Vox Took a Look in the Liberal Mirror This Morning

I’m not sure why, but they ~ to their credit ~ pretty honestly reported what they saw.

The smug style in American liberalism

…The consequence was a shift in liberalism’s center of intellectual gravity. A movement once fleshed out in union halls and little magazines shifted into universities and major press, from the center of the country to its cities and elite enclaves. Minority voters remained, but bereft of the material and social capital required to dominate elite decision-making, they were largely excluded from an agenda driven by the new Democratic core: the educated, the coastal, and the professional.

It is not that these forces captured the party so much as it fell to them. When the laborer left, they remained.

…Suffice it to say, by the 1990s the better part of the working class wanted nothing to do with the word liberal. What remained of the American progressive elite was left to puzzle: What happened to our coalition?

Why did they abandon us?

What’s the matter with Kansas?

The smug style arose to answer these questions. It provided an answer so simple and so emotionally satisfying that its success was perhaps inevitable: the theory that conservatism, and particularly the kind embraced by those out there in the country, was not a political ideology at all.

The trouble is that stupid hicks don’t know what’s good for them. They’re getting conned by right-wingers and tent revivalists until they believe all the lies that’ve made them so wrong. They don’t know any better. That’s why they’re voting against their own self-interest.

To Bloomberg, Everything Is Either Climate Change Or Racism

God, they get annoying. This morning’s example is this long, highly researched, data-packed article on Amazon’s Prime Same-Day Delivery service

For residents of minority urban neighborhoods, access to Amazon.com’s vast array of products—from Dawn dish soap and Huggies diapers to Samsung flatscreen TVs—can be a godsend. Unlike whiter ZIP codes, these parts of town often lack well-stocked stores and quality supermarkets. White areas get organic grocers and designer boutiques. Black ones get minimarts and dollar stores. People in neighborhoods that retailers avoid must travel farther and sometimes pay more to obtain household necessities. “I don’t have a car, so I love to have stuff delivered,” says Tamara Rasberry, a human resources professional in Washington, D.C., who spends about $2,000 a year on Amazon Prime, the online retailer’s premium service that guarantees two-day delivery of tens of millions of items (along with digital music, e-books, streaming movies, and TV shows) for a yearly $99 membership fee. Rasberry, whose neighborhood of Congress Heights is more than 90 percent black, says shopping on Amazon lets her bypass the poor selection and high prices of nearby shops.

As Amazon has expanded rapidly to become “the everything store,” it’s offered the promise of an egalitarian shopping experience. On Amazon and other online retailers, a black customer isn’t viewed with suspicion, much less followed around by store security. Most of Amazon’s services are available to almost every address in the U.S. “We don’t know what you look like when you come into our store, which is vastly different than physical retail,” says Craig Berman, Amazon’s vice president for global communications. “We are ridiculously prideful about that. We offer every customer the same price. It doesn’t matter where you live.”

All well and good, right?

But WAIT

Yet as Amazon rolls out its upgrade to the Prime service, Prime Free Same-Day Delivery, that promise is proving harder to deliver on. The ambitious goal of Prime Free Same-Day is to eliminate one of the last advantages local retailers have over the e-commerce giant: instant gratification. In cities where the service is available, Amazon offers Prime members same-day delivery of more than a million products for no extra fee on orders over $35. Eleven months after it started, the service includes 27 metropolitan areas. In most of them, it provides broad coverage within the city limits. Take Amazon’s home town of Seattle, where every ZIP code within the city limits is eligible for same-day delivery and coverage extends well into the surrounding suburbs.

In six major same-day delivery cities, however, the service area excludes predominantly black ZIP codes to varying degrees, according to a Bloomberg analysis that compared Amazon same-day delivery areas with U.S. Census Bureau data.

In Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, cities still struggling to overcome generations of racial segregation and economic inequality, black citizens are about half as likely to live in neighborhoods with access to Amazon same-day delivery as white residents.

The disparity in two other big cities is significant, too. In New York City, same-day delivery is available throughout Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn, but not in the Bronx and some majority-black neighborhoods in Queens. In some cities, Amazon same-day delivery extends many miles into the surrounding suburbs but isn’t available in some ZIP codes within the city limits.

