Daily Archives: March 5, 2021

In the fourth paragraph of his excellent March 1 Open Forum This Isnt My Republican Party, Mr. James Sherry lays out his conservative principles.

And as an unabashed liberal, I agree wholeheartedly with every one of them.

1) Limited government: I agree. The question is, How limited? Surely, government must play some role. I suspect that Mr. Sherry and I would debate how much government is too much, but we agree on the limited government premise.

2) Free-trade capitalism: I agree with the premise. Im all for capitalism, but with limited, common sense and necessary restrictions, which we can debate.

3) Reducing the national debt and working toward a balanced budget: Agreed. But how much debt is too much? Lets discuss.

4) Second Amendment rights, freedom of speech, freedom of (and from) religion: Agreed. But with sensible limits.

5) Equality of opportunity: Yes, for everyone. But equality is an aspiration that has not yet been realized in America. Shouldnt a government that promises equality work to achieve it?

6) Individual responsibility: Im all for being responsible and facing consequences applied equitably to rich and poor, male and female, straight and gay, black and white, the powerful and the weak.

7) The rights of unborn human beings: Agreed. I dont like abortion, either. But very often after the unborn become the born they also become the unhealthy and the unaffordable. So when parents cant afford pre-natal care, hospital care, well-baby care, childcare; when they cant afford health insurance; when they cant take their kid to the doctor or dentist, what role should government have?

8) Family as the bedrock of decency: Agreed. I like family and I like decency. But as Mrs. Doubtfire said, There are all sorts of different families. Single parent families, blended families, mixed race families, families with two dads or two moms. Theyre all families, and they can be as bedrock decent as any traditional mom and dad family.

9) Education as the key to individual success: Agreed. And individual success enriches society as a whole. Should government subsidize its citizens education as a wise investment in the nations future?

10) Sane and charitable immigration policy: Yes, sane because our nation needs immigrants for its economic well-being. And charitable, because immigrants are Gods children, too, and theyre here for the same reasons our own immigrant forefathers came here.

11) Voting as a civic duty: Agreed. And government has a responsibility to make legal voting as easy and accessible as possible for all citizens.

12) Color-blind justice: Agreed. Another as yet unrealized promise, and its governments duty to fulfill it.

13) Rejection of hatred as a basis of policy: Agreed. And its fair to demand our government to examine its policies and root out bias.

Maybe Mr. Sherry, the conservative, is actually a liberal. Or maybe I, the liberal, am actually a conservative. Label us as you please, but were typical Americans who agree on the fundamentals. We just need to have a civil conversation about the details.

Roger Kalin is a resident of Winchester.

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Open Forum: Conservative or liberal? Liberal or conservative? | Winchester Star | winchesterstar.com - The Winchester Star

Shes convinced that there remains a large constituency for a two-state solution, at least in principle. Of course there is a huge majority that does not believe it is achievable, she said.

Thats true not only in Israel, and not only on the right. The inexorable growth of Israels occupation, and the increasing power of those in Israel calling for outright annexation of Palestinian lands, can make it hard to believe that a two-state solution is still viable. If it isnt, neither is Israeli democracy, unless and until the country is prepared to give equal rights to the Palestinians it rules. For years, its been a truism to say that Israel is approaching the point where it can be Jewish or democratic, but not both. Its possible that, as much as liberal Zionists dont want to admit it, that point has been crossed.

So I asked Michaeli why American Jews committed to liberal democracy should still feel connected to Israel. She grew vehement, saying that the experience of living under Donald Trump should redouble our empathy for Israels embattled progressives.

Michaelis first four years in the Knesset coincided with Barack Obamas second term. I spent those four years being attacked by liberal American Jews for failing to replace Netanyahu, failing to be an effective opposition, she said. She grew deeply frustrated trying to explain the near impossibility of constraining a demagogue.

And then when Donald Trump was elected, I was devastated, but at the same time, I said to my friends, Welcome to our lives, she said. Now you will understand us better, because you felt the same its the way your life changes. All of the sudden your president becomes your life, and your jaw drops 10 times a day, and you experience how a scandal happens every 10 minutes and everybody becomes numb, and you run out of words to express how horrible things are. With Trump, she said, I thought that my American liberal friends will at last understand what we have been up against all this time.

Instead, Michaeli feels that some liberal American Jews are giving up on their Israeli peers. Dont you get that we need you and you need us? she asked. You need us, because as long as Israel, which used to be a true democracy, and is half of the Jewish people, is under such threat, you need us to get over this as much as we need you to be able to strengthen your democracy.

She insists, however hard it is to imagine now, that a two-state solution is still within reach. It has to happen, said Michaeli. Im convinced that it will, eventually.

Really? I asked.

Yeah, of course, she said. Listen, I brought Labor back almost from the dead.

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Opinion | The Israeli Feminist Trying to Save Liberal Zionism - The New York Times

GCHS Athletics| Garden City Telegram

Sub-State loss ends Pfeifers best season

The Wednesday Class 6A sub-state semifinal basketball game at Liberals Big House was eerily reminiscent of the final regular season contest between the Garden CityBuffaloes and the host Liberal Redskins.

The result was also the same, this time Garden falling 56-38 in the postseason playoff game to see their best season in several years end with an 11-6 record. It had been a 53-40 setback to end the regular season.

