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Michael Smerconish, a CNN host and SiriusXM personality, made news Thursday forsaying that people who act like a bigot or racist online should be outed, yet his own past writingmay reflect attitudes that the Left considersracist.

While Michael Smerconish has expressed a number ofliberalviewsin recent years, many of his past columns endorse ideas that, by the standards of the American Left, could be seen as racist. (RELATED:CNNs Michael Smerconish: Media Should Out Anonymous People If They Say Bigoted Things [VIDEO])

In a blog post from November 2009published at the Huffington Post, Smerconish explicitly promotes racial profiling, something that would surely be found racist and Islamophobic by his left-wing peers.

He writes, Profiling. Lets look for terrorists who look like terrorists. Those who threaten us have similarities. In virtually every instance, they have race, gender, ethnicity, religion and appearance in common. Those characteristics should be considered as we seek to prevent terrorist strikes against the United States. Everyone needs to be screened, but some more than others. When the terrorists start looking like Thurston Howell, III, we will change accordingly.

In the same column, Smerconish also endorsed immigration policy that was positively Trumpian.

He said, Immigration. Our borders are porous. They need to be closed. Only when they are closed should we make decisions as to what to do with the millions who are already here illegally. It is impractical to believe we will ship them back to wherever they came from. But through attrition, and by ensuring no more of their friends and relatives join them, we will probably diminish the herd.

This isnt Smerconishs only writingabout immigration. He also penned a 2007 articlefor the Huffington Post where he writes,Our borders are porous, and Congress wont act. The closest theyve come was to approve 700 miles of fencing, but without funding. Meanwhile, the quality of life in Hazleton declines.

Smerconish also wrote an article in 2006 for HuffPost positively reviewing Pat Buchanans book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.

In the article, he cites a fact Buchanan pointed out about illegal aliens criminality, saying, One in every 12 people breaking into the United States illegally has a criminal record.

He also notes Buchanans claim about white people becoming a minority, saying, By 2050, the U.S. population of European descent will be a minority, as it is today in California, Texas, and New Mexico.

Smerconish writes, Those coming here are disproportionately poor, uneducated and criminal. And the fact that they are emigrating from countries that have themselves never been fully assimilated into the First World, is what separates this group from our forefathers. They are breaking in, not playing by the rules. Most important, many have no desire to be American. So why does it continue?

The status quo is enabled by multinational corporations anxious to topple sovereign borders, a Hispanic media that depends for its survival on the perpetuation of bilingualism and gutless politicians. Political correctness is a major factor. Witness how many seek to dismiss Buchanans analysis as the work of a white guy uncomfortable with the realization that his kind is losing its dominance and control. Or they try to label him a racist or xenophobe.

Finally, he ends the column by saying, State of Emergency, indeed. Its time to close and defend our borders.

Smerconish also wrote a sardonic 2006 article for HuffPost that seemed to criticize illegalimmigrants for their lack of assimilation and the political correctness that prevents people from talking about it.

He also advocated a position that many leftists would seemingly find Islamophobic in a 2005 column for HuffPost. In the article, he speaks approvingly of flushing the Koran down the toilet to intimidate Muslim Gitmo detainees.

He says, When I first read the Newsweek blurb that said our interrogators were threatening the flushing of the Koran as a means of getting information out of bad guys at Gitmo Bay, it didnt even register. It was that tame, at least to me. After all, what were talking about here is the use of non-physical means to extract information from suspected al Qaeda members in the context of a war on terror.

He adds, Those depicted on my set are willing to work themselves into a lather while burning our flag over reports of the American Standardizing of the Koran, and look about one small step removed from the terrorists who cut off Nick Bergs head or flew airplanes into the Twin Towers. These enemies of the United States are lunatics, and the depravity of radical Islam knows no bounds. If the toilet act doesnt work, lets try a menstruating American GI, riding a pig, if available.

