VIDEO: If voting made any difference, they wouldn't let us do it

The Rutherford Institute

Rutherford.org

http://youtu.be/oVZX_amgLnc

Free speech advocates at Mizzou

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/28956/

The College Fix

You can learn a lot from ‘Sausage Party’ 

Given the politically correct invective of the university’s racial protests last fall, new University of Missouri students were surprised to hear a professor celebrate a crude animated movie with “the most offensive stereotypes you could possibly imagine.”

Yet that’s exactly what happened at the mandatory student program Aug. 19, as shown by a recording obtained by The College Fix. A student also said that Islam is a particularly harmful religion – and he was not rebuked.

Free speech advocates at Mizzou who had written off the university as a lost cause for political pluralism shouldn’t get too excited, however: Another professor said some ideas are still unacceptable because they aren’t “respectful.”

MORE: Mizzou leaders perform skit and say ‘we’re not crybabies’ (VIDEO)

The local student group Talking Drum played music to set the tone throughout the two-hour lecture, including John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Happening Brother.”

According to MU’s Inclusion, Diversity and Equity office, “Talking Drum provides an innovative way of thinking, writing, and talking about the diversity of American identity and culture through a focus on American popular music.”

Rebranding ‘diversity’ as ‘citizenship’

Diversity@Mizzou was created last October amid allegations that the black student body president and Legion of Black Collegians had been targeted with racial slurs in separate incidents.

At the time, black students were requesting safe spaces from their white allies, a street preacher was punched in the mouth for criticizing the Ferguson protests, and campus police encouraged students to report their classmates for “hurtful speech.”

All incoming undergraduate students were required to attend one of the four sessions offered in January. Five trainings are scheduled through early October this academic year.

MORE: Banning megaphones on school grounds called racist

The class was later renamed Citizenship@Mizzou, in response to feedback from students, Department of Black Studies Chairwoman Stephanie Shonekan told The Maneater last month.

Shonekan, who co-hosted Diversity@Mizzou in the spring, did not respond to a College Fix email for more background on the name change.

Citizenship@Mizzou focuses on “the values that make you a good Mizzou citizen,” Shonekan told The Maneater.

#TalkingDrum #CitizenshipMizzou Answers are blowing in the wind, but we are here to try and capture them! pic.twitter.com/cbNlAdZwN3

— Stephanie Shonekan (@SShonekan) August 19, 2016

‘It made me feel uncomfortable because I was educated’

Those values apparently include individual responsibility instead of controlling what other people say.

“I think it’s really important to keep in mind that a respectful campus climate is not achieved by policing what people think or say,” Elisa Glick, associate professor of women’s and gender studies and English, said in the recording.

MORE: Shut down hecklers when ‘serious disruption’ is expected

Glick was “disowned” by her family at 19 when she came out as a lesbian. The experience was the most “devastating” of her life, but ultimately changed her for the better as she learned to tolerate her family’s intolerance.

“You can’t control the … circumstances that you find yourself in … but you can control how you respond to that situation,” Glick said, calling agreement “boring.”

“[R]espect isn’t agreement,” she continued. “Disagreement, and even conflict, can be productive as long as it’s done in a respectful way.” As one example, Glick said that using a person’s preferred gender pronoun is a requirement for maintaining respect.

Asked by Shonekan what films he recommends for incoming students, English Prof. Andrew Hobarek said this year’s R-rated animated feature Sausage Party was full of “the most offensive stereotypes you could possibly imagine.”

But after Hobarek watched the raunchy comedy, he saw it as “really funny” and “productive” for discussion. His praise drew nervous laughter when he suggested the movie belonged on every student’s watch list.

“[U]ltimately it becomes a movie about people coming together around their differences without giving up their differences,” Hobarek said. “It made me feel uncomfortable – uncomfortable because I was educated.”

A twist on ‘safe spaces’

Nathan Hofer, professor of religious studies, urged students not to “walk away” when “uncomfortable” ideas are expressed.

Hofer told students about his detainment by the terrorist group Hezbollah in Beirut in 2007, which he took as an opportunity to explore his captors’ ideas about the United States and President George W. Bush.

