It’s 1968 All Over Again

The United States and the world appear to be reliving the language, politics, and global instability of 1968.

 

Victor Davis Hanson  "Almost a half-century ago, in 1968, the United States seemed to be falling apart. 

"The Vietnam War, a bitter and close presidential election, antiwar protests, racial riots, political assassinations, terrorism, and a recession looming on the horizon left the country divided between a loud radical minority and a silent conservative majority. 

"The United States avoided a civil war. But America suffered a collective psychological depression, civil unrest, defeat in Vietnam, and assorted disasters for the next decade — until the election of a once-polarizing Ronald Reagan ushered in five consecutive presidential terms of relative bipartisan calm and prosperity from 1981 to 2001. 

"It appears as if 2017 might be another 1968. Recent traumatic hurricanes seem to reflect the country’s human turmoil. 

" After the polarizing Obama presidency and the contested election of Donald Trump, the country is once again split in two. But this time the divide is far deeper, both ideologically and geographically — and more 50/50, with the two liberal coasts pitted against red-state America in between. 

"Century-old mute stone statues are torn down in the dead of night, apparently on the theory that by attacking the Confederate dead, the lives of the living might improve.  " . . . Read more

Ex-New York Times editor dismisses claim the paper spiked Harvey Weinstein allegations

"Former Times reporter Sharon Waxman suggested the Hollywood mogul pressured the paper in 2004. "

TerrellAfterMath cartoon added

Politico  "Jonathan Landman, a former high-ranking New York Times editor, pushed back Monday against The Wrap founder and CEO Sharon Waxman’s claim that the Times spiked her reporting 13 years ago on allegations of sexual misconduct involving Harvey Weinstein following pressure from the Hollywood mogul. 

“ 'Sharon has now had more than a decade to pursue this story unencumbered by me or any New York Times editor,” Landman told POLITICO. “Why, if she had the goods on Weinstein in 2004, has she been unable or unwilling to publish something in the Wrap, where she was in charge? Could it be because she didn’t actually have the goods then, now or in between?” 

"Waxman, who left The Times in 2007 and founded The Wrap two years later, wrote Sunday that her former paper “gutted” an article she wrote in 2004 about Weinstein after he applied pressure on the paper. She recalled traveling to Rome and London while reporting a story on Fabrizio Lombardo, the head of Weinstein’s Miramax Italy, whom she heard had no film experience and whose primary role was “to take care of Weinstein’s women needs.”   . . .

Is Hillary REALLY giving away Harvey's tainted donations? Confusion mounts over Clinton's pledge . . .

Tony Branco cartoon

". . .  while her usual charity is her OWN foundation and she could get a handy tax break too"

UK Daily Mail

. . . "Before this was announced it was known that Weinstein gave $33,590 to the Hillary Victory Fund and $5,400 to Hillary for America during the 2016 election.

Clinton indicated she will donate the Weinstein's money out of her own income rather than from the campaign organization.

" 'I give 10 percent of my income to charity every year. This will be part of that,' Clinton said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday.

"Tax experts said under this scenario she would be able to deduct this money from her income taxes.

"Julian Block, a former special agent at the IRS and a tax attorney in New York, said her pledge raised significant questions. 

"'Is this a situation where her campaign organization is turning over money to her, that goes into her checking account, and then she's writing a check on that account to make the donation?' said Block. 'That would raise some questions as to who's actually making the donation.'

"Chicago tax attorney Robert McKenzie said it could raise problems if Clinton classified the political donations as personal income.

"'I don't see how she could justify that as being part of her income. I don't see how she can take that out of her personal return,' said McKenzie." . . .

Senator Hillary's words to General Petraeus, the man who gave us victory in Iraq (Until Obama threw it all away, that is).
Hillary supporters would do well to take her advice.

Video update with Corey Feldman on The View! The Predatory Politics of the Democrats (Updated)

UPDATED: The link and video of Corey Feldman on The View at the bottom is a must-view. TD

Patricia McCarthy   "The manipulation and sexual abuse of women in both the politics and entertainment industries is hardly news.  The connection between DC and the film industry is symbiotic.  It is an essential fact of both of those worlds; since JFK and, much earlier, Fatty Arbuckle.  It is pretty normal in the NFL as well.  Far too many men in each of these insulated bubbles of American life seem to think that their power and fame entitles them to grope, assault, rape and/or beat women on a whim of lust or anger.  

"When JFK was in the White House, the media that revered him never reported his liaisons.  By the time JFK's brother Ted was in the Senate, however, things had changed.  Ted's shenanigans became public knowledge. When it was clear that he had been responsible for the death of a young aide in order to save himself, it was hardly a surprise.  It was well-known by then that he was a very sleazy character.  But that knowledge did nothing to dampen the support of the American left, not for a minute.  They still adored the man, so much so that he still thought he could become President!  His ideology was more important, more valuable to the left, than his wholesale lack of moral character.

