Why the South Is Rising Again

Robert Stacy McCain posted an article Monday, that is I think, pretty close to required reading. It’s pretty close to the best (if it isn’t) exposition of the differences between those of us trying to make a living and those trying to make a living off us. It’s a bit long, but you’re a fearless bunch, so get going.

“These Democrats will do whatever they have to stop the president.”
“Now they’re making a big deal about statues? Who cares about statues!”

That exchange between two guys in a diner in Long Island, N.Y., was overheard by a former Democratic congressman, Steve Israel, who is no fan of Donald Trump, but who is smart enough to understand why the Charlottesville riot didn’t hurt Trump’s support among his voter base. Rep. Israel said Trump has been “diabolically brilliant” in appealing to the sentiments of working-class whites who elected him.

If two guys eating breakfast in a New York diner get it, and if even a Democrat like Steve Israel gets it, why don’t the media get it?

Ask yourself a few questions: Does the typical “swing” voter who made the difference for Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin consider monuments to Robert E. Lee a major social problem? Whoever you might be, or wherever you live, try imagining yourself as a white working-class resident of suburban Pittsburgh, Detroit or Milwaukee. Is such a person “racist”? Well, if judged by the standards of the elite media, perhaps so, but this doesn’t mean the Trump voter thinks of himself that way; he just doesn’t buy into the liberal elite’s interpretation of the nature and causes of racial problems in America. That white guy in Michigan who lives near the bankrupt crime-plagued disaster of Detroit isn’t likely to believe racism is the universal explanation for every problem facing the black community. No, that white guy in Michigan watches the local TV news out of Detroit, and then he sees the national news about protests over Confederate memorials, and he has the same common-sense reaction as the two old guys in that Long Island diner: “Now they’re making a big deal about statues? Who cares about statues!”

Save your Confederate money, because the South is rising again: “The latest wave of polling shows that the president’s overall job-approval rating has inched upwards since the controversy, that a sizable majority of Americans support maintaining Confederate memorials instead of tearing them down, and that a notable minority agree with the president’s use of ‘both sides’ language during Tuesday’s press conference.”

What we have witnessed since Charlottesville is an “elite Mass Hysteria Bubble,” Professor Glenn Reynolds says. This madness originated in academia, and the news that the University of Texas at Austin has taken down statues of Robert E. Lee and other Confederate figures shows how widespread this elite hysteria has become. My immediate reaction was to wonder if Texas A&M will now remove the statue of Gen. Lawrence Sullivan “Sul” Ross, a much-beloved campus landmark. And what will become of Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas?

The panicky reaction to Charlottesville among certain Republican politicians reflects a deficient understanding of the political landscape. At times of crisis, when the liberal media are trying to gin up a phony controversy to smear Republicans, it would behoove GOP leaders to consult Vox Day’s wise advice in SJWs Always Lie: “Do not try to reason with them” and “Do not apologize.” If you are not a Nazi sympathizer, why panic in response to ludicrous accusations that you are responsible for the actions of a random idiot at a white supremacist rally?

Furthermore, who are you, Mr. Republican Senator, to dismiss the grievances that might cause some misguided people to think that joining a bunch of nutjobs like Vanguard America is a smart thing to do? The liberal media expected Americans to sympathize with Black Lives Matters mobs, while Democrats made excuses for rioters in Ferguson, Baltimore and Charlotte, and yet President Trump was supposed to ignore “antifa” thuggery? Certainly, no Republican politician can endorse Jew-hating or race-baiting, but isn’t it possible that the so-called “alt-right” rally in Charlottesville signified something other than racial hatred?

Pardon me for caring about “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,”without regard to whether I believe their grievances are legitimate, or whether I approve of the “redress” they might seek. If the AFL-CIO convention demands an increase in the minimum wage — which they do, year after year — my advice would be to ignore them. While I might sit here at my computer and blog about why raising the minimum wage is a bad idea, I’m certainly not going to assemble a frantic mob of libertarians and try to storm the AFL-CIO convention hall. Likewise, when neo-Nazis gather to blame an international Zionist conspiracy for everything wrong in the world — which they do, year after year — my advice is to ignore them. Maybe I would write a blog post urging the neo-Nazis to go storm the AFL-CIO convention, although I’d only suggest this as a joke. On the other hand, wouldn’t a massive brawl between Nazi thugs and union goons be an amusing spectacle to watch? But I digress . . .

