Sunday, July 15, 2018






Why do so many people hate Trump for telling truths they don’t want to hear? Isn’t that what ALL politicians are supposed to do?

By Piers Morgan

President Donald Trump is the kind of guy who comes to your house for dinner and then half way through the meal says he hates your food. Oh, and as he leaves, adds for good measure that he’s not very keen on your curtains either.

He wouldn’t see that as being rude so much as being brutally honest.

Plain, blunt speaking has been the hallmark of his bombastic, in-your-face behaviour throughout his 50-year career as a billionaire real estate tycoon.

I’ve known President Trump a long time and he’s always called things exactly how he sees them in the moment, regardless of any offence they may cause.

This tendency has made him a massive success in business, and helped land him the presidency of the United States.

It’s also made him one of the most divisive and polarising public figures in the history of Planet Earth.

But one thing it’s no longer credible to feel is ‘shock’ when he does it.  He ALWAYS does it.

So spare me all the risible ‘I’ve never been so offended!’ nonsense spewing forth from the usual suspects today at Trump’s tub-thumping tirade against his host Theresa May and her Brexit policy, as he arrived in Britain.

President Trump calls a spade a spade. We know that, and we can expect that every single day of this extraordinary presidency.

And this morning, he didn’t just call a spade a spade so much as take the spade and smash it all over Theresa May’s political career, reputation and backbone.

He believes the British Prime Minister’s severely watered down new Brexit plan, rubber-stamped with her cabinet at her country home Chequers a week ago, is not actually Brexit because the EU would still retain some control over trade deals.

‘If we do a deal like that,’ Trump told The Sun, ‘we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK so it would probably kill the deal because we have enough difficulty with the European Union. We are cracking down right now on the European Union because they have not treated the United States fairly on trading.’

Trump said May ignored his advice on how to negotiate Brexit. ‘I would have done it much differently. I actually told Theresa May how to do it but she didn’t agree, she didn’t listen to me. She wanted to go a different route.’

Now, it obviously wasn’t particularly tactful for him to say this literally as Marine One, the presidential helicopter, landed at Blenheim Palace for last night’s fancy dinner hosted by the target of his attack. But that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t right both in his sentiment and his timing.

Full disclosure: I voted Remain. I don’t think Britain should be leaving the EU and wish the 2016 Referendum vote had agreed with me.  But it didn’t.

Instead, a whopping 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU, and they understood that to mean we leave the club and all its rules, seizing back full control of our economy, our borders and our laws.

They understood that because May’s predecessor David Cameron, who was the Prime Minister who called the Referendum, repeatedly made this crystal clear in the run-up to the vote.

A major positive of life after Brexit, we were assured by the politicians who drove the Leave campaign, would be that we could trade completely freely with countries outside the EU and in particular America.

Yet May’s new plan doesn’t allow for that, however she tries to spin it. As Trump told The Sun: ‘The deal she is striking is a much different deal than the one the people voted on. It was not the deal that was in the referendum.’

No, it’s not. And no amount of frantic political spinning can change this unarguable fact.

It’s not just Trump who thinks that. David Davis, May’s own Brexit Secretary, resigned within 48 hours of the plan being ‘agreed’, closely followed by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

They too believe this plan does not amount to Brexit and that it’s a betrayal of the democratic will of the majority who voted for it. I agree with them, even if personally I hope we end up with a deal so fudged it’s like we never really left.

Just as I also agreed with Trump’s scathing criticism earlier this week of America’s NATO colleagues for not paying their proper bills on defence.

It’s absolutely disgraceful that Germany, the biggest country in Europe, pays just 1.2% of its GDP on defence (compared to America’s 3.8%), yet rakes in billions from Russian gas supplies – empowering Vladimir Putin, who many view as the biggest security threat to Europe.

Trump’s rhetoric may be inflammatory, his tweets may be provocative and occasionally insulting, and some of his policies like the recent immigrant child separation scandal have been disgraceful, but that doesn’t negate his right to criticise his friends when they’re wrong. Isn’t that what proper friends so?

I certainly do that to my friends, and I expect them to do the same to me, so long as it is delivered without personal abuse.

Theresa May has boxed herself into a predictably awful place. Her new Brexit plan is deeply unpopular with everyone – from the EU to Remainers who don’t think she’s gone far enough and Brexiters who don’t think she’s gone far enough.

So as things stand, Britain is heading off an enormous, historic cliff in a few months time with huge new doubt over its ability to use its biggest parachute – a big new trade deal with the U.S. - for a soft, safe landing.

In these circumstances, it’s not rude and offensive of Trump to tell her straight what the reality is – it’s a cold, hard and vitally important truth.

