It’s Monday, April 24th, 2017…but before we begin, though we’ve said it before, and we’ll undoubtedly say it again, allow us to utter it one more time:
And if these last two items…along with the last 50+ years of history…still doesn’t convince you, perhaps this video of Liberal activists, many wearing pink “pussyhats”, shouting down a Baptist preacher’s invocation at Michigan Republican Jack Bergman’s town hall meeting…
…will!
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, writing at Townhall.com, UNC-Wilmington professor Mike Adams details the unbroken string of counterproductive failures Progressives have produced while practicing their peculiar interpretation of tough love:
“Several years ago, a feminist professor told me that she had decided to abort her child because it was the “compassionate thing to do.” Those were her exact words and she was serious. At the time, I thought she must have suffered a severe intellectual hernia from the strain required to declare an act of dismemberment to be an act of kindness.Since then I have realized that this was more than just an isolated instance of intellectual constipation. Disguising acts of cruelty as acts of kindness is a feature of virtually every policy position of the secular “progressive” left.Some notable examples follow…
…A friend from Texas once explained to me the true meaning of compassion. In the process, he also explained the difference between compassion and justice. He said that compassion is when we jump into a river in order to save drowning children. In contrast, justice is when we take a walk upstream with our shotgun to find out who keeps throwing our children in the river.
When you make your way up the riverbank of ourculture you are likely to find a pack of smug leftists who toss children in the water with one hand while patting themselves on the back with the other. The one hand knows exactly what the other hand is doing.“
In a related item courtesy of NRO, Victor Davis Hanson plumbs the degenerate depths of…
“Shortly after the 2008 election, President Obama’s soon-to-be chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, infamously declared, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” He elaborated: “What I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
Disasters, such as the September 2008 financial crisis, were thus seen as opportunities.Out of the chaos, a shell-shocked public might at last be ready to accept more state regulation of the economy and far greater deficit spending.Indeed, the national debt doubled in the eight years following the 2008 crisis.
…These days, shortages of credit, water, oil, or adequate roads are no longer seen as age-old challenges to a tragic human existence. Instead of overcoming them with courage, ingenuity, technology, and scientific breakthroughs, they are seen as existential “teachable moments.”
In other words, crises are not all bad —if they lead the public to more progressive government.“
Next up, also courtesy of NRO, David French proves what King David wrote in Psalm 146:3 remains just as true today…perhaps even more so:
“There are those who say that the Left is “taking scalps,” and they have a list of Republican victims to prove their thesis. Roger Ailes is out at Fox News. Bill O’Reilly is out at Fox News. Michael Flynn is out at the White House. Those three names — the head of the most powerful cable news network, the highest-rated cable news personality, and the national-security adviser — represent a stunning wave of resignations and terminations.
But this isn’t scalp-taking, it’s scalp-giving.Time and again prominent conservative personalities (See also “Limbaugh, Rush” and “Gingrich, Newt”)have failed to uphold basic standards of morality or even decency. Time and again the conservative public has rallied around them, seeking to protect their own against the wrath of a vengeful Left.Time and again the defense has proved unsustainable as the sheer weight of the facts buries the accused.
Moreover, the pattern is repeating itself with the younger generation of conservative celebrities. The sharp rise and meteoric fall of both Tomi Lauren and Milo Yiannopoulos were driven by much the same dynamic that sustained O’Reilly for years, even in the face of previous sexual-harassment complaints — Lahren and Yiannopoulos were “fighters” who “tell it like it is.” O’Reilly was the master of the “no-spin zone” and seemed fearless in taking on his enemies. (We would respectfully disagree with this particular assertion.)
What followed was a toxic culture of conservative celebrity, where the public elevated personalities more because of their pugnaciousness than anything else. Indeed, the fastest way to become the next conservative star is to “destroy” the Left, feeding the same kind of instinct that causes leftists to lap up content from John Oliver, Samantha Bee, and Stephen Colbert. Liberals use condescending mockery. Conservatives use righteous indignation.That’s not much of a difference.
