HOLLYWOOD – American Sniper has set its sights on another record: Within a matter of days, it will overtake Steven Spielberg’s WWII classic Saving Private Ryan to become the top-grossing war-themed film of all time in North America, not accounting for inflation.
Clint Eastwood’s history-making movie jumped the $200 million mark on Sunday, putting it ahead of Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor, another WWII title topping out at $198.5 million domestically in 2001. American Sniper is distinct from those two film in being set during a modern-day conflict.
Saving Private Ryan, released in 1998, earned $216.7 million […] Sniper will cross $216 million sometime this week for Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow. (more…)

“He shouldn’t have gotten out of the car”, a phrase heard consistently in both the Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown shootings. In essence the argument being both citizen George Zimmerman and officer Darren Wilson held responsibility for the outcome because they exited their vehicle.
We have discussed this viewpoint as the “Safari Principle“, however now the Ferguson/Saint Louis police department is considering the argument -under the auspices of “tactical retreat”- as a standard policy.
SAINT LOUIS – Like many officers involved in deadly force encounters, Darren Wilson said his training took over when he shot Michael Brown in Ferguson.
But what if Wilson had been trained differently?
The national upheaval from Brown’s death, and some others since, has put enormous pressure on law enforcement to find ways to control people’s behavior while using less violence. One possibility — simple but repugnant to some officers — is to teach police to back away from certain difficult situations until help can arrive.
The concept is known as “tactical retreat” or sometimes “tactical withdrawal” or “tactical restraint.”
“We add the word, ‘tactical’ and not just ‘retreating’ or ‘giving up’ because that’s what makes it palatable for police officers,” explained Seth Stoughton, a criminal law professor at the University of South Carolina. The former Florida officer is a nationally prominent advocate for applying the softer approach. (more…)

The Nazis Were Socialists, Not Right-Wingers

Why both are presented in the media as “right-wing” when both Nazis and Fascists had socialist roots. Klavan and Whittle wonder whether nazism and fascism might be more similar to today’s progressive movement in the Democratic Party than to modern conservatism. Does President Obama have more in common with Mussolini than Thomas Jefferson? Find out.

The anti-American leftists are apoplectic… “how can this be so”? Coast to coast movie theaters continue to be filled with enthusiastic patriots willingly forking over their hard earned money to see a movie fraught with patriotic sentiment.  The crowds are so large the professionally liberal are now retreating from their earlier antagonistic positions.
Heading into week #2 American Sniper continues to draw massive audiences and there’s still 10 days left to rack up even more records for a movie that has already blown out previous January records for box office releases.
VARIETY – After a record-breaking wide-release debut over the Martin Luther King holiday, “American Sniper” will loom large at the box office for the second weekend in a row.
Analysts didn’t see Clint Eastwood’s look at the life of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle coming, so it’s hard to figure out just how massive the film will continue to be now that it faces off against new projects from Jennifer Lopez and Johnny Depp. (more…)

“American Sniper,” the new Clint Eastwood film based on the real life story of Chris Kyle, has the Left jerking spasmodically in a puddle of their own vitriol. You see, Eastwood made a film where the American military man is a strong, masculine, good guy, not an ironic, sniffling, paste-bucket. In part one of this three-part Trifecta, Bill Whittle, Scott Ott and Stephen Green show why this is the worst thing that could happen to the left.
BILL WHITTLE

(Via Deadline) American Sniper is huge. So huge that the Clint Eastwood-directed film could, by sunrise, make more in one day than any one of his films ever made in a weekend. Per late night industry estimates, the Warner Bros./Village Roadshow pic looks to gun down $29.1M in its first expanded Friday, within inches of blowing away Eastwood’s previous weekend high, 2009’s Gran Torino at $29.5M.
Hands down, American Sniper’s Friday booty ranks as the highest grossing day ever charted by a film in January – and that goes for an opening (previous record holder was 2008’s Cloverfield at $17.16M) and single day (prior was the $25.8M B.O. racked up by Avatar on Jan. 2, 2010).  (continue reading)

The outlaw parents told by the STATE if they allow their children, 10 and 6-years-old, to be outside the home -unattended by adult supervision- their children will be taken by Child Protective Services and the parents will be arrested.

(Via Daily Signal) Two parents in Silver Spring, Md. are under investigation after authorities picked up their 6-year-old daughter and 10-year old son walking by themselves back from Woodside Park, which is a located a mile from their house.

Danielle and Alexander Meitiv say after after the Dec. 20 apprehension of their kids, they have been unfairly targeted by authorities as neglectful parents, according to The Washington Post. The Meitvs are advocates of “free-range” parenting, generally requiring their children to carry cards stating, “I am not lost. I am a free-range kid.”
“The world is actually even safer than when I was a child, and I just want to give them the same freedom and independence that I had — basically an old-fashioned childhood,” Danielle Meitv told the Post. (more…)

This is not a Saturday Night Live sketch, this is real [I cannot stop laughing]. This has to be the ultimate representative optic of all things liberal and ridiculous.
In an effort to repair the optics stemming from the White House skipping the French “unity rally”, someone, somewhere, probably Secretary Kerry himself, thought it would be a great idea to take James Taylor to France to sing “you’ve got a friend” publicly, on stage, with Secretary Kerry – as the liberal audience/media look on swooningly….
I just cannot stop laughing. This is too funny to even be embarrassed. Watch:

Asia Times Online,  Jan 16/2015:
Saudi reset with Iran unavoidable, as Saudi Prince Turki renames IS “Fahesh” (obscene)….

The terrorist strike last week on the Saudi border post facing the Iraqi province of Anbar — known to be the Islamic State’s first assault on the kingdom — could be the proverbial straw on the camel’s back, forcing Riyadh into a profound rethink of its regional strategies imbued with the rivalries involving Iran…
Tehran has effectively countered the Saudi plots in Syria and Iraq and at the moment would seem to have the upper hand. The last-ditch Saudi attempt to hurt the Iranian economy by forcing a steep decline in oil prices is not only not having the desired effect but, as President Hassan Rouhani explicitly warned yesterday, Riyadh may end up shooting at its own feet (as well as the Kuwaiti brother’s).

However, it is the attack on the Saudi post by the IS (killing two border guards and their commanding officer) that becomes a defining moment. The fact that the IS attackers included three Saudi nationals must be a rude awakening. To be sure, the blowback has begun. The Saudis hope to erect a ‘great wall’ and insulate themselves from the IS barbarians next door but that is sheer bravado.
(more…)

Remarkable bravery considering the backlash Recep Erdogan is likely to retaliate with.
(Via PJ Media) A newspaper in Turkey whose roots stretch to the founding of the modern republic will truly live the words “je suis Charlie” on Wednesday when it publishes the new Charlie Hebdo issue in Turkish despite threats.
Cumhuriyet (The Republic), founded in 1924 at the encouragement of Mustafa Kemal, tweeted that it will continue to “defend the freedom of expression” and will dedicate four of its pages to the French satirical paper’s content. They’ll also reportedly double their normal press run to 100,000 copies.
Besides French, the only other language of Charlie Hebdo in print will be Italian. English, Spanish, and Arabic versions will be available in online formats.
Threats have reportedly been pouring into the newspaper in the 99 percent Muslim country, and some overtly posted on Twitter. Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek, a member of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), stoked the flames by tweeting in all caps that the paper was about to commit a “serious provocation” and asking followers to spread the word. He also accused the newspaper of working with some foreign power and declared it a “game of the enemies of Islam.” (more…)