Read it.

Both are of course Democrats. Presumably they see themselves as Muslims first and Americans a distant second.

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Unions breaking the law — whoda thunkit?

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That’s not how he spins it, of course.

The standard operating procedure of progs who want to improve the world is suppression of people they don’t like.

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Heh.

Read it.

If you can’t even convince your own press agency….

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Heading downtown Minneapolis several times a week, we watched a so-called homeless encampment grow on a small strip of land along Hiawatha Avenue just before it funnels traffic downtown onto Seventh Street. A tribute to the broken-windows theory of policing, the encampment grew up virtually overnight. Bordering a subsidized Native American housing complex, residents of the encampment reflect the Indian tilt of their neighbors. At one point we saw teepees join the tents.

As the encampment turned into a shithole, municipal authorities jumped to it. They moved four port-o-potties onto a fringe of the strip. That didn’t do anything to clean up the detritus of addiction that littered the grounds. Between September and November four residents of the encampment died of overdoses. The Star Tribune quoted the father of one of the deceased: “It’s a drug house without walls and everyone knows it.” Yet the encampment continued to grow, spilling over the small strip of land on which it originated. It was something like an attractive nuisance.

Long after the encampment had become a disgusting eyesore and menace to public health, the authorities came up with a creative solution of a sort. They installed a green mesh screen to render the encampment less visible to passing traffic.

Read it.

Migrants have reportedly broken though the U.S. border at Tijuana, Mexico and some may have escaped. Reuters reports that about 25 migrants climbed a 10-foot metal fence as darkness descended Monday night.

U.S. Border Patrol guards caught most of them, according to Reuters, but others may have escaped detention. Witnesses say the would-be refugees used blankets and ropes to climb over the wall, where thousands of them remain, despite Tijuana’s apparent resolve to move the migrants further south amid reports of infectious diseases at the border shelter.

UPDATE: Homan Accuses Rep. Jayapal Of Helping Migrants As ‘A Political Stunt’

The Other McCain sounds the alert.

Permit me to register my protest against this word, which was coined in the past 15 or 20 years by the progressive Left (the kind of people who take Noam Chomsky seriously) as analogous to “neoconservative.” The purpose of the word “neoliberal” is to discredit anyone on the Left who would compromise with the Right. People who use this word mean to say that if you are not an outright socialist, you are a “neoliberal.”

Proglodytes love labels. They love having smear-words that they can attach to Heretics and Sinners. This is merely the latest fashion; as Wikipedia points out, it means whatever the user wants it to mean, but it’s never good.

ZMan has a sharp insight.

In the West, allowing talent to bubble up from the bottom, often in military service and later business, was a way to keep the ruling class vigorous and on edge. This used to be way things were done in America.

Today, the ruling classes of the West are a closed system. The children of the elite head off to prep schools nestled away in secluded areas. They head off to nice colleges and then start their apprenticeship in the system. Outsiders can only gain entry by first proving they are no threat to question the system. The managerial class is becoming a hot house of make believe work and fatuous airheads. Like the people in the valley enjoying the good life, they are wholly unequipped to handle the next conqueror.

Read it.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Read it.

Government control in Venezuelan is collapsing along with the economy and much else. At the end of 2018 GDP is down to about a third of what it was in 2013. It cannot fall much further because Chinese cash and technical assistance is keeping some oil production going. This is done because over 90 percent of oil produced goes to China or Russia to repay debts that were specifically made to be repaid with Venezuelan oil. China could take all of the oil production (Venezuela is currently several million barrels behind in repaying this debt) but China is aware that Venezuela requires some income so that the key government employees and security forces can be fed and otherwise compensated for their loyalty and service and encouraged to remain where they are.

Venezuela is literally falling apart. Many areas are being depopulated because, so far, over ten percent of the 2014 population has left and opinion surveys indicate over two-thirds of Venezuelans want to leave. Many more would leave if they had the means to reach the border. Those Venezuelans with education, skills and a little money have largely gone. The middle class and entrepreneurs were the first to go because they could. For most Venezuelans that is not an option and is even less so with the economic decline and the collapse of everything, including public transit, especially in rural areas.

Read it.

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

Read it.

There is no subject too petty for SJW criticism.

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Better them than us.

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Stevens was one of the liberal justices appointed to the Court by a RINO, in this case Gerald Ford.

Funny how you never see a Democrat appoint an conservative justice, or even one that ‘grows’ into a conservative over time as too many Republican-appointed justices when they turn left..

From Wikipedia:

When he was appointed to the Supreme Court, Stevens was a registered Republican. Asked as a sitting Justice in September 2007 if he still considers himself a Republican, Stevens replied, “That’s the kind of issue I shouldn’t comment on, either in private or in public.”

Abner Mikva, a close friend, said that as a judge, Stevens refused to discuss politics. “He was more particular about it than a lot of them,” Mikva stated.

In 2018, Stevens told a Boca Raton crowd that Brett Kavanaugh’s performance during recent Senate hearings should disqualify him from the U.S. Supreme Court bench, citing the potential for political bias should he serve on the Supreme Court.

