April 27, 2017

Thursday's ONT is by the Book

—WeirdDave

From the AoSHQ style guide:

“The ONT is a serious responsibility for COBS at AoSHQ. It is the final thread of the day, and as such it is the thread that serves as “decompression time” for the Horde. In general, members of the Horde are a touchy bunch (some of them are downright insane), and they must be handled with kid gloves. Follow the following guidelines and you'll soon be producing safe, sane ONTs that are a credit to our Dear Leader, Ace.

#1 Always open with an amusing photo or caption.

Dolph.jpg

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Posted by WeirdDave at 10:04 PM Comments



ESPN Experiences Dramatic Shift In Political Affiliation Of Viewers Prior To Layoffs [Warden]

—Open Blogger

As soon as the story broke, two competing narratives emerged. The left argued that ESPNs declining viewership has nothing to do with its leftward programming shift and everything to do with cable cutting, while the right argued that ESPNs decline is due to conservative sports fans tuning them out.

Deep Root Analytics, a company specializing in analyzing local TV viewer-ship, dug into some of its numbers to see if there's any merit to the latter argument. What they found is stunning.

Specifically, in 2015, the ESPN audience on average skewed Republican across all dayparts, ranging from 12% more Republican (Early News, Late Fringe, Overnight) to 21% more Republican than Democratic (Early Morning).

In 2016, every daypart on ESPN became less conservative, with Daytime being only 2% more Republican than Democratic, while Late Fringe and Overnight programming became 10% and 12% more Democratic than Republican – a 22 and 28 point shift, respectively.

The same is true across other ESPN properties. ESPN2 skewed Republican across most dayparts in 2015; in 2016 all dayparts skewed Democratic. Every daypart also switched on ESPN News from 2015 to 2016.

That's a 22% and 28% shift in viewer political affiliation in a single year.
.
While it's true that cable cutting is largely to blame for ESPN's declining viewership, these numbers can't be ignored.

The left keeps arguing that it doesn't matter if conservatives tune out ESPN because they pay for it anyway as part of their cable package. Okay, fine. But one of the primary things that keeps men from cutting cable is sports programming. Piss off enough conservative sports fans with your SJW programming and many them will decide that maybe sports aren't so important after all. Then snip goes the cable.

And almost no one ever returns once they've made the decision to cut.

I have a hunch that this shift isn't just occurring within the ESPN universe, but also in sports viewership generally as the leagues themselves have also begun pushing left wing causes.

If so, this would create a secondary negative effect on ESPN. If you're not watching the games, you're certainly not tuning in for ESPNs analysis, opinion, or highlights, now are you?

Sports broadcast rights have been bid up into an unsustainable bubble over the past couple of decades and made athletes and franchise owners very, very rich.

Expect that bubble to burst as soon as ESPN's broadcast contracts begin to expire.

Update: ESPN takes down a poem published to their website that praised a cop killer.

It was part of an article titled "Five Poets of the New Feminism."

Yeah, I don't know what that has to do with sports either. It's like watching an uncle drink himself to death. One you really hate and can't wait to never see again.

Posted by Open Blogger at 08:07 PM Comments



The Daily Caller: While at State, Hillary Clinton Aides Threatened Bangleshi Prime Minister's Son With IRS Audit to Stop Investigation of Donor to Clinton Foundation

—Ace

Exclusive, and I'm sure the MSM will not be following up the Daily Caller's explosive report.

Hillary Clinton's Department of State aides allegedly threatened a South Asian prime minister's son with an IRS audit in an attempt to stop a Bangladesh government investigation of a close friend and donor of Clinton's, The Daily Caller News Foundation's Investigative Group learned.

A Bangladesh government commission was investigating multiple charges of financial mismanagement at Grameen Bank, beginning in May 2012. Muhammad Yunus, a major Clinton Foundation donor, served as managing director of the bank.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy, son of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and permanent U.S. resident, recalled the account of the threatened IRS audit to TheDCNF. The allegations mark the first known instance in the U.S. that Clinton's Department of State used IRS power to intimidate a close relative of a friendly nation's head of state on behalf of a Clinton Foundation donor.

Can we impeach a losing presidential candidate for High Crimes and Misdemeanors?

Appoint a special prosecutor. That's what Adam Schiff always wants for this sort of thing, right? Let's have an independent commission explore these allegations while a special prosecutor investigates possible criminal charges.

Posted by Ace at 07:00 PM Comments

Leftist Fascism Reaches New Lows in Blatant Thuggery, as "Mainstream" Left Covers Up for Them and Blames the Right

—Ace

This is the post I delayed because I didn't know how to write it.

I won't write it. I'll just link the stories.

I will just repeat my urgent warning and threat: The rules you make for us are the rules you also make for yourselves. If you're comfortable with that, then I suggest you begin making serious preparations for the hell you are determined to unleash on this once-peaceful country.

Leftist "Anti-Fascist" Criminals Threaten to Attack and Drag Off Any Republicans in Portland's Annual Rose Parade; City Cancels Event. I don't know if they'll also be mounting a serious investigation into who made these threats and then prosecuting them to the worst the law will allow. I suspect they'll do neither.

Here's Althouse on it.

The New York Times previously blamed Milo and the rightwing for making the leftwing riot and physically attack people in Berkeley. They now do so again in the case of threats against the safety of author Ann Coulter.

Ms. Coulter, the acid-penned conservative writer, canceled a planned appearance on Thursday after the political organizations that invited her rescinded their support over fears of violence. "It's a sad day for free speech," she said.

Howard Dean and Sarah Silverman are "acid-tongued." (Not penned; they don't write.) If rightwing criminals threatend to assault them over speech, would the New York Times be searching for what they have recently called "false equivalency" between the two competing sides-- one side that says they have the right to speak without fear of assault, and another side that says if they speak they'll be physically attacked?

Jim Ruttenberg specifically called for an end of this practice of seeking "balance" were there was none -- in the New York Times itself. Of course, he meant that in the sense of not giving "balance" to conservative claims when leftist claims were so obviously the truth and All Conservatives Are Liars.

Notice they've gone back to seeking "balance" when the obvious malefactors are their fellow violent, fascist progressives.

But across the country, conservatives like her are eagerly throwing themselves into volatile situations like the one in Berkeley, emboldened by a backlash over what many Americans see as excessive political correctness, a president who has gleefully taken up their fight, and liberals they accuse of trying to censor any idea they disagree with.

The situation adds up to a striking reversal in the culture wars, with the left now often demanding that offensive content be excised from public discourse and those who promote it boycotted and shunned.

A striking reversal? "Now"?

The left has been doing this with increasing militancy since the 1980s.

How fucking old and out of touch do you have to be to call this "striking reversal" as happening "now"?

It has happened and happened and grown worse every year precisely because the alleged "responsible voices" of the left, who could be expected to chastise their misbehaving correligionists and tell them to stop, have in fact covered up for them every step of the way, thereby tacitly approving of them and encouraging them to go further.

Remember the "Climate of Hate," where it was posited that somehow Sarah Palin had inspired a deranged man obsessed with the mind-control patterns of regular English grammar to shoot a Representative who didn't take his theories about grammar seriously?

If you believe in a "Climate of Hate" encouraging violence from more excitable members of a political cult, then you must also believe that the left's endless justification and excuse-making for violence -- when not openly calling for it-- creates a Climate of Hate on the left for visiting violence on the right.

You can't deny that. It's non-deniable.

What the Times and the left are doing, therefore, is simply supporting the Climate of Hate, and hoping to cause violence. So long as it's directed against the right people.

The rest of the article (so far as I could read) is less egregious than that opening -- claiming the victim provoked the attacker -- but that rhetorical excuse for political violence is quite enough.

I'm pretty sure that if Rush Limbaugh defended, justified, and make excuses for right wing gang violence the Times would not say the left "provoked" them by "throwing themselves" into "volatile situations" (like state-funded college campuses).

The mayor of Berkeley -- who liked a By Any Means Necessary Facebook posts (BAMN being one of the violent groups, as their name would imply), and who has ordered police to stand down and let BAMN and antifa attack citizens at random -- says that both antifa and the right which baits people into assaulting them are mutually to blame, and Mother Jones, naturally enough, agrees.

Keep your eye open for when Mother Jones speaks in the passive voice -- no human actor specified -- and when it gets suddenly specific about a human actor involved in an outcome.

On the eve of what was shaping up to be the latest in a string of violent clashes in Berkeley, California--

When a mugger attacks a citizen for his money, it's a "clash," but usually we do note who criminally attacked the other to start this "clash."

--between militant far-right and far-left activists,

Who's throwing M80s and bricks into crowds? Eh, doesn't matter. Niggling detail. There's a Higher Truth to be discovered.

-- Mayor Jesse Arreguin vowed that police would act aggressively to quash illegal behavior. "Berkeley is about the free exchange of ideas, but that's not what's happening," he said in an interview at City Hall late Wednesday.

Why? Who is it who is stopping the free exchange of ideas -- Ann Coulter, or the terrorists who threatened to harm her for speaking her ideas?

"So I think going forward we are going to need to have a more visible police presence at these incidents and intervene."

A confession that the standing orders have been to let Antifa attack whoever it likes, and that the only problem he sees her is that the attacked have begun counter-attacking.

Protesters who engage in violence or vandalism, Arreguin warned, will be arrested and prosecuted "to the fullest extent of the law."

Which ones? You only arrested one guy at the Milo riot. I have a feeling you'll be arresting more of the attacked than the attacking.

Ever since a planned speech at the University of California-Berkeley in February by far-right media provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was canceled amid a rash of violence and property destruction,

Amidst a rash of violence and property destruction which self-generated itself with no identifiable human agents behind it.

.... Berkeley has become a prime target for right-wing groups mobilizing under the banner of "free speech" ...

Ah. The right-wing is targeting Berkeley. Under the banner of quote-unquote "free speech."

...and trolling political opponents with bigoted rhetoric.

They can't name who is committing the violence and property damage, but they're Johnny on the Spot when it comes to Naming and Shaming those guilty of "trolling."

Alt-right and other far-right demonstrators have repeatedly scuffled with antifa counterprotesters in the city, most recently on April 15, when protracted brawls led to the arrest of 20 people.

They mutually "scuffled." No one, say, began attempting to storm the state where permitted speakers were legally speaking.

They add this, after noting Ann Coulter cancelled her appearance, but "fanned the flames" of wishing to speak without being physically assaulted:

alt-right agitators have vowed to cause mayhem whether she shows or not.

Again, Mother Jones finds its voice in being able to identify the trouble-makers, a task it found strangely elusive when it came to BAMN and antifa violence earlier.

And is antifa also vowing to battle in the streets?

I guess we'll never really know. It's just these alt-righters, I guess.


