Sorely missed by talk show hosts and dictators

Tony Branco

Be sure to put that Milano Sex Strike on your calendar.

A Sex Strike to Nowhere

It’s always amusing to get a lecture about the interests of women from representatives of Hollywood.

"Lysistrata, the character from the Aristophanes play of the same name, declared a sex strike to try to stop a devastating war in ancient Greece.

"Alyssa Milano, the actress and political activist, declared a sex strike to try to stop Georgia from protecting unborn children in the womb.

"The state just passed and signed into law a so-called heartbeat bill to outlaw abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detectable. This led Milano to conclude that women can’t risk pregnancy until further notice, and that they must stop having sex, at least stop having sex with “cis men.”

Getting some cheap publicity at the expense of
A good man and his family reputation.

"It’s apparently never occurred to Milano that women, not just cis men, support pro-life legislation, and that unborn babies are both boys and girls. In her fictional cause, Lysistrata had mercy and humanity on her side. Milano has neither, although her lack of seriousness makes her a perfect spokesperson for the backlash against the Georgia bill. 

"It is one of a spate of heartbeat bills around the nation that are sure to get enjoined in the courts, but have highlighted the hysterical opposition to the idea that a tiny human being with a heartbeat should be afforded protection under the law. " . . .

Liberal Sex Strike Fails To Score  . . . "They have to play to the no-limits edge to get the nomination, but Trump is going to slam them with it in the general. And the liberal game plan – deny that anyone would ever have a late-term abortion while demanding that anyone can have a late term abortion because it’s the mostest importantest right ever was – just will not fly." . . .

I'm reminded of an episode of "The Mentalist" where the hero, talking with an ex-boss fishing on a pier, lectures him about killing fish for his personal enjoyment. TD

Publicity is where you find it: Alyssa Milano Has A New Crusade: Boycott Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Nuggets

Obama’s Defense Secretary questions Biden’s ‘intellectual acuity’: He’s been wrong for past 40 years

BPR

"Former Vice President Joe Biden’s “intellectual acuity” in potentially leading the nation seemed a cause of concern for a former Obama administration official.
"Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did not exactly give the 2020 Democratic contender a glowing reference as he simply said he “didn’t know” if Biden would make an effective commander-in-chief, telling CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on “Face The Nation” that he stood by his view that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue” in the last 40 years.
"Brennan read from Gates’ comments on Biden in his 2015 memoir:

Joe Biden is impossible not to like. He is a man of integrity, incapable of hiding what he really thinks and one of those rare people you know you can turn to for help in a personal crisis. Still, I think he’s been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.

"After reminding the highly respected former Defense Secretary of his own words, the CBS News moderator and senior foreign affairs correspondent asked if he thought Biden would make a good president.
“ 'I don’t know. I think I stand by that statement,” Gates said.
“ 'He and I agreed on some key issues in the Obama administration. We agreed on, to oppose- we both opposed the intervention in Libya. We both opposed the way that President Mubarak was handled- the situation in Egypt. We disagreed significantly on Afghanistan and some other issues,” Gates explained." . . .

With all Trump has coming up, how would Joe handle all this?

A self-proclaimed world-class dealmaker, a perhaps overconfident Trump is confronting not one, not two, but a half-dozen serious foreign policy problems simultaneously. None of these escalating challenges, save perhaps Venezuela, are new. And solving them has stumped all other recent presidents.

Comrade de Blasio gets a rude reception from 'the people'

DML

Monica Showalter  "Hoping to make a big splash ahead of his hankered-after run for the presidency, things didn't go quite the way New York's socialist mayor thought they would go as he staged a green new deal press conference in the lobby of New York's Trump Tower.

"According to the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio staged a chaotic news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower on Monday in which he touted a city anti-pollution law, was heckled by President Donald Trump's supporters and said he will announce this week whether he's running for president.

Speaking at a podium steps from the spot where Trump announced his own run in 2015, the Democrat said he had come to warn the president that Trump Organization buildings could face a combined $2.1 million in annual fines by 2030 if they don't comply with a new law requiring skyscraper owners to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"Problem is, he not only got booed, he got trolled - big time - with camera visuals that showed Trumpsters riding up and down on the escalators behind him, bearing signs calling de Blasio New York's worst-ever mayor . . . 

