Lame-Duck Craps on Israel

Barack Obama is a lame-duck President who has decided to take one last giant, vindictive shit on Israel on his way out. Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, have decided not to veto a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Palestine. This is a disgusting stab in the back to the most important ally of the United States, and there are many who argue that it is rooted in anti-Semitism.  The United States MUST stand with Israel.  Israel is a Democracy in the Middle East, surrounded by enemies who literally HATE Jews and deny their right to even exist.  For all of the issues I have with Donald Trump, it's things like this that make me glad that his inauguration is three weeks away.  Trump, rightfully, has made it clear that he strongly disagrees with Obama and Kerry on Israel.

By abstaining on the vote in the United Nations instead of using its veto power, the United States has not objected to a resolution saying that Israelis can't live, pray, or even be in certain places that qualify as part of this disputed territory.  This resolution is terrible, but not surprising.  There have been more resolutions passed by the United Nations that have condemned Israel than any other nation.  The list of all nations in the world includes North Korea and Saudi Arabia.  Anti-Semitism is to blame for the frequent chastisement of peace-seeking Israel.  By the way, two countries that voted in favor of this resolution are China and Russia.  No surprise there either.  The abstention of the United States was essentially the same thing as a vote in favor of the resolution.  If Benjamin Netanyahu is to be believed, and I believe him, the Obama administration actually helped to craft the resolution in such a way that it would be acceptable for the United States to abstain when it came up to be voted on.

For all the talk of Russia allegedly attempting to help Trump with the Presidency in the United States, a lot of folks forget that Obama actively tried to interfere so Netanyahu would not be re-elected as the Israeli Prime Minister.  Obama failed, but this vote feels a lot like it was a final "fuck you" to Netanyahu and, even worse, Israel.  It's not often that I agree with both Alan Dershowtiz and Chuck Schumer on an issue, but they are dead-on in this case.  Dershowitz said that Obama "stabbed them [Israel] in the back" and "this will make peace much more difficult to achieve."  Schumer said that, "While Secretary Kerry mentioned Gaza in his speech, he seems to have forgotten the history of the settlements in Gaza, where the Israeli government forced settlers to withdraw from all settlements and the Palestinians responded by sending rockets into Israel."

Netanyahu explained his frustration after the vote, saying, "My vision is that Israelis and Palestinians both have a future of mutual recognition of dignity, mutual respect, co-existence," adding, "How can you make peace with someone who rejects your very existence?" and, "This conflict has always been about Israel's very right to exist."  Netanyahu has reached out in an attempt for peace over and over again, but the olive branch was never accepted.  How could it have been?  The Palestinian Government literally pays anyone who murders Israelis a monthly salary.  And John Kerry had the nerve to blame ISRAEL for the lack of peace in the region?  As an American, this angers and frustrates me.  I am ashamed at the failure of the United States to veto this resolution.  I stand with Israel.  I do not agree with the Obama administration on this issue, but I have hope that the incoming Trump administration will keep its promise of standing with Israel as our greatest ally.

Senator Marco Rubio summed it up better than I could, so I will leave you with his comments:

"Secretary Kerry today once again decided to cater to the demands of freedom’s enemies and devote an entire speech to disparaging a country that is one of our closest allies. This administration’s shameful undermining of our moral standing in the world should be a warning to administrations for decades to come about the consequences of America abandoning our values. When we fail to take a stand against those that seek to deny Israel's right to exist or try to question the Jewish history of Jerusalem, we hurt not just Israel but our own credibility.  The greatest immediate threat to the future of Israel is not a stalled peace process, or settlements, but the abandonment of the Jewish state by the current U.S. administration at a time when it needs America’s support more than ever.  I look forward to working with President-elect Trump and his incoming team to restore our relationship with Israel to its proper place. I intend to continue to work with my colleagues to fight alarming efforts by those in the United States and internationally to promote modern day anti-Semitism through the boycott and divestment movement. I will also work to ensure that if the United Nations wants to continue to promote anti-Semitism and anti-Israel views, it will do so without U.S. taxpayer funding.  This shameful episode in American foreign policy cannot end soon enough."

A Challenge to Wesleyan ...And You're Already Failing

I submitted the post below to be published in the school newspaper that I was editor-in-chief of a decade ago.  They published my letter, which I was encouraged by at first, but then I noticed that they took out three parts of it, further proving my point of what needs to change and already failing at my challenge.  This is very disappointing and very telling.  I have highlighted the parts (bold, italic, and underlined) that were removed when it was published (http://wesleyanargus.com/2016/12/05/a-challenge-to-wesleyan/).  There will be a follow-up letter.
LATE EDIT: Apparently The Argus restored the missing paragraphs in the online version.




Donald Trump said many indefensible things during his campaign, and some of these careless and stupid comments excited the KKK and other bigots, but the vast majority of the over 60 million people who voted for him are not bigots and cannot be ignored.  The Steve Bannon appointment does not help change what I believe is a flawed leftist idea that Trump is a racist, xenophobic, sexist, white supremacist, fascist monster.  However, he has apologized for many of his painfully ridiculous comments, clarified that not all Mexicans are rapists, said that most Muslims in the United States are peaceful, decided that same-sex marriage is a done deal, and disavowed his racist supporters.  I truly hope that Trump surprises me and many others and somehow becomes a great President, but I must issue a challenge to Wesleyan after reading the "How The Argus Intends to Cover a Trump Presidency" Editorial.



The Argus editors rightly point out that Trump's call to "make America great again" is problematic, but it is ludicrous to state that this slogan is "a yearning for a bygone era and a thinly veiled tribute to an age before the Civil Rights Act, before the esteem of white identity was bruised by the small strides toward the empowerment of marginalized people secured therein. This call, and the rest of the rhetoric surrounding it, is an unequivocal appeal to white nationalism."  There is nothing unequivocally racist about a dumb, vague campaign slogan, which may be directed at adding more jobs to America, reducing the role of government, maintaining America's sovereignty in an age of globalism, or any number of other things.  I applaud that The Argus does not want to become "a platform for white nationalist apologism, let alone white nationalism" and I take no issue with the quote from Bernie Sanders that was referenced, but what in the world do you mean when you say that The Argus "will start by prioritizing and amplifying historically marginalized voices"?  I fear that it means solely voices of minorities who agree with you, and this fear grows when you state, "We reject any false equivalency between the underrepresentation of conservative voices in this paper and those of historically marginalized people."  What about historically marginalized people who ARE conservative voices?  I challenge The Argus, Michael Roth, or anyone on the Wesleyan campus who is able to invite a conservative speaker from a historically marginalized people to speak on campus.  Hopefully he or she will not be rudely interrupted and the Q&A session will be a platform for engaging dialogue.



If you would like ideas on who this speaker should be, I'd put Ben Shapiro on the top of that list.  Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew, and I can't think of a people more historically marginalized than Jews.  Shapiro is also extremely critical of Donald Trump and did not vote for him.  If you'd like to invite someone from a group even more marginalized than that, although he is not a practicing Jew, Milo Yiannopoulos fits that bill, being a homosexual person of Jewish descent, though I personally disagree with a number of his alt-right views.  Other options include African Americans like David Clarke, Allen West, or Ben Carson, or an immigrant from India who was incarcerated (essentially as a political prisoner) for a non-violent crime and stripped of his voting rights, Dinesh D'Souza.  I hope that The Argus truly supports "the creation of an avenue for serious and earnest criticism from conservative voices" that it claims to, and I hope that Michael Roth and the rest of the Wesleyan community support it as well.  The Argus is in a position of power in that it can choose to maintain its integrity, consistency, and long-held views on censorship (not publishing hate speech, defamation, or personal attacks), or change by refusing to publish things based on the political views therein, such as anything that "normalizes Donald Trump himself." A standard to "contest ideas, not people" does not make sense if it is not also applied to the President-elect.



When I was at Wesleyan, I learned about views that were different than mine, and I engaged in conversations and debates.  Sometimes my views were changed, and sometimes I helped to change the views of others, but I learned how to listen to the other side, how to find common ground, how to stand up for what I believe in, and how to debate against what I oppose.  I listened, without interrupting, to prominent liberal speakers brought to campus, such as Peter Singer, who is cool with murdering babies and old people in certain situations.  Being largely Libertarian, I've had plenty of spirited but respectful debates with friends, many of them Wesleyan alumni, over the last few months.  Many made great points, but others ended discussions by falsely accusing me of racism, telling me to fuck off several times, telling me that I shouldn’t have a say on abortion since I’m a man, or telling me that I don't have the authority to speak about Black issues in America because I am white (at which point an African American friend of mine entered the discussion and agreed with me, but the other white person I was debating still disagreed).  For the good of your education, to improve your ability to understand and debate the other side, and for the sake of hearing viewpoints from outside of the Wesleyan bubble, I challenge Wesleyan to bring in a prominent conservative voice to speak on campus, especially one from a historically marginalized group.  Leading up to this year's Presidential election, I doubt any prominent speakers were brought to campus this semester who spoke about how the Clinton Foundation takes money from countries that murder homosexuals and have no women's rights whatsoever, how Hillary is a war-hawk beholden to many entities, or how she counted a former KKK leader (Robert Byrd) among her mentors.  I believe that leftists who refuse to engage opposing views helped contribute to Donald Trump’s victory.

