Manchester Divided

The horrific terror attack in Manchester has brought with it debates surrounding Islam.  Some people are saying that Islam is a problem, with a subset of them accusing all Muslims of being terrorists.  And some people are saying that Islamophobia must end, with a subset of them blaming the West (or Global Warming or poverty or something) for terror attacks like this.  So I decided to look up some straight up poll statistics in an attempt to see what's going on.  I know plenty of Muslims here in the United States, and I don't believe any of them to be extremists or terrorists, but that doesn't mean that none exist in the U.S., and it doesn't mean that what holds true in America holds true throughout the rest of the world.  I know more Christians, some of them extremists and some of them terrible people, though none who have ever committed terrorist attacks.  I know Jews, atheists, and people of other religions as well, but I don't know any terrorists.  Yet they exist, and it does indeed seem that, right now, the only people committing terrorist attacks in the name of their God are extremist Muslims.  If it's in a Western country, we hear about it, but in non-Western countries, these attacks happen quite often without receiving media attention.  So what's true?  Are there many or few Islamic extremists?  Let's look at what the statistics say (the article I'm using, from May 26, is seen in the picture).

According to the article, as of 2015, there were around 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, nearly a quarter of the world's population.  It's the second largest religion behind Christianity/Christendom.  In the United States, only about 1% (3.3 million) of the population identifies as Muslim, and 63% of the U.S. Muslim population consists of immigrants.  One of the main arguments you'll find against Islam is against those who support Sharia law as the law of the land.  If you're unfamiliar with Sharia law, look it up.  It a nutshell, it's actually sexist, but not nearly as sexist as it is flat out horrific.  I won't go over all of the crimes and punishments, but suffice to say that apostasy is punishable by DEATH.  Yeah.  So you would think that not many Muslims around the world support Sharia law, right?  Well, here's another graphic from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/26/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

Well, fuck.  Yeah, that's the extent of my analysis on these numbers, but I think that sums it up nicely.  A lot of Muslims believe that Sharia should be the law of the land, and that is extremely disturbing, because Sharia is extremely disturbing.  And yes, I've heard the arguments comparing Islam and Christianity, and sure, there are some Christians who think that their laws should be the law of the land, but even the majority of very conservative Christians believe in separation of church and state.  But even if they didn't, it's not even comparable, because apostasy isn't punished by death in Christianity.

Missing from the Sharia graphic is the United States, but the article does go on to state that 86% of Muslims in the United States (according to a 2011 survey) believe that "suicide bombings and other forms of violence against civilians in the name of Islam are rarely or never justified."  However, 7% say that they are sometimes justified, and 1% say that they are often justified.  In the United States, seven percent is 231,000 Muslims and one percent is 33,000 Muslims.  That's a bit disconcerting, but we also find that in the rest of the world in general, Muslims (in most countries) overwhelmingly view ISIS as negative, as this graphic from the same article cited before shows:

Here's my problem with this: Even if we ignore the disturbingly high percentage of respondents who said they don't know whether ISIS is bad or not, those small slivers of respondents who have favorable views of ISIS, when added together, represent many tens of millions of people.  So, folks saying that a very small percentage of Muslims are in favor of ISIS are correct, but folks saying that many Muslims are in favor of ISIS are also correct.  Remember that there are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world.

Based on these numbers, it's right to be in favor of vetting for immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, but it's also clear why people would want to leave oppressive countries where Sharia is the the law of the land and seek refuge in the United States.  It's a delicate balance.  I have no problem with the vast majority of Muslims in the United States, who are peaceful people in general, but there is a problem with those who take a very strict and literal translation of the Quran, which can lead to supporting Sharia, and sometimes even ISIS and Jihad.  I also have a problem with Christians who take a very strict and fundamental view of the scriptures, but even the worst groups of Christians I can think of, such as Westboro Baptist Church, don't go around killing people.  They're hateful and terrible to people, but they don't kill them.  If there was a Christian group that took verses of the Old Testament out of context and out of the light of the fulfillment of the law by Christ Jesus, and decided it was a good idea to murder non-believers, that would be hugely problematic too, but also very much unsupported by the full weight of the Christian scriptures.  Also of note is that Jesus died as a 33-year-old virgin, while Muhammad had sex with little girls.

I don't say things like that to disparage Muslims.  I say them because they are largely uncontested and accepted facts that some folks ignore.  But people who follow religions that are rotten to their core are still people, and should be treated as people and judged based on their actions.  There are a lot of Muslims who are wonderful people, and hate crimes and physical attacks against Muslims are in no way acceptable.  They should not happen, but they do, as do hate crimes and physical attacks against Christians, Jews, and others.  Actually, antisemitism is still running rampant in America compared to attacks against folks of other religions.  We live in a world full of evil.  And there are those who will mistake my views shared here as "Islamophobic," but I am simply pointing out facts.  The majority of Muslims are not to be feared, and there are so many other groups of people with people in them who commit heinous acts.  The very vast majority of violent crimes in the United States are committed by non-Muslims, which is not surprising when you consider that Muslims only make up about one percent of the U.S. population anyway.  But a look at the numbers does us good, because it gives us a chance to calibrate where we are, and see that something is rotten before we allow it to create a stronghold.  God forbid Sharia law should ever be acceptable anywhere in the United States.

