We told liberals they wouldn’t like the new rules being applied to them, but they didn’t listen. Liberals get Roseanne Barr fired, conervatives get Samantha Bee’s sponsors to pull out. (Disclaimer: I didn’t watch either of their shows.)
How #NeverTrump came to be a lifestyle choice: “These people aren’t operating from principle. The are operating from pique. Trump’s mere presence offends them because they just know they are his social and intellectual superiors.”
Indeed, how many of these widely accepted (sometimes downright cherished) assumptions can one man challenge (disrupt) in such a brief period of time? The answer is plenty. He does it by questioning what often goes unquestioned in Washington, D.C. He simply asks “Why?” Why help fund a Shiite crescent in the Middle East? Why send tax dollars to a terrorist-friendly PLO? Why support anti-American programs at the U.N.? Why a “One China” policy? Why placate deadbeat NATO partners? Why pay premium prices for the F-35 and a new Air Force One? Why force nuns to provide birth-control coverage? Why tolerate sanctuary cities and a porous border?
Five years ago, my husband and I bought a house in the emptiest county in America. We went there because the night sky is so dark, you can walk in the high desert by starlight and cast a shadow, so dark you can see distant galaxies and the zodiacal light. There are three types of people in our rural area: amateur astronomers, ranchers, and illegal aliens.
If you climb the mountains behind our house and look south, you look into Mexico. If you climb those mountains to the top, you are on one of the major drug trafficking routes into America. If you stay in the desert at the foot of the mountains, you are in rattlesnake country—the greatest biodiversity of rattlers in America, and the night path of illegal aliens.
It is not even a secret that the 60 miles between the border and Interstate 10 are treated as a no man’s land. We live and vote and pay taxes in America, but the government acts as if we are beyond the defensible perimeter of the country. Border Patrol is everywhere, but even with President Trump, they are just going through the circular motions of catch and release.
They have high tech listening stations in the mountains, trucks equipped with radar on the back roads. They know when drugs are moving through, know regular drop-offs, are adept at finding caches. But if they can’t secure the border, they can’t keep the families that live here safe—and they don’t even try.
We are the deplorables. All of my rancher neighbors have guns. Most are Evangelicals. To Democrats and open-borders Republicans, we are throwaway people. The Other. Disposable.
The reason I am not naming names, even place names, is that these are my neighbors’ stories, not mine, and my neighbors—farmers, cowboys, and ranching families, strong, resourceful, tough people—my neighbors are wary and they are weary. They fear retribution by the drug runners and coyotes who bring the illegals across, because they have seen it happen.
All of my neighbors have had encounters with illegals. Every single family. Everyone knows dozens of families whose homes have been broken into and worse—loved ones tied up, kidnapped, threatened, shot, permanently crippled by a hit and run attack, when they made too much of a fuss to authorities.
Evergreen State College is eliminating dozens of staff positions as it struggles to cope with plummeting enrollment in the wake of the protests that engulfed campus last year.
John Carmichael, the chief of staff and secretary to the Evergreen State College Board of Trustees, announced in a memo to staff and faculty members on Tuesday that the school has already cut 24 faculty lines and eliminated 19 vacant staff positions, and warned that up to 20 additional staff members could soon be laid off.
“Over the past several days, 20 staff members have been notified that they are at risk for layoff,” Carmichael wrote. “These layoffs, although necessary to stabilize the college’s budget, represent a profound loss felt by many.”
The staffing cuts, which include not renewing contracts for several adjunct faculty members, come shortly after the college revealed that it would be cutting $5.9 million from the budget in anticipation of a shortfall in applications of up to 20 percent.
Twenty-five million dollars in investable wealth. The kind of money you could afford to see dip into the red for a quarter or three, maybe even a year or two, without breaking a sweat. With $25 million, maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to be rich.
Because in this era of hyper-wealth and hyper-inequality, that is simply where rich begins—a ticket, in truth, to the first, lowly rung of rich. For most of the planet, $25 million represents unfathomable wealth. For elite private bankers, it buys their basic service.
Call it economy-class rich. Business class? That’s $100 million. First class? $200 million. Private-jet rich? Try $1 billion.
I grew up thinking that rich was owning a two-story house, so I’ve got it made. Top of the world, ma! (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Texas Supreme Court strikes down short-term rental rule. The only surprise this time is that it was San Antonio rather than Austin making the stupid law.
