Belling Chews Out Marquette Over Threat to Incoming Freshman Conservative

Warrior Blogger on Belling: Angela Davis, Campus Repression

Hosted by Matt Kittle, we discuss our lawsuit, Marquette’s reception of communist and party to a murder plot Angela Davis, and the broader issue of free speech on campus.

A Libertarian Evaluates Trump

From the libertarian Reason Magazine:

Well, for starters, allowing liberals to determine my level of anxiety — which would be full-blown, round-the-clock histrionics — over what’s nothing more than another election would be foolish. Until it’s not. The era of Trump hasn’t even started yet, and the entire establishment keeps using the term “era of Trump” as if things have actually changed.

They haven’t. If you’re genuinely interesting in being an effective critic of the next president, acting like Adolf Hitler is pounding at your doorstep every time Trump tweets something might not be the most effective plan in the long run.

Not to mention, the left has been such an astonishing hypocrite on so many issues related to Trump that it’s a bit difficult to move forward without pointing it out. Joining activists who’ve spent years attacking the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Amendments— and now the Electoral College — in a newfound veneration of the Emoluments Clause is a bit much. Of course, Trump should be held accountable for his potential conflicts of interest, and one hopes conservatives who value good government will stand up when tangible evidence emerges that they exist. But the critics on the left aren’t serious about the Constitution. They’re serious about the Democratic Party.

Who can take journalists seriously — who’ve never once uttered a word of concern over the Democratic Party’s crusade to empower government to ban political speech by overturning Citizens United — when they lose it over a tweet about flag-burning? If it were up to them over the past eight years, Trump would now be imbued with far more power to achieve the things they fear — unilaterally. There was more angst over the president-elect ditching a reporting pool to have a steak than there was over any of President Obama’s numerous executive abuses. So when you hear people say democracy needs journalism “now more than ever,” remember that they’re admitting they weren’t doing their job yesterday. We also needed journalism more than ever back then.

Those who kept telling us that Hillary Clinton’s corrupt foundation and blatant favor-trading with the world’s most illiberal regimes were merely a conspiracy theory now act as if the republic will crumble if Trump’s hotel hosts the same Bahraini princes that were buying access in the Obama administration. The same people who told us Clinton’s emails were “bullshit” and a silly distraction are now horrified that former Gen. David Petraeus — who, like Clinton, shouldn’t be in any Cabinet, but who, unlike Clinton, actually paid a price for his mishandling of classified information — is under consideration for a position in the new administration.

Moreover, Trump hasn’t really done anything out of the ordinary — not yet.

What’s really upset Democrats, it seems to me, is that traditional conservative policy proposals — the sorts of thing Republicans have campaigned on for years, and the policies that have helped them win over 1,000 local seats and governorships and two wave elections — will probably be moving forward. The overwrought rhetoric used to describe the overturning of Obamacare or the reforming of entitlements — “gutting,” “privatizing” etc. — would be precisely the same if we had President-elect John Kasich.

Trump’s Cabinet nominees are the kind of run-of-the-mill selections any Republican would pick. You’ll remember that last week America was supposed to freak out about the chaos and sluggishness of the transition process. Then it was supposed to freak out about the potential white-maleness of the Cabinet. Well, his Cabinet members Nikki Haley, Elaine Chao, Seema Verma and Betsy DeVos are going to be just as extreme to the left as an actual extremist.

Trump, in other words, has been a much better President Elect than he was a candidate — a few crazy tweets to the contrary.

Harsanyi (the author of the piece) goes on to criticize Trump on sound libertarian grounds: his crony bailout of Carrier Corporation and his massive infrastructure proposal. But Harsanyi adds that these don’t signal a new era of American politics. They are a very traditional, if deplorable, way of doing things.

Trumps actions vindicate those, like local talk show host Mark Belling, who decided to suck it up and support Trump as the least bad of two bad choices. As for the never Trump people, like talk show host Charlie Sykes, they are slightly embarrassing — but only slightly, since Trump was a truly terrible candidate.

American democracy will survive, and its prospects are a lot better than they seemed a mere month ago.

Mark Belling: Marquette’s War on Catholicism

A commentary on some recent events at Marquette, interesting in that Belling blames (in addition to the usual suspects in the administration) (1.) the Trustees, and (2.) alumni who have accepted the transformation of the institution into a conventional politically correct place.

Leftist Blogger Laments that Milwaukee Conservative Voices are “Unfettered”

Via Dad29:

It seems local leftist blogger Michael J. Mathias laments the fact that local conservative pundits are allowed -- and this is an outrage -- free speech. He begins by calling Bill Kristol “bloodthirsty,” and then turns to local people:

Locally, we have our own bellicose nutcases, and they are allowed to work, pretty much, unfettered.

That’s right. He thinks it’s an outrage that local conservatives get to freely express themselves.

Just what sort of “fetters” would he impose on them? He doesn’t say, but the history of the leftist blogophere in Wisconsin makes it clear.

If people like Mathias could, they would get them fired, and indeed they were proud in having a role in getting Jessica McBride fired from WTMJ.

They tried to get Charlie Sykes’ blog censored over a parody of the smug “Coexist” bumper sticker.

They will try to use campaign finance laws to shut up conservatives.

Failing that, they want to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine to force conservatives off the air.

If none of this works, in a classic instance of the frustration/aggression syndrome they will attack conservative bloggers and talk radio people. And they will especially attack women conservatives in the most misogynist terms.

We are old enough to remember what liberals were like before “progressive” politics took a huge turn in the 60s. Before the late 60s, liberals prided themselves in being tolerant. In their hearts of hearts, they were no more tolerant than other people, but the preached tolerance, and they -- quite fortunately -- felt bound by their own rhetoric.

Since then, liberals and leftists have more and more come to embrace a series of rationales for shutting people up. They more and more have felt free to express raw hatred of those who disagree with them. Again, it’s the frustration/aggression syndrome. As young people in the 60s or early 70s, they felt that history was moving their way. But it hasn’t, leaving them bitter and frustrated.

Great Mark Belling Rant: Racial Disparity in Wisconsin’s Prisons

Last Wednesday, local radio host Mark Belling made reference to a post on this blog about the sham “hearing” of the Commission on Reducing Racial Disparities in the Wisconsin Justice System.

He then quickly took off on a rant of his own.

We actually like a good Belling rant better than we like Belling cool and analytical.

And this is a good rant.