Category Archives: Liberal

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.

A man of conscience. Facebook conscience.

Everyone has friends like this.

The minute some disaster happens -- or some frightful political decision with which they disagree -- they change their Facebook profile picture to some sort of symbol.

Then they sit back and bathe in their own socially aware smugness.

Yes, such people are often of the liberal persuasion. Which might surprise one or two people that these slacktivists were skewered by the often left-leaning types at "Saturday Night Live."

As the anthem "Thank You, Scott," plays, we see Louis C.K. -- who is Scott -- sitting on his couch, ready to save the world.

"He couldn't sit by and do nothing. He had to act before it was too late," goes the song.

So what did Scott do? Yes, he shared an article on Facebook. Which solved the problem. After all, Scott has 84 Facebook friends.

When it came to the Black Lives Matter movement, Scott knew he had to march. Over to his laptop that is, in order to change his Twitter bio and skew it in support of what's just.

Scott has done more than MLK. After all, he fought for basic human rights while he was on the toilet.

"He cares because he shares," as the bridge of the song explains.

Scott found articles on the internet. He posted them on the internet. This constant activism can change everything. It does change everything.

Scott is the savior of mankind.

Of all the political skewerings that SNL has done of late -- ones that have brought the show back to some prominence -- this one seems one of the most uplifting and simultaneously sobering.

Facebook likes us to believe that all we have to do is share more to make the world more connected and therefore change it. If only it was so easy.

Read more from the original source:

Liberal Facebook activism skewered by Louis C.K., SNL - CNET

A secret internal review of the Liberal Party's 2016 election performance has urged the executive to recognise that campaigning must never stop and the party's conservative base needs to be respected.

The review, conducted by former Liberal federal director and cabinet minister Andrew Robb, also says the party must be financially solid to be effective and improve its connection with ethnic voters, according to a version published by theDaily Telegraph.

Play Video Don't Play

Play Video Don't Play

Previous slide Next slide

Ahead of the release of a report into the 2016 election, where the Liberal Party scraped home, the party's director Tony Nutt has resigned.

Play Video Don't Play

It spawned the hashtag #censusfail and now the 2016 Census has got to deliver the goods.

Play Video Don't Play

A look back on the hilarity that was the late John Clarke's comedy career.

Play Video Don't Play

The problem of housing affordability is worsening, but getting rid of negative gearing would worsen, not better, the market for those looking to buy, according to Treasurer Scott Morrison. (Vision courtesy ABC News)

Play Video Don't Play

Fergus Hunter explains the impact of immigration on other major areas of government policy.

Play Video Don't Play

Between its strategic location and wealth of natural resources, the hotly contested South China Sea could become a flashpoint for major conflict.

Play Video Don't Play

An ABC spokesman has confirmed renowned satirist John Clarke died on Sunday.

Play Video Don't Play

Sydney radio presenter Ray Hadley has banned Scott Morrison from his show after the treasurer went on a Melbourne radio station, not his.

Ahead of the release of a report into the 2016 election, where the Liberal Party scraped home, the party's director Tony Nutt has resigned.

The post-mortem has been delivered to the Liberal federal executive and viewed by the parliamentary leaders in the wake of the election that saw the Turnbull government lose14 seats and narrowly hold on to power. Labor is now in an election-winning position according to widespreadpolling.

The review argues the party needs to "recognise and respondto the fact that the next campaign effectively begins the day after polling day" and establish a structured research operation that provides politicians with a "continuous understanding of community sentiment" towards policy.

It argues Liberals must "while governing for all, at all times respect, and be seen to be respecting our base".

This underlines the party's need to focuson the mainstream - necessary to win elections - while also pleasing core conservative supporters who demand action on deeply held but potentially divisive policy positions, such as free speech and and tax cuts.

"Never fail to strongly expose and unequivocally rebut the lies and misrepresentation of our policy positions, starting in the same media cycle, and continuing until the claims are discredited," the Robb report suggests, touching on Labor's "Mediscare" campaign.

"To be effective in campaigns, the party needs to be financially solid and since this affects on-the-ground and marginal campaigns, this must be seen as a priority."

The party organisation's finances were in dire straits as the 2016 campaign heated up, with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull forking out $1.75 million of his own money to help the cause. Coalition conservatives have argued that certain policy positions alienated many traditional donors.

Other recommendations include:

The Labor Party is widely seen as a more successful campaigning organisation, including by Liberal insiders.

After decades working for the party, Liberal federal director Tony Nutt resigned last week ahead of the report's release. Mr Nutt took over the organisational leadership of the party in 2015 after Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister.

The campaign he oversaw has been strongly criticised but Mr Nuttwas praised by the Prime Minister as "the consummate political professional" and a dedicated servant of the Liberal cause.

Follow us on Facebook

Go here to see the original:

Liberal Party review: 'The next campaign begins the day after polling day' - The Sydney Morning Herald

Christian Schneider, Syndicated columnist 6:14 p.m. CT April 9, 2017

Christian Schneider(Photo: Eric Tadsen/USA TODAY NETWORK)

Since November of last year, if you were looking for partisanship in the dictionary, you wouldnt have to flip to the p section. Since Donald Trumps election, the folks running the social media accounts at Merriam-Webster have continuously trolled the Republican president, offering snarky responses to his ever-present malapropisms and his staffs often novel use of words.

