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James Flanagan

France launches 'tough' ground offensive against Mali's Islamist rebels - World News - 0 views

  • French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in a crucial action to dislodge al-Qaida-linked fighters who have resisted six days of airstrikes.
  • France called for international support against Islamist insurgents it says are a threat to Africa and the West
  • revenge for France's dramatic intervention, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility for a raid on a gas field in Algeria in a number of foreign workers were believed to have been kidnapped.
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  • French armored vehicles moved into position on Tuesday at the town of Niono, 190 miles from the capital Bamako
  • Guillaud said French military strikes were being hampered because militants were using the civilian population as a shield.
katieb0305

Mosul offensive: ISIS militants fleeing to Syria - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Hundreds of ISIS fighters are fleeing Mosul in Iraq and crossing into neighboring Syria as coalition forces close in on the city, a powerful tribal leader in the region says.
  • dozens of ISIS militants and their families were fleeing the city each day, and crossing into Syria at Ba'aaj, an ISIS-controlled crossing point south of Sinjar.
  • 78 towns liberated, 772 ISIS fighters killed in first week of battle, says operations center
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  • ISIS executed about 40 people celebrating the "liberation" of their villages by Iraqi forces, a Mosul official said
  • Better than expected gains
  • The offensive is remarkable for both its speed and the level of cooperation that this disparate group is showing in the face of its common enemy
  • The coalition force, which vastly exceeds ISIS' numbers, is closing in on the beleaguered city, still home to an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 civilians.
  • ISIS has been in control of Mosul for two years, giving its fighters plenty of time to fortify defenses, and the militants have time and time again proved themselves adept at bloody, urban warfare.
  • ISIS executed about 40 people who were celebrating the apparent liberation of their villages by Iraqi forces, a Mosul City Council official said Sunday, citing local sources.
zachcutler

Defusing ISIS bombs with bare hands and little else - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Defusing ISIS bombs with bare hands and little else
  • Along a dusty village track just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mosul, a Peshmerga pick up truck leads us to a small house. We drive slowly, and in single file. There are hidden dangers all around.
  • It is a sobering show and tell -- and it isn't over yet. He brings us a suicide belt worn by an ISIS fighter who was killed before he could detonate it. Captain Sadk defused this deadly explosive too -- and an even bigger one he produces from the back of the pick up.
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  • All in a day's work for Kurdish teams led by men like Captain Sadk. Clearly, it's a dangerous job, but it has been particularly deadly for the Kurds, who have precious little in the way of high-tech equipment or training. For most here it's a learn-on-the-job affair, involving old metal detectors, wire clippers and bare hands. No body armor for many -- let alone bomb disposal suits. This is not "The Hurt Locker" movie.
  • As Kurdish and Iraqi forces edge ever closer to Mosul, ISIS fighters fall back. But in their absence, they leave behind their ability to kill and maim.
  • "They put them on the road, in the houses," he says. "We liberate a village and they are everywhere -- people come back to their homes, open a door or even a refrigerator and it blows up."
  • On the road back to Erbil, we see dozens of small trucks laden with personal effects -- residents of now liberated villages who returned briefly to grab whatever they could before leaving again. They're not ready to return, and for good reason.
  • Just how many IEDs and booby-traps are along the roads and in the villages around Mosul is impossible to tell. Brigadier General Mzuri tells us his men have spent three months trying to clear one village and still aren't finished.Clearing this area of rigged explosives will take longer -- much longer -- than the battle for Mosul itself.
Javier E

