Archive for the ‘Liberals’ Category

Liberals and Islam – Patheos (blog)

I am very liberal. You should know that about me. But when it comes to Islam I have struggles that set me apart from other liberals. I think for most liberals (and most of my friends) defending Muslims is the same as defending any other minority. We care about people having equality and being safe and having the ability to practice their own beliefs without persecution. We believe in that for everyone (yes even those in the majority, even Christians here and Hindus in India). So I think for my friends, fighting for equality for Muslims in America is straightforward. It fits the philosophy of their life to help everyone of any religion and belief gain equal rights.

Its hard for me to look at Muslims that way because the religion isnt just like any other. The equal rights for all religions assumes all religions are equal. In theory thats true, in theory I believe that, but the beliefs of Islam are completely antithetical to my faith.

In my attempts to be kind to Muslims Ive already been getting back some disrespect for my religion. Its super challenging to defend the rights of those who would ideally like to see my religion disappear. The way I look at the world and the way a Muslim looks at the world are not compatible. Theres almost no overlap, it seems.

Its hard to defend people of a religion that says it is the only true path and all others are sinning against God by not converting to their religion.

I know Christians who dont think Christianity has to be exclusive, who dont take literally the idea that only Jesus leads to God. So it is possible for Christians to be open to sharing the world with people who have different beliefs. But the Islamic statement of faith is that Allah is the only God. Its pretty much the whole basis of the religion.

I dont know how to reconcile that.

My conclusion at the moment is that I can dislike Islam and like Muslims. I can be a friend to Muslims even if I dont like their religion. But can I really? Can I be a friend to those who dont think my faith has any legitimacy?

Are there Muslims who believe in coexisting with other religions? Please speak up and tell me!

What does the ideal future look like? Thats what Im trying to figure out. If we liberals get what we want and there is freedom for everyone to practice their religion and Muslims are no longer discriminated against, what happens then? Do we all live in peace, share our resources, help one another out? Is it possible to have such a world?

I just dont know. I would really like to hear from Muslims about how they envision the future. What do you think it would look like if Muslims were no longer discriminated against in America?

How can Islam coexist with other religions that do not believe in one God separate from his creation?

See more here:
Liberals and Islam - Patheos (blog)

Liberals, What Are You Teaching Your Kids? – American Thinker

Even though Hillary's ad was mostly dishonest (surprise), I do agree with the message that the examples we set are critical to our children's development.

"Role models from an early age are important to children and their development as the models set an example of behavior good or bad and show their influence over others in a way your child will want to emulate." Darlena Cunha, The Influence of Role Models

In other words, kids watch adults and copy their behavior. So what life lessons are we handing down to our youth? Sadly, today's role models are teaching our kids to be bullies, outlaws, babies, and violent anarchists. Our septic media promote only the most reprehensible behavior, the absolute worst examples for our children. For instance:

Behavior: "I'll hunt you down": Today, the powerful entities in our country government, entertainment, corporations, and mainstream media gang up on and bully the Ppesident of the United States. They call him names a joke, phony, fraud, Nazi, fascist, and every version of -phobe. They attack his administration, slow-walk his Cabinet, threaten impeachment, call him mentally incompetent, unhinged, and worse.

And for those who think they'll stand by this president despite the attacks, think again. Tom Brady is hounded by liberals over his friendship with Trump. Celebrities are blacklisted if they offer support. Activist websites openly bully companies to discontinue Trump merchandise. Macy's, Nordstrom's, Burlington, and others have now dropped the Trump label, and the list of capitulating stores is growing.

Lesson: You don't like someone? Stalk him. Trash everything he does. Mock, demean, ridicule, and ostracize this person. For those who still hang with your victim, attack them as well. Harass, threaten, and blackball them until they too turn on your target.

Behavior: "I'll say who's boss": In this age of power by any means, Hollywood hits the airwaves to warn the American people that a dictator has taken control, that Americans are in danger of citizen arrest, deportation squads, and internment camps. Amid their wild accusations, they openly urge resistance and the overthrow of our government. Sarah Silverman and ex-Pentagon official Rosa Brooks actually called for a military coup. Madonna brags that she's thought of "blowing up the White House."

Lesson: Fight authority, defy the law, and openly revolt if you don't get your way. You don't like your parent's rules? Refuse to obey. Take them to court. A teacher's too tough? Organize the class to smear him, lie, accuse, defame until you cost that teacher his job.

