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Culture Tag

Protesters have been interrupting quite a few Trump events of late, but none were as "successful" as the one in Chicago.  That multi-pronged, organized and coordinated protest, covered by Professor Jacobson, actually shut down the event.  The progressive left is hailing this as a victory, so we are sure to see more of the same at future Trump events, and because it's perceived as a "victory," at the events of other Republican candidates before too long.  Professor Jacobson also discusses this slippery slope in another post. One report from a Politico writer explains how the organizer and some of his classmates felt in the minutes before the event was cancelled and as the students prepared for their disruption. Politico reports:
Just 50 feet in front of the podium where Trump was scheduled to appear at any moment, Nathaniel Lewis, a 25-year-old African-American graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, had established a beachhead of sorts: a pocket of about three dozen college students and activists. They were ready, too. What Lewis and dozens of his UIC classmates had planned was perhaps bigger—and better organized—than any protest Trump had faced to date. It had been a week in the making, and now everyone was in place: with roughly 2,500 on the street outside and hundreds more inside, including dozens working directly with Lewis. As they waited, the crowd growing loud around them, a few were starting to feel doubts about what they were hoping to do.

As Obama, Bloomberg, and assorted progressives continue in their gun-grabbing push, red states and those states with Republican legislative majorities have been pushing back, legalizing guns on campus, expanding carry laws, and now, in West Virginia, allowing permitless concealed carry. The bill, HB 4145, allows anyone over the age of 21 to carry a concealed handgun without a permit and was vetoed last Thursday by Democrat Governor Tomlin in a theatrical ceremony. In a bipartisan vote in first the State House and then in the State Senate, the governor's veto was overridden. The Charleston Gazette reports:
It will soon be legal for adults in West Virginia to carry hidden handguns with no training and without a permit, after the Legislature acted swiftly, and against the wishes of law enforcement, to override Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s veto of the legislation. Tomblin held a rare veto-signing ceremony Thursday, surrounded by dozens of police officers, to try to convince legislators to let the veto stand. “I urge you to look around this room for a moment and see that law enforcement are concerned about this bill,” Tomblin said Thursday. They didn’t listen.

Conservative author, speaker and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza has a new movie coming out in July of this year and as you'll see in the official trailer below, it's going to examine the racist and corrupt beginnings of the Democratic Party as well as his own incarceration for violating campaign finance law. FOX News has more:
Dinesh D'Souza releases trailer for 'Hillary's America' film Political commentator Dinesh D'Souza released the trailer for his upcoming film "Hillary's America" on Saturday during his presentation at CPAC.

Fake hate crimes have been relatively common in recent years; indeed, there is even a Twitter hashtag, #FakeHate, devoted to the topic.  The DC Caller has a handy list of fake hate crimes reported on U. S. campuses in 2015 alone. A recent case at SUNY Albany is now being resolved in light of the revelation that the supposed victims were actually the aggressors. Some background: In January of this year, three black UAlbany students claimed to have been victimized by a group of white men who attacked and used racial slurs against them while the (white) bus passengers sat and watched.  The outrage was such that rallies were held and social media melted down, with even Hillary Clinton deigning to comment before any facts were known. Yet the incident, as uncovered in the subsequent investigation, was not a racist attack . . . at least not as described by the "victims."

Our first report on the Flint Water Crisis noted that research teams initially studied the obviously contaminated tap water of Flint resident LeeAnne Walters, whose 4-year old son had been diagnosed with lead poisoning. Walters is now filing a lawsuit against government officials and corporate entities, whose bureaucratic bungling and lack of response led to the crisis.
The Flint mother who told federal lawmakers her house was "ground zero" for lead-contaminated water has filed a lawsuit against those she says are responsible for poisoning her children. The lawsuit, filed Thursday, March 3, in Genesee Circuit Court by LeeAnne Walters, names multiple corporate entities and three current and former government employees for their role in the city's water crisis.

In recent years, whenever a violent tragedy has occurred, the left has been quick to blame the NRA, Republicans, the Tea Party, and conservatives. Then they stand on a soap box and lecture everyone about civility and demand a new tone in our politics. It'll be interesting to see if anyone on the left condemns Comedy Central host Larry Wilmore for suggesting he'd like to murder Donald Trump with Supreme Court Justice Scalia's pillow.