"Seems the working class masses De Blasio purports to represent had other ideas. No[t] only did De Blasio get booed, he actually got trolled. Look:" . . .

. . . 

"There they are, riding up and down the escalator behind him and his pre-printed Green New Deal placards, with hand printed grassroots signs calling him 'Worst Mayor Ever' and 'Trump 2020' signs, up and down, up and down.

"That's some hella street theater. That's 'seizing the narrative' as Ben Rhodes would say.

"And it couldn't happen to a nicer socialist commissar, a man who has made life for New Yorkers utterly miserable as he caters to socialism's favorite special interests at the expense of the metropolis." . . .

Dictator-loving Code Pink gets kicked out of the Venezuelan embassy in DC

So much for socialism representing 'the people.' These leftists represent the dictator and only the dictator and the Venezuelans in their millions are not fooled. Maduro has said nothing since the booting of the leftists, but it should give him a whiff of what his own exit is going to be like if he doesn't get out now.

 Venezuelans throw a street party to watch Code Pink get booted from the Vz embassy  "For weeks, radical leftwing activist group Code Pink has been occupying the otherwise empty Venezuelan embassy in a tony part of Washington to support the socialist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro. With no lights, electricity or presumably bathroom services, it's safe to say they're stinking up the joint. Just look at what they've turned the place into from the outside, based on this tweet by the approving Maduro - can you say 'pigpen'?"

I send solidarity greeting, full of deep admiration and gratitude to the Protection Collective of our Embassy in Washington, who with brave have faced the aggressions of a sick right and a criminal empire. That's the worthy people of U.S. #Love4EPC pic.twitter.com/g0E1pk73UN— Nicolás Maduro (@maduro_en) May 10, 2019

. . . "Last night, the cops came to kick them out. Apparently, there are four holdouts, but they aren't going to last long after they get hungry and will eventually be dislodged, too.

"What was noteworthy about it was the response from the Venezuelans on the outside as the cops came in to do their work. The embassy of course, is supposed to be for them.

"What did they do? The Venezulean(sp) thing - cheering and throwing a party - as the rabid leftists were given the boot. Here's some of the Twitter evidence that I found. The quickie translations are from Microsoft Translate with a couple of clarifications in brackets from me:" . . .

That would be this Venezuela, I believe, that Code Pink celebrates:

Code Pink Shredded For Seizing DC Venezuelan Embassy And Defending Socialist Dictator Maduro  "Communist Code Pink took it upon themselves to seize the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC but they got a surprise… outraged Venezuelans ripped them for supporting the socialist dictator Maduro – the butcher of Venezuela. Code Pink is an anti-war group that never met a communist regime they did not adore. They claim they are defending the embassy from a “hostile takeover” as the U.S. State Department labels them “trespassers” and calls on them to leave."

Why Aren't Democratic Presidential Candidates Criticizing Trump's Foreign Policy?

Left-wing Vox wants to correct that

And while there are certainly major caveats to all of those “successes” — and some serious foreign policy challenges, like the trade war with China, conspicuously left off the list — on paper at least, it’s a pretty strong record for Trump’s first term in office. Which means that Democratic candidates looking to unseat Trump in 2020 will face a stiff challenge crafting a compelling counternarrative.

Then there is Bernie's way:

Reason

Perhaps the biggest compliment to Trump's foreign policy is his political opponents largely want to make the 2020 election about domestic issues.

"Where's the Democratic critique of President Trump's foreign policy?

"You'd think that with more than 20 Democrats running for President, at least one of them would try to differentiate herself, or himself, from the rest of the field by focusing on the president's role in diplomacy and national security.

"It's still early in the campaign. But none of the major Democratic candidates has made foreign policy a focus. Instead the politicians are out there talking mostly about climate change, health care, income inequality, student loan forgiveness, national service, drug rehabilitation, racism—anything, it seems, except for geopolitics or grand strategy.

"Part of the reason is that the foreign policy threats seem distant. The Soviet Union is gone and the Cold War is over. The 18 year-olds who will be voting for the first time in the 2020 presidential election were not even alive during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

"When it comes to handling China, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.), has been cheering the president on. "Hang tough on China, President @realDonaldTrump. Don't back down. Strength is the only way to win with China," Schumer tweeted Sunday.

