Columnist.
This week, Rachel Dolezal, the former local head of the Spokane NAACP, a lecturer in Africana studies at Eastern Washington University, and a proud black woman, was revealed to be a non-proud white woman. She lied about her personal history: She said her parents whipped her when they lived in South Africa, that she underwent rape and physical abuse, that the KKK targeted her with swastikas and nooses. No evidence exists to support any of this. Her parents point out that Dolezal has no black ancestry, and grew up in a Montana home as the child of two white parents. Nonetheless, Dolezal insists she is black. "I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and black curly hair," she said to Today. "It's a little more complex than me identifying as black or answering a question of, are you black or white?"
This week, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed a significant drop in the number of Americans identifying as conservative, and a significant rise in the number of Americans identifying as liberal. As the Journal described, "For the first time since 2010, conservatives are no longer a plurality: 38 percent identify as moderates, compared with 33 percent who identify as conservative and 26 percent as liberal." The Journal, like Gallup, attributes the drop in conservative identification to increased allegiance to leftist social positions, particularly among young people and women. Predictably enough, the Republican establishment agrees with this analysis. For years, they have been claiming that the only path to national victory stands in de-emphasizing social issues and emphasizing fiscal ones. After all, as they point out, Gallup shows that conservatives beat leftists on economic issues by a margin of 39 percent to 19 percent. If Republicans simply drop social issues altogether, the logic goes, voters will be able to move into the economic realm, where conservatives dominate.
My grandfather was deeply mentally ill. He spent nearly a year in a psychiatric institution after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder; he heard the radio talking to him. He became suicidal. He spent years battling the condition, until he was prescribed lithium. For the next several decades, the medication brought his mental illness under control. Nothing would have been crueler to my grandfather than had society told him that his delusions were correct — that the radio was, in fact, talking to him; that the curtains were indeed threatening him; that he was normal, and that it was the stereotypes of the world inducing his paranoia. Yet that is the view of the anti-science left that this week declared former Olympic champion Bruce Jenner a woman. Vanity Fair led the way, featuring Jenner wearing a one-piece corset, Photoshopped and made up beyond nearly all recognition. The 22-page profile of Jenner insists that everyone call him Caitlyn, addresses him as "she," and explains that despite the fact that Jenner has all male genitalia and all male genetics, he is in fact a woman — even though the writer explains his own confusion as to gender pronoun usage.
This week, iconoclastic master Ann Coulter released her new book, "Adios, America!" The book has already been labeled racist by the mainstream left, which fears her argument, and will undoubtedly be marginalized by the mainstream right, which doesn't want to hear it. Coulter's thesis is simple: Since Senator Teddy Kennedy, D-Mass., rammed through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, America's immigration system has transformed from a device for enriching the nation for both native-born and immigrants into a scheme for importing anti-American voters. What made America America, Coulter argues, was a particular blend of Protestant religion and European civilization that led to the rise of the greatest nation in human history. What will unmake America, she continues, is a deliberate attempt to poison that blend with a flood of immigrants with wildly different values.
Last week, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly announced that Pamela Geller, the woman who sponsored a draw Muhammad event in Texas, threatened America's national security. Geller, said O'Reilly, "spurred a violent attack." He continued, "Insulting the entire Muslim world is stupid. ... It does not advance the cause of liberty or get us any closer to defeating the savage jihad." On the same network, Juan Williams stated that Geller "engaged in gratuitous offensive behavior that led to the deaths of two people." The New York Times editorialized that Geller "achieved her provocative goal" with her "exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom." Geller, the narrative goes, should never have encouraged people to draw Muhammad because it was "provocative." To which the answer should be: So what? Women attending school in Afghanistan "provokes" radical Muslims into throwing acid on their faces, but that does not mean that women should not go to school in Afghanistan or be condemned for doing so.
