Glenn Reynolds: Ordinary Americans lead the way on racial healing

In a now-famous tweet, Jon Gabriel wryly remarked, "My favorite part about the Obama era is all the racial healing.”

In the public sphere, that racial healing is indeed sufficiently scarce as to justify sarcasm. Charges and countercharges of racism fill the air. Accused killers ranging from the white Dylann Roof in Charleston, S.C., to the black Vester Flanagan in Roanoke, Va., left racial manifestos and hoped to start a race war. And even more mainstream political figures have pursued strategies of racial division and agitation, hoping to keep key voting blocs fired up for next year’s elections.

But if you leave the politicians, the pundits and the crazies aside, ordinary Americans are behaving quite differently. Maybe we should be paying more attention to that bit of good news. And maybe so should the politicians and pundits.

USA TODAY

Kirsten Powers: Donald Trump, evangelical scam artist

After the Charleston shooting, citizens of South Carolina, both black and white, joined hands, and more than 15,000 of them marched in a show of love and friendship. Ascolumnist Salena Zito wrote, “They met in the middle; they wept, smiled, laughed, hugged, turned strangers into friends. Homemade signs with messages of outreach, love and solidarity flapped in the wind, as prayers and hymns filled the air. There wasn't a major network or cable news channel, only local TV crews, rolling cameras to record America doing what it does best — opening its heart; the networks always seem to be on hand for looting or rioting.“

They do, indeed.  But many people still noticed, even if the national agenda-setters were, as usual, more interested in spotlighting hate than love.

Likewise, last week saw 20,000 people show up for a multiracial “All Lives Matter” march in Birmingham, Ala. It could be the largest such march there since MLK. Glenn Beck and Chuck Norris were there, but that’s not all. AL.com reports: “Alveda King, a niece of civil rights activist the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., marched in the front row. Bishop Jim Lowe, pastor of the predominantly black Guiding Light Church in Birmingham, co-organized the march with Beck and marched with him at the front. As a child, Lowe attended Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where the march started, a headquarters church for the civil rights movement in Birmingham. Lowe and his sisters were in the church when a KKK bomb blew up the church and killed four little girls on Sept. 15, 1963.” (Note: One of those girls was a childhood playmate of Condoleezza Rice.)

Once again the national news media, noted Washington Post blogger David Weigel, “was largely absent.” No time for positivity where race is concerned, I guess.

Via: USA Today

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An Anti-American White House. Column: Barack Obama’s presidency has empowered the adversaries of the United States

This week President Obama won the 34th vote in support of his nuclear deal with Iran. The vote, from Senator Barbara Mikulski, guarantees that the deal will survive a rejection by Congress. The fact that the deal will be made despite such opposition—something a few of us predicted months ago—is, in the words of the AP, a “landmark Obama victory.” It is worth asking how many more of these victories our country can withstand.

The president and his supporters, of course, say their foreign policy has improved the world. “Like George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton,” writes Gideon Rose of Foreign Affairs, “Obama will likely pass on to his successor an overall foreign policy agenda and national power position in better shape than when he entered office, ones that the next administration can build on to improve things further.”

I’m not convinced. Rather than trying to predict how things will look when Obama leaves office, rather than contemplating abstractions such as our “overall foreign policy agenda” and “national power position,” why not examine the actual results of Obama’s policies, as they exist now, in the real world before our eyes?

If we do that, we get an outcome different from Gideon’s. Subjectively, the president may be trying to peacefully integrate rogue regimes into the liberal international order. Objectively, however, the result of Obama’s foreign policy is to empower America’s adversaries. This has been, in its conduct and consequences, an anti-American White House.

I am not saying that the president or the Democratic Party is anti-American in ideology or rhetoric or intent. What I am saying is that the net effect of President Obama’s actions has been to legitimize, strengthen, and embolden nations whose anti-Americanism is public and vicious and all too serious.