CNN drew outrage this week afterits reporter Andrew Kaczynskitracked down thecreator of the pro wrestling gif tweeted out by President Trump and the network seemed the threaten to reveal the mans identity. Many saw CNNs behavior as blackmail. (RELATED:Extremely Unethical CNN Draws Backlash After Threatening To ID Reddit User Behind Trumps WWE Video)

However, Smerconish had a different take, saying on his SiriusXM show Wednesday that because the creator of the gif may also have made postings that were racist and anti-Semitic, he deserves to be outed.

If he continues to be a racist, if he continues to be a bigot, if he continues to be anti-Semitic, theyre gonna out him. Yeah, I like that, he asserted. He should be outed.

Smerconish also said on Thursday that people who promote hate, also sacrifice any right to privacy that you otherwise would have had.

By saying this, Smerconish essentially endorsed doxxing anyone who can be perceived to be a racist or bigot, effectively leaving them jobless and open to harassment and threats. (RELATED:CNN Analyst: You Dont Have The Right To Be Anonymous)

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CNN Host Who Wants All 'Racists' Outed Has His Own Past To Worry About - The Daily Caller

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Officer Miosotis Familia was murdered, assassinated point-blank and in cold blood, without provocation, on a corner in the Bronx where she was making a difference defusing fear and racial tension.

Her killer, Alexander Bonds, taken down by two other police officers in pursuit after he fired on them and hit a bystander, was both mentally ill and a cop hater. His illness does not explain, or negate, his hate.

By all accounts, Officer Familia was a great cop, and a great human being. She was the kind of cop police chiefs and do-gooders alike dream of. She knew the people on her beat and reached out to them, often in Spanish. She raised three kids and took care of her mother, who lived with her. She was, said a nephew, a warrior in life as well as work.

Officer Familia was the first female New York Police Department officer killed in the line of duty since 9/11, and the third female officer killed in a combat situation in the departments history.

Why does someone like that have to die like that?

This is what the New York City police commissioner, James P. ONeill, said: Make no mistake: Officer Familia was murdered for her uniform and for the responsibility she embraced.

Was she? Wasnt she killed because hate consumed the mind of a crazy man?

Would the chief put it quite this way given time to reflect and consider his words?

Or would he point out that the reason a sick mind and a heart filled with hate targeted a cop is that cops are too often disrespected and misunderstood in America?

Most of us have no idea what a police officers life is like. We dont comprehend what an officer risks every day on the job. We cant know the knot in the belly of every cop as he approaches every car he stops. (Will this be the day? Will this be the one?) We dont see the reality of many of the people police officers deal with daily. Many are people who have never known lifes value, never seen that value treasured or expressed. That often makes them unpredictable and dangerous people.

Being a cop has always been tough. It is tougher than ever today.

And most of us have no idea. None.

We mostly never will because few of us have ever really talked to a police officer. All we know about police work is what we have seen on TV, where good guys and bad guys alike shoot straight and the bad guys act with rational motives.

And how insane has our political culture gotten when it is considered controversial or politically incorrect to say that both black lives and blue lives matter? Of course they do. Of course they are linked. Author Heather Mac Donald has summarized the irony: There is no government agency that has saved more black lives over the last two decades than the police.

The death of Officer Familia is an American tragedy and that the commissioner thinks what he thinks about her death is a second tragedy. Many cops believe their communities often do not have their backs. They feel the blue brotherhood is their only real extended family.

Obviously, every police force, in every American city, should have every possible resource it needs. And when a police officer is assassinated simply for being a cop, all the resource questions must be asked and all procedures reviewed.

But beyond this, our police officers deserve our deeper understanding, our curiosity, our sympathy, and our undying appreciation. And when one falls, our abiding sense of loss and grief.

