Hollywood: shaping our "skulls full of mush" from childhood on

Oscar's Political Dilemma: How Left Is Too Left?  "A day after Universal's Neil Armstrong biopic First Man opened to a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival on Aug. 29, a political rocket came blasting out of the conservative netherworld to knock it from its orbit. That's when news spread that the movie had omitted a real-life scene: Armstrong planting the American flag on the moon.
"Right-wing outrage was immediate and helped ding the picture at the box office, where it failed to draw a crucial male demographic and earned a muted $44 million domestically." . . .

The best and worst of Hollywood political speeches

Alec Baldwin: Trump Is ‘Punishment’ for America’s ‘Slaughter of Native Americans, Slavery, Japanese Internment  . . . "Baldwin’s rant not only fails to mention that the United States has done a great deal to right these historical wrongs, he also doesn’t mention that most of these tragedies took place under Democrats.

"The Saturday Night Live star preceded this statement with another social media post, in which he called for all Americans to rally behind Trump’s eventual successor." . . .

“Every day I wake up, I still am horrified. I feel like I’m in some dream that Trump is president of the United States. I almost can’t even say it,” he told reporters after a Democratic Party fundraiser.

Mueller’s Collusion Hoax Collapses

Conrad Black  "The sudden death of the unutterable nonsense of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government, announced as it was in the hand-off to the Southern New York U.S. Attorney of the shabby fruit of Michael Cohen’s plea bargaining, has divided onlookers into three communities of opinion.

The true believers in the collusion canard are left slack-jawed, like the international Left after the announcement of the Nazi-Soviet Pact: an immense fervor of faith is instantly destroyed; it is the stillness of a sudden and immense evaporation.

"The professional Trump-haters, the Democratic Party assassination squads in the Congress and media, like disciplined soldiers, have swiveled with parade ground precision and resumed firing after a mere second to reload, at the equally fatuous nonsense about illegal campaign contributions. Disreputable, contemptible myth-makers and smear-jobbers though they are, they deserve credit for fanaticism, improvisation, and managing in unison to sound half plausible in the face of the crushing defeat they have suffered and the piffle and pottage they are left to moralize about.

"Third, and slowest to respond, so sudden has been the change of the whole Trump-hate narrative, are those who never wavered from the requirement of real evidence of something before they would endorse the drastic act of impeaching and removing the nation’s leader. Some feel betrayed and some vindicated, but sensing no need for instant response, unlike the Trump-haters who are scrambling to try to cooper up some credibility for continuing their assault on the president, the third group is preparing with only deliberate speed to counter-attack the assassins-by-impeachment with their full and now overpowering armament of facts and law.

"The Trump-haters can make a strong case that the president is an obnoxious public personality—that he is boastful, exaggerates constantly, sends out silly tweets with grade two typographical errors in them and gets into ill-tempered slanging matches with half the people with whom he comes into contact. To a great many, he is just refreshingly puncturing official self-importance." . . .

Not the first "No Wall" the Democrats did say

Stilton's Place

"With Christmas only a week away, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are cementing their names near the top of the Naughty List by threatening a government shutdown rather than allow funding for the border wall that President Trump is demanding.

"Their gambit carries more risk than usual, owing to the fact that Trump is entirely willing to see the government shut down and take credit for it.

"It's a bit unclear exactly what form such a shutdown would take, as Democrats are still smarting from the last time they pulled this stunt and became laughingstocks for punishing the public by closing national parks, monuments (including the Vietnam Memorial), and forbidding families from looking at Old Faithful or Mount Rushmore." . . .

Arizona Governor Appoints McCain’s Replacement

The Federalist Papers

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey just appointed Martha McSally to serve out John McCains term until the next election in 2020

After losing to Kyrsten Stinema in the November midterm election, McSally gets another shot.

. . . "McSally is a combat veteran of the U.S. Air Force, who also holds the distinction of being one of the highest ranking women to serve in the USAF. In her 20+ years of service (1988-2010) she rose to the level of colonel. She was also the first female commander of the 354th Fighter Squadron.

"In 2001, she sued the Department of Defense, in an attempt to challenge the policy that required U.S. and UK servicewomen to wear body covering, when traveling off base, while stationed in Saudi Arabia.

