Tag: Conservatives

Why Do They Hate So?

For decades now the Right has had a hard on for higher education.  They take every opportunity to degrade anyone with an advanced degree as some sort of elitist.

The burning question is why do conservatives hate higher education?  I have my thoughts but I am usual a bit harsh…..but someone has to have a good idea where higher education became such a negative force in our society.

Conservatives don’t like professors. When conservative Republicans were asked to gauge their feelings about college professors, over half gave a “cold” response, while only 24% were “warm”. I experience that disdain in the comments that conservatives make to my columns, where the word “professor” itself is a taunt, a curse.

Conservatives don’t like the institutions where professors work. A recent Pew poll found that only 29% of conservative Republicans thought that colleges and universities have a positive impact on our country.

Republican politicians encourage these views. Betsy DeVos, the new Secretary of Education, was explicit in her condemnation of professors as she was being confirmed: “The faculty, from adjunct professors to deans, tell you what to do, what to say, and more ominously, what to think. They say that if you voted for Donald Trump, you’re a threat to the university community.”

Source: Why Conservatives Don’t Like Higher Ed – LA Progressive

At what point will this continue?  There are many incidents in history where the first people to be deposed by an authoritarian regime are the educated and community leaders.

Hope do these people hope to gain by demonizing the educated?

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Closing Thought–22Aug17

Good CEO, Good President!

For decades the GOP has been pushing candidates that have been successful businessmen/women…there premise is that if one can run a business with all its intricacies then they should be a success as a president….I have NEVER thought that was an accurate statement….but low info voters buy into the BS every time.

The election of 2016 has pretty much put that BS line to bed…..

If you were wondering exactly how Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci was able to weasel his way into the White House, you have to recall that he wasn’t only a Donald Trump sycophant; he was also touted as a businessman who could “fix” problems career politicians couldn’t.

Source: How the Demise of the Trump Administration Could Finally Kill the White House CEO Fantasy | Alternet

Every day Trump proves just how inept he is at governing….he likes to think that he is a successful CEO and that government can be run like his businesses in NYC…..without some governmental experience then the job becomes overwhelming…..yews there have been successful business men that have made it as far as president….but each one has had some rudimentary experience in running a government.

Naivete…..amateurs cannot successfully run a government as complex as that of the United States.

Time to back off and start considering the direction for tomorrow’s posts….see you guys tomorrow with more stuff…….chuq

Red States: GOP Strong

I live in the Deep South and for years I have been trying to explain why this region and others are so hard core GOP.

I have approached it from many different angles and as of yet I have not found a good excuse for their voting habits or their political attitudes.

Then recently I came upon an article written for the Daily Beast about this phenom…..the explanations are valid and thought provoking…..

In my neck of the woods, even two gay men in 2004 didn’t want to be Democrats. We can change this stigma—but we need to learn how to speak Republican.

You have known her for 30 years. She was in your wedding. She is smart and has a big heart. The day you realized she voted for Trump you were thunderstruck. “Who is this stranger?” you thought. Literally, your entire understanding of her crumbles. She feels your judgment and resents it. The dynamic of this relationship changes. It may evolve, but it will not be the same.

I may be able to help explain this communication and understanding gap and how to bridge it. I am a Democrat who speaks fluent Republican.

Source: Why the Republican Brand Is So Strong Where I Live

And at times it seems as if Repubs are living in some alternate political universe and it has become more likely with the election of Trump…..

A new SurveyMonkey poll shows shocking data that reveals President Donald Trump’s Republican supporters are living in a totally different reality than everyday Americans.

According to an Axios report, one-third of Republicans only get their news from Fox News and 89 percent of Republicans trust news coming from Trump before they see it on CNN.

Over the weekend, Trump tweeted a video showing him literally attacking CNN and leaving it flattened. Many took issue with the graphic as journalists are increasingly being attacked and threatened.

