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Paul Waldman, a senior writer for the American Prospect and a contributor to the Washington Posts Plum Line column, is out with a melodramatic performance piece tied to excerpts from Hillary Clintons forthcoming book. It was headlined: Has Hillary Clinton abased herself sufficiently to satisfy her critics?

The column instantly received praise from Democratic strategists and commentators for its unsubtle attack on people, whom Neera Tanden, Joan Walsh, or Mark Moulitsas might have labeled alt-left (except now that President Donald Trump used it to draw a false equivalency with white supremacists in Charlottesville, theyre a bit more careful when it comes to deploying it).

The central argument is that Clinton is repeatedly asked to apologize for failing to defeat Trump because she is a woman. Presidential candidates Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Kerry, or Al Gore never had to get down on their knees and beg forgiveness for their failures every time they appeared in public after losing their presidential elections.

He also argues Clinton has taken responsibility for her failure, and yet, it is not good enough for reporters. Much of the piece is spent on the mainstream media and how cable news spent time on a book by Peter Schweitzer called Clinton Cash, which made Clinton look corrupt. And of course, there were the damn emailsan orgy of coverage of Clintons emails.

Waldmans performance piece is undermined by the fact that he is not specific at all when claiming that there are people demanding a ritual begging of forgiveness from Hillary Clinton.

One can gather that people who share Waldmans perspective are upset about the media and how they covered Clinton, and they believe this played a significant role in the outcome of the 2016 Election. But then the column should be headlined: Has Hillary Clinton abased herself sufficiently to satisfy the media? Instead, it is abstractly aimed at critics.

Are these Trump supporters? Progressives or Democratic socialists who still fervently back Senator Bernie Sanders? Communists or full-blooded socialists? Is this a left-wing problem or a right-wing problem or both?

Maybe, Waldman and others are convinced the problem is so pervasive that it does not matter who is doing it. However, there are next to no critics named, and the only example offered is Clinton Cash, which the New York Times and Washington Post struck a deal to cover, even though it contained several falsehoods about the extent of the Bill and Hillary Clintons corruption.

This would not be a topic of discussion currently if Clinton was not in the early stages of hyping her book, What Happened, on her election campaign. She wants the public to see her campaign from her perspective, but consequently, that is going to result in critics questioning her assertions because that is what people do with politicians.

Waldman would have Sanders progressives and others with valid critiques silence themselves because apparently there is some need to guard Clinton from being perpetually vulnerable. Waldmans framing implies she is not a strong enough woman to stand up for herself, even though she was one of the most powerful Democratic politicians in the recent United States history.

This argument is born from the same detestable and intellectually dishonest place that birthed the Bernie Bro label used to smear those who challenged Clinton from the left during the election. In fact, Waldman wrote a piece for the American Prospect on June 27, 2016, called The Last Bernie Bro?

Waldman invoked the reports of Sanders supporters willing to vote for Trump. He also added, How many Sanders supporters are there who wont decide to vote for Clinton until Bernie says its OK to do so? The number gets smaller every day. And if he waits long enough, he could find that almost none of them are still waiting with him.

He ostentatiously quotes an excerpt (that is new) from her forthcoming book: Every day that I was a candidate for president, I knew that millions of people were counting on me, and I couldnt bear the idea of letting them down but I did. I couldnt get the job done, and Ill have to live with that for the rest of my life.

Waldman jibes, Is that abject enough for you?

It is as if all the statements people made that Waldman and other Democrats despise must be apologized for retroactively because the public now has a truly clear-cut statement from Clinton that she had a job to do and did not succeed.

On top of that, Waldman neglects to include statements like, I take responsibility for every decision I made, but thats not why I lost, which she uttered at the Code Conference in June. She blamed the Russian government, WikiLeaks, and Trump for weaponizing information, and concocted a kooky unsubstantiated theory about voters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania doing Google searches for WikiLeaks to find fake news on the released emails.

Clinton contended the Democratic National Committees data operation was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, [and] wrong. She maintained she had to fund the operation to keep it from dying.

Andrew Therriault, the former DNC director of data science, reacted, Irony of her bashing DNC data: our models never had MI/WI/PA looking even close to safe. Her team thought they knew better.

He added, Also, thats pretty precious when she couldnt have raised all [her money for campaigning] without the DNCs higher limits as a laundering vehicle.

Why must anyone engage in a crass form of paternalism, this pseudo-feminist thinking that cheapens feminism, and ignore this aspect of Clintons responses to critics?

Every candidate, even those who win, makes lots of mistakes. There are no perfect campaigns, Waldman rationalizes. He concludes with a sentence that suggests the last thing we should care about is whether Clinton apologizes sufficiently for losing.

This really is not about Clinton. She can write a book, go on tour, and tell all the world about why she thinks she lost. She has nothing meaningful to offer anyone struggling to resist Trump nor does she have a meaningful alternative to his insidious agenda.