It's strange to me that the Left calls out Christians for anti-women sexist things, sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly, but rarely calls out Muslims for anti-women sexist things, when their prevalence and severity in Muslim culture, as evidenced by Sharia law and by every country under Muslim rule, is so great.  It is here that I can find common ground with some on the Left, such as Bill Maher.  But as for the handful on the far Left who are defending child marriages, or blaming them on global warming and poverty, or saying that forcing genital mutilation upon young girls falls under the umbrella or religious freedom, we have no common ground: you are a terrible person, and you should go visit a place under extreme Sharia law for a while.  Let me know how it went when you get back.  I won't expect to hear from you.

COMEwhatmaY

I've found myself watching less news lately.  Maybe it's because the weather is finally nice, maybe it's because it's baseball season, or maybe it's because both the mainstream media and the Trump administration are batshit crazy.  On one side is the Trump administration and Fox News, who largely believe that everything Trump and his administration do is right.  Not just right but good. Not just good but tremendous.  Believe me.  No one has done it better than them.  In history.  And on the other side is the rest of mainstream media, and they all believe that everything Trump and friends does is wrong.  Not just wrong but bad.  Not just bad but horrific.  Nixonian cover-ups bigger than Watergate.  The most inept administration in history.  Racist, homophobic, xenophobic, villainous, trying to destroy the environment.  And you know what?  Both sides are losing.

Mainstream media is dying, and President Trump and his administration are losing credibility.  And as a moderate Libertarian who leans right, I'm just getting tired of hearing how much more terrible the latest story about Trump is than everything else he's done so far, which were all things that were, at the time, much more terrible than the previous stories about what Trump did.  And I'm tired of hearing Trump talk about how great a job he is doing and how he's been treated more unfairly than any politician in history.  Lincoln was hated by half the nation and eventually shot and killed, and there are plenty more who have been treated more unfairly than our current Tweeter-in-Chief.  So, I'm just immune to the left-wing outrage and the right-wing ridiculousness.  We are at the point where, if Trump did something horrific, most people wouldn't notice because the outrage level and impeachment calls are already near their maximum, and if he did something spectacular, most people wouldn't notice because hardcore Trump supporters already think everything he does is the best fucking thing in history.

The latest stories have revolved around James Comey and Russia, not unlike a high percentage of the stories since the 2016 campaigns started.  When Trump fired Comey, the man many Democrats (perhaps partially correctly) blame for Hillary Clinton's loss in November, suddenly Democrats who wanted him fired decided that he should not have been fired, and his firing was essentially evidence that people from Trump's campaign colluded with Russia during the election (as if firing Comey magically makes this investigation disappear).  And shame on Trump for not heeding Saint Barack's sage advice to not tab Michael Flynn as national security advisor.  Maybe former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates wasn't fired for refusing to support Trump's travel ban after all, but rather for knowing too much about Flynn!  Oh, and Trump got two scoops of ice cream when everyone else in the room only got one.  I think that's called Ruski ice cream.

I was on business travel last week, and before and after the in-flight movie (JetBlue is my favorite airline, by the way), I flipped through the channels and saw the headlines.  The big story on CNN, MSNBC, etc. before departure was that Trump shared classified information with Russia.  That sounded pretty disturbing.  Trump sharing classified information about ISIS with an ally of Syria?  Sure, as President, he can decide what to share or not share with a foreign country, and even what is or isn't classified in that situation, so no crime was committed, but it still didn't sound good.  The political pundits were talking about how this is so much worse than anything else he's done.  This is impeachable.  Treason!  This should bring everyone together against Trump.  I flipped to Fox News and they were all twisting themselves into pretzels trying to defend Trump.  Was this a big story or a typical media day?  I flipped to one of my three free in-flight movie choices.

After the movie was over, we were still in the air, so I flipped through the channels again.  The headlines were all new.  This wasn't even two hours later.  The big story was that anonymous sources had leaked some more shit, and this time it was a James Comey memo about a conversation he had with Trump in which Trump allegedly suggested that he should stop investigating Michael Flynn.  If true, this presents legal problems to both men involved in the conversation.  If false, well, I guess they'll have to find some other reason for impeachment hearings.  Maybe anonymous sources will find something else again.  Or maybe we should just wait to judge until we hear from both Comey and Trump on the nature of the alleged conversation.  Folks on CNN and MSNBC were calling for impeachment for obstruction of justice now.  Fox News was defending Trump again.  I wondered what happened to the huge story from earlier in the day, and I don't even remember which network I was watching when someone talked about how Israel was fine with the information that was shared, Russia was saying they could prove it wasn't classified, and most importantly to me, H.R. McMaster said he was in the room and that Trump didn't do anything he shouldn't have done, and McMaster is a guy who has earned my respect and trust.

CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPO and the like all know exactly how this is going to turn out.  Fox News, Breitbart, and Trump know exactly how this is going to turn out too.  Except the left and right know opposite and conflicting truths, thus someone is wrong.  Or both sides are wrong.  Truth is not relative.  I'm going with the idea that both sides are wrong, because I don't have a clue how this is all going to turn out.  This could be more nothingness drummed up by Leftist media organizations, fueled by anonymous sources.  Or Trump could end up impeached.  I'd like to hear from Comey, from Trump, from both sides.  I'd like to hear from Flynn and Manafort, and from those who claim to have evidence of their wrongs.  I would also like to hear more from Sally Yates, and from those investigating the sources of classified leaks.  Heck, I'd like to hear more about why Huma Abedin hasn't been charged with a crime yet.

As far as Comey, I think he should have been fired, though the timing of his firing was not ideal.  I don't think he was doing a good job, and I don't think most Americans were confident in the job he was doing.  I also think he's a massive attention whore who likes being in the spotlight.  All three of his major announcements during the election cycle were ridiculous and uncalled for, and others from the FBI even had to clarify some of his recent comments in front of Congress because they weren't exactly accurate.  The Clinton e-mail investigation was closed, then re-opened, then quickly re-closed again, and the Russian collusion investigation continues to drag on.  No word on investigating classified leaks, Huma Abedin, or Lois Lerner.  Or maybe there was, but the media didn't cover it very thoroughly?

And Trump doesn't help himself at all.  He uses hyperbole like Jose Canseco used steroids.  He complains about being treated more unfairly than any politician in history.  He brags about how he ran the best campaign of all-time, set records for crowd sizes, and set records for electoral vote counts.  He gives ridiculous and implausible reasons for firing Comey, after having fired Comey at a rather bizarre moment in time.  He talks about how he should maybe cancel press conferences, and how great all the things he does are.  He calls out the mainstream media lies and half-truths and then pedals his own.  He tweets, he golfs, he makes Leftists fondly remember the days of President George W. Bush.  I didn't think that day would ever come.  Leftists hated Bush.  I was a student at Wesleyan University when Bush was President, and most people there thought Bush was Satan.  But now Trump is Satan.  I wonder if Leftists will long for the days of the Trump Presidency when the next Republican President is elected, but mostly I just hope we'll have a Libertarian President sometime soon.

Also, I'm toying with the idea of calling a mainstream media organization as an anonymous source with a YUGE story about Trump or someone connected to him.  I wonder if a story I made up would get traction.  Or maybe it would turn out to be true.

Bill Nye and Berkeley, Why?

'Member the 90s?  'Member Ecto Cooler?  'Member Bill Nye the Science Guy?  It was a show we grew up watching, where some funny-looking guy with a BS in Mechanical Engineering taught us all about scientific things.  Fast forward a few decades, and Ecto Cooler made a comeback when a crappier version of a Ghostbusters movie came out.  And Bill Nye is back with a show on Netflix called Bill Nye the Bullshit Guy.  I'm sorry, that's not what the show it called.  That's what it should be called.  Nothing is called what it should be called anymore.  It's called Bill Nye Saves the World.  And one of the groups protesting free speech at Berkeley calls itself Antifa, as in anti-Fascist.  Because trying to silence speech that you don't agree with, especially violently, is a very anti-Fascist thing to do, right?

Bill Nye is trying to appeal to those nostalgic for the 90s by reprising his role as an expert on all things scientific, except that he's peddling Leftist political talking points masquerading as science.  Of particular annoyance to those anywhere to the right of the far left are his commentaries on gender.  As a Libertarian, I really don't think it's my business or the government's business to get involved with peoples' sex lives, as long as those sex lives involve only consenting adults.  I don't care if you're straight, gay, or bi.  I don't care which gender you identify with.  I don't care which bathroom you use.  I really don't.  It's not my business, and I don't want to hear about it either.  But Bill Nye continues to say asinine things from his pulpit of BS (not referring to his Mechanical Engineering Degree).  According to Nye, "By three or four, most kids identify with a gender, and it doesn't always match the sex they were assigned at birth."  That's great.  So should we just roll with that and treat them as what they say they are when they're THREE OR FOUR YEARS OLD?  I know several three and four-year-old kids.  They claim to be a lot of things.  They say they're dogs, cats, princesses, superheroes, and sometimes even the opposite gender of what they actually are, speaking from an actual scientific viewpoint anyway, involving chromosomes.  Hey, if you're an adult and you want a sex change, you get to make that decision.  Let's not start listening to what toddlers say about who or what they are, k?

Oh, but Nye didn't stop there.  "The science says we're all on a spectrum," he says, talking about human sexuality.  What science, exactly?  Sure, there are people who are gay, straight, bi, and whatever in between, but what science says that every person is on a spectrum?  Is this the same science that says that fetuses have their own DNA, or are we confusing science with feelings and Leftist jargon?  Based on a skit involving ice cream cones of different flavors discussing sexuality and then having an orgy (not a parody--this is something that Nye actually had as part of his new show), I'm going with the feelings and Leftist jargon hypothesis.  But it didn't stop there.  In perhaps the shittiest rap song I ever heard (and I lived with white guys who listened to a lot of rap during college), Rachel Bloom performed a song on Bill Nye with potential Grammy-winning lyrics like, "My sex junk is so oh-oh-oh much more than either or-or-or.  Power bottom or a top off, versatile love may have some butt stuff.  It's evolution, ain't nothin' new..."  Yes, you heard right.  Evolution isn't just what you were taught it was in school, kids.  It now involves doing sexual stuff involving your butt.  Because nothing progresses the species forward like inserting foreign objects into your ass.