One Merriam-Webster Trend Watch column took aimat Trump adviser Kellyanne Conways use of the term alternative facts. Other social media posts have poked at Trumps refugee travel ban, highlighted his staff barring reporters from a media gaggle. and needled Speaker of the House Paul Ryans use of the word sycophant to describe Julian Assange. On election day last year, the dictionarys Twitter feed changed its header to the German word Gtterdmmerung, or a collapse (as of a society or regime) marked by catastrophic violence and disorder.

In a word, this is all troublous. (And yes, that is a word.)

There is now no segment of American society to which one may retreat without being subjected to politics. Every corner of our lives is illuminated with talk of filibusters, health care strategy and minor cabinet appointees. It is as if the American economy now runs on demagoguery.

Remember when you could watch sports to escape from politics? No more. As The Ringers Bryan Curtis argued in February, sports writing is now a liberal profession, having soaked up more of the left-wing flavor of the traditional media. With the advent of Twitter, both columnists and straight sportswriters alike often have little compunction about expressing their political views publicly, frequently explaining how intolerant or uninformed their own readers are.

Take, for example, a much-read New York Times articlefrom last November that lavished praise on the Wisconsin Badgers mens basketball team for being college basketballs most political locker room. The article highlighted, for instance, forward Nigel Hayes support for the Black Lives Matter movement and guard Bronson Koenigs travels to protest the Dakota Access pipeline.

Does anyone actually believe the Times would have written such a tongue bath had the players been political on the right? What if they had been, for example, outspoken in opposition to gay marriage? Or if they marched against abortion? Would one of Americas most influential newspapers praise them?

Perhaps it is Americas fault for electing an entertainer to the presidency, but politics has become indistinguishable from pop culture. Online magazines that once covered exclusively movies and music have now moved into lefty political punditry, leaving no conservative pop culture fan unlectured. There is no safe haven anymore for a taste of what its like, imagine being progressive and having Sean Hannity follow you around berating you while youre trying to listen to the S-Town podcast.

Even comedy, the last bastion of tell-it-like-it-is-dom has fallen into line. Virtually every late-night comedian thinks he or she has to do some sort of imitation of St. Jon Stewart to coax his or her liberal followers into sharing their rant on YouTube the next day.

From now on, there is no respite for the weary. You can run, but progressive condescension is going to find you. Politics gets clicks, and clicks bring revenue. There is no incentive for this new punditry to be accurate or fair.

Undoubtedly, Merriam-Webster has a bucketful of arcane words to describe the way politics has saturated our culture. But it is most aptly expressed by Americas great philosopher, Donald J. Trump: #Sad!

Email cschneider@jrn.com.

Read or Share this story: http://on.thec-l.com/2oPR9ps

Continue reading here:

No escape from liberal American politics - Jackson Clarion Ledger

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

The Writers Guild of America East organized Gawker as its first unionized digital media outlet in June 2015. Although Gawker was bankrupt in less than a year later, for unrelated reasons.

Since then, the WGA has been able to unionize a growing stable of liberal digital sites including the Huffington Post,VICE, The Root,ThinkProgress, Fusion,Salon and Gizmodo Media Group.

So far this year, the WGA hasunionized workers at MTV News, Group Nine, and the Thrillist.In addition,The Intercepts 32-member investigative journalist staff voted to join last week.

The 4,500-member Writers Guild of America East and 20,000 brothers and sisters of the Los Angeles-based Writers Guild of America West dominated the writers who create television and films for the major media conglomerates for 50 years/ But now the digital space hascaptured over 25 percent of all advertising revenue.

So far, WGA East has organized the staffs of 11 mostly hard-left Internet publishers. The new 550 union members now represent more than 12 percent of WGA Easts membership, and about 4 percent of the combined national WGA total membership.

Union organizers claim that writers who unionize can look forward to minimum salaries for work, attribution credit protection, residuals, healthcare, and pension benefits. Unions are also telling digital millennials they should organize in the hope that amplified media coverage will cross over into the unionization of other industries.

But opponents of unionization comment that unionized digital writers will go the way of newspaper writers over the last decade. A June 2016 Pew Research Center surveyfound that 36 percent of U.S. adults learned something about the election campaign in the previous week from a print newspaper. That compared to 44 percent from radio, 65 percent from digital, and 78 percent from television.

The Writers Guild of America is currently in final negotiations before a threatened strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which produce movie studios, broadcast networks and cable channels.

The lastWGA strike lasted for 100 days in 2007, but that effort backfired as viewers simply went online. The Associated Press reports: Hollywood is hoping to avoid a crippling work stoppage like the 100-day strike of 2007 that put prime-time TV into reruns and blockbuster movies on hold.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to unions organizing digital media is that many of the most highly-paid writers have created their own celebrity status. The New York Times motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, means nothing online. The days of a few local newspapers and three television networks controlling access to public thought is over.

More:

Liberal New Media's Biggest Challenge: Unionization - Breitbart News

Donald Trump speaks after the US fired a barrage of missiles into Syria. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

So now we know what it takes for an unhinged, bigoted demagogue to win liberal applause: just bypass a constitution to fire some missiles. It had seemed as though there was consensus among those in the anti-Trump camp. This man was a threat to US democracy and world peace. The echoes of 1930s fascist leaders were frightening. This republic is in serious danger, declared conservative writer Andrew Sullivan on the eve of Trumps triumph. That this megalomaniac pussy-grabbing ban-the-Muslims ex-reality TV star would soon control the worlds most lethal military arsenal was chilling. Opposition would be uncompromising, a reflection of the Republican intransigence that Barack Obama faced from day one.