"Trump hasn't started any wars, so the Democrats can't really fault him for that. It's not a Vietnam or Iraq War type situation where headlines of U.S. combat deaths dominate politics.

"Democrats might be critical of Trump's handling of North Korea, but previous Democratic administrations have also tried to negotiate nuclear issues with Pyongyang." . . .

A real improvement over the media's hero, the darling of talk shows, the cover photo of Cosmo and his world leadership:

Dem Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand Blames “Gender Bias” For Her Faltering Presidential Campaign….

How well has that excuse worked for Hillary?

Weasel Zippers

"Yeah, no.

"Via Fox News:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said Saturday she feels like she’s being underestimated in the race for the Democratic nomination for president, who will likely go up against President Trump in 2020.

Gillibrand is one of nearly two dozen major candidates who have declared their intention to run for president. She spoke about her campaign during her trip to New Hampshire.

“I think it’s just gender bias. I think people are generally biased against women. I think also biased against young women,” she said in an interview, according to CNN. “There’s just bias and it’s real and it exists, but you have to overcome it.”

Eighth Place: A High School Girl’s Life After Transgender Students Joined Her Sport

Daily Signal  "A growing number of school administrators want to silence women and girls who dare speak out about the ways transgender policies are harming them—but these brave young women refuse to be bullied or made to believe their concerns are hateful."

Journalism is Dead—Long Live the Media!

CNN’s Jake Tapper finally had to remind his television audience that, contra to the Joe Biden rollout campaign video and the progressive gospel, Donald Trump did not excuse white nationalists and Klansmen during the 2017 Charlottesville violence.

Victor Davis Hanson

"There still exists a physical media in the sense of airing current events. But it is not journalism as we once understood the disinterested reporting of the news. Journalism is now dead. The media lives on.

"Reporters today believe that their coverage serves higher agendas of social justice, identity politics, “equality” and diversity. To the degree a news account is expanded or ignored, praised or blasted, depends on its supposed utility to the effort to fundamentally transform the country into something unlike its founding.

"At the recent third president-less White House Correspondents’ Dinner, passive-aggressive journalists whined that they were victims, standing on the barricades against the all-powerful, all-evil—and all absent—Donald Trump. If the attempt was to return professionalism to the evening and eschew the pathological celebrity obsessions of the past, the result was only more confirmation of the self-referential and narcissistic culture of the Washington press corps.

"Why should we believe reporters suddenly worried about ethics, and free inquiry and speech?

"No journalist who pontificates now about the supposedly First Amendment-violating Trump ever mentions that Barack Obama had Fox News’s James Rosen (and his relatives) monitored, surveilled the communications records of Associated Press reporters, spoke with the press far less often than did Trump, and often fixated on Fox News.

"Journalists themselves had no problem with colleagues colluding with the Clinton campaign as evidenced in the Wikileaks Podesta trove. There was never much introspection about why the elite press and media corps—loudly progressive and feminist—was decimated by Me Too Movement allegations of long-standing sexual harassment and assault." . . .

Rand Paul: Americans Will Be ‘Shocked’ to Know What Biden’s Son Was Up To

Breitbart  "Sunday on ABC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) discussed a report from The New York Times on questions of former vice president Joe Biden’s potential conflict of interest.

"Partial transcript as follows:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, lets start where Chairman Schiff just left off right there that perhaps Congress should consider making it illegal to engage foreign governments, foreign assistance in campaigns. You agree?

PAUL: Well I think the American people will be shocked and dismayed to know that Joe Biden’s son was making $50,000 a month just a couple of months after he was dishonorably discharged from the military for drugs. $50,000 a month, I think most Americans will be dismayed that the president’s son was doing this while Joe Biden was actually lobbying to have this company, you know, go free of prosecution. My understanding, this was reported in the New York Times, Joe Biden was asking the prosecutor to lay off of the company that Hunter Biden was working for for $50,000 a month –

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s – that’s not – that’s –

PAUL: — kicked out of the military, that’s extraordinary.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s not what – that’s not what was reported, in fact he was on an anti-corruption drive.

PAUL: Well actually that’s exactly what was reported, yes, that he got $50,000 a month right after he was kicked out of the military. That’s exactly true and nobody disputes that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s very separate from what you just said about what the vice president was saying right there.

Should he say these things about Biden out of respect for his national leadership?

Frank Miniter: Student walkout at Colorado shooting vigil is a good sign. Media seems to lose interest.

