Jackie Johnson's Clouds and Clearing Forecast

It's pleasant and mild. I'm not worried about getting a suntan or anything, so what the heck, lol?

At CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

Colin Flaherty, 'White Girl Bleed A Lot'

I've got Flaherty's review of David Horowitz's new book, Progressive Racism, scheduled for a morning post.

But I just realized the Flaherty himself has published some interesting stuff on left-wing racism. See, at Amazon, 'White Girl Bleed A Lot': The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It.

Democrat Gov. Terry McAuliffe Under Federal Investigation for Illegal Campaign Contributions (VIDEO)

At CNN, via Memeorandum, "Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe under federal investigation for campaign contributions."

Plus, more at the video, "Officials: Virginia governor under FBI investigation."

More at Politico, "McAuliffe attorney denies knowledge of any DOJ probe" (via Memeorandum).

McAuliffe was Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, from 2001 to 2005. He knows exactly what's going on. The Democrats have a history of taking illegal foreign contributions. Flashback to 1998, at the Washington Post, "Gore's Ties to Hsia Cast Shadow on 2000 Race."

RELATED: From Michelle Malkin, "The Chinagate/Buddhist temple cash skeletons in Gary Locke's closet."

Europe or America? Who's More Pro-Choice? (VIDEO)

Here's Elisha Krauss, for Prager University:

KCAL 9's Interview with Bernie Sanders in Irvine (VIDEO)

Local news coverage.

Folks were Feeling the Bern last night at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater:



Also at the O.C. Register, "Bernie Sanders in Orange County: Thousands turn out to hear him campaign against 'rigged' system."

Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War [BUMPED]

This looks quite good, perhaps for your Father's Day shopping.

At Amazon, Andrew Roberts, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War.

Deal of the Day: 65% Off Rosetta Stone Power Pack Language Learning Bundles

Bulk up your foreign language creds!

At Amazon, Save on Rosetta Stone Power Pack Sets.

Also, Coleman Montana 8-Person Tent.

BONUS: Father's Day 2016 - Lawn & Garden.

Facebook Reverses Ban on Conservative Lauren Southern (VIDEO)

At Heat Street, "Not only has Facebook reversed its ban on me, Twitter just verified me."

And watch, at the Rebel:

Britney Spears at 2016 Billboard Music Awards

At Yahoo, "#BritneySpears took the responsibility of opening the 2016 #BBMAs *very* seriously..."

And London's Daily Mail:

brb going to the gym #BBMAs https://t.co/TSJEqdbysU pic.twitter.com/wwKeOfE4et

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) May 23, 2016

Republicans Paying More Attention to Election Than Democrats

Well, you'd think so.

At Gallup (via Memeorandum.)

Republicans Paying More Attention to Election Than Democrats (Frank Newport / Gallup) https://t.co/Q4bwXc9V1l https://t.co/6SzGc9Cjt3

— memeorandum (@memeorandum) May 23, 2016

Democrats Freak Out - Donald Trump Surges

Look, all these recent polls are national head-to-head surveys. The real battles in the Electoral College, but still. It sure is nice to have the Dems sweating.

Following-up, "ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Dramatic Trend-Line Shows Donald Trump Passing Hillary Clinton (VIDEO)."

Here's today's New York Post, and it's hilarious!

Today's front page: Democrats are freaking out over a possible President Trump https://t.co/6AGg7VoQNP pic.twitter.com/iffMT13tXt

— New York Post (@nypost) May 23, 2016

Apology Tour: As Shadow of War Fades, Obama Visits Vietnam and Japan (VIDEO)

Ralph Peters spoke for me earlier with his comments on Obama's visit to Japan, "Lt. Col. Ralph Peters Slams Obama's Upcoming Visit to Hiroshima (VIDEO)."

Just going there represents an apology. He's the president of the United States. He dignifies the far-left, pacifist (and anti-American) demands for U.S. groveling.

