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. 

The problem with Republicans …

(As promised, equal time.)

Rush Limbaugh once said most Americans naturally identify with Democrats. Republicans only get elected when Democrats screw up so bad the voting public wants to punish them. Once things get back to normal the public feels comfortable enough to vote Democrats back in.

I don’t always agree with Rush, but on this I think he’s on to something. 

Democrats have done a better job of positioning from a marketing standpoint. They are the “fun” party; the anything-goes party where you can do pretty much whatever you want as long as you don’t physically harm someone else – and no one ever judges you. It’s like having perpetually indulgent grandparents who always have a gift for you and never tell you “no.”

What’s not to like?  Sure, there’s a lot of weird stuff Democrats are up to but as long as it doesn’t affect you personally, who cares?  Plus, they always have a gift for you.

Compared to the Democrats, Republicans are pinch-faced party poopers. Republicans are the neighbors who call the cops on you for making too much noise and having too much fun. 

Well, of course Republicans aren’t all like that. 

But enough of them are to make those descriptions stick. And we can thank the far right wing of the Republican Party for that.

While the Democrats have managed to keep their far-left loons under relative control and still supporting the Party, Republicans seem unable to rein in their crazies.  Now part of that is because the media likes to focus on the far-right nut jobs disproportionally but it’s also because Republican Party mavens are afraid to confront the far right and the evangelical blocs. 

Consequently, Democrats stand for good times; Republicans stand for intolerant redneck Bible thumpers. Sorry, but that’s what the Republicans have devolved to as a political party.   

Democrats don’t claim to be for anything or anyone but the working class. The average Joe and Jane. The mental image is of a hard-working, lower or middle-class family, a couple of kids, in a decent neighborhood where everybody barbeques. The reality of who the Democrats represent is quite different, yet that’s the image they successfully deploy.    

The Republicans claim to be for the working class and small businesses. However, the mental image they convey is as shills for the ultra-religious, ultraconservative, creationist / anti-science fundamentalists who believe the Earth is only 6000 years old, that women should be subservient to men, and that homosexuality is an abomination to God punishable by an eternity in Hell.   

Who would you rather hang out with?  It’s a wonder Democrats don’t win every single election.

That’s not an accurate representation of Republicans, any more than it is of Democrats. But perception equals reality.

Every time the Republicans’ far-right crazies get on their soapbox, it leaves a mark.

All it takes is some Republican male running for office to say rape rarely leads to pregnancy because it’s not God’s will.  Or, some Republican getting a bunch of other Republicans to support legislation to address a “threat” that isn’t one – such as defining gender based on anatomy at birth, or marriage as only being between a man and a woman. It always seems to be Republicans pushing for laws enabling businesses to discriminate based on the owners’ religious beliefs, or allowing elected public officials to refuse to do their jobs for personal religious reasons.   

The Republican Party’s far right and religious right never know when to simply STFU. 

And Republican Party leaders aren’t willing to kick the party’s looney tunes to the curb.  Or put a leash on them. There are a lot of far-left nutcases in the Democrat Party for sure but Democrats at least have the common sense to realize you can’t let the loons be the public face of the party.

Worse, when some ill-informed Republican struts his or her far-right or religious-right creds – and basic ignorance of science, or even the Constitution – far too many other Republicans defend whatever nutso thing they said.

When elected Kentucky official Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples because of her personal religious beliefs – even though the law said she had to – a number of “leading” Republicans leapt to her defense.  Why?  

She was wrong.  She violated her oath of office. There’s really no other possible interpretation of the circumstances. But the champions of the religious and social far right – like Huckabee and that pandering horse’s ass Ted Cruz – tried to make this Bible-thumping bigot into some kind of hero for religious liberty. Exactly whose religious liberty? 

There’s an Uncle Remus and the Tar Baby sense about Republicans as well.  They can’t resist getting sucked into the traps set by the Democrats. Then they flail about making themselves so wedded to a losing issue they look even more ridiculous.  And there’s no way out.

Some city in North Carolina passes an ordinance that all public restrooms need to be gender neutral. It’s a silly ordinance that’s wildly impractical. But leave it to Republicans to escalate this into a scenario where young girls would be forced to shower with adult men, and young boys with pedophiles – at least according to Huckabee and Cruz.

