Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – Just Okay (All the Bad Guys Are White; Heroes All Minorities)

Debbie Schlussel  "I saw the new Star Wars prequel, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” yesterday morning, under heavy security and lock and key. But it ain’t all that. The movie–which debuts in theaters Friday (early screenings Thursday night)–was just okay. Plus, I couldn’t help but notice a stark casting decision: all the evil Empire leaders are old White men, and all the rebel leaders and heroes are minorities (including a whiny Muslim dude) and a perpetually-miserable chick.

"At some point, one would expect that people will get sick of Disney/Lucasfilm serving up what is essentially the same Star Wars movie plot over and over again with more and more politically-correct, watered-down characters. But apparently not yet, as this movie is expected to do blockbuster numbers at the box office. Still, the movie is exactly that: a watered-down rehash of the original Star Wars movie from 40 years ago, with flat, boring characters picked for their nationalities and non-White status only. 

Throwing the baby out with the bongwater

Ann Coulter  "The New York Times posted a glowing article about a group home in New Hampshire, Hope on Haven Hill, founded with the express mission of keeping babies united with mothers who: 

" '... had used opioids, mostly heroin and fentanyl. Many had been incarcerated. Few had families they could turn to for help, and the fathers of their babies were out of the picture.”

"Why would anyone do this? And why is the U.S. government giving these lunatics a half-million dollar grant to help them do it?

"As the Times explains, "Haven Hill's philosophy" is that babies should stay with their drug addict, single mothers, "alleviating the widespread fear among pregnant drug users that if they seek help, their children will be taken away.”

"Even accepting that, in modern America, single mothers and drug addicts are People Who May Not Be Criticized, this is insane. It ought to be insane even to readers of the Times, who might have noticed, next to the perky article on Haven Hill, the headline for a related article in the Times: Opioids May Interfere With Parenting Instincts, Study Finds.

"As the article explains, scientists found that the part of the brain that registers cute baby faces "as irresistible, kicking in our instinct to care for them" didn't light up in people dependent on opioids, as it does in normal brains.

"But forget that the mothers are heroin addicts -- as Haven Hill does. Just consider the lottery tickets these kids have won by being born to single mothers. As recounted in gory detail in Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America, study after study has shown that children brought up by single mothers are doomed." . . .

Tweets and theater entertain, but Congress is the main event

Charles Krauthammer  "The most amusing part of the Trump transition has been watching its effortless confounding of the media, often in fewer than 140 characters. One morning, after a Fox News report on lefty nuttiness at some obscure New England college — a flag-burning that led a more-contemptible-than-usual campus administration to take down the school’s own American flag — Donald Trump tweets that flag burners should go to jail or lose their citizenship.

"An epidemic of constitutional chin tugging and civil libertarian hair pulling immediately breaks out. By the time the media have exhausted their outrage over the looming abolition of free speech, judicial supremacy and affordable kale, Trump has moved on. The tempest had a shorter half-life than the one provoked in August 2015 by a Trump foray into birthright citizenship. 

"Trump so thoroughly owns the political stage today that the word “Clinton” seems positively quaint and Barack Obama, who happens to be president of the United States, is totally irrelevant. Obama gave a major national security address on Tuesday. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s son got more attention." . . .

Why we shouldn't get foreign policy advice from Mr. Obama

Thomas Lifson: Despicable attempts to dodge Obama’s responsibility for Syria ‘red line’ default  "As the world watches the largest city in Syria destroyed and totals up hundreds of thousands of deaths in that country, Barack Obama and his toadies are desperate.  They know that his empty threat, the “red line” over use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, gave a green light to Russia to increase its support of Assad, gaining a precious naval base in the Mediterranean and thereby altering the balance of power in Middle East waters.  And unleashed even more war on Syrians." . . .

Obama’s Disastrous Syria Policy  "The fall of Aleppo demonstrates the grave costs of American inaction. At nearly every turn of the conflict in Syria, the Obama administration yielded the military and strategic initiative to America’s enemies." . . .

" . . .the reality is that some errors are irreversible. Russia and its allies have won victories in Syria that would be nearly impossible to roll back without courting a showdown among great powers."

 

The Republican electors find that Hate Trumps Love (Updated)

"He said he’s been getting death threats via email, snail mail, Twitter and Facebook.
“ 'Somebody threatened to put a bullet in the back of my mouth,” Banerian, 22, told The Post on Wednesday."

Electors are being harassed, threatened in bid to stop Trump  

"Electors around the country are being harassed with a barrage of emails, phone calls and letters — and even death threats — in an effort to block Donald Trump from being voted in as president by the Electoral College on Monday.

"The bullying is overwhelming Sharon Geise’s tech devices, but not her resolve to support Trump.

"The Mesa, Arizona, grandmother woke up Wednesday morning to more than 1,500 emails demanding she not carry out her legal duty to vote for the president-elect." . . .

Prof. Lawrence Lessig: Our attempt to steal the election is going well  "In Colorado, a judge ruled against Clinton electors who claimed a right to vote against how state law required them to vote. So Lessig’s theory, advanced by many people, that electors can vote however they want even in states where they are bound, has so far not found any judicial authority."

