A bloodless coup d’etat

 

At American Thinker, J.A. Frascino outlines the coup d’etat that’s unfolding before our very eyes:

Any system, no matter how well devised, upon encountering the realities of terrestrial existence, will fail to function as conceived.  Failings of the system can be approached in two ways:  troubleshoot and strengthen the system to repair its flaws, or change the system.

Not long ago, the left sought to uphold the system and ameliorate its flaws.  It assisted in countering worker abuse, upheld women’s rights, and brought focus on environmental pollution.  Democrat administrations developed Social Security and Medicare programs.  The Democrat party was the voice of the middle class, the minorities, the marginalized, helping them realize the promise of the system.

That is no longer the position of the left.  Driven by its innate tendency to dissidence and immediate gratification, it has grown increasingly intolerant of and impatient with the system.  The system must now change.  . . .

And the article goes on to explain exactly how it’s changing.  We are seeing it now.  Click here for the full scenario.

# # #

Not your father’s Democrat party

This column by the inimitable Victor Davis Hanson was published a few days ago at American Greatness, and it’s a cautionary analysis:

For all Joe Biden’s talk about “semi-fascist” and “un-American,” “ultra-MAGA” Republicans, it is the Democratic Party that has far more radically changed. It is descended into a woke, neo-socialist, radically green party. And it is committed, as Barack Obama once promised, to fundamentally transforming America. How it proceeds with that agenda is now as entirely predictable as it is creepy.

And Hanson expands on the agenda and methods by category, specifically:

• Election Warping
• Projection
• Suppression
• Changing the Rules
• Asymmetries

Hanson’s conclusion:

Conservatives should be aware that they are not dealing with the party of JFK and LBJ. The Democratic Party has nothing in common with the agendas of a slick Bill Clinton and is well beyond the “fundamental transformations” of arch-narcissist Barack Obama. 

We are faced with a strictly disciplined, no-nonsense revolutionary party, well known from history that aims to change the nation into something unrecognizable by most Americans. And it feels that it has now created the means to do it.

Read the full article here.

# # #

The Language Vandals

 

I am linking to Jeff Deist’s article at Liberty Loft, because it is about defining terms.  The epigraph at the beginning of his article is a quote from George Orwell: "If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."  

Today, “Political Correctness” is out. “Woke” is in:

Like culture, language is not property, and it cannot be “owned.” But it can be influenced and steered by linguistic vandals seeking to topple old understandings and leave us all overwhelmed and demoralized by the ever-shifting new terminology.

In the quaint, innocent days of 2015, we still called this progressive impulse “political correctness.” I attempted to define it then:

Political correctness is the conscious, designed manipulation of language intended to change the way people speak, write, think, feel, and act, in furtherance of an agenda.

PC is best understood as propaganda, which is how I suggest we approach it. But unlike propaganda, which historically has been used by governments to win favor for a particular campaign or effort, PC is all-encompassing. It seeks nothing less than to mold us into modern versions of Marx’s un-alienated society man, freed of all his bourgeois pretensions and humdrum social conventions.

Like all propaganda, PC fundamentally is a lie. It is about refusing to deal with the underlying nature of reality, in fact attempting to alter that reality by legislative and social fiat. A is no longer A.

Today, of course, PC is obsolete—replaced entirely by the far broader concept of “woke,” which goes well beyond language. 

Woke, whether a slur or not, may be used very broadly to represent strident left progressive beliefs regarding race, sex, sexuality, equality, climate change, and the like. Woke demands ever-changing language, and constantly creates new words while eliminating old ones. As a result, “cancellation,” de-platforming, and loss of employment or standing all loom large, giving pause to speakers and writers who must consider a new woke orthodoxy.

Ultimately, imposed language attempts to control our actions. . . .

Mr. Deist’s full article, which can serve as a preview of his forthcoming journal article, is at The Liberty Loft here.  

# # #

Daniel Greenfield on policy: deliberate destruction

 

Daniel Greenfield cross-posts his Front Page commentary at his blog, Sultan Knish.  He weighs in on the subject of the Biden administration's policy of deliberate destruction of America's economy and society. Here’s Mr. Greenfield’s conclusion:

This is not a conspiracy theory. The only assumption being made here is that the Left is achieving its stated goals as the result of a plan rather than a series of accidental coincidences.