Solo underperforms. I’m not sure there are any larger lessons to be drawn. For what it’s worth, I saw Deadpool 2 last Saturday, and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the original Deadpool.
Israel struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after coming under a heavy barrage of mortar and rocket fire by Palestinian militants.
The Israeli military said it carried out over 35 airstrikes on seven sites across Gaza, including a cross-border tunnel controlled by Hamas and Islamic Jihad — the two primary militant groups in the Palestinian enclave — The Associated Press reported.
Beginning early Tuesday morning and continuing past nightfall, Palestinian militants launched roughly 70 projectiles toward southern Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces. One mortar shell landed near a kindergarten just before it opened, and three IDF troops were injured in the bombardment.
The Daily Caller was even kind enough to embed this IDF tweeted infographic:
Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organizations commited acts of terrorism against Israel throughout the day pic.twitter.com/LjqzOrur92
That Hamas happy kidnap tunnel Israel blew up was 1.2 miles long and extended into both Egypt and Israel.
Did you notice that this dustup barely rated a blip from our mainstream media?
It used to be that military action by Israel would dominate headlines for days, with Democrats rushing to cameras to sonorously demand the President personally intervene with Israel (always with Israel, never with the Scumbag Terrorist Enemy of the Week) to impose a unilateral ceasefire so as not to wreck the endless “Middle East Peace Process.”
Mark that down as another thing killed by the Age of Trump. It’s gone from “If It Bleeds, It Leads” to “Print It If It Hurts Trump.” (Never mind that this endless molehill mongering has only strengthened Trump.) “Car bomb explodes in Beirut” was front-page news back in the 1980s, but today there are multiple concurrent wars going on in the Middle East that won’t make the news for weeks at a time. (When’s the last time you saw a top-of-the-fold story on the war in Yemen?)
An end to the MSM’s fixation on Israel to the exlusion of every other country in the Middle East is probably all to the better. Now if only the MSM could be convinced to cover the violence committed against Americans in Democrat-run cities like Chicago and Baltimore with the same fervor they used to cover random dead Palestinians…
It seems that noted Tweeter GayPatriot, who has 70,000+ Twitter followers, has been suspended for stating the obvious: That Bradley Manning is a traitor.
.@GayPatriot suspended from twitter for calling Chelsea Manning a traitor. In January. An objectively true statement. No swearing or anything.
You will hold the opinions @Twitter wants you to hold, or else.
If @GayPatriot was suspended for rightfully calling Manning a traitor, you should probably suspend me (a veteran) too, @Twitter. Because I agree with and stand by his factual statement.
— Krystle Schoonveld (@TarheelKrystle) May 29, 2018
It seems a little odd that right in the midst of this apocalyptic hand wringing over WikiLeaks, the president would choose to commute the sentence of a guy who went into a war zone, stole reams of classified files, and gave them to WikiLeaks. Bradley Manning didn’t merely release email correspondences between DNC officials where they complain about Bernie Sanders and talk about spirit cooking. These weren’t embarrassing revelations about a political party. These were hundreds of thousands of secret documents relating to national security, appropriated during a time of war, and “leaked” indiscriminately with no regard to how it would undermine our war efforts and even less regard for the lives it put at risk. The Democrats apparently want us to believe that humiliating Hillary Clinton is a far worse crime than jeopardizing the safety of our troops, intelligence officers, and allies. The word “outrageous” does not even begin to describe what’s going on here.
Snip.
Bradley Manning, a traitor to the United States who gave assistance to the enemy, a convicted spy who would have been put in front of a firing squad not too long ago, will now be a free and celebrated man for one single reason: he pretends he’s not a man. Because Manning “came out” as “transgender” after committing his act of treachery, he became a hero to the Left. A trans hero, specifically, which is the most heroic kind of hero. That’s why he will be getting out of prison. For that reason and no other.
The Left admitted upfront that it wants Manning out of prison solely because he cross dresses. Before his commutation was announced, the media wrote story after story describing the “bleak life” of a “woman” in a men’s prison. They insisted that it’s an injustice to force a woman to remain incarcerated with men. And they’re right, that would be an injustice; but no such injustice had actually occurred. Bradley Manning was a man when he entered prison. He’s a man now. He’ll be a man when he leaves. He’ll be a man until he dies and even still afterwards. Complaining that a “transgender woman” wasn’t transferred to a women’s prison is like complaining that a lunatic who thinks he’s a polar bear won’t be transferred to the local zoo.
