That’s old news …

As Hillary continues to fall in the polls, she’s reaching back in time to come up with something to support her case that Trump’s a monster. 

For a long time Trump questioned whether Obama was born in the United States. So did a lot of other people.  It was understandable given Obama’s strange lineage and where he at times lived as a child and with whom. Plus, he and his campaign kept a tight lid on details of his background, including his college admissions and academic records.

It’s all still somewhat suspicious to me.

That Trump and other so-called “birthers” questioned where Obama was born, and whether he was actually a naturalized U.S. citizen, was seen by the liberal media and Democrats as racist. That was only because Obama was black. Obama finally did produce a birth certificate from Hawaii and for most folks the issue was dead.

Yet Hillary just brought it back. And she added that anyone who questioned whether “our first black President” was a U.S. citizen is unfit to be President of the United States.

Call me cuckoo but anyone caught repeatedly lying to the FBI, to Congress, to grieving parents, and who obstructs justice by intentionally destroying evidence after it is subpoenaed is the one actually unfit to be President. I’m not even going to go into the shady commodities deals, Whitewater, the Rose Law Firm papers, Benghazi, the mysterious deaths of key witnesses … nope, don’t need to. 

Hillary and her supporters consider all that “old news.” Which means, to them and their liberal media lackeys, been there, done that, already addressed and not relevant anymore.

The classic example was when Bernie Sanders said to Hillary in front of a cheering Democrat crowd that “nobody is interested in your damn emails.” Old news, in other words.

It’s a standard Democrat ploy that instantly reminds you of someone dismissing the deaths of four Americans in front of a Congressional panel by saying: “What difference does it make now?”

Yet think about this for a minute: Hillary’s supporters are going pretty far into the way-back machine to find something to trash Trump. 

Some in the fawning media, and the usual far-left online trolls, recently tried to make the case that Trump’s current wife – Melania – entered and worked in the U.S. illegally in 1995; they also republished photos of Melania from  a GQ shoot in 2000, well before she became Mrs. Trump.  Melania Trump’s immigration lawyer issued a letter that debunked the first claim; the second attempt to smear Trump also may have backfired. (She is undeniably hot.)

Somehow all this is fair game to Hillary and the Democrats. And “new” news, worthy of investigation to raise doubts about Trump’s fitness. 

They are still dredging up past bankruptcies, interviews on Howard Stern, disgruntled former vendors and employees and anyone – or anything – they can use to destroy Trump’s credibility. They’ve even made a TV ad with clips taken from the Republican primary debates – indeed a nasty slugfest – to make a claim that even Republicans hate Trump. 

All of which happened in the past – the “distant past” by Democrat standards (longer than a few weeks). But there are obviously different standards when fighting Republicans.  

The whole birther resurrection came from a Washington Post interview yesterday with Trump.  Once they had it back on the front burner, the media went to town, as did Hillary’s campaign. The Trump campaign quickly responded that Obama was born in the U.S. But for some reason Trump himself didn’t say that – and that gave the media and Democrats (pretty much the same) all the room they needed to fire up the old charges of racism. 

Today, Trump was scheduled for an event at his new hotel in D.C.  The press salivated over this opportunity to grill Trump on the birther issue and keep the flame alive; practically every cable and online news show speculated on how he would handle the “controversy.” 

Instead, Trump trotted out a series of Medal of Honor, Bronze and Silver Star recipients, and retired generals and admirals, who gave testimonials why Trump should be the next President. When Trump finally came up at the end, he simply said that Obama was "born in the United States, period."

That was that. But on online and cable news shows immediately afterward, spokespuppets for the Hillary campaign insisted that Trump had done something wrong. They simply would not accept what they had been demanding – Trump’s acknowledgement of Obama’s citizenship. 

Tough shit, folks. That’s now old news. 

So what’s next from the Hillary camp?  Who knows.  Maybe an old 8mm home movie of Trump they can edit and take out of context? Some old girlfriend he broke up with in high school? Maybe an interview with one of the wives he divorced?     

Hey, if they want to continue to play that game maybe Republicans could respond in kind.  Like pulling up the records of why Hillary was kicked off the Watergate Committee. Playing the tape of her laughing about how she got a rapist acquitted. 

Or getting former White House Secret Service staff to do a Swift-Boat type of commercial about what Hillary is really like. From published accounts, that would be fun. 

Personally, I’d like to have a paternity test run on Bill and Chelsea to see who her real dad is.  Not because that has any bearing whether Hillary is qualified to be President – I think I’ve already established how I feel about that – but just to start a rumor she has to constantly deal with.  I think that's only fair after her minions have gone after Melania, and just about as relevant to running for the Presidency.