Iran is an obvious example. The anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism of the regime is inescapable. Not even Obama, who has gone out of his way to defend the Iranians as rational actors, can ignore it. How has Iran’s “power position” been affected by this White House? In 2009, when the regime faced its most serious challenge in years, the president was silent. In 2011 and 2013, when urged to act against the regime’s closest ally in Syria, the president did nothing.

Why? To speak out in favor of protesting students, to support the Syrian rebels, to punish Bashar al-Assad for violating red lines the president himself had drawn—these acts would have jeopardized the nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The outcome of those negotiations was a deal in which the Iranians agree to suspend some elements of their nuclear research for about a decade in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. So a fundamentalist theocracy whose leaders chant “Death to America” and whose self-identity is based on a revolutionary challenge to the United States and Israel has been endorsed as a quasi-member of the “international community,” and will receive an infusion of much needed cash.

The Iranian leadership is strengthened, the Iranian economy is strengthened, the Iranian paramilitaries and terrorist affiliates—active in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond—are strengthened, all in the fissiparous hope that decades from now this deal will result in Iran’s liberalization. Oh, and at the end of the decade, Iran retains the capability to build an atom bomb. How powerful, how dangerous, will Iranian anti-Americanism be then?

Cuba is not as important a world power as Iran, but it, too, was forged in anti-American upheaval, its ideology is anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-liberal, and its elite bears long-held grievances against the United States. The U.S. trade embargo may not have driven the Castros from power, but it nonetheless expresses American opposition to the nature of Cuba’s government, and to the aims and practices of its rulers. President Obama’s thawing of relations with Cuba repudiates this traditional, bipartisan, moral stand in return for … what exactly? The truth is we receive less from the opening of Cuba than we do from our détente with Iran.

The United States, as a superpower, can afford to be magnanimous with nuisances such as Cuba. But that doesn’t mean we should indulge in the fantasy that the provision of economic and diplomatic stimulus to a decrepit communist backwater will bring positive consequences for the cause of freedom and democracy, and improve the political status of the Cuban people. Nor should we cling to the idea that engaging and trading with the Cubans will pacify them. America has been trading with China for decades. The Chinese are just as un-free as they were the day Apple built its first factory there—and indeed China is more powerful, its influence greater, its willingness to challenge the United States more robust than before. What will Cuba look like—how well armed and fascistic will it be—after 20 years of trade with America?

Cuba may be unimportant, for now, but Russia is not. It has repeatedly rejected President Obama’s desire for a “reset” in relations, and has opted for historical revisionism and territorial expansion. Not only has Vladimir Putin an entire global propaganda network to attack, defame, and inspire hatred of the United States, he has Georgia, Crimea, much of eastern Ukraine, and a nuclear stockpile too.

The Baltic States are terrified of Putin’s next move, as he orders Bear Bombers to fly near our shores and deploys troops to fight alongside the Syrian military. The power base from which he launches his ideological and paramilitary attacks on the West has not diminished. It has expanded.

Indeed, the size of territory held or claimed by anti-American forces has increased considerably since President Obama took office. Not only has Russia slowly digested a once-independent nation. China has also built a series of islands to assert its claims in the South China Sea, the Islamic State governs the western provinces of what was once Iraq, Libya has fallen to Islamic militias, and the Taliban have reclaimed the south of Afghanistan. Each enlargement of the anti-American sphere brings new recruits to the various hostile causes, strengthens our adversaries’ convictions that they are on the winning side of history, fuels their desire to project power even further, heightens the risk of instability and terror.

There is no more inescapable force than the law of unintended consequences. The president, writes Gideon Rose, is “best understood as an ideological liberal with a conservative temperament—somebody who felt that after a period of reckless overexpansion and belligerent unilateralism, the country’s long-term foreign policy goals could best be furthered by short-term retrenchment.” However one understands Obama, whatever one thinks he has been doing, the results of his “short term” retrenchment have energized and amplified the global cause of anti-Americanism.