Behavior: "WAH!": Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer effectively modeled two-year-old behavior when he literally cried over President Trump's executive order and called the president a big meanie.

Then we have the ubiquitous protests clueless toddlers clogging roads and bridges, screaming, Wah! I want the blue one!

Lesson: Good news, kids: you don't have to really grow up. Just buy bigger clothes.

Behavior: "You didn't really win": When Democrats lost the election, they railed that Putin rigged the election to help Trump steal victory from Hillary. When that fake news was put down by facts, they went to Plan B: Hillary really won the election because she won the popular vote. Like a manager who brags that his boxer was winning on points before losing consciousness, the left cling to their new narrative of an alternative definition of victory.

Lesson: You don't have to settle for second place just because you lost. Kick, scream, and accuse the winner of cheating. Spin his win until you've muddied the waters enough to cast doubt on his victory.

Behavior: "You and what army?": Some mayors and governors openly defy federal law to keep their sanctuary havens, then publicly challenge the president to do anything about it. They go on TV and virtually get in the president's face, telling the world criminal aliens are welcome in their cities.

Lesson: You don't have to obey the rules or the law if you don't like it. Just refuse to comply. Steal the goods right in front of a cop; copy your neighbor's answers with the teacher standing over you; beat the crap out of your younger sibling while your parents watch in horror. Then tell all you're going to keep stealing, cheating, and beating, and dare them to stop you.

Behavior: Hulk Smash: Today, images of marching anarchists fill our screens. We're treated to "poor loser riots," the "Trump said bad things" riots, and now the "just because" riots. Even the supposed "peaceful protests" break the law. By blocking roads and bridges, they keep people from picking up their kids or making a flight, and they block emergency vehicles in life-and-death situations.

The non-peaceful protests, aka riots, are the new holy grail of journalism. The press orgasmically loops video of hooded thugs smashing windows, burning cars and buildings, and beating innocent bystanders unconscious.

Reporters then interview empty vessels who righteously claim "self-defense." The Berkeley campus was destroyed because these imbeciles really believe that the 1st Amendment of the Constitution protects them from opposing views. These geniuses also think the free speech argument is just right-wing propaganda.

The mobocracy violence is supplemented by the left's proxies, who make death threats, call for assassination, and threaten to shut down businesses. Even the designer of the "Make America Great Again" gown worn by Joy Villa at the Grammys drew death threats death threats for making a dress. Zero tolerance.

Lesson: If you don't get your way with bullying and open defiance, trash the place. You don't like what your teacher says? Upend desks, set them on fire, take an axe to the blackboard, and beat up anyone who gets in your way. Your mom grounds you? Smash her big-screen TV and egg her car. It's okay self-defense and all that.

Now, adults take all this with a grain of salt it's politics, it's the left, it's liberals. But kids might get a little fuzzy on the facts.

When the rabid left demands a do-over because Trump "stole the election," the little guys probably wonder if it's true. And when kids are told the dude in the cool black ninja costume setting fire to a building is the good guy, they might pick the wrong superhero.

Or, being children, they probably feel sorry for the sobbing Senator Chuckie and want to know what "meanie" President Trump did to make him cry. And why is President Trump sending all those Mexican mommies away without their kids, and why does he want to blow up the world?

The little darlings can't help themselves. Kids are curious by nature, and these sensational headlines require further exploration, reasonable explanations, and the truth.

So to the unraveling left who can't deal with your loss (including the media), is this bullying, defiance, and violence what you want for your children?

My guess is that leftists want more for their kids. We all do. Most parents want their children to be honest, fair, kind, and unselfish. Parents hope their kids will be humble in victory and gracious in defeat and generous to those less fortunate and, above all, that they'll be happy.

But for children to acquire those traits, they need adults to first model those behaviors. If our media continue to seek out and broadcast the worst of our society, then our kids will grow up with images of anger, hate, anarchy, and violence. If the media stay hell-bent on destroying President Trump, then our children will learn to be defiant, combative, and contemptuous of legal authority.

Like it or not, we are the role models, the people our kids look up to and emulate. Will we give our children a blueprint for misery and failure, or will we give them the tools they need to be happy and successful adults?

For once, Hillary got it right: the children are indeed watching.

In the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton ran an ad called "Role Models." The ad shows small children watching a series of Donald Trump's more controversial moments e.g., the alleged mocking of the disabled reporter and other selective sound bites. Text then flashes on the screen:

Our children are watching What example will we set for them?

