Read it.

A man whose drug-related prison sentence was commuted in November by President Barack Obama has been fatally shot at a federal halfway house in Michigan after two men with assault-style rifles sought him out, police said.

I guess the system works.

Read it.

Good news for Trump.

California Rep. Maxine Waters will boycott President Trump’s address to Congress because she does not believe that she can control herself during the Republican’s speech, she said Tuesday.

She never could.

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Apparently leaving the place full of trash is a sacred Native American tradition.

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But everybody keeps claiming that they come here to work….

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But voter fraud never happens, never never never, so we have ABSOLUTELY no need for voter ID laws….

ZMan is not pleased.

So-called Movement Conservatism is a zombie movement, shuffling along until someone has the decency to put it out of its misery. That does not mean the army of people who have made a living peddling it over the last few decades are going to retire. They are looking for some way to weasel their way into the new thing. They look over at the cool kids raising hell on-line, building their own thing and the old guys of Conservative Inc are naturally jealous and want to be a part of it.

This is not an easy task. Buckley Conservatism was revealed to be nothing more than the candy coating to the Progressive nut inside the prevailing orthodoxy, when they went all in on the NeverTrump nonsense. It’s not that the cool kids will not forgive them. It is that there is no point to it. These are yesterday men with nothing to offer. National Review is one of those abandoned houses in Detroit. It’s only purpose is as a reminder of past mistakes. Otherwise, it can be plowed under and not one will care.

The current relationship of this new thing on the Right to the old conservative movement is a lot like what David Horowitz described as the relationship between the New Left and the old reds from the previous generation. When the New Left got going in the 60’s and people noticed it, suddenly every old commie in the country was trying to get in on the act. They were rejected not because they were old, but because they had nothing to offer.

Read it.

Woodrow Wilson started us on the road to Hell is SO many ways….

Read it.

Every few months, we see some variation on this story: “A restaurant server in [fill in the blank] went viral on the Internet this week after posting a receipt on which a customer wrote a [racist/sexist/transphobic/other] message. This is a sad reminder of the prevalence of [racism/sexism/transphobia/other] in America.” And usually, within days or sometimes even hours, the receipt is revealed to be a hoax. Usually… but not always! Sometimes it really does happen.

Read it.

Maybe they know something that American ‘progressives’ don’t.

Read it. And by all means watch the video.

The budding, would-be Ph.D. rapper, A.D. Carson, defended his urban street poetry dissertation in Clemson’s rhetorics, communication and information design program last week, according to Inside Higher Education.

…

“The dissertation is really just a — man, that’s like, in a real, practical way just it’s, uh, it’s a rap album,” Carson says in a YouTube video about busting rhymes to acquire a Ph.D. “Rather than it being, like, about rap or it being about, like, spoken word, it’s actually done through those particular modes of presentation.”

Sounds like a modern PhD to me.

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The city of Vienna Neustadt is facing an educational and political mess. A cry for help from the mayor Klaus Schneeberger (ÖVP) towards the Education ministry shows the dramatic situation. For the first time there is a preschool class (the Otto Glöckel-School) where not a single child speaks German as his mother tongue. The average of children with a foreign native language in preschool classes is already at an alarming 80.33%, says Schneeberger.

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Leaked audio from an anti-Trump protest group meeting reveals activists with anti-Trump group Indivisible plotting how to best manufacture a hostile environment at a town hall with Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana on Friday.

The audio, obtained by local radio station KPEL, reveals a coordinated effort to create the public impression that Cassidy’s support for Trump is unpopular with his constituents. The activists, who describe themselves as liberals in the audio, can be heard strategizing how to best turn a local town hall into a political victory.

Astroturf, thy name is Democrat.

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

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A Chrome browser extension titled “Racism Simulator” shows just how racist the left-wing media really is by changing negative references about white people to black people.