Too many Republicans are failing to hold the Left accountable by refusing to state what is going on. Hanlon’s Razor, “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” is fine when it’s not being applied to an ideology that is achieving its objectives through its actions.

That’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s policy.

Pasting Biden’s “I Did It” stickers on gas pumps is fine, but he’s completely expendable.

If Americans don’t understand that our misery isn’t an accident or incompetence, but part of a plan, then the downward cycle will continue to play out with increasingly worse outcomes.

Until the Left finally gets what it wants. And then the rest of us won’t have anything left.

Read the rest here. Hard to argue with Mr. Greenfield’s assessment.

# # #

Daniel Greenfield on Deliberate Destruction

 

Daniel Greenfield explains in detail why our downward spiral is the result of deliberate destruction:

Our Economic Misery Isn’t An Accident, It’s The Plan

Americans can’t afford to buy a used car or even gas because the Left doesn’t want them to drive. They can’t buy homes because the Left wants to destroy the suburbs and force everyone to live in megacities. They have trouble buying meat because the Left wants them to eat soy.

The same is true for the whole exercise in planned economic misery that we’re experiencing.

. . .

There are predictions that gas will hit $6 a gallon nationwide by the summer because the Biden administration has worked hard to raise energy prices and create artificial shortages. Biden’s people just got through once again sabotaging oil and gas leases because they want higher energy prices. $6 a gallon is not the result of political inattentiveness, that is the plan.

Inflation isn’t an unintentional accident either. . . .[I]nflation is doing what it’s meant to do, wiping out savings, and triggering retaliatory interest rate hikes to “cool down” the economy. The middle class ends up poorer and more vulnerable, government dependency rises and social mobility falls. Socialism starts looking better every day. That’s how it worked in the twentieth century and still works today.

. . .

If Americans don’t understand that our misery isn’t an accident or incompetence, but part of a plan then the downward cycle will continue to play out with increasingly worse outcomes.

Until the Left finally gets what it wants. And then the rest of us won’t have anything left.

Much more at the link here.

# # #

America: out of order

 

As usual, Victor Davis Hanson nails it.  From American Greatness:

What explains an America that suddenly no longer works? 

First, all of these problems are self-induced. They did not exist until Biden [I would assume that when he refers to “Biden,” VDH means “the Biden Administration.”] birthed them for ideological or political reasons. Apparently, his administration wanted a changing, more favorable electorate and demography at any cost. 

. . .

Second, Biden has no solutions to these self-created problems because of the ideological restraints the Left has imposed on him.

The administration fears the anger of the hard Left more than the furor of the American people. So it will not change, preferring to be politically correct and a failure than to be ideologically incorrect and successful. 

Third, when people object, this administration answers either by blaming others for its self-created mess or by seeking distractions. Now it is faulting gun owners for the crime wave it fostered, supposed “white supremacists” for the racial tensions it fanned, and Putin, whom it appeased.

The common denominator? Biden knows that he inherited a stable, prosperous America and has nearly ruined it. 

Read VDH’s full column here.  But where is the good news?  Sundance at Conservative Treehouse sums up some encouraging and significant push-backs:

[A] more assertive, deliberate, strategic and determined MAGA movement is being noticed everywhere.  There are new combat rules in response to the leftist onslaught toward our children.  . . .

Leftist favorite Netflix, is hemorrhaging users and just lost 30% of its value.  Spotify just refused to renew the leftist idols, the Obamas.  The ultra-leftist Disney Corp just lost their special district status in Orlando, and leftist Twitter is on the verge of a hostile ‘free speech’ takeover by Elon Musk.

. . .

Click here for more.

# # #

Liberals Keep Voting for the Progressive Left

 

Dennis Prager posted "The Left Is Evil and Liberals Keep Voting for Them" last week at AmericanGreatness.  As we head into the next election, maybe we can try again to explain to our liberal family member and friends. 

. . . liberalism and leftism have virtually nothing in common. In fact, leftism is the enemy of liberalism—as a handful of liberals such as former New York Times writer Bari Weiss, former Young Turk Dave Rubin and others have come to recognize.

The Left has never believed in free speech and has suppressed dissent wherever it has assumed power. Free speech is a pillar of liberalism, and it has always embraced dissent.

