LIFE IN THE 21st CENTURY: Man who had penis ripped off as a child now has 8 inch bionic replacement thanks to pioneering surgery.
Archive for 2015
August 23, 2015
SALENA ZITO: Who in GOP Field Will Seize Trump’s Populist Mantle?
At first the media dismissed Trump, which only made angry voters support him more. That led to a ratings bonanza for national media outlets; they decided to legitimize — and to exploit — his run.
In short, they still don’t get Main Street’s anger and frustration, but they are more than willing to cash in on it with Trump. Everyone — Trump and the media elite — is riding the populist wave to the bank. Everyone except Trump’s supporters.
Those people are still angry, still tired of all things establishment, still appalled at government incompetency, still weary of party labels, and still tired of no one listening to them.
Neither party’s elites represent the majority’s views on an issue such as immigration; Trump does.
So maybe it’ll be Trump who seizes Trump’s populist mantle.
OUT: Dow 36,000.
IN: Dow 5,000.
IT ALWAYS IS: “So now it’s Instapundit’s fault?”
HMM: Why Donald Trump Won’t Fold: Polls and People Speak.
A review of public polling, extensive interviews with a host of his supporters in two states and a new private survey that tracks voting records all point to the conclusion that Mr. Trump has built a broad, demographically and ideologically diverse coalition, constructed around personality, not substance, that bridges demographic and political divides. In doing so, he has effectively insulated himself from the consequences of startling statements that might instantly doom rival candidates.
In poll after poll of Republicans, Mr. Trump leads among women, despite having used terms like “fat pigs” and “disgusting animals” to denigrate some of them. He leads among evangelical Christians, despite saying he had never had a reason to ask God for forgiveness. He leads among moderates and college-educated voters, despite a populist and anti-immigrant message thought to resonate most with conservatives and less-affluent voters. He leads among the most frequent, likely voters, even though his appeal is greatest among those with little history of voting. . . .
His support is not tethered to a single issue or sentiment: immigration, economic anxiety or an anti-establishment mood. Those factors may have created conditions for his candidacy to thrive, but his personality, celebrity and boldness, not merely his populism and policy stances, have let him take advantage of them.
Tellingly, when asked to explain support for Mr. Trump in their own words, voters of varying backgrounds used much the same language, calling him “ballsy” and saying they admired that he “tells it like it is” and relished how he “isn’t politically correct.”
Trumpism, the data and interviews suggest, is an attitude, not an ideology.
The candidate he most resembles, actually, is Barack Obama, circa 2007.
THIS ISN’T THE 21st CENTURY I WAS PROMISED: Satan worshipers drown women with milk in Planned Parenthood counter-protest.
IN THE COMMENTS TO THE COOKING-FOR-ONE POST, there’s a lot of discussion regarding the InstantPot. Anybody out there have experience? I’d buy one and try it, but I can’t buy any more kitchen gadgets unless I either throw some away or buy a house with more counter space.
DRIP, DRIP: Email timeline suggests second server may exist.
THE GHOST OF GEORGE WALLACE looms over Politico. “By the way, I counted 5 out of 243 Politico staffers with a picture as being black.”
Plus: “Aside from the obvious smear, and the standard use of ‘many’ to reflect the writer’s leftist view, I am also amused by the sheer incompetence of the writing and proofreading.” Forget it Patrick, it’s Politicotown.
A PACK, NOT A HERD! My USA Today column is on the French Train story: See something? DO something! We are a pack of wolves, not a herd of sheep. Courage is contagious when intended victims thwart would-be terrorists.
Bureaucracies have their place, but they don’t deal well with diffuse threats like terrorism. By the time “first responders” get there, it’s usually too late. But there’s one group of “responders” who don’t have to go anywhere, and that’s the group that’s already on the scene. In conventional analysis, and in the terrorists’ hopes, those people are called “victims.” But as the three Americans on that French train demonstrated, victimhood isn’t the only response.
And there’s more. The purpose of terror is to terrorize. But responding appropriately has the opposite effect. The response of British businessman Chris Norman, who helped subdue the attacker, illustrates this: “Norman said his first reaction was to hide, but after he saw the Americans fighting the attacker, he said he went to help them.”
But the response is always to funnel more money to the bureaucracies that fail.
HOW THE NEW LEFT TOOK OVER THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
UNDER OBAMA, EVERY AGENCY GETS WEAPONIZED: Is this woman the new Lois Lerner?
As some at the Federal Election Commission seek to broaden the power of the agency, critics are arguing that it’s beginning to look increasingly like the Internal Revenue Service under Lois Lerner, who has been accused of using her office for partisan purposes.
They take special aim at the commission’s Democratic chairwoman, Ann Ravel, who also served as chairwoman of California’s equivalent to the FEC, the Fair Political Practices Commission, before coming to Washington in 2013. Ravel has lambasted the commission as “dysfunctional” because votes on enforcement issues have often resulted in ties, and she has said the commission should go beyond its role of enforcing election laws by doing more to get women and minorities elected to political office. She has complained that super PACs are “95 percent run by white men,” and that as a result, “the people who get the money are generally also white men.”
