Sunday, July 31, 2016

As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap

FLASHBACK: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap:

Brooks is, of course, horrified at Trump and his supporters, whom he finds childish, thuggish and contemptuous of the things that David Brooks likes about today’s America. It’s clear that he’d like a social/political revolution that was more refined, better-mannered, more focused on the Constitution and, well, more bourgeois as opposed to in-your-face and working class.
The thing is, we had that movement. It was the Tea Party movement. Unlike Brooks, I actually ventured out to “intermingle” with Tea Partiers at various events that I covered for PJTV.com, contributing commentary to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Examiner. As I reported from one event in Nashville, “Pundits claim the tea partiers are angry — and they are — but the most striking thing about the atmosphere in Nashville was how cheerful everyone seemed to be. I spoke with dozens of people, and the responses were surprisingly similar. Hardly any had ever been involved in politics before. Having gotten started, they were finding it to be not just worthwhile, but actually fun. Laughter rang out frequently, and when new-media mogul Andrew Breitbart held forth on a TV interview, a crowd gathered and broke into spontaneous applause. A year ago (2009), many told me, they were depressed about the future of America. Watching television pundits talk about President Obama’s transformative plans for big government, they felt alone, isolated and helpless. That changed when protests, organized by bloggers, met Mr. Obama a year ago in Denver, Colo., Mesa, Ariz., and Seattle, Wash. Then came CNBC talker Rick Santelli’s famous on-air rant on Feb. 19, 2009, which gave the tea-party movement its name. Tea partiers are still angry at federal deficits, at Washington’s habit of rewarding failure with handouts and punishing success with taxes and regulation, and the general incompetence that has marked the first year of the Obama presidency. But they’re no longer depressed.”
One of the most famous things about the Tea Partiers was that — as befits a relentlessly bourgeois protest movement — they left things cleaner than they found them. Rich Lowry reported from Washington, DC: “Just as stunning as the tableaux of the massive throngs lining the reflecting pool were the images of the spotless grounds afterward. If someone had told attendees they were expected to mow the grass before they left, surely some of them would have hitched flatbed trailers to their vehicles for the trip to Washington and gladly brought mowers along with them. This was the revolt of the bourgeois, of the responsible, of the orderly, of people profoundly at peace with the traditional mores of American society. . . .
Yet the tea party movement was smeared as racist, denounced as fascist, harassed with impunity by the IRS and generally treated with contempt by the political establishment — and by pundits like Brooks, who declared “I’m not a fan of this movement.” After handing the GOP big legislative victories in 2010 and 2014, it was largely betrayed by the Republicans in Congress, who broke their promises to shrink government and block Obama’s initiatives.
So now we have Trump instead, who tells people to punch counterprotesters instead of picking up their trash.
When politeness and orderliness are met with contempt and betrayal, do not be surprised if the response is something less polite, and less orderly. Brooks closes his Trump column with Psalm 73, but a more appropriate verse is Hosea 8:7 “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” Trump’s ascendance is a symptom of a colossal failure among America’s political leaders, of which Brooks’ mean-spirited insularity is only a tiny part. God help us all.
Also:
People who are unhappy with the things Trump is saying need to understand that he’s only getting so much traction because he’s filling a void. If the responsible people would talk about these issues, and take action, Trump wouldn’t take up so much space.
And there’s a lesson for our ruling class there: Calling Trump a fascist is a bit much (fascism, as Tom Wolfe once reported, is forever descending upon the United States, but somehow it always lands on Europe), but movements like fascism and communism get their start because the mechanisms of liberal democracy seem weak and ineffectual and dishonest. If you don’t want Trump — or, perhaps, some post-Trump figure who really is a fascist — to dominate things, you need to stop being weak and ineffectual and dishonest. . . .
Likewise, it’s a bit hard to take people seriously about Trump’s threat to civil liberties when President Obama was just endorsing an unconstitutional gun ban, when his attorney general was threatening to prosecute people for anti-Muslim speech (a threat later walked back, thankfully) and when universities and political leaders around the country are making clear their belief that free speech is obsolete.
Hearing that Yale professor Erika Christakis won’t be teaching at Yale because of the abuse she received over a respectful but non-PC email, former DNC chair Howard Dean tweeted: “Free speech is good. Respecting others is better.” To his credit, CNN’s Jake Tapper responded: “Of course only one of them is enshrined in the Constitution.”
But Twitter humorist IowaHawk had the last word: ”With the exception of POTUS, the Atty General, both leading presidential candidates, the media, and universities, Americans love free speech.”
If you wish to hold fascism, or even just Trumpism, at bay, then we need elites who are trustworthy, who can be counted on to protect the country, and who respect the Constitution even when it gets in the way of doing something they want to do. By failing to live up to these standards, they have chosen their “Destructor.” Let’s hope that they haven’t chosen ours, as well.
Okay, I have to admit, so far it’s not looking great.