"When the predatory character of Bill Clinton came to national attention with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and numerous other women came forward with their personal tales of his molestations, the left zealously defended him." . . . 

Oliver Stone Defends Harvey Weinstein, Is Immediately Accused of Sexual Assault   " . . .Actor Ben Affleck recently admonished Weinstein after the liberal Hollywood icon and Democrat donor was outed as a pervert who spent decades sexually harassing and assaulting women. Affleck himself was outed shortly thereafter for having groped actress Hilarie Burton.

"Award-winning director Oliver Stone took a different path to the same result. He actually defended Weinstein and was immediately outed by a former Playboy model for assault as well.

"Despite dozens of alleged female victims having been subjected to Weinstein’s assaults, the “Platoon” director decided to empathize with the aggressor instead.

“ 'I believe a man shouldn’t be condemned by a vigilante system,” Stone opined. “It’s not easy what he’s going through, either.”

Tony Branco cartoon. Hat tip to Moretti Underground

UPDATE: FLASHBACK: Actor Corey Feldman Tried to Warn About Hollywood's Pedophile Problem and Was Mocked  . . . "In a video unearthed by the Daily Wire, back in 2013 Feldman appeared on an episode of "The View," where he once again claimed to have been the victim of sexual abuse for years. For saying this, then-host Barbara Walters accused Feldman of "damaging an entire industry" with his claims. Walters appeared to dismiss Feldman outright.

"Watch the absurd exchange below:  . . .

Are the California wildfires Jerry Brown’s Katrina?

Thomas Lifson

. . . 'Guess what Jerry Brown is focusing attention on? That’s right:

California Gov. Jerry Brown warns that catastrophic wildfires will keep ripping through the state as the climate warms. (snip)

He said a warming climate has contributed to catastrophic wildfires. “That’s the way it is with a warming climate, dry weather and reducing moisture.” said Brown. “These kind of catastrophes have happened and they’ll continue to happen, and we have to be prepared to do everything we can to mitigate.”

The governor has positioned himself as a leader in the fight against climate change.

"And guess what Brown doesn’t want anyone to focus on? The Mercury-Newsheadlines: “Gov. Brown vetoed 2016 bill aimed at power line, wildfire safety' ”

. . . 

"He wants to save America, and the world, I bet. After all, he is already the longest-serving governor in California history, and thanks to term limits he was grandfathered out of, he always will be.

"This gigantic wildfire may be his legacy, instead."

Flashback: NBC Minimized Rape Accusation Against Bill Clinton

Big Journalism

“You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed. We’re with you,” Clinton exclaimed in the video, which she addressed to “every survivor of sexual assault.”

"Amid questions about why NBC did not utilize a months-long investigation by its own freelance correspondent Ronan Farrow into accusations of sexual assault and harassment by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, it may be instructive to recall the network’s controversial treatment of the story told by Bill Clinton’s rape accuser, Juanita Broaddrick." . . .

. . . 

"In January, Broaddrick recalled to me that during the pre-taped interview, she began to tell Myers about the personal meeting with Hillary described above in which, Broaddrick believes, the future First Lady strongly implied the alleged rape victim had to stay silent about her traumatic experience.

"Broaddrick says that an NBC staffer present for the 1999 filming rushed in front of the camera, interrupted the prerecorded session, and declared that the allegations against Hillary could not be included in the interview." . . .

Bill's underwear is part and parcel of his legacy:

In 1994 Chicago's beloved Mike Royko wrote of Bill's oft-celebrated knickers: Imitate the president: Deduct your underwear

I first discovered this about eight months ago, when it was disclosed that while governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton would donate his used shorts to Salvation Army or Goodwill resale shops and take a $4 tax deduction for each pair.

 

Even Jib Jab honored the Clinton skivvies in this Bush-Gore election send-up:

The left being the left

Man Who Drove Ex-Wife to Attempt Suicide Now a Liberal Darling After ‘Destroying’ Trump  "Now that liberals are running as fast as they can from rapist Harvey Weinstein, they’re absolutely wetting themselves over some washed-up ex-con rapper who made up some rhymes about President Trump.

Eminem tore into President Donald Trump in a freestyle rap that aired on Tuesday night’s BET Hip Hop Awards.

Stanley Cup Champions Pittsburgh Penguins Visit White House, Face Leftist Rage  . . . "Talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome."

The Congressional Black Caucus Prayer Breakfast: The Great Black Deception  . . . "I thought, does anyone in that hall know Obama led a leftist war on Christianity, making him the most anti-Christian president in U.S. history? Do y'all know the 2017 Women's March and Trump resisters whom you've praised at this breakfast seek to continue the Leftists' war on Christianity? " . . .
. . . "Watching the 2017 CBC Prayer Breakfast, I witnessed the same absurd lie that America is still a hellhole of racism for blacks. The "And Still I Rise" theme means blacks stand strong despite being persecuted daily in America." . . .