Dear Donald

Dear Donald,

I don't think it's quite sunk in yet for most of America that you are actually the President-elect.  I predicted that they would win the World Series for the first time since 1908 this year, but I did not predict your Presidency.  I did not think you had any chance of securing the Republican nomination through most of the primaries, but you became the nominee.  Even then, I thought the chance of you winning the Presidency was pretty slim, despite Hillary being such a terrible candidate.  After the indefensible comments you made on a bus 11 years ago surfaced, I resigned myself to the very uncomfortable likelihood that Hillary Clinton would be our next Commander-in-Chief.  But you kept saying things about how you would win because you're such a winner, and how you were bringing people to the polls to vote for you who had voted Democrat four years ago or not even voted at all recently.  Millions of people laughed at you, but you somehow did what you said you would do.  Now, how about you start working on some of the other things you said you were going to do, like making life better for ALL Americans and uniting this nation again?

I went to a very Liberal University, Mr. President-elect.  Some of the things I saw on Facebook following your win were disturbing, others were uninformed, and others were just plain hilarious.  But regardless of my feelings on the topic, I will tell you that a lot of people in this nation are very scared.  Maybe it's in part because of the biased mainstream media, maybe it's in part because of the biased Universities that helped to shape their thought process, and maybe it's in part because of the things you have said, the rhetoric you have used, and the small factions of loud, terrible, hateful people who have been stirred up by you, whether it was your intent or not.  Appointing Steve Bannon to any position even near the White House is not going to help unite this nation.  There are worse people you could have nominated, no doubt, but there are plenty of better ones too.  And maybe Trey Gowdy wasn't eyeing the Attorney General job, but I wonder if Jason Chaffetz would have been interested.  Jeff Sessions may be a better choice than Rudy Giuliani, who is an American hero but seems to be losing it a bit, but maybe instead of rewarding those who were most loyal to you, you can focus on doing one of the things you've done well throughout your life, from running your business to hiring Kellyanne Conway: Hire the best person for each job.  If they don't do well, fire them.

You've surrounded yourself with some great people, Mr. Trump.  Ivanka and all of your other children seem wonderful, which was the one thing Hillary complimented on you during those vicious debates.  Your wife is great.  Listen to her.  Ben Carson is a brilliant and principled man, despite what the left says and possible narcolepsy.  Listen to him between his catnaps.  And Mike Pence was a solid choice for VP, even though I don't agree with him on every issue (nor do you, which is fine, because it's better you hire the best person for the job, even if you don't agree with that person on everything).  Keep Kellyanne Conway close too, because she's a huge reason why you got where you are.  And apparently Newt Gingrich is still kicking, and he is a political insider who can help you in that regard at least.  You can't do this alone.  You now have the most important job in the world, and you need a spectacular team to work with you in moving this nation forward.

I'm glad you told the people doing hateful things in your name to stop it, and I'm glad you condemned the white nationalists and the like.  It won't be enough for everyone, but feel free to keep calling them out from time to time as long as their bullshit continues.  In fact, if I were you, I would issue a few minute statement addressing a whole range of people who feel threatened by your Presidency, whether that threat is real or perceived.  Tell the Hispanics and Latinos that you love them and have nothing against them.  Sure, there are some illegal immigrants who come here and commit heinous crimes, but that does not represent the majority of Mexicans.  Tell African Americans that you're working for them, and that you won't tolerate discrimination against them.  Tell women that you've made poor decisions in the past and said and did some offensive and immoral things, but you don't have a problem with women, especially strong, intelligent, successful women, such as your daughters and your wife.  Explain that being pro-life IS being pro-woman, although most of the left will still fight you on that issue.  I don't care what you said about Rosie O'Donnell, by the way.  Most people don't.  I'd be happy to see her move to Canada.

Tell the LGBTQ community that you are there for them, you love them, and you want to protect them from hate of all kinds, whether violent Islamic extremists or so-called Christians calling them names or telling them that "fags go to hell."  I take a Libertarian view on Gay Marriage personally, but I too am fine with the Supreme Court's ruling on Gay Marriage, and I'm glad you stated that you see it as a done deal.  I'm fine with you waving the gay pride flag on stage like you did, though there's no need to light the White House in rainbow colors.  But on the other hand, you must assure those of us whose religions do not accept homosexuality that while the government will recognize gay unions and grant equal rights to homosexuals, churches will never be obligated to perform gay marriages, nor will individuals or business owners be forced to participate in gay marriages in any way if they believe it is against their religion.

Tell Muslims that you have no problem with the majority of Muslims, who are peaceful, and that you're not going to round up Muslims and deport them.  Explain that any immigration bans or heavy restrictions would be country-specific, not based on religion.  Tell them that is is Islamic Extremism, the same thing that concerns many of them, that also concerns you.  Tell them there is no place for that sort of thing in our country.  America will never be a place where Sharia law is acceptable, where it is acceptable to kill homosexuals and treat women as objects or second class citizens.  And yes, you must defeat ISIS for good, but I hope we can avoid further wars.

Tell God that you seek forgiveness for your sins, if you truly do.  You said during your campaign that you don't ask for forgiveness, but you just try to do better next time.  That is in no way a Christian thought.  Ask Ben Carson or Mike Pence for guidance on this one.  I hope you have truly accepted Jesus Christ as your savior.  No, it's not a requirement for you to do that in order to be President, and no, you shouldn't pretend that you've done that if you haven't, but I pray that if you haven't, that you do.  I pray that Christ will guide you ask you lead this nation.  Separation of Church and State is imperative, but a President rooted in Judaeo-Christian principles will do well.  If you have truly sought forgiveness from God, tell the American people that, and ask them to forgive you for anything wrong that you've done against any of them as well.  Yes, Donald, a great leader must be strong, but a great leader must also be humble and admit when he is wrong.

You know how a lot of the people who voted for Hillary are always talking about how they need their safe space and trying to limit free speech by attempting to absurdly broaden the definition of hate speech, at times to even include showing support of your candidacy?  Well, you sounded a lot like them when you started Tweeting about how the theater should be a safe place and the actors owe Mike Pence an apology for lecturing him.  Whether or not you agree with what they did, they had the right to do it, and you don't need to call them out about it on Twitter.  Dude, you're going to be our President soon.  You can tone it down a bit on Twitter and act Presidential.  I mean, you're entitled to say what you want, but just some friendly advice here...  And yes, the media blew this whole Hamilton thing out of proportion, and the media is not in a good place right now, but don't forget that freedom of the press is one of the five pillars of the first amendment, along with freedom of religion, freedom of speech, right to peacefully assemble, and right to petition the government.  Don't be a threat to the First Amendment in any way, and don't tolerate anyone who is.  The same holds true for the Second Amendment, the other amendments, due process, and the other necessities that the founders of our nation put into place.

I don't know what to expect from you as President, Mr. Trump.  I am cautiously optimistic, but vigilant.  I hope you follow many of the examples set forth by Ronald Reagan.  I hope you bring this nation together, help those in need, help facilitate more job creation, make life better for the poor and middle class, lead the United States as a force for good and humanitarian aid throughout the world, defeat ISIS, and overcome hate with love.  I wish success for you and for this great nation, which already is great, but can continually strive to be even better.  You surprised a lot of people by getting nominated, you surprised more people by winning the election, and now you must surprise a great many more people and become a great President for all the citizens of this nation.  That will be a far greater challenge than anything you have ever taken on before.

Sincerely,
Matt

Trumped: What Just Happened and What Happens Now?

Most of my friends are very liberal.  Naturally, this is what happens when you have graduated from one of the most liberal colleges in country, when you feel comfortable around people who are different than you, and when you want to be surrounded by folks from all different cultures.  I may have a somewhat unique perspective on this election.  I grew up largely Italian-American town, and unlike many decades ago, these days that demographic falls into the category of White.  Most of my friends growing up were middle-class, a good number came from Republican homes, but it was a pretty even split.  Growing up in the 1990s though, the country seemed less divided.  I was too young to vote in the 2000 election, but I think that may have been around the time the division was starting to deepen.  Bill Clinton's last few years in office were contentious, and Bush vs. Gore came down to Florida, with the fate of the election hanging in the balance for about a month before Bush was declared the winner.  Post 9/11, the division seemed to go away.  We were very much a united America.  People proudly flew the American flag.  I remember Al Gore speaking and saying something like, "George Bush is my commander-in-chief" to much applause.  But much changed in the world after 9/11, and division once again set in.

