Self-righteous stars sink Oscars

This was 2018; check for improvements this week. TD

The Citizen  "Small wonder at the dismal ratings for Oscar Night! It used to be such a happy occasion when hosted by such as Bob Hope and, more recently, Billy Crystal. Everyone was united in having a good time and celebrating with such outstanding stars as Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor, Olivia de Havilland, Katherine Hepburn, etc. It was a joy to watch.

"Sadly, it has deteriorated into political lectures by hypocritical “holier than thou” actresses. Hollywood is a mess, but who else is to blame? Even the comperes [hosts], from their supposedly neutral stance, made snide remarks about the elected president of the USA. Many of their complaints are justified but the Oscar Awards is not the forum to air them.

"Fortunately such superb actresses as Jodie Foster and Julia Roberts distanced themselves from the fray.

"Hollywood hypocrisy is rampant. The top stars all belong to the reviled “one percent” but deflect any criticism by claiming to belong to the Democratic Party, since Democrats never criticize Democrats.

"I will definitely not be tuned in to the next Academy Awards, nor will I watch any movies featuring Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand or Ashley Judd, all excellent actresses who believe themselves to be oracles of wisdom but who should stick to their chosen profession." . . .

Good enough to post again:

"Piers Morgan blasts Hollywood’s virtue-signaling* at the Oscars: And the winner of Best Victim goes to… who cares?"... “ 'But for reasons that baffle me, they now seem to see a primary part of their job as being a political activist,” he added. “It’s not. Their job is to entertain us.” . . .  *Virtue-signalling

Faking History and Remaking Oscar News   "The racialization of Academy Award ‘firsts’ from mammies to Spike Lee"
. . . "The ugly consequences of this new, self-pleasing, progressive model could be seen in Spike Lee’s win for adapting the screenplay of BlacKkKlansman, another of his race-baiting films advocating social dissension, mistrust, cynicism, and sarcasm." . . .
. . . Over the years, critics have customarily hidden their lack of enjoyment by praising Lee’s films when they open, then forgetting about them at year’s end during the lists and prizes season. BlacKkKlansman was the first exception to this pattern, for reasons that are inconvenient for journalists to recognize and admit. Lee’s contumely in BlacKkKlansman was welcomed because it fit the mainstream-media narrative to discredit the current administration." . . .

California: Weather and celebrities, don't we have a choice?

California's Gov. Newsom inherits steaming load of scandal from Jerry Brown

. . . "The real friction between the former governor and his lt. governor protégé involves the shocking $7-billion miss in budget revenue over the last two months, coupled with rising evidence of potential incompetence, financial mismanagement, and fraud regarding Brown's drastic underfunding of billions of dollars for infrastructure spending to achieve constitutionally mandated balanced budgets over his last eight years in office.

"Newsom was aware that the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded California its booby prize in each of the last three years as the worst state in the nation for infrastructure maintenance and improvements.  Despite being the most populous state, California has ranked 49th for infrastructure spending on a per capita basis.  ASCE's latest report estimates California's accumulated spending deficit for dams, waterways, flood control, roads, bridges, seaports, and tunnels exceeds $65 billion." . . .

An0maly - News Analysis & Hip-hop

Spike Lee at Oscars: Americans Must ‘Mobilize’ Against Trump in 2020

Spike Lee at Oscars: Americans Must ‘Mobilize’ Against Trump in 2020

. . . “ 'The 2020 presidential election is around the corner,” Lee said. “Let’s all mobilize, let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing. You know I had to get that in there.”

"Lee accepted his first Oscar after trashing the Academy Awards, claiming black Americans only win Oscars once a decade and that black Americans, if not part of the filmmaking process, “don’t got a voice.”

“ 'Gatekeepers decide what films they’re making and what films they’re not making and if we’re not in the room we don’t got a voice,” Lee said. “If we’re not in the room it can be a drought, a feast to famine.' ” . . .

War on Conservatives Week in Higher Education  If the left is love and Trump supporters are hate, then what about this?

. . . "This is the culture at Berkeley.

• UC Berkeley Prof Compares White Women Who Support Trump to Slave Owners

"Conservative values are also under attack.

• Syracuse U. Won’t Recognize Conservative Student Group Over Dedication to U.S. Constitution
• Anti-Trump and Anti-Conservative Courses Surging at America’s Top Colleges
• College Bars Conservative Student Group From Displaying Pro-2A Flag

"BDS updates.

• Conservative Jewish Prof Describes Sickening Anti-Semitism on Campus
• Germany: Students at Cologne University Reject ‘Anti-Semitic’ BDS Movement . . .

