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To commemorate Thanksgiving and garner First Family photo ops presidents often host Rose Garden ceremonies, where they "“pardon" a turkey, before sitting down to dine on one of its cousins. In fact, Americans will eat close to 50 million of these tasty birds this year. We will roast this year's family bird in a Big Green Egg, with bourbon and barbecue sauce on and under the skin. Lip-smacking! Unlike their wild cousins, today's domesticated turkeys are bred for hefty portions of white and dark meat, atop legs that barely support their bodyweight. You might say they are big, bloated and...

I had always looked upon my six-year-old son as a blessing. But now I realize that he is a disease. My wife, my parents, my grandparents, and every member of my family, both living and deceased, are likewise a disease. But if you are reading this right now, and you are white, you should know that your children and all of your loved ones are also a disease. So implies a University of Colorado education professor, Cherly E. Matias, in the most recent edition of Teaching Education, a peer-reviewed journal.

Proof that Bernie Sanders is a pro-totalitarian Marxist.

Closing out the Wednesday edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell remarked how the presidential candidacy of Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Tex) would have been sunk and declared “a non-starter” under so-called normal circumstances due to so many of Cruz’s Senate colleagues having a disdain for him. Mitchell was speaking with former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman and MSNBC political analyst Michael Steele when she exclaimed: “The conventional wisdom has always been that Ted Cruz had so alienated all his colleagues that he was a non-starter to be a national candidate, but this year, that could be an...

"World's Oldest" Cognac Opened in Poland What is thought to be the world's oldest Cognac sold at auction was opened in Poland recently to inaugurate a partnership between a Swiss watchmaker and a corporate collector. The Gautier Cognac was purchased by collector Wealth Solutions in 2014 during an auction of rare wines and liquors organised by Bonhams Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers in New York. The bottle itself dates back to 1762 and was recognised as the oldest Cognac sold at public auction to-date when it went under the hammer. It was opened during a ceremony to mark the partnership...

In an exchange with Paul Krugman, political scientist Alan Abramowitz made one of the best cases I've heard for, as Krugman put it, "thinking the Trumpthinkable." At some point, Abramowitz argued, pundits need to admit that Trump has a good chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination. But that remains a minority viewpoint. Nate Silver, for instance, published a piece arguing that analysts extrapolating forward from Trump's current (and impressively durable) poll lead are likely to be disappointed. So I called Abramowitz and asked him to walk me through his argument in more detail. (snip)...... I saw what Nate Silver...

.... Walt Disney Co. has revealed that it lost three million subscribers to its sports network ESPN within one year..... ....Based on that, the loss of 3 million subscribers in one year would be taking around $216 million away from Disney's coffers.....

Chicago protesters pulled down barricades and tore light strands off the city Christmas tree Wednesday night in Millennium Park, WGN-TV reported. It was the second night of protests over the death of Laquan McDonald, a black 17-year-old who was fatally shot by a white police officer.

ring back enhanced interrogation like waterboarding? TRUMP: Well, we have to be strong. You know, they don’t use waterboarding over there; they use chopping off people’s heads. They use drowning people. I don’t know if you’ve seen with the cages where they put people in cages and they drown them in the ocean and they lift out the cage. And we’re talking about waterboarding. We have to be tough -- STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’d bring back waterboarding? TRUMP: We have -- I would bring it back, yes. I would bring it back. I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they’d...

Russia's foreign ministry on Thursday urged nationals currently in Turkey to return home after tensions with Ankara soared over the downing of a Russian warplane. "In connection with the existing terrorist threats on Turkish territory, we once again recommend that Russian citizens refrain from visiting Turkey, and recommend that Russians who are there for personal purposes return home," the foreign ministry said in a statement. The statement follows recent calls by Moscow for Russians not to travel to Turkey.

