Read it.

About half of all Border Patrol agents – 51 percent – were Hispanic or Latino at the end of Fiscal Year 2016.

Obviously they aren’t ‘real’ Hispanics.

Read it.

A New York Times journalist at the center of questions about media ethics and how information leaked from intelligence services reached new heights Monday after a report from the paper shows the reporter had dated more than one member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Ali Watkins, currently with The times, faced scrutiny after a Department of Justice investigation revealed that she was having a romantic relationship with Senate Security staffer James Wolfe, a man around 30 years her senior, while she was working at other outlets like BuzzFeed news and Politico.

Round, round, git around, Ah git around….

While Watkins disclosed her relationship to editors in the past, her reporting on intelligence issues never received a disclaimer about any supposed conflict of interests.

The Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed on June 8 that BuzzFeed News, Watkins’ earlier employer, knew about her relationship with Wolfe but the outlet chose to never disclose this fact at the bottom of any of her reporting.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

I’m pushing for an outright ban.

Lileks.

It’s summer reading time, we’re told. Apparently people who read nothing more substantial than the back of the cereal box now go to the beach with 1,000-page tomes and settle back to read while squinting and slapping bugs.

But what makes a summer book? It can’t be Russian literature, since that would call for snow. It can’t be something scientific. If you showed up at the beach with “A Brief History of Time,” everyone would kick sand in your face. “Hey, look at the loser, improvin’ his mind! Get him!”

No, it has to be a genre novel, something invariably described as a roller-coaster ride, because everyone remembers how much fun it was to read a book on a roller coaster. So let’s look at some examples of summer beach reading…

Read it.

Doing well by doing good.

Ever notice how much it costs to signal your virtue these days?

Sort of underscores that the target demographic of proglodyte ‘truth’ tends toward the 1%.

Of course, with the Times‘ subscriber base doing a shrink-wrap around the Coastal Crust, they’ve got to find the money somewhere.

Victor Davis Hanson sums it up.

‘Hamartia’ is the Greek term in the Bible that is commonly translated ‘sin’. More correctly it means ‘failure’ or ‘shortcoming’ or ‘falling short’, as when a marksman misses his target.

Rich Lowry is upset.

Unfortunately, the arrested adolescents that he needs to reach aren’t going to read anything by Rich Lowry.

Read it.

If I were a socialist, that’s the kind of socialist I would want to be.

Read it.

“Trump,” says Pew, “is a bigger factor in midterm voting preferences—positive or negative—than any president in more than three decades.” Sixty-one percent of Democrats see their vote as a vote against President Trump. A majority of Republicans see theirs as votes for him. Taxes, immigration, trade, and foreign policy have been subsumed into a larger phenomenon: the Trump phenomenon. One’s vote is conditioned not by any particular macroeconomic or geopolitical issue. What matters is one’s attitude toward Trump.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? In any event, it’s a thing.

There is nothing more entertaining than the DemLegHump Media trying to put Trump in a box, because he keeps appearing outside of the box.’Wait a minute — didn’t we have him in a box over here? What is he doing holding a pep rally over there?’

1. Meme: ‘He’s a misogynist! He hates women!’ Reality: Women appointed HHS and Education Secretaries, head of the CIA, Press Secretary, and important staff like Kellyanne Conway.
2. Meme: ‘He’s a racist! He hates black people!’ Reality: He invites black people to the White House, he kisses a black grandmother, he commutes the sentence of a black criminal who has apparently reformed, he pals around with Kanye West and Dennis Rodman.
3. Meme: ‘He’s a homophobe! He wants to stuff gays back in the closet!’ Reality: Nobody can find a single instance where Trump has shown hostility to homosexuals. All the evidence is that he doesn’t care one way or another.
4. Meme: ‘He’s Hitler! He wants to put brown people in CONCENTRATION CAMPS and break up their families’ Reality: Said people are criminals, and criminals are put in detention facilities that admittedly look like camps (except for, you know, the gas chambers and the ovens; they always forget about that part), but that’s what happens when you get a lot of ‘refugees’ and have no place to put them. When the Chattering Class objected to splitting up families, he said, ‘Okay, we’ll put them back together, even though that won’t survive the inevitable legal challenge.’ When did Hitler ever do that?

