A letter to the boys & young men of America

Mr. Incredible

Amidst all the shrieking about toxic masculinity, I thought this column, by J. Ishiro Finney,  was worth posting in its entirety:

A response to the mass shooting in Florida.

The bodies aren’t even cold yet and already you are being blamed.

Yes you.

All of you.

The boys and young men who will grow up to become one half of America’s future.

Once again, due to society’s failure to raise you, to teach you, to properly guide you on your path to manhood, your mere existence is being held responsible for seventeen more deaths—this time in Florida, and once again, at a school. The headlines of the last few days say it all:

  “Guns don’t kill people; men and boys kill people, experts say”
  -USA TODAY

  “Michael Ian Black reacts to Florida shooting: Boys are broken”
  -New York Daily News

  “How Gun Violence And Toxic Masculinity Are Linked, In 8 Tweets”
  -The Huffington Post

  “Toxic white masculinity: The killer that haunts American life”
  -Salon

  “Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us”
  -The Boston Globe

  “Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us”
  -Harpers Bazaar

  “Don’t Blame Mental Illness for Mass Shootings; Blame Men”
  -Politico

In the handful of decades I’ve been alive, I’ve seen America shift from a culture of responsibility to one of blame. We don’t solve problems anymore. We cry, we pray for, we seek to find closure, and then finally, slaughter a sacrificial lamb for our sins. When I was young and Columbine happened, that lamb was Marilyn Manson and video games. Before that, it was D&D and Twisted Sister. 

These days, though, as body counts continue to rise and excuses continue to vanish, the lamb America has chosen to sacrifice is you. Rather than take responsibility for the seeds we’ve sown, the culture we built, and the disaster you’ve been left to inherit, we as a nation have chosen to lie to ourselves. To listen and believe those who claim that the answer is simple: “Boys are simply born bad.”

As an aging Gen Xer watching this tragedy unfold, I can’t help but look back at my youth and realize we were the dry run for this “crisis of masculinity” as the media likes to call it. In my time I’ve watched as fathers were pushed out of the home, separated from their children, and their role in society debased and devalued. Like you, I was taught male behavior was bad behavior. That I was broken and needed to be fixed. Drugs, therapy, mass socialization were required to save me from my most innate instincts—

—the need compete.

—the drive to create.

—the urge to protect.

—the desire for female affection.

Like you, I was told these instincts were not only wrong, but dangerous. That due to my Original Sin of being born a boy, I was destined to mature into a lustful monster and an oppressor of women. All this was burned into me before I even reached college, where campus policy actually assumed all men to be rapists waiting to happen.

It isn’t hard to see how we got here, to an age when America is more than willing to sacrifice its boys. To quote Fight Club, “We’re a generation of men raised by women.” And the women who raised my generation had a saying: All men are pigs. But there’s another saying those same women were enamored with and that is: The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

So here we are, coming close to fifty years of single mothers raising their boys as if they were animals. Two generations of young men raised to believe they’re broken, immoral, and dangerous. That their natural state, if left unchecked and unmedicated, is a sexual ticking time bomb of rape and abuse. Half a century of academia peddling a grim version of history that holds your gender personally responsible for all the wrongs ever to have happened in the world. And a press, that at this very moment, is blaming YOU for every school shooting to have ever occurred.

After all this, how could there not be a crisis of masculinity?

So to the boys and young men of America, believe me when I say it isn’t you who should be apologizing for the state of our world today. This mess was set in motion long before you were born.

You are not bad.

You are not broken.

You are not inherently evil or a sexual abuser in waiting.

You are boys who were robbed of your right to be men.

All your life you’ve been told to act, think, and behave like women. To suppress your passions, your pride, your need to compete and drive to achieve.

Now society is crumbling around us.

Feminizing boys didn’t make better men. It’s resulted in broken homes and shattered families and record suicide rates. It’s destroying any notion of a healthy partnership between men and women, and is pushing us ever closer to total collapse of gender relations.

Boys, we don’t need you to be like women, the world has plenty of women, already.

What the world needs now more than ever is for you to be men.

For you to grow-up, to grow strong, and do what men do.

For it is men’s strength and determination that tamed the wilderness, built civilization, and has kept the world fed despite all predictions we’d all die starving before the year 2000. It’s men’s curiosity that lead us to explore the oceans, to conquer space, and peer into the tiniest of microcosms of the human body. It was men who built the cities we inhabit, the luxuries we enjoy, the medicines that keep us alive. Men built the road, the plumbing, the electrical grid, the phone in your hand, the internet it’s connected to.