House G.O.P. Sets New Offensive on Obama Goals - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • In the Senate, Republicans are circulating a letter to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, warning they will not approve any spending measure to keep the government operating after Sept. 30 if it devotes a penny to put in place Mr. Obama’s health care law. Signers so far include the No. 2 and No. 3 Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of South Dakota, as well as one of the party’s rising stars, Marco Rubio of Florida.
  • Taken together, efforts in both chambers amount to some of the most serious cuts to domestic spending since the Republicans in 1995 tried to shutter the departments of Energy, Education and Commerce — and ended up shutting the government down for 28 days
  • Republicans are open about their intentions to target the president’s priorities. The House transportation and housing bill for fiscal 2014 cuts from $3.3 billion to $1.7 billion the financing for Community Development Block Grants, which go mainly to large cities and urban counties for housing and social programs, largely for the poor. That level is below the number secured by President Gerald R. Ford when he created the program — without adjusting for inflation.
cjlee29

Russian Cruise Missiles Help Syrians Go on the Offensive - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Russia has focused its earliest operations on the insurgent coalition known as the Army of Conquest, or Jaish al-Fatah, rather than on the Islamic State, according to the official from the pro-government alliance
  • Wednesday was the first time since the spring that the government’s forces had moved “from defense to offense,” the official said.
  • While Russian officials said the missiles launched from the Caspian Sea had targeted the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, Western officials said the great majority of the attacks had been directed against rebel groups fighting Mr. Assad. There were no reports of large explosions in Islamic State-held areas to the east, making it less likely that the cruise missiles had hit the group’s strongholds.
jongardner04

Ukraine, Russia trade barbs amid signs of new offensive - 0 views

  • Ukraine and Russia exchanged new accusations Thursday amid signs a large-scale offensive by separatists was mounting in eastern Ukraine.
Javier E

Can Wikileaks Actually Make Americans Care About Iraq Again? | The New Republic - 0 views

  • Assange’s great offense is not to unearth deep dark secrets. The documents themselves have produced remarkably few genuine revelations. Rather his offense is that he is subverting the careful effort, already well-advanced, to construct a neat and satisfying narrative of the Iraq war, thereby enabling Americans to consign the entire episode definitively into the past.
  • What Americans set up and bow down before is a particular image of America itself. Central to that image is a belief in our own innocence and singularity—our chosenness. Sacrifices endured in the course of sustaining that image—sacrifices seldom touching families living in or near 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, needless to say—are said to represent the cost of Freedom and to advance the cause of Freedom. And if mistakes occur along the way, well, that too forms part of Freedom’s cost.
  • With regard to Iraq, there’s a great accounting yet to be done. If Americans had a lick of sense, they would demand that accounting. Forgiveness and forgetting can wait.
Javier E

The Right to Not Be Offended - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine - 0 views

  • Treating people with respect is a fine goal, but Collini notices that respect tends to be shown with special deference to so-called “out groups.” Claims of offense that would otherwise be ignored are instead given credence and even deference. Collini also correctly identifies the people who tend to fall into this trap. Very few “progressive” forces, for example, would have shown any “understanding” of hurt Christian feelings if Jesus had been mocked in a Danish newspaper.
  • Collini’s central passage: “Where arguments are concerned—that is, matters that are pursued by means of reasons and evidence—the most important identity we can acknowledge in another person is the identity of being an intelligent reflective human being.”
  • “This does not mean assuming that people are entirely—or even primarily—rational, and it does not mean that people are, in practice, always and only persuaded by reasons and evidence. It means treating other people as we wish to be treated ourselves in this matter—namely, as potentially capable of understanding the grounds for any action or statement that concerns us. But to so treat them means that, where reason and evidence are concerned, they cannot be thought of as primarily defined by being members of the ‘Muslim community or ‘Black community’ or ‘gay community’...
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  • if one decides to criticize a culture or a tradition or a work of art, doing so is not an act of Western arrogance. Criticism is not Western or Eastern or Christian or Jewish, and those facing criticism—and those societies and cultures facing criticism—should respond in a spirit of openness about truth. To withhold criticism from certain communities or religions is, in Collini’s word, a form of condescension towards them. It denies these groups the ability to engage in constructive dialogue, and to fortify their own values. In the final analysis, everyone loses.
dpittenger