"She served as the U.S. Representative for Arizona's 2nd District, since 2015.

"She will serve out the remainder of McCain’s term, then face a special election in 2020, to determine if she will be staying on as Senator McSally." . . .

"USA Today has the story:

Republican Rep. Martha McSally will replace retiring Sen. Jon Kyl to fill for the next two years the Senate seat long held by the late Sen. John McCain.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s decision to appoint McSally, announced in a statement Tuesday and effective next month, revives her political life less than two months after she narrowly lost the race for the state’s other Senate seat to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema.  . . .

The Child Who Won the War Against Children

Rebecca McLaughlin  "It’s easy to sentimentalize the Christmas story. A newborn babe, angelic songs, a guiding star — the scene lights up our winter nights and warms our weary hearts. But when Herod orders the slaughter of all the male infants and toddlers within striking distance of Bethlehem, the tale suddenly becomes less family friendly. Indeed, in this moment, the Christmas dream becomes the stuff of nightmares.

"Our hearts revolt against infanticide. It strikes us as the most callous of crimes. But while the wholesale slaughter of baby boys would certainly have distressed first-century hearers, infanticide itself was broadly accepted.

“God was cradled in his mother’s arms, upending our ideas of power and telling a whole new story about babies.”

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"Abandoning infants — particularly baby girls — was common. Some historians estimate that the Greco-Roman world in the first and second century was as much as two-thirds male, due to maternal deaths in childbirth and selective infanticide (Christianity at the Crossroads, 36). Meanwhile, influential philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle had supported eugenics, the latter declaring, “Let there be a law that no deformed child shall live.” But even healthy baby boys were frequently abandoned. If someone else wanted them — to raise them as a slave, perhaps — it was finders keepers." . . .

Trump administration to repeal Obama-era school discipline rules

Rick Moran  . . . "Not just student safety, but the safety of faculty as well. The Obama rules presupposed that suburban white kids and inner city minority students misbehaved in the same way at the same rates, but the minority kids were punished more severely with suspensions. Race, not class, was the determining factor. Rather than risk a civil rights action by the Justice Department, school systems adopted more lenient disciplinary standards that, predictably, led to greater violence against students and teachers.

"No doubt there will be a lawsuit to keep these policies intact. But Obama's race based rules in education will be hard to completely eradicate given how widespread their effect has been."

What Are Teachers Rights Against Student Assault?

If you are assaulted and injured on the job, you are entitled to lost pay, medical expenses and workers compensation. Most workers compensation programs do not allow employees to sue their employers, but you may be able to sue abusive students or their parents. The National Education Association claims that many school administrators fail to remove chronic problem students from classrooms. If this is the case, your local education association can help you file a grievance against the school or principal.

If black, let students assault their teachers;  "Walter E. Williams decries Obama-era discipline standard that leaves wake of injuries"

. . . "Faced with threats from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, schools have instituted new disciplinary policies. For example, after the public school district in Oklahoma City was investigated by the OCR, there was a 42.5 percent decrease in the number of suspensions. According to an article in The Oklahoman, one teacher said, “Students are yelling, cursing, hitting and screaming at teachers and nothing is being done, but teachers are being told to teach and ignore the behaviors.” According to Chalkbeat, new high school teachers left one school because they didn’t feel safe. There have been cases in which students have assaulted teachers and returned to school the next day.

"Many of the complaints about black student behavior are coming from black teachers. I doubt whether they could be accused of racial discrimination against black students. The first vice president of the St. Paul, Minnesota, chapter of the NAACP said it’s “very disturbing” that the school district would retaliate against a black teacher “for simply voicing the concern” that when black students are not held accountable for misbehaving, they are set up for failure in life." . . . Read more here.

As Democrats eye health care again, keep an eye on these phony 'narratives' they will tell

Monica Showalter  "John Merline of Investor's Business Daily has always been that outfit's health care expert, not just explaining why Obamacare fails, but exposing all the smelly little shibboleths that propel such bad laws to find their way into the congressional ledgers. I think he actually read the 2,300-page original Obamacare law, quite unlike most Democrats who voted for it.

