the boys stopped laughing at their grandfather. It’s also when they began asking what happened when, at age 19, Alfred Mendes enlisted and fought on behalf of Britain in what would become one of the world’s deadliest conflicts.

“We expected, I suppose, conventional stories of heroism and bravery,” Mendes said. “We certainly didn’t expect what he told us, which was unbelievably shocking and quite graphic tales of utter futility and chaos.”

There was the wounded soldier his grandfather carried back to the trench under enemy fire, only to discover once he arrived that the man was dead, his body having absorbed a bullet meant for Alfred. Another story involved a German soldier whose head was lost in an explosion, though his body somehow carried on running.

And then there was the mission that Alfred Mendes volunteered for on Oct. 12, 1917, after nearly a third of the men in his battalion had been killed in the Battle of Poelcappelle. The survivors were stranded across many miles, and Alfred, who had been trained as a signaler, was sent to rescue them and lead them back to his camp.

“That tiny man in the midst of that vast expanse of death, that was the thing I could never get out of my mind,” said Mendes.

It is the image that inspired the new film “1917,” directed and co-written by Mendes, about two British lance corporals who must make their way across miles of battleground to deliver an urgent message that could save 1,600 of their fellow soldiers from a massacre. Still, though the stories his grandfather told him had never been far from Mendes’s mind, that didn’t mean making a movie like this came easily...

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Katie Bell's Christmas Wishes

On Twitter:


Danielle Gersh's Christmas Forecast

I hope all my readers have a wonderful and warm Christmas.

Here's the spectacular Ms. Danielle, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles:



The Main Issue of 2020 Will Be Trump, Not the Economy

It's old Bill Schnieder, who was CNN's top political analyst in the 1990s (when Judy Woodruff and Bernard Shaw used to anchor), at the Hill, "Impeached, with a solid base and no apologies — Trump becomes the only issue of 2020."


Very Merry

Not sure if this is a Christmas photo, but it's nice.


Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Via Glenn Reynolds, at Instapundit, "DECEMBER 25, 2019: MERRY CHRISTMAS!"



Black Rifle Coffee Lady

I meant to post this earlier.

Been busy, understandably.

At Amazon, Light Roast Silencer Smooth by Black Rifle Coffee Company - 12 oz Bag of Coffee Grounds - Premium Gourmet Coffee - Perfect Coffee Lovers Gift.


Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Jennifer Delacruz's Christmas Eve Forecast

It's going to be chilly tonight.

Snuggle up by the fire and sip some hot chocolate before you tuck the kids in for the night.

Here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:



Evangelical Newspaper War

I saw this earlier, at the Daily Beast, via Memeorandum, "Editor Quits Amid Evangelical Newspaper Civil War Over Trump."

Here's the latest, at Christian Post, "Christianity Today and the problem with ‘Christian Elitism’."

And on Twitter, the background:


Gisele BΓΌndchen Out for Fashion

Well, Tom Brady's getting a mouthful at night, I guess.

She looks fresh.

At Drunken Stepfather, "GISELE BUNDCHEN TITS OUT FOR FASHION OF THE DAY."

Emma Watson Fashionista

At Celeb Jihad, "EMMA WATSON’S NUDE TITTIES FOR FUTURISTIC FASHION."


Monday, December 23, 2019

Olga's Rainy Weather Forecast

The lovely Olga Ospina, for CBS News 2 Los Angeles, a lot of rain in the Southland.



BONUS: At ABC News 10 San Diego, "Megan Parry's Monday Forecast."

Christmas Gift Ideas

At Amazon, Top Gift Ideas.

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

Plus, TAHARI Deluxe Automatic Open Wood Handle & Shaft Umbrella (Black).

More, Premium Horny Goat Weed Extract with Maca & Tribulus, Enhanced Energy Complex for Men & Women, 1000mg Epimedium with Icariins, Veggie Capsules.