“Ever see articles bashing certain groups and thought to yourself how totally not okay it would be if the groups were replaced with another group?” the extension’s download page asks. “This extension swaps the groups being written about on HuffingtonPost, Salon, Buzzfeed, Jezebel, and Gawker to show how much racism, sexism, and outright nastiness they get away with because they chose to target an ‘oppressor’ group.”

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Good. Let’s clean out the trash.

Biologists ‘fear’ lack of species the way lawyers fear a simplified tax code. ‘Oh no, my graaaaaannnnntttts.’

You say ‘biodiversity’ I say ‘clutter’.

Lileks.

Winner: “The Mysterious Mr. Enigma’s Secret,” which ended with Ben Affleck saying, “Yes. I am Mr. Enigma.” The announcement was accompanied by a big BOOM like John Goodman kicking a timpani, then silence and then the title appearing with the date of the release.

Read it.

Much has been written about Sweden’s “No Go Zones” in recent years. We’ve watched them burn over the years with a combination of disbelief and shock. When the Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson told me — as we walked through Molenbeek in Brussels just days after the Paris terror attacks in 2015 — “we have these places in Sweden too,” I was skeptical.

Sweden is supposed to be paradise-like, I thought. Isn’t it all leggy blondes and Ikea and Abba and lingonberries? Well if you stay downtown in Malmo or Stockholm, perhaps it is. Even the elevator muzak had a whiff of “Fernando” about it.

But the stereotypes and clichés, kept alive for the tourists no doubt, end when you leave the city centres and head out to some of the suburbs.

…

As we drove around the housing estates at night, it became clear the problems in these areas: drugs, rape, police assaults and more, were created in large part by state-sponsored “multiculturalism.”

Sweden’s liberal migration policies, that is to say a failure to maintain any sort of border control at all over the past few decades, have led to ghettoised communities that the state props up with generous welfare payments and socialist lecturing.

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Abstract: This study aimed at developing an understanding of a medieval festival’s visitor attitudes towards how food and beverage service might augment an event’s authenticity mission. It applies an authenticity framework to relatively untested aspects of the tourist/visitor experience. Initially, an exploratory ethnographic study was conducted at a pre-festival medieval banquet to explore dimensions of food and beverage apparent in the literature. This informed a resultant survey which was administered at the festival tournament. Herein is reported the exploratory study and preliminary findings from the survey. In conclusion the paper proposes theoretical contributions, practical implications and considerations for future research.

Academics can suck the fun out of anything. If you want fun with your medieval food, go to an SCA event.

Read it.

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

Read it.

Political Correctness comes with a cost.

Read it.

The Right Side of History eats its children.

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Nowhere has the Orwellian maxim that “some [people] are more equal than others” been more evident recently than at the Federal Election Commission (FEC). At the end of Animal Farm (spoiler alert), the animals find that, having successfully thrown off their human oppressors, their new animal rulers are just as oppressive as the humans, but in the name of animal equality.

In the name of democracy and equal speech, campaign finance “reformers” demand broad power for the FEC to regulate the political speech of average citizens, organizations, and corporations, requiring disclosure, repeated filings, and compliance with complicated regulations (that not even the FEC understands), while asserting freedom and anonymity rights for their own political speech. This hypocrisy has been demonstrated numerous times in recent months.

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On February 23, 1927, Babe Ruth had still to hit 60 home runs in a season. Yet President Calvin Coolidge would that day sign a bill that would establish how radio spectrum—the “economic oxygen” of the emerging information age—would still be governed 90 years later. Markets would be pre-empted, no ownership of the “ether” would be permitted. Public administrators would dole out privileges to deploy wireless networks according to the “public interest.”

I am not making this up.

And many of these people are allowed to vote.