“Human beings,” wrote James Burnham in 1941, “as individuals and in groups, try to achieve various goals—food, power, comfort, peace, privilege, security, freedom, and so on. They take steps that, as they see them, will aid in reaching the goal in question.”

And yet, “experience teaches us not merely that the goals are often not reached but that the effect of the steps taken is frequently toward a very different result from the goal which was originally held in mind and which motivated the taking of the steps in the first place.”

Experience has taught Obama nothing. The next administration won’t be “building” on his foundation. It will be attempting to reclaim the ground that this anti-American White House has lost.

Via: WFB

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[VIDEO] Dem outreach to Black Lives Matter meets rejection

Democratic officials and presidential candidates are running into a hostile reception as they try to reach out to Black Lives Matter, a movement that has become a political minefield for the party. 

On the other side of the aisle, Republicans have largely shunned the group.South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said this week that "black lives do matter," but they've been "disgracefully jeopardized by the movement that has laid waste to Ferguson and Baltimore." 

By contrast, the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution last Friday implicitly endorsing the cause. 

"Therefore it be resolved that the DNC joins with Americans across the country in affirming 'Black lives matter' and the 'say her name' efforts to make visible the pain of our fellow and sister Americans as they condemn extrajudicial killings of unarmed African American men, women and children," the resolution reads, according to Buzzfeed.

However, the Black Lives Matter group released a statement on Facebook Sunday rejecting the Democrats’ advances.

FACEBOOK POST

The response was the latest example of a rocky relationship between the party and the movement, which started with the George Zimmerman verdict in 2013 and significantly expanded after the 2014 death of Michael Brown.

As the movement has built itself into an effective, albeit fringe, grassroots force -- comparable in some ways to Occupy Wall Street -- Democrats have sought to bring them on board, or at least make peace. 

But it has not been an easy ride.

Black Lives Matter activists stormed the stage in July while former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was speaking at a Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix, Ariz. After O'Malley listened to them talk for several minutes, he agreed to calls from the audience to a civilian review board and said he would roll out a criminal reform package. Receiving applause, he then said “Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter.” The crowd erupted in boos at O'Malley's statement and O’Malley later apologized for saying “all lives matter.”

Via: Fox News

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[CARTOON] Editorial Cartoons on Energy Policy

Via: US News

Longtime Clinton aide grilled by House committee on Benghazi

WASHINGTON — Long­time Hillary Rodham Clinton aide Cheryl Mills was grilled for hours Thursday by a House committee — a day after a former Clinton staffer said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights to avoid giving testimony.

Mills’ appearance followed the release last week of 7,000 pages of ­emails from Clinton’s private server — including many to and from Mills that were heavily redacted.

The appearance by Mills, who testified behind closed doors before the House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack, came after it was revealed that former Clinton tech expert Byran Pagliano would refuse to answer committee questions.

That created another political embarrassment for Clinton, who “has made ­every effort to answer questions and be as helpful as possible, and has encouraged her aides . . . to do the same, including Bryan Pagliano,” said campaign spokesman Nick Merrill.

Pagliano isn’t just any staffer. He was responsible for Clinton’s private server during her 2008 presidential campaign, and followed her to the State Department as a “special ­adviser.”

Via: New York Post

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Taxpayers Fleeing Democrat-Run States for Republican Ones

In 2013, more than 200,000 people on net fled states with Democrat governors for ones run by Republicans, according to an analysis of newly released IRS databy Americans for Tax Reform. 

"People move away from high tax states to low tax states. Every tax refugee is sending a powerful message to politicians," said ATR President Grover Norquist. "They are voting with their feet. Leaders in Texas and Florida are listening. New York and California are not."

That year, Democrat-run states lost a net 226,763 taxpayers, bringing with them nearly $15.7 billion in adjusted gross income (AGI). That same year, states with Republican governors gained nearly 220,000 new taxpayers, who brought more than $14.1 billion in AGI with them.

Only one-third of states with Democrat governors gained taxpayers, compared to three-fifths of states with Republican governors.  

