Something completely different: Why wasn’t Gene Nelson a huge star?

Gene Nelson, a singer and dancer from Hollywood’s golden age, reminds us that talent isn’t always enough. You need an intangible extra to be a star.

Gene Nelson Miriam Nelson

Gene Nelson with his ex-wife Miriam Nelson, who was also a dancer and choreographer (and who died recently).

I need a break from politics, so I want to talk about something different, which is star power.

Star power is real, although some stars, like butterflies, have to grow up a bit before you see it. If you go back and watch 1939’s Stagecoach, which was John Wayne’s breakout role after he’d already been kicking around in Hollywood for almost a decade, you see star power. Apparently his good looks notwithstanding, that decade was necessary to bring his wattage to maturity.

Katherine Hepburn also had to grow into her star power. In her early movies, sometimes she was good (as in Little Women) and sometimes she overacted so badly it makes ones teeth hurt (as in Stage Door). No matter the role, though, and no matter the quality of Hepburn’s work, she draws you in. You can’t help but watch her.

Star power affected musical performers too. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire had it. Both were superb dancers and okay singers. Gene was handsome; Fred dorky. In other words, they were like a thousand other talented Hollywood hopefuls but, when they’re in a scene, you watch them.

And then there’s Gene Nelson. If you’ve heard of him (and most of you probably haven’t), it’s because of his role as Will Parker in 1955’s Oklahoma. And if you do remember that movie, you probably remember Gene for this one song and dance (which is really more singing than dancing):

Even that limited number showcases Nelson’s virtues: Handsome; decent singing voice; elegant figure; and superb, athletic dancer. And when I say athletic, I mean it: Continue reading →

Bookworm Beat 9/9/2018 — the disgusting Democrats edition

The disgusting Democrats are waging a despicable battle. They are defaming a good man, and destroying decency and due process, all to preserve abortion. 

Kavanaugh Disgusting DemocratsDisgusting Democrats will blow our republic apart to kill babies. Without any credible evidence and without any credible corroboration, the disgusting Democrats are smearing as a rapist a man who has led an irreproachable life. In today’s climate, people will more readily forgive murder than they will rape, and yet that’s the label they are appending to him in an effort to block a Supreme Court nomination.

This is what happens when you have a “living Constitution.” If the Constitution as written is your guide, it doesn’t much matter what the justices’ personal feelings are. Once you use the Supreme Court as a non-elected Leftist legislature, though, suddenly Supreme Court nominations have the same weight and viciousness as a gladiatorial death match. And if you cannot actually kill someone who owes fealty to the Constitution, you kill his reputation.

Anyone who would use this tactic is disgusting. Dianne Feinstein is disgusting for sitting on these hazy, almost fact-free charges for two months instead of passing them on to investigators or arranging for Ford to testify in private session. The only explanation was that she knew this was a lie, a set-up, a delusional fantasy, or something other than the truth, and held it in reserve in case polling hinted that Democrats might retake the Senate. Disgusting.

Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii is disgusting because she will do anything to prevent Ford from having to back up her vague, contradictory, antique, unprovable allegations:

You know, for any of us to have dealt at all with the experience of sexual trauma knows that this is a very particularly damaging kind of experience. And you do not treat a person who has gone through this like, ‘Oh, well, hey, how about this?’ You know, I think it’s appalling.

Not only is Hirono disgusting, she’s stupid. She gave the game away when she said that the seat should be vacant for another two years:

Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono (D.) said Democrats could keep the open seat on the Supreme Court vacant until after the 2020 election if Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination collapses and Democrats regain control of the Senate in November.

Hirono pointed to the long vacancy of Antonin Scalia’s former seat as a justification for holding off on confirming any nominee from President Donald Trump. When Barack Obama was president and Republicans held the Senate, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not hold a vote on Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, and Hirono said Democrats could do the same if they had the Senate.

“I think we’ve had those kinds of vacancies before, and we certainly had over a one-year vacancy with Merrick Garland,” Hirono told Politico Magazine. “So the world does not come to an end because we don’t fill all of the nominees.”

This is not the Biden Rule, which holds that a lame duck president doesn’t get to nominate a Supreme Court justice when he’s already got one foot out the door of the White House during an election year. This is an entirely new Disgusting Democrat Rule: Only Democrat presidents may nominate candidates for the Supreme Court, provided that they have a majority Democrat Congress. Under this rule, the Constitutional structure of our American democracy is dead.