Women liberated from Isis in Syria take off face veils and burn them

Paranoid ISIS Leaders Ban Televisions And Cell Phones To Cover Up Their Losses

The Latest: Turkish troops, fighters enter al-Bab center

A Muslim Woman’s Fight Against Radical Islam

Countering Islamist Extremism the Right Way

Danish man who videoed himself burning the Quran charged with blasphemy

Pakistan attacks: Explosion kills at least eight in Lahore as wave of terror attacks by Isis and Taliban continues

Geert Wilders: Far-right Dutch PM frontrunner says ‘Islam and freedom are not compatible’  Well, duh.

Kuwaiti hospital ‘will refuse to treat migrant labourers’

“Moderate” Muslim Brotherhood Mourns Terrorist’s Death

This Technology Is The Future Of ISIS Terror

Islam, Not Trump, Is The Elephant In The Room Threatening Jewish Survival

Canadian Government Finally Embraces Refugees Of ISIS Terror

Muslims raise thousands to repair vandalised Jewish cemetery

Congressional Computer Admins In Criminal Probe Owed Money To Hezbollah-Connected Fugitive

Charsadda attack: Taliban suicide bombers kill six including child in assault on court in Pakistan

Women in Libya ‘banned from travelling abroad solo’

Isis-affiliated fighters seize Syrian territory near Israeli border in surprise attack

Saudi Arabia’s Ruthless Migrant Policy  What do they know that Democrats don’t?

Iran’s Leader Urges Palestinians to Launch Violent Uprising

Iranian-Backed Rebels Bombed Ship With Explosive Drone Boats

ISIS Targeted Nuclear Reactor Getting Shipment Of Weapons-Grade Uranium

Iranian Leader Says Third Intifada Has Begun Against Israel

Marine Le Pen Refuses To Wear Hijab, Cancels Meeting With Key Arab Leader

Three Arrested In France For Plotting Suspected Islamic Terror Attack

Somalia food crisis at ‘tipping point’ with country heading towards famine in matter of weeks

Civilians trapped in Mosul ‘having to eat cats’ due to food shortage as battle between Isis and allied forces intensifies

Isis claims British suicide bomber carried out attack near Iraqi city of Mosul

Why Iran’s Shia Threat Is Very Real for Faraway Egyptians

Erdogan’s Power Grab Is Hurting Turkey’s Economy

Danish Jihadis Finds Loophole To Get Gov’t Funding To Fight For ISIS

Anti-Trump Muslim March In NYC Holds ‘Allahu Akbar’ Call To Prayer, Compares Trump To Hitler

Australian school allows male Muslim pupils to refuse handshakes with women

Turkey’s Purges Continue

Top Al-Qaida Leader Finds Himself On The Wrong End Of A Bullet

Masjid Toronto: “Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!”

Turkey Aims to Produce Long-range Missiles

Turkey’s Record-breaking Academic Purge

Iraqi forces begin bitter battle for Mosul in effort to destroy Isis

ABC Bemoans ‘Skyrocketing’ Numbers of Refugees Illegally Immigrating to Canada

New Houthi weapon emerges: a drone boat

Canadian Border Town Worries About ‘Confrontations’ After Influx Of ‘Asylum Seekers’

Iraqi forces advance on Islamic State-held western Mosul

Somalia suicide attack: Bomb kills 18 at crowded market in Mogadishu

Iraqi forces launch offensive to take western Mosul from Isis

Culture-Enrichment With Baseball Bats Comes to Rural Germany

Saudis Ready Digital Push to Get Islamic Extremism Out of Schools  Good luck with that.

Angela Merkel demands Turkey treats detained German journalist fairly amid ongoing crackdown  Of course, he’s not actually German, but Turkish.

ISIS-Signaling Enrichers Arrive in Ceuta

Turkey car bomb: Three-year-old boy killed and 15 people injured in attack on Sanliurfa province

German Cities Ban Trucks During Carnivals Amid Terror Fears

Pentagon cites evidence of Islamic State group ‘exodus’ from Raqqa

Hundreds Of Migrants Storm EU Border Fence, Clash With Police [VIDEO]

US Mosque Holds Memorial For Islamist Assassin

Hundreds of migrants scale 20ft fence into Spanish enclave of Ceuta as refugee route shifts  Well, they could just give it back to Morocco.