So naturally, I think we need to shut down Bill Nye.  Let's protest Netflix.  Let's have violent rallies preventing him or Rachel Bloom from talking or rapping wherever they go.  Let's call ourselves anti-Fascists and compare Bill Nye to Hitler.  After all, didn't Nye say something about imprisoning climate deniers and having the Government limit family sizes?  Totally something Hitler would say.  Nye and people like him should not be allowed to speak, because they offend me, and if speech offends me, it's hate speech, and we should shut it down.  Oh, wait, sorry...  Strike this paragraph from the record.  I would never say that.  That's what I would say if I were a complete idiot on the far Left.  Except that then I would like Bill Nye then, so that's what I would say if I were a complete idiot on the far Left and someone like Ann Coulter or Ben Shapiro came to speak at a University near me.

Fascists try to stop free speech.  You cannot call yourself "Anti-Fascist" and try to stop free speech, ESPECIALLY when you are doing so violently.  As much as I disagree with Bill Nye, or Peter Singer, or even Richard Spencer, they are free to speak.  If we lose freedom of speech, we lose America, and that includes protecting the right of people to speak even when we vehemently disagree with them and know they are wrong.  Hate Speech is subjective, and thus protected under the first amendment unless it's an actual call to violence.  For example, a KKK member can freely say that he doesn't like Black people and thinks they are inferior, but he can't say, "let's go beat up the next Black guy we come across" or "I'm going to hurt you because you are Black."  Bill Nye can say whatever he wants about climate change and gender, as long as he's not threatening people.  Peter Singer can say whatever he wants about abortion, although he's walking a fine line when he says that killing newborn babies should be legal, but since he's not actually threatening someone's life, it's protected speech.

I disagree with a number of things that Ann Coulter says, but she should be able to say them without the threat of violence.  What happened at Berkeley is not right, and the failure of Democrats in power to assure protection is disgraceful.  I disagree with very few things that Ben Shapiro says and hope that he runs for President one day, but he is protested on so many of the campuses he speaks at, mostly because a lot of college students are afraid of facts, logic, and hearing opposing views.  Otherwise, why would they try to stop a Jewish guy the same size as me, who also isn't fond of President Trump, from speaking?  Aww, do Ann and Ben threaten your safe space?  You poor baby.  Let's make the bad people go away so you can go on pretending that the world is a safe space where you don't have to deal with opposing viewpoints.  I think Bill Maher (Good Lord, I'm quoting Bill Maher) put it best when he said, "Berkeley used to be the cradle of free speech, and now it's just the cradle for fucking babies."

I've dealt with two issues here, but they are related.  Bill Nye should be allowed to continue spouting his garbage and calling things science that are not science.  And Ann Coulter should be allowed to continue spouting her viewpoints in her shrill voice, without the threat of violence.  Based on merit alone though, I can't imagine Netflix would want to sign Nye up for additional seasons of his disastrous show, but if they're trying to push a Leftist agenda with 90s nostalgia, then great, they should go for it.  Heck, they got a hit with Fuller House.  While they're at it, let's find a few other 90s stars to throw in the mix.  Bill Cosby can teach us about family values, Roseanne Barr can teach us how to sing the National Anthem, and Stephen Collins can teach us how to act around children.

Mr. Bill, Oh No!

It's weird how things work sometimes.  Bill Cosby had been accused of raping women for decades, but it never gained much traction until a comedian made a joke about Cosby being a rapist.  Suddenly, the accusations resurfaced, reinforced by loads of new claims, bringing the downfall of the once-great comedian and destroying the childhoods of those who grew up with Dr. Huxtable.  Bill O'Reilly had been accused of sexually harassing women for decades, but that didn't gain much traction either, until he made some fairly obvious and accurate observations about the hair of Representative Maxine Waters resembling that of that of James Brown. This offended the Left, which accused O'Reilly of being sexist (and, of course, racist).  O'Reilly being a sexist isn't exactly inaccurate (although not because of his comment on one of the worst Representatives in the country), so with a target on his head, out of the woodwork came everyone who had ever accused him of sexual harassment, along with some new accusations and investigations of millions of dollars in payoffs.  The Left claimed victory when Fox News finally fired the man who had been at the top of the cable news ratings for the last 15 years.

Bill O'Reilly was good at his job, but he was bad at being a nice or even decent person.  Some of the things he said were just mean, and others were sexual harassment.  Did he deserve to get fired for it?  Well, that was up to Fox executives, and they said yes.  Did Bill Clinton deserve to get fired for his sexual indiscretions?  That ultimately ended up being a no (though almost a yes for lying about adultery under oath), but Clinton's list of alleged sexual misconduct accusers included several alleged rape victims, and like O'Reilly, millions in payoffs.  He deserved to be fired and jailed for those things, if any of them were true, though he never deserved to be President in the first place.  But Bill Clinton was good at his job in that he was probably the best Democratic President since JFK.  The list of people who were worse at the job since then includes LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama.  So even though I'm no fan, I'll even admit that Clinton did at least a few good things while he was President, but my opinion is that, regardless of political persuasion, workplace sexual misconduct should generally result in firing, no matter how good you are at your job or what that job is.

Rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment are all terrible things, and we as a society need to do what we can to encourage women (and men) who are victims to speak up and report these things to the authorities immediately when they happen.  We need to create an environment where victims will not be shamed for having the courage to report assailants, and where they will know that if they do not report these things, there will likely be other victims.  But we also need to stop conflating everything.  Sexual harassment is bad, but rape is way worse, and not everything is sexual harassment, nor is all sexual harassment equal.  Some of the things O'Reilly is accused of, if true, should have absolutely resulted in his firing.  Calling someone to harass them while audibly masturbating is not an acceptable thing to do, and telling women that you will help impact their careers for better or worse depending on whether or not they have sex with you is terrible, but there are other mean-spirited and morally questionable things that people say, including O'Reilly, that should not be classified as sexual harassment.

Parading people on television to talk about things that O'Reilly said that they didn't like should be a bit more selective, because it can diminish the seriousness of the truly problematic things he (or others) said to other alleged victims of harassment if we're calling everything harassment.  Saying that someone looks good is not sexual harassment.  If you're saying it constantly, and the person makes it clear that it's bothersome, then it is, but otherwise, my goodness, give me a break.  If I tell a female (or a male) co-worker that her (or his) shirt looks nice on a day when it looks particularly nice, that is an observation and a compliment, but it has nothing to do with sex, and it is not harassment of any kind.  If I say something of that nature to you and you don't like it, act like an adult and tell me before going to HR.  And, in the particular case of O'Reilly, saying that you forgot someone's name because there are a lot of blondes on the network, and then later thanking her for her blondness is not sexual harassment.  It's not nice, it's not professional, and the picture of O'Reilly that has been painted is that of a giant asshole, but it's also not sexual harassment.

I don't understand the comparison of O'Reilly to Cosby though.  I really don't.  There are people calling for O'Reilly to be publicly shamed the same way Cosby was.  As far as I'm aware, no one has accused O'Reilly of rape or drugging.  In the hierarchy of terrible famous people named Bill, if even a few of Cosby's accusers are telling the truth, Cosby's crimes should be punished far more than O'Reilly's.  He deserves to spend his life in jail, even though he too was very good at his job.  Say what you want about Cosby, but he could be pretty damn funny, yet he deserves to never see the light of day again.  And as far as Clinton?  Well, if any of the rape allegations against him are true, he's even worse than Cosby.  At least Cosby had the courtesy to knock the women unconscious before raping them.  In all seriousness though, both of those guys should be in prison for the rest of their lives.  The only time I can turn a blind eye to rape is when rapists are raped in prison for raping other people.  It's still wrong, but I don't have much sympathy for the criminal victims there.

What would be a fitting punishment for O'Reilly, in addition to the firing?  Maybe forcing him to have a show on CNN where he would be doomed to have terrible ratings, eventually fading into irrelevancy?  Or maybe they can strip him naked and walk him through town Game of Thrones style, where people can just keep yelling "Shame" at him while they laugh at his tiny Irish penis (that statement is both racist and sexual harassment if you don't know what a joke is).  Regardless of what becomes of O'Reilly though, his firing means that mainstream news media political pundits have become even more irrelevant, which is a win for Independent podcasts and Internet stars.  But the real question is: Which famous person named Bill will be accused of sexual misconduct next?  Maybe Bill Nye?  He looks like a mean-spirited guy who's into weird shit.  Or Bill Maher?  The far left doesn't like him anymore since he's in favor of free speech, so maybe they're trying to dig up some stuff up on him.  Maybe it's a good idea to avoid being alone with famous people named Bill for a while, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you're a woman, but only if it isn't Vice President Mike Pence's idea.

2020 Vision: A Modest Proposal

I recently visited Capitol Hill, where it is abundantly clear that the nation is extremely divided along political lines.  It seems like virtually every vote is split along party lines.  A lot of Democrats are trying to block the clearly-qualified Judge Neil Gorsuch from being seated on the Supreme Court.  They feel justified in this because the Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't even allow Barack Obama's eleventh-hour nominee Merrick Garland to go to a vote.  Meanwhile, Donald Trump is in the oval office, and his supporters think everything he does is right and everything he says is true.  The Democrats, on the other hand, think that everything Trump does is wrong and everything he says is a lie, and they're actively looking for ways to impeach him.  They fight him at every opportunity.  The media's stories about Trump are often lies mixed with truth or unsubstantiated allegations from anonymous sources.  Trump responds by rightly calling the media out on their biased bullshit, but then he heaps a load of his own lies and unsubstantiated allegations on top.  And this just repeats over and over, while Trump continues his Twitter rants and the far left continues to compare him to Adolf Hitler.  The far right thinks Trump is America's savior, and the far left thinks he's a racist, sexist, xenophobic Fascist who hates poor people.  The far right and the far left don't even take each other seriously anymore.  And they're both half right, because they've both become caricatures of themselves.  It's ridiculous.

