DANGEROUS DISTRUST OF ELECTORAL PROCESS

Yes, I did call for President Trump to resign two weeks ago. However, it may surprise readers to know that if I could go back to 2016, I would vote for him again; 2020 too. Despite his behavior since losing reelection, I see his presidency as a net positive. Impeaching him now is farcical given that he’s leaving office anyway but the Dems want to prevent him from ever running again because they’re afraid of him.

Biden brags about getting Ukraine prosecutor fired

This latest impeachment for inciting violence may have grounds, unlike the 2020 effort which charged Trump with asking Ukrainians to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden’s influence-peddling. Pelosi ignored then-vice-president Biden on videotape threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine to stop a Ukrainian investigation into Hunter Biden. Mainstream media allies cooperated on both fronts.

Ever since Trump got the Republican nomination in the summer of 2016, mainstream media has amplified every Democrat effort to impugn him. First they magnified the Clinton campaign’s fabricated Steele Dossier and dubious Trump/Russian collusion story. They ignored Obama’s use of intelligence agencies to spy on Trump’s campaign before the 2016 election and then afterward on his transition team. They cheerleaded the dubious Mueller Investigations into General Flynn and President Trump, neither of which found anything to prosecute and only succeeded in bankrupting Flynn, destroying his reputation, and crippling Trump’s presidency.

Conservatives did a slow burn watching all this and 90% negative media coverage of Trump’s presidency despite its long string of successes: Trump isolated Iran and its terrorism. He killed Iran General Soleimani, ISIS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and al-Qaeda leader Qasim al-Rimi, among others. He forged the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab leaders. He spurred economic growth that Obama claimed would be impossible. He reduced illegal immigration and built over 400 miles of new border wall. He hammered out favorable trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, the EU, and China. He appointed hundreds of pro-life judges and three originalist Supreme Court justices.

He eliminated the Obamacare individual mandate, reformed the VA, withdrew from the Paris Accord and the Iran nuclear agreement, got NATO Countries to pay their fair share, cut restrictions on oil drilling and coal exports, fast-tracked and funded a COVID vaccine, brought unemployment to record lows, raised median household income to record level, brought home troops from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, reformed the criminal justice system, and created the Space Force. Trump may be the most controversial president ever, but he’s also one of the most accomplished, especially considering he did all that in four years.

After losing on November 3rd, however, Trump claimed election fraud. Mainstream media said there was no evidence. Millions of Trump voters however, watched as Trump was winning that evening when swing states abruptly stopped counting votes, sent observers home, and resumed counting. By morning they were reporting that Trump was losing. Pennsylvania extended its deadline for counting votes without constitutional authority, after which the votes swung to Biden.

Is that evidence of election fraud or coincidence? Millions of Trump voters believe it was cheating. Mainstream media denied it all and called the election for Trump. Hundreds of observers made sworn depositions of voter fraud. That is evidence. Only two eyewitnesses, for example, are needed for a murder conviction and sometimes only one, but mainstream media continued claiming there was no evidence. There’s also video of ballot stuffing in Georgia. Law suits alleging fraud were dismissed on procedural grounds like lack of standing. There is plenty of evidence for election fraud largely perpetrated by Democrats, though probably not enough to overturn the result.

Our Founders gave us freedom of speech for many reasons, but one was for irate citizens to blow off steam by expressing their anger verbally and in writing. Here in 2021, people don’t use 18th century broadsheets; they use Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

Those outlets are owned and run by leftists who have been censoring news and posts with which they disagree, especially about election fraud. Because they’re private companies, they probably aren’t violating the 1st Amendment, but they’ve assumed enormous political power and they’re using it against conservatives, so far under the legal protection of Section 230.

We now have a huge percentage of our electorate that no longer trusts the electoral process. One could debate whether that mistrust is justified or not, but there’s little dispute that it exists. That is a huge threat to our republic that should give all of us the shivers.

