Mourning Soleimani, from Hollywood to the Campus

UPDATE: COLIN KAEPERNICK Drone Strike On Iran ...U.S.A. IMPERIALISM AT ITS FINEST  

Colin wrote on Twitter, "There is nothing new about American terrorist attacks against Black and Brown people for the expansion of American imperialism." He didn't stop there.

Sort of a male Megan Rapinoe, eh? Watch for his appearance on CNN and Colbert shows.

National Review

The terror general’s postmortem fan club members are all denizens of the Left — media figures, celebrities, politicians, and academics.

McGowan

"Now that Qasem Soleimani’s mortal coil has reached room temperature, and he is enjoying the fruits of his martyrdom, sympathizers everywhere are mourning him and praising him. His postmortem fan-club members are all denizens of the Left — media figures, celebrities, politicians, and especially academics. Their somber, cliché-ridden eulogies range from stupid Twitter commentary to well-written articles, with praise for Soleimani, unalloyed contempt for Donald Trump, and dire predictions of retribution in the days ahead.

"In the stupid Twitter category, celebrities take the lead. Rose McGowan’s “Dear Iran” tweet got the ball rolling, with “Dear #Iran. The USA has disrespected your country, your flag, your people. 52% of us humbly apologize. We want peace with your nation. We are being held hostage by a terrorist regime. We do not know how to escape. Please do not kill us. #Soleimani". . . .
. . . "Meanwhile, exaggerations of Soleimani’s greatness and the depth of his intellect are common. Time magazine compared him to Cardinal Richelieu and Machiavelli. Prompted by Fareed Zakaria’s claim that Soleimani was “regarded in Iran as a completely heroic figure, personally very brave,” Anderson Cooper compared him to Charles de Gaulle. Rosanna Arquette compared Trump to Hitler for killing the great Soleimani." . .  .

Dems unhappy: Iran is not following the script

The Left, so committed to its script, is left trying to convince the American people that their villain (Solomeini) is a hero, and our hero (Donald J. Trump) is a villain.  Sadly for the Left, the American people are watching events play out in real time.

2020 Democrats risk backlash in trashing Trump’s Iran strike

Democrats have a poor track record in supporting those who stand up to the Mullahs.
2018: OBAMA ABANDONED IRANIANS WHEN THEY FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM—TRUMP MUST NOT DO THE SAME  . . . "The Obama administration, obsessed with rapprochement with Tehran, abandoned Green Movement protesters, but America recently sought support for Iran's spontaneous demonstrators at the U.N. Security Council. Russia, China, economically motivated traders and others chastised Washington for attacking internal Iranian matters." . . .

Other persecuted groups outside America see things differently:

Banned! Thousands Of Iranian Actors, Filmmakers On Secret Blacklist  "Thousands of Iranian filmmakers, actors, and other artists are on a secret government blacklist that bans them from working or having their work shown in public." . . .

BPR:  Remarkable video shows Iranian students avoid stepping on USA and Israeli flags out of respect   . . . "Amid all the tension between Iran and the United States, another incredible thing is taking place in the country — Iranians are refusing to accept America as the enemy.
"This was seen in a viral video of Iranians refusing to step on U.S. and Israel flags that have been painted on the ground at Shaheed Beheshti University.
"Journalist Mohammad Mozafari shared the video clip, tweeting: “The people do not disrespect the flag of USA and Israel. They say all over Iran: We are not the enemy of the USA and Israel. Our enemy is the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran' ” . . .