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Posted by Ace at 05:30 PM Comments

NY Times Reporter Beclowns Self

—OregonMuse

Most idiotic tweet of Apr. 27th, 2017:

That's right. All those pantyfag goons pepper-spraying people and hitting them with baseball bats? Totes Trump's fault.

Just like those Muslim refugees are provoked to rape little girls in public swimming pools in Sweden.

And speaking of clowns:

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Posted by OregonMuse at 03:54 PM Comments

Don't Mess With Texas: State Preparing to Levy Fines and Even Imprison Officials Who Won't Enforce State Law Against Sanctuary Cities

—Ace

God bless Texas, the Based State.

(I just found out recently that "Based" means "not caring about what others say and being proud to be defiant," or something like that. Though if I'm wrong about Teenage Internet Slang, let me know.)

Jazz Shaw digests an AP article:

. Out in the Lone Star State, Republicans are moving forward with a bill which would essentially ban sanctuary cities and impose some stiff penalties for those not in compliance. This is in keeping with statements that Governor Abbott has made in the past, so if it makes it to his desk it will likely go through. Part of it is the usual route of cutting off state funding and grants, but this one takes the additional step of holding leaders, including police chiefs and sheriffs, accountable. And that could mean fines or even jail time.

I just got an erection so full it began sprouting smaller, spikey erections. My dick now looks like a morningstar in that Frank Frazetta painting -- you know the one. And by "one," I mean all of them.

Sorry I Lied: I thought I remembered a Frazetta painting on one of those Ace fantasy books with Conan, or a Conan ripoff, smashing someone's head with a morningstar, but I can't find it, nor can I find any Frazetta paintings where the hero uses a morningstar. In some, you can see, amidst the Gigantic Pile of Slain Enemies, a morningstar sticking up from the human ruin, but I don't see any exemplars of morningstars as the hero's weapon.

A survey of Frazetta's oevure indicates that he chiefly worked in the medium of battle axes, with some sparing use of sword strokes, and occassionally just straight-up strangulation.


Posted by Ace at 02:19 PM Comments

Cultural Appropriation: For $425, Nordstrom's Will Sell You Distressed Jeans Splattered With Fake Washer-Safe Mud So You Can Play Dress-Up as Someone From the Outdoors-Working Class

—Ace

From Mike Rowe, who gives the post a title that really can't be improved, Jeans Made to Look Like You Work Hard So You Don't Have To.

More and more of life seems to be nothing but artifice. The carefully-curated presentation of oneself on Instagram and FaceBook and Twitter, always eating a luxe restaurants and always taking selfies at exciting places.

Rock-climbed exactly once in your entire life? Perfect-- make that your avatar on Tinder.

Why not take that Life of Illusion into meatspace and just begin playing dress-up as something you are not?

Finally -- a pair of jeans that look like they have been worn by someone with a dirty job…made for people who don’t. And you can have your very own pair for just $425.00.

Here’s the official description, from their website.

"These heavily distressed medium-blue denim jeans embody rugged, Americana workwear that’s seen some hard-working action with a crackled, caked-on muddy coating that shows you’re not afraid to get down and dirty."

On the positive side, Nordstrom's isn't purging their shelves of work-related imagery, like the owners of Monopoly did when they replaced the wheelbarrow with a rubber ducky. They seem to value icons work. What they don't value -- obviously -- is authenticity.

...

Not real mud. Fake mud. Something to foster the illusion of work. The illusion of effort. Or perhaps, for those who actually buy them, the illusion of sanity.

The Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans aren't pants. They're not even fashion. They're a costume for wealthy people who see work as ironic -- not iconic.

Rowe's write up is pretty much spot on, but I have to find something to add or disagree with, so I'll pick this nit: While I agree with him 99.9%, I'd point out that fashion has always kind of been about costuming, signalling, and aspiration. That's not new.

A lot of the "athletic clothing" purchased in America is by people who are decidedly not athletic. When a very heavy boy buys really expensive sneakers, yeah, it's dress up in a way. But it's also him putting on the mask of what he wants to be.

As Mike Rowe says, the one good thing is that hard work isn't being denigrated here, but valorized: Something worth... well not doing, but something worth dressing up as if you do.

And if I'm being honest, mudded-up jeans do look pretty good. Pretty much because whenever I see them it's a movie I'm watching and the Muscular Leading Man just managed to save a rogue cow from stampeding off a canyon edge by wrestling it by its horns into the muddy earth. (See, it's raining like hell out and there are lightning flashes because of course there must be.)

However, there used to sort of be a rule that you can't just totally play dress-up. If you bought a BUM sweatshirt, you had to go to the gym at least once or twice. You can't just wear a leather back brace around like an Olympic weightlifter for fashion if you don't ever actually lift.

Do you even mud, bro?

The falling of this rule -- that you must attempt some semblance of what you pretend to be -- is probably now permitted by endless Brand Creation that everyday people do for themselves on the internet, plus the odd and new proposition that anyone is whatever they claim to be, whatever sex they claim, whatever race.

If you can believe this -- some people on the internet will claim sometimes be 28 years old, when they're actually rather older than that. (Going on 29 pretty soon, in my case.)

But we seem to be crossing a Rubicon of Reality here where you can now play dress-up with expensively faux-muddied clothing to look like a humble cowhand.

I suppose it would be easy enough to adapt Second Skin -- make it thicker, add a yellow tint -- to begin painting on Fake Callouses every morning to Steal the Look from a real cowboy.

Anyway, this is where we are, this is who we are now.

The watchword is decadence. Fashion I don't mind, and I recognize there's an element of play and fantasy in many higher-end fashions. I always want a pea coat, partly because of its association with merchant marines, but always feel like it would be dress-up and I can't get one. Same with army-style jackets.

Yeah, I like the look, but I don't want to separate myself that far from the real world.

This complete divorce from vital, primal physical reality, and this retreat in a child's playground of Let's Pretend, seems to me to very decadence of a very advanced type.

Now I'm going to take my messenger bag and go deliver some very important military orders to my commander at Starbucks. With your kind leave, Sir.


BTW: I'm aware there's bigger and newer news. Some of it makes me so angry I really need to process it so I can express myself in something other than curses (and worse).

Posted by Ace at 12:45 PM Comments

The Snowflake Test

—OregonMuse

This sounds like good news:

A Connecticut-based marketing company has created a “snowflake” test to weed out entitled liberal Millennials.

The Silent Partner Marketing company has come up with a unique way to vet potential employees. The firm developed a survey for applicants asking a number of questions about themselves. Questions include “What does America mean to you?” and “How do you feel about guns?”

Kyle Reyes, CEO of Silent Partner Marketing appeared on Fox & Friends on Wednesdney, saying “I needed a filter to sort through all of that.”

What a h8r. Why whould he do such a thing?

Reyes said he’s looking for employees who don’t feel entitled or expect things to be handed to them. He insists, however, that emotional people are welcomed to apply—as long as they don’t need a safe space at the office.

“I want people who have a sense of community, who have a sense of heart, who aren’t afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves.” He explained. Then added, “But who are able to make an argument and stand by it.”

The CEO said that “Someone who’s not proud to be an American” would be automatically disqualified from a job at the firm.

And it gets even better:

Following the media interest, Reyes said, many other companies have approached him, offering “significant” amounts of money to design a similar test for them.

Unfortunately, I think this is a lawsuit waiting to happen. I've on hiring and vetting committees at some of the places I've worked at. Finding good people who will fit in is dang hard. It's amazing what you can't ask in interviews and it's amazing what you can't ask the candidate's previous employers. Like, pretty much everything. All they can do is confirm dates of employment. Questions about whether the guy was a good worker, did he show up on time, did he get along with people, all of those types of questions cannot be asked. By law.

So how does the employer weed out the slackers, the surly, and the psychos?

This is why they have to do things like look for you on social media and that is why they devise snowflake tests. Pretty much all of the conventional means for assessing employee fitness have been made illegal. It's almost getting to the point where you have to make your hiring decisions by using a dartboard.

Posted by OregonMuse at 11:30 AM Comments

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

pride of dijon.jpg

The Pride Of Dijon
William John Hennessy

In the interests of preserving the genteel and elegant theme of this week's art thread, I will not explain to you that I think that the gentleman is working very, very hard with a singular goal in mind.

Posted by CBD at 09:30 AM Comments

The Morning Report 4/27/17

—J.J. Sefton

Pick.jpg

Good morning, kids. Loaded for bear on this gloopy Thursday here in the land of DeBolshevik. First up, it turns out that although this Judge Orrick (another Leftist named after a vacuum [at least he's not named after a prison like Soldedad O'Brian, but I digress]) was completely out of line in his ruling, some legal eagles are saying it doesn't mean much when it comes to the actual enforcement of law because the law to block funding for "sanctuary cities" was written and passed in 1996 when Bill Clinton was in office. The entire Senate met with the Trump national security team for what has been described as a very sobering briefing on the threat from Whoa Fat. Ivanka Trump is starting to annoy me, as we are now taking the "slightly pregnant" approach to the Paris Climate Accords. The House Freedom Caucus now is backing Repeal/Replace 2 but there is opposition supposedly from the moderates (whatever that term means). Treasury Secretary Mnuchin is high on the Trump Tax Reform and is hot and horny to ram it through ASAP. Rush, though had some thoughts on this, especially the false and dangerous narrative that tax cuts have to be paid for:

And remember the premise of this, folks, is that all money is Washington's, not yours. So when Washington proposes a tax cut, i.e., you get to keep more of what you earn, Washington and the media look at it as the government losing money. And that cannot happen. And so government must find a way to pay for the tax cut, because a tax cut is not you keeping more of what you earn because what you earn is not yours. What you end up with is because of what the government says you can have. This is how people look at it, media people on the left.

As we often say in the comments "THIS x infinity."

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

Posted by J.J. Sefton at 07:03 AM Comments

Wednesday Overnight Open Thread (4/26/17) The Hump Day Edition

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

wedsont.jpg

*****

Quote of The Day

Quote I

The Fifth Republic is in a grim state. Dodging a bullet doesn't make much of a difference if you're riddled with disease. Mark Steyn


While we are looking at France, Let's meet one of France's presidential candidates and his lovely wife.

"That's why this latest "scandal" doesn't appear to matter at all to the French. Emmanuel Macron, who by several projections is set to win the French presidency in two weeks, was just a 15-year-old student when his 40-year-old teacher seduced him – and the two are married today.

*****

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Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM Comments

On Gratitude And Humor [Warden]

—Open Blogger

I had minor surgery yesterday.* Although it wasn't high risk, being put under general anesthesia is always somewhat of a concern and the whole process from admittance through recovery is neither convenient nor cheap.

In short, surgery is a stressful experience for most people.

Matters weren't helped by a three hour delay due to my surgeon having to deal with multiple complications from the operation scheduled prior to mine--the exact same procedure I was about to undergo.

