A mesmeric moment. The post ‘Hooch’: The Melvins’ unfiltered sound of grunge first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

At the end of October, the center-left group WelcomePAC published Deciding to Win, a comprehensive exploration of why Democrats lost the 2024 election and what they must do to start winning again. It drew on surveys of more than 500,000 voters conducted over a six-month period and found that 70 percent of voters think the Democratic Party is “out of touch” and only 39 percent say the party has the “right priorities.” It recommended that the party moderate its most unpopular positions, avoid ideological purity tests, and offer genuine solutions to issues the voters actually care about. This is good advice based on solid data and it is being ignored by the Democrats. The reason they are ignoring Deciding to Win, is a refusal to abandon ideological orthodoxy — particularly where it concerns the “Israel lobby.” Instead, the party is devoting its energy to an internecine struggle between its progressive and establishment factions. Inspired by Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City, the progressives believe the time has come to remake the party in their own image. Backed by a variety of donors and leftwing activist groups such as Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement they are mobilizing to purge longtime Democrat incumbents by recruiting ideologically pure candidates to challenge them in primaries prior to next year’s midterms. This is taking place in a number of states including New York, North Carolina, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee and California. Moreover, their targets are by no means limited to “moderates.” In New York, for example, incumbent Rep. Daniel Goldman is being challenged in the 10th District by outgoing NYC comptroller Brad Lander. According to a report in the New York Times, the rationale for Lander’s run is that Goldman is an “oligarch” and too cozy with the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. Lander has the endorsements of Mayor-elect Mamdani. Another New York Democrat who faces multiple primary opponents pursuant to his support for Israel is Rep. Ritchie Torres, who represents the 15th District. His most prominent challenger is Michael Blake, a former state lawmaker who denounces Torres in his campaign launch video for caring “more about Bibi than the Bronx.” He attacked Torres on X in as follows:: I am running for Congress because the people of The Bronx deserve better than Ritchie Torres. I am ready to fight for you and lower your cost of living while Ritchie fights for a Genocide. I will focus on Affordable Housing and Books as Ritchie will only focus on AIPAC and Bibi. I will invest in the community. Ritchie invests in Bombs. I want to end credit scores for housing. Ritchie only wants to take credit. We cannot afford anymore of Ritchie Rich Torres. We need Change now. Goldman and Torres aren’t the only New York Democrats infected with primary fever. Axios reports, “Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) on Wednesday became the latest House Democrat being targeted by a leftist primary challenger.” He will be primaried by Darializa Avila Chevalier, who is backed by Justice Democrats, the group who propelled Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to office. Other New York Democrats that are being challenged in the primaries are Reps. Laura Gillen (4th District), Gregory Meeks (5th District), and Grace Meng (6th District). None of these people are part of the “old guard.” The only obvious thing they have in common is that they accepted campaign contributions from AIPAC. This brings us to Justice Democrats. Most people vaguely associate this group with AOC and other members of “the squad,” but the key to understanding which incumbents and primary challengers they support is their Reject AIPAC campaign. It is no coincidence that every Democrat being challenged, including several progressives like Dan Goldman, has received campaign contributions from AIPAC. This is why Justice Democrats are backing Nida Allam, an obscure  31-year-old Durham County commissioner who is challenging two-term North Carolina Democrat Rep. Valerie Foushee. The latter committed the unforgivable sin of accepting AIPAC money. Consequently, the group now backs Allam according to the Intercept: The group, which previously recruited progressive stars including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar, (D-Minn.), is endorsing candidates challenging incumbents next year in Michigan, California, New York, Tennessee, Missouri, and Colorado. Justice Democrats is taking a more aggressive approach to primaries this cycle after only endorsing its incumbents last year and losing two major seats to pro-Israel spending. The group plans to launch at least nine more candidates. Justice Democrats are going after another AIPAC villain in Tennessee. Rep. Steve Cohen represents the only Democrat district in the state (TN-9), yet the group supports his primary challenger state legislator Justin Pearson. Justice Democrats also backs former Rep. Cori Bush’s comeback campaign for Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, now held by Democrat Rep. Wesley Bell, whose deadly sin has been to accept AIPAC contributions.  