Thursday, December 31, 2015

Original Air Date: Dec 30, 1948

In Memoriam: Remembering the MSNBC Shows We Lost This Year

From Facebook to an Identity Crisis - the Favorite Stories of 2015

Rick Tyler on the Situation Room #CruzCrew #Cruz2016

2015: The year of self-criticism for leftist speech codes?

By ROTW Guest Contributor: Mary Grabar

**This blog post was originally published December 23, 2015 at FrontPage Mag **

In 2015, leftists in the media and academia began criticizing the leftist mobs seeking to shut them down. Kirsten Powers, the left-of-center commentator at Fox News, came out with a book titled, The Silencing: How the Left Is Killing Free Speech.

Northwestern University film professor Laura Kipnis, after being slapped with a Title IX lawsuit for her essay “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe,” made it to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “2015 Influence List.” The 1972 law was intended to protect against sexual discrimination and misconduct. Kipnis’s crime was to criticize new consensual-relations codes governing professor-student dating. For opining that the codes infantilized students and increased the power of administrators, she was accused of creating a hostile environment and was greeted by mattress-carrying protesters (following Columbia art student, Emma Sulkowicz who claimed an ex-boyfriend raped her).

After the kangaroo court proceedings, Kipnis wrote “My Title IX Inquisition” for the Chronicle, expressing surprise that students would protest someone like herself, a feminist who hadn’t sexually assaulted anyone. Kipnis had assumed that “academic freedom would prevail.”

“The whole thing seemed symbolically incoherent,” she mused, claiming that most of her academic colleagues, including “feminists, progressives, minorities, and those who identify as gay or queer,” live “in fear of some classroom incident spiraling into professional disaster.”

This rang true. A piece in Vox titled “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Students Terrify Me” by an anonymous professor had gone viral.

Kipnis noted, “It’s astounding how aggressive students’ assertions of vulnerability have gotten in the past few years. Emotional discomfort is regarded as equivalent to material injury, and all injuries have to be remediated.”

Todd Gitlin, proud veteran leader of the 1960s “youth movement,” also criticized the youth, after some students at Columbia had proposed that syllabi contain “trigger warnings.” He told them “You Are Here to Be Disturbed.” By “here” he meant the college classroom, a place where many veterans of the 1960s campus takeovers found themselves comfortably ensconced with tenure. Gitlin himself is at Columbia. In character with those of his generation, he referred back to the “changes for good” they had instituted, including recognizing that speech acts can lead to a hostile environment and accordingly changing word usage, for example, replacing “girl” with “woman,” and “Negro” with “African-American.” But, Gitlin warned, that does not justify “censorious policy.”

Kirsten Powers, who was born at the height of the “youth movement,” in 1969, believes the grizzled veterans, and writes,

“While watching the illiberal left in action, it’s easy to forget that it was the political left that championed free speech in America. During the Vietnam War era, the targeting of left-wing anti-war activists at the University of California-Berkeley for their dissent launched what came to be known as ‘The Free Speech Movement.’”

Powers takes the self-defined “free speech movement” at Berkeley as true to its name, perpetuating myths promulgated in school lessons and in the media—by veterans of the movement, Todd Gitlin, being one of the most influential. What we are seeing today as we close out 2015 with the forced or attempted ouster of insufficiently politically correct faculty and administrators, is a continuation of the policies of the 1960s New Left.

“Silencing” is in the DNA of the New Left and its progeny, today’s student protesters.

Mario Savio, the Berkeley student credited with beginning the free speech movement, admitted that the issue of “free speech” was a “pretext” to “arouse the students against the existing role of the university.” That existing role is the search for truth through reasoned debate and evidence, and the appreciation for higher and beautiful things.

The acquiescence to Savio’s demands to use university space for political mobilizing led to waves of student protests. But “debates” were conducted through bullhorns. Negotiations were conducted by commandeering buildings and taking hostages. Scientific labs and scholarly papers were destroyed. People were hurt, sometimes killed.

The goal was to subvert the academy, and its methods, and make it into an adjunct for activism. Todd Gitlin easily segued from leader of the largest student activist group, SDS, to teaching a self-glorifying history of the SDS. History professor Howard Zinn did the same. Today, City University history professor Angus Johnston describes himself as both a “historian and advocate of American student organizing.”