Libya, not Syria, will be the foundation on which Trump and Putin build their new world order

Sweden jails Syrian rebel who fled Idlib after killing Assad soldiers

Saudi air strike kills 10 women and children in Yemen

Pakistan ‘kills 100 terrorists’ in crackdown after Isis shrine bombing

More than 80 people died in a Pakistan terror attack last night – where exactly is the hashtag and the solidarity?

Read it.

Dallas-Fort Worth and Dayton Ohio have the least t traffic congestion among larger cities (urban areas) in the world, according to the 2017 Tom Tom Traffic Index. Dallas-Fort Worth had the shortest average all day delay, at 18 percent of the 43 cities with more than 5 million population. Dallas-Fort Worth also had the least average peak period traffic delay. This is the second year in a row the Dallas Fort Worth has had the best all day traffic congestion. Dayton had the best all day and average peak hour congestion among the 146 cities with between 800,000 and 5,000,000 population and tied with three others for the best in among all cities the least all-day congestion.

ZMan looks at your tax dollars at not-work.

In modern America, government is a form of workfare for the most part. There are roughly 2.8 million Federal workers, not including uniformed personnel. When you add in state and local government, there are roughly 22 million people employed by government in the United States. The labor force is roughly 150 million so that means 15% of the nation’s workers are employed by government. Of course, literally no one knows the size of the contract workforce. The best guess is about 5 million, but it could be much more.

Then you get into the vendor side of things. The Imperial Capital is ringed by companies that do nothing but serve the government. It is not uncommon to run into firms that have done business with no one other than government. Some of these firms exist solely to fulfill diversity clauses in government contracts. There are firms around DC that don’t actually do real work. They just provide the right amount of color to the vendor pool as subcontractors in a contract. How many of these exist is an unknown.

The fact is, about a third of the people working today are in jobs that exist because of government. The fact that blacks are over represented in these fields is well known and deliberate. In cities across America, a city job has been a form of workfare and patronage for generations. If the government was ever pared back to just what is needed, the essential services like police and road maintenance, tens of millions would be thrown out of work and we would have riots in our major cities. A government job is riot insurance.

Read it.

I’m sure Orval Faubus would be happy to give it to them, were he still with us.

Funny how ‘progress’ and ‘progressive’ so rarely line up….

Read it.

“We have has a very good relationship with Maggie Haberman of Politico over the last year,” a memo titled “Earned Media/Next Steps” written by the Clinton communications team said. “We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed. While we should have a larger conversation in the near future about a broader strategy for reengaging the beat press that covers HRC, for this we think we can achieve our objective and do the most shaping by going to Maggie.”

Haberman is now a star politics reporter at The New York Times, along with Glenn Thrush, another former Politico reporter who the Wikileaks dump revealed was sending stories to the Clinton campaign for approval. Thrush jokingly described himself as a “hack” for the campaign in an email to John Podesta in which he agreed to send part of his story for approval before publishing.

“No worries Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u,” Thrush wrote to the Clinton campaign chairman in an April 2015 email. “Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this Tell me if I fucked up anything.”

The emails showing Thrush and Haberman’s tight relationship with the Clinton campaign were just a few of the many emails that revealed a pervasive culture among political media elites in which journalists operate more like political operatives than enterprising reporters.

Read it.

An official arm of the Democratic party is behind a planned demonstration against Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday outside the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.

The Mexico chapter of Democrats Abroad — “the official Democratic Party arm for the millions of Americans living outside the United States,” according to the group’s website — is organizing the demonstration against Tillerson, who arrived in the Mexican capital on Wednesday.

Advertising for the demonstration on The Action Network, a website for left-wing activists, says that “Democrats Abroad Mexico and other progressive organizations like the Women’s March and Bridges to Understanding have created a petition” that demands Tillerson “meet with U.S. citizens who hold opposing views while he visits Mexico City to talk with Mexican government officials.”

