Monthly Archives: July 2017

Six months into his presidency, activists and journalists on both sides of the political divide are still struggling with how hewon and what his victory should mean for their own behavior. Just as a minority of conservative writers are beginning to understand the value of journalism in holding the powerful accountable, some liberals seem to be recoiling from the idea that their own side deserves mockery and ridicule.

The Democratic establishments failure to win against the most unpopular presidential candidate in the history of public polling has led to a resurgence of left-liberalism in the country. Even many former supporters of Hillary Clinton have become willing to admit that the partys elderly and wealthy elites have lost touch with the majority of Americans they claim to represent. Activists repeated calls for single-payer finally appears to begaining some traction with Democrats in Congress as well.

For decades, pushing toward universal coverage was the goal of many Democratic politicians, particularly that of former president Harry Truman who made it the centerpiece of his agenda. All that changed, however, after Bill Clintons attempt to address the issue crashed and burned early on in his administration. Ever since, Democratic politicians have been afraid to pursue health insurance for all Americans, including Barack Obama.

Since Hillary Clintons loss to Trump, these and other center-left policy decisions have begun to come under fierce criticism from left-liberals who have felt shut out of Democratic politics since neoliberals (including former Republicans like Clinton) effectively took control of the party in the 1990s. The stronger-than-expected primary challenge of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016 served as the galvanizing agent for left-liberalism.

With social media platforms like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter, like-minded progressives who supported Sanders campaign began to explicitly challenge Democrats they identified as sell outs. The left has also taken to webvideos to resuscitate itself. Right now, the TYT network on YouTube has more subscribers than CNN or MSNBC have viewers.Podcasts have also exploded in popularity among left-liberals.

One podcast, in particular, has been taking left-wing politics by storm.Chapo Trap House, sarcastically named after a drug house, is a highly irreverent, pop-culture-inflected group discussion that frequently features parodies of mainstream media figures.

The show also frequently ridicules Democratic politicians and neoliberal leaders for their willingness to go along with the desires of Wall Street. The hosts of Chapo who jokinglyrefer to themselves and their listeners as the dirtbag left also frequently point out that most of the architects behind the second Iraq invasion have never really had to face accountability for their disastrous policy ideas.

Thats why making fun of them is so important, co-host Matt Christman told Mediaite last year. One of the reasons theyre able to pass off their really sophomoric claims to authority is that they have this aura around themselves of wonkery and really the only way to pierce that you could, I guess, do point by point rebuttals but I think viscerally the most effective way to pierce that is just mockery.

Obviously, their targets arent laughing at the jokes but another person who doesnt find the material funny is New Republic senior editor Jeet Heer. In his view, the ridicule that Christman and his co-hosts dish out to Democrats is unproductive and evocative of the masculinist politics of the neofascist alt-right. Heer recently described Chapo Trap House as an example of the dominance politics which lies at the core of Donald Trumps appeal to his supporters:

Its easy enough to prefer insult comedy to milquetoast liberalism, the latter being too timid to go to blows with the right, but Chapo directs its barbs rather democratically. Chapo is fighting a two-front war, one against the Republicans and another against moderate Democrats. About half the time, the Chapo crew attacks right-wingers like Mike Cernovich, Sebastian Gorka, and Alex Jones. Just as often, though, they go after Clintonites like Jonathan Chait, Matt Yglesias, and Neera Tanden.

To redeploy the alt-right style of unruly jokes against alt-right figures like Cernovich or Jones makes a certain amount of sense. Thats a choice many of us would make. But the humor becomes very different when used against people of the same party, since the goal then is not to defeat an opposing side but dominate people who are part of your political coalition. you cant really build a coalition of egalitarian politics by browbeating a key segment of that coalition.

Besides the contradiction inherent in the argument that ridicule is counterproductive but still permissible to use against Republicans, Heers contention also reflects a lack of familiarity with the Chapo Trap House manner of dishing ridicule. Almost invariably, the hosts targets are political leaders and media figures instead of average Americans. The shows populist message is also apparent in the fact that it is one of the few media outlets willing to take an openly progressive message into parts of the country where run-of-the-mill Democrats refuse to tread.