It seems that Twitter’s social justice warrior contingent isn’t satisfied with just targeting conservatives: they’re at war with reality itself.
And speaking of the Tranny Traitor, he’s running for the Senate from Maryland. In fact, Bradley’s doing so badly that he’s declared “voting isn’t working.” Well, I guess it isn’t “working” when voters hate you… (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Today’s locus of instability is Italy, where two Euroskeptic parties, one left (Five Star Movement) and one right (the League, AKA the Northern League), were prevented from forming a coalition government by the country’s Europhilic President Sergio Mattarella, who vetoed their pick of Paolo Savona for finance minister because he advocates leaving the Euro. Like Spain, Italy found out that if they went too strongly against the EU’s wishes, they’d simply be required to keep voting until they got it “right.”
Accepting Italy as one of the eurozone’s founding members was a decision only made possible by ignoring common sense, by twisting statistics, and by making a mockery of the rules. But it was a Pyrrhic victory: Italy was allowed to trick its way onto a voyage that damned it. The euro simply did not fit the realities of Italy’s economy or its politics. By dramatically cutting the country’s financing costs (borrowing lire would have carried a significantly higher nominal cost) adopting the single currency allowed Rome to avoid tackling the country’s high debt load, a debt load that was made all the more dangerous now that it was all denominated in a ‘foreign’ currency. Italy could no longer print lire to pay off its creditors.
When the eurozone crisis hit, Italy was one of the victims, and so, in some respects was its democracy. In something that came uncomfortably close to a coup, the eurozone leadership essentially used Italy’s financial fragility as a lever to secure the replacement in 2011 of Prime Minister Berlusconi by a Brussels man, Mario Monti, a pliable, unelected proconsul. Next time you hear Brussels lecturing Eastern Europeans on democracy remember that.
Italy weathered the crisis in a ‘just a flesh wound’ sort of way. Its problems became chronic, rather than acute, if that’s the correct adjective to describe the consequences of staying stuck in the euro’s deflationary trap: High rates of unemployment and anemic economic growth.
The Independent:
Per capita GDP in Italy is still more than 8 per cent lower than it was when Lehman Brothers went bust in 2008. Quite incredibly, it is even lower than it was when the country joined the eurozone back at the turn of the millennium. Unemployment stands at 11 per cent, down from a peak of 13.1 per cent in 2014, but still double the 5.8 per cent low seen in 2007.
As the largest of the PIIGS and the third largest economy in the Eurozone, Italy’s participation in the Euro is a lot more vital than Greece’s, which is why the EU has actively been trying to crush any hint of (pick your neologism) Quitaly or Italeave.
Never mind the fact that, as in Spain, Italian voters want to have their cake and eat it too, advocating polices (in the form of “rolling back pension reforms and government subsidies to the unemployed”) that would only pile on further debt in a country that already has a national debt running at over 130% of GDP, secondly only to Greece in the Eurozone. That doesn’t change the fact that Italy has “ceded its sovereignty to the European Union and international financial markets.”
For today’s Memorial Day remembrance, we honor Congressional Medal of Honor-winning Texan Second Lieutenant Thomas W. Fowler, who cleared a lane through a minefield and dragged men from a burning tank during the Italian campaign of World War II:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty, on 23 May 1944, in the vicinity of Carano, Italy. In the midst of a full-scale armored-infantry attack, 2d Lt. Fowler, while on foot, came upon 2 completely disorganized infantry platoons held up in their advance by an enemy minefield. Although a tank officer, he immediately reorganized the infantry. He then made a personal reconnaissance through the minefield, clearing a path as he went, by lifting the antipersonnel mines out of the ground with his hands. After he had gone through the 75-yard belt of deadly explosives, he returned to the infantry and led them through the minefield, a squad at a time. As they deployed, 2d Lt. Fowler, despite small arms fire and the constant danger of antipersonnel mines, made a reconnaissance into enemy territory in search of a route to continue the advance. He then returned through the minefield and, on foot, he led the tanks through the mines into a position from which they could best support the infantry. Acting as scout 300 yards in front of the infantry, he led the 2 platoons forward until he had gained his objective, where he came upon several dug-in enemy infantrymen. Having taken them by surprise, 2d Lt. Fowler dragged them out of their foxholes and sent them to the rear; twice, when they resisted, he threw hand grenades into their dugouts. Realizing that a dangerous gap existed between his company and the unit to his right, 2d Lt. Fowler decided to continue his advance until the gap was filled. He reconnoitered to his front, brought the infantry into position where they dug in and, under heavy mortar and small arms fire, brought his tanks forward. A few minutes later, the enemy began an armored counterattack. Several Mark Vl tanks fired their cannons directly on 2d Lt. Fowler’s position. One of his tanks was set afire. With utter disregard for his own life, with shells bursting near him, he ran directly into the enemy tank fire to reach the burning vehicle. For a half-hour, under intense strafing from the advancing tanks, although all other elements had withdrawn, he remained in his forward position, attempting to save the lives of the wounded tank crew. Only when the enemy tanks had almost overrun him, did he withdraw a short distance where he personally rendered first aid to 9 wounded infantrymen in the midst of the relentless incoming fire. 2d Lt. Fowler’s courage, his ability to estimate the situation and to recognize his full responsibility as an officer in the Army of the United States, exemplify the high traditions of the military service for which he later gave his life.