Completing her democracy-destroying role, Hirono also jettisoned the idea that all people are created equal and are entitled to equal protection under the law. Instead, she tells men they’re second class citizens:

I expect the men in this country and the men in this committee because we all signed on to this letter to demand an FBI investigation. But really guess who is perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? It’s the men in this country. And I just want to say to the men in this country: just shut up and step up, do the right thing for a change.

Feinstein’s shenanigans still earn her first place as a disgusting Democrat, but Hirono is running a very close second. Both of course, are also horrible human beings, bereft of decency.

These two women are scarcely alone. The entire Democrat body, whether in Congress or in the Democrat-owned media, is throwing itself into this intentional mockery and destruction of our democratic process. I already wrote yesterday about the ridiculous things they’re saying about due process, about integrity, and about equality under the law.

There is little difference between the way Democrats are treating Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court from the way Democrats treated blacks and the Supreme Court in the 1850s — and we know how that disgusting Democrat travesty ended.

On the infinitesimally small chance that Ford isn’t delusional or an out-and-out hard Left liar, her allegations should still be dismissed. As Chad Felix Greene movingly writes, rape can only be proven within a short time of its happening. After that, if you, the victim, choose to remain quiet, you the victim, have to live with the consequences of that decision. (I highly recommend his article.)

What makes this all truly horrible is that, when you think about it, this whole disgraceful kabuki theater is happening for one reason and one reason alone: To ensure that abortion continues to be legal in America up until the end of the third trimester. That’s what this is all about — dead babies. Think of that.

Okay. I’ve finished on that subject. Now to a few other interesting things, and then I’m retiring for the evening to watch something light and silly. Continue reading →

Fat models on magazine covers — we’re being prepared for the “hungering.”

A tongue-in-cheek look at what it means that Leftists want low production farming (no pesticides, no GMO, etc.) and have a new reverence for fat models.

Fat Models Tess HolidayThe elite always casts itself in opposition to the hoi polloi. It has done so since time immemorial.

In prehistoric times, back about 25,000 years ago, when starvation was the norm, the most revered female figures were fat, really, really fat, as you can see from these pictures of several Paleolithic Venuses. Similar ones can be found all over Europe and most ancient cultures have little fat feminine figures that were obviously meant for worship or luck:

(Is that a pussy hat this golden lady is wearing?)

These women were special — they were well-fed, healthy, and obviously fecund — unlike the scrawny, unhealthy ordinary people who worshiped avoirdupois from afar and with envy.

The Middle Ages were famous for (among other things), their sumptuary laws, the sole purpose of which was to use the power of the state to ensure that peasants didn’t look like aristocrats. The illustrations in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (circa 1416) illustrate nicely the divide between laborer and aristocrat (although the peasants were cleaned up for this exquisite book): Continue reading →

Bookworm Beat 9/18/2018 — the Kavanaugh fraud edition and open thread

Leftist responses to Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh indicate pretty strongly that they know they’re fraudulent, plus much more on current topics.

KavanaughOn the Kavanaugh accusations, the Left’s line is “don’t ask so we won’t have to tell.” Actually, that’s not quite what Clown News Network reporter Chris Cillizza said. When reminded that Republicans would like to investigate the huge holes and inconsistencies in Christine Ford’s narrative, this is what he said:

Remember, in the Left’s America, the standard is the due process rights do not extend to Republicans. This is because they know that, in the face of fraudulent accusations, due process would expose the fraud. The only way to prevail on stale, uncorroborated, vague accusations is to use a new standard, one that applies only to conservatives, never Leftists:

Ford has nothing to gain? Really? Except for the fact that, as a hard Left person, she may effectively knock out a conservative Supreme Court nominee. Or even if he gets appointed, she will have tainted him in the eyes of half of America, not to mention his own children’s eyes.

And she has everything to lose? Really? When we know she’ll be endless feted on the Left, with invitations to A-List Leftie parties, huge book deals, etc.? I mean, look at the traction a sleazy porn star gained from smearing Trump.

And women never lie? Really?

Apparently a simulacrum of due process is passé for our media solons when they can profit off smears against conservatives.