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

Read it.

Now is not a time to work at Apple, at least if you need to go to the bathroom.

(Need to know which bathroom to use? No doubt there’s an app for that….)

Read it.

Read it.

So the head of Scotland Yard is officially a Dick.

You would think that they would have put some more thought into that.

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And, of course, it’s all Trump’s fault because this guy was a looney.

Surprising how many people have bought into the progressive notion that you don’t have to obey laws you disagree with.

On the other hand, maybe it isn’t.

Woman asks people to fund her ‘$10k spiritual journey around the world’

Read it.

Hey, you learn something new every day. Isn’t that what college is all about?

Steve Sailer scratches his head.

For Clinton cabinet secretary and current UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich, having recently suggested (twice) that the Berkeley violence was likely an alt-right false flag, now attributes the latest Swedish immigrant riots to Donald Trump provoking them with his lies about immigrant violence in Sweden.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Read it.

Looking for a medieval castle but want to stay in North America? Consider Highlands Castle, situated in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of New York State. Built in 1984 using 800 tons of stone, this castle comes with gatehouse, towers and secret doors.

Of course, you’d have to pay New York taxes….

Read it.

How about that government-provided healthcare, eh? Don’t you wish we had a system like that in America?

ZMan turns the page.

Progressivism, the civic religion of the North, has degraded into a lunatic cult and marginalized itself. The leaders still control the high ground, but they are under assault. Buckley conservatism, which has served as the ideological enforcers for the Left, is imploding. These people may not be packing their bags, preparing for exile, but the 2016 election map makes clear that the old Yankee hegemony is coming to an end. The sensibilities of the rest of the country will have to be included in the political culture.

Now, it is possible that Progressivism is on its death bed. Unlike Europe, the American Left has never been about economic equality. It was always about spiritual equality. The radicals on the Continent were always obsessed with busting up the class structure. The radicals in American have always been focused on saving the immortal soul of the nation. Economic equality was never anything more than a a political tool for the reformers to use as a way to get control of the culture in order to impose their moral vision on the nation.

In order for this to work, the Left has always needed victims and oppressors, saints and sinners. In the 20th century, they could champion black civil rights and women’s issues. Then it was onto gays and now foreigners. The trouble is, they are running out of victims to champion. Black guys getting pushed around by rednecks at the polling booth make for sympathetic victims. Mentally unstable men in sundresses wanting access to the girl’s toilet are not good victims. They are ridiculous and championing them makes the champions look ridiculous.

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Just an oversight, I’m sure.

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Thank you, Barack Hussein Obama (um … um … um).

Tyler Cowen, a Real Economist, looks at leaks.

In other words, leaks are part of how the government manages the press and maintains its own popularity. A leak can get a story onto the front page, or if the first leak did not create the right impression, the information flow can be massaged by yet another leak.

Leaks are also a way of threatening other governments, yet without the president putting all of his credibility on the line. For instance, it can be leaked that the national security establishment would be especially unhappy with a further expansion of Israeli West Bank settlements. That sends a message, yet without committing the American government to any particular response if the settlements proceed. Or leaks can signal to foreign terrorists or governments that we know what they are up to.

Steve Sailer looks at water.

The ongoing Oroville Dam crisis has received modest national attention, in part because the press hasn’t figured out how to blame it on Trump. Moreover, attributing the surfeit of water to global warming, the only other respectable choice, seems inane.

…

Without massive infrastructure to store and move water, California (current population: 39 million) wouldn’t support a sizable population. In 1846, the number of Spanish-speakers in Alta California was likely under 10,000.

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In just two generations, Sweden has become an increasingly dysfunctional and crime-ridden country. The main cause of this negative transformation is non-European mass immigration.

I have been chronicling Sweden’s decline for many years. My reports were falsely dismissed as fantasies made by an alleged “right-wing extremist.” This denial is no longer possible.