More here, MusclePharm Combat Protein Powder - Essential blend of Whey, Isolate, Casein and Egg Protein with BCAA's and Glutamine for Recovery, Chocolate Milk, 4 Pound.

Plus here, MTech USA Xtreme MX-8054 Series Fixed Blade Tactical Knife, Tanto Blade, G10 Handle, 11-Inch Overall.

BONUS: Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.

Both Sides Dig In Over Senate Trial

Noah Feldman, who testified during the House impeachment hearings (before Nadler's Judiciary Committee), posted something of a bombshell piece at Bloomberg the other day, "If Trump's Impeached, Then Why Can't a Senate Start Now?"

The whole delay is totally predictable. The Dems are losing the debate over impeachment, which went down on straight party lines. Trump's approval ratings are at the highest points of his presidency. Some House Democrats were grumbling about how they only wanted to "censure" the president, not impeach. Blah, blah.

It's going to the Senate one way or another, mainly because the American people aren't going to stand for the left's shenanigans too much longer.

In any case, at LAT, "Trump impeachment trial: Squaring off in the Senate":


WASHINGTON —  A senior White House official and leading Senate Republicans predicted Sunday that congressional Democrats would fail in their bid to force the Senate to summon witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial.
Democrats countered by asking why, if Trump were innocent, he would block the testimony of top aides with direct knowledge of his dealings with Ukraine — actions that led the House of Representatives to approve two articles of impeachment against the president last week.

Following Wednesday’s vote, only the third time in history that the House has impeached a president, Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not immediately forward the articles to the Senate for trial.

Democrats said that, in light of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pledge to work in close concert with the White House, they were not satisfied the proceedings would be conducted fairly and impartially. Pelosi said she wanted clarity about what rules the Senate planned to follow before deciding which members of the House would act as the prosecutors, known as managers, of the case in the Senate.

Pelosi (D-San Francisco) is expected to send the articles to the Senate after the holiday recess. Senior White House aide Marc Short said he expected Republicans would make no concessions in return, even though Trump says he wants a quick trial in the GOP-controlled Senate.

“We’re confident this position is untenable, and she’s going to move it along,” Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence and a former White House legislative director, told “Fox News Sunday.”

“She will yield — there’s no way she can hold this position,” he said, referring to Pelosi.

The White House’s current opposition to witnesses in the Senate marks an about-face. Until recently, Trump was insisting he wanted extensive witnesses. He hoped to turn a trial into an opportunity for his lawyers to call prominent Democrats and force them to answer questions about his so-far-groundless allegations of misconduct among that party’s members. McConnell (R-Ky.) and other Senate Republicans opposed that idea and appeared to have convinced Trump to drop it.

Democratic lawmakers defended Pelosi’s delay.

“I think what she’s just trying to do is make sure the best possible case for a fair trial happens,” said Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Addressing Trump directly, Booker said: “If you’re innocent, have acting Chief of Staff [Mick] Mulvaney come before the Senate, swear to an oath — settle this whole thing.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Pelosi was doing “exactly the right thing” in “focusing a spotlight on the need to have a fair trial in the United States Senate.”

Since an impeachment inquiry began nearly three months ago, Trump has refused any cooperation by the executive branch. The blanket rejection of subpoenas for documents and squelching of appearances by key figures such as Mulvaney and Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo formed the basis for one of the two articles of impeachment, alleging obstruction of Congress. The other accuses Trump of abuse of power.

More than a dozen diplomats and current or former administration officials defied Trump’s instructions and testified in the House proceedings. Those witnesses helped House Democrats make their case that the president withheld crucial military aid and a coveted White House meeting as a means of pressuring Ukraine’s newly elected leader to announce investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Trump, who has never consistently accepted U.S. intelligence findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on his behalf, also asked President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in that election on behalf of Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent.

Although new evidence continues to emerge, Democrats say it is impossible to establish key details of what transpired if Trump blocks testimony by senior aides...
More at WaPo, via Memeorandum, "Impeachment live updates: McConnell, Pelosi dig in on impasse over Trump's Senate trial."