Yeah, that sure sounds like a ‘Republican’ to me. ‘Republicans’ like this is why we can never have nice things.

Jerry Nadler Claims Trump Knew About Cohen Cover-Up And Lied About It

Man Charged With Stealing Forklift, Planning To Attack Trump’s Limo

Man pleads guilty to planning to flip Trump’s limo with stolen forklift

Meryl Streep: ‘I’m Scared By’ Trump Now That ‘His Children Are In Jeopardy’

Kellyanne Conway’s Husband Accuses Trump Of Witness Tampering I guess he wants a position in the next Democrat administration.

Meghan McCain Shuts Down Joy Behar For Using Bush’s Death To Attack Trump

Read it.

I enjoy cross-sections. Perhaps you do too.

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering.

I’m pretty sure Narlathotep isn’t one of them.

Read it.

Let that be a lesson to us all.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

New York’s State Senate is considering a bill that will allow the government to investigate a citizen’s social media and search engine history before the sale of a handgun.

The bill, proposed by Democrat Kevin Parker, would allow police to reject applications to purchase pistols or even revoke current gun licenses based upon the presence of “biased language” in a person’s social media. If this bill passes, people can be denied access to firearms because they typed politically-incorrect statuses, messages, or searches. The bill is reportedly designed to prevent shootings like the Tree of Life attack. Adams stated that with the current laws on the books, “someone can technically say on their social media profile, ‘I’m going to buy a gun to go shoot someone’ and still walk in the store and buy the gun without the flagging and announcement of that illegal action being dealt.”

The witch-hunt for Heretics and Sinners proceeds apace.

Read it.

Uh, I don’t think so.

Of course, I wouldn’t put it past vegans to attempt to ban them as ‘insensitive’ through the political process. Such people like doing that sort of thing.

Read it.

No good deed goes unpunished in the Witch Hunt for Heretics and Sinners.

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Nothing to see here … move along, move along….

Read it.

“So here’s a NY Times food columnist singing the praises of George H.W. Bush who unfortunately passed away the day before the column was published, so he wasn’t around to read how much he was loved by his enemies. Because, as we all know, there are no good Republicans other than dead ones. Also, why can’t today’s Republicans be like the old Republicans, i.e. not fighting back. Not that they fought back much while they were alive, except against other Republicans. Which is why they hate Trump: he hits back. Bush 41 served his country admirably in WWII, so I respect him for that. But I don’t think he was a particularly good president. There, I said it. Remember, in the run-up to the 1980 GOP nomination, he used the phrase ‘voodoo economics’ to describe Reagan’s policy proposals? At heart, Bush was no conservative, he was your archetypical ‘country club Republican’. Yes, he gave us Clarence Thomas, but he also gave us David Souter, and he left the impression they were all the same to him. But aside from that, the spectacle of all the lefties boo-hooing like they lost a long-time pal is disgusting and hypocritical.”

What he said.

Don Boudreaux preaches the libertarian economic gospel.

Genuine sharing through political institutions can, of course, be imagined. And such sharing does exist in some actual settings, as when citizens of a small town literally have a town hall meeting and reach a consensus to combine their efforts and resources to build a community playground. Yet in reality, most of what government promotes is taking rather than sharing.

…

As distorted as is the perception that politics is an arena that encourages and enables sharing, even more distorted is the perception that the market is an arena that discourages and prevents sharing. Long before the arrival of what we today call the “sharing economy,” the market has been, and continues to be, history’s most potent and skilled driver of sharing.

Markets let each person do it his way. Governments force people to do it their way. That’s the bottom line.

Read it.

Works for me.

‘I want to visit America. I want to see a country where the poor people are fat.’

Read it.

If you own any Shell stock, now is the time to sell it. When businesses board the Virtue Signaling bus, their performance for their shareholders plummets.

Read it.

This is just another hand-waving exercise attempting to panic people into putting more power into the hands of the transnational bureaucrat-managerial class. The Clever Plastic Disguise ‘science’ used to justify climate alarmism has been debunked so many times that they’re just playing to the Stupid Seats at this point. Unfortunately, those Stupid Seats are full of elected officials.

If you watch any of the coverage of the funeral process for George H. W. Bush, you will note that the Big Theme is ‘civility’. Everybody is praising GHWB for his ‘civility’ and wringing their hands about the ‘lack of civility’ in modern American politics — and looking everywhere but at President Trump.

This is been a constant Democrat talking point ever since Trump became a candidate — how civility that used to be present in American politics has been flushed down the toilet by that boob in the White House — but those of us who remember the Clinton years remember the same meme being run around the track about Newt Gingrich and his posse. And of course it was a standard Democrat talking point about Reagan and Nixon.

If you unpack that talking point you realize that it all goes one way. The Democrat definition of ‘civility’ appears limited to Republicans saying nice things about Democrats. No Democrat ever criticizes another Democrat for lack of ‘civility’, although even the most casual glance at any newspaper or any DemLeghump Media outlet will reveal Democrats treating Republicans like used toilet paper on pretty much every occasion.