If he hates women, if he hate black people, if he hates gays, if he wants to put people in camps, he’s got a very odd way of showing it. If Trump is trying to be a dictator, somebody needs to tell Trump, because he obviously hasn’t gotten the memo. If Trump is trying to be Hitler, somebody needs to send him a book or something, because he keeps getting it wrong.

Or maybe….

Krispy Kreme. Just sayin’.

Read it.

But you have to remember that Trump has accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING so far in office.

Just bear that in mind.

Absolutely nothing.

Rush Limbaugh had a lot of fun today doing a play-by-play on the most recent KiddeGate news. I do not binge-watch the news as Rush does — I have more important things to do, like folding my underwear, but it’s really the basis of his job — so I’m depending on his time-line, which I think justified.

We must begin with some background, a case called Flores consent degree from 1997 in which the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals (the most reversed appellate court in the U.S.) entered into a ” with the Clinton Justice Department whereby illegal immigrant children can’t be detained for more than 20 days. (‘Consent degrees’ are a species of collusion often used by Demagogue administrations to fix the law to be more to their liking. One of their pet activist groups will bring some bullshit suit against a law they don’t like, and the administration will give in and sign a ‘consent degree’ that puts a court’s stamp of approval on the twisted interpretation that they wanted all along.)

The Flores case is the grit in the oyster of immigration enforcement around which has accrued a proglodyte pearl of great price called ‘catch and release’, whereby the kids are held for some amount of time less than 20 days, and then released, and Since We Can’t Separate Families, the parents are released as well with a little notice of when the court date for their asylum case will be. They murmur gracias, señor, and snigger on their way to meet the folks from La Raza, who hand them a map to the nearest Sanctuary City with a hearty Bienvenido a Los Estados Unidos, and nobody in the government ever sees them again — unless they are picked up in a sweep for illegal immigrant workers, such as happened recently in Ohio, or they’re arrested for a serious crime (maybe).

This is the background for all of the pressure on Trump. The Chattering Class figured that if they could win on the Keep Families Together front, then catch-and-release would go back into effect that the border would continue to drip future Demagogue Party voters.

Trump, however, has done one of his political judo moves again. He let the pressure build up until he judged it the right time to jerk open the door that they’re all piling against by signing this Executive Order that the families be, hey, kept together. For about a half an hour the Chattering Class went through their little victory lap until some bright boy actually read the document and discovered that it didn’t reinstate catch-and-release: Sure, they families will stay together in detention. Oh, then came the wailing and gnashing of teeth (Dems Get What They Want, Are Still Outraged) as the Chattering Class was forced to admit that there was indeed a legal bump in the road (Flores) and that what they had been screaming for all along would not, in fact, come to pass — As soon as the ACLU or its equivalent can get before a Federal court, this Executive Order is going to get thrown out. And there will stand Trump with his hands out, saying ‘Hey, I gave you what you wanted, and guess what? It’s against the law, just as I told you it was?’

So now we’re back to the status quo ante and all they can do is bluster, having been stripped naked of the conceit that It’s For The Children. Everyone will realize that it’s not for The Children at all; it’s just about pummeling Trump.

What the next step in this dance will be I don’t know; I’m not a political judo-master like Trump. But I’m sure it will be entertaining. Pass the popcorn.

Audacious Epigone departs from his usual number crunching to wax delightfully dyspeptic.

Read it.

Anybody still fooled into thinking that Bloomberg was a Republican for any other purpose than to get elected Mayor more easily ought now to be fully ‘woke’.

Just because somebody claims to be a Republican, it ain’t necessarily so.

Steve Hayward points out that there is nothing new under the sun.

Watching the collective media and political class freak out over the “crisis” of immigration enforcement at the border sent me to my bookshelf to dust off Daniel Boorstin’s classic 1961 book, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. Step back for a moment from the whack-a-mole problem of sorting out fact from fiction in this current drama; the way this is playing out is a perfect case study in what Boorstin had in mind.

