Few issues are as revealing of the progressive mind-set as voter ID laws. In a sane world it would seem obvious that a populous nation including a large number of illegal immigrants would take certain measures to protect the integrity of the democratic process, e.g. by requiring voters to identify themselves at the polls. But show a progressive a voter ID law and he’ll toss a blood clot! Because requiring people to present ID at the polls is—obviously—a nefarious GOP/Koch Brothers plot to disenfranchise millions and millions of minority voters who would otherwise vote for progressive candidates.

Of course, not a speck of evidence is offered in support of this charge—but when has that ever deterred the Left? Making stuff up is one of the chief distinguishing characteristics of the self-described reality-based party—e.g. the claim that one-fifth of all female college students fall victim to “sexual assault.” Beyond the lies, however, there’s the snobbery and condescension. Tell a leftie that voter ID laws are commonsensical and you’ll be treated to a snide little lecture about the pathetic helplessness of minorities, the elderly, etc., who are supposedly too confused, stupid or lazy to obtain ID. Not everyone has a driver’s license! Not everyone can come up with a birth certificate! Not everyone can take time off from work to…to…well, you get the idea.

Now strictly speaking this may be true. No doubt there are a few people here or there who actually are too confused, stupid or lazy to comply with the not-very-demanding requirements of voter ID laws. But millions of them? Or even enough such people to affect the outcome of an election in Massachusetts, Indiana, California…? This seems implausible, to put it at the lowest. If I were aiming to suppress the progressive vote I’d find some surer and more efficient means of doing so: legalizing marijuana, for instance, so that befuddled leftie stoners could not find their way to the polls. I certainly wouldn’t rely on voter ID laws, since I know quite well that the vast, the overwhelming, majority of minority voters already have ID.

So the charge that voter ID laws are designed to suppress the progressive vote is just idiotic. It’s also, as I mentioned, reflective of the Left’s elitist snobbery and condescension. To the ridiculous claim that “millions” of minorities just don’t have the necessary ID is added the even more ridiculous claim that they’re just incapable of obtaining it. Talk about the soft racism of low expectations!

Or maybe it’s rational, if underhanded, calculation. As we know, progressives are dismissive of the very definition of citizenship: eager to erase the distinction between citizens and aliens. Already in some blue-state municipalities suggestions have been made that non-citizens should be permitted to vote in local elections. But until the happy time arrives when that mind-set prevails across the nation, the Left is working hard to make it impossible to identify eligible voters on Election Day. Lefties say that vote fraud doesn’t exist. The truth is, though, that the Left likes vote fraud and is working hard to make sure it remains invisible.

Posted by tmg110 at 12:48 PM EST

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Today the voters will hand control of the United States Senate to the Republican Party. I predict a GOP majority of between 52 and 54 seats. The three wild card races are Kansas (possible Democratic pickup), New Hampshire and North Carolina (possible Republican pickups). But even with the loss of Kansas the GOP is on track to a Senate majority. Sorry, Harry…

On the House side of Congress, the GOP will further expand its majority, picking up between 10 and 15 seats. Better put Nancy on suicide watch…

In the many, many state races I expect the GOP to do well, but there may be a couple of disappointments, e.g. in Florida, where turncoat Charlie Crist, a former Republican now running as a Democrat, may eke out a win over GOP incumbent Rick Scott. On the other hand, Colorado Governor John Hinkenlooper may fall to Republican challenger Bob Beauprez. In the race to replace term-limited Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, reliably maladroit Democrat Martha Coakley looks set to lose to Republican Charlie Baker.

His Majesty the Community Organizer-in-Chief, er, President Obama is not amused…

Posted by tmg110 at 9:32 AM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 4 November 2014 9:35 AM EST

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You may have thought that cat-calling is an issue tailor-made for the Left. Does it not play right in to the feminist narrative of rape culture? But no! It turns out that Shoshana Roberts, whose urban trek became an Internet sensation, is not a feminist heroine after all. She’s an enabler of racism.

