Friday, January 19, 2018



WH Press Secretary: ‘No One Here Is Going to Pretend That the President Is Always Politically Correct'

The White House on Tuesday said President Donald Trump used “tough language” in his bipartisan immigration meeting last Thursday, but he isn’t politically correct, which is one of the reasons why people love him.

When asked to explain what “tough language” the president used in the meeting as was acknowledged by members of the administration, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “I wasn’t in that room, so I can go only off of the individuals who were. They said that term wasn’t used, but that tough language was.”

Sanders was referring to reports that the president used the term “shithole” when referring to Haiti.

“Look, no one here is going to pretend that the president is always politically correct. He isn’t. I think that’s one of the reasons the American people love him. One of the reasons that he won and is sitting in the Oval Office today is because he isn’t a scripted robot. He’s somebody who tells things like they are sometimes, and sometimes he does use tough language,” Sanders said.

“The point that he’s trying to make, the point that entire conversation frankly should be focused on: We’ve wasted five days fighting over one word when we should be fighting over the people that are involved in the DACA program,” she said.

“If Democrats really want to protect these individuals, that’s who they should be fighting for, and that’s what they should be fighting about is figuring out a permanent solution to DACA - not a quick fix - figuring out how to secure our border and increase border security, figuring out how to end chain migration, figuring out how to end the visa lottery system,” the press secretary said.

“They’re wasting time yet complaining about the fact that this president isn’t doing enough when he’s the only one that’s engaging in this process, and hopefully, they’ll get on board, get out of the way and start doing their job,” she added.

SOURCE





Selling Hate
   
Who will warn Americans about hate groups? The media know: the Southern Poverty Law Center. SPLC, based in Alabama, calls itself “the premier” group monitoring hate. Give us money, they say, and they will “fight the hate that thrives in our country.”

I once believed in the center’s mission. Well-meaning people still do. Apple just gave them a million dollars. So did actor George Clooney.

They shouldn’t.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up in Somalia, where she suffered female genital mutilation. So now she speaks out against radical Islam. For that, SPLC put her on its list of dangerous “extremists.”

Maajid Nawaz was once an Islamic extremist. Then he started criticizing the radicals. SPLC labels him an “anti-Muslim extremist,” too.

While launching hateful smears like these, SPLC invites you to donate to them to “join the fight against hatred and bigotry.”

SPLC once fought useful fights. They took on the Ku Klux Klan. But now they go after people on the right with whom they disagree.

They call the Family Research Council a hate group because it says gay men are more likely to sexually abuse children.

That’s their belief. There is some evidence that supports it. Do they belong on a “hate map,” like the Ku Klux Klan, because they believe that evidence and worry about it?

I often disagree with the council, but calling them a hate group is unfair. In my YouTube video this week, the group’s vice president, Jerry Boykin, tells me, “I don’t hate gay people. And I know gay people, and I have worked with gay people.”

But once you’re labeled a hate group, you are a target.

One man went to the Family Research Council headquarters to kill people, shooting a security guard in the arm before he was stopped. The shooter told investigators that he attacked the FRC because he found them on SPLC’s hate list. Calling the council a “hate group” made its employees the target of real hate.

SPLC also smears the Ruth Institute, a Christian group that believes gays should not have an equal right to adopt children. The institute’s president, Jennifer Roback Morse, says they’re not haters.

“I like gay people. I have no problem with gay people. That’s not the issue. The issue is, what are we doing with kids and the definition of who counts as a parent.”

The institute doesn’t argue that gays should never adopt. “There could be cases where the best person for a particular child would be their Uncle Harry and his boyfriend,” Morse told me. But the institute wants preference given to “a married mother and father.”

For that, SPLC put the Ruth Institute on its hate map. That led the institute’s credit card processor to stop working with them. In a letter to the institute, the processor company said that it had learned that the “Ruth Institute … promotes hate, violence, harassment and/or abuse.”

“We went and checked our website,” Morse told me, “and we were already down.”

I suspect SPLC labels lots of groups “haters” because crying “hate” brings in money.

Years ago, Harper’s Magazine reported that SPLC was “the wealthiest civil rights group in America, one that now spend most of its time – and money – on a fund-raising campaign.” People in Montgomery, Alabama, where SPLC is based, call its elegant new headquarters “the Poverty Palace.”