Capitol Hill mood shifted as lawmakers were briefed by the CIA on Suleimani’s planned attack on US personnel. Congressional mood was tense following the Iran missile strike before it was revealed no US soldiers were hit. Nancy Pelosi had her plastic surgeon put a worried look on her face  Comedian Argus Hamilton

 Parody, sarcasm, satire: Here's some parody from the parody site, The Babylon Bee:
Iran Declines To Sign Colin Kaepernick After Reviewing Workout Video

TEHRAN—Colin Kaepernick sent his workout video to Iran after learning they may have recently opened up a position but has yet to receive a phone call.Kaepernick condemned American attacks on Iranian terrorists last week, inciting rumors that he may have found a team interested in him in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. But Iranian officials have dispelled the rumors, stating clearly and unequivocally that "we have no interest in signing Kaepernick at this time, but we wish him well in his future endeavors." "It's disappointing to see that Iran is as hateful as America," a downcast Kaepernick said in a press conference. "I expected to be welcomed as a hero over there, but apparently, they too are biased against people with dark skin." Kaepernick plans to protest Iran's hate by continuing to kneel during the American national anthem.Iran has clarified that they agree with Kaepernick ideologically, but they need someone who can throw.

Iran's only female Olympic medalist reportedly defects

Yahoo News  DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iran's only female Olympic medalist said she defected from the Islamic Republic in a blistering online letter that describes herself as “one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran.”

"Taekwondo athlete Kimia Alizadeh posted the letter on Instagram as Iran's semiofficial ISNA news agency said she had fled to the Netherlands. She criticized wearing the mandatory hijab headscarf and accused officials in Iran of sexism and mistreatment.

“Whatever they said, I wore," Alizadeh wrote in the letter posted Saturday. "Every sentence they ordered, I repeated."
"She described the decision to leave Iran as difficult, but necessary." . . .

How McConnell Outplayed Pelosi

Matthew Continetti

The Republican leader unified his caucus by relying on precedent.

"Mitch McConnell was clear when he addressed the Senate on December 18: Any impeachment trial of President Trump would follow the precedent established by the trial of President Clinton 20 years ago.
"Clinton’s trial was divided into pieces. The Senate agreed unanimously to begin with a briefing, opening arguments, questions from senators, and a vote to dismiss. Whether to hear witnesses or introduce additional evidence were questions decided later. “That was the unanimous bipartisan precedent from 1999,” McConnell said. “Put first things first, lay the bipartisan groundwork, and leave mid-trial questions to the middle of the trial.' ”
"The arrangement satisfied Chuck Schumer back when he was a recently elected junior senator from New York. Funny how times change. Now Senate minority leader, and looking to damage Republicans in a presidential election year, Schumer demanded that McConnell call witnesses and ask for additional documents at the outset of the proceedings. Pelosi followed his cues. After the House impeached Trump on December 18, she said she wouldn’t transmit the articles of impeachment until McConnell gave in to Schumer’s demands.
"McConnell refused. He continued to point to the (relative) bipartisanship of the Clinton era. “The Senate said, 100 to nothing, that was good enough for President Clinton,” he said on January 6. “So it ought to be good enough for President Trump. Fair is fair.” The following day, McConnell ridiculed the idea that Pelosi had “leverage” over the Senate: “Apparently this is their proposition: If the Senate does not agree to break with our own unanimous bipartisan precedent from 1999, and agree to let Speaker Pelosi hand-design a different procedure for this Senate trial, then they might never dump this mess in our lap.” Fine with him. The Senate has plenty of other things to do.
"The reliance on precedent is one of McConnell’s most effective strategies. In 2016 he invoked the “Biden rule” to prevent confirmation hearings for Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, until after the election. The following spring, when Senate Republicans voted to end the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, McConnell noted that former majority leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, had done the same for lower-court nominees in 2013." . . .

The Humpty Dumpty Fate of Post-Reagan Consensus

Conrad Black

The bipartisan political consensus of the 32 post-Reagan years has been unmasked, debunked, and overthrown. The political establishment will require a long time to reconstruct itself after this re-enactment of the fate of Humpty Dumpty.

