Sunday, August 09, 2015




The anti-PC candidate

Piers Morgan on the Donald

When I won Donald Trump’s first season of Celebrity Apprentice, he called me ‘vicious, possibly evil, arrogant and obnoxious’.  Then he smirked, admitted I’d destroyed all my opponents, and made me his champion.

Trump assessed that the challenges I won, and the large amounts of money I raised for charity by doing so, were more important than the occasional vituperative verbal dust-up with other contestants.

Over the gruelling month I spent filming that show, I got to spend a lot of time at close quarters with the current GOP front-runner to be presidential nominee and it was a fascinating experience.

Not least because I never once heard him be racist, sexist or homophobic despite boardroom sessions lasting up to four hours at a time with people of all colours, creeds, sexes and sexuality.

He is not the dumb, ranting bigot many would like to portray him as. He’s a smart, cunning, alert showman who knows what it takes to win.  As I wrote when he entered the race six weeks ago, never underestimate Mr Trump. He’s not worth $10 billion by accident.

Last night, he created merry hell in the first GOP debate hosted by Fox News.  It was classic Trump: he was at times hilariously funny, brash and super-confident, combative and aggressive, and played both the live audience and the far bigger TV audience like a rock star.

Above all, he just refused to play by the normal rules of these things, as he has done since he declared his candidacy.

And let’s be honest, whether you love him or hate him, isn’t it fantastically refreshing to see someone stomping around the political arena who DOESN’T behave like a robotic, media-trained, timid little mouse?

Donald Trump may not be everyone’s cup of tea but with this hugely entertaining, deeply provocative campaign he is single-handedly destroying the modern cult of political correctness.

We live in an era now where every tiny slip of the tongue by a public figure is instantly torched by social and print/cable media to such ludicrous levels of hysteria that mere apologies often aren’t enough.

We’re only happy when the often accidental miscreant lies prostrate on the floor, weeping and wailing, begging for forgiveness whilst simultaneously resigning.

Only this week there was a classic example of this nonsense involving another friend of mine, Kelly Osbourne.  Speaking on The View, she said: ‘If you kick every Latino out of the country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump.’

Literally within seconds, all hell broke loose on Twitter as Kelly was condemned for being a ‘disgusting racist’.

The speed and venom of the reaction was such that Kelly burst into tears during the next commercial break as she realised her whole TV career might suddenly be in jeopardy.

Yet here’s the rub: we all knew what she meant, however clumsily she said it. It was clearly intended as an ANTI-racist remark.

None of us with a brain actually thinks Kelly Osbourne is a racist.  She and her family, led by her mother Sharon, have been famously anti-racism for decades.  We all KNOW this yet still she had to be fried at the savage PC altar.  It was truly pathetic to watch.

I wasn’t surprised, though.  During my tenure at CNN, I had two particularly absurd moments where I too was branded a racist.

Once when I told the sprinter Usain Bolt ‘I bet you can sing well, all Jamaicans can sing well..’

The second time when I told the political Castro twins Joaquin and Julian to dance at President Obama’s last inauguration party because ‘all Latinos can dance.’

There is, self-evidently, nothing racist about either comment.   accuse a race or nation of being good singers or dancers is a compliment. For which the usual reward is ‘thank you’ rather than ‘APOLOGISE YOU RACIST SCUM!!!!’

Since then I’ve been further accused of racism for suggesting it would be a good idea for black Americans to stop using the N-word, and more recently when I laid into Nicki Minaj for playing the race card because she didn’t get enough MTV VMA award nominations.

Again, both accusations are plainly absurd, yet the offended mob couldn’t wait to hound and abuse me. It’s all very silly but symptomatic of our idiotically PC-crazed world.

I loathe every kind of bigotry.  But I also loathe those who seek to make cheap noisy capital out of inadvertent comments.

Trump himself has been offending almost everyone in the last few weeks, from Mexicans to John McCain.

But instead of falling on his sword as the inevitable furore erupts, he’s simply doubled-down and gone on the attack again.

Last night, Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly went after him for previous comments about women. ‘You’ve called women you don’t like, ‘fat pigs’, ‘dogs’, ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals’ she said.

‘Only Rosie O’Donnell,’ Trump replied, which got a big laugh as everyone remembered their mutually abusive feud.

Trump then went onto say that a major problem with modern America is its trend towards being ‘politically correct’.  He added: ‘I don’t have time for total political correctness, and to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either.’

I could imagine the vast majority of people watching at home applauding this.

Trump’s winning at the moment because he doesn’t care for the usual political niceties, and I think that’s good for politics because it will force other candidates to drop all the PC bulls**t too.