The rest is here:
A blue wall of grief - Toledo Blade

Posted By Thaddeus McCollum on Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 7:00 AM

Its gotta be difficult getting opposing sides of the culture war to despise you for completely different things, but Bill Maher, longtime host of HBOs Real Time, has somehow managed it. While the right has long despised Maher for what they view as smarmy liberal elitism he famously critiqued the characterization of terrorists as cowardly on his former talk show, Politically Incorrect, and starred in the documentary Religulous, in which he derides organized religion as a scam. But this year, Maher has had to duck swings from the left after booking internet hatemonger Milo Yiannopolous on his show, a move which critics say lent legitimacy to Yiannopolous particularly vile brand of jackassery. Then, just last month, Maher flippantly referred to himself as a house you-know-what on live TV a gaffe that Maher attempted to address head-on the following week. Expect to hear his side of all this and more when Maher takes the stage at the Dr. Phillips Center this week for a night of politically charged comedy. And hey, a guy who can unite the political divide in this country on anything has to be doing something right right?

Saturday, 8 p.m. | Walt Disney Theater, Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 445 S. Magnolia St. | 844-513-2014 | drphillipscenter.org | $45-$110

Tags: Bill Maher, Dr. Phillips Center, Image

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Bill Maher brings his politically charged comedy to Dr. Phillips Center - Orlando Weekly (blog)

Blogs | Jul. 6, 2017

It is refreshing to hear of a politically incorrect prelate, by modern standards, being honored in an era such as ours.

Not everyone gets to receive a present on their220thbirthday.

But on the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, Archbishop John Hughesthe first Archbishop of New Yorkwas honoredin his home parish of Clogher, in County Tyrone, Ireland, when the Primate of All Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, unveiled a special Blue Plaque to commemorate Dagger John, the immigrant laborer who founded Saint Patricks Cathedral and Fordham University.

The Blue Plaque, generally, is a special honour organized by a group called The Ulster History Circle to commemorate men and women whohave, in a public way, contributed to the history of the northern part of the island of Ireland.

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, in St Macartans Church, in the Diocese of Clogher (Clogher also being the name of the parish), Archbishop Martin communicated a taste of the life and times of Archbishop Hughes, who was just a young man, still in his teenage years, when he left Ireland for America in 1816.

Archbishop Hughes became a dedicated pastor and a forthright preacher who was determined to lift the lid on the struggles and grievances of Catholics at home in Ireland and in America, Archbishop Martin said.

Hughes life story, he continued, intersects with major issues of that timefrom Catholic Emancipation in Ireland, to the right to faith based education in New York; from wrangles over the Union and Constitution of the United States to disagreements over the abolition of slavery, from the plight of thousands of Irish immigrants fleeing the famine, to the nativist riots in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

When you look through these windows to the past from a distance of two hundred years, Archbishop Martin said, it is difficult to unravel the complexity and appreciate the nuances of that time which, although quite unlike our own, is in some ways strangely familiar.

One of those strangely familiar ways that Archbishop Martin alluded to is, of course, the political attacks on the Faith, and in particular, the attacks on Catholic education, which he has to deal with nowjust as Archbishop Hughes had to deal with themin his day.

Before he left Ireland, the legacy of the anti-Catholic Penal Laws meant that the future Archbishop of New York needed to attend a hedge school.

Later, as Bishop of New York, he came up against other obstacles to Catholic education, most notably in the form of the Public School Society.

Now, in a strangely familiar way, back in Ireland, again, Archbishop Eamon Martin is being confronted with the prospect of a law that would openly discriminate against Catholic parentsand thisin a country that's predominantly Catholic.

The twin themes of education and attacks on the Faith were also taken up by Monsignor Joseph McGuinness, the Diocesan Administrator of the Diocese of Clogher.

Speaking of the link between Archbishop Hughes and Blessed John Henry Newman, Monsignor McGuinness noted that Archbishop Hughes regarded John Henry Newman as the greatest man in the Church in his time. It was of course Cardinal Newman, he said, who was to come to Dublin in 1854 to set up the Catholic University which Archbishop Hughes had so willingly enabled through his support for the fundraising in New York. In Dublin, he said, Newman sought to give practical expression to his idea of a university.

In the thought of Newman and in the action of Hughes, the Monsignor said, we see a clear recognition of the value of intellectual formation and its centrality to the dialogue between faith and society that was current then, and is so urgently needed now. In the midst of political attacks on the faith in his time, Archbishop Hughes, like Newman, placed great emphasis on education and, like the gardener that he was, on the cultivation of the mind, which enables full-hearted engagement with profound ideas.