Leaked DNC Documents Show Plans To Reward Big Donors With Federal Appointments

Leaked DNC Documents Show Plans To Reward Big Donors With Federal Appointments

Photo of Chuck Ross

Democratic National Committee documents recently released by WikiLeaks include spreadsheets and emails that appear to show party officials planning which donors and prominent fundraisers to provide with appointments to federal boards and commissions.
The documents, which were circulated among top DNC officials in April, could raise legal questions for the party, says Ken Boehm, the chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group.
“The disclosed DNC emails sure look like the potential Clinton Administration has intertwined the appointments to federal government boards and commissions with the political and fund raising operations of the Democratic Party,” Boehm told The Daily Caller.
“That is unethical, if not illegal.”
The records, which WikiLeaks released along with nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails and other documents on Friday, also expose one of the Beltway’s worst kept secrets: that wealthy politicos can often buy their way to presidential appointments.
President Obama has been criticized for appointing dozens of top fundraisers — called “bundlers” in the political fundraising realm — to ambassadorships and other cushy federal positions.
The spreadsheet — which was accompanied by emails sent between officials with the DNC’s finance team — contains 23 names of little-known corporate executives and professional fundraisers who have donated to the committee and various Democratic political action committees.
Screen Shot 2016-07-24 at 5.36.16 PM
“Boards and Commissions” spreadsheet contained in DNC records. (Redactions added by The Daily Caller)
The proposed appointments also provide more evidence that the DNC favored Clinton over her former primary challenger, Bernie Sanders.
Most of the donors listed on the spreadsheet have given to Clinton’s campaign. None gave to Sanders.
DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was forced to resign on Sunday because of the anti-Sanders bias that showed up in documents released by WikiLeaks. (RELATED: Debbie Wasserman Schultz To Step Down As DNC Chair)
It is unclear from the DNC spreadsheet if any of the people on the list made specific requests for federal appointments.
But one tip-off that the document is detailing a quid pro quo is an entry next to the name of David Shapira, the executive chairman of grocery store chain Giant Eagle, Inc.
“USPS” — a likely reference to the U.S. Postal Service — is entered on the spreadsheet.
President Obama nominated Shapira for a position on the USPS’ board of governors last year but the retail executive did not take the position because congressional Republicans held up his nomination.
Shapira and his wife Cynthia have donated heavily to Clinton, the DNC and other Democratic and liberal political action committees.
They have given the $2,700 maximum to Clinton. In 2014, Shapira contributed $100,000 to American Unity PAC, a political action committee that supports pro-LGBT candidates.
Cynthia Shapira has given $33,400 to the DNC this cycle and $58,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund since last year.
The Shapiras did not respond to a request for comment.
The donor spreadsheet is included in an email chain in which Jordan Kaplan, DNC’s national finance director, asks other officials to provide names of donors they want to propose for federal commissions.
“Last call for boards and commissions,” Kaplan wrote on April 20.
“If you have someone, send to [DNC finance chief of staff Scott] Comer – full name, city, state, email and phone number. Send as many as you want, just don’t know how many people will get to.”
The email confused at least one official involved in the exchange.
“Boards and commissions? Sorry, I’m lost,” wrote Jordan Vaughn, the national finance director for the DNC’s African American Leadership Council.
Comer explained: “Any folks who you’d like to be considered to be on the board of (for example) USPS, NEA, NEH. Basically anyone who has a niche interest and might like to serve on the board of one of these orgs.”
“I should say, though, that the likelihood of landing a spot on ones as prestigious as NEA/USPS is unlikely,” Comer added, referring to the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. Postal Service.
“It’s much more likely they’ll get something like ‘President’s Commission on the Celebration of Women in American History.’ (no shade to women) But when you submit your names, we don’t need specific designations,” he continued.
Luis Miranda, the DNC’s communications director and Wasserman Schultz’s right-hand man, did not respond to a request for comment on the email chain and the spreadsheet.
Boehn, who once served as chairman for the political action committee Citizens for Reagan, says that the fact that Democrats are lining up appointments to federal committees months before the general election is strong evidence of a quid pro quo.
“Having participated in the boards and commissions work for President-elect Reagan, I know there’s no need to involve partisans months before the election,” he told TheDC. “These appointments are made on a staggered basis so there’s no rush.”
“As with so much associated with the Clinton operations, there is an appearance that these appointments have been pressed into service as a device to raise funds.”
The DNC list also includes David Trone. He’s the wine and beer retailer from Maryland who made national news earlier this year when he spent $13 million of his own money on an unsuccessful campaign for a U.S. House seat.
He has maxed out his donations to Clinton and has given $334,000 to the Democratic Hope Fund. He also gave the maximum $33,400 to the DNC in November.
Martin Elling is named in the document. He’s a senior partner at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. He’s given maximum donations to the DNC as well as to the Clinton campaign. He has also contributed $10,000 to super PAC supporting Clinton.
Another notable name is A. Robert Pietrzak. He’s global co-ahead law firm Sidley Austin’s securities and shareholder litigation practice. In that role he defends clients against securities class action lawsuits.
He has previous experience as a member of a federal commission. He once served on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Financial Products Advisory Committee.
He has maxed out to Clinton as well as to the DNC.
Wayne Jordan, a real estate developer from northern California, is also on the list. He has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to various Democratic groups.
He gave $337,400 to the Hillary Victory Fund in December.
One person on the list appears to already hold a committee spot in the Obama administration.
Wade Randlett serves on the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. A prominent donor to the DNC, the Clinton campaign and other Democratic PACs, he is CEO of General Biofuels.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/24/leaked-dnc-documents-show-plans-to-reward-big-donors-with-federal-appointments/#ixzz4FRuMHPQx