It has taken less than three months for these illusions to be shattered. A man widely castigated as a proto-fascist only needed to drop bombs without observing due process.

Lets examine what is being said about Trump now. A press he denounced as liars and enemies of the people are eating out of his hands, tiny or otherwise. I think Donald Trump became president of the United States, cooed CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria in response to the bombing. Trump reacted viscerally to the images of the death of innocent children in Syria, declared Mark Sandler in the New York Times. The original headline on that article, since amended? On Syria Attack, Trumps Heart Came First.

So the man who once bragged to a baying audience that he would tell five-year-old Syrian refugees to their faces that the US would not offer them safety, is now driven by his heart. Touching indeed. The moral dimensions of leadership had penetrated Trumps Oval Office, declared the Washington Posts David Ignatius. MSNBCs Brian Williams described the missile launches as beautiful three times in the space of 30 seconds.

In Britain, liberal and conservative columnists alike, plus Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour politicians applauded the raid. Trump is now showing leadership, apparently. Leadership is shown by a man widely feared to be a) unhinged b) demagogic and c) authoritarian, dropping bombs in defiance of his countrys democratic process. Labours Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, is savaged for querying whether a military escapade led by Trump will succeed where all other Middle Eastern military adventures have failed.

Those who critique Trumps unilateral assault on Syria are portrayed as heartless in the face of the gassing of children

Those who critique Trumps unilateral assault on Syria are portrayed as heartless in the face of the gassing of little children, just as opponents of war in Iraq and Libya were demonised as indifferent to those murdered and tortured and persecuted by Saddam Hussein and Muammar or Gaddafi. Lets be clear. The gassing of those Syrian children, and the unspeakably sickening deaths that they suffered, is a despicable crime. President Assad is a blood-soaked tyrant who has slaughtered countless Syrians with his barrel bombs, and deserves to spend his final days rotting in a jail cell. Vladimir Putin, too, is caked in the blood of Syrian and Chechen children alike. If I genuinely thought Donald Trump was the plausible saviour of Syrias children, then I would reconsider my position.

The history of western military intervention in the Arab world is of bloody failure. Remember Libya, and how this time things would be different, before the country descended into a violent quagmire overrun by Islamist militia? Those applauding his latest intervention are saying, implicitly or otherwise, that this time will be different. And who will apparently buck the trend of failed, bloody US military interventions in the Arab world? Trump.

There are two plausible outcomes to his raid. One, it was purely symbolic. This, currently, seems most likely. His administration gave the Russians notice, who alerted Assads forces. Syrian military casualties were minimal, and bombing raids from the targeted military base have now resumed. In that case, it was a meaningless slap on the wrists, mostly designed for a domestic American audience at a time when the president has disastrous polling numbers. The other is that this marks the beginning of a further escalation of US involvement in Syrias intractable civil war. That will mean entrusting Trump to spearhead deepening military involvement in a war which has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. How palatable are both options?

Good on Trump, some liberal pundits say, but he lacks strategy. In Syria, that is true. He has no strategy there. But lets not pretend for a second that a man who defeated both the Republican and Democratic party machines is lacking in strategy. He has proved adept at winning power, and now he will amass it with the help of this applauded military excursion.

Trump is now emboldened. The pundits are applauding him, his critics have praised him, his appalling approval ratings will surely edge up. Further military action by a man who has repeatedly bragged about disrespecting the norms of war will surely follow. He bypassed the constitution this time, and will be praised for it, so why shouldnt he next time? And if war comes with North Korea, what will the liberal pundits do? Some will cheerlead him all over again. Wheres your compassion for the suffering of North Korea? will be their cryto silence opposition, just as it was with Iraq and Libya. We had the Ronald Reagan Democrats, now the Trump liberals will emerge. Others will say, no, we backed the bombing of Syria, but this new war is different, this is too far.

Too late. They will have legitimised one extra-constitutional military intervention, their subsequent opposition will look as pathetic as it will be hypocritical. A man who backs torture and castigated his predecessors for not stealing Iraq and Syrias oil is being rehabilitated by the liberal pundits: as a man of compassion, a man of strength, with the resolve that Obama apparently lacked.

A wartime martial presidency may then be born, cheered on by some liberals who once decried Trump as a possible American Mussolini. Well fine: it was liberal Italy that handed Mussolini the keys, after all. History shows that war presents the ideal opportunity for the authoritarian-minded to amass, consolidate and concentrate power. Dissent can be more easily portrayed as treachery; jingoism sweeps the nation, boosting the popularity of the ruler; critics fall into line; constitutional norms can be disregarded at a time of national crisis.

What happened in Syria cannot be divorced from what is happening in Iraq and Yemen. In Mosul, at least 150 civilians perished in a Trumpist bombing raid one of the deadliest US raids since the calamitous Iraq invasion. Thats more than perished in Assads gas attack in Khan Sheikhun, even if the American weapons that slaughtered them are legal.

Dozens were killed by a US strike against a school in Syria last month, largely unmourned by Trumps new apologists, as were the 30 civilians killed in Trumps failed Yemen raid in January, children among them. There are children in Yemen too, you know, and they are being slaughtered by US- and UK-backed Saudi warplanes. Trumps liberal apologists wont cry for them or even acknowledge their existence: they are, apparently, unpeople, rather than kids clutching teddy bears as western-backed bombs rain on their heads.

How naive some of us were. Yes, some of those liberals were cheerleaders of George W Bush as he launched an invasion of Iraq which plunged the country and the region into blood and chaos. They learned their lesson, though, right? I mean, Trump almost makes a bloodstained Bush look like a paragon of decency in comparison surely they wont legitimise his war machine too and laud him to boot?