I suppose I ought to have seen this coming given the, ahem, multicultural composition of Ms. Roberts’ verbal molesters. Writing for National Review Online, Charles C.W. Cook provides a roundup of progressive commentary on this article. Here, for example, is the Nation’sAura Bogado sobbing on her Facebook page (which you should check out, the comments are priceless):

That catcalling video you all posting is deeply problematic: It perpetuates the myth of the cult of white white womanhood by literally placing this white woman in neighborhoods where men of color will be the ones who catcall (or, in some instances, say hello to) her. Doing so makes it appear as if men of color are the perpetrators of all that is bad on this planet, which can only be balanced with the exigent need to therefore save white women above all else. This stale, ahistorical association also makes invisible the disproportionate harassment that women of color face broadly from men (including white men)—and the very tangible violence that trans women of color face in particular. I'm not here for it. Please stop posting it like you are.

As a matter of fact, Ms. Roberts traversed some decidedly white neighborhoods, e.g. SoHo and Greenwich Village—as Cook points out in his piece. But even so I can see how such a video would be deeply, deeply problematic to a race-obsessed leftie like Bogado. After all, as she laments, it doesn’t depict a redneck in a hardhat harassing a transgender person of color.

But you know what I find deeply, deeply problematic? It’s Bogado’s tacit assumption, widely shared in progressive circles, that “men of color” just can’t help themselves. Trot an attractive white woman past them and they’ll act out. Or maybe it’s a way of striking back against white privilege! As Solon’s Emily Gould puts it, “Part of being honest about street harassment and creating awareness of it has to be an honest assessment of the ways this kind of harassment can be a way marginalized groups talk back to the white gentrifiers taking over their neighborhoods.”

Okay then, Emily, let me be honest about cat-calling: The men who engage in this type of behavior, regardless of race, are lowlife assholes for whose behavior there is no social, racial or ideological excuse. Now what part of that is confusing you?

Posted by tmg110 at 3:52 PM EST

Updated: Monday, 3 November 2014 3:56 PM EST

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Living in Indiana, you miss out on a lot. For example, until reading this article by Christine Sisto for National Review Online, I was unfamiliar with the urban phenomenon known as cat-calling: the verbal harassment of women on city streets. It can take various forms: wolf whistles, offensive remarks concerning legs, breasts, buttocks, hair etc., loudly intrusive calls along the lines of “Good morning, baby!” or outright obscenities. Sometimes a man will follow a woman for several minutes, trying to initiate a conversation that is obviously unwanted. To see how ugly this can be, watch the video embedded in Ms. Sisto’s article. It’s the highlight reel from a ten-hour walking tour of New York City streets by a young woman named Shoshana Roberts. (Her boyfriend, walking several yards in front of her, covertly shot the video.)

Ms. Roberts, whom I would judge to be moderately attractive, wore no makeup. She was dressed in a black crew-necked t-shirt and black jeans. She appeared neither excessively sexy nor unduly frumpy. Her odyssey can therefore be judged to have elicited from the men she encountered on the street a fairly typical range of behaviors. And let me tell you: it’s not a pretty picture. I commend Shoshana Roberts for the grit she displayed despite being very obviously frightened by some of the men who approached and harassed her.

Now I know what you’re thinking: boys will be boys. It’s only natural for men to notice and check out an attractive woman, after all. It's reflexive in us, as the military salute is reflexive in a soldier. True enough—but is the consciousness of a woman’s attractiveness a legitimate excuse to verbally harass her? I think not, gentlemen. I think not…

Ah, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? The men who harassed Ms. Roberts were clearly not gentlemen. As Christine Sisto notes in her article:

It’s impossible not to notice that most of the men who shouted at Roberts seem, generally, to be of relatively low socioeconomic status. That’s judging by their speech, choice of clothing, and the fact that they don’t seem to be rushing off to work and have nothing better to do than shout at random women on the street. Most men who have harassed me on the street have been similar in appearance to Roberts’s harassers. It is very rare, if ever, that a man in a suit on his way to work has shouted obscenities at me.

Of course for conservatives a great temptation is there: Blame it on feminism! For after all, is it not true that feminists mock and revile the concept of gentlemanly behavior, insisting that such behavior subtly degrades women? Sure. It’s fair to say, I think, that feminist orthodoxy and the hypocrisies attendant on it have contributed toward the coarsening of American society. But to view even a couple of minutes of Ms. Roberts’ ordeal is to doubt the validity of such comfortable judgments. You ask yourself: What the hell has happened? When did it become acceptable for men to openly harass women on the streets? And how is it that Ms. Roberts’ testimony produced so many online condemnations of her, even including rape threats?

