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Liberals Tag

Posted by New Neo on January 23, 2015 4 Comments
It's long been apparent that the West faces a special dilemma, which is expressed very well in the following passage by Roger Kimball (and "liberal" and "liberalism" in the following doesn't just mean "liberals" as in "progressives," but also "liberals" as in "classical liberals"):
Liberal regimes have always suffered from this paralyzing antinomy: Liberalism implies openness to other points of view, even those points of view whose success would destroy liberalism. Tolerance to those points of view is a prescription for suicide. Intolerance betrays the fundamental premise of liberalism, i.e. openness. Of course (may I say “of course”?), there is a sense in which the antinomy is illusory, since any robust liberalism, i.e., a liberalism buttressed by a core of conservative backbone, understands that tolerance, if it is to flourish, cannot be synonymous with capitulation to ideas that would exploit tolerance only to destroy it. The “openness” that liberal society rightly cherishes is not a vacuous openness to all points of view: it is not “value neutral.” It need not, indeed it cannot, say Yes to all comers.
And yet that basic instinct for practical self-preservation, that paradoxical prohibition necessary for the general openness, is often ignored today. "Democracy is not a suicide pact"---at least, it shouldn't be. The origin of that last phrase lies in several statements by historic Americans, but the most specific one was by Supreme Court Justice Associate Justice Robert Jackson in 1949, in a dissent to the decision in the freedom of speech case known as Terminiello:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 05, 2015 16 Comments
When he's not fighting with the teleprompter or holding rallies that summon Black Jesus, Al Sharpton stays pretty busy. But how does he make the big bucks? Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein of the New York Post have the skinny:
Want to influence a casino bid? Polish your corporate image? Not be labeled a racist? Then you need to pay Al Sharpton. For more than a decade, corporations have shelled out thousands of dollars in donations and consulting fees to Sharpton’s National Action Network. What they get in return is the reverend’s supposed sway in the black community or, more often, his silence.
Even corporate behemoths like Sony Pictures aren't immune to the Sharpton shakedown:
Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal met with the activist preacher after leaked e-mails showed her making racially charged comments about President Obama. Pascal was under siege after a suspected North Korean cyber attack pressured the studio to cancel its release of “The Interview,” which depicts the assassination of dictator Kim Jong-un. Pascal and her team were said to be “shaking in their boots” and “afraid of the Rev,” The Post reported. No payments to NAN have been announced, but Sharpton and Pascal agreed to form a “working group” to focus on racial bias in Hollywood. Sharpton notably did not publicly assert his support for Pascal after the meeting — what observers say seems like a typical Sharpton “shakedown” in the making. Pay him in cash or power, critics say, and you buy his support or silence. “Al Sharpton has enriched himself and NAN for years by threatening companies with bad publicity if they didn’t come to terms with him. Put simply, Sharpton specializes in shakedowns,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal & Policy Center, a Virginia-based watchdog group that has produced a book on Sharpton. And Sharpton, who now boasts a close relationship with Obama and Mayor de Blasio, is in a stronger negotiating position than ever. “Once Sharpton’s on board, he plays the race card all the way through,” said a source who has worked with the Harlem preacher. “He just keeps asking for more and more money.”
Sony is not the only corporation that landed in Sharpton's crosshairs. According to the NY Post, AEG, Plainfield Asset Management, Macy’s, Pfizer, General Motors, American Honda, and Chrysler have all "donated" to Sharpton's organization.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 23, 2014 8 Comments
Bloomington City Attorney Sandra Johnson is making moves to hold accountable the organizers of this past Saturday's "Black Lives Matter" protest at the Mall of America. Officers were present on-site, and once the chanting started, moved to close almost 100 stores and several entrances to the mall. I say "moved to" as opposed to "were forced to" because the shutdown occurred as soon as the protests began, and there were no reports of some sort of violent instigating event; but perhaps it's a good thing the officers moved so quickly, based on how mall employees describe what happened next: From CBS Minnesota:
Nate Bash works at one store near the rotunda, which he didn’t want us to name. “You had people yelling and screaming inside the mall that wanted out and you had people yelling and screaming outside the mall that wanted in,” he said. “I would say the mall was less than half as busy as it should have been considering what day it was.” “This was a powder keg just waiting for a match,” said Johnson.
