Inauguration Eve Overnight Open Thread (1/19/17)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Hit the road Barack.

Quotes of The Day

Quote I

“Can we stipulate for the purposes of this conversation that Donald Trump will never be President of the United States?”

Quote II

“Do you have any doubt that this is anything more than a carnival show?”- Andrea Mitchell

Quote III

“I do not hate Donald Trump, but I do not take him seriously. I thought, you know, everything that was garish and ridiculous about him was fully on display....Will it get him anywhere close to becoming the nominee or the President of the United States? I think not.” - John Heilemann

Quote IV

Let all the constipated Republicans leave the party. They're impotent, they've accomplished nothing, and they can't expect to keep getting votes from all the people they've screwed.-Ann Coulter

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A look back at newspapers around the world on November 8th & 9th.

The ONT Musical Interlude

*****

Hey Michelle, this one is for you.

As for Micelle's mother Marian Robinson, sucking off the taxpayer. NSFW

Paste eating Uncle Joe, This is a big deal. NSFW

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by The Thrill of Victory.....

And The Agony of Defeat..........

.........And Deplorables

Notice: Posted with permission by AceCorp, LLC. On Friday January 20th, 2017 if your schadenboner doesn't last for more than 4 hours consult a progressive.

Close it up

Election Night Replay, Final Thread: DONALD TRUMP DECLARED PRESIDENT ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES

—Ace

I'll post that noon tomorrow too, of course -- but it's so good I don't want to just post it the one time. Thanks so much to the Mega-Independent for that.

Here now the Victory Montage: Projections that Trump has won, and some reactions.

Here's CNN announcing that Trump will win Wisconsin.

Wolf Blitzer is once again badgering John King about the outstanding Hillary Clinton vote when Dana Whatever announces that Hillary Clinton has conceded to Trump.

Here's CNN's more formal declaration.

This is from earlier in the night: When MSNBC announces Trump has won North Carolina, Chris Matthews mutters "well that's a bitch" under his breath. He later said "Jesus" when Trump appeared to be winning Wisconsin.

People seem to like laughing at these nobodies The Young Turks, so here they are crying like fat babies as it becomes more clear Trump will win.

Here's Fox News, after calling Pennsylvania for Trump, and therefore declaring Trump president-elect.

Morning Joe and Mika enjoyed the results the next morning.

John Ekdahl had a point I think I'm allowed to repeat. He and I were watching these videos a couple of weeks ago, and he observed to me tonight that on election night itself, liberals were so shocked by the result that they could mostly only respond with the easiest sort of reaction: Honesty.

Here's Chris Matthews, for example, noting that Trump won because he not only took the popular side of a bunch of issues, but he was in fact the only major politician even talking about them.

However, sometime over the course of the 9th and the 10th, the left's "thought leaders" recovered enough to get back to a practiced style of response -- lying and postulating conspiracy theories.

In the first hours after the earthquake, liberals were somewhat honest about Hillary's poor campaign and the unpopularity of the Democrats' (and Obama's) issue arsenal.

But after the shock wore off, and they could engage their cognitive functions, they used their higher cognitive functions to begin making up lies, conspiracy theories, and blame-shifting excuses.

Interesting, I think.

ONT will be up in a bit, ONT-waiters.

I'd wanted to do this replay for a while. I wish I'd gotten on the ball earlier and gotten all the time-codes just right so that we could all be nicely synced on the various videos.

But, sloppy as it was, I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reliving the best recent political night with me.

Election Night Replay Thread Four:
BEHOLD LORD NIGHTMARE,
PRINCE OF SORROWS,
GOD OF ALL TERRORS

—Ace

After Trump won North Carolina, Ohio, and then Florida, the writing was on the wall, but the exclamation point was not added. There was a long, long period of sadz, and a lot of wishcasting about how Hillary could still "draw to an inside straight" herself.

But most people had a sense it was probably over.

Then, a plucky little state in the midwest changed that to "almost totally certainly over."

But there was a lot of filler time during these hours, as we awaited the Lord of Nightmares to take his seat on the Throne of Blood.

Not to get ahead of ourselves, but for some reason people seem to think the Confirmed Nobodies the Young Turks are something. I don't, but I do like watching their charisma-free incompetence.

I also like watching their sweet sweet tears of emo goth sullenness.

At CNN, they had a child psychologist come out to explain the safest and most effective way to Cut Yourself to Let the Sad Out.

At MSNBC, they began postulating scenarios in which Donald Trump would appease the left by adopting their entire agenda.

Also, Rachel Maddow began spraying brain fluid from her ears. Wendy Davis came by and plugged her ears with skull tampons.

This video of NBC's coverage seems to be towards the very end of the night. Maybe watch it after you've watched some of the others.

All the men at ABCNews were crying from their assp*ssies.

By the way, I forgot earlier to include the BBC's coverage. That's part 1. Here's part 3, which begins, as you can imagine, with the Plight of the Muslims. If you remember that sour old lemonfaced liberal Katy Kay that Chris Matthews used to have on his stupid NBC show, she's doing some hosting for the BBC, and she's as thrilled by Trump's win as you would expect.

Here's Fox's last video of coverage. The audio actually works for this one! So that's fun. Also, you can check out the last half (starting at the one hour mark) of the third Fox News video just for bonus Gigles.

Here now some pictures of the Weeping Maenads.

Oh, and here's the Young Turks whining about the Sad Mood of the Hillary election party.

I'm not going to post this yet, but the Mega Independent has created a new flaming skull for us. Around 10pm or so, when we "declare the winner of the election" or whatever, I'll post his new "Flaming Trump Skull."

Election Night Replay Thread Three: THE NIGHTMARE BEGINS

—Ace

Virginia too close to call.

Now comes the moment where you can see dreams shattering into millions of brightly colored shards.

At CNN, they're still counting the Florida vote.

Later, Wolf Blitzer will begin passionately arguing with John King telling him that he must be a retard who can't count because there's no way Hillary could have lost her lead.

Spoiler alert: There is a way.

At MSNBC, Steve Kornheiser leads the clip noting Donald Trump's strength in Northern Florida and rural areas in Virginia. Rachel Maddow immediately says, pretty much, who cares, they're different, they don't count.

Spoiler alert: They might wind up counting.

Then they go to James Carville, who Lawrence O'Donnell notes "looks worried."

CBSNews: At around 1:55:00, they talk about Florida and Virginia.

I couldn't find video of the NYT's election odds meter, but the third chart on this page tracks the meter throughout the night. Somewhere between 9 and 10, Hillary dropped from 80% to 50%, and Trump jumped up from 20% to 50%.

And then... it got worse.

PS, I can't keep my eyes on all of the feeds at once, so please, if you find a good chunk to watch, let us know in the comments which video and which time code to go to!