Let’s hear what they really think, in the way they really say it when the cameras aren’t in their faces.  Only then, surely, can we see what these people are truly like?

Trump, to borrow his own tribute to me, has been occasionally vicious, arrogant, obnoxious and yes, possibly evil, in this campaign.  But by ripping up the rule book and taking on his opponents, the media and the PC brigade with the same gusto they stick it to him, he is making a stand for honest, open debate – however uncomfortable that debate may get. And ultimately, he’s absolutely right.

I’m sure the vast majority of Americans don’t give a damn about having a PC president.  They want someone who can stand up for them and their country in an increasingly difficult, hostile world.

In Trump, many of them they see a man who would undeniably do that, hence his huge lead in the polls.

Just by writing this column, I will now be attacked by the cyberspace lynch mob.  But you know what?  As The Donald would say: ‘You can all go kiss my a**.’

SOURCE






A Christian who opposes gay marriage faces prosecution while radical Muslim preachers are allowed to rant against homosexuality

By Richard Littlejohn

Christians who oppose gay marriage face prosecution for 'hate crime' under new anti-terrorism laws. I'm sorry, just run that by me again.

So the Government introduces legislation to tackle Islamist hate preachers and the next thing you know it's Christians being put in the dock because they believe marriage should be between a man and a woman?

In a letter to one of his constituents, Mark Spencer, Conservative MP for Sherwood, Nottinghamshire, said that people would still be free to express their opinions, but teachers will not be permitted to tell pupils that same-sex weddings are 'wrong'.

How did that happen?

Here's how. The Government is planning to create Extremism Disruption Orders to curb the activities of those attempting to radicalise young Muslims in Britain. Not before time.

For more than 15 years, so-called 'clerics' have been allowed to get away with preaching death and destruction. This week's long overdue arrest of the appalling Ram Jam Choudary is a welcome signal that finally the authorities are waking up to the enemy within.

The Prime Minister said recently: 'For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. And that's helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance. This Government will conclusively turn the page on this failed approach.'

Home Secretary Theresa May said: 'The twisted narrative of extremism cannot be ignored or wished away. This Government will challenge those who seek to spread hatred and intolerance by forming a new partnership of every person and organisation in this country that wants to defeat the extremists.'

Amen to that.

Extremism Disruption Orders are designed to catch those, like Ram Jam, who have skated on the boundaries of legality until now. But like so much hastily drawn legislation (think the Dangerous Dogs Act, etc), the law of unintended consequences inevitably kicks in.

Well, I say 'unintended', but these days you never know.

Cameron also said that the law was aimed at reinforcing 'British values' and supporting 'free speech'. But 'free speech' doesn't extend to those who dissent from the new orthodoxy of 'diversity'. Which brings us back to teachers being nicked for opposing gay marriage.

In a letter to one of his constituents, Spencer wrote: 'I believe that everybody in society has a right to express their views without fear of persecution.'

But he added that Extremism Orders would apply to any teacher who told pupils that same-sex marriage was 'wrong'. In that case they would be guilty of 'hate speech'.

When the Government was drawing up the law, was this really what they had in mind? Probably, yes.

In order to appear even-handed, politicians bend over backwards not to be seen to be discriminating against the 'vast majority of peace-loving Muslims'. That's why the crackdown on so-called 'Trojan Horse' schools, which indoctrinate children in Islamic extremism, has been extended to Jewish, Catholic and Church of England schools.

And that's also how you end up with some kind of warped moral equivalence between headbangers who are trying to persuade impressionable young children to become terrorists, and devout Christians who object to gay marriage.

If there's one thing I hate, it's the whole concept of 'hate crime'. A crime is a crime is a crime and should be punished accordingly. Why should some offences be considered more heinous than others simply because the perpetrator is said to have been motivated by 'hate'?

All crimes are hateful. Yet if a skinhead beats up a homosexual, or someone from an ethnic minority, he will be sentenced more harshly than if he'd mugged an elderly white woman.

Absurdly, his crime will be judged to have been 'aggravated' by hatred of racial or sexual minorities. It doesn't matter if the crime really was motivated by bigotry, just so long as someone, somewhere thinks it was.

One of the worst developments in recent years has been the admission of third-party complaints, which have empowered the embittered and the vexatious.

Justice is supposed to be blind, based on fact, not opinion. The punishment should fit the crime, not the prejudices of the accuser and fashionable society. And we should all be free to express ourselves, provided we're not inciting violence.

When did any form of criticism, no matter how harsh and unjustified, become a 'hate crime'?

As regular readers are well aware, I couldn't care less about gay marriage, one way or the other. But I do object to it being forced down the throats of those who beg to differ.

Why should someone be prosecuted for saying they think same-sex weddings are 'wrong'? People shouldn't be criminalised for their sincerely held beliefs.