In his recent article in the Chronicle, “Student Protests, Then and Now,” Johnston attributes the resurgence of student protest to racial discrimination, sexual assault and harassment, and rising tuition and debt. He and the student protestors, however, give little empirical evidence of discrimination or harassment. He states,

“The origins of today’s student complaints are deep and in many cases intractable, and the more accustomed activists become to protesting, the more readily they will mobilize in response to new provocation.”

Indeed. It is a wonder that left-wing professors should complain now that their intellectual progeny have turned the p.c. microscope on them, and increasing its magnification.

The tenured leftists ignored or disparaged warnings of those like New York University Philosophy Professor Sidney Hook, who wrote in 1968,

“If the university is conceived as an agency of action to transform society in behalf of a cause, no matter how exalted, it loses its relative autonomy, imperils both its independence and objectivity, and subjects itself to retaliatory curbs and controls on the part of society on whose support and largesse it ultimately depends.”

Hook, in that same article, stated a truth that few dare utter today: “it is preposterous for callow and immature adolescents who presumably have come to the university to get an education to set themselves up as authorities on what research by their teachers is educationally permissible.” Yet, many of the 1960s student protestors retain their youthful arrogance into old age.

One of these is Mark Rudd, leader of the Columbia takeover in 1968, co-founder of the terroristic SDS offshoot group Weatherman, and retired math professor. Writing in his 2009 memoir, Underground: My Life in SDS and the Weathermen, the then 61-year-old Rudd sees nothing wrong with his actions as an undergraduate student who refused to listen to professors who were refugees from Nazi Germany. They pled for free speech as students planned to block CIA recruiters on campus. Believing in the “’neutral’ and ‘objective’ character of the university,” the refugees “identified SDS’s antiwar activities with the actions of Nazi students at German universities in the thirties.”

Rudd recounts, “This was a frightening image, even to us in SDS. ‘What if every small group had the power to silence whomever they wanted—such as you?’ asked the old liberals. ‘Isn’t there an absolute right to free speech?’”

Rudd, however, aligns CIA recruiters with the Nazi SS, citing the Nuremberg Trials that “established that it is the legal and moral responsibility of the individual not to comply with orders that constitute war crimes.” Blazing forward with the false analogy, Rudd bars further discussion. The intervening decades have brought him no enlightenment or humility.

Like many of his generation, Rudd spent his career proselytizing to the young, captive audiences in his classroom. He brags about it in his memoir. His website features photos of his 1968 mug shot and the Columbia takeover, and description of his work organizing student activists for environmental justice, unionization, and Palestinian rights, and against “war and militarization.”

The eight-day occupation of Columbia University was repeated metaphorically in faculty votes in the ensuing decades. As dissenting professors like Sidney Hook retired they were replaced by hires who put up barricades to traditionalists. They even held workshops on how to get past the old “mossbacks” on hiring committees. I experienced this as a graduate student at the University of Georgia in the 1990s. The Chronicle of Higher Education gave space in the 1980s and 1990s to “Ms. Mentor” for a column in which she advised aspiring feminist academics on how to get through the academic gates with subterfuge that ranged from altering modes of dress to scholarly papers. As a result, the humanities have been transformed. History specialization that focuses on the environment, gender, and sexuality predominates. My field, English, is now an auxiliary for gender and ethnic studies.

Ironically, on the Chronicle’s “influential list,” next to Kipnis, are such notables as “Trigger-Warning Catalyst” Bailey Loverin, “Sexism Fighter: Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett,” and “Silence Breaker: Concerned Student 1950.” The last is a group that used megaphones to make “demands” at the University of Missouri, which spurred a nationwide rash of similar “demands,” so far at 73 campuses. They forced out the president. The clenched fist is their symbol.

I must admit to feeling a bit of schadenfreude as I read about leftist professors and administrators being in fear of their students. As a traditionalist and an adjunct professor, I lived in fear too—of department chairs and administrators. These fears proved real, when I was told no classes were available for me, after my dissenting views became known to higher-ups.

In contrast, Kipnis, rather than losing her job, received kudos from fellow liberals. Conservative outlets came to her defense. It was a conservative publishing house, Regnery, that published Kirsten Powers’ book.

But without fundamental changes, we can expect to see more inquisitions. Another inquisition is underway against Harvard University professors for daring to question the accuracy of a documentary about rape on campus. But I wonder: Will liberal academics defend the free speech of conservatives and allow them on campuses?

Or will the mobs of “callow and immature students” finally shut down the little fiefdoms that leftist academics have carved out for themselves? I would not be sad about that.