And to top it off, O's visiting Communist Vietnam, which adds to his whirlwind tour of Marxist-Leninist regimes.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Obama heads to Vietnam and Japan to confront the ghosts of old wars amid turmoil in modern ones":

For nearly eight years, President Obama has struggled  to end wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Next week, he’ll finally succeed in closing chapters on two other ones instead – Vietnam and World War II.

Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima and will meet with survivors of the atomic bombings that ended World War II. He will also travel to Vietnam, to whose communist government he is considering selling more weapons, a sign of how the U.S.-Vietnam relationship has blossomed in the decades since the war there ended.

For the president who promised to end two wars only to watch them persist, the end points this week in Vietnam and Japan — decades in the making — show just how hard that is, and how long peace could ultimately take.

“We’ve seen the difficulty or inability to disengage from the war on terror, including in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. “And he has seen that these U.S. commitments to protect friends and allies can be long-standing commitments, as evidenced by our continued presence in South Korea and Japan and Germany.”

Obama will pay heed to the past by promoting how far the alliances with Vietnam and Japan have come since the countries were bitter enemies of the U.S. He plans to highlight growing commercial ties in Vietnam, one of the 12 countries that are part of the massive Pacific Rim trade deal being negotiated. In Japan, where he will also meet with the heads of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, Obama's visit to Hiroshima is an opportunity to revisit his efforts toward nuclear nonproliferation.

“The very fact that the United States is traveling to Japan, that it’s now one of our closest allies in the world, and Vietnam, which is an emerging partner of ours, demonstrates how you are able to move beyond difficult history,” said White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes....

Obama may encounter some anti-American sentiment in Japan, where the arrest of an American suspected of killing a woman who disappeared last month has sparked outrage. Police say he's also suspected in her death but have not charged him.

On his final day in Japan, Obama will go to the city of Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb used in war in 1945. That bomb, and another dropped on Nagasaki three days later, killed at least 129,000 people and poisoned a generation with radiation.

Obama will pay tribute to the suffering and loss of war, aides say, though he won’t apologize for the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which he views as having been necessary to end the war and save the world from tyranny.

At the time, President Truman made a decision he believed was “consistent with our national security priorities,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in explaining Obama’s refusal to apologize. “He believed that lives on both sides of the conflict could be saved by dropping the bomb.”

Obama has offered a similar defense of his own decision to use armed drones in the fight against terrorists in the Middle East.

More than that, though, he has spoken admiringly of Truman’s commitment to a new post-war order in which nations of the world worked together – the very kind of shift he has sought to enable the world to fight off crisis while still taking steps toward progress.

That new order was a marriage of “idealism to hardheaded realism, an acceptance of America’s power with a humility regarding America’s ability to control events around the world,” Obama wrote in his 2006 book “The Audacity of Hope.”

But the lessons of the 20th century wars only go so far, said [former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt] Campbell. They don’t necessarily provide a clear pathway for today’s leaders...

Hubble Space Telescope Watches Mars (VIDEO)

This is fantastic!

At NASA, on Twitter, ".@NASA_Hubble watches as Mars moves to opposition on 5/22; when it lines up with Earth & sun..."

And watch:

Michelle Fields Joins Huffington Post, Will Resume Covering Donald Trump

Heh.

At Gateway Pundit, "Hah! Liar Michelle Fields Gets Job at Huffington Post – Says She’s Going to Cover Trump Campaign Again."

Hah-Hah-Hah #Liar @michelleFields is working for #HuffPo now! #Perfect pic.twitter.com/4fZpbNueIp

— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) May 23, 2016

Haha😂😂😂

She's gonna be working at the Huff&Puff Post 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/X8YZh5slsf

— Villi Wilson (@Conservative_VW) May 23, 2016

Colonel Richard Kemp on Israel, the World's Most Moral Army (VIDEO)

Via Prager University:

David Horowitz Is Right

More on the "renegade Jew" backlash. From Pamela Geller, at Big Government, "On Trump and the Jews, David Horowitz Is Right."