Even though Hillary's ad was mostly dishonest (surprise), I do agree with the message that the examples we set are critical to our children's development.

"Role models from an early age are important to children and their development as the models set an example of behavior good or bad and show their influence over others in a way your child will want to emulate." Darlena Cunha, The Influence of Role Models

In other words, kids watch adults and copy their behavior. So what life lessons are we handing down to our youth? Sadly, today's role models are teaching our kids to be bullies, outlaws, babies, and violent anarchists. Our septic media promote only the most reprehensible behavior, the absolute worst examples for our children. For instance:

Behavior: "I'll hunt you down": Today, the powerful entities in our country government, entertainment, corporations, and mainstream media gang up on and bully the Ppesident of the United States. They call him names a joke, phony, fraud, Nazi, fascist, and every version of -phobe. They attack his administration, slow-walk his Cabinet, threaten impeachment, call him mentally incompetent, unhinged, and worse.

And for those who think they'll stand by this president despite the attacks, think again. Tom Brady is hounded by liberals over his friendship with Trump. Celebrities are blacklisted if they offer support. Activist websites openly bully companies to discontinue Trump merchandise. Macy's, Nordstrom's, Burlington, and others have now dropped the Trump label, and the list of capitulating stores is growing.

Lesson: You don't like someone? Stalk him. Trash everything he does. Mock, demean, ridicule, and ostracize this person. For those who still hang with your victim, attack them as well. Harass, threaten, and blackball them until they too turn on your target.

Behavior: "I'll say who's boss": In this age of power by any means, Hollywood hits the airwaves to warn the American people that a dictator has taken control, that Americans are in danger of citizen arrest, deportation squads, and internment camps. Amid their wild accusations, they openly urge resistance and the overthrow of our government. Sarah Silverman and ex-Pentagon official Rosa Brooks actually called for a military coup. Madonna brags that she's thought of "blowing up the White House."

Lesson: Fight authority, defy the law, and openly revolt if you don't get your way. You don't like your parent's rules? Refuse to obey. Take them to court. A teacher's too tough? Organize the class to smear him, lie, accuse, defame until you cost that teacher his job.

Behavior: "WAH!": Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer effectively modeled two-year-old behavior when he literally cried over President Trump's executive order and called the president a big meanie.

Then we have the ubiquitous protests clueless toddlers clogging roads and bridges, screaming, Wah! I want the blue one!

Lesson: Good news, kids: you don't have to really grow up. Just buy bigger clothes.

Behavior: "You didn't really win": When Democrats lost the election, they railed that Putin rigged the election to help Trump steal victory from Hillary. When that fake news was put down by facts, they went to Plan B: Hillary really won the election because she won the popular vote. Like a manager who brags that his boxer was winning on points before losing consciousness, the left cling to their new narrative of an alternative definition of victory.

Lesson: You don't have to settle for second place just because you lost. Kick, scream, and accuse the winner of cheating. Spin his win until you've muddied the waters enough to cast doubt on his victory.

Behavior: "You and what army?": Some mayors and governors openly defy federal law to keep their sanctuary havens, then publicly challenge the president to do anything about it. They go on TV and virtually get in the president's face, telling the world criminal aliens are welcome in their cities.

Lesson: You don't have to obey the rules or the law if you don't like it. Just refuse to comply. Steal the goods right in front of a cop; copy your neighbor's answers with the teacher standing over you; beat the crap out of your younger sibling while your parents watch in horror. Then tell all you're going to keep stealing, cheating, and beating, and dare them to stop you.

Behavior: Hulk Smash: Today, images of marching anarchists fill our screens. We're treated to "poor loser riots," the "Trump said bad things" riots, and now the "just because" riots. Even the supposed "peaceful protests" break the law. By blocking roads and bridges, they keep people from picking up their kids or making a flight, and they block emergency vehicles in life-and-death situations.

The non-peaceful protests, aka riots, are the new holy grail of journalism. The press orgasmically loops video of hooded thugs smashing windows, burning cars and buildings, and beating innocent bystanders unconscious.

Reporters then interview empty vessels who righteously claim "self-defense." The Berkeley campus was destroyed because these imbeciles really believe that the 1st Amendment of the Constitution protects them from opposing views. These geniuses also think the free speech argument is just right-wing propaganda.