Via Lucianne, which commented, "Not all millennials are brain dead. Hooray.".

Lucianne"The very public scene of hundreds of Colorado students and their parents walking out of a vigil that was turned into political theater by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was so embarrassing that the gun control group actually issued an apology.
"Before leaving the Wednesday night event, students shouted, in front of journalists who the Brady Campaign invited: “this is not for us,” “political stunt” and “we are people, not a statement.”
"The Brady Campaign had portrayed the event as a vigil in memory of Kendrick Castillo, a student hero who died from gunshot wounds after he and two other students charged one of the attackers Tuesday at the Highlands Ranch STEM School in Colorado.
"Eight other students were injured in the shooting. Two students were arrested and accused of the attack.
"Instead of putting together an event to bring people together to mourn, the gun control group brought in activists and Colorado politicians – Democratic presidential contender U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Democratic U.S. Rep. Jason Crow – to push a one-sided political agenda.
"The speakers said they weren’t there to just offer thoughts and prayers, but that they instead were there to push for more restrictions on the right to bear arms.
"We saw this with events after the shooting at Parkland High School in Florida. The events, including a CNN town hall, weren’t open forums or vigils. [It was] "orchestrated propaganda designed to push a political cause." . . .

Why the Media Suddenly Lost Interest in the Latest School Shooting  . . . "After the shooting, other than some virtue signaling by the media, the story has left the front pages, as the narrative may be inconvenient for the leftist agenda. CNN and MSNBC have lived up to their reputation as “drive-by media” by quickly moving on. No interviews with David Hogg or other gun control fanatics. So, what are some of the inconvenient aspects to this story that the media would prefer to drive by without any discussion or analysis?

"Let’s start with the weapons. The two shooters, “opened fire with handguns that were concealed in a guitar case”, as reported by the Daily Mail in an unexpected good faith effort at honest journalism. Handguns? What happened to those evil AR-15’s or “assault weapons” that Democrats and the media constantly warn about? These are what the Huffington Post calls “weapons of war.”

"The reality is that most gun crimes are committed with handguns not rifles. But this doesn’t fit the media narrative and it’s better to drive-by the story rather than explain this inconvenient truth."

It would have been so much more convenient for Morning Joe or Jake Tapper if the Colorado school shooters were cis-gendered, white, Christian males, members of the NRA, wearing MAGA hats while brandishing AR-15s. But since that wasn’t the case, don’t expect the media to linger on this shooting. Instead they will focus on Trump’s real estate tax losses from 30 years ago.

‘Transgender woman’ stripped of victory in powerlifting competition

Tony Branco

Thomas Lifson  "The future for female athletes in competitions is grim if biological males are allowed to compete with them under the theory that one can choose to be female, take some hormones and/or other treatment, and become a woman. Men are born with many advantages that make it impossible for women to compete successfully in many, probably most, sports.

"One sports federation is fighting back, and just stripped championship awards from a “transgender woman” who dominated a competition held in April. Pink News (a “Daily LGBT+ Newsletter”) is not pleased: . . .

. . . 

. . . "Since the “transgender” competitor was taking testosterone-blockers, this may be the tripwire -- or legal defense -- for rescinding the championship.

"My guess is that because transgenderism reigns so powerfully in the media, educational and government establishments, they will try to ignore or dismiss this move, on the ground that the federation involved is “one of dozens” or maybe a fringe group.

"But there are girls and women out there who train hard every day seeking athletic excellence. Their dreams competitive triumph are being dashed by men who desperately want to be women despite sporting an X-chromosome in every cell of their bodies. We shall see whether propaganda and intimidation can overcome nature and common sense when it comes to women’s athletics. " 

More on this at the Daily Wire:    . . . “Men naturally have a larger bone structure, higher bone density, stronger connective tissue and higher muscle density than women," the board wrote. "These traits, even with reduced levels of testosterone do not go away. While MTF may be weaker and less muscle than they once were, the biological benefits given them at birth still remain over than of a female.”
"Transgender athletes competing against the gender of their choice has become a prominent issue in the world of sports, particularly in the world of high school sports. Several transgender athletes have taken women's titles in lifting and track and field, leaving hardworking, biologically female athletes out in the cold, even decades after feminists finally won recognition for women-only athletic competition." . . .