When It Comes to Islam, Western Leaders Are Liars or Idiots

When it comes to the connection between Islam and violence against non-Muslims, one fact must be understood: the majority of those in positions of leadership and authority in the West are either liars or fools, or both.
No other alternative exists.
The reason for this uncharitable assertion is simple: If Islam was once a faraway, exotic religion, today we hear calls for, and see acts of, violence committed in its name every day. And many of us still have “ears that hear and eyes that see,” so it’s no secret: Muslims from all around the world and from all walks of life -- not just “terrorists” or “ISIS” -- unequivocally and unapologetically proclaim that Islam commands them to hate, subjugate, and kill all who resist it, including all non-Muslims.
This is the official position of several Muslim governments, including America’s closest “friends and allies” like Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

It’s the official position of Islamic institutions of lower and higher learning: fromBangladeshi high schools to Egypt’s Al Azhar, the world’s most prestigious Islamic university.
It’s the official position broadcast in numerous languages on Islamic satellite stations that air in Muslim homes around the world.
In short, there’s no excuse today for anyone to still be ignorant about Islam, and especially for those in positions of leadership or authority. Yet it is precisely this group that most vehemently denies any connection between Islam and violence.
Why?
On July 18 in Germany, an axe-waving Muslim refugee attacked a number of train passengers and critically injured three. Although an ISIS flag was found in his room, although he called for the slaughter of any Muslim who dares leave Islam, although he yelled “Allahu Akbar” -- Islam’s unequivocal war cry -- authorities claimed “it was too early to speculate about the motives of the attacker.”

Catholic Bishop Friedhelm Hofmann of Wuerzburg, where the axe attack took place, wasbewildered: “One is speechless at such a moment. This fact can not be understood.”
Instead of being vigilant around Muslim migrants, he said: “Maybe we need to help the unaccompanied young refugees even more and help them to overcome their own traumas.”
About a month earlier in Germany, this same scene played out. While screaming “Allahu Akbar” and “infidels must die,” another Muslim man in another train station stabbed to death one man and injured three others. Still, German authorities “found no evidence of Islamist motive.”
In neighboring France -- which has “Europe’s largest Muslim minority” and is also (coincidentally?) the “most threatened country” -- this sequence of events (a Muslim attacks in the name of Islam, authorities claim difficulty in finding “motive”) is becoming endemic.