The mobocracy violence is supplemented by the left's proxies, who make death threats, call for assassination, and threaten to shut down businesses. Even the designer of the "Make America Great Again" gown worn by Joy Villa at the Grammys drew death threats death threats for making a dress. Zero tolerance.

Lesson: If you don't get your way with bullying and open defiance, trash the place. You don't like what your teacher says? Upend desks, set them on fire, take an axe to the blackboard, and beat up anyone who gets in your way. Your mom grounds you? Smash her big-screen TV and egg her car. It's okay self-defense and all that.

Now, adults take all this with a grain of salt it's politics, it's the left, it's liberals. But kids might get a little fuzzy on the facts.

When the rabid left demands a do-over because Trump "stole the election," the little guys probably wonder if it's true. And when kids are told the dude in the cool black ninja costume setting fire to a building is the good guy, they might pick the wrong superhero.

Or, being children, they probably feel sorry for the sobbing Senator Chuckie and want to know what "meanie" President Trump did to make him cry. And why is President Trump sending all those Mexican mommies away without their kids, and why does he want to blow up the world?

The little darlings can't help themselves. Kids are curious by nature, and these sensational headlines require further exploration, reasonable explanations, and the truth.

So to the unraveling left who can't deal with your loss (including the media), is this bullying, defiance, and violence what you want for your children?

My guess is that leftists want more for their kids. We all do. Most parents want their children to be honest, fair, kind, and unselfish. Parents hope their kids will be humble in victory and gracious in defeat and generous to those less fortunate and, above all, that they'll be happy.

But for children to acquire those traits, they need adults to first model those behaviors. If our media continue to seek out and broadcast the worst of our society, then our kids will grow up with images of anger, hate, anarchy, and violence. If the media stay hell-bent on destroying President Trump, then our children will learn to be defiant, combative, and contemptuous of legal authority.

Like it or not, we are the role models, the people our kids look up to and emulate. Will we give our children a blueprint for misery and failure, or will we give them the tools they need to be happy and successful adults?

For once, Hillary got it right: the children are indeed watching.

Read the rest here:
Liberals, What Are You Teaching Your Kids? - American Thinker

Liberals Can’t Decide if Trump Is an Autocrat or Anarchist – Reason

The Trump administration's approach to big government seems positively schizophrenic. But then you'd expect that, wouldn't you? The president has no coherent political philosophy. He has a collection of grievances.

So what excuse do his critics have? They haven't sounded much more coherent than he has lately, either.

We are led to understand, from about 9 billion different ominously titled think pieces, that Trump is a brutal authoritarian who is only waiting for the right moment to declare martial law and round up the dissidents. Some of that is good old-fashioned fear-mongeringthe same sort of thing you hear from the right when Democrats are in power. (Remember Obama's "FEMA camps" or the NRA's Wayne LaPierre warning about "jack-booted thugs" during the Clinton administration?)

But there also is some truth to the charge: As noted in this column about a year ago, Trump is perhaps the most maximum of Maximum Leaders the country has seen since FDR. In Roosevelt's defense, at least he was trying to stop the Nazi war machine. Trump has gone to war against Latino fence-jumpers looking for work and members of the media who don't kiss his ring. Not quite the same.

Moreover, Trump is engaged in some rather martial projects, such as a big hike in Pentagon spending and a hugely expensive wall along the southern border. He also wants to hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents and 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. (And this after the number of border and customs agents already has doubled during the previous two administrations.) Oh, and the president also wants to build a huge tariff wall to stop the Yellow Peril of Chinese products from invading our shores.

Trump's vision of America isn't so much a shining city on a hill as it is a fortified garrison.

At the same time, we are all supposed to recoil from the recent assertion by Trump's Rasputin, Steve Bannon, that the administration aims for the "deconstruction of the administrative state."

Some of the White House's critics seem to be rather fuzzy about exactly what that means, while others seem to think it means "literally dismantling the departments of Education and the EPA and Energy." It's no big secret, though: Georgetown Law's Jonathan Turley explained it clearly when he testified before Congress a little while back. The administrative state is the unaccountable part of the executive branch that has arrogated to itself the functions of the other two branches by (a) cranking out rules far faster than Congress writes laws, and (b) conducting judicial proceedings 10 times as frequently as actual federal judges do.

Policy wonks contend that this has been made possible by excessive judicial deference to executive agencies, and particularly by a Supreme Court decision known as Chevron. Whether Chevron deference is good for America or not is a fair question, but as topics go it's drier than chalk dust.