Update: Fox calls Ohio, North Carolina, and then Florida for Trump.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN DARK MIRACLES OF SATAN?!?!

Update: CNN Is Hot Garbage. Check out the difference between Wolf Blitzer's tone and attitude towards John King's projections when Hillary is ahead or behind.

At 0:7:45 or so here, he's very happy when John King tells him Hillary is ahead in Ohio. (For no-owwww...)

Then, at around 31:00, John King is showing Trump's lead in Florida, and Wolf Blitzer starts screaming "TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ON!" demanding King show him the Hillary-heavy counties which still have votes to count.

Election Night Replay Thread Two: Sleepwalking Towards Hell

—Ace

This is where I started watching election coverage, at about 8:15. I had been out at an appointment before then.

I figured Trump was a goner and just wanted this over with as soon as possible. I had been invited over to a friend's for an election night drinking party, but i couldn't go as it was a working night. But I did want to go, because I figured we were in for a depressing night, and I wanted to have company and drinks to get me through it.

Personally, I was annoyed during this part of the night, because I was pretty sure Trump would lose, and if he was going to lose anyway, he might as well lose fast so I could get drunk.

So I was pretty annoyed when Brit Hume said something like "Now wait a minute, we might have a real race on our hands here." I thought: Great. Now Trump's not going to lose until 11:30 pm, and then I'll be all alone and also sober.

I wound up staying in, obviously.

But not depresssed...

So here's the Fox News telecast where I started watching. At about the 10:30 mark, you can hear their panel basically talking Trump out of the race. (Brit Hume had done the same near the end of the Fox News clip in the last post.)

At the 20:00 mark, Megyn Kelly brings up the possibility of a Trump win -- assuming he can win Florida. She and Dana Perino also talk up Hillary's one-state knock-out, of course: If Hillary wins Florida, it's over.

At 29:00, Dana Loesch starts talking about the numbers coming in being different than what were expected, or what was seen in 2012. She also begins questioning the conventional wisdom about the greatness of Clinton's Ground Game.

Karl Rove says at 1:05 that Trump is running behind Romney in Ohio and if he were Trump, he would be "a little concerned." (Sad!) Brit Hume then starts to think maybe there are enough "missing voters' turning up at the polls to win it for Trump.

On to NBCNews: They hit this approximate time at around 1:20:00. Nicole Wallace is very worried about what the tightness of the race may mean for Paul Ryan.

At MSNBC, at about 1:03:00, which Brian Williams says is 8:19 in the night, they have several calls, and then Steve Kornheiser notes that Hillary's lead in Florida has just disappeared.

At ABCNews, skip to about 1:00:00 to hear talk about Florida, but I gotta tell you, they're pretty boring. Maybe check in with them later when the NIGHTMARE IS IN FULL EFFECT.

CNN's a bit ahead of the others (all of the videos have different lenghths and starting times), so maybe watch the end of the last vid, around 1:33:00, when a reporter says Trump is increasingly confident of winning Florida, but then Wolf Blitzer excitedly proclaims Hillary Clinton has taken the lead in Florida.

Spoiler alert: That might not hold up.

Election Night Replay Thread One: Before the Nightmare

—Ace

Tonight I'll be half-pretending it's November 8, 2016, and that we're all sitting in front of the TV waiting to hear the election results. I'll be linking videos of network news coverage.

For each post, which will come about once an hour, try to stay, more or less, within the time period the post covers. This first post is the early coverage, when there was either nothing to cover (except exit polls) or some early-reporting non-swing states.

The second one will be when more numbers come in, and people start to realize Trump has a chance.

The third one will be more election returns, and Trump's odds rising.

The fourth and last one, covering the real hours of 2am to 4am on Election Night, will cover the waiting game when some of us were staying up way too late to hear the official results.

Election night went on for like ten hours (like 6pm to 4am), and no one wants to sit through ten hours again. Well, I do, but I already kind of did when I watched these vids again a month ago. Anyway, we'll be kind of condensing the ten hours into four hours.

If you see good parts in a video, like Rachel Maddow making a sour face when someone mentions Trump having a chance, please let us know in the comments by noting the channel it was on and the time code for watching it. That way, we can skip the boring stuff and mainly focus on the Big Moments.

Now, let's get into the background of this night we're going to be reliving -- let's talk about the news and polling environment we were in before 8:30 pm November 8, 2017. Just to appreciate how big a reversal this all was.

On Election Day, The New York Times claimed that Hillary Clinton had an 85% chance of winning the election, and I'm pretty sure that just days before they had put her chances at above 90%.

Nate Silver had said Hillary Clinton "finished off" Trump at the final debate, and noted that she held an average of seven points of a lead over Trump, nationally.

As Election Day neared, Nate Silver showed Hillary with a 65% chance of winning, and Trump with only a 35% chance of winning. However, this 35% chance was too high and Very Subversive for a lot of liberals who needed the cocoon of above-90%-assurance. If you remember, the HuffPo's own bullshit odds column gave Hillary a 98% chance of winning, and accused Nate Silver of "unskewing" the polls to Trump's advantage to get him up to 35%.

The models themselves are pretty confident. HuffPost Pollster is giving Clinton a 98 percent chance of winning, and The New York Times’ model at The Upshot puts her chances at 85 percent.

There is one outlier, however, that is causing waves of panic among Democrats around the country, and injecting Trump backers with the hope that their guy might pull this thing off after all. Nate Silver’s 538 model is giving Donald Trump a heart-stopping 35 percent chance of winning as of this weekend.

He ratcheted the panic up to 11 on Friday with his latest forecast, tweeting out, "Trump is about 3 points behind Clinton -- and 3-point polling errors happen pretty often."

So whos right?

The beauty here is that we won’t have to wait long to find out. But let's lay out now why we think we're right and 538 is wrong. Or, at least, why they're doing it wrong.

The short version is that Silver is changing the results of polls to fit where he thinks the polls truly are, rather than simply entering the poll numbers into his model and crunching them.

Silver calls this unskewing a "trend line adjustment." He compares a poll to previous polls conducted by the same polling firm, makes a series of assumptions, runs a regression analysis, and gets a new poll number. That’s the number he sticks in his model -- not the original number.

...

Guess who benefits from the unskewing?

...

That line in itself is disingenuous, though. For the polls to be wrong, there wouldn’t need to be one single 3-point error. All of the polls -- all of them, as Brianna Keilar would put it -- would have to be off by 3 points in the same direction. That
s happened before, but in 2012 the error favored President Barack Obama. In 2014, it favored Republicans. Errors are just as likely to favor Clinton as they are to favor Trump, and they would have to favor Trump. And we still haven’t accounted for the unique fact that one campaign has a get-out-the-vote operation, while the other doesn't.