Trump has been accused of narcissism even by supporters. What they at first saw as a character flaw was turning into an unraveling after his election loss, and it accelerated week-to-week. By January 6th it had completely blinded him to the political reality that Biden’s election would not be overturned. His unwillingness to accept that is embarrassing for all who voted for him. I will not vote for him in any 2024 primary and I hope he doesn't get the Republican nomination again. Right now I'm looking at Nikki Haley.

What's Not Happening

It’s been a while, but I haven’t seen any gunfights in the streets of Maine or New Hampshire the past few years and I live very near the border between the two. That’s what progressives predicted would occur if gun laws loosened and people didn’t have to get permits to carry concealed guns. I haven’t seen any newspaper articles or television reports about increased gun violence either after each state passed legislation eliminating concealed carry permits. It’s been three years in New Hampshire and more than four years in Maine, so were the progressives wrong when they predicted both states would turn into the wild, wild west?

Police chiefs in both states were also against the new laws claiming their officers would at risk. What do they say now? Nothing. Vermont never required concealed carry permits and it’s always been one of the safest states in the country. That fact was ignored by progressive gun control advocates when they argued against New Hampshire and Maine revisions of concealed carry permits to copy Vermont.

Many people in the three northern New England states still leave their doors unlocked and crime rates remain very low. Is that because guns here are as common as unlocked doors? That’s probably a factor but not the only one. Most people own guns here and know how to use them. That’s a deterrent, certainly, but they also know who their neighbors are. There’s a much stronger sense of community. People here tend to look out for each other and are wary of strangers and unfamiliar vehicles in their neighborhoods. 

Most rural towns in northern New England don’t have police departments either. They rely on county sheriff’s deputies and the state police. Because of logistics and geography, response times for those larger law enforcement agencies are slower than police departments are in New York City or Boston. Rural people know this so they’re not only more prepared to defend themselves, they’re more willing to do so as well. They’re much less likely to cower in the face of criminal aggression of any sort.

There’s been no let-up in gun crimes for either state since gun laws were relaxed, but the perpetrators usually had prior felony convictions, so carrying a gun remained illegal for them. That didn’t stop them, of course, but then it never did. If you look around and see where most gun crimes are committed, you’ll quickly learn that they’re places with strict gun control laws like Chicago and New York. Gun laws on those places have only been obeyed by the law-abiding. Criminals have historically ignored them.

Although Bernie Sanders has always been a doctrinaire lefty on nearly every issue since he was elected Mayor of Burlington, Vermont almost forty years ago, his position on gun control didn’t fit the mold. Is that because he knew he would never have been elected to state-wide office there if he favored gun restrictions? His army of supporters would likely argue that Bernie has always been guided by principle over political expediency, but is that changing?

According to an article by Russell Berman in the February 27 issue of The Atlantic: 

The senator from Vermont’s hallmark has been his consistency as an unbending progressive over four decades in elected office. Yet if Sanders has embodied left-wing purity more than any of the other potential Democratic nominees, gun policy is one area where his record has been far from pristine in the eyes of progressives… But it’s telling that on gun control, he has gone further this time around to repudiate his past positions and align himself with the Democratic Party’s mainstream opinion. “The world has changed, and my views have changed,” he said at the February debate in New Hampshire.

Was Bernie sincere about his gun control views forty years ago? Is he caving in to political expediency here in 2020? He really wants to be president, but what if he loses to Biden or Trump? Can he be reelected senator in Vermont now that he’s become a gun control advocate? We may never know because he’s not up again until 2024 and by then he’ll be eighty-two years old. Maybe he’ll retire. Maybe he’ll change his position again.

While Democrats consider abortion their most important issue, gun control seems to have become the next most important. Maine and New Hampshire have been voting Democrat the past few cycles, and Vermont has been solidly “blue” for even longer. Maine and New Hampshire, however, are moving the other way on gun control. While Vermont has become even more leftist, there’s no indication they’ll tighten up on guns.