Democrats had a field day with that. They used that as evidence that Republicans hated the transgendered, the new politically favored victims du jour (less than one-tenth of one percent of the population), which in turn meant Republicans hated the entire LGBTQ community.

And that’s exactly how it looked.      

Holy Mother of God.  When will Republicans learn to stop rising to the bait?

Here’s the really, really weird part about Republicans:  Just about every single Republican I know personally – and I know a lot of them – is appalled by the current Republican Party, especially the far right and religious right factions holding it hostage. 

Yet they are equally appalled at the Republican Party establishment, which seems more and more like Democrat-lite. Republicans have had control of both houses of Congress for a long time and have done absolutely nothing except spend as wildly as the Democrats they criticize. Government continues to grow. More regulations are passed every day.  The debt keeps increasing.  Republicans seem impotent to stop the madness. 

Republicans have no solutions for anything. If the Democrats are the party of bad ideas, then the Republicans are the party of no ideas. 

In essence, my Republican friends increasingly find themselves voting against Democrats rather than for Republicans.  Republicans don’t seem to offer anything different or new except that they aren’t as bad as the Democrats. 

Based on their performance over the past few years, the jury’s still out on that.     

Now they have Trump, who beat the Republican Establishment while also beating the far-right and religious-right candidates, to win the nomination of the party. 

He's the wake-up call to the Republican Party. I wonder if they'll listen. 

The problem with Democrats …

(Don’t worry … there will be a follow up posting about the Republicans, too.)

It’s been said that if you’re not a liberal when you’re young you don’t have a heart.  But if you’re not a conservative when you’re older you don’t have a brain.

The Democrat Party has never grown up.  Democrats live in a never-never land of make believe still populated by Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and other wish-granting mythologies. They shut their ears to anything they don’t want to hear. They throw tantrums when they don’t get their way. They repeat the same lies over and over again as if repetition makes something true. They make up stuff when they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

You can’t reason with them, any more than you can with a 4-year-old. 

When you try to pin them down on anything they’ve said or done, they defiantly try to avoid responsibility. They refuse to accept there’s a right or wrong – the only thing that matters is whether you get caught; even then you might have an out on a technicality.

I think that’s what annoys me most about Democrats.

Even when they are caught red-handed they try to find a loophole to exploit. They are big on “intention” as the only measure of guilt. If you can’t prove they “intended” to do something wrong, they expect to get off scot-free.  And proving “intention” is always subject to interpretation.

Ted Kennedy didn’t “intend” for Mary Jo Kopechne to die when he drunkenly drove off the bridge and abandoned her to drown. Elizabeth Warren didn’t “intend” for her claim of Native American lineage to have any impact on her ability to get a job in academia. Obama didn’t “intend” to bow to the Saudi king, or for the $400-million payment for the release of the Iranian hostages to be considered ransom, in violation of long-standing U.S. policy.  Hillary didn’t “intend” to lie to the parents of the Benghazi victims, or to allow classified State Department documents on her unsecured private e-mail server to be vulnerable to hackers.      

That’s the moral gray area in which Democrats thrive.   

Their other way to avoid responsibility is to claim that whatever they’ve done is not all that different from what others have done. So if others got away with it, they should as well.

That’s why you have Hillary now saying that other Secretaries of State used private e-mail. Except, of course, none of them maintained a private e-mail server, nor deleted all their e-mails when asked to turn them over to the State Department. But isn’t it sort of the same?   

It’s childish.  As I said, it’s like trying to reason with a 4-year old.

The truly sad part is that Democrats have managed to convince a large number of Americans that they have their best interests at heart. In reality they don’t; the only thing that matters to them is getting their way regardless of the consequences. 

They’ll do anything to get their way. They’ll lie. They’ll cheat. They’ll even try to rewrite history to provide justification for their actions. Essentially, they are morally and ethically bankrupt; the perfect personification of the United States of Me, and Me the People.

Their traditional supporters are also wholly self-serving. 

Our national motto – for now – may be “in God We Trust,” but the Democrat motto is more aptly described as “What’s In It For Me?” That’s why the Democrats have the unwavering support of the teachers unions, public service employee unions, labor unions in general, Wall Street, and of course class and race warriors. Democrats are the party of big business as well. 

