It’s Wednesday, November 18th, 2015…but before we begin, to borrow a phrase from the great Thomas Sowell, a couple of random thoughts on the passing scene.

First, are we the only one who couldn’t care less about Ronda Rousey or any other aspect of her particular…”sport”?  She’s a girl…fighting girls…none of whom could stay in the ring with any male boxer in history.  Sorry, this is the FOX Sports equivalent of the WNBA or WWF; our…

…ain’t even off the peg.

Second, since we’re on the subject of the manufactured, if you need a real laugh, check out this list of Hillary’s “accomplishments”, then think about it: this is the best HER OWN CAMPAIGN could fabricate?!?  Yeah, she’s ready for the White House.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

Leading off the midweek edition, three items which epitomize the moral bankruptcy and utter lack of any semblance of discernment on the part of the contemporary Left.  Exhibit “A”: writing at Townhall.com, Matt Vespa takes us to…

One Paris Neighborhood That Isn’t Angry At ISIS

“…A group of friends was standing near the candles that had been lit at the foot of the monument at the square, trying to find out if the waiter that had served them at La Belle Equipe, one of the restaurants attacked in the 11th arrondissement, had been killed.

But they aren’t angry, at least not at the perpetrators. “They’re stupid, but they aren’t evil,” their friend Sabrina, an administrative worker in one of the theaters in the 11th arrondissement, said. “They are victims of a system that excluded them from society, that’s why they felt this doesn’t belong to them and they could attack. There are those who live here in alienation, and we are all to blame for this alienation.”

“After the attacks in January, they said we should unite, but that essentially meant that we should be together and not think independently,” says Clemens Mama, a teacher. “They don’t want us to think that maybe it’s connected to the policies of our government and of the United States in the Middle East.” No, she wasn’t surprised that the attackers apparently included people who were born and raised in France. “These are people the government gave up on, and you have to ask why,” she said.

…It was hard to find anyone at this gathering who would say a bad word about the attackers, and expressions of patriotism were restrained. Perhaps it should be no surprise in this part of town. Most residents of the 11th arrondissement are what the French call “bobo,” bohemian and bourgeois, middle-class academics in their 30s and 40s with clearly leftist leanings…”

Exhibit “B”, courtesy of FOX News and another product of the Liberal Education Establishment:

Local Minnesota Democrat Ends Campaign After Saying ISIS ‘Isn’t Necessarily Evil’

““I’m folding up the campaign tent,” Kimmel told the Star Tribune. He later issued a written apology and called his tweet “stupid,” adding that it’s probably best for him to “shut up” for the time being…”

How ’bout for the rest of your life?!?

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to Exhibit ‘C”:

Madonna Wrong To Think Terrorists Will Stop By Giving Them “Dignity And Respect” And “Love Unconditionally”

Sportsfans, this goes far beyond simple naiveté or an overabundance of compassion.  Look, Crazy Eddie’s prices were…

These folks are suicidally deranged!!!  Outside of the Kool-Aid drinkers at Jonestown, we cannot recall a segment of society less able to identify an enemy intent on their premature demise.

Meanwhile, neither snow snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these Communist/Islamic sympathizers from the swift completion of their self-appointed policies:

Despite Paris Attack Obama Has No Plans to Re-Evaluate Syrian Refugee Policy

“We’re still planning on taking in Syrian refugees,” White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We had very robust vetting procedures for those refugees.”

Luckily for America…and the eventual 2016 Republican nominee…as PJ Media reports, The Dear Misleader’s lying lackey is contradicted by a more credible source:

FBI Director Robert Comey testified before the House Judiciary Committee that vetting Syrian refugees will be “challenging” when asked by Rep. Louie Gohmert about the quality of intelligence and information that exists on Syrians:

Gohmert: Well, without a good fingerprint database, without good identification, how can you be sure that anyone is who they say they are if they don’t have fingerprints to go against?

Comey: The only thing we can query is information that we have. So, if we have no information on someone, they’ve never crossed our radar screen, they’ve never been a ripple in the pond, there will be no record of them there and so it will be challenging.

And in language which recalls Benghazi’s “bumps in the road”…

Obama: Paris terror rampage a ‘setback’

“Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values.”

Thus taking the time to thoroughly vet “refugees” from a country infested by Islamic terrorists bent on America’s destruction is “slamming the door” and a “betrayal of our values”.  Yeah, sorta, kinda like the meaning The Obamao inexplicably concocted to obfuscate the reality of another “setback” freedom suffered as a direct result of his inept policies:

As the great Stilton Jarlsberg so accurately depicts the problem:

In other words, The Great Divider has America playing the infinitely-deadlier Islamic version of a popular children’s book: “Where’s Wahabi?!?”

