All hate, all the time

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In an echo of the tradition created by Jefferson, President Barack Obama invited military families on July 4, 2009, for an Independence Day celebration featuring a six-song set from the Foo Fighters. Again in 2016, he opened the gates for the South by South Lawn (SXSL) festival. In partnership with South by Southwest (SXSW), the event converted the entire executive space into a collaborative arts festival, cementing the White House lawn as the nation’s ultimate public forum.

TWITCHY

How DARE Americans celebrate America with strength and competition?! We should be apologizing for being so awesome and racist or something. We don't know; we can't keep these mouth-breathing whiners straight.

It's not just the UFC event that's freaking the haters out; it's everything and anything that is joyous and patriotic. Lights? THEY'RE BLINDING PILOTS (this is BS, BTW)! Fireworks! THAT'S A WASTE OF MONEY. Motorcross? THAT'S TRASHY.

Perhaps if we were tearing down statues, crapping on the sidewalks, and leaving drug needles everywhere, they'd be happier?

Yellow Dog Democrats

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A "Yellow Dog Democrat" is a political term for a staunch, loyal member of the U.S. Democratic Party who votes a straight party ticket under any circumstance, famously stemming from the saying: "I’d vote for a yellow dog if it ran on the Democratic ticket!"

The Yellow Dogs are out in force this election year, and I’m envious: Republicans lack the discipline and foresight to grasp the concept that it’s control of the power structure that’s the ultimate issue, not the foibles and defects of individual members of their party or even their party’s particular pieces of legislation. I’ll vote for Maine’s squishy Republican senator Susan Collins in November because her defections on key issues notwithstanding, she’s included in the head count as a Republican when it comes to determining who will control the Senate, Republicans or Democrats.

The party in the majority determines the Congressional agenda, the chairmanships of all committees, approval of federal judges, and so on. The Democrats understand this, and so do most Republicans, I hope, yet there are many Republican voters who are perfectly willing to cede control to the Democrats in the name of ideological purity and simply stay home on Election day, “to teach these people a lesson”. The Democrats will thank them, but won’t reward them.

Here are just a few examples of Democrat solidarity that all display their willingness to vote for an individual who’s been exposed as a communist, a drunk, a wife-beater, a fraud and a Nazi, just so long as they can regain control of the senate:

Bill Maher urges Maine voters to elect Graham Platner, despite the candidate’s ‘scary’ issues

He’s a monster, but he’s our monster, so vote him in. Mind you, Mahr is half-Jewish, and although he’s a non-practicing Jew, he’ll still be on the extermination list when the Nazis and Muslims take over — because no price is too high, even if that price is his own life, if his Democrats can run the country. That’s party discipline.

…. He then added, "And two, get used to it. America is a country filled with a lot of broken, horribly educated, phone-addicted, sort of nutty people. And as long as we live in a representative democracy, we are always electing our reflection in the mirror. I wish the tattoo was the scariest thing about Platner. It's not. That would be his solution to a home invasion, which is to rape the home invader."

"Let's get real about Graham Platner," Maher said. "The big story is the Democrats can likely take back the Senate in November if they win Maine. But their local candidate… is after the primary this week, let's just say, a guy who has a backstory that screams, ‘don't ask,’" Maher said. 

And:

Wait, Did the NYT's 'Me Too' Reporter Really Say That About Graham Platner's Domestic Abuse Allegations?

And:

Beautify Washington? Start with a fleet of bulldozers to raze the Brutalist architecture federal buildings and bury the socialists who created them

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Brutalism, and why

…. “Thamesmead’s style of architecture was brutalism, a concrete-oriented architecture dreamed up by France’s Le Corbusier, after WWII, to cheaply build tower apartment blocks:

The use of béton brut was pioneered by modernist architects such as Auguste Perret and Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier coined the term béton brut during the construction of Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, France, built in 1952.

“As Glenn noted in his New York Post column yesterday on “Trump’s Reflecting Pool glow-up:”

“Brutalism,” as a dominant architectural style, was a choice.

Gone were soaring columns, noble statuary depicting American heroes or abstract figures like Justice or Liberty, and welcoming spaces.