Police officers are busy using social media in an attempt to single out the organizers (arresting every single protester would be chaos, and not worth the trouble;) their goal is to target the organizers and participants who encouraged others to come to the mall even after officials made moves to emphasize that the Mall of America is privately owned, and those disrutping business would be asked to leave. Officials don't yet know how much money was lost during the shutdown, but they're throwing around words like "staggering," so I'm willing to assume that losses were well worth the effort to track these people down and file a lawsuit.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 17, 2014 6 Comments
Last week, traffic on two Los Angeles freeways came to a halt as fire crews responded to a massive inferno that incinerated a downtown luxury apartment complex under construction. There is currently no cause that has been officially determined by arson investigators. The best lead in this case may be two men who were captured on video near the scene, in recordings taken shortly after the fire ignited.
Investigators asked for the public’s help Monday to identify two men seen on surveillance video taken the day of the massive apartment fire in downtown L.A. last week. Two men authorities say are potential witnesses are seen in surveillance video walking in the area of the fire, which caused tens of millions of dollars in damage Dec. 8 to the seven-story Da Vinci Complex, 906 N. Fremont Ave.. The two individuals are not considered suspects or persons of interest, and investigators would like to interview them because they were in the area of the fire, officials said. One edited video apparently shows a man in a black jacket, black pants and a black and white baseball cap grabbing at the fence around the apartment complex as it burned before firefighters pull him away from the fence, KNX 1070’s Claudia Peschiutta reports. ...A second video shows a different man, wearing a football jersey with the number 21, a backpack and a baseball cap walking by the area.
A CBS Local video reviews the details as they are known:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 16, 2014 16 Comments
Did you know that the elf on your shelf is training your children to accept the inevitability of the surveillance state? Neither did we. Digital technology professor for the University of Ontario’s Institute of Technology Laura Pinto thinks so, and in her new paper “Who’s the Boss,” she discusses the nefarious way in which Santa's most popular emissary is conditioning children to devalue their own privacy, and using threats (have you been naughty or nice?) to elicit acceptable behavior. EAG News has a helpful excerpt:
When children enter the play world of The Elf on the Shelf, they accept a series of practices and rules associated with the larger story. This, of course, is not unique to The Elf on the Shelf. Many children’s games, including board games and video games, require children to participate while following a prescribed set of rules. The difference, however, is that in other games, the child role-plays a character, or the child imagines herself within a play-world of the game, but the role play does not enter the child’s real world as part of the game. As well, in most games, the time of play is delineated (while the game goes on), and the play to which the rules apply typically does not overlap with the child’s real world.
And here I thought the dead eyes and homicidal expression were the worst things the elf on my friend's shelf had going for it. I don't have kids. I don't have an Elf. Until about two days ago, I had no idea that the point of the Elf on a Shelf was to conjure up a few moments of peace for mommy and daddy in their otherwise chaotic, child-filled world:
The Elf on the Shelf®: A Christmas Tradition is a cleverly rhymed children’s book explaining the story of Santa’s scout elves, who are sent to be Santa’s eyes and ears at children’s homes around the world! Adopt your own scout elf and learn the tale of Santa’s finest helpers. The whole family will enjoy this Christmas tradition.
Scout elf, indeed. From the man who brought us the terror of, "he sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake" comes this weirdness, and in gallops academia to ruin the fun.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 15, 2014 26 Comments
The media has created its own uproar over the Sony Hack. Business Insider has called it an "act of war," and now Sony is trotting out its lawyers and demanding that media agencies refrain from reporting the contents of the stolen data, and delete anything they may have acquired as a result of the hack. Of course, outlets have turned Sony's demand into its own story, and debate over the ethics (and legality) of reporting on stolen data has gotten heated even as the initial furor over "racist" and "shocking" e-mail conversations has tapered off. On Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect, host John Heilemann defended the newsworthyness of the hacked e-mails, taking on Aaron's Sorkin's position that it is "morally treasonous" for other media organizations to profit off of Sony's misery.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 15, 2014 7 Comments
The campaign finance provision of the #CRomnibus spending bill has refocused bipartisan ire on the scourge of "money in politics," and has renewed progressive mouth-foaming over the allegedly infamous influence of the Koch brothers on the rise of conservative politics in America. Barbara Walters has included billionaire David Koch in her list of 2014's "Most Fascinating People," and in a recent interview held Koch's feet to the fire over his support for conservative candidates who don't subscribe to his admittedly socially liberal views on issues like abortion and gay marriage. Mediaite has the video:
Koch told Walters he was a fiscal conservative but social liberal. Walters pointed out that the candidates he funded were staunchly opposed to positions he supported, such as the legalization of gay marriage and a right to choose. “That’s their problem,” Koch replied. “What I want these candidates to do is support a balanced budget. I’m very worried that if the budget is not balanced inflation could occur and the economy of the country could suffer mightily.”