With Liberal holding a slender halftime lead this time, 22-18, as opposed to a 28-14 intermission advantage 8 days earlier, the Buffs drew within a basket at 24-22 just two minutes into the third quarter. The regular season battle had watched the Buffs trim that double-digit deficit to a single basket with 6 minutes remaining in the game.

Wednesday nights near duplicate scenario saw the Buffs go nearly three minutes without scoring while Liberal enjoyed a 9-2 run to put them up 33-24. By the end of the third quarter, the No. 2-seeded Liberal squad was up by 11, 38-27.

Any hopes of a Buffs rally ended quickly in the fourth quarter when Liberal scored the first 8 points to extend their lead to 46-27 with just more than 5 minutes left. Turnovers proved costly to the Lady Buffs in the final 16 minutes.

The Buffaloes struggled scoring from the field, finishing with just 9 baskets, four of those coming from 3-point range. They did hit 16-of-22 free throws.

Senior Julie Calzonetti took scoring honors for the Buffs with 11 points while sophomore Aileen Becerril added 10. Liberal got double-figure scoring from its trio of standouts Ashley Carrillo getting game high honors with 17 points, followed by Bree Horyna with 16 and Audrey Warden with 10.

The 11-6 mark is the best for the Buffs since the 2012-13 season when they went 17-4 under previous head coach David Upton. Pfeifers 2018-2019 team posted a 12-10 record.

Liberal will now face No. 1-seeded Dodge City on Saturday in Dodge City after the Red Demons dispatched No. 4 seed Hutchinson, 52-29, also on Wednesday night. Dodge City is 19-1. The winner advances to the 6A state quarterfinals which begin next Tuesday.

In a format change due to COVID-19, state quarterfinal games will be played between winners of specific sub-states and be played at the team with the higher seed (record). Either Dodge City or Liberal would be the higher-seeded team and host a quarterfinal game on Tuesday against the winner of the Derby (16-4) vs. Wichita Southeast (15-5) sub-state. The four winners advance to the state semifinals on Friday, March 12, and will be seeded by their season record, with 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3. Championship games are slated for Saturday, March 13 at Wichita State Universitys Koch Arena. There are no third place games this year.

GARDEN CITY (38) Calzonetti 3 4-8 11, Becerril 3 2-2 10, Flores 1 3-4 5, Simmons 1 3-4 5, Turner 1 4-4 7. Totals 9 16-22 38.

LIBERAL (56) Carrillo 4 7-9 17, Hay 2 0-0 6, Payton 1 0-0 2, Hallman 2 1-4 5, Horyna 7 2-2 16, Warden 3 4-5 10. Totals 19 14-20 56.

Garden City (11-6) 9; 9; 9; 11; -38

Liberal (17-4) 7; 15; 16; 18; -56

3-point goals: Garden City 4 (Calzonetti 1, Becerril 1, Turner 1), Liberal 4 (Carrillo 2, Hay 2). Fouls: Garden City 16, Liberal 14. Fouled out: Liberal (Carrillo).

Originally posted here:

Short-handed Buffaloes fall to Liberal, 56-38 - The Garden City Telegram

Its been a busy week for cancel culture.

Republican representative Jim Jordan called on the GOP to hold a committee hearing into the dangerous phenomenon that was a serious threat to fundamental free speech rights; Nobel Prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro warned that it created a climate of fear amongst writers; and some childrens books got removed for depictions of racist imagery.

Author Theodor Geisels more famous works, like Green Eggs and Ham, which sold more than 338,000 copies in the US last year, and Oh, The Places youll Go!, which sold 513,000, remain untouched.

But it also seems to have replaced fake news in the Conservative lexicon when it comes to stirring up hatred of the media and faux hysteria over the demise of traditional values, religious beliefs and freedom of speech.

In other words, their appearance at America Uncancelled had been cancelled.

This latest diversion tactic, also known as the dead cat strategy, is a weapon of mass distraction.

Public shaming, or mob justice, is not a new concept. The earliest recorded use in English of a pillory, or stock, in which disgraced citizens would have their hands and head locked in public spaces, was 1274. Even the Romans used crucifixion to add a layer of public and psychological humiliation to the death penalty.

Despite legal, public embarrassment being phased out around 1837 in the UK and 1839 in the US, there are multiple judges still practising it today.

Like Ohio Municipal Court Judge Pinkey Carr, who in 2012 reportedly ordered Shena Hardin, who was caught on camera driving on a pavement to avoid a school bus, to stand at a cross-road and wear a sign that read: Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.

Etymologically the word cancelled can be traced back to the Latin carcer, meaning prison.

Its modern use may have first popped up in mainstream, popular culture in the 1991 cult movie, New Jack City, starring Wesley Snipes as crime boss Nino Brown, as spotted by Vox in 2019.

When his girlfriend complains about the murders he has carried out, Brown slams her onto the table, drips Champagne on her, and says: Cancel that b***h. Ill buy another one. It was a line later referenced in lyrics by rappers like 50 Cent.

But, unlike phrases like MeToo, cancel culture cant be traced to a single individual, but has evolved over time on social media from colloquial use by African Americans, to a symbol of the 21st century phenomenon of online bashing, to a rallying cry by conservative politicians.

