Daily Archives: March 1, 2017

Forbes

The Liberal Redneck, Trae Crowder, Leaves Dixie for Hollywood Forbes Raised by his dad in rural Tennessee, Trae Crowder's town had no streetlights. Mostly surrounded by political conservatives and the politically apathetic, Trae was liberal early on. He was poor but smart, and his dad was emphatic about him going to ...

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The Liberal Redneck, Trae Crowder, Leaves Dixie for Hollywood - Forbes

Screenshot via Berkeley CRsA member of the University of California-Berkeley College Republicans caught a young man in the act of destroying the group's large wooden sign on campus.

The perpetrator is presumed to be a studenta witness described him as such.

The CR began recording the incident, which transpired at Sproul Plaza on Tuesday. This did not deter the perpetrator, who continued smashing the sign into smaller pieces.

"You just vandalized our property," said the person recording the video.

"Yeah," replied the perpetrator. "I did."

You can watch the video below: it's one of the more chill acts of illiberalism I've ever seen. The perpetrator even asked the CR if he knows whether the sign should be composted, or placed in the trash.

"I believe that would be compost," the CR replied, because this is Berkeley, after all.

At one point, a female student in league with the sign-destroyer asks the CR to stop recording the destruction of his group's property. She asserted that he had no legal right to record them without permission. That's funny for two reasons: one, it's wrongthere's no expectation of privacy in a public placeand two, the vandals were already breaking the law, anyway.

The altercation likely represents continuing fallout from the CR's decision to bring Milo Yiannopoulos to campus last month. Anti-fascist protestersmost of whom were not studentscrashed the event, smashed windows, and started fires, ultimately preventing Yiannopoulos from speaking.

Organized "black bloc" rioters were responsible for shutting down Yiannopoulos. But illiberal leftist college students often try to silence their perceived opponents as well. An onlooker defended the student's actions, claiming that he was merely exercising his own "free speech" rights. This is a perversion of the concept: free speech does not and cannot include the right to deny someone equal use of a public space, or shout them down at a forum, or destroy their belongings.

Orwell's famous allegory fits a little too neatly here: If you want to a vision of the present, imagine a college Crossfit bro calmly stomping on a conservative's sign, forever. (Or just watch the video.)

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Watch a Liberal Bro Student Calmly Destroy the Berkeley College Republicans' Property - Reason (blog)

Irecently noticed a bumper sticker: I dont believe in liberal media.

My first thought was, You fool. But, I then contemplated the situation and decided, you ignorant fool was the kinder response.

You see, friends and neighbors, there is no such thing as a monolithic liberal media. In fact, there are precious few liberal organizations anyway connected to the media.

My first real job at 18 was as a radio copywriter. But, I had been a radio fan for years. I was and still am an AM radio DXer. That means I spend way too much time trying to pick up obscure, staticky stations. Ive listened to a lot of radio in the past 53 years.

My calling in life was to be a journalist, and I had two fairly successful stints in the newspaper business separated by 17 years of being unwelcome for my liberal views. I have kept up with that industry for about 45 years.

Let me assure you: The notion of a liberal media is the concoction of rascals who resent scrutiny of their sketchy activities and who consider liberal a pejorative term instead of one indicating open-mindedness, fair play and offering neighbors a helping hand.

Or, those mean old media types, if not liberal (and theyre not), are mainstream as if theres something evil in having created a legacy of honest journalism that is older than the Twitterer-in-Chiefs latest rant or the lies generated from political caves or parents basements.

You would think that right-wing radio haters denouncing the liberal media would know better, being on the radio and all. Their very existence refutes their claims.

I cant be sure of the exact number now, but, when I did keep count, I could come up with fewer than a dozen truly liberal large daily newspapers in the country a few on the East Coast, usually with conservative counterparts publishing in their their cities; maybe three in the border states and Old South, maybe a fourth now; and Ill guess at a few on the West Coast though, judging by the political cartoons in The Oklahoman, that guess may be optimistic.

But, there are legions of conservative newspapers who believe that telling the public what is happening is a primary responsibility.

so, occasionally, you will see some yokel attack the Oklahoman one of the most conservative newspapers in the country for its liberalism.

Most newspapers, big and small, are directed not by political leanings, but by bean-counters. the MBAs who took over American business in the late seventies made making money the priority over making the product and orchestrated the death of american industry as a by-product.

Newspapers, too, fell victim to this fallacy. Newspapers arent trying to convert anyone. Theyre trying to meet profits that feed Bottom Line Fever.

Ah, but those liberal TV networks are unfair to our unfair man.