When President Trump said “both sides” engaged in violence at Charlottesville, he was simply stating a fact, and “facts are stubborn things,” as John Adams famously said, as an attorney arguing in defense of British soldiers accused of killing civilians in the Boston Massacre.

See what I mean? Continue reading here.

Googling Censorship

So, this story is out, and tell me why I’m not surprised. I noticed it from John Hinderaker at PowerLine, and he linked on to PJ Media, which has a long story by Paula Boyard up. I suspect it going to be a long series by many of us on this matter. It’s both frightening and interesting. Here’s some of it.

Google revealed in a blog post that it is now using machine learning to document “hate crimes and events” in America. They’ve partnered with liberal groups like ProPublica, BuzzFeed News, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to make information about “hate events” easily accessible to journalists. And now, there are troubling signs that this tool could be used to ferret out writers and websites that run afoul of the progressive orthodoxy.

In the announcement, Simon Rogers, data editor of Google News Labs, wrote:

Now, with ProPublica, we are launching a new machine learning tool to help journalists covering hate news leverage this data in their reporting.

The Documenting Hate News Index — built by the Google News Lab, data visualization studio Pitch Interactive and ProPublica — takes a raw feed of Google News articles from the past six months and uses the Google Cloud Natural Language API to create a visual tool to help reporters find news happening across the country. It’s a constantly-updating snapshot of data from this year, one which is valuable as a starting point to reporting on this area of news.

The Documenting Hate project launched in response to the lack of national data on hate crimes. While the FBI is required by law to collect data about hate crimes, the data is incomplete because local jurisdictions aren’t required to report incidents up to the federal government.

All of which underlines the value of the Documenting Hate Project, which is powered by a number of different news organisations and journalists who collect and verify reports of hate crimes and events. Documenting Hate is informed by both reports from members of the public and raw Google News data of stories from across the nation.

On the surface, this looks rather innocuous. It’s presented by Google as an attempt to create a database of hate crimes — information that should be available with a quick Google search, it should be noted. But a quick glance at the list of partners for this project should raise some red flags:

The  ProPublica-led coalition includes  The Google News Lab,  Univision News, the  New York Times,  WNYC,  BuzzFeed News,  First Draft, Meedan,  New America Media,  The Root,  Latino USA,  The Advocate, 100 Days in Appalachia and  Ushahidi. The coalition is also working with civil-rights groups such as the  Southern Poverty Law Center, and schools such as the  University of Miami School of Communications.

ProPublica poses as a middle-of-the-road non-profit journalistic operation, but in reality, it’s funded by a stable of uber-liberal donors, including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and Herb and Marion Sandler, billionaire former mortgage bankers whose Golden West Financial Corp. allegedly targeted subprime borrowers with “pick-a-pay” mortgages that led to toxic assets that were blamed for the collapse of Wachovia. The Southern Poverty Law Center, of course, is infamous for targeting legitimate conservatives groups, branding them as “hate groups” because they refuse to walk in lockstep with the progressive agenda. And it goes with out saying that The New York Times and BuzzFeed News lean left.

Tech Companies Begin Blacklisting Alt-Right Sites, Purging Them from the Internet

A perusal of the raw data that’s been compiled thus far on hate stories shows articles from a wide array of center-right sites, including The Daily Caller, Breitbart News, The Washington Times, National Review, and the Washington Examiner. It also includes many articles from liberal sites like BuzzFeed News and The New York Times. One story from PJ Media’s Bridget Johnson is included in the list. It’s a report about a Sikh ad campaign aimed at reducing hate crimes against members of their faith community. Many of the articles are simply reports about alleged hate crimes from sources running the gamut of the political spectrum.

ProPublica vows to diligently track “hate incidents” in the coming months. “Everyday people — not just avowed ‘white nationalists’ — intimidate, harass, humiliate and even harm their fellow Americans because of the color of their skin, how they worship or who they love.” [Emphasis added] Note that they’re not just focusing on hate “crimes.”

It’s easy enough to figure out the direction of this project by taking it for a test drive. A search for “Scalise” returned four results, one of which didn’t even mention Steve Scalise, the congressman who was shot by a crazed leftist in June. A search for “Trump” during the same time period yielded more than 200 results. A search of the raw data resulted in 1178 hits for Trump and not a single mention of Scalise.