Obama to Senate Dems: 'I'm going to play offense' - Manu Raju - POLITICO - 0 views

  • The president said he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation, including an Iran sanctions package.
  • Obama vowed to defend his agenda against Republicans in Congress, promised to stand firm against GOP efforts to dismantle his agenda and called on his Democratic colleagues to help sustain his expected vetoes.
  • At the meeting, Obama, who has rarely used his veto pen in his six years in office, signaled he would do so repeatedly, including on GOP-sponsored legislation to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
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  • “We in the administration believe that, at this time, increasing sanctions would dramatically undermine our efforts to reach this shared goal” of reducing Iran’s nuclear weapon capacity, said Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
Javier E

The Foolish, Historically Illiterate, Incredible Response to Obama's Prayer Breakfast S... - 0 views

  • Inveighing against the barbarism of ISIS, the president pointed out that it would be foolish to blame Islam, at large, for its atrocities. To make this point he noted that using religion to brutalize other people is neither a Muslim invention nor, in America, a foreign one: Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.
  • The "all too often" could just as well be "almost always." There were a fair number of pretexts given for slavery and Jim Crow, but Christianity provided the moral justification
  • Stephens went on to argue that the "Christianization of the barbarous tribes of Africa" could only be accomplished through enslavement. And enslavement was not made possible through Robert's Rules of Order, but through a 250-year reign of mass torture, industrialized murder, and normalized rape—tactics which ISIS would find familiar. Its moral justification was not "because I said so," it was "Providence," "the curse against Canaan," "the Creator," "and Christianization." In just five years, 750,000 Americans died because of this peculiar mission of "Christianization." Many more died before, and many more died after. In his "Segregation Now" speech, George Wallace invokes God 27 times and calls the federal government opposing him "a system that is the very opposite of Christ."
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  • Christianity did not "cause" slavery, anymore than Christianity "caused" the civil-rights movement. The interest in power is almost always accompanied by the need to sanctify that power. That is what the Muslims terrorists in ISIS are seeking to do today, and that is what Christian enslavers and Christian terrorists did for the lion's share of American history.
  • That this relatively mild, and correct, point cannot be made without the comments being dubbed, "the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime,” by a former Virginia governor gives you some sense of the limited tolerance for any honest conversation around racism in our politics.
  • related to that is the need to infantilize and deify our history. Pointing out that Americans have done, on their own soil, in the name of their own God, something similar to what ISIS is doing now does not make ISIS any less barbaric, or any more correct.
Grace Gannon

Rieder: Deciding to publish an image of the prophet - 0 views

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    Charlie Hebdo, whose stock in trade is irreverence and whose audience knows that, is going to publish lots of things that more mainstream publications with diverse audiences will avoid. While it's easy to make light of or ridicule that sensitivity, it's actually a positive thing. But there are times when sheer news value trumps the offensive nature of content. That Charlie Hebdo cover was one off them.
Javier E

Probe of U.S.-funded news network that called George Soros a 'Jew of flexible morals' f... - 0 views

  • For nearly three decades, Martí has broadcast news and other programs promoting U.S. interests to audiences in communist Cuba, seeking to circumvent state-controlled media. Martí spent nearly $29 million in 2017 on its mission to provide “accurate, balanced and complete information” to the island’s residents.
  • on Oct. 26, a U.S. researcher blogged about a nearly 15-minute “Special Report” on Soros that he spotted on Martí. The May report made sweeping and unfounded claims, including that Soros was secretly funding violent leftist uprisings to topple governments from Romania to Colombia. The report also falsely described Soros as “the architect of the financial collapse of 2008.”
  • USAGM chief executive John F. Lansing, a former head of Scripps Networks, faulted the report’s “weak sourcing” and suggested that Judicial Watch may have been the only source.
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  • The video report, which aired in several installments, credited the U.S. conservative group Judicial Watch with “keeping an eye” on Soros.
  • Judicial Watch also appears to have served as the foundation for the earlier Martí report on Soros, which was unknown to Soros’s organization until The Post shared a link to the story last week. The existence of the Martí article was first reported in El Nuevo Herald, a sister publication of the Miami Herald.
  • Silber, the spokeswoman for Soros’s organization, said that the apology ­USAGM offered for the one, previously known broadcast is no longer sufficient.
  • “We are deeply concerned to learn about additional content with the same nefarious, anti-Semitic undertones. USAGM needs to be much more forthcoming and Congress needs to conduct more vigorous oversight. In the end we want to know how this content got made, who made it, and who’s been held accountable so that it will not happen again.”
malonema1