On Sunday, Democratic Maryland State Senator Catherine Pugh lavished praise on state's attorney Marilyn Mosby, who just days before announced that her office would file a bevy of charges against all six officers involved in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray. Gray's death drove protests and riots throughout Baltimore, serving as the spark to ignite local rage, and focusing national attention on the state of inner city black Americans. Pugh said that Mosby "really set the bar for the nation in terms of how these sorts of cases ought to be looked at." Pugh wasn't Mosby's only conspicuous fan. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who has represented the failing city of Baltimore for decades, said, "Her integrity is impeccable without a doubt." The widow of Eric Garner, the New York City man who died after police officers used a submission hold on him, said, "I feel like the same scenario that happened in Baltimore also happened with my husband. I would just like to see something done." Race-baiter and riot-stoker extraordinaire Al Sharpton stated, "We cannot keep playing Russian roulette on whether or not we get a good prosecutor or not." Crowds in Baltimore reportedly celebrated Mosby's indictment of the officers. The Huffington Post called her "objectively badass." Fusion called her "America's favorite prosecutor."
Hours after residents of Baltimore, Maryland, set the city aflame, President Barack Obama took to the Rose Garden to explain in professorial style just why America, under his administration, keeps watching young black men loot buildings and attack police officers. "We have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals — primarily African-American, often poor — in ways that have raised troubling questions. And it comes up, it seems like, once a week now, or once every couple weeks," Obama said, proclaiming that police brutality against blacks amounted to a "slow-rolling crisis." He added, "This is not new, and we shouldn't pretend that it's new." Obama's disgusting implication was, of course, that a massive trend of police violence mirroring the racist police violence of the 1950s has broken out across America. That's false. Your chances in America of being killed by hornet attack are 1 in 56,000; your chances in America of being killed by a police officer if you are a black man are 1 in 60,000. Nonetheless, Obama continued by suggesting that police forces had to "do some soul searching," that "some communities ... have to do some soul searching," and that America as a whole had to do some "soul searching."
Headless bodies lie in the sand. Above those corpses stand the black-clad minions of ISIS, outlined against the coastline of Libya. This is the second video in three months depicting Islamic terrorists cutting the heads off of Christian captives. Bodies float in the Mediterranean Sea, face down. Twelve Christian bodies, thrown from a rubber boat by 15 Muslims. Their launch point: Libya. Approximately 700 more bodies float face down in the Mediterranean, victims of a smuggling operation gone wrong when their rickety craft sunk as it made its way to Italy. Its source location: Libya. Four American bodies in Benghazi, Libya.
On Tuesday, CNN ran what should have been a puff piece in its travel section about the wonders of visiting Cuba. The title of the piece spelled out the angle: "Why you should travel to Cuba before it looks like everywhere else." The authors, James Williams and Daisy Carrington, write, "Cuba is not like other places, or rather, not like anywhere that exists today. To some outsiders, it looks firmly stuck in the 1950s. Vintage cars roam the streets, the landscape is absent of strip malls and global chains, and the buildings — though crumbling — hark back to a grander time." The authors conclude, "It is these throwbacks that lend Havana, the country's capital, an undeniable charm. A charm that, some worry, is in peril once the U.S. embargo lifts." Who are these unnamed sources who worry deeply about the charm of poverty degrading into the soulless maw of capitalist enterprise? The left speaks of poverty with the same fervent attachment with which a lover speaks of his partner's quirks. Poverty is charming. Poverty ennobles. Poverty is Mimi from "La Boheme," Fantine from "Les Miserables," Che Guevara (the icon, not the mass murderer) and Gandhi (the icon, not the shamanistic wife beater). Poverty is artists struggling for their bread while crafting masterpieces.
"When yet another hand clamped over her mouth, Jackie bit it, and the hand became a fist that punched her in the face. 'Grab its motherf---ing leg,' she heard a voice say. And that's when Jackie knew she was going to be raped." Thus started a 9,000-word article in Rolling Stone magazine about the supposed rash of campus rapes across America. The writer, Sabrina Erdely, began with the horrifying story of Jackie, a college girl who found herself raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia while two other men, including her date, "gave instruction and encouragement." The University of Virginia banned Phi Kappa Psi from campus. People vandalized the frat house, hurling rocks through windows and covering the premises with graffiti. Commentators and politicians all over the nation bloviated gravely about the deep problem of sexual brutality on campus. Those who questioned Jackie's story were accused of not taking rape seriously enough; to demand facts equated to shaming a rape victim.
