Daily Archives: April 21, 2017

In 1993, stand-up comic Jeff Foxworthy began to gather millions of fans by hilariously defining what it means to be a redneck.

"If your kids take roadkill to show-and-tell, you might be a redneck," was the kind of joke Foxworthy told to illustrate what he described as the "glorious absence of sophistication" of many poor white Southerners.

Tennessee-born comic Trae Crowder works in the same redneck milieu, but in a different and edgier way.

Crowder is the self-described "Liberal Redneck," who began to get national attention a year ago after some of his "back porch rant" videos, with politically liberal viewpoints delivered with a Southern accent, went viral on the Internet.

On Monday night, Crowder and fellow "liberal redneck" comedians Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan Forrester will bring their show to the ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks to support their best-selling book: "The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin' Dixie Outta the Dark."

Crowder describes it as their take on themed comedy shows, such as the Kings of Comedy, the Comedians of Comedy and, of course, Foxworthy's Redneck Comedy Tour.

As a strident critic of the majority politics of his home region, Crowder says he has found himself increasingly defending fellow rednecks from a prevailing stereotype.

"I was genuinely surprised to find out that to a great many people in this country part of the definition of the word redneck is racist, regressive, homophobic, hateful," Crowder says in a phone interview.

"Growing up, everyone around me self-identified as rednecks. That's just what we were." While his family was poor, they were not racist or homophobic, certainly not the father who raised him in rural Celina, Tenn., or his uncle, who is gay.

"I knew that a stereotype about rednecks was that a lot of them were racists," he says. "I didn't know that to a lot of people you're not even considered a redneck if you're not a racist hick. I didn't realize that was a thing. I've since come to find out that it definitely is."

Crowder gained fame posting videos ripping North Carolina's controversial public bathroom law, blasting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

The New York Daily News subsequently hired him to do "Redneck Edition" videos as the newspaper's "hillbilly-in-chief." His videos have more than 60 million views. He also has appeared on "Nightline," "The View" and "Real Time with Bill Maher," among other television shows.

Crowder generally defines rednecks as "poor white people."

"That can run the gamut in terms of ideology," he says. "A lot of those people I'm talking about, they were trying to reclassify me, and say, 'OK, OK, I believe that you're a liberal and you agree with me politically, but you're not a redneck, Trae. You can't be a redneck.'

"That annoys me," says Crowder, who was the first in his family to graduate from college and has an MBA. "It annoys me, people trying to define what I am. My whole life growing up, it wasn't a matter of pride or a matter of choice. It was just what I was. It was what we all were and I don't feel like that necessarily changes because of how I feel about things."

He adds that his views are not as unique among fellow white Southerners as many from the Northeast and West Coast might believe.

"They say things to me like: 'You're like seeing a unicorn.' 'Before I saw your videos, I wouldn't have believed that someone like you could possibly exist,'" Crowder says.

Roughly 40 percent of Southerners typically vote Democratic in national elections, he says. In his home state of Tennessee, Hillary Clinton received 35 percent of the vote in November.

"If you take 40 percent of the entire South that's voting liberal every election, that's millions of people, you know what I mean," he says.

"We're in the minority, but it's not this 90-10 split or 95-5 like a lot of people think it is. There are plenty of progressive people in the South, especially in the cities."

Crowder feels a mix of pride and shame in his Southern heritage. Even the things he loves about it have "a dark side." The music and the food, for example, "are some of the best stuff culturally that this country has to offer."

At the same time, both "are very, very heavily influenced by African traditions. That has a lot of roots in slaves cooking and singing," he says.

"There's a real sense of family and community, which can manifest itself in bad ways when people use family values as a euphemism for hating other people," Crowder says.

"I also think that Southern hospitality is a real thing. I know that it is. Again, there's a dark side to all of these things. The problem with that is, people being real nice and sweet to your face and then talking sh-- the minute you turn your back that Southern passive-aggressiveness."

With his comedy, Crowder says, he is trying to bridge the divide between North and South, red and blue, liberal and conservative. But he admits he has had a lot more luck convincing Northeastern elites that not everybody from the South is a hateful racist than convincing many fellow rednecks to be more tolerant of transgendered people.

"I think that makes sense because with the other Southern progressives, I'm preaching to the choir with them," he says. "The only ones I am trying to convince of anything are the hardcore, ultra-conservative rednecks. It's almost impossible to get them to change their minds.

"Whereas people's perception of the South, that's just like a perspective. It is not a deeply held philosophical belief. It's not as hard to change somebody's perception about something like that, than it is to change somebody's perception about abortion or gay marriage."