“Morris Dees’ salary is more than my entire annual budget,” says Morse. “Whatever they’re doing, it pays.”

Dees, SPLC’s co-founder, promised to stop fundraising once his endowment hit $55 million. But when he reached $55 million, he upped the bar to $100 million, saying that would allow them “to cease costly fundraising.”

But again, when they reached $100 million, they didn’t stop. Now they have $320 million – a large chunk of which is kept in offshore accounts. Really. It’s on their tax forms.

In return for those donations to SPLC, the world gets a group that now lists people like Ben Carson and Fox commentators Laura Ingraham, Judge Andrew Napolitano and Jeanine Pirro as extremists – but doesn’t list the leftist militant hate groups known as antifa.

SPLC is now a hate group itself. It’s a money-grabbing slander machine.

SOURCE





If you are a Democrat, you can disrespect women all you like



Yesterday, Cory Booker (D-NJ) detonated on Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. He didn’t just mansplain, he mansplained at maximum volume. He threw a deeply flawed security study in her face as if she didn’t understand the terror threats facing the United States, and unloaded on her for claiming that she couldn’t recall the president’s exact words in the now infamous “sh**hole” meeting:

Booker’s face is twisted in fury. He pounds on the table. He insults her character. It’s nothing short of a temper tantrum. If he were a Republican, this exchange would be taken as proof-positive that he doesn’t respect women. It would be video evidence, shared far and wide, of his sexism. It would be compared to Donald Trump’s physical approaches to Hillary Clinton during a presidential debate and used as evidence that Republicans aren’t just misogynistic, they’re menacing. Instead, Booker proudly tweeted out his rant, quoting himself like he’d just had “a moment.”

It’s incidents like this that convince so many Americans that identity politics are disingenuous and that lamentations about “norms,” “values,” and “civility” are grotesquely insincere.

Talk to any conservative woman and she’ll tell you that all too often the Left’s “respect for women” stops the instant a female pundit, politician, or activist slides just to the right of moderate.

The human capacity for rationalization and self-justification is nearly infinite, and it was on display yesterday. It was right for Booker to tear into Nielsen, his apologists said. After all, everyone who doesn’t condemn Trump’s infamous “sh**hole” comment is “complicit” in racism. Nielsen was lying to Congress. That wasn’t misogyny, you see, it was righteous anger. Are you, Mr. Conservative, telling me that Nielsen isn’t tough enough to handle a tongue-lashing? Are you telling me that she needs to be protected, to be coddled by Senator Booker?

Oh, and don’t talk to me about “values,” Mr. Conservative. Not when that man is in the White House.

We’re now entering the Iran–Iraq War phase of our conflicts over civility. The only norm left is hypocrisy. Many of the same Democrats who simply can’t believe the words that come out of Trump’s mouth once cheered Joe Biden’s claim to a Virginia crowd that Mitt Romney would “put y’all back in chains.” They spread far and wide claims that Romney had callously let people die just to make a buck.

And now, even as they lament the decline in discourse under Trump, they claim that conventional conservative policies are going to kill Americans by the thousands.

There is only one way to restore a measure of civility and dignity and a sense of proportion to public debate, and that’s to actually treat people with respect.

If the Democrats aim to argue that they can do better than Trump, they’d be wise to offer the country something other than Trumpism dressed up in blue.

SOURCE





Australia: Now political correctness is making its way into drivers' licences

The Queensland Government has scrapped a requirement for gender to be shown on all driver's licences, after complaints from the LGBTI community.

The Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) confirmed that height was also removed as a requirement, after concerns the collection of personal information was potentially discriminatory.

However, the Department said the move towards gender-less licences was due to the need to make driver's and marine licences compliant with new anti-discrimination laws, according to the Courier Mail.

Another reason for change was due to improvements in technology, a spokesman for Roads Minister Mark Bailey said.

'TMR has received complaints and suggestions from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community about displaying gender/sex (M or F) on TMR cards,' a department document said.

Other information, such as eye and hair colour, is also being removed from records attached to licences.

'TMR has received feedback that the collection of personal information (eye and hair colour, complexion, height) may be perceived as discriminatory by some members of the community.'

Police will still have access to information on gender through databases, and drivers will still be asked to nominate their gender when applying for a licence.

The TMR stopped recording people's gender and height for all new and renewed licences in October 2016.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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