Well, but what did we expect? Cat-calling is a pathology of the underclass and the growth of the American underclass is one of those problems that people exert themselves to overlook. Progressives suppose that with enough SNAP cards, the problem can be made to disappear. Too many conservatives, on the other hand, play the morality card, supposing that the members of the underclass are self-condemned to their shiftless, pointless existences. Meanwhile, the cardinal virtues of baby-boomer postmodernism— nonjudgmental tolerance and sensitivity—prevent us from calling out bad behavior.

As an Amerian who’s old enough to remember when things were different, I deplore this. As a father of two daughters, I deplore it all the more.

Posted by tmg110 at 9:38 AM EDT

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While it’s true that Ben Affleck is a fool, even a fool can perform a public service. Affleck rendered such a service recently when as a guest on Bill Maher’s TV show he accused that atrocious vulgarian of Islamophobia. That is, Maher had had to audacity to utter some never-to-be-mentioned truths about Islam, e.g. “Islam is the only religion that acts like the mafia that will fucking kill you if you say the wrong thing.”

Maher earned a bit of strange new respect from the Right for his candor, though some conservative commentators pointed out that his similarly offensive statements about other religions had never incited the ire of the Left. Personally I have no use for the guy, who once called Sarah Palin a “cunt” and her Down’s Syndrome child a “retard.” He is, if I may be forgiven a momentary descent into the vernacular, a leaping, screaming, flaming, gaping asshole. Thus it delights me to report that none other than Bill Maher is this month’s poster boy for Liberal Fascism in the category of Suppression of Free Speech.

Maher has been selected as the 2014 commencement speaker at the University of California, Berkley—a sad commentary on the state of American higher education, to be sure, but let us leave that aside. Here’s the thing, though. In the wake of his uncomplimentary remarks about Islam and Affleck’s on-air hissy fit, various student organizations on campus are demanding that Maher be dumped as commencement speaker. This is so wonderful, in so many ways!

First, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy. Maher has always been the Left’s most beloved court jester on account of his foul-mouthed denunciations of all that the Left hates. It didn’t bother progressives at all when he reviled Sarah Palin, mocked Catholics etc. and I suppose he thought he was bulletproof. But Islam is different. For complicated ideological reasons the Left can permit nothing negative to be said about the religion of the Prophet. It’s considered bad form, if not thought crime, to take notice of such things as the operation of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan or the rampages of Islamofascists in Nigeria. Maher crossed that line—and now the anathema has been pronounced against him.

Second, this exposes the ugly totalitarian tendencies of the Left. Oh, sure, the agents of the campus thought police use words like tolerance and sensitivity as their justification for giving Maher the push. They sob that “marginalized student communities” would be offended and feel excluded if Maher were allowed to speak. Another way of putting this would be to say that college students should never, but never, be presented with ideas that might challenge their assumptions or make them uncomfortable.

Third, it’s a reminder that though all campus communities are equal, some are more equal to others. We may be sure that if Catholics or Mormons, two favorite Maher targets, had complained about his invitation they’d have been denounced as fascists, religious fanatics, enemies of the First Amendment, etc. and so forth. And of course, if you’re white or Christian or politically conservative, you can count on being made very uncomfortable—indeed, you can count on being belittled and stereotyped in the crudest imaginable manner. The fact that Maher was chosen as commencement speaker is proof enough of that.

So you see, we owe a lot to the oafish performance of Ben Affleck on Bill Maher’s show. That he actually managed to make Bill Maher look good for a moment was itself no mean feat. But by starting a process that generated these wonderfully teachable moments Affleck has, as I said, performed a genuine public service.

Posted by tmg110 at 11:29 AM EDT

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For liberals, progressives and lefties who believe in the virtue of government, this story in the New York Times ought to be an eye-opener. The Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies have been seizing the bank accounts of American citizens, simply because they can:

Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up.

