Read it.

In his superb new book Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era, Thomas C. Leonard of Princeton University tells the story of the “progressive scholars and activists who led the Progressive Era crusade to dismantle laissez-faire, remaking American life with a newly created instrument of reform, the administrative state.” It’s a fascinating and frequently depressing story. As Leonard documents, while the progressives did introduce a number of helpful, legitimate reforms, they also threw their weigh behind some of the most destructive government policies of the era, from race-based restrictions on immigration (justified in the name of protecting U.S. workers from degrading competition) to the South’s racist Jim Crow regime (justified on the grounds that state officials should have broad leeway to control economic affairs). The progressives were “so convinced of the righteousness of their crusade to redeem America,” Leonard observes, “that they rarely considered the unintended consequences of ambitious but untried reforms.” I would also add that the progressives didn’t just bestow vast new authority on the government, they also undermined many traditional checks on government power, such as judicial review. It was a foolproof recipe for the state-sanctioned abuses that followed.

‘Progressives’ have a lot of skeletons in their closets.

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Democrats are still anguished over Hillary Clinton’s defeat at the polls, and that includes the Democrats at the Associated Press. Today’s complaint is that Donald Trump isn’t doing enough to unify the country: “On victory lap, few signs Trump focusing on unified nation.”

…

Remember the beginning of the Obama administration, when Obama said “I won,” and “elections have consequences”? And when the Democrats rammed Obamacare and the ill-fated “stimulus” bill through Congress with zero Republican input and zero Republican support? Remember how the AP criticized Obama for not doing more to “unite a divided nation”? No, I don’t remember that either.

Read it.

Thank God for all those strict gun control laws in Chicago or the place would be like Texas.

Read it.

At the heart of liberal utopianism is the concept that through political exertion you can have a perfect society without tragic outcomes of any kind. This is one reason why liberalism rebels against human nature. (In fact, I think we should routinely refer to liberals as “human nature deniers.” Sauce for the goose and all that.)

It is this ineluctable characteristic that explains why liberals are having trouble making it through the five stages of grief over Hillary’s election face plant. Acceptance? No way.

Hence the bevy of Hollywood heroes who are now imploring members of the electoral college to vote for someone other that Trump is terrific ironic comedy gold. Give them props for saying to Republican electors—we’re not even asking that you vote for Hillary! Just some other qualified Republican. So here’s a fun idea: knowing that the House of Representatives would choose Trump in the case of an electoral college deadlock, how about a bunch of Republican electors say, “Fine: How about Ted Cruz?” And then sit back and watch the Hollywoods liberals choke.

I would find that amusing. Or Dick Cheney. That would be even more amusing.

Read it.

That conundrum goes like this: Can you think of three foods where any two of those foods taste good together, but all three combined taste disgusting?

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Guess that’ll show him.

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What exactly does a person with a degree in Russian History do for a living? If the degree is from Harvard, the answer is anything that person wants, even investment banking. But if the degree is from even a slightly lesser school than Harvard (or Princeton/Yale/Stanford), there really aren’t that many employers demanding Russian History majors.

So the workforce of CIA analysts is going to be liberal-leaning SWPL types. I am sure they really liked President Obama, and they nearly all voted for HRC for the same reasons that SWPLs outside of the CIA nearly all voted for HRC. You know, because Trump is racist. And if you work in the government, maybe you are used to the last eight years and you think that President HRC means more of the same that you are used to and that’s exactly what you want.

Read it.

Access to steady supplies of clean water is getting more and more difficult in the developing world, especially as demand skyrockets. In response, many countries have turned to the sea for potable fluids but existing reverse osmosis plants rely on complicated processes that are expensive and energy-intensive to operate. Good thing, engineers at Lockheed Martin have just announced a newly-developed salt filter that could reduce desalinization energy costs by 99 percent.

Mark Steyn looks at Eurabia.

Over the summer, I met a lady from southern Germany who had found herself on the receiving end of some vibrant multicultural outreach from one of Mutti Merkel’s boy charmers. As a result, she no longer goes out after dark. She had also decided – with reluctance, because she enjoyed it – to cancel her participation in a local Christmas market, where she’d sung carols every year – in broad daylight.

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

“Because it’s Christmas,” she said, “and I’m worried Christmas will be a target.”

And so it’s proved.

Joe Bob Briggs points out some inconvenient truth.