But as I sat there in pre-op waiting and holding my wife's hand, I couldn't help but feel gratitude. Prior to modern medicine, this condition would have disabled or killed me. I had insurance and enough money in our HSA to cover the deductible, so I didn't have to sweat finances. And not only did I not have to go through this alone, Mrs. Warden and I had spent our time happily chatting and cracking jokes with each other and the nursing staff as we waited--my wife at one point wryly mentioning to the male nurse who had been called in to shave my stomach that my back could probably use a little work, too.

The nursing staff was absolutely terrific, and I was genuinely appreciative for the care they provided. Every time my wife or I has ended up in the hospital, we've always received top notch care from the front line staff. There isn't any question in my mind that at least part of this is due to the fact that we always do our best to remember and use the name of everyone on staff, to stay positive, and to say please and thank you even when we're in pain or distress.

The pleases and thank yous are a habit we've built over the years with each other--one we've passed on to our children. Recently, someone complimented me on how polite my kids are. It's true that they are and I'm always proud to hear that sort of thing, but having good manners is not the primary reason I taught my children to be polite.

I taught my children to be polite as a constant reminder to be grateful for the small kindnesses that others do for you. My wife and I model this daily for them. Not only do we thank each other for routine things we do for one another like setting the table, doing the laundry or mowing the lawn, we also thank our children for behaving well, cleaning their rooms or helping with the dishes.

Expressing heartfelt gratitude has an almost miraculous effect on the people around you. It makes others take joy in doing for you, turning resentment or obligation into enthusiastic kindness, and it's as much true for a nursing staff as it is your spouse. When you practice verbal gratitude daily, it changes the very nature of your relationships.

Taking the opposite path can prove, well, disastrous. One of the things my wife talked me about as we waited on the surgery was her boss's marital problems. He's a talented and ambitious man who pulls down a salary large enough to spoil his stay-at-home wife with expensive clothes, cars, and vacations.

The vacations, rather than being a blessing, have turned into a source of bitter resentment for him because his wife refuses to go to any of his preferred destinations or participate in any of the activities he enjoys. If he pushes the issue, she retaliates by passive aggressively ruining the experience with complaints, feigned illness and drama.

He's so upset over it that they haven't been speaking. The issue, of course, isn't really about the vacations. It's about his wife making their marriage a win/lose proposition rather than a win/win one and then stacking the game in her favor. At its core it's a simple lack of appreciation and gratitude--one so deeply ingrained that experiences most married couples can only dream of affording become a source of petty squabbling.

What a shame.

As I waited for my surgery, I wondered how I'd handle something as terrifying, painful and exhausting as cancer. I vowed that if I ever found myself faced with it, I'd do my very best to model strength, courage, grace, and good humor to my kids, as it might be the last and most important lesson I ever taught them.

Lying there next to my wife, I noted that gratitude and humor are fundamental building blocks of a healthy marriage and if you can display both when you're in a trying situation, then you're probably on solid ground with your spouse.

I found myself overcome with happiness that I'd married someone who loves me so deeply and who is constantly working toward improving and strengthening our marriage. I felt like there wasn't anything we couldn't get through together.

I'm beginning to think that the gratitude and a sense of humor are linked-- not in the sense that the funniest people are the most grateful (people who aren't at all funny can still laugh uproariously at someone who is)--but that gratitude provides the necessary perspective to have a good laugh at one's own misfortune.

My father, a recovering alcoholic, told me when I was a teenager that he knew his drinking had gotten out of control after he lost his sense of humor. This simple insight always stuck with me. It's perhaps just a backwards restatement of the "laughter is the best medicine" adage, but has been of much more practical value to me as a warning sign for when my mental state has gotten off the rails.

The sicker a society is, the more complicated it makes the rules of living out a life of happiness and fulfillment. In reality, the steps are both simple and unchanging. You know what they are and so do I. It's just that simple doesn't translate to easy and so we tend to look for other, less difficult ways.

None of us are immune, but you see it much more on the left. Instead of looking inward, the left is constantly trying to fix the other guy.This is one reason I've lost interest in politics. I'm fascinated by culture and the forces that move/control it, but I know that the actual practice of politics has very little impact on our daily lives.

Temperament is at least somewhat genetic, but I think that Abraham Lincoln had it mostly right when he said that most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

I also think my old man had it right when he told me that no one decision will have more impact on your happiness than your choice of who to marry (or not). Growing older definitely has its drawbacks--your body breaking down being one of them--but one of the great joys of aging been a greater understanding of love and the role it plays in my life.

Love isn't a feeling. It's thought put into action. It's a choice. And it begins with gratitude.

*I'm still riding a Percocet high, so I apologize for the rambling nature of this post.

Posted by Open Blogger at 08:30 PM Comments

Ignore Vox Writers At Your Peril: They're Better Than The Onion

—CBD

DylanMatthews.jpg

A progressive wet dream. No, not Dylan, even most leftists have better taste than that. But the collectivist drivel about single payer (disguised as "universal coverage") is the lodestone for most of them, because from that all-encompassing control comes pretty much everything else.

Please Dylan, keep hammering away with that idea. Americans are absolutely ready for confiscatory taxes on alcohol, and they are so weary of owning their own cars. It is time! Charge into the fray!

Posted by CBD at 07:30 PM Comments

Obamacare Cost-Sharing Subsidies Will Not Be Part of the Deal Republicans Make to Keep Democrats From Shutting the Government Down, Ryan Claims

—Ace

That's a deal that only a Democrat could offer to a Republican.

In exchange for you continuing funding Obamacare, we'll allow you the benefit of also being permitted to continue funding Planned Parenthood.

We are always bargaining from a position of weakness. Never strength. Just this cramped posture of a beaten boy who rolls up into a ball covering his head and crying "Uncle."

And by the way, I assume this is a negotiating position and when the Democrats shut down the government, we'll give in on some cost-sharing subsidies for Obamacare.

John Sexton explains what cost-sharing subsidies are: Direct payments to insurance companies

Cost-sharing reduction payments are separate from the subsidies used to lower the cost of insurance premiums for people buying Obamacare plans on the exchanges (those who make under 400% of the federal poverty line). CSRs are additional payments made directly to insurers to lower out-of-pocket costs including copayments and annual deductibles. However, the way the law is written means that insurers must discount those items for people at the low end of the income scale whether or not they are receiving the money to cover it from the federal government. So if the CSRs are cut off, as Democrats worry the Trump administration made decide to do, insurers will be losing, even more on the exchanges than they already are.

Insurers are mandated to offer discounts to the poor, Sexton reports, so the cost-sharing subsidies are really just a gimmicky rigged game to try to disguise the fact that yes, you are subsidizing other people for their insurance. The government taxes you, the government orders insurers to lower costs for the poor, the government taxes you more and gives some money to the insurers.

Without the subsidies, the insurance companies will lose money even faster.

Posted by Ace at 06:34 PM Comments

Leftwing Outrage of the Day: Obnoxious Fox Guy Jessie Watters Makes a Statement Which May Or May Not be a Lewd Sexual Remark About Ivanka Trump;
Liberal Hero "Reporter" Jake Tapper Pounces

—Ace

The Blue Checkmark Mafia takes its outrage where it can find it.

Jessie Watters, in defending Ivanka Trump from hissing German progressives (and noting that progressives believe in treating women with respect in theory so long as she's a dues-paying member of their cult), then said, with a wag of his eyebrows, "I like the way she talks into her microphone" or something like that, which many took as a reference to oral sex.

Which it could be.

He later clarified he meant that her voice was like that of a "smooth jazz DJ," which is something he could actually have possibly meant. Though I'd say more of a low-talking Public Affairs Editor on a College Radio Station. (A lot of them talk that way.)

But my money is probably on the oral sex angle.

But that's just speculation -- I'd put my money on that, if I had to bet, but I'm not so positive of it I would bet on it except with good odds.

And if that is what he meant --

1, who cares?

2, the left routinely denigrates conservative women in sexual terms. Ask Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, or Sarah Palin about it.

3, who cares? At this state of this very course culture the left has brought about, who cares about a minor league blowjob gag? (See what I did there?)

For the love of Pete, the liberals scolded us for a year that an actual blowjob, lied about in a court deposition, by a sitting president, specifically sitting in the Oval Office (I can't see the chubby Clinton standing all the way through it), was no big shakes and we were sexually repressed obsessives for saying it was.

Now a minor "Aw aren't I a little scamp?" blowjob reference from a minor correspondant is the worst thing ever?

4, the left, which plays at being daring sexual libertine who love transgression when it's not playing its other role of uptight chilly-boxed prudes who shriek "Unclean!" at everyone they don't like, is really on the edge of suggesting that straight men cannot find sexual beauty in women.

If he'd said it about Michael Sam he'd receive an early Emmy.

But if you are offended, you've got former Salon reporter and Monica Lewinsky Date-and-Teller Jake Tapper to support you in your outrage.


Now, as a bit of context which you already know, Jake Tapper just happens to work at a competitor network, and Fox just happens to have launched a show at 9pm which may or may not work in that timeslot, so CNN may or may not have a vested interest in seeing it fail so it can climb out of the ratings basement and step once again into the glorious spotlight of a Distant Second Place.


But you know, Jake Tapper's chorus of Twitter sycophants will rise nobly to his defense, all flattered and shit that he personally DMs them to yell at them if they ever criticize his coverage.

Pro-tip, fellers: He does that to everyone. Do not be flattered by his relentless personalized Brand Protection efforts. You're not special; you're just special enough to be worth being told to shut up.

Anyway, keep on vouching for the impeccable honesty and unquestionable political neutrality of this ambitious progressive reporter, conservatives.

Actually... If it was a minor blowjob joke, it does deserve some level of criticism. I wouldn't want to be sexualized that way, if I were a woman. (I do wish to be sexualized, just to say it happened once, but that's because it never happens, and plus I'm a guy, who doesn't have the baggage of being thought of in mostly those terms.)

But this ludicrous pumping it up into Rape Culture You Guys? Give me a break.

Plus, one has to be a bit hesitant in one's criticism noting that this is only one interpretation of his meaning.

Unless you're Jake Tapper. Then you know what the truth is, and you can put it in chyrons. Like this:

BESIEGED FOX CORRESPONDENT CLAIMS HE DIDN'T WORD-RAPE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER (HE DID)

PS: Remember how leftists and the news media (but I repeat myself) completely abstained from lewd clucking about Michelle Bachman eating a corn-dog?

Posted by Ace at 04:40 PM Comments

ESPN, Two Weeks Ago: Like It Or Not, ESPN Is Not "Sticking to Sports"

—Ace

"How'd it go?," asks @omni_ceren as he retweets this bit of corporate dick-wagging.

Their "Public Editor" (or ombudsman; the NYT is the only prominent outlet tat calls the position "Public Editor," which gives you a clue into what ESPN considers its model of journ0lism) says ESPN is doubling down on Social Justice Warrioring.