Source: Poll Reveals Republicans Really Do Live in an Alternative Universe | Alternet

What say you?  Do our Repub brethren live in an alternative universe?

‘Trump fellators, fanboys, grunting MAGA mouthbreathers’

Sorry I read this piece and just had to share…..I finally found a conservative that will grow a backbone and call this group in DC out for their stupidity.

Conservative Daily Beast columnist Rick Wilson went on a scathing rant about the news that President Donald Trump has pondered firing special counsel Robert Mueller.

Like many who have come before him, Wilson tried to explain to Trump and his followers why that would be an unbelievable mistake.

“It’s time for the final divorce between the clickservatives and any pretense they believe in the rule of law,” Wilson wrote of the armchair activists. “Let’s just get the f*ck on and this shabby pretense that we still live in a nation of laws. So, clickservatives, Trump fellators, fanboys, grunting MAGA mouthbreathers, sing out now [sic]. I really want to know. Is there anything he can do that strikes your conscience? Is there any sin, any excess, any affront? No? Good. That makes it easy for all of us.”

Source: Rick Wilson pens scathing tweetstorm against ‘Trump fellators, fanboys, grunting MAGA mouthbreathers’

BURN!

I have a new found respect for a conservative……it began when the American Conservative started publishing stuff that made sense and made good points….someone is trying to bring real conservatism back to prominence…..

We need more conservs that will stand up and do what is right…..as of now they are sadly missing from the discourse.

Until then this man will take lots of grief from the alt Right…..of course he could increase his exposure…..after all he is a political commentator.

Side Note:  I intend to post this yesterday but other situations made it postponed until today….sorry about that….chuq

The Republican Brain

No that is not an oxymoron!  (Although if it were it would be a damn good one)

These days the actual conservs do not think for themselves instead they out source that function to a think tank, the Heritage Foundation.

Most of my regulars know that I do not think much of so-called think tanks…..the reason is that most of them have a conclusion and then set about making stats and such fit what they want to report to say.

The worst among these fake intellectual endeavors is the Heritage Foundation……this group decides what the GOP will offer as way of policy and they, the politicians, do as they are told…..but to get a better grip on how this “foundation” works…….

The mood was jubilant two days after the November 2016 election at a Washington, D.C., panel co-hosted by two powerhouse conservative thinktanks—the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation.

In his opening remarks, Heritage president Jim DeMint rejoiced that Donald Trump’s election had “preserved our constitutional republic.” Panelist John Yoo, a Berkeley law professor best known as the architect of George W. Bush’s justification for torture, drew laughs with feigned surprise at the audience size. “I thought everyone at Heritage was working over at transition head quarters,” Yoo quipped. “I asked the taxi cab driver to take me to Trump transition headquarters, and he dropped me off here.”

Source: The Right-Wing Machine Behind the Curtain

The radical conservative Heritage Foundation has spent 40 years trying to gut the federal budget. Now Trump is proving to be the perfect tool.

Many of its proposals are lifted straight from the recommendations of an elite ultra-conservative D.C. think tank: the Heritage Foundation.

Trump’s Budget proposal, released on Thursday, echoes none of the populist, anti-establishment themes of candidate Trump’s campaign for higher office. Instead, it calls for a large increase in defense spending while reducing spending for a variety of popular domestic programs.

That’s not surprising considering where those ideas came from. Rather than bringing in new ideas from outside of the Beltway, many of its proposals are lifted straight from the recommendations of an elite ultra-conservative D.C. think tank: the Heritage Foundation.

Source: Trump the Outsider Outsources His Budget to Insider Think Tank

It is disgusting to out source your policies, policies that are not anything promised while luring idiots to his cause, but that is how you do it when a bunch of screaming amateurs are running the Greatest country on the planet.

All the American people can do now is bend over and wait for the insertion….sans Vaseline.

Restoring Responsible ‘Conservatism’

For years the conservatives in this country were known to be a responsible form of governance.  The platform of the 1956 GOP platform illustrates the meaning of the term “responsible conservatism”…..