At the same time, some Southerners are resistant to liberal arguments because they can sense that their twang prompts a condescending response, Crowder says.

"'They think they're better than me and they think I'm dumb.' That's a real thing. That's a real perception, and also living in California and touring all over the country, I can't say it's not entirely unfounded. There definitely is something to that and that plays into it for a lot of these people."

Crowder moved to California from Tennessee in January to develop a television show based on his comedy. Several networks have expressed interest in the show, which Crowder is writing and hopes to star in.

"Everything else I've got going on, I'm proud of and excited for all of it, but standup is what I really consider myself to be best at, and the same is true of Corey and Drew," Crowder says. "I think the best way to experience our whole thing is at a live show. So I hope a lot of people come out and see it."

Daryl Nerl is a freelance writer.

Jodi Duckett, editor

jodi.duckett@mcall.com

610-820-6704

The Liberal Rednecks: The WellRED Tour

What: Stand-up comedy show featuring Trae Crowder, Drew Morgan and Corey Ryan Forrester

When: 8 p.m. Monday

Where: Fowler Blast Furnace Room, ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem

How much: $25

Info: steelstacks.org

View original post here:

The Liberal Rednecks, coming to Bethlehem, bridge divide between North and South - Allentown Morning Call

Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May. We have a moral problem in this country with something we used to be comfortable calling greed. Photograph: Getty Images

At the beginning of the 20th century, our political lords and masters dressed like theyd just come off a grouse moor. By the end of the century, they looked like they worked in an international hedge fund.

The left has sometimes been confused by this change. When the grouse moor lot were in power, the battle lines were clear. The class war had its recognisable uniforms, from tweeds to cloth caps. But this old war was made irrelevant bythe forward march of modern capitalism, with power leaking to those who were able to manipulate theworkings of the market, leaving a few harmless toffs deadheading their roses. Financial deregulation the liberalisation of the rules governing the City was a coup against the traditional vested interests of the pinstriped suits brigade. As the Essex boys took over, thepublic school traders were left chuntering into their golf club gins.

The liberal right of Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher was able to represent this change as one of democratisation. Money didnt have any sort of accent. Even the working class could own their own shares and thus stick their fingers in the cherry pie of economic growth and they could buy their own council house. As some on the left remained obsessed with fighting old battles against beaten enemies, power was being reconcentrated in the hands of the few. As Jeremy Corbyn has rightly put it, the system was being rigged. But tragically, under New Labour the progressive left decided that the best thing it could do was cheer along. Tony Blair differed from Thatcher only by a slightly more redistributive nudge of the tiller. The left had effectively surrendered.

And that is how many of us thought politics was going to last. But a chink of light has appeared, for this election pits against each other two leaders who have both broken from the Thatcher/Blair consensus. OK, Theresa May is not quite the politician of the old squirearchy, but she retains enough of its traditional values to despise the super-slick Blatcher poster-boy George Osborne and to understand the attraction of Brexit notwithstanding the fact that it may well make us slightly poorer as acountry. She is an old-fashioned politician who (quite rightly) wants to speak of our moral responsibilities and not just our legal rights.

And Jeremy Corbyn, intuitively a Brexiter, is the only political leader since Michael Foot to understand how the power of money comes to be concentrated in the hands of a few. To those who have, more will be given. To those who have little, even what they have will be taken away. This is the logic of modern capitalism.

Corbyn is right to call it out. He is going to do better in this election than the consensus-seeking pundits are all claiming at least, I hope so. So what that he isnt Mr Charisma? Because, contra glossy New Labour, there really is such a thing as being too rich. Ordinary people know it and Corbyn gets it. We have a moral problem in this country with something we used to be comfortable calling greed, which is both bad for the poor and, yes, bad for the rich, too. It rots people from the inside out Philip Green, Mike Ashley. And if you think you can detect a bit of my religion coming through here, you are damned right. A 70,000 annual salary equals being rich? Sounds near enough to me.

The problem with liberal capitalism of both the Thatcher and New Labour varieties is that it surrendered morality to the invisible hand. Adam Smith justified personal greed by making it out to be the driver of other peoples employment. This meant that even so-called progressives could worship the money god with a clean conscience. It will be a long road back from the Blair/Thatcher consensus that has stained our soul so deeply. But a start has been made with us leaving the European Union. Yes, Brexit threatens many vested interests, and the muscle of the City of London may derail it yet. But perhaps, just perhaps, the dismantling of Thatchers liberal legacy has finally begun.