By monkeying around with the numbers like this, Silver is making a mockery of the very forecasting industry that he popularized....

I get why Silver wants to hedge. It's not easy to sit here and tell you that Clinton has a 98 percent chance of winning. Everything inside us screams out that life is too full of uncertainty, that being so sure is just a fantasy. But that's what the numbers say. What is the point of all the data entry, all the math, all the modeling, if when the moment of truth comes we throw our hands up and say, hey, anything can happen. If that's how we feel, let's scrap the entire political forecasting industry.

#ILoveScienceSexually.

Here's a tweet I didn't publish on Election Night, though I saw it. I didn't want to be a negative Nelly and depress everyone.

Earlier on Election Day, Frank Luntz published a tweet saying something about the exit polls showing a more competitive race than expected.

But at 6:43, as he saw more of the exit polls (I guess), he declared the election over.

Now come on -- in 2004, the exit polls predicted John Kerry's easy win. The media still doesn't get that when they hire a bunch of obviously-liberal college students to do exit polls, and they've demonized the Republican candidate for nine straight months, people voting Republican will be hesitant to tell the liberals demonizing their choices what their choices are.

This was the case to an extent never before seen in 2016, when the media and all Means of Communication declared Trump collectively to be Hitler Reborn.

That said, I expected Trump to lose. I thought there would be the usual underpolling of Trump voters, and maybe that would be bigger than usual, but I couldn't imagine it being a big enough overlooked vote to swing the election.

Below, some of the early election night coverage. Try not to talk too much about stuff that happens past 8pm Eastern time; that'll be the subject of the next thread. Let's try to keep kind of real-time on this, talking about how we felt before the numbers started coming in.

Division Likely To Continue

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

A new Pew Research survey finds 86% of Americans describe the country as more politically divided today than in the past, while just 12% say the country is no more divided."

The nature of the country’s political divisions is a rare point of partisan agreement: Comparable majorities of Democrats and Democratic leaners (88%) and Republicans and Republican leaners (84%) say the country is more divided these days than in the past.”

Political division? Could it be because of the literary arm of the DNC? They would never spew publish fake news to help the DNC narrative.

Divided? Well, it can't be the Senate Republicans fault, can it?

Could it be the Democrats fault? The temper tantrum continues to persist.

Senator Tillis, you are a fool. Compromise and bi-partisanship means that the GOP and the Americans who voted GOP in November take it up the .......... How much bipartisanship did they display over the past 8 years?

The Democrats have no desire to heal any divisions. If the Democratic leadership doesn't want to accept the fact the GOP kicked ass the rank and file won't. As a dear farmer once told me, "You might as well make hay when the sun is shining." You have 2 years of forecasted sunshine, don't squander it. You might just unite Americans more than you think.

The Media Has Assassinated Themselves

—Ace

It's a hard world, kid. It's twice as hard if you're stupid.

And the media is very, very stupid indeed. And emotional. And partisan. And unprofessional.

Mollie Hemingway notes four recent -- as in, the past couple of days -- new outbreaks of the media's self-arson.

It's not just that they are chiefly in the business of #FakeNews these days -- it's that when one media source creates #FakeNews, the rest of the Herd of Low-Intellect Pack Animals begins retweeting it and republishing it without a single one of these idiots bothering to check a damn thing.

Mollie's first example is the New York Times' #FakeNews claim that Rick Perry only recently came to understand that as Secretary of Energy, he would be in charge of safeguarding the US' nuclear arsenal.

This despite the fact that when Perry accepted the nomination, he said:

"I look forward to engaging in a conversation about the development, stewardship and regulation of our energy resources, safeguarding our nuclear arsenal, and promoting an American energy policy that creates jobs and puts America first."

As David St. Hubbins said: "Ah well that's just nitpicking, isn't it?"

Becket Adams examines the unsourced garbage nature of this #FakeNews garbage, but also shows you all of the media -- and I do mean all of the media -- that ate this up and then vomited it back up to the world.

Well, not all of the legacy media. One outlet, New York magazine actually bothered to do some actual thinking. Here, they come very close to committing the crime of actual journalistic skepticism:

Yesterday, the New York Times posted a story by Coral Davenport and David Sanger about Donald Trump's energy secretary nominee, former Texas governor Rick Perry, that quickly went viral. That's because the article, posted under the headline "'Learning Curve' As Rick Perry Pursues a Job He Initially Misunderstood," made a rather astounding claim: that at the time he was tapped to head the department, Perry didn't even understand that one of its primary purposes is to maintain the security of America's nuclear weapons and facilities. Journalists everywhere, myself included, tweeted out the story as just another bright-red data point about Donald Trump's lack of fitness to govern.

But since the story went online, a bunch of (mostly) conservative critics and outlets has argued that the story falsely impugns Perry. They make a very convincing case.

Mollie's third example is this amazing headline. A Yale professor of computer science, widely considered an actual genius in his field, criticized unexamined liberal assumptions choking the academy.

Here's how the National Laughstock headlined this:

Scientific Genius Accused of Being Anti-Scientific Genius.

But do let the National Laughingstock tell you how intellectual they themselves are, and how much they long to touch science in its no-no places.

They have chosen the form of their Destructor, and the form they have chosen is they themselves.

Trump Eyeing Dramatic Cuts to Government?

—Ace

There are some large claims made here. I do not know how to take Trump's grandiose claims.

Jazz Shaw digests it and comments on it, but here's the Hill article he quotes.

Donald Trump is ready to take an ax to government spending.

Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday's presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned.

The changes they propose are dramatic.

The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump's team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

I'll believe it when I see it, but Trump has surprised many of us before.

Man Arrested For Making Threat to Assassinate Trump on Twitter;
Was Wealthy NE Dem Donor, Friends with Bill & Hillary Clinton, John Kerry

—Ace

I believe he's a member of the Tea Party.

No but for real -- do you think this story would be getting more play, rather than the zero it's getting (from American media, at least) if this were a friend of Romney's making a threat against the life of a Clinton or Obama?

The man arrested by Miami Beach police Tuesday for allegedly threatening President-elect Donald Trump online is a member of a prominent northeast family close to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

He once gave $20,000 to the Democratic National Committee, DailyMail.com has learned.

During that eulogy on Oct. 6, 2001 in Boston, the former presidential candidate referred to 'Dom Jr.'s latest computer wizardry.'

The 'wizard' is now being held in a Miami-Dade County jail after using Twitter to threaten Trump's life.

Trump is scheduled to be sworn in Friday in Washington, D.C. as Puopolo remains incarcerated on a charge of threatening to harm a public servant.