Back in those days they were as close as the US has had as a liberal since the turn of the 20th century.

As much as “liberal” has become a dirty word in U.S. politics, the word “conservative” has been ripped from all its honorable traditions and redefined as a dangerous form of radicalism,

What is it about the U.S. that makes it virtually the only country in the world where a political Left scarcely exists? We have a center Right — the Democratic Party. And we have a far Right — the Republican Party. In fact, just invoking the L-word “Liberal” can inflict quick political death. Yes, we’re safe from the Left here in America.

Having such a stunted political spectrum is bad enough in itself. Still worse is the utter corruption of the word conservative. U.S. society has allowed the Republican Party to hijack the word, distort it and redefine it to its own ends, against its real meaning.

Source: Restoring a Responsible ‘Conservatism’ – Consortiumnews

The day of a responsible Republican has long gone never to return.

What say you?

Trump’s New Theory?

CPAC is going on as I type…the meeting of the minds (HA) of the conservative movement…..and so far the big story is something that the WH Chief of Staff said during his moment in the spotlight……at least they showed a racist the door…..but now more on Bannon’s rhetoric…..

Steve Bannon made his first public appearance since Donald Trump became president Thursday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the Washington Post reports. The president’s chief strategist said Trump’s goal is the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” meaning dismantling systems of taxation, regulation, and trade. Bannon said Trump picked his Cabinet nominees with that deconstruction in mind. Here’s what else is making headlines at CPAC:

  • Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who spoke alongside Bannon, says they aren’t rivals, as characterized by the media. Instead he says they work alongside each other and share a connection through Trump, Politico reports.
  • White nationalist Richard Spencer was kicked out of CPAC after being spotted in the lobby of the hotel where it’s taking place. “His views are repugnant and have absolutely nothing to do with conservatism,” a CPAC spokesperson tells NPR.
  • The Hill reports Bannon also reserved some of his time to bash reporters and the media, who he repeatedly called the “opposition party.” He warned that every day will be a fight against the “corporatist, globalist media.”
  • Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz predicted—without explanation—that Trump will have a second Supreme Court seat to fill by the summer, Time reports. He also called the Democratic base “bat crap crazy.”
  • Speaking of Cruz, a lot has changed since last year’s CPAC, where he was the headliner and Trump canceled his speech, according to US News. Kellyanne Conway, who was working for Cruz this time last year, says CPAC is now “TPAC,” in reference to Trump.
  • Despite earlier reports that she clashed with the attorney general and Trump on protecting the bathroom rights of transgender students, at CPAC Betsy DeVos said she supported the removal of Obama’s guidelines, calling them “overreach,” the Huffington Post reports

Sounds like Mr. Bannon has a theory in mind……it is called…..Transnationalism

Interactions and coalitions across state boundaries that involve such diverse nongovernmental actors as multinational corporations and banks, church groups, and terrorist networks. In some usages, transnationalism includes both nongovernmental as well as transgovernmental links. The term transnational is used both to label the actor (for example, a transnational actor) or a pattern of behavior (for example, an international organisation that acts transnationally – operates across state borders). Theorists focusing on transnationalism often deemphasise the state as primary and unitary actor.

The last line says it all….deemphasize the state…does that mean “deconstructed”…….?

The American Conservative has had some thoughts on “Transnational Nationalism”……..

Linker’s main point — and it’s a trenchant one — is to note the belatedness of the effort: National Review and Public Interest took years or even decades to bring the fusionist New Right and neoconservatism respectively to a position of political dominance, whereas American Affairs was only founded after Trump’s unexpected triumph. But I want to comment on something Linker says at the end of the piece about our nationalist moment:

Source: The “Paradox” of Transnational Nationalism | The American Conservative

Is this Trump’s plan?  Or is it Bannon’s?

Someone needs to ask Trump for clarification…….