[guest post by Dana]

NOTE: Commenter nk suggests that this picture was photoshopped. I read the report in the Washington Post last night. I do think that the automatic response for the left when confronted by their own awfulness, is denial and defense (“that’s just one person, not all of us”). But, if it does turn out to be a false flag, I will make sure to update the post.

I don’t ever want to hear one more damn liberal feminist or progressive politician lecture me about misogynistic boogeymen. Because if they knew of this and didn’t forcefully condemn it, then they are nothing but clanging gongs deserving of our deepest contempt:

Shame on every hypocritical, weak-willed person standing near the person holding the sign who said nothing and did nothing to get him to put it down. Shame on every hypocrite whose inaction exposed them as being on the same team as this reprehensible individual. And if you were in the midst of this protest and saw this sign and you made no effort to grab it, or pressure him to put it down, you expose yourself as a tacit supporter who gave license to an individual to publicly threaten and wish evil upon Melania Trump. A woman who has done you no wrong. Your silence speaks volumes. That you, as a group, were not an unmovable force united against this hatred, compelling the individual to put down the sign, makes you all accomplices.

And to the women standing there, a double shame on you if you said nothing and did nothing, because you betray every woman who has actually endured being raped at the hands of a ruthless man. Sisterhood has its limits apparently.

Oh. Wait. What’s that?? You say it’s okay because Melania Trump is the Republican wife of a man you hate??

You small soulless and vindictive ghouls, to think that it’s okay to see this and say nothing and do nothing makes you a misogynistic hypocritical pig, and all your post-election howls mean Absolutely Nothing. In fact, they mean even less than nothing. They are but the shameful fallout from hollowed-out hearts of the self-consumed who no longer have a functioning moral compass upon which to find their way out of the abyss. You have been exposed by your own self-righteousness. Never again will your words have meaning, give challenge, or be relevant. You define deplorables.

So to all the wounded liberals who saw this photo on the internet, on the news, on Twitter, and didn’t rise up in a righteous fury, then Screw You. All you elite 5th Avenue residents who voted for Hillary Clinton and smugly chimed in with her that, “love trumps hate,” and yet saw this in your neighborhood and said nothing, you, clueless fools, are precisely why Trump is in office. And from the New York Times, to feminists like Jessica Valenti, Amanda Marcotte, Jill Filipovic, and to Chelsea Clinton, Manhattan Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Valerie Jarret, Loretta Lynch, Michelle Obama, and to Hillary Clinton – especially Hillary Clinton, I CAN’T HEAR YOU.

So I’m going to borrow Michelle Obama’s stinging rebuke delivered to Donald Trump, and say it with a dripping venomous vigor and disgust to those who ignored and excused this act of hate, whether in person or from afar:

This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable — it doesn’t matter what party you belong to, no woman deserves to be treated this way.

Word.

–Dana

As many regular readers know, my pet project The Constitutional Vanguard promotes liberty, free markets, and the Constitution. More than just a newsletter, the group has its own private Facebook page — and I have now created a private forum on this website for members of the group. Instructions on signing up for the private forum can be found at the foot of the emails I send out this week, beginning tomorrow morning.

(The private forum is not the all-purpose private paid forum for general discussion that I have been contemplating. The topics will be specific to the principles of the group. But it’s a solid experimental step towards creating such a forum.)

This week the newsletter will focus on Article V of the U.S. Constitution, and on efforts to call a Convention of the States to rein in federal power. What are the benefits and risks of calling a Convention of the States? Should we worry about a “runaway convention”? And what federal abuses could be reined in by the Constitutional amendments that such a convention could propose?

These are the topics I will address in the newsletter, in three installments: on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I’m guessing that Article V will be a large part of what the group will be discussing in the private Facebook group and in the private forum.

I don’t intend to wall anyone out of this content. I keep an archive of the emails, and after the emails go out, I intend to add them to the archive, ideally within 24 hours. That archive is publicly available at this link, which has an open comments section. So the content I send out in the emails can, with some effort and time delay, be read and commented on by anyone who wishes to do so.

But the quickest and easiest way to get the content is to join the mailing list, which you can do here. And right now, that’s the only way to join the forum or the private Facebook page.

The list is growing all the time. We have over 200 members in the private Facebook group, and just shy of 700 members in the group as a whole. I don’t want to use peer pressure or anything — but all the cool kids are doing it. I’d like for the Article V newsletters to go out to as many people as possible. I’m hoping to get folks people excited about the concept — and I hope to address the major concerns and questions people have about the concept.

So what are you waiting for? Come and join us!

It’s a positive sign that it’s not Steve Bannon.

Reince Priebus will be chief of staff, source who spoke to Trump tells me. Announcement could come in the next half hour

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) November 13, 2016

More if and when it’s official.

UPDATE: New York Times:

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Sunday chose Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee and a loyal campaign adviser, to be his White House chief of staff, turning to a Washington insider whose friendship with the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, could help secure early legislative victories.

In selecting Mr. Priebus, the president-elect passed over Stephen K. Bannon, the right-wing media mogul who oversaw his presidential campaign. If Mr. Trump had appointed Mr. Bannon, a fierce critic of the Republican establishment, it would have demonstrated a continued disdain for a party that Mr. Trump fought throughout his campaign.

Mr. Trump’s choice is certain to anger some of his most conservative supporters, many of whom expect him to battle the Washington establishment over issues like taxes, immigration, trade, health care and the environment. They view Mr. Priebus as a deal maker who will be too eager to push the new president toward compromise.

In a statement Sunday afternoon, the transition team said Mr. Bannon would serve as the chief strategist and senior counselor in the White House. It emphasized that the two men would work “as equal partners to transform the federal government.”

So there you have it.