Last week, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a law with the same name as one signed on the federal level by President Bill Clinton in 1993, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the presumptive next Senate minority leader. Naturally, Pence found himself on the wrong end of a partisan barrage from ABC News' George Stephanopoulos for signing that law the following Sunday. It sure is nice to be a Democrat. What exactly does the law state? The Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana states that "a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability." That rule does not apply only if the government's action "is in furtherance of a compelling government interest" and is also "the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest." If government does act against someone in violation of that person's religious principles, he or she can assert that violation "as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding."
There is a unicorn lair in North Korea. We know this because the Dear Leader of North Korea, Kim Jung Un, tells us so. According to the official Korean Central News Agency, archaeologists have "recently reconfirmed" the existence of the unicorn lair dating back to the Koryo Kingdom (918-1392). President Obama has his own unicorn lair. It is the world as it exists inside his head, Walter Mitty-style. In no way does this world resemble reality; it is a bizarre fantasyland of Obama's own construction, in which he is all-powerful, all-knowing and always right. It is a world in which his foreign policy predictions come true, in which his policies are successful, in which the flaming world he has helped create sparkles rather than burns.
Hillary Clinton is not a pleasant human being, by all available evidence. She does not convince; she browbeats. She does not discuss; she lectures. Her laugh issues mechanically from her mouth, resonating with a close-but-not-quite verisimilitude that occupies the space known as the uncanny valley. If anyone were to kidnap Hillary Clinton and replace her with a robot of Hillary Clinton, it would take a short circuit for America to realize it. Her campaign slogan should be: "Remarkably Lifelike!" All of which makes her undeclared candidacy so much more awkward than that of others. Nobody quite knows why Hillary is running, other than that she feels she is owed the presidency based on her rough life growing up rich in Chicago, attending Wellesley and Yale Law before settling down as first lady of Arkansas and then first lady of the United States and then senator and secretary of state. Even Hillary doesn't seem to know. The runup to her campaign has been a prolonged shrug. Which is why she is now trotting out the children.
Last week, Dr. Ben Carson stepped onto a political mine -- really, jumped onto it with both feet -- when he answered a question from CNN's Chris Cuomo about the nature of homosexuality. "You think being gay is a choice?" Cuomo asked Carson, after Carson rightly stated that being black and being gay are two very different phenomena. "Absolutely," replied Carson. He then went on to explain, "A lot of people who go into prison straight go into prison straight -- and when they come out, they're gay." Carson's unstated line of reasoning is perfectly logical. When Cuomo asked Carson whether he thinks "being gay is a choice," Carson interpreted that question to mean: "Is homosexual behavior a choice." To that, the answer is obviously yes, since *all* non-reflexive behavior is essentially a choice. Cuomo, however, took his question to mean: "Is homosexual inclination a choice." To that, the answer is obviously no -- it is either a byproduct of biology or environment. Feelings, in other words, are not choices; it is possible that some feelings can be shaped by behavior, but as a general rule, feelings are not chosen. Behaviors, however, are chosen. Thus, being black -- a non-behavioral characteristic -- is not like being gay or being straight, in the sense that one cannot choose not to be black, while one chooses one's own sexual behavior.