NB: He is writing specifically about ESPN's website talking more about politics -- and while that's what he's specifically addressing, everyone knows that the ESPN's main product, its repetitive and meatheaded television channel of regurgitated clips and pre-chewed sports "wisdom" -- is just as guilty.

"Hey, ESPN: Stick to sports."

I've read thousands of social media posts and reader emails about ESPN over the past 15 months. If there's one phrase that tends to surface most frequently, it's that chestnut suggesting the network’s only proper place is in the athletics lane.

Yes, when it comes to ESPN -- the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader in Sports" -- the concern of many fans is that it's no longer focused enough on sports. Some complain too much focus has been placed on culture and politics, with the most fire directed at FiveThirtyEight, The Undefeated, the new SC6 show and even one of the network's graybeards, Outside the Lines, the title of which describes exactly the coverage some would like to see less of.

As I wrote in November, the desire to draw a boundary between sports, culture and politics is a fool's errand. Sports has always intersected with culture and politics...

ESPN, in fact, just removed any question about the sports-politics-culture intersection when it released new political guidelines that loosen the restraints on commentary about politics and culture, though stressing that such discussion should connect to sports whenever possible.

Whatever one thinks of the revised guidelines, one thing appears beyond dispute: The volume of non-sports content within ESPN's empire has increased significantly in recent years....

The existence of these sites might seem odd to those who pine for the days of ESPN being all sports all the time. But media is growing more disaggregated by the day, leading more and more cable subscribers to cut the cord, a trend that has significantly affected ESPN's once-impenetrable broadcast business....

ESPN President John Skipper has endorsed these efforts....

...

One thing is clear: Those of you who have not held your tongue about ESPN's move away from an all-sports-all-the-time mantra also should not hold your breath waiting for a change.

ESPN has made it clear: It's not sticking to sports.

I bolded that one part because it jibes with a comment offered by TheJamesMadison, who said ESPN was already beginning to fail as a business model even before the all-SJW-all-the-time format, and that this emphasis on SJW leftwingery is not the cause of the problem so much as it is ESPN's effort to fix the problem.

He didn't explain, but here's my guess as to his thinking:

In the old says, a big hit show was one that garnered a 30% market share. 30% of all TVs in America in use would be turned to MASH or All in the Family.

In an age of increasing market fragmentation, no one even thinks about a 30% market share. Now a tv show is a hit if it has something like a 6% or 8% market share.

Now add into that the increasing partisanship of the country: Bush proved -- through most of his term -- that you didn't need all of the country to support you if 40% of the country strongly supported you, and 10% were indifferent. (At the end of his term, when the financial crisis hit, he also proved you definitely needed more than 29% support.)

Obama took that lesson and ran with it. Obama was the most divisive and partisan president in several lifetimes -- Nixonian in his scheming, Carteresque in competency -- and spent the bulk of his presidency in the 44-46% approval range.

But the bulk of that approval was strong approval from intense partisans, who saw them as their avatar in the unending Culture Wars, and quite possibly an actual Messiah or Buddha sent down by Heaven to redeem that part of humanity that lived in the better zip codes of at least a dozen coastal US cities.

In an age where more people are tuning out ESPN's main product, they may have decided they don't need viewers so much as they need emotionally-invested political supporters

FoxNews is the biggest cable news channel -- but most of the country doesn't watch it, or outright hates it. But that doesn't matter -- you don't need all of the people, you just need a lot of the people to be strong supporters who will tune in just out of a sense of loyalty.

ESPN may have looked into its future, a future filled with bloated, paid-way-too-much-for-way-too-little loss leader costs for broadcast rights to sports, at the same time its subscriber base was falling every single year (and usually -- every single month), and may have decided that at some point they will have to jack up the mandatory cable subscription rates through the roof to cover costs, and to get the cable channels to agree to that, they're gonna need a lot of intensely-loyal Obama-style partisans telling cable companies "Yes, by all means, agree on $15/month for the right to carry ESPN."

We may be in the age where our commercial television entertainments must be turned into Cultural/Political/Quasi-Religious Crusades in order to hold on to a small number of nigh-religiously-devoted zealots to have any kind of market viability at all.

Given that, ESPN may have decided that it would gladly alienate all the conservative men its audience -- a larger chunk of its audience, or at least a larger chunk of its previous audience -- in order to secure the passionate partisan followership of a smaller but louder audience that will bully cable companies into mandating that anyone who wants cable has to pay $15 per month to ESPN, or else they'll cry "Racism!"

ESPN's positioning of itself as Black Lives Matter/Social Justice Warrior central may be some clever maneuvering to play the Racism! card when they start seeking higher rents from more unwilling citizens.

This may be ESPN's cynical effort at creating a devoted followership that will permit it to achieve the dream of every socialist enterprise -- simple rent-seeking, compelling unwilling citizens to pay a tax to subsidize you in your dream-quests to reshape humanity.

And you know what?

It just might work.

Unless a nearly equally furious revolt develops that demands that they be allowed to choose which services and which speech they wish to subsidize with their money.

The left and right have always been engaged in an asymmetrical type of warfare -- the left is always demanding the right subsidize it, and the right does not make any equal demand that the left subsidize it. At most, we simply object to being made to subsdize the left, which is not an equal-and-opposite reaction. When the left demands they take a dollar from you and put it into their own pockets, that's a net gain for the left.

The right tends to merely argue against such schemes -- at best, we'll come out net zero in the battle. At best, the left comes out +$1 and you come out -$1; but at best, the right comes out at +$0 to either party.

And we don't even come out of things at that net zero level, because we're just not vigorous enough in defending our own interests. We don't even think about taking money from the left to put into our own pet projects, and we barely even fuss ourselves about the left's effort to take our money to fund theirs.

They demand they take a dollar from us to devote to a leftwing cause; we compromise, and give them fifty cents.

Every time.

We need to make the right more aware of this dynamic and more insistent -- much more insistent, including mass boycotts -- that we have had it up to our necks with it and simply will not give a single slim dime more.

And then maybe we can start making our own demands of wealth-transfers from the left into our own pockets and see how they like walking in those shoes for a long frog-march through the institutions.


Posted by Ace at 03:07 PM Comments

Cave: Rather Than Dare the Democrats to Shut Down the Government Over Spending on a Program They Didn't Want, Republicans Cave and Propose Budget with No Funding for Border Wall

—Ace

So here's how this works:

Republicans can't shut down the government to stop Obamafunding because if you shut down the government you'll be blamed and lose seats. So Republicans must cave.

Democrats can shut down the government with no negative consequences to them, and therefore Republicans must cave when Democrats are going to shut down the government.

Rush Limbaugh was complaining about this dynamic yesterday, saying he had hoped Trump would be the guy who would stand up to the dominant paradigm and say the old rules no longer apply. But apparently not. (Clip after the fold.)

This isn't just Trump's fault -- a lot of Republicans are against the wall and don't want to have to take a vote on it either way. So it's once again Failure Theater -- darn it, those Democrats are stopping us from doing the things we claim we want to do but in fact would always refuse to do!

But it's also a reflection of Trump's relative weakness at the moment -- if he were more popular, he would force fucking Bob Corker and Paul Ryan to vote against the wall and show their colors to the dummies who keep reelecting them.

But he needs some people on his side, so he has to cave to the Republican upscale suburban Establishment that always gets its way.

Think about the MODERATES!!!

So the GOP will be presenting a budget that contains no funding for the wall that Congress actually authorized to be build in 2006, but didn't bother to appropriate money for ("Build the dang fence" -- John McCain, 2010, in a campaign ad when running for reelection), and will only ask for some additional money for enforcement.

The enforcement part of the Trump Administration -- the part where Sessions can just enforce the laws on the books without having to get permission from Congress -- is bearing some fruit. Maybe. The number of illegals intercepted at the border is down 40%, which you can take to mean that fewer illegals are trying to enter the country, or that Trump is actually intercepting a lower percentage than Obama did. (It wouldn't be Trump doing that, I assume, but employees of the US government acting in rebellion.

And the number of deportations back to Mexico is actually down too-- I don't know if "deportation" means real deportations of people already inside the country, or deportations as Obama began defining it to pad his "deportation" numbers, by conflating deportations and mere interceptions/turn-aways at the border.

So I don't even know if the tougher enforcement is having a positive effect, or if the effort is being sabotaged by #TheResistance.

Below, Rush delivers the bad news.

I hope Trump realizes that our tolerance for his shakiness in standing up his government and in delivering on promises is not without limits.

Continue reading
Posted by Ace at 01:45 PM Comments

Massive Layoffs at ESPN, With 100 On-Air "Personalities" and "Writers" Getting the Ax

—Ace

Booyah, baby.

CNN reports that ESPN will cut "television, radio and online personalities and a limited number of additional off-air jobs." The job cuts are effective immediately.

ESPN UPDATE: I have multiple sources at ESPN telling me they expect the number of layoffs to be closer to 100 people than 70. Awful news.

-- Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) April 26, 2017


Hearing now from several @espn employees who, despite advanced word, are "in shock" and "frozen." This is an awful day for all in Bristol.

-- jamesmiller (@JimMiller) April 26, 2017

...

The cuts come as ESPN loses cable subscribers to "cord-cutting" and faces increased pressure on costs.

The network has spent billions of dollars in recent years on rights deals with major sports leagues like the NFL and NBA and college conferences like the ACC, Big Ten and SEC.

Sounds like a really good time for ESPN to run an hour-long tribute to Colin Kaepernick's knee.

Meanwhile, Outkick the Coverage, which has been predicting this for a while, is gloating. OtC's point has always been that ESPN spent like a drunken sailor who doesn't understand profit and loss to secure broadcast rights for a bunch of things, without any plan of how they'd actually recoup those costs in advertising fees. I guess they thought they could just keep jacking up their automatic/no-opt-out cable fee "subscriptions."

Nope! But I'm sure that's the next shoe to drop -- Disney will play hardball with cable companies and start demanding that people be forced to pay $11 per month (or something) for ESPN or else they won't be able to carry the Disney kid's channels and the other Disney kid channel, ABC.

I'd say it's a win-win for customers if cable companies refuse.

And I think the public should start letting cable companies know that if they jack up costs to cover this shit, another cable will get cut.

BTW, why are Republicans not insisting on a la carte pricing?

I've heard it claimed before that if there's a la carte pricing, ESPN and MSNBC suffer, sure, but FoxNews would suffer too, as obviously a lot of the country would also not subscribe to that channel.

But with FoxNews apparently going in a more liberal direction, and with much more to be gained anyway from putting the big hurt on cable and TV stations, it's time for a la carte pricing, not the socialist system we have now.

But Republicans won't do that because they're paid corporate stooges in the first place and they're cowards scared of their own farts.

