"We're basically at war with Iran."

Fred Kaplan, National Security tonight on MSNBC.

Let this moment sink in.

A president just deliberately and transparently attempted to start a war for political gain.

So, Joe Lieberman praised Bernie Sanders today?

I wouldn't boast about that.

Why Pete Buttigieg Enrages the Young Left

But those explanations are still too general to explain the fury inspired by a fourth-place presidential contender and Midwestern college-town mayor. And it’s not his ideology: The resentment he inspires runs much deeper than that earned by the Amy Klobuchars and Michael Bennets of the world—both of whom have more politically moderate tendencies than Buttigieg, who has, among other positions, argued for raising the minimum wage to $15, introducing a public health care option, expanding the size of the Supreme Court and abolishing the Electoral College. (Asked for comment for this article, a representative from the Buttigieg campaign told Politico that staffers are occasionally vexed by the cold reception to a platform that’s well to the left of any recent Democratic presidential nominee.)

The unspoken truth about the furor Buttigieg arouses is that his success threatens a core belief of young progressives: that their ideology owns the future, and that the rise of millennials into Democratic politics is going to bring an inevitable demographic triumph for the party’s far left wing.

The left believes the youth are on its side—and as shown by Bernie Sanders’ popularity among the under-30 set, as shown in a recent Quinnipiac poll, they’re apparently right. In a primary debate with the incumbent former Rep. Joe Crowley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “I represent not just my campaign, but a movement.” Mobilized young Democratic Socialists of America members have raved to the New York Times about how the DSA is “what the Democratic Party should be.” Waleed Shahid, spokesman for the Ocasio-Cortez-aligned Justice Democrats, has dramatized the generational struggle by interpolating a famous Gramsci quote with his pinned tweet: “The old America is dying. A new America is struggling to be born. Now is a time of monsters.”

So it’s especially galling that the first millennial to take a serious run at the presidency is nothing like the left’s imagined savior. Buttigieg is a veteran, an outspoken Christian, a former McKinsey consultant, and, frankly, closer to Mitt Romney than Sanders or generational peer AOC in his aw shucks personal affect. In the eyes of radicalized young leftists, Buttigieg isn’t just an ideological foe, he’s worse than that: He’s a square.

Consider the reaction to a recent viral video showing Buttigieg supporters in Iowa performing a painfully earnest, undeniably corny dance routine to 2000s emo survivors Panic! at the Disco’s “High Hopes.” As the New York Times’ Astead Herndon pointed out, cutesy pump-up efforts are hardly native to Mayor Pete’s campaign; recall the merchandising and sloganeering fervor that ensued when a bird alighted on Bernie Sanders’ podium in 2016, or the uncanny-valley quality of various pro-MAGA YouTube anthems. The dance in question, however, was taken by Buttigieg’s critics as proof positive of his platform’s corporate soullessness. “Mayor Pete does the high hopes dance after every home demolition, elect him president so he can do it after every drone strike,” tweeted the official account of the niche-but-influential lefty magazine Current Affairs.



https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/01/01/pete-buttigieg-enrages-left-liberals-2020-091479

Virginia lawmakers ready Equal Rights Amendment ratification push

CHARLOTTESVILLE, V.A. (WVIR) - More than four decades after the original ratification deadline in 1979, the Equal Rights Amendment stands just one state short of ratification and being added to the Constitution.

Virginia’s lawmakers have pledged to hold a vote in this new session, meaning Virginia could be the state that finally gets the amendment passed.

The ERA aims to legally cement equality on the basis of sex. Ratification would end legal discrimination between men and women for things like employment and divorce.

“I think we’re definitely going to see the ERA be ratified,” 57th District Delegate Elect Sally Hudson (D) said. “We’re going to see it move quickly.”




https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbc29.com/2019/12/28/virginia-lawmakers-ready-equal-rights-amendment-ratification-push/%3foutputType=amp

For every "good guy with a gun" story, there are ten times more like this.

A woman in Ohio was killed early Wednesday after she was struck by a round from her boyfriend’s celebratory gunfire, police say.

At 12:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Cleveland police responded to a call about a shooting, WKYC reported. They arrived to find a 31-year-old woman with a bullet wound, police say.

She was taken to a local hospital where she died, WKYC reported. Her name has not been released.

Investigators discovered that the woman and her live-in boyfriend, 38, were hosting a party to ring in 2020 when he began “popping off” celebratory gunshots, according to Cleveland.com. At some point, the woman was hit by a bullet, police say.


https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/nation-world/national/article238888653.html#storylink=cpy

Coyotes spotted prowling Trump golf course in NYC: 'Pups taking sandwiches out of golf carts.'

Coyotes have taken up residence at one of President Donald Trump’s urban golf courses.

Humans have driven the largely nocturnal wild animals far from their normal range in the western U.S., and they’ve been spotted at Trump Golf Links in the Bronx, as well as Manhattan and Queens, reported The Guardian.

“The staff at the golf course think the coyotes are cool,” said Chris Nagy, a wildlife biologist and co-founder of the research group Gotham Coyote. “But there’s a point where if the coyotes are getting annoying and worrying the golfers, then they’ll change their minds.”

Ecologists have been warning of a sixth great extinction, with about a million species endangered, but coyotes have been thriving even as humans cut into wildlife habitats.

Coyotes have colonized New York and Detroit, along with other adaptable species such as raccoons, opossums and bobcats, and the grey wolf’s smaller relative has been thriving at the president’s $269 million golf course.



https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/coyotes-spotted-prowling-trump-golf-course-in-new-york-city-pups-were-taking-sandwiches-out-of-golf-carts/

My first act of 2020

I donated $20 to Sara Gideon for ME-SEN.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2020

Now use your training and fulfill your destiny.

Bonus Tweet of the Day