In another parallel between the present time and that of Archbishop Hughes, a group of Irish and American Catholics have taken up the task of giving practical expression to the idea of a university that Blessed John Henry Newman had initiated in response to the wishes of Blessed Pius IX, almost 200 years ago. The new Newman College Ireland is now entering its fourth year!

On a lighter note, Archbishop Eamon Martin also recalled that, People laughed when Archbishop Hughes began to plan a Cathedral on what was then the remote 51st Street far out on 5th Avenue. They called it Hughes' Folly but time would show that, as on many other issues, Archbishop Hughes was ahead of the rest in anticipating the growth and future strategic importance of mid-Manhattan.

As the words of the song go, Who, who, who, whos got the last laugh, now?

Finally, as Monsignor McGuinness, pointed out, To some, (Archbishop Hughes) appeared stubborn and pugnacious. Critics had claimed that the cross with which he, in common with all bishops, prefaced his signature, was, in his case, really a dagger. But, Monsignor McGuinness claimed, these were qualities which were put to good use in the service of his people.

Neither were his views narrowly sectarianindeed he had a horror of bigotry and discrimination. He also hired a Protestant, James Renwick, as the architect for the building (of Saint Patricks Cathedral) and managed to secure funds from many Protestants for the project, despite the turbulent political and religious feuds of the time.

Whatever ones views of the man, it is perhaps refreshing to hear of a politically incorrect prelate, by modern standards, being honored in an era that seems to impose an increasingly tight blueprint on the expectations of the personalities of our senior Churchmen.

Cardinal Dolan's Message

The following is a special message from Cardinal Timothy Dolanthe tenth Archbishop of New Yorkwho conveyed his good wishes on the occasion of the unveiling of the Blue Plaque to honour the late Archbishop John Hughes.

It is a joy to send greetings from the Archdiocese of New York on the auspicious occasion of the unveiling of a blue plaque to commemorate Archbishop John Joseph Hughes in his native parish. His achievements, coming from a humble background in Co Tyrone, Ireland, from where he emigrated to the United States, are worthy of special mention. He distinguished himself by becoming the first Archbishop of New York, founding Saint Patricks Cathedral, as well as Fordham University (formerly Saint Johns College). Here in the United States, we owe Archbishop Hughes a great debt of gratitude, and so it is only right that we reflect with pride on his life. May I wish you every success with your plaque unveiling to a truly deserving figure who became one of the most influential men of his time and won the respect of many. We just put up a bronze bust of him at the entrance to the Basilica of Old Saint Patricks Cathedral, so we are united in this tribute to a great man.

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Archbishop John Hughes Honored With 'Blue Plaque' in His Native Ireland - National Catholic Register (blog)

The Reason Youre Alive by Matthew Quick; Harper (240 pages, $25.99)

In The Reason Youre Alive, Matthew Quick performs a nifty literary magic trick.

The author of The Silver Linings Playbook introduces readers to David Granger, a politically incorrect Vietnam veteran who takes pride in the fact that hes basically too ornery to die. By books end, everyone will wind up loving the camouflage-wearing, knife-carrying sociopath.

Turns out hes really not such a bad guy once you get to know him.

The Reason Youre Alive (Harper, $25.99) is Granger telling his life story: going rogue and committing atrocities in the Vietnam jungle, coming home to a military psychiatric facility, marrying a woman more unstable than he is, and always at odds with his now-grown ignorant liberal art-dealer son.

Our protagonist ultimately goes on a mission to atone for an old transgression. He feels compelled to return a knife he stole nearly 50 years ago from his Vietnam nemesis: Clayton Fire Bear.

When readers make it to the Capra-esque final pages, they are almost certain to shed a feel-good tear or two. Our hero would bust their chops for all the boohooing and girly-man behavior, but so be it.

Quick is adapting his book into a screenplay. Film rights were sold last year to Miramax.

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'Reason You're Alive' is a feel-good experience - Arizona Daily Star