I’d like a full investigation into where her ugly pantsuits are made and by whom – I’m thinking Sears or JC Penney based on style and color – but I’m betting those stores don’t have any clothing in the $15,000 price range.   

Oh yeah, I’d also like to see a parade of Bill’s bimbos Hillary publicly dissed as “trailer trash.”     

Hillary started this. I think she’s going to regret it. She has as many if not far more skeletons in her closet than Trump. However in her favor is that people who can prove her misdeeds often disappear. 

But that’s old news, right? 

“Basket of deplorables”

That’s what Hillary just called half of Trump’s supporters. 

Here’s exactly what she said at a recent fundraiser:  "To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," Clinton said. "Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."

The way the polls stand right now that would be about a quarter of the voting public

If you want to understand how Hillary could still lose this election – even against a seriously flawed candidate like Trump – this classic example of Democrat arrogance and disdain for wide swaths of the American public is how. Democrats routinely treat the general public as stupid, and mock their own base in private, but every now and then they can’t resist letting us know how they really feel. 

This was one of those times. 

Democrats always believe they are the smartest people in the room. The most cultured. The most worldly. The most “enlightened.” Everybody else is an ignorant, bigoted, bozo. 

That’s why they see no problem with lying to the public, and even to their own base. They fully expect nobody else to be smart enough to catch them. 

And if they do get caught, so what? They think most Americans have such a short attention span they’ll forget anyway. Harry Reid blatantly and knowingly lied about Romney not paying taxes for years; later, he laughed about it and said it helped defeat Romney anyway.    

They are so proud of themselves they can’t keep it to themselves.  That’s often why they lose the big elections, as they might this one as well. 

They really don’t care much what the regular folks think. In a lot of ways, they are completely tone deaf and indifferent to the optics.  Remember John Kerry windsurfing.  Remember the petulance and open contempt by Al Gore during his debates with George W. 

More recently, remember Obama yucking it up with his golf buddies shortly after an American was beheaded. Or Hillary saying “What difference does it make now” when questioned about the deaths in Benghazi. Or Hillary saying: “What? With a dust cloth?” when asked whether she had wiped her server intentionally to destroy e-mails.     

It’s this arrogance that’s always pissed me off. 

Most times, Democrats get away with it. Their pals in the media try to bury these things as not worth a lot of coverage.  Nothing to see here.  But when Romney said in a private fundraiser that the 47% of the public that paid no taxes and depended on government would probably not vote for him, he was an elitist, and that story stayed in the news cycle up until the election.   

What’s unusual this time with Hillary’s comments is that practically every media outlet has reported what she said, often as the lead story. Now, some folks will see this as a sign that the media is finally stepping up and doing their job. 

Sadly, I don’t think that’s the case. I believe the more liberal media outlets reported it because they believe it’s actually true, or would like their readers to believe it’s true.  Anything they can do to demonize Trump and his followers is acceptable. They think they are serving a higher purpose by damaging Trump whenever possible. 

It's part of a long-running campaign to paint Republicans as the party of dolts.  

Someone on Facebook posted a “poll” by Bloomberg recently that was headlined:  “Trump Beats Clinton Among Least-Educated Whites in Bloomberg Poll.”  

However If you drilled down on this "poll" the data showed  that Hillary tops Trump -- 41% to 39% -- among ALL voters with no college degree.  Which means she also probably has a clear majority of least-educated voters among all races in her camp.  Her favorability ratings were also significantly higher than Trump among non-white, no-college voters: Clinton was viewed favorably by 78 percent and Trump viewed favorably by just 17 percent.

Wasn’t the headline though, was it? The point Democrats want to relentlessly drive home is that Trump supporters are ignorant racists and bigots, so don’t be part of that group.  Vote with the cool crowd – the smarter, more worldly and more enlightened folks: Democrats.

You don’t want to associate with ignorant racists and bigots, do you?  Democrats are so much smarter and tolerant. Hillary recommended in the same speech that her supporters should stage "interventions" with anybody they know is a Trump supporter.  "Friends don’t let friends vote for Trump,” she added.  

They like promoting that Democrats are always more intelligent than Republicans.  It’s the same crap they pull when they produce online “lists” of the “most intelligent” Presidents (mostly Democrats) and the “worst” Presidents (mostly Republicans).

This is what’s known as propaganda by any other name.  But like propaganda, they believe if you repeat this nonsense frequently enough it starts being considered true. 

I personally don’t believe 25% of the voting public is “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it." Do you?  However, I think Democrats actually do. And it’s this open contempt for the ordinary folks that might cost them this election.    