Heers allergic reaction to intraparty debate and ridicule is actually rather similar to the arguments raised by conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher in a debate he had last week with Guy Benson, the political editor of Townhall.com.

Six months into the new administration, Benson is still refusing to make excuses for Trump on Russia the way that many others on the right have done. Gallagher, a co-host on the radio network which also owns Townhall, went after his colleague, essentially saying that he has no right to offer opinions on the president in light of his previous NeverTrump position.

Youve got a credibility problem, Gallagher told Benson. The two conservative commentators disagreed about the revelation that Donald Trump Jr. and other top aides had met with a woman they believed to be working with the Russian government.

I want people like you who are smart and sophisticated who appear to have the pretense of objectivity to acknowledge and maybe even via a disclaimer in your current work that youre a NeverTrumper, Gallagher said to Benson. You didnt want the guy to win and youre not happy that he won.

Contacted afterward about his exchange with Gallagher, Benson said that his colleagues attitude is in line with that of many on the right.

I think a lot of conservatives believe that theres so much antipathy toward conservatives in the mainstream press that any internal criticism or firing inside the tent, so to speak, is simply piling on, he told Salon in an interview. And therefore, they view it as some kind of a betrayal.

Benson continued: While I share the view that the media is disproportionately hostile to Republicans and conservative thinking, I dont think that fact requires conservatives analysts or journalists to abandon intellectual honesty.

One doesnt have to agree with Bensons view of media coverage to agree that hes right about the need for more intellectual honesty. Both conservatives and progressives got where they are today because neither side has been willing to clean its political house. Until thats done, Democrats wont be able to win and Republicans wont be able to govern.

The left and rights elites have been living in bubbles that Donald Trumps victory should have completely burst. Instead, theyve just been leaking.

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The Dirtbag Left can prevent the liberal elite bubble that brought us Donald Trump - Salon

The best horror movies expertly prey upon primal fears, and in the process, dissuade us from wanting to do things wed otherwise normally love to do. Like go swimming in the ocean (Jaws). Or attend sleepaway camp (Friday the 13th). Or go to bed (A Nightmare on Elm Street). Or, as any gore-hound knows, spend a weekend escaping civilization (i.e. the cultured city or suburbs) for the seclusion and tranquility of the great rural outdoors. In classics such as The Old Dark House, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Eaten Alive, Motel Hell, Tourist Trap, Wrong Turn, Calvaire and Wolf Creeknot to mention more straightforward thrillers like Straw Dogs, Misery, Breakdown, and A Perfect Getawaytheres no place on Earth more deadly for a modern man or woman than the middle of nowhere, where the rule of law is replaced by a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, and where animalistic savages assert their dominion in the most ghastly ways imaginable.

Theyre paranoid liberal fantasies about the degenerate horrors that lurk off the beaten path, and the latest nail-biting member of that club is Australian writer/director Damien Powers debut feature Killing Ground (in theaters Friday, July 21), which follows in the footsteps of its homelands Wolf Creek and, coming on the heels of Ben Youngs Hounds of Love, suggests that theres a horror renaissance burgeoning Down Under.

Powers film is indebted to innumerable predecessors, and in terms of its basic plot outline, does little to radically reinvent the subgenre to which it belongs. Nonetheless, as far as cannily orchestrated cat-and-mouse nightmares go, it works ones nerves over with skill, jumbling up its storys chronology in disorienting ways, and delivering a survivalist saga whose unnerving impact stems in large part from its refusal to shy away from the suddennessand uglinessof violence.

