Zone Rouge: An Area of France So Badly Damaged By WW1 That People Are Still Forbidden To Live There

Brilliant Maps

"While WW1 ended nearly a century ago, its scars can still be found across Northern France and Belgium. Zone Rouge (French for Red Zone) is perhaps the ultimate example of this.

"At the end of the war in 1918, the French government isolated the areas in red above and forbade activities such as forestry, farming and even the building of houses from being performed inside them.

"In total the non-contiguous areas took up 1,200 sq km (460 sq mi) (roughly the size of New York City).

"The primary reason the areas were declared no-go zones was that they had seen some of the worst fighting during the war, particularly during the Battle of Verdun in 1916. The areas were environmentally devastated and contained large numbers of unexploded ordnance along with human and animal remains that further contaminated the environment." . . .

. . . "A blog post really can’t do this topic much justice so I highly recommend learning more from the following books:

• The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916
• Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War
• A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918
• Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914-1918
• Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

The White House Correspondents Dinner

Stand Up Tragedy The cartoon is a good bit over the top to include it all here, but here are the three middle panels of the nine:

C-List Comedian Reduces the Obama Presidency and Legacy to a Racist Slur   . . . "The office of the presidency has been devalued now to the point of moral, ethical, and legal bankruptcy, and it was just epitomized by the way a comedian with a tiny, tiny audience addressed the president of the United States. And the president, smiling, laughingly accepted it.

"Saying what nobody else can say. Saying something that I couldn't say. Nobody else in polite society or anywhere else in the media could say it without all hell raining down on them, and in some cases there would be serious efforts to have whoever said it, even if quoting it, removed from his position in broadcasting.  "Yo, Barry, you did it! You my [slang N-word]."  And there's Obama laughing and people saying, "Well, Obama's gotta do that. That's a classy move for Obama to make."  Stop and think about this.  Stop and think." Video: Wilmore's routine

White House press secretary defends Larry Wilmore’s use of the ‘n-word’ in addressing President Obama   . . . "Ryan noted that there was "an eerie, awkward silence and quietness" in reaction to the comment, and many guests "were appalled. Even members of the Republican Party, black Republicans, were upset.' " . . 
The UK Guardian even chimed in on the issue:
"When Larry Wilmore said the N-word to President Obama, I felt black pride" Rebecca Carroll   . . . "But as an adult and the parent of a 10-year-old son, I still don’t use it or want to hear it.

"The obvious reason is that I never heard it spoken to me lovingly. The only context I know for that word is one in which I am being intentionally degraded by white people. The next time I heard it, after the playground, was in high school, when my boss at the local oil company called me a lazy n---er under his breath after I refused to clean the bathroom right after he’d used it." . . .

In fairness, Wilmore also took on Al Sharpton. Some time back, of course.   . . . "Sharpton’s anger at the lack of black nominees for the Oscar nominations and his statement that he planned to call an “emergency meeting” in Hollywood to discuss it caused Wilmore to complain: “Sharpton? Again? I mean, no one else can represent us?

“ 'Al! Al! Al! Slow down, man! You don’t have to respond to every black emergency. You’re not black Batman — a racial fire chief,” Mediaite reported." . . .

Jason Riley Is the Latest Conservative to Be Disinvited from a College Campus

Peter Wood and Rachelle Peterson   "The higher-education disinvitation sweepstakes continue. Virginia Tech has just disinvited Jason Riley, a Wall Street Journal columnist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow. Riley had been asked to deliver the BB&T Distinguished Lecture at Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business. But late last week he received an e-mail from the faculty member who arranged the lecture informing him that the head of the Finance Department, the J. Gray Ferguson Professor of Finance, Vijay Singal, had vetoed the invitation. We obtained a copy of this e-mail. 

"Why? Mr. Riley, who is black, has attracted some negative attention since his publication in 2014 of Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed. Professor Singal feared that whatever controversy Riley had attracted so far would be amplified once he set foot on Virginia Tech’s campus. He imagined there would be amplified controversy over Riley’s speech because Virginia Tech is still reverberating from the last BB&T Distinguished Lecture, delivered by Charles Murray on March 25. 