Clinton has crawled out from her cabin in the woods every couple of months to collect a hefty check for a speaking engagement and rekindle another round of arguments over the 2016 Election. That does not help anyone, but certainly, there are people like Waldman, who are far more comfortable debating the past than imagining and contemplating what to do for the future.

Democrats may think Waldman is performing some kind of meaningful service by fending off villainous critics. But what Waldman is doing is ensuring a comments thread at Plum Line remains populated with liberal Democrats, who bicker with Trump supporters and Sanders progressives so the Washington Post can keep up clicks and ad revenue. What he is really doing is ensuring that people squabble on social media and generate interest in his piece so the Post can justify keeping Waldman employed as a regular contributor.

And the effect is that the spectrum of permissible debate about the Democratic Partys neoliberal politics, and the politicians it promotes, remains narrow so that pundits who cheer this piece are not forced out of their establishment comfort zone.

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Have Hillary Clinton Supporters Tormented Progressives Enough To Satisfy Themselves? - Shadowproof (blog)

Well, if you want to lose faith in humanity and see the stupidity of hipster liberals in New York City, this is the video for you. Ami Horowitz took to the streets to talk about income inequality with some of the most insufferable people on the planet: progressives. Of course, they all felt it was a critical issue. One man was a member of the Working Families Party in the state. So, which country can we look to for guidance in solving this issue? How about socialist hellhole Venezuela? Its the nation with rolling blackouts, inadequate medical supplies, no toilet paper, no food, and rampant crime. Venezuelans are looting to survive, where people are eating pets and eating out of trashcans. With food supplies running low, government-run committees have been set up to assisted with distribution, but for those who have criticized the government, no food for you. Thats 21st Century Socialism.

Horowitz then asks the interviewees, all of whom no doubt are "still feeling the Bern," if they think that we should model ourselves on another country that promises "income equality": Venezuela, which, he explains, is in the midst of an economic death spiral to the point where it is experiencing dire food shortages and frequent violence between citizens and police forces. Despite the hellish reality of Venezuelas failed socialist state, all of his interviewees still thought Venezuelas day-long food lines would be preferable to the United States selfish, "undignified" capitalistic system.

Even though theres some downside, theres some violence there and some food lines," Horowitz says to bandana guy, "but still everyone has to do the same thing they wait in line equally."

Though the young man appears to be quite knowledgeable about Venezuela, nodding and agreeing with Horowitz' description of its crisis situation, he still agrees with Horowitz that its better to "wait in line equally."

"That is, I think, a fair system," says Horowitz.

"I agree," says bandana guy emphatically.

Interviewee after interviewee agrees that modeling ourselves after Venezuela is a great idea because America is just too unfair and "undignified."

"If you gotta wait in line for stuff, we should all wait in line together," says Horowitz.

Either these people dont read, dont care, or dont know. Regardless, slamming America while idolizing a left wing nation thats an economic nightmare; thats progressivism for you.

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Progressives On Socialist Hellhole Venezuela: Hey, It's Better Than The US - Townhall

Much of the country has demanded the elimination of references to, and images of, people of the past from Christopher Columbus to Robert E. Lee who do not meet our evolving standards of probity.

In some cases, such damnation may be understandable if done calmly and peacefully and democratically, by a majority vote of elected representatives.

Few probably wish to see a statue in a public park honoring Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the founding members of the Ku Klux Klan, or Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority opinion in the racist Dred Scott decision that set the stage for the Civil War four years later.

But cleansing the past is a dangerous business. The wide liberal search for more enemies of the past may soon take progressives down hypocritical pathways they would prefer not to walk.

In the present climate of auditing the past, it is inevitable that Margaret Sangers Planned Parenthood will have to be disassociated from its founder. Sanger was an unapologetic racist and eugenicist who pushed abortion to reduce the nonwhite population

Should we ask that Ruth Bader Ginsburg resign from the Supreme Court? Even with the benefit of 21st-century moral sensitivity, Ginsburg still managed to echo Sanger in a racist reference to abortion (growth in populations that we dont want to have too many of).

Why did we ever mint a Susan B. Anthony dollar? The progressive suffragist once said, I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.

Liberal icon and Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren pushed for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II while he was Californias attorney general.

President Woodrow Wilson ensured that the Armed Forces were not integrated. He also segregated civil-service agencies. Why, then, does Princeton University still cling to its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs? To honor a progressive who did a great deal of harm to African-American causes?

Wilsons progressive racism, dressed up in pseudoscientific theories, was perhaps more pernicious than that of the old tribal racists of the South, given that it was not regionally centered and was professed to be fact-based and ecumenical, with the power of the presidency behind it.