US intel chiefs unanimous that Russia is targeting 2018 elections - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • (CNN)Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said Tuesday "there should be no doubt" that Russia sees the 2018 US elections as a target. Coats and the other top national security officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee that they still view Moscow as a threat to the 2018 elections, a stance that appears at odds with President Donald Trump's repeated dismissals of Russian election meddling.
  • Warner questioned Coats and the other officials testifying — CIA Director Mike Pompeo, FBI Director Chris Wray, NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Director Robert Cardillo — about how the government was addressing the threat to both the US election systems and through social media. He asked all six of the US officials testifying to reaffirm the intelligence community's findings last year that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and that the Kremlin will continue to intervene in future elections. All said yes.
  • He also raised the prospect that the US could respond to election meddling with offensive cybercapabilities. "We do have some capability offensively to raise the cost for those who would dare challenge the United States' elections," Pompeo said.
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  • "With all due respect to my friend from Virginia, I think the American people are ready for this," Risch said. "The American people are smart people, they realize there are people attempting to manipulate them, both domestically and foreign. And I agree with everyone on the panel this is going to go on. This is the way the Russians have done business, this is no surprise to us."
Javier E

The Avalon Project : Hossbach Memorandum - 0 views

  • The question for Germany ran: where could she achieve the greatest gain at the lowest cost.
  • German policy had to reckon with two hate-inspired antagonists, Britain and France, to whom a German colossus in the center of Europe was a thorn in the flesh
  • Germany's problem could only be solved by means of force and this was never without attendant risk.
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  • If one accepts as the basis of the following exposition the resort to force with its attendant risks, then there remain still to be answered the questions "when" and "how." In this matter there were three cases [Falle] to be dealt with:
  • Case 1: Period 1943-1945. After this date only a change for the worse, from our point of view, could be expected.
  • Our relative strength would decrease in relation to the rearmament which would by then have been carried out by the rest of the world. If we did not act by 1943-45' any year could, in consequence of a lack of reserves, produce the food crisis, to cope with which the necessary foreign exchange was not available, and this must be regarded as a "waning point of the regime." Besides, the world was expecting our attack and was increasing its counter-measures from year to year. It was while the rest of the world was still preparing its defenses [sich abriegele] that we were obliged to take the offensive.
  • The necessity for action before 1943-45 would arise in cases 2 and 3.
  • Case 2: If internal strife in France should develop into such a domestic crisis as to absorb the French Army completely and render it incapable of use for war against Germany, then the time for action against the Czechs had come.
  • For the improvement of our politico-military position our first objective, in the event of our being embroiled in war, must be to overthrow Czechoslovakia and Austria simultaneously in order to remove the threat to our flank in any possible operation against the West.
  • Actually, the Fuehrer believed that almost certainly Britain, and probably France as well, had already tacitly written off the Czechs and were reconciled to the fact that this question could be cleared up in due course by Germany. Difficulties connected with the Empire, and the prospect of being once more entangled in a protracted European war, were decisive considerations for Britain against participation in a war against Germany. Britain's attitude would certainly not be without influence on that of France. An attack by France without British support, and with the prospect of the offensive being brought to a standstill on our western fortifications, was hardly probable.
  • The incorporation of these two States with Germany meant, from the politico-military point of view, a substantial advantage because it would mean shorter and better frontiers, the freeing of forces for other purposes, and the possibility of creating new units up to a level of about 12 divisions, that is, 1 new division per million inhabitants.
  • Italy was not expected to object to the elimination of the Czechs, but it was impossible at the moment to estimate what her attitude on the Austrian question would be; that depended essentially upon whether the Duce were still alive
  • The degree of surprise and the swiftness of our action were decisive factors for Poland's attitude. Poland -with Russia at her rear will have little inclination to engage in war against a victorious Germany.
  • In the light of past experience, the Fuehrer did not see any early end to the hostilities in Spain
  • from the German point of view; rather were we interested in a continuance of the war and in the keeping up of the tension in the Mediterranean.
  • As our interest lay more in the prolongation of the war in Spain, it must be the immediate aim of our policy to strengthen Italy's rear with a view to her remaining in the Balearics.
  • If Germany made use of this war to settle the Czech and Austrian questions, it was to be assumed that Britain -herself at war with Italy- would decide not to act against Germany. Without British support, a warlike action by France against Germany was not to be expected.
manhefnawi