Still, assume for the sake of argument that Trump's critics are right and he does want to dismantle much of the apparatus of the federal government. (After all, he did say he would like to cut regulations by 75 percent.)

If that's true, then much of the concern about Ein Trump Autokratie goes away. Take the Federal Communications Commission: Trump recently named Ajit Pai its chairman. Pai opposes tight regulatory constraints on the internet, which makes progressives sad. But it also makes autocratic rule harder. If Trump wanted to control the internet, he would have renamed Pai's predecessor, Tom Wheeler, a progressive who favors stringent government oversight.

Likewise, if Trump really were to eliminate the Department of Education, then people who draw devil's horns on pictures of Secretary Betsy DeVos could stop worrying that she would ram school choice down the throats of liberal enclaves. By the same token, shuttering the Department of Energy would make it virtually impossible for the administration to manipulate research or to stop the energy market's shift away from fossil fuels and toward renewables.

Shutting down the EPA also would take a big stick away from Trump's meaty paw. Remember, it was only a few years ago that EPA administrator Alfredo Juan "Al" Armendariz was caught on videotape saying that his philosophy of governance was "kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They'd go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they'd find the first five guys they saw, and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years." (He later resigned.)

Nor could the EPA do what it tried to do to Mike and Chantell Sackett: Force them to obey a compliance order, or face ruinous fines, without so much as a court hearing. The EPA insisted that its bureaucratic edicts lay beyond the reach of judicial reviewa stance that epitomizes the worst of the administrative state. A unanimous Supreme Court ultimately ruled otherwise.

Granted, it's possible to impose a military junta while leaving the private-sector economy alone. But for real old-fashioned totalitarianism you need a huge, centralized bureaucracy. Liberals who fear right-wing presidents might be wise to keep that in mind.

This column originally appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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Liberals Can't Decide if Trump Is an Autocrat or Anarchist - Reason

Liberals losing the ‘Trump is a racist’ narrative – American Thinker (blog)

Liberals entered the 2016 election year using the same weapon against their Republican opponents that they've used for the past fifty years: Republican candidate X is a racist. There need not be any evidence to support the claim. Every Democrat candidate can count on his cohorts in the media to assist him in painting Republican candidate X as a racist, with the assurance that whoever the Republican candidate is, he will not fight back.

With over thirty years in the public eye, the minute Donald Trump came down the escalators at Trump Tower and officially declared that he was entering the race for the presidency of the United States of America as a Republican, he all of sudden became a racist, too. What liberals and the media did not count on was Donald Trump fighting back. Not only did they not expect him to fight back, but they surely didn't think he would target the black community with a plan for better education and prosperity. In fact, Trump has been talking about rebuilding the inner cities since 1980s.

Now that Donald Trump has won the presidency, liberals are still trying to paint him as a racist bigot and anti-Semitic, while at the same time he is signing executive orders that prove the opposite. During Black History Month, President Trump met at the White House with the leaders of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to discuss his plans for an HBCU executive order. The liberal media immediately began trying to somehow spin it negatively. The Washing Post made the following comments:

Advocates of HBCUs are mindful of skepticism about this outreach.

"It is unprecedented," said Johnny Taylor, president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports HBCUs. "It's really, really bizarre, is the only thing I can say. It's so counterintuitive you can't make it up."

Taylor said he has spent a lot of time on the phone in recent days, talking with presidents and chancellors who are skeptical of the motives. "People said, 'What's this about? Is it just a photo op? Is this some sort of a planned effort to convert our campuses to support the Republican Party?'

"People were really, really suspicious about it."

But Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, said that over the past 50 years, such schools have had bipartisan support. Funding levels have stayed relatively the same, by and large, over that time. Meetings with members of Congress happen routinely, she said.

Both Bush presidencies were supportive of historically black colleges, Gasman said. And every president since Jimmy Carter has issued an executive order about them. She was dismissive of the idea that Omarosa Manigault, director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison and an alumna of historically black universities, would be a powerful ally for the schools. "She may have gone to HBCUs," Gasman said, "but she really knows nothing about education."

The Root magazine had the following headline about Trump's executive article: "Trying to One-Up Obama, Trump Will Sign Executive Order Supporting HBCUs: Report," along with the following comments:

Perhaps after the now infamous Frederick Douglass debacle kicking off Black History Month, President Donald Trump wants to make it right with the blacks

According to a BuzzFeed report, the White House is working on an executive order supporting historically black colleges and universities a way to crow, since some believe that President Barack Obama did not do enough for the predominantly African-American institutions during his two terms in office.