Left & Right March 11, 2020

Newspaper publisher Mark Guerringue again sits in the left chair. 

First question from the producer asks: “Do you feel confident that the government is competently managing COVID 19 in the US?”

I think there are three phases of competent leadership: monitoring constantly-changing information, adjusting logistics appropriately, and projecting an aura of confident leadership. I think the feds are good on the first two, but somewhat lacking on the third compared to, say, FDR’s fireside chats during the Great Depression.

Mark says at first it was: “What’s the big deal? It’s a little worse than the flu, but then he worries about healthcare infrastructure being strained — ICU beds for one. He sees politicization of response or lack of it in this election year  as impeding effectiveness in dealing with it. He thinks it will be Trump’s undoing.

I raise the border conflict between Greece and Turkey where Turkish leader Erdogan is releasing a million more refugees bound for northern Europe. Greece is fortifying its border. It’s getting violent and Erdogan is looking for leverage with the EU to have it recognize its claims to parts of northern Syria. He also wants plaudits from the world’s Muslims because he wants to be the next Caliph of the Islamic world.

Mark blames Trump’s pullout of US troops from northern Syria as the cause. I disagree, saying our troops were too vulnerable to attack from several different factions there and there was confusion about who were our friends and who were our enemies. I see the primary dynamic as Muslim designs on Europe — taking over demographically in a generation or two.

Mark asks who is more likely to beat Trump: Bernie or Joe? I say Bernie because he’s an outsider and may ride an outsider wave, whereas Joe Biden, who never was very bright now shows signs of dementia.

Mark claims: “That’s what they said about Trump.” I contend that Trump’s issue is more a chronic personality disorder than dementia. I see no signs that’s changing, whereas there’s plenty of evidence that Biden is deteriorating and he makes a terrible candidate. Mark tells why he chose to endorse Bernie. Biden’s campaign wasn’t organized and didn’t come to the Sun’s editorial board, that only him and Warren failed to make it because their campaigns were disorganized.

Mark thinks Biden’s surge is a big surprise and his victories in the previous day’s primaries, especially Michigan, means Bernie should drop out. He thinks voters are looking for moderate leadership from someone like Biden and not someone who wants to burn the place down like Bernie or a flamethrower like Trump.

I read a quote from Bernie from an LA Times interview in the 1980: “[I believe in] traditional socialist goals — public ownership of oil companies, factories, utilities, banks, etc.” Does that make him a communist?

Biden says dumb things, like pretending to know about guns for example, when he clearly doesn’t know an automatic from a semi-automatic.

We discuss conflicting information being put out about the virus and speculate about what will our world be like a year hence. Should we bail out cruise ships? Airlines? Insurance companies required to cover virus-related claims with no deductible? 

Tulsi Gabbard — why is she still in it?

We'll Know By Summer

“How were you affected by the 1918 Swine Flu epidemic?”

After returning to the classroom in 1979 to teach history, one of the first assignments I gave was for students to find someone 70 years old or older and ask a series of questions. Interview subjects would have been born in 1909 or earlier and, if they lived in New England, would almost certainly have known people who died in that plague. Its American epicenter was Fort Devens in central Massachusetts.

It was called "Camp Devens" then.

About 850 soldiers died there in 1918 after it spread from Commonwealth Pier in Boston where the first recorded outbreak seems to have occurred according to the New England Historical Society. The American version of the epidemic eventually killed 675,000 Americans and perhaps 100 million worldwide. Even more surprising was that the most vulnerable demographic was young adults — about 10% died globally.

The 1918 virus seems to have been the worst plague in history.