Bloomberg then goes on and on with this implication that there is some nefarious plot afoot to specifically deny black Prime members the delivery service, this “right” they are yet again having stolen from them.

Because, you see, if you specifically go out of your way to not make decisions based on racial data you are, naturally, a racist:

Amazon, he says, has a “radical sensitivity” to any suggestion that neighborhoods are being singled out by race. “Demographics play no role in it. Zero.”

Amazon says its plan is to focus its same-day service on ZIP codes where there’s a high concentration of Prime members, and then expand the offering to fill in the gaps over time. “If you ever look at a map of service for Amazon, it will start out small and end up getting big,” he says.

This is a logical approach from a cost and efficiency perspective: Give areas with the most existing paying members priority access to a new product. Yet in cities where most of those paying members are concentrated in predominantly white parts of town, a solely data-driven calculation that looks at numbers instead of people can reinforce long-entrenched inequality in access to retail services. For people who live in black neighborhoods not served by Amazon, the fact that it’s not deliberate doesn’t make much practical difference. “They are offering different services to other people who don’t look like you but live in the same city,” says Rasberry.

No, they are not, because THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE. Sorry; in fact, they don’t even CARE what you look like.

And that is their unpardonable sin.

This Explains How the AP

…got so good at what they do.

Revealed: how Associated Press cooperated with the Nazis

Exclusive: German historian shows how news agency retained access in 1930s by promising not to undermine strength of Hitler regime

The Associated Press news agency entered a formal cooperation with the Hitler regime in the 1930s, supplying American newspapers with material directly produced and selected by the Nazi propaganda ministry, archive material unearthed by a German historian has revealed.

When the Nazi party seized power in Germany in 1933, one of its first objectives was to bring into line not just the national press, but international media too. The Guardian was banned within a year, and by 1935 even bigger British-American agencies such as Keystone and Wide World Photos were forced to close their bureaus after coming under attack for employing Jewish journalists.

Associated Press, which has described itself as the “marine corps of journalism” (“always the first in and the last out”) was the only western news agency able to stay open in Hitler’s Germany, continuing to operate until the US entered the war in 1941. It thus found itself in the presumably profitable situation of being the prime channel for news reports and pictures out of the totalitarian state.

The “marine corps” of journalism, HAH! Amazing how every scumbag operation on Earth tries to co-opt the best to cover itself.

Who Needs The Anarchist’s Cookbook

…when you have the NYT giving you pointers on how to make explosives

Making TATP typically requires meticulous, time-consuming work, adding the catalyst, drop by drop, to a mixture that must be stirred and kept cool, often with a large quantity of ice.

Without specialized equipment, little can be rushed. Adding the catalyst too quickly can lead to aggressive bubbling and rising temperatures. If the reaction gets too hot, it can cause inadvertent explosions.

Even after TATP precursors are acquired, its manufacture can attract attention, because some of the chemicals often involved can generate strong odors.

Drying TATP at room temperature, a last step after rinsing and filtering, also requires a fairly large area, another American official said, unless a vacuum drying chamber is involved. At that point, the TATP would be stored in a relatively airtight container, but if pure, it could not be stored long. After a few weeks, it would be much less powerful.

The intelligence on the explosives suggested that the attack could have been more lethal, the first official said, because two improvised explosive devices constructed with TATP, ammonium nitrate, and a mix of metal bolts and nails were found in suitcases, undetonated, at the airport. A suicide belt was also recovered at the airport, and two more suitcases with bombs were later confiscated during a sweep of a residence used by the suspects.

…The officials noted that in the Paris attacks, TATP had been used as a main charge — packed into smaller, plate-like bundles that were sealed with tape and inserted in suicide vests. The tape was apparently intended to limit the explosive’s exposure to oxygen and slow its decay.

Now class, any questions?

Houston, THIS…

…is the problem.