(And besides: a la carte pricing would kind of force the Murdochs to continue to keep Fox conservative -- you can't get people to pay extra money for a service that is exactly like the service they're already getting as part of their base package. Competition forces brand differentiation.)


Posted by Ace at 12:22 PM Comments

Free Speech For Me...

—OregonMuse


Evolution.jpg


"First it's bullshit, then it's normalized, then it's policy, then it's law."

This is the left-wing progression of how they get things done, whether it's Obamacare, or gay marriage, or "trans" rights. Or, as in this case, criminalizing the words (and ultimately, the ideas) of your opposition. Of course, for years now, the left has wanted to make disagreeing with them a crime, and now, apparently, is the time they've decided to try to make it happen.

So Democratic propagandist/bulldog Howard Dean has of late been making some embarrassingly ill-informed statements on Twitter to the effect that the 1st Amendment was never intended to protect "hate speech" and similarly, there have been think pieces along these same lines published in the NY Times and the New Republic.

Yeah, it's bullshit, but Obamacare started out as bullshit, too.

This is the progression noted in an article by John Nolte. His point is that Dean knows full well that what he's peddling is bullshit, but he has a specific endgame in view:

Dean wants to normalize a fascist argument into something acceptable among America's elite, something that will eventually be found acceptable within the judiciary, and eventually result in a Supreme Court that finds it acceptable.

And so the big question is, of course, who is it exactly who gets to decide what constitutes "hate speech?" Why, a bunch of liberal judges, of course! Who else did you think Dean (and the NYT and TNR) had in mind? Remember, for Dean and his ilk, "our violence is free speech, but your free speech is violence" is sound, progressive legal theory.

But here's something. Perhaps Dean would not have the support of Bernie Sanders, who, surprisingly, sounds like he's kind of old school about the whole "free speech" thing, i.e. he believes it also applies to people he disagrees with:

“Obviously Ann Coulter’s outrageous―to my mind, off the wall. But you know, people have a right to give their two cents-worth, give a speech, without fear of violence and intimidation,” he added.

The senator from Vermont also slammed protesters who said Coulter shouldn’t be given a platform to speak at the university, calling them “a sign of intellectual weakness.”

“If you can’t ask Ann Coulter in a polite way questions which expose the weakness of her arguments, if all you can do is boo, or shut her down, or prevent her from coming, what does that tell the world?” he said.

Heh. When you've lost Bernie Sanders...

Posted by OregonMuse at 11:32 AM Comments

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

Gains Playdell.jpg

Mrs. Edmund Morton Pleydell
Thomas Gainsborough

Yeah...Gainsborough is the A Team.

Posted by CBD at 09:40 AM Comments

The Morning Report 4/26/17

—J.J. Sefton

epleb.jpg

Good morning, kids. Lead stories this morning are all immigration/border security related and PDT's political situation and moves. As we all know, a traitor dressed in a black robe has unilaterally declared the President's completely legal and Constitutional executive actions to deny funding to "sanctuary cities" illegal. The reaction to this, aside from the justified cries of outrage, is the promise to (yet again) take this to the courts for redress. You know, I get the feeling sometimes of having deja vu all over again with this insanity. And once again, I try to ponder the predicament of using the Constitution and the courts to seek redress from a judiciary that is rejecting the oath it took to uphold that very document and impose its will on the American people. How does one use legal means to fight an almost completely corrupted legal system? The short answer is, obviously, it's impossible. Which leads to the ultimate question of what to do? We have two sides in this country that no longer obey and respect a common set of laws, values, traditions and institutions to settle political differences. We have one that is openly contemptuous of the aforementioned and seeks the overthrow of the nation and the seizure of absolute power and authority. Whether by mere coercion or hard tyranny, by hook or by crook, they will have it. Circling back, the administration announcing that they will take this to the courts is really no longer an option. Before my blood boils any further, here are the links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

Posted by J.J. Sefton at 06:40 AM Comments

Tuesday Overnight Open Thread (4/25/17) Terrific Tuesday Edition

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

tuesdayabove fold.jpg

Quotes of The Day

Quote I

Leadership rests not only upon ability but upon commitment and upon loyalty and upon pride and upon followers...Leadership is not just one quality, but rather a blend of many qualities; and while no one individual possesses all the needed talents to go into leadership, each man can develop a combination to make him a leader.Vince Lombardi

Quote II

Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.H.L. Mencken

Quote III

You know, you put more value on every minute...I mean, I always thought I kind of did that. I really always enjoyed myself. But it's more valuable now. You're reminded to enjoy every sandwich, and every minute of playing with the guys, and being with the kids and everything.Warren Zevon


*****

Continue reading
Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:54 PM Comments

Keystone Kops > AntiFa

—OregonMuse


antifat.jpg
Profile in Courage


On the chess/open thread this weekend, I posted a snapshot taken from an antifa reddit board where one of violent protesters feared for his safety because some 4chan guys successfully identified one of his cowardly comrades despite the fact that he was wearing a mask and sunglasses. For those of you who don't hang out on the weekend threads, you should scroll past the chess content and read it, it's pretty funny listen to this thug whine and complain that he cannot continue his illegal activities with impunity.

And here's another funny one. The Berkeley antifa chapter pretty much got its nose bloodied during the April 15th riots, and they don't much like it. So much so that when Ann Coulter comes to town on the 27th, they're thinking about being somewhere else. Either that or a poetry jam:

Click to view antifa cowardice

Other options would be a bake sale or, wait, I know, they could all eat lots of beans, then show up at Coulter's speech and toot. That'll show 'em.

I don't know how widespread this sentiment is, but it actually wouldn't surprise me if the entire black bloc decided to take the day off. Antifa is mainly comprised of cowards and bullies, and all you have to do is stand up to them and they'll scurry away like cockroaches.

Continue reading
Posted by OregonMuse at 08:27 PM Comments

District Judge Issues Injunction Against Trump Order Reducing Funding for Sanctuary Cities

—Ace

Commenters mentioned this earlier, but I just found a longer story.

Legal analyst Jonathan Turley says of the order (on Twitter) "Court's stay of DOJ sanctuary city order strikes me as clear judicial overreach and clearly reversible on appeal "

So here's the latest bit of lawlessness from our Royal Class.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --

Shock -- a San Francisco case. The Ninth Circus strikes again.

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked any attempt by the Trump administration to withhold funding from "sanctuary cities" that do not cooperate with U.S. immigration authorities, saying the president has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued the preliminary injunction in two lawsuits - one brought by the city of San Francisco, the other by Santa Clara County - against an executive order targeting communities that protect immigrants from deportation.

The injunction will stay in place while the lawsuits work their way through court.

The judge said that President Donald Trump cannot set new conditions for the federal grants at stake. And even if he could, the conditions would have to be clearly related to the funds at issue and not coercive, Orrick said.

There is a possible legal problem with cutting off funding, as I've mentioned before -- and it was part of the reason that one part of Obamacare (the mandated Medicaid expansion) got ruled unconstitutional.

It's the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, which most conservatives would generally agree with: That the federal government cannot "commandeer" state agents to enforce federal law. That doctrine is not absolute; states had federal highway monies withheld unless they reduced their own speed limits to 55mph or raised the drinking age to 21, for example.

Courts seem to take a guess in this area between some consequences for refusing to obey Congress and major consequences. In the Obamacare case, the law originally said all Medicaid funds would be terminated unless states expanded their own Medicaid coverage. The court found this to be a case of "commandeering" states to obey the government, and struck it down.

However, we do know from a large, large number of laws that are presumably constitutional that the feds can withhold money from states that do not comply with its decisions.

And in fact, the doctrine might not apply at all here -- because Trump and Sessions are not ordering the states or jurisdictions to take any action. Just to supply them with information about which of its prisoners are illegal -- and the Court has previously ruled such requests for information are not what is meant by "commandeering."

Feldman and others point to New York v. United States (1992) and Printz v. United States (1997), in which the Supreme Court concluded that the federal government cannot conscript state or local officials to carry out federal law. The federal government must enforce its own laws, using federal personnel. So when state or local police arrest immigrants who are present in the country illegally, they are under no obligation to deport them, as deportation is the responsibility of the federal government alone.

This “anti-commandeering” doctrine, however, doesn’t protect sanctuary cities or public universities — because it doesn’t apply when Congress merely requests information. For example, in Reno v. Condon (2000), the Court unanimously rejected an anti-commandeering challenge to the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, which required states under certain circumstances to disclose some personal details about license holders. The court concluded that, because the DPPA requested information and “did not require state officials to assist in the enforcement of federal statutes,” it was consistent with the New York and Printz cases.

It follows that, consistent with the anti-commandeering doctrine, Congress can require state, local or university police to tell federal agents when they arrest an immigrant present in the country illegally.

The article goes on to say that while a state or city can order its personnel not to ask about immigration status, and the federal government cannot order them to do so (that would be "commandeering"), state/city employees nevertheless may have easy access to that information and must provide it if requested. The example the article offers is California drivers licenses for illegal aliens -- the licenses have markings on them indicating that they may not be valid outside of California, and hence, any cop taking an arrestee's ID would know his immigration status without asking, and then can in fact be compelled to relay that to the government.

If California wants to make itself immune to that, they'd have to destroy any records in their possession that indicate such status -- effectively granting citizenship to all residents.

Which they can't do. That's a federal power.

We'll have to watch this one.

(BTW, this article from the LATimes is new information to me -- I didn't realize the anti-commandeering doctrine did not apply to mere requests for information.)

Posted by Ace at 06:34 PM Comments

Rising Star and National Treasure Chelsea Clinton is a Rising Star and National Treasure.
Repeat Until the Savage American Public Believes You.

—Ace

Even the leftwing Vanity Fair has had it up to its neck with the constant media promotion of this Black Hole of Negative Charisma and Achievement.

She manages to mix her mother's narcissism with her father's... well, what can we say she got from her actual father?

Let's say she got her father's ambiguity and tawdry mystery.

Like tribesmen laying out a sacrifice to placate King Kong, news outlets continue to make offerings to the Clinton gods. In The New York Times alone, Chelsea has starred in multiple features over the past few months: for her tweeting (it's become "feisty"), for her upcoming book (to be titled She Persisted), and her reading habits (she says she has an "embarrassingly large" collection of books on her Kindle).

Humblebrag. Not really a grumbleflaunt because she's not making a complaint; she's just trying to disguise her brag as some kind of cutesy self-deprecation.

With Chelsea's 2015 book, It's Your World, now out in paperback, the puff pieces in other outlets -- Elle, People, etc. -- are too numerous to count.

One wishes to calm these publications: You can stop this now. Haven't you heard that the great Kong is no more? Nevertheless, they've persisted. At great cost: increased Chelsea exposure is tied closely to political despair and, in especially intense cases, the bulk purchasing of MAGA hats. So let's review: How did Chelsea become such a threat?