Oscars: Pro-Gun Control Hollywood Enjoy Security ‘Similar To A U.S. President’ 

RIO GRANDE-STANDER? Beto Tries to Trick Hispanics Into Thinking He's One of Them

Daily Beast

As he ponders his 2020 plans, voters and media people need to get it right. He’s a political chimichanga—an American invention that just seems Mexican.

For several months, I’ve been thinking about why Robert Francis O’Rourke—who goes by “Beto” when he is nibbling tacos in West Texas but was “Robert” when he attended prep school and Columbia University—bugs the hell out of me. 

"I may have finally figured it out.

"And not a moment too soon. The Hamlet of West Texas—who recently retired from Congress after somehow managing to lose a Texas Senate race against an opponent with sky-high negatives despite raising more than $70 million from a national donor base, and then went on a “listening tour” across America to find himself—recently acknowledged that he is trying to make up his mind about whether to spend 2020 running for president or taking another stab at the Senate by challenging Republican incumbent John Cornyn.

"My guess is that O’Rourke will ultimately travel whatever road is lined with the most television cameras. Of course, vanity—even to the point of narcissism—is not a disqualifier in a politician. It’s practically a job requirement.

"But cultural appropriation is another matter entirely." . . . 

Hah! Phony ‘Beto O’Rourke” Was “Bob O’Rourke” When He Went to School at Columbia

O’Rourke wants to make it legal for any foreigner to openly cross into America without going through the legal process.

. . . "Rather than stem the tide of illegal immigrants pouring across the US southern border, Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) wants to open the floodgates.
in August weekend Democrat candidate Beto O’Rourke admitted he wants to decriminalize unauthorized border crossings" . . ..

Kamala Harris’ Family Exposed as Violent Plantation Slave Owners

I do not care for this woman and her causes, but what did she have to do with that? My own Mississippi ancestors could be suspected of cruelty and robbery of African-Americans. They never spoke of such but were without a doubt the sort of people who would commit those actions. TD

Neon Nettle

"Democratic 2020 hopeful's father reveals ancestors owned Jamaican sugar plantation slaves."

. . . "But later that day, after he witnessed slaves being punished by Brown's overseer, Whiteley wrote:

 "The first was a man of about thirty-five years of age. "He was what is called a pen-keeper or cattle herd; and his offence was having suffered a mule to go astray. "At the command of the overseer he proceeded to strip off part of his clothes, and laid himself flat on his belly, his back and buttocks being uncovered. "One of the drivers then commenced flogging him with the cart whip. "This whip is about ten feet long, with a short stout handle, and is an instrument of terrible power. It is whirled by the operator round his head, and then brought down with a rapid motion of the arm upon the recumbent victim, causing the blood to spring at every stroke. "When I saw this spectacle now for the first time exhibited before my own eyes, with all its revolting accompaniments, and saw the degraded and mangled victim writhing and groaning under the infliction, I felt horror-struck. "I trembled and turned sick; but being determined to see the whole to an end, I kept my station at the window. "The sufferer, writhing like a wounded worm, every time the lash cut across his body, cried out, 'Lord! Lord! Lord!'  . . .

The Chilling Timeline of the ISIS Bride Who Wants to Return to America

Claudia Rosett

Hassan Shibly, attorney for Hoda Muthana, the Alabama 

woman who left home to join the Islamic State in Syria,

. . . "But there's another timeline that ought to matter here. Not for legal purposes, but in the broader context of how Hoda Muthana's story is now playing to the American public. What about the timeline of high-profile ISIS atrocities -- the context in which she made her choices?

"In the media coverage of this case, all that bloody record of deliberately inflicted human agony seems to have faded into some remote and misty past, summarized in maybe a sentence or two -- or symbolized on the TV news by short video clips of ISIS fighters waving black flags and shooting guns, with no obvious target. As far as I'm aware, no media outlet has so far juxtaposed an interview of Hoda Muthana with such signature ISIS footage as videos of American hostages, on their knees, about to be beheaded by ISIS; or that young Jordanian pilot burned alive in a cage.

"Instead, we're invited to focus our attention and sympathies on a young woman in a headscarf, holding her infant son or pushing him in a stroller around a refugee camp, telling her assorted media interlocutors that in joining ISIS she made a "big mistake." This past week she told ABC News that she regrets joining ISIS, and she hopes Americans will "excuse me because of how young and ignorant I was."