In the current logic, Klan membership certainly should be a disqualifier of public commemoration. Why are there public buildings and roads still dedicated to the late Democratic senator Robert Byrd, former exalted cyclops of his local Klan affiliate, who reportedly never shook his disgusting lifelong habit of using the N-word?

Why is Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, once a Klansman, in the 20thcentury, still honored as a progressive hero?

So, what are the proper rules of exemption for progressives when waging war against the dead?

Do they tally up the deads good and bad behaviors to see if someone makes the 51 percent good progressive cutoff that exempts him? Or do some reactionary sins cancel out all the progressive good at least in the eyes of self-styled moral superiors to those hapless Neanderthals who came before us?

Are the supposedly oppressed exempt from charges of oppression?

Farm-labor icon Cesar Chavez once sent union thugs to the border to physically bar U.S. entry to undocumented Mexican immigrants, whom he derided as wetbacks in a fashion that would today surely earn Chavez ostracism by progressivesas a xenophobe.

Kendrick Lamar, one of the favorite rappers of former president Barack Obama, had an album cover featuring a presumably dead white judge with both of his eyes Xd out, surrounded by black men celebrating on the White House lawn. Should such a divisive racialist have been honored with a White House invitation?

What is the ultimate purpose of progressives condemning the past?

Does toppling the statue of a Confederate general without a referendum or a majority vote of an elected council improve racial relations? Does renaming a bridge or building reduce unemployment in the inner city?

Do progressives have their own logical set of selective rules and extenuating circumstances that damn or exempt particular historical figures? If so, what are they?

Does selectively warring against the illiberal past make us feel better about doing something symbolic when we cannot do something substantive? Or is it a sign of raw power and ego when activists force authorities to cave to their threats and remove images and names in the dead of night?

Does damning the dead send a flashy signal of our superior virtue?

And will toppling statues and erasing names only cease when modern progressives are forced to blot out the memories of racist progressive heroes?

READ MORE: Our War Against Memory Destroying Symbols: Where Does It End? The Left Opens Fire on Columbus Statues

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, to appear in October from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing [emailprotected]. 2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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The Double Standard in the Progressive War against the Dead - National Review

WYE MILLS After the events in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups rallied and clashed with anti-hate groups, Eastern Shore progressives gathered Friday night, Aug. 18, to denounce hatred, bigotry and white supremacy.

Thousands of cars heading to Maryland and Delaware beaches for the weekend passed sign-waving, anti-hate rally-goers asking for peace amongst humanity. Cars honked as they zoomed by, many times followed by waves and cheers. In some instances, though, middle fingers were shown.

Organized by Talbot Rising and Together We Will Delmarva, more than 50 people stood at the corner of U.S. Route 50 and College Drive near Chesapeake College and denounced all forms of hatred and bigotry.

The protests in Virginia, which have sparked national outcry and further protests against hate-groups, left one dead Aug. 12 after a vehicle plowed into a crowded Charlottesville intersection of counter-protestors acting out against the Unite the Right rally, which injured others, as well.

Many rally-goers said they felt a need to denounce bigotry, violence and other forms of inequality, and an obligation to speak out against the current administration.

Ann Turpin, 81, of Centreville said, Silence is compliance, and we cannot allow that.

Turpin, who has eight grandchildren, said it is important for people to voice their opinions by at every opportunity and to call their senators before we get to the crisis point.

White supremacists and neo-Nazi groups were protesting against the removal of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue from downtown Charlottesville.

Queen Annes County NAACP President Eric Daniels said the events in Charlotesville are a travesty that will bring us all together all over the country. In the face of tragedy, Daniels said, Americans form bonds and stand up for what they believe in.

He said having rallies and speaking up is important to remind people we dont want that in our neighborhood, we dont want that in our state, we dont want that in our country.

Hannah Eastman, 15, president of Queen Annes County High Schools Young Democrats Club, said she believes bipartisanship debates are key to moving forward, and if that is not achievable, theres no chance of curing this deep divide between people.

Denice Lombard of Talbot Rising said being silent would send out the wrong message.

The message we want to send is hatred, bigotry ... white supremacy wont be tolerated, and we will build an army of love to counter it if it does come up, Lombard said.

One goal, she said, is to complete the unfinished mission of Marylands native son Frederick Douglas in uniting people regardless of race or creed. Lombard said people have been enslaved, tortured, died and lived in fear to achieve racial justice, and we wont go back.

Deborah Krueger from Together We Will Delmarva said the peaceful rally was to show Eastern Shore residents support peace and stand against violence and hatred.

We just wanted to make people know that over here, the same as lots of other places, were not going to stand for that, she said.

Also a member of the Queen Annes County Democratic Club, Krueger said letting other Democrats in the area know they arent an island is a goal in hopes more people will stand up and speak out.