In last week’s column "Between Now and November" on the presidential campaign I added a paragraph at the end about what might threaten President Trump’s biggest advantage — our strong economy. I suggested the Corona Virus, now called Covid19, might be that threat. After only a week, it’s virtually certain. At this writing (Monday midday), the stock market and bond market are both crashing. Traveling in India, President Trump claimed the virus is a short-term problem that won’t have a lasting effect on the world economy. “I think it’s a problem that’s going to go away,” he said — this according to zerohedge.com which has become my go-to site on the virus.

Trump has said a lot of stupid things, but I believe that statement will come back to haunt him.

Epidemiologists have more questions than answers about this newest plague and that’s because China, where it originated, is a closed society with a government which controls information. It’s lying about what has been going on. Did Covid19 originate when Chinese gourmets ate bat soup as some suggest? Or, did it escape from a bioweapons lab in Wuhan as others suggest? We don’t know.

People exposed to the virus have been quarantined for 14 days to see if they show symptoms, but reports the past few days indicate that quarantine should be extended because some victims have gone 27 days before symptoms manifest. Can the virus be contained? Doubts are rising as fast as the virus is spreading — at lightening speed. Today (Monday mid afternoon) the World Health Organization is announcing that the virus is not yet pandemic — but we all kind of know it is, right? Said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus today: “Does this virus have pandemic potential? Absolutely. Are we there yet? From our assessment not yet.”

South Korean at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall

How soon will it affect us here in America? Yesterday I read a report that South Korean Catholics who were visiting crowded holy sites in Israel returned home and tested positive for the virus. Israel then announced it would ban South Korean tourists. I texted the article to my sister and brother-in-law who were on tour visiting those crowded holy sites in Israel and they hadn’t heard anything about it. Then I waited to hear if they were allowed to board their flight from Tel Aviv to Newark, NJ. They told me tourists with whom they were traveling were going on to Jordan and were subjected to health checks at the border. This morning I learned they landed in Newark and were awaiting a flight to Boston.

Yeah, it’s affecting us here and it’s only the beginning.

China’s economy is tanking. Car sales have dropped 92% for February. As of February 13, China has virtually stopped importing crude oil. Tankers are backed up offshore. Since China makes so many products we buy including iPhones, we’re bound to be strongly affected here in America. The supply chain of vital components for products manufactured here in the USA will be slowing down and cut off as well. Japan may cancel the Olympics scheduled this summer. The Epoch Times this morning (Tuesday) quoted Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley:“80 percent of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients are produced abroad, the majority in China and India.”

We know, even if Trump doesn’t, there will be economic turmoil worldwide, but we don’t know yet how many of us will die. We in the USA and Europe are better equipped to treat people than third-world countries in Africa so our survivability rate is likely to be better. It seems that a percentage of those who become infected will die, but what is that percentage? We just don’t know because the Chinese Communist Party controls the flow of vital information on Covid19 and spins it for its own political purposes.

Eventually I had to drop the Swine Flu question from the elderly interviews as those old enough to remember it died off. We can only hope Covid19 doesn’t kill as many of us as that plague did a century ago. It’s likely we will know by summer.

Left & Right January 15, 2020

Publisher Mark Guerringue again sits in the left chair. We open with a question from the producer about what we think the long-term effect of the Soleimani killing will be.

It’s a good thing in my view. Soleimani was a bad guy, responsible for the deaths of more than 600 American soldiers through the use of Iranian IEDs against US forces in the region. His death opens a window into what Iranian media and western mainstream media have not shown — that he was an Iranian terrorist operative, that he trained and equipped Iranian proxy armies including Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi Rebels in Yemen and others in Syria to make war against Israel and the USA. The aftermath of his death shows also that many, if not most Iranian citizens do not support the theocratic regime in Iran.

Mark says the killing lacks a strategic objective in that Trump says he wants to withdraw Americans from the region but is ordering killings there and increasing the likelihood that we are going to have a war. He points out that wo months ago I defended Trump’s taking American troops away from the Turkey/Syria border, but now I support the Soleimani killing. The general was an Iranian government official. We got lucky the airliner was shot down because it reflected badly on the Iranian government and that seemed to prevent further escalation against us. Mark believes Trump lacks a strategy in the region and this action reflects that.