On July 19, a Muslim man vacationing with his pregnant wife and children stabbed a neighboring woman and her three daughters for being “scantily dressed.” The youngest girl, 8, was in critical condition with a punctured lung.
Although this is a common occurrence throughout the Muslim world -- many Muslim women wear the hijab because they know the consequences of not in public -- and although French television was brave enough to say that the man, named Mohamed B, 37, "may have acted out of religious motives,” Mayor Edmond Francou said he preferred “not to speculate about the motive of the attack.”
A few days earlier, another “Allahu Akbar”-screaming Muslim killed 84 people in Nice.
Yet according to French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, the killer’s “motives [were] not yet established.” Asked if he could at least confirm the attacker's motives were linked to jihadism, he said, “No.”
Reuters went so far as to write an article blaming France for its own terrorization.
Turning to the United States, one finds the same pattern. Most recently, a Muslim man entered a gay nightclub in Orlando and killed 49. Despite the fact that ISIS regularly kills homosexuals and that the killer -- who “recited prayers to Allah during the attack” -- pledged his allegiance to ISIS, “Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that the investigation is still ongoing, and a motive has yet to be established,” while “the FBI was confused about [his] motive.”
Earlier this year, Edward Archer -- a convert to Islam -- shot and wounded Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett. He later explained his motive: “I follow Allah. I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic state. That is why I did what I did.”
Yet after showing a surveillance video of Archer in Islamic dress shooting at Hartnett, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney emphatically declared:
In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen.
It is abhorrent. It is terrible and it does not represent the religion or any of its teachings. This is a criminal with a stolen gun who tried to kill one of our officers. It has nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.
 One can go on and on. From California alone:
  • Despite the evidence that the Muslim couple that massacred 14 people in San Bernardino was motivated by Islamic teachings of jihad against the hated “infidel,” Obama claimed: “We do not know their motivations.” Chris Hayes and MSNBC were also “baffled” in their search for a motive.
  • Despite the many indicators that the Muslim student who went on a stabbing spree in UC Merced was described as a “devout Muslim,” had an ISIS flag, and praised Allah in his manifesto -- “local and federal authorities continue to insist that Faisal Mohammad, 18, carried out the vicious attack because he’d been banished from a study group.”
  • Despite the fact that a man named “Jihad” went to an El Monte police station, where he “used the word ‘jihad’ several times” while making a bomb threat, police “so far don’t have a motive.”
Most politicians -- practically every Democrat but also a majority of Republicans, with the notable exception of Donald Trump -- make the same claims.
The claims begin with President Barack Obama, who insists that the Islamic State “is not Islamic.” He calls for the “rejection by non-Muslims of the ignorance that equates Islam with terror.” He classified the Fort Hood massacre as “workplace violence,” despite the overwhelming evidence that it was jihad.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton admonished us to bear in mind that “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” Republican leaders like John McCain gush about how “unequivocally, without a doubt, the religion of Islam is an honorable and reasonable religion. ISIS has nothing to do with the reality of Islam.”
“Conservative” talking heads like Bill O’Reilly flippantly dismiss jihad as “a perversion of Islam, we all know that.”
What is to be made of all these claims from our “leaders” that fly in the face of reality?
Only immensely deranged or immensely deceitful people can claim that a Muslim who cites the Koran and calls on Allah is not acting in the name of Islam. Take your pick, but there are no other alternatives.
Regardless of the cause behind the lies that defend Islam -- stupidity or deceitfulness -- the same damage is done. Remember, Islam is not threatening the West due to its own innate capabilities, but because the West allows Islam to threaten the West.
The real battle revolves around getting the West to see reality, a battle which involves rooting out the liars and fools from government, media, education, and other positions of influence. This is an admittedly herculean task, considering that the lie is the narrative and the truth is considered evil.

Saturday, July 30, 2016

WELCOME TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY, U.S.A.

WELCOME TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY, U.S.A.


How Hillary’s scary speech revealed her mistake in wearing a white pants suit to her coronation.