Men have always been innovators, explores, defenders, and leaders.

But most importantly, men have always been fathers.

So to the boys and young men of America, please read this and take every word to heart.

The world needs you.

-J. Ishiro Finney, Feb 2018

- - - - -

My take-away: America has shifted from a culture of responsibility to one of blame.

# # #

Happy President’s Day

image credit: smvdiscoverymuseum.org

Thoughts from Melissa Emery at CNS News:

I recently received an email from an old friend who lives in a very blue state exclaiming that Trump was “not his president.” 

. . .

I tried not to respond in anger, but merely with regret to learn that Trump was not “his” president, since wages were up, taxes were down, the stock market was up, and over 2 million new jobs had been created. Black and Latino unemployment were at new all-time lows. Were these not things that liberals cared about anymore? But, perhaps, I suggested a bit snarkily, these bits of news had not appeared in the New York Times. I doubt that I’ll ever hear from him again.

As the days went by, his comment that Trump was not his president kept rolling around in my head. I wanted to ask him, who IS your president? Are you operating now without a president? Is your state no longer part of the Union? And how does not having the United States’ president as your president work for you? Do you still get all your Social Security payments and Medicare benefits? Can you still sit in your lovely cabin by a lake and pontificate about how much smarter you are than people who voted for Mr. Trump?

. . .

I didn’t like Obama. I wanted him and his crew out of there as soon as possible. But it never occurred to me to say he was not my president. He was president of the United States, for better or for worse. We cannot continue to be united if we decide which laws to obey and which presidents to acknowledge. If you don’t like Trump, work to elect someone you do like next time.  . . .

Mark Steyn posted a musical medley in honor of President’s Day starting with this introduction:

Happy Presidents Day to all our American readers - and yes, I know it's grotesque to have to put Jimmy Carter and Franklin Pierce up there with Washington and Lincoln, but don't blame me . . . 

From a history.com link on President’s Day:

Presidents’ Day is an American holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February. Originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington, it is still officially called “Washington’s Birthday” by the federal government. Traditionally celebrated on February 22—Washington’s actual day of birth—the holiday became popularly known as Presidents’ Day after it was moved as part of 1971’s Uniform Monday Holiday Act, an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers. While several states still have individual holidays honoring the birthdays of Washington, Abraham Lincoln and other figures, Presidents’ Day is now popularly viewed as a day to celebrate all U.S. presidents past and present.

Cleveland Tea Party salutes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Donald J. Trump.

# # #

Newt's "Practical proposal to protect our children"

Photo credit: newstalkflorida.com

The other evening on Fox News, Sean Hannity proposed his solutions for security on school campuses, to prevent another Parkland shooting from taking place. His proposals mostly involved increased armed presence in halls and classrooms, security clearances at all entrances similar to checkpoints at entrances to federal buildings, and so forth. I did not much like his proposals, as they would turn our campuses into the very militarized environments that we associate with police states. 

During the Parkland shooting, ROTC training saved lives. CNN reported:

Colton Haab heard seven gunshots, and his Junior ROTC training kicked in.

The 17-year-old junior knew a gunman was on his high school campus Wednesday afternoon so he ushered 60 to 70 people to shelter in an open Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps room. At that point, he realized that the Kevlar sheets generally used for the Junior ROTC marksmanship program could come in handy.

"We took those sheets, and we put them in front of everybody so they weren't seen, because they were behind a solid object and the Kevlar would slow the bullet down," Haab told CNN on Thursday.

In his proposals, Speaker Newt Newt sets forth some alternative ideas that expand on the Junior ROTC trainee's quick thinking. The excerpt below is from his newsletter (also posted online at Fox News):

This week’s tragic attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is a deeply painful reminder of how much we have failed to honestly confront the problem of school shootings in America.

Putting up “Gun-Free Zone” signs is not a solution. It is an act of self-deception. By definition, the determined killers carry their guns past the signs. They are not slowed down for one second by community sentiment.

The current strategies of responding to a violent threat by either freezing students in place or accelerating student evacuation both carry seeds of disaster. Freezing the students in place simply sets them up to be killed methodically by a brutal, evil, or mentally ill person. Having them flee may lead them to run right into the path of the killer.