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Go to College

ROTW Guest Contributor: Mary Grabar

Students ain’t easy to love and they’re harder to mold
They’d rather give you a song than high grades or gold
Cry-baby babbles and old faded slogans
And a complaint begin a new day
If you don’t understand him, you’re racist
And you should just go away.

Mamas, don't let your babies go to college
Don’t let ‘em take classes and spend them big bucks
Make em be plumbers and welders and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies go to college
Cause they’ll never stay sane; they’re always deranged
Even with someone they love

Students like sparkly new dorm rooms and clear trigger warnings
Nice shiny trophies and victims and talks late in the night
Them that don’t know them will hate them and them that do
Sometimes won’t know how take them
No one’s wrong, they’re just different but their pride won’t let them
Do things to make you think they’re bright.

The droning will drone on

by Mouser The King Cat

Few know that tracking terrorists or (possibly) innocent victims in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan has become the equivalent of a video game. Four former Air Force drone operators have sent an open letter to President Barack Obama and are giving interviews to promote a movie documentary about the subject.

Michael Haas, a former senior airman, told The Guardian of London about teams of three staring at computer screens an air base outside Las Vegas, tracking insurgents and sometimes killing them remotely. According to Airman Haas:

“Ever step on ants and never give it another thought? … You start to do these psychological gymnastics to make it easier to do what you have to do – they deserved it, they chose their side. You had to kill part of your conscience to keep doing your job every day – and ignore those voices telling you this wasn’t right.”

(Disclosure: My personal assistants had an exterminator spray for ants, which makes them international war criminals, I suppose.)

Airman Haas told of operators coping with drone duty by drinking and using drugs, as well as using un-PC terms like “cutting the grass before it grows out of control” and “pulling the weeds before they overrun the lawn.” Children were referred to as “fun-sized terrorists.”

The drone operators also rehashed the familiar arguments that U.S. foreign policy is killing a handful of terrorists along the way while creating many more in the long run.

What’s the answer? My nomination can be found at ClicheSite.com: You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Hillary, like a dog with a bone, won't let go of the gun control issue.

By Rob Janicki

Not surprisingly, if elected president, Hillary has stated she will continue to push for even more stringent gun controls at the federal level. Apparently Hillary has forgotten about the assault weapons ban imposed by her husband that went nowhere in reducing assault weapons crimes, which were never high to begin with. Lest we forget, the assault weapons ban had a sunset clause in it that eventually led to its termination with no discernible rise in assault weapons crime across America, which have historically been low by any standard.

Considering that a majority of Americans support an individual's right to own a firearm, Hillary's making gun control an election issue is a bit old school to say the least. Frankly, I wouldn't care if she used it as the centerpiece of her presidential campaign. The more Hillary talks about gun control the less time she has to push other potentially more rewarding issues, whatever those might be.

Pushing for gun control has clearly been demonstrated to be a failed political issue even in light of the several multiple terrorist shootings that have occurred across America in 2015. Of course these highly pubic events are always used by liberals to push for increased gun control. Such public massacres are like a fresh soup bone to a starving dog and liberals jump at every chance to twist the facts and use the individual tragedies for political purposes.

Now I don't mean to diminish the lives of those who have been murdered by terrorists, but, considering that the United States has a population of 322 million people, those deaths represent an infinitesimally small number of terrorist deaths caused by guns, let alone that the facts indicate that the guns used in these crimes were virtually all obtained legally in jurisdictions with relatively tough gun controls already in place. If those deaths couldn't be stopped with the tough guns laws in place, then how can spreading these tough laws stop those who are determined to use guns in an illegal manner. The answer is that they can't and won't.

Also considering that an estimated 300 million guns are already possessed by Americans, any further restrictions on gun acquisition and ownership will only impinge upon the rights of law abiding gun owners, or those wishing to acquire a firearm for self defense or the defense of their family, and make gun acquisition infinitely more difficult, while doing nothing to stop the already unlawful gun trade among criminals as they use the black market to sell their ill gotten guns through crimes of burglary and such.

The political paradox that Hillary and liberals, in general, have to overcome is that those states with the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, also have the highest rate of gun related crimes, which makes further restrictive gun laws counter intuitive to anyone with an ounce of brains.