One of the main objections to Trump was that he was unstable, impulsive, with authoritarian instincts, and would disregard constitutional norms. This has turned out to be true, while being applauded by his erstwhile detractors for doing so, emboldening him to go further. Yet Im no fan of Trump, but will be the battle cry of his erstwhile detractors. Still, the children of Syria will die, just as they will die in Yemen and Iraq and elsewhere. History will ask: how did this man become president? And how did he maintain power when he did? Look no further than the brittle, weak, pathetic liberal opposition. The US deserves better, and so does the world.

Continue reading here:

Why are liberals now cheerleading a warmongering Trump? - The Guardian

Does anybody here remember Blanche Lincoln? She was a two-term senator from Arkansas, a moderate Democrat who prospered in a red state by defying liberal power brokers like big labor.

The unions and ultra-left pressure groups went after her big-time in 2010, backing a primary challenge by Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter. She survived the primary barely but suffered mortal wounds in the process, and lost badly in the fall to Republican John Boozman.

We thought of Lincoln as the purist wing of the Democratic Party re-emerged this spring and threatened to run primary opponents next year against senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana. Their sin: daring to support President Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch.

As one of those purist pressure groups, We Will Replace You, said in their manifesto: The next crucial step is escalating our demands, and demonstrating that we wont accept anything less than full opposition by showing Democrats just how many people are willing to back primary challenges to Democratic collaborators and enablers of Trump.

This harassment is beyond stupid. Its suicidal.

Democrats are struggling to win elections and have lost control of both Congress and the White House. Trump won West Virginia by 67 percent, North Dakota by 62 percent and Indiana by 56 percent.

The only Democrats who could possibly hold Senate seats in those states are ones like Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly: moderates who separate themselves from the rigid tenets of liberal theology. Lincolnizing them, purging them as heretics, would have only one result: making it easier for Trump and his congressional allies to retain power.

Look at the facts. Yes, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million, but thats a highly misleading figure, based entirely on huge Democratic margins in a few coastal and urban enclaves. In California alone, Clinton rolled up a lead of 4.3 million; in New York, it was 1.7 million. Take away those two states and Trumps national margin was above 3 million.

Trump won about 84 percent of the counties in America; Clinton, 16 percent. Only 26 percent of voters identified as liberals in Election Day exit polls, with 39 percent calling themselves moderates and 35 percent conservatives.

Add the nature of the American system: House members represent individual districts that are often gerrymandered to protect the party in power; each state gets two senators, no matter its size; and the Electoral College determines the president, not the popular vote.

The math is undeniable and unrelenting: Democrats cannot take back the White House or Congress simply by building up large majorities in Brooklyn and Boston. Politics is always about addition, not subtraction. Condemning moderates as collaborators and enablers will condemn the party to permanent minority status.

Groups like We Will Replace You are directly connected to Bernism, the mass mania that infected liberals during the Democratic primaries. They deluded themselves into believing that a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist, mouthing totally unrealistic slogans like free college tuition, could actually win.

Sure, Sanders backed Clinton after the conventions, but he stayed in the primaries far too long and convinced far too many of his followers that she was a flawed candidate not worth voting for. Yes, Clinton was a poor candidate, but without a doubt, Sanders helped elect Trump. He Lincolnized Clinton.

The fallout from Bernism is not just bad for the Democrats; its bad for the country. Moderates like Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly are an essential part of a functioning Senate. They are the dealmakers, the conciliators, the lubricators who make the legislative machinery run. Their shrinking numbers help explain why the Senate is imploding over Gorsuchs nomination to the high court.

In 2005, a group called the Gang of 14 seven Democrats, seven Republicans brokered a pact over judicial nominations that avoided a partisan showdown. Only three of those 14 Senators, all Republicans, remain in office. All the Democrats are gone, including four moderates from red states: Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

There was no deal this year, comparable to the one forged 12 years ago, because there are so few dealmakers left.

If the Democrats forget Blanche Lincoln, if they insist on purging anyone who strays from liberal orthodoxy, they will misread once again the nature of the American electorate. And they will weaken, not strengthen, their ability to resist Trump.

Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.

Success! An email has been sent with a link to confirm list signup.

Error! There was an error processing your request.

Get Breaking News alerts from the Albany Herald delivered to your email.

Get the Local News headlines from the Albany Herald delivered daily to your email.

Get the Sports headlines from the Albany Herald delivered daily to your email.

Excerpt from:

COKIE & STEVE ROBERTS: The deadly liberal delusion - The Albany Herald

Anyonewho supportsthese missile strikes has to account for what comes next.

CNN host Fareed Zakaria speaks about President Donald Trumps missile strikes on Syria during an Anderson Cooper 360 segment. (Screengrab / CNN)

It shouldnt be surprising, but it is to me nonetheless: Plenty of liberals whove long criticized Donald Trump as unfit to be president are praising his strike on Syrian airfields.

On CNNs New Day Thursday, global analystFareed Zakariadeclared, I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night. To his credit, Zakaria has previously called Trump a bullshit artist and said, He has gotten the presidency by bullshitting. But Zakaria apparently thinks firing missiles make one presidential. On MSNBC, Nicholas Kristof, an aggressive Trump critic, said he did the right thing by bombing Syria. Anchor Brian Williams, whose 11thHour has regularly been critical of Trump, repeatedly called the missiles beautiful, to a noisy backlash on Twitter.