The Spanish Blue Division | History Today - 0 views

  • ‘Russia is guilty,’ declared the Spanish Foreign Minister.
  • Only twelve volunteers remained. Hitler was impressed. He called the Spaniards ‘the only virile Latin race’
  • Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the U.S.S.R., had been launched with the hope of quick victory
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  • Francisco Franco Bahamonde, Caudillo and dictator of Spain, needed a general. Carefully balancing the two bulwarks of his regime - Falange and Army- he selected an old comrade from the Moroccan campaigns, General Agustin Munoz Grandes, then Commandant of the garrison opposite Gibraltar
  • He was again turning his eyes towards Gibraltar
  • Without Franco’s approval, he would find it difficult to cross their homeland in order to take Gibraltar
  • Guilty of our Civil War... of the murder of our brothers and sisters... The destruction of Communism is a necessary condition for the survival of a free and civilized Europe
  • As the German front swayed and the Führer sacked generals by the score, his admiration for the iron-willed Munoz Grandes grew
  • General Emilio Esteban Infantes reported to the Reich in June 1942, but Munoz Grandes was already planning to turn his glory into political capital at home. He sought and was granted an interview with Hitler
  • employ the Spaniards in a new offensive to storm the Russian barricades
  • Field Marshal von Manstein, with the Blue Division in his van, was preparing to smash through the Leningrad perimeter when, suddenly, the Red Army pre-empted his attack. By November, General Sir Bernard Montgomery had struck at El Alamein, the Allies had landed in North Africa, Stalingrad was encircled by the Russians, and von Manstein hurried south to the rescue. The Leningrad offensive was stillborn. In December, a disappointed Munoz Grandes headed home for a triumphal reception, while Esteban Infantes took over the Blue Division
  • he urgently needed the Blue Division at full strength to achieve his diplomatic goals
  • The Blue Division was a counter in the Caudillo’s game. If Hitler had won, Spain would have been an ally. As the Third Reich collapsed, the guripas were pulled home, and the franquista state acknowledged them only as anti-Communist volunteers, who had proved to the Führer that Spaniards would fight, even should he reach through their homeland to Gibraltar
manhefnawi