Boorstin defines a “pseudo-event” as not merely a fact or real event that happened, but a fact or event that is made into “news” of a certain kind by a deliberate and artificial process. You might think of Boorstin’s analysis as no more than the Deep Theory of Public Relations (or as the first analysis of what we today like to call “fake news”), and many of the examples in the book come from the corporate world. Here is some of his description of the dynamics of a “pseudo-event” —see how many aspects of this you can make out in the present controversy…

Read it.

But you have to remember that Donald Trump has accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during his term in office.

Just bear that in mind.

Absolutely nothing.

Victor Davis Hanson explains the Deep State to you.

Review the Clinton email scandal, the Steele dossier, the insertion of at least one FBI informant into the Trump campaign, the misleading of the FISA court by FBI and DOJ officials intent on monitoring U.S. citizens, and, now, the inspector general’s report. There emerges a common denominator: the surety by all involved that Hillary Clinton would be president, and the need to prepare for that fact.

“And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.”

When high-career FBI and DOJ officers go on to refer to American voters as smelly, “retarded,” ignorant, and feces (easily trumping Hillary’s own “deplorables” and “irredeemables” and Obama’s “clingers”), they do so because they assume their candor to each other will earn rewards rather than punishments. More generally, they count on their illegal and unethical behavior becoming known and thus résumé points rather than grounds for later firing and jail.

And that’s what the Deep State is all about.

John Hinderaker peeks behind the curtain.

In a remarkable display of unity, the nation’s news media have suspended coverage of the FBI scandal, our booming economy, progress on North Korea, etc., to focus single-mindedly on the plight of children who are temporarily separated from their parents as a consequence of their illegal entry into the U.S. I personally have no problem with enforcing the immigration laws, as the President is sworn to do. But the Democrats evidently believe they have struck the mother lode in their ceaseless quest for political advantage.

This exercise on the part of the Chattering class has two objectives:

1. Scare Cuckroach Republicans and ThoughtDeviant Crustians into joining the chorus;
2. Get low-information voters to vote for Democrats in the mid-term elections.

Nr 1 typically works with Ordinary Politicians (Bushes, of course, and people like McCain and Romney) but hasn’t worked so far on Trump so it’s hard to know what they hope to accomplish; if insanity is doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result This Time, then ‘derangement’ is a clinically accurate diagnosis.

Nr 2 may or may not work — only time will tell. I suppose it depends on whether they can keep the pot boiling on this topic until closer to the election. Trump has historically demonstrated a talent for sucking all the air out of DemLegHump Media crusades before, and I’m waiting to see how he handles this one.

The whole point is to get elected and appointed officials to cave to the mob. With Trump like a rock behind them, which is what appears to be happening, this may not work the way it has in the past. I doubt they can keep it up for the next two-and-a-bit years, and that’s how long Trump has in the driver’s seat.

Pass the popcorn.

Read it.

That’s their target demographic.

Read it.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

Since labor unions became part of the Demagogue Coalition, they’ve been an integral part of the Deep State, fostered by the ‘regulatory capture’ of the NLRB by pro-union apparatchiks. This is good news.

Reihan Salam deals out some inconvenient truth.

The mother profiled in the Times was regularly receiving remittances from her boyfriend. According to the Times, the boyfriend was reluctant to share details about his own life out of fear of repercussions from federal authorities. It is not unreasonable to assume that he was working in the U.S. without authorization when he encouraged his girlfriend to join him with her son in tow. This reflects a larger pattern: Past migration has a snowballing effect. Earlier migrants gain experience that they can then use to help friends and relatives make their way north, and they can provide much-needed financial assistance. The presence of familiar faces lowers the psychic cost of the move. Over a long enough period of time, entire extended family networks can relocate, provided enforcement is lax and the would-be migrants can afford the journey.