While TheNew York Times posted several skeptical, even critical stories, it gave us this piece of propaganda: an article initially titled On Syria attack, Trumps heart came first, buying the presidents line that his opposition to anti-Assad military action was reversed by seeing the heartrending photos of children struggling to breathe after a chemical attack.

Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack, Trumpdeclared. No child of God should ever suffer such horror. (No word how he felt about ugly babies.) The piece also failed to even mention that Trump is keeping refugees from the Syrian war, even children, out of the United States. Victims of chemical weapons are beautiful babies; children trying to flee such violence require extreme vetting and an indefinite refugee ban. After a public outcry, the Times changed the headline.

Even some Obama administration veterans praised Trumps action. President Donald J. Trump was right to strike at the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using a weapon of mass destruction, the nerve agent sarin, against its own people, Antony Blinken, a deputy secretary of state under Obama,wrote in The New York Times. Blinken went on to say, correctly in theory, that what must come next is smart diplomacy. But he knows that Trump has shown himself incapable of doing anything smart, especially diplomacy.

Remember just last week, phantom Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Turkey: I think thelonger-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people. The Kremlin-funded Russia Today described that as a U-turn from Washingtons long-held policy that Assad must go. Six days later, Tillerson was telling reporters,There is no doubt in our minds, and the information we have supports, that the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad are responsible for this attack. It is very important that the Russian government consider carefully their support for Bashar al-Assad,because steps are underway to muster international support for a strike. Russia Today seemed disappointed that the United States believes Assad is behind the gassing of his people, arguing that the source is the international rescue group White Helmets, which RT shockingly calls al-Qaida affiliated.

Any liberal who praises these missile strikes has to account for what comes next. Obviously, Trump cares little about diplomacy, leaving Tillerson out of key meetings and slashing the State Departments budget. On Wednesday night, the White House released a photo of his team receiving a briefing on the Syria attack. At the table were Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross; Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin; Goldman Sachs alum Dina Powell, deputy national-security adviser; along with Jared Kushner; Steve Bannon; and Bannons sidekick Steven Miller. Why are the Commerce and Treasury secretaries there? What explains why Tillerson, who was in Palm Beach with the president, was not?

The noisiest outrage against the Syrian attack isnt coming from the left, but the rightparticularly the alt-right. Trumps noninterventionism and his friendliness to Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin were big selling points to white nationalists. Now that he seems to be challenging both men, his former acolytes are enraged. On Twitter, alt-right white supremacist Richard Spencer called it a total betrayal; the white nationalists at VDARE blamed it on the boomercucks in the administration. Ann Coulter went apoplectic:

It was disappointing to see Hillary Clinton say Wednesday afternoon that she thought air strikes on Syrian airfields were an appropriate response to the chemical-weapon attack. She was always more hawkish than I wished, and that shows it. But its wrong to insist shed have done the same thing as Trump. Clintons secretary of state wouldnt likely have told Assad we were no longer concerned about removing him; if she did fire missiles at Syrian airfields, she would have done so with a clearer notion of what comes next. Trump appears to be clueless.

THE STAKES ARE HIGHER NOW THAN EVER. GET THE NATION IN YOUR INBOX.

Senator Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, didnt quite oppose the Syrian strike, calling Assad a war criminal and lamenting his murder of civilians with chemical weapons. But noting that its that its easier to get into a war than get out of one, Sanders demanded that Trump must explain to the American people exactly what this military escalation in Syria is intended to achieve, and how it fits into the broader goal of a political solution, which is the only way Syrias devastating civil war ends.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand sounded closer to Sanders than Clinton on the airstrikes, decrying Trumps unilateral military action by the US in a Middle East conflict as well as the absence of any long-term plan or strategy to address any consequences from such unilateral action. Like Sanders, she demanded that Trump seek authorization of military force from Congress. By contrast, her New York colleague Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Trumps move the right thing to do. Schumer may find that many constituents think it was the wrong thing.

There remains the possibility that some of this is theater. It should be said: Some observers, besides RT, say its unproven that the chemical weapons attack came from Assad; rebels could be behind it. Theres also the possibility of a kabuki performance from Trump, Putin, and Assad. We already know the United States warned Putin of the coming missiles, and that Putin warned Assad, whose military moved airplanes and other military equipment away from the intended target. Trump, plummeting in the polls, his domestic health-care and tax plans on the rocks, the investigation into Russian election meddling closing in on his team, really needed a boost; maybe they gave it to him. Trumps sudden about-face on Syria makes it hard to judge.

However, according to Syrian state media, nine civilians, including four children, were killed in the air strikes. That is not kabuki. Trump has said nothing about those beautiful babies, nor will he. Liberals have to sober up and stop being besotted by beautiful missiles and presidential cruelty. Trump is the same Trump he was Tuesday, and that should scare all of us.

See the original post:

Too Many of Trump's Liberal Critics Are Praising His Strike on Syria - The Nation.

Many things went the way of the Hays High School girls soccer team in its Western Athletic Conference opener against Liberal on Thursday on the Indians home field. The final score wasnt one of them, however.

Despite feeling like the Indians had the advantage in possession and scoring opportunities, Liberal made the most of its few chances, scoring the games only goal in the 65th minute for a 1-0 win.

Following the contest, the Indians sat circled around first-year coach Silas Hibbs well into the first half of the junior varsity contest. His message was simple.

I told the girls we can focus on the one negative thing that happened, which was the outcome of a win or a loss or we could focus on the 100 things we did well today, Hibbs said. I know we got substantially better today.