The Left rejects the anti-racist ideal of colorblindness. Colorblind is the liberal racial ideal.

The Left supports racial segregation—such as all-black dorms and separate black graduations. Liberals have always advocated racial integration.

The Left has always loathed capitalism. Liberals were always major advocates of capitalism—recognizing that only capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty.

The Left has always been anti-Israel. Liberals have always been fervent supporters of Israel.

The Left has always held America in contempt. Liberals loved this country. A liberal wrote “God Bless America.” No leftist would write such a song.

Leftists want to defund the police. No liberal does.

The list of liberal-Left differences is as long as the list of left-wing positions.

Yet, it is liberals who keep the Left in power. Were it not for the liberal vote, the Left would have no power.

Why do liberals vote Left? Why do liberals vote for those who have contempt for virtually everything they, the liberals, hold dear?

The question is all the more apt given that it is conservatives who protect virtually every liberal value. It is conservatives who seek to preserve free speech, racial integration, love of America, a strong Israel and capitalism.

So why do liberals vote for the Left, for the very people who hold liberals and their values in contempt?

Mr. Prager has answers;  click here.

# # #

Breaking the Progressive Narrative on Campus

 

Collin Pruett at The American Conservative sums it up (h/t Instapundit):

At college football games across the country the past two weekends, student sections erupted in “F— Joe Biden” chants. Thousands of unruly fans expressing their discontent with the president packed Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, and dozens of other football stadiums. Many conservatives I know found it impossibly crude. Others found it amusing. They all missed the point: The chanting did more to break the progressive narrative on campus than God and Man at Yale ever did.

Well-funded think tanks and decades of conservative activism failed to yield results. But two weekends of college football anarchy and a social media trend popularized by Barstool subsidiary “Old Row” has normalized conservatism on campus again. College administrators accustomed to threatening, brainwashing, and harassing their students finally met their match: ticked-off football fans. 

If these chants can start to break the stranglehold of progressive propaganda and indoctrination on campuses, it’s a good thing.  More on this and "Barstool Sports" here.

# # #

 

Ohio Special Election on August 3

 

Mark your calendar.  From Ballotpedia:

A special election to fill the seat representing Ohio's 11th Congressional District in the U.S. House will be held in 2021. Primaries are scheduled for August 3, 2021. The general election will be held November 2, 2021. The filing deadline was May 5, 2021.^[4]

The special election was called after Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) was confirmed as secretary of housing and urban development in President Joe Biden's (D) administration. The Senate voted 66-34 to confirm Fudge on March 10, 2021.^[5]

The primary will occur on August 3, 2021. The general election will occur on November 2, 2021. General election candidates will be added here following the primary.

There are 10 candidates running in the Democrat Party primary.  According to Conservative Angle and OAN:

The special election in Ohio’s 11th district has heated up as Democrats duke it out for who will succeed recently confirmed Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge.

Big names have stepped in to endorse either side of the Democrat campaign. Hilary Clinton has voiced her support for moderate Cuyahoga County Democrat Party Chair Shontel Brown. Where progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) have endorsed former co-chair of the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign Nina Turner.

The race has become a proxy battle for the future of the Democrat Party, however, whether it will trend progressive or hold its establishment roots in the years to come.

There are two Republican Party candidates running in the primary, Laverne Gore and Felicia Ross.  Cuyahoga County always votes blue, so neither (R) candidate probably stands a chance.  Still, everyone needs to vote.

It’s too bad those of us in the 11^th District cannot vote for Ruth Edmonds in the 15^th district, but if you’re in Columbus, you can.  This household watched a brief interview with her on (sorry) Fox, and she was a refreshing conservative, all for faith, family, and community.

# # #

Vacancy: Marcia Fudge's former seat

 

Collin Anderson at Washington Free Beacon reports on the House seat left vacant by Marcia Fudge:

President Joe Biden's decision to appoint former Ohio congresswoman Marcia Fudge to his cabinet has Democrats poised to send another self-described socialist to Congress.

Liberal firebrand Nina Turner holds a sizable polling and fundraising lead in the crowded primary race to succeed Fudge. The former state senator is backed by a who's who of congressional progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.).