He came out of the scrape with insights about his field of study that he “never would have learned otherwise.”

MORE: The ‘Melissa Click Effect’ and Mizzou’s plunging enrollment

Hofer said he encourages his students to find his ideas “offensive.”

“What I try to do in my classroom is create these spaces [that are] safe spaces to feel uncomfortable,” he said “When your professors say things that don’t quite sound kosher … push back! Your professors will love it if you push back.”

One such idea Hofer often explores in class is that Islam and other religions are peaceful – a question he opened to students at an earlier Citizenship@Mizzou training.

“It’s definitely not all religions that cause violence,” freshman Evan Schick said at the session Aug. 18, according to The Maneater.

“It’s definitely certain ones, particularly Islam – radical Islamism – because I don’t see any violent Presbyterians out there or Jewish people,” Schick said.

Shonekan, who leads the Department of Black Studies, affirmed Schick’s right to express an unpopular opinion.

“His voice is valid; he has a right as a citizen of the University of Missouri to air that,” Shonekan said to the students. “And so our responsibility is to ask him where that comes from, ask him what he means, elaborate, but not to shout him down. That’s not what we do in our classrooms.”

Hofer agrees. “[F]eeling uncomfortable in the pursuit of knowledge is really critical,” he says in the Aug. 19 recording.

so this English professor told us to go see Sausage Party #Citizenship@Mizzou

— Lily (@lillard10) August 18, 2016

MORE: Mizzou finds $1M for ‘diversity audit’ amid budget crunch

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https://illinoisfamily.org/homosexuality/fabulist-fourth-estate-chest-feeding-fake-men/

The Fabulist Fourth Estate and "Chestfeeding" Fake Men

Fabulist: a liar or someone who invents and tells dishonest stories

(*CAUTION: Not for younger readers*)  

Perhaps you’ve been living in the real world—and by real, I mean the world that actually exists, where actual science matters, where language exists that corresponds to objective phenomena, where truth is valued more than subjective feelings, and where life is yet enveloped in a cozy blanket of freedom.

Because of your immersion in reality, perhaps you’ve been blissfully unaware that an alternate ontological, epistemological, teleological, and moral universe has sprung up in our midst. Let’s call it Wonderland. No, that’s too much fun. Let’s call it Oceania. Oceania has its own language whose purposes are to obfuscate reality and compel linguistic, political, social, and religious obeisance to the gods of sexual deviance who now rule. That language is Newspeak.

Who speaks Newspeak? Leftists of every color of the rainbow. Perversion-activists, academicians, public school teachers, political leaders, physicians, psychologists, attorneys, actors, musicians, novelists, and members of the fabulist Fourth Estate.

While you’ve been living relatively peaceful lives suffused with liberty and reality, you may have felt some disturbances in the created universe that you dismissed as kind of icky but ultimately trivial. I mean, that’s what our political leaders—always the founts of wisdom—keep telling us abut the so-called “social issues.”

Well, prepare for the incursion. Dark unreality is poised to break through in ways so profound that your comforting blankets of freedom will be torn asunder.

A recent piece in the formerly respectable The Atlantic illustrates the idiocy of leftist journalists who have packed up their computers and moved lock, stock, and poison pens to Oceania. The article titled “What it’s Like to Chestfeed” and subtitled “The many obstacles trans men and other transmasculine people run into when feeding infants” is infused with delusional, deceitful leftist rhetoric itself informed by anti-science leftist ideology.

The article profiles a chemically induced bearded lady who mutilated her body in a futile effort to convince herself and the world that she is in reality a man. This woman, “Trevor” MacDonald, is legally married to a man. She’s had a double-mastectomy, which removed milk ducts and glandular tissue, but she left her nether region and internal female organs intact. In 2010, she stopped taking testosterone so that she and her husband who “identifies” as “gay” could have children the old-fashioned way. She and her husband now have two children, a 5-year-old and an 18-month-old. Here’s an excerpt from the deceitful Atlantic article:

When Trevor MacDonald started chestfeeding about five years ago, he didn’t know anyone who had attempted it, nor had any of his doctors ever encountered someone who had. In fact, he was shocked that his body could even produce milk. As a trans man—someone who was assigned female at birth but has transitioned to identifying as male—he was born with the mammary glands and milk ducts required for lactation, but he’d had his breasts removed.