ALSO: MSNBC Panel Admits Obama Also Separated Immigrant Families

ALSO: EXCLUSIVE: Moms Of Children Killed By Illegal Aliens Slam Media For Hypocritical Coverage Of Border Separations

ALSO: Illegal Immigrant Says She Wouldn’t Have Come To U.S. If She Knew Her Kid Would Be Taken Away

Read it.

But you have to remember that Trump has accomplished ABSOLUTELY NOTHING during his term in office.

Bear that in mind.

Absolutely nothing.

Read it.

Think of it as evolution in action.

John Hinderaker adds some perspective.

Let’s start with the fact that Democrats are desperate. Republican economic policies, pursued by the Trump administration and enacted by the Republican Congress, have our economy humming along at a historic rate. Overseas, the Trump administration has moved to advance America’s trade interests and to neutralize some of the principal threats against us, including that from North Korea.

What is a loyal Democrat to do? Change the subject. Hence the obsession, which has blown up over the past few days, with the alleged separation of parents from their children at the country’s Southern border.

Some questions seem to be infrequently asked. What families are we talking about? Why are they at the Southern border in the first place? How long does the alleged separation last, and what is the reason for it? What were the policies of past administrations? Instead, we have seen an over-the-top attack on the Trump administration, and Republicans in general. Although, as far as I can tell, the photos of children in cages date from the Obama era.

Also: The Truth about Separating Kids

Ace of Spades looks at food.

I am a thigh man. Breasts are the tabula rasa of the chicken world, and while I love a nice plump one, they are better when stuffed with interesting things like cheese and ham. But thighs can stand on their own (SWIDT?). In addition to having more myoglobin and fat, they have that wonderful bone with the connective tissue that seems to melt into lusciousness with careful cooking.

They also stand up to an awful lot of heat, so it is difficult to overcook them. And if you bone them, they have a lot of surface area, so whatever marinade or rub you feel like using will quickly add tons of flavor.

I appreciate chicken breast in the same way that I appreciate steak: It’s good to slice it up and use it in slice-oriented contexts, as with turkey. Thighs (and, to a lesser extend, legs) are hand-food, and that’s The American Way.

Try sous-vide. You’ll not regret it.

‘Is that guy wearing a skirt? Where did you say you got that special deal on the reservations?’

Read it.

I thought you’d never ask.

I knew there was a reason I didn’t eat asparagus. (Besides the fact that it tastes like cat barf [I suspect]).

Read it.

Trump extended his hand to shake the general’s. The general, though, used his hand to salute Trump. The president saluted back, as the general extended his hand to Trump. Then, the two finally shook hands, as Trump had intended.

Thus, Trump was merely responding in kind to the gesture of respect paid him by the general. If the Saudi king had bowed first the Obama and Obama had bowed back, you would have some equivalence. In that event, I doubt that Trump or anyone else would have criticized the then-president.

No, it’s not a Trump metaphor.

“Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.”

— Anthony Bourdain

Preach it, brother.

Ace of Spades lets go.

“So with Trump meeting with Whoa! Fat in Singapore, I’m being buried in an avalanche of whataboutism. That is, Trump haters on both sides of the aisle are squealing about how conservatives would be flipping out if Obama sat down with Kim. But this is one of those “all things being equal” false equivalencies. Because things are definitely not equal here. Trump has lots of experience negotiating deals; in fact, he actually wrote a book on the subject. Obama, on the other hand, was a feckless incompetent. Obama’s idea of a deal was to suck up to the Iranian mullahs and give them truckloads of cash with which they could use to ramp up their military capacity and nuclear research. Also don’t forget the Bowe Bergdahl fiasco where we gave up five big-league terrorists for one traitorous scumbag. In what universe is that a good deal? Trump, however, is negotiating from a position of strength: he’s giving Li’l Kim reasonable alternatives after threatening to blow him up. There’s an iron first in that velvet glove. The only contents of Obama’s glove was a limp wrist and a sweaty palm.”

Read it.

Cellphones with cameras appear to be an amazing tool for Natural Selection. Better living through technology.

Also: British-Australian couple fall to their deaths ‘while taking selfie’ in Portugal

Read it.

Thank you, minimum wage activists.

I’m waiting for the drive-thru to get one.