In a related item, Barry shoots yet another par for his peculiarly Progressive course:

Obama arrives late for ‘moment of silence’ for Paris attacks

As Daniel Greenfield notes at his Sultan Knish blog, any protestations to the contrary, well-meaning or otherwise… 

“Islamic violence is a religious problem. Islam derives meaning from physical supremacy, so war becomes an act of faith. To believe in Islam, is to have faith that it will conquer the entire world. And to be a true Muslim is to feel called to aid in that global conquest, whether by providing money to the Jihadists or to become a Jihadist.

The fulfillment of Islam depends on the subjugation of non-Muslims so that violence against non-Muslims becomes the essence of religion. When Hamas states that, “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah” or the ISIS rapists tell Yazidi girls that rape “draws them closer to Allah”, they really do mean it.

They are not perverting a great religion, as our politicians claim, they are living it.“

We’ll leave the final word on the subject to the WSJ‘s Bret Stephens, who draws a compelling Progressive connection between recent events in Paris, Columbia and New Haven:

The Islamist Tantrum

People are dead in Paris because Europe decided to make a fetish of its tolerance for intolerance.

“We live in the age of the sanctified tantrum—the political and religious furies we dare not name or shame, much less confront.

Students bully college administrators with contrived political demands. The administrators plead they can do better, then capitulate. Incompetent writers pen trite racial screeds aimed at the very society that lifts them above their ability. They are hailed as geniuses. Donald Trump’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination epitomizes the politics of the tantrum. He’s angry as hell, and so is his base. We’re supposed to respect this.

Case in point: Amherst College’s Delicate Little Flowers demand the suspension of the First Amendment and reinstitution of the Gulag.

And then there is the tantrum of Islam, another eruption of rage that feeds off our astonishing willingness to indulge it. Before Friday’s carnage in the City of Light, the world was treated to the hideous spectacle of Palestinians knifing Jews in Israel. The supposed motive of these stabbings was a rumor among Palestinians—fanned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas—that the Israeli government intended to allow Jews to pray on the Temple Mount.

This was a story the Israeli government adamantly denied and every serious person knew was false. Yet no senior Western leader dared call out Mr. Abbas to correct the record. Palestinian tantrums are sanctified tantrums. The violence they breed might be condemned, but the narrative on which they rest has the status of holy writ. It is no more to be questioned than the Quran is to be burned.

“To counteract the radicalization [in Europe],” Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström said in a televised interview only hours after the Paris attacks, “we must go back to the situation such as the one in the Middle East in which . . . the Palestinians see that there is no future; we must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence.”

Here was the sanctified tantrum par excellence: People murder and maim because they have been put (by Israel) to a bleak choice. Rage is not to be condemned but understood, mitigated and mollified…”

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: Paul had it right in Romans 1:22.  How else can one possibly explain the mass insanity of Progressivism?

Next up, the great (Yes, we cannot refer to him any other way!) Thomas Sowell injects some needed common sense into the illegal immigration debate, as he suggests, before anything else, we absolutely, positively MUST…

Stop the Bleeding

“…There are very serious and complex questions to be confronted before immigration issues are laid to rest by new laws. But none of that stops us from taking control of the borders now.

When someone is brought into a hospital, bleeding profusely, he may also have other medical problems that will need to be addressed at some point. But, first of all, you STOP THE BLEEDING. Nobody is stopping the bleeding across our borders. The fact that the main border that people have been pouring across, at will, is the border with Mexico, does not mean that everyone crossing that border is Mexican. Middle East terrorists can cross that border just as easily — and probably have crossed it. And will continue to cross it.

There are lots of complicated issues revolving around the open borders — drugs, visas, employers, refugees, crime syndicates, sanctuary cities, amnesty and more. But first we need to stop the bleeding.

There is absolutely nothing to stop us from discussing what kind of immigration policy we need to have, while the border is being secured. And, if the border is not secured, it does not matter what kind of immigration policy we have — or think we have — because people will cross the borders when they want to, regardless of what the policy turns out to be.

…At least a year of multiple Congressional hearings and fact-finding ought to precede any legislation. But none of this should slow down the securing of the borders. If we don’t stop the bleeding at the borders, there are going to be a lot of Americans bleeding — and dying — are our borders, just like in France.“

Then again, what’s the price of untold numbers of innocent lives compared to the continued advancement of the Liberal agenda?!

And in the Environmental Moment, more innovative renewable energy news out of Singapore:

Apple to open retail store in Singapore powered only by sun

Sounds great…until you read the fine print:

“Solar energy developer Sunseap Group said in a statement that it will provide the store with renewable energy by harnessing its systems set up across 800 of the city’s rooftops from January next year.“

One Apple store…powered by the systems on 800 rooftops:

At that rate, we’ll soon be able to power the entire city of Peoria, IL through the combined capacity of every solar panel on the planet!

On the Lighter Side…

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with these biting bits of humor inspired by current events, courtesy of Balls Cotton:

Magoo