Ms. MacDonald has written a book titled Where’s the Mother?: Stories from a Transgender Dad  that Buzzfeed says offers “insight into what it was like for MacDonald to be both male and pregnant.” Her book has also been positively reviewed by the non-credible Publisher’s Weekly, which describes it as a “refreshing and insightful narrative,” that details “circumstances that…challenge his privilege.”

Ms. MacDonald was also instrumental in forcing a change to the La Leche League’s policy on leadership requirements. When Ms. MacDonald originally applied to be a leader, La Leche responded,  “Since [a La Leche League Canada] leader is a mother who breastfed a baby, a man cannot become an LLLC leader. This enraged the homosexual and sex-rejecting communities.

But in 2014, La Leche League Canada changed its policy saying,  “It was thought that only women could breastfeed. Once it became clear it wasn’t as straightforward as that, the policy had to change.” In 2016, La Leche League International changed its policy. Bearded Trevor MacDonald is now a La Leche League breastfeeding coach.

Ms. MacDonald was not yet done with her science-denying pursuits. Her next effort involved using the money of hardworking Canadian taxpayers to conduct a pseudo-scientific study. The Atlantic, while referring to the scientifically female MacDonald as “he,” calls her study “a scientific approach.” Apparently The Atlantic doesn’t see the irony. Here’s The Atlantic’s description of Ms. MacDonald’s study:

He teamed up with a diverse group of lactation experts, nurses, midwives, and researchers to publish “Transmaculine individuals’ experiences with lactation, chest feeding, and gender identity,” a study that was funded by a grant from the Canadian Institute of Health Research….It’s a qualitative attempt at defining the internal and external difficulties transmasculine people face when chestfeeding. 

The study recruited 22 participants who self-identified as transmasculine and who either were or had been pregnant. MacDonald and his team interviewed these participants about their experiences, and analyzed the conversations “with a goal of describing and interpreting patterns and themes that emerged,” in the study’s words. It’s an approach that’s community-based and trans-led. [emphasis added]

I can just imagine the chortles of laughter from real scientists reading this description of Ms. MacDonald’s “scientific” study. Evidently anticipating potential push-back from real scientists, another of the study’s authors defended their research study. Again from The Atlantic:

Alanna Kibbe, a registered midwife out of Toronto, Ontario…explains this approach by contending that “the wisest people in a community who can speak for it are those people living in the community and with lived experience, not the person with the most degrees or years of clinical practice.

No need for any pesky science degrees when employing a “scientific approach.” No siree, all that’s needed is a smidge of wisdom and a dollop of “lived experience.”

Kibbe does have some advice derived from her and Ms. MacDonald’s “scientific” research. She urges the use of Newspeak:

Kibbe…is urging care providers to….educate themselves about terminology that is gender neutral, as opposed to the gendered-female language that currently dominates lactation support.

The Fourth Estate, having moved to Oceania, refers to women who have given birth as “men” and breastfeeding as “chestfeeding.” Clearly, the untethering of journalism from reality means journalists are no longer using their noggins, and the ideas they promote are phantasmagorical at best. So I, while still inhabiting a shrinking corner of reality, will refer to mainstream journalists as fabulists and their untruths as fanny-fancies.

Influential 20^th Century journalist Walter Lippmann, borrowing from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I, said, “There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.” Now 21^st Century journalists tell lies and honor the devil.

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IFI is pleased to announce a new feature we are calling “Laurie’s Chinwags.” In light of changes in the way many Americans prefer to access information, we’re adding podcasts to our articles. Podcasts will accompany both our new articles as well as previous articles that are of particular importance and relevance. As we add podcasts to previous articles, we will republish them for our subscribers’ convenience.