With a title like Killing Ground, an atmosphere of disaster naturally hangs over the peaceful opening moments of Powers tale, which finds couple Ian (Ian Meadows) and Sam (Harriet Dyer) taking a drive out to Gungilee Falls, where they plan to spend some quality time together hanging out in the wild. As they motor down a two-lane road, they jokingly sing-song about human skeletal structuresince Ian is a doctorand, upon realizing that theyve forgotten the champagne, stop at a local liquor store to procure some booze. Its the sort of offhand decision that comes back to doom pretty young people in movies such as this, and sure enough, after Sam is startled by a dog in a nearby car, Ian makes the classic mistake of asking that canines owner, scraggly-bearded German (Aaron Pedersen), for directionsthus informing the local hillbilly that he and his out-of-towner wife will be stranding themselves in the deep, dark forest for the foreseeable future.

After panicking over the thought that German is following themleading to an automotive spin-out that will only compound problems laterthey arrive at their destination. There, they discover an SUV parked at the entrance to the hiking trail, and an abandoned campsite on the beach at which theyre setting up temporary residence. Puzzled but hardly perturbed, they pitch their tent, and then out of the blue, get engageda decision that comes courtesy of Sams spontaneous proposal. Sam then attempts to call her sister to report the good news, only to discover that she has no cell service (a detail thats now a de facto requirement for any horror movie intent on keeping its characters in isolated peril).

Cut to a young teenage girl named Em (Tiarnie Coupland), who as it turns out, is one of the peoplealong with her dad (Julian Garner), mom (Maya Stange), and baby brother Ollie (Riley and Liam Parkes)who established that now-deserted riverside tent, where they all shared fireside tales of massacres and, later that evening, suffered traumatic bad dreams. Powers thus unexpectedly sets up concurrent narratives, one past and one present, that only dovetail after hes spent considerable time providing background on all his would-be victims, as well as the duo destined to cause them so much harm. That would be German and his barking-mad buddy Chook (Aaron Glenane), two deviants who live together in a ramshackle one-story abode with Germans hungry dog Banjo, and who have a fondness for taking advantage of any unwise souls who think they can use their untamed backyard as a playgrounda fact that becomes clear when, shortly after first running into Ian and Sam, German returns home to find a note left by Chook on the kitchen counter that reads Gone Hunting.

Killing Grounds fractured narrative strands progress at a leisurely pace, the better to create trepidation for inevitable calamity. Even though its obvious that nothing good is going to come of this scenario, however, the way in which brutality and bloodshed emerge remains surprising thanks to Powers shrewd understanding that it often arrives without warning. Thats most true of a particular encounter between Chook, Sam and Ollie that epitomizes the films realistic approach to cruelty and carnagerealistic in that, for all of the horror-movie flourishes utilized here, the unimaginable manifests itself with a swiftness and thudding bluntness thats far from dramatic. The materials most wrenching moments are amplified by their severe matter-of-factness, which helps to create a level of awful unpredictability that carries through to the far-from-heartening conclusion.

Powers direction is assured without being overly showy, such that he stages a few prolonged single-take sequences that are at once formally graceful and yet reasonably understated, refusing to call direct attention to themselves. Be it a gorgeous shot in which the presence of an unnoticed, stumbling background figure creates intense anxiety and anticipation, or the many compositions in which claustrophobic darkness threatens to snuff out any faint flickers of light, the filmmaker infuses his somewhat routine setup with both polish and gut-punching dread. An us-vs.-them cautionary tale about enlightened people thinking they can master the dog-eat-dog wildernessas a weekend-getaway pastime, no lessits a B-movie in the best sense of the term: rugged, no-nonsense, slyly unconventional, and fully aware that sometimes, imprudent decisions and bad luck conspire to beget unthinkable tragedies.

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A Paranoid Liberal Nightmare About Rural Horrors - The Daily Beast - Daily Beast

Liberals don't just hate President Trump; lots of them don't even like the idea of being in the company of his supporters.

That's the big takeaway from a new Pew Research Center survey, which is just the latest indicator of our remarkably tribal and partisan politics. And when it comes to Trump, it's difficult to overstate just how tribal the left is and how much distaste he engenders. Indeed, that distaste apparently extends even to people whodecided they would like to vote for Trump.