As a black American, in the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I command Leftists to, "Let my people go!"

Leftists Protest Katie Pavlich At University Of Wisconsin With 'Bonerfide Penis Arts Fest'  . . . "The Facebook event for “The Bonerfide Penis Arts Fest” refers to YAF as an “alt-right student org” and attacks Pavlich’s statement “that rape and campus sexual assault can be prevented by carrying firearms.” The event description cheers, “Tie that dildo to your backpack and wear it proudly to class every day. If people think taking loaded guns to class is socially acceptable, harmless vibrating toys should be too.' ”


Sorry leftists, we SHOULD be celebrating Columbus Day  "So obsessed are these anti-historians that they’ve started a nationwide attempt to rename Columbus Day, Indigenous People’s Day, which as The Federalist points out, is far worse:

When thinking of pre-Columbian America, forget what you’ve seen in the Disney movies. Think “slavery, cannibalism and mass human sacrifice.” From the Aztecs to the Iroquois, that was life among the indigenous peoples before Columbus arrived." . . .

 Gov. Brown fiddled with climate change while Wine Country now burns

"The Wine Country Wildfires may end up being Brown’s lasting legacy."

Stanley Cup Champions Pittsburgh Penguins Visit White House, Face Leftist Rage   . . . "Satchel Price at SB Nation claimed in his article that the Penguins are overstating the “tradition” of visiting the White House. According to him, since the practice really only started in 1991, it’s not really a tradition and the Penguins are using it as an excuse to avoid their racist reality:" . . .Good grief. Those people vote, usually for socialists.

Howard Dean: We Should Turn Over Rehab Of Puerto Rico To The Clinton Foundation…
You mean he's actually serious?

"ESPN suspended anchor Jamele Hill for tweeting NFL viewers to boycott Cowboys game day TV sponsors over the Anthem. Let it go. The only reason we’ve come this far in race relations is because Martin Luther King was too smart to demand NFL fans choose between beer and civil rights." 
Comedian Argus Hamilton

San Diego State Offers “Gender Affirming Therapy” To Special Snowflakes… Welllll, it is California after all.  . . . "Anyone else remember the days when college was supposed to prepare you for the real world?" . . . . . . "Marcos, who the newspaper reports is gender non-binary and uses they/them/their pronouns, said the therapy increased confidence." . . .

Political finesse

Here is a lesson in political finesse; notice how Clinton is asked a pointed question, then slyly changes the subject in mid-sentence:

ZAKARIA: “Do you think it was tolerated because he was powerful —“


CLINTON: “I don’t know.”


ZAKARIA: “People say people knew.”


CLINTON: “Well I certainly didn’t and I don’t know who did. I can speak for myself and many others who knew him primarily through politics. But the courage of these women coming forward now is really important because it can’t just end with one person’s disgraceful behavior and the consequences he is facing. "

(Wait for it... here comes the misdirection) Hillary continues:  "This has to be a wake-up call and shine a spotlight on behavior like this any where at any time. We’ve had a revelation of plenty of companies in Silicon Valley sexual assault being so accepted. That’s where a lot of young people have their first or most significant jobs. This can’t be tolerated whether it’s entertainment or anywhere.”

This always works in my experience of watching politicians on TV. The Tunnel Dweller

Behold Our Betters

Kurt Schlichter

"But who does the elite idolize? The aspiring elite, college students, seem to idolize Che and Bernie Sanders, as if we needed more evidence of their terribleness."

"To be a normal American is to constantly be scolded, to be lectured, to be treated as a morally bankrupt simpleton in need of the guidance and direction provided by an urban elite ruling class notable for its empty academic credentials, its track record of incompetence, and its idolization of people who erotically abuse the foliage.

" If we are to have betters, is it so wrong for us to demand that they actually be better? Superiors should be distinguished by their superiority – if you presume to take charge shouldn’t you demonstrate tactical, technical, and moral mastery? So what has our ruling class mastered lately? What is the skill set that sets the smart set apart? 

"Are they our betters because of the degrees they hang on the walls of their over-priced, openfloor plan townhouses? Going to college used to mean something more than you had nowhere else to go after high school. It was a training ground for the leadership class. A college student was an invitee to an intellectual banquet where he could sample the best of Western civilization, of art and literature, of civics and philosophy. But today, it’s all gender studies and grade inflation, with whiny social justice warriors drowning out any voice that won’t sing in tune. It is steam table trays heaped with gray, fatty meat and limp asparagus - the Golden Corral of the mind. " . . .