In 2014, when TV critic and assistant professor at Old Dominion University, Miles McNutt, became one of the first people to use the phrase cancel culture on Twitter, he was actually referring to TV shows and the metrics by which a TV series success is measured and the speculation over which shows will survive.

So, the cancellation of actual culture, not a culture of cancellations.

He told The Independent via email that he was absolutely baffled (and remain baffled) by any association with the phrase as it is used now.

It began to grow in popularity from around 2016, notably with Black Twitter users, when it started to become identified with boycotts, before exploding into mainstream use around 2019, according to Google Trends.

Shanita Hubbard, journalism professor and author of Miseducation: A Womans Guide to Hip-Hop, published in 2022 by Hachette, said that cancel culture is a weapon used by the powerful against the marginalised

(Shanita Hubbard)

In 2017, Shanita Hubbard, journalism professor and author of the upcoming book, Miseducation: A Womans Guide to Hip-Hop, published by Hachette in 2022, used the phrase on Twitter to discuss criticism of the African American Olympic gymnast, Gabby Douglas, who had apologised for comments she made in the wake of her industrys sexual abuse scandal.

Hubbard wrote: Lets talk cancel culture. Personally, I am willing to give a lot of grace to young Black girls simply because the world doesnt. I wasnt born reading bell hooks. I had to grow. So does Gabby Douglas. And so do some of you.

She added: Giving room to grow, change and improve is not a pass.

Ms Hubbard told The Independent that she believed the architects behind the current use of cancel culture in the political sphere are powerful, white conservatives who were using it as a distraction technique.

The writer said: Its almost exhausting to have this conversation about this mythical cancel culture. Its a very fictitious thing. Its a weapon that a lot of powerful, privileged people use as a shield to avoid accountability.

The dead cat strategy was popularised under that name by the famed Australian strategist Lynton Crosby (once called the manipulator with the Midas touch and the Wizard of Oz, quietly working behind the curtain whilst your eyes are fixed elsewhere) who delivered now prime minister Boris Johnsons mayoral wins in London in 2008 and 2012, as well as the UKs surprise 2015 win for the Conservatives, setting up the Brexit showdown a year later.

The premise is simple: If you dont like the narrative or are losing an argument, throw a dead cat, or otherwise shocking statement or bit of news, on the table, and all talk on the former topic will end.

Australian political strategist Lynton Crosby, pictured in 2015 during the annual Conservative party conference after helping to master-mind their election success, popularised the term dead cat as a political distraction tactic

(AFP via Getty Images)

Revealing Mr Crosbys tactics that he would later use during the ill-fated EU Referendum campaign and his somewhat disastrous premiership in the UK during the pandemic, Mr Johnson wrote in 2013: Everyone will shout Jeez, mate, theres a dead cat on the table!; in other words they will be talking about the dead cat, the thing you want them to talk about, and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.

Its a technique used to great effect by former president, Donald Trump, and other conservatives, from Hilarys emails in 2016, to fake news, to the stolen election in 2020.

Ms Hubbard told The Independent that it works well for powerful, mostly white, conservatives as a left-wing bogeyman they can rail against publicly, while knowing that they themselves cannot be cancelled.

Like spreading fear about a virus to which you know you are immune.

The truth of the matter is [cancelling] usually only harms marginalised, ordinary people, a lot of black people. she said.

Its deeply painful to see time and time again people who look like you never getting allowed to grow or make mistakes, and others, very powerful, privileged people, never being held accountable. That is how you know cancel culture is invented. We live in a twilight zone where people are yelling cancel culture ruined my life. When in reality there is nothing that powerful politicians and police officers can do to get cancelled.

A mural of former NFL player Colin Kaepernick in Tampas, Florida, earlier this month. Kaepernick was cancelled in 2016 for protesting against police brutality by kneeling during the US National Anthem.

(Getty Images)

One of the earliest examples of that would be Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player who started to take a knee during the National Anthem in 2016 to protest racism and police brutality. The practise is now wide-spread, especially following the global rise of the Black Lives Matter movement last year, but he still cannot find a job, five years later.

And in contrast, in the year since the killing of black medical worker, Breonna Taylor, 26, who was shot while in bed during a botched police raid on her home, no police officer has been charged in connection with her death.

Or the cancellation of the career of the Grammy award-winning, black gospel singer Chrisette Michelle for singing at Mr Trumps inauguration in 2017.

Compared to the election of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite multiple sexual assault allegations in 2018.

Ms Hubbard makes a distinction between internet pushbacks or accountability exacerbated in intensity by access to social media for millions of people at a time, and a mythical, out-of-control lynch mob that is coming for you and will destabilise western democracy.

The question is: are you a victim of cancel culture or are you being held accountable for your behaviour?, she said.

When you shoot out a tweet you are showing your unedited self. And a lot of these politicians and conservative figures who usually sit in a TV studio and dont hear from the general public are not used to immediate feedback. Its shocking them. People hold no bars on social media.

Its not all negative though.

She notes that some pushbacks last year, like the controversy over white people posting black squares on social media to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement, yielded positive results, because it focused on practical feedback for a mass group, rather than hammering an individual.