   
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Wearing a white pantsuit, Hillary Clinton plodded out on stage to accept the nomination that she had schemed, plotted, lied, cheated, rigged and eventually fixed a series of elections to obtain.
Then she claimed that she was accepting the nomination of a race she had rigged with “humility”.
Humility is not the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Hillary Clinton. It is not even the last word. It is not in the Hillary dictionary at all. But this convention was a desperate effort to humanize Hillary. Everyone, including her philandering husband and dilettante daughter, down to assorted people she had met at one point, were brought up on stage to testify that she really is a very nice person.
This wasn’t a convention. It was a series of character witnesses for a woman with no character. It was an extensive apology for the Left’s radical agenda cloaked in fake patriotism and celebrity adulation.
Sinclair Lewis famously said, "When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross". More accurately, when Communism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. That’s what the Democratic National Convention was.
This night presented Hillary Clinton as all things to all people. She was a passionate fighter who found plenty of time to spend with her family. She is for cops and for cop-killers. She likes the Founding Fathers and political correctness. She wants Democrats to be the party of working people and of elitist government technocrats. And, most especially, she cares about people like you.
The convention, like everything about Hillary, was awkward and insincere.
There was Bernie glaring into the camera just as Hillary was thanking him for rallying a bunch of young voters whom she hoped to exploit. There was Chelsea Clinton reminding everyone that the Clintons are a dynasty and that everyone in it gets a job because of their last name, right before introducing her mother whose only real qualification for her belated entry into politics was her last name. And there was Jennifer Granholm who got an opportunity to have an incoherent public meltdown at the convention.
There’s the mandatory video explaining how Hillary Clinton personally hunted down Osama bin Laden while sitting in a chair. “She’s carrying the hope and the rage of an entire nation,” Morgan Freeman intones. Coming in November 2016. And Hillary Clinton will be played by Meryl Streep. Donald Trump is compared to Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s rather obvious even to the handful of Hillary supporters that their candidate fits the Ratched role much better than Trump does.
The audience was told incessantly that Hillary Clinton loves small children. Once would have been enough. Twice would have been enough. By the millionth repetition, it seems more like Hillary is the witch trying to lure children into her gingerbread house.
Helping out with that task were a continuing parade of young female celebrities. If you thought that Elizabeth Banks and Lena Dunham were awkward, just wait for Katy Perry and Chloe Moretz urging their cohort to go out there and vote for Hillary right after a bunch of ex-military people claim that the woman who helped ISIS take over two countries and the Muslim Brotherhood even more countries than that will be good for national security.
General John Allen, formerly of the Marine Corps, currently employed by Qatar’s pet Brookings think tank, insisted that only Hillary Clinton could defeat ISIS. That’s like saying that only Mrs. O’Leary’s cow could put out the Great Chicago Fire which she started. Furthermore Qatar played a major role in the expansion of Islamic terrorism that helped culminate in the current crisis.
There were treasonous Republicans, confused celebrities and a weirdly lifelike Nancy Pelosi. There was yet another New York politician likely to be indicted, Andy Cuomo, trying much too hard. But topping them all was Hillary Clinton who was in her manic mode, trying too hard to be human, and failing.
Eyes wide, looking suspiciously from side to side, shrilly barking lines into the microphone that stripped them of their emotional context, Hillary delivered both sides of her personality in one speech.
And both sides of her agenda.
The radical agenda of the Left was clumsily cloaked in references to the Founding Fathers. The same group of people whose names the Left want to see ground into the dirt. Hillary’s call for collectivism, the insistence that none of us can do anything as individuals, was dressed up in E Pluribus Unum and the Founding Fathers.
Sinclair Lewis was almost right. When Communism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag.
The old Elizabeth Warren-Barack Obama theme of “You didn’t build that” had become Hillary’s theme once again. No one does anything on their own. It takes a village of bloated bureaucrats to do anything. And Hillary has to be appointed to run this village of bloated bureaucrats who, like her, never actually do anything but sing their own praises and then give themselves pay raises and more power to abuse.
Donald Trump, we are told, is a terrible person who actually believes in individualism. While good progressives like Hillary know that individualism is a pernicious lie told by running dog capitalists.
And Hillary will be a “a President for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents”. She’ll be such a good president that we won’t even need elections anymore. Just like the Democrats dispensed with them. There will just be one “village” under Hillary and Huma and the rest of their ridiculous neo-Reds.
Then Hillary will fix the economy by banning people from giving money to Republicans and promoting voter fraud. She will legalize illegal aliens to “grow our economy” by destroying still more American jobs. And she will see to it that companies “share profits” to working people. And by working people, she means the Clintons. College will be free. And the “super-rich” will pay for it all.
The “super-rich” are the really rich. Not flat broke paupers like the Clintons.
Half of Hillary’s new positions were things that she had rejected as too radical when Bernie proposed them. Now they’re not too radical anymore. Because the Democrats always keep turning Left.
Yesterday’s crazy radical idea is tomorrow’s Democratic slogan. Yesterday’s Alinsky disciple is tomorrow’s moderate Democrat. Yesterday’s Communist notion is tomorrow’s DNC speech.
And so Hillary Clinton embraced wealth redistribution and re-appropriation from people who aren’t her. She embraced it with verve and gusto. She pushed Communism dressed up in references to the Founding Fathers. It takes a village to take away all our political and economic freedoms.
Bernie Sanders lost, but he won. Or rather it didn’t matter which of them won since they both shared the same radical agenda. The only difference was that Bernie was willing to be honest about it.
Hillary wasn’t. Until now.
This was a speech that could have been given in Moscow during the Cold War. Instead it was delivered to an enthusiastic audience of Democrats who love the idea of taking away someone else’s money. Beneath all the distractions, the celebrities and family stories, is the fundamental idea that Hillary has more of a right to your money than you do because she is “humbly” more enlightened than you are.
There’s a name for that ideology. It comes with a hammer and sickle, with the color red, with gulags and firing squads, with little red books and big black prisons, and the death of the human soul.
Hillary made a mistake by wearing a white pants suit to her coronation. She should have worn red.