Justice Democrats also endorsed Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney in his Democratic primary challenge against Democrat Rep. Shri Thanedar (13th District). By now, the incumbent’s transgression will not be hard to divine: He accepted AIPAC campaign donations. And the beat goes on. In the end, the progressives who want to control the Democratic Party are less motivated by a desire to eliminate aging or establishment Democrats. The reason they are ignoring Deciding to Win, is a refusal to abandon ideological orthodoxy — particularly where it concerns the “Israel lobby.” What we are witnessing is political recidivism. The left is returning to its anti-Semitic roots. Because no one teaches history in our public school system or institutions of “higher education,” few Americans recognize this reality. The good news is that the progressives are confirming what 70 percent of the voters instinctively know — the Democrats are increasingly out of touch with normal Americans and they are thus deciding to lose. READ MORE from David Catron: EU Censorship Metastasizes The Filibuster Must Be Euthanized Now The Marjorie Taylor Greene New Deal

It’s a divisive Christmastime on the Right. Just over a year after Donald Trump won the biggest Republican electoral victory in 20 years, and two months since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, conservatives are squabbling like the First Triumvirate. This was the unofficial alliance between Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Licinius Crassus that boosted the supremacy of Rome, only to end in civil war when Pompey backed the Senate against Caesar. Better we all worship one Jew, born in Israel two thousand Christmases ago, who came to redeem all mankind. It took less time to fracture the American Right, and potentially destroy the country. Because Leftists — for all their insanity, stupidity, and rage — are always united in one goal. To terminate Western Civilization by dissolving its Judeo-Christian foundation. And when that foundation divides itself — such as by giving outsized weight to Israel, stoking antisemitism versus Zionism — it cannot stand. Wise conservatives see the danger, the most notable and outspoken being Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire. Right after the murder of his friend, Charlie Kirk, Walsh tweeted: “The entire Right has to band together. Enough of this in-fighting bullshit. We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell. They’re killing us in our churches. They tried to kill our president. They killed Charlie, one of our greatest advocates. Put the personal squabbles aside. Now’s not the time. This is existential. A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country.” The result of his call for unity was that Walsh himself has become the target of more on the Right. He noted this yet, true to his decree, again refused to cut off his detractors, which only increased their number and his resolve. Last Friday on The Tucker Carlson Show, Walsh doubled down. “People keep demanding I disavow this person or that person … No. I’m not doing that. If they’re on the Right and fighting the Left, I’m not going to publicly condemn them … That’s how we lose.” I agree with Walsh, and disagree with some people on my side. I believe Jew hatred is a spiritual evil. I stood with Israel before and after its war of retribution against Hamas — since its battles for survival against the entire Arab world. But while antisemites on the Right are wrong, deluded, and sinful, they draw the line at terror. They won’t join forces with berserkers to bring down America as the whole Left has. Case in point — feminists state that they’re for female empowerment, yet they support women-abusive fanatics over the most female empowering country in the Middle East. For they hate the Judeo-Christian family tradition more — and the “toxic” men who head it. The same suicidal empathy extends to the likes of Queers for Palestine and other moronities. Theirs is a madness even the most deluded, prejudiced conservative will reject. They may be touched by evil, but they won’t fully embrace it. To Matt Walsh’s point, they’re with us enough to not be against us. And that leaves the real enemy in our sight. The one that wants to kill us as it did Charlie Kirk and almost Trump. The one that has totally absorbed a major political party in America, Britain, Europe, and tragically Australia. This past September, in a global wave of madness, the ruling leftist party in the UK and the Anglosphere — Canada and Australia — recognized the state of Palestine. This happened while Israel was almost done wiping out the terrorist leadership in its Gaza Strip. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese grandiosely announced the action on camera: “Australia recognizes the legitimate and long held aspirations of the people of Palestine to a state of their own.” Sunday evening at Bondi Beach near Sydney, two Islamicist gunmen in gun-prohibitive Australia opened fire on a Jewish crowd celebrating the first night of Hanukkah. They killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 40. The terrorists were a father-son team of immigrants, no doubt grateful for their host country’s benevolence toward Palestine. PM Albanese addressed the horror in a press conference. “The evil that was unleashed at Bondi Beach today is beyond comprehension,” he said. Well, no, Mr. Prime Minister, it’s very comprehensible. You admit a million immigrants hostile to Western culture, and make no effort to assimilate them, they’ll cultivate their own values, very much including rabid hatred of Jews. Fortunately, in America, this lunacy has been recognized and partially reversed. Because the political party it dominates is out of power. Democrats now cry and howl at every illegal alien deported, or every Venezuelan drug runner blown to bits at sea. Yet a few of the Muslim immigrants the last President welcomed into the country have pulled their weight in darkness. Like Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who last month shot two National Guardsmen in Washington DC, killing a young woman and seriously wounding a young man. And as usual the Democrats were on top of it. At a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on the attack, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) — not coincidentally the former chair of the January 6th Committee — challenged Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on the killer’s immigration status. “Madam Secretary, you reference the unfortunate accident that occurred with the National Guardsman being killed.” Noem would have none of it. “You think that was an unfortunate accident? It was a terrorist attack … He shot our Guardsmen in the head.” Matt Walsh is right. In the face of such evil, conservative infighting about Israel and the Jews is counterproductive, and potentially fatal to the country. Better we all worship one Jew, born in Israel two thousand Christmases ago, who came to redeem all mankind. READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: How Are the Mighty Fallen: The End of Europe and Hollywood Carols in a Time of Chaos A Great American Thanksgiving Here’s a lovely recent review of my popular Yuletide romantic ghost story, The Christmas Spirit, and why it’s the perfect Christmas gift for your significant other. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and wherever fine books are still sold.

The Skipper, the oil tanker fresh from filling up in a Venezuelan port, was seized by U.S. forces last week and is being taken to a U.S. port where its cargo — and possibly the ship itself — will be sold. President Trump appears to want Venezuela’s socialist dictator, Nicholas Maduro, to resign but Maduro says he isn’t going anywhere. The deployment of CSAR aircraft indicates that the president is deadly serious about war with Venezuela. It’s all part of Trump’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. For those just joining us, the Monroe Doctrine, born in the 19th Century from President Monroe’s policy, was to prevent foreign nations — principally Europeans — from colonizing the Western Hemisphere. The “Donroe Doctrine” is Trump’s idea that attempts to ensure that no power — China, Russia, Iran or others — can have major influence in our Hemisphere. Which brings us to Venezuela. Venezuela is a socialist country allied to Russia and China as well as Cuba. Both Russia and China have provided financial assistance to Venezuela but it is so sunk in corruption that this aid is essentially unnoticed. Dictator Nicholas Maduro and his henchmen absorb whatever financial assistance may be given except for the monies that are used to keep Venezuela’s oil flowing. Since September 2, U.S. forces have blown up more than 20 alleged drug smuggling boats and killed many — presumably all — of their crews. The September 2 strike is of particular import because, according to several news sources, a second strike was ordered when some of the crew survived the first. To do so would at least be a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice which prohibits the killing of former combatants, civilians and POWs. The situation would be entirely confused but for the fact that Special Operations Command boss Adm. Frank Bradley reportedly admitted ordering the second strike. The president’s legal authority to strike the alleged drug boats is questionable. His authority to seize and bring to a U.S. port ships such as the Skipper is not. The Skipper is a VLCC — a very large crude oil carrier which typically can carry about two million barrels of oil — and has a long, sordid record of thwarting U.S. sanctions on Iranian and Venezuelan oil. It was reportedly not using its ship locater and falsely flying a Guyanese flag, both of which are violations of international maritime regulations. The ship reportedly has the ability to perform a ship-to-ship transfer of oil so that it can either transfer the oil to a Chinese ship or carry it directly to China. The Skipper had been specifically sanctioned and its carrying of prohibited cargoes of Venezuelan and Iranian oil qualified it for seizure under U.S. law. Trump said we would keep its cargo of oil. We may be dissuading other crude oil ships from going to Venezuela for a time. But for how long will we be willing to seize those ships and what will we do with them after we’ve seized them? The ships could be sold to legitimate oil traders but would soon create a glut on the market. Meanwhile, Maduro has accused us of piracy. So far, the president’s pressure on Maduro has not had much effect. Our