It was a really meaningless gesture and people were told, if you want to actually show support and allyship you can donate to groups, attend a protest. People with large social media followings, like [actor] Leslie Jordan, offered up their platform to black activists. I saw people start to pivot. I thought that was fantastic.

The phrase cancel culture isnt going away any time soon, nor is the vogue for public shaming, or the weaponizing of perceived threats.

Republican representative Josh Hawley pictured at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week where he mocked cancel culture, despite decrying it online

(REUTERS)

The 41-year-old lost his publishing contract for a new book, angrily decrying the move as Orwellian and vowing to fight this cancel culture with everything I have.

And yet Mr Hawley took to the stand at CPAC last week to declare to a jubilant crowd: Didnt anybody tell you? Youre supposed to be cancelled!

As The Washington Post warned back in 2017: We gape at dead cats, but the wolf is at the door.

There will always be another Dr Seuss.

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Dr Seuss and the tale of cancel culture: How a liberal Twitter term became weaponised by the right - The Independent

Still, the most interesting aspect of the drama at Smith has less to do with the details and more to do with the location. To wit, why is it that racial tensions keep boiling over at some of the nations most emphatically progressive-minded institutions, whether its at Smith, Yale, Northwestern, Bryn Mawr or the Dalton School? Why does the embrace of social justice pedagogies seem to have gone hand in hand with deteriorating race relations on campus?

One answer is that if many students are enjoying a diet of courses on critical race theory, and employees are trained on the fine points of microaggressions, they might take to heart what they are taught and notice what they have been trained to see.

Another answer is that if those who report being offended gain sympathy, attention and even celebrity, more accusations may be reported.

The deeper answer, I suspect, is that the Woke left has the liberal lefts number. Its called guilt.

The telling line in Powells story comes from a letter the Black Student Association wrote to McCartney, Smiths (white) president, saying its members do not feel heard or understood. We feel betrayed and tokenized. Tokenized, most certainly: Behind every affirmative action program at every liberal institution is a yearning for moral redemption admission to its present ranks is granted in exchange for absolution for past sins and acceptance of its ideological assumptions.

The Woke left doesnt want to be a party to this bargain. Absolution is off the table. And the liberal ideals themselves are up for renegotiation.

In place of former notions of fairness toward individuals regardless of race, the Woke left has new ideas of restorative justice for racial groups. In place of traditional commitments to free speech, it has new proscriptions on hate speech. In place of the liberal lefts past devotion to facts, it demands new respect for feelings.

All of this has left many of the traditional gatekeepers of liberal institutions uncertain, timid and, in many cases, quietly outraged. This is not the deal they thought they struck. But its the deal theyre going to get until they recover the courage of their liberal convictions.

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Opinion | Smith College and the Failing Liberal Bargain - The New York Times

Liberals are a fearful group. The list of things American liberals are afraid of can fill an entire shelf of volumes. It would make an amusing reference set: The Encyclopedia of Liberal Neuroses Unabridged.

Absolutely everything upsets liberals, agitates them, and inflames their allergies. Nature itself is a terrifying experience for liberals because they can't control it. It has all these sex differences and climate fluctuations. They'll pass you on their bicycle,sporting their little paper obedience masks, struggling to breathe from oxygen deprivation, yet feeling virtuous and protected. And, of course, judging you for not wearing the uniform.

There's nothing rational about that behavior, but you shouldn't be surprised by it. Modern liberalism is not a coherent worldview, it'sa deeply unhappy, high-strungpersonality type. Wokeness is what you get when people are miserable inside.

When you're a liberal, the world is a very scary place, but there is one fear that rises above all other fears in the liberal mind: The fear of "the other."Like all primitive cultures, modern liberalism is tribal. Liberals understand most of the American continentas a mysterious dark space, like a medieval map populated by drooling Trump voters and violent illiterates with extra chromosomes.

CAPITOL POLICE REQUEST NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS STAY ANOTHER TWO MONTHS

Liberals despise people like this, of course, and on some level, they know they're hated right back. They worry that someday there will be a backlash against the people in charge, which, of course, is them. That's their biggest fear, a peasant revolt.

A lot of liberals were certain that March 4was the day the right-wing revolution would finally begin. March 4, they believed, with something called "QAnon Inauguration Day."What is QAnon Inauguration Day? We have no idea, and we don't know anyone who does. We'd bet money that not one Trump voter in a million had heard of it until this week, when the hysteria merchants on the other channels started yapping about it on television.

They'd heard about it from Nancy Pelosi, who told her bodyguards to write up a report on the threat of QAnon Inauguration Day. So that's what they did. We never really learned any details, but members of Congress were not taking chances. Many of them fled the Capitol Thursday. House leaders rescheduled votes so that the rank-and-file legislators could escape with their lives, if not with their dignity.

This was not simply partisan hysteria. Democrats and Republicans seemed united in their shared terror.

CAPITOL SECURITY THREAT FIZZLES AFTER HOUSE ADJOURNS SESSION OUT OF FEAR OF ATTACK

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL, R-TEXAS: This threat is credible and it's real. It's a right-wing militia group that believes that because the original inaugural date was March 4th until the 20th Amendment passed, they think this is thetrue Inauguration Day and that President Trump should be inaugurated.

So what happened? We didn't see a single person insurrecting at the Capitol or anywhere else in the United States.