Brussels airport hit by 2 explosions during morning rush, cause not immediately clear: https://t.co/68AqfqKCpi pic.twitter.com/gEDN2xu5Vx

— CBC News (@CBCNews) March 22, 2016

Never was he so blind as he who WOULD NOT SEE.

This Is Exactly Right

Read it here.

So All You Snow Storm Area Type People

Be careful out there. Enjoy a cozy weekend home and know that your public officials have every possible scenario well in hand.

Half the fun is sitting back and watching the Weather Channel folks make up asinine storm names and implode over an unexpected dose of “winter” during…winter.

Well I’m So Glad They Cleared THAT Up

Don’t call us “barbarians” dammit; we have rules for how we “treat” our sexual slaves!

Islamic State theologians have issued an extremely detailed ruling on when “owners” of women enslaved by the extremist group can have sex with them, in an apparent bid to curb what they called violations in the treatment of captured females.

The ruling or fatwa has the force of law and appears to go beyond the Islamic State’s previous known utterances on the subject, a leading Islamic State scholar said. It sheds new light on how the group is trying to reinterpret centuries-old teachings to justify the sexual slavery of women in the swaths of Syria and Iraq it controls.

The fatwa was among a huge trove of documents captured by U.S. Special Operations Forces during a raid targeting a top Islamic State official in Syria in May. Reuters has reviewed some of the documents, which have not been previously published.

Among the religious rulings are bans on a father and son having sex with the same female slave; and the owner of a mother and daughter having sex with both. Joint owners of a female captive are similarly enjoined from intercourse because she is viewed as “part of a joint ownership.”

And the article ends with this particular piece of odious propaganda:

“Islam preaches freedom to slaves, not slavery. Slavery was the status quo when Islam came around,” he said. “Judaism, Christianity, Greek, Roman, and Persian civilizations all practiced it and took the females of their enemies as sex slaves. So Islam found this abhorrent practice and worked to gradually remove it.”

Slavery has existed as long as humans have, and it was 19th century Jews and Christians who worked to stamp it out in the West; in Islamic Eastern Africa and the Middle East it continues to this day.

I Know I’m Shocked

Would you believe that Cory Booker, who arguably didn’t even live in the city he was nominally Mayor of while he was gallivanting around the country prior to his anointment as Senator, would you believe that there was rampant corruption on his watch?

NEWARK – Newark officials said they were dismayed by the former head of the Newark Watershed Conservation Development Corporation’s guilty plea on corruption-related charges earlier this week – an outcome many felt could have been prevented.

Linda Watkins-Brashear, who presided over the non-profit agency until 2013 – just one year before it was dissolved amid widespread allegations of corruption and mismanagement – is facing up to 23 years in prison and $350,000 in fines for conspiracy and filing a false tax return.

She is the second person to plead guilty to charges related to the scandal, though many in the state’s largest city consider it a reflection of an agency run amok thanks to the wandering eye of now-U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who was mayor over the entirety of Watkins’ tenure.

What’s so special about her tenure in Newark, you ask?

Other than that she got caught?

While Newark was laying off police officers and begging for state bailouts, one of its most important contractors was siphoning off millions of city dollars in illegal payments, sweetheart deals, and risky stock ventures right under the noses of city leaders, according to a report released today by the state comptroller’s office.

Until a judge appointed trustees to dissolve the agency last year, the Newark Watershed Conservation Development Corporation managed the city’s 35,000 acres of reservoirs and treated water for more than 500,000 customers in northern New Jersey.

Between 2008 and 2011, the state comptroller alleges that agency leaders and insiders absconded with millions of public dollars.

“This report documents an egregious and yet preventable abuse of public funds that was allowed to continue unfettered for years because of poor oversight,” said comptroller chief of staff Melissa Liebermann in a statement issued today with the 45-page report.

Acting State Comptroller Marc Larkins was recused from the matter. Much of the inquiry was headed by his predecessor, Matthew Boxer.

Linda Watkins-Brashear, the agency’s director and a political ally of former Newark mayor, now Sen. Cory Booker, wrote unreported checks to herself to the tune of $200,000, was awarded $700,000 in two severance packages, gave more than $1 million in contracts to her friends and ex-husband, and lost $500,000 in dubious stock ventures, the report states.