Note that Google, which recently fired an employee for expressing his counter-progressive opinions, thinks this information could be used to “help journalists covering hate news leverage this data in their reporting.” What do they mean by “leverage this data”? They don’t say, but an email sent to several conservative writers by a ProPublica reporter may give us some indication. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer along with some others received this from ProPublica “reporter” Lauren Kirchner:

I am a reporter at ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative newsroom in New York. I am contacting you to let you know that we are including your website in a list of sites that have been designated as hate or extremist by the American Defamation League or the Southern Poverty Law Center. We have identified all the tech platforms that are supporting websites on the ADL and SPLC lists.

We would like to ask you a few questions:

1) Do you disagree with the designation of your website as hate or extremist? Why?

2) We identified several tech companies on your website: PayPal, Amazon, Newsmax, and Revcontent. Can you confirm that you receive funds from your relationship with those tech companies? How would the loss of those funds affect your operations, and how would you be able to replace them?

3) Have you been shut down by other tech companies for being an alleged hate or extremist web site? Which companies?

4) Many people opposed to sites like yours are currently pressuring tech companies to cease their relationships with them – what is your view of this campaign? Why?

In other words, nice website you’ve got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.

There is an update to that story dated August 19th.

ProPublica came out today with the expected hit piece on Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, and others they disagree with, repeating the Southern Poverty Law Center’s smears and legitimizing the dishonest group’s hate list. In the article titled “Despite Disavowals, Leading Tech Companies Help Extremist Sites Monetize Hate,” Lauren Kirchner along with two fellow journalistsactivists documented the recent blacklisting of “hate websites” by tech companies and, although they didn’t come right out and say it, strongly implied that this should be the norm. They accept without question the hate designations bestowed by the SPCL and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The article leaves no doubt that ProPublica — which is working with Google, remember — wants to see more blacklisting. They will not rest until every one of the names on SPLC’s dubious 900-member hate list is purged from the Internet. Make no mistake. They are marshaling forces to pressure advertisers and tech providers to take conservative sites down. Just take a look at this list of Christian groups that made the listbecause they haven’t jumped on the LGBTQ bandwagon. […]

Do read it all at Is Google Working with Liberal Groups to Snuff Out Conservative Websites?

In a related matter, one of the reasons, beyond simple convenience, that I’ve stayed all these years with WordPress.com is their often pledged word, “WordPress and its parent company Automatic do not censor, period.” I’ve always found that to be true. But perhaps that just changed as well. From Fast Company.

“Fascist” is often an epithet used to demean an opponent, but for alt-right organization Vanguard America, it’s a badge of honor. As of last night, the group lacks a website where it can proclaim that message. Going to its URL bloodandsoil.org leads to a message from site host WordPress that reads, “This blog has been archived or suspended in accordance with our Terms of Service.”

That’s somewhat surprising. A few months ago, I asked WordPress about its hosting of Vanguard America, United Dixie White Knights of the KKK, and several other far-right organizations for a story about hate sites and their tech providers. The stock answer was that WordPress and its parent company Automatic do not censor, period.

Vanguard America’s website as of last night.

Now mind, I’ve never been to that website, for me they are beyond the pale. But freedom of speech means the freedom to offend. And they have just as much right to speak as I do, or for that matter as <insert violent left-wing organization here> does.Gives me a sort of chilly feeling and reminds me that it is about time to back up the website again, out of reach of all the hypocrites.

 

Eclipse Day

Yep, today is the big day. For me, it’s the second time in my life that I get to see (if it’s not cloudy) a total solar eclipse. I’m not overwhelmingly excited, but it is very interesting, and yes, I do have my glasses ready! 🙂

Here’s a bit about the legends surrounding the events from around the world, from National Geographic. Enjoy – And don’t forget your glasses, how will you read NEO if you’re blind, after all!

video.nationalgeographic.com/video/101-videos/solar-eclipse-101

Viking sky wolves, Korean fire dogs, and African versions of celestial reconciliation—these are only some of the many ways people around the world, and through the ages, have sought to explain solar eclipses.