"The predicted has happened in Iran and more quickly than had been expected. On the evening of the day on which the Iranian authorities managed to bungle the funeral of their late terrorist chief, Qasem Soleimani, at least 50 people were trampled to death in their grief, and the crisis over the supposed escalation of hostilities subsided. (At least, unlike during the funeral of the Iranian theocracy’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the coffin did not fly open, spilling the corpse on the mourners.)
"Nothing could be more obvious than the point made here and elsewhere, but particularly by President Trump, that Iran was in no position to do serious damage to the United States, and could not aspire to more than squalid and cowardly terrorist action against embassies and civilians and other relatively vulnerable targets, while the United States had already identified every significant military target in Iran and could obliterate them all within 30 minutes.
"These are military facts that no one sought to deny or could deny; the president had made it clear in his remarks and demonstrated in his actions that any attack on Americans would elicit a severe and disproportionate response.
"So the only possible scenario that justified the wails of alarm the floundering assortment of Democratic presidential candidates could muster to bring about the war they quickly foresaw was if the Iranian leadership were, like some of their operatives, on a suicide mission.
"Obviously, defanged, psychopathic, and primitive though they are, the Iranians are not so filled with a supernatural inferno of misplaced piety and fervor that they wish to precipitate themselves into eternity prematurely. Tuesday night’s launch of 12 missiles from Iran into Iraq apparently at Iraqi targets and which did not injure any Americans and was styled by the Iranian government information service as the regime’s response to the death of Soleimani, does not require an American military response and evinces a desire to de-escalate." . . .

It is indicative of the creeping irresolution of the Democratic Party that almost all of its spokespeople have embraced the disgraceful Obama-Iran agreement and have tried to petrify the country with fear that if anything other than Carter-Obama style appeasement of evil were engaged in, America would be plunged into an inexorable, sanguinary, and hopeless war.

Toon added by TD

Conrad Black has been one of Canada’s most prominent financiers for 40 years, and was one of the leading newspaper publishers in the world as owner of the British telegraph newspapers, the Fairfax newspapers in Australia, the Jerusalem Post, Chicago Sun-Times and scores of smaller newspapers in the U.S., and most of the daily newspapers in Canada. He is the author of authoritative biographies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, one-volume histories of the United States and Canada, and most recently of Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other. He is a member of the British House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour.

Good thing we didn't have this media at the time of Pearl Harbor

Has Hollywood lost touch with American values?  "The contentious presidential campaign was filled with accusations of elitism and bias by the media -- from the news to entertainment. Many supporters of Donald J. Trump saw his victory as a repudiation of the so-called liberal elite." . . .

Malkin: Leftist entertainment is losing viewers

. . . • Emmy emetics. Who wanted to see smirking Stephen Colbert lead a cast of Botoxed starlets and men in hot pants, handing out TV industry awards to diamond-draped elites hoisting up their gilt statues as emblems of victory on behalf of the hegemonically oppressed? Not as many as the boob-tube titans had hoped! The show’s overall viewership of 11.4 million tied an all-time low; the key ratings demographic of 18-49 adults sunk 10 percent lower than last year’s historic low. Most of America had better things to do than watch a privileged cabal of left-wing, coastal one-percenters preening indulgently about their progressivism. Conservative actor James Wood had the response of the night to the Emmy ego-thon, noting that “the stunning lack of political diversity in Hollywood is interesting, when you consider their consumer base is so evenly divided.”
• Oscars’ abyss. Earlier this year, the Academy Awards show earned the second-lowest viewership ratings in its history. Program host Jimmy Kimmel and other celebs turned their stage and red carpet into Trump-bashing soapboxes for anti-cop rants, open borders pleas and Quran promotion. . . .

 Maps show how CNN lost America to Fox News  "Over the course of no more than a decade, America has radically switched favorites when it comes to cable news networks. As this sequence of maps showing TMAs (Television Market Areas) suggests, CNN is out, Fox News is in." . . .

Check out who owns California.

Fake News Media Faces A Reckoning For Political Bias

. . . At a Democratic Party primary debate on July 31, 2019, for example, Lemon – who was one of the debate moderators – asked one of the candidates what he would do to heal the divide which “has been stoked by the president’s racist rhetoric.” Posing another question, later in the debate, Lemon referred to “the president’s bigotry.' ” . . .