. . .

The fact is, evil people with guns must be stopped by good people with guns.

Furthermore, the faster good people can respond, the fewer innocent people will be killed.

Every school in America should have several teachers and administrators trained in firearms who are permitted to carry concealed weapons. The number of these “protectors of the innocent” in each school should be determined by the number of students. Agreeing to serve in this role might be encouraged with an appropriate monthly stipend. After all, in Georgia, teachers who agree to serve as coaches are paid stipends ranging from $150 to as much as $400 (and sometimes more for large football programs). Surely, we can afford to provide this type of incentive to people who want to help protect our children.

Because these protectors would have concealed weapons and not be in uniform, would-be killers would have no idea who might be capable of ending their threat by ending them.

. . .

If we are really serious about protecting our children, we must have trained and equipped protectors prepared to handle this type of situation whenever there are school activities. The Parkland school had an armed officer assigned to the campus, but the officer never encountered the shooter and was not able to respond in time. Dramatically increasing the presence of uniformed, visibly-armed security guards, however, might create an environment ill-suited for learning.

Instead, teachers and administrators serving as protectors could complement and support the dedicated officer or security personnel who are already serving in many schools. This combination of using uniformed police officers to handle standard school security challenges, while also having responsible adult protectors who are already going to be working in the school prepared to provide additional force in the case of a catastrophic emergency, like a mass shooting, is the most effective and practical way to protect our children.

Read Newt’s full column here.

We all know now that the FBI completely dropped the ball on this one. See Sundance here. It wasn’t the first failure by the FBI to act on tips of imminent danger. And it won’t be the last. Message to schools: you are probably on your own. Prepare accordingly. And I thought Newt's ideas were on the right track.

# # #

Progressive Cuyahoga County

image credit: commondreams.org

image also at the Wikipedia website for the Congressional Progressive Caucus

The headline yesterday at cleveland.com:

Progressive activists launch takeover bid 

of Cuyahoga County Democratic Party

From the report by Andrew W. Tobias:

Progressive activists, along with a suburban mayor who lost last year's party leadership fight, say they have filed hundreds of candidates in their insurgent bid to seize control of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party's central committee.

The full report is here.

Well, they'd be in good company. Did you know that Rep. Marcia Fudge is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus? (For more perspective, see David Horowitz's essay - from the year 2000! - showing how Hillary’s identification as a modern-day “Progressive” is no different than identifying as communist.)

# # #

Today’s Excellent Read: High Crimes and Misdemeanors

art credit: gallerycartoon.blogspot.com

Douglas MacKinnon at Investor’s Business Daily brings a lot of the dossier-DOJ-FBI-Russia-collusion-spy scandals into clearer focus, and it is not pretty. A few morsels:

As ever more deliberately concealed evidence is being uncovered of factual "collusion" between the Obama White House, the failed presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and Russia; of professional operatives in our intelligence services openly trying to first, cripple the campaign of Donald Trump, and then, having failed at that criminal objective, to delegitimize his presidency; and of secretly funded far-left anarchist groups proudly preaching violence against those they oppose, it seems the perfect time to ask three questions:

First, what is the definition of a "Police State?

Second, what is the definition of "Treason?"

And last, what – as defined in the Constitution of the United States of America – is the meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors?"

. . .

When you collude with foreign espionage agents to manufacture evidence to obtain a warrant to spy on citizens of the United States for purely political and ideological reasons, you are not only breaking the laws of the United States, but are introducing those very questions of treason, bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors into the conversation.

. . .

What is happening now is not only chilling to the bone, it's dramatically more dangerous because these crimes are being aided, abetted and covered-up by a number of partisans in the mainstream media.

Read the rest here.

# # #

Amnesty vote in Congress ~ Alert!

UPDATE: 5:53pm (posted at 6:37 pm) from NumbersUSA media release:

NumbersUSA and its 9 million activists are pleased that the Senate rejected all three amnesty proposals that came to the floor today for a vote. Every proposal under consideration put the interests of illegal aliens and foreign citizens ahead of the interests of American workers, American communities, and national security. Americans can not afford for Congress to grant amnesty without immediately ending Chain Migration and the Visa Lottery and mandating E-Verify.