latest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, has been in the waters off Venezuela since November. We have built up both naval and Air Force assets in places such as the Roosevelt Roads base in Puerto Rico. So far, reports indicate that we have KC-135 and KC-46 tanker aircraft, E/A-18G Growler aircraft (designed to interfere with enemy electronic transmission and such) as well as F-35s to that base. The president has also deployed combat search and rescue (CSAR) aircraft. But what is it all in aid of? President Trump came to office in his first term promising to end our “endless wars.” But he has indicated that we may be commencing ground operations in Venezuela very soon. Perhaps he has in mind a “splendid little war” with Venezuela which could oust Maduro in a few weeks. But no war plan survives first contact with the enemy. And in this case the enemy includes both our allies, enemies, and the media which would castigate Trump as an aggressor and war monger. If Trump wants to start a war with Venezuela, he could do so for 60 days without violating the War Powers Act which, as I pointed out last week, is of questionable constitutionality and was passed over President Nixon’s veto. After that, he would have to seek either a declaration of war against Venezuela or an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) which, so far, he hasn’t done. Or he could take yet another case to the Supreme Court challenging the War Powers Act which he might not win. Any war with Venezuela would break the bond of trust between the military and the president. That trust — spend my life if you must — is based on the concept of a vital national security interest without a threat to which no president should start a war. Iran and China are trading with ships going between their ports and Venezuela and China. Russia and China are Maduro’s closest allies, but they show no sign of willingness to defend Venezuela with financial or military aid. Maduro may be content to wait us out. He knows, as do all the world’s leaders, that Trump doesn’t usually follow through on the threats he makes. But this threat is different because Trump is apparently positioning our forces to take on Venezuela’s defenses. The deployment of CSAR aircraft indicates that the president is deadly serious about war with Venezuela. In the times of the Monroe Doctrine, our nation was united in its pursuit. The “Donroe Doctrine” has no such unity to rely on.  If, as it seems, the president wants a war with Venezuela, he needs to explain why it is in our vital national security interest to do so. At this point, that seems entirely doubtful. READ MORE from Jed Babbin: Trump Could Win on Birthright Citizenship Erasing Old Joe Striking the Unknown      

It’s Christmas here in Beverly Hills. The nearby shopping street of shopping streets, Rodeo Drive, is lit and decorated beyond anything I have ever seen before. One blazing store front after another with the most expensive names in modern shopping history. It’s a carnival of the vanities. It’s a place I would not have believed existed — but exists. We pray that God allowed the miracle of America to triumph in the atomic age. At my usual lunch time cafe, the Cabana Café of the Beverly Hills Hotel, there are beautiful girls and handsome men galore. They are wearing the clothing of rich people. I am there in my “uniform” of blue blazer and oxford cloth shirt and school ties from days in New York and New Haven. My usual hostesses greet me with smiles and laughter. As always, I say “Merry Christmas!” to everyone I pass in the lobby. Some ask me why I, a Jew with Jewish forebears from the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, wish everyone “Merry Christmas,” instead of “Happy Holidays.” It’s not complicated. To me, “Merry Christmas” means, “Be thankful for God’s love.” Despite the horrors that man has rained down on man, be thankful that we are still here, having a good meal, walking down well-decorated halls, exchanging greetings with men and women we barely know — except that we know them as beneficiaries of God’s love. Yes, we Jews know the men and women in Beverly Hills have been blessed beyond imagination by surviving the Holocaust, by having ancestors who fought against men who killed everyone they could find just out of hate. Every night, my goddess wife and I hug each other and say intense prayers of thanks for my wife’s war hero father, Col. Dale Denman Jr., who fought to liberate Gunskirchen Lager, a horrible death camp. He was a “warrior angel.” So was her uncle, Major Bob Denman, both of Prescott, Arkansas, who fought in the gruesome battle of the Chosin Reservoir. We pray for my father, Lt. J.G., USN, Herbert Stein, who sailed on two aircraft carriers that were sunk off the island of Luzon, and miraculously survived. We pray for Richard Nixon, who saved Israel when the USSR wanted to destroy it. We pray that God allowed the miracle of America to triumph in the atomic age. We pray with thanks that God allowed me to have the world’s most glorious woman, my wife, Alexandra Denman, to survive and lie next to me for most of a century. And we will keep on praying, and saying, “Merry Christmas!!!” And God bless America!!! READ MORE from Ben Stein: We Are Not Depression Proof Saving Is a Must Mr. and Mrs. Bureaucrats, Show Us Some Mercy