No, they, too, are just doing their jobs. When a U.S. president cites a last night incident in Sweden that did not happen, it is the job of the media left, right or center to point out the discrepancy.

Furthermore, the networks, too, are part of corporate, profit driven worlds, which is why NBC and ABC spend so much morning show time pushing parent company movies and CBS joins them in making whichever latest award show that their network is carrying the most important gathering of celebrities since the very similar one last week.

True, some of us might want to blame NBC for giving a blowhard bully a platform as an unreality show celebrity.

And, I guess you could tar ABC as a bunch of liberals since its parent company, Disney, has branched out in recent decades to furnish princesses and heroines from cultures around the world.

Sure, its a marketing ploy to increase their profits, but it also pushes that dangerous liberal notion of a brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity just as do the core teachings of most world religions.

It seems now that the brave Mr. Trump will protect his fragile ego by skipping the Whit House Correspondents Dinner. Talk about the bravery of bullies, who can dish it out, but not take it.

Mr. Trumps inability to laugh at himself would be laughable were he not president. But, it reveals an extreme lack of empathy, an inability to see the world from any viewpoint but his own.

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Column: The myth of the Liberal media - Duncan Banner

CNN commentator and former Obama green jobs czar Van Jones was awestruck by the address that President Trump gave to a joint session of Congress, but he pin-pointed the moment he thought that Trump became the president.

He became president of the United States, in that moment. Period.

The moment Jones is referring to is the recognition that Trump gave to Carryn Owens, the widow of the Navy SEAL who was killed in the Yemen raid ordered by Trump weeks into his presidency.

There are a lot of people, who have a lot of reason to be frustrated with him, Trump continued, to be fearful of him, to be mad at him. But that is one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics. Period.

And he did something extraordinary. And for people who have been hoping that he would become unifying, hoping that he might find some way to become presidential, they should be happy with that moment.

For people who have been hoping that maybe he would remain a divisive cartoon, which he often finds a way to do, they should begin to become a little worried tonight. Because that thing you just saw him do if he finds a way to do that over and over again, hes gonna there for eight years.

Now there is a lot that he said in that speech that was counterfactual, Jones warned, that was not right that I oppose, and will oppose. But he did something tonight that you cannot take away from him he became president of the United States.

Other pundits noted the extraordinary nature of the moment as the entire chamber of Congress appeared to applaud in unison to show their appreciation for the great sacrifice made on behalf of the country by Carryn Owens and her husband.

The death of William Ryan Owens isthe subject of much controversy as critics have accusedthe administration ofexaggerating the success of the raid in order to undermine calls for investigations into the military action. Some, like Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, even went so far as to affirm that Trump was exploiting the death of Ryan Owens.

Even Owens father has publicly demanded that an investigation be opened to probe whether the raid was ordered for other than purely military motivations.

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Liberal pundit Van Jones says Trump 'became the president' in his speech to Congress - TheBlaze.com

The budget is coming and the news is out that the focus will not be on job-threatening automation, but yet another innovation agenda. The downwardly mobile are unlikely to be thrilled. How many times have the feds laid out supposedly trailblazing innovation schemes the past four governments have tried them only to have them fade away?

They havent worked. The country has never been turned into a leading business or technological innovator. But Liberal strategists are undeterred. They will double down on innovation in this budget. Its to be innovation of a different kind, insiders say. Past measures, such as pouring funding into university science research, havent brought forward the anticipated trickle-down benefits.

Now the Grits are intent on getting into the business of cherry-picking. Theyll identify specific sectors and potential champions and target them for special support. One way will be by spending a large chunk of their procurement budget on them. The plan might be likened, so to speak, to an Own the Podium program for innovators instead of athletes. Economic growth will allegedly follow.

But what about the elephant in the room? The job-ravaging behemoth called automation. Dominic Barton, the head of Justin Trudeaus Advisory Council on Economic Growth, said recently that automation will eliminate no less than 40 per cent of existing Canadian jobs in the coming decade. Hes referring to such technologies as self-checkout counters, driverless cars, burger-flipping robots.

These are what Joe Populist cares about. More than any trade agreements, they are the job killers. But strangely the torrid pace of automation is hardly even being debated in Parliament or elsewhere. Theres a collective throwing up of the hands. Nothing can be done. Technological determinism is here to stay, earthlings. Deal with it.

Theres got to be more focus on automation and robotization, argues Frank Graves, co-author with Graham Lowe of Redesigning Work. There will be huge carnage and it is going to happen quickly. There are solutions but they will require bold action, not some bromides about innovation.