When I went off to college a few years later, I chose Wesleyan University.  During my first semester there, I thought I had made a big mistake, and considered transferring.  This place was beyond liberal.  I witnessed people watching gay porn with their doors wide open, there were condoms and oral dams (not sure who uses the latter ever really, but whatever) well-stocked in every bathroom, pro-choice posters everywhere, parties with sexual themes, naked parties, gender neutral bathrooms, gender neutral pronouns, alcohol and drugs widely available...  But I found my place there.  I found the extremely diverse Wesleyan Christian Fellowship (InterVarsity), the school newspaper where I would become editor-and-chief a few years later, and so many great friends who are my best friends to this day.  I loved my four years at Wesleyan.  It was the right decision, and I would not change that experience.  But the one think Wesleyan lacked was Conservative voices.  I think there was a very small group of Republicans on campus, but I never sought them out or considered myself a Republican, being a registered Independent, though at the time very much right-wing.

The first election I was old enough to vote in was in 2004.  I was 18 years old, and I voted for George W. Bush.  A lot of people at Wesleyan were very angry with me.  They were saying the same things about him then as they're saying about Donald Trump now.  Racist, sexist, anti-gay, bad for women, unfit for office, unintelligent, makes up words (well, that one is accurate).  This was the liberal war cry, and it still is.  To be fair, Bush's second term was disastrous in a lot of ways, paving the way for Barack Obama's presidency, but during that term, I learned all about the views that were opposite of mine.  I talked with the people around me, I debated with them, I gained better understanding about where they were coming from, and a lot of my views were changed as a result.  Ultimately, I went from being against gay marriage to agreeing with the recent SCOTUS decision, even though I hold the Christian view of marriage personally.  I went from being against marijuana legalization to being very much for it, even though I don't smoke.  I moved further to the left on the environment, on war, and on the death penalty.  I don't care if people are naked, and I don't care which bathroom they use.  But I held firm on abortion, even when someone angrily ripped the pro-life sign off of my door and cried (literally) to my RA about it.  I held firm on the first amendment, the second amendment, and conservative fiscal policy.  I learned how to state my views, hear other views, and evaluate the differences.

Fast forward to 2016, and Liberals are doing the exact opposite thing of what I was doing in college.  Many of them are surrounding themselves with like-minded people, shielding themselves from differing views.  If, instead of having a civil back-and-forth, you try to shut down the other side by calling what they're saying "hate speech" or calling them sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, whatever -ist or -phobic, you are part of the problem.  If you are demanding that the University take action when someone writes "Trump 2016" or wears a "Make America Great Again" hat because it's hate speech, you are part of the problem.  If you are ripping down someone's pro-life sign because you think that a man shouldn't have an opinion on whether a baby in the womb is a life or part of a woman's body, you are part of the problem.  If you are demanding that someone bakes a cake that says something on it that goes against that person's religious beliefs, and if they don't do it, they're whatever -ist or -phobic, you are part of the problem. If you are demanding a safe space and trigger warnings for every fucking thing that might offend someone, you need to realize that the real world is not a safe space!  The awfulness of HRC and the DNC, the lack of Democratic voter turnout, the lack of anything funny from Trevor Noah, and the ridiculously transparent partisan mainstream media aside, THIS IS WHY TRUMP WON.

It makes me cringe a bit to have Trump as the President-elect, because I don't like him either, to put it mildly.  I cannot defend him saying that he grabs women by the pussy whether it's true or not.  I cannot defend the things that come out of his mouth that offend people and should not come out of his mouth.  But not everything he says is an insult to a minority.  Political correctness has run amuck, and America realized that.  But insulating yourself from differing views has run amuck as well.  In the week leading up to the election, I had a number of encounters with folks with differing views that ended with me making a good point and the person I was talking with either storming away from me while cursing at me or directing the word fuck at me eight times in the matter of a few sentences and then unfriending me on Facebook.  To her credit, one girl who unfriended me messaged me before unfriending me and apologized that she was about to unfriend me, saying that I had been very reasonable unlike a lot others she had dealt with, but for the sake of her mental health, she could not deal with hearing any viewpoints from any Christians anymore.  And to their credit, a lot of my more liberal friends had spirited, thoughtful, well-articulated, and civil debates with me on the issues.  For many of them, I am their only vocal friend with a more conservative or Libertarian leaning, and they were genuinely curious about my views.  That is how Liberals can take the White House back in 2020, not by ignoring, demeaning, and writing off those whose views differ, but by engaging with and understanding them.  Certainly not by what I've seen happening today for the most part.

My Facebook feed has been full of very sad and angry people, crying, cursing, saying that half of America is sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, ignorant, or all of the above.  Yes, the KKK endorsed Donald Trump, and there are some people who fit that bill who voted for Donald Trump, but we DO NOT live in a nation where half of the people here are any of those things.  And we certainly do not live in a nation where the KKK is acceptable.  Yes, they're trying to make a comeback.  We can stop that by ignoring them, or we can stoke the fire by acknowledging them and saying that half the nation is with them.  Fucking insane.  Not single person I know who voted for Trump supports the KKK.  I haven't heard a single person say, "Hey, you know what, I hate minorities, women, Muslims, and (or) homosexuals, so I'm voting for Trump!"  And about Trump inciting violence, yes, he's said some things he definitely shouldn't have said, but it was Hillary's campaign who was caught red-handed planning to incite violence at Trump rallies!

I watched the election results roll in with an Hispanic friend of mine.  He voted for Trump.  I exchanged messages a few times throughout the night with a Black Libertarian friend of mine.  He didn't vote for Trump (but he didn't vote for Hillary either).  The first person I talked to this morning was a Brown friend at work.  He voted for Trump.  The first person who called me the morning after the election was a woman who immigrated here from Italy in 1948, legally, through Ellis Island.  She, my grandmother, voted for Trump.  Trump is not against immigrants, and I really don't think a wall would solve much, but he does want to clamp down on illegal immigration.  If he likes immigrants so much, then why doesn't he just marry one?  Oh, yeah, his wife is going to be the first First Lady since Louisa Adams not born in the United States.  Trump is not against Black people.  I don't know where that notion came from.  He wants to make life better for them and for all Americans.  I'm not black, so I'll just defer to Ben Carson, Herman Cain, Allen West, and Omarosa on this one.  Trump is not against women.  Kellyanne Conway, his campaign manager, just became the first successful female campaign manager in our nation's history.  His daughters are successful women.  He is surrounded by wonderful, intelligent, strong, and independent women.  That doesn't excuse his prior behavior.  He said a lot of demeaning things about women during his years as an entertainer, and there is no defending his "grab them by the pussy" comments.  Sexual assault isn't funny.  He apologized.  That doesn't make it go away, but we can forgive him for it.

Popular on Facebook today are some variations of saying that if you voted for Trump, to make sure to explain to your LGBTQ, female, Black, Hispanic/Latino, and Muslim friends why they don't matter to you.  So I'll attempt to do that, but first start out by saying that they do matter to me.  To my LGBTQ friends, this election was a choice between someone who, like Barack Obama in 2008, is not in favor of gay marriage and someone who recently decided that she is in favor of gay marriage (now that it is politically expedient).  Hopefully Trump changes his views on it like Obama did, but even if he doesn't, he's probably going to be the best Republican President for gay rights who has ever been in office.  Hillary accepts donations to her foundation from countries who are fine with executing LGBTQ people.  To my female friends, a number of you voted for Trump and looked past his disturbing comments from 11 years ago and alleged sexual assaults.  Hillary discredited her husband's sexual assault accusers and allegedly acted in a threatening way to Juanita Broaddrick, who maintains her claim that Bill Clinton raped her.  Bill Clinton has sexual assault and rape accusers on a Bill Cosby level.  Hillary accepts donations to her foundation from countries who are against basic women's rights.  Neither Hillary nor Trump is a great defender of women.  And if you want to go to the abortion thing, that's really a matter of whether you think a fetus counts as life or as part of a woman's body.  To my Black friends, Donald Trump has some of the most intelligent Black people in the country advising him.  A higher percentage of Black people voted for him than for Mitt Romney in 2012.  Under Barack Obama, the gap between the rich and poor widened by unprecedented and epic proportions.  This disproportionately impacted Blacks.  Let's give Donald Trump's policies a chance.  To my Hispanic and Latino friends, I don't know why you're included in this ridiculous graphic, seeing as like a third of Hispanics and Latinos who voted cast their vote for Trump, so yeah, no real cause for alarm here, Trump isn't planning to deport people like you, even if he did make a dumb comment about a Mexican judge...  And my Muslim friends?  Donald's not kicking you out, even if he fell into the DNC's trap and couldn't stop himself from saying things about a Muslim gold star family.  He also said some dumb things about not letting anymore Muslims in but has since revised that.  It's not going to happen.  Hillary, on the other hand, accepts donations to her foundation from countries who fund ISIS.  Trump has no problem with you for being Muslim unless you're an extremist or in favor of Sharia law, which is very anti-gay and anti-women by the way. 