Instead we got modern architecture — which, as Tom Wolfe notes in his delightful book “From Bauhaus to Our House,” was quite literally designed to promote socialism.

Modern architects blamed bourgeois values for the horrors of World War II and wanted to promote socialist values instead.

They disdained “bourgeois” adornment and designed buildings to dwarf individuals, not uplift them.

As scholar James Scott points out, the French architect Le Corbusier, noted for his huge buildings amid vast, sterile plazas, dedicated his book “The Radiant City” thus: “To Authority.”

…. In 1995, Theodore Dalrymple wrote of the Corbusier-inspired brutalist buildings in England:

Until quite recently, I had assumed that the extreme ugliness of the city in which I live was attributable to the Luftwaffe. I imagined that the cheap and charmless high rise buildings which so disfigure the city-scape had been erected of necessity in great gaping holes left by Heinkel bombers.

* * * * * * * * *

“A great shame about the war,” I said to the store assistant, who was of an age to remember the old days. “Look at the city now.”

“The war?” she said. “The war had nothing to do with it. It was the council.”

….. Here’s what I find interesting: whenever the sci-fi movies of the 60s and 70s wanted to set something in a horrible totalitarian world, they just shot on location at a government housing project.

I was thinking along these same lines as I’ve watched the fury of the Left over Trump’s plans tp beautify Washington: it has nothing to do aesthetic appreciation — they have none — and is based instead on their fear and hatred of the man, and America itself. Here’s a sampling of what they claim is beauty, expressive of the socialist dream:

FBI

Hirshhorn museum

Housing and urban development

Then continue on up north and demolish Boston’s City Hall

As a palate cleanser, here’s Faneuil Hall, constructed 1742

UPDATE: Oops! I forget to head west, to Chicago.

This’ll help

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New training for CT urban police officers to incorporate community input

Required by the 2020 George Floyd Police Accountability Law, the curriculum will focus on three core issues: implicit bias among officers, reconciliation for past harms to minority communities and “procedural justice” — the manner in which officers interact with people on a daily basis.   

The lessons are being created and designed by Yale Law School’s “Justice Collaboratory” because who better to instill a sense of white guilt in unaware, unwoke white devils?

OH, Canada — you don't have to follow EVERY idiot idea that your better neighbor to the south dreams up.

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The infection has spread: Canadian police will be taking a hike in high heels to prove … well, what will it prove?

Canadian police invite the public to ‘Walk a Mile’

Whilst being filmed with his ankles shaking, ready to roll over at any second, in bright red heels, this Canadian cop, brutally stripped of any sense of dignity, promotes an event called “Walk a Mile” in Bowmanville this Saturday, June 13, to raise awareness for domestic violence… or something.

We’ve witnessed this before, unfortunately, eleven years ago in Philadelphia:

.2015: Temple University ROTC cadets march in support of a “Walk a Mile” parade. Pete Hegseth has made sure this will never happen again on his watch; up north, well, not so much ….

Noblesse Oblige

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Caught up in all the excitement expressed by their staffs over this World Cup thing, the members of Belle Haven Yacht Club have decided to join in, and will be hosting an afternoon party today showing films of the most memorable World Cup races of years past. In a nod to equality, a select group of their gardners and scullery maids will be invited to attend, albeit as waitstaff.

“We assumed that many of them would have had enough of sailing after their trip from Haiti,” explained Hortense Penelope Wickersley, Chairwoman of the Belle Haven Entertainment Committee, “but apparently not, and we couldn’t possibly make them stay at home and miss the fun; that would have been just too cruel.”

Democrats announce that only their imported new voters and their hosts may watch the World Cup

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Meh — it’s a foreign sport, played by communists for communists, so if the Democrats want to keep it to themselves, who really cares? Still, dictating who may and may not do something based on whether the government approves of their conduct and obedience does seem at odds with the party that was screaming “No Kings!” just a few months ago.

California Democrats Proclaim (Or Try To) Who Is and Who Is NOT 'Allowed' to Watch the World Cup

I'm old enough to remember when Democrats also wanted to ban anyone who didn't follow their dictates from public life, restaurants, schools, and even medical care. 