Puopolo reportedly admitted to posting a video to Twitter, saying: 'This is the 16th of January 2017, I will be at the review/ inauguration and I will kill President Trump, President elect Trump today.'

To be fair, CNN is covering the possibility of a Trump assassination.

By talking up such a possibility, and spinning out the scenarios under which a Democrat might become president were Trump and Pence murdered.

On the Wednesday, January 18 broadcast of CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer aired a segment with a chyron featuring the headline “Developing Now.” During that “developing” segment, Blitzer and correspondent Brian Todd discussed what would happen if the unthinkable occurred on January 20.

Blitzer introduced the segment, saying, "What if an incoming president and his immediate successors were wiped out on day one?" and from there, CNN contributor Brian Todd took over to outline the line of succession if an attack blew up the inaugural dais, killing both Trump and Pence.

I don't remember Blitzer indulging in any "what if they kill Obama and Biden, do the Republicans get to stay in control?" questions in 2009.

Tucker Carlson Interviews Idiots Who Cites Lyndon LaRouche Newsletter for Proposition That Russia Recruited Trump to Run for President in 1983

—Ace

Another trip to the slaughterhouse.

It occurs to me that Tucker Carlson is doing for real what Jon Stewart used to use with hoax editing.

Oh, and Tucker Carlson's ratings are higher than Megyn Kelly's, who was some kind of superstar or something.

In its debut week, Tucker Carlson Tonight — which moved from 7 PM ET to the 9 PM hour on January 9th following Megyn Kelly’s departure — averaged 3 million viewers and 576,000 in the 25-54 demographic. This placed it in the top ten in all of basic cable.

In comparison with how The Kelly File fared in that time slot in 2016, Fox News experienced an increase of 10% in total viewership and 12% in the key demo.

And 2016 was an election year. I do understand that this interregnum is also a highly-watched period of time. Just saying, the two periods are roughly comparable in terms of extrinsic advantage.

Martha McCallum's also improving over Gretchen Van Sustern's ratings.

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

Look at those melons!

The first English amateur painter of note, a high-born country gentleman, nephew of the Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon. Fewer than a dozen paintings by him are known; with the exception of a miniature landscape on copper in the manner of Bril, which has been claimed as the earliest British landscape (Ashmolean Mus., Oxford), they are either portraits (mainly of members of his family, including self-portraits) or kitchen still lifes.

The Morning Report 1/19/17

—J.J. Sefton

• Bear-Baiting Has Consequences: Lavrov Accuses UK, France, Germany of US Election Interference
  
• Rush: Sessions Must Not Recuse Himself
  
• Close Friend of the Clintons Threatens to Assassinate Trump
  
• Obama Pushing to Have Last Minute Indictment in Cop Who Had "Loosie" Garner in Legal Choke Hold
  
• Chutzpah MeterSchadenboner at 10: Illegal Alien Sues San Fran for Violating Sanctuary City Law
  
• Mad-Dog Confirmed 26-1, Chubby Gillibrand Was the Lone Holdout
  
• Disrupt J20 Disrupted by O'Keefe's Videos, "Scaling Back" Their Actions
  
• Kimmel Calling Pruitt "a Piece of Shit" Must Mean He's the Perfect Choice for EPA
  
• Patty Murray Lies In Front of a Senate Committee, But Unfortunately, She's On It
  
• 0% Indian But 100% Classless: Warren Refuses to Shake Betsy DeVos Hand
  
• Tolerant, Peaceful Left "React" to Abigail Breslin's Friendship with President Trump's Youngest Daughter

Thanks to Mindful Webworker for the countdown art.

Close it up

Wednesday Night ONT - On The Fly Edition

—WeirdDave

So, normally I set aside time Wednesday afternoon to write the ONT, but today is especially busy. I have no idea how much I'll be able to put together. Will the ONT be short? Long? Messy? I don't know. It all depends on how much I can squeeze in around the edges today. Let's start with beer pinup art:

That's the label from a bottle of Double D double IPA from the Dominion Brewing Company. It's part of an entire line of beers, all branded with pinup artwork. I love looking at all of them, that kind of Americana appeals to me. The beer itself is pretty good, if you like IPAs. As beer goes, it's rocket fuel, 9% ABV. I started drinking it last year with the thought “Hey, I can get a buzz from just a couple of beers, which means I'll drink less!”. This was true. It's also true that I put on about 10 pounds because each bottle packs in about 300 calories, more than twice what you get from a typical American lager and three times what you find in a light beer. Approach with caution.

Road Trip!

Is there anything more quintessentially American than the road trip? I don't think so. From the “mother road” to the popularity of RVs, part of being a free American is the ability to pack up and head out to see the country. New self driving cars may soon spell an end to this cherished tradition. I'm of two minds about self driving cars. As someone who regularly drives across country with my family, I can see the attraction. Have you ever driven across Illinois south of Chicago? Ugh. It's where God put the nothing when he made the world. Being able to sit back and let the car do all of the work during boring cross country drive is quite beguiling. On the other hand, I don't think that concerns about network security are crazy at all. This past year have shown us that hacking is an omnipresent threat to our computerized world. There is no such thing as an unhackable system. Imagine the carnage is someone managed to gain access to the command and control system of an automated highway network and simply ordered all cars to accelerate? The death toll would make 9/11 look like a school picnic.

The Eternal Question

Republican or Democrat? (Republican) Coke or Pepsi? (Coke) TP roll over or under? (Who cares?) While these are the correct answers to some of the most pressing issues of our times, here on the HQ, the eternal debate rages: Longbow or Crossbow? Well, don't look now, but it looks like crossbows might be making a move:

Everybody's favorite jocular German, Jörg Sprave, has finally come up with an automatic crossbow. Using an external power source and a rack and pinion gear system, this thing will shoot bolts until the magazine is empty. It certainly looks scale-able too. The longbow mafia consistently touts speed as one of their big advantages, but I've yet to see a fully automatic longbow. Let the discussions begin! (H/t to ibguy)

Top Stadium Experiences

Stadium Journey has released their list of the Top 100 Stadium Experiences of 2016. What's #1? Why Oriole Park at Camden Yards. That's right, the best place to watch a baseball game is right here in little old Baltimore. But what if baseball is not your thing? Where's the best place to watch an NFL game?

Why, right across the parking lot, of course. M&T; Bank Stadium is the top NFL venue, coming in at # 14 overall.

So come on down to Bawlmer, hon. We'll crack open a Natty Boh and shovel a bushel of steamed crabs across the table. Silver Queen corn on the cob, fresh from the Eastern Shore and dripping with butter and some hand shucked oysters ought to complete the feast.

The politics here suck, but there's a reason this is the Land of Pleasant Living. After the game we'll go for a sunset sail on the Chesapeake Bay. It doesn't get any better than this.

