Flotsam and Jetsam - Gone Fishin' DIY

Trump and the Pubs

Naval Lawyer Delivers a Kill Shot to the Left's Uproar Over Trump's Airstrikes on Narco-Terrorists
TRUMP JUST MADE CHEAP TRUCKS LEGAL AGAIN. Check out the "climate" regulations he rolled back! - Not the Bee
Senate To Confirm 97 More Trump Nominees After Democrat Blockade Fails - The Daily Caller
The Filibuster Must Be Euthanized Now - The American Spectator
Althouse: "The President kind of holds up his hand and says, 'No, no, no, hold on a second. There's something much more important. Shoes.'"

The Disloyal Opposition

The Somali Welfare Fraud Scandal Is Even Worse Than You Think
The Minnesota Fraud Scandal Just Got a Whole Lot Worse for Walz and Omar – PJ Media
Instapundit - HUGH HEWITT INTERVIEWS POWER LINE’S SCOTT JOHNSON: The first reporter on the Minnesota fraud scand
Walz's bleeding heart keeps costing Minnesota taxpayers - Opinion
A Lawsplainer -- The Somali Fraud Edition
DC_Draino on X: "One of Obama’s top DEA guys was just caught laundering $12,000,000 for the cartels. When we said Democrats are working with the cartels to destroy America, we weren’t exaggerating."
Zohran Mamdani's DSA party pushing China propaganda in new monthly 'political education' seminars - New York Post
Althouse: "They’re trying to turn it into something scary, something sinister. But folks, it’s not really about anything that’s all that complicated."

Just Us

ALX 🇺🇸 on X: "BREAKING: Family of January 6th Pipe Bomb suspect say he is not a Trump supporter, contradicting claims made by many in legacy media. 
The Myth That the J6 Pipe Bomber Was a ‘Trump Supporter’ Just Blew Up – PJ Media
J6 Bomber Family: He's Not MAGA. He's a Basement-Dwelling Loner With A Grudge. – HotAir

Immigration Matters

Deputy ICE Dir. Has a Damning Question for Voters After Another Democrat 'Interferes' With Agents – RedState
Patty Murray: José Screams in Excruciating Pain As an ICE Vehicle Allegedly Runs Over His Legs – Twitchy
Eric S. Raymond on X: "@JBlunt1018 You'll love the plan if deporting immigrants doesn't fix things. It's "shoot all the communists". Mind you, I'm not warranting that I think either plan will actually work. I think the assumptions behind both plans are somewhat oversimplified. I'm just saying but before you . . "

The Wombat has FMJRA 2.0: The Hits Just Keep On Coming online and garnering clicks at The Other McCain.

SJWs Find New Target - High Heels

I guess it's because they can't dance backwards in them. Social Justice Warriors Want Women to Ditch Their High Heels

First they came for the stilettos….

Just before Christmas the media were agog with an allegedly brand-new trend: women throwing away their high heels in the wake of the flurry of revelations of entertainment-industry sexual harassment. The idea wasn’t simply that women can run faster to escape from Hollywood predators if they’re wearing Allbirds Wool Runner sneakers instead of four-inch Jimmy Choos. It was that flat-heeled shoes enable women to “reclaim control,” presumably from men in general. “[D]itching heels can be a way to show that they value their own well-being over men’s desires,” Business Insider’s Kate Taylor wrote.

Gal Gadot

Taylor’s article, like many a piece of reporting produced in this pre-Yule anti-high-heel frenzy, featured photos aimed at proving that flat shoes can be glamorous, too: Gal Gadot in an evening gown and gold thong sandals (as if Gadot wouldn’t look good with her feet wrapped in cleaning rags) and some exceptionally ugly furry and wooden-soled Puma slides said to be favored by Rihanna (same problem). There was also the obligatory much-mocked photo of that princess of political incorrectness, Melania Trump, her feet clad in black patent-leather five-inch pumps as she boarded Air Force One with her presidential husband this past summer to visit Hurricane Harvey-ravaged Texas (never mind that Melania switched into more practical sneakers before she got off the plane).

