Dignity, collegiality and propriety? We need a fighter

Author Evan Sayet provides a rational look at the political world as it is. Take a couple of minutes to read, “He fights.”  

The title comes from a wartime statement made by President Lincoln describing General Ulysses Grant. Donald Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War. The analogy is unmistakable.

USA Today perfects Winston Smith’s Newspeak

Altering words doesn’t change facts

Today is Bastille Day, traditionally a day of celebration in France. Last year irrevocably changed that, turning the day into one of grief. Memorial services are planned to honor the 86 victims of a rampaging nearly 20-truck whose driver purposely plowed into the crowd of revelers, including families with children eating ice cream, strolling the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France after the fireworks display ended. In addition to those killed, there were 435 who were wounded in the attack.

Gannett, the parent company of the failing, left-wing Arizona Republic newspaper, now inserts a copy of its USA Today newspaper in with the barely there daily in a vain attempt to give it heft.  Gannett’s stock has tumbled from $17.49  on Dec. 5, 2015 to  now struggling to stay afloat in the $8.00 range.  

This might be the reason:

The caption beneath a photo of two men who were seriously wounded in the attack names them and says, they “were injured in Nice when someone drove a truck through a crowd last year. “

“Someone?’

The 31-year-old killer’s name is Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. He was a Tunisian Muslim living in France, who had been previously arrested for theft and gun violations, had his sentences suspended and was not deported. He was killed by police at the scene of the massacre.

Gannett’s absurd politically correct contrivance is reminiscent of Winston Smith, the protagonist in George Orwell’s best seller titled, “1984.” Smith was employed as a clerk in the government’s Ministry of Truth Records Department. His job was to rewrite historical documents to align with the constantly changing current political deception. Newspeak, a reduced language became the tool to limit free thought and concepts posing a threat to the totalitarian regime.  Any form of thought alternative to the party’s construct was classified as “thought crime,” “crime think,” or “doublethink.”

Smith’s work included manipulating facts, revising newspaper articles and doctoring photographs to remove “unpersons,” the term used to describe people who had fallen out of favor with the party.  We servatives are “unpersons” to the MSM liberals. But we still have a voice. We need to continue to use it.

When his book was published in 1949, Orwell wrote, “By 2050 — earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared.”  He turned out to be a reliable prophet.

Jihadist terrorism: The “new normal” is unacceptable

Justice Dept. asks SCOTUS to let temporary travel ban take effect

The UK’s Daily Mail reports another deadly attack by radical Islamic terrorists has hit London, less than two weeks after jihadist murderers targeted their blood lust on a crowd of mostly young girls and women following a concert in the Manchester arena. The 22-year-old terrorist made numerous trips to Libya, his parent’s homeland, where he learned the cowardly techniques of mass slaughter of innocents.

The latest — dual London Bridge area attacks — in which a van plowed through a crowd of pedestrians, followed by gruesome knifings with 12-inch blades —are the third jihadist deadly assaults on British soil in just 10 weeks. This rampage resulted in 7 dead and over 45 wounded.

The Islamic-based contagion is spreading and taking lives in Western Europe and the United States. But wanting to protect ourselves from what Daniel Greenfield descries as the “new normal,” brands us as Islamophobes. Greenfield, a journalist and scholar who focuses on the radical left and Islamic terrorism, rightly identifies Islamic terrorism as a war. In his latest column, “Europe’s next big war,“ he unequivocally states, “The only way to stop that war is to stop migration from terror states today.”

During his campaign, President Donald Trump sensibly advocated banning travel from terror sponsoring nations. In view of the ongoing violence we have been exposed to since Sept. 11, 2001, it was a compelling reason many Americans supported his candidacy. After election, on Jan. 27 he attempted to implement restrictions involving 7 terror sponsoring nations: Voices on the left accused him of  anti-Muslim discrimination. A revised list of 6 counties, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen, omitting Iraq — noted that they were either state sponsors of terrorism or their territories were so compromised that they were effectively havens for terrorist groups. On March 6 it too, was shot down by federal judges, who declared it violated the First Amendment religious protections of Muslims.

“This executive order responsibly provides a needed pause so we can carefully review how we scrutinize people coming here from these countries of concern,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said.  Included is the ability of specific individuals to be able to request waivers, which will be given on a case-by-case basis.

The Justice Department announced it is “confident that President Trump’s executive order is well within his lawful authority to keep the nation safe and protect our communities from terrorism. The president is not required to admit people from countries that sponsor or shelter terrorism, until he determines that they can be properly vetted and do not pose a security risk to the United States.”

On Thursday, the Trump administration requested the U.S. Supreme Court allow the temporary ban to take effect.

Stay tuned.

Why young Americans are liberal

The following video is guaranteed to make you question the next bond measure requesting a tax increase for teacher’s pay raises. It took years of dumbing down America’s students to give us these young adults. Many teachers are left wing union members who spend more time with America’s kids than their parents do.