Look, I didn't expect Trump to win.  I didn't expect him to get the nomination.  I didn't expect him to become President.  I never even watched one episode of The Apprentice.  None of this makes sense.  But people voted for Trump for all different reasons.  Yes, there's a small faction of bigots who voted for him.  But there are those who voted for him because (gasp!) his policies.  And there was a huge percentage of working class people in unions who voted for him.  That's a huge reason that he won, and isn't that a demographic that the Democrats say their policies are best for?  Now the Left is demonizing those very same people and calling them bigots.  And finally, and probably most commonly, there are those who voted for him, begrudgingly, because they saw him as the lesser of two evils, because Hillary Clinton was seen as a worse option.  And not because she's a woman either.  Goodness, if it was Carly Fiorina against Bernie Sanders, I would have voted Fiorina.  I would have voted for Judge Judy over most men.  It has nothing to do with the existence of Hillary's vagina.  If it was Sarah Palin against Hillary, I would have moved out of the country though...  Speaking of which, I hope all those celebrities who threatened to move to Canada if Trump won are on their way out!  But for those of us who are staying here in America, let's try to get this nation back together again.  This division is insane.  Trump actually nailed it in his victory speech.  It really is time to come together as a nation.  It's long past time for that.  Let's stop demonizing the other side.  I'm not saying to become complacent.  If something is wrong, go ahead and protest it.  We have that right.  Are you against the Dakota Access Pipeline?  Protest it.  Are you angry that Donald Trump won?  Voice that opinion if you want, but stay peaceful and don't be an asshole.  This is exactly what you were telling the other side not to do when they lost.  But they won in a shocker.  That's more awkward than Trump's ride to the inauguration in Obama's limo will be.

I voted for John McCain in 2008, even though McCain was pretending to be more conservative than he really was and chose an awful running mate in Palin (I thought he should have chosen Joe Lieberman personally, or Colin Powell, although Powell ultimately endorsed Obama).  I wish he was the 2000 version of John McCain, but he wasn't, and he lost.  This morning, I went back to look at my Facebook post from that day.  I said I was ready for change.  And I said, "Congratulations to Barack Obama! Here's to hope. And hoping that he truly selects a bipartisan cabinet."  I'll say that same thing now.  I am ready for change.  I hope that Trump selects a bipartisan cabinet and chooses the best people for the job, as his advisors, and for the Supreme Court.  I hope he can control what comes out of his mouth.  I hope he truly tries to follow God's guidance.  But this isn't the end of the world, and this isn't a sad day that shows how bigoted half of America is, even if you're upset about the results of the election.  Remember that great quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

Be the love.  Be the light.

Donald Trump is Not Qualified to be President: Here's Why I've Decided to Vote for Him

I'd really like to be writing about the Cubs right now instead.  Until this past week, the last time they won the World Series, the great Teddy Roosevelt was President and America was about to elect its fattest President, William Howard Taft.  Now, although several third party candidates are better than the two nominated by the main parties, we basically have two awful candidates to choose from.  I endorsed Libertarian Gary Johnson a while back.  Although he's shown himself to be a not-so-great candidate, I still think he's better than Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.  The Libertarian Party, whether with Johnson as the nominee or with someone else, could have done much better.  Most sane people in this country don't like either of the top two choices.  This was an opportunity missed.  And it didn't help that Gary Johnson was not allowed to debate because he wasn't polling 15%.  Now his goal is to get 5% nationally so the Libertarian Party will receive additional funding.  I hope he gets it, but if the Libertarian Party missed so great an opportunity here in 2016, I'm not sure that money would make much of a difference in 2020.  And after the past few weeks, I've decided personally that I will not be part of the Johnson percentage.  I am no longer feeling the Johnson.  Here's why...

Donald Trump is entirely unqualified to be President of the United States.  He has no experience in politics, he doesn't know what it takes to be President, he says things that make me cringe, he stands for things that I do not, and he surrounds himself with good people.  Hillary Clinton is entirely qualified to be President of the United States.  She has plenty of experience in politics, she knows what it takes to be President, she gives calculated answers to questions, she stands for things that are politically expedient for her, and she surrounds herself with terrible people.  The last few weeks have really made me realize that my third party vote, while it may be an easy way out for me to say that I didn't vote for either the Turd Sandwich or the Giant Douche, is barely better than not voting at all.  If folks want to not vote, or vote third party, or vote for Hillary, or vote for Trump, I do not take issue with that.  I say vote your conscience.  Ted Cruz was right when he said that.  Don't expect me to repeat that last sentence very often...  But because of who Hillary Clinton is, what she has done, and who she surrounds herself with, I cannot in good conscience vote for Hillary Clinton, and I must cast my vote directly against her to Donald Trump.  I hope they have designated vomiting places at the polls this year, because I might need to make use of them.

Yeah, I've seen the snarky Liberal websites listing the many terrible things that Donald has said and done (mostly said) juxtaposed with the one thing Hillary ever did wrong, mishandling her e-mails.  Bullshit.  She has done so many things way more concerning than that.  Let's start with who she surrounds herself with.  Bill Clinton, Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner, Sidney Blumenthal, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Donna Brazile...  So we have a former President, Bill Clinton, accused of rape and sexual assault by many women who isn't in as much hot water as Bill Cosby because he's a former President.  We have a woman, Huma Abedin, with awful judgement who has been Hillary's right-hand woman for decades and may or may not have ties to terrorists but is definitely married to a disgraced former congressman, Anthony Weiner, who she is now finally divorcing because he's been found sexting other women, again, this time including one who is allegedly underage.  Wow.  Oh, yeah, and in searching the computer this lovely couple shared for anything sexual in relation to children, the FBI found a bunch of e-mails on the computer related to Hillary Clinton and had to re-open that whole investigation.  This almost makes the other three I listed seem almost benign.  The former DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had to resign in disgrace after being caught doing everything she could to help Hillary beat Bernie and then was immediately hired by Hillary.  Sidney Blumenthal worked for the corrupt Clinton Foundation and was in part responsible for Hillary blaming the Benghazi attacks on an online video.  Donna Brazile worked at CNN but became the interim DNC chair and was just fired from CNN after leaked e-mails showed that she gave debate questions to Hillary's campaign ahead of her debates with Bernie on multiple occasions.  I left out other close confidants of hers for the sake of time.  How is John Podesta not among the six worst?  Good Lord. And Tim Kaine.  Wow.  I didn't even mention Tim Kaine.  Just watch his debate against Mike Pence if you haven't.  He got destroyed in that debate as badly as Trump got destroyed by Hillary in their first debate.  He is awful, kind of creepy, and in no way prepared to be President.  He may be the best of this bunch though.

In contrast, Trump has surrounded himself with much better people.  Though I disagree with some of Mike Pence's political views, I agree with him more than I don't, and he's a decent human being who would do well as President.  And Ben Carson, I just love.  I might have a man-crush on Dr. Carson.  He is a principled and brilliant man who would make a wonderful Surgeon General.  And even Hillary complimented how well Donald's children turned out, and they certainly have his ear.  Melania would make a solid First Lady, and she gives Michelle Obama's speeches just as well as Michelle gives them.  She's a strong and independent woman who immigrated to our country legally.  Kellyanne Conway is a strong and brilliant woman as well, far superior to John Podesta.  And maybe Trump would choose Trey Gowdy as Attorney General!  And I like his list of potential Supreme Court nominees.  Donald Trump is probably the worst of this bunch, which means that as far as the people he surrounds himself with, at least he has better judgement than Hillary.  By a lot.

So why won't I vote for Hillary?  It's not because she set up a private server with classified information on it in the e-mail scandal, although that alone should have stripped her of her security clearance and disqualified her from running for President.  It's not because of our people who died in Benghazi during her tenure while she was Secretary of State, although if she takes credit for killing Osama bin Laden, she should also take responsibility for what happened in Benghazi since it was on her watch.  In addition to her inner circle of deplorables, it's because of what the Project Veritas videos show, what the Wikileaks e-mails show, and what the re-opened FBI investigation is telling us.  And it's not merely because of the existence of these things either, but because of their content. Anyone who thinks that Hillary is a good candidate after examining all of the evidence is a special kind of deranged.