In a similar vein, New York Times fashion reporter Bonnie Wertheim published a December 16 article, “Are High Heels Headed for a Tumble?,” that included photos of still more politically correct (and certifiably hideous) “comfort shoes” that are supposed to replace the high heel in this sexism-alert age: Crocs (yes, they’re still around), Dansko clogs (for just $135 you, too, can look like a medieval peasant), and Birkenstocks (you have to be Heidi Klum to get away with cork-rimmed hippie sandals that make your Size 10 feet look like Size 15’s). Wertheim quoted Northwestern University psychology professor Renée Engeln: “Why do the things we do for ourselves have to hurt? Why do the shoes we choose for ourselves make us less able to run away if we need to run away?…Why do the things that we do supposedly for ourselves cause us long-term physiological damage?”

And as if that campaign against actual stilettos weren’t enough, Florie Hutchinson, a self-described arts publicist in Palo Alto, California, has a campaign against stiletto emojis. Incensed not just at the teetering heel height on the virtual shoe that pops up on smartphones but at its “vixen-ish” bright red color, Hutchinson has asked the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit that approves standardized emojis across platforms, to substitute a ballet flat instead. “The high-heeled stiletto is highly suggestive,” she wrote. “[Stilettos are] most often associated with fetishism and seduction and made popular in the 50s during the era of ‘Mad Men,’ and most recently by ‘Sex in the City.’” Hutchinson complained to the media that the stiletto emoji promotes a “sexualized” image of women that could negatively influence her three young daughters. (The Unicode Consortium will release its decision on Hutchinson’s and others’ proposed emoji changes in January.)

If the point of all of this were solicitude for women’s comfort, it might make sense. There’s no doubt that wearing ultra-high heels day in and day out for extended periods of time can damage not just your feet but your kneecaps and the muscles in your calves as well. A 2012 article in the Journal of Applied Physiology reported that the long-term wearing of even two-inch heels (“kitten”-height) for forty hours a week could lead to muscle fatigue and greater risk of strain injuries. And that’s not to mention the pain of standing in four-inch heels for a couple of hours at that wedding reception. If you’re a chef or a surgeon or a scrub nurse who’s required to spend extended time on your feet, a pair of Danskos is obviously preferable to a pair of Christian Louboutins. Still, most office jobs for women—the kinds of jobs where a pair of modestly high-heeled pumps might be de rigueur for a professional appearance—don’t require a huge amount of standing, and there are entire brands of shoes—Aerosoles, Naturalizer—that specialize in dress pumps designed for maximum workday comfort. Contrary to what the photos in the recent anti-high heels media flurry suggest, women don’t really have to choose between spikes and Crocs when it comes to buying footwear.

Giselle Bunchen

The real goal of the war against high heels seems to be to make wearing them—or being required to wear them at workplaces—socially unacceptable. Hence the periodic declarations in the media that high heels have gone out of style (women are “ditching” them!) and Birkenstocks are in. Or the fanciful pronunciamentos from social scientists that wearing running shoes instead of Manolos could help you flee the Harvey Weinsteins in your life. There has also been a flurry of anti-high heel legislative bills that would ban employers from mandating dress codes for their female employees that include even two-inch heels. British Columbia now has such a law, and Ontario is considering one—although the British Parliament recently rejected such an effort.

Feminists and other SJW's are always on the hunt for new excuses to impose their will on other people.

The most serious obstacle to the anti-high heel campaign—and the reason that high heels keep returning to the fashion and office scene, as they did even during the early 2000s, when it was said that women wearing flats descended the burning towers of 9/11 faster than their sisters in heels—isn’t a male patriarchy leering at the hobbled gait of stilettoed females. It’s women themselves. Studies in journals of evolutionary psychology indicate that members of both sexes simply find women wearing high heels more attractive than women in flats. The heel height not only creates an illusion of longer, slimmer legs but changes her walking style and the tilt of her hips. As a 2015 article in Psychology Today explained, “What these shoes do is make women walk even more like women.” And the women who wear high heels regularly know that, and they’re obviously willing to put up with a certain amount of discomfort to get that effect. It’s going to take more than a ballet flat emoji or a breathless article in the New York Times to persuade women to stop wanting to look and feel like women.

Straws, and now high heels.

And one for the girls:

Linked at nourishing Obscurity in Thursday. Wombat-socho has Rule Five Sunday: Good Night, Sweet Princess ready at The Other McCain.