We hope this new feature will serve the needs and desires of IFI subscribers, and we would appreciate any constructive feedback.

http://freedomoutpost.com/george-soros-western-society-must-fall-before-one-world-govt-can-be-established/

George Soros: Western Society Must Fall Before One World Govt Can Be Established

In the following video, Alex Jones begins by making a general statement in response to a question he’s been asked more times than he cares to count over the course of his professional career. The question always comes from the willfully ignorant, normally in a very condescending tone, and it often sounds something like, “If there really is a big bad secret world government, then where is it, and tell us who runs it.”

Alex’s response is perfect. He says it’s really not a secret who runs the TransPacific Partnership. It’s really not a secret who runs the IMF, and the World Bank. It’s also really not secret who runs the United Nations. These days, the globalists are so over the top and in our faces about what they’re doing, sometimes information is learned that can later appear to have been kept secret, but that’s normally more the result of the public’s limited access to programs inside certain institutions, rather than a deliberate effort to conceal information.   

The insanity of it all, is that the global elite have brainwashed the masses, largely with the assistance of the globalist run mainstream media, to disregard what their own eyes and ears tell them. For example, George Soros admits the he’s been the financial backing to the refugee “crisis” that has brought Europe to it’s knees, and he admits that he’s funding the far-left group Black Lives Matter here in the U.S., but yet anyone that brings up either, is somehow branded a “conspiracy theorist??” Can anyone explain that to me?!?! 

To make matters worse, not only has much of what “conspiracy theorists” claim to be true already been committed to writing and published by the elite (try actually READING in Agenda 21 or Agenda 2030), but there are huge amounts of what  “conspiracy theorists” are warning about that have already been voted into binding legislation too. Furthermore, those who are carrying out such acts claim to be operating under some imagined diplomatic immunity, making them free from prosecution. 

As Alex rightfully points out, Soros & Co. aren’t “secret” about much of ANYTHING these days. People have become SO ignorant, that no one even bats an eyelash when a globalist thug freely speaks about his intention to use the U.N.’s migrant counsel as a weapon to undermine national homogeneity. That is utterly insane. He should be locked up. We live in a time when the head of the U.N.’s migrant counsel is openly sharing his intent to use his authority to deliberately undermine the sovereignty of countries, for no other reason than that their population is naturally indigenous, or potentially more predisposed to being white. What?!?!

It absolutely shocks the conscious, that in a day and age when information is available at the click of a button, that there could still be so many of the smug condescending types, who like to laugh, point fingers, and yell “conspiracy theory,” when issues this serious are discussed. Seriously? It’s almost as if a level of weapons grade stupidity, ignorance, or perhaps both, somehow got released into the atmosphere or something, because who could possibly be THAT clueless? Yet, here were are….

TeaParty.org writes:

According to OSF documents, half of the $600,000 would go towards lobbying efforts. All $600,000 came from OSF’s “Europe Reserve Fund.”

(Infowars) – Leaked documents from left-wing financier George Soros’s Open Society Foundations continue to reveal the extent to which the group has influenced the political response to Europe’s refugee crisis. Internal documents show OSF used $600,000 in reserve funding in March 2016 to bring pro-refugee positions into the “political mainstream.”

Jordi Vaquer, OSF’s regional director for Europe, approved a $600,000 proposal entitled, “Countering the anti-migrant rhetoric and toxic narratives surrounding migration in Europe.”

According to OSF documents, half of the $600,000 would go towards lobbying efforts. All $600,000 came from OSF’s “Europe Reserve Fund.”

A summary of the proposal notes that “the proposed reserve fund allocation will allow for additional resources to be allocated towards countering xenophobic attitudes in Europe, move parts of the political mainstream towards more pro-refugee positions, and build constituencies around a more progressive approach to migration and asylum.”

A section of the proposal titled “Unforeseen need” explains that the money is needed because of the loss of sympathy for refugees in due in part to the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.

“The debate around migration in Europe has become increasingly anti-migrant both at the political and public level. In 2015, the high number of refugee arrivals and the terrorist attacks in Paris in November, have eroded much of the sympathy towards refugees that was present earlier that year.”