Read more:

Liberal capitalism has rotted our souls. But its days might be ... - The Guardian

MANILA, Philippines Members of the Liberal Party, including those in the majority, will not be supporting impeachment complaints against President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Leni Robredo.

Deputy Speaker Romero "Miro" Quimbo said on Thursday that 15 members of the party recently met with Robredo to discuss party-related administrative matters, as well as the issue on impeachment. Robredo is the highest elected member of the Liberal Party and an emerging opposition leader.

"The LP House majority caucus members present categorically took a position that we will not support any of the impeachment complaints filed against the leaders of the land," Quimbo said in a statement.

In March, an impeachment complaint was filed by Magdalo party-list Gary Alejano against Duterte for possible violation of the Constitution in issues of maritime rights, engagement in bribery and "other high crimes."

In the same month, lawyer Oliver Lozano filed an impeachment complaint against Robredo for "betrayal of public trust" for sending a video message criticizing the president's war against drugs to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

Quimbo said that for the lower chamber of Congress to take up any of the impeachment complaints will only be "divisive as well as polarizing."

Headlines ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1

"It will only distract us from the many important matters that congress should be giving priority to," he added.

In March, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the leaders of the Liberal Party-led minority in the House, expressed resentment over an earlier statement of Quimbo that the party as a whole will not support Duterte's impeachment.

"There has been no meeting called by the Liberal Party leadership among its members in the House and in the Senate on the Duterte impeachment complaint," Lagman said in a statement.

Lagman said Liberal Party members in the minority should have been consulted before the statement was released.

READ: House opposition divided on Duterte impeachment

Quimbo, meanwhile, reiterated an earlier remark that the party will continue its "strongest commitment" supporting Robredo.

He also said that party members who are out of town will be informed of the decision in subsequent meetings before Congress reopens in May.

Excerpt from:

Liberal Party to oppose impeachment raps vs Duterte, Robredo - Philippine Star

The departure of Fox News hostBill OReilly over allegations of inappropriate conduct has, predictably, caused a certain amount of exultation from liberal and left-leaning stars and commentators.

Cher tweeted that OReilly and Donald Trump have sexually harassed women 4 years without providing any concrete examples to back up this claim. Rosie ODonnell followed suit, calling Trump and OReilly sexual predators of a feather. (She also failed to expand on this extreme accusation). And Stephen King said Trump and OReilly are both members of the odious boys club where members feel they can abuse and humiliate women at will. Again, he did not produce a shred of evidence.

The question is, where were these sanctimoniousvoices when members of their own club were accused of what some might judge to be far more inappropriate behavior than the king of cable was? And why have they previously been content to see others who have been accused of alleged crimes and misdemeanors potentially elevated to positions of great authority, or watched them receive the most prestigious of awards?

Lets start with Bill Clinton. The former President has been accused of sexual misconduct by three women (one, Juanita Broaddrick has claimed he raped her) yet this apparently posed no problem for liberals last year. They would have been happy for the politico to re-enter the White House as First Gentleman, while his long-suffering wife would have been President.

And what about film director Roman Polanski? He was named Best Director at the Oscars in 2002 despite having fled America for Europe in 1978 after being arrested and charged in the US with engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. Harrison Ford accepted the Oscar for Polanski and then presented it to him at the Deauville Film Festival in France five months later in a public ceremony.

Woody Allen has a long and deeply uncomfortable history of allegations against him after his ex-wife, Mia Farrow, claimed he sexually abused their adopted daughter. But, as with Polanski, the liberal establishment was prepared to repeatedly overlook these claims, even giving Allen the Best Screenplay Oscar in 2012 for his film Midnight in Paris.

In 2009, David Letterman was forced to admit he had indulged in extra marital affairs with staff including those vastly junior to him who worked on his CBSshow. This is not what many would expect of a public figure of some influence, but the liberal media didnt seem to regard it as a problem.

To this list we shouldnt forget to add the New York Times, which aggressively pushed its investigation of OReilly and on Wednesday exulted in, as its former media editor tweeted, claiming his scalp. As Heat Street has previously reported, the Timesis facingaccusations of racial discrimination and its top dog is dogged by shocking allegations of lying about and covering up the sexual abuse of children.

A civil law suit was launched last year against the papers CEO, British former BBC chief Mark Thompson, by two New York Times employees, Ernestine Grant and her colleague Marjorie Walker. They work in itsadvertising department and have accused their employer of engaging in deplorable discrimination that has remained largely off the record.