"That event was widely noted because of the exceptionally clumsy way that Virginia Tech president Tim Sands handled it. Sands sent an “open letter” to the Virginia Tech community on March 10, ostensibly upholding the invitation to Murray but doing so in such poison-pen language that he practically wrote the placards for the protesters. . ."

Cleveland is spending $20 million on riot and security gear for the Republican convention

VOX  . . . "The Republican convention might have an especially contentious atmosphere

Groups protesting the Republican Party are expected to show up, much as they have at every RNC. However, this year's inflammatory campaign rhetoric and a potentially rare contested convention could make for bigger and more violent protests than in recent years.

Already during primaries this year, violent protests have broken out at campaign stops across the country, most notably at rallies for Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

. . . "The Cleveland Police Department is currently under Justice Department oversight after a 2013 DOJ probe revealed numerous problems, including unnecessary and violent confrontations with citizens.

" 'They will be facing one of the most complex incidents that they will ever face," Jonathan Smith, a former Justice Department lawyer who supervised the investigation into Cleveland, told the Marshall Project in reference to the convention. "You would want a department that has systems that are in place where there is better accountability and better supervision."

" 'I’m really concerned all hell is going to break loose," James L. Hardiman, a vice president of the Cleveland NAACP, told the Los Angeles Times. "The big concern is injury to people, damage to property, indiscriminate arrest. The people who actually live here — what are we going to be left with at the end of the day? ' "

Democrats Get a Taste of Obama’s Arrogance

Jonah Goldberg  

. . . "Meanwhile, poor Barack Obama, while not always without fault in Milbank’s eyes, is the grown-up, the good guy trying to do good things amidst a mob of malcontents and ideologues. 
RELATED: A Third-Class Temperament 

"That is, until this month. President Obama wants to get a trade deal passed. He needs Democrats to do it. But, Milbank laments, Obama’s blowing it. 

“ 'Let’s suppose you are trying to bring a friend around to your point of view,” Milbank writes. “Would you tell her she’s emotional, illogical, outdated, and not very smart? Would you complain that he’s being dishonest, fabricating falsehoods and denying reality with his knee-jerk response?” “Such a method of a persuasion is likelier to get you a black eye than a convert,” Milbank notes. “Yet this is how President Obama treats his fellow Democrats on trade . . .”

" Yes, well, true enough. But lost on Milbank is the fact that this is precisely how Obama treats everyone who disagrees with him. When Obama — who ran for office touting his ability to work with Republicans and vowing to cure the partisan dysfunction in Washington — treated Republicans in a far ruder and shabbier way, Milbank celebrated." . . .

Why would the U.S. want to be like Denmark? Point and counterpoint

Background: 5 Simple Office Policies That Make Danish Workers Way More Happy Than Americans

. . . "I'm not trying to paint Danish companies as utopias for workers and their American counterparts as tyrannical hellholes. There are bad Danish workplaces and stellar American ones—Zappos and Google are two that I've personally visited and studied.
"But studies have uncovered a number of systemic and cultural differences between the two nations that serve to explain why Danish workers are on average so much happier than American ones." . . .

Sierra Rayne   "Writing in New York magazine, Jonathan Chait asks, "If we want to be like Denmark, whom do we tax?"

Turning into Denmark would be sheer folly for the United States, or almost any other OECD nation.

"We'll start with real per capita GDP.  It is 22% higher in the U.S., meaning that being like Denmark would involve giving up a substantial portion of the average individual national wealth.  That doesn't seem wise.

"Denmark's real per capita GDP is lower now than it was in 2004.  A decade of darkness.  Make that a decade and a half: since 2000, its real per capita GDP has increased – in total – only 2.6%.  As anemic as the American growth rate is, it is fivefold faster than Denmark's.

"Denmark has a far higher rate of assault than the U.S. (i.e., the Danes are very violent), and its violent crime rate is headed through the roof.

. . . 

"The U.S. wins by a long shot on housing, income, and health, and it's a tie on jobs – all the objectively measurable points that matter.