And isn’t there a wondrously delicious irony that all those screaming ‘Don’t be so rude, Mr Trump!’’ are the same ones gleefully supporting the absurd, pathetic 20ft orange baby Trump balloon that flew over Parliament today? For sheer breath-taking rudeness, mocking the leader of our No1 ally in such a childish, pitiful way takes some beating.

Yet it’s entirely consistent with the rank hypocrisy that surrounds so much of the Trump-bashing agenda.

The same people who fiercely defended President Barack Obama when he urged Britain to vote Remain in the referendum are now furiously condemning Trump for ‘sticking his nose into Brexit’.

And the anti-Trump protests today are substantially bigger than anything seen for the recent visits to the same city by President Erdogan of Turkey and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia – two men who make Trump look like a choirboy when it comes to their dictatorial, war-mongering, human rights abusing, women and gay oppressing regimes.

I’m glad President Trump has come to Britain and given my Prime Minister some home truths. It’s the perfect time for him to do it. If she has any sense, she’ll pour him a cup of tea and listen to him.

SOURCE






Columnist Resigns After Her Site Removes Her Piece on Transgenderism and Hollywood

Conservative columnist Daniella Greenbaum announced her resignation from Business Insider on Thursday after the news website deleted her opinion piece arguing that actress Scarlett Johansson should not be chastised for playing a transgender role.

“I wish I could say I am surprised,” Greenbaum wrote in her resignation letter. “Unfortunately, what happened with my piece—the tarring of a commonsensical view as somehow bigoted or not thought out; the capitulation on the part of those who are supposed to be adults to the mob—is a pattern happening all over the country.”

Greenbaum’s column about Johansson’s role in upcoming film “Rub & Tug” was published on Friday. It was later deleted when other Business Insider employees claimed they found it offensive.

“Scarlett Johansson is the latest target of the social-justice warrior mob,” Greenbaum wrote in the column. “The actress is being chastised for, well, acting.”

I believe female actors can play men and trans men. That is the apparently controversial view that inspired BI to take down my piece. I have resigned from @businessinsider and explain why in my letter to

The column was originally scrubbed from the site. Business Insider partially republished it on Tuesday as a heading with no text, except for a note stating that Business Insider deleted the column because it did not meet “editorial standards,” reported CNN.

Business Insider created new guidelines for its opinion pieces on “culturally sensitive topics, such as marginalized communities, race, or LGTBQ+ issues” because of Greenbaum’s column. Its global editor-in-chief sent an internal email on Monday announcing that all “culturally sensitive” stories will be examined by the writer’s editor and a site executive editor or editor-in-chief, reported CNN.

“Ultimately, it is the first editor’s responsibility to flag culturally sensitive stories,” Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider’s global editor-in-chief, wrote in the email. “It may be hard to tell which are and which are not. The policy is to err on the safe side, even if it slows us down.”

Carlson also banned the phrase “social justice warrior,” which Greenbaum used in the first sentence of her column. “There should be no partisan name-calling,” he wrote in the email.

SOURCE







Anti-Catholic bigotry

Are there too many Jews on the Supreme Court? Just raising the question is enough to raise eyebrows. In some circles it would be proof of bigotry. Count me among those who would detect at least a whiff of anti-Semitism. Why, then, are pundits questioning the Catholic representation on the Supreme Court, and getting away with it?

The latest example comes by way of an article originally published by Religion News Service on July 11; it has been picked up as an op-ed by several newspapers. “Catholic-Heavy Supreme Court Moves Right as the Church Moves Left.” That is the title of an article by Jacob Lupfer.

What occasioned Lupfer's concerns about a “Catholic-Heavy” Supreme Court was President Trump's selection of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to sit on the Supreme Court. Lupfer describes Kavanaugh as a “doctrinaire conservative,” one who is “more heavily and outwardly invested in his Catholic identity than his mentor [Justice Anthony Kennedy].”

Is this because Kavanaugh is a lector at his parish? Is it because the nominee cited his work helping the poor while working for Catholic Charities? The red flag thrown by Lupfer was followed by some red meat for anti-Catholic bigots. He says Trump is “exacerbat[ing]” and “heighten[ing]” the “angst (or excitement, depending on who’s being asked)” about “the institution's ever more conservative Catholic majority.”

In other words, it is not the bigots who are to be blamed for raising the issue about too many Catholics on the high court. It's Trump's fault.

Lupfer then offers a pass to Senator Dianne Feinstein for her anti-Catholic attack on Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was on Trump's short list to replace Justice Kennedy.