On Monday, The New York Times reported that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton never -- not once -- used her official State Department email address for her official communications. Instead, she utilized a private email account, effectively protecting her emails from public scrutiny. The Washington Post then broke the news that Hillary had registered her email address the same day her confirmation hearings for secretary of state began. In other words, Hillary knew she would be secretary of state conducting official business, and coincidentally opened a private email account at the same time to guard her from Freedom of Information Act requests. Sure, Hillary Clinton has a nasty history with crucial documents going missing -- she is the only first lady in American history fingerprinted by the FBI, and the FBI found missing documents with her fingerprints on them in the White House personal quarters. But the media SuperFriends quickly activated to protect Hillary. Glenn Thrush of Politico tweeted that Hillary must have relied on incompetent staffers and lawyers. Ron Fournier of National Journal tut-tutted that this made her "no better" than Republicans. Of course, the media also ignored Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman handing millions to the Clinton charity just before Hillary's big run.
This week, the media broke news that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, at an event attended by prospective Republican presidential candidate Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, that he does not believe President Barack Obama "loves America." This isn't news. Barack Obama doesn't love free enterprise, believes founding philosophy was fatally flawed and sees the American people as rubes with antiquated religious and racist tendencies. Sure, we can all agree that Obama likely loves America's scenery; perhaps he loves America, but doesn't like her very much. But that's not what Giuliani was talking about, and everyone knows it. But in any case, Giuliani wasn't the media's true target. The true target was Walker.
In the aftermath of the killing of a man at a Copenhagen synagogue by a member of the Religion of Peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "This wave of attacks is expected to continue. Jews deserve security in every country, but we say to our Jewish brothers and sisters, Israel is your home." Russian emigre Natan Sharansky echoed Netanyahu's call, stating, "There is no future for Jews in western Europe." In response, European leaders shouted down Netanyahu. "We know there are doubts, questions across the community," said French President Francois Hollande, who was elected with in excess of 93 percent of the Muslim vote. "I will not just let what was said in Israel pass, leading people to believe that Jews no longer have a place in Europe and France, in particular." The same week, Jewish tombstones were spray-painted by the hundreds in eastern France.
This week, President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he proceeded to inform an audience of Christians that they ought not judge radical Muslims currently engaged in beheading journalists, defenestrating gays, crucifying children, and engaging in mass rape of women. Why, pray tell, should Christians remain silent? Because, Obama informed them with Ivy League pride, "Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. So it is not unique to one group or one religion." At some point in our collective history, our ancestors engaged in tribal warfare and cannibalized their fallen enemies. So shut up about the Nazis, you hypocrites.
This week, controversy broke out over whether state governments have the power to require parents to have their children vaccinated. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, no stranger to compelling his citizens to stay off the roads during blizzards, announced that he had some sympathy for the anti-vaccination position: "I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So that's the balance the government has to decide." Kentucky Senator Rand Paul doubled down on Christie's remarks, stating, "I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental orders after vaccines. ...The state doesn't own your children." Christie and Paul aren't the only politicians sympathizing with anti-vaccination fanatics; in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama repeated widely debunked claims of links between autism and vaccination. Skepticism of vaccination crosses party lines, unfortunately -- although the most organized anti-vaccination resistance comes from the New Agey left in places like Santa Monica and Marin County, who worry more about infinitesimal amounts of formaldehyde in vaccines than about death by polio.
In 1856, the Whig Party ran former president Millard Fillmore for president of the United States. Fillmore had last run in 1852; he'd been denied the nomination as the party fell apart over the issue of slavery. In an attempt to bring the party back together that year, the party nominated General Winfield Scott, who promptly imploded in the general election against Democrat Franklin Pierce. "We are slain!" shouted Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio. "The party is dead, dead, dead!" Free Soiler Charles Sumner wrote, "Now is the time for a new organization. Out of this chaos the party of freedom must arise." Most of the Whig leaders thought this talk overwrought. They insisted that the party would live on. Senator William Seward of New York said, "No new party will arise, nor will any old one fall." Seward thought that if the party elided the slavery issue, it could hold together. But by the same token, without the slavery issue, there was truly no difference between the two parties. As future president Rutherford B. Hayes wrote, "The real grounds of difference upon important political questions no longer correspond with party lines. The progressive Whig is nearer in sentiment to the radical Democrat than the radical Democrat is to the 'fogy' of his own party; vice versa." The party had become a party of convenience rather than principle.
