Absolute Insanity. Post-birth abortion infanticide. It is disgusting. It is a disgrace. It is legalized murder.

“…Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D.) commented Wednesday about a controversial 40-week abortion bill and in so doing said the law allows an abortion to take place after the infant’s birth.

“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” Northam said, alluding to the physician and mother discussing whether the born infant should live or die.

A Democratic lawmaker in the Virginia House of Delegates proposed a bill Tuesday that would allow abortions through the end of the third trimester of pregnancy. The video of Delegate Kathy Tran presenting her bill led to an exchange where she admitted that her bill would allow for a mother to abort her child minutes before giving birth…”

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Conrad Black:

“…Last week’s arrest of Roger Stone at the behest of Special Counsel Robert Mueller incites me to recall Joseph Welch’s famous question of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy at the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency?”

Sending 29 FBI agents in bullet-proof protective gear and brandishing submachine guns at 6 a.m. to the house where Stone—who is 66 and does not own a firearm—lives with his wife, two dogs, and three cats, to effect another shakedown arrest for alleged untruths uttered by Stone to a congressional committee since Mueller was installed in his totalitarian sinecure, was disgusting and un-American.

The charges could have been laid—and if there is the slightest truth to them, should have been laid—by contacting Stone’s lawyer during normal business hours and asking him to produce his client for charging and processing. So slight was the risk of flight (Stone claims his passport has expired), the judge set bail at an easily manageable (for him) $250,000, which was produced at once. The entire hideous procedure, as if Stone were a suspected violent criminal with vast resources, at the head of a heavily armed and dangerous organization, and in a home extensively guarded by armed and experienced gangsters and with a helicopter in the backyard, was an outrage that must shock every civilized American, as it astounds the civilized world.

There was absolutely no need or excuse for such an absurd and repulsive use of force in effecting the arrest of a man with no history of violence who is an improbable flight risk and certain to surrender quietly and respond to allegations against him through due process in the courts. Moreover, he is fully entitled to the constitutional presumption of innocence.

Media Collusion
This shock-and-awe extravaganza was leaked in advance to the chief media arm of the Democratic Party, CNN, (though MSNBC is a rival in rabid support of the enemies of the Trump regime). CNN’s unctuous claim that it was able to capture this pre-dawn thuggery thanks to the clever intuition of a reporter who could deploy a film crew to a Fort Lauderdale residence before dawn on a hunch is as wildly implausible as the rest of the network’s political “news” (which could be described better as a partisan screed of relentless fervor and acoustic, not to mention cognitive, irritation)…”

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Kyle Smith:

“…The second part of the BuzzFeed makeover, coming soon, is to grow. BuzzFeed has hinted that it intends to hoover up many other similar sites, all those fourth-rate imitators of a third-rate product that also seek to provide micro-dopamine infusions to cupcake-scarfing arrested-development cubicle prisoners as they daydream of shopping at Forever 21 and wonder if Jafar is kind of hot. If 17 bajillion dollops of extreme-low-quality content delivering 150 gajillion eyeballs doesn’t work, double down! If gigantic scale doesn’t work, activate ludicrous scale!

By the time all of these mergers and acquisitions are complete, the next recession will be nigh, the first thing that always happens in recessions will happen first again (America’s great companies will slash ad budgets) and low- and medium-quality media companies reliant on advertising are going to segue from creating dystopian movie plots to experiencing them. Say, BuzzFeed, Which Pandering And Meretricious Yet Doomed Advertorial Dungbot Are You? Take The Quiz!…”

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“…The new list includes three nominees for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the liberal-leaning court that oversees the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii, and which has been a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s ire. The president also named four picks for district judgeships in California.

The announcement came after conservatives said they feared the president was working on a deal with Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala D. Harris, California’s two Democrats, to submit a consensus list that wouldn’t dramatically shift the court’s ideological balance.

Mr. Trump’s list should put those fears to rest.

Two of the appeals court nominees — Daniel P. Collins and Kenneth Kiyul Lee — were names he’d submitted last year, while a third, Daniel A. Bress, is considered a rising star.

“We are relieved to see that the White House has decided to move forward with a list of extraordinarily qualified nominees,” said Carrie Severino, chief counsel for the conservative Judicial Crisis Network…”

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 In Minnesota, It’s Too Cold For the Post Office

Kristen McQueary:

“…Like thousands of others, I tired of the one-party system, rising pension debt, no change to the current pension system, increasing property taxes (mine doubled), increasing crime and soft approach to criminals…”

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Think of the media as democratic operatives with bylines and it all makes sense.

David Rutz:

“…If Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) had any concern her frequent attacks on the media were alienating anyone outside of Fox News, she need only watch five minutes of CNN on Sunday to be relieved.