Perhaps the best way to start is by revisiting some of Chelsea's major post-2008 forays into the public eye. Starting in 2012, she began to allow glossy magazines to profile her, and she picked up speed in the years that followed. The results were all friendly in aim, and yet the picture that kept emerging from the growing pile of Chelsea quotations was that of a person accustomed to courtiers nodding their heads raptly. Here are Chelsea's thoughts on returning to red meat in her diet: "I'm a big believer in listening to my body's cravings." On her time in the "fiercely meritocratic" workplace of Wall Street: "I was curious if I could care about [money] on some fundamental level, and I couldn't." On her precocity: "They told me that my father had learned to read when he was three. So, of course, I thought I had to too. The first thing I learned to read was the newspaper." Take that, Click, Clack, Moo.


Chelsea, people were quietly starting to observe, had a tendency to talk a lot, and at length, not least about Chelsea. But you couldn't interrupt, not even if you're on TV at NBC, where she was earning $600,000 a year at the time. "When you are with Chelsea, you really need to allow her to finish," Jay Kernis, one of Clinton's segment producers at NBC, told Vogue. "She's not used to being interrupted that way."

Sounds perfect for a dating profile: I speak at length, and you really need to let me finish. I'm not used to interruptions.

What comes across with Chelsea, for lack of a gentler word, is self-regard of an unusual intensity.

Read the whole thing. He's tired of her.

Many people have become increasingly annoyed at the media's relentless Public Relations effort on Chelsea Clinton's behalf. The Hill's motto should just be "Chelsea Clinton's vapid tweets are our news." But there are so many outlets that just pump out Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea all day long.

Nice Deb has noticed that Chelsea Clinton is deploying the "Goodness gracious!" with tedious repetitiveness to make her sound "authentic" and "folksy." One wonders how many millions of dollars were spent on Public Image Consultants and Brand Psychology Experts to choose the right catchphrase to make Chelsea Clinton sound "authentic."

Or to make a woman who's always lived in a state capital, national capital, or financial capital, and only attended the finest schools of the elite, sound "folksy."

She also seems to be saying "Bless her heart," despite being as Southern as Polaris.

And see PJ Media's Daily Morning Update (third item) to see Chelsea Clinton's odd way of denying she's running for any office.

She seems to deny she's running for anything with great relish, as if she's very pleased to have been asked, and would like you to ask her more.

She also has a tendency to say she's not running for any office, and then list the many possible offices she could run for, but is not, currently, running for. Yet.

Like so:

"I really am constantly surprised by the stories of me running for, fill in the blank--Congress, Senate, City Council, the presidency. I really find this all rather hysterical, because I've been asked this question a lot throughout my life, and the answer has never changed."

It's a very well-known DC ploy for people to "float" their own names for some high office. If there are "reports" that Relative Nobody is "being considered" for Secretary of Defense or State, there's a good chance that that person floated her name herself, or her political operatives did.

In order to be elected to office, people have to first find you plausible as a holder of that office.

And one way to do that is to frequently get yourself talked about in relation to holding that office, so that, by dint of repetition, people simply accept that you are a plausible candidate -- after all, they've heard you associated with that office a thousand times already. You've hacked their brains to associate you with elective office.

Hillary Clinton, I'm very certain, did this herself -- Clinton had barely been in office a year before the topic of Hillary becoming the next president were bubbling through the media with some regularity.

And it got her pretty far -- she got a Consolation Senate seat, came close to winning the nomination once, and won it the next time out.

No one is seriously considering Chelsea Clinton for any office, except Chelsea Clinton herself, the career Clinton Permanent Bureaucracy which now finds itself not quite sure what to do with all its free time or how to make rent, and the media that desperately needs some ray of hope to soothe their Trump Anxiety Disorder.

TAD!

Posted by Ace at 04:57 PM Comments

Mark Halperin Hates Dogs and Joy

—Ace

So journ0list Mark Halperin castigated Delta for the indignity of having to sit next to this obviously-dangerous dog on his first class flight:


He later clarified -- or clarilied, maybe, decide for yourself -- that his only thought here was that the dog had not been seated next to its owner, and he was just trying to get Delta to observe more rational seat assignments by putting this dog next to his owner.

Well, the guy who actually paid for the ticket for the dog says Mark Halperin's account is, um, flawed.

[Tweet] We were abt to take off on redeye. Dog was cute. I was sharing pix & expressing surprise owner/dog hadn't been put 2gether.No time for essay https://t.co/gz4WYJvJGA

— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) April 23, 2017

Talk about doubling down! However, Halperin's recollection of that fateful red-eye doesn't jibe with that of Charlie's owner, Anthony Pisano. Pisano, who works as a flight attendant for Delta, reached out via Twitter to say that, not only did Halperin not offer to trade seats but, rather than expressing concern that Delta was seating support animals apart from their owners, he told a flight attendant that he refused to sit next to a dog. What's more, in Pisano's telling, Halperin wouldn't speak to him or even look at him while the situation was resolved....

So it was the 10:45 red eye on delta. in first class the seating arrangement was A-BC-D seating. I had purchased 6A and 6B and Halperin was in 6C. The dog and I fly back and forth from California to NY 2-3 times a month. I am always aware to make sure to get the dog her own seat (she lays on the floor and sleeps) to ensure she doesn't encroach anyone's personal space. So I put Charlie (the dog) in 6A where she was great. She was in arms reach and everything was cool. Right before we took off the dog came and sat in between my legs for take off so she was secured. At this point halperin (I had no idea who he was) calls for a flight attendant and tells her that he refuses to sit next to a dog. Those were his exact words. At that point I noticed he took a picture of the dog which I just ignored. Next thing you know the lead flight attendant asked if I minded giving halperin 6A. It was so strange he wouldn't even look or speak to me about it. If he would have asked me I would have obliged, no big deal. I couldn't believe how rude this guy was carrying on as I sat right next to him. So I obliged, he moved into 6A and left his shoes and a mess in his little first class cubicle area. I politely brought him his shoes and belongings to which he literally looked the other way and that was that. I then woke up this morning to a friend sending me the article and was in shock reading his tweets. Mind you Delta did absolutely nothing wrong, the flight attendant were extremely accommodating to his wishes all while trying to make sure I wasn't upset in any way. They handled the situation kindly and professionally.



So, eh, in a way, Halperin is kind of right. The seating arrangement was

A (aisle) BC (aisle) D

Correction: If I'd read the damn article I quoted, which I obviously did not, I'd've known that Pisano says the dog was in A -- the window seat, all alone -- but only came over to B (next to Halperin) to be comforted during take-off. At all other times (or most other times), presumably, the dog would be all alone by the window.

This does make it look like Halperin is a dick who just wanted the window seat, or to sit alone, and used the Dog Complaint to get it.

Anyway, there's three sides to every story: My Side, Your Side, and Mark Halperin is Just a Dick. If Pisano is right, avoiding even looking at him during this easily-untangled knot is a dick move. Halperin has always struck me as uptight and high-strung, and refusing-to-look-someone-in-the-eye just because you're having minor conflict with them fits that impression.

And maybe he just wanted the window seat -- though no one who wants to broadcast that he's a frequent First Class flyer would admit he wants to sit by the window and see things he's seen a thousand times before.

I think Halperin was using the technique of grumbleflaunting here. It's considered rude and uncouth to, as Trump does, simply announce you have a lot of money and access to elite goods.

The way the well-educated, well-socialized upper middle class prefers to brag on itself is through grumbleflaunting, where you complain about some defect in an elite good, which demonstrates 1, you have access to that elite good (like First Class berthing) and 2, you're so sophisticated you can actually critique the relative goodness and eliteness of elite goods.

So like here's a grumbleflaunt:

So I was flying at Mach 5 in the Secret Concorde and this chubby model, Kate Upton or whatever, asked if she could "sit on my face later."

Really, @delta?! We have assigned seats for a reason! And maybe extend your legroom beyond the cramped three yards we have so that this busty supermodel doesn't have to make rude demands of fellow passengers just to stretch out her long legs, which are the color of pale honey infused with Pleasure-Heightening Drugs That Poor People Can't Afford and have the gracefully abrupt curves of my favorite Ferrari.*

* I mean of the street-legal Ferraris I own, of course. I'm not counting the unlicensed Flying Ferrari, for obvious reasons.

For Further Review and Contemplation: How do you think you can use the technique of grumbleflaunting to raise your own social cachet?

Putting Theory Into Practice: Try a series of grumbleflaunts with your friends and co-workers. If your grumbleflaunt is successful, you will see their eyebrows rise covetously and you will rise in social cachet.

If your grumbleflaunt is unsuccessful, you will be punched square in the nose. As you should be.

Posted by Ace at 03:13 PM Comments

The Media Bubble

—Ace

Mollie Hemingway has written a new Encounter Broadside ("Broadside" being the imprint name for long essays about a subject) called Trump vs. the Media. She talks about the media bubble and daily social media freakouts with Ben Domenech.

The book was released early today (like 12am or thereabouts) and should be available on Amazon now. In the interview, starting around 11:30, she talks about the media's groupthink and open coordination with the Clinton campaign, citing the media's embargo of pre-briefed details about Fat Whore Miss Universe until Hillary had initiated the attack line herself in a debate.

At 28:30, she gets into something particularly fascinating to me: the groupthink and virtue signalling of reporters on Twitter, what Sean Davis calls the #BlueCheckmarkMafia who freak out virtually every morning about the Outrage of the Day. She notes that she planned to watch their twitter accounts to find the final proof of bias, but did not expect them to continue showing off how biased they were -- eventually, she expected they would figure out "that this doesn't make them look good."

So she thought this would be a brief opportunity.

But they never stopped. In fact, they just got worse and worse.

She concludes that maintaining credibility with other progressives, especially other progressive media-types, is more valuable to them than credibility with the public at large.

Meanwhile, Politico has a good story arguing that Hell Yes, the "media bubble" is real and it is spectacular.

He looks to where the media cohort is living to prove his point. Not only do almost all media people live in blue states, and blue counties in the blue states, but they tend to live in the bluest counties of blue states. Thus, they have little diversity in background, and upon relocating to the Bluest of All Blues, they have next-to-zero diversity in the thoughts and modes of life in their current everyday lives.

He suggests that this is due to the rise of the internet, strangely enough. The internet was supposed to bring about diversity of thought in the media, but it's had the opposite effect. The internet is destroying the newspaper industry -- no problem so far on that!

But the problem is that while the Bluest of All Blue big media was always liberal, it was also fed (a bit) by reporters hired from small papers in the interior of the country. So it had some diversity of background and political ethos.

But the industry has faced big cutbacks and many small local papers have closed up shop. The big media papers have cut staff too.

So anyone who wants to aspire to work in media really sort of has to be a progressive to have a shot at a long career in an increasingly progressive industry.