UPDATE: 4:32 pm from The Hill:

The Senate has rejected legislation based on President Trump's framework for an immigration deal in a 39-60 vote on Thursday, leaving an uncertain path forward for Congress with nearly a million immigrants sheltered by an Obama-era program face the prospect of deportation.

The measure spearheaded by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) needed 60 votes to clear a filibuster, but failed to meet the mark.

It was the fourth proposal in a row rejected by the Senate on Thursday afternoon, and it received the fewest votes of support. All three other measures won more than 50 votes.

UPDATE 3:10 pm from The Hill:

Senate rejects first bipartisan measure as immigration votes begin

The Senate has rejected an immigration measure sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Christopher Coons (D-Del.) that did not include money for President Trump’s border wall.

The proposal is the first of four that the Senate will vote on Thursday, though each appears short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This Action Alert is from NumbersUSA [emphasis color in original]:

As [of] noon on Thursday, the Senate is considering not only granting amnesty to every illegal immigrant already in the country, but to any illegal immigrants who can get here by June!

Could anything express more contempt for American voters than this? Incredibly, this bill is rumored to have 65 supporters in the Senate; it already has EIGHT Republican co-sponsors!

The Senate is debating immigration proposals all day TODAY and through the end of this week. So far, it looks to be one horrible bill after the other. (One exception would be the amendment from Pennsylvania's Sen. Toomey, which directs actions against sanctuary cities.)

KEEP CHECKING YOUR EMAIL FOR ACTION ALERTS -- THE SITUATION IS CHANGING HOURLY! [NOTE: Or check this website for Updates.]

Our best hope may be that the Senate defeats ALL its current proposals. Then, if that happens, we will press hard to have the House take up the Goodlatte bill, H.R. 4760, that we've endorsed.

. . .

There is GOOD news on the House side. We've learned that House Republican leaders are doing a "whip count" on the Goodlatte bill. This is such great news, because this is the NumbersUSA-endorsed bill that mandates E-Verify for every employer, cancels chain migration, and eliminates the visa lottery.

A whip count means they will be more likely to bring the bill up for a vote if it seems to have enough support to pass. So, obviously we're now pouring lots more resources into the House fight as well as our Senate efforts.

. . . None of the Senate measures would prevent pressure for future amnesties by requiring all employers to use E-Verify or reduce the size of the amnesty by ending Chain Migration in the near term. Mandatory E-Verify and an immediate end to Chain Migration must be part of any DACA deal!

1) The Schumer-Collins-Rounds-King Proposal -- This is biggest threat, an amnesty to EVERY ILLEGAL ALIEN IN AMERICA, INCLUDING ALL THOSE WHO CAN SNEAK IN BY JUNE 30, while it guts interior enforcement! And it may actually have the most support.

2) The White House Proposal -- Sens. Chuck Grassley and John Cornyn have drafted legislation that reflects the White House DACA proposal. It would expand DACA to grant an immediate amnesty to approximately 1.8 million illegal aliens. It calls for a $25 billion trust fund to build the border wall and improve overall border security. It would eliminate the Visa Lottery and halt new applications for Chain Migration, but it uses those supposedly eliminated visas to bring in the backlog of more than 4 million foreigners, which could take 15-20 years.

3) Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) propose granting amnesty to 3.2 million illegal aliens without any concrete steps to reduce immigration or improve enforcement at all.

One piece of good news is that the White House publicly rejected the McCain-Coons approach yesterday. 

It's hard to see how most of these bills are a "compromise." . . .

Call Ohio Senators: 

Sen. Rob Portman --    (888) 995-2089

Sen. Sherrod Brown -- (888) 995-2018

 See a report by Ed Morrisey at Hot Air here.

# # #

Gun Free Zones

image credit: dreamstime.com

The headline today was horrible. 17 dead at the Florida school shooting. Here’s a follow-up from CrimeSearch: 

Another mass public shooting in Florida, another gun-free zone: Parkland, Florida school shooting

. . . When will there be a serious discussion of the dangers of gun-free zones?  When will the media point out in their discussions of the guns used or how the guns were obtained that another attack occurred in a gun-free zone?

After listening to Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) push for more gun control on Shepard Smith’s show on Fox News this afternoon, we decided to put up this post. . . .

[Re] mass public shootings in Florida where at least four people have been killed [were] all gun-free zones . . . where general citizens are banned from having guns. . . . 