"Was it really nothing but youth and ignorance? Hoda was 20 when she went to Syria to join ISIS -- older than many of the victims whose sufferings ISIS was gloating over at the time. She's now 24, and only now, with ISIS stripped of its caliphate -- thanks to others, including members of the American military who risked or gave their lives to fight the terrorists she joined -- is she publicly disavowing ISIS. And though in her recent interviews she's been expressing plenty of regret about the misfortunes ISIS brought to her own life, she's said almost nothing about what ISIS did, while she urged and cheered it on, to thousands upon thousands who had no choice at all. They are not on camera in these interviews. Many of them are dead." . . .

Trump's Presidency Triggered a Wave of Fake Hate Crimes

Frank Hawkins  "Jussie Smollett’s fake hate crime blaming Trump supporters has now been exposed as a hate crime of its own. And, as it turns out, we’ve seen this movie before. Too many times. Frankly, it’s getting tiresome. And it’s high time the gullible leftist media begins to show some skepticism when these types of incidents are reported.

"Leaks and statements from the Chicago Police Department make it clear the attention-seeking leftist black actor, who happens to be gay, tried to persuade the public that he was the victim of a Trump inspired hate crime. His claim turned to farce when it was exposed that the so-called white MAGA hat wearing attackers were Nigerian born friends of his leading one wag to claim this was the first time Nigerians had fallen for an American scam.

"The pattern is clear. In an ongoing effort to discredit President Trump and white conservative males, the bizarro left loves to fabricate stories that portray themselves as victims of hate. It’s a shameful practice that borders on mental illness.

"The pattern became noticeable during Trump’s run 2016 run for the presidency. It was so bad the Daily Caller labeled 2016 as “The Year of The Hoax Hate Crime.” An example: "  . . .

Frank Hawkins is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, Associated Press foreign correspondent, international businessman, senior newspaper company executive, founder and owner of several marketing companies, and published novelist.  He currently lives in retirement in North Carolina.

How Airhead O-C rules her staff we should fear what she would do to this nation

There will definitely be a market for a tell-all tale or two of the chaos that inevitably follow an incompetent ideologue in charge of a serious operation.Ocasio-Cortez has no concept of her ignorance. The only question I have is whether the harm she does in office will outweigh the mirth she generates for those of us watching her crash and burn.

Fear the voters who elect these politicians!

Thomas Lifson:  Ocasio-Cortez redistributes her staff’s incomes  "A young woman with no real-world experience is about to learn the hard way that her ideology is impractical.  I have to give Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez credit for sincerity in her announcement on Twitter that she plans to compress the pay scale of her staff, reallocating the budget she receives for staff, and cutting the pay at the top, while increasing the pay at the bottom. If she stays in office long enough, the consequences of implementing leftist cant will become clear to her (and us) over time, so it may be a teaching experience” (as former President Obama called it).  Stephanie Aiken of Roll Call sympathetically reports: . . .

. . . "Because Ocasio-Cortez has no real-world experience, she will not see the foreseeable consequences. For a while, she will retain senior staff at low pay because they are committed to the ideological goals they think that they share with her. They also will be benefitted by the prominence she enjoys, reaping personal visibility and attention from the media." . . .

Dem candidate in Chicago wants socialism in 'control of every facet of our lives'
"Washington Free Beacon:

In a Thursday interview with the left-wing Jacobin, Okere was asked to define democratic socialism, and he gave a remarkably expansive answer.

"Democratic socialism, to me, is about democratic control of every single facet of our life," he said.  "Government is led by the people, not by big corporations, not by multibillionaires, and working people actually have control over who we elect to be our politicians, over how elections work, and over how our government is structured.  People have the power."

Okere went on to say he believes socialism should guide a society's entire course, not just its political structures:. . . 

What sort of education system has bred this generation and their teachers? 

The Greatest Constitutional CRISIS Since the Civil War

Conrad Black  "The most immense and dangerous public scandal in American history is finally cracking open like a ripe pomegranate. The broad swath of the Trump-hating media that has participated in what has amounted to an unconstitutional attempt to overthrow the government are reduced to reporting the events and revelations of the scandal in which they have been complicit, in a po-faced ho-hum manner to impart to the misinformed public that this is as routine as stock market fluctuations or the burning of an American flag in Tehran.

"For more than two years, the United States and the world have had two competing narratives: that an elected president of the United States was a Russian agent whom the Kremlin helped elect; and its rival narrative that senior officials of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and other national intelligence organizations had repeatedly lied under oath, misinformed federal officials, and meddled in partisan political matters illegally and unconstitutionally and had effectively tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election, and then undo its result by falsely propagating the first narrative. It is now obvious and indisputable that the second narrative is the correct one. most immense and dangerous public scandal in American history is finally cracking open like a ripe pomegranate. The broad swath of the Trump-hating media that has participated in what has amounted to an unconstitutional attempt to overthrow the government are reduced to reporting the events and revelations of the scandal in which they have been complicit, in a po-faced ho-hum manner to impart to the misinformed public that this is as routine as stock market fluctuations or the burning of an American flag in Tehran." . . .