It was all just another lie, not sodifferent from when they told us we would need troops to protect Joe Biden's inauguration. Then, they said we would need soldiers to keep QAnon away from the impeachment trial. Then, there was today's hysteria. Next, there will be something else. Capitol Police are now saying they will need soldiers in Washington for at least two more months.

The troops will never leave. As you probably figured out by now, the troops are in the Capitol for political reasons. They're there to prop up the regime. If this were happening in Cameroon, our State Department would complain about it, call it "an offense against democracy." But because it's happening here in America, we have been slow to catch on.

CAPITOL RIOT TASK FORCE RECOMMENDING 24/7 'QUICK REACTION FORCE'

Thursday, they said it out loud. FoxNews has learned that retired Gen.Russel Honor has completed his"security review"of the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Honor is an unhinged partisan extremist, nuttier than anyone affiliated with QAnon. He was chosen by Nancy Pelosi precisely because of this. She knew that Honor would justify a military takeover of Washington, and she was right.

In his memorandum to House leaders, which Foxhas obtained, Honor calls for a"QRF [quick reaction force] that permanently resides within the DC [National] Guard by reestablishing a military police battalion and staffing it with Active Guard Reserve troops who live in or near the city year round, perpetually on active duty."

This is very strange behavior for a democracy. In a democracy, leaders are supposed to rule with the consent of the governed. You would think that might have occurred to some people on Capitol Hill.If we're this afraid of American voters, maybe something's wrong. Maybe we're not doing a very good job. Maybe we ought to shut up for a second and listen to the complaints of the people whose lives we control. Maybe then we wouldn't need razor wire around the Capitol.

Apparently, no one in Washington has thought of this. Instead, they've convinced themselves that the only Americans who have a problem with the way things are currently going must have been brainwashed by QAnon.

'QANON SHAMAN' CLAIMS IN NEW INTERVIEW THAT OFFICERS 'WAVED' HIM INTO CAPITOL ON JAN. 6

The other day, "60 Minutes" decided to take a deeper look into this dangerous cult that's saying unapproved things about our leaders. Intrepid CBS correspondents sat down withQAnon's spiritual leader, not in a cave in Kandahar, but over Zoom from a conference room in the jail where he's now being held without bail.

You may recognize him from the videos as Chewbacca Guy. He was asked if he understood that his "actions on January 6 were an attack on this country,"

JAKE ANGELI: Ma'am, my actions were not an attack on this country. That is incorrect. That is inaccurate, entirely ... I sang a song, and that's a part of shamanism. It's about creating positive vibrations in a sacred chamber. I also stopped people from stealing and vandalizing that sacred space,the Senate. I actually stopped somebody from stealing muffins out of the break room. I also said a prayer in that sacred chamber because it was my intention to bring divinity and to bring God back into the Senate.

The CBS correspondent then reminded him that, legally, he was "not allowed to be in what [hes] calling the sacred chamber," and asked if he considered himself a patriot.

CAPITOL RIOT SUSPECT HELD TOP-SECRET CLEARANCE SINCE 1979, ATTORNEY SAYS

ANGELI: That is the one very serious regret that I have, was believing that when we were waved in by police officers, that it was acceptable ... I consider myself a lover of my country. I consider myself a believer in the Constitution. I consider myself a believer in truth and our founding principles. I consider myself a believer in God.

So, Chewbacca Guy sang a song, then he spread some good vibes, then he waved at the officers in the Capitol and they waved back. That is the kind of thing that can happen in a country where QAnon shamans are allowed to roam the streets.

It's not just Chewbacca guy who threatens this democracy. In February, the feds indicted several members of a group called the Oath Keepers. Those indicted included a 60-year-old woman and her 70-year-old husband. They're terrorists, too. Geriatric, but deadly.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas,understands all this, of course. She sits on the House Homeland Security Committee, so she knows a thing or two about law enforcement and keeping this nation safe from threats, foreign and domestic.

In order to live without fear in America, Sheila Jackson Lee has announced, we're going to need to arrest a lot of people. As she put it on Twitter two days ago:

"In Washington, DC [sic]on January 6th, where it is alleged that 40,000 protesters were in DC [sic]with the mindset to overturn a legitimate election and to kill the Speaker, the Vice President and Members of Congress, in that instance, only 300 persons have now been arrested and are being prosecuted. What kind of justice is that?"

So, if you went to a Trump rally in January, you need to be in federal custody. Gen.Honor has plans for you.

On MSNBC Wednesday,Joe Scarborough said, "We will get further and further away from this event, but it will never change the fact that Josh Hawley was responsible for these deaths that occurred on Capitol Hill, for this act of insurrection, the worst insurrection by domestic terrorists in U.S. history into our government."

What did Josh Hawley do? Well, he voted, as senators sometimes do.It was amusing that this came from, of all people, Joe Scarborough. But it's an age of irony. We're used to it by now.

For all the concern over the safety of our elected leaders, there doesn't seem to be any concern for the safety of the people who elected them. Capitol Hill looks like the Green Zone in Baghdad, butthe rest of the city looks like the area outside the Green Zone.. Residential neighborhoods in Washington and in cities around the country haven't been this dangerous in years. Americans are dying in huge numbers from street crime, but no one in Congress cares. They're too busy spending tax dollars to shield themselves from the QAnon Shaman and his 70-year-old accomplices.