Top 5 loser states for Democrat governors in 2013:

·      New York (114,929 people with $5.7 billion in AGI)

·      Illinois (68,943 people with $3.8 billion in AGI)

·      California (47,458 people with 3.8 billion in AGI)

·      Connecticut (14,453 people with $1.8 billion in AGI)

·      Massachusetts (11,915 people with $1 billion in AGI)

Top 5 winner states for Republican governors in 2013:

·      Texas (152,912 people with $6 billion in AGI)

·      Florida (74,094 people with 8.3 billion in AGI)

·      South Carolina (29,176 people with 1.6 billion in AGI)

·      North Carolina (26,207 people with $1.5 billion in AGI)

·      Arizona (16,549 people with $1.5 billion in AGI)

The single largest net migration from one state to another took place between New York and Florida (17,355 people). 

Via: Americans for Tax Reforms

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Donald Trump On Ben Carson: Doctors Don't Create Jobs

Donald Trump says he has great affection for Ben Carson, but he’s not so sure Carson has the right experience to be president.

The billionaire businessman and Republican presidential frontrunner explained why in an extensive interview with The Daily Caller that covered a wide array of subjects. The interview will be published in sections over the coming days.

A Monmouth University poll of Iowa released Monday showed Trump tied with Carson for first place — though Trump is quick to note that it was just one poll and that he leads the field, including Carson, in all the other recent polls.

But despite the rising threat of Carson in Iowa, Trump has not yet attacked the world-renowned neurosurgeon. Asked by TheDC whether being a doctor provides the necessary experience to be president, Trump said while Carson is  “a wonderful guy,” he thinks it would be “very tough” for someone who spent his life as a surgeon to handle the job.

“I think it’s a very difficult situation that he’d be placed in,” Trump elaborated. “He’s really a friend of mine, I just think it’s a very difficult situation that he puts himself into, to have a doctor who wasn’t creating jobs and would have a nurse or maybe two nurses. It’s such a different world. I’ve created tens of thousands of jobs over the years.”

In the past Trump has questioned whether Ted Cruz is eligible to be president because the Texas senator was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. Cruz and Trump have since become something like BFFs on the campaign trail, refusing to criticize each other and even scheduled to appear together at an upcoming rally in Washington against the nuclear deal with Iran. Asked whether he still thinks Cruz might not be eligible to be president, Trump said, “based on everything I see, there’s no problem.”

“Because other people have brought it up, and it seems like the legal scholars have all been satisfied,” he went on. “It was never a big point for me, but I have watched other people question him, and the legal scholars have been satisfied.”

President Barack Obama has been criticized by many Republicans, including Trump, for his regular golf outings. But would Trump, who is an avid golfer and owns many golf courses throughout the world, regularly hit the links if he makes it to the Oval Office?

“The problem with the president, he’s played more than people on the PGA tour,” Trump quipped. “He plays a lot. He’s like a touring professional in terms of the amount of play.” (RELATED: Beck Was Obsessed With Proving That John Boehner Is An Alcoholic)

“Golf can be a great tool for making deals, but you can’t play with your friends, you have to play with people that you’re looking to — for instance, playing with [House Speaker] John Boehner and playing with [Senate leader Mitch] McConnell and playing with people that you need to make deals with,” Trump argued. “It can be an amazing tool for getting things done and for making deals.”

“With that being said, you want to play it the proper number of times,” he went on. “If the president would use golf as a tool more than he does, I think it would be very positive.”

Trump often cites how rich he is as a sign of his success and, in turn, a qualification to be President of the United States. By that standard, would someone richer than him, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, be more qualified for the presidency?

“That’s different,” Trump replied. “Honestly, I don’t think I’d swap assets, to be honest with you. I’ve seen that stuff go up and down. I have very, very solid stuff. To me, I love real estate because you can feel it. A lot of people, they’ll make five hundred million dollars by doing some new computer game, but I don’t consider that — I consider that sort of different. I consider that paper.”

“I did it in real estate,” he explained, “and as real estate goes, this is about as high as you go.”