 It’s a good bet many of the people depicted in this video voted for avowed Socialist Bernie Sanders for President. After all, he promised them free college, though they are unable to  comprehend the horror that Marxist-driven Socialism actually is. That was omitted from the curriculum — along with American history and instruction in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Years of left wing propagandizing does, however, include moral relativism in which students are taught the U.S. is no better or worse than countries with corrupt regimes ruled by oppressive tyrants.

Liberal indoctrination begins in Kindergarten and the finishing touches are put on at the university level. This 2016 study published in the Washington Times  revealed that liberal professors outnumber conservatives 12-1

Watch the result of this indoctrination. Despite the fact that North Korea, led by unstable Kim Jong-un, just launched its NINTH missile capable of carrying a hydrogen bomb — leading U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis to state a war with intentionally confrontational North Korean would be “catastrophic” — these unconcerned Americans heap praise on the North Korean despot.

How likely is it that a group of 100 New Jersey 8^th graders on a D.C. field trip unilaterally decide to refuse having their photo taken with House Speaker Paul Ryan, because they “hated him” for his “positions on health care, education and LGBT rights?” It’s reasonable to assume they might have been fed massive doses of political propaganda in preparation for the trip.

This is where the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers spend their $ millions in dues each year. Teachers unions have steadily amped up their political involvement: From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million — an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties — since as far back as 1990, when Open Secrets’ Center for Responsive Politics data collecting began.

Pres. & Melania Trump’s Saudi trip a solid winner

Perfectly attired Melania Trump makes us proud

Gateway Pundit answers the question as to whether First Lady Melania Trump will be donning a headscarf as she joins President Donald Trump in Saudi Arabia, on the first leg of their week-long foreign trip. The schedule also includes stops in Israel, Brussels, Rome and Sicily.

The flawlessly attired Mrs. Trump who arrived in Saudi Arabia in a long sleeved, one piece black, wide-legged pantsuit adorned with a gold belt, represents America with class. Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir is quoted as saying, “We welcome any style in clothing.” Al-Jubeir issued his statement to media sources on Thursday. 

President Donald Trump appropriately shook hands as he met the Saudi Royals.  Unlike Obama who swooned at the sight of Muslim royalty, he did not bow. No previous American president has ever assumed a subservient position to other world leaders. Saudi King Salman stepped forward to greet President Trump on the red carpet rolled out for his arrival. The gracious salutation included  dancers, prancing horses and overhead welcoming jets, none of which was accorded Barack Obama.

Saudi Arabia practices one of the world’s strictest interpretations of Islam. Shops close five times daily for prayers. Local women are required to wear floor length robes known as abayas, and a head scarf. However, when asked whether the U.S. First Lady would have to dress accordingly, the Saudi official said the capital city of Riyadh — the Kingdom’s political, financial and administrative hub, “usually doesn’t demand” a specific dress-code, but rather “accepts suggestions.”

Scroll through Daniel Pipes’ Hijabs on Western Public Women to see photos of former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton donning a hijab or headscarf — required attire of repressed Muslim women. Her daughter Chelsea also wore the garment, as did former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, NBC anchor Ann Curry followed suit. ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer did so while conducting an interview with oppressive dictator and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representative Nancy Pelosi also scarfed up. George W. Bush’s wife Laura is pictured wearing a hijab while visiting Saudi Arabia. Obama’s U.S. Attorney General, Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett, is shown in the same garb.

Other female foreign dignitaries, celebrities, and members of various royal families are shown in headscarves. Former First Lady, Michelle Obama’s is fringed.

Democrat female politicos are skilled at giving lip service to “women’s causes” and denouncing “repression.” First Lady Melania Trump’s voice will be unambiguous through her grace and actions.

Decaffeinated conservatism served at CAP: Come hear the lobbyists

Aside from the fact that they are both liquid beverages, coffee and wine have little in common. But like fine wine, many who congregate  here at “Seeing Red AZ” are of a vintage able to recall “conservative coffee klatches” of years past.

One of the longest running franchises connecting caffeine and conservatives was the “Jon Kyl Coffee Club.”  Whether in the House or Senate, before the topic of border security (and the lack thereof) alarmed the Grassroots, there was the ultra-cautious and calculating Kyl serving up regularly scheduled Saturday morning breakfasts, featuring prominent GOP politicians brought to sunny Arizona to spread “sweetness and light” about the ambitious lawyer-turned-legislator.

The harsh light of his Open Border/Amnesty advocacy and his personal caution eventually prompted Kyl to retire from the Senate — to start collecting massive K Street fees as a lobbyist.

The same could be said of another lawyer-turned-legislator-now lobbyist. Both physically and intellectually, former Congressman John Shadegg was never able to cast much of a shadow in the heated political battles that marked his time on Capitol Hill.