"And to achieve this victory, the all-in average personal income tax rates at average wage in the U.S. are upwards of half the rate the Danes are suffering under.

"Want to pay much more to be much poorer?  Move to Denmark."

On Denmark:  
Denmark considers tax on beef, other red meats to combat climate change

. . . dean of the London Business School, first raised the possibility that Denmark might be a model for the United States

Nordic Countries Do Actually Soak The Rich   . . . "The upshot of this is that, unlike the US, there isn't a sizeable reservoir of taxable income being grabbed down at tops of the wage distribution. This means that they necessarily have to "tax the middle class" more because that's where the money is. This is less true in the US. To eventually get to Nordic tax levels, you certainly have to bring in the VATs and bring in higher tax wedges in the middle-income zones. But in the short-term, you could up the US tax level quite a bit by only tapping the excess taxing capacity at the top of the wage distribution."

Sanders calls Denmark a model  . . . " The most generous tax-and-transfer systems in the world — such as in Denmark, a country Sanders has cited as a model — do not tax the rich all that much more heavily than the United States does. The main difference is that they also tax the middle class heavily, and redistribute the proceeds further down the income scale."  (Emphasis mine, TD)

U.S. Household Net Worth Hits Record High   . . . "But the rebound, while powerful, has been tilted in a way that limits the upside for the broader U.S. economy and is increasingly leaving behind many middle- and lower-income Americans."   This is after eight years of Obama's Democrat rule.

Dear Mainstream Media, Don’t You Dare Whitewash Anti-Trump Violence

National Review  "Last night, anti-Trump protesters rioted in Costa Mesa, California. Yes, rioted. That’s what you call it when “demonstrations” turn into this:

. . . "Let’s state this as plainly as possible: Nothing Trump has done justifies a violent response. Nothing. Yet the more the media whitewashes this violence and applies its typical double standard to left-wing thugs, the more the violence will escalate. Clearly the media sympathizes with these Mexican flag-waving crowds in much the same way that it sympathized with the rioters at Ferguson and Baltimore. But when you excuse political violence, you tend to get more of it. We know leftist radicals aren’t shy about taking so-called “direct action” to intimidate opponents. We also know that at least some Trump supporters are spoiling for a fight. Trump himself has been spoiling for a fight. We risk the worst political violence in a generation. Am I wrong to believe that some in the media are thrilled at the prospect — so long as the Left is leading the charge?

Clinton Was Never Intended to be the Democrat Nominee

American Thinker   "Former speaker of the House John Boehner recently spoke ill of fellow Republican Ted Cruz in a Q&A at Stanford University.  His comments likening the candidate to "Lucifer in the flesh" got all the media attention, leaving this virtually unreported:

Boehner's comments also included a reference to the ongoing FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while she was at the State Department, speculating on what might happen if the scandal widens.
"Don't be shocked … if two weeks before the convention, here comes Joe Biden parachuting in and Barack Obama fanning the flames to make it all happen," the former speaker said.

"I've been warning of this for more than a year, albeit for a different reason.

"Even someone as self-absorbed as Hillary must surely realize she has too much baggage, too many demonstrable lies, and too many viable avenues of investigation by officials who care more for country than party.  These are the anchors that will draw Secretary Clinton below the waves, dooming her bid for the presidency.

"It is my contention that this is all according to plan. " . . .

Democrat's choice for first Lady and first gentleman

Social Justice Warriors elicit a grovel-by-proxy from Hillary   "We live in an era when a carelessly chosen phrase can bring ruin. I remember as a child hearing about life in Stalin’s USSR, where people lived in fear that a casual remark would be overheard and bring with it a trip to the gulag, a firing squad, a show trial, or some other form of doom. Today’s American social justice warrior tyranny is slightly more benign. For conservatives like Curt Shilling, the penalties include loss of livelihood and ostracism.

"But if you are a progressive, you can employ a careless metaphor and get away with symbolic groveling by proxy. That’s what happened to Hillary Clinton when, in the course of an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, she unthinkingly used a verboten metaphor: “off the reservation.' ”. . . 