I don’t recall Maxine Waters, Elijah Cummings, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Elizabeth Warren, ‘Spartacus’ Booker, Looks-Like-A-White-Girl Kamala Harris, Moonbeam Brown, Rahm Emmanuel, or Hillary Clinton ever treating any Republican with ‘civility’. (If it ever happened, it would ipso facto be news.)

So this ‘civility’ schtick is just little Lucy whining ‘Mommmeeee! Johnny hit me back!’

Remember that whenever you hear a Democrat (or a RINO) clutch their pearls about ‘civility’. It’s just another psychological straightjacket that the Left is attempting to persuade the Right to don voluntarily. They know it’s BS, but they’re counting on their targets being stupid enough to buy it.

Kurt Schlichter appears to agree: The Only Good Republican Is A Dead Republican

The death of President George H. W. Bush provided liberals and their Fredocon houseboys yet another opportunity to lament the fact that all Republicans aren’t dead. Their feigned amnesia about what libs were saying while Bush 41 was still in the arena, and their latest hack attempt to tsk tsk tsk tsk about how the Bad Orange Man isn’t like [Insert Name of Dead Republican Here] serves to justify the prophylactic cynicism that we Normals should strive to cultivate.

Read it.

And preserving the existing ecosystem is SO much more important than preventing floods.

People just don’t get it.

Read it.

There is no activity so obscure and trivial that there isn’t somebody else around to bitch about it.

Read it.

Perhaps that’s the way Muslims celebrate Christmas. Who are we to judge?

Read it.

I’m sure you’re all dying to do this.

Read it.

A man taking the League Against Cruel Sports to an employment tribunal claiming ethical veganism is akin to a religion? It probably had Britain’s sizeable corps of Mr Angrys spluttering into their cornflakes.

Jordi Casamitjana, the vegan in question, says he was dismissed after disclosing the League invested its pension funds in firms involved in animal testing. He claims his treatment amounts to discrimination because of his passionate vegan beliefs.

Vegans certainly act as if it were a religion.

UPDATE: The fired League Against Cruel Sports employee is right – veganism should be protected in the same way as religion

UPDATE: UK Man Claims Veganism Is A Religion, Sues Former Employer

A U.K. man claimed that “ethical veganism” is a religion in a lawsuit against his former employer over his termination for objecting to animal testing.

It may be a philosophy but it isn’t a religion, although they surely act as if it were.

Joel Kotkin looks at politics.

Thirty-five years ago Tracy Kidder electrified readers with his “Soul of a New Machine,” which detailed the development of a minicomputer. Today we may be seeing the emergence of another machine, a political variety that could turn the country toward a permanent one-party state.

This evolution has its roots in California, where a combination of Silicon Valley technology, changing demographics, control of media, culture and academia have worked to all but eliminate the once-fearsome state GOP. For all intents and purposes, the California Republican Party has ceased to exist.

But this is not, as some conservatives contend, a case simply of California lunacy. Several once historically conservative states — Colorado, Arizona, Nevada — have been turning ever-bluer in recent elections. The party now barely is able to hold onto seats in places such as Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida, while the Midwest, the region that elected Donald Trump, seems to be shifting back to its bluer past.

Read it.

What goes unstated, however, is the subtext of that yearning. All the florid remembrances are packed with fondness for a bygone institution known as the Establishment, hardened in the cold of New England boarding schools, acculturated by the late-night rituals of Skull and Bones, sent off to the world with a sense of noblesse oblige. For more than a century, this Establishment resided at the top of the American caste system. Now it is gone, and apparently people wish it weren’t.

But Franklin Foer is here to tell you how wrong, WRONG they are.

There are so many ‘dog-whistles’ in this piece, you’d think that they’d have their own park.

Steve Sailer unpacks it here: Atlantic: Nostalgia for GHW Bush is anti-Semitic

Read it.

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

Read it.

Ha!

The Lincoln Option

Trump administration accused of ‘inappropriately steering’ patients to private healthcare plans

Scott Adams has the details.

Read it.

Heh.

Read it.

How about that GREAT government-provided health care! Don’t you wish we had a system like that in the U.S.?

Read it.

Seems as if the French proletariat don’t like the New World Order.

Read it.

We’re in the holiday season, but that doesn’t mean conservative legislators should take a holiday from their conservative principles. Unfortunately, the farm bill devised by House and Senate negotiators would require them to do just that.

Farm bills past have repeatedly disappointed those who believe in free markets, reduced dependency on government, and individual freedom. This latest farm bill, according to published reports, would be the worst in recent memory. It doesn’t just ignore these core principles—it flouts them.

Whenever any bill gets ‘negotiated’ it always winds up worse than either of the two original positions.

Read it.

Makes you wonder how good the Tesla self-driving feature really is.

Note to self: Avoid California.

Read it.

Compiled by David Director Friedman, some of these are very subtle. But if you think about it you can figure it out. Hint: Each one illustrates a basic principle of economics.

Read it.

California is, indeed, a foreign country.

In his home office, Newsom pointed to his clutter-free desk and said, “I eat here and work here and watch MSNBC here. And I always check Tucker Carlson on Fox, to see how far he’s going on the racism spectrum.”

Anyone so detached from reality as to think that there is a shred of racism in Tucker Carlson is a brain-dead ideologue.