In a segment that was almost dizzying in its contradictions and apologia, here’s what we learned: Spew bromides about journalism being the foundation of democracy, and you can attack, obfuscate and bungle the facts to your heart’s content. Helps to be a Democrat, too, of course.

On CNN’s corporate media defense hour “Reliable Sources,” host Brian Stelter and a decidedly unbalanced panel discussed Ocasio-Cortez’s social media power, as well as the attention she attracts and her frequent barbs at the press who question her. My colleague Alex Griswold has already outlined the reason she keeps getting fact-checked: she says lots of incorrect things that need to be fact-checked…”

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U.S. Marines with Bridge Company, 8th Engineer Support Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, and 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division (MarDiv), transport two M1A1 Abram tanks across the New River on an improved ribbon bridge during a company level exercise at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Jan 25, 2019.

ROGER KIMBALL:

“…So, why the hysterical rage? Why the calls to destroy these boys? Why the eructation of moral preening, from the Right just as much as from the Left?

I think there is a specific answer and a more general one. The specific answer is Donald Trump, for whom the MAGA hats were effective metonymies. Donald Trump has driven certain segments of the American public, especially the elite American public, mad, as exhibitions over the Covington Catholic boys vividly illustrates.

The more general answer has to do with the poison of political correctness and identity politics, which have warped our civic discourse and blinded us to elementary truths.

A middle-aged Indian beating a drum and chanting wildly has no greater presumption of moral dignity than a white, Trump-supporting boy who participates in a pro-life march. But that is precisely what the imperatives of political correctness demand we acknowledge.

The public—though not, for the most part, the academic elite—has reacted with condign disgust at the treatment of the boys from Covington Catholic. It knows that Nathan Phillips is no more “native American” than Nick Sandmann: both were born here and have equal title to American natality.  And it senses that the culprit is the political correctness that has distorted our common life and even our ability to speak the truth about sensitive issues. If there is a silver lining in this disturbing episode, it is that public revulsion at this episode may, just possibly, spark a reconsideration of our ill-advised and demeaning adherence to the tenets of political correctness…”

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Paul Bedard:

“…In a sweeping move to further influence federal courts with conservative picks, President Trump on Wednesday renominated 51 judges who saw no action in the last Congress.

The list showed 37 nominees to district courts, nine to circuit courts, two each to the International Trade and Federal Claims courts, and one to the Military Commission Review.

One, Naomi Rao, was picked to replace the opening left when federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh won a seat on the Supreme Court.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said in a statement, “I truly appreciate the prompt attention President Trump and his White House team have shown to judicial nominations. I also appreciate the list of 51 impressive judicial nominations to fulfill the Senate’s constitutional role in advice and consent.” He added that his panel will try to “confirm as many as possible, as soon as possible.”

The president is already on a historic pace to change the courts and fill vacancies with conservative picks. According to one tally, he has put 30 judges on the United States courts of appeals and 53 judges for the United States district courts…”

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JIM TREACHER:

“…Remember when wearing a MAGA hat meant you were certain to lose an election to Hillary Clinton? Remember the days before a red baseball cap became a symbol of all evil in the universe?

I’ve been typing words on the Internet to pay the bills for, I dunno, 12-13 years now. I spent eight of those years disapproving of a cult of personality centered in the Oval Office, and I’ve spent the past few years disapproving of the subsequent cult of personality centered in the Oval Office. I don’t like tribal groupthink, and I’m as immune to Trump’s charisma as I was to Obama’s, so in 2019 that means I have even fewer friends and admirers than usual.

But as we head into week 2 of the MAGA Kid Saga, I’m finding common cause with my Trumpkin brothers and sisters. Whatever our differences, I’ve always agreed with them that the media is astonishingly biased and corrupt. The abject shamelessness of our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters, the self-appointed gatekeepers of the truth, has never been more apparent than it’s been over the past week.

If you attend a march in Washington, D.C. while wearing a cheap red hat that can be purchased at any gift shop or souvenir stand in the city, there’s every chance you’ll be branded a racist for maintaining your composure while complete strangers scream at you and pound drums in your face. And even when irrefutable video evidence proves you’ve done nothing wrong, a pack of bigots with press passes will still blame you for angering them. . . . See, this is balanced journalism. Yesterday, Savannah Guthrie asked the kid who didn’t do anything — he stood stock-still and did nothing — if he thought he should apologize. Today, she asked the fraud who lied to her whether the kid who didn’t do anything should apologize. Gotta get both sides! (And I just love being lectured by Guthrie, the woman who stood by and did nothing while her co-host raped half the building.)…”

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“…Days after Nathan Phillips’ story of his confrontation with a group of students in Washington was thoroughly discredited, many on the left are still rallying behind him, pretending he was somehow a victim.