To remedy those problems, Ravel sponsored a forum at the FEC in June to talk about getting more women involved in the political process. She has also proposed broadening disclosure laws to diminish the role of outside spending, and suggested that the FEC should claim authority to regulate political content on the Web. She’s also voiced support for eliminating one member of the commission in order to create a partisan majority that doesn’t have tie votes, saying in an interview with Roll Call, “I think it would help.”
Hans von Spakovsky, who served on the FEC from 2006-2008, takes issue with Ravel’s effort to go beyond the traditional purview of the commission’s functions. “The FEC has one duty, and one duty only — to enforce the existing campaign finance laws. It has no business trying to ‘encourage’ or ‘discourage’ folks to get involved in politics, no matter who they are, minority or otherwise,” Spakovsky told the Washington Examiner.
Spakovsky also said it would be contrary to the function of the FEC to limit the number of commissioners. “The fact that any action by the FEC requires the votes of four commissioners, and thus bipartisan agreement, ensures that its investigations are based on enforcing the law evenly, without regard to the party a particular candidate is a member of. Ravel wants to end that, which would allow the FEC to be used for partisan political witch hunts,” Spakovsky said.
Partisan witch hunts are the whole point.
READER BOOK PLUG: From Rich Markey, A Million Laughs: The Funny History of American Comedy.
LESSON FROM EUROPE: EMPOWER (ARM) PASSENGERS. WHAT WE’LL DO INSTEAD: MORE POINTLESS SECURITY THEATER. Train Attack in Europe Puts Focus on Vulnerability of U.S. Rail. “Unlike airports, which are guarded with multiple layers of security — including airport police and Transportation Security Administration personnel operating metal detectors and full-body scanners — most railroad stations have minimal scrutiny for those boarding trains.”
TSA’s airport security has never caught a terrorist and misses 95% of weapons and explosives in tests.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 10 Tips On Cooking For One.
THIS ISN’T THE 21st CENTURY I HAD HOPED FOR: Planned Parenthood Blasts Music That ‘Sounds Like It Came From Hell’ at Peaceful Protesters.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Observations on Relationships in a Grocery Store. “I often think men’s contributions to families and society are overlooked these days or taken for granted. It’s no wonder so many men feel that it is better to flip through women on Tinder than it is to get into a long term relationship. A smile from a woman you don’t know might be better at times than a smirk of irritation from the one you do.”
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Why Millennial Women Are Dating Older Men:
The recent Vanity Fair article detailing the more lurid underbelly of online dating—the barrage of dick pics, the endless swiping, the death of romance—was grim, if not horrific. Dating, Vanity Fair would have you believe, is evolving into an elaborate charade of deception: Everybody is petrified of giving someone the “wrong idea.” Men are impolite to the point of viciousness to ensure that the women they just hooked up with understand they don’t want a relationship. Women “self-objectify” in profile pictures to get men interested, renouncing the “wrong idea” that they might want something more than a one-night stand. No matter which way you spin it, landing yourself in a committed relationship seems to be, by millennial standards, “the wrong idea.”
I want to believe that Vanity Fair selected only their most salacious interviewees to quote, but I know that’s not true. I’ve received my fair share of lewd attention during my online dating tenure to verify: It really is that bad. But I’ve noticed a new strategy among my set of female friends—lovely, intelligent, independent women—to combat the grime of the online dating world: date up.
I don’t mean status, I mean age. More and more women I know are dating men twice, yes twice, their age.
Well, Pajama Boy isn’t exactly the guy to set your loins a-tingle now, is he?
TEACH WOMEN NOT TO RAPE! (CONT’D): Well, you won’t do that with consequences like this: Former NFL Cheerleader Pled Guilty To Raping Boy, Gets No Jail Time. Would any man get off this lightly?
The parents to Delaware Superior Court Judge E. Scott Bradley: “Any adult who rapes a child deserves to be in prison. Please hold her accountable.” He disagreed.
SCOPING OUT POTENTIAL RIVALS: Biden meets with Warren in Washington. Joe Biden is ramping up his overt exploration of taking on Hillary Clinton for the Democrats’ presidential nomination. He met with the Godfather Sen. Elizabeth Warren yesterday at the VP’s mansion in DC:
Warren and Biden discussed economic policy during a meeting that lasted about two hours, a person familiar with the discussion told CNN, adding that the presidential campaign or Biden’s future was not a particular focus of the discussion.
The meeting, confirmed by two people familiar with the session, is the biggest indication yet that Biden is feeling out influential Democrats before announcing his intentions.
Beloved by liberal Democrats, Warren decided to sit out a campaign of her own, but she has yet to formally endorse a candidate. In an interview on Friday, she told WBZ in Boston: “I don’t think anyone has been anointed.”
Other than kissing Warren’s ring, I’m sure Biden wants to make sure Fauxcahontas isn’t pondering throwing her own bow and arrow into the ring. I kind of like the idea of a scintillating Sanders-Chafee ticket once Hillary is indicted.