The Crazily Misplaced War on Cops


Even as a sixties Vietnam War demonstrator, it struck me that the enmity against police was weirdly misplaced. When I heard the cries of "Off the pigs!" I felt more than mildly uncomfortable.
After all, weren't the police mere factotums? They had no power at all over the real policies under protest.  More than that, they were genuine working people, members of the vaunted working class. What did they do?
Now, "politically mature," as they say, I feel that even more. The focus on police as the problem is just crazy. Of course, there are bad cops -- just as there are bad everything else, as there always will be until we are replaced by robots, when there will be other problems -- but the cops are not the issue of what is wrong in American society, not remotely. Whatever their failings -- and they should be dealt with -- they are miles away from the heart of the problem.
Actually, cops are nothing more than a focus for all kinds of displacement and projection. The more the police are the issue, the longer those real problems will not be addressed. The horrifying violence in our African American communities, almost all of which is directed toward other African Americans, will continue until those issues are confronted, no matter what the police do, even if they become a national corps of secular saints.
The truth that the hugely sad steady decline of the black family is the root of all could not be more obvious.  Equally obvious, media and leaders taking the spotlight off this fatherless world and moving it to the police is socially destructive and morally reprehensible. The spate of despicable cop killings we have been seeing is the almost too natural result. (Heather Mac Donald has written of this brilliantly in her The War on Cops.)
The police are the ones who have the right to be angry. This was visible writ large on CNN Sunday night when Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke -- usually a Fox guest -- appeared on Don Lemon's show. Both men are African American.  After the murders in Baton Rouge, Clarke had lost patience with the equivocation of media figures like Lemon on such things as Black Lives Matter and kept peppering him with questions on whether the CNN host supported the group. Lemon, clearly taken aback, claimed he merely reported on Black Lives Matter and was not a supporter, but it seemed to me, at some level, the host understood and was troubled by Clarke's point -- that his style of "reporting" was tantamount to support. Lemon was part of the problem, not the solution.
But we are where we are. We will now have the requisite calls for dialogue that have been the hallmark of the current administration since Eric Holder was appointed attorney general and proposed a national discussion on race just when the racial situation had improved. In some way, this seems deliberate, the "nostalgia for racism" I describe in my book.  Holder (and Obama) needed racism to rule. Consciously  or unconsciously, they wanted to bring it back.  They succeeded.  And the cops have paid the price.