Troll Level: Off The Scale

Pres. Obama to press: "You're not supposed to be complimentary. You're supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power." pic.twitter.com/sTKl34FlrQ

— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 18, 2017

Uh-huh.

Edumacation

Like many of you, I have a child who will be college age in a few years. The problem is, where can we send him that he's not going to be indoctrinated with all of the leftist garbage so prevalent these days? Hillsdale? That would be an excellent choice, but are there any others? I don't think I want to send him to my alma mater, a school that recently won a national debate contest with racist blatherings. (I get that this is an accepted form of “debate” these days. That fact underscores my point rather than refuting it)

How about sending him to Guatemala? Daniel Hannon writes about a hidden oasis of free market education lurking in Central America. Francisco Marroquin University has a 45 year tradition of educating its students in the principles of Austrian economics.

It's a serious concern for parents these days, at least for conservative parents. How can it not be in a world where a Maryland school is employee FIRED for correcting student's spelling. Smh.

Dogs

This is my dog Colby.

He's a good dog, but I don't think he's as much fun as this dog, who is not allowed in the park anymore:

A Smart Military Blog

That time a Marine mechanic took a joyride in a stolen A4M Skyhawk

Strange story. Pretty much got what you'd expect, but his Big Chicken Dinner doesn't seem to have hurt his post-military life, looks to me like he did lots of interesting stuff.

Foote later qualified as a test pilot in more than 20 different military and civilian aircraft, and became a contractor to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He holds patents in aviation design and engineering technology.

Must be one of those mad genius types.

Wendy's Is at it Again

And that's going to have to be it for tonight. I've just returned from a surprise meeting with the regional VP and my boss who informed me that I'm being given a rather large promotion at work (they must not have noticed that I've been in my office writing the ONT, Hee!), and I don't have time to dig up any more stuff. Sorry for the light content, hopefully I can get the pictures put in and get this posted pretty much on time tonight.

Tonight's ONT brought to you by ad placement:

Obama is gone Friday! The Yahoo Group is nervously waiting the full four hours before calling a doctor.

Close it up

Some Good News on the Trump Front

—Ace

I don't know about Trump, really. I don't like his claim that he's working on a plan to allow "DREAMers" to remain in the country with a plan that has "a lot of heart" and will make them "very happy."

Mark Krikorian comments that "Any DACA deal would have to include E-Verify & offsetting cuts in legal immigration (lottery & chain migration)," but that seems to be his urging, not Trump's thinking. But maybe Trump is listening to the right people.

Maybe.

Apart from that, there are some reasons for optimism, if you're wired that way.

HHS Secretary nominee Tom Price apparently has two enemies: big government, and insurance companies.

Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos repeatedly rejected Bernie Sanders' premises that government ought to provide "free" higher education, that "free" higher education actually was free, or that the Education Department had anything to do with Sanders' proposal of free child care.

From his opening question about America becoming an oligarchic state to his off-topic pontificating, Sanders's interrogation made for interesting TV. But it looks like a win for limited government that DeVos realizes what the responsibilities of the education secretary actually are.

Trump is cutting his Inauguration Parade short to go to the White House and start signing executive orders, mostly undoing Obama's executive orders.

This story claims he plans to sign "4 or 5" high priority orders.

I hear the number is a bit higher than that.

New Project Veritas Video: More Disruption Tough-Guy Talk From Sissies

—Ace

Thanks to LA Sue.

They talk about putting chains across the rail-lines to shut down transit into and around the city by blockading DC's main subway stations.

[Update --OregonMuse]

And they all look up to their brave leader of #TheResistance:

Close it up

TFG: Obama Warns Press They're Supposed to (Now) Be Skeptical of Those In Positions of Power, Not "Sycophantic"

—Ace

Really.

I've been watching Leah Remini's Scientology and the Aftermath series. It's all about a mind-control cult, obviously, where thinking Wrongthoughts about cult leaders could get you socially isolated and punished.

I can't help thinking that for 9 long years, America has been controlled by a similar cult.

Some #NeverTrumpers continue insulting me (and other people who opposed Hillary Clinton, rather than flacking for her). They don't seem to get why we'd do such a thing.

It's because we were tired of living in a mind-control cult and were willing to do anything -- anything -- to escape it.

If some of you found some Good Solid Truths in the cult we had been living in, or didn't mind the Cult that much, or liked some of the Forbiddances and Blasphemy Laws the Cult imposed on The Deplorables, that's fine. I guess.

I don't have any problem with Scientologists personally. Assuming its their own freely-made choice, they may believe as they wish.

But for many of them, of course, it's not a freely-made choice, and I feel bad for them.

And I feel really bad for myself and other people who did not sign up to belong to a mind-control cult but were nevertheless being forced to labor under its blasphemy laws and demands of daily catechisms to Obama.

If you were content in the little cage they permitted you to slightly move in, I guess you're low-energy. Some of us, however, like a little more freedom of movement.

A commenter (forget who, sorry) keeps quoting this. It's a great quote:

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

-- Daniel Webster

So Tomorrow Night I Was Thinking About Replaying Election Night

—Ace

For a while, I was thinking of setting up threads as if it were election night -- last November 8 -- and just including links to YouTube recordings of the networks' coverage.

Does that sound like a good idea or just stupid?

Election night "recoverage" would begin at like 6 or whatever.

I don't know if this is a great idea or a really, really dumb one.

Gwennyth Paltrow's Dumb Webzine GOOP: You Should Stick Rocks Up Your Mish to Increase Your "Feminine Energy" or Something

—Ace

I guess she's been talking to Lena Dunham.

Tapper: Obama's Clemency for Bradley Manning Completely "Contradicts" His Eight Year War on Leaks

—Ace

And the latest vapornarrative that Democrats are totally, totally defenders of US national security and information security.

Krauthammer similarly slams Obama for wielding the Espionage Act against whistleblowers who dared to leak about his internal dealings, while being totes cool with people who merely divulge secrets about our military, diplomatic, and intelligence operations.

Obama says Bradley Manning's very, very brief sentence was "tough" and you really ought to be happy you got that much, Racists:

Oh, and Obama's tough on terrorists, too. He just granted clemency to a FALN terrorist who offered up his apartment as a bomb-making factory. A lot like Obama's pal Bill Ayers.

President Obama on Tuesday granted clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera. He has been in federal prison since 1981 after being convicted of armed robbery, weapons charges, and seditious conspiracy to violently overthrow the U.S. government as a member of the Puerto Rican Marxist separatist group FALN.

The Chicago and New York cells of FALN planted approximately 120 bombs throughout the U.S. from 1974 to 1983, resulting in several dead, dozens injured and property damage. Rivera's apartment had served as the headquarters for his own team's bomb-making efforts.