Despite all the polling to the contrary on increased gun controls, liberals, Hillary included, have not given up on that issue by any means. On December 29th, while at a campaign meeting, Hillary resuscitated the issue of gun control, yet again, while enunciating seven laws she would push to see enacted. These proposed laws can be found here with excellent analysis by AWR Hawkins of Breitbart.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

It's Drink O'Clock: Whenever You See Me (Live)

Three brothers graduate from police academy on same day

Rev. Franklin Graham: Why I'm leaving the GOP

G'morning, fellow miscreants and malcontents

Free Beacon: The Worst of MSNBC in 2015

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

RadioActivity: Mysterious Traveler - "New Years Nightmare"

Original Air Date: Jan 5, 1947

NYC Will Give You $250,000 Fine For Calling Transgender Dude A Man

The Best Live TV Pass Out Moments

“No more slaps and shoves from you.”

ROTW Contributor: Angela Durden

From a memoir, such as mine –Twinkle – to movies — such as The Burning Bed – to documentaries on domestic violence such as this one or to my music video with my original song called They Say Home is Where the Heart Is, it is clear domestic violence is a worldwide problem. There’s just some folks that will beat on other folks. Mankind’s history proves there is no final cure. This is not a popular notion.

Liberal do-gooders’ hearts may be in the right place when they scream about more laws but, at least in most first-world countries, there are plenty of laws against it. One cannot legislate a change to human nature. However one can stand up against each instance of it when one is in it or sees it by reporting it or leaving or supplying emotional support. Yet, even the management of it is complicated because human nature is what it is and every situation is different.

There are those who march in the streets as they rail against domestic abuse while saying all men believe in violence against women. They mistakenly believe that all instances of domestic violence can be stopped by other men and the fact that it continues is proof, they say, of all men’s complicit approval. They are wrong.

On the other hand, we do know there are whole societies (think China and India) and religious factions (think some Muslim and Christian) and talented, famous people that use economic, societal, and brainwashing pressures to get their jollies by abusing, beating, raping, and torturing others. China and India are making brand new laws and changing shitty ones, and Muslims are speaking out, because the good people in these groups finally said “Enough of this crap.” At least abusers aren’t protected in these places anymore by claiming there is no law.

The workers remain nervous

by Mouser The King Cat

The media blather is that the unemployment rate is down, way down, down so far some consider it full employment, all praise President Obama. Why, there’s even been some wage growth, the chattering classes say.

Then why is everybody walking on eggshells at work? Deloitte’s latest Workplace Pulse survey, reported by John Kopp of the Philly Voice, found that 33% of American workers don’t feel comfortable taking time off to handle personal matters, or even taking vacation days.

The internals are even more alarming. The survey of more than 1,000 workers found that 32% put work ahead of family. In a stunner, only 48% felt their employer values their life outside work.

Translation: More than half of workers view themselves as a cog in a machine, easily replaced, perhaps by somebody at a lower salary.

Employers point to perks like flextime options and wellness programs, but they’re missing the point, according to Deloitte’s Mike Preston.

“Our survey shows businesses can do more to create a culture of well-being, which goes beyond offering generous programs and focuses on everyday behaviors,” Mr. Preston said in a statement.

There’s more: Only 16% of respondents consider their company’s CEO “very transparent on a professional level.” Transparency on a personal level? That came in at 10%. Mr. Preston says the survey should “serve as a wake-up call” to top executives.

This orange cat thinks said executives will continue to dispense happy talk before going behind closed doors to sharpen their axes. Workplaces aren’t moving into the future; they’re regressing to the sweatshops of the Gilded Age.

The only carpet Bill Clinton will not lay.

The Funniest TV Game Show Fails Of All Time

Mark Lowry - Home Depot/Dealing With An Atheist

The Washington Free Beacon's 2015 Year in Review

Monday, December 28, 2015

Sid Vicious - My Way

Delusions of Bergdahl: "I'm Jason Bourne"

By Elizabeth Nelson

Some of us already understand, you can run from Karma, you can even try to hide, but you'll just be sweaty and exhausted when she bites you in the arse. Take Bergdahl for example. He willingly ran from his post. Where did he go, straight into the arms of his first

love, the Taliban who allegedly treated him like a battered wife, before letting him play soccer with the boys and then with their guns. All the while, six real soldiers died trying to find him. Now he's finally in the Court-Martial Process, with his next hearing of Misconduct and Desertion set for January 12th.

Well, Bowe Bergdahl was officially charged with Misconduct and Desertion weeks ago and it's taken this long to bring him before a " general court-martial." He entered the room, last week, and deferred to enter a plea before the "special court-martial," something they haven't done since WWI.