On the other hand, I do believe more than 25% -- perhaps as much as half or more – of the most strident Democrats and their allies in the media are lying weasels no one should trust.

But that’s just me.  

Rednecks?

I’ve written about this before but a recent incident reminded me again how distorted a view of the South and its people exists among so many others. 

We’ve recently moved to Central Florida. For me, it’s kind of like coming home – I went to college in Gainesville, only about an hour and a half from where we now live. I went to college with a lot of kids from Ocala, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Leesburg, and other small towns in this general area. 

I’d grown up largely in Miami, which at the time was still a pretty much Southern city. Most of my relatives called Miami “Miamah.” That should give you an idea. 

When my family moved North for a few years it took a while to shake my Southern accent. But I had to because other kids made fun of me for pronouncing “pen” as “pin,” “get” as “git,” etc.  Then we moved back to Miami and later I went to a decidedly Southern, yet very good, university.

Years later when I worked at Commodore Business Machines – home of the C64 – I ran its publishing operations. I still remember one of the vice presidents, an arrogant elitist, asking me where I went to college, fully expecting I would name one of the prestigious schools, and being aghast that I had actually graduated from the University of Florida.  Not what he expected. 

I’ve encountered that Northern arrogance at many times in my career.  Also in my personal life. 

Too many people from the Northeast automatically assume that if you grew up in the South, or have even the slightest Southern drawl, you can’t be that smart. Plus, you probably didn’t get much of an education beyond “readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic.” If you are relatively smart, you must be an exception – lucky to escape your backwoods, Bible-thumping, anti-science and bigoted environment. 

Here’s what brought all this up. 

Our newly constructed house had a bad floor. The contractor sent a crew out to grind down our floor, at no cost to us. Five guys showed up – including a crew boss – and spent the day working on our floor to get it ready for self-leveling cement to be poured shortly. They covered everything with plastic sheeting to keep the dust away from our furniture, kitchen and anywhere else in our house.  That included getting up on a ladder and wrapping plastic around a ceiling fan so dust didn’t get in the motor. I took a picture of them doing that and posted the pix on Facebook. 

Shortly after, a business acquaintance – a lifelong Democrat from the Northeast – now living in a fashionable part of Miami Beach with his partner, commented with “how many rednecks does it take to install a ceiling fan.”

For some reason that really set me off.  The hardworking guys on that crew routinely clock into work at 6:10AM.  I saw the same crew working on a job on Labor Day.

They are the nicest people you could ever run into. Some of them have kids in The Villages Charter School – one of the top-rated schools in the state.  One has a daughter getting ready to go to the University of Central Florida to become a veterinarian. But because they live in Central Florida and are workmen, and white, they must automatically be rednecks, from a Northeast perspective.

Let me help my Northern friends understand who is and who isn’t a redneck.  A redneck is essentially ignorant and intolerant; they have no use for education or the educated.  They stick to their own and think the rest of society looks down on them. They like doing things designed to annoy others – especially those of different races – just to piss people off.  In their own stupid way, they are always trying to beat the system by doing the minimum required. They are classic low-life jerkoffs.       

Wait, didn’t that also describe a lot of folks in our inner cities in other parts of the country? 

Why yes it does. You don’t have to be white to be a redneck.  There are a lot of folks – white and black – who meet the redneck criteria – and not all of them are in the South. In fact, I’d hazard that most of them aren’t in the South but instead concentrated in many of our major cities outside the South entirely.

If you want to find ignorance and intolerance, and racial animosity – traits Northeasterners associate with the South in general and rednecks in particular – you don’t have to look that far. Try Philadelphia. Or Baltimore. Or Detroit. Or Newark. Or even Boston, for that matter.  

Wander off into parts of North Central PA, Northwestern NJ, the Pine Barrens, or Western or Upstate NY if you want to continue to focus on white rednecks. Plenty in all those places, too.     

You’ll find the South doesn’t have a lock on rednecks. Yes, there are rednecks in the South, but also everywhere else as well. Just go to the racetrack in the Poconos sometime.

In short, the South is like a lot of other places in the country.  Good parts and not-so-good parts.  There are great universities here. There are world-class orchestras and opera companies.

There is still a distinctly Southern culture nonetheless, no matter how many Northerners and Midwesterners move here to escape the taxes, crime, and bad weather where they lived. It’s interesting for me to watch how quickly they adapt to their new environment.  At first they are stunned how nice and courteous most everyone is.  And how honest.   

Over time, they start to become the same. That’s a good thing.      

It wasn’t that big of an adjustment for me. But let me tell you what my experience has been so far moving into what one of my Northern acquaintances called a place where there’s probably a “combination cultural center and swap meet.”