…Through her attorneys, Watkins-Brashear said the report wrongly laid blame at her feet and said she acted at all times with the knowledge and approval of then Mayor Cory Booker’s administration.

Yes, Booker’s a perfect fit for Washington.

And isn’t it funny how the Media ignores this.

Bill Hemmer

TRUTH BOMB.

I Mean, Imagine THAT!

Not ONLY does Huma (an impeccable source, mind you) assert Hillary is “OFTEN CONFUSED” (?!?!?!?), but that she TAKES NAPS.

I don’t know which alarms me more. I remember that nap-taking was an issue when Reagan ran. Should we not also question Herself, then?

I wonder if she asked Huma if she had a blue dress…

This Is As Gentle A Brutal Thrashing As You Will Ever See

Via HotAir, Neil Cavuto calmly, politely introduces a sincere young lady to Math, and, well, it’s painful

I do strongly disagree with whoever it was posted this on Youtube, though. He doesn’t “embarrass” her; he just shows her that her fantasy world is just that.

This Is Scary Because It Is True

We are doomed.

(via Tim)

Note to Self: Religion…

…HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

Campus stabber’s manifesto included ‘praise for Allah,’ plan for beheading

A handwritten manifesto carried by a California college student whose stabbing spree Wednesday left four wounded bore names of his targets, a vow “to cut someone’s head off” and as many as five reminders to “praise Allah,” law enforcement authorities told FoxNews.com, while insisting that neither terrorism nor religion appear to be motives in the attack.

Unlike Confederate flags and Sarah Palin, which have EVERYTHING to do with EVERYTHING.

Taken to School

When you suck so bad that even your own Lefty media is going after you, perhaps you need to reassess your modus operandi.

Or at least check your ‘tude at the door?

The WaPo has a GOP’s Greatest Hits List from last night that pretty hilarious ~ or painful, depending on what side you’re on.

California Dreamin’

The Los Angeles Times (!) eviscerates Governor Moonbeam’s bullet train fantasy

The monumental task of building California’s bullet train will require punching 36 miles of tunnels through the geologically complex mountains north of Los Angeles.

Crews will have to cross the tectonic boundary that separates the North American and Pacific plates, boring through a jumble of fractured rock formations and a maze of earthquake faults, some of which are not mapped.

It will be the most ambitious tunneling project in the nation’s history.

State officials say the tunnels will be finished by 2022 — along with 300 miles of track, dozens of bridges or viaducts, high-voltage electrical systems, a maintenance plant and as many as six stations. Doing so will meet a commitment to begin carrying passengers between Burbank and Merced in the first phase of the $68-billion high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

However, a Times analysis of project documents, as well as interviews with scientists, engineers and construction experts, indicates that the deadline and budget targets will almost certainly be missed — and that the state has underestimated the challenges ahead, particularly completing the tunneling on time.

“It doesn’t strike me as realistic,” said James Monsees, one of the world’s top tunneling experts and an author of the federal manual on highway tunneling. “Faults are notorious for causing trouble.”

The California High-Speed Rail Authority hasn’t yet chosen an exact route through the mountains. It also is behind schedule on land acquisition, financing and permit approvals, among other crucial tasks, and is facing multiple lawsuits. The first construction began in Fresno in July, 21/2 years behind the target the rail authority had set in early 2012.

A confidential 2013 report by the state’s main project management contractor, New York-based Parsons Brinckerhoff, estimated that the cost of building the first phase from Burbank to Merced had risen 31% to $40 billion. And it projected that the cost of the entire project would rise at least 5%.

Parsons Brinckerhoff briefed state officials on the estimate in October 2013, according to the document obtained by The Times. But the state used a lower cost estimate when it issued its 2014 business plan four months later.

Read the whole thing, please. It is pretty damn, er, damning.

I especially liked this part, which really sums up so much that is wrong with our government these days from on all levels, from local up to federal:

The rail authority still has not identified sources for about $53 billion to complete the entire Los Angeles-to-San Francisco line.