As any deer hunter can tell you, the person most likely to preserve the wildlife population is the person who regularly harvests it. All hunters are conservationists. And likewise, all energy extractors are stewards of the environment. Do they screw up from time to time? Two words: Exxon Valdez. Of course they do. Do they wanna suck all the pressure out of the oil fields like Spindletop wildcatters and send dirty fuel to the Northeast so that people die of lung cancer? Of course not.

Read it.

Silicon Valley and its leading mini-me, the Seattle area, did very well under Barack Obama, and expected the good times to continue under Hillary Clinton. Tech leaders were able to emerge as progressive icons even as they built vast fortunes, largely by adopting predictably politically correct issues such as gay rights and climate change, which doubled as a perfect opportunity to cash in on Obama’s renewable-energy subsidies. Increasingly tied to the ephemeral economy of software and media, they felt little impact from policies that might boost energy costs or force long environmental reviews for new projects.

No wonder Silicon Valley gave heavily to Obama and then Clinton. In 2016, Google was the No. 1 private-sector source of donations to Clinton, while Stanford was fifth. Overall the electronics and communications sector gave Democrats more than $100 million in 2016, twice what they offered the GOP. In terms of the presidential race, they handed $23 million to Hillary, compared to barely $1 million to Trump.

Yet, there is one issue on which the Valley has not been “left,” and that is, predictably, wealth. It may have liked Obama’s creased pants and intellectually poised manner, but it did not want to see the Democrats become, God forbid, a real populist party. That is one reason why virtually all the oligarchs favored Clinton over Sanders, who had little use for their precious “gig economy,” the H-1B high-tech indentured-servants program, or their vast and little-taxed wealth.

Read it.

Leftists lie. It’s what they do. They talk a great fight but when push comes to shove they fold like a cheap towel.

Tactical Christmas Stockings.

Official KFC Candle. Presumably smells like chicken.

Read it. And listen.

He was the driving force behind three of the best (non-Beatles) songs of the 1960s/early 1970s: Bluebird, Wooden Ships, and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes; in the process he anchored two of the major super-groups of that era.  “For What It’s Worth” is one of the most recognizable and oft-used iconic songs of the 1960s.  “Helplessly Hoping” is good too.  He was an underrated guitarist, try Super Session, with Michael Bloomfield and Al Kooper.

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Now the backers of the global warming alarm will not only be called upon to debate, but will face the likelihood of being called before a highly skeptical if not hostile EPA to answer all of the hard questions that they have avoided answering for the last eight years.  Questions like:  Why are recorded temperatures, particularly from satellites and weather balloons, so much lower than the alarmist models had predicted?  How do you explain an almost-20-year “pause” in increasing temperatures even as CO2 emissions have accelerated?  What are the details of the adjustments to the surface temperature record that have somehow reduced recorded temperatures from the 1930s and 40s, and thereby enabled continued claims of “warmest year ever” when raw temperature data show warmer years 70 and 80 years ago?  Suddenly, the usual hand-waving (“the science is settled”) is not going to be good enough any more.  What now?

Read it.

Though many things have changed in American political life over the past couple of years, one aspect remains a comforting constant: Democrats never lose an election. Not really. Not fairly.

Elections can be stolen. Americans can be misled. Big Oil or big business can buy elections, because these institutions possess the preternatural ability to control human actions. Whatever the case, something fishy and nefarious must also be going on, because there’s absolutely no way voters could reject Democrats.

Read it.

Except for Democrats, of course, for which a ‘black and white approach’ is raaaaaaacist.

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Tomorrow is coming, if the statists don’t ruin it for everybody.

Read it.

Those that can, do; those that can’t, whine.

Which would you rather have in charge of your government?

Saudi Arabia to ‘inoculate’ children against Westernisation, atheism and liberalism  Let is know if that works.

WaPo:  Aleppo bloodbath will indelibly stain Obama’s legacy

Hamas warns Israel they have ‘a real army’ and have ‘increased missile production’

Report from ISIS factory of war reveals a vast, standardized arsenal

Have Russian hitmen been killing with impunity in Turkey?