So-called 'hate crime' laws are routinely abused by self-righteous, single-issue maniacs to persecute those who have the audacity to hold a different point of view.

Look at the way in which Christian bakers and B&B owners have been singled out by militant gay rights groups. Funny how they never go after 'homophobic' Muslim businesses, isn't it?

All major religions oppose gay marriage, but it's only the Christians who are ever dragged before the courts for 'hate crime'. Muslim preachers appear free to rail against homosexuality with impunity.

Who do you think will be the first person to be hit by an Extremism Disruption Order — an Islamist firebrand encouraging children to become suicide bombers or a Catholic Sunday School teacher opposed to gay marriage?

Don't bother. The right answer is probably a hate crime.

SOURCE







One false racism claim is not being tolerated

Django Unchained actress Daniele Watts has been ordered to rewrite the backhanded apology letter she begrudgingly sent to Los Angeles police and her neighbors.

Watts was detained last September after allegedly having sex in a car in public with her boyfriend Brian Lucas.

A high profile saga ensued, as Watts and Lucas claimed they had merely been kissing in the street, and that they were targeted for being an interracial couple. Watts is black, Lucas is white.

After pleading no contest to disturbance charges, Watts was ordered to apologize to the neighbors who reported the incident, and the police who were accused of racial profiling.

However, Watts and Lucas merely apologized to the police officer for disturbing 'your carefree coffee break' and thanked him for giving them the opportunity to shine a light on racial profiling.

And now, they have been ordered to re-write it.  'We intend on providing apology letters that meet the appropriate standards,' lawyer Lou Shapiro, who represents Watts and Lucas, told The New York Daily News on Friday.

Their first letter, read by TMZ, reiterates their initial accusations, blaming the officers of provoking them.

The passive-aggressive note followed a similarly-phrased letter to their neighbors, who had called police when they saw the pair having sex in the parking lot.

Watts and Lucas, who entered the same plea, were sentenced to 40 hours of community service and must remain out of trouble for a year. If they do so, the case will be dismissed and not appear in public records.

Lou Shapiro, an attorney for the couple, says the actress will apologize for her comments to police and is not admitting she and Lucas engaged in lewd conduct.  He said Watts 'wishes she hadn't said some of the things she said' to police during the incident.

Watts and Lucas found themselves at the center of a national controversy on September 11 when she claimed that the LAPD arrested her because she was a prostitute after her and Lucas were caught involved in an amorous clinch in broad daylight.

She claimed they were just kissing the police were heavy-handed and left her 'wrist bleeding in pain' and claimed the whole affair left her humiliated.

Lucas took to Facebook to specifically claim the LAPD arrested them because they assumed his girlfriend was a prostitute because they saw an interracial couple.

A recording of the arrest by one of the officers involved showed that Watts accused the police of racism when she refused to produce ID after a series of 911 calls from witnesses claiming a couple was having sex in their car.

'Do you know how many times the cops have been called just for being black? Just because I am black and he's white? I'm just being really honest,' she said to LAPD Sgt. Jim Parker.

Parker later said in an interview with the MailOnline that he thought it was incorrect for Watts to accuse him and the other two officers of prejudice because he is gay and the other two police were a woman and a Latino.

Parker said he released the audio in an attempt so show that he was simply responding to a 911 calls that told the dispatcher Watts and Lucas were having sex with the door open and was reasonable during their encounter.

He also added that it was Watts' attitude and uncooperative nature that caused her to be arrested.

In the immediate aftermath, prominent civil rights leaders took up Watts' cause, but then asked her to apologize when the audio and pictures showing Watts sitting on top of Lucas inside his car were made public.

SOURCE







The Banality of Evil

The “banality of evil” became part of the cultural lexicon following the publication of German-born author Hannah Arendt’s 1963 book “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.” The book recounted the trial of Nazi Adolph Eichmann, who was chief of operations for the Gestapo-run Department for Jewish Affairs, and responsible for the deportation of three million Jews to extermination camps. Arendt hypothesized that people who carry out such barbarous crimes may not be inherently evil, but instead fairly ordinary individuals who simply accept the premises under which they operate.

For the last two weeks, our nation has been rocked by a series of videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) revealing that Planned Parenthood (PP) has been involved in the harvesting and selling of fetal organs. CMP has released four of what they say is a series of 12 undercover videos, and each one has been more disturbing than its predecessor. In a bombshell claim, CMP founder David Daleiden revealed to CNN that one of those videos depicts a meeting with top leaders from organ recipient company StemExpress, admitting “they sometimes get fully intact fetuses shipped to their laboratory from the abortion clinics they work with, and that could be prima facie evidence of born-alive infants. And so that’s why they’re trying to suppress that videotape and they’re very scared of it.”