The poll shows almost half of liberal Democrats 47 percent say that if a friend supported Trump, it would actually put a strain on their friendship. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters more broadly, the number is 35 percent. White and more-educated Democrats are more likely to feel that it's tough to even be friends with a Trump supporter.

And while partisanshipand tribalism are pretty bipartisan things in American politics today, Democrats are actually substantially less able to countenancefriends who supported the wrong candidate:Just 13 percent of Republicans say a friend's support of Hillary Clinton would strain their relationship.

Part of the reason for the imbalance is likely that liberals tend to live in more homogeneous places and don't even associate with conservatives. Another Pew study last year showed a whopping47 percent of people who planned to vote for Clinton didn't have any close friends who were Trump supporters. By contrast, 31 percent of Trump supporters said they didn't have any friends who backed Clinton.

Because of the way our population is sorted, with liberals clustered in urban areas and Republicans more spread out, Democrats tend to be more insulated from dissenting political voices. So perhaps it's no surprise that they don't hear and don't want to hear those voices coming from their friends' mouths.

The prevalent belief on the left that Trump isn't just a bad president or person, but is also racist, xenophobic and misogynistic is undoubtedly at play here too. And at one point during the 2016 presidential campaign, Clinton even suggested half of Trump's supportersweredeplorables who were also racist or xenophobic or misogynistic. (Her campaign later clarified that she meant only people at Trump's rallies. But still.)

Despite that, it's noteworthy just how many people think supporting the nominee of a major American political party reflects poorly upon the people they know. Fully 46 percent of Americans who voted for president chose Trump, and that isn't really an acceptable position for a friend to take for half of liberal Democrats.

One final data point from the new Pew study: 68 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters say they find it stressful and frustrating to talk to people who have a different opinion of Trump. About half 52 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning voters say the same.

When people ask why politicians in Washington can't get along, this is why: Americans can't even talk to each other about politics anymore withoutgetting flustered.

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Nearly half of liberals don't even like to be around Trump supporters - Washington Post

A liberal group has lodged a complaint against Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, alleging he violated federal lobbying laws in the run-up to President Trumps decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal.

The American Democracy Legal Fund (ADLF) is asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to consider whether Pruitt improperly used his position to lobby the public on the U.S.s involvement in the Paris accord.

The group is citing federal law that bars federal agencies or officials from lobbying on issues that are before Congress.

In April, he reportedly told the National Mining Association about his opposition. ADLF alleges such a pronouncement would run afoul of federal lobbying laws because members of Congress had previously introduced bills pertaining to the Paris deal.

The group also said media interviews he gave in which he spoke against the deal could violate similar lobbying bans.

Administrator Pruitts communications demonstrate a clear appeal encouraging lawmakers in Congress to publicly support the United Statess withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, and thereby oppose pending legislation reaffirming the United Statess commitment to the agreement, ADLFs complaint said.

A spokesman for the EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The GAO only responds to investigative requests from members of Congress or federal officials, meaning someone else would need to back up ADLFs complaints before an audit of the agencys actions would take place.

The GAO has previously ruled against EPA efforts that they concluded broke federal laws dealing with covert propaganda.

In 2015, the office ruled the EPA, under Obama appointee Gina McCarthyGina McCarthyLiberal group files lobbying complaint against Pruitt Trumps budget prioritizes polluters over people Trump pulls US out of Paris deal: What it would mean MORE, improperly used social media campaigns to support the proposed waters of the United States rule.

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Liberal group files lobbying complaint against Pruitt - The Hill

Recently, Gallup published the results of its annual Values and Beliefs poll.

The headline of the report speaks for itself: "Americans Hold Record Liberal Views on Most Moral Issues."

Gallup has been doing this poll since 2001, and the change in public opinion on the moral issues surveyed has been in one direction more liberal.

Of 19 issues surveyed in this latest poll, responses on 10 are the most liberal since the survey started.