Check back to TheDC over the coming days for more of our exclusive interview with Donald Trump.

Via: Larry Elder

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Joe Biden’s yuck factor by Michelle Malkin

Next week, as rumors swirl of his possible entry into the 2016 presidential race, Vice President Joe Biden will appear on liberal comedian Stephen Colbert’s new late-night CBS show. The host is a professional clown. The VIP guest is a political clown with more baggage than the Kardashians during Paris fashion week.

Setting aside the past plagiarism, fabulism, K Street cronyism, chronic gaffes and the stagnant aroma of 4-decades-old Beltway entrenchment, though, Biden’s two biggest cultural liabilities currently on the table (and everywhere else) are his grabby paws: Groper One and Groper Two.

Seriously, those two troublesome tentacles need to be wrapped in yellow caution tape and stamped with a trigger warning. Joe’s yuck factor is no joke.

Political observers of all stripes balked earlier this year at photos of the creep veep wrapping himself around the wife of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter — and nearly nibbling off her ear while he deep-massaged her shoulders. Poor Mrs. Carter, helpless in front of the cameras as her husband spoke just inches away, exhibited the body language of a shell-shocked hostage.

She’s not alone. YouTube, Tumblr and blogs spanning the political spectrum have documented the serial space invader’s public displays of overzealous affection. The Internet meme magic that helped propel Barack Obama to millennial icon status threatens to sabotage his sidling sidekick.

I can report on Biden’s cozy relations with trial lawyers, bankers and lobbyists ’til I’m blue in the face. But none of that sticks in the minds of average voters as much as the indelible impression of instability and ickiness he has left across social media:

“9 Times Joe Biden Whispered in Women’s Ears.”

“Joe Biden’s Top 10 Creepiest Moments.”

“17 times Joe Biden acted like a total creep.”

“The Audacity of Grope.”

“Joe Biden’s woman-touching habit.”

“VP Joe Biden goes #FiftyShadesofGrey during last night’s awkward Top Ten List.”

“Veep Creep? Biden’s Odd Move at Carter Ceremony”

Margaret Coons, the 13-year-old daughter of Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., grimaced when the coarse whisperer nuzzled up to her at her dad’s swearing-in ceremony.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s elementary school-age granddaughter pursed her lips unhappily as Biden clamped himself around her face while he planted an uninvited smooch on her head.

Reporter Amie Parnes tried to block off Biden’s pincers as they crept too close for comfort from behind and climbed up her torso during a Christmas party photo.

If liberals are looking for an alternative to the sordid grotesqueries of the Clinton years, they’ll need to look harder. Biden may have authored the Violence Against Women Act in the 1990s, but it’s not enough to mitigate his ongoing invasive image problem. On college campuses, militant feminists partition off “safe spaces” to protect women from male menaces. But when close stalker Joe is on the campaign trail, there will be nowhere for unsuspecting victims of all ages to hide.

The creep veep’s apologists excuse his behavior as harmless good fun. Affectionate Uncle Joe’s just, you know, “old school.” But after an entire campaign season spent tarring Republicans as sleazy misogynists waging a “war on women,” Democrats can hardly afford their own cringetastic standard-bearer whom women, teens and young girls cannot bear to be around.

With Biden in command, America will have a hands-on president. That is not a good thing.

Via: Michelle Malkin

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[VIDEO] Rand Paul on Clerk's Arrest: 'Absurd to Put Someone in Jail for Exercising Religious Liberty'

(CNSNews.com) -- In reaction to the arrest and imprisonment today of county clerk Kim Davis because she refused to grant marriage licenses to homosexual couples, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said it was "absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty."  He added that the heavy-handed "bully force" step by the state in this case was "a huge mitake" and would set the "movement back" for those trying "to redefine marriage."