By: Graham J Noble  "No-one is above the law. This was probably the most overused phrase of 2019. Whether it is true or not is certainly open to debate, but one formally great American institution – the media – has discovered that, contrary to what it appeared to believe, it is not above the law. Nick Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, was falsely maligned by several media outlets as a racist who, in January 2019, confronted and obstructed a Native protester at the Washington Monument. Sandmann sued CNN for defamation. After failing to have the case dismissed, the news network settled with the student for an undisclosed but likely substantial sum."
. . . 
"The problem, for the left-wing establishment media is that they long ago set themselves up to be hoisted by their own petard, to borrow from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. When certain individuals in the media, such as CNN’s Don Lemon or countless other anchors, columnists, and contributors, call people they disagree with “racist,” “homophobic,” or any of these other overused, derogatory terms, they are not clarifying that the accusations are opinions – rather, they are stating those accusations as fact; assertions that are, for any reasonable person, not open to dispute." . . .  Read the entire article here
Via Whatfinger News

Donald Trump Jr. Considering Congress Run Against Jerry Nadler

Analyzing America

"The word is that Donald Trump Jr may challenge Jerry Nadler for his job in Congress.
"Nadler has been a key figure in the impeachment of President Trump.
"More from The Buffalo Chronicle:
"He represents New York’s 12th congressional district, comprising the West Side of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn.
"The district has a Democrat enrollment advantage of 23 points, according to the Cook Political Index (CPI).
"But for New York State, that’s a middle-of-the-pack district — there are nine districts in the State that are even more strongly Democrat-leaning.
“Nadler is the quintessential career politician and has exposed himself as a petulant political hack, not a statesman,” one longtime New York County Republican committeeman explains." . . .

Mark 'Oz' Geist: Trump's decisive leadership would have saved my Benghazi team

Fox News  "The attack on our embassy in Baghdad and President Trump’s reaction are in no way comparable to the events in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.
"I fought to defend the American diplomatic post and CIA annex in Benghazi for more than 13 hours against a determined, organized assault by dozens of Al Qaeda fanatics armed with belt-fed machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, and heavy mortars.

"The Obama administration’s mishandling of this attack — which resulted in the first murder of a U.S. ambassador in the line of duty since the 1970s — was a far cry from the Trump administration’s decisive response to threats against our embassy in Iraq.

"The basic facts should be enough to dismiss any serious comparison. My team and I were told to “stand down” no fewer than three times in the face of what the media later called “protesters” — even as Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were being killed and maimed by the terrorists. No U.S. military reaction force was sent, despite our numerous requests for help. Only by our own tenacity and courage were more than 30 Americans able to escape with our lives.

"Compare that to the recent attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. When Iran-backed militias and their supporters stormed the embassy grounds and Iraqi forces refused to do their duty to defend American lives and property,

"President Trump reacted forcefully. In roughly the same amount of time it took to the Obama administration to get an unarmed American drone over our heads as we fought for our lives in Benghazi, more than 100 U.S. Marines were on the scene to defend the Baghdad embassy and two Apache helicopter gunships were in the air asserting American sovereignty." . . .

This computer voice claims Soleimani Involved in Planning Bengahzi Attack that Killed 4 Americans

Photos taken by US Special Operations forces show aftermath of strike that killed Soleimani

Fox News  "EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground in Iraq were following a convoy carrying Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani when it was struck by an American drone last week, killing Soleimani and nine others, Fox News has learned.
"The soldiers following Soleimani's convoy as it left Baghdad International Airport were about a half-mile behind when it was hit by a missile fired from a Reaper drone. They were on the scene within a minute or two and performed a so-called "bomb damage assessment," taking pictures of the scene and confirming that the drone had picked out the right car -- and that Soleimani was no more." . . . Video at the link.