Now they are here to discuss his conduct before, his "shame and wanting to renounce his American citizenship" before he deserted his post and the Jihad he declared during his captivity, while he "openly declared his hate for all Americans", "torturously" played Soccer with them and freely shot and carried their Taliban guns. As well as the mitigating circumstances behind the six men who died looking for Bergdahl. All of these facts getting to the White House before his terrorist swap for Bergdahl the Taliban deserter.

I'm laughing at the reason Bergdahl's attorney wants to postpone the hearing until January 12th. He's blaming the "chance of fair trial" and the desertion and misconduct charge on everyone but his client.

"...following remarks by Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, that Fidell says threatens Bergdahl's chance for a fair trial and also reveals the Senate Armed Services Committee has been conducting "longstanding oversight" of the case."

My all-time favorite deflection, it's societies fault that Bergdahl is here is - we'll just blame it on Trump:

Real estate mogul and celebrity billionaire Donald Trump, the front-runner in the race to become the Republican Party's nominee for President in 2016, called Bergdahl a "dirty, rotten traitor" during a campaign stop in Massachusetts in November.

"What do we do with Sergeant Bergdahl, 50 years ago?" Trump asked the crowd, and then put up one hand like a pistol. "That's right. "Boom! Boom! ... He's gone!" Read more at: Military.com

Now that Bergdahl has been charged and brought before the court-martial, the next step will be for them to go over the information we already know, the guilty plea will surely follow and they will pass judgment. He could spend up to the remainder of this maggot traitorous life in Leavenworth.

None of the blaming and lack of accountability should come as a surprise to any of us. Remember that not only did the worst of the worst, the High Risk Senior Taliban Dream Team, get traded for this Botfly maggot infested ball sack, but this drama gets even better. This delusional, vomitous mass, Bergdhal believed he was in a Hollywood movie and he was Jason Bourne, "doing what I did is me saying that I am like, I don’t know, Jason Bourne." I guess, shining through a liberal light, that's more believable than Obama and his Administration shoving Hollywood approved scripts of Bergdahl as the "hero" and Bergdahl "served with honor and distinction", down our throat, but Bergdahl as Jason Bourne? Jason Bourne, I think not ... maybe Lt. John Dunbar

Of course, Obama made "no apologies" for negotiating with Muslim terrorists.

Yet, Mr. Obama, what did you do to get our men home from Benghazi, or maybe there was a reason you refused to save them? Or how long did Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi have stay in a Mexican prison and what about Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini and other Americans who are still rotting in an Iranian prison? You leave plenty of good men and Soldiers behind, but not Muslim traitors to our Country. Fret not, Karma is about to catch up with him and Leavenworth will seal his fate

Artists Should Not Commit Career Suicide

ROTW Contributor: Angela Durden

Singer/songwriters and artists have a greater chance of winning the biggest lotto of all time by being the best at jumping rope than they do with placing their music and songs with digital distributors. Why?

Because once you sign those contracts and upload your music, you lose control of your songs in ways too many to list here because it would be ridiculous. Suffice it to say, I’ve read these contracts and I know for a certainty: When you upload that music and you accept those terms of service, you can say goodbye to whatever money you ever hoped to make with that music.

If you want to learn how not to kill your career . . .

Step #1 - read Navigating the New Music Business as a DIY and Indie: Coming Clean with the Down and Dirty

Step #2 – use the site: My Digital Catalog

Step #3 – get in touch with folks who can help artists chart effectively, like IndieHitmaker

Harlem Globetrotter George 'Meadowlark' Lemon dies at 83

What has happened to conservatives in America?

By Rob Janicki

When did conservatives sell out their principles for the promises of a post constitutional presidential candidate that would do exactly what our post constitutional president has been doing for seven years, i.e. acting through the usurpation of law by issuing Executive Orders that are obviously unconstitutional?

I find it difficult to follow the thinking of those who support a coarse and crude individual and his post constitutional presidential candidacy as he seeks to follow in the footsteps of a post constitutional president who has already made a mockery of the rule of law? How does a conservative raise his political principles by sinking to the level of liberals? Some say conservatives must fight fire with fire. To these people, I say you need to rethink that idea, because you become just as unethical and immoral as those liberals you castigate.

I further find it incomprehensible, if not completely unbelievable, when supporters of Donald Trump call him a patriot and accord him other such similar laurels associated with what was once called constitutional conservatism.