The Indians owned a majority of the better scoring opportunities in the first 30 minutes of the contest, including a number of set pieces, but shots failed to challenge the Liberal goalkeeper.

Isabel Robben, the Indians freshman goalkeeper, was tested for the first time in the 29th minute. Moments later, she kept the visitors scoreless, stopping a Liberal breakthrough and conceding a corner kick that the Indian defense cleared.

Hays Highs best opportunity in the first half came minutes before halftime, as CJ Norris shot bounced off the crossbar and back into play. A scramble for the loose ball followed, and Liberal defenders blocked a pair of Indian shots.

The Indians earned a corner kick in the final seconds of the half but rushed to get the ball into play, as the second half started without a goal

That appeared destined to change as Maddie Keller came just a touch away from redirecting a Savannah Schneider cross into an open Liberal goal in the 42nd minute, but the Indians failed to capitalize.

After a series of near misses, Liberal notched the games only goal when Sabrina Pacheco converted on a counterattack in the 65th minute. His teams defense in the critical juncture didnt bother the Hays High coach.

We actually had two players marking that person on the backside, Hibbs said. You hear it basketball, you hear it in soccer, sometimes the ball doesnt bounce your way.

It was just one of those situations. Credit to Liberal for being in the right spot at the right time.

Hays High senior Tressa Becker nearly equalized with a powerful shot later in the half but saw it saved for an Indian corner kick.

The Indians next best opportunity came in the final seconds when Schneider played a dangerous ball into the box. No teammate reached it before it was cleared as time expired, dropping the Indians to 2-3 on the season and 0-1 in WAC play.

Sometimes all it takes is one little counterattack to fall behind, Hibbs said. Even though the outcome wasnt what we wanted, I was very proud of our girls because we dominated probably 75 to 80 percent of the possession, and we probably out-shot them 10-1.

According to the Indians statistics, Hays High owned an 11-3 advantage in shots on goal and earned eight corner kicks to Liberals two.

Robben was credited with three saves on the day, while her counterpart tallied eight.

The Indians are scheduled to return to action at home Monday against Junction City.

Excerpt from:

Goals evade Indians in loss to Liberal - Hays Daily News

In 1972, when I was 10 years old, my fathers job was transferred from Buffalo, New York, to California. After endless cold Buffalo winters, the golden state seemed like a golden place, a land of golden opportunity. My parents built a house, my father built a successful career, and my brothers and I thrived.

That was then, this is now. California is going off the deep end. The gold has turned to brass. It has become the land of fruits and nuts, a caricature of its former glory, a place people seek to leave in droves before they run afoul of the latest insanity.

Consider just a few examples of recent lunacy:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, middle class Californians are leaving the state in droves. Take a look at these words from a frustrated inhabitant:

Came to SoCal as a kid in 1969 got married and had kids who now are in college (out of state). I worked my *** off to get where I am today, but my house goes on the market this spring. Ive watched this state sink into the abyss of liberal insanity inch by inch, drop by drop.

There is no hope for the state of Kalifornia. The Dems and their insane view of this world have a super majority in the Senate and Assembly. Combined with a Dem governor, there is nothing they cannot get passed. Even the Republicans who end up getting into the minority party are squishy and put up little resistance.

This past summer the legislative branch passed a bunch of bills that finally broke my desire to stay here with my salary. Gov. Moonbeam signed into law a bill that forces the cattle industry (dairy and meat) into providing flatulent catching backpacks for all cows to wear, for their precious global warming efforts. He also signed a bill that permits early release of felons out of jail and has them live amongst the citizenry. Combine that with the draconian laws further limiting my Second Amendment rights by making ammunition costly and more difficult to obtain, making some of my firearms illegal to own, he has put more rights into criminals and made my family less safe to live here.

I am DONE. Good riddance. I am moving to a state that will appreciate my conservative, constitutional values.

This persons lament echoes that of over a million (mostly middle-class) people who have departed California in recent decades. We were among them. My husband and I shook the California dust off our feet in 1992 and never looked back at that once-beautiful state.

But its not just California. Recent articles show a massive exodus from both New York City and Chicago as well.

What do these three locations (California, New York, Chicago) have in common? They are bastions of liberalism, cauldrons of experimental progressive policies, vanguards of whatever feel-good fiscally irresponsible nonsense disturbed minds can think up.

So when we read about populations draining out of certain locations, the conclusion is obvious. People arent fleeing New York or Chicago or California; people are fleeing liberalism. The festering cauldron of stupidity progressive thought breeds ultimately makes places unlivable.

Im honestly sorry for those freedom-loving conservatives who are unable (due to work or family commitments) to beat feet and flee the gold-plated state. And I welcome those honestly looking to escape the insidious poison. I do, however, bear a grudge with those who bring their poison with them and enthusiastically spread it to a new location, dragging everything down with them.

To rephrase an old saying: If a conservative doesnt like where he lives, he moves to a place more in line with his values. If a liberal doesnt like where he lives, he moves and then creates the same problems in his new setting as his old location.

Liberals are clueless when it comes to economics and unintended consequences of government policies. As one frustrated member of the Siskiyou (Northern California) County Board of Supervisors said, the regions resources are being managed on the basis of politics rather than science. I think in the United States in general, theres a disconnect between folks who live in a city and the people who live in the rural communities. I dont think a lot of folks understand where their food comes from, where the raw products come from that support their lives. All they see when they come to the rural counties is what they consider backward people who are doing something on the land that they dont like to see.