This, even after both the New York Times and the Washington Post had to publish not just “clarifications” about the incident itself, but even corrections of his claim to be a Vietnam, or “Vietnam times,” veteran. (Turns out he was a stateside refrigerator technician, and frequently AWOL.)

It also turns out Phillips made nearly identical allegations against a few college students four years ago.

Yet the instant a single video of this incident hit Twitter, journalists jumped to uncritically accept Phillips’ account of how a mob of MAGA-hat-wearing white teens surrounded and taunted him. After all, the image exploited reporters’ preconceptions: Here was an aged Native American surrounded by a pack of smirking pro-Trump teens.

But full videos of the incident soon showed he was lying: He was the one who confronted the students, unprovoked, beating a drum just inches from their faces.

In fact, video shows the Covington school students were themselves being taunted with racist and homophobic slurs by a group of Black Hebrew Israelites.

Yet Phillips claims the kids “were in the process of attacking these four black individuals” and “looked like they were going to lynch them,” hence his move to “do something.” Why not beat his drum at the “Israelite” aggressors?

The video also shows, contra Phillips, no sign the kids were defiantly chanting “Build that wall.” Nor does it feature Phillips saying anything that sounds remotely like an effort to pacify the situation.

Yet he still has supporters because he keeps crafting new narratives that appeal to left-liberal prejudice. He certainly has the right bottom line, though: “Time for lies to be not accepted anymore,” he told CNN.

Yes: Starting with his…”

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David Azerrad:

“…Suppose the second video had never come out and the Covington Catholic High School boys had not been exonerated. Suppose the media had not been compelled to issue pathetic, half-hearted apologies for stoking the flames of hatred after the incident. Suppose the pundits had not sheepishly deleted their rush-to-judgment tweets condemning the boys.

What exactly would the boys have been guilty of based on the 3 minutes and 44 seconds of footage in that first video?

After all, no one laid a finger on Nathan Phillips and the other two Native Americans banging their drums and chanting. No one yelled at them. No one insulted them. No one asked them to leave.

The boys chanted along and acted silly. They surrounded the men in order to see what was happening, the way any crowd would if someone was making noise or playing an instrument in public. They were all smiling and being rather good-natured. The only profanity in the video comes from a scowling woman who yells out “f***ing mob mentality” and rolls her eyes at the boys.

Those with more delicate sensibilities might accuse the boys of being a little too rowdy. I, for one, incline to a Milford Academy “children should be neither seen nor heard” pedagogy (I also think students should wear uniforms and caps should be worn only at baseball games, and preferably only by the players). In any case, few others in America today would agree.

Nathan Phillips later tearfully recounted that he had heard the boys say—not chant—“Build that Wall, Build that Wall.” The subsequent longer video did not corroborate his claims. Should another video prove Mr. Phillips’ recollection correct, is it now forbidden in American to repeat commonplace political slogans in the public square?

What about the specific boy in question, whose name I will not repeat in a futile effort to respect what little privacy he has left after Friday’s incident?

He did not move. He did not say a word. You could almost say he was stoic (I say almost because the stoics are not known for their smiles). He stood there motionless for almost three minutes as Phillips, who had walked over to him, loudly banged a drum in his face and chanted—rather obnoxiously, one might observe.

But it wasn’t a smile, the mendacious media explained. It was—brace yourselves—a smirk! The boy stood there and smirked. And for that he must be “punched in the face,” expelled from school and denied admission to college. His name should forever be ruined on the internet. He should become the face of evil in the 21^st century—or at least until the next manufactured scandal erupts.

It goes without saying that if Covington had been an all-black school, a girls’ school or a Mexican high school visiting the US, the video would have sunk without a trace in the great abyss of unwatched YouTube videos. And it also goes without saying that if the boys had been wearing “Love Trumps Hate” or “Feel the Bern” caps, the episode would not have sent the media into an Orwellian frenzy of hate.

The kid in question, however, was part of the accursed white race that has wrought unspeakable evils onto humanity. He was a male and thus complicit in the patriarchal structures of oppression that subjugate women. He was the embodiment of power and privilege.

Worst of all, he wore a MAGA cap. Therein lies his crime. The inherited diseases of whiteness and masculinity, though incurable, can at least be mitigated and contained if the patient is willing to demonstrate good will by embracing leftist views and perpetually flagellating himself publicly for the sins of his race and his sex.

A MAGA hat is incontrovertible evidence that you refuse to take your medicine. While it does not necessarily make you a white supremacist, it (at least) suggests you could be. It indicates that you might belong to the half of Trump supporters whom Hillary Clinton put into her basket of deplorables, “the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.”

The hysterical reaction to the first video points ultimately to an unsettling conclusion. Standing in silence with a smile before a person of color—or presumably, a member of any other aggrieved, oppressed identity group—is now a crime for deplorable white males of all ages…”

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