Were in remarkable times, not remarkably good times but remarkable times, Bozman resident Ridgely Ochs said. ... If not now, when? And if not me, then who? Its a hot day, but Im happy to be here.

Early Friday morning, a statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney was removed from the Maryland State House lawn, the same fate many statues of Confederate-era symbols have had in the past week. Taney, who penned the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court ruling, stated black individuals could not be U.S. citizens.

Widespread debates have been held about the removal of such statues, with some saying it is revisionist history. Others say that though history should not be forgotten, statues of slavery sympathizers belong in a different venue.

Earlier in the week, monuments of Lee and Stonewall Jackson were removed in Baltimore.

Talbot Rising is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization run by progressive volunteers who use peaceful resistance, education and advocacy for a variety of issues, according to its website.

Together We Will Delmarva is a liberal, politically driven group intended to facilitate communication and support amongst like-minded people, according to its Facebook page.

Follow Mike Davis on Twitter: @mike_kibaytimes.

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Delmarva progressives stand in solidarity against hate - My Eastern Shore

Todays progressive movement puts a premium on data-driven analysis and commitment to science and facts.

It stems from the early days of the Bush administration when Democrats mocked Karl Roves promise to create our own reality and instead demanded reality-based policies to solve problems, not wish them away. And its powerful politics aligning progressives with the 97 percent of scientists who believe human activity causes global warming or the RAND Institute experts who found transgendered military service has little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness or readiness.

But theres a catch. To be credible, progressives must also listen when the facts challenge their partisan pre-conceptions. When political opponents propose reality-based policies of their own, progressives must give the data its due.

Right now, for example, the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing the Obama-era net neutrality rules that put in place a 1930s-era utility regulation framework for the internet.

When these Title II rules were passed under former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, most experts warned they would discourage investment in broadband, eliminating construction and engineering jobs and making it harder to deploy new networks and close the digital divide.

And now two years later, the data are in and it makes clear that the skeptics were right. Title II is an investment killer that undermines key progressive values and priorities.

Overall, multiple economic studies have found the utility approach to regulation is a threat to network investment. One recent study found that capital investment at the 12 largest broadband companies has declined by $3.6 billion since 2014, a 5.6 percent shortfall. Another concluded the looming threat of heightened internet regulation has driven total network investment down by at least $150 billion since 2011. Overall, a comprehensive survey of these reports concluded that as many as 700,000 jobs may have been lost so far a lost generation of network jobs we will never fully be able to restore.

These data are backed up by expert reports from industries covered directly or indirectly by the Wheeler regulations. Small equipment and hardware manufacturers warn the Title II approach will have a negative impact on the economic well-being of the numerous small and medium size companies that make hardware and software used to provide Internet services.

Rural wireless companies have explained it inhibits our ability to build and operate networks in rural America. And nonprofit government broadband services have complained they must often delay or hold off from rolling out a new feature or service because of risks and uncertainty created by in Title II.

In response, supporters of Title II have released studies and fact sheets purporting to show the opposite that investment has been steady even after the rules were put in place. But being reality based means subjecting all arguments to reasonable scrutiny, and this one just does not hold up.

In part, the data are simply skewed. For example, the Title II advocates use data that includes billions in dollars invested in foreign countries and markets like video that arent even covered by Title II. And that depends heavily on predicted or forecast filler data that even the study author calls flawed.

Even more troubling, this approach is looking at the wrong question from an economists point of view asking only if total investment in broadband has gone up or down since the rules (a question it answers incorrectly due to the errors cited above), not whether investment would be even higher or lower if Title II were not in place. Some investment obviously continued, but the data show much more would have occurred under smarter rules.

For progressives, it is vital to continue to build support for data-driven policymaking and fair-minded analysis of issues and evidence. Its the only real defense against the demagogues and spinmeisters and outright liars that we have.

In this case, that means acknowledging that the Wheeler Title II rules are the wrong way to protect net neutrality because the cost in investment, jobs and deployment of the internet to connect all Americans is just too great.

Net neutrality remains critical, of course. Progressives will always stand for a free and open internet, where no website can be blocked for ideological reasons, and no one is discriminated against or abused online. Free expression everywhere including on the internet is fundamental and must be protected.

But the right way to do this is by pushing Congress to pass a law protecting net neutrality and making it permanent without the risks and harms of Title II. Such a law would ensure that net neutrality cannot be changed when administrations come and go. And that no one not even a president can override it, no matter what.

There is broad and bipartisan support for net neutrality in Congress. Leaders of both parties have already proposed moving forward with such a bill. Progressives should support them and push for a tough, smart and, above all, reality-based net neutrality to be passed.

David Balto, a public-interest, antitrust lawyer in Washington, D.C., is former policy director of the Federal Trade Commission in the Clinton administration.

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Progressives, listen up: Update the net neutrality law - Orlando Sentinel