Should Turner maintain her advantage and win the August primary, she would fit right in with the so-called Squad members. The former national co-chair of Sanders's presidential campaign, Turner has pledged to pass the Green New Deal, eliminate private health insurance through a government-run Medicare for All system, cancel student debt, and "completely reimagine" law enforcement—in part by defunding police.

Turner's frontrunner status reflects the growing influence of the Democratic Party's progressive wing. Just months ago, Ocasio-Cortez and company welcomed two new Squad members after Reps. Cori Bush (D., Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.) ousted longstanding Democratic incumbents in 2020. Bush and Bowman's freshman class also includes fellow liberal representatives Mondaire Jones (D., N.Y.), Ritchie Torres (D., N.Y.), and Marie Newman (D., Ill.), all of whom replaced veteran party members in January.

Turner's campaign on Tuesday used a Tulchin Research poll to declare the progressive "the favorite to serve as OH-11's next Congressperson." According to the poll, Turner enjoys a 35-point lead over her closest competitor, with 21 percent undecided. Ohio State University political scientist Paul Beck said that while the poll's accuracy is difficult to assess, Turner is the "most visible candidate" and has "emerged as the frontrunner in the campaign."

"My bet would be right now that [Turner is] the person who is going to get the nomination—and win the contest in November," he said.

. . .

Read the full report here.

# # #

Wokeness erasing America

 

Most excellent commentary from Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness:

If wokeness should continue and “win,” by now we all know where it will end up. After all, this is not a prairie-fire, peasants-with-pitchforks, spontaneous bottom-up revolution.

The woke Left seeks a top-down erasure of America, engineered by the likes of LeBron James from his $40 million estate talking revolution to Oprah at her $90 million castle, as Mark Zuckerberg throws in $500 million here, and his colleagues $400 million there, and as the top executives of Coke, Target, and Delta Airlines believe their $17 million-a-year salaries make them experts on the crimes of non-diversity, exclusion, and inequity. Anytime revolutionaries at the outset of their enterprises seek exemption from the consequences of their own ideology, we know their plans will end badly for everyone else.

. . .

Full article is here.

# # #

Early voting is a bad idea: just look at this election cycle

 

Matt Margolis at PJ Media explains why early voting is such a bad idea. He concludes:

While it’s difficult for most of us to fathom the possibility that something could happen to change one’s mind about who they plan to vote for, it’s obvious that it can happen, and it appears to be happening right now. When this election is over we need to have a serious look at how voting is done in this country. Early voting is a cancer on the electoral process that can disenfranchise voters who aren’t 100 percent committed to either candidate.

Early voting, outright voter fraud, and moving the deadlines for counting mail-in ballots, are creating election chaos – which is just what the Democrat Progressive party wants. And Mr. Margolis recommends that after this election, "we need to have a serious look at how voting is done in this country.”  Hmmm.  That is, if we still have a country after this election.  (Full article by Mr. Margolis is here.)

# # #

 

Peter Schweizer on Sen. Sherrod Brown

Here’s more from Peter Schweizer’s chapter in Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite (HarperCollins) on Sen. Sherrod Brown (footnote numbers silently deleted) :

Sherrod Brown has always relied on a certain roguish charm when in the public spotlight. Described by the media as a “handsome, gravelly-voiced defender of the working class; perpetually mentioned in presidential conversations,” he has spent almost his entire adult life either serving in political office or running for it. The unique appeal to his supporters, in addition to that charm, is the fact that he viewed “himself as a progressive before it was cool.”. . .

. . .

Brown displays his working-class sentiments in his Senate office reception area, where he has a miner’s safety lamp sitting on the table, as well as a beer stein from the United Mine Workers. . . .

His wife, Connie Schultz, once sent an email to a colleague at the Cleveland Plain Dealer who had drawn a political cartoon critical of him. She wrote: “For 30 years, Sherrod has fought for those who would have no voice and no future without him . . . (and he) remains a hero to so many. . . .

But Brown himself, as we will see, grew up privileged. While he has campaigned with a hole in one shoe (and drawn the media’s attention to it with an early, infamous reelection advertisement), his roots are far from working class.

. . .Sherrod Brown’s friend John Eichinger jokingly explained at a Democratic Party roast back in 1982 that Brown’s approach is to “get money from the rich and votes from the poor by promising to protect them from each other.”