After the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, I finally figured out that a gun-free zone was the least safe place to be. Note: Cleveland Tea Party does not take a position on guns per se, but one of our core values is "limited government." The Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) is an act of the U.S. Congress signed into law in 1990; less government can save lives. 

# # #

Ohio Governor candidates at CAIR event

Tyler O’Neil at PJ Media reported this (I did not find this story at Cleveland.com); O'Neil linked to Progress Ohio which categorized this event under “Progressive Organizations”:

On Sunday, three Democrats running in the Ohio governor's race, including former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, spoke at an event hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim group with ties to the terror organization Hamas and involved in a terror-funding scheme.

"Join CAIR-Columbus for a Governor Candidate Forum starting at 2:00 PM at the Dublin Community Recreation Center on Sunday Feb. 11th! Doors will open at 1:30," read an announcement at Progress Ohio.

The event included three candidates for governor: state Sen. Joe Schiavoni, former state Rep. Connie Pillich, and former Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Former Congresswoman Betty Sutton represented former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. Sutton is his running-mate.

CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror-funding case by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to radical Islamist terror.

It is still early in the race, but Cordray holds an early lead. In a January poll conducted by Fallon Research, Cordray, who recently resigned as head of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, led with 23 percent, and Kucinich took second place with 16 percent. Schiavoni took four percent, and Pillich two percent. Bill O'Neill, former justice of the Ohio Supreme Court who recently resigned to run for governor, took three percent. A whopping 52 percent remained undecided.

. . .

Full report is here (h/t Stephen Green at Instapundit).

# # #

About the 2-year budget compromise

image credit: foxbusiness.com

About the 2-year budget compromise now signed by President Trump

From Guy Benson’s “Analysis: Let's Face It, Neither of These Awful Parties is Actually Serious About Fiscal Responsibility” at Townhall:

The biggest problem with the compromise is that abandons all pretense of fiscal restraint, and virtually guarantees more harmful and irresponsible can-kicking.  The GOP-led Congress has agreed to a two-year plan that will add $1.5 trillion to deficits over a decade, establishing a higher baseline from which "cuts" will be opposed, and on which additional spending will be built.  And Republicans have done so while surrendering a powerful mechanism (reconciliation) that allows them to pass budget policies without requiring the help of tax-and-spend Democrats (as they did on tax reform). 

Benson’s full article is here. Charles Hurt at Breitbart didn’t think much of it either:

Any time you hear Washington talk about bipartisan agreement, America, grab your wallet and run!

Once again, lawmakers in Washington have finally cut through all the thorny brambles of partisanship and discovered (yet again! yippie!) something they can all agree upon: spending scads and scads more of other people’s money that we don’t even have!

Support for military expenditures was a key talking point for Congress critters like Sean Duffy, who voted "yes." 

It’s still out-of-control spending. And back to Benson:

Here's what bothers me: Republicans didn't even really try.  They could have attempted a full-court press explaining the need for increased military funding, while arguing that in an era of $4 trillion in annual federal spending (up from less than $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2000, just for some perspective), breaking caps on domestic spending is unnecessary.  Or they could have demanded that in exchange for some heightened domestic spending for discrete priorities, Democrats would have to agree to some modest and mathematically-essential entitlement reforms. 

Instead, we got this [via The Washington Examiner]:

In 2017, for the first time in the post-Tea Party era, Republicans finally gained unified control of government. They spent months blundering on healthcare, and ultimately reneged on their eight-year promise to repeal Obamacare. They have now agreed on a deal with Democrats that would blow up the spending caps that were a legacy of the Tea Party movement — to the tune of $300 billion over the next two years...The agreement would boost military spending by $165 billion above the 2011 caps and nonmilitary spending by $131 billion; it boosts emergency disaster relief spending by $90 billion (remember when the Tea Party Republicans believed emergency spending needed to be offset?); provides $6 billion in more money to fight opioid addiction; has $20 billion in infrastructure funding; it provides more funding for community health centers; and it repeals the Independent Payment Advisory Board, one of Obamacare’s cost-containment initiatives, without any significant alternative ideas to curb Medicare spending. Now, let’s get one thing clear. It's possible to rein in long-term debt while keeping taxes relatively low and military spending relatively high, but only if those policies are met with a dramatic strategy to restrain entitlements and other non-defense spending. But that’s not what Republicans are doing.

I had hoped for better. Reminder to self: the GOPe are members in good standing of the Uniparty.