Trump has told these same self proclaimed patriots of what he would do as president, even though it is obvious that many of his proclamations are patently false and unconstitutional on their face. Other than a policy paper on restructuring our failed tax system, exactly what has Donald Trump laid out on how he will accomplish his outlandish plans to "Make America Great Again"? He hasn't because he knows that too many people would actually see through his make believe political pronouncements.

Have conservatives, or those who claim to be conservatives, entered a post constitutional period in American history that I am unaware of? When did it become mandated that conservatives give up their political principles to someone who would then violate the rule of law in order to establish his vision of the constitution? Exactly where did Donald Trump study conservative political principles, the Constitution and the Rule of Law that flows from that document?

Either you believe in the rule of law or you believe in the rule of man. Count me as one who believes in the rule of law, rather than in the rule of someone who engages in populist nationalist jingoistic rhetoric and the emotional sophistry of false action words that such sycophants desperately want to hear.

There are approximately 35 days until the Iowa caucuses cast their votes for the candidates of their choice. This result will be more telling in determining whether the folks of middle America are willing to trade their conservative principles for political expediency led by someone who has spent his adult life supporting liberal political positions and liberal politicians. My hope is that the Republicans attending and voting in these caucuses will refuse to follow someone so willing to throw aside conservative principles for personal political expediency and autocratic authoritarian leadership.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Snowblind (Live)

Snowin' on Raton

Victories #TedCruz

Baby, Its Cold Outside

A Libtard Says What?

(Maybe it was a Donald Trump supporter? Lol) Fire at Bill Clinton’s childhood home being investigated as arson https://t.co/uoVR1hDRds
— Kenneth Agutamba (@Kenagutamba) December 26, 2015

Bernie Claims Trump Is Trying to Divide Us! #FeelTheBern

Bernie Sanders, Economy Guru, Feels the Burn

by Kim D.

To be fair, democratic socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is simply trying to push his ideology and promote himself as the caring candidate who will be a champion for the poor and middle class. However, he should spend more time thinking before he tweets, as flawed logic only proves that his ideas add little to the conversation about finding real solutions to America's economic woes.

You have families out there paying 6, 8, 10 percent on student debt but you can refinance your homes at 3 percent. What sense is that?
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 26, 2015

To anyone with a modicum of economic wherewithal, it makes perfect sense as many Tweeters were only too happy to explain to Bernie:

Well you see, @SenSanders, a home has actual value, whereas a $100,000 degree in "women's studies" is WORTHLESS. https://t.co/CoRqivjOTU
— Bill Sanderson (@BanCollectivism) December 26, 2015

@SenSanders if you fail to pay off your mortgage the bank gets your property,a student loan?the gov gets nothing.
— antonnewcombe (@antonnewcombe) December 26, 2015

@SenSanders B/c the default rate on mortgages is a fraction of the rate on student loans, which anyone who isn't a pot-addled idiot knows.
— Dan (@Maverick_SS_49) December 26, 2015

@Anti_Status_Quo @Maverick_SS_49 @jimpjorps @SenSanders Funny how D's don't know secured vs. unsecured debt. Can banks repossess a degree?
— Denise O'Connor (@LiberTservative) December 27, 2015

@Matthops82 @SenSanders pic.twitter.com/8tArrTFUpa
— Ben Smith™ (@bmcsmith92) December 26, 2015

Fox News Just Announced A GOP Debate Rule Tweak That Could Be A Total Game Changer

NY Dems Want "Anything but Trump"

by Kim D.

Love him or hate him, one thing cannot be denied about Donald J. Trump. If a business deal falls through, he has a generous heart, at least he did when he donated land for a park in Westchester, NY when a golf course deal didn't pan out. However, instead of taking the land gift, estimated at $100 million, and creating a park, according to the Independent Sentinel, nothing has been done by city planners.

Trump gave this land – for free – so the government could build a state park after a deal for a golf course fell through. Not only has the government not followed through -they’ve allowed the park to languish. Now the incompetents who can’t even make use of $100 million dollars worth of land want to return Trump’s favor by removing his name.

They want to instead name it after the hard-to-find Muslim Revolutionary soldier though they did find one – Peter Salem from Massachusetts who fought in battles in New York state. There is no proof that Salem was a Muslim – no documentation supports that claim. The other suggestion is a communist. They are suggesting folk singer and communist activist Pete Seeger.

Sen. Daniel Squadron and Assemblyman Charles Lavine, both Democrats, said they will introduce legislation they’re calling the “Anything but Trump Act” and want Gov. Andrew Cuomo to remove signs for the 440-acre site in Westchester County.