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According to an analysis by The Intercept, last year, the year of BLM,saw the largest recorded one-year rise in murders in American history. Fifteenpeople were murdered in Oakland, California, just in January. Nine people have been murdered in Toledo so far this year,double the number from last year.

But the residents of Toledo aren't getting a quick reaction force from Nancy Pelosi or her bodyguard, Gen.Honor. Maybe if they claim that QAnon is doing the killing, they will.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the March 4, 2021 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

Originally posted here:

Tucker Carlson: The occupation of Washington and liberals' deepest fear - Fox News

During an appearance on MSNBCs Morning Joe last fall, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned Republican lawmakers for collaborating with Donald Trump, arguing that the party had been transformed into a cult. Pelosis censure, however, also carried with it a strangely redemptive cadence. One of my prayers is that the Republicans will take back their party, the speaker said, continuing:

The country needs a strong Republican Party. Its done so much for our country, and to have it be hijacked as a cult at this time is really a sad thing for America. What is this? What is this about the Republicans that they dont care enough about what they believe in as a party a legitimate party with beliefs and their view of the role of government? [] I pray that they would get us a Grand Old Party again.

Last month, only weeks after the Trump-inspired storming of the US Capitol building, the speaker could still be heard saying much the same thing.

Those praying for a return of sanity on the right have doubtless been encouraged by the barrage of reports suggesting a substantial Republican exodus in the wake of last months events in Washington. Spurred by the Capitol Riot, Thousands of Republicans Drop Out of GOP, read an NPR headline three weeks ago, the accompanying report going on to note the more than four thousand Colorado Republicans who had changed their registration in the week after January 6 and observing a similar phenomenon elsewhere. In an article earlier this month, Chris Cillizza argued much the same, noting that the number of Republicans who have recently changed their party affiliation is vastly larger than the number of Democrats. The January riot, Cillizza concluded, has quite clearly tarnished the GOP brand in the eyes of at least a decent-sized chunk of those formerly aligned with the party.

This seems to track with other data that have recently emerged, notably a Gallup poll conducted between January 21 and February 2, which shows a precipitous drop in in the GOPs national favorability overall a drop coming near exclusively from self-identified Republicans and linked directly in some media reports to the partys supposedly tarnished image among its own supporters following the events of January 6 and the subsequent impeachment trial.

Its a story with obvious appeal, and one very much in sync with the long-standing liberal impulse to distinguish between the evil Trumpian and (ostensibly benevolent) non-Trumpian factions of American conservatism the latter perpetually waiting in exile to reclaim its rightful place. Its also a highly dubious one which, time and again, has proven more media phenomena than tangible reality each and every supposedly decisive conservative repudiation of Trump seeming to do little, if anything, to slacken his hold on the Republican base.

From the National Reviews now-infamous 2016 Never Trump issue to the abysmal failure of farcical outreach efforts like the Lincoln Project to make 2020 the year of the Biden Republican, the former presidents appeal has seemed largely impregnable among the constituency whose opinion actually matters: namely, Republican voters themselves.

According to polling from YouGov, some 90 percent of self-identified Republicans hoped for Trumps acquittal in the recent impeachment proceedings. A national survey from Quinnipiac University released last week found that some 75 percent of Republicans want him to play a prominent role in the partys future. A Gallup study from February 15, meanwhile, suggests that a plurality of Republicans (40 percent) want the GOP to move in a more conservative direction, compared with 34 percent who want it to remain as is, and only 24 percent who think it should become more moderate.

As to the thousands of conservatives supposedly leaving the GOP in disgust, the Economists G. Elliott Morris has offered a persuasive countervailing interpretation. For one thing, as Morris points out, the overall share of Republicans changing their affiliation remains quite small in relative terms. More importantly, though, theres a very real chance that those who are disaffiliating are doing so out of disdain for the partys current leadership rather than anger at its conduct during the Trump eras final months. The same February 15 Gallup study identified record support among Republicans for a third party, a trend which strongly suggests animus toward the GOP as a whole has more to do with pro-Trumpian sentiment than the fabled moderate conservative renaissance (Trump himself teased the idea of a new Patriot Party following his November defeat).

As an institutional formation, the Republican Party may well be in something like a crisis party elites are struggling to navigate the rough waters of an early post-Trump era in which a huge swathe of their own rank and file remains intoxicated by the idioms and preoccupations of the past four years. What seems near certain, however, is that the possibility of a Republican Party functionally or ideologically distinct from what we now broadly call Trumpism sailed long ago. The negotiation within American conservatism, such as it is, will be more a struggle about affect and branding than a battle over first principles (in many ways, exactly this struggle has defined conservative attitudes toward Trump from the very beginning).

Given the former presidents stranglehold on the American right, the extent to which what comes next explicitly bears his personal imprint remains to be seen. Though all efforts of this kind have failed so far, a sufficiently creative Republican politician may yet devise a way of rhetorically triangulating between the Trump-inflected and anti-Trump modes of conservatism (if the past few years are any indication, such a figure would probably be an instant hit with some liberals).