Meanwhile, author of "Rappin' Alexander Hamilton" and noted idiot Lin-Manuel Miranda shows how "patriotic" he is by vowing he'll perform Hamilton personally for this terrorist bomber.

Former President George Bush (41) In Intensive Care; Wife Also Admitted to Hospital?

—Ace

A few days ago, the Elder Bush wrote a letter to Trump stating that he would not be attending the inauguration, as the trip could put him "six feet under," according to his doctor.

Well apparently he was not exaggerating about being in poor health. He was just put into ICU, and his wife was admitted herself as a precaution.

A spokesman for former President George H.W. Bush says Bush has been admitted to the intensive care unit at Houston's Methodist Hospital to address a respiratory problem from pneumonia.

Spokesman Jim McGrath says Bush's wife, Barbara Bush, also has been hospitalized as a precaution after experiencing fatigue and coughing.

McGrath says the 92-year-old former president was placed under sedation for a procedure to protect and clear his airway. He is stable and resting comfortably. He has been in the hospital since Saturday.

Barbara Bush is 91. The couple marked their 72nd wedding anniversary on Jan. 6.

Tucker Carlson Grills a Hoaxer

—Ace

It's kind of amusing. Not important, but amusing.

Great last-second random reference at the end.

48 Hours Until Our Long, Long National Nightmare is DONE

—Ace

Ekdahl just noted this on Twitter. I can't believe he's almost gone.

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

The Morning Report 1/18/17

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning, kids. So, Manning gets a pardon. Im sure you can all see my Claude Rains "shocked" face, right? But what is so far drawing little attention is the outrageous pardon of a violent, FALN terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera. You may recall Bill Clinton, in a shameless bid to secure the Latino vote for his wife (who will never be president of the United States of America), in her New York State Senate run, pardoned a number of these fiends including Rivera. But the schmuck refused to disavow terrorism and so he remained in jail to rot, seemingly for the rest of his life. Until . . . But Obama has absolutely nothing to gain politically or otherwise from this so the question is WHY? And that is, of course, a rhetorical one. Let's see who's next on Obama's list as he torches what's left of the country that already hasn't gone up in flames. Other than that Hungary is turning up the heat on George Soros for his interference in the internal politics of that nation. Along with union dues and other earmarks for anti-American activities and organizations hidden in those multi-thousand page omnibus bills, Soros ill gotten gains are a huge source of cash for those who seek our destruction. I hope team Trump takes notice. Anyway, have a better one and remain blessed.

• GOP Enraged Over Manning Pardon
  
• Darfur? Never Heard of It: SCOAMF Lifts Sanctions On Sudanese Terror State
  
• Insult Meet Injury: Architect of Potential 2nd Holocaust Appointed to Head National Holocaust Museum
  
• Polonium Is a Helluva Drug: Roger Stone Claims He Was Poisoned
  
• Sheriff Clarke Not Amused By Mark Lamont Hill, Refers to Him As a "Jigaboo"
  
• Soros' Tsoris: Hungary Goes After Quisling Billionaire's "Impermissible . . . Fake NGOs"
  
• Slim Slimes the Slimes: NY Times Warns Staff of Budget Cuts and Layoffs
  
• Turds of a Feather: Terrorist Ayers Celebrates SCOAMF Pardon of FALN Bomber
  
• DeVos Gets Union Puppet Sanders to Admit Free Tuition Is Anything But
  
• Paul LePage Schools John Lewis on History
  
• Maher Castigates Hollywood for Being "Insular," But the Irony in the Last Line is Stunning
  
• Pappy Bush Hospitalized

NOTE: Regarding yesterday's post about an interracial couple verbally assaulted whilst eating dinner, evidently the NY Post ran with the story today. Despite that, there is still nothing that identifies the victims, the perp or where and when this happened. So, the veracity of this film is still in question.

Thanks to Mindful Webworker for the countdown art.

Close it up

Countdown Monday Tuesday Overnight Thread (1/16/17) (1/17/17)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

What did you spend the day doing? The ONT hopes you were up to nothing. Really. A National Nothing Day.

Tomorrow January 17th is a day that the Kennedy clan will celebrate.

Quotes of The Day

Quote I

Without tenderness, a man is uninteresting.-Marlene Dietrich

Quote II

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.- Lewis B. Smedes

Quote III

We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.- Marcel Proust

Quote IV

We should measure welfare's success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.- Ronald Reagan

As we celebrate Obama's last Monday in office, the damage he has done is substantial.

Entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and food stamps have gained tens of thousands of beneficiaries under the Obama administration.

Will Trump and the GOP(e) ebb the flow? Time will tell.

Say good-bye to the ATF? Bill introduced to disband the ATF.

“F Troop” has long been the red-headed stepchild of federal law enforcement, passed around from Treasury, to Justice, back to Treasury, and finally back to Justice. The ATF has been routinely accused of incompetence, abusive prosecution, corruption, and has been responsible for a number of major controversies, including the Ruby Ridge siege, the Branch Davidian siege, and the smuggling of weapons to the Sinaloa drug cartel under Operation Fast and Furious and other alleged gun-running operations in other states that have never been adequately investigated.

The nation will be a better place. Goodbye Loretta Lynch, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out of office.

Do you have children attending American University? Someone does and they are wasting their money.

“If it is determined that Russian efforts did indeed put Trump over the top in an incredibly close election, then the next step would be to pass a constitutional amendment requiring a one-time special election to be held as soon as possible,” Edelson wrote.

Perhaps "Professor" Edelson should review and digest tonight's Quote of The Day III.

Donald Trump's original campaign promise was to build a wall. See where the fence could be built.

Trump and congressional Republicans say they could use a 2006 law signed by President George W. Bush called the Secure Fence Act that mandated a minimum of 700 miles of “physical barrier” on the southern border without specifying any particular location where fencing must be built.

The Monday night Food Thread When in Canada, do as the Canadians. At least it isn't Salsa Polar Bear.

The ONT Musical Interlude

Ronnie Milsap birthday January 16, 1946.

Blue Monday

*****

You to can become part Jack Bauer part MacGyver. Turn everyday items into weapons. Some of them are pretty handy if you're attacked in the kitchen.

Do you have hairy palms? Have you gone blind? Diseases caused by masturbation. In 1760 it was settled science.

The 2015 edition of Diseases Caused by Masturbation was originally titled L’Onanism. Dissertation sur les maladies produites par la masturbation.

The book recounts stories from his own patients and from the patients of other renowned European doctors to support his claim that masturbation is deleterious to a person’s body and mind. Tissot also uses quotes from the ancient physicians, such as Galen and Celsus, as well as the most noted doctors of his day, such as Herman Boerhaave, to further strengthen his claim.