If you haven't watched the Project Veritas videos, please educate yourself.  They show a culture of corruption and win-at-all-costs (disregarding legality and morality) within the Clinton campaign and other groups working to get Clinton elected.  Several people have been forced to leave their jobs after these videos were released, perhaps most notably Bob Creamer and Scott Foval.  They're all claiming that what was talked about in the videos was hypothetical and never actually happened.  These "hypothetical" things include Foval bragging about inciting violence at Trump rallies, paying mentally-ill people to "do shit" and paying homeless people to "do some crazy stuff" (but it's cool because he gave them a hotel room and shower too).  The videos also showed illegal collaboration with the Clinton campaign, racist remarks, acceptance of illegal foreign donations, and many other cringe-worthy things that can make you lose faith in the Democratic Party.

As far as Wikileaks, that's been a treasure trove of terrible things as well, exposing the aforementioned Donna Brazile debate question leaks, among other things, but perhaps none more important than the statement that Qatar and Saudi Arabia "are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region."  The significance of this is that it means that both the Clinton Foundation and ISIS are being partly funded by the Governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and this is something Clinton would obviously know.  Do we really want Hillary Clinton to be the President of the United States, knowing this information?  Donald Trump's comically ridiculous assertion that "no one respects women more than me" that he made several times pales in comparison to Hillary Clinton's acceptance of money from countries that really, really, really don't respect women.  Or gays for that matter.  It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Donald Trump is further to the left on gay rights than Hillary is.  I don't think he actually cares whether or not gays get married in reality.  I could be wrong on that, of course.  But remember, Barack Obama was against Gay Marriage when he first ran for office.  Hillary Clinton was against Gay Marriage until the tides turned recently.  Heck, I was as well.  But Dick Cheney changed his mind on Gay Marriage before Hillary did, for goodness sake, and Hillary is cool with accepting money from countries where gay rights are non-existent.  Like, it's literally fine if you want to throw gay people off a cliff.  I'm not good with that.  I'd be remiss if I didn't address Mike Pence here, so I'll say that if it's acceptable for someone to change their sex, then it's acceptable for someone to enter conversion therapy to go from gay to straight, as long as that person makes that choice for him or herself and is not forced into it.

So, Project Veritas is something done by United States citizens, Wikileaks comes from several places (and according to Julian Assange, not from the Russian Government, but wherever it's coming from, it's exposing disturbing truths), and on top of this we have the FBI re-opening the investigation into e-mails related to Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin.  Hopefully they will find more evidence of the Clinton Foundation pay-to-play that we know is occurring, although it seems unlikely that Comey-comey-comey-comey-comey-chameleon will actually charge Hillary on anything related to her handling of classified information.  Whatever happens, I just hope the truth comes out.

I get that Trump is awful.  He's insulted Mexicans, Muslims, women, most demographics really.  He's said dumb things about nukes, punishing women who get abortions, and other things that he's walked back.  He talked about sexually assaulting women, whether it was a joke or not.  He told Howard Stern that he was probably for the war in Iraq before it began, but then later came out against it, still before it began, while Hillary was a Senator and voted for it.  There's no proof that he has ties to Putin and Russia, but he said it would be nice if we could get along with them.  War with Russia is more likely with Clinton, a true war-hawk.  How many tens of thousands of innocent deaths is the United States Government responsible for because of what was done under her watch in Libya, toppling Gaddafi?  What of her policies in the Middle East?  What of her deal with Morocco?  What of the Clinton Foundation screwing over Haiti, with billions of dollars unaccounted for?  Yes, Trump is terrible.  He says racist things.  He says sexist things.  He apparently mocked a disabled reporter.  But voting for him over her does not make a person racist of sexist.  It doesn't make you more of less of a Christian (or whatever your faith or lack thereof may be), or a better or worse person.  There are reasons to vote against each of these two candidates, and not too many reasons to vote for either of them.  I've decided to vote for Trump.  Don't call me sexist unless you would support Carly Fiorina.  Don't call me racist unless you would support Ben Carson.  I am neither racist nor sexist.  I am casting a vote for Trump because of who Hillary Clinton is, what she stands for, what she has done, and most of all, the people she surrounds herself with.

Hillary's "30 years in public service" worked out well for her and her husband, as they gained many millions of dollars in personal wealth, in part through expensive paid speeches to Wall Street, to which she is beholden and has given speeches talking about how she often has public and private views on issues that are completely different from each other.  She is also beholden to Foreign Governments who have given money to the Clinton Foundation, and donors who have given money to her campaign, mostly notably George Soros.  Hillary Clinton makes Richard Nixon look like a saint.  Power corrupts, especially when you've been in the establishment for so many years.  Not only should we create a constitutional amendment limiting the number of Congressional terms, but I propose one limiting Political Dynasty families.  We don't need another Clinton in the White House.  We don't need another Bush in the White House.  Why don't we disallow parents, children, spouses, and siblings of a President from ever becoming President?  This isn't a Monarchy.

In any case, come Tuesday, a terrible candidate is going to be elected to be the next President of the United States.  Hillary represents the status quo.  If we're cool with killing all those people overseas, destroying America from within, large Government, corruption, and all the entities she's beholden to, vote for Clinton.  Trump isn't much better though.  His hateful and dangerous rhetoric, enormous ego, convenient claim to Christianity, and awful and empty slogan to "Make America Great Again" are worrisome.  He has the potential to be a terrible President, but he is also the candidate who represents change.  I trust the people he surrounds himself with more than I trust him.  That same thing can't be said for Hillary.  I don't have a horse in this race really.  I endorsed Gary Johnson.  But I've decided to vote for Trump.  May God have mercy on my soul.

Retraction TIME

A reporter is supposed to report the news in an accurate and unbiased way, correct?  Is this still true?  I remember a time when it was, but it sure seems like that time has gone away.  I mean, it's been a while since the major news networks in the U.S. haven't taken sides politically.  FOX on the right, NBC on the left, joined by ABC and CBS, and firmly CNN at this point.  But when did accuracy also stop mattering?  The New York Times story on Gary Johnson's Aleppo flub last month is a disturbing and hilarious example of how bad reporting has gotten.  The New York Times is supposed to be a high-quality and trustworthy news publication, and in the age of finding answers on the Internet, you would think that if they wrote a story about how Gary Johnson didn't know what Aleppo was, they would have looked up what it was themselves, right?  And if the writer didn't fact check, maybe an editor would, right?  Apparently not.  The first published version of the article called Aleppo the de facto Capital of the Islamic State (it's not).  They then corrected that and called Aleppo the capital of Syria (it's not) and an Islamic stronghold (it's not).  Finally, they gave up and called it a war-torn Syrian city (accurate).  I guess there's no time for fact checking when you're quickly trying to write a big story to make sure Gary Johnson doesn't take too many votes away from Hillary.

But the reason I'm writing this isn't because of the New York Times.  It's because of a TIME article from a few weeks ago about a Christian organization on 667 college campuses across the nation, InterVarsity.  When I went to college at Wesleyan University, I was involved in the Wesleyan Christian Fellowship there, which was run by InterVarsity.  I met some wonderful Christians from all over the world there, very literally.  We were from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the United States.  As a white male in the group, I was in the minority, and on some weeks, the only white male in the group.  While these meetings could have been a goldmine for admissions photos, we were all just brothers and sisters in Christ.  We were different, we had different ways of worshiping, but we were unified by our love for Christ and our love for one another.  My experience may not have been the typical InterVarsity experience if you take the country as a whole, but it was certainly not a rarity.  Even today, InterVarsity is a diverse and inclusive group of Christians and has expressed its support of Black Lives Matter, which is not something that very many Christian groups have done publicly.  I've continued to support InterVarsity after college and became more involved with it recently, having started to volunteer in a behind-the-scenes way a few years ago, so I am very familiar with this organization.

I don't know if TIME magazine just felt like doing a hit job on a Christian organization or if they had an epic lapse in fact checking, but it had to be one of those two options, because calling its October 6 article "Top Evangelical College Group to Dismiss Employees Who Support Gay Marriage" misleading is an understatement.  It is flat out wrong.  The article begins, "One of the largest evangelical organizations on college campuses nationwide has told its 1,300 staff members they will be fired if they personally support gay marriage or otherwise disagree with its newly detailed positions on sexuality starting on Nov. 11."  For someone unfamiliar with InterVarsity, that doesn't sound like a made-up thing, right?  It's plausible.  But for me, when I read that statement, it blew my mind.  I felt like Lois Griffin in a 2006 episode of Family Guy...
Peter Griffin: Yeah Brian, your doing the same thing that Mia Farrow did to that Chinaman that Woody Allen brought home from the circus!
Lois Griffin: Peter, hold on to that thought, because I'm gonna explain to you when we get home all the things that are wrong with that statement.