Imagine, if you will, a nation united and largely proud of its very respectable President.  In my lifetime, this hasn't happened much.  I was born during Reagan's second term, and that man was a wonderful leader, but I was too young to have really appreciated him.  Under H.W., I remember that my Dad was days away from being called to go to war, before the war ended, but I don't remember much else.  Under Clinton, I remember that he reached across the aisle when Congress went Republican, and then I learned what a semen stain was.  Under W, the divide began to widen.  In the days that followed 9/11, I think it was the last time that we were all standing behind our President--a nation as one.  Bush's approval rating soared, even Democrats in Congress voted for a war (one that, in hindsight, probably was not the best decision), and a bearded Al Gore told the nation that, "George Bush is my commander-in-chief!"  But Bush made a lot of mistakes, and the nation eventually divided as the post-tragedy patriotism war away.  The divide continued under Obama, and increased significantly after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in one of the most bitterly-fought Presidential campaigns in history.

Who could bring this nation together again?  John McCain and Lindsey Graham stand out as the favorite Republicans of Democrats, but McCain is an octogenarian who failed to win the Presidency in 2008 when he faced an economic collapse with his party in power, chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, and pretended to be conservative.  Graham tried for the 2016 Republican nomination and hovered around one percent polling until he finally dropped out and made some comments about his wing of the party being dead.  On the other side, Jim Webb is among the favorite Democrats of the Republicans, but his story basically mirrors that of Graham, and I don't see Joe Manchin making a run for the oval office either.  So where does that leave us?  It's a given that Donald Trump will run for re-election in 2020.  But who will be the Democratic option in the general election?  Could they nominate someone who would appeal to moderates or even to Republicans?  Leftists hate Ted Cruz nearly as they hate Trump, and despite Rand Paul being Libertarian and usually the smartest guy in the room, he envisions a government far too small for the modern Democratic party.  The Democrats could nominate someone nearly as polarizing as Hillary Clinton in Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, or they can see if Joe Biden is up to reviving the Obama legacy.  Or perhaps they can find someone who is a moderate--someone who has views that mainstream Democrats and mainstream Republicans may differ on, but someone who is at least widely respected by people on both sides.  Enter Ohio Governor John Kasich.

I know this sounds ridiculous, and it is, and it will never happen, but hear me out.  The Democrats should unite together around John Kasich becoming the party's nominee for President in 2020.  First of all, they would have to get him to switch parties, of course, and that's unlikely to happen as well, but just imagine if it did.  Kasich is perhaps the nation's best Governor (my state has the worst one--see my previous post).  He's done great things in Ohio, where he is well-liked, and he's been an outspoken critic of President Trump, as well as many of those on the far left.  He's a great leader and an even better human being.  During the primaries, he tried his best to stay out of the mudslinging and remain honorable, pushing a message of uniting rather than dividing, which is the message he is continuing to push today (see also the title of his book).

Democrats need to stop their whining and accept that fact that Donald Trump is President for the next four years.  If they want to blame someone, they can look in the mirror, because Democrats nominated Hillary Clinton, who somehow lost to Donald Trump.  It was an election that pitted two of the worst and most disliked candidates in history against each other.  But what happens in 2020?  Donald Trump is up for re-election, and as long as he doesn't make any big mistakes between now and then and the economy doesn't tank, there's a chance that he will win his re-election bid.  If he does a lot of good things, more people start to like him, and the economy strengthens further, there's a good chance that he will win a second term.  Certainly, the Democrats can hope that he will not win again and nominate someone of their choice from the left.  Or they can take one for the team--the team being America--and rally behind John Kasich.  Kasich is moderate Republican, but his message is one of unity, and most people at least like him, respect him, or tolerate him.  Outside of the far right and far left, there are very few people who strongly dislike him, and given the choice between Kasich and Trump, the far left would choose Kasich.  Nominating Kasich would virtually guarantee a Kasich victory and a one-term Presidency for Trump.

If Kasich were nominated as a Democrat instead of a Republican, most Democrats would vote for him (a few might veer off to a third party), and enough Republicans would vote for him over Trump that Kasich would defeat Trump in a landslide of epic proportions.  And then the process of healing and erasing the political divides could begin.  If the first few months are any indication, a second-term of Trump would not do this.  And a victory from someone on the far left would not do this either.  We would be in the same place we are now, except with the opposite political party in charge of the executive branch.  A man like John Kasich could change all that.  The hate and vitriol normally directed at Republicans by Democrats isn't there for Kasich, and while he isn't even among the favorites of Republicans, especially those who are staunchly Conservatives, most in the GOP don't view him negatively either.  Kasich would win, and while no one in the nation would be ecstatic that their side won the election (well, I would, and I would certainly vote Democrat if he were the nominee), the majority would be content, and the hyper-partisan political climate on Capitol Hill would dissipate.