They haven't changed their stripes since then. 

Myself, I’m with this guy:

It's not enough to merely dismiss these cases: the lawyers who file them should be whacked with massive fines and sanctions

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Brendan Ballou, Esq. “Go ahead, smack my smug face.”

Woman Sues to Stop UFC Freedom 250 Event, Claiming ‘Aesthetic Injury’ to Her Eyeballs

President Donald Trump is being sued for everything he tries to build or renovate: the ballroom, the Reflecting Pool, the arch, and now the UFC Freedom 250 match that's set to take place on the South Lawn of the White House. Reportedly, a 69-year-old woman named Susan F. Douglas is suing to stop the event, her attorney saying in a court filing that "the erection of the Claw and other structures for UFC Freedom 250 is causing and will continue to cause Douglas aesthetic injury by diminishing the personal enjoyment, experience of beauty, and feelings of national pride she previously experienced while observing the White House." Or, you know, she could just not watch.

It’s not as though these claimants and their lawyers thought they had any legitimate, sustainable case supported by even the widest stretching of the law; they filed this last-minute suit solely to harass and delay “The Orange Man”. So this is no surprise, but there should have been more:

Obama judge rules on effort to block America 250 events at WH and Lincoln Memorial

Judge Amit Mehta found the plaintiffs' aesthetic and emotional injuries insufficient under Article III

A federal judge on Friday cleared the way for UFC Freedom 250 to proceed at the White House and Lincoln Memorial this weekend, rejecting a last-minute court challenge just days before the high-profile event.

U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta, an Obama appointee, denied an emergency request by two Washington-area residents to halt the mixed martial arts showdown, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to sue in the first place and had not demonstrated a sufficient injury.

The lawsuit challenged plans for "UFC Freedom 250," a mixed martial arts event tied to celebrations surrounding the nation’s 250th anniversary. The event includes a June 12 news conference and fighter face-offs at the Lincoln Memorial and a June 14 fight card on the White House South Lawn. It is expected to bring thousands of viewers.

…. Mehta did not decide whether any of those claims were legally valid. Instead, he determined that the plaintiffs' alleged injuries were largely aesthetic and emotional in nature and did not demonstrate the kind of concrete, personal harm required under Article III of the Constitution. The plaintiffs had described the massive UFC staging structure known as "The Claw" as visually offensive and argued that the "unauthorized, commercial exploitation of the national monuments caused harm."

Mehta rejected this notion, writing that "general emotional harm, no matter how deeply felt, cannot suffice for injury-in-fact for standing purposes."

Citing precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court, Mehta wrote that a threatened injury must be "certainly impending" to qualify as an injury in fact. He found that one plaintiff's assertions that he might encounter the event while driving for work were too speculative, while the other plaintiff's plans to attend protests near the sites did not fit within traditional aesthetic-injury cases.

"[W]e can find nothing in the existing to case law to suggest that a person who incidentally views something unpleasant has suffered an injury-in-fact for purposes of standing," Mehta ruled.

The ruling noted that President Donald Trump publicly proposed hosting a UFC event at the White House in 2025 and that preparations had been visible for weeks before the lawsuit was filed. According to the opinion, the plaintiffs waited until days before the event to seek emergency relief despite longstanding public knowledge that the event was planned.

Mehta also emphasized the temporary nature of the disputed structures and activities. Construction associated with the event is scheduled to be dismantled shortly after the fight card concludes.

The opinion cited nearly a year of planning, extensive coordination among federal agencies, the involvement of hundreds of workers and contractors, and an estimated $60 million investment by UFC and affiliated organizations.

The ruling also referenced the expected attendance of thousands of spectators and the anticipated remote audience of millions.

Hearthstone Drive @$6 million-plus.

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11 Hearthstone Drive, new construction nearing completion, was put on the market 11 days ago at $5.995 million and is reported pending today.

The house it replaced was a 1958 split-level that was part of the original development here, and was surely due for replacement. Listed in May 2024 for $1.890 million, this builder paid $2.210 million 12 days later; it would seem that he made a wise decision to go high and take it.