The proposal notes, “While Germany started in mid-2015 with a widespread welcoming attitude towards refugees, by now general sentiment leans towards closure of borders.” The proposal claims that “Sweden, the other traditional stronghold of solidarity towards refugees, is facing similar challenges.”

As originally reported by The Daily Caller, a leaked OSF memo from May 2016 argues that Europe’s refugee crisis should be accepted as a “new normal,” and that the refugee crisis means “new opportunities” for Soros’s organization to influence immigration policies on a global scale.

That memo made three key points: OSF — the nation’s least transparent think tank —  has been successful at influencing global immigration policy; Europe’s refugee crisis presents “new opportunities” for the organization to influence global immigration policy; and the refugee crisis is the “new normal.”

Another leaked memo reveals that OSF is anticipating an increase in “migration pressures in the coming decades” due in part to “globalization.”

The OSF documents were released by “hacktivist” group DCLeaks, which publishes documents from powerful political figures around the world.

As you’ll learn in the second video with Alex Jones, the above referenced hack of Soros’ email is FAR from the only one of its kind lately. During recent weeks, there have been quite a few Soros related hacks, as well as the leaking of sensitive Soros files obtained during those hacks. I include links to several of the stories below. 

In a recent post titled, NWO Deliberately Causing More Global Chaos. Why? Because Global Problems Require Global Solutions, I discus one of the leaks that “should” be of particular concern to Americans. The leak involved details of another radical far-left group started by Soros, otherwise known as Demos, and among other things, two of the group’s goals are: 

1) “To implement UN Agendas-21 and Agenda 2030, which seeks to eradicate National sovereignty to the United Nations in favor of a globally controlled centralized government,which includes the diaphanous agenda of climate change; and

2) The complete globalization of America’s culture in order to balkanize and effectively destroy the very nature of what American culture is, as they are now also doing, throughout Europe, in deleting European culture.

Doesn’t that sound grand? Those who like to name call should have to roll that up and wear it because they aren’t cool enough for tin foil” hats yet! 

Article posted with permission from The Last Great Stand. Article by Michael DePinto.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/us/politics/young-blacks-voice-skepticism-on-hillary-clinton-worrying-democrats.html

Young Blacks Voice Skepticism on Hillary Clinton, Worrying Democrats

By JONATHAN MARTINSeptember 4, 2016

WASHINGTON — When a handful of liberal advocacy organizations convened a series of focus groups with young black voters last month, the assessments of Donald J. Trump were predictably unsparing.

But when the participants were asked about Hillary Clinton, their appraisals were just as blunt and nearly as biting.

“What am I supposed to do if I don’t like him and I don’t trust her?” a millennial black woman in Ohio asked. “Choose between being stabbed and being shot? No way!”

“She was part of the whole problem that started sending blacks to jail,” a young black man, also from Ohio, observed about Mrs. Clinton.

“He’s a racist, and she is a liar, so really what’s the difference in choosing both or choosing neither?” another young black woman from Ohio said.

Young African-Americans, like all voters their age, are typically far harder to drive to the polls than middle-aged and older Americans. Yet with just over two months until Election Day, many Democrats are expressing alarm at the lack of enthusiasm, and in some cases outright resistance, some black millennials feel toward Mrs. Clinton.

Their skepticism is rooted in a deep discomfort with the political establishment that they believe the 68-year-old former first lady and secretary of state represents. They share a lingering mistrust of Mrs. Clinton and her husband over criminal justice issues. They are demanding more from politicians as part of a new, confrontational wave of black activism that has arisen in response to police killings of unarmed African-Americans.

“We’re in the midst of a movement with a real sense of urgency,” explained Brittany Packnett, 31, a St. Louis-based leader in the push for police accountability. Mrs. Clinton is not yet connecting, she said, “because the conversation that younger black voters are having is no longer one about settling on a candidate who is better than the alternative.”

The question of just how many young African-Americans will show up to vote carries profound implications for this election. Mrs. Clinton is sure to dominate Mr. Trump among black voters, but her overwhelming margin could ultimately matter less than the total number of blacks who show up to vote.