But make no mistake: Trumps supposed hijacking of the Republican Party was less a hostile takeover than the logical outcome of a decades-long rightward drift shepherded and applauded by conservative elites themselves. Try as they might, there is no sane, sensible party for liberals to rescue. Its long past time they stopped trying.

Link:

Liberals Should Stop Trying to Save the GOP. Republicans Don't Want to Be Saved. - Jacobin magazine

The West Australian Opposition Leader Zak Kirkup has already raised the white flag to concede he does not expect to win this month's state election.

At his campaign launch, Mr Kirkup warned the Liberal party was bracing for what it expected "could be a Labor landslide".

It prompted a question could the Liberals take such a hit at this month's poll that its role as State Opposition could be under threat?

Notably, political analysts say that scenario would be a "catastrophic" outcome for the Liberals and is "extremely unlikely".

But there has been a lot of rhetoric and speculation around the predicted "landslide", so it is worth exploring the issue.

The State Opposition is formed in the Lower House of the WA Parliament and is comprised of the largest party that is not in government.

ABC News: Evelyn Manfield

Currently, that is the Liberal Party, which holds 13 seats.

If a swing predicted by a recent Newspoll was replicated on polling day across the state, the Liberals could be reduced to just two seats in the Lower House, with the WA Nationals holding on to four.

Eliza chases down politicians every day, Kate talks to real people about what's important to them. Together they're breaking down the highs and lows of the WA Election 2021.

In that scenario, the Nationals would officially take over the State Opposition reins.

Notre Dame University's politics and international relations associate professor Martin Drum said that was "highly unlikely" to happen on March 13.

"But if the result was catastrophic and [the Liberals] lost an enormous number of seats and the Nationals were able to hang on to more seats because they are safer, the Nationals could technically finish with more seats than the Liberals," Associate Professor Drum said.

"It's a highly unlikely scenario, but it's a possible one."

WA Nationals leader Mia Davies said if her team was required to step up to the plate, she was confident her party had "the right people to do that".

In the event of this "highly unlikely" scenario, there would be consequences.

The politics, the policies and the people. We've collected all our coverage on the election campaign here.

Under WA's Public Sector Management Act, if the Liberals were to lose Opposition status and did not manage to hold onto at least five Lower House seats, it would not qualify for important Parliamentary resources.

"They would (lose) something in the vicinity of up to a dozen people that could work for them as the main leader of the Opposition," Associate Professor Drum said.

"Which would be a real blow to the Liberal leader in trying to hold the government to account."

Labor, The Liberals, The Greens and The Nationals have all made big-ticket pledges to win your votes. We're tracking and collating the big ones for you here.

Associate Professor Drum said Parliamentary rules would effectively need to be rewritten in this scenario to give the Liberals resources to "support their work".

"That would be the healthy thing for democracy," he added.

Another political analyst described that reality as the Liberals effectively having to go "cap in hand" to the Premier's office.

Associate Professor Drum said a more realistic scenario would see the Liberals losing about five seats in the Lower House.

"It could be a little worse than that having 13 and they could lose as many as six or seven. It's difficult to predict exactly," he said.

But he said the fact a scenario like this was even being contemplated showed the daunting situation the Liberals faced in less than two weeks' time.

Read the ABC's election expert Antony Green's analysis of the WA election.

Mr Kirkup would not be drawn on whether his party's Opposition status was at risk.

"We have to see what happens after the 13th of March I'm sure we can all wait 11 days to see what that looks like," he said on Tuesday.

"We're saying to the people of Western Australia, very honestly and very forthrightly, that the future of our democracy is at risk."

Mr Kirkup said Labor's decision to campaign in the blue ribbon seat of Nedlands earlier this week showed just how much control the government wanted to seize, which he said would lead to a lack of "checks and balances" when passing legislation.

Originally posted here:

WA election: What would state politics look like if the Opposition lost its official status? - ABC News

In a season disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Luther swimming and diving program swam through the distractions and continued to compete at a high level. The three-day Liberal Arts Championships was no different for the Norse, as the men won their eighth championship title while the women won their 14th. Held at two sites (Luther College and Coe College) due to COVID-19 protocol from February 18-20, the men posted a final score of 833 while the women posted a score of 814. For Luther notable individual performances came from Maddie Shea (24), who totaled three individual titles and Landon Albro (21), who won two.

Shea and Albro were voted best female swimmer and best male diver of the meet, respectively. Albro defended both of his titles from last year in the 1-meter diving event, scoring 425.70, and the 3-meter diving event, with a score of 378.10. Albros score in the 1-meter dive would have qualified him for the NCAA DIII National Championships had the event not been cancelled due to COVID-19. Meanwhile, Shea, a newcomer to the program, won the 500 freestyle, the 200 butterfly, and the 1650 freestyle. Sheas time in the 200 fly, 2:15.86, ranked fifth all-time in Luther history.

I actually never thought I would compete in the 200 fly, because Im not a fan of sprinting events, but [Luther Swimming and Diving Head Coach Aaron Zander (10)] thought I would be really good at it, Shea said. The race was a different experience for me because I prefer to go long and strong when I compete.

A number of other Norse swimmers and divers won individual titles as well. For the men, Kyle Anderson (21), Soren Gloege Torp (21) and Matt Benson (22) each won their first Liberal Arts Championship titles, touching the wall first in the 1650 freestyle, 50 freestyle and 400 individual medley, respectively. For Anderson, a senior, it was an exciting but bittersweet ending to a season with many challenges.