The Thanksgiving season is upon us, and as most Americans look forward to spending this special time of year with family and friends, many other Americans, including 2.7 million children, are forced to spend the holidays without their mother and/or father, through no fault of their own. In all too many homes, there will be an empty seat at the Thanksgiving table. The U.S. criminal justice system incarcerates more citizens than any other country in the world including, incredibly, those with authoritarian (or worse) governments. That makes it impossible to ignore the high cost we pay as a society for...

BLACK HAWK, Colo. —A Harvard librarian attending a conference in the Denver area is facing multiple charges after sheriff's investigators say he tried to meet someone whom he believed to be an underage teen for sex. Authorities said an undercover investigator with the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office posing as a teenager on a social networking site was contacted by Yahya Hussein Ahmad Melhem, 47. According to the arrest affidavit, Melhem said that he was a 39-year-old librarian from Massachusetts, and that he was in town for a conference. Investigators said Melhem's conversation with the investigator became sexually graphic, and he...

Clark County's largest employee union is taking the county to court in effort to overturn an arbitrator's ruling that eliminates hundreds of millions of dollars in longevity pay for future hires. The Service Employees International Union Local 1107 filed a motion to vacate the arbitrator's contract award this week in Clark County District Court. To prevail, the union would need a judge to find that the arbitrator disregarded state law when issuing his final, binding decision. The arbitrator, Ross Runkel, also gave county employees 4.5 percent in retroactive pay increases in his Aug. 25 award. The key sticking point, however,...

The True Story of Plymouth and the First Thanksgiving Few public school students remain who remember the true story of the Pilgrim’s first few years in Plymouth Colony. The historic record was at one time a valuable part of American education. Essential lessons were learned from the failure of our nation’s first disastrous experiment with communism. The first settler’s failure actually birthed the implementation of free market economics in the new world. The truth of much of America’s history simply does not support the politically correct narrative of today’s textbook authors, so the truth has dwindled into obscurity over the...

This Thanksgiving, President Obama is calling for Americans to lend a helping hand to another group of pilgrims fleeing persecution. "Nearly four centuries after the Mayflower set sail, the world is still full of pilgrims - men and women who want nothing more than the chance for a safer, better future for themselves and their families," Obama said in his weekly address Thursday. "What makes America America is that we offer that chance."

In late March... [**snip**]

"One of those patriots, a 21-year-old Army Soldier, will not be at the family table this Thanksgiving. He made his last trip home on October 16, his ashes carried by a family member. While boarding was about to begin, an employee of Alaskan Airlines asked travelers to help her honor the Soldier while she sang the National Anthem for him. Her tribute was recorded by a passenger on the flight and was later shared by another flight attendant."

Like pretty much else in this race for the White House as it pertains to Donald Trump, this Muslims-celebrating-in-Jersey-after-9/11-story dominating the narrative for days is a fascinating study in media process. Before we continue, a little background from the author: I was in New York on 9/11. I lived in Jersey (still do) at the time. I, like the rest of the country, watched the news non-stop for days, weeks after the attacks. And while I do vividly remember images coming out of the Middle East of people openly celebrating the attacks (that one older woman with big glasses snapping...

Russia ups retaliatory action after downing of jet by Turkey; looks to ban Turkish agricultural imports amid other 'restrictive measures.' Russia is preparing a raft of retaliatory economic measures against Turkey after Ankara downed one of its warplanes, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday - with Israel among several countries likely to benefit as Moscow looks for alternative trading and tourism partners. "The government has been ordered to work out a system of response measures to this act of aggression in the economic and humanitarian spheres," Medvedev told a cabinet meeting in televised comments. He said under Russian law the...

"Luis Manuel Diaz, local leader of the Democratic Action party in Altagracia de Orituco (Guarico state) has just been shot dead," the party's chairman Henry Ramos Allup said on Twitter. Ramos Allup said Diaz was standing next to Lilian Tintori, wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who is in prison for incitement to violence in 2014 antigovernment protests. He added that the shooter, whom he believed to be a member of an "armed gang" linked to the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), carried out the attack from a vehicle. In a statement, the Union of South American...