Its often presumed these progressives dont recognize their tactics as being destructive. Theyre only trying to do good, you see. They just want to tutor the poor ignorant locals to get in touch with their feeeeeelings rather than bitterly clinging to their guns and Bibles. Theyre just here to help.

This disconnect applies across many areas of cause and effect. Progressives honestly dont recognize that the effect of gun confiscation is skyrocketing crime, or that shutting down economic opportunities means unemployment. They never seem to get that the policies they endorse cause the crime, pollution, out-of-control spending, regulations and taxes that chased people out of their liberal location (California, New York, Chicago, whatever) to begin with.

Well, I dont buy the ignorance defense. To be a liberal is to be a control freak. There is plenty of factual, statistical and historical evidence showing, without fail, that leftist policies always lead to heartache, destruction and death. Some of the useful idiots and talking heads at the bottom may not be smart enough to understand this, but the real liberal leaders do. As long as they get to be the statist-slave masters, however, the ends justify the means.

There are those in California who think the state should break away and form its own country. I, for one, think this is a splendid solution. If California thinks it can go it alone, I applaud its efforts.

But it better hurry. All of its real gold is packing the family van and heading for real America.

Media wishing to interview Patrice Lewis, please contact media@wnd.com.

See more here:

REAL AMERICA - WND.com

Pankaj Mishra at Edinburgh International Book Festival, August 14, 2013. (Marc Marnie / Writer Pictures via AP Images)

When we speak or write about the liberal order, what do we mean? Most people use this phrase as if its definition and validity are foregone conclusions. But events force questions upon usone mark of our moment. Is the liberal order so liberal as commonly assumed? Is it orderly? Such as it may have once been valid, is it any longer? Taking a good look around, a few people now pose the first of these questions, a few more the second, and a very, very few the last. It is the last that is most worth investigating.1

The liberal order is also known as the post-1945 order or, more flimsily, the international order. This was stenciled across the globe very swiftly after the 1945 victories. The Atlantic world, with its historically specific variety of democracy and its market-dominant economic model, was and remains the center, the determinant, the arbiter of this order. Jimmy Carters presidency introduced us to the neoliberal orderat bottom, merely a more rigorous variant of what had been. The choice for others has always been strictly, not to say viciously, enforced: It is to conform to the imposed order, imitate it as best they can, or assume the status of outsider. In the tent or out: Remarkably, the record indicates not a single exception in the 70-odd years the liberal order has endured.2

This order is now in crisis. I am hardly the first with this. Many Americans take this view because their political institutions are in nearly anarchic disarray, because imperial adventure impoverishes them, and because they now stand at the front end of a shocking assault on all that once passed as at least an aspiration to political, social, and economic justice. Europeans face rises in right-wing nationalism, right-wing populism, and religious extremism. Inequality worsens across the West (and even more tragically in much of the non-West, of course). Are those who sustain the prevalent order serious about the climate emergency? The whole world wonders.3

Like the worsening climate, the velocity of deterioration seems fated to increase.

Having come to a dangerous global disorder, the liberal order turns out to be incapable of adequate responses to its own creation. It cannot self-correct, to put the point differently. This has been my view for a long time. For whatever reason, the famines sweeping through Africa and into Yemen, combined with an equally shameful indifference among us, noted in a previous column, tip me into a definitive position on this point. All the crises facing our quite illiberal order are epochal, in my view: They challenge its legitimacy. Its failures and fraudsnotably its habit of exclusion, of making a we and they of all humanityare simply too urgent now. Like the worsening climate, the velocity of deterioration seems fated to increase. Solutions will not arise from the order that produces and reproduces crises such as those just noted, and they are a few among very many. The immensity of this thought is not an excuse not to have it.4

In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra writes of a pervasive panic, of the sense of a world spinning out of control, of our state of worldwide emergency, of the global civil war. I find nothing histrionic in these diagnoses, and I will come back to Mishras just-published book. For now, it is enough to note how its urgently vigorous language throws into sharp relief the barely audible mumbling that greets this condition. The world as the vital center insisted it must be is the world as we have it. And at the center of the vital centerArthur Schlesingers celebrated phrasewe find utter vacuity, all new thinking long ago barred at the door to its immense, windowless room.5

As is its custom, Foreign Policy used its year-end edition to celebrate the leading global thinkers of 2016. I always get a weird kick out of these lists: They present dozens of stories of incremental, here-and-there changeall of it impeccably worthwhileaccompanied by what has to be an ideologically induced blindness to the utterly obvious systemic failures that produce every one of the crises addressed. These are never, ever mentioned. All that is done is perfectly worthwhile, all is perfectly forlorn. Great change amid no change: There is something almost exquisite about the contemporary liberal dodge. Someday it will get a glass case in the museum it deserves.6

This years opening essay was titled The Case for Optimism. And I need to tell you straightaway this is a depressing read. While the changes that are remaking the planet pose great challenges, David Rothkopf wrote, they really do offer even greater opportunities for the lives of everyone in virtually every corner of the world. If you wonder how someone could write such a sentence just a few months ago, the answer lies in data. Rothkopf compares such things as literacy rates, the prevalence of indoor plumbing and, of course, GDP to what these were 100 or 150 years ago. History, then, offers an encouraging story, Rothkopf advises. It is one of the reasons that those who study it and analyze current changes anticipate that, while huge tests confront us now, great progress will continue.7