EgyptAir crash: Traces of explosives found on bodies of victims killed in air disaster in the Mediterranean

WATCH: Rape and Violence Are on the Rise in Sweden

Judicial Watch: U.S. Customs, Homeland Security Records Reveal Somalis Given Security Briefings, ‘Community Engagement Tours’ in Secured Areas at Major U.S. Airports

DHS Knew OSU Attacker Was Terror Recruitment Target, Let Him Into The U.S. Anyway

‘Sexual Emergency’ Migrant Gets Seven Years For Rape

Iran’s Supreme Leader says Israel ‘will not exist in 25 years’

Aleppo: Assad’s offensive on divided Syrian city handed Palmyra back to Isis and could spark new militant gains

While the world watches Aleppo, Assad may have just used sarin gas on civilians near Palmyra

50-60 New Syrian Refugees Registered DAILY By California Group

Defense Secretary Ash Carter leads his final anti-ISIS conference amid uncertainty

Somalia suicide car bomber sets off blast; 3 injured

Afghanistan’s VP May Have Sodomized Political Rival With Assault Rifle

Reports of Aleppo civilians shot on the spot by pro-regime forces – UN

Syrian UN ambassador uses photo from Iraq to show how pro-government forces are ‘liberating’ city of Aleppo

Saudi Arabia and Gulf states ‘support Islamic extremism in Germany,’ intelligence report finds

Isis manufacturing military standard weapons on an ‘industrial scale’ in Iraq

British Media’s ‘Useful Infidels’ Rush to Defend Shariah

Saraya Al-Tawheed: A Pro-Assad Druze Militia in Lebanon and Syria

‘They wanted to cut off my head’: Iraqis describe horror of life under Isis in Mosul

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani orders nuclear-fuelled warships as he accuses US of ‘violating’ deal

Aleppo’s civilians ‘massacred’ as Assad forces take back city

State Funeral Held for Cairo Cathedral Attack Victims with President Sisi’s Attendance

Islamic State turned Mosul into city of terror and darkness

Carter says 3 key Islamic State militants killed in Syria

Drone Strike Finally Catches Up With Paris Attack Planners

Saudi Arabian woman is ARRESTED by morality police and now faces being LASHED for not wearing hijab

IRAQ: The Bloody Battle For Mosul

In Italy, migrants and refugees forced at gunpoint to steer boats are being arrested for people trafficking

Saudi police arrest young woman for removing abaya

Pro-Kurd party members arrested in wake of Istanbul bombings

The Bully of Londonistan

ISIS’s Latest Victory Subverts Russia’s Whole Syria Narrative

Christian Slovakia Passes Law to Ban Islam

Hezbollah vs. ISIS. vs. Israel

Turkey: 235 people arrested over ‘Kurdish militant propaganda’, Turkish Interior Ministry says

Jimmy Carter’s House of Mirrors

Amid Aleppo offensive, ISIS recaptures Syria’s Palmyra

Two young girls ‘around seven of eight’ blow themselves up near Nigerian market

Threat to Assad as Alawites distance themselves from crimes of his regime

As the Islamic State Collapses, Hardened Mujahideen Head for Europe

Trauma of a teen migrant: 18 months of beatings, kidnap, rape and murder along the road to freedom Makes you wonder why they don’t stay where they were.

Woman Kicked Down the Stairs; Police Hunt the Leaker of the CCTV Video

In Just 48 Hours, Islamic Extremists Kill More Than 200 Across Five Countries

Turkey hunts for answers, mourns dead after blasts kill 38

We still don’t know who bombed Istanbul – and that’s a sign of the trouble Turkey is now in

Istanbul bombing: Terror attack death toll rises to 38 including 30 police as officials accuse PKK

Hundreds of Africans Celebrate Illegal Migration into Spanish City, Biggest Flow in ‘Over a Decade’

3 Filipino soldiers dead, 17 injured in militants clash

Blast at Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral kills 25, injures dozens

Love at First Sight, Eritrean Style

‘At least 20 wounded’ in explosion outside Istanbul football stadium

Isis ‘retakes part of Palmyra’ in lightning advance nine months after being driven out of ancient Syrian city

The U.S. is sending another 200 troops to Syria as ISIS fight intensifies around Raqqa

Schoolgirl suicide bombers kill dozens in Nigerian market

Rotterdam terror plot foiled as man with Isis flag, Kalashnikov and explosives arrested by Dutch police

Cairo bombing: Hasm Movement claims responsibility for explosion that killed six near Giza pyramids

ISIS adds vibrancy to Trinidad’s diversity

Reporter takes heat for shooting at ISIS

Family Insists Police Didn’t Have To Shoot Knife-Wielding Teen

It’s 15 years since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but thousands of refugees are still fleeing their country  Guess that’s not the only reason the country sucks, then.

Barack Obama risks Turkey backlash after lifting military aid restrictions in Syria

From Migrant Petters to Terrorist Petters

OSU Activists Complain Terrorist Was Wrongly Shot By Police

How America Can Cut Off Iran’s Poisonous Tentacles

Mark Steyn lays it out.