The UK Daily Mail offered this story on Hillary.

Judicial Watch: Benghazi Email Trail Leads to White House

"Confirmed: WH pushes video story to protect the president and his failed policies."

Legal Insurrection

"Last week, I wrote about the emails uncovered by Judicial Watch related to Hillary’s clear knowledge, the night of the Benghazi attack, that it was a terror attack unrelated to the video she publicly blamed for starting a protest.

"Emails involving the false video story lead directly to the White House and were a coordinated attempt to focus blame on the video rather than on Obama’s failed policies.

"Judicial Watch reported in 2014:

Judicial Watch announced today that on April 18, 2014, it obtained 41 new Benghazi-related State Department documents. They include a newly declassified email showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.”  Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an “attack” and a possible kidnap attempt.

The documents were released Friday as result of a June 21, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Department of State ... to gain access to documents about the controversial talking points used by then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice for a series of appearances on television Sunday news programs on September 16, 2012.  Judicial Watch had been seeking these documents since October 18, 2012.

"At the time that Susan Rice was making the Sunday talk show rounds espousing the absurd claim that a video had prompted the coordinated attack on the Benghazi compound, many people wondered why it was she, UN ambassador at the time, and not Hillary Clinton, then-Secretary of State and therefore brutally murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens’ boss.  Rice claimed that Hillary was “too tired” to make the talk show rounds." . . .

CNN Host Describes Anti-Trump Thugs Who Ravaged City Streets As “Dissatisfied Citizens”…

Weasel Zippers

"Those flying the Mexican flag don’t want to live in Mexico.

"Via BPR:

CNN isn’t even trying to hide their liberal bias these days.

Following the violent riots and anti-Donald Trump protesters throwing rocks at cars, smashing police cars, and bloodying Trump supporters, CNN’s Chris Cuomo simply labeled the crowd as “dissatisfied citizens.”

Commentator Matt Lewis called the crowd a group of “leftist agitators,” but Cuomo was quick to correct him, deeming that term too harsh for the violent rioters.

“Juana, now Matt is using the term “leftist agitator” to keep it in the political sphere, but, as we know, a lot of those people on that street were just dissatisfied citizens who were taking out their dissatisfaction the wrong way in anger and destroying a lot of property there,” Cuomo said. “But what does it speak to there in terms of the climate in which this general election will take place?”

Keep reading…

 Poll: Not A Single White House Reporter Is A Republican
"Not a single member of the White House press corps is a registered Republican, according to survey results recently published by Politico" . . .

Target boycott petition over trans bathroom access hits one million signatures

American Thinker   "A nasty surprise for Target, Inc. as a petition to boycott the store over their transgender bathroom policies has now gathered more than a million signatures.

"It's clear executives at the retailer failed to judge the strong, negative reaction against the policy. " . . .

. . . "Target won't dare backtrack now, so they appear to be trapped between transgender radicals and the bulk of ordinary Americans. Trans people may not think it a big deal that a man uses the women's room, but the majority of Americans do."  . . .

Related, showing boycotts cut both ways:

Bruce Springsteen Branded A 'Bully' For Boycotting North Carolina Over LGBT Prejudice  . . . "Walker has confessed that Springsteen's decision is 'disappointing' and refers to his boycott as a form of bullying. Because, for some reason, Walker doesn't see the bullying that could arise from the Bathroom Law being enforced. 'Bruce is known to be on the radical left and he's got every right to be so, but I consider this a bully tactic', he told the Hollywood Reporter. 'I choose to stand with our sheriffs, who support this bill, which doesn't target the LGBTQ community; it targets imposters. It's a little crazy to think sexual predators wouldn't be devious enough to pull something off if they were free to go into any bathroom they want.' " . . .

Another GREAT Question For Bruce Springsteen Following His North Carolina Boycott  . . . "Springsteen, essentially, denied service to an entire state because their government's decision conflicted with his personal beliefs. In America, he's allowed to do that. But as a number of Christian cake bakers, photographers, and florists have discovered, the same rights don't seem to apply to them when it comes to denying service to gay couples for their weddings." . . .