Geller: On Trump and the Jews, David Horowitz Is Right - Breitbart https://t.co/qgZwKehYRt via @BreitbartNews

— Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) May 17, 2016

The ANC's Culture of Impunity in South Africa

From Jessica Piombo and Cherrel Africa, at Foreign Affairs, "Has South Africa Lost Its Way? The ANC's Unfulfilled Promise":

Under Zuma’s leadership, a culture of impunity has taken root at the highest levels of the ANC. https://t.co/OoLfVbjOJa

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) May 22, 2016

South Africa is in the middle of a period of political and economic unrest unlike anything the country has experienced since the end of apartheid in 1994. In March 2015, students at the University of Cape Town launched the #Rhodesmustfall campaign, aimed at bringing down a statue of the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Since then, students have regularly stormed the nation’s universities, labor unions have held strikes, and populist social movements have taken to the streets. The protesters have called for wholesale reform of the country’s economy and directly challenged the ruling African National Congress. And the ANC itself is in crisis, divided between supporters and detractors of South African President Jacob Zuma. On March 31, the country’s highest court ruled that Zuma had failed to uphold the constitution when he ignored a state order to repay government funds used in a $23 million upgrade to his private residence at Nkandla in KwaZulu Natal. And on April 29, the High Court in Pretoria ruled that the former head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Mokotedi Mpshe, had acted irrationally when he had dropped corruption charges against Zuma in 2009. Although the opposition failed in its bid to impeach Zuma, the National Assembly remains fractious and divided. The Nkandla revelations and growing dissatisfaction with Zuma have sparked broader protests about poor living standards, low economic growth, high unemployment, and political stagnation.

The roots of the current crisis lie in the country’s tortured past. Since the end of apartheid, the number of people who live in absolute poverty has fallen, and access to and quality of services has improved, but unemployment, crime, and housing remain the top three concerns of South Africans, as they have been since the mid-1990s. In fact, the gap between rich and poor has widened: South Africa’s Gini coefficient, a measure of economic inequality ranging from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality), increased from 0.62 in 2008 to 0.70 in 2013; by contrast, Brazil’s has fallen from 0.55 in 2009 to 0.53 in 2013. For all of those who expected great progress since 1994, the slow pace of change has been bitterly disappointing.

After the political stalemate of the late 1980s, the ANC made a bargain with the then ruling National Party: it would take power and focus on postapartheid reconciliation, while committing to economic policies that would disavow the appropriation of land and economic assets from the country’s white elite. In short, the ANC chose political power and social reconciliation over economic restitution and the redistribution of wealth.

The concessions hobbled the party during the critical years immediately following the end of apartheid, when economic restructuring could have had great impact. Apartheid policies had stripped the country of its natural wealth and impoverished its people, and the state had developed the capacity to provide services to only a small portion of the population. The government had pushed responsibility for the black majority to the Bantustans, self-governing territories that the architects of apartheid had established to house the country’s “African” populations. After the transition, the state had to expand its scope to include the millions it had previously excluded.

Yet political freedom did not lead to economic prosperity for the vast majority of South Africans. The ANC had not anticipated how much globalization had constrained the ability of the state to foster economic redistribution. What’s more, the ANC discovered that the state it had inherited lacked the resources to deliver on its 1994 campaign promise, “A Better Life for All.” The dual costs of maintaining the security apparatus and unequal welfare system necessary to sustain the apartheid state had drained the state’s coffers. The ANC had initially adopted a moderately redistributive economic program (the Reconstruction and Development Programme), but in mid-1996 it replaced this with Growth, Employment and Redistribution, which was modeled on the structural adjustment programs that the World Bank promoted in the 1980s. Many South Africans who had been deprived of basic services under apartheid continue to lack housing, electricity, water, and sanitation...

Keep reading.

Shaka Senghor, Writing My Wrongs

Robert Stacy McCain was snarking on idiot "male feminists" yesterday and tweeted out BuzzFeed's, "I Was a Thirsty Male Feminist for a Day and It Was Exhausting."

Matt McGorry, who I've never heard of, but is apparently starring in "Orange Is the New Black," posted selfies of himself reading hip progressive au courant titles, such as Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death, and Redemption in an American Prison, and Michelle Alexander's, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

Alexander's book's been out for a while and has had quite an impact (especially among leftists and on college campuses, like mine). But I hadn't heard of Senghor before. His book just came out in March.