>snip<

Their money was seized under an increasingly controversial area of law known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows law enforcement agents to take property they suspect of being tied to crime even if no criminal charges are filed. Law enforcement agencies get to keep a share of whatever is forfeited.

Ah. “Law enforcement agencies get to keep a share of whatever is forfeited.” That explains why a law that seems reasonable on its face, a law that’s supposed to be targeting criminal enterprises, has been systematically abused by our bureaucratic lords and masters.

When the IRS targeting of conservative political groups blew up into a scandal, President Obama pronounced himself mad as hell about it. But he got over his anger, later assuring us that there wasn’t a “smidgen of corruption” to be found in the IRS. And I’m sure that he finds nothing corrupt about this robbery of American citizens by the IRS. After all, the proceeds are being used to “fundamentally transform” America…

Posted by tmg110 at 7:55 AM EDT

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The Washington Post’s “Wonkbook” feature hasn’t changed much since Ezra Klein departed to pursue other interests: It remains a reliable source for progressive conventional wisdom. Today, for example, we learned that President Obama’s deep and growing unpopularity is really—the American people’s fault! See, the people are fickle and after a certain point they just get bored with the poor chump in the Oval Office: 

Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of Gallup, described this trend simply as "a regression to the mean," the gradual waning of the public's goodwill toward the president that he'd built up during his campaign for reelection and "the halo that comes with victory." This kind of decline is common for a president following a successful election campaign.

The effects of bad press, as measured by the polls, have always disappeared after a few days. For example, the presidents' ratings were already more or less stable by the time of the launch of healthcare.gov. Some good news about the health care law a few months later, when the administration announced that it had met its enrollment targets, inflated the president's poll numbers for a few weeks, before they declined again to their previous level.

If this seems implausible to you it evidently did for “Wonkbook” also, for later on there’s an admission that well, you know, perhaps the poor performance of the economy has had a little something to do with Obama’s slide. But all those lies, scandals, episodes of incompetence, etc.? Nothing to see there!

Here’s a thought: Perhaps the President’s poor performance over a long period of time has exerted slight, imperceptible but steady downward pressure on his popularity. Sure, the polls will fluctuate a little in reaction to the news of the day. But when a president screws up—for example, when he deliberately lies to the American people—the wound leaves a scar. Of course the slide has to stop at some point—every president can count on a base of loyal support. Obama’s approval ratings have probably declined to that level already and will go no lower. Anyhow, screw you, “Wonkbook”—it’s not our fault!

Posted by tmg110 at 10:26 AM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, 28 October 2014 10:31 AM EDT

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That old reliable line of attack—the Republican war on women—doesn’t seem to be working too well for the Democrats this year.

In Colorado Senator Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent seeking reelection, talks of nothing but abortion, birth control, etc. in an attempt to tar his GOP opponent as a female-bashing troglodyte. For this he’s been roundly criticized and widely mocked as “Senator Uterus.” The state’s leading newspaper, the liberal Denver Post, pronounced its disgust with Udall’s campaign and proved its sincerity by endorsing the Republican challenger, Cory Gardner, who’s now leading Udall by a narrow margin. Colorado is a purple state and Udall’s seat should be reasonably secure. But uh-uh. People see his ranting about abortion for what it is: a clumsy campaign tactic. You can bet that the war on women will be back in 2016, particularly if the Pants-Suited One, er, Hillary R. Clinton, bears the Democratic standard. This year, though? Forget about it.

Meanwhile there’s a real war on women being waged around the world that has nothing to do with US electoral politics. But you don’t hear much about it because Ben Affleck becomes upset if the subject is mentioned. But I must take the risk of enraging him by mentioning one front in that war.

Rotherham is a town in the South Yorkshire district of England, not far from Sheffield. Between 1997 and 2003 some 1,400 girls and young women, mostly white, mostly from the working class and underclass, suffered systematic sexual abuse at the hands of a gang of men, almost all of Pakistani origin. Moreover, during all that time the authorities turned a blind eye to what was going on—for fear of offending Britain’s Muslim community. In one case, a fourteen-year-old girl was consigned to state care after her parents tried and failed to end her relationship with a Pakistani man who’d twice gotten her pregnant. But social-services officers permitted the girl to have daily contact with her abuser, arguing that the relationship was consensual—never mind that that man was a convicted criminal with a history of violence! And that was only one of many such cases documented in a damning 2013 report commissioned by the Rotherham municipal authorities after years of protests and complaints from the anguished families of the victims. Worse still, what happened in Rotherham is apparently happening all over the UK in places where there exists a large Pakistani community. (Fuller accounts of the Rotherham scandal may be found here and here.)