On this Memorial Day weekend, we remember Congressional Medal of Honor winner Captain Ben L. Salomon. His citation:
Captain Ben L. Salomon was serving at Saipan, in the Marianas Islands on July 7, 1944, as the Surgeon for the 2d Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Infantry Division. The Regiment’s 1st and 2d Battalions were attacked by an overwhelming force estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 Japanese soldiers. It was one of the largest attacks attempted in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Although both units fought furiously, the enemy soon penetrated the Battalions’ combined perimeter and inflicted overwhelming casualties. In the first minutes of the attack, approximately 30 wounded soldiers walked, crawled, or were carried into Captain Salomon’s aid station, and the small tent soon filled with wounded men. As the perimeter began to be overrun, it became increasingly difficult for Captain Salomon to work on the wounded. He then saw a Japanese soldier bayoneting one of the wounded soldiers lying near the tent. Firing from a squatting position, Captain Salomon quickly killed the enemy soldier. Then, as he turned his attention back to the wounded, two more Japanese soldiers appeared in the front entrance of the tent. As these enemy soldiers were killed, four more crawled under the tent walls. Rushing them, Captain Salomon kicked the knife out of the hand of one, shot another, and bayoneted a third. Captain Salomon butted the fourth enemy soldier in the stomach and a wounded comrade then shot and killed the enemy soldier. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Captain Salomon ordered the wounded to make their way as best they could back to the regimental aid station, while he attempted to hold off the enemy until they were clear. Captain Salomon then grabbed a rifle from one of the wounded and rushed out of the tent. After four men were killed while manning a machine gun, Captain Salomon took control of it. When his body was later found, 98 dead enemy soldiers were piled in front of his position. Captain Salomon’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.
Additionally, his body had 76 bullet wounds and numerous bayonet wounds, up to 24 of which may have been while he was still alive, and forensic evidence showed he moved the machine gun four times while fatally wounded.
Here’s a description in video form:
Quintin Tarantino should make a movie about this guy…
Advice for Harvey Weinstein: on your first day in prison, find the biggest baddest motherfucker in the exercise yard, and threaten to not to take lunch with him
Are we supposed to have Strong Opinions and Takes of Elevated Temperature over the fact that President Donald Trump has cancelled the summit with North Korea? Because the MSM certainly seems to have no shortage of such takes, despite the fact that Scott Adams (who keeps explaining President Trump’s persuasion techniques again and again to a press that refuses to listen) called it a month ago:
It isn’t just that liberals, the MSM and #NeverTrump hate President Trump, it’s that they hate him with such a blinding, all-encompassing rage that they refuse to learn from their mistakes and keep making the same ones over and over again…
President Trump’s immigration crackdown is forcing companies to actually hire women.
The children of the ’60s — you know, the hippies — and their ideological offspring in academia, politics, and, most especially, the media, are now not only okay with a sitting president’s weaponizing the intelligence community against a rival presidential campaign; they are all rolling over like whipped dogs to believe everything the intelligence community tells them, most especially when it is coming from the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI.
Basically, Trump has driven the hippies and their offspring so crazy they are not only A-okay with the CIA’s spying on American citizens, totally cool with FBI spies infiltrating a rival campaign, and feeling warm all over about wiretaps, unmasking, and lying to federal judges, they do not want any of this investigated.
The other day, Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame was on CNN fuming over the fact that there will now be an investigation of the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the FBI, after it was discovered they are all guilty of spying on the political rival of a sitting president.
Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want the watchmen watched. Carl freakin’ Bernstein is swallowing every treat being fed to him by the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI. Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want an investigation, does not want to learn anything more than what he is being told (by the CIA!), and does not want the public to know anything more.
Bird is an annoying “scooter sharing” startup plaguing a few cities. Turns out that a recharging reward makes it even more annoying than it sounds, with rechargers gaming the system for maximum rewards by hoarding scooters. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
It was common knowledge in Hollywood that my grandfather, the director John Farrow, was a notorious drinker and serial philanderer. There were numerous alcohol-fueled arguments between her parents, and Mia told me that she was the victim of attempted molestation within her own family. Her brother, my uncle John, who visited us many times when we were young, is currently in prison on a conviction of multiple child molestation charges. (My mother has never publicly commented on this or expressed concern about his victims.) My uncle Patrick and his family would often come by, but those visits could end abruptly as Mia and Patrick would often wind up arguing. Patrick would commit suicide in 2009.
My mother, of course, had her own darkness. She married 50-year-old Frank Sinatra when she was only 21. After they divorced, she moved in to live with her close friend Dory Previn and her husband André. When my mother became pregnant by André, the Previns’ marriage broke up, leading to Dory’s institutionalization. It was never spoken of in our home, of course, and not even known to me until a few years ago. But, as I look at it – as a licensed therapist as well as an eyewitness – it’s easy to see the seeds of dysfunction that would flourish within our own home.
It was important to my mother to project to the world a picture of a happy blended household of both biological and adopted children, but this was far from the truth. I’m sure my mother had good intentions in adopting children with disabilities from the direst of circumstances, but the reality inside our walls was very different. It pains me to recall instances in which I witnessed siblings, some blind or physically disabled, dragged down a flight of stairs to be thrown into a bedroom or a closet, then having the door locked from the outside. She even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression.
Snip.
The summer between first and second grades, she was having new wallpaper installed in the bedroom I slept in, across the hall from hers on the second floor of the Connecticut house. I was getting ready to go to sleep, when my mother came over to my bed and found a tape measure. She gave me a piercing look that stopped me in my tracks and asked if I had taken it, as she had been looking for it all day. I stood in front of her, frozen. She asked why it was on my bed. I told her I didn’t know, that perhaps a workman had left it there. She asked again and again and again.
When I didn’t give the answer she wanted, she slapped my face, knocking off my glasses. She told me I was lying and directed me to tell my brothers and sisters that I had taken the tape measure. Through my tears I listened to her as she explained that we would rehearse what should have happened. She would walk into the room and I would tell her I was sorry for taking the tape measure, that I had taken it to play with and that I would never do it again. She made me rehearse it at least a half-dozen times.
That was the start of her coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing – in essence, brainwashing. I became anxious and fearful. Once, when I was given a new pair of jeans, I thought they would look cool if I cut off a couple of the belt loops. When Mia saw what I had done, she spanked me repeatedly and had me remove all my clothing, saying, “You’re not deserving of any clothes” and making me stand naked in the corner of her room, in front of my older siblings who had just returned from dinner with their father André.
Plus how Farrow had drilled her children into reciting the details of the alleged “assault” over and over again.
Rachel Dolezal charged with welfare fraud. That’s taking your “I was born a poor black child” cosplay way too far…
One of those “Yeah, you just have to put it up” tweets:
Very cool. After spending all day in the Senate Armed Services Committee, I went to dinner & suddenly, in to the restaurant walked…@TheSlyStallone From Rocky to Rambo to a ton of other movies that I’ve watched over and over, really enjoyed the chance to meet him! pic.twitter.com/20s66XeGQP
After being denied a review of his 2015 misdemeanor conviction by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Democratic State Rep. Ron Reynolds (Missouri City) will likely serve a one-year jail sentence for illegal solicitation of legal services.
The sentence stems from a scheme in which chiropractic firms would persuade patients to unwittingly sign contracts rendering Reynolds their legal counsel without either his presence or even a physical examination. He was found guilty of 5 misdemeanor charges in 2015, after which he appealed his conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeals.
The kicker?
Although Reynolds will likely serve jail time, he is not required under Texas law to resign his Texas House seat, as the Texas Election Code only requires resignations in the case of felony convictions. Reynolds won his Democratic primary election in March with over 60% of the vote and faces no Republican opposition in November.
Someone in the state GOP fell down in the recruiting department…
(Also, I missed this: Rep. Reynolds had to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2016…)