The Guardian has more, "Shaka Senghor: the man with the American story no one wants to tell."

Deal of the Day: Save on Select Dream Chairs by Vivere

At Amazon, Vivere Original Dream Chair, Cherry Red, and Vivere Original Dream Chair, True Turquoise.

More, Green Apple, and Sand Dune.

Also, Sport-Brella Umbrella - Portable Sun and Weather Shelter.

And, Mountainsmith Genesee 4 Tent.

Plus, Kelty Redwing 50 Backpack.

Still more, Mountainsmith Carbonlite Pro Trekking Poles, Slate.

BONUS: Father's Day 2016 - Tools & Home Improvement.

ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Dramatic Trend-Line Shows Donald Trump Passing Hillary Clinton (VIDEO)

Here's the video, at ABC News, "Washington Post Poll Shows Tight Race for White House."

And here's the coverage, at WaPo, via Memeorandum, "Poll: Election 2016 shapes up as a contest of negatives."

And at ABC News, "A Post-Primary Rally Boosts Trump, Albeit with Challenges Aplenty (POLL)" (via Memeorandum).

And a Scribd document here, "A Post-Primary Rally Boosts Trump, Albeit with Challenges Aplenty."



Republicans are solidifying their support behind Donald Trump, while the Democrat race becomes more divisive and violent.

Amazingly (or not), MSM reporters like WaPo's Dan Balz downplay the overall trends to focus on Donald Trump's high negatives. But the fact is, survey trend-lines look really bad for Hillary Clinton:

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows a close contest in presidential election preferences, with Republicans lining up behind Donald Trump as their party’s presumptive nominee while the continued Democratic race is keeping Hillary Clinton’s side more unsettled.

Greater voter registration among Republicans is one factor: Clinton’s 6-point lead among all adults, 48-42 percent in a general election matchup, switches to essentially a dead heat among registered voters, 46 percent for Trump, 44 percent for Clinton. Regardless, the contest has tightened considerably since March, when Clinton led among registered voters by 9 points.

Trump’s enhanced competitiveness reflects consolidation in his support since his primary opponents dropped out, and it comes despite significant challenges to his candidacy. Fifty-eight percent of Americans call him unqualified to be president, 60 percent see him unfavorably overall, 76 percent think he doesn’t show enough respect for those he disagrees with and 64 percent say he should release his tax returns (with most feeling strongly about it). These include majorities of registered voters on each item, representing opportunities for Clinton.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, moreover, split 46-46 percent on whether or not Trump represents the core values of the party. That’s sharply improved from 29-56 percent in July, but it leaves the party still divided on a key measure of Trump’s suitability.

Clinton has challenges of her own – 53 percent of Americans (and 57 percent of registered voters) see her unfavorably, making this a matchup between the two most unpopular likely presidential candidates in the history of ABC/Post election polls, dating back to 1984.

Indeed, half of each candidate’s supporters are negative voters, saying they oppose the other candidate more than they support their own choice. Fewer than half on either side back their candidate strongly. And while 51 percent of Americans say they’d be satisfied with a Clinton - Trump race, 44 percent say they’d want a third-party candidate to run.

Most potential voters, though, seem committed in opposition, if not in support. Marking the level of cross-party antipathy in this contest, 86 percent of Trump supporters say they’d never consider voting for Clinton – and 86 percent of Clinton supporters say the same about Trump.

That's negative partisanship, which I've highlighted as one of the major elements of the current electoral environment, and something to keep an eye on through the fall. Indeed, it's negative partisanship that explains why Trump is consolidating Republican support so quickly and decisively since Ted Cruz dropped out.




More at Memeorandum.

Also at the Conservative Treehouse, "BOOM – Trump Leads Clinton In ABC/Washington Post Poll, Even With D+8 Poll Sample…"

And see Twitchy, "‘Hit the panic button, Hillary’: Latest polls show significant swing from Clinton to Trump."