Kim Davis is a clerk for the state of Kentucky in Rowan County.  She has steadfastly refused to grant marriage licenses to homosexual couples because of her Christian beliefs. Federal District Court Judge David L. Bunning rejected Davis's appeal to her religious faith, saying it was "simply not a viable defense." Davis was arrested and imprisoned today, Sept. 3.

Asked by CNN's Brianna Keilar for his reaction to Davis's incarceration, Sen. Paul said, “I think it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty. If you want to convince people that same-sex marriage is something that’s acceptable, I would say try to persuade people."

"But if we’re going to use the federal government and we’re going to get involved in every state locality, you know what’s going to happen?" he said.  "It’s going to harden people’s resolve on this issue. They’ll be no open-mindedness on this."

"I think it’s a real mistake to be doing this," said Sen. Paul.  "I think what’s going to happen as a result of this is states and localities are just going to opt-out of the marriage business completely."

"This is really the problem when from on high, from the federal level, we decide to get involved in a situation that has always, throughout our history, been a local issue," said the senator.

Via: CNS News

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Sen. Tim Scott: If ‘All Lives Matter’ Really Offends You, That’s Your Problem

Senator Tim Scott said tonight that if people are honestly offended by him or anyone else saying “all lives matter,” that’s their problem.

On CNN tonight, Scott told Brianna Keilar, “If it causes offense to say that all lives matter, black lives, white lives, police officers… if that is somehow offensive to someone, that’s their issue, not mine.”

He lamented the “regression in race relations” over the past few years and said people offended by messages of unity need to “look into their own hearts and figure out why that is.”

:Via: Mediaite

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Arby’s Fires Manager, Indefinitely Suspends Employee Who Refused To Serve Cop

An Arby’s spokesman told The Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday night that the employee who refused to serve a Florida police officer out of resentment for police has been indefinitely suspended and that the manager of the location has been fired.

“We take this isolated matter very seriously as we respect and support police officers in our local communities,” Arby’s spokesman Jason Rollins told The DCNF in a statement. “As soon as the issue was brought to our attention, our CEO spoke with the Police Chief who expressed his gratitude for our quick action and indicated the case is closed.”

Rollins told The DCNF the employee was indefinitely suspended “pending further investigation.” The manager is Angel Mirabal, 22, and the employee was identified as Kenneth Davenport, 19.

The police department won’t identify the officer, but media outlets have identified her as police Sgt. Jennifer Martin.

Martin said an Arby’s employee refused to serve her because she was in her police uniform and police car. The department’s police chief demanded an apology and caused a media firestorm.

The employee has since said the entire incident was a misunderstood joke, The Sun-Sentinel reports.

The Dade County Police Benevolent Association called for the employee to be let go. Threats of boycotts against Arby’s likely had the fast food chain nervous.

Arby’s gave the officer a refund and has apologized. (RELATED: Florida Police Officer Refused Service At Arby’s Just For Being A Cop)

Via: Daily Caller

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How to Write a New York Times Op-Ed in Three Easy Steps by Ann Coulter

Today we’ll talk about how to write a New York Times op-ed in 45 minutes or less. We all like labor-saving tips!The main point to keep in mind is that your op-ed is not intended to elucidate, educate or amuse. These are status pieces meant to strike a pose, signaling that you are a good person.After reading your op-ed, readers should feel the warm sensation of being superior to other people — those who don’t agree with you. The idea is to be in fashion. It’s all about attitude, heavy on eye-rolling.

(1) Psychoanalyze conservatives as paranoid and insecure. Liberals — who, to a man, have been in psychoanalysis — enjoy putting people they disagree with on the operating table and performing a vivisection, as if conservatives are some lower life form.

Thus, for example, an op-ed in this week’s Times by Arthur Goldwag was titled “Putting Donald Trump on the Couch.”

This should not be confused with Justin A. Frank’s 2004 book, “Bush on the Couch,” offering a detailed diagnosis of Bush’s alleged mental disorders.

Nor should it be confused with a column that went up on Daily Kos the day after I wrote this column, psychoanalyzing me. (I’m just glad I snubbed the guy in high school.)