To replicate President Obama’s success in crucial states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, she cannot afford to let the percentage of the electorate that is black slip far below what it was in 2012. And while a modest drop-off of black votes may not imperil Mrs. Clinton’s prospects, given Mr. Trump’s unpopularity among upscale white voters, it could undermine Democrats’ effort to capture control of the Senate and win other down-ballot elections.

Mrs. Clinton’s difficulties with young African-Americans were laid bare in four focus groups conducted in Cleveland and Jacksonville, Fla., for a handful of progressive organizations spending millions on the election: the service employees union, a joint “super PAC” between organized labor and the billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, and a progressive group called Project New America. The results were outlined in a 25-page presentation by Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster, and shared with The New York Times by another party strategist who wanted to draw attention to Mrs. Clinton’s difficulties in hopes that the campaign would move more aggressively to address the matter.

Word of the report has spread in the constellation of liberal operatives and advocacy groups in recent weeks, concerning officials who saw diminished black turnout hurt Democratic candidates in the last two midterm elections.

Adding to the worries is a separate poll of African-Americans that Mr. Belcher conducted earlier in the summer indicating that Mrs. Clinton is lagging well behind Mr. Obama’s performance among young blacks in a handful of crucial states.

In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, 70 percent of African-Americans under 35 said they were backing Mrs. Clinton, 8 percent indicated support for Mr. Trump and 18 percent said they were backing another candidate or did not know whom they would support. In 2012, Mr. Obama won 92 percent of black voters under 45 nationally, according to exit polling.

Over 25 percent of African-Americans are between 18 and 34, and 44 percent are older than 35, according to 2013 census data.

“There is no Democratic majority without these voters,” Mr. Belcher said. “The danger is that if you don’t get these voters out, you’ve got the 2004 John Kerry electorate again.”

In Ohio, for example, blacks were 10 percent of the electorate in the 2004 presidential race. But when Mr. Obama ran for re-election in 2012, that number jumped to 15 percent.

What frustrates many blacks under 40 is Mrs. Clinton’s overriding focus on Mr. Trump.

“We already know what the deal is with Trump,” said Nathan Baskerville, a 35-year-old North Carolina state representative. “Tell us what your plan is to make our life better.”

Such talk can be frustrating to Mrs. Clinton’s aides, who point out that her first speech of the campaign was on criminal justice and that she has laid out a series of proposals on the topic.

“It is on us to make sure that that’s known,” said Addisu Demissie, Mrs. Clinton’s voter outreach and mobilization director, adding of young black activists, “We share their goals, we share their values and we want to make sure that’s reflected through our campaign.”

The focus groups and interviews with young black activists suggest many of them are not aware of Mrs. Clinton’s plans regarding police conduct, mass incarceration and structural racism broadly.

Christopher Prudhome, 31, recounted a recurring conversation he has with other African-Americans as he travels around the country as the head of a nonpartisan group dedicated to registering young voters: They do not like either candidate.

“Young people feel discouraged and apprehensive about the political process as is, and then they look at the two options in front of us,” said Mr. Prudhome, adding of Mrs. Clinton: “Nobody has seen an agenda for African-American millennials. I don’t think they believe she cares about them.”

Part of Mrs. Clinton’s problem, said Symone Sanders, a former top aide to Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign, is that the candidate is overly cautious and is conducting an outdated style of black outreach.

Ms. Sanders has begun taking matters into her own hands. She said she was working with other young activists to recruit black celebrities for a millennial mobilization tour through Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

“Black churches and an H.B.C.U. tour is just not going to cut it in 2016,” said Ms. Sanders, referring to historically black colleges and universities. “The Clinton campaign has to be willing to get out of what’s comfortable and get on the streets.”

Mr. Demissie said the Clinton campaign’s efforts were more expansive, pointing to voter registration efforts already underway in barbershops and salons as well as sneaker and video game stores.

Mrs. Clinton has met with mothers of those who lost children at the hands of the police and has used the signature refrain that “black lives matter” in public remarks. But she and her husband also come from an earlier political tradition rooted in the Deep South, where black voters are primarily reached through the church and the threat of white conservative backlash is never far from mind.