Sixty-three percent say gay/lesbian relations are morally acceptable up 23 points from the first year the question was asked. Sixty-two percent say having a baby outside of marriage is OK up 17 points. Unmarried sex, 69 percent up 16 points. Divorce, 73 percent up 14 points.

More interesting, and of greater consequence, is what people actually do, rather than what they think. And, not surprisingly, the behavior we observe in our society at large reflects these trends in values.

Hence, the institution of traditional marriage is crumbling, Americans are having fewer children, and, compared with years gone by, the likelihood that children are born out of the framework of marriage has dramatically increased.

Undoubtedly, the liberals in academia, in the media, in politics, see this as good news. After all, doesn't removing the "thou shalt not's" that limit life's options liberate us?

Isn't the idea of freedom supposed to be, according to them, that you have a green light to do whatever you want, as long as you're not hurting someone else?

But here's the rub. How do you measure if you are hurting someone else?

No one lives in a vacuum. We all live in a country, in communities. We are social beings, as well as individuals, no matter what your political philosophy happens to be. Everyone's behavior has consequences for others.

For instance, more and more research shows the correlation between the breakdown of the traditional family and poverty.

In 2009, Ron Haskins, of the Brookings Institution, published his "success sequence." According to Haskins, someone who completes high school, works full time and doesn't have children until after marriage only has a 2 percent chance of being poor.

A new study from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies focuses on millennials. And this study reaches conclusions similar to those of Haskins.

According to this study, only 3 percent of millennials who have a high school diploma, who are working full time and who are married before having children are poor. On the other hand, 53 percent of millennials who have not done these three things are poor.

Behavior increasing the likelihood of poverty does have consequences on others. American taxpayers spend almost a trillion dollars per year to help those in poverty, a portion of whom would not be in this situation if they lived their lives differently.

But the same liberals who scream when Republicans look for ways to streamline spending on antipoverty programs, such as Medicaid, scream just as loudly at any attempt to expose young people to biblical values that teach traditional marriage and chastity outside of marriage.

The percent of American adults that are married dropped from 72 percent in 1960 to 52 percent in 2008. The percentage of our babies born to unmarried women increased from 5 percent in 1960 to 41 percent by 2008.

This occurred against a backdrop of court orders removing all vestiges of religion from our public spaces, beginning with banning school prayer in 1962, and then the legalization of abortion in 1973. In 2015, the Supreme Court redefined marriage.

Losing all recognition that personal and social responsibility matters, that the biblical tradition that existed in the cradle of our national founding still is relevant, is bankrupting us morally and fiscally.

We are long overdue for a new, grand awakening.

Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Contact her at urbancure.org. To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at creators.com.

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Star Parker: Liberal values are bankrupting us | National Columnists ... - Kankakee Daily Journal

Merrimack Colleges new approach (Giving it the new college try, Page A1, July 18) is neither new nor laudatory. I taught there from 1965 to 1985. During earlier years the schools mission was to introduce, to educate its blue-collar constituency in the liberal arts and sciences. As a professor in a developing English department dedicated to writing and literary study, and in a humanities division offering team-taught courses, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, in history, fine arts, classical literature, philosophy, and theology, I taught students who continued their education in law school, medical school, social services, broadcasting, even politics, as well as in graduate work and teaching in English.

By the 1980s the schools mission became pragmatic, catering to those equating college with vocational training. Our English majors dropped from about 50 graduates to 10, our department declining toward a service department. Because of my scholarly publications, which were of little consequence at Merrimack, I was invited to Brigham Young University and spent the next 22 years where the liberal arts were still valued.

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It is lamentable that a college identifying as Catholic has in fact a history of moving away from the traditional liberal arts. The drift, national really, has much to do with our loss of ideals.

John J. Murphy

Newton Centre

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Nothing laudatory about drifting away from traditional liberal arts - The Boston Globe

Hamburg, Germany, July. As world leaders gather for the G20 summit, far-left anti-fascist (Antifa) rioters set fire to cars and property, terrorize residents and injure more than 200 police officers attempting to keep the peace. Did you miss it? CNNs initial reports referred to the protesters as eclectic and peaceful.