A couple of years ago, the progressive left declared war on the Washington Redskins, or more pointedly, on the use of the word "redskins" in the team's name.  This PC battle fizzled out when the FCC ruled that it would not fine networks for the use of the team's name in on-air broadcasts.  At least it fizzled out on this side of the pond. Apparently, the Brits didn't get the memo. Two members of the British parliament, presumably having solved all their nation's woes, have decided to focus their attention on the American football team's name.  In a letter to the NFL commissioner, they demanded that the team's name be changed or that another team, with an acceptable team name, be sent in the place of the Redskins. ESPN reports:

Thanks to road blockades and a protestor parade, I barely made it to the Republican debate media check-in before the cut off. I ran across two parking lots and Froggered my way through gridlocked traffic in three-inch heels, but I made it. Perks of being a city girl. After filing through security, (actual security, you know the kind where they dig through your belongings and carefully examine your chapstick, open your bottle of Tums, play with your computer, and finally give you the go-ahead?) I popped into the ladies room to make sure my heeled-jog through campus hadn't disrupted my appearance too terribly. Next stop? Scope out the food situation. Texas BBQ? Yes, please! But the line was too long. Best to get settled and come back later.

John Kasich was the latest of ten governors to ban or limit funding for abortion mills in their states, and the change in taxpayer funding for abortion "services" is resulting in record closures. Bloomberg reports:
Abortion access in the U.S. has been vanishing at the fastest annual pace on record, propelled by Republican state lawmakers’ push to legislate the industry out of existence. Since 2011, at least 162 abortion providers have shut or stopped offering the procedure, while just 21 opened. At no time since before 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion, has a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy been more dependent on her zip code or financial resources to travel. The drop-off in providers—more than one every two weeks—occurred in 35 states, in both small towns and big cities that are home to more than 30 million women of reproductive age.
Interestingly, however, the closures aren't just taking place in conservative states; California, for example, has also seen a decrease in abortion clinics.

While Obama and the progressive left continue their gun-grabbing attempts to leave law-abiding citizens at the mercy of random shooters and terrorists, one business owner in Georgia has instituted a new policy that requires all of his employees to obtain a concealed carry permit so they can be armed in the workplace. WSB-TV reports:
A local business owner with several offices in Georgia is now requiring all of his employees to get a concealed carry license and be armed. After each employee at Lance Toland Associates gets their license, Toland presents them with a gun known as the judge. He says it is one of the most effective self-defense weapons and all his aviation insurance agencies carry them openly in the office. “Everybody has one of these in their drawer or on their person. I would not want to come into one of my facilities,” Toland said. “It's a 5 shot .410, just like a shotgun and you call it hand cannon.
Apparently his employees were eager to meet this new requirement and earn their own 4/10 judge pistol.

One of the last of the Buffalo soldiers was laid to rest on Friday; Private Tomie Louis Gaines was 93 years old. The last of South Carolina's Buffalo soldiers, Gaines was a remarkable man. Greenville online reports:
Private Tomie Louis Gaines, 93, one of the last of the Buffalo Soldiers, the black Army men who helped settle the West on horseback and fought in two world wars, was laid to rest Friday at M.J. Dolly Cooper Cemetery in Anderson.

Last year there was some speculation that Obama was smoking again--after having quit, he says, because his wife scared him into it.   Whether he is still smoking or not, a Russian advertiser has decided to use the American president's smoking habit in his or her latest anti-smoking ad campaign. The tagline:  "Don't be like Obama." Russian antismoking ad_Obama The Hill reports:
An anti-smoking ad has popped up in Russia featuring an image of President Obama and warning "smoking kills more people than Obama." . . . .  “Smoking kills more people than Obama, although he kills lots and lots of people," the ad states, depicting Obama with a cigarette. “Don’t smoke, don’t be like Obama.”
A spokesman responsible for the mayor's department on advertisements told Russia radio RSN the advertisement would be removed, according to Newsweek.