After the White House photos of the HBCU leaders with President Trump inside the Oval Office were published, the liberal media focused on a photo of Kellyanne Conway sitting with her knees on the couch in an attempt to distract from the beautiful and powerful sight of several black leaders posing with the supposedly racist Trump. Liberals' cries of racism are beginning to sound ridiculous in the face of reality. While Democrat officials are pouting and boycotting, President Trump is busy fulfilling his campaign promises. He knows that for America to be great, all of her citizens must have an opportunity and access to a good education as well as good-paying jobs. If President Trump is able to do all that he has promised for the inner cities, liberals' invented terms like "systemic racism" and "legacy of slavery" will sound foolish even coming from a far-left demagogue.

Christian Commentary (http://patriciascornerblog.com), or contact the author at patdickson@earthlink.net. Follow her on Twitter at @Patrici15767099.

Liberals entered the 2016 election year using the same weapon against their Republican opponents that they've used for the past fifty years: Republican candidate X is a racist. There need not be any evidence to support the claim. Every Democrat candidate can count on his cohorts in the media to assist him in painting Republican candidate X as a racist, with the assurance that whoever the Republican candidate is, he will not fight back.

With over thirty years in the public eye, the minute Donald Trump came down the escalators at Trump Tower and officially declared that he was entering the race for the presidency of the United States of America as a Republican, he all of sudden became a racist, too. What liberals and the media did not count on was Donald Trump fighting back. Not only did they not expect him to fight back, but they surely didn't think he would target the black community with a plan for better education and prosperity. In fact, Trump has been talking about rebuilding the inner cities since 1980s.

Now that Donald Trump has won the presidency, liberals are still trying to paint him as a racist bigot and anti-Semitic, while at the same time he is signing executive orders that prove the opposite. During Black History Month, President Trump met at the White House with the leaders of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to discuss his plans for an HBCU executive order. The liberal media immediately began trying to somehow spin it negatively. The Washing Post made the following comments:

Advocates of HBCUs are mindful of skepticism about this outreach.

"It is unprecedented," said Johnny Taylor, president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which supports HBCUs. "It's really, really bizarre, is the only thing I can say. It's so counterintuitive you can't make it up."

Taylor said he has spent a lot of time on the phone in recent days, talking with presidents and chancellors who are skeptical of the motives. "People said, 'What's this about? Is it just a photo op? Is this some sort of a planned effort to convert our campuses to support the Republican Party?'

"People were really, really suspicious about it."

But Marybeth Gasman, a professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, said that over the past 50 years, such schools have had bipartisan support. Funding levels have stayed relatively the same, by and large, over that time. Meetings with members of Congress happen routinely, she said.

Both Bush presidencies were supportive of historically black colleges, Gasman said. And every president since Jimmy Carter has issued an executive order about them. She was dismissive of the idea that Omarosa Manigault, director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison and an alumna of historically black universities, would be a powerful ally for the schools. "She may have gone to HBCUs," Gasman said, "but she really knows nothing about education."

The Root magazine had the following headline about Trump's executive article: "Trying to One-Up Obama, Trump Will Sign Executive Order Supporting HBCUs: Report," along with the following comments:

Perhaps after the now infamous Frederick Douglass debacle kicking off Black History Month, President Donald Trump wants to make it right with the blacks

According to a BuzzFeed report, the White House is working on an executive order supporting historically black colleges and universities a way to crow, since some believe that President Barack Obama did not do enough for the predominantly African-American institutions during his two terms in office.

After the White House photos of the HBCU leaders with President Trump inside the Oval Office were published, the liberal media focused on a photo of Kellyanne Conway sitting with her knees on the couch in an attempt to distract from the beautiful and powerful sight of several black leaders posing with the supposedly racist Trump. Liberals' cries of racism are beginning to sound ridiculous in the face of reality. While Democrat officials are pouting and boycotting, President Trump is busy fulfilling his campaign promises. He knows that for America to be great, all of her citizens must have an opportunity and access to a good education as well as good-paying jobs. If President Trump is able to do all that he has promised for the inner cities, liberals' invented terms like "systemic racism" and "legacy of slavery" will sound foolish even coming from a far-left demagogue.

Christian Commentary (http://patriciascornerblog.com), or contact the author at patdickson@earthlink.net. Follow her on Twitter at @Patrici15767099.