It hasnt sunk in yet that my collegiate swimming career is over, Anderson said. I have swam my entire life; I think it will fully set in next year when everyone else is coming back to school and Im not.

For the women, two relay teams won championship gold. The team of Margaret Petellin (24), Linnea Lee-Brown (21), Shakira Herrera (22) and Britt Huss (23) won the 200 medley relay in a time of 1:53.32. Additionally, Petellin, Lee-Brown and Herrera were joined by Anna Thomley (22) to win the 400 medley relay with a time of 4:11.10. In individual events, Maddie Putnam (23) won the 1-meter diving event with 288.45 points, while Lee-Brown won the 50 freestyle and 100 breaststroke events. Lee-Brown, who placed fourth all-time on Luthers list for the 100 breaststroke with her time of 1:07.04, hit personal best times in the preliminary and final rounds despite never swimming the event before the 2020-21 season.

It was fun being able to change up what I swam this year because it gave me the opportunity to try new events and score points for the team, Lee-Brown said. Throughout the meet I really felt like I was cruising.

Some of the challenges faced by the swimming and diving teams this year included having athletes in quarantine due to COVID-19 outbreaks, as well as splitting the teams into different practice groups and limiting the number of people in a lane. Despite these challenges, Coach Zander was impressed with how the teams handled themselves and thought it was a fantastic meet and a great season overall.

There were a ton of athletes who scored points for us [during the championship meet] that had COVID earlier this year and overcame it, or missed a quarter of our season just sitting in quarantine, Zander said. Ive told the team this out loud: I could not imagine the challenges theyve had to face this year, and theyve surmounted them, by far.

According to Zander, Luthers wins at the Liberal Arts Championships are especially impressive when considering where the team placed in previous years. Two years ago, the women placed eighth and the men fifth; now both teams are champions.

Weve made really big jumps as a team, and it shows as a whole, Zander said. Being able to see the seniors on the deck joyously crying about how they finished their season and their collegiate careers was awe-inspiring as a coach.

See the original post here:

Swimming and Diving wins Liberal Arts Championships Luther College Chips - Luther College Chips

By Bill Huizenga| 2nd Congressional House District

Three hours after restaurants and bars were mandated to close here in Michigan, Speaker Pelosi and Democrats in the House were passing a $1.9 trillion partisan spending bill masquerading as COVID relief in the middle of the night in Washington.I voted against this package and I believe Michiganders deserve to know what is in this monstrosity.

Over the past year, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass five bipartisan relief bills that were signed into law by President Trump. In fact, there is approximately $1 trillion remaining unspent from those previous agreements. Despite President Bidens pledge of unity, his first major legislative endeavor looks nothing like it. As this legislation went through the House, Republicans introduced 286 amendments to Bidens proposal. These amendments would do a host of things including increase vaccine distribution goals, provide back-to-work bonuses, and help small businesses in a timely and targeted manner.

Out of all these opportunities, only my amendment to provide flexibility for small businesses of less than 10 employees and gig economy workers was included in the bill that passed Friday night. In fact, Republicans proposed amending the legislation to allocate $140 million for childrens mental health and suicide prevention services. Unfortunately, Pelosi and House Democrats blocked the amendment, choosing to use this funding to build a subway tunnel in Silicon Valley just outside Pelosis district.

Recently, Biden challenged Republicans to find items to cut from the bill. Here are a few I suggest:

While Democrats like to highlight vaccines, stimulus checksand funding for schools in this bill, the reality is much different. It may be shocking, but only 9 percent of the $1.9 trillion goes toward public health provisions to defeat COVID-19 and only 1 percent of it goes to vaccines.

The $1,400 stimulus checks have garnered headlines, but under this legislation federal bureaucrats are paid $1,400 per week for 15 weeks to stay home and not work if their childrens school is remote. How in the world is this acceptable? Families in West Michigan and across the nation have been forced to deal with the challenges created by the pandemic. Federal employees should not receive this sweetheart deal.

Speaking of education, 95 percent of the approximately $128 billion in federal funding in this bill wont be spent until next school year or later, according to the Congressional Budget Office. On top of that, even when the funding is administered, the formula is in dire need of adjustment. Prior to the vote, I sent a letter to Pelosi with several of my Michigan colleagues highlighting how some school districts would receive over $18,000 per pupil under the current formula, while some in West Michigan would receive less than $500 per pupil. Last week, I received a letter of support from 43 public school superintendents across Allegan, Kent, Ottawaand Muskegon counties. Sadly, no adjustment was made.

At the end of the day, this $1.9 trillion spending package passed by the House was loaded with liberal policy objectives that permitted taxpayer-funded abortion, increased the federal minimum wage to $15 (despite the CBO saying that will eliminate 1.4 million jobs), and a rash of spending on priorities unrelated to overcoming the pandemic. Simply put, this is not a targeted, temporaryor fiscally responsible use of taxpayer dollars.

Bill Huizenga represents Michigan's second district in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Read more here:

My Take: Biden/Pelosi 'stimulus' light on fighting COVID, loaded with liberal priorities - HollandSentinel.com