Furthermore, even worse, internet media hires now exceed traditional media hires.

You'd think this is where the diversity the internet promised would come in -- but no, internet media employees live almost exclusively in the Bluest of All Blue bubble cities -- even less diversity of zip code than the old media.

And let me add something to that: given that with the internet you can do your job of Media Reporter from practically anywhere (and most internet media people are not doing first-hand reporting, so they don't have to be in DC or NY or wherever), and given that "flyover states" and smaller cities in those states are much, much cheaper than NYC or DC or LA, you'd think that some of these internet media companies would set up shop in, say, Lincoln, Nebraska or Boise, Idaho.

No such luck.

And then ask yourself why -- you can make more money and own more property and have a richer lifestyle on the same level of income in one of the non-capital cities in the US. Why are almost all internet media companies, then, located in the exact same places as the old media?

Answer: Because progressives want to live in big, blue cities. It makes no financial sense, but it makes perfect cultural sense, because they assign a huge premium to the advantage of living in massive clusters of their fellow progressives, with whom they can chat about all the art installations and edgy off-Broadway plays they intend to check out some time but never do because they're always locked indoors watching Girls and Orange Is The New Black.

(Which by the way are on offer in Boise and Lincoln as well.)

At any rate, I assume that the people running these companies know where the employees they want to hire want to live, and it's not in a red county, and it's not even in a purplish county in a red state.

They want to be among their fellow correligionists.

And that tells you quite a bit about their biases. They'd rather live in an expensive, cramped studio five-floor walkup in Brooklyn than have a three bedroom house in Lincoln.

Only someone who places a very, very high premium in being Among the Tribe would sacrifice so much of more tangible lifestyle benefits.

So I think Jason Whitlock is right -- the leftwing Silicon Valley tech-culture has in fact hacked the media culture, moving it further to the left than ever before.

The very thing that was promised to expand diversity of thought has in fact greatly reduced it. Fewer and fewer opinions are acceptable to this claque any more, and less and less dissent is tolerated.

Rather than being fertile loam permitting thousands of different flowers to bloom, the internet is a relentlessly culled garden containing a single ugly species of flower that looks an awful lot like a weed with bright petals.

Posted by Ace at 02:01 PM Comments

Late Update to Last Story

—Ace

I should add it as an update, but the post is old now and no one will check for new updates.

The guy you saw reporting on the storming of the Heritage Foundation offices is actually a Daily Caller reporter who had infiltrated/embedded with the protesters to get the story.

Get this -- the people who illegally broke into a building and committed trespass called the police on him. Not sure what crime they accused him of -- maybe Possession of a Microaggression, maybe Practicing the First Amendment with Malice Aforethought.

Maybe Unlawful Entry Into a Safe Space.

I don't know because the clip is only available on FaceBook and I'm not on FaceBook.

If you watch it, let me know the basics of what he says.


Posted by Ace at 01:24 PM Comments

"Protesters" "Storm" into the Heritage Foundation Building Around 11am

—Ace

The claim seems to be this is just a "protest;" it's just that they had to break into the Hertiage building to hold the "protest" in the lobby.

Live feed of the siege on FaceBook.

A picture of the protest when it was outside the building here. Heritage staffers then counter-protested the protesters with "Repeal Obamacare" signs.

But they've now "stormed" the Heritage lobby, as you can see in the video (first link).

Posted by Ace at 12:19 PM Comments

Feminist Professor "Triggered" By Male Student's Paper, Saying She Had Trouble Telling His Paper from Her Rapist

—Ace

If you have trouble distinguishing a student's paper from a rape, maybe you don't actually understand rape.

Let me note that this screed was written anonymously by the professor. So we don't know who the professor was, and crucially, we don't know what the paper actually says.

She claims the student said he was skeptical that rape still exists. I tend to doubt that. I have a feeling he pointed out, correctly, that there have been a spate of fake rape accusations and that the definition of sexual assault has been reduced to a guy making a pass towards a woman who rejects it.

Add into that her hysterical, crybully damselling, calling for her knights in shining armor to come to her emotional rescue.

So I don't buy her characterizations of the "triggering" paper.

But here's what she shrieked:

A feminist professor said she was so triggered by a male student’s paper that "I began to have trouble distinguishing him from the man that [raped me]."

Writing anonymously in Inside Higher Ed, the professor described a lesson on rape culture she included in her gender class, saying she was frustrated with male students skeptical that it exists.

But one male student’s paper left her "thrown back into a pit of traumatic, fragmented memories," she wrote.

The student cited a men’' rights advocacy group, referenced a case where a woman raped a man, questioned whether feminism was relevant, and said that concerns about gender inequality were overblown.

If the guy "triggered" her post-traumatic reaction to rape, why is she also complaining about such small-ball matters like whether feminism is relevant, or if gender inequality claims are overblown?

Think about this from a position of human sanity: If someone kidnapped and maimed a person, would the victim, in the course of narrating the crime to police, also toss in "I think he voted for Trump" and "I'm skeptical of some of the websites I saw him reading"?

...

"As I went over his paper," she wrote, "I realized that I was reading a paper that sounded word for word like something the man who raped me would say. And not only did this sound like something my rapist would say, this student fit the same demographic profile as him: white, college male, between the ages of 18 and 22."

She said she was so upset that she could no longer grade papers or read.

"Although I knew it was unlikely that this student would literally try to rape me, his words felt so familiar that I began having trouble distinguishing him from the man that did...."

I didn't want to steal the whole thing, but trust me when I say there's some nice crazy kickers at the end.

More: David French excerpts another part of this screed, revealing that the prof seems especially keen on explaining to students that don't know they've been raped that they've been raped, or to students who don't know they're rapists that they're rapists. And she gets upset by the "mansplaining" that then occurs as non-rapists resist her new definitions of rape.

Posted by Ace at 11:13 AM Comments

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

Therese.JPG

Portrait of Thérèse
John Singer Sargent

She's naked under that dress.

Posted by CBD at 09:35 AM Comments

The Morning Report 4/25/17

—J.J. Sefton

dyson.jpg

Good morning, kids. Things may be coming to a head in Korea as the NorKs are conducting massive live-fire drills and could possibly test fire that underground nuke. Meanwhile, a US nuclear submarine has docked in a South Korean harbor while the Carl Vinson battle group steams ever closer. Domestically, Obama has returned to the states to give a lecture about community organizing and the evils of money in politics - for a $400,000 fee. Continued mixed signals about PDT. First, he has supposedly agreed to delay Border Wall funding to avoid a government shutdown and the new Obamacare repeal does very little to achieve that. And since it was negotiated in large part by a couple of big-time GOP RINOs, it's no surprise that Medicaid funding and other ACA garbage stays in place. Feh. Lastly, I'll leave you with this tidbit from the "Professor" Michael Eric Dyson link:

Dyson's main point is that America is a hellhole that dooms black people to failure, silencing, and death, while whites uniformly bask in unearned wealth and good fortune. "You know that white skin is magic."

Blacks are analogous to captured birds. Whites will decide whether they want, finally, to open their hands and liberate blacks, or just, out of spite, strangle them to death. "It's in your hands."

As reparation, whites must hire blacks instead of whites. Whites must pay blacks more money than is appropriate. Whites must give blacks money for school tuition and zoo, museum, and movie admission, and pay for massages and textbooks. White people must also tell every white person they meet that he enjoys white privilege. Dyson provides the script: "Whites must understand that they benefit from white privilege in order to realize how white privilege creates the space for black oppression."

So, okay Professor. I'll play along. You tell us all these things whites must do but answer me this one question: FOR HOW LONG? The world wonders . . .

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

Posted by J.J. Sefton at 06:40 AM Comments

Monday Overnight Open Thread (4/24/17)

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

The Erie Canal

eriecanal.jpg


Because, that is why.

:)


Quotes of The Day

Quote I

We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn't be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem. I can only imagine what would happen if someone suggested Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods in New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a major international outcry. Benjamin Netanyahu


Quote II

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions. Ronald Reagan


Quote III

With all due respect, many in the entertainment industry are deep into mind-altering substance abuse, and when one’s logic and intellectual calculating powers are replaced with dopey feel-good, fantasy-driven denial, the democratic party serves them well. Ted Nugent


*****

Continue reading
Posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM Comments

Chelsea Clinton, Precocious Regurgitator Of Daft, Left-Wing Bumper Sticker Morality [Warden]

—Open Blogger

Chelsea Clinton was born so woke that the first part of her to emerge was a tiny power fist shaking furiously at the world's injustices.

Right, then.

1. I don't believe her.

2. It would reflect even more poorly on this dull and unaccomplished braggart if it actually were true that she wrote this at five years of age.

Of course her spastic flock enthusiastically jumped in with their tales of their own children writing Donald Trump to lecture him about his various isms, phobias, and failure to take proper note of whichever potpourri of special rights that the left has conjured out of thin air on any given day.

All of Chelsea's groupies are, of course, inordinately proud of their children for repeating the trite political tropes they've been incessantly mouthing in front of them for their entire lives.

Good job. Opinions are as rare as albino naked mole-rats. The ability to write words using a pencil, rarer still. Combining the two is is a praiseworthy achievement indeed.

But hey, I ain't even mad. Below the fold is proof that...

1. God exists.

2. His wrath is mighty indeed.

Continue reading
Posted by Open Blogger at 08:35 PM Comments

Trump to Open Atlantic Ocean to Oil Exploration; May Finally Overturn Ban on Drilling in the Alaska National Wilderness Reserve (ANWR)

—Ace

Remember ANWR?

That's not actually on the table, yet, but Trump has directed the DOE to review Obama's various bans on oil exploration, including in national parks.

First reported by Axios, the 'Executive Order Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy' would initiate a review of the locations available for off-shore oil and gas exploration.

The executive order would also look into the regulations currently governing off-shore oil and gas exploration, as Trump has continually promised to kill off business-curbing rules.

...


Beyond offshore drilling, Trump's executive orders will target some of President Obama's national parks designations made, as labeling areas a national monument makes them off-limits to drilling, fishing and mining.


By the way: You know who doesn't want Alaska pumping out oil?

Putin.

And Saudi Arabia.

Low oil prices are objectively good for the American economy and good for its foreign policy goals -- most major oil exporters are hostile or at best frenemies, and being able to open the spigots whenever we want to send a message would be a terrific piece of foreign policy leverage that also amounts to putting money in American pockets.

Posted by Ace at 07:30 PM Comments

#Science Now Says You're Gay and Transsexual

—Ace

Two related bits of stupid:

A tranny is now claiming that people who have a preference for real men or real women are guilty of "cissexism." We've been counting down to the moment where it's officially a mainstream idea on the left that you must have gay sex, upon demand, to prove you're not homophobic, and while that idea has been pushed for a while now (as I've mentioned, I've heard from parents of younger kids that they believe if they are "straight only" that means they're bigots), and every year the media turns out a new sob story about a "transgirl" who's very upset and hurt that straight boys don't want to be with another boy with a penis, but I'd mark today as an important day in our collective sexual journey.