I compare killing Soleimani to killing al Baghdadi two months ago and Obama’s approval of killing Osama Bin Laden years in 2012. But Soleimani was an Iranian government official, Mark says. He was going into other countries in the region killing Americans, I said, so we should tolerate that because he was an Iranian government official? It’s a sliding scale, Mark said. There’s a reason Obama and Bush decided not to take him out, a good reason in Mark’s view.

I raise something publicized two years ago called “Operation Cassandra,” an FBI investigation into drugs and money laundering conducted by Hezbollah operatives working for Iran in the US in 2015. Involved were the Awan brothers who were also IT specialists employed by the Democratic National Committee. Although the FBI had 50 agents on the case, the Obama Administration blocked the investigation because it might interfere with efforts to reach an agreement with Iran for the Nuclear deal. Over $1 billion in laundered drug money went from the USA to Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds force under General Soleimani.

Also part of this drug scam was the stealing of intelligence from the computers of Democrats serving on congressional committees - including the Intelligence Committee — and sent to Iran by the Awan brothers. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz ran interference for the Obama Administration and key congressional Democrats to cover it all up. The coverup continues as the DOJ and others are still hiding documents requested by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). A federal court hearing was being conducted as our show was being taped because a federal judge wanted to know why the FOIA requests were being blocked.

On the last show, Mark requested that I investigate the California law about consent from two parties when conversations are being recorded. I did and discovered Mark is right about the California law but there are exceptions as I though then: if one party believes a crime is being committed, and if the recording is in a public place. 

I bring up another surreptitiously-recorded tape released the day before the show of a Bernie Sanders Campaign employee in Iowa saying Milwaukee would burn if Bernie doesn’t get the nomination there this summer. If Trump wins again in November, cities would burn. The employee, Kyle Jurek, also said gulags would be opened for Trump supporters, and other outrageous things. The networks ignored it last night (Tuesday, January 14) and so did Brett Baier on Fox.

Then I bring up a lawsuit recently settled between the Covington Catholic boy wearing a MAGA hat who was trashed after the Pro-Life march last year in Washington, DC and CNN, who was sued. CNN settled rather than go to court, but we don’t know yet the details of the settlement. Several other lawsuits against the Washington Post, reporters from other networks, Elizabeth Warren, and others are still pending.

Mark hadn’t heard of these developments and calls them “hobby horse” cases that fit my agenda.

The second question from the producer asks us if we support legislation granting religious exemptions to parents about having their children immunized. Mark says we have to balance individual rights with the public good. I agree with that and didn’t have much more to offer beyond it.

Mark asks which Democrat candidates I like and I say none of them. If I had to choose which I disliked least it would Amy Klobuchar. Mark says she’s practical in a midwest sort of way and very smart.

Mark said he had Governor Weld in (to a Sun Editorial Board interview) who is running against Trump, and Weld said someone has to do something about the deficit. He said we have to worry about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and 800,000 trucker will be out of work, which is what Andrew Yang said. He said Bernie is coming in Sunday (January 19) and Mark would ask him about those issues.

I said I would ask Bernie about Kyle Jurek but Mark isn’t inviting me to interview presidential candidates anymore because I asked a tough question of Hillary four years ago. Mark said it was a disrespectful question and it made the women in the room (on the editorial board) uncomfortable and I wouldn’t have asked a question like that of a man. He said I had a unique opportunity in life to talk to a Secretary of State and former first lady and I ask a disrespectful question. I tell him George Stephanopoulos asked Hillary the same question a week or two before our interview and it was all right for him, a former Clinton aide, to ask it but it’s a gotcha question when I do?

“It was disrespectful,” said Mark.

“I see. Was it disrespectful for Stephanopoulos to ask it?”