People in equatorial Africa will be treated to a rare view of a total solar eclipse this Sunday, November 3. Those living on the eastern North American coast, northern South America, southern Europe, or the Middle East, will get to see a partial solar eclipse.

“If you do a worldwide survey of eclipse lore, the theme that constantly appears, with few exceptions, is it’s always a disruption of the established order,” said E. C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. That’s true of both solar and lunar eclipses.

Join Nat Geo and Airbnb #LiveFrom a geodesic dome on August 20 to talk to astrophysicist Jedidah Isler and photographer Babak Tafreshi about the science behind the upcoming total solar eclipse.

“People depend on the sun’s movement,” Krupp said. “[It’s] regular, dependable, you can’t tamper with it. And then, all of a sudden, Shakespearean tragedy arrives and time is out of joint. The sun and moon do something that they shouldn’t be doing.”

What that disruption means depends on the culture, and not everyone views an eclipse as a bad thing, said Jarita Holbrook, a cultural astronomer at the University of the Western Cape in Bellville, South Africa.

Some see it as a time of terror, while others look at a solar eclipse as part of the natural order that deserves respect, or as a time of reflection and reconciliation. (Related: “Pictures: Solar Eclipse Creates Ring of Fire.”)

SWALLOWING FIRE

Many cultures explain eclipses, both solar and lunar, as a time when demons or animals consume the sun or the moon, said Krupp.

“The Vikings saw a pair of sky wolves chasing the sun or the moon,” said the Griffith Observatory astronomer. When one of the wolves caught either of the shining orbs, an eclipse would result. (Read “Vikings and Native Americans” in National Geographic magazine.)

“In Vietnam, a frog or a toad [eats] the moon or the sun,” Krupp added, while people of the Kwakiutl tribe on the western coast of Canada believe that the mouth of heaven consumes the sun or the moon during an eclipse.

In fact, the earliest word for eclipse in Chinese, shih, means “to eat,” he said.

Keep reading at Solar Eclipse Myths From Around the World

Satire (I hope) | Let’s repeal America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution

My friend Danmillerinpanama, when he is not doing whatever he does, and doing it well, has been known to indulge in a bit of satire, with outstanding result. It’s something I appreciate. but don’t do well. So here’s his latest effort.  Let’s repeal America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

The American Declaration of Independence was written by a vile slave owner, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The American Constitution was written, at least in part, by vile racists and other “America Firsters.” They tried, but fortunately failed, to prevent noncitizens from exercising their sacred right to vote in national elections. Both demonic documents must be repealed and we must rejoin England, nay even better the European Union, to signal our virtuous multicultural nature and emphatic rejection of all evil past and present.

Antifa, Black Lives (only) Matter, La Raza, adherents to Islam (the Religion of Peace and tolerance), CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and their other supporters — proponents of truth, justice, and true equality for all — will appreciate our efforts even more than they appreciate the removal of all artifacts of American history associated with our racist Wars for Independence and the Confederacy. To please them even more, we must expunge from our history — and from our minds as well — all residual evil thoughts. This is necessary for us to have freedom of proper speech and proper thought (only), as do the fortunate citizens of China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and other glorious progressive nations.

Enjoy the rest, and help Dan and I ensure that it remains satire.

Saturday Pictures; Collusion Edition

Saturday again, it is. And that means time for the weekly roundup of pictures, cartoons, and maybe a video or two. Enjoy!

Speaking of actual history, and do notice how lonely Britain was.

 

Have a better next week!

 

 

The Anti-Trump Bourbons

There is a new article out from Victor Davis Hanson, and as always it is exceptional. Let’s take a look.

Just seven months into Donald Trump’s administration we are already bombarded with political angling and speculations about the 2020 presidential race. No one knows in the next three years what can happen to a volatile Trump presidency or his psychotic enemies, but for now such pronouncements of doom seem amnesiac if not absurd.

Things are supposedly not going well politically with Donald Trump lately, after a series of administration firings, internecine White House warring, and controversial tweets. A Gallup Poll has him at only a 34 percent positive rating, and losing some support even among Republicans (down to 79 percent)—although contrarily a recent Rasmussen survey shows him improving to the mid-forties in popularity. Nonetheless, we are warned that even if Trump is lucky enough not to be impeached, if he is not removed under the 25th Amendment or the Emoluments Clause, if he does not resign in shame, even if he has the stamina to continue under such chaos, even if he seeks reelection and thus even more punishment, he simply cannot win in 2020.