Democrats don’t do anything in the public interest – be that making our military stronger, protecting us from terrorists, providing a business environment that creates more private sector jobs, improving education outcomes, reducing crime, cutting the size of government, or reducing government spending and the national debt – if that conflicts with in any way with their base. 

How Democrats keep winning elections – especially in our decaying urban centers – continues to baffle me.  I can’t think of a single major city with good public schools.  Or one that’s been regularly creating good private sector jobs. Or one that families with children want to move to. 

However, I can name any number of major cities with skyrocketing murder rates, historic high black unemployment rates, massive poverty and dependency on social welfare payments, widespread government corruption, and other objective measures of failure. They are all run by Democrats, and have been for decades. 

Plus, their residents reliably vote for Democrats in every national, state and local election.    

The real question is why? 

One possible answer is that Democrats like things the way they are – no rules, no legal penalties or social stigma for bad behavior, plus more and more free stuff. The poor are made comfortably poor with little or no pressure – or financial incentive, to be honest – to work their way out of poverty when all their basic needs are already being met.  Why bother? 

For white middle- and upper-class Democrats, there’s no need to actually get their hands dirty helping others – government does it all with programs paid for with their tax dollars. Sweet.

So better-off Democrats can live comfortably in their suburbs or their downtown luxury high-rise pied-a-terre and still feel good about helping the underprivileged without having any real contact with them. They don’t have to go into their neighborhoods, send their kids to school with them, find jobs for them, or even associate with them in any way. They’ve outsourced everything – including their white-privilege guilt – to the government.

That’s why so many of the really rich are Democrats; they’d much rather pay someone else – in this case the government – to manage the poor so the underprivileged don’t show up on their doorstep. 

The ultimate problem with Democrats is that despite all their conniving and planning to maintain control by any means just about everything they do in terms of government policy and programs is short term. They don’t even attempt to address underlying problems; everything is a quick fix for the issue du jour – not a long-term solution.

Financial crisis?  Bail out banks and speculators.  Economic contraction? Increase the number of people on food stamps. Soaring national debt?  Raise the debt ceiling.  The growth of ISIS?  Use drones to kill the leaders. Mass murders by Islamic terrorists in San Bernardino? Push gun control legislation. Growing illegal immigration? Limit border enforcement and stop counting.     

Short term solutions and quick fixes are no way to run a country as large and complex as ours. The constant lies, deceit and reliance on specious “technicalities” from the Democrats continue to erode what little faith most Americans have in public officials.

Then again, that’s what Democrats seem to want – no accountability for anything. 

Next, the problem with Republicans …  

Calling a spade a spade …

I bet that made you uncomfortable. Admit it.

This is what political correctness has done to us. 

It’s a harmless phrase about calling something exactly what it is.  But since it includes the word “spade” someone might interpret that word as a racist epithet.  

I’ve had Maine Coon cats as pets. “Coon” makes us all wince, too. So does “Negro,” even though that’s the Spanish word for black, and is an accepted anthropological term. 

For years the jingle for the Flintstones’ cartoon series ended with “We’ll have a gay old time!” I’m sure years from now that will be deemed unacceptable. Someone will find a hidden meaning.   

We live in a time when silly old series like Dukes of Hazzard are no longer shown simply because the car had a Confederate flag on the roof and was called the General Lee.  Huckleberry Finn, Dr. Doolittle, and Little House on the Prairie are being pulled from library shelves along with other classics either for being racist or culturally insensitive.

Where does it end?    

People actually search for sexist and racist innuendos in the strangest places – like the ice cubes in a liquor ad, the bubbles in a cold beer, and even Disney cartoons.  TV ads are scrutinized to ensure no one could possibly be offended.

Meanwhile, it’s perfectly okay to broadcast shows on basic cable during prime time – when kids are watching – that offer up murder, promiscuity, and gratuitous violence. These are sandwiched between commercials for products to treat erectile dysfunction, yeast infections, and herpes outbreaks.  Switch over to premium cable and the kids will miss the awkward-to-explain commercials but will be exposed to far more graphic treatments of sex, physical abuse, drug use and more, along with language that would make a sailor blush. 

Don’t get me wrong – I am no puritan; far from it. But I’m an adult. 