Hillary Clinton was so angered by Weinstein ‘revelations’ that she…

Doug Powers via Michelle Malkin:  

…Released a two-sentence statement through her spokesman five days after the story broke and a couple decades after everybody knew about his habitual behavior:

“I was shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein,” Clinton said in a statement through her spokesman Nick Merrill. “The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated. Their courage and the support of others is critical in helping to stop this kind of behavior.”

Weinstein is a longtime associate of the Clintons and a major Democratic Party donor who bundled funds for the party’s political campaigns, including supporting both of Clinton’s presidential bids.

"Hillary went on to say she’s going to give away all the money Weinstein had ever given her campaigns or raised for her political efforts. Wait, I mean she didn’t say that. Hillary’s statement took a lot of chutzpah coming from the same woman who oversaw the Clinton White House’s “Bimbo Eruptions” wing to discredit and destroy women with accusations about her husband.

"Watching Dems like the Clintons, who constantly slammed Republicans as waging a “war on women,” pretend they didn’t know about Weinstein is utterly laughable. Click “play” to roll tape on the Jumbo Hypocrite-Tron: . . .

Colonel Who Reported Communist Cadet Slams West Point Leadership

Daily Caller  "Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert Heffington issued an open letter to West Point graduates earlier this week blasting the superintendent, commandant, and dean of the military academy for contributing to a “culture of permissiveness.”

"The letter was subsequently posted on the website of American Military News.

"Heffington told The Daily Caller he wrote the letter to the USMA Class of 1963 when several of its graduates contacted him asking how Spenser Rapone, a cadet espousing radically anti-American views, was allowed to graduate.s to enforce admissions standards or the cadet Honor Code, the Dean refuses to enforce academic standards, and the Commandant refuses to enforce standards of conduct and discipline,” the letter charges. “The end result is a sort of malaise that pervades the entire institution.”

“ 'The Superintendent refuses to enforce admissions standards or the cadet Honor Code, the Dean refuses to enforce academic standards, and the Commandant refuses to enforce standards of conduct and discipline,” the letter charges. “The end result is a sort of malaise that pervades the entire institution.”
. . .

Rapone — a supposedly brilliant cadet, according to his mentor, Professor Rasheed Hosein of the History Department — responded with a childish tantrum: “Sir, this isn’t fair! You’re just putting me on blast!”

 (RELATED: Communist West Point Grad Was Reported In 2015 For Anti-American Posts) 

Spencer Rapone

From his various online rantings and posts, it appears that DCT Rapone is an avowed Marxist, which is completely out of line with the values of this nation and its Army,” Heffington said in a sworn statement. “Moreover, CDT Rapone’s posts indicate that he hates West Point, the U.S. Army, and indeed this country. One post dated 16 November 2015 states, ‘F*ck this country and its false freedom.’ He also … even implicitly justifies the actions of ISIS and blames the United States for terrorist attacks.”Heffington concluded in his report, “I cannot reconcile the image of a first class cadet at West Point with the things he has posted online for the world to see. To me, these are red flags that cannot be ignored, and I fail to see how this individual can possibly graduate and become a commissioned officer in six months.” . . .

 American Patriotism NEVER Takes a Knee, Prof. Hosein

Good grief, is the thought pervading college campuses overtaking West Point as well? If we get a military full of Bradley Mannings we will be done for. TD

The star-studded lives of the Clintons and Obamas come back to bite them.

Hollywood Democrats quickly tried to turn the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal into a critique of President Trump and dug up his past accusers. It never ends. Hollywood is the only place where you’re awarded a Doctorate in Political Science after completing your third movie.    Comedian Argus Hamilton

Thomas Lifson: Hillary stumbles badly handling Harvey Weinstein  "With the same cluelessness that lost her the presidency, Hillary Clinton is setting herself up for trouble in the way she is handling the revelations about one of her key political backers, Harvey Weinstein. First of all, she waited five whole days before responding at all, and when she first broke her silence, she did it indirectly. Instead of speaking personally, or even writing a tweet, she had her spokesman, Nick Merrill, tweet out a prepared statement:"  . . .

Monica Showalter:  Weinstein Collateral Damage: The Obamas  . . . "Obama is more than a little rooted in the world of Hollywood, starting with the fact that he shows up in Hollywood and its redoubts quite regularly – so regularly that an Obama visit to those parts is known as an "Obamajam."  He's believed to have been nosing around to buy a property in tony Rancho Mirage among the Hollywood elites for his post-presidency.  He also shipped his eldest daughter Malia to work as an intern for Weinstein's Weinstein Company.  He's seen his closest campaign aides take positions in Hollywood.  Oh, and at least one engaged in a little sexism of his own.  Meanwhile, Michelle Obama called Weinstein "a good friend" and a "wonderful human being," which shows how tight the Obamas were with Weinstein himself." . . .