Still seeking the name of the guy in black who assaulted the Turning Point representative

This post will be updated as more information comes in. We'll likely post the court verdict of guilty and the short probation he'll probably get, just as the bike-lock professor did.

Heavy.com  "The altercation was recorded at two different angles. The first angle shows the incident from a bystander’s perspective." You can watch that video here.

"A second video showed the incident from Williams’ perspective. You can watch that video below:"

. . . "Williams told the website Campus Reform, “Some students nearby tabling were laughing, even one guy was smiling while I was being attacked and trying to hand me his flyer as a joke. The idea is free speech has consequences…. which include you getting assaulted if they find you promoting ideas others don’t agree with.”' . . . 
. . .
"Police said they are asking the public to help identify the suspect. “The suspect left the area before police arrived. UCPD is investigating this case and asks that anyone who has information about this matter or the pictured suspect to call 510-642-6760,” police said in the alert." . . .

Updates will follow in this post.

Clumsy Kamala: Why Kamala Harris may be her own worst enemy

"What trips up Kamala Harris is an evident desire to please her audience. She wants no enemies to her left, no identity politics left untouched. She can't run as a prosecutor—crime fighting is so 1990s—but she can run as brash, bold, and woke."   . . .

Matthew Continetti  "No Democrat running for president has had a better 2019 than Kamala Harris. The numbers tell the tale. The California senator was in the low single digits in polls conducted before her official launch on January 28. She is now in the low double digits, running third behind Joe Biden, who enjoys cosmic name recognition, and Bernie Sanders, whose devoted supporters brought him a second-place finish last time. But polls do not tell the whole story.

"Harris raised $1.5 million in the day after declaring her candidacy. That number, impressive for a senator not even a third of the way through her first term, has been bested only by Sanders, a socialist who has a venture capitalist's talent for raising money. He brought in $5.9 million in the first 24 hours of his campaign. Harris, however, has something Sanders does not.

"She is a fresh face of middle age (54 years) and of diverse background (her father is Jamaican, her mother Indian) whose chief rivals at the moment are two geriatric white men. As Democrats search for someone new to lead them against President Trump, Harris has distinguished herself from the field. Her CNN town hall drew record ratings, while Amy Klobuchar's flopped. And Harris leads the 2020 Democrats in social media interactions, according to an Axios/Newswhip study. She's had a good launch. But there's a caveat.

"David Axelrod has described presidential campaigns as MRIs for the soul. He means that a candidate is subjected to pressures strong enough to reveal his or her true character. What voters get at the end of the process is a fuller picture of the men and women they choose to inhabit the White House. In these early weeks of what is certain to be a seemingly endless and certainly vitriolic campaign, Harris has demonstrated both strengths and weaknesses." . . . 

The Difference Between Newsweek’s Reporting Of Smollett Hoax Vs. Conservative Activist Attacked On Video

Daily Caller  "Newsweek’s initial coverage of the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax and the alleged assault that took place Tuesday on UC Berkeley’s campus drew skepticism Friday from many, though Newsweek defends its reporting as appropriately “cautious.”

"Smollett alleged that two supporters of President Donald Trump assaulted him and poured a bleach-like substance on him while shouting racist and homophobic slurs last month. He was arrested for allegedly orchestrating the entire hoax earlier this week.

Newsweek published, “‘Empire’ Actor Jussie Smollett Hospitalized For Possible Hate Crime With ‘Unknown Chemical Substance’: Report,” by Kelly Wynne, the day after the alleged attack on Jan. 29.

"The article’s lede reads: “Empire actor Jussie Smollett was hospitalized Monday in Chicago after being attacked by two men who allegedly screamed praise to President Donald Trump.”

"The way the article is written appears to confirm that the attack happened. The detail of the attackers screaming “praise to President Donald Trump,” however, was left as uncorroborated.

"Now, the Chicago Police Department believes the entire attack was self-orchestrated by Smollett, and he has been charged with submitting a false report.

"In another incident Tuesday, Hayden Williams, an employee of the nonprofit Leadership Institute, got into an altercation that ended with him being punched in the face. The tail end of the incident was caught on camera." . . .

Watch the man in black allegedly punch the conservative activist:

The alleged attacker and the alleged punch

Here’s A List Of Hoax ‘Hate Crimes’ In The Trump Era