"Now with Democrats coming back into the saddle, focused primarily on 'fixing' health care, (when they can stop themselves from thinking about impeachment), Merline's taking it to another level, exposing the baseline myth that health care overseas in western socialized settings is best. He doesn't even go for the low-hanging fruit, such as Castrocare that crazier lefties like to praise, he takes on places like France and Canada with supposedly socialized medicine we are all supposed to want and that Democrats say they have in mind for us. His important new piece exposing that phony narrative hits it out of the park.

He begins:

The question often arises, "What is heath care reform and why do we need it?" The answer is almost always something like: The U.S. spends more than any other industrialized country on health care, but gets worse-quality health care. And, the U.S. is the only country that doesn't provide universal coverage to all of its citizens.

Each of these claims is technically true, but also very misleading. When you look at the data, the picture gets far more nuanced. And the alleged advantages foreign countries have over the U.S. start to dissipate.

"What I like about the piece is that it tells me a lot of things I didn't actually know.

"Did you know that there isn't really any such thing as 'socialized' medicine in Westernized countries? I didn't. I thought everyone overseas got a free ride, and it turns out they all have to pay something. It's like high deductibles we have here. Here's his example, citing Canada:" . . .

California hopes America will think like they do

California politics might benefit, but so will the left-wing Democrat candidates, given California’s penchant for supporting far left-wingers

"California has jumped ahead in the primary line. Usually holding their primary in June, months after Iowa’s kickoff in February, California’s Democrat primary will be held on March 3, 2020, allowing the state to have a greater influence in the primary game, reports the Wall Street Journal.

"From the WSJ:

The move from a June primary in 2016 will press hopefuls to consider a West Coast perspective on issues such as immigration and the environment, empower the state’s growing Latino and Asian populations and drastically increase the amount of money candidates must raise to mount a competitive campaign.

California’s calendar change is one of several developments reshaping Democrats’ primary process. Following the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary—two predominately-white electorates that are the traditional vetters of presidential candidates—at least six of the next nine states on the 2020 calendar will take Democrats through a swath of states where black and Hispanic Democrats dominate primary elections, including Texas.

. . . 

The geography for primaries will likely mean the voters critical to winning the presidential nomination will be considerably different from the electorate that carried the party to sweeping victories in the 2018 midterm elections, when Democrats flipped 40 House Republican seats and regained the chamber’s majority.

. . . 

Live by the tweet....

Rich Terrell

The Liberal Arts Weren’t Murdered — They Committed Suicide

Victor Davis Hanson

Over the past few years, lots of employers have privately concluded that today’s graduating liberal-arts majors are quite confident and yet so often poorly educated. Or worse, those hiring were turned off by the strange combination of youthful ignorance and arrogance. Employers had clearly no desire to be enlightened by fresh graduates who were entirely unaware that their inductive skills were suspect or nonexistent.

"The great culture wars on the campuses of the 1980s were largely lost by traditionalists. And the question then became not if but when the liberal arts would die off as a result. What is strange nearly 40 years later is that the apparent outrage over what was clearly foreordained is now becoming fact. What did academia expect, given its years of academic specialization and politicized indoctrination?

. . . "Nor I am sure that by agreement we live in a time “when Nazism is resurgent.” Certainly the world’s most frightening societies are North Korea and Venezuela, where wide-scale poverty and government oppression are normalized. Both are failed Communist states. The current likeliest threat to the global order for future generations of liberal societies will be statist and authoritarian China, whose government is still proudly Communist in a tradition that includes Mao Zedong’s 50 to 70 million dead. The point is that if students are interested in riveting history classes, they will probably not wish to be told that they should so enroll in one because “Nazism is resurgent” in today’s West." . . .

Trump praises Green Beret charged with rogue killing of Afghan man

NY Post

"The Army Green Beret charged with murder for the rogue killing of an Afghan man in 2010 is a “hero,” President Trump tweeted Sunday as he promised to “review” the case.

"Maj. Mathew Golsteyn admitted killing an Afghan man who was questioned and released in a 2010 bazaar terror bombing.

"Two people cooperating with US forces brought the Afghan to a US military compound the day after a 2010 bazaar explosion that killed two Marines. The suspect was released after no bomb-making materials were found but later was shot dead on the street.“At the request of many, I will be reviewing the case of a ‘U.S. Military hero,’ Major Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with murder. He could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a Terrorist bomb maker while overseas. @PeteHegseth @FoxNews,” he tweeted Sunday morning.