. . . "The “Hamilton Electors” movement, or whatever other name you want to give to Operation Flip the Electors, is nothing short of an attempt to rewrite the election rules after the fact. Like saying after a football game that the team with the most yardage should win even though it didn’t score the most points." . . .

Supposedly tolerant NYC is making the Trump kids’ lives ‘horrible’

. . . "Protesters in the city may chant, “Love trumps hate,” but that’s not stopping some from piling on Donald Trump’s family." . . .

Pa. releases Trump electors' contact info, GOP slams "unprecedented harassment"  "Republican Party officials say they believe the Pennsylvania Department of State willfully disregarded open records protections when it released the contact information of President-elect Donald Trump's electors, opening them up to harassment"

"These electors were never on the ballot, nor were they ever candidates," Sweeney said. "Nevertheless, Governor Tom Wolf's Department of State chose to break with precedent and release the phone numbers and home addresses of Pennsylvania's twenty electors."

The Myth of Hillary’s Popular Vote 'Victory'  "Many modern liberals are fascists at heart who can’t accept losing power; that’s why Bush wasn’t “their” president.

"Those liberals are currently bemoaning the fact that Hillary won the popular vote which, according to them, means she should really be president, though were the case reversed we all know they’d be extolling the virtues of the Electoral College.

"Driven by a lust for power liberals don’t get that everyone has to follow the rules; demanding the rules change when you lose so that you can win" . . . 

Celebrities urge electors to flip. Well, that's good enough for me.

Even the Washington Post said, Griping about the popular vote? Get over it.  . . . "Aiming for 270 electoral votes out of 538, both Clinton and Trump focused on 13 swing states; Trump won that contest-within-a-contest by 816,000 votes." . . .

Hat tip to Lucianne for much of the above research.

Update: Electoral college voters will NOT rebel against Trump they say - as they tell of desperate appeals from 'idiots' to oppose president-elect on Monday  . . . "Associated Press interviews with more than 330 electors from both parties found little appetite for a revolt.

"Whether they like Trump or not, and some plainly don't, scores of the Republicans chosen to cast votes in the state-capital meetings told AP they feel bound by history, duty, party loyalty or the law to rubber-stamp their state's results and make him president. 

"Appeals numbering in the tens of thousands - drowning inboxes, ringing cellphones, stuffing home and office mailboxes with actual handwritten letters - have not swayed them." . . .

What Rex Tillerson's Nomination Means for Russia Policy

"Putin, we’re told, is bent on reviving a Russian empire that dissolved 25 years ago this month."

The National Interest

"In nominating Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state, Donald Trump is attaining one of his major political goals: he is putting a distinctive personal stamp on U.S. foreign policy at a time when Washington’s relations with Russia are fraught with the possibility of a hot war from Ukraine to Syria. Not that Tillerson’s confirmation is guaranteed: Democrats and Republicans are suspicious of his ties to Vladimir Putin, and they will subject the ExxonMobil chief executive to intense scrutiny during next month’s Senate hearings.

"But Trump has an idea of where he wants to go in dealing with the Kremlin and he is going there. The skeptics attribute his ambition to some sort of bromance with the Russian autocrat. Few recognize the substance of what he is trying to do; and those who do run the risk of being denounced as Putin apologists." . . .

A new victim in the war on small-biz bakeries

Michelle Malkin  "It is not enough for family-owned pastry shops to bow to the gay marriage mob. Now, they’re being targeted by the social justice mafia.

"At my alma mater, radical Oberlin College in Ohio (which boasts hapless Baltimore mayor and rioters’ champion Stephanie Rawlings Blake and bizarro feminist actress and fake rape accuser Lena Dunham as graduates), the operators of a small-business bakery are under siege by vengeful students and administrators trying to crush them under the wheels of the race-baiters’ bandwagon. The true victim in this latest tale of political correctness run amok is Gibson’s Bakery — a quaint shop founded in 1885 that still bakes all its goods using original recipes.

"On Nov. 9, according to the city police report I obtained, shop employee Allyn Gibson caught a 19-year-old Oberlin College student allegedly stealing two bottles of wine and hiding them under his shirt. As officers approached the area, Oberlin Police Sgt. (Victor) Ortiz, and Officer (Raymond) Feuerstein both stated they observed Gibson lying on his back with several individuals kneeling over him punching and kicking him with several other individuals in the immediate area. Officers attempted to gain control of the situation and were met several times with resistance from several different individuals.' ” . . .

Obama's legacy as not recognized by his supporters

Faith Based Universities See Trump’s Win as a Reprieve  

“when it came to faith-based convictions he [Obama] didn’t share, he showed no mercy.”