This is nothing more than a slap by NY democrats after Trump's comment that America should halt bringing in any more Muslims until the government could figure out an effective way to vet them to ensure no more terrorists enter with jihadi tendencies. A meaningless, laughable gesture intended to prove to voting Muslims that democrats don't agree with Trump's idea.

My open letter to Gov. Cuomo suggests the name of Donald J. Trump State Park is changed to honor a Muslim War Vet. pic.twitter.com/9xPnjKbG2h
— Charles Lavine (@Charles_Lavine) December 16, 2015

.@realDonaldTrump: "The state cannot remove his name" Charity or self-serving self-promotion? https://t.co/ktEnLAzjyb @lisanyt @BuzzFeedBen
— Daniel Squadron (@DanielSquadron) December 19, 2015

Here's an idea . . . . since the city hasn't followed through and built a park, why don't they return the land to Trump and allow him to regift it to a private charity.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Gettin' Drunk And Fallin' Down

Straight to Hell

Think It Over One Time

Friday, December 25, 2015

RadioActivity: Jack Benny - An Old Fashioned Christmas

Original Air Date: Dec 20, 1936

Bobby Rydell & Chubby Checker - Jingle Bell Rock.

Madness at the Museum! Man Sues Over Paintings of White Jesus

I'll Be Home For Christmas

Forget #BlackChristmas - Play White Elephant Instead

by Kim D.

Continuing the protest of Black Friday, Black Lives Matter decided to add a special "bah humbug" twist to this holiday season with Black Christmas:

In Chicago on Thursday, more than 100 demonstrators marched down North Michigan Avenue, the city's premier shopping corridor, and laid down on the street for a "die-in." They also blocked access to some stores where Christmas Eve shoppers were hoping to wrap up their tardy gift-buying.

Hopefully by now all the protesting is done and last night BLM members were all home tucked snugly in bed, waiting to see if they had made St. Nick's naughty or nice list. Hopefully, they are waking up this morning with a renewed spirit of peace and are celebrating by giving and receiving gifts from friends and family. Hopefully the angst has faded and all are open to having a little fun on Christmas Day.

One way to insert a little fun into the season is to play White Elephant. Don't let the name fool you; there's not much racist about the game unless the gift giver intentionally means to ruffle feathers.

Sometimes the game is played on Christmas Eve, where friends and family each bring a wrapped gift. Others play Christmas evening, a great time to shed the crappiest gift received by regifting. That's the tradition we celebrate with another family when we spend the holidays in Texas. When we play White Elephant, it is a game with approximately 40 plus people, ages ranging from 2 to 82, and everyone walks away with a great gift or laugh to bring a satisfying close to Christmas day.

Merry Christmas, Grinches

by Mouser The King Cat

It is just me, or does it seem like “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is running in a continuous loop on TV? Did you know it first aired on Dec. 18, 1966, as a special on CBS? And that it was almost never made?

The author of the children’s book of the same name was Theodor Geisel, under his pen name Dr. Seuss. Because of bad experiences with Hollywood, he was reluctant to sell the rights to the story. Mr. Geisel relented when he was approached by Warner Bros. veteran Chuck Jones. The pair had worked together before in an Army filmmaking unit.

As recounted on the Mental Floss website, the expensive cartoon almost sunk for lack of an underwriting sponsor. Mr. Jones pitched every kid-oriented consumer products maker he could think of, finally selling it to the Foundation for Commercial Banks. (Did they misread the storyboards and think the Grinch was the hero?)

Which brings us to the today’s point, a Grinch mystery. The song that starts “You’re a sly one, Mr. Grinch” was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, who was accidentally left out of the credits. Thurl was in a group called the Mellomen, who sang backup to many famous acts in the Big Band era. He had a parallel career as a voiceover artist, mostly for Disney, and became even more famous as the distinctive, booming voice of Tony the Tiger for Kellogg’s, a gig that lasted five decades.

In an interview, Thurl told of strolling down a grocery aisle, speaking to his wife and having a kid come around the corner yelling “that’s Tony the Tiger.” Tony lives on in the cereal section, and Lee Marshall became the voice after Thurl passed away in 2005 at the age of 91. Only a trained ear can tell the difference.

Thursday, December 24, 2015

Danny Kaye & The Andrews Sisters - A Merry Christmas At Grandmother’s House

I Want You For Christmas - Mae Questel (The Betty Boop Girl) 1937

Christmas Alphabet

The Little Drummer Boy

Mary, Did You Know? [Live]

Mark Lowry wrote it and no one performs it better than he does.
I offer this vid as evidence to back up my claim.