Bold action will not be forthcoming. Automation will be given short shrift in the budget. The word from insiders is that while the projected scary numbers of job losses have to be taken seriously, There isnt an appetite to hold back the tide of technology. There is no pickup, for example, on Microsoft founder Bill Gatess idea of taxing robots that do the work of humans and using the revenues for social needs. There is no enthusiasm for measures such as rewarding retailers who dont switch to self-checkout counters.

Such proposals are readily batted down by the argument that interfering with the advance of technology hinders progress by slowing down productivity. Countries that engage in such practices will become less competitive.

The counter-argument is that were moving into a new hyper-accelerated phase of automation. Just because it hasnt had a negative impact on jobs in the past doesnt mean it holds true for the future. Its a reason more governments are looking at economic nationalism to protect their workers. Its a reason why globalization appears to be winding down.

The Liberals point out that countries with the highest degree of automation still have the lowest unemployment rates. Mr. Barton and his group see no reason for proactive measures to slow it down. Their automation strategy is reactive. They will address it as a social problem that has a purchasable social solution. They are planning, for example, enhanced programs for people over 50 whose skills are ill-suited for the digital age.

Their plan to move away from trickle-down innovation agendas to a more targeted supporting of winners may well be worth a shot, especially if the winners dont win by reducing jobs.

But it wont, given the failures of past innovation schemes, be an easy sell. Joe Populist is more worried about having his job displaced by innovative technologies than seeing the country becoming more adept at creating new ones.

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Where is the Liberal plan for tackling job-killing automation? - The Globe and Mail

WASHINGTON The next big test of the activist energy within the Democratic Party will be the special election to replace Health & Human Services Secretary Tom Price in Georgias 6th Congressional District. Already, the leading Democratic candidate is receiving unprecedented grassroots support.

That candidate, 30-year-old former congressional staffer Jon Ossoff, has already raised more than $1 million from the liberal online website Daily Kos. Thats the most the 15-year-old online community has ever raised for a single candidate. So far, 59,000 donors connected to Daily Kos have donated to Ossoffs campaign.

We can scarcely describe how intense the Daily Kos communitys support for Jon Ossoff has been, Daily Kos political director David Nir said in an email. Its literally unprecedented. In the first week after we endorsed him, our members gave more to Ossoff than they gave to our previous record-holder over an entire cycle and that was Elizabeth Warren. Whats more, the pace hasnt slackened at all. Its only intensified, as Trumps perpetual outrage machine keeps fueling people to contribute more and more. And its only going to escalate as we get closer to the election.

Activists have poured into their local Democratic Party headquarters across the country looking for some way to direct their anger at President Donald Trumps policies and, for many of them, to act on the positive energy that came out of the nationwide womens marches attended by millions on Jan. 21. These activists have already helped push Democratic candidates in special elections in Delaware and Connecticut to perform far better than probably they would have in ordinary conditions.

Ossoff has also received just over $63,000in donations throughFlippable and $150,000 from small donors connected to the pro-campaign finance reform group End Citizens United. In addition, 3,500 Georgians have signed up to volunteer for Ossoffs campaign. To take advantage of this grassroots energy on the ground, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is deploying nine staffers to the Georgia Democratic Party to help with turnout.

The Georgia district appears on the surface like it would be a place for Democrats to avoid. It is rated as R+14, meaning it favors Republicans by 14 percentage points. Price had never won the district with less than 60 percent of the vote.

But the district swung heavily toward Democrats at the presidential level in 2016. Where Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama there by 21 percentage points, Trump narrowly bested Hillary Clinton by a 1-point margin, 48-47. That was one of the largest shifts toward Democrats in the 2016 election.

Clintons near win in the district was driven in large part by her success among college educated white voters appalled by Trump. The district, which encompasses parts of Atlanta and its suburbs, has significantly more college-educated voters than Georgia as a whole. It also has more Asian and Latino voters and fewer African-American voters.

One of the biggest emerging splits in public polling surveys on Trumps job performance has been on education. College educated voters and college educated white voters are significantly less supportive of Trump than those who have not graduated from college.

These demographics may help Democrats as they attempt to make the race a referendum on Trumps first three months in office.

Republicans are already putting big money into holding the seat. Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC connected to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), plans to spend $1.1 million attacking Ossoff a major investment for a district that hasnt gone to a Democrat since 1979. The super PACs first ad goes after Ossoff for dressing up as Han Solo for Halloween when he was in college.

The election is held on April 18. Ossoff is one of five Democrats running, along with 11 Republican candidates. If no candidate surpasses 50 percent on April 18, the top two finishers will head to a June 20 runoff.

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Liberal Readers Just Raised $1 Million For The Democrat Looking To Replace Tom Price - Huffington Post