The cost has been a loss of integrity and, crucially, a loss of emphasis on ideas and, more important, ideals.There exists in some quarters an assumption that if you’re truly going to “fight,” then you have to be ready to get your hands dirty. You can’t be squeamish about details like truth or civility or decency. When searching for ideological gladiators, we emphasize their knifework, not their character or integrity.
…The conservative movement includes some of the best and most admirable people I’ve ever met. It also includes its share of grasping, ambitious fame-hounds, people who live for the next Fox hit and angle to write this year’s version of the “liberals are sending this country to hell” bestselling book.But bad character sends a country to hell just as surely as bad policy does, and any movement that asks its members to defend vice in the name of advancing allegedly greater virtue is ultimately shooting itself in the foot.
O’Reilly’s fall can be an important act of public hygiene,but only if it represents the beginning of the end of a conservative culture that makes us behave like the cultural enemies we purport to despise. Otherwise conservatives will hand the Left more scalps, forfeit more public trust, and ultimately lose because of their single-minded quest to win.“
That being said, while we largely agree with French, Brent Bozell offers an equally-accurate but disparate view as he highlights the…
“Holy sh*t; is there a statute of limitations on rape?!?”
“Fox News took Bill O’Reilly off the air after a heavy campaign to fire him led by CNN’s media unit and The New York Times. If all the charges of sexual harassment are true, his case is indefensible. That said, it’s time for his media critics to stand down.They are guilty of rank hypocrisy.
These same media outlets despised the idea that Donald Trump would drag Bill Clinton’s sexual harassment lawsuits into the presidential campaign. On Jan. 8, 2016, the Times editorial staff sneered: “It is also a tired subject that few Americans want to hear more about. If Mr. Trump has not read enough, he can curl up with a copy of the Starr report.”
Bizarrely, the editorial noted that Hillary Clinton had told a New Hampshire town hall questioner a month earlier that Juanita Broaddrick’s tale of rape was not to be believed.Yet it was Trump who was denounced as sexist and beyond the pale.The Times said: “His aim is to dredge up an ancient scandal and tar Mrs. Clinton with it in a clearly sexist fashion. There should be no place for that kind of politics in this country.” That is, unless it’s the top draw at Fox News, in which case it’s suddenly America’s greatest concern…”
Again, though Bozell has a legitimate point with which we wholeheartedly agree, don’t expect us to mourn O’Reilly’s passing. Personally, we always found him the FOX News equivalent of Alex Trebek, or Barack Obama for that matter: a self-impressed snob who constantly conflated the ability to read a pre-rehearsed teleprompter…their only truly demonstrable talent…with actual ability and/or knowledge.
Speaking of those we’d like to see suffer a slow and agonizing death, the WSJ identifies…
The Tort Bar’s Senate Undertaker
Someday, and that day will come soon, it will ask Mr. Graham for a favor.
“It’s good to be a Senator, especially if you are a Republican who is the most important opponent of tort reform on Capitol Hill.Witness the largesse that the plaintiffs bar is bestowing on South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham in its moment of maximum political peril.
On Thursday Mr. Graham was feted in Houston at a fundraiser hosted by Mark Lanier, who can afford it. The Lanier Law Firm has vacuumed up some $13 billion in tort verdicts over the years from Vioxx to asbestos. The invitation asks Mr. Lanier’s tort comrades to share their wealth to the tune of $500 to $5,400 for “Team Graham.”
“Our goal is to show Senator Graham an appreciation from both sides of the bar for what he can help do, especially with tort reform running rampant from the house,” Mr. Lanier added in an email. “It will take Senator Graham to help educate folks and lead the charge from the Republican side.”
Caption deleted in the interest of decency!
Mr. Graham has every right to take campaign cash from all comers, and in this case he is a true believer.He’s long fought tort reform, and his legal friends have rewarded him with some $3.7 million over his 24-year Senate career.