After a brief trip out of the country, I return to find America’s elites playing some sort of Chinese Whispers drinking game with a vat of anti-freeze. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, has doubled down on his accusation that Donald Trump was in on Putin’s “hacking” of the election.

In fact, the only presidential nominee who knew of it was Barack Obama, who had it brought to his attention over a year ago, back when the experts were assuring us that Trump wouldn’t make it to Iowa and New Hampshire. Obama kept the news of Putin’s alleged hacking to himself. So Mr Earnest is now accusing Trump of doing exactly as his boss did. Except that (take another slug of anti-freeze) Earnest’s evidence that Trump was in on the shadowy “conspiracy” is that a few months back Trump publicly invited Putin to release Hillary’s unseen emails. So Trump and Putin’s secret plan to subvert American democracy was so sophisticated they announced it to the world. That’s how cunning they are. We’re gonna need more anti-freeze.

Read it.

RESIST!

That one word has become the favorite slogan of leftists following Donald Trump’s electoral victory, and it has only increased in usage since The Washington Post’s Friday report on CIA claims the Russian hacked emails to help the current president-elect win.

Odd that, during the years when Communism was the Flavor of the Month and the Soviet Union actually represented an existential threat to America, nobody on the American Left thought The Russian Threat was anything more than a fantasy — yet now, when Russia may be an enemy state but certainly isn’t trying to take over America any more, it’s a Big Deal. I wish they would make up their minds.

Of course, the only thing the ‘Russian hack’ did was allow us to peer into the fetid swamp that was the Hillary campaign; that affected the election to the extent that it allowed people to peer behind the curtain at the sausage being made, and for that, if the ‘Russians’ had anything to do with it, they deserve our thanks. But, of course, when it’s the Democrat ox being gored, it’s more important to punish the whistleblower than to fix the problem thus revealed. Edward Snowden, take note.

Steve Sailer is not impressed.

Seriously, how much damage could a smart, realistic sociopath do when even losers like Crystal Magnum and Tawana Brawley can become national celebrities with their absurd stories? Who has been the most personally formidable hate hoaxer? Jackie Coakley? That’s a pretty low bar.

Read it.

Don’t say we never have useful stuff here.

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Perfect for a Hillary supporter who Just Can’t Let It Go.

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Even in Texas, the Democrats run the big cities (because that’s where all the slackers settle), with the results that you might expect.

Dallas, by contrast, has been one of the fastest-growing American cities in recent years. Becoming a magnet for investment and opportunity, however, hasn’t protected the Texas city from experiencing its own Detroit-style financial crisis. Dallas’s retirement system for cops and firefighters combines many of the features that have nearly sunk state and local pension plans around the country. Things got so dire over the summer that retirees began pulling their money out of the system. It’s the first run on a government pension plan in recent memory.

To be strictly accurate, most of that growth has not been in Dallas per se but in the surrounding suburbs, like Richardson and Plano and Frisco, which are typically run by Republicans and have a good environment for business. The City of Dallas … not so much.

Dallas created the police and fire plan in 1916. The system’s trustees eventually persuaded the state legislature to allow employees and pensioners to run the plan. Not surprisingly, the members have done so for their own benefit and sent the tab for unfunded promises—now estimated at perhaps $5 billion—to taxpayers. Among the features of the system is an annual, 4 percent cost-of-living adjustment that far exceeds the actual increase in inflation since 1989, when it was instituted. A Dallas employee with a $2,000 monthly pension in 1989 would receive $3,900 today if the system’s annual increases were pegged to the consumer price index. Under the generous Dallas formula, however, that same monthly pension could be worth more than $5,000. No wonder the ship is sinking.

As in any Democrat-run polity, the Unions elect the Government in order to gain access to the  taxpayers’ money, and the Government shovels money to the Unions in order to stay in power. (Washington runs on the same method.)

Read it.

Indeed. The DemLegHump Media are the primary purveyors of ‘fake news’ on the planet. This is like Bill Clinton calling somebody a sexist.

Read it.

The 2016 presidential election featured no shortage of celebrity-studded viral videos, including Joss Whedon’s overwrought haranguing of third party voters, the cast of The Avengers getting all sincere, and Lena Dunham pulling her pants off in solidarity with Hillary Clinton.

Just because that strategy failed miserably in stopping the election of Donald Trump hasn’t prevented a rag-tag group of performers (including alumni of The West Wing, M*A*S*H*, and 1990s pop electronica) from making one last attempt at a viral video directed at the 538 Electoral College electors.