Periods, as in periods, is the new frontier of the social justice movement. Not long ago, after widespread activist pressure, Obama opposed the (non-existent) "tampon tax." Now, a Columbia University female student has decided that Columbia should provide her—and all "people who menstruate"—with free tampons and assorted "period-related" items from sanitary napkins to painkillers. Writing in the Columbia Spectator, this student writes, Columbia should pay for my period:

Sure, I can easily find a free condom on Barnard and Columbia’s campuses, but why can’t I find a free tampon in the bathrooms in Hamilton or Milbank? Why does the administration care about my sexual protective rights, but not how I handle my monthly menstrual cycle?

Limited access to free sanitary products, along with the widely recognized “tampon tax,” is a frequently recurring topic in popular discourse regarding reproductive rights. While California may have pioneered potentially eliminating the tampon tax at the state level, many people who menstruate still lack the sufficient financial resources to frequently purchase sanitary products. And even if the sales tax is removed from these products, we must still front the cost to pay for other menstruation-related items, such as pads, DivaCups, painkillers, and birth control.

This adds up, she reasons, to almost a hundred dollars a year.

The Witch is a new film which will delight fans of horror stories and history alike. The writer and director of the film, newcomer Robert Eggers, won best director for this movie at last year's Sundance Film Festival and the award was well deserved. Due to a heavy writing schedule, I don't get out to the movies very often but when I first saw the trailer for this film back in August, I knew I wanted to see it. It opened in theaters this weekend and I saw it last night.

Non-partisan organization, PoliTech, a student organization from Texas Tech University in Lubbock ventured out to George Mason University with a very basic man on the street test: Can students identify three public figures? To their credit, PoliTech appears to sample student from various majors, including an international politics major who had no clue who Joe Biden was, at least not when looking at a photo.

So far, it's not Big Brother listening to your every word, but someone may be . . . if you have a Smart TV or other internet-connected devices A year ago, Samsung confirmed that their Smart TVs are indeed listening in on everything you say and do and is warning customers to avoid discussing personal topics in front of their Smart TV. The Week reported in February 2015:
Samsung has confirmed that its "smart TV" sets are listening to customers' every word, and the company is warning customers not to speak about personal information while near the TV sets. The company revealed that the voice activation feature on its smart TVs will capture all nearby conversations. The TV sets can share the information, including sensitive data, with Samsung as well as third-party services.

Despite studies that clearly demonstrate that women underperform and cause their entire unit to underperform in combat training, the left still seems enamored of the idea that women should be forced upon the military in these combat positions.  Indeed, now all branches of the military, including special ops, are required to accept women. The next obvious step is selective service.  If men are required by federal law to register for selective service at age eighteen, why not all women?  This is going to be a problem for the femisogynist left who really only wanted that whole equality thing to go so far.  Now, they are faced with the logical consequences of their politically correct nonsense. Army and Marine Corps chiefs have already stated that it's time to register women for selective service, so this opens a new can of worms for the progressive left.  While I couldn't find push back from progressives yet, it will come. Now, though, they are focusing on Ted Cruz who rightly argues that it is "nuts" to draft women into the military because this now includes combat positions. The Wall Street Journal reports:
Ted Cruz said Sunday a proposal to include women in the Selective Service registration was a product of out of control political correctness and warned against putting a woman soldier near a dangerous “psychopath” in a combat situation.

Last year, Professor Jacobson posted about a Texas school posting a sign that the staff is armed, and now, one Oklahoma school district is following suit and allowing teachers and staff to carry and to use whatever force is necessary to thwart potential attacks. The Muskogee Phoenix reports:
New signs posted on the grounds of Okay Public Schools announce an "Armed School Employees" policy in place. The Okay Public Schools Board of Education passed an “Armed School Employees” policy in August. On Monday, the district publicized that policy with signage in front of the school. “The signs are more or less a deterrent,” Superintendent Charles McMahan said. “We don't want to be a soft target.” McMahan said his administration looks for ways to keep students safe and secure, particularly since the Okay Police Department was disbanded in December 2014. Although Wagoner County sheriff's deputies are available, McMahan said it is “seconds, not minutes, that matter.”
Gun-free zones are soft targets; indeed, one former sheriff describes them as a "helpless victim zones." This move in the Okay school district is very likely to serve as a deterrent.  So far, however, there is only one Okay employee currently approved to carry in Oklahoma and now at school.