# # #

Long Live the Tea Party

dontgive-uptheship-blog-blog.tumblr.com

I don’t usually agree with Rick Moran, who posts at PJ Media. But his piece “The Tea Party Is Dead, Long Live the Tea Party” was linked on Instapundit, and it had a few good thoughts, going back to the inception of the Tea Party groups in 2009:

But the tea party's real value to the country is that for the first time since the ratification debates over the Constitution, millions of people across the country were actually reading and discussing our founding document.

These weren't constitutional scholars sitting around some Ivy League lecture hall esoterically discussing the foundations of America. These were millions of ordinary people sitting at kitchen tables, in small church meeting rooms, on front porches and backyards probing the reasons America came into existence.

. . . What mattered was that ordinary people had taken a keen interest in preserving the spirit of the Constitution and the essence of our founding principles that are "self-evident" in that document at a time it has been under relentless attack.

. . .

This side of the tea parties was never widely reported on by the media, for very good reasons. The left hates getting into a discussion about what the Constitution says because they can't defend most of their ideas. Despite the fact that the founders wrote the Constitution so that basically anyone who could read could understand it, the left keeps insisting the Constitution says things that it doesn't.

Any clever lawyer or willing judge can twist the meaning of the Constitution so that it says anything they want it to say to accomplish any end they wish to accomplish. So the budget deal may have killed fiscal sanity in Washington and -- perhaps -- the tea party's political power to some extent. And the GOP may have co-opted most of the larger tea party groups to do the party's bidding.

What remains of the tea party is, to my mind, the best part. The desire of ordinary people to govern themselves, to take personal responsibility for their own lives, and to try to do something about the denigration and increasing irrelevance of the Constitution.

As Glenn Reynolds concluded: Don’t give up the ship.

# # #

Falcon Heavy rocket boosters perfect landing

YouTube 

INSANE! SpaceX Falcon Heavy Side Boosters Landing Simultaneously at Kennedy Space Center

Off topic, but just "awesome." The Falcon Heavy SpaceX test launch earlier this week was as astonishing to watch as was Neil Armstrong taking his first step on the Moon. And Elon Musk put a Tesla inside the rocket as payload. Nice touch. 

But it was the booster rockets that disconnected from the main rocket and guided themselves back to earth, hitting their landing pads perfectly - sort of like pencils landing directly on their erasers. The split screens show the booster coming down to Earth feet-first, as it were, and the cameras on the boosters themselves let you watch the landing pads come into focus as the boosters approach their target. I've never seen anything like it. 

# # #

Houston: we have a man-splaining problem

image credit: memegenerator.net

Until recently, Doug Powers blogged at Michelle Malkin’s blog site. When he posted his final blog on her website a week or two ago, he pointed to his own blog, and since then, I’ve visited him several times a week. He’s irreverent, but I rather like that. He posted the other day on Canada’s Justin Trudeau's moronic response to a question at a townhall:

Questioner: “My question is about volunteering. So, the World Mission Society Church of God is truly growing and changing society through our volunteer work. We have received the Queen’s Award in the UK… [and] have received many awards throughout the whole word; however, unfortunately in Canada, our volunteering as a charitable religious organization is extremely difficult. Extremely. That’s why, in actuality, we cannot do free volunteering to help our neighbors in need as we truly desire. So, that’s why we came here today to ask you, to also look into the policies that religious charitable organizations have in our legislation so that it can also be changed, because maternal love is the love that’s going to change the future of mankind…”

Trudeau: “We like to say peoplekind, not necessarily mankind, because it’s more inclusive.”

Cue: eye rolling.

But the humor that Doug Powers brought to this craziness is why I am posting his commentary below. Cue: belly laugh:

Can you imagine if somebody like this had been in the control room at NASA in 1969?

***

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

#Beep

“Ok Neil, Um, I’ve got a couple problems with that. Can you climb back up there and come back down instead with maybe ‘one small step for a non-binary hu-person, one similar step for person-kind’? ‘Giant leap’ seems a bit presumptuous, and it could be a little triggering for those with the inability to leap.”

#Beep

“Houston, this is the first manned mission to another celestial body, could we save this discussion for later?”

#Beep

“Manned? Have you not been paying attention, Neil? … Neil?”

#Beep

“Uh, Houston, Buzz, Michael and I have decided to just go ahead and stay up here if it’s ok with you.”