We've all met someone who is annoying. Have you ever met someone so annoying that citizenship was not awarded to them? Meet Nancy Holten. One bad ass annoying PIA.

Nancy Holten, 42, is a self-described animal rights activist who has campaigned against the Swiss tradition of cow bells, calling them cruel.

Despite living in the country since the age of eight, and speaking fluent Swiss German, local residents vetoed her application of citizenship, saying they were “fed up” with her challenging their traditions.

These kids don't have hairy palms. Plus eating carrots in their chili has given them great eyesight. Check them out the Yahoo Group.

News tips? Loose change? Extra paper clips? Yeah, they can go here. Or here, petmorons at gmail.

Fanatic? Idiot? moron? Genius?

Exercise is good. Exercising with food product is not. Genius Award.

The Feel Good Story of The Day

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Duct Tape

Posted with permission by AceCorp, LLC. Don't procrastinate, The Clinton Global Initiative is having one hell of a going out of business sale. All sales final. No checks accepted.

{This particular ONT was originally prepared for Monday January 16th. However, a different ONT showed up in its place. It was not a mea culpa on The ONT's part. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. }

Close it up

Seventeen Years Ago Today, the Little-Known Drudge Report Was BREAKING HARD....

—Ace

President Obama, Who's Totally Horrified By Leaks That Hurt National Security, Commutes Bradley Manning's Sentence Down to Time Served, Plus Five More Months

—Ace

He was sentenced to remain in jail until 2045 for leaking huge amounts of classified information about the US military, as well as State Department cables.

Now he'll be in jail until... mid-May.

As many people have observed: Leaks that hurt US national security are meh at worse, but leaks that hurt Democratic political ambitions? Unforgivable.

John Lewis Admits That He Did Skip Bush's Inauguration in 2001, Also Claiming That President Was "Illegitimate;"
Reuters Headline: "Trump Accuses Civil Rights Leader... of Lying"

—Ace

He accused him of lying? Or correctly noted that he was lying?

Or is Reuters suggesting that Lewis has dementia and therefore cannot remember rather large events in one's life, not so long ago?

Below the fold, some tweets on this, Lewis' accusation against himself of lying, and Ekdahl and Salena Zito noting Reuters' curious gloss on the event.

Shock: Widow of Orlando Nightclub Shooter Was Terror Wife

—Ace

I've had it with these Zionist Lies!!!

Instapundit has the excerpt (above); here's the original story at FoxNews.

ISTANBUL NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING SUSPECT TRAINED IN AFGHANISTAN, OFFICIAL SAYS

Salman, 30, "did knowingly aid and abet" her husband's attempts to support the Islamic State terror group, the two-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday stated. It also charged her with obstruction of justice. The indictment painted a much different picture from her claim she was clueless about his intentions.

The "aiding and abetting" charge signals that the feds believe she played a major role in the attack, a former federal prosecutor told FoxNews.com. "If you give somebody a gun knowing that they are going to use it to rob a bank, in the eyes of the law you are just as guilty as the bank robber," John Malcolm, Director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, said.

...

As for the obstruction charge, prosecutors said Salman "knowingly" misled police and the FBI about the massacre.

However, she drove him to the nightclub at least once before the attack, a law enforcement source told Fox News. In addition, she reportedly shopped with her husband at a Walmart where he bought bullets.

Video at the link.

Salman was born in Afghanistan.

Also, the Fort Lauderdale airport shooter confessed he was inspired by the foreign terror caliphate ISIS.

Not a single case of foreign-originating terrorism occurred on US soil during Barack Obama's watch, the media lied.

UK Prime Minister Teresa May Gives Speech Indicating She'll Be Pursuing the "Hard Brexit" Option

—Ace

There are three general options May could choose:

"Hard Brexit," where the UK exits the common market entirely and relies only on general trade agreements of the World Trade Organization in trading with its continental partners (plus any bilateral agreements it can strike up). The UK would gain almost all of its sovereignty back in this option.

Favoured by ardent Brexiteers, a hard Brexit arrangement would likely see the UK give up full access to the single market and full access of the customs union along with the EU.

The arrangement would prioritise giving Britain full control over its borders, making new trade deals and applying laws within its own territory.

"Soft Brexit" means the UK bargains with the EU and tries to remain in the common market by making some concessions on otherwise-sovereign decisionmaking -- almost surely on immigration. And because Angela Merkel's government has suggested that there will be no special breaks for the UK unless they cave on just about everything else, "Soft Brexit" means, basically, almost no real Brexit at all. Germany (and France) has the whip hand, and they know it. Any minor concession by the EU will only come with major concessions from the UK.

Finally, there was (maybe still is) the possibility of "No Brexit at all." After all, a referendum by the people doesn't have to be respected by the political elites. The political elites really don't care much about the consent of the governed.

But May has been saying for a while that "Brexit means Brexit," and that she will not seek to undermine the people's decision.

Now she's delivered a speech about the principles guiding her in negotiating Britain's exit from the EU, and most are taking this as a "Hard Brexit" positioning. Though, of course, this is negotiating tactic; it's possible she's just matching Germany's declared hardline stance with her own hardline stance, and that something between Hard and Soft can be agreed to once everyone has done the required number of "I'm leaving this room, do not contact me again" door-slams.

Here are some of the principles she claims she will fight for:

May has set out her Brexit plans over 12 points in a speech at Lancaster House in London. Key among these was a commitment for the UK to leave the EU's single market, and that MPs and peers will get a final vote on the deal.

Other elements of the speech included that the UK would not be a full member of the customs union, but would hope to strike some sort of tariff-free deal, and continue to cooperate over areas like crime and anti-terrorism.

May said that “no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal”, raising the possibility of the UK leaving the EU on default World Trade Organisation rules.

She also reiterated Philip Hammond’s threat that if the EU failed to offer a good deal, the UK could move to become a low-tax regime to poach investment.

...

In case you're concerned the MPs could reject May's proposed exit from the common market...

May's spokeswoman also said that the parliamentary vote would not stop Brexit, raising the likelihood that if MPs turned down the eventual deal the UK would leave the EU under WTO trade rules.

May now having rattled her Iron Saber, it's time for the EU to rattle their own; the main spokesman for the group negotiating with Britain for its exit had this to say in return, on Twitter.

Guy Verhofstadt (@GuyVerhofstadt) Britain has chosen a hard Brexit. May's clarity is welcome--but the days of UK cherry-picking and Europe a la cart are over.

Guy Verhofstadt
(@GuyVerhofstadt)
Threatening to turn the UK into a deregulated tax heaven will not only hurt British people--it is a counterproductive negotiating tactic
January 17, 2017

World War Trump, it sounds like.