Let's explain all of the things that are wrong with that statement.  For one, staff members will NOT be fired for supporting gay marriage.  And for another thing, InterVarsity has not changed its positions on sexuality in any way.  There you go.  That pretty much destroys the entire premise for the article right there, but I'm not holding my breath for a retraction.  Want to know what's really going on with InterVarsity?  They posted a response here on October 7, the day after the article in TIME came out:
http://intervarsity.org/news/intervarsity-reiterates-theology-human-sexuality

To sum it up, not only are employees not being fired for supporting gay marriage, but InterVarsity's views on sexuality, based on the Bible, have never changed in the 75-year history of the organization, AND LGBTQI folks are more than welcome to attend InterVarsity events and meetings.  They even included a statement that Christians don't say enough, noting, “Throughout this process, we are very aware that LGBTQI people have experienced great pain, including much caused by Christians. We also know that we ourselves each need Jesus’ grace daily. So we attempt to walk humbly in this conversation.”  The crux of the issue at hand for InterVarsity is theological agreement with what the Bible says on sexuality.  So if I were an InterVarsity employee who agreed with what the Word of God says about sexuality, but I still thought Gay Marriage should be legal, I would NOT be fired.  My personal views on Gay Marriage are here if you're interested: http://thediblas.blogspot.com/2015/08/jesus-loves-gays.html

Look, there are a lot of great reporters out there today, but the general trend in the media has been scary.  I say this as someone who considered reporting as a possible career.  I was editor-in-chief of the country's oldest twice-weekly college paper, The Wesleyan Argus.  While my political views then were significantly to the right of the Wesleyan community as a whole, which was and is one of the furthest-left Universities in the country, you would not have know it from reading the newspaper when I was in charge of it.  That's because what we did was reporting.  The editorial section was for editorializing.  The rest of it was actual reporting.  There are two times I can recall having a discussion with other Argus Staff members that my political or religious beliefs entered into.  In one case, I was wrong, and in another case, I was right.  In each case, the discussion was brief, and the issue was quickly resolved before print.  In the case where I was wrong, I had referred to Jesus as "Jesus Christ" in an article.  An editor told me that calling Him "Christ" was editorializing.  Even though I know that Jesus is Christ, the editor was right, and I agreed that the article should be modified in that way.  In the case where I was right, a writer decided to use all gender neutral pronouns in an article (yes, this was a thing ten year ago, and few outside of the Wesleyan bubble at the time would have had any idea what this was) for no particular reason.  I changed it and said that when the New York Times starts using "ze" and "hir" instead of he, she, his, and her, then the Argus would do it.  That's it.  I didn't steer the newspaper to the left or the right.  Our goal was to make a quality college newspaper.

Last year, the Argus came under fire for publishing an opinion column that had criticism for some aspects of Black Lives Matter.  A large group of students responded by demanding that the Argus be defunded.  The piece in question wasn't even a news article.  It was an opinion column.  I read it.  The student who wrote it sounded to me like he was on the left, and while I may not have agreed with everything he said, what he was saying really wasn't bad at all, some of it made quite a bit of sense, and it was his opinion!  The editorials, opinion section ("Wespeaks" in the Argus), and columns are where opinions belong in a newspaper, not in news articles, but apparently if someone expresses an opinion that you disagree with these days, you should try to silence them or the media by which they convey it.  The Argus didn't lose funding completely, but its funding was cut.  Oh, how times have changed just in the last decade.

It's not just folks on the left who are trying to silence opposing views either.  Sure, a lot of them try to shut things down by calling them racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, hate speech, whatever.  But now we have people like Trump (on the right, maybe?), who most recently said that Saturday Night Live should be cancelled--because he didn't like the way SNL portrayed him.  SNL, of course, has a long and rich history of Presidential debate parodies.

And InterVarsity has a long and rich history of being a wonderful, inclusive, Bible-based Christian organization, focused on bringing students closer to God and serving others.  To the editors of TIME, if you are concerned with reporting facts, I await a retraction.

Locker Room Talk

I endorsed Gary Johnson.  In any other election year, I would not have endorsed Gary Johnson.  If just about anyone else had been nominated for the Republicans, or if Jim Webb had been nominated for the Democrats, I would not have endorsed Gary Johnson.  But we have two of the absolute worst candidates in history as our major party nominees.  I cannot endorse Hillary Clinton.  I cannot endorse Donald Trump.  I don't understand any reason for the high level of Evangelical Christian support for Trump, except for the high probability that his Supreme Court nominees would be better than Clinton's, more supportive of the First and Second amendments and hopefully more pro-life.

Yes, Hillary's campaign released the video of Donald Trump's disturbing comments from 11 years ago as a planned October Surprise, and it distracts from the latest Wikileaks releases, but I can't defend it.  It's not typical locker room talk.  I know that because I am a heterosexual man.  I have been in locker rooms with other men.  Yes, we talk about women in the locker rooms.  Many men talk about their (consensual) sexual conquests, but I can only recall one time in my life where I heard a man talking in the locker room about a sexual conquest of questionable consent, whether in jest or not.  I can't say that I've ever heard a man say that he likes to just "grab women by the pussy."  Even if it's not true, sexual assault is not a joke.  If Donald's claim that "No one has more respect for women than I do" is true, we are absolutely fucked.  There is no nicer way of saying that.  But it's not true, so don't worry about that.  There are plenty of men who have a whole lot of respect for women.

But Hillary Clinton is not the right person to call Donald Trump out on his comments.  I don't think she understands the actual problem with Donald's "locker room talk."  In Sunday's debate, she lumped together Trump's problematic comment with far less problematic actual locker room talk.  In her own words, "We've seen this throughout the campaign.  We have seen him insult women.  We've seen him rate women on their appearance, ranking them from one to ten."  Ranking women from one to ten IS actual locker room talk.  Men DO talk about the appearance of women.  This is something that MOST men do.  I can see why some will say that even that is problematic, but like it or not, talking about how women look and rating them from 1-10 is typical locker room talk.  Sorry ladies, that's just how it is.  But talking about or joking about sexually assaulting women?  That is NOT what most men talk about.

I don't think Hillary knows the reason why Trump's comments are more problematic than rating a woman's appearance though.  How could she?  Donald Trump may have said bad things, and he may have had some allegations against him, but he's not sexually assaulting women on a Bill C (Clinton, Cosby) level.  The main issue with Bill Clinton is not his infidelity.  It's the many women who have accused him of sexual assault over the years, and also accused Hillary of threatening them and protecting him.  Sure, somehow the Clintons have gotten away without any real consequences over the years, just like Cosby did for so many decades, but does Hillary really expect us to believe that she never knew about what her husband was doing, never defended him, and never threatened his accusers and victims?  She's not trustworthy on most other things, so why would we trust her on that?  After all, she laughed about her days as a lawyer, successfully getting a man off easy who she defended and knew was guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl.  Some defender of women's rights.  That's even less funny than Trump's comments about just going around grabbing vaginas.

Check out Steven Crowder's interview with Juanita Broaddrick from last week if you want to hear what a 73-year-old woman with nothing to gain has to say about Bill Clinton raping her and Hillary Clinton threatening her decades ago.  It doesn't sound to me like she's making it up.  Just remember what Hillary Clinton said about how women who come forward with rape allegations should initially be believed, although she quickly took that idea down from her website when Broaddrick resurfaced.  Strange coincidence, like so many other things in Hillary's life.

It is not a pleasant thought that either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will very likely be our next President.  I know that a Gary Johnson victory is nearly impossible at this point, seeing as he's been kept out of the debates by the bullshit commission.  The best case scenario would be for Trump to drop out of the race, presumably with Mike Pence to take his place atop the ticket.  But that's probably not going to happen.  And Hillary isn't going to drop out either, although if the VP Debate showed us anything it's that Tim Kaine is horribly unprepared to be President and is creepy AF.

On a lighter note, what a motley crew in the Town Hall Debate audience!  You can't make this stuff up.  We literally have a guy named Ken Bone who looks likes some sort of caricature, and then a guy so big that there can only be one other person in his row, while every other row has three people in it.  And they're surrounded by what appear to be Saturday Night Live characters.  Speaking of which, the SNL cold open this weekend will once again write itself.  I mean, half of it can just be quoting exactly what was said at the debate.

Ultimately, America will be just fine, but the next four years are going to be interesting to say the least.

Black Death

So here we have front and center, once again, two of the main things ripping this country apart: Islamic extremist terrorists and police shooting black people.