Watch:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 14, 2014 19 Comments
Yesterday, as they often do, thousands of protesters descended on Washington, DC to protest police brutality against black men. The rally, led by Al Sharpton and attended by high-profile activists in the black community, focused on promoting a "black agenda," and railed against the typical enemies of the progressive community: the Koch brothers, establishment politicians, and the Republican party. To close the rally, Reverend Jamal Bryant of Empowerment Temple in Maryland offered one of the angriest, most divisive prayers ever uttered in public. Via the Daily Caller:
Dispatch angels right now of protection around our sons from psychopathic, sociopathic police officers. I pray right now that you will convince prosecutors who have, in fact, given up the law for popularity. We pray that you will disrobe judges who are elected, but have not been appointed by your glory. We’re going to march in 2016 until we have righteous Congress people, righteous Senators, and a righteous President. God, we don’t want just black elected officials, we want a black agenda. We want to make sure that ‘our lives matter’ is not a slogan, but it is a lifestyle. Let us march on. And God, for every person who opposes justice, every person who opposes righteousness, we came to remind them – we know when they are sleep, we know when they’re awake, we know when they been good or bad, and because they been bad please send Black Jesus for goodness sake. Amen and God bless you.
Watch:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 13, 2014 2 Comments
Progressives have long decried the existence of the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC) as nothing more than a private outlet for corporate interests, and attacked its members with all the fervor of a dog on a particularly puzzling bone. As a staffer in the Texas Legislature, I fielded countless calls from liberal groups demanding to know whether or not my boss was a member of the organization, and saw e-mail and phone campaigns attacking ALEC-model legislation fall flat against the reality of solid legislative drafting and conservative policy making. Progressive advocates have started the State Innovation Exchange, or "SIX," as a sort of answer to the the influence ALEC member-legislators have over how bills are crafted in their respective states. The group appears to have a particular commitment to four separate policy areas---criminal justice reform, energy and the environment, campaign finance reform, and income inequality---and is promoting its already-existing "library of legislation" it hopes will eventually counter conservative efforts to implement ALEC model legislation. The real mission of SIX, however, doesn't seem to have anything to do with promoting legislation; instead, organizers seem rather excited about using guerrilla-media tactics to tank conservative legislation based on the slip-ups of any Republican candidate they can catch on camera. From the Washington Examiner:

Posted by Amy Miller on December 11, 2014 40 Comments
Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman has apologized amid backlash from his private-made-public harassment of Boston-are Sichuan Garden manager Ran Duan. Edelman made headlines after lambasting Duan over a $4 overcharge on his Chinese takeout order. After realizing that the menu prices posted online differed from what he was charged by $1, Edelman sent Duan a series of e-mails threatening agency action and demanding damages (yes, damages) for the incident. The Boston Globe has the exchange: email1ad 2

Posted by Amy Miller on December 08, 2014 9 Comments
Sometimes, the internet's lack of self-awareness is so stunning that attention must be paid. This is one of those times. College Humor's latest video, "How America is Like a Bad Boyfriend," affords us one of those rare opportunities to spend three minutes of our lives watching a video, then turn to the person sitting next to us and admit, "so...what, then?" Just watch the stupid thing so we can discuss it. Via Truth Revolt (NSFW---plug in the headphones):

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 07, 2014 13 Comments
Professor Jacobson may be taking a much needed sanity break from the Saturday Night Card game, but the social justice warriors continue to draw from the bottom of the deck. The most shocking aspect of one of the race-based demonstrations that occurred Saturday: It was in the heart of one of the most elite, "culturally sensitive" centers of the country -- Hollywood.