View original post here:
Liberals losing the 'Trump is a racist' narrative - American Thinker (blog)

It’s not just Trump supporters who spread fake news. Liberals do it too – Los Angeles Times

Last fall, as Native American protesters gathered at Standing Rock to stop the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, several of my friends checked in at the protest on Facebook. They were nowhere near South Dakota. They had heard through urgent posts by other friends who were not present, either that fake geo-tagging would protect protesters at the site from monitoring by law enforcement. NPR reported that more than a million people checked in at the protest camp, a digital version of the I am Spartacus strategy.

But the local Sheriffs office told reporters that it hadnt been monitoring protesters using Facebook geo-tags. And leaders of the protest said they had never asked far-flung allies to change their locations on social media.

The geo-tagging fad was a harmless way for people to express solidarity with the protesters. It was also, arguably, part of a bigger problem with how information spreads online in the Trump era.

Fake news, as defined by the Columbia Journalism Review, is misinformation crafted to influence public opinion or cull digital advertising dollars. When researchers from Stanford and New York University analyzed misinformation that spread on social media during the 2016 election, they found that more fake news articles were pro-Trump than pro-Clinton.

But in the months since the election, President Trump has made fake news his primary critique of any unfavorable coverage. The president applies the label to everything from independent polls finding scant support for his policies to leaked reports that his administration is in disarray.

If the term has been rendered meaningless, the underlying notion still holds up: People are too quick to share articles that confirm their beliefs. (In December, a Pew study found that 23% of U.S. adults had shared a made-up news story, either knowingly or not.) And despite liberals self-perception that we are more fact-oriented than your average Trump supporter, this is not a weakness limited to the right.

To spread misinformation, you dont have to share a post with a clicky headline from a dubious source. Sometimes all you have to do is take a funny meme a bit too seriously. Take, for example, a well-circulated animated GIF of Melania Trump during the inauguration ceremony. The clip shows her smiling while her husband is facing her, then dropping the smile as soon as he turns away. For those of us who want to believe that even those closest to the president secretly hate him, the GIF was a balm. This Melania Trump GIF is all of us, crowed Cosmopolitan. Melanias perceived unhappiness became one of the more popular liberal memes of the week, with captions like, Blink twice if you want us to save you.

The joke faded faster than Melanias smile when advocates for survivors of abuse published blog posts imploring us to take seriously the suggestion that domestic violence might be an issue in the White House. The blog Queerty claimed it had found another candid video of Donald Trump treating Melania like crap. An online joke had become a pretty serious story and allegation with scant evidence to back it up.

A few sites, including Mediaite, posted the inauguration footage in full, which placed the short viral clip in context. It appears the smile drops quickly from Melanias face because the GIF was captured during a prayernot exactly a moment for joking around on the dais. But the corrective was lost in a deluge of memes. No one shared it in my feed. I only found it because I went looking for it.

Was the Melania smiling meme fake news? Probably not as most on the left would define it, because no one intended to mislead the public or drive clicks to a single website. But political wishful thinking carried the story past the point of absurdity.

Memes arent the only unlikely way that alternative facts circulate in liberal circles. Like our counterparts on the right, those of us on the left dont always trust established journalistic institutions to cover certain issues thoroughly especially when it comes to marginalized people who arent likely to be perceived as advertisers or subscribers. Groups including Native American activists, transgender teens and immigrants in the country illegally have long relied heavily on word of mouth for information.

When immigration officers stepped up enforcement efforts, resulting in raids across the country, gossip spread across social media faster than journalists were able to confirm or debunk it. Reports of ICE #raids and #checkpoints NEED TO COME WITH PICTURES OR FACEBOOK LIVE, tweeted Fusion immigration reporter Jorge Rivas. Rumors are spreading and it's causing even more anxiety.

The root cause of left-wing rumor-mongering is fairly obvious. When the front-page headlines sound like conspiracy theories and plotlines from House of Cards,its easy to conflate unsourced rants on blogs and in public forums with reported facts. Cognitive scientists have found that its much harder for us to skeptically assess stories that confirm our beliefs rather than challenge our view of the world.

Fake news isnt just a problem that afflicts others. The burden falls on all of us to read news items critically before we share them no matter what our political persuasion or how pure our intentions.

Ann Friedman is a contributing writer to Opinion. She lives in Los Angeles.

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Original post:
It's not just Trump supporters who spread fake news. Liberals do it too - Los Angeles Times