Today’s young African-American voters are less likely to be found in black churches and more likely to be found in schools, loosely organized activist groups and online, said Ms. Packnett, the St. Louis activist.

And the leaders are more diverse. “It’s not just heterosexual men,” she noted.

Not only are younger black activists reached in different ways, they also have far higher expectations on leaders, dismissing boilerplate pleas for racial equality and justice as insufficient.

“Gone is the day of patience,” said Tony J. Payton Jr., 35, a former Pennsylvania state representative. “No longer should we accept systemic racism.”

Doubts about how aggressively Mrs. Clinton will move to combat racism are at the heart of black suspicion toward her. Some African-Americans said her 1996 reference to some young criminals as “super-predators,” and the legislation that President Bill Clinton signed imposing stiff sentences on nonviolent offenders, have made today’s activists skeptical about her true intentions.

“That stuff comes up unprompted,” Mr. Belcher said.

Mr. Trump has turned to remarkably blunt language about blacks in recent weeks — portraying their communities as dystopian hellscapes and asking them, in courting their support, “What do you have to lose?” Some African-American allies of Mrs. Clinton believe he is serving as her most effective get-out-the-vote lever.

“He is literally saying something every day that is disrespectful to the black community,” said Michael Blake, a New York State assemblyman from the Bronx who worked on Mr. Obama’s campaigns and is close to many Clinton aides.

Yet when African-American voters in the focus groups were shown campaign fliers and asked to rate them, there was no mistaking what was most effective.

A pamphlet with a picture of Mr. Trump that read, “We have to beat the racists,” fell flat with young black audiences.

Scoring much higher were a stark black and white handout showing the names of those killed at the hands of the police and another with images of mothers of the victims that said, “Their Children Can’t Vote, Will You?”

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I'm black and conservative: Here's how to talk about 'black lives matter'

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/09/im_black_and_conservative_heres_how_to_talk_about.html

I'm black and conservative: Here's how to talk about 'black lives matter' | Opinion

By Jeremy C. Hunt 

As a conservative, I naively thought that our side was above name-calling and race-baiting. But then a rash of videotaped police shootings proved me wrong.  

I was horrified at some of the insensitive, tone-deaf comments from people — including some of my conservative friends— about Black Lives Matter (BLM). Furthermore, the toxic climate dominating this election cycle seems to have called every lunatic in the country out of the woodwork.  Nevertheless, I still believe that most of us are reasonable people, and that black Americans, like myself — and all Americans — will benefit most from policies that arise from a debate over ideas rather than emotions. 

So, let's talk — one reasonable person to another.

Over 60 groups associated with the BLM movement recently released a list of six demands, hoping to achieve a "complete transformation of the current systems, which place profit over people and make it impossible for many of us to breathe."  While there is a lot in that statement to make my fellow conservatives and me uncomfortable, I think it's important to remember we all share a vision of thriving communities, free of discrimination. And upon closer examination, I can find a lot in BLM's platform to agree with.  

Specifically, they demand a world "where those most impacted in our communities control the laws, institutions, and policies that are meant to serve us." This shouldn't even have to be a demand; this is a constitutional right.  

It's also why I am fundamentally skeptical of the idea of distant Washington bureaucrats dictating how to run our communities.

The one-size-fits-all approach to governance doesn't work, and it has cheated black people of the riches of liberty for generations.

For these same reasons, I'm concerned about BLM's demand for "a progressive restructuring of tax codes at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure a radical and sustainable redistribution of wealth." 

Why would we trust the government — the same government that has historically disenfranchised us — to reach into our pockets and faithfully redistribute our wealth? The answer to our problems can't be stronger government; it must be stronger communities. 

Our only two black U.S. senators, Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) are sponsoring bipartisan legislation that offers a different model to create wealth in urban areas. Their Investing in Opportunity Act would provide a tax-incentive for individuals and businesses to invest in low-income communities. 