It is a formula that has worked in American politics for more than one hundred years.

However, a closer examination reveals a far more complex picture than that of a conventional progressive politician. More than simply using that political strategy to win office, Brown seems to have used his government office to benefit his family, in particular, his brother’s legal practice, which has engaged in what some might consider strange and suspect lawsuits. Additionally, Brown’s advocacy for “workers” appears to be far more about protecting union leaders who donate to his campaigns than rank-and-file union workers. Indeed, when the interests of union leaders and the union members clash, Brown consistently sides with the bosses who have underwritten his many political campaigns.

The chapter contains over 100 footnotes to print and online sources.  I chose the above extracts to provide a partial overview of chapter 6, and there is much more on Sen. Brown’s relationships with and activities involving labor pension funds and his association with his brother’s law firm.

# # #

The unbridgeable divide

René Magritte's classic

Liberal / progressive vs conservative.   I’ve usually attributed the unbridgeable divide to critical thinking vs emotions.  Dennis Prager expands on the reasons for the divide:

The Left-Right divide in America is, unfortunately, unbridgeable. There are three reasons.

First, we are divided by our vision of what we want America to be. The Right believes the Founders’ vision was brilliant and moral, that bourgeois middle-class values are superior to alternative value systems; that rights come from God, not man; and that the state must be as small as possible. The Left (not liberals) shares none of those values.

Second, we are divided by the means we use to achieve our vision. Given their different ends, left and right obviously differ on what means to use to achieve their ends.

Third, and perhaps most troubling, there is a reality-perception divide. Left and Right have different perceptions of reality.

. . .

The Left believes socialism is economically superior to capitalism. But the reality is that only capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty. This is, therefore, not an opinion divide—”You prefer capitalism. I prefer socialism”—but a reality divide.

The reason this is so frightening is that it means one side has lost its grip on reality. If half of this country cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, that is not a good sign for the nation’s future. 

. . .

The full article is here. 

# # #

Debate 3

ABC photo via Conservative Treehouse

I was traveling yesterday and not able to watch the 3rd Democrat debate in Houston. Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media didn’t watch much of it either, but he had a better reason:

Heaven save us from these deranged progressive statists.

I didn't watch all of Round 3, I went back to my old ways and let Twitter and my PJ Media colleagues watch it for me. Doing that gives me a good way to assess which candidates are resonating and who's getting the most favorable buzz.

I did, however, tune in every now and then, immediately regretting the decision each time. Each time I did, I saw a different candidate explain why the federal government needed to intervene in my life in order to make it "better." Suffice it to say that I was not moved by the sales pitch.

My reactions will follow, but for those of you who want to skip ahead to the links, my friend Kira Davis summed it up fairly well:

Ok, just to catch you up...@TheDemocrats want to give free education, housing and healthcare to ex-felons and illegal immigrants and forcibly remove the legally, peacefully purchased firearms of millions of law-abiding citizens. Inspired yet? #DemDebate

The rest of the report is here. And it won’t chew up your entire evening.

# # #

Rep. Marcia Fudge is on the wrong side. Again.

photo credit: www.essence.com

NumbersUSA is urging Cleveland area voters to call Rep. Marcia Fudge at 202-225-3121 to DEMAND a vote on H.R. 3056 to end the border crisis. Speaker Pelosi has thus far refused to bring the Act to the floor. The talking point:

H.R. 3056 is the Border Crisis Supplemental Appropriations Act, to deal with the ongoing border crisis. I urge you to demand an immediate floor vote on this badly needed spending package! This crisis has gone on long enough, and it's time for Congress to act.

I have to wonder whether Rep. Fudge and her staff pay any attention to Tea Party people, but it’s probably worth the couple of minutes on the phone.

Here's more. In an op-ed piece at American Greatness, Candace Owens warns Trump voters to not become complacent – and she provides a few examples (out of zillions) of rage, hatred, and hysteria from the Progressive Left:

Just last week Congresswoman Marcia Fudge described Trump voters as “either racist, steeped in religious beliefs, ignorant, or, as my mother used to say, just plain dumb.”

These people are not trying to retake control of the White House merely to advance their agenda. They want to punish the Americans who made them look like fools in 2016.