Goldwag explained: “Mr. Trump’s angry certainty …”

Let’s pause right here. I am obsessed with Donald Trump. I wish I could cancel my book tour and just lie in bed watching his speeches all day long. I’m like a lovesick teenager studying Justin Bieber videos. And I’ve never seen Trump look angry.

(Goldwag continued) ” … that immigrants and other losers are destroying the country while the cultural elites that look down on him stand by and do nothing resonates strongly with the less-educated, lower-income whites who appear to be his base.”

Yes, Trump’s base are “less-educated.” This is as opposed to Democratic voters, who couldn’t figure out how to fill in a Florida ballot in 2000.

True, writing like this will expose your own gigantic paranoia at being excluded from historic WASP America. If you start obsessing over the Augusta National Golf Club (as the Times did for one solid decade), people will naturally begin to suspect that you’re resentful toward traditional American culture.

But I am not giving lessons in self-esteem here. I’m trying to help you dash off an op-ed in record time. Psychoanalysis has been liberals’ go-to move forever.

Following the 1964 presidential election, the American Psychiatric Association was forced to issue “the Goldwater rule,” prohibiting shrinks from psychoanalyzing people they’d never met, after a few thousand of them had issued their professional opinion that Barry Goldwater was nuts. (A “frightened person,” “paranoid,” “grossly psychotic” and a “megalomaniac.”)

Some Times writer probably produced an op-ed calling Calvin Coolidge “paranoid.”

It’s not very interesting, but, again, the sole purpose of your op-ed is to assure the status-anxious that they are better than other people.

(2) The perfect hack phrase is to say conservatives are “frightened of the country changing around them.”

Examples:

– “The Tea Party, to be most benign about it, is primarily white, it is witnessing a country changing around it. It feels angry, feels — the diversity.” — Katrina Vanden Heuvel, MSNBC, May 24, 2012

(You want angry? Go to an Al Sharpton rally.)

– “Old white guys (are) caught in a demographic vice, right? (They) are frankly a little nervous, right? The country is changing around them. … The country is becoming more brown, and more — younger. And the values are changing. Gay rights, women are working. I mean all of these things are happening and they are not quite sure what to do.” — Jamal Simmons, MSNBC, June 15, 2013

– “I don’t think these are organized hate groups. These are, by and large, more or less everyday citizens who are very fearful of the way the world is changing around them.” — Mark Potok, (spokesman for the country’s leading hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center) in “Changing World Draws Racist Backlash,” The Philadelphia Tribune, June 28, 2010

I thought it was a nice gesture that Mark admitted that conservatives are not “organized hate groups.” We owe you one, Mark! You’re a super guy.

(3) Call conservatives “aggrieved” as often as possible. Yes, this from the party of reparations, #BlackLivesMatter, comparable worth, “Lean In,” the DREAM Act and so on. If the Democratic Party were a reality TV show, it would be called “America’s Got Grievances!”

Examples:

– “‘We don’t have victories anymore,’ Mr. Trump told those deeply aggrieved Americans in June.” — Arthur Goldwag, op-ed: “Putting Donald Trump on the Couch,” The New York Times, Sept. 1, 2015

– “Mr. Bush has to win over a fair chunk of the aggrieved, frightened Trump voters.” — New York Times editorial, Aug. 26, 2015

– “You have this aggrieved conservative industry that makes their money by being aggrieved.” — John Feehery, Republican spokesman for former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, quoted in New York Times, Jan. 15, 2015

You’re doing this not just for the $75 you’ll make for writing a Times op-ed. Dreadful hacks meet a need.

A lot of people are followers by nature. They just want to be told: Here are the politicians you admire, and here are the ones you disdain; here are the people you worship, and here are the ones you disparage; here are the TV shows you like, and here are the ones you despise.

Times writers are like personal shoppers for people too lazy to form their own opinions. Just don’t imagine that this is good writing, comedy or art. But it’s not bad for something you can dash off in about 45 minutes!

Via: Human Events

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