Hundreds of people taking part in a nationwide protest against police brutality staged a die-in Saturday in the same busy Hollywood intersection where a man allegedly armed with a knife was shot and killed by Los Angeles police officers the previous night. As they marched through the streets of Hollywood during the afternoon hours, demonstrators chanted “Hands up, don’t shoot” and “I can’t breathe,” refrains heard around the nation in protest following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the choke hold death of Eric Garner in New York. Both men died at the hands of police. Protesters also staged a “die-in” at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and North Highland Avenue, where less than 24 hours earlier, police fatally shot a man after law enforcement officials said he did not comply with officer orders. The demonstrators blocked traffic in the area and essentially shut the busy intersection down for a time.
A photo spread via Twitter will give you a sense of the scene. LI #34b

Posted by Amy Miller on December 05, 2014 14 Comments
Back in August, the City of Philadelphia made headlines after their police department was busted using asset forfeiture procedures to pad city coffers. Now, officers in Michigan are under fire for targeting private citizens for forfeiture---without ever accusing those people of a crime. Southwest Michigan residents and medical marijuana license holders Wally Kowalski and Thomas Williams both had their property ransacked and assets seized by officers over a year ago; neither men have been charged with a crime, but the police departments refuse to return their cash or belongings.
Kowalski has a license to grow and distribute medical pot to several low-income people who depend on the drug. He grows the plants in a garden area enclosed by a barbed wire fence. But whether or not Kowalski had a legal right to grow mattered little to the state police, who seized his power generator—even though it had nothing to do with his marijuana plants—and some expensive equipment. They also destroyed the plants. ... The police froze his accounts, rendering him unable to make payments on his student loans or other bills. And he could no longer complete the immigration process for his wife, a resident of Africa. ... Thomas Williams, another southwest Michigan resident, suffered a similar ordeal. His medical marijuana activities prompted police to ransack his property while they left him handcuffed for 10 hours. The cops took his car, phone, TV, and cash. Afterward, he had no means of getting to the grocery store or even contacting another human being for days. Like Kowalski, he hasn't been charged with a crime.
Fun fact: police officers ransacked Kowalski's house for what we can only assume is evidence of his participation in a high-power midwestern drug cartel---but they didn't confiscate his marijuana license.

Posted by Amy Miller on December 02, 2014 22 Comments
For all the spin the left has provided on the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, you'd think they'd have a little more respect for their own race-based premise. Democrats in Congress probably thought they were performing an act of solidarity when they engaged in a "hands up, don't shoot" protest on the floor of the House last night, but all they did was cheapen the efforts of actual protesters and make the popular "white cop attacks unarmed black teen" narrative that much more ridiculous. Mediaite has the scoop:
Democratic members of Congress showed solidarity with Ferguson protesters tonight by making the “Hands up, don’t shoot” gesture on the House floor tonight. New York’s Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke, along with Texas’ Al Green, all made the protest gesture on the House floor tonight. Green made the gesture in reference to what the St. Louis Rams did, but touted it as a “new symbol” of protest.
You can also watch the video here, via C-SPAN. [caption id="attachment_108136" align="alignnone" width="600"]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/01/rep-hakeem-jeffries-d-n-y-brings-hands-up-dont-shoot-to-house-floor/ (Image via WaPo)[/caption]

Posted by New Neo on December 01, 2014 35 Comments
John McWhorter's Time essay on Ferguson demonstrates his graceful way with words, and his struggle to fight the truth about Ferguson. The only bit of truth that survived McWhorter's preferred narrative is this:
I’m not sure that what happened to Michael Brown — and the indictment that did not happen to Officer Darren Wilson — is going to be useful as a rallying cry about police brutality and racism in America.
McWhorter recognizes that, yet it is instructive to see the mental gymnastics he performs in order to stay with the liberal line:
The key element in the Brown-Wilson encounter was not any specific action either man took — it was the preset hostility to the cops that Brown apparently harbored.
So far, so true---although Brown's hostility, and the acting-out of that hostility, seems hardly to have been limited to cops. But then McWhorter writes this:
And that hostility was key because it was indeed totally justified.