This new breed of Democrats cheer as the social media giants silence and eliminate any voice that opposes them or threatens the monopoly liberal journalists have over the flow of information. They’re prepared to pack the courts, let 16-year-olds vote, and even eliminate the Electoral College in order to help them win. They’re already talking about the prospect of the election being “stolen” by “racism,” which gives a pretty good indication of the strategy they plan to fall back on if they lose again.

In short, they will do anything they can to destroy our coalition and make sure the humiliation of 2016 can never happen again.

(Full article is here.) Spot the racist and the dummy. And maybe give her a call.

# # #

The new "normal"? -- Victor Davis Hanson

Over the weekend, the historian Victor Davis Hanson posted an essay at American Greatness. With the progressive-liberal community constantly projecting their own fantasies and corruptions on conservatives, it is a relief to read VDH’s perspective. Here's a brief extract from his closing comments:

The current normal correctives were denounced as abnormal—as if living in a sovereign state with secure borders, assuming that the law was enforced equally among all Americans, demanding that citizenship was something more than mere residence, and remembering that successful Americans, not their government, built their own businesses and lives is now somehow aberrant or perverse.

Trump’s political problem, then, may be that the accelerating aberration of 2009-2016 was of such magnitude that normalcy is now seen as sacrilege.

Weaponizing the IRS, unleashing the FBI to spy on political enemies and to plot the removal of an elected president, politicizing the CIA to help to warp U.S. politics, allying the Justice Department with the Democratic National Committee, and reducing FISA courts to rubber stamps for pursuing administration enemies became the new normal. Calling all that a near coup was abnormal.

Let us hope that most Americans still prefer the abnormal remedy to the normal pathology.

Full article is here.

# # #

Progressive Dark Money

Image credit: cincinnati.com

Joe Schoffstall at The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Liberal billionaires George Soros and Scott Wallace are helping bankroll a new fund hosted by an intricate dark money organization and focused on helping Democrats make inroads with midwestern voters for the 2020 elections.

The deep-pocketed donors moved the money from the Open Society Foundations, Soros's foundation, and the Wallace Global Fund, Wallace's foundation, to the newly launched Heartland Fund, a collaborative effort focused on building "power across the divides of the American heartland" as overall Democratic efforts have veered towards the region.

. . .

Future Majority, a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic strategy center, was also founded to focus on midwestern states in an effort to help "rebrand" the party and provide support to liberal organizations. The group is a registered 501(c)4 "social welfare" nonprofit and also does not have to disclose its donors.

Future Majority is planning to spend at least $60 million during the 2020 election cycle and is receiving help from megadonors Philip Munger, son of Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger, and Dan Tierney, who was the managing director of KGB Holdings, a global financial services company, before it sold in 2017. Munger and Tierney co-chair Future Majority's board.

The headline of this report is “Soros, Wallace Help Bankroll Dark Money Fund Aimed at Midwestern Voters.” Er, Ohio is in the Midwest. Full report is here.

# # #

How the progressive blacklist works

photo credit: Freedom Center

David Horowitz is a red diaper baby who grew up in a “progressive” family, so designated as a euphemism to deflect attention from their communist/Marxist ideology. He jettisoned his Marxist past and has become one of the stronger conservative voices. His platform on the Internet is the David Horowitz Freedom Center and its publication, Front Page Magazine.

His article from the other day, "How the Progressive Blacklist Works," was published both at Front Page Magazine and also at American Thinker. Horowitz details just what conservatives are up against in the not-so-free marketplace of ideas. Organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center target individuals such as Horowitz -- and their organizational funding sources -- to shut them up. It’s a sobering read; click here.

# # #

Super Bowl, competition, and politics

Ira Stoll's "Patriots Ignite Political Debate On Success" at The NY Sun on the Super Bowl:

American politics at the moment can pretty much be explained by what you make of the record sixth Super Bowl victory by New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, coach Bill Belichick, and owner Robert Kraft.

One view of it is to marvel at, and celebrate, the hard work, risk-taking, and skill that produced the achievement. That’s the more conservative view of it.

Another is to complain about it and wish the winning were more evenly distributed. That’s the more left-leaning view of it. . . .

There is more with which to agree and disagree here.

# # #