Why conservatives don't embarrass progressive politicians by straight-up asking them this question -- is a 15 year old boy a "bigot" if he's not interested in having sex with a trans "girl"? -- I don't know. It could just be that conservatives get a bit flustered by publicly speaking about sex. But if this is the left's push, then I want every Democrat to answer this question definitively.

Meanwhile, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" -- or is it Bill Nye the Science Pyrsyn on a Spectrum of Discovery? -- has minor YouTube/cable celebrity Rachel Bloom shake her tits and ass proclaiming that #Science says you're gay.

And by the way, I don't think this woman is funny. She's just halfway stacked, so men applaud when she does anything where she sings something kind of dirty.

Would anyone have ever heard of this woman if she wasn't a D cup and fond of demonstrating that fact? She's just doing geexploitation -- geeks are horny and like girls with bewbs, especially those who cynically play to them by offering the illusion of attainability.

Continue reading
Posted by Ace at 06:26 PM Comments

Blue Checkmark Mafia Goes Nuts Over Claim That Debbie Schlussel Accused Sean Hannity of Sexual Harassment; Debbie Schlussel Later Clarifies She's Not Accusing Him Of That

—Ace

The John Ekdahl rule: From 7am to 12pm, the deranged leftist media goes crazy every day with some new #FakeNews. Then from 5pm to 8pm, they begrudgingly walk back their claims when people aren't online.

Debbie Schlussel claimed that Sean Hannity invited her to his hotel room and she declined and then she was never on his show again.

She later clarified she'd never accuse him of sexual harassment based on such facts. Even assuming they are facts, which I don't. More on that later.

Now, in an interview with LawNewz.com on Monday morning, Schlussel is denying that she was ever sexually harassed by Sean Hannity. While Schlussel stands by her description of the incident, Schlussel told us that she doesn’t believe what happened between the two amounted to sexual harassment by any legal definition.

"I would never accuse him of that. Sexual harassment has a special meaning under the law, and I would never accuse him of that," Schlussel, an attorney herself, said. Schlussel said the interaction happened in the early 2000’s when Hannity was in Detroit taping a show.

"He tried to get me to go back to the hotel after the show after he and his executive producer Bill Shine treated me horribly," she said on the radio program. Schlussel later clarified that it wasn’t his hotel room, but rather his hotel. She told LawNewz.com that she did go on the show following the incident, but after that was "banned from Fox News."

Now, on that "assuming the facts are true" caveat:

Following the radio interview on Friday, Hannity issued a strongly worded statement denying Schlussel’s claims saying he plans to take legal action against Schlussel for possible libel.

“LET ME BE CLEAR THE COMMENTS ABOUT ME ON A RADIO SHOW THIS WEEK by this individual ARE 100% false and a complete fabrication,” Hannity said in a statement obtained by LawNewz.com. “This individual is a serial harasser who has been lying about me for well over a decade. The individual has a history of making provably false statements against me in an effort to slander, smear and besmirch my reputation. The individual has not just slandered me over the years but many people who this individual disagrees with.”

Brit Hume had a disagreement about this with ABC News' political director Matt Dowd, who looks like a thumb and tweets anti-conservative bullshit all day while claiming to be politically neutral.


Matthew Dowd is right -- one should never proposition someone in the course of one's job duties.

Speaking of divorces and hot new relationships, Megyn Kelly will debut on NBC in June.

Sort of.

"She will start in May, and her Sunday show will premiere in June," a network insider told us. Kelly had been expected to start in July after her Fox contract expired, but she was just released from her Fox deal two weeks ago.

She will join Kate Snow as part of NBC News’ Sunday night programming....

But the former Fox News star's upcoming weekday morning program remains in shambles. We're told NBC is still scrambling to find a staff and executive producer for the weekday morning show, which will debut in the fall.

"It’s a very real problem. There’s no staff in place. They have no idea what they’re going to do with Megyn. Ideas range from talk show to studio audience to news show. It's a problem," another source said. Kelly's rep didn't comment.

Liberals don't even want to work with someone who has the slightest whiff of not being fully liberal. Megyn Kelly always struck me as a liberal Republican (at best), but that is a bridge too far for today's militant progressives.

Hell, the Murdoch Sons may be about to take Fox fully liberal in an effort to feel respectable socializing with their fellow monied liberals again.

Posted by Ace at 05:33 PM Comments

Three ISIS Fighters Killed By Long-Range Snipers and Wild Boars But Mostly Wild Boars

—Ace

When God sends a Plague of Wild Boars against you, he's done sending messages, and is now sending armored bacon.

Near Kirkuk, Iraq:

Three Islamic State jihadis have reportedly been killed by rampaging wild boars near Iraqi farmland.

The three Islamic State militants were cut down by the feral boar known to inhabit Kirkuk in the the al-Rashad region, a local news site claims.

They attacked the militants and left three killed, Iraqi News reports.

warboar.jpg
Artist's Depiction: A warboar sergeant putting recruits
through bacon training

ISIS took vengeance on the boars by... attacking the farm.

'Islamic State militants took revenge at the pigs that attacked the farmland," though reports of how the fighters died remain unclear.

ISIS apparently thinks the feral pigs owned the farm. Some kind of boar kubbutz or something.

Posted by Ace at 03:41 PM Comments

Will the Democrats Shut Down the Government to Block the Wall?

—Ace

Building a wall around the wall. Only in the Democrat Party.

Jeff Sessions doesn't think they have the stones.

From The Hill:

"I can't imagine the Democrats would shut down the government over an objection to building a down payment on a wall that can end the lawlessness..."

He added that they'd pay for the wall "one way or another."

I think the Democrats can and will be this crazy. What else do they have to sell except crazy?

By the way, NPR is now saying that what the Democrats are threatening is but a mere "partial shutdown" of government. PJMedia's Charlie Martin doesn't remember NPR referring to Republican-threatened shutdowns as "partial shutdowns," even though, of course, they were the same shutdowns.

Posted by Ace at 03:39 PM Comments

Media Now Whining That Trump Is Holding Rally on Night of "#NerdProm," Thus Keeping Some Reporters From Attending

—Ace

White House correspondents would have to cover a White House-related event.

They had wanted to spend #NerdPromNight sipping other people's champagne and eating other people's caviar.

Now the Bad Man is making them work.


These people are loathsome.

Posted by Ace at 02:35 PM Comments



The AoSHQ Amazon Store


Top Headlines
Headlines: 4/27/17
National Review Praises Duane Johnson for Being an Entertainer Who Thinks Entertaining, not Educating the American Savages, Is His First, Second, and Last Job
I enjoyed that earthquake movie he did. San Andreas, was it? I thought it was going to be bad but it wasn't at all. The rescue scenarios had a bit of originality to them, the special effects held up and weren't just cartoon cheese, and I'm always a sucker for a marital romance (you know, the storyline where a husband and wife are alienated but take steps towards a possible reconciliation)
I won't spoil the film by telling you if they get back together or not. I know it's a huge source of concern and mystery to you. I will tell you that when a wife is dating a coward and her ex-husband is an ex-military daredevil pilot who saves people (including her and her daughter) left and right with strength, skill, and daring, and copter-fu, well, that wife sure has a hard decision on her hands. But let me leave you the mystery of how the movie ends.
Oh, and the movie features children who are not annoying but kinda-sorta real characters. I will also leave it unspoiled as to whether they survive or not, or are crushed beneath thousands of tons of concrete.
Frequently Unasked Question: What Happens When You Approach Cats While Wearing a Creepy Uncanny Valley Cat Mask?
Worth the click.
Headlines: 4/26/17
Universal single payer health care. Isn't it wonderful? Not if you aren't a member of the beautiful people's clique. It would never happen here, would it? [Mis. Hum.]
Headlines: 4/25/2017
BREAKING: JUDGE BLOCKS PRESIDENT TRUMP'S EXECUTIVE ORDER CUTTING OFF FUNDS FOR SANCTUARY CITIES
Pudding Cups! Get 'Yer Pudding Cups!
'Bloodbath' in Bristol: ESPN could cut 70 people
Let's shoot for an even 100! [CBD]
Only Civilian Shot in Garland Islamist/Anti-Free-Speech Terrorism Attack Wants to Know Why the FBI Sat on Its Hands and Permitted It to Happen
They were trying to move their informant up ISIS' ranks -- but at what cost? Do conservative lives not matter?
Chris Pratt Says Hollywood Doesn't Understand Blue Collar Flyover Country, But Has to Recant When SJWs Attack
Heat St. starts its headline with the dickish "Coward," but the guy 1, can't antagonize his employers too much and 2, can't antagonize the public too much. I think calling him a "Coward" is bullshit.
Andrea Tantaros Files Second Lawsuit Against Fox, Alleging They Hacked Her Accounts and Used Information to "Emotionally Torture" Her
Free Beacon Offers Some Helpful (?) Advice to Democrats on How to Reconnect With Actual Americans
Josh Rogan Says Obama Will Intervene if Trump Crosses Any "Red Lines"
No seriously
Headlines: 4/24/2017
Here's a twofer: Teen Wears Prom Dress Honoring Trayvon Martin and The Black Lives Matter Movement AND a video explaining what "woke" means. It's a link to "Essence" so you know what to expect. [CBD]
Chicago, land of the Cubs and lawlessness. Nearly 1000 gun shot victims this year. Summer ought to be a blast hoot in Chicago. [Mis. Hum.]
Why spend any damn money on/in/at the U.N. is beyond me. Abuser Saudi Arabia elected to women's rights commission. Kick this sorry excuse of an organization and let them carry on in Brussels or Tehran. [Mis. Hum.]
Some good news on the medical front. Breakthrough on the cause of M.S. [Mis. Hum.]
Zionism Denial
This is an excellent rebuttal of the various incorrect assumptions made about Zionism. [CBD]
RIP Kate O'Beirne. Conservative stalwart 1949-2017 [Mis. Hum.]
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Kirk, Picard, and Crunch: "----F*ck you, Caps. Posted by: lol Holtby at Ap ..."

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Hugh Jorgen: "ESPN is [i]converged[/i] - their focus is no longe ..."

Slapweasel, (Cold1) ([b]T[/b]) [/i] [/b] [/u] [/s]: "[/i] Dave's Close tag. ..."

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Slapweasel, (Cold1) ([b]T[/b]) [/i] [/b] [/u] [/s]: "*ONT is NOOD*! ..."

Slapweasel, (Cold1) ([b]T[/b]) [/i] [/b] [/u] [/s]: "Who do you think it is? ..."

lol Holtby: "Hahaha.F*ck you, Caps. ..."

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