In her questioning of Barrett, Feinstein said of her, “The dogma lives loudly within you.” We all know what that meant. Lupfer manages to spin Feinstein's bigoted comment saying it was nothing more than a “gaffe.” No, a gaffe is unintentional. Feinstein's comment was scripted. And she never apologized.

Worse, Lupfer then accuses Feinstein's critics of using her remark as a “rallying cry for conservatives enthralled with the notion that devout, orthodox religious people are systematically excluded from positions of elite influence, and particularly positions of legal authority.” In other words, when those offended by bigoted comments complain, they are exploiting the issue. Would this apply to others as well, or just Catholics?

Lupfer offers a dire warning. “The triumph of conservative Catholicism on the court has a dark lining,” he informs. The darkness, he says, is evident in the way “the Catholic Supreme Court” has ruled on liberal causes.

“The Catholic Supreme Court”? Kavanaugh, who is Catholic, may replace Kennedy, who is also Catholic. The other four Catholics are Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. It should be noted that Sotomayor identifies as a “cultural Catholic,” not a practicing one.

Conveniently, Lupfer never mentions that three of the Supreme Court Justices—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan—are Jewish. Do we have too many Jews on the Supreme Court?

Jews are approximately 2 percent of the population, yet they make up a third of the high court. Catholics are not nearly as overrepresented: they are approximately 25 percent of the population and make up slightly more than half of the Supreme Court.

We don't have too many Catholics or too many Jews on the Supreme Court. What we have are some of the best jurisprudential minds in the nation. Those who think otherwise are the problem, not the religious affiliation of those on the high court.

SOURCE






Lauren Southern appears on Sky News Australia, making one point very clear



CONTROVERSIAL alt-right YouTube star Lauren Southern has appeared on Sky News Australia making it clear that she is “happy to be white”.

The 23-year-old Canadian activist, who touched down in Australia yesterday, told Sky News host Rita Panahi that she feels “zero shame whatsoever for being white.”

“If I were black I could say I’m proud, if I were Asian I could say I’m proud, if I were any other ethnicity I could say I’m proud because that’s how our culture is, but if I’m white and I say I’m proud the media will go nuts.”

Ms Southern, who previously worked for Canadian website Rebel Media, was barred from entering the UK earlier this year for distributing “racist” flyers reading “Allah is a Gay God” and “Allah is trans” outside a restaurant in the English town of Luton.

Ms Southern is in Australia to headline a tour that advocates for free speech.

She was originally denied access from entering the country, but her visa was approved by the Home Affairs Department on Tuesday.

After landing in Brisbane on Friday sporting a “It’s okay to be white” T-shirt, Ms Southern claimed to have received online rape threats. “I was just reading the comments on the article that came out about the ‘It’s okay to be white shirt’, and someone was saying, ‘I hope she gets raped’,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

She told the publication she believed the “unprecedented” number of hurdles being put in her way to enter Australia were due to her criticism of radical Islam. “There are so many people that are offended by debate and free speech that sometimes governments cower. It’s just way easier to play into the hands of people who are totalitarian,” she said.

“I have criticised radical Islam, I have criticised the increasing blasphemy laws that are being brought into our societies. You won’t see Christians violently attacking people for criticising their religion like you do with Islam, things like the Charlie Hebdo attack.”

The outspoken activist will tour Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland alongside commentator Stefan Molyneux later this month.

Ms Southern’s visit will also feature screenings of her documentary film Farmlands, which delves into the racially charged issue of South African farm killings.

The alt-right activist has also revealed that she plans to have dinner with Pauline Hanson after receiving a Tweet from the One Nation Leader on Tuesday.

“Sorry to hear about your trouble getting a visa @Lauren_Southern,” the senator tweeted. “If you are still in Oz when Parliament sits in August you have an open invitation to dinner. “I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the situation in South Africa & on Islam. “Good luck with your tour.”

In a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Telegraph, the activist said Australians should be allowed to own guns to protect themselves against a “totalitarian” government.

“I think the Americans have it right. The idea of having guns is essentially to protect yourself from a totalitarian government,” she said.

“You can see that, for example, in Paris — where they have horrific shootings and terrorist attacks, the theatre attack, the Charlie Hebdo attack. They have some of the strictest gun laws in the world in France yet these horrific attacks and shootings still happen. Unfortunately there will always be bad people and bad people don’t follow the law.”

Australia has had just one mass shooting — a domestic violence incident — since former Prime Minister John Howard banned semiautomatic and other military-style weapons in 1996. America has had 154 this year alone.

During her week-long visit in Australia Ms Southern, a friend of confessed troll Milo Yiannopoulos, told The Daily Telegraph there would be heavy security at her shows to protect herself from “crazy protesters”. She said she regularly received death threats.

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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