Peterborough and the Capture of Barcelona 1705 | History Today - 0 views

  • The Archduke, who was proclaimed King Charles III of Spain in Vienna and then again in London
  • Charles III despaired of persuading the Portuguese to take the offensive against the Duke of Berwick in Estremadura, while Britain was determined that Gibraltar should be secured as a naval base for her Mediterranean fleet rather than as an initial step towards conquering the rest of Spain.
  • Inspired by the brilliant success at Blenheim in the previous year, the Allies were thus encouraged to attempt to wrest the crown of Spain from Philip V
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  • The war in Spain, which began in 1705, continued until the end of 1710. By then the Bourbon forces had defeated the second Allied attempt to establish Charles III in Madrid.
  • Twice Philip V had to abandon his capital precipitately, and once Charles III actually entered Madrid in triumph
  • When Peterborough reached Lisbon, he concerted plans with Charles III and Prince George of Hesse, fresh from his heroic defence of Gibraltar.
  • Charles III and his German ministers seized this opportunity to leave Portugal where it seemed unlikely that anything would be achieved, since the Portuguese were remarkably reluctant to take the offensive against the Bourbon forces
  • The first landing on Bourbon territory took place at Altea, where the local population flocked to recognize the new King of Spain
  • Though many citizens were said to be favourably disposed towards the Austrian cause, the Governor, Velasco, remained loyal to Philip V
  • Certainly, the King and his ministers believed the Earl had deceived them as to his real intentions
  • Pressure from Charles III, Hesse and Shovell, seemed to have some effect, and a plan to re-embark for Italy was dropped. Instead, “my Lord Peterborough hath been at last disposed to offer to the King, for an expedient, the march to Tarragona, and from thence to extend our quarters to Tortosa, and even into Valencia; which the King willingly accepted, as the only hope left for him that might conduct him to the throne.
  • On September 11th, it had been unanimously decided to march to Tarragona, yet on the 13th a small Allied force attacked the citadel of Montjuich, a decision that was to result in the capture of Barcelona and almost placed Charles III on the throne of Spain
  • the Prince of Hesse went thither as a volunteer
  • Peterborough had another piece of luck when the Marquis de Risburg, on his way to Montjuich with 3,000 reinforcements from Barcelona, questioned Colonel Allan and the other prisoners who were being escorted from the citadel to the city
  • The surviving 300 defenders quickly surrendered and Colonel Southwell, with the consent of the King, was made Governor of Montjuich as a reward for his services in capturing it
  • There appeared no possibility of relief and Velasco feared the horrors of a sack and the hostility of the populace, who were disposed to recognize Charles III
  • The Allies were given an enthusiastic welcome by the citizens of Barcelona and, indeed, many of the garrison volunteered to serve under Charles III. On October 23rd, the Austrian claimant made his formal entry into the city and, amid great rejoicing, was proclaimed King of Spain. The submission of the rest of Catalonia, except Rosas in the far north, quickly followed and the leading cities of Gerona, Tarragona, Tortosa and Lerida were either seized by the Miquelets or spontaneously declared their support for the Austrian cause
  • Charles III wrote to Queen Anne praising the conduct of Peterborough, while the Earl declared his debt to all the members of the expedition.
  • His gallantry and audacity were to win Valencia for Charles III
zareefkhan

Gunman in Belgium May Have Been Radicalized in Prison, Officials Say - The New York Times - 0 views

  • One day after the assault in the eastern Belgian city of Liège, which further unnerved a country that was already on edge after two deadly attacks in Brussels in 2016, officials confirmed that they were investigating the case as possible terrorism, but cautioned that other factors were in play
  • “There are signs that allow us to speak of radicalization in prison,” Interior Minister Jan Jambon said about the assailant’s possible motives. “But it can also be because he had no prospects anymore in our society, as he also committed a murder the night before.”
  • Mr. Herman had been serving a continuous series of prison sentences for theft, assault and drug offenses since 2003.
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  • Mr. Herman may have come in contact with extremist inmates, investigators say, and converted to Islam, although no firm connections to a militant terrorist organization that might have helped or encouraged him have been established.
  • Belgian prisons are notoriously dilapidated and overcrowded, and in recent years some have become breeding grounds for extremism.Many of the terrorists who carried out violent attacks in Europe over the past three years had served short prison sentences for drug related offenses and other crimes, some violent. And it was often in prison that they began adopting extremist views.
  • In addition to the terrorism investigation, Koen Geens, the justice minister, said the authorities were looking into the decisions that led to Mr. Herman’s temporary release.
Javier E