State officials are moving ahead without firm financial commitments, contending that private investors will eventually help finance the system. This month, three dozen companies solicited by the state said they are not ready to invest.

They don’t have the money, they don’t have a realistic plan to get the money, but they are going to go ahead and put you into crushing debt anyway because, well, they can.

Let’s hope that this article ignites a rebellion against this ridiculous project, and others like it from top to bottom.

No Heretics Allowed

Thou Shalt Not Think On Thine Own

Every night, France’s chief weatherman has told the nation how much wind, sun or rain they can expect the following day.
Now Philippe Verdier, a household name for his nightly forecasts on France 2, has been taken off air after a more controversial announcement – criticising the world’s top climate change experts.
Mr Verdier claims in the book Climat Investigation (Climate Investigation) that leading climatologists and political leaders have “taken the world hostage” with misleading data.
In a promotional video, Mr Verdier said: “Every night I address five million French people to talk to you about the wind, the clouds and the sun. And yet there is something important, very important that I haven’t been able to tell you, because it’s neither the time nor the place to do so.”
He added: “We are hostage to a planetary scandal over climate change – a war machine whose aim is to keep us in fear.”
His outspoken views led France 2 to take him off the air starting this Monday. “I received a letter telling me not to come. I’m in shock,” he told RTL radio. “This is a direct extension of what I say in my book, namely that any contrary views must be eliminated.”

It is all about control.

AP Editorializing Their Headlines Much?

Or is it just me?

The latest on the Oregon college shooting: Sheriff overseeing investigation vocal opponent of gun control bills: http://t.co/Q2fFuhBwOj

— The Associated Press (@AP) October 1, 2015

“I Get Blamed for EVERYTHING!” the Helpless Victim Wailed

…as she gnashed her teeth in anguish at the unfairness of it all.

Here are Clinton's full comments to @donlemon on whether she/her campaign started the Obama birther claims in 07/08. pic.twitter.com/9FqZCEauk8

— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) September 23, 2015

Yep, Pretty Much Nails It

Via Insty:

Can’t Imagine Where He Got the Idea It Was Alright to Do So

Fellow who shot and killed that poor Kentucky State trooper was a Ferguson protestor.

‘Magine that.

Shocked…NOT

Disgusted, yes.

On the 14th anniversary of the attacks, the NYT fails to mention a single word about 9/11 on page 1. #NeverForget pic.twitter.com/fE7y29h7JH

— Jan Crawford (@JanCBS) September 11, 2015

I’m sure it’s tied into the Iran Deal they want so desperately to go through. No sense in reminding people what Islamic terrorists are capable of when we’re getting ready to fund them.

When Opposing the Dictates of Our Imperial Overlord

…it helps when your minions track the Jews for you, because, as everyone knows, ONLY JEWS think the Iran deal is an ASS LOAD of bad idea.

NYT keeping tabs of all those Jews and their Jew-y votes. Never know what Jewery they're up to http://t.co/Fpk8fjaX6v pic.twitter.com/oVhMic2Npu

— Political Math (@politicalmath) September 10, 2015

Here’s Where the Classy, Dispassionate “Journalist” Gets It ALL Wrong

‘Cause it AIN’T just Bibi…

Take that, Bibi. https://t.co/V9Gn9vP6xN

— gwen ifill (@gwenifill) September 2, 2015

Thanks to her feckless, pandering hero, we’re ALL gonna take it…in the shorts.

I LOVED the Debate

And this weekend has been a hoot, sitting back, eating popcorn and watching the circus.

In all honesty, I do have a horse in the race I’m already working for, but, that aside, I canNOT imagine a better evening for almost ALL of the GOP candidates, from the breakout girl on the undercard, to the stage full of fellas at the main event. With one notable exception, they were well spoken, informed, intelligent, empathetic, committed, personable, FUNNY and determined. Not to mention, the VERY PICTURE of diversity.

Then there’s Hillary and Bernie as front runners. Fires you right up, doesn’t it?

What a GREAT start to the Silly Season. I can’t WAIT.