It won't happen though.  I've come up with ridiculous ideas like this before, like when I suggested that John McCain choose (Democrat/Independent) Joe Lieberman as his running mate in 2008.  Palin was about as far from Lieberman as you could get for a Republican VP nominee, both politically and geographically.  But Kasich is a great, principled leader.  In fact, he was just named number twelve on Fortune's list of the World's 50 greatest leaders, although I don't know how much stock I put in that list because Samantha Bee was somehow ranked 19th.  At least John McCain cracked the top ten at number nine (number one was Theo Epstein, which I also have to agree with).  Regardless, the left is too stubborn to pave the way for a Kasich nomination, and if the shoe was on the other foot, the right would be too stubborn to allow someone like Webb to take the GOP nomination.

Both major parties are in disarray.  Like it or not, the Democrats just lost an election to Donald Trump, and the party is further divided by the Bernie Sanders socialist faction and the slightly more moderate faction that was responsible for HRC's nomination.  The Republicans can't get their shit together either, despite controlling the Presidency, the Senate, and the House.  That party is divided into the camps of those who support Trump, those who oppose him, and people like Paul Ryan who are being ripped apart trying to walk a line somewhere in between.  After promising for the better part of a decade to repeal and replace Obamacare, they didn't even have enough votes in the Republican-dominated House to let their sorry excuse of a healthcare bill go to vote last week.  It's a disaster, and it's long past time for a moderate President who can reach across the aisle and unite.  Kasich is the right man for that job, and if he, a moderate Republican, were nominated as a moderate Democrat, it would strengthen that ability in him.  Or the divide will just get bigger if we continue politics-as-usual.

I'm not entirely delusional, so I know the odds of this scenario happening are virtually zero.  One can dream though.  Or seventy million people can write him in.  And for the record, I'm not writing this because I regret voting for Trump.  If the election were held today, I would still vote for him over HRC.  I'd really prefer someone who all Americans can get behind, but I'll vote for Trump again if I have to.  Don't make me do it.  I'm looking at you, Democrats.  Kasich 2020!

Dannel's Logic is Shot

It's well-documented that Dannel Malloy (D, Connecticut) is the worst Governor in the nation.  For a state that leans pretty far to the left, you would think that a man who was once a dream Governor for leftists would be a little more well-liked, but he has the second-worst approval rating (26% per morningconsult.com) out of all of the nation's Governors.  The only Governor in the nation with a worse approval rating is Sam Brownback (R, Kansas), probably because people in Kansas like his last name less than people like Malloy's first name.  That dude is the only person I know of named Dannel.  I wonder if his parents named him Daniel but legally changed his name when he just kept spelling his name wrong on all his papers when he was a kid.  But mostly I'm just here today to talk about why his proposed gun permit fee increases are dumber than his name.

In large part because of Malloy's fiscally irresponsible policies during a time in which the economy has supposedly been improving, Connecticut is estimated to end up with a nearly two billion dollar budget deficit in the next fiscal year.  Naturally, as a leftist, one of the solutions he's come up with to help chip away at the deficit is to make people with guns (or those who want to obtain them legally) pay more money to have permits for these guns.  He wants renewal fees for pistol permits (which are good for five years) to more than quadruple, from $70 to $300, he wants first time permits to be issued for $370 instead of $140, and he wants background checks to obtain a permit for the first time to go up to $75 from $50 (per New Haven Register article).  The knee-jerk reaction for many leftists?  Cheers.  Yeah, stick it to those damn gun owners exercising their first amendment in a way in which it was never intended, right!?  Well, let's follow what this policy would actually do if implemented...

People who would not be impacted by this policy?  Criminals who obtain guns illegally anyway.  People who would be impacted by this policy?  Citizens who legally obtain guns and gun permits as required by the state of Connecticut, in order to exercise their rights.  And further breaking that down, is the fee hike really going to impact rich people?  No.  Not at all.  Middle and upper-middle class?  Not really.  I mean, it's a slight annoyance.  I consider myself part of that group, and I'm not happy that I may have to pay a few hundred dollars extra every five years for a permit renewal of my God-given right, but it's a minor inconvenience for me.  Not a big deal.  That leaves the poor and the lower-middle class, who disproportionately live in more dangerous areas and are disproportionately minorities.  Malloy is either out to get these people, hasn't thought this through, or doesn't care about the consequences as long as it gets money to the state and looks like he's being "tough on guns."  My guess is the third option here, maybe the second.

The main problem is that the poorest people in the state who want to own guns, probably in large part for home defense, would have three options if Malloy's proposal were to pass: pay for the permit even though you can't really afford it and may have to forfeit other important things, don't pay for the permit and don't get a gun, or don't pay for the permit and possess a gun anyway (possible future felony conviction).  I don't really see another option there with the proposal as-is.  But hey, leftists are all about giving away things for free, right?  If healthcare should be free for those who want it but can't afford it and college education should be free for those who want it but can't afford it, shouldn't guns and gun permits be free for those who want them and can't afford them?  I mean, healthcare and college education aren't even mentioned in the bill of rights, but the right to bear arms is the second amendment.  Access to buying guns and gun permits doesn't mean you're guaranteed to have guns and gun permits, right?  And no, I don't think that's the actual solution, but see my point?