Bill Maher on the Perils of Political Correctness - The New York Times - 1 views

  • The difference is that liberals protect people, and P.C. people protect feelings. They don’t do anything. They’re pointing at other people who are somehow falling short of their standards, which could have changed three weeks ago
  • when I was growing up, the most liberal thing you could do is not see color. Well, that’s wrong now. You see color, always, so you can register your white privilege. But I grew up in the Martin Luther King era: Judge by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. I still think that’s the best way to do it. Not see it.
  • If someone walks in the room, after a minute, I should not be thinking about color. And I am not. That’s how I have always been. I have actual black friends. I don’t think they want me to be always thinking: Black person. Black person.
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  • the Twitter-mob mentality has an effect on the rest of the world. Everyone fears the wrath of the Twitter mob and the social justice warriors and the P.C. police. Religions always talk about the one true religion. Now on the left we have the one true opinion. If you go against that, you do so at your peril. That’s why the air on the left is becoming stale. I railed for years against the Fox News bubble, and that is as strong as ever, but I didn’t think it would get this bad on the left.
  • You can still make whatever joke you want. The difference is that more people are calling you out if they find it offensive. That’s naïve. You can make the joke if you don’t mind giving up your career or being fired. Come on. The politically correct people are not concerned about social justice. They care about putting scalps on the wall.
  • Liam Neeson. Remember that?44 While promoting a film early this year, Neeson said he had a racist revenge plan as a younger man after a close friend was raped by a black man. He later apologized. Are we at this place where we can’t admit that we’ve ever had bad thoughts and gotten over them and become a better person? You can’t judge today by yesterday. We evolve.
  • We live in an era where I don’t think people’s main focus is the truth and/or sussing out something valuable or teachable. We live in a time in which people are more concerned with scalps and clicks.
  • Professors are afraid to speak, because what they say, even if it’s science, might go against the politically correct notion. This is pernicious. I’m sorry, but I have to lay that at the doorstep of the far left and the younger generation. It’s not the worst thing in the world to hear something you find somewhat offensive. You can turn the channel. Look at something else. Go to a puppet show; you’ll never be offended.
  • Almost all religions, by their nature, are intolerant and supremacist. At any time in history one religion will be the most fundamentalist. At this moment I think it’s pretty evident that religion is Islam. Of course, intolerance exists everywhere, but the places where, let’s say, human rights workers have their work cut out for them the most are probably traditional Islamic societies. To conflate thinking that with Islamophobia is a facile and unconvincing trick.
  • You have to find a way to begin with what you share and then explore why you differ so vehemently on other issues, and that’s what we seem to have lost the ability to do. I don’t see a lot of desire for people to talk to each other, to accept that, “O.K., this person doesn’t agree with me on a lot of stuff, but I don’t have to think he’s a monster.” We want to beat our chests and vanquish the other side. Compromise seems like a dead concept.
  • During the second year of “Politically Incorrect” we had a contest: “Politically incorrect or just stupid?” We were trying to make the point that saying something that’s contrary is not necessarily politically incorrect. It’s sometimes just stupid. I define political correctness as the elevation of sensitivity over truth. That’s my beef with it. We’re
  • Young people should be the free ones pushing the boundaries and not the ones inhibiting us. “Well, I’m not a woman, so I could not possibly know that experience.” “I’m not a person of color, so I can’t speak about that.
  • It’s ridiculous to label criticism of a religion as a phobia of a religion. I’m going to criticize any person or group that violates liberal principles, and so should you.
  • what’s the most disappointing thing about your own generation? Aside from ruining the world environmentally. We’ve left a dark, stinking husk of a planet, haven’t we? My generation started this mess. The Baby Boomers were the first “Me” generation. They were the first spoiled kids. There definitely was more discipline, but there was also more indulgence, and that seemed to continue on and on. So I think we have to look in the mirror as to when that trend started
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