“I’m the one who controls the editorial board and guess what? I’m not inviting you back.”

You aren’t, I know, because I asked a tough question,” I said.

We went back and forth several more time and I said, “Okay, we disagree.”

“We do, and I get to not invite you. That’s the great part,” Mark said.

“Right. You don’t want to invite me and that’s fine, because I’m too tough on the women.”

Then Mark brought up Andrew Yang and how well he’s doing. I question his idea of giving $1000 to everyone.

As time is running out I thank him for appearing on the show and point out that we see things quite differently but that’s good for viewers.

 Mark says, “Well, thanks for having me back — and you can ban me from your show.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” I say. “I mean, you do it to me, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna do it to you.”

Dearth of Babies

There are jobs for anyone who wants to work here in Maine but nearly every small contractor and small business person I hear from tells me they cannot find enough help. It’s true in western Maine and in the Portland area as well. South Portland’s famous Scratch Bakery recently opened a branch facility in a converted gas station down the street from our South Portland home. Called "The Toast Bar," it was packed with customers. Then, suddenly, it closed.

Why? The Portland Press Herald reported last month that the new bakery couldn’t get enough people to work there. Further out in Cape Elizabeth, a recently-built restaurant called the Bird Dog Roadhouse shut its doors for the same reason. My wife and I drove by and noticed the empty parking lot as well as a sign on the door saying:

Due to an acute ongoing staffing shortage, we’ve reluctantly hit the “pause button” here at BDR. We are not closing. We have a beautiful restaurant, a wonderful location, and fantastic guests. Our business is sound. All of our employees and vendors are paid. We are simply pausing restaurant service operations until proper staffing levels can be achieved…

The economy is booming and wages are rising, so what’s going on? Lots of things; for one, people just aren’t having babies like they used to. Last Saturday, Forbes reported CDC data showing fertility rates in the USA at a record low for 2018. Just to keep the population stable, each woman must have 2.1 children in her lifetime. In the US, however, that rate has declined to just over 1.7 and is still going down. It’s the lowest since the 1970s when Roe V Wade was enacted and abortion skyrocketed. Their headline read: “Another Record Low: Will The U.S. Fertility Rate’s Collapse Ever End?”

Not unless and until marriage rates increase, according to economist and researcher Lyman Stone. His 2018 research study called: “No Ring, No Baby: How Marriage Trends Impact Fertility” makes a solid case that married women of child-bearing age have by far the most children, but fewer and fewer young women are getting married. He cites several possible reasons including student loan debt, but also that women now are generally more educated than men, making it harder for them to find compatible mates.

The biggest factor, Stone hints, is: “Changing cultural norms and values about sex, family, and religion may have reduced the value of the marriage proposition and tightened the criteria for ‘eligibility’ for marriage.” Is he saying that young people today lack the values of their parents and grandparents? Not explicitly, but he hints strongly at it. Unless you live in a cloistered religious community and never watch television, you'll see the evidence. I’ve written several times on this subject (a sampling here) and I’m not hopeful that the trend will reverse anytime soon.

If I’m right, it would seem that the only way to avoid economic decline would be to increase immigration. It has been increasing, but most of the unskilled, nearly-illiterate, illegal variety, or of “asylum-seeking” Africans, most non-English-speaking, coming over our southern border. Unable to support themselves, they tend to be more of an economic drain than a boost. If we simply returned to pre-1965 immigration policies that required immigrants to be sponsored and ineligible for social services, and then we eliminated chain migration for relatives who were not self-supporting, our country would be much better served.

As it stands now, every 2020 Democrat running for president is pro-abortion. The last pro-life Democrat candidate was Jimmy Carter in 1976. For more than forty years now, preserving Roe V Wade seems to be the most important issue for the Democrat party. Since the Roe V Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, there have been more than a million abortions every year in the United States. That’s about 50 million Americans who were never born. If they had been allowed to live they would have had at least another 50 million children of their own. Even if Roe V Wade were repealed by Trump-appointed judges, the legality of abortion would simply revert back to the states and not be likely to decline very much.