Qassem Soleimani's body lies burning next to the car.

Also at the UK Daily Mail

Iraqi officials on the scene after the event.

Democrats and President Trump do not play well together

The Democrats now rightly can be renamed Leftocrats.  Their hostility to President Trump has reached pathological dimensions or worse.  Their mantras about the "top 1%" or "top 0.1%" have become the tip of a spear of seemingly bottomless hatred for our president, our history, our legal structures, our institutions, our religious heritage, our language, and our achievements in every sphere of human endeavor.  They have left the realm of constructive criticism and have moved even beyond destructive criticism into the pathological domain of hysterical dementia . . .   E. Jeffrey Ludwig

Lucianne

Trump Is Masterfully Using Democrats' Opposition against Them  . . . "What does the predictable reaction of the Democrats look like?  For example, Trump makes it clear that he is not going to fight in Syria anymore, and without exception, all Democrats immediately become militant hawks, who categorically demand a continuation of the war.  If Trump trolls the Iranian regime by threatening to attack Iranian objects, including cultural objects, all Democrats, without exception, immediately become peace doves and demand "hands off Iran!"

"The irony here is that the very opponents of Trump, who advocate for "preserving the Iranian cultural heritage," are calling for the destruction of Confederate historical monuments in America.

"No doubt, all this (D)egenerative nonsense will be beneficial to Trump during his re-election campaign." . . .

Democrats Have Become a Disfigured Reflection of the Party They Once Were  . . . "The Leftocrats are apologists for evil (not just disagreeable) foreign regimes and are against fundamental Constitutional ideas and structures such as the Tenth Amendment as they resist federal disengagement from setting nationwide education priorities.  Leftocrats have been vehemently calling for abolition of the Electoral College.  They are cursing the president from every podium and venue that presents itself and thereby undermine the separation of powers and demonstrate disrespect for the law of the land since our president is head of the Executive Branch." . . . 

Democrat hatred for President Trump is greater than their fear of our nation's enemies. TD
Officials Appeared To Withhold Soleimani Intel Due To Concern Some Might Leak To Enemies  

USA kills Sulaimani. Kudos! After 40 years, about time USA fights back against Iran terrorists.
In classified briefing, it appeared defense & intelligence reps held back info out of concern too many Congressmen can't be trusted to keep classified info from USA enemies.

. . . "[Rep. Mo Brooks, non-D, AL] continued. “So if you just had that experience where members of Congress are quite clearly leaking information that was collected in a SCIF environment, how can you trust them not to leak classified information regarding Iran that could lead to the deaths of our intelligence sources, or empower terrorist organizations to avoid American retribution for the killing that they have done?” . . .

Warren, Sanders Did Participate In That Joint Conference Call With Iranian Lobby Group Linked to Tehran  . . . "The “#NoWarWithIran Strategy Call,” hosted by MoveOn.org, another advocacy group and political action committee first organized in 1998 in response to former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment, also included commentary from Jamal Abdi, president of NIAC. U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna, both California Democrats, and others also participated.
"Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, called Warren and Sanders “disgraceful” for participating in the call with “pro-Iran group NIAC the day after Iran bombed our military bases.” . . .

Soleimani’s replacement: ‘Muslims will leave no spot safe for Americans’

Youtube

Breaking Israel News: Could This be the Real Reason why the Democrats are Protecting Iran?  "Donald Trump’s elimination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the most powerful military leader in Iran, generated a surprising level of opposition among the Democrats who feared an escalation of the confrontation with Iran. But it could be that another reason lies behind the Democrats’ support of Iran. 
"The partisan support for Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, is so incongruous that former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley commented on it in a recent Fox News interview.
“ 'You don’t see anyone standing up for Iran,” Haley said. “You’re not hearing any of the Gulf members, you’re not hearing China, you’re not hearing Russia. The only ones mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and Democrat Presidential candidates.” . . .