Now his services are truly needed, like Bonasera the undertaker in “The Godfather.”Mr. Lanier wants Mr. Graham to use all of his powers, all of his skills, to bury at least two bills that have passed the House that address major tort-bar abuses…”
Talk about a total piece of sh*t deserving of two behind the ear! Will someone please explain to us why/how the voters of South Carolina…not to mention Arizona…
…continue to re-elect such repulsive RINOs?!? To borrow a phrase from The Left: “Hey, hey; ho, ho; Lindsay Graham has got to go! And we fervently pray John McCain is immediately in his jet wash.
Since we’re on the subject of political poltroons, they’re the subject of the latest from Jonah Goldberg, who informs us via Townhall.com how…
“The debate over the death penalty can be infuriatingly dishonest. Consider the April 17 broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier” (a show on which I am an occasional commentator). Casey Stegall reported on the legal battle in Arkansas, where officials want to execute eight death row inmates in 11 days before their supply of midazolam expires. This is one of the drugs used to carry out lethal injections.
Stegall did his legwork. He talked to Susan Khani, the daughter of the woman murdered, execution-style, by Don Davis in 1990. She told Stegall the last quarter century has been agony for her, adding, “He is just a very cruel person. He needs to be put to death.”
Stegall then talked to the usual death penalty opponents. First was Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center, who said, “There is a myth that family members of murder victims will get closure out of executions.In fact, for many of the family members, that does not happen.”
So let’s start there.To say that something is a “myth” is to suggest that it is untrue. The Loch Ness Monster is a myth. Bigfoot is a myth. But on Dunham’s own terms, some family members do get closure.He didn’t say, “No family members of murder victims get closure.”He said “many,” a subjective term that could mean pretty much any number short of “most.”
Stegall then talked to Stacy Anderson of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is concerned that we might execute the wrong person. “We know that 156 innocent people have been found on death row in the last 20 years,” she said. (A legitimate but not insoluble problem.)Added Stegall: “The ACLU says cost is another driving force of the decline.Litigating death penalty cases is expensive since the condemned often spend years filing appeals and lawsuits.”
This is also true.But you know what group is arguably most responsible for raising the cost of the death penalty?The American Civil Liberties Union.
The ACLU is well within its rights to clog the courts with lawsuits. But there’s something remarkably cynical about barraging the courts with often frivolous complaints that raise the costs of the death penalty, then pretending that your objection is the cost.
Indeed, Arkansas is racing to use its drugs before they expire because death penalty opponents have worked tirelessly to make such drugs extremely difficult to obtain…”
This is akin to nuke power opponents objecting to the skyrocketing price of new nuclear plants when said costs are largely the result of their frivolous legal actions.
Our position has always been to accord those who honestly oppose the death penalty on moral grounds the widest possible latitude; unless of course they simultaneously support the slaughter of the unborn…in which case…
Turning now to The Lighter Side…
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with this travel advisory (aka, stupidity avoidance directive) courtesy of the WSJ:
“…South Korean media identified the new hostage as Kim Sang-duk, who was teaching a class in international finance and management at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. The mere thought of such a class is puzzling since North Korea’s “international finance” is smuggling. But Mr. Kim had taught at a sister school in China near the border with North Korea, and perhaps he thought he could spread some goodwill. Bad mistake.
…Hostage politics is a hardy Korean perennial, perhaps because it always seems to yield some political or diplomatic benefit. Pyongyang recently detained Malaysian citizens and traded them to Kuala Lumpur in return for the North Koreans suspected of conspiring to assassinate Kim Jong Un’s brother. The North has also traded Americans over the years for visits by high-ranking U.S. officials, even former Presidents, who offer the regime some legitimacy and sometimes more tangible benefits.
That’s the best reason for the Trump Administration not to engage in hostage negotiations. The U.S. warns Americans not to travel to North Korea, yet some still tempt fate by doing so. The U.S. can ask China to intercede for the imprisoned Americans on humanitarian grounds, but the U.S. also needs China’s help against North Korea’s nuclear missiles.
North Korea is a terrorist government that obeys none of the norms of international behavior. The only solution is regime change. But in the meantime, the U.S. should make clear that Americans who travel to North Korea do so at their own risk.“
Here’s the juice: while we hope and pray these fools are soon released, sorry, but having willingly chosen to travel to North Korea…
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