So, despite the fact that McWhorter goes on to agree that Wilson's actions were not necessarily motivated by racism, and despite the fact that he even acknowledges that Brown had just robbed a convenience store, and despite the fact that McWhorter knows nothing---absolutely nothing---of Brown's actual attitudes towards police, why he might hold those attitudes, and what his previous encounters with police had been, he claims that this supposed attitude of Brown's was not merely justified, but totally justified.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 12, 2014 16 Comments
2014 has been a great year for Republicans: we maintained the House, took back the Senate, made inroads with new voters and solidified the voting base, and sent the mainstream media spiraling. Good for us. Now it's time to get back to work. If this were a sane world, we'd be justified in resting on our laurels for the next few months; but this is politics, there are no laurels, and we're all still so hopped up on caffeine and victory that we might as well ride the lightning while its flashing. Especially since Democrats are. Groups like Battleground Texas may have suffered crushing defeat in the midterms, but they're not going to let the loss of fluff candidates like Wendy Davis derail their mission. Organizing for Action has a new video out, aimed at reaching the very demographics they lost ground with in 2014:
OFA is a movement of millions fighting for real, lasting change. This isn't for everyone — we're community organizers, and we're proud of it. If you’re someone who'd rather get involved than sit back, if you refuse to be cynical about what we can get done together, then you should be part of this. Let's go.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 11, 2014 21 Comments
Bill Maher and his merry panelists experienced the mother of all pregnant pauses when a viewer's question directed at actress Lisa Kudrow baiting an anti-Republican reaction to the "war on women" fell flatter than a pancake on a cold skillet. Behold: "There's a Republican 'war on women?' Which part of being a woman?" Translation: why am I here right now? The recent reboot of Kudrow's hit TV show "The Comeback" has forced pundits to once again begin beating the dead "war on women" horse, but from Kudrow's perspective, jumping immediately to cries of "institutional sexism!" just doesn't make sense:
Kudrow told HuffPost Live's Ricky Camilleri on Tuesday that while she did feel audiences were uncomfortable with a humiliated woman on TV, she thinks the problem expands far beyond Hollywood. "I'm not sure I'd go as far as misogyny in the business, though, but a lot of people do see it that way. ... I think it's just the world. I don't think it's specific to this industry," Kudrow said. The actress recalled a conversation with her "Comeback" co-creator Michael Patrick King during the first season in which he expressed unhappiness that entertainment lacks a point of reference for every type of woman, especially a potentially unlikeable one. It wasn't until the series got the axe from HBO that Kudrow realized King had a point. "I thought, 'I don't know what you're talking about. It's a character. It's a great character.' I wasn't thinking in terms of a man or a woman. What does it matter? It's a great character," she said. "I didn't think it would matter, and then it slowly hit me: Oh, that may have been something there. That may have been what it was."
Whether you agree with Kudrow's perspective on the differing portrayals of men and women coming out of the entertainment industry, I think her reaction to Maher's question, coupled with this snippet, is representative of more women in America than the cheap punditry of outrage peddlers like Sandra Fluke.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 09, 2014 29 Comments
On the eve of the 2010 midterms, I noted that Democrats were about to be politically decapitated in Congress:
The Democrats face a political decapitation tomorrow. Dozens of senior Democratic Party leaders in the House and Senate, and in Statehouses around the country, are likely to lose. Unlike Republicans in 2008, there is no next generation of Democratic leaders. Who are the Democratic Party equivalents of Marco Rubio, Mitch Daniels, John Thune, Bobby Jindal, Paul Ryan or Eric Cantor? The Republican Party has numerous rising stars. I cannot think of a single Democratic Party rising star. Can you?
And so it came to pass in November 2010 -- other than a few figureheads, Democrats in the House (in particular) lost their leadership generation, as I laid out in my Brilliant Thoughts from Post-Tsunami, Hurricane-Ravaged, Earthquake-Shaken America:
The Democrats received the feared political decapitation. The Democrats lost, in a single night, two generations of leadership: Numerous members of the old guard, including multiple committee Chairmen, lost, as did dozens of newer members from the 2006-2008 cycles. Because the Tsunami struck in one cycle, there are no young Democratic guns waiting to step into the breach. The Democratic Party in the House is worse than a chicken with its head cut off, it is a chicken with its head and feet cut off.
The devastation of 2010 continued into 2011, as dozens of Democrats, including senior figures like Barney Frank, announced retirement. It just wasn't going to be much fun for them in a House run by Republicans.
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