Although most would deny it, open borders is now the Democrat’s second most important issue. Every 2020 Democrat presidential candidate claims getting rid of President Trump is their biggest goal, but then what have Trump’s priorities been? Appointing conservative (pro-life) judges and stopping illegal immigration are highest on his agenda. That’s what got him elected and if present trends continue, those issues may well propel him into another term.

The Politics of Racism

Has Democrat identity politics so saturated our culture that we must all think our race the primary determinant of who we are? It sure seems that way when listening to what passes for political discourse these days.

It’s been a long time — so long I cannot remember the last time it bothered me when someone called me a racist. It did sting the first few times and it put me on the defensive. I felt compelled to refute the charge, but I don’t anymore. The accusations are most often in anonymous comments on my web site, but also in signed letters to the editor in newspapers carrying my column.

When on my “Left & Right” TV show, one leftist opponent habitually calls Republican policies or individuals racist, I ask for specific evidence. His answers indicate he doesn’t know what racism actually is. Dictionary.com defines it as:

a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.

Early charges of racism against me came after I wrote columns arguing against Affirmation Action policies enforced by the federal government. According to HG.org Legal Resources:

The purpose of affirmative action is to promote social equality through the preferential treatment of socioeconomically disadvantaged people.

My point was that in order to grant preferential treatment to historically disadvantaged groups like blacks and women in hiring, college admissions, and granting of government contracts, other groups like white men must necessarily be passed over. That, of course, requires bona fide racial and sexual discrimination.

There can be no argument that so-called “affirmation action” discriminates against white men. College admission policies discriminate against Asian men and women as well as whites as evidenced in recent lawsuits against Harvard University by Asian students who have been denied admission on the basis of race. Evidence indicates other Ivy League colleges do the same.

A 2015 LA Times article reported on a Princeton study using SAT scores to measure advantages and disadvantages of applicants according to their race. It was summed up by a college admission specialist named Ann Lee who said: 

African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 [SAT] points. Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points. Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.

It’s the ultimate irony that Asians and whites who argue against such racially discriminatory policies are the ones accused of racism. Who is making these racist accusations? New York Times columnist David Brooks last week claimed that for the past twenty years: “

…white educated Democrats have moved left is true, but it’s not the essential truth. The bigger truth is that this segment is now more likely to see politics through a racial lens. Racial equity has become the prism through which many in this group see a range of other issues.

While I find myself agreeing with Brooks less and less lately, I’m with him on much of what he says in this column. Charges of “racism” hurled against me for more than twenty-five years have nearly always come from educated white liberals. Though many are still impressed by them, I’ve learned that college degrees do not prove intelligence, and I believe educated liberals yell “racism” when they run out of logical arguments. Another driving force behind accusations of racism is “white guilt,” especially as described by Shelby Steele in his 2006 book by that name. Educated white liberals are terrified that anyone may think them racist, so they bend over backward to forestall any such possibility.

As Brooks put it last week: 

“…if you’re a rich white child of privilege you have to go to extraordinary lengths to prove you’re one of the good children of privilege and not one of the bad ones. In this take, white progressives don noble clothing to make themselves feel good…

Are educated white liberals signaling their virtue when calling the rest of us racist? It was less than three years ago that candidate Hillary Clinton labeled half of Trump supporters racist. Compared to today’s far-left Democrat candidates she was a moderate. It’s Tuesday as I write this and I expect charges of racism against the president and his supporters to dominate tonight’s Democrat debate in Detroit.

Our Supreme Court recently forbade the 2020 US Census to ask people if they’re citizens of the United States but has no problem with questions about race — for which there are over a dozen possible categories. If even the United States government is now officially more concerned about people’s race than their citizenship, what kind of country have we become?