"Golsteyn admitted killing the man during a 2016 Fox News special, and also on a CIA polygraph, leading the Army to announce charges against him Friday.

"He was reprimanded in 2014 and his Silver Star was revoked, but now he faces the death penalty if he’s convicted on the murder charge." . . .

Green Beret's wife welcomes President Donald Trump's offer to review murder case

. . . Taking the man to his home after a 24-hour detention, Golsteyn allegedly killed the man there and buried him in a shallow grave, Army documents said. Later that night, Golsteyn and two other soldiers dug up the remains and brought them back to their base where they burned his remains in a burn pit.  . . .

. . . "Kleinschmidt’s stepson was 27 when a militant set off an explosion that killed him and another Marine, Lance Cpl. Larry M. Johnson, 19, at a bazaar in southern Afghanistan.
“Our rules that we have to follow are not the rules that the Taliban follows,” said McQueary’s mom, Deborah Kleinschmidt." . . .

'I'm here because of that interview': Green Beret says the Fox News interview in which he admitted killing a suspected Afghan bomb maker led to his murder charges

. . . Jerry Golsteyn said it has been very difficult for the family in light of the fact that the military had previously cleared his son of any wrongdoing, only to bring the charge against him years later.
'It was an enemy combatant,' the father said of the slain Afghant. 'He was a known bomb maker, he was identified, and actions taken were to protect the lives of the villagers and those in his unit and the people around him.'
Trump and other senior military and administration leaders have issued statements about military criminal cases in the past, triggering legal appeals and other complications as the courts work to insure impartial proceedings.
The president, however, does have broad authority to pardon criminal defendants. 

Boys are Growing Frustrated by Living in a Feminized Society… and That’s Showing Up in Their Friendships

 Annie Holmquist at Intellectual Takeout  "I burst out laughing the other day while reading a friend’s Facebook status. He explained that he and his two grade school sons were watching Anne of Green Gables when they came to the part where Anne and Diana have a conversation while standing on a cliff overlooking the sea. The youngest son suddenly blurted out, “Anne better watch out, Diana might push her off the cliff.”

In amazement, my friend looked at his son and asked if he thought girl friendships were the same as the physical, often rough-and-tumble one which existed between him and his brother. The conversation ended in hysterical laughter as all three of them recognized just how different male interactions are from female ones.

I thought of this story when I came across a piece by Heidi Stevens in the Chicago Tribune. Stevens, the mother of a nine-year-old boy, recently noticed how intense and troubled her son’s friendships are with other little boys. Curious, she reached out to psychologist Wendy Mogel to find out if her son was an anomaly. Mogel assured her he was not and that many other little boys wrestle with “existential questions,” including:

• “How can I be myself without getting into trouble?”
• “Does anyone consider me a hero?” and
• “What do I contribute to this family that someone else doesn’t already contribute better?”

Boys, like the sons of my friend mentioned above, are naturally known for relationships which involve rough play and high adventures. Although energetic and overactive to female perspectives like my own, they often fuse strong friendships which are helpful in forming bonds of manhood.

But as Mogel implies, these rough, but good, friendships seem to be disappearing, particularly as boys wrestle with the above questions. Instead, boys have friendships infused with more drama and trouble. Mogel believes this change stems from the way we expect boys to behave these days:

. . . "Rules are great and necessary, but the fact is, we’re disallowing boys to be boys. We’ve taken away toys like guns and swords because they’re “dangerous.” We’ve medicated little boysbecause their movements and noise are too much for us to take. We’ve tried to make sure girls are equal and included, and thus removed the institutions where boys don’t have to compete against those of the opposite sex.

"Let’s face it: Little boys are different from little girls and adults. And unless we allow them to have outlets for natural boy play and ideas, we should not be surprised when they seem frustrated and can’t succeed in modern society.

"Is it time to stop treating the traditional, rough-and-tumble boy like a dangerous creature who must be toned down to suit feminized society?"

 hips infused with more drama and trouble. Mogel believes this change stems from the way we expect boys to behave these days:

. . . "Rules are great and necessary, but the fact is, we’re disallowing boys to be boys. We’ve taken away toys like guns and swords because they’re “dangerous.” We’ve medicated little boysbecause their movements and noise are too much for us to