In answer to such assumed expertise, one could answer with Talleyrand’s purported quip about our modern-day Bourbons that “They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”

Namely, Trump’s enraged critics still do not grasp that he is a reflection of, not a catalyst for, widespread anger and unhappiness with globalization, interventionist foreign policy, Orwellian political correctness, identity politics, tribalism, open borders, and a Deep State that lectures and condemns but never lives the consequences of its own sermonizing.

In particular, the current conundrum and prognostications ignore several constants.

Do Americans Really Believe that Pollsters and the Media Have Reformed?

One, despite the recent Gallup poll, most polls still show Trump’s at about a 40 percent approval rating—nearly the same level of support as shortly before the November 2016 election. That purported dismal level of support is pronounced to be near fatal, when in fact it is not.

That is an important point. Why on earth would anybody believe either the partisan press or the (pretty much) partisan pollsters. They haven’t been right about anything in … (well, I don’t remember, how did Dewey’s Presidency go again).

Do Americans Really Believe the Messenger Nullifies the Message?

As in 2016, many of those who voted for Trump would prefer that he curb his tweets, clean up his language, sleep eight instead of five hours, and follow all the conventional-wisdom admonitions offered about his misbehavior. But that said, nearly half of the country is probably still willing to overlook his eccentricities for several reasons.

Trump now has a presidential record of eight months. Despite the media’s neglect of it, one can sense changes by just getting out and traveling the country. Even in rural central California, one can feel that it really is true that there is a 76 percent drop in illegal immigration, and immigration law is being taken seriously as never before.

It was no accident that the National Council of La Raza without warning dropped its racialist nomenclature and is now UnidosUS (“Together, US”). Why is the Democratic Party now feigning a focus on class, not racial, issues with its new “Better Deal” FDR/Truman-like echo?

Lot in that, isn’t there? We are, for the most part, smart enough to understand that Trump’s Tweeting, if it has any meaning at all, is his method of bypassing the media, which is why they hate it so, especially because it is effective. It’s also one way he controls the narrative, by trolling the Democrats, the Anti-Trump Republicans, and the media (Yes, I did threepeat myself there, there is not a hairsbreadth of difference between them, and we could add more such as the deep state and others).

The trade deficit is even shrinking and lots of companies have announced relocations to the United States, in reaction to record cheap energy costs and a perceived favorable business environment. And all this comes at a time when the United States is neither seeking optional military interventions nor backing away from thuggish aggression, but is trying to thread the needle in restoring deterrence along the lines of “principled realism.”

The point is not just that no one can know the ultimate fate of the Trump agenda, but rather that so far media hysteria and congressional calcification have not stopped perceived conservative progress. The bottom line is that Trump did prove to be far more conservative than Republican establishmentarians had forecast. To his supporters, Trump’s message is usually distinguished from Trump, the messenger. Politically that means pragmatist supporters can focus on his agenda not his tweets, while Trump’s die-hard voters like his Twitter combativeness, viewing it as a long overdue media comeuppance. […]

One of the strangest ironies of the present age is that Trump’s populism (e.g., “our farmers”, “our vets”, “our coal miners”, “our workers”), which saved the Senate and House for Republicans and delivered the greatest Republican majorities on the local and state level since the 1920s, is either ridiculed or ignored.

Yet the more the economy picks up, the more the administration prunes back the regulatory state, and the more the United States restores deterrence, the shriller will be the argument that Trump’s tweets and behavior nullify solid achievement. Just watch.

Will the New Democratic/Progressive Party Really Rebuild the Blue Wall?

Fourth and finally, the less publicized split in the Democratic Party is probably worse than that of its Republican counterpart. The latter did not stop Trump’s victory in the Electoral College, the former helped ensure Hillary’s “Blue Wall” collapsed.

Continue reading The Anti-Trump Bourbons: Learning and Forgetting Nothing in Time for 2020. As always it’s quite wonderful, as one would expect from one of America’s greatest minds. So enjoy, and take comfort in his words, a fair amount of damage has been caused, but nothing is beyond repair, let alone America. Especially as long as men like VDH are writing the truth.