On Saturday, an Islamic extremist planted a bunch of bombs in places throughout New York City and New Jersey.  As soon as I heard that there was an explosion in New York City, two things came to mind: it was either a accident or a Muslim extremist trying to kill people.  Then they found a pressure cooker bomb, and I was pretty sure I knew exactly what it was.  So did most people if they're honest.  Trump wasn't wrong with his conclusions on this particular issue.  Hillary said he shouldn't jump to conclusions before knowing the facts, which is ironic coming from someone who blamed the Benghazi attack on an anti-Islam video.  The truth is that ISIS and Islamic extremism in general are HUGE problems throughout the world.  Saying this does not make me "Islamophobic."  It makes me cognizant of facts.

Try to remember before September 11, 2001, for those of you who were around.  It was just over 15 years ago.  What was your first thought when you heard about the first plane hitting the tower?  Shamefully, I remember what my comment was, because I'll never forget anything about that day.  The Yankees had just won the last three World Series and four of the last five, and they were well on their way to playing in another one that October.  I was sitting in my Chemistry class Junior Year of High School when I heard about the first plane hitting the tower.
"Probably a pissed off Red Sox fan."
That's what I said.  With little knowledge of the situation, it was a hauntingly terrible joke.
Then the second plane hit.
"OK, that was on purpose.  We're under attack..."

I had no idea who was attacking us.  I knew nothing of Islamic extremism them.  Being a Christian, I knew Judaism well, and I knew of Islam to some extent.  I knew that Jews and Muslims often didn't get along very well in the Middle East.  I knew that they both revered Abraham, but then split on Isaac and Ishmael.  We all seemed to get along just fine in America though.  I knew some Muslims, just like I knew Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Agnostics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarians, Hindus, whatever.  They had different religious beliefs than I did, but they were people.  I had no problem with any of them.  I try to treat everyone with respect until they don't treat me with respect.  And on that day, more than ever, we were all just Americans.

Then we found out who did it, and if something similar to what happened that day occurred again today, most of us would probably, and probably rightly, immediately attribute it to Islamic extremism.  But before that terrible day 15 years ago, that was the furthest thing from my mind.  Sure, I was a naive high school student, but I didn't know that was a thing that could exist here in America.  It was a different kind of war, and it still is.  Yes, there are a lot of Christians and Jews and people of all religious beliefs who do really bad things.  But there is a brand of terrorism that's pretty unique to Islamic extremists.  Christians and Jews aren't attacking infidels in the name of God, but the number of terrorist attacks by extremist Muslims done in the name of Allah is out of control.  It is a regular occurrence in this world.  No, not all Muslims are terrorists--not even close--but in this modern day, most terrorists are Muslims.

We haven't found a solution to this yet, so there's nothing like a good old-fashioned police shooting of a black person to distract us from it, because that's actually something that we should be able to solve.  I've gone over the numbers before.  The number of police shooting black people is not an alarming number, and most black people who are killed in general are killed by other black people.  But, quite honestly, these facts do not matter to those who are grieving the loss of a loved one.  Black lives do matter.  I empathize with the black people who are hurting.  No, I will never fully understand being black, but I can grieve with those who grieve.  I can demand change.  I can acknowledge that racism is not completely dead, and this is a problem that must be corrected.  But I'm still going to examine the issue more closely, and I'm not going to support people who are rioting, shooting cops, or encouraging violence against police officers in any way, shape, or form.  If you want a civil war in this country, that's how you bring it on.  If you want real change, let's have a rational discussion about the issues, the causes, and the solutions.

My first job out of college was in Quality.  In a Quality Department, when something goes wrong, you must find the root cause and the corrective action.  Different incidents may have different root causes and different corrective actions.  There is almost never a fix-all solution for something.  When a black woman is pointing a gun at a police officer and threatening to kill him with that gun, while also using her child as a human shield, the root cause of her death is her own actions.  We can grieve, we can wish she didn't die, we can believe she didn't deserve to die, but the color of her skin is completely irrelevant here.  It's another black life taken by police, but the root cause is not racism.  When a black child points an air gun at a police officer that looks like a real gun with a laser sight on it, and the police officer draws his gun and kills the child, we can grieve, we can be saddened, but again, the root cause is this child's actions, and has nothing to do with the color of his skin.  The main corrective action in both of these cases is to not point a firearm (or something that looks exactly like a firearm) at a police officer.

Then we have the less straightforward cases.  There are riots in Charlotte now because a black man was shot in his car.  His daughter says he was a disabled man reading a book who did not have a gun, and the officers say he had a gun.  I don't know who's telling the truth here, and I'm not going to make excuses for the police officer or the victim when I have such little knowledge of what occurred, but regardless of all that, this wasn't because of racism either. The officer who killed the black man was also black.  And finally, there's the situation in Tulsa, where video has surfaced of an unarmed black man being killed.  The female officer who killed him has given her account of what happened.  But again, I don't know what exactly occurred, so I can only grieve for another life lost right now.  Was racism a factor?  Maybe it was, and maybe it wasn't.  Hopefully the truth comes out in both of these situations and justice prevails.  There are no positives when things like that occur.  But what are some steps we can take as a nation?  What are some corrective actions?

I like the idea of police body cameras.  There are good cops, bad cops, and cops who make mistakes, but there are also those who lie about what occurred, so body cams should aid both the officers and those that they are involved with, because they give us a better idea of what actually happened in any given situation.  I like the idea of more police training.  Some of them are just bad with firearms and reading of situations (the incident comes to mind in which the police officer accidentally shot a black caregiver when he was actually aiming for a mentally-challenged person who he thought had a gun, which turned out to be a toy truck).  Some of them are quick to use force.  Some use deadly force when it is not necessary, and non-deadly force options are available.  Training may not fix all of this, but maybe it can help.  Punishment for doing the wrong thing and true accountability are also necessary.  Racist cops being fired immediately when found to be racist, and being punished to the fullest extent of the law when they themselves break the law are obvious necessities.

You want to know what won't help our nation?  Rioting by destroying things and hurting people, demonizing or shooting police officers, and pointing fingers instead of having constructive dialogue.  Are you a BLM supporter who's angry because of the folks who were getting loud about football players not standing for the National Anthem but are silent about the recent highly-publicized police shootings?  Talk about that, but don't tell them that THEY are what's wrong with this nation on social media.  Are you a BLM skeptic who's angry because of the folks who are up in arms over the recent highly-publicized police shootings, because they were also up in arms over other police shootings that turned out to be justified, and they became huge fans of the 49ers second-string Quarterback overnight? Talk about that, but don't tell them that THEY are what's wrong with this nation on social media.  Think racism is gone?  You're wrong.  Think racism is to blame every time an officer shoots a black person?  You're wrong too.  If you're both wrong, there's some common ground to build on.

But let's find some real common ground.  Can we agree that sometimes a police officer shooting a black person is justified, other times it's racist, and other times it's neither?  Be a part of the solution instead of the distraction.  Try to understand the other side.  BLM skeptics are justifiably upset because some folks blame cops for killing black people who are pointing weapons at them, others are saying all cops are bad, and others are violently rioting in the streets, even when the officer who killed a black man is also black.  But BLM supporters are justifiably upset because of the images they see so often of people who look like them, their families, and their friends being killed by police officers.  Yes, the media's disproportionate coverage of these events is to blame to some extent, but the media listing every dead black person's rap sheet is often unnecessary.  It's a big news story these days whenever a police officer kills a black person, and the media covers it from many angles.  It's said that shootings of any kind are still happening in America today.

We need prayer.  We need God.  We need to stop demonizing each other.  We need racial reconciliation.  Love is the only real solution.  Mix it with some common sense and you might have an antidote.

The Horse and the Hippo

I don't like Ann Coulter or Hillary Clinton.  I don't like what they say.  I don't like what they stand for.  I don't like what they look like.  The main difference between them is that Ann Coulter is on the right and Hillary Clinton is on the left (also, one is a criminal running for President and the other is a political pundit not running for President).  If you say something insulting about a prominent person on the right, it's typically accepted as free speech.  It's rare that someone tries to classify it as hate speech, a definition which has startlingly broadened over the years in the minds of many, notably on the left.  Most of the time, no one is yelling that it's sexist or racist if it's said about someone on the right though.  It might be wrong, and it might be in bad taste, but you don't often see people up in arms that you shouldn't be able to say it or that you're a bad person for saying it.  Not so on the left.  Comment on Hillary's hideous appearance?  Sexism.  Her health?  You're sexist.  Heck, Madeline Albright even said there's a special place in hell for women who don't support Hillary Clinton.

