Columnist.
What a way to begin the Democratic National Committee's convention in Philadelphia. And where to start with the WikiLeaks leak of nearly 20,000 DNC emails? The emails by and between members of the DNC could us show that, no, Bernie Sanders was not paranoid when he insisted that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and her organization, engineered and manipulated the campaign to ensure the victory of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The eruption by the Sanders supporters over her obvious bias forced Wasserman Shultz to tender her resignation a day before their convention opened, to be replaced by interim Chair Donna Brazile. Now we know, if we didn't already, why the DNC scheduled debates on nights when they knew viewership would be light.
The fascinating thing about Hillary Clinton's lie that "African-Americans" are disproportionately killed by police is that she continues peddling it after the murders of three law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge, which followed the ambush killings of five officers in Dallas. In both cases, the murderers were black men apparently convinced that the cops were out to get black people and who, therefore, sought to exact revenge.
A new study by a Harvard economist, who happens to be black, finds cops *less* likely to use deadly force on black suspects vs. white. Angered by the deaths of Freddie Gray and Michael Brown, black men in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ferguson, Missouri, respectively, who died at the hands of the police, professor Roland Fryer Jr. said, "You know, protesting is not my thing. But data is my thing." So he sought to answer the question. Do the police, in fact, use lethal force against black suspects more than they do against whites?
Where to start with actor Jesse Williams' widely praised rant on police brutality and white racism delivered at this year's Black Entertainment Television awards show? To his enthusiastic audience, Williams reeled off lie after lie, all in the name of black "resistance" over the "oppressor" — meaning anyone he believes benefits from "this invention called whiteness." Time magazine called his discourse "powerful." Where are fact-checkers when the fact-devoid desperately need fact-checking? After all, Williams practically *begged* to be fact-checked when he said, "What we've been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to de-escalate, disarm and not kill white people every day."
One of life's enduring mysteries is why the left — against overwhelming evidence to the contrary — insists on more taxation, more government spending and more government control over the private sector. Europe's socialism has, over the last several decades, generated few private sector jobs and lags in growth when compared to the United States with its comparatively lighter hand of government. What does it take to show that, good intentions aside, government bureaucrats cannot spend money as efficiently and as effectively as the people who produce the money? The most recent example is Venezuela. Hugo Chavez's handpicked successor now presides over a country with food lines and soaring inflation, all directly attributable to the pursuit of a socialist paradise where a benevolent and enlightened government redistributes wealth from the greedy few to the entitled many. It ... does ... not ... work.
After finally getting the endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Donald Trump frittered the goodwill away. Trump called a judge born in Indiana a "Mexican." Rather than apologize, Trump, at first, doubled and triple down, until finally saying that he didn't mean that the judge's ethnicity equaled bias. That Trump fired his campaign manager shows that he's not oblivious to criticism. Reportedly, his children came to him and told him that now ex-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski must go. Trump's critics had called him immune to change, and Lewandowski's dismissal shows that they were wrong. Most, of course, now say this won't matter, revealing that their dislike of Trump had little to do with his campaign manager.
It did not take long for President Barack Obama to inject a plea for more gun control in his reaction to the Orlando terror massacre.
"Man up, Mr. Trump. Apologize. Then bring up Sotomayor."
Donald Trump should apologize. It's one thing to accuse a judge of bias. It's another to refer to a judge — as Donald Trump did to the man presiding over the Trump University cases — as a "Mexican." The judge, Gonzalo Curiel, happens to have been born in Indiana. But as far as Trump is concerned, this does not make him a Hoosier. Yet as Trump has doubled and tripled down on referring to the judge's ethnicity as grounds for bias, his lawyers have, at least so far, not filed a motion for recusal.
"To take from some and give to others reduces the initiative of both the giver and the givee."
Is there a more brain-dead concept than to empower the government to fight "income inequality"? What sane, normal, rational human being thinks that human talent, drive, interests and opportunity can — or should — result in equal outcomes? Despite my love of athletics, I knew in third grade that my friend, Keith, could run much faster than I could. For two years I played Little League ball, and I got better at it. But no matter how hard I tried or how many hours I spent, I could not hit, run or throw as well as my friend Benji.
When socialist Hugo Chavez became president of Venezuela after the 1998 election, he promised a path he described as "revolutionary," the same word Bernie Sanders uses for his "movement" to fight "income inequality." Useful American idiots like actors Sean Penn and Danny Glover, who got rich making movies for capitalist Hollywood, sang Chavez's praises. Penn described him as "one of the most important forces we have had on this planet."
Donald Trump has reason to be reluctant to release his tax returns. In a New York Times piece about Ben Rhodes, President Obama's deputy national security adviser, Rhodes cynically explains that today's journalism consists of young people whom he flat-out describes as ignorant. "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old," Rhodes said, "and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That's a sea change. They literally know nothing."
For the umpteenth time, Donald Trump is no conservative. He is an economic populist. When asked to name the top three functions of government, he said national security, health care and education. Two of the three named "duties" one does not find in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. This puts him exactly where the country is politically — center-left. Americans talk the talk as to their alleged concern for ever-increasing debt. But when asked, "Which programs to cut?" the same complainers look as blank as Homer Simpson when asked to help Bart with his algebra.
North Carolina's new public facilities law simply says that in all government-controlled locations, offices and facilities, any bathroom that accommodates more than one person at a time must be assigned to a single gender. Men shall use the men's bathroom and women the women's room, based on the sex indicated on their birth certificates. As for those who've undergone sex-change operations and have had their birth certificate reissued to indicate their new gender, the bill will allow them to use the bathroom as determined by the sex on the now-changed birth certificate. That's it.
ESPN fired baseball analyst and former All-Star Curt Schilling for mocking the debate about the North Carolina public facilities law. On his Facebook page, Schilling posted a meme (a graphic) with the picture of an aged and overweight man dressed in just enough women's clothing to prevent flagrant violation of public exposure laws. The photo caption read: "Let him in to the restroom with your daughter or else you're a narrow-minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!" Under the meme, Schilling wrote: "A man is a man no matter what they call themselves. I don't care what they are, who they sleep with, men's room was designed for the penis, women's not so much. Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic."
JAYBerns: jobless, angry, young Bernie Sanders supporters. Those aged 18 to 24 have seen their incomes decline under President Barack Obama. Worse, they were one of his most reliable voting blocs. Yet Hillary Clinton, the Democrats' likely 2016 presidential candidate, says, "I don't think President Obama gets the credit he deserves for digging us out of the ditch Republicans put us in"? Obama, when asked to name the accomplishment for which he is most proud, brags, "I'm proud of saving the American economy."
1) "Political correctness" is just a fancy term for not telling the truth. 2) Obama says he wants "mandatory" voting, as it is in Australia. Voter ID is "unduly burdensome" — but *forcing* people to vote is not?! 3) Obama says with "mandatory" voting, "You start getting 70-80 percent voting rates." Still not as high as the voting rates for dead people in Chicago! 4) Democrats, the "party of freedom," want mandatory health insurance, mandatory employer-paid leave, mandatory minimum wage and mandatory voting.
Donald Trump, when asked, "Do you believe in punishment for abortion?" said, "There has to be some form of punishment." "For the woman?" asked MSNBC's Chris Matthews. "Yeah," said Trump. Hours later, Trump walked it back, and said: "The doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim." But the bell was not to be un-rung.
President Barack Obama, when asked to name an accomplishment for which he is most proud, said, "I'm proud of saving the American economy." Breathtaking. Let's examine the facts, using only government, left wing — or, at least, non-conservative — statistics, sources or analyses.