What Child Is This?

O Holy Night

A Christmas Prayer

Donald Trump and the media bubble that is sustaining his candidacy.

By Rob Janicki

Donald Trump's campaign has been like no other presidential primary campaign in American history. The overriding element, which has sustained Trump's significant presence in polling numbers, is due not to Trump at all, but to the MSM and that includes media outlets not normally considered to be liberal. We know that the media is driven by advertising profits, which are determined by the numbers of people exposed to the subject matter each media outlet presents to the public. Ratings numbers determine advertising revenue. The more eyes on the media product, the greater the media profits.

Now we come to Donald Trump, master salesman of Donald Trump and all his properties and his mastery of entertainment, as evidenced by his wildly successful TV program, The Apprentice. Donald Trump knows better than anyone else on how to sell Donald Trump to a political segment of the public hungry for substantial change in politics right now

Donald Trump, for whatever reason eventually to be found, has managed to tap into the most dynamic of forces in a political campaign ever waged in American politics. He has garnered overwhelming attention in all media outlets. Something on the order of 70% of all media presidential primary reports are centered on Donald Trump, with the remaining 30% shared by all other presidential candidates combined. That is an overwhelming advantage.

Trump has managed to amass hundreds of millions of dollars in FREE media coverage, while reported spending less than $1 million dollars on media buys and staffing to date. This has never happened before in American political history as evidenced by several candidates dropping out due to a lack of funds to carry on.

To trained political analysts, it is completely understandable that liberal MSM outlets would cover Trump like a blanket for two prominent reasons. The first reason the liberal MSM has to cover Trump 24/7 is to accumulate a record of Trump's many mistakes, misstatements and boorish buffoonery, all of which will be used against Trump should he capture the Republican Party presidential nomination. Hillary's team is most likely salivating over the prospect of using the plethora of Trump's many outlandish statements captured on video. And the media actually gives Hillary media coverage as she comments and condemns each and every questionable Trump comment. No one in the MSM is seriously questioning Hillary on actual and real political questions pertaining to her positions of the issues that concern Americans or her many scandals that have conveniently been put on the back burner by her sycophants in the MSM.

As previously alluded to, the second serious reason the MSM has to cover Donald Trump like a wet blanket is to provide cover for Hillary Clinton's horrendous life long political record and especially her most recent record as Secretary of State in the Obama administration. By covering Trump 24/7 the MSM essentially has taken up the vast majority of media space and effort that could be investigating and speaking to the issues surrounding Hillary Clinton's most recent behaviors, including her potential illegal behaviors with her private email server and the possible use of that server to send and receive classified government documents in violation of numerous federal laws.

With the MSM concentrating on Trump's campaign it is no great stretch of the imagination to understand why Trump continues to poll as well as he has to date. Now, that's not to say that Trump has no valid message to offer the voting electorate. Trump has played upon a strong populist platform that appeals to the frustration and anger of a meaningful portion of the Republican electorate, who are fed up with what appears to be "politics as usual" among the professional politicians of the Republican establishment.

However, Trump's problem going forward is two fold. He speaks in generalities with few specifics as to how he will accomplish his many bold visions to return America to greatness. Even more important is that Trump, like the other candidates, has yet to be measured by the most accurate of means, the primary ballot box and nomination process.

The better pollsters know several things that are of great importance in prognosticating political primary races and their outcomes. First, national polls don't mean a thing in primaries. It's all about each critical state primary. Second, polls become infinitely more accurate the closer to the date of the actual primary being polled. Historically, the polls in the last days of the specific state primary have been at their most accurate. Third, polls that seek out voters most likely to actually vote are the most reliable and representative of what the specific outcome will be for each and every state primary election.

Whether Donald Trump will be the inevitable nominee for the GOP will not come into clear focus until the first three state primaries have taken place in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The results of those three primaries will set the tone and the direction for each and every GOP candidate's campaign going forward. Almost thankfully, February will see a serious winnowing out of many of the GOP candidates we still see today. Until that time rolls around, I'm not going to get too emotionally exercised over who is ahead in the polls.

Finally, it should be noted that aggregating and averaging polls is the most dependable means to see trends developing. Aggregation also weeds out the outlying and questionable polls we always see with 'explosive' headline reporting, as if this or that poll had magically divined some outcome not reported by others.