It's not just women who are off limits either.  It's minorities.  If you look at the field of Democratic Presidential candidates and the field of Republican Presidential candidates from the primaries this year, you may notice something striking.  For one party, all of the candidates were old white people, of which Hillary was the only female.  For the other party, we had White, Black, Hispanic, young, old, male, female...  Believe it or not, that party was the Republicans.  Yet the oft-repeated narrative is that the Democrats are the party of diversity and Republicans are racists.  The Democrats, of course, were the party in favor of continuing slavery.  The most poor urban cities in America are that way largely because they've been under control of Democratic leadership non-stop for decades.  Our President came out of the shithole that is Chicago, where he was a community organizer, and Chicago has somehow gotten even worse and more dangerous since he's been in office.  But criticize Obama and you're racist.  Criticize Ben Carson, twist his words, make a brilliant surgeon out to look like an idiot, or lazy, and you're not a racist, but rather just stating the truth, because he doesn't fit the Liberal definition of what a black man should be.  Of course, I would say that anyone who has a definition of that may actually be racist, and also that Liberals were scared of Ben Carson because he would be our next President had he gotten the Republican nomination.

All that being said, I'm pretty firmly in the category of "Other" at this point politically, because I don't like the Democratic or Republican parties or their nominees for President.  I identify most as a Libertarian.  But the hypocrisy on the left is just too astounding to ignore.  I understand that this post and the accompanying picture are going to be offensive, and unnecessary, and it wasn't even something I was going to write about until I stumbled upon a short (under two minutes) video clip on YouTube with highlights of people roasting Ann Coulter at last week's roast of Rob Lowe.  I clicked on it, and it made me think.  How outraged would the left be if people said these sorts of things about Hillary Clinton?

Peyton Manning had what I thought was the funniest quip about her, saying that Ann Coulter won the Kentucky Derby.  It's funny, because she kind of looks like a horse.  I laughed at that a bit.  And the other stuff?  Well, some of it was probably in bad taste and went a bit far, but I don't have a problem with it being said.  But the reason I'm writing this post isn't because I take issue with what was said, but rather because I want to picture the backlash if it was said about Hillary Clinton.

There were some quips in there about Coulter hating black people and being part of the Klan, cutting eye holes in sheets, and David Spade even saying that she's "wild in the sheets--just ask the Klan."  Can we say that about Hillary?  Just ask Senator Robert Byrd and her other Klan friends.  Oh, then there was the one saying they "haven't seen [Ann] laugh this hard since Trayvon Martin got shot."  I wonder if she was laughing as hard as Hillary when she successfully defended a child rapist.  Oh wait, that actually happened.  And she actually laughed about it in an interview years after it happened.  Too real.  Can't make a joke about that.  Let's just imply she laughed when a 17-year-old black kid got shot instead.  Or does that miss the mark because only Republicans can possibly be racist?

Then there was the joke about Ann being against gay marriage because, "if I can't get a husband, they shouldn't either!"  I wonder how Hillary's marriage is doing...  Bill is just the portrait of a loyal husband--as long as the portrait is taken from the waist up while he's sitting at his desk.  Maybe Hillary should be against all marriage since hers is a sham anyway.

While some of these quips about Ann had some level of comedic value, there were some that were in no way funny, but actually just mean-spirited. Again, I have no problem with people saying these things.  That's their right.  And I'm not defending Ann Coulter, nor do I even like her.  But rather than try to make a joke tailored for Hillary out of these Ann Coulter jokes (if that's what they're supposed to be), I simply ask that you picture these things being said about Hillary Clinton instead of Ann Coulter.  How would that go over?

"Looks like a truck stop transvestite whore."

"The right-to-lifers wanted everyone to see what an abortion looks like up close."

"One of the most repugnant, hateful, hatchet-faced bitches alive, but it's not too late to change...  You could kill yourself."

Wow, and to think, Donald Trump just made a dumb statement about the Second Amendment people stopping Hillary.  He should have just quoted that last one word for word and all the Liberals would have just laughed instead.

Stay classy, America.

Contradictory Kaepernick

America is a free country because of the men and women who fought and continue to fight for our freedom.  That means that Colin Kaepernick is free to sit down during the National Anthem in protest if he wishes.  It is perfectly legal, it is a way to peacefully protest, and the NFL was right to not punish him.  Yes, it could be viewed as a sign of disrespect for America and for Veterans.  But, quite honestly, most Veterans I know are pretty tough and can handle it just fine.  They know what real trauma is.  They're not like students at Emory University who are emotionally traumatized by sidewalk chalk that says "Trump 2016."  That being said, I take issue with his decision to do so for different reasons than most others.

The first reason is that I do not understand the premise of his statement about why he chose to sit.  He says it's because he "will not stand to show pride in a country that oppresses black people and people of color" and that "There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."  Alright, if that's true, I can understand that, but I'm not quite sure specifically what he is referring to here.  While there are places in the country where some people do indeed oppress black people and people of color, the country itself does not.  Our leader, the most powerful person in the world, is half African-American, like Colin.  There are many others in power who are people of color as well.  We've come a long way as a nation, and we still have work to do for sure, but saying that this country is oppressive is a pretty general statement that does not get to the root of any problem, real or perceived.

Based on the rest of his statement though, I'm thinking he was mostly referring to police killing black people, but again, he provided no specifics here.  When I think bodies in the street, I think of places like Chicago, but that's not what he's talking about (although that certainly is a real problem).  He's talking about police officers getting paid leave after murdering black people.  Sure, there are some bad cops and a few pretty disturbing examples of them murdering people every year, but police officers generally do not murder people because they are racists, and the rate at which they kill people of color is actually not alarming when you look at the statistics (I've gone over that previously here, so no need to do so again).  So I honestly don't know what reality Kaepernick's statement is based on, or if it's just based on his perception, perhaps influenced highly by mainstream media.

My second issue with Kaepernick is that I question his motivation.  Why now?  Why in the preseason, when no one is paying much attention to football yet, at the start of the sixth year of his NFL career?  Maybe he's truly doing it for the reasons he says, but maybe there are other factors as well.  Somehow, he got replaced as the starting QB last year by Blaine Gabbert, who's basically the second coming of Rex Grossman.  He may very well be cut from the team.  His statistics last year were lousy.  Does he want attention?  Does he want something to blame if he gets cut, apart from his own poor performance on the field?  I don't know.  It's speculation.  But the timing on this is odd.  Kaepernick makes $19 million per year to suck this badly at football.  He's not exactly oppressed himself.  His black father left him and his white mother before he was born, and his mother put him up for adoption, so he was actually adopted and raised by two white parents.  If he was white, he would fit the definition of white privilege.  But he isn't.  Yet, because he is a famous athlete, he has a platform, and people listen to what he has to say.

That brings me to my third issue.  If he wants to use his platform to make a statement and raise awareness, why not do it right?  You know how every now and then, Donald Trump says something so absurd that you wonder if the article you're reading is satire (but it's not)?  That same thing happened when I read an article saying that Colin wore a shirt with Fidel Castro on it during a press conference this week.  The shirt had Malcolm X and Fidel Castro on it and a caption that said, "Like Minds Think Alike."  Fidel Castro, of course, is the former leader of Cuba who personifies oppression.  Is Kaepernick really that ignorant of recent history?  I mean, really, are you joking?  How can you have any credibility on the topic of oppression when you are touting Fidel Castro (which I'm assuming he was doing while wearing that shirt, because I can't imagine he was making a statement against Malcolm X)?

Here's what you can do, Colin, if you really want to make America a better place for blacks, people of color, and everyone in general.  First, call out issues specifically, instead of making vague, general statements that anger the easily-angered and baffle the critical thinkers (although you became a cult hero to mindless liberals at least, so there's that).  Then, present some solutions.  Maybe one solution will be to start a charity.  I imagine you must do some charity work, but being on the East Coast, I'm not familiar with it.  Take a page out of Derek Jeter's book.  Jeter started the Turn 2 Foundation, which is a wonderful charity that helps children and teenagers avoid drugs and adopt healthier lifestyles.  Speaking of Derek Jeter, he's half African-American too.  Like you, his dad is black and his mom is white.  I can't imagine Derek Jeter ever choosing to sit down during the National Anthem though.  But if he did, you can be damn sure that I would listen to every thoughtful word he would have to say about why he chose to do it.  You see, Jeter has earned my respect and the respect of many others.  He respects this country, its veterans, police officers, and the game he played at a high level for so long.  He practices what he preaches and is very involved in helping the community.  You haven't earned my respect, Colin.  I don't know what or who you respect.  Your admiration for Fidel Castro confuses me as much as your vague accusatory statements.  I don't know what you're doing for the community.  You played well at the start of your career, signed a big contract, and tanked.  Every time I've seen you throw a Touchdown pass, I've seen you showboat and bring attention to yourself.  You threw six touchdowns last year in nine games.  Is this all about you wanting to be relevant again, or do you really want to see positive change?  If it's the latter, then be a part of that positive change.  You have our attention.  Now what?  You can keep sitting there, or you can get up and do something!