The first thing I noticed was how nice everybody is.  Whether that’s at the grocery store, Walmart, liquor store, the DMV or the tax collector’s office, everybody was so helpful and friendly.  It’s not a racial thing: we got the exact same courtesy from white, black and Hispanic men and women wherever we’ve gone.  There’s absolutely no attitude; no sense they are doing you a big favor, even though at times they are.  It makes no difference if they are cashiers, landscapers, construction workers, or waiters.

Even civil servants. The woman at the DMV spent almost two hours patiently guiding us on what we needed to do to get our Florida driver’s licenses and get our cars registered.  Two weeks later when we came to transfer the title of my car and get my plates, she was just as friendly and helpful, and carefully walked us through every step.  

Can my Northern friends say the same about where they live? 

Next, people here take pride in working hard and doing a good job. You don’t get the feeling they begrudgingly get up every day and drag themselves to a job they hate. They seem genuinely happy to be working and having a regular job, whatever that is. As one of the guys who did work in our house said – he didn’t mind working on a weekend or holiday because that gave him a bigger paycheck. 

The people who came to see if our floor was finally ready for the flooring installation came here on Labor Day. They didn't think coming out on a holiday was anything special.      

Try that in the Northeast. 

Cultural events? There are many – and none of them has anything to do with NASCAR.  There are always concerts, plays, and theatrical productions at one of the performing arts centers in The Villages, or somewhere nearby. There’s also a lifelong learning center where you can take college-level courses. There are major universities not far away either.  

It’s not paradise, but neither is it a cultural backwater.  Nor is it an isolated island of enlightenment within an overall dumbed-down South, any more than NYC is one in an overall stupid and uncultured country.  Although that’s what New Yorkers tend to think.

One reason the Northern and West Coast media think the South is a cultural and intellectual wasteland is because – unlike them – the South tends to vote Republican. Obviously, again to them, anyone who votes Republican is a low-information voter. 

Stupid and uneducated, in other words.      

Are things perfect here?  Of course not.  But the locals we’ve encountered so far belie the Northern myth. And as a native Southerner, I’ll continue to fight to dispel that myth.  

Racists and bigots …

Racists see everything through the prism of race.  Bigots are intolerant of others with differing opinions. 

During this election cycle those two terms have been tossed around liberally. Hillary accuses Trump of being a racist and a bigot. Trump returns the favor.

Who is correct? 

Frankly, you can be a racist and a bigot. But you can also just be a bigot. Bigotry is a lot more widespread than racism.

The case can be made that certain elements in the Democrat and the Republican parties are bigots.  They have no tolerance for anyone who holds different beliefs from them – whether that’s on abortion, gay marriage, the size and scope of government, or on expanding the welfare state. 

But is Hillary a bigot? What about Trump?  I think they throw those slurs at each other because they’ve already used racist.  In short, they’re both running out of insults. 

On the other hand, I’d put any activists that shout down speakers with whom they disagree in the bigot camp. The same for Black Lives Matter.  Or the Westboro Baptist morons.  Or Kim Davis.

Bigotry has no political affiliation. It’s simply intolerance for others beliefs.   

Racism is far more pernicious. Some people view everything that happens as racially based.  If something bad happens, it’s because of their race; if something good happens, it’s in spite of their race.  They believe race is one of the most important determinants of outcomes. 

That makes them a racist. 

Disliking someone of another race is not automatically racism.  There could be any number of reasons why you dislike them, none of which has anything to do with their race. However, if you don’t like them, or distrust them, solely because of their race, you are a racist.           

It may sound pedantic, but words have specific meanings. “Racist” is one of them.  

Being a racist isn’t exclusively a white thing, either. 

For example, I would bet there are more openly racists as a percentage of the black community than there are as a percentage of the white community.   

Sure, there are racist lunatic fringes in the white community like the Aryan Brotherhood and the KKK, however most of these are such a tiny part of the white community they have no valid claim to represent the majority of whites.

In the black community you have the NAACP, Black Lives Matter, the Black Entertainment Network, as well as “historically black colleges,” black fraternities and sororities, and even associations of black journalists and a Black Caucus in Congress.  I just heard about a Black College Football Hall of Fame.  There are no parallels to these in the broader white community. If there were these would be considered racist; but because blacks are given a pass to self-segregate their racist – by definition – organizations are perfectly fine.

Imagine for a moment that someone started a National Association for the Advancement of White People, or a White Entertainment Network. Or created a White Caucus in Congress.  Or a White College Football Hall of Fame. The DOJ would be filing charges against them for discrimination.  