. . . "President Obama threatened crippling fines if a college refused as a matter of conscience to make contraceptive services, including sterilization and abortifacient drugs, available in the health plans offered to its employees and students. The government’s foreign-assistance apparatus required a pledge of allegiance to the LGBT and “reproduction freedom” agendas as a condition for grants. Indeed, early on the administration sent a message to faith-based groups by yanking a grant to the U.S. Catholic bishops, a proven provider of quality refugee services, because they would not forsake their views on abortion and contraception. "

'He’ll look back in deep sorrow and some shame': Retired admiral says Obama will regret ignoring his own 'red line' in Syria
. . . "Obama likely will be judged by history as much for what he did not do as for what he did, as Stavridis demonstrated today.

"He first called on Assad to leave power in 2011. But the two-term president never supplied moderate rebels with enough firepower to topple him or force him to the negotiating table. 

"His failure to carry out threatened air strikes to enforce the 2012 'red line' over dealt a heavy blow to U.S. standing, including by some of his staunchest regional allies." . . .

Could the Education Department’s Title IX overreach be nearing an end?  . . . "Attendees praised the 66,000 investigations conducted during the Obama administration and the 34 “policy guidance documents” issued in the past eight years. The documents mandated rules for sexual interactions, gender segregation as it relates to bathrooms and transgender students and racial equity in disciplinary cases." . . .

Obama Tries to Get Arms Trade Treaty Ratified as a Parting Shot  "Barack Obama is still working on his soon-disappearing legacy and is hoping to add prohibitive gun control to it by getting the Arms Trade Treaty ratified. It’s too late for one of his fiats. He tried to get this approved for Christmas 2014 and now, here we are again in time for Christmas 2016."

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reverses course

"More Fracking Lies from the EPA"= Fake News

Watts Up With That?

. . . "A government report on the safety of fracking released Tuesday deleted a draft assessment’s conclusion that the process has no national “widespread, systemic impact” on drinking water.

"Instead, the EPA determined that fracking can have an impact on drinking water under certain circumstances, a change in position that drew backlash from the drilling industry." . . .

"Anti-Voter-ID Agitators Are Racists — Or Ignorant."

I put quotation marks on the title because of distaste over calling statements and people we dislike "racist".

Always On Watch  "In the video below, the filmmaker first interviewed liberals, then blacks in Harlem. Please watch the video to the end (hat tip to DC Statesman):"

"Excerpt from one of the comments at YouTube:

..."The things that come out of the liberal snowflake's [sic] mouths are just like Wow...seriously???? Freaking idiots! They want so badly to paint everyone that doesn't agree w/them a racist they just pop ---- off at the mouth without even knowing what they're talking about."

Why Do Liberals Keep Calling Trump a Racist?  "On November 29, while speaking about flag-burning on MSNBC's Hardball, former U.S. representative Barney Frank said the late Justice Antonin Scalia was "the leading advocate of fag-burning."  The interviewer, Chris Matthews, reacted to the hideous expression with amusement." . . .

Leftist Rag Daily Kos: “Be Happy” If Coal Miners Lose Health Insurance, Getting What They Deserve For Voting Trump

Weasel Zippers

"These are sick people. Despite the claims that they care about ‘working people’, it’s really only about “will they get us into power”. And if not, then screw you. “How dare you abandon us, you yokels”.

"The Daily Kos writer seems to forget there’s a very good reason that coal miners went with Trump and not Clinton. That little thing about Hillary promising to put them out of work kind of made them believe that the Democrats didn’t really care very much about their jobs and coal. That and the constant efforts against the coal industry in general.

"But yes, insult them. That’ll surely work for 2018…

"Via Daily Kos:

. . . Yes, this will be a terrible outcome for a group of people who have really drawn a shitty lot in life. But how sorry should we be for this crowd? Coal country swung hard for Donald Trump, winning 70 to 80 percent of the vote in some of these counties.
Don’t weep for these coal miners, now abandoned by their GOP patrons. They are getting exactly the government that they voted for. Democrats can no longer offer unrequited love and cover for them. And isn’t this what democracy is all about? They won the election! This is what they wanted! . . .

Top 10 MSM #FakeNews Stories

I'd have to say that #6 has done the most damage to American society when coupled with Obama's incitement:  "6. U.S. Epidemic of Police Shooting Unarmed Black Men"

PJ Media

"You gotta love our liberal media. Their entire modus operandi for at least the past two decades has been to shamelessly disseminate false left-wing narratives to the masses in their ongoing effort to discredit conservatism and further a progressive agenda. It's what they do.

"But since the election of Donald Trump, they have been obsessed with a new pet narrative: that a so-called "fake news" epidemic is occurring on the right.

"This is partly because, I'm convinced, they resent the fact that some people on the alt-right are making inroads on their turf. But the "fake news" excuse also functions as a soothing balm for their wounded egos after their devastating 2016 election losses. It helps them deal with the uncomfortable fact that the electorate just rejected the hell out of the candidates for whom they blatantly shilled.

"This happens every time the mainstream media's favored party suffes a massive defeat at the polls, by the way. In 1994, they blamed their losses on the "angry white male." After the 2010 "shellacking," they attributed it to a menacing "climate of hate," as personified by Sarah Palin and the Tea Party." . . .

"Here is a list of ten memorable fake news stories from the mainstream media." . . .