Political correctness is out of control. Doug Powers showed how pathetic it is in this one little sketch.

# # #

Diversity 360 – huh?

image credit: thedailysheeple.com

Our friend Steve Salvi at Ohio Jobs & Justice Pac posted about this on FB:

The universities have become cults, pushing BS ideas...An example from one of Cleveland's most prominent Universities...Case Western Reserve University. You can learn about your "privilege" and about "microaggressions" from the CWRU website:

Diversity 360^o is a new campus-wide diversity education program for students, faculty and staff developed in collaboration with the Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

Diversity 360^o can be implemented and customized into modules for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff that will assist the campus community in advancing its efforts to be a welcoming, inclusive environment for learning, leading, and innovation.

Based on research from higher education and the corporate sector about cross-cultural competency and on results from university climate surveys, the modules will engage participants in learning to:

• Increase capacity to recognize and engage in dialogue across the breadth of differences;
• Deepen understanding of how affiliations in privileged and marginalized groups impact treatment on campus, campus climate and productivity;
• Deepen awareness of types of microaggressions and how they affect experiences on campus and in the local community; and
• Discover ways to become a change agent and diversity champion with new knowledge, ideas and resources about university policies, programs and best practices.

Diversity 360^o includes pre- and post-assessment of diversity-related knowledge, as well as, ongoing programming to assist members of the campus community with the goal of creating a welcoming campus climate at CWRU.

It’s worse than “ugh.” It’s politically correct indoctrination.

# # #

Devin Nunes, a deplorable dairy farmer

photo credit: impactlab.net

Historian Victor Davis Hanson always comes up with insights on today’s headlines, and in his latest, he offer perspectives not only as a scholar and professor, but also as a California farmer. His column at American Greatness on “Counterfeit Elitism” starts off:

Those damn dairy farmers. Why do they insist on trying to govern? Or, put another way:

Why are Republicans trusting Devin Nunes to be their oracle of truth!? A former dairy farmer who House intel staffers refer to as Secret Agent Man because he has no idea what’s going on.

Thus spoke MSNBC panelist, Yale graduate, former Republican “strategist,” and Bush administration speechwriter Elise Jordan.

Jordan likely knows little about San Joaquin Valley family dairy farmers and little notion of the sort of skills, savvy, and work ethic necessary to survive in an increasingly corporate-dominated industry. Whereas dairy farmer Nunes has excelled in politics, it would be hard to imagine Jordan running a family dairy farm, at least given the evidence of her televised skill sets and sobriety.

Republicans “trust” Devin Nunes, because without his dogged efforts it is unlikely that we would know about the Fusion GPS dossier or the questionable premises on which FISA court surveillance was ordered. Neither would we have known about the machinations of an array of Obama Administration, Justice Department and FBI officials who, in addition to having possibly violated the law in monitoring a political campaign and unmasking and leaking names of Americans to the press, may have colluded with people in the Clinton campaign who funded the Steele dossier.

The rest of his article is here. It’s a long look at the insulated elites who know better than the basketfuls of deplorables.

# # #

Yet another reason not to watch today's Super Bowl

This lovely report is by Colin Flaherty at American Thinker:

Everything you need to know about the Super Bowl can be found in the rap hit “Dreams and Nightmares,” by Meek Mill. But which more truthfully could be named after a line in the song: "The Murder Game" or "All I Know Is Murder."

Everything about how far professional football has fallen and how the NFL celebrates the obscene, the vulgar, the dangerous, and the foolish will be on full display as that song blares as the Eagles take the field.

This song that the Eagle players have chosen is about guns, drugs, money, bitches, and murder, over and over and over. Just like the rest of Meek Mill songs, which also include a healthy dollop of the evils of the white man.

We do not know whether the Eagles will be kneeling prior to the big game as they have during the season. Or whether they will be following the dictates of their union which, after accepting $100 million from the owners, decided that white racism and police brutality were not so bad after all.

Meek Mill will not be there. He’s in the joint. The slammer. All for a violating his parole over and over and over. All for committing crimes over and over and over.

The Eagles don’t think that is fair. Don’t you know that crime is the new black entitlement? The mayor and district attorney of the City of Brotherly Love certainly do: That was their platform during their recent elections.

. . .

The rest of Flaherty’s report is just as bad.

# # #