Fortunately for him, he resided in a safe Republican District, never attracting the invective and money that was spent against former-Rep. JD Hayworth. In fact, during the mid-terms of 2006, Rep. Shadegg offered up criticism of his more prominent and embattled Republican colleague, telling the New York Times that conservatives championed “xenophobic and intolerant” policies as outspoken opponents of amnesty. Shadegg signed on as an enthusiastic supporter of John McCain’s 2010 senate re-election campaign against Hayworth, erroneously thinking that such action would result in a McCain quid pro quo senate endorsement of Shadegg in 2016, as the senior Senator claimed 2010 would be his last race.

McCain’s 2016 Campaign did provide work for another Shadegg, as John’s son Stephen, worked as a McCain aide.

During his days in the US House, Shadegg also tried his hand at emulating the “Kyl Coffee Club” approach with a series of breakfast fundraisers he dubbed “The Shadegg Group” — a variation on TV’s “McLaughlin Group — with little success.

What brought all this to mind was Saturday morning’s Center for Arizona Policy Breakfast featuring — wait for it — Jon Kyl and John Shadegg! What would prompt executive director Cathi Herrod to call on this pair of “has-beens?” Could it be she’s paying penance for this 2013 run-in with McCain and Flake? (links have been removed.)

Conservative current office holders, who are also Pro-Life would doubtless be happy to find the time to address this group of “values voters.”

A quick check of the CAP website provides a possible answer. One of the CAP’s  new initiatives is called El Proyecto La Verdad.  Some might regard this “outreach” as practical, but it seems to be in line with the “inevitability” of Open Borders championed by “Corporate Conservatives” like Kyl and Shadegg.

SRAZ long ago grew weary of the fast food franchise owners in town who are so prominently Pro-Life but also Pro-Amnesty. The “counterfeit compassion” endorsed by these burger-meisters have held down wages while transferring healthcare and education costs to local taxpayers.

Though the Left would never admit it, the “import” of “hard working migrants” gave AZ Dems the “backdoor rationale for their successful statewide Arizona Minimum Wage initiative.

Ironically, the subject the Kyl/Shadegg Duo addressed Saturday was President Trump’s First 100 Days in office. It wouldn’t be a surprise if the pair offered some “whine” along with the coffee that was served. 

“Mom, Dad…about those slaves you owned…..”

Universities foster and elevate victimhood

In today’s zany world, it had to happen. Intending-to-produce-“snowflake“-guilt courses such as the Problem of Whiteness within the African Cultural Studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and White Privilege along with courses in Black Lives Matter. As colleges offer monetary scholarship inducements at Sam Houston State University in Texas lunacy has reached its zenith.

Now we read that Students at Western Kentucky University voted in favor of a resolution seeking to provide free tuition to black students as reparations for slavery. The Student Government Association passed this resolution Wednesday by a vote of 19-10, according to this report in the Lexington Herald-Leader. Their parents and other Kentucky taxpayers will be footing the bill for what the coddled students regard as free.

The Civil War ended over a hundred and fifty years ago. President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, halted slavery with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Today, any American with a determination to succeed can work, study, achieve and aided by a wide variety of academic scholarships, complete their education. 

Yet people out-hustle themselves to claim greater victim status. There are countless books on the topic, detailing every conceivable affront.  The very concept of victimization now carries with it an odd measure of prestige. Academia has fostered a nation of victims who revel in their new-found status and exhibit an ambivalence about growing up.

Writing for PJ Media, David Solway’s “snowflake” description is as good as they come:

“Anyone who has followed academic issues since the anti-intellectual 1960s knows that the university is in serious trouble, catering to a professoriate that has bought into the travesty of “social justice” a coercive ideology obsessed with “victim groups.”

The university’s ancestral mission of pursuing truth has been replaced by a species of social engineering and leftist indoctrination. At the same time, it views its mandate as establishing a “safe space” for a student clientele that spends far too much of its time and energy “wringing its hands over pronouns, gluten and microaggressions” (link to Jon Brown at American Thinker) rather than devoting itself to the rigors of study and the acquisition of honest merit. These impoverished souls have come to be known as “snowflakes,” justifiably.”

The victim mentality is a cultural phenomena that looks to blame others for perceived shortcomings. For too many, the long acclaimed sense of personal responsibility has given way to desiring a mantle of inevitable weakness.  Universities stand as a testament to that foolish philosophy.

Recently the students at Notre Dame University protested Vice President Pence, a former Indiana governor and native son, as their commencement speaker, saying his appearance on campus “made them feel unsafe.”

Conservative Ann Coulter has been disinvited to speak at left-wing Berkeley University, where repression of First Amendment freedoms take center stage.

Here are but a few of our recent posts under the heading “academia”

April 17, 2017: Clemson Univ. teaches expecting promptness is racist.

April 10, 2017: Skewed news & rethinking the desirability of a college education

April 1, 2017: NAU educrat docks student’s grade for use of “Mankind”

Dec. 24, 2016: Tucker Carlson eviscerates overindulged, liberal college student