In other words, instead of giving more money and authority to career politicians on Capitol Hill, we could invest directly into our own neighborhoods. Local businesses that have served us for years will be able to hire more of our black youth. These are the people who deserve our resources, and they shouldn't have to rely on the government to provide for them. We can take care of them ourselves.

I don't expect to convert anyone to conservatism. But I do wish we would stop defaulting to the idea that increased federal power will solve our problems. There are creative solutions that harness the ingenuity and industry of our people rather than relying on Uncle Sam's benevolence.

If we're going to demand something, why not the right to send our children to whatever school we choose, not just the one in the neighborhood where we can afford a home?  

When our young people are empowered with better opportunities for work and education, I believe our communities will flourish. The difficulty lies in how we get there. While all reasonable people want to eliminate police brutality, I'm concerned that the rest of BLM's demands won't make our lives better, but worse.

Some will dismiss my ideas out of hand, because they reject my assumption that blacks are capable of producing wealth and making the best choices for their children.  

But for those who agree, let's continue to keep the dialogue open. We have a lot more to talk about.

Jeremy C. Hunt is a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and also serves as a leadership strategist for the Douglass Leadership Institute. The views expressed here are solely those of the author. Follow him on Twitter, @Jeremy_c_hunt1

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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/08/31/report-george-soros-exploits-catholic-useful-idiots/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Report: George Soros Exploits Catholic ‘Useful Idiots’

A noted opponent to all things Christian, liberal “philanthropist” George Soros has been investing heavily in Catholic “useful idiots” to change the tone of Catholic moral discourse in the United States, according to a new essay in the Washington Times.

The essay, written by Father Robert Sirico, a Catholic priest and founder of the Michigan-based Acton Institute, explores how leaked documents from Soros’ Open Society Policy Center reveal enormous donations to two faith-based organizations, calculated to advance Soros’ political agenda by deemphasizing abortion and religious freedom while championing liberal “social justice” causes in the lead-up to the 2016 election year.

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The leaked documents, Sirico contends, reveal Soros’ “crass political intention to manipulate church leaders,” suggesting that Soros views Catholic Church leadership “as mere useful idiots to be manipulated to further [his] own political and, frankly, secularist agenda.”

According to Father Sirico, “Mr. Soros was contributing to the effort to recruit 10,000 volunteers while training 3,500 others for mobilization in order to influence the Catholic Church during Pope Francis’ 2015 U.S. visit.”

The donations, summing some $650,000, were made to People Improving Communities through Organizing (PICO) and Faith in Public Life (FPL), two social justice warrior groups that run “faith-based” activist networks.

The two groups accepted the Soros’ monies despite his self-proclaimed atheism, vigorous support of abortion on demand, and overt statism. The leaked documents explicitly declare that the donations form part of Soros’ “long-term project of shifting the priorities of the U.S. Catholic church.”

According to the New American, Soros is also “a leading financier of Obama, Hillary Clinton, the orchestrated ‘refugee crisis,’ revolutions around the world, the war on police, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, globalism, and more.” This has led to Soros becoming known as “the Catholic Church’s public enemy number one.”

A portion of the Soros gift was spent promoting John Gehring, a former assistant media director at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as a commentator to national media outlets, the leaked documents show. Mr. Gehring had earlier attacked the Catholic bishops’ Fortnight of Freedom religious liberty initiative.

Earlier this year, Pope Francis preached a fiery sermon in which he admonished Christian groups not to accept the “dirty money” of so-called philanthropists who try to calm their conscience by giving a piece of their ill-gotten gains to the Church.

Speaking off the cuff in his General Audience, and raising his voice in evident irritation, the Pope said that “some benefactors of the Church come forward with their donation — ‘take this for the Church’ — but this offering is the fruit of the blood of so many exploited, mistreated, enslaved, underpaid people!”

“I will say to these people, ‘Please, take back your check, burn it!’” he said.

Though almsgiving is proposed by the Bible as an important “good work” for Christians, Francis said that it must be done with a pure heart.

“The People of God, that is, the Church, does not need dirty money,” he said.

Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter  Follow @tdwilliamsrome

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