The same amount of money can be raised by the state via a much, much, much smaller increase in the cost of driver's license renewals every six years (except that driving is a privilege, not a right).  Or, you know, maybe we wouldn't have such a mountainous deficit if Malloy and company didn't scare away businesses and do such a shitty job running the state in the first place.  Connecticut is already one of the worst states in the nation for taxes and fees.  The solution isn't to make that worse.  The solution is to fix the problems that cause the state to hemorrhage money.  And yes, it's a damn shame that we have some of the most insanely wealthy and incredibly poor areas in the whole nation within our tiny state.  If you don't believe me, try comparing Bridgeport public schools with public schools in Westport or Greenwich, just a short drive away.  Stark contrast.  Sad!  (Shout out to Trump tweets.)

Whatever we're doing here isn't working and is rotten to the core.  Maybe it's time for the right, the left, and everyone in between to get together and come up with some real solutions to enact positive changes in the state.  Finding more and more ways to charge Connecticut residents money that the state squanders isn't fixing the problems we have.  We'll just keep piling up deficits.  It's like a doctor prescribing pain pills to treat a torn ACL instead of performing surgery to fix the torn ACL.  And also the doctor is making it harder for you to exercise rights you have that he isn't particularly fond of.  Especially if you're poor.

Fake News is Real

Fake news used to be largely relegated to parody news like The Onion, Weekend Update on SNL, The Daily Show, etc.  The goal was laughs, and everyone (mostly everyone anyway) knew that The Onion was fake news, intended as humor, while Weekend Update and The Daily Show were humorous commentary, mostly based on real news.  With the internet and the rise of social media came a lot of websites that are not trustworthy.  But it really wasn't until the 2016 election season that "fake news" became a regular phrase in the American lexicon.

What happened during the campaigns was that a lot of websites popped up, mostly originating from foreign countries, that were designed solely to generate clicks, and thus revenue.  This occurred largely through the fake articles from these sites being shared on platforms like Facebook.  It seemed that the fake articles that generated the most clicks and shares were those that favored Donald Trump and were anti-Hillary Clinton.  There were some that did the opposite too, but they seemed to be in the minority, and after Hillary Clinton lost the election and called out "fake news" as part of the reason she lost, the term took on a new meaning.

Facebook and other businesses vowed to fight fake news, and while most people from the political right, left, and everywhere in between agreed that fake news was a problem, they had different ideas of the best way to do that.  The term became politicized, and the right was uncomfortable that the companies that would be fighting fake news leaned left and could possibly target conservative sites and threaten free speech.  This wasn't entirely baseless, because very quickly, the definition of "fake news" was expanded by the left to include biased right-wing news outlets, some of which were real news with a biased slant (like The Blaze), others of which were largely real news with some questionable content (like Breitbart), and others which dealt with a lot of conspiracy theories (like Info Wars).  But the problem was that the definition was expanded beyond the sites that simply existed to generate clicks and cash with stories that were completely baseless, such that most thinking people could figure out they were fake with some very quick research (though considering the number of times these stories got shared, it appears that there were a lot of people not doing that).

This, like most things that happened during the 2016 campaign, ended up backfiring spectacularly for the left.  Because the right decided to get in on the game, calling out left-leaning news outlets as fake news, and targeting the CNN, already declining in credibility after some unfortunate incidents (collusion with Hillary's campaign, for example), as the same.  President Donald Trump even called CNN fake news.  And thus, the definition of fake news has essentially become meaningless, because it now means news that is biased that someone doesn't like the slant of, news that leaves out key information in stories to fit a particular narrative, or news organizations that sometimes make mistakes and run stories that turn out to be inaccurate.  Technically, fake means something that is not genuine, so pairing "fake" with "news" yields a pretty broad definition, but the right successfully took the term away from the left, which had hijacked it, and rendered it cliche.

So what are truth-seekers to do in the age of alternative facts, rampant bias, overreactions, division, half-truths, and outright fake news?  I've been wrestling with that question myself for sometime.  I don't have a magic bullet answer, but here's what I've come up with:

- Go to multiple news sources for stories you deem important.  If you see something on left-leaning news, see how the story is covered on right-leaning news, and vice versa.

- Whenever possible, seek out a direct source, such as C-SPAN footage, videos of events in question, or direct interviews with a person in the news.

- Seek out sites that are balanced.  Everyone is biased to some extent, but some are clearly more biased than others.  Don't spend too much time on Breitbart or Huffington Post.

- Avoid sites that are totally ridiculous and avoid sharing news stories on social media that fit your narrative but are questionable in truthfulness and unconfirmed or not covered by multiple sources.

- Avoid clickbait.

- Know the difference between news and commentary.  Commentary on real news is a thing, and I am a fan of folks like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder for example, but I know that they are commentators who lean right (and in Crowder's case, he is also a comedian, so some of what he says is not to be taken seriously when his intent is humor).  Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher are a few commentators on the left.

- Here is my personal analysis of some major News Outlets...
Roughly center: Wall Street Journal, AP, Reuters, The Economist, USA Today
Slightly left: BBC, NPR, CBS, ABC, The Hill
Slightly right: The Fiscal Times
Firmly left: CNN, NBC/MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic
Firmly right: FOX, The Blaze
Far left: Huffington Post, The Guardian, Slate, Politico, Vox
Far right: Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Drudge Report
Insane left: Addicting Info
Insane right: Info Wars