If you take this to be nothing more than happy talk, please think again. It is a form of silence. In the face of all that Mishra describes with considerable diligenceand historicity, I might addthis is the vital centers reply: silence and dismissal with a truly perverse smile. It is what arises out the ideology of progress, the ideology of science, and American positivismthree 19th-century places of worship still lined up side by side along Main Street USA. Who would have guessed that denial would become so essential a feature of the sermons?8

There is a case for optimism very different from Rothkopfs. I am not a declinist, if this means assuming decline to be a fate. It is not: It is a choice. Americans have many of these to make. And refusing even to recognize these choices, as deacons of the liberal order urge at every turn, will amount to the choice of decline. High among these choices is whether and how to address the questions of politics and power. Silence no longer offers a place to hide on this point: If the liberal order has failed, it follows that the liberal order must be superseded. Looking squarely at the politys most fundamental structures will inevitably involve a lot of dismantling and disturbing and discarding, in my view, but we live in interesting times, unfortunately. There is no other way to renovate or reinvent the operations of a global order that has steadily, over a long time, brought us to crisis. And a reformation of one or another kind is required if we are to do better than the world Mishra describes.9

Disenchantment was implicit in the modern condition, but the few saying so were dismissed as outsiders.

To dissent is to declare ones optimism, a friend once told me. Why would I bother otherwise? This is my case for optimism. There are plenty of grounds for it, but in our moment optimism lies buried in apparent pessimism. I can think of no other kind of optimismand certainly not Foreign Policys brandthat matches the realities out our doors and beyond our shores. A lot of undoing is necessary to clear the ground for doing. As the last year or two advise us, it is too late, the liberal orders hand too overplayed, to flinch from this any longer.10

Disenchantment was Max Webers well-known term for what he saw around him in the second half of the 19th century. In a word, he saw a crisis buried in what was already called modernity. The Enlightenment had given way to the materialist age, and the new ages ideologiesprogress, science, and positivism as already listed, as well as secularism, the subjective individual, the nation-state, and so onhad begun to reveal a darker side. The remaking of Western society (and eventually non-Western, to very unfortunate effect) according to materialisms scientific principles and bureaucratic rationality would prove a profoundly mixed undertaking. There would be gains but also losses never to be retrieved, beneficiaries but many casualties. Science, technology, and money would not prove universal solutions. There would be regret. Disenchantmenta wistful sadness with the tint of disappointment might hold as a thumbnail definitionwas implicit in the modern condition, in Webers view. As now, so then: Disillusion may suffuse an entire culture like smoke, but the few saying so were to be dismissed as outsidersmisanthropes, eccentrics, cynics, or one or another kind of extremist. They declined to get with the program, as those who bask in the reigning order say today.11

THE STAKES ARE HIGHER NOW THAN EVER. GET THE NATION IN YOUR INBOX.

Pankaj Mishra has many names for his topic, but disenchantment is certainly among them. His Age of Anger in the book so named begins long before 1945 and the advent of our liberal order. He starts with materialisms eclipse of the Enlightenment around 1870 and extends to the very minute this column is posted. Mishras concern is the world as we have it, but countless writers of varying worth are on this trail. It is Age of Angers singular ambition to give the world as we have it a past, a how-we-got-here, a where-the-mistakes-lie. The focus throughout is on those disenchanted: They made an ever-present subculture from the beginning, ancestors of all the disenchanted among us nowthe liberal orders mistake all along being silence and dismissal when faced with them. This historicity is monumentally to Mishras credit. He has sought the roots of our planetary predicament and exposed a lot of them. And how weird a world it is that this is a daring move. The last thing all apostles of the liberal order want on the table is history. Attaching chronology and causality to this universal crisisanother of Mishras descriptivesis like crashing a black mass with a crucifix.12

Mishra argues that the West has come to an epochal bend in its river, and can no longer afford its end-of-history dream.

Mishras thesis is roughly coincident with this columns: The Westand therefore the non-West, too, as things workhas come to an epochal bend in its river. It can no longer afford its end-of-history dream that what has long been will continue eternally to be. This is Age of Angers running theme. Identifying the liberal orders genealogy in the very beginning of the modernist experiment itself is an imposing thought, to put it mildly. But it is right, it seems to me. The Atlantic world has lost all knack for thinking anewa consequence of liberalisms undue self-confidencebut we are charged to do so. The single most interesting feature of last years political season was the extent to which Bernie Sanders was able to suggestin his language, in a lot (not all) of his thinking, in his relationship to moneythat this can be done. In this, Mishra is my kind of optimist: If he did not think the implied project was possible, why would he have bothered with the book?13

I have given space to Age of Anger because the book marks an important advance in our most urgent discourse, in my view. But one cannot read it as the end of the story, as I am certain Mishra agrees. It is merely the beginning. All through its 350 un-shy pages, I kept asking, Whats your idea of the way forward? Given all you say, this must be momentous. Tell us, Mishraji. Where from here?14

I read, and read some more. My answer came in the last half of the last sentence on the last page: All that Mishra explored and exposed underscores the need for some truly transformative thinking, about both the self and the world. Nothing more.15

This practically forces a disturbing question on us. Does Mishra choose not to exit his assiduously marshaled historythe past a safe haven for dissent? In the face of history and complexity, does he propose we shelter in the perpetuation of perplexityever paralyzed, at a loss as to what to do as we look forward? It does not do. Truly transformative thinking is precisely the need and is not so unachievable as many people seem to assume. A lot of it is getting done already. Mishra appears to have flinched, and that does not do, either.16

The rest is here:

The Crisis of the Liberal Order and Pankaj Mishra's 'Age of Anger' - The Nation.