Debra Katz, Ford’s lawyer, adds a new wrinkle to how due process plays out in Leftist America (emphasis added):

During the interview, Katz revealed that there was another girl present at the party, which allegedly took place in 1982 while Kavanaugh was attending Georgetown Prep. Ford previously told the Washington Post that there were four boys at the party but never indicated if there were other girls beside herself.

“While we have you, perhaps you can help us fill in the blanks on some of her story. She says that she was at a party in probably 1982 in Montgomery County, Maryland. She says that there were four guys there, these are high school students, as was she. There were four guys there. Were there any girls there that day?” anchor Alisyn Camerota asked.

“Yes, there was another girl at this party, yes,” Katz said.

Camerota asked if Ford has tried to talk to any of the other partygoers to see if they will corroborate her story, but Katz declined to place the burden of proof on her client.

“That’s not her job to do that. If this is going to be investigated, it should be done by investigators,” Katz asserted.

Having put out a vague, uncorroborated, confusing narrative, Ford’s job here is done. It’s up to Kavanaugh to prove a negative attached to a gossamer allegation that can be rejiggered to fit any time line and location in the early 1980s.

But in the race to the bottom, Ana Marie Cox may still beat out both Katz and Dowd:

We need to judge Brett Kavanaugh, not just by what he may or may not have done, but how he treats a woman’s pain. And that is something I’m going to be paying attention to on Monday. How does he respond to what’s happening. Whether or not he agrees that this happened with her, does he take her pain seriously? Do the people interrogating her pain take her pain seriously? Now, I’ll give you a spoiler alert, I don’t think Brett Kavanaugh takes women’s pain very seriously, and I know that because of the decisions he’s made as a judge.

Ben Shapiro has the correct take on that outrageous statement:

This is a morally abhorrent statement. So if a woman falsely accuses a man of rape, we don’t judge him based on whether he actually raped her – we judge him based on whether he feels the pain of a person falsely accusing him of rape. The real question of the Duke lacrosse case, by this standard, wasn’t whether a stripper was actually raped – the question is whether the members of the Duke lacrosse team were sensitive to her feelings while she was falsely accusing them of rape.

That would be an insane statement enough. But Cox goes even further: she already knows that Kavanaugh won’t meet her standard of sympathy because he hasn’t decided cases how she likes on key “feminist” issues, presumably like abortion. Now, never mind that Kavanaugh hasn’t actually signaled that he’d be willing to overturn Roe v. Wade. Think about the underlying contention: we can tell whether you are a bad person by your level of sympathy for a rape accuser whom you believe is lying about you, and we can judge your level of sympathy by looking at your political decisions. The logic is simple: if you’re a person who disagrees with Ana Marie Cox, you can be slandered as a rapist, and any attempt to rebut such accusations will amount to a lack of sympathy.

And do remember that, despite all the shrieks of outrage from the left about a hazy 35(ish) year old uncorroborated story with holes large enough to drive a freight train through, the Left has been utterly silent about recent, credible, corroborated claims against DNC apparatchik (and AG candidate in Minnesota) Keith Ellison:

Moreover, not only haven’t they believed the woman, they’ve set out to destroy her. Continue reading →

Sunlight is the best disinfectant: Trump’s order declassifying documents

Trump’s order declassifying documents related to the “Russia Collusion” narrative is the best way to destroy Deep State bullies and reveal government rot.

Illustrated edition Trump not a sexual predator Congress Mueller declassifying documentsI am delighted that Donald Trump issued a sweeping order declassifying a huge bolus of documents related to the Russia probe:

The documents ordered declassified are a handful of pages of the June 2017 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to continue surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page, which originally began in 2016. Trump also ordered all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all surveillance applications of Page be declassified and released.

Trump also ordered that all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Page surveillance applications be released.

Trump also ordered the declassification of all FBI reports of interviews DOJ official Bruce Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation. Ohr had a close relationship with former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier connection Trump to Russia. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, the same opposition research firm that Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was contracted by.

Trump also directed the Justice Department and FBI “to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction,” of Comey and Ohr, as well as former FBI Deputy Director Andre McCabe.

The text messages of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were also ordered to be released without redaction. Strzok and Page were both part of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, as well as the Russia investigation.

Sadly, the DOJ and FBI can still drag their feet on this (which I guess explains why he issued the order now. making it a September surprise, and not closer to the election): Continue reading →

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