Americans generally are dreadfully afraid of being called racist, especially white Americans.  Most white Americans work hard at trying to be color blind, which is what Dr. King dreamed of. They also don’t want to have anything to do with racists.  

That’s why Hillary and Democrats in general like to tag Republicans, and Trump in particular, as racists. They do this because being called a racist is one of the most damning epithets in our society. It’s a powerful weapon designed to chill Independents, white women, educated white males and anyone who considers themselves a moderate – which is most Americans.  It also serves as a less than subtle dog whistle to minorities to be wary.  

Is it justified? Not really.

Historically Republicans have done the most to enfranchise minorities. I’ve long admired the Republicans for their role in giving women the right to vote (19^th Amendment), giving citizenship and the right to vote to former slaves (14^th and 15^th  Amendments, respectively), and for passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – all against opposition primarily from Democrats.

Yes, it was Democrats who tried to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including former KKK member Robert Byrd (D. WVA) who led a filibuster to prevent passage. Hubert Humphrey (D. MN) tried to insert amendments to make busing to achieve desegregation illegal. 

Now Democrats claim to be responsible for guaranteeing voting rights to women and minorities and have convinced the black community and women this is true. They blame Republicans for restricting voting rights and for waging a “war on women” and minorities. Everybody conveniently forgets the role Republicans played in establishing their rights in the first place.

The black community also believes that anyone who opposes – or, God forbid, criticizes – Obama is automatically a racist. I heard some prominent black woman the other night claim that criticizing “our first black President” was evidence someone was a racist. The fact that Trump questioned Obama’s citizenship early on was proof Trump was a racist, she added.

Remember the definition of a racist: someone who views everything through the prism of race. 

She was a racist. 

To be honest – I’ve yet to hear Trump say anything remotely racist. If anything, most of what he’s been accused of racism for saying seems, on the face of it, to simply be common sense.

It’s not racist to oppose illegal immigration. Calling out the nationalities of illegal immigrants is also not racist; not if you are opposed to illegal immigration by any groups or ethnicities and not if what you say is true.  It may make people uncomfortable, but the reality is that most of the illegals hiding in our country are from Mexico and to a lesser degree Central America. Trump never said he wanted to ban or deport all Hispanics; he simply said he wanted to seal our southern border to protect us from criminals streaming across. 

It’s the height of hypocrisy for Mexico and Mexicans to be offended at that – Mexico imprisons people it catches crossing its southern border illegally. We give them a ride home.  

He’s also said he’s opposed to any amnesty for the illegals already here.  Ever.  

Again, that doesn’t make him a racist. Not if you consider history.   

In 1986 Reagan signed legislation that gave one-time amnesty to all illegal aliens who arrived here before 1982.  This was supposed to be in exchange for a tightening of our borders.  Which never happened.  So it’s not surprising that Republicans – burned once already – would now be opposed to any new amnesty program. Trump’s opposition to amnesty shouldn’t be a surprise.     

And actually, Trump’s position on deporting illegals who commit crimes is very similar to Obama’s – who now holds the all-time record for deportations. Obama has deported more illegal immigrants than all other modern Presidents combined. But you don’t hear much about that.

So is Obama a racist? 

Trump’s proposed temporary ban on Muslim immigrants also doesn’t make him a racist. It’s not racist to take a harder look at people trying to enter our country from regions where a radical form of Islam prevails and encourages Muslims everywhere to rise up and slaughter innocents who don’t agree with them. Once again, it may make some people uncomfortable, but entering our country is a privilege.  We have every right to decide who can or can’t enter. 

So where does the charge of racist come from?  I think it’s because Trump – a Republican – has the audacity to reach out directly to the black community and tell blacks they’ve been used by Democrats for decades and gotten essentially nothing in return but empty promises.  All of which, unfortunately for the black community, is absolutely true. 

But how dare he talk down to blacks?  How dare he point out that their inner cities are a disaster, their schools suck, their families are falling apart, and black-on-black crime is out of control? 

How dare he – a white guy – say such things and imply that blacks don’t get it?

Black leaders were swift to condemn Trump for this. That’s not surprising.  They are equal participants in – and beneficiaries of – the poverty-industrial complex Democrats have engineered. They have focused on keeping  blacks exactly where they are and have been for decades. They can’t afford to have the black community finally wake up and realize they’ve been had.

Because he addressed blacks directly, he’s supposedly a racist. I don’t think he is.

However, when Hillary chastises Trump for disparaging the black community, by telling them what is in fact the truth, he’s supposedly the racist.

Telling the truth doesn’t make you a racist.  What makes you a racist is when you deny reality to pander to a certain group based entirely on their race. 

Which is exactly what Hillary and the Democrats are doing.

They are the racists.