You can see why Ben Affleck would go into a three-foot hover. Well, sure, it’s a pity what happened to all those poor white girls—but it would be insensitive, not to say racist, to call out Britain’s Pakistani community. That would shatter the multicultural mosaic. It would condemn a whole group for the crimes of a few bad actors. It would call into question some very basic assumptions of the progressive project…

Yes, precisely. What happened in Rotherham does expose the hollow interior of contemporary progressivism: the phoniness of its “war on women” line, its selective tolerance, its elitism and disdain for ordinary citizens. One reason why the British authorities looked the other way for so long was because in their view the girls were sluts, skanks, white trash. It was either than or admit that a particular ethnic group was responsible and run the risk of a charge of racism. It’s the same attitude that led Barack Obama to dismiss certain Americans as bitter clingers: the casual elitism of the enlightened. Mostly this is just offensive. But in Rotherham its consequences were deadly. Faced with a real war on women, the UK elites cut and ran.

But it is true, is it not, that a whole community ought not to be condemned for the crimes of a few? My answer to that is a qualified yes—qualified because there’s good reason to believe that the Pakistani community in Rotherham knew exactly what was going on and did nothing about it. In fairness it should be added that once the scandal broke, some Muslim community leaders did speak out in condemnation of the crimes. But there was plenty of excuse-making as well.

The UK sex abuse scandal has been described, with justice, as a “national disgrace.” But more particularly it’s the shame and disgrace of the elites, of those people who parade their sensitivity and tolerance, but whose attitude toward ordinary people is like that of the Pharisee in the Temple: “Thank God I’m not like them.”

Posted by tmg110 at 9:06 AM EDT

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(1) Hillary will run in 2016. (2) Hillary will win in 2016. When it comes to conventional wisdom, that’s the gold standard. Maybe it’s even true. But to watch Hillary Clinton on the stump this year is to experience a twinge of doubt.

Talk about lackluster! Maybe it was just the overflow from Martha Coakley’s bad karma. I have to say, though, that when Hillary was in Massachusetts the other day to support Coakely’s doomed run for governor of the Bay State, she was less than impressive: “Don’t let anybody tell you, you know, it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs,” the Pants-Suited One droned. She went on to make a not-very-coherent point about the evils of “trickle-down economics”—not the most melodious note to strike in this era of trickle-down big government. (Remember those “millions of green jobs”?) Perhaps it was the presence on the stage of Senator Elizabeth Warren that galvanized Hillary’s inner populist. If so the senatorial scold did the 2016 heir presumptive no favor. Because if CW (1) turns out to be correct, Hillary’s maladroit quip is going to be featured in many a GOP attack ad.

Maybe Hillary Clinton is Ms. Inevitable of 2016. If so, it might be fun to watch this cosseted elitist, who receives $200,000 per humdrum speech, masquerade as a populist. She’d look really funny in bib overalls and a straw hat.

Posted by tmg110 at 10:42 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 26 October 2014 10:48 AM EDT

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Liberals like to pretend that they’re all in favor of free speech. Yeah, right! From the Washington Examiner:

In a surprise move late Friday, a key Democrat on the Federal Election Commission called for burdensome new rules on Internet-based campaigning, prompting the Republican chairman to warn that Democrats want to regulate online political sites and even news media like the Drudge Report.

Democratic FEC Vice Chair Ann M. Ravel announced plans to begin the process to win regulations on Internet-based campaigns and videos, currently free from most of the FEC’s rules. “A reexamination of the commission’s approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long over due,” she said.

No doubt Ms. Ravel and her statist cronies have become disturbed by the vibrant conservative presence on the Web. It must be suppressed—and the First Amendment be damned!

Posted by tmg110 at 8:10 AM EDT

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