Lefty whiners have got to be the sorest losers on the planet.

Read it.

Sam Johnson is – ahem – my Congressman, and does an outstanding job.

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While Anthony was setting up his exhibit with Willis at the AGU convention, in another part of the conference, Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown has vowed to launch his own satellites, if Trump switches off NASA satellite climate data collection.

Well, (a) Trump isn’t going to do that — the possibility that he would (or even could) is merely another Chicken Little moment among The Usual Suspects — and (b) using what money? California is broke and going even more broke under the burden of Democrat tax-and-spend policies (of which Governor Moonbeam has been a loyal servant).

Read it.

The pervasive and continuous conflict in the Middle East–between clans, tribes, sects, and religions–is a manifestation of this culture. Middle Eastern history is largely a record of tribal conflicts and displacements, expansions and conquests, and invasions and dynastic replacements. “The Arabs are not in a wretched state – they are in a tribal state, and they are doing what they have been doing since time immemorial: conquering each other, demanding allegiance, and living in a state of perpetual war,” writes analyst Hussain Abdul-Hussain. “The only difference now is that the Arabs are feuding in cities, and on TV and social media instead of in the desert.”

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Think of it as evolution in action.

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Except, of course, that there is no ‘Donald Trump’s Muslim registry’.

I guess this is what the DemLegHump Media mean by ‘fake news’.

Read it.

An 18-year-old Muslim woman has recanted her claim that she was harassed by a group of Donald Trump supporters on a New York City subway car earlier this month, DNA Info is reporting.

Sources tell the website that Yasmin Seweid, a student at Baruch College, said that she made up the story because she was having problems at home and wanted attention. Seweid will also be charged with filing a false police report, according to DNA Info.

Yet Another Hate-Crime Hoax.

Read it.

We may see Hillary in jail yet. Wouldn’t that be entertaining.

Read it.

The following brief clip is from an event that is not identified, but based on the backdrop, it’s a joint event of the “Union” parties in the German parliament: the Christian Democratic Union (Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands, CDU), and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern, CSU).

In it you’ll see a young Muslim woman explain that the term “integration” is unnerving to her and many young Muslims because they do not have to integrate themselves in Germany, and that therefore they should not constantly be bothered with demands for integration.

The Muslima is not identified, but she is obviously a member of the Muslim youth organization JUMA (jung, muslimisch, aktiv, a project for young Muslims in Berlin sponsored by the Berlin Senate and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth).

Read it.

But … but … but … there’s a consensus! Don’t you know what ‘consensus’ means? It means we all get together and decide what’s true, like when we decided that the earth was flat! (Oh, wait….)

Read it.

Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last month’s presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News.

…

The problems were the worst in Detroit, where discrepancies meant officials couldn’t recount votes in 392 precincts, or nearly 60 percent. And two-thirds of those precincts had too many votes.

Voter fraud? Of course not. Purely coincidental.

Steven Hayward does the autopsy.

Of all the stale cliches of liberalism, “the side of history” has to be the laziest. It is a romper room version of Hegelianism, or a secularized version of Providence. (Notice that it involves the Divine Right of the State replacing the Divine Right of Kings as the agent of transcendent History.)

But it explains a lot, including the incredulity and rage liberals exhibit whenever they lose an election. If “History” is on your side, it is categorically impossible that liberalism can lose unless the voters are stupid, or Republican cheated. (You can pick more than one.)

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Former Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., faces up to 10 years in prison for criminal behavior that, according to The Washington Post, included money laundering and bribery. He was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle.

Fattah, who represented Pennsylvania’s 2nd District from 1995 to 2016, was found guilty of federal corruption charges relating to earmarks in June.

Yet Another Corrupt Black Democrat. What are the odds?

Read it.

I imagine so. Nobody is buying (and I use that word advisedly) their bullshit any more.

Read it.

So many things have completely changed in just one short month. The Russians are the bad guys again. Questioning the results of an election is patriotic again. Our time-tested system of checks and balances is sacred again. And a president meeting with a celebrity is, at long last, bad again.

There goes that Trump, meeting with black people again, the racist.

Read it.

Of course. He was a rich white Democrat.

Read it.

Iraq’s Mosul dam is showing signs of collapse, threatening to engulf the entire city and displace millions of people.

Read it.

I guess that, in Obama’s America, Congressional oversight is optional for a government agency.

You’ve got another month, guys, before the new sheriff comes after you.

Question: How is ‘climate change’ the business of the Department of Energy?