Papers submitted on their behalf by New York law firm Wigdor LLP explain: Beginning with the appointment of Defendant Mark Thompson to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in 2012, the workplace at the Times has become an environment rife with discrimination based on age, race, and gender.

First, they say Thompsons appointment as Times CEO was riddled with controversy, given the numerous humiliations and indignities he presided over during his tumultuous tenure as the Director General of the BBC.

They go on:

Thompson was involved in a highly publicized BBC scandal regarding a decision to bury an expos of child sex abuse allegedly committed by one the BBCs most well-known personalities, Jimmy Savile. Not only was Mr. Thompson seemingly involved in attempting to conceal this important piece of journalism from the public, but he also later lied about his role in the affair, which was demonstrated through an irrefutable recording.

This recording is cited as a taped interview made in October 2012 by reporter Ben Webster of the London Times. The recording, which Heat Street has heard, was broadcast on UK website Guido Fawkes in March 2013 and circulated widely.

The papers go on:

Thompson initially denied any awareness of the underlying allegations or of the Newsnight cancelation while he was at the BBC. Later, however, reports indicated that he was aware of the Newsnight investigation, well before the cancelation. As a result, Mr. Thompson changed his story, acknowledging that he was told about an investigation, but maintained his lack of awareness of any details involving sexual abuse. However, this version of events was then undone by the surfacing of [The London Timess] audio recording in which he admitted awareness that the investigation involved sexual abuse of some kind.

Interestingly, an interview which Thompson gave to the BBC on September 11, 2016 three weeks after the court papers were filed dredged up this issue again. Presenter Andrew Marr asked Thompson about his knowledge of the Savile scandal. And Thompson did not deny as has been alleged many times, including to a committee of British MPs that he was told informally about the existence of the Savile investigation in 2011 by his BBC colleague Helen Boaden.

This is what he told Marr:

Thompson also discussed this issue at greater length in 2013, as Heat Street has noted.

So what does the liberal establishment have to say about the New York Timeschief having been involved (allegedly) in covering up a child abuse scandal? It would be fascinating to hear, but I wont hold my breath.

Here is the original post:

The Stench of Liberal Hypocrisy - Heat Street

The Lib Dems have held talks with pro-Remain Tories about the possibility of defection.

Party insiders said they were confident of winning over Conservatives opposed to Theresa Mays Brexit plans.

A Lib Dem source said: There are at least two who could join us, hopefully some more.

It comes as former Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews announced he was defecting to the Lib Dems.

The party also said it had 8,000 new members since Theresa May called the election on Tuesday, taking the total to 95,000.

Mr Marshall-Andrews, the MP for Medway from 1997 to 2010, described his former party as a political basket case.

He said: At present there is manifestly a huge vacuum on the centre-left represented in substantial part by the 48% of the electorate who rejected Brexit and the lies on which it was based.

To many, including me, there was a forlorn hope that a reformed and radical Labour Party would rise to the historic occasion. It has not and shows no real sign of doing so.

Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael said: Jeremy Corbyn is never going to be Prime Minister. He cant lead his own party, let alone our country. The more people see him, the less they want to vote for him.

That is not just my view. It is the view of the 172 Labour MPs who just last year said they had no confidence in his leadership.

Thats why senior Labour figures such as Bob Marshall-Andrews are defecting to the Liberal Democrats .

Jeremy Corbyn s Labour has waved the white flag on Brexit, is failing as an opposition and has given Theresa May a blank cheque to pursue a divisive Hard Brexit.

A Labour spokesman said: Bob Marshall-Andrews has not been a member of the Labour Party for some years.

More:

Two pro-Remain Tories talking to Liberal Democrats about defection as ex-Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews switches - Mirror.co.uk

Theresa May: For someone who says, Politics is not a game, shes awfully good at it. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

This prime minister likes to surprise. Thought she was cautious? Cue this snap election. Thought she would just be Cameron continuity? Oh no: austerity slowed, the ban on grammar schools lifted. A reassuring remainer to handle Brexit? Nope. Shes become a full-throttle Brexiteer.

She has ascended in politics by pursuing a clever strategy: lying low, surfacing only at moments of significance, and not allowing herself to be easily defined. Endorsed, but not embraced, by nearly everyone in the Conservative party and now the wider public by not being too close or associated with anyone or anything. For someone who says, Politics is not a game, shes awfully good at it.

Indeed, come the summer, her majority in parliament is likely to increase significantly. What does this mean for her programme for Brexit and government? The speculation has started. But the truth is we dont really know.