Indeed, StemExpress sued to keep the video from going public, and they secured a temporary stay from Judge William Orrick, a California federal judge who raised $230,000 for Barack Obama. And, by the way, PP President Cecile Richards has visited the White House 39 times since 2009 — just to be clear how much Obama supports the abortion industry.

None of what the public has seen so far could be described as banal. Yet for the pro-abortionists and their supporters in government and the media, who ultimately convinced the Supreme Court to decide the entire nation must accept the premise of abortion on demand is an integral part of the auspices under which the nation must now operate, the act that has precipitated every bit of this descent into organ-harvesting darkness has become the essence of banality.

Yet as this author noted in a column on organ harvesting last week, banality is virtually impossible to maintain in the presence of photographs. That same reality also applies to abortion. First, here’s a list of all 50 states and their current abortion restrictions. The majority of them allow abortion as late as 25 weeks into a typical 39-week period of gestation, or until a baby is “viable,” which generally occurs between the 22nd and 24th week of gestation. Note that seven states and the District of Columbia have no restriction on the abortion timeline at all.

Below is a 3D ultrasound of a 25-week-old baby, and another photo (shown above) and story of a 24-week-old baby born prematurely. Please use the hyperlinks and look at these pictures as it is necessary to fully understand what this nation has abided as the “premise under which we operate” since Roe v. Wade required us to do so beginning in 1973. Remember these pictures, along with the legal restrictions cited above, when a pro-abortion supporter reduces abortion to the idea of eliminating a “clump of cells” or a “lump of tissue.”

What about the fact that most abortions are performed in the first trimester? Here’s what that “lump of tissue” looks like in week 6, week 7, week 8 and week 9. Note that even in week 6 lungs are forming and a heart is beating. In week 7, limbs and ear buds appear. Week 8 shows more defined limb development, a nose, an upper lip and a rapidly developing brain. In Week 9 there is continued development of lips, nose, eyes and eyelids, and substantial limb movement.

Moreover, until the Supreme Court finally banned the procedure in 2007, pro-abortionists were fully on board with everything about very late-term abortions, save the highly accurate term used to describe them — partial-birth abortions. Like pictures and video of abortion, that term infuriated the pro-abortionists who labeled it highly inaccurate. Yet what is inaccurate about a procedure that involves pulling a live baby feet-first out of the womb, except for the head, and then puncturing the skull and suctioning out the brain? Here is a video of that indescribably grotesque procedure. But fair WARNING: It is one of the most disturbing videos one might ever view, so be prepared or take a pass.

Either way, remember that Congress tried to pass national bans on the procedure in 1996 and 1997 only to see them vetoed by abortion-on-demand champion Bill Clinton. And the first time a case appeared before the Supreme Court in 2000 based on the state of Nebraska attempting to ban it, the Court ruled that ban unconstitutional because it didn’t include a health exception.

Unsurprisingly, the issue of late-term abortions has become part of the 2016 election debate. Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz defined the pro-abortionist position in April when GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul asked reporters to inquire if she was OK with “killing a seven-pound baby that is just not yet born.” Wasserman Schultz’s response? “I support letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved. Period. End of story.”

In other words, yes.

It was Daniel Patrick Moynihan who coined the term “defining deviancy down.” There is no better way to describe the unbroken line that travels from abortion on demand to harvesting fetal organs, even as the latter procedure has also become so banal it can be casually discussed by its perpetrators over lunch.

Such is inevitable in a nation that has long catered to the lowest common denominator of human behavior. Thus with regard to abortion, we have allowed a procedure that at worst ought to be implemented only in the direst of emergencies to become convenient — and commonplace. So commonplace, the permutations engendered by this wholesale cheapening of life — from gang violence and mass murder, to the collapse of the nuclear family and anything resembling a national moral center — are impossible to ignore.

The world was disgusted by Eichmann’s extermination of three million Jews. Since 1973, roughly 19 times that number of potential human beings have been aborted, even as champions of the procedure continuously repeated their hypocritical mantra that abortions should be “safe, legal and rare.”

The CMP videos will continue to elicit outrage from millions of Americans. But in reality they are little more than reminders of what this nation has already countenanced. And regardless of what they further reveal, Planned Parenthood will never lose its army of defenders — as in fairly ordinary individuals who simply accept the premises under which they operate. In short, we are a nation that long ago accepted the incremental surrender to the banality of evil.

Until now. Here’s hoping the CMP videos initiate a paradigm shift in the nation’s thinking. We’ve got nothing to lose but our self-imposed cultural degradation.

SOURCE

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

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

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

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