Trump Considering Cutting Government Budget by 10%, Federal Workforce by 20%

—Ace

Trump promises the moon and the stars, but I at least like the direction of this claim.

Making good on a promise to slash government, President-elect Trump has asked his incoming team to pursue spending and staffing cuts.

Insiders said that the spending reductions in some departments could go as high as 10 percent and staff cuts to 20 percent, numbers that would rock Washington if he follows through.

At least two so-called "landing teams" in Cabinet agencies have relayed the call for cuts as part of their marching orders to shrink the flab in government.

Looks like the Trump transition teams are big fans of our GAINZZZ philosophy.

I nominate Sixkiller for Secretary of Deadlifts and Broseidon for National Squat Advisor.

It's Official: Dissent Is Officially Patriotic Again, Three Days Ahead of Schedule!

—Ace

First Seal of the Apocalypse of Dissent Being Patriotic Again: Nobel Lunatic Paul Krugman calls Trump "illegitimate" is an act of patriotism. (Link to Matt Vespa of Townhall discussing the column, not the column itself.)

Second Seal of the Apocalypse of Dissent Being Patriotic Again: Celebrities grabbing American flags by the pussy.

Ever notice leftwingers only deploy patriotic signalling in protest against a Republican? They never just express their love of America just to express their love of America. When things are going okay (per their standards), they never drape the flag around themselves or say nice things about the country.

They would consider that kitschy, unenlightened, and oh yeah, Also Racist.

They only attempt to claim the symbols of America as an act of contemptuous insult against actual Americans, and only when they're pissed off at actual Americans.

Meet the Generals Leading the Intelligence Community's War on a Duly Elected President

—Ace

Mollie Hemingway recaps the intelligence community's many illegal leaks against Trump, and rounds up the usual suspects who should be asked closely about their participation in the leaks.

Let me suggest this: The very fact that the media won't ask these men closely about the leaks suggests to me the media knows that one or more of them are leaking -- one doesn't rake one's own source over the coals on television, after all.

The media has asked Russian officials if they "hacked the election," and then cast snarky doubt on their denials.

Why aren't we getting any of that with the US intelligence community leakers?

A plausible answer, it seems to me, is that the media is protecting the sources it knows damn well are the leakers.

Mr. Trump: For Science Advisor, You Can't Do Better Than Dr. Judith Curry

—J.J. Sefton

It's fun watching radical environmentalists' heads explode at the appointment of fossil fuel proponent and global warming skeptic Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. But the headwaters of the Green movement (which is in fact the Red movement in disguise), like much of the anti-western Left, can be found in academia. Not merely restricted to the liberal arts, the hard sciences have now become politicized to a highly dangerous level. Beyond the dogma peddled by colleagues, a large part is the vicious cycle of research being funded via government grants. And since governments (especially under Obama) have a political agenda to push, in order to get along, you go along. So Lysenkoism is the order of the day in too many respected institutions, and those who do not go along are not just denied crucial funding for research, they are publicly attacked and threatened with the destruction of their careers and livelihoods.

Such is the case with Dr. Judith Curry. Despite being a foremost expert in the field of climatology, Dr. Curry has come under vicious assault for her stated beliefs that essentially the notion of man-caused climate change is complete bullshit. Here she is in a clip from 2015 giving testimony before a Senate committee. Noted intellectual lightweight Senator Ed Markey attempts to give her the Torquemada treatment and she (along with co-panelist Mark Steyn) swats him down like the insect he is:

I do not know if a National Science advisor has been nominated yet. But I cannot think of a more powerful message that can be sent to academia, and the Left in general, that the era of political persecution, censorship of opposing viewpoints and the junk science of Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson is over than by President Trump appointing Dr. Judith Curry as his National Science Advisor.

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

I saw this painting over the weekend, and the photo above is a pale reflection of it. My first thought was that it was an El Greco, because it seemed to glow with an inner light, like View Of Toledo.

The Morning Report 1/17/17

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning, kids. The one item that stands out is the story about some thug who accosted an interracial couple enjoying a quiet meal by spouting off excerpts from the Nuremberg Laws in Ebonics. But in Obama's Amerika, punching the miscreant's lights out would be the hate crime that sends you to the gulag. The restraint the gentleman had is incredible considering the fear and disgust you could see on his girlfriend's face. Personally, I blame society: the Great Society, to be precise and pig-ignorant stooges like John Lewis for inflicting it on all of us. Other than that, I meant to post something about the life of Steven McDonald a few days ago but got sidetracked. New Yorkers will remember him for being left a quadriplegic after being shot by a robbery suspect, but his life afterwards is a testament to greatness. Thanks to Mindful Webworker for the SCOAMF countdown art. Have a better one and remain blessed.

• Ex-Black Panther Sez Lewis "Presided Over the Destruction of Black America"
  
• Trump Calls NATO Alliance Obsolete, But . . .
  
• . . . Rubio Disagrees, After First Double-Checking with McStains to See If He Should
  
• Sham Comey Probe Is the Latest Battlefront in Left's Campaign to Delegitimize Trump
  
• John Lewis' Legacy: "You Couldn't Find No Black Woman?!" Racist Asshole Intimidates Interracial Couple at Restaurant
  
• Local Crime Story: Ft. Lauderdale Terrorist Converted to Islam Before Joining the Army
  
• Claude Rains Shocked Face: Unions Bankrolling Opposition to DeVos, School Choice
  
• Puzder Going Wobbly? Might Bow Out of Consideration For Labor Secretary
  
• Search for Flight MH-370 Ends, and With It, CNN's Go-To Story When Avoiding Real News
  
• Steve King Introduces Bill to Ban Abortions on Babies with Beating Hearts
  
• Amazing Grace: Detective Steven McDonald, 3/1/57-1/10/17, RIP

UPDATE: I'm now unsure about the veracity of the video purporting to show the harassment of an interracial couple. We don't know where and when this happened, and that should've been a red flag for me. I'll keep it up but take it under advisement.

Close it up

Monday Overnight Open Thread (1/16/17)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

No, John Lewis Isn't Making an Unprecedented Stand by Boycotting Trump's Inauguration.
He Boycotted Bush's Too

—Ace

And he also claimed Bush was illegitimate.

This racist is boycotting all presidents with skin colors not his own.

New Project Veritas: "DisruptJ20," A Collection of Leftwing Hate Groups, Caught on Video Conspiring to "Shut Down" Inauguration and Inaugural Events

—Ace

One of the plans includes setting of butyric acid stink bombs in the Deploraball's ventilation system.

Mischief? Well, it wouldn't be mischief if people, mistaking the bitter chemical smell for a lethal chemical terror attack, panicked and fled the ball and wound up trampling people.