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Progressives Tag

The left is eating its own again. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, hired bikini clad women to hand out non-dairy treats to the crowd at Wimbledon. Some feminists objected angrily, claiming the organization was objectifying women.

Occupy Democrats is a progressive group who claim they provide "a counterbalance to the Republican Tea Party."  They are best known for creating "click bait" memes on Facebook that the left eats up. Occupy Democrats keeps Snopes.com busy writing reports on their false, or "mixture" of fact and fiction, claims. Their latest false claim is getting widespread attention; however, its premise is a complete, and easily-debunked, fantasy.  They declare that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had polio as a child (true) and that all of his medical care was paid for by the government (false).  McConnell's care was paid for by the March of Dimes, a private, nonprofit charity.

The progressive city of Seattle pushed its minimum wage up to $15 dollars an hour but a new study from economists at the University of Washington suggests the measure is hurting the very people it was intended to help. This is an issue the left often refuses to understand. If you force a higher wage than the market demands, employers are forced to adjust in ways that are less favorable. Ben Casselman and Kathryn Casteel report at FiveThirtyEight:
Seattle’s Minimum Wage Hike May Have Gone Too Far As cities across the country pushed their minimum wages to untested heights in recent years, some economists began to ask: How high is too high?

In the wake of the Supreme Court reinstatement of substantially all of President Trump's travel Executive Order, the left is responding as expected. Left-wing and Islamic groups are outraged and don't seem to understand the ruling . . . or the judicial role of the Supreme Court, while lefties on Twitter are in full meltdown mode. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a statement that appears to be premised on the 9-0 Supreme Court decision's failure to weigh the socio-cultural climate CAIR perceives rather than the law and Constitution.

Larry Elder explains: "People who want equal results feel that things have been taken from them, they're owed something"...

The conservative Australian writer Andrew Bolt was in the news this week due to an incident which produced a viral video. In the footage, Bolt is attacked by two masked Antifa type thugs but hits them right back. News AU reported:
Protesters get more than they bargain for when Andrew Bolt bashes back CONTROVERSIAL columnist and TV personality Andrew Bolt has “clobbered” a group of masked protesters who set upon him in Melbourne yesterday. On his TV program last night, Bolt explained how he was about to launch a book on US President Donald Trump at a restaurant in Carlton, in the city’s inner north, when a woman asked to take a selfie with him. Before they could take the photo, two masked protesters set upon Bolt, spraying his face and suit with what he described as “sticky liquid with glitter and dye”.

We've written a lot about the attacks on progressive professor Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State College. He was accused of racism by student activists for opposing a proposal to ban white people from campus for a day, a move he condemned as impermissible racism. In a bizarro world that is today's campus, the anti-racist was called a racist as a tactic to ostracize and isolate him, with physical confrontations not only of Prof. Weinstein, but also of the college president who submissively capitulated to the mob. I summarized the events in The Campus Inquisition at Evergreen State College:

The student takeover at Evergreen State College has gotten so out of control that lawmakers in Washington State are now talking about defunding the school. The New York Times has finally taken notice of the story as well. Bari Weiss writes:
When the Left Turns on Its Own Bret Weinstein is a biology professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., who supported Bernie Sanders, admiringly retweets Glenn Greenwald and was an outspoken supporter of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I have written a lot about "intersectionality" theory, particularly how it is used to single out Israel by making Israel the nexus of all oppression in the world regardless of the issue:
Every real or perceived problem is either blamed on or connected to Israel. The concerted effort to turn the Black Lives Matter movement into an anti-Israel movement has at its core the claim that Israel is the root of problems of non-whites in the United States. Thus, if a police chief somewhere attended a one-week anti-terrorism seminar in Israel years ago, every act of brutality by a cop on the beat is blamed on Israel. So too, Students for Justice in Palestine protesters in New York City even blamed high tuition on Zionists, leading to rebukes by administrators against such thinly-veiled anti-Semitism.

There is still bitterness in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party from Bernie Sanders supporters who believe the primary was rigged for Hillary Clinton. This problem was compounded when Tom Perez, a Clinton loyalist, was chosen to lead the DNC over Keith Ellison who had been endorsed by Sanders. Now the DNC has formed a new commission and it's made up entirely of Clinton people. Michael Sainato reports at The Observer:
DNC Voting Commission Consists Entirely of Clinton Surrogates, Ignores Own Primaries The Nation reported on May 25 that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is launching a voting commission in response to President Donald Trump and Republicans forming their “election integrity” commission. Ari Berman for the Nation wrote, “The DNC says its commission will debunk the myth that voter fraud is widespread, document the impact of voter suppression efforts in the 2016 election, and propose solutions to expand voting rights.”

The events surrounding Professor Bret Weinstein at Evergreen State College are receiving national attention. We covered the story originally The short version is that Weinstein has become the target of students after he wrote an email objecting to a campus movement to exclude whites for a day, as impermissible racism. His email was polite and thoughtful. Yet the reaction was vitriolic, as we covered in the post Evergreen State leftist professor stunned as SJWs viciously turn on him. Here is video of the professor being confronted:

On Friday, we published a Quick Take about a professor at Evergreen State College who was confronted by a student mob demanding his resignation. The professor, who considers himself a progressive, didn't agree with a campus event which would have banned white people from campus for a day. It turns out the situation at this small school in Washington state is worse than previously known. According to Professor Bret Weinstein, campus operations have ground to a halt. The students are calling the shots and making demands of the school president who is trying to appease them. Campus police have been rendered powerless to do anything by an order to stand down. The inmates have truly taken over the asylum.

Early in Obama's first term, completely peaceful Tea Party protests happened around the country. The liberal media routinely denounced the Tea Party as dangerous and hostile. Since the night of Trump's election, the left has been engaging in protests which often look more like riots. Windows have been smashed, people have been punched and the media sits by ignoring the whole thing. In 2010, Tea Party protesters showed up at town hall meetings to protest the passage of Obamacare. Again, the media called them racist and dangerous. Now leftists are showing up at town halls, but the media coverage is vastly different.

A new left wing group called "People's Action" invaded the office of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday afternoon. Protesters carried signs that said they want a "budget for the people" and they clearly targeted Heritage for the trust President Trump has placed in the organization. Phillip Wegmann reports at the Washington Examiner:
Liberal protest mob storms Heritage Foundation Barack Obama broke his silence yesterday to speak about the importance of civic engagement. The former president talked about things like "listening to understand" and working "to create trust." Altogether it was a good primer on the importance of polite political activism.