But you need not cross the shining seas to experience violence, destruction of property and a general dismantling of liberal values from the political left. You could simply visit Americas elite college campuses like Yale, Middlebury or Berkeley, where tomorrows leaders attempt to shut down conservative voices with protest or riots. At Middlebury, rioting students landed liberal professor Allison Stanger in a neck brace for the crime of defending a conservative academics right to speak. At Berkeley, mobs of students created a war zone ahead of a planned visit from conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, injuring Trump supporters and causing $100,000 in damages.

Or head to Portland, Oregon, one of the most liberal cities in the nation in the heart of the progressive Pacific Northwest, which this month Politico labeled Americas Most Politically Violent City. The progressive paradise where Republicans are virtually an extinct species has witnessed millions in damages attributed to the same types of anti-fascists-in-name-only that kept Hamburg residents paralyzed in fear this month. A counter-protest to a planned pro-Trump rally landed 14 Antifa in jail for attacking the police with explosives and bricks.

Witness the blood-soaked congressional baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, site of the June attack on House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and other Republicans batting up for their annual bipartisan game. James Hodgkinson, a fervent supporter of progressive politics, showed up to the field with a rifle, a handgun and a hit list of Republicans. As Scalise fought for his life, MSNBC host Joy Reid felt conflicted: the attempted assassination was a delicate thing because of Scalises conservative views like opposition to gay marriage. Are we required in a moral sense to put that aside in the moment? she wondered. Yes, Joy, you are. The shooting of a mainstream, congressional Republican leader is reprehensible, and in no way justifiable.

Now cross the Potomac and visit the halls of Congress, where Democratic lawmakers have accused Republicans of murder for supporting an overhaul to the spiraling, ruined Obamacare program, which by next year will leave dozens of counties without a single option for insurance. Reasonable people can disagree about how much our Medicaid program should grow without comparing the Republican bill to 9/11, as Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, did recently. Or saying the health care bill is paid for with blood money of dead Americans, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, tweeted shortly after the Scalise attack. If our sitting senators dont act more responsibly, who will?

Instead of retweeting, liberals who care about preserving our political system should be outraged that these are the standard-bearers of their party.

Nobody is directly responsible for a shooting except the shooter, and nobody throws a brick except the person who picks it up. No side has a monopoly on political violence. There are loonies at the fringes of every political movement mentally ill, perturbed and paranoid who can be stirred toward violence or dissuaded from it.

But when we have Democratic senators accusing political opponents of murder, when our college campuses descend into assault zones for conservative speakers (or those that defend them), when our major cities become playgrounds for far-left rioters and the media glosses over it, we move toward a more violent and fractured society, not a safer one.

If gay people were pouring into bars and punching straight people, I as a gay man would speak out. If Jews were propagating terror in the name of our religion, I would condemn it vociferously. And when violence has come from the conservative side, I dont hesitate to stand against it. But its not.

There have been no right-wing groups storming campuses and flinging feces at speakers we dont like; no tea party mobs destroying property, assaulting police officers, and paralyzing our major cities; and no Republican senators calling their colleagues murderers just weeks after a political assassination attempt.

From Portland to New Haven to Washington, the violence were witnessing is largely a product of the hard left, and the reaction from mainstream liberals mostly silence, dismissiveness, equivocation means it will continue to flourish.

To move toward a less violent and hyper-charged society, we must be clear-headed about violence where we see it, and not avoid the subject. We must condemn it without conditions.

If you think Republicans are murderers, youre an extremist. If youre trading in that kind of rhetoric just to shut the other side up or raise a buck, youre giving cover to extremists. And if you object to political violence but fail to speak out, your weakness is causing our society to fracture.

Its time for liberal America to speak out against violence and the rhetoric that incites it.

Albert Eisenberg is the former communications director for the Philadelphia Republican Party. He runs his own digital marketing firm. @RealHotCheetos. He wrote this for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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Liberal America has a political violence problem Opinion ... - Bangor Daily News