Some say it will allow her to pursue a softer Brexit with more compromises, freed from a troublesome right wing on the backbenches, currently calling the shots thanks to a slim majority. But others argue that it will enable her to secure her plan for a hard Brexit, a cadre of Theresa Mays minions in the Commons obliging and a fresh mandate proving to the EU that there really is no turning back for the UK.

The Tory manifesto is likely to reveal little. Thats because the PM has framed this election narrowly, about giving her the endorsement to negotiate with the EU, the details of which she is reluctant to give in advance and provide a running commentary on. If we take her at face value that she only came to this election decision belatedly then there has been little time to think deeply about an original and radical programme of domestic reform.

Certainly, nearly a year into her government, the creativity and ambition of the policies proposed have not matched the welcome, rousing rhetoric of a new settlement for the state and those on modest incomes. And with the opposition so weak, there is little political incentive to be truly bold in the manifesto.

What is clearer is that, should Mays Tories win on 8 June, she would then be much more likely to get her own way which she would like, not being the most tolerant of disagreement, especially within her own ranks. Justifying the election, she lamented the division in Westminster, which others might regard as a necessary and healthy part of democracy. It was a little overblown too, considering a clear majority of parliamentarians voted to trigger article 50 only a month ago.

But it will not be such smooth sailing for her. After June, the bulk of Tory MPs will still be creatures of the Cameron era. Considering the abruptness of this election, many of the candidates especially those fighting safe seats will have been around when her predecessor was still in charge. There will be loyalty, but they will not be pushovers: conservatism is not known to attract those with a collectivist mindset.

Happily, it is likely that many candidates will be liberal conservatives too. Not just because of the Cameron connection or indeed their younger age. But also because of the electoral reality. Those extra parliamentary seats have to come from constituencies that are currently held by Labour, with a higher proportion of voters on more modest incomes and from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

The threat to sitting Tory MPs comes from a revived and shamelessly pro-remain Liberal Democrats in southern England. Ukip, meanwhile, increasingly seems a divided, amateurish and redundant force. To win big, the Conservatives need to reassure the floating voters of liberal Britain.

In June, Mays power will probably be strengthened. Discreet and surprising, the prime ministers final destination on Brexit and domestic reform is uncertain. But it is likely that the composition of the future Conservative party in the Commons will push her to a and expose her own more liberal conservative positioning.

Read the original post:

Why the election could make Theresa May more liberal - The Guardian

By Wednesday, the Liberal Party of Australia should have named a successor to federal director Tony Nutt. And barring a radical and unforeseen change of consensus amongst Malcolm Turnbull's leadership group, that person will be Menzies Research Centre policy director Andrew Bragg.

Bragg only joined the federal Liberals' think tank in November (from his gig alongside John Brogden at the Financial Services Council) but in that short time has noticeably raised its public profile. He was an unsuccessful Senate candidate in the NSW Liberals' original half-Senate preselection and in the Victorian seat of Murray in 2016 (which the Nationals ultimately took off the Libs on July 2). Andrew Robb, who co-authored the Liberals' review of last year's federal election campaign, launched Bragg's book on trade policy last month.

Bragg is likely to be first appointed in an acting capacity and given the opportunity to prove his credentials in the lead up to an election year. He hasn't run a political organisation before nor has he run a national campaign but is regarded assmart, a skilful organiser in the industrial sense of the word (a rare talent in a movement anathemic to collectivism), is close to Turnbull yet non-factional and well-regarded by conservatives. He is strongly backed in by Victorian Cabinet minister Josh Frydenberg and allies Alan Tudge and Dan Tehan, as well as Senate deputy leader and campaign spokesman Mathias Cormann. And aged 32, we bet he's heard of Big Data and the interweb thingy.

Ultimately the decision is one for federal executive, a parting prerogative of outgoing president Richard Alston, who has presided over an utter failure of succession planning, a rift over opaque spending that resulted in the Honorary Treasurer Phil Higginson resigning,the Victorian director Damien Mantach going to jail for stealing $1.5 million of party funds while Alston sat on its finance committee, and bequeaths a broke party, all while sitting on the board of CPA Australia. Enjoy your trip to Singapore, Dick!

Last week, Alston slipped the removal of Tom Harley from the chairmanship of the MRC (where Bragg now works) into the executive's resolutions, which passed without notice. We doubt he'd try that one again. But you just never know

The rest is here:

Andrew Bragg firms as Liberals' federal director - The Australian Financial Review