Your Morning Shoe Ad

Starring Rule 5 winner Cara Delevingne:



Found at Althouse:

A Jimmy Choo shoe ad with a woman walking down the street and men saying "nice shoes, lady"...

... is denounced — because it's "catcalling."

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Monday: Linda Ronstadt" ready at The Other McCain. Linked by Evi L. Bloggerlady in "Vintage New Years Eve", "Julie Andrews: Auld Lang Syne", "Shakshuka and Cultural Genocide", "Rose Marie RIP", "Will 2018 be an excellent year?", "Wind River: A Review", "Cheers: 2018 is coming!",  "When 100,000 Iranian Women Protested Head Scarfs", "Celebrate National Bacon Day", "Camera Obscura: New Years Resolution with bonus Zooey Deschanel and Ella Fitzgerald", "Darkest Hour: A Review", "Gary Sinise is Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade", "Polar Bear Plunge and New Years Rule 5" and "Pentatonix: White Winter Hymnal."

Reason #5668 That Trump Was Elected

Melania Trump and the unreasoning hatred of the MSM mob. Melania Trump wore her usual very high heels to cross the White House lawn to board Marine One as she and the Donald left to visit Texas, and the MSM crowd went wild: Melania's stiletto sideshow - As the first lady departed to see storm fallout in Texas, Twitter erupted with critiques of her shoe choice.

Melania Trump, the former model and reluctant first lady, often lets her fashion choices do the talking for her.

Since her belated move into the White House in June, Melania Trump hasn’t yet announced an issue, or even an area of interest, for which she plans to advocate from her powerful platform. She has made few public speeches or statements, beyond introductions at campaign rallies she attends with her husband. But she’s dutifully stepped into the silent role of enhancing her husband by appearing impeccably and appropriately dressed by his side.

Poor little mouse, has no feminist spirit. Only speaks 5 languages, and want to raise her son without interference from the mob.

But on Tuesday, she appeared to put the wrong foot forward when she boarded Marine One, en route to visit emergency responders in hurricane-ravaged Texas, wearing towering black snakeskin stilettos.

The emblematic first image of the first lady heading off to visit a hurricane in heels — a moment that the president has seized on as an opportunity to project strength and show off decisive leadership — instead became another symbol of a White House that can often seem out of touch.

You know, I wouldn't have thought anything of it, until they pointed it it. It looks like tall heels are Melania's first choice in shoes.

 Lisa Kline, who worked as a stylist to vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the 2008 election, said in an interview she thought “it was a mistake in the message it relays. A lot of eyes were on them. They’re going to a devastated area. She should be dressed accordingly.”

The heels at least temporarily stole the spotlight from a gloomy president who aides said has been buoyed by what he sees, so far, as an effective coordinated response to a record-breaking storm.

And we know that John McCain packed Palin's staff with back biting snakes

 There was no acknowledgment from the White House that the first lady’s storm attire was at all off-key. Instead, her staff blamed the media for creating a “sad” side circus to an otherwise somber day.

“It’s sad that we have an active and ongoing natural disaster in Texas,” said Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for the first lady, “and people are worried about her shoes.”

And the heels affect the natural disaster how, exactly?

She wasn’t the only female member of the Trump delegation wearing footwear that raised eyebrows — two other women were spotted on Air Force One wearing pumps and suede heels.

Oh my god! pumps and suede heels? How can the Republic ever recover?

Later Tuesday, the first lady’s office released a statement on the storm. “I want to be able to offer my help and support in the most productive way possible, not through just words, but also action,” the first lady said. “What I found to be the most profound during the visit was not only the strength and resilience of the people of Texas, but the compassion and sense of community that has taken over the state. My thoughts and prayers continue to be with the people of Texas and Louisiana.”

 But, have no fear!

 On board Air Force One to Corpus Christi, as the picture of the delicate heels ricocheted across the Internet, Melania Trump changed into a pair of bright, white sneakers, which looked fresh out of the box.

Any reason to think ill of Trump eh? Why would Melania wear old worn sneakers?  I kind of think Melania likes new shoes. She can afford them.

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Butts! Boobs! The Final OUTRAGE!!!" and "FMJRA 2.0: The One You Love To Hate" up on time and within budget.

How Hard Can it Be?

To just walk up and down that runway?

Linked in Wombat-socho's "Rule 5 Monday: Half Price Chocolate Day Edition" at The Other McCain.