Sorry If You’re Offended, but Socialism Leads to Misery and Destitution (Updated)

David Harsanyi

Nearly half of American millennials would rather live in a socialist society than in a capitalist one, according to a YouGov poll. That said, only 71 percent of those asked were able to properly identify either. We can now see the manifestation of this ignorance in our elections and “The View” co-host Joy Behar

A commuter walks through the Petare neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, a district hard-hit by shortages of food, medicine, and water.

"On the same day that Venezuela’s “democratically” elected socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, whose once-wealthy nation now has citizens foraging for food, announced he was lopping five zeros off the country’s currency to create a “stable financial and monetary system,” Meghan McCain of “The View” was the target of internet-wide condemnation for having stated some obvious truths about collectivism.

"During the same week we learned that the democratic socialist president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, is accused of massacring hundreds of protesters whose economic futures have been decimated by his economic policies, Soledad O’Brien and writers at outlets ranging from GQ, to BuzzFeed, to the Daily Beast were telling McCain to cool her jets.

"In truth, McCain was being far too calm. After all, socialism is the leading man-made cause of death and misery in human existence. Whether implemented by a mob or a single strongman, collectivism is a poverty generator, an attack on human dignity, and a destroyer of individual rights.

"It’s true that not all socialism ends in the tyranny of Leninism or Stalinism or Maoism or Castroism or Ba’athism or Chavezism or the Khmer Rouge—only most of it does. And no, New York primary winner Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t intend to set up gulags in Alaska. Most so-called democratic socialists—the qualifier affixed to denote that they live in a democratic system and have no choice but to ask for votes—aren’t consciously or explicitly endorsing violence or tyranny.

"But when they adopt the term “socialism” and the ideas associated with it, they deserve to be treated with the kind of contempt and derision that all those adopting authoritarian philosophies deserve."

"But look: Norway!" . . .

This might come as a surprise to some, but every penny of the $21,206 spent in Ocasio-Cortez’s district each year on each student, rich or poor, is provided with the profits derived from capitalism. There is no welfare system, no library that subsists on your good intentions. Having the state take over the entire health care system could rightly be called a socialistic endeavor, but pooling local tax dollars to put books in a building is called local government.

Full article here.    
Hat tip to Derrick Morris at Mark Levin's Fan Club of Intelligent, Thinking Women (and Men)

UPDATE: This comment came from a reader in the dairy country of south Tillamook County, Oregon, home of Tillamook Cheese and Tillamook Country Smoker meat products:

 Several years ago now a delegation from Russian countries , about a dozen or more people , were at OSU for some kind of learning conference...Floyd brought them to the farm one day as they were tired of the class room and the city...(they came back another day also and wanted to split wood, crazy! They loved it here.)
Floyd brought them to our house at lunch time and we got to visit with them, along with their KGB type woman interpreter...
They were so enthralled with everything. Before they came in the house they were fascinated by our new concrete floor in the pole barn..they had never seen smoothed out concrete...they just pour and level theirs...one man in the group saw our forty five or fifthy year old John Deere tractor...said his dream was to operate one...he said they only had enough petrol to operate their tractors for about 13 days a year so they had to plan their farm work that had to get done...
They came in the house and the women were chattering amongst themselves and smiling...
They wanted to use the rest room...next thing I know they were all scurring down the hall and all piled into my bathroom
I went down the hall and asked if they were ok...they were all enamored with my bathroom and chattering amongst themselves...they said their accommodations were meager at home..I wanted to send it with them and share our bounty.
While we all crowded around the table and spilled out into the living room they shared pictures and told us of their lifestyles...I felt so sorry for them....to wait in line for bread, to not have enough of what we all take for granted here...a counter with a hot plate and a curtain draped under the counter...one sausage maker Stephan said his dream was riding the John Deere, so George brought it out in the field between our house and the barn and he drove it around, hot rodded it for a couple of minutes too, he was so appreciative.....
And these young idiots want to live under socialism???
They need a dose of reality instead of the brainwashing they have received!