How do you explain erectile dysfunction to a 10 year old? Why should you have to? Why is it politically incorrect to allow children to read stories written more than 100 years ago simply because the words used then have now been deemed “harmful” to others?      

To me, it’s far easier to explain “nigger” Jim – one of the most important characters from Huck Finn, or Injun Joe from Tom Sawyer, in a historical context than it is to explain a man’s inability to maintain an erection, or what “if you have an erection that lasts more than four hours” means.

And that is my fundamental problem with political correctness. It’s solely in the eye of the beholder.  The rules constantly change, depending on the whims of a few.

If you read Huck Finn again today you’d probably flinch the first time you encountered the word “nigger” on a page. But then you’d realize the context was more important than the language used – a runaway child who partners with a runaway slave to escape a physically abusive drunken father. In many ways Huck and Jim are in equal straits. Jim and Huck are both treated like property – Jim by his owner, Widow Douglas; Huck by his alcoholic father, Pap. 

It’s a great story, written in the vernacular of a different time. Millions of kids read it without lasting psychological harm. If anything it probably made them more sympathetic to the plight of black slaves and the discrimination blacks faced. 

And it’s just a story, after all.   

What’s next? The Wizard of Oz was rereleased as The Wiz with a black cast. The latest incarnation of Annie features a black Annie.  The Honeymooners movie – a rip from the Jackie Gleason classic TV show – recast Ralph Kramden with Cedric The Entertainer. 

Why? 

I wonder what the reaction would be if someone re-released Porgy and Bess with an all-white cast? Or the classic Cabin in the Sky?  Should we ban Cinderella because it’s sexist?  What about Snow White – she can only be awakened by the kiss from the male prince?               

We’re all so sensitive now. We’re so afraid using a taboo word or phrase.

Except, apparently, Donald Trump. 

I think part of the appeal of Trump is a reaction to overbearing political correctness.  He has no filters and a lot of people find that refreshing.  So when he talks about radical Islamic terrorists or illegal immigrants it’s perfectly clear what he is saying – there’s no weasel wording about “radicalized jihadists” or “undocumented workers.”

In a speech the other night he addressed African Americans directly – something the Republican Establishment should have done for years but hasn’t. He pointed out the very obvious: African Americans have been voting for decades in virtual lockstep for Democrats, and what has it gotten them?  The inner cities run by Democrats are only getting worse.  Black unemployment remains stubbornly high. School choice – which would offer an avenue out of failing schools for black youth – is consistently blocked by Democrats and their allies in the teachers unions.    

Decades of support for Democrats – and even the election of a black President – have done nothing to help blacks. Trump put it succinctly – Democrats don’t really care about blacks; only their votes. He asked, what have Obama and Democrats like Hillary really done for black Americans, except to take their votes for granted?    

Trump added that if black Americans want real change they shouldn’t keep voting for the same people who’ve done nothing for them for years. 

That’s politically incorrect on so many levels – including criticizing our first black President for doing essentially nothing for the black community – but true. 

He also took on political correctness about Islam and respect for “multiculturalism” when he said:

“Anyone who believes Sharia law supplants American law will not be given an immigrant visa. If you want to join our society, then you must embrace our society, our values and our tolerant way of life. Those who believe in oppressing women, gays, Hispanics, African-Americans and people of different faiths are not welcome to join our country.”

Now, a lot of things Trump gets wrong.  He’s loose with facts, and he has a bad tendency to overreact to any criticism with low blows. 

But one thing is absolutely certain: he doesn’t give a damn about political correctness.  I have to admit I like that about him.  

In an era when safe spaces and microaggressions increasingly dominate public discourse, and when books written in a different time and place are suddenly being banned, there are a lot of us that, quite frankly, are fed up with it all. 

Our Constitution and its Amendments grant us many rights. But not the right to be protected from hurt feelings. You can't do that and maintain a free society. When you limit which words or phrases can be used -- or substitute euphemisms for otherwise factual descriptions -- you not only inhibit freedom of speech, but alter what's being expressed.  When you attempt to censor or ban artistic works -- be they books, TV shows, movies or whatever from years ago -- simply because they might offend someone today, where does it stop?  Who decides?       

That’s the real danger of political correctness.