Sunday, August 21, 2016

Ole Miss Dumps 'Dixie' From Football Games

The university keeps bowing before the boot of political correctness.
Song Dixie


The University of Mississippi has officially dumped “Dixie” so they be more inclusive.
I fear old times there will soon be forgotten, folks.
The athletic department released a statement Friday announcing that the beloved Southern song will no longer be played at home football games ending yet another long-held tradition.
Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for Conservatives! 
"The newly expanded and renovated Vaught-Hemingway Stadium will further highlight our best traditions and create new ones that give the Ole Miss Rebels the best home field advantage in college football," the statement reads.
“Dixie” was first played by the Ole Miss band around 1948, Mississippi Today reports.
"Because the Pride of the South is such a large part of our overall experience and tradition, the Athletics Department asked them to create a new and modern pregame show that does not include Dixie and is more inclusive for all fans, the statement went on to read.”
More inclusive, eh?
Click here to listen to Todd on his podcast
Perhaps they could consult with Beyonce? I’m certain the university will find some inspiration from her 2016 Super Bowl Halftime performance.
It’s only a matter of time before Ole Miss replaces fried catfish and sweet tea with fermented soy sandwiches and beverages made from lawn clippings — all for the sake of inclusivity.
Allen Coon, a student government leader, was thrilled with the university’s decision.
"It's an important step forward for our university as we attempt to reconcile and understand our relationship with our Old South past," Coon told the Commercial Appeal. "Ending the use of 'Dixie' promotes inclusivity and makes room for traditions that all UM students can connect with."
In its quest to be politically correct, I wonder if Ole Miss will also ban various genres of music that include offensive lyrics about women?
And what about modern-day music that employs the use of a certain racial epithet? Would Ole Miss consider rap and hip-hop taboo, too?
It’s doubtful.
Ole Miss has been shedding its Southern heritage for quite some time now. Confederate flags have been effectively banned since 1997, reports Mississippi Today. Last year, they banned the Mississippi State flag.
Colonel Rebel, the school’s mascot, was sidelined from games in 2003 because critics said he looked too much like a white plantation owner.  He was replaced by a black bear.
From the pages of the Daily Journal we learned that Confederate Drive was renamed along with handheld Confederate flags. And in 2009 they told the band to stop playing “From Dixie With Love,” in part because fans were yelling “The South will rise again” during the song.
A reader of the Oxford Eagle summed up the sentiment of many Mississippians.
“Ole Miss is despicable for doing this,” the gentleman wrote. “The university keeps bowing before the boot of political correctness.
It would be foolish to think the progressive academic elites have concluded their quest to eradicate Southern culture and traditions.
It ain’t over, folks.
It won’t be long before someone mounts a campaign to remove the word “Rebel” from the school’s athletic teams.
The only question is whether that happens before or after one of those perpetually offended, liberal snowflakes files a federal lawsuit demanding the university change its name.”
I can already imagine the headlines:
  • “Students Say ‘Ole Miss’ Causes Microaggressions”
  • “Safe Spaces Overrun by Victims of ‘Ole Miss’ White Privilege”
  • “President Clinton Signs Executive Order Renaming ‘Ole Miss’ the University of Obama”
Come to think of it, that last headline may not be all that farfetched.
Meanwhile, progressive liberals continue to bulldoze across the Southern states burning, torching and tearing down every vestige and cultural tradition of the Deep South much like General Sherman did during the Civil War.
Look away Dixieland — just look away.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich Cartoons

This guy is a Republican?

This guy is a Republican?

This guy is a Republican?

This guy is a Republican?

Ohio's Republican governor done talking about Trump


Ohio's Republican governor says he has nothing further to say about his party's presidential nominee.
Gov. John Kasich (KAY'-sik) has declined to endorse Donald Trump, and pointedly didn't participate in Republican National Convention proceedings in Cleveland where Trump was officially nominated after topping Kasich and the rest of the GOP field.
Kasich told the Dayton Daily News on Thursday he has said all he needs to about Trump. Kasich says his actions speaker louder than words.
He was campaigning for Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who is battling for re-election against former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.
Kasich plans to also campaign for Senate and House candidates in several other states including Florida, Texas and Colorado.
Strickland again praised Kasich for refusing to endorse Trump, in contrast to Portman who has.

Louisiana newspaper say 'glad' Obama has now decided to visit flood damage, after vacation is over

A Day Late and a Dollar Short?
The editor of the major Louisiana newspaper that urged President Obama to cut short his summer vacation to see the devastating flooding that has damaged roughly 40,000 home said Friday he’s pleased that the president will visit the state.
“Our feeling is that this is a crisis that calls for presidential leadership, and we're glad to see the president is coming,” Advocate Editor Peter Kovacs told Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” “The magnitude of the devastation is something you really have to come here to see.”
An editorial in the newspaper, the largest in Louisiana, on Thursday asked that Obama visit the state before his vacation ends Sunday in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., saying the president should “back his bags now” and leave the “playground for the posh and well connected.”
However, Obama is scheduled to visit Louisiana on Tuesday, the White House said Friday.
Earlier that day, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and running-mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence toured the flood damage, handed out supplies and vowed to help “rebuild.”
“We are not here to say we think the president should have come,” Kovacs also told Fox News. “We are glad he is coming. We are not here to say who got here first. We need all these leaders here.”
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
Roughly 70,000 people have reportedly registered for individual assistance, and roughly 9,000 have filed flood insurance claims in Baton Rouge and other parts of Louisiana, for which Obama has declared a state of emergency.
Thirteen people have died as a result of the flooding.
While, the federal response has largely received high marks, Kovacs also argued that the federal government “in many ways” told residents in the impacted areas previously that they didn’t need to buy flood insurance and is now telling them that they are not going to be helped because they didn't have flood insurance.
Advocate Editor Peter Kovacs

Facing Trump, Democrats could have their own 1994 landslide, but numbers appear against them


The year 1994 was a pivotal, landslide year for Republicans.
The GOP seized control of the Senate from Democrats for the first time in eight years. But the big story was the historic win by Republicans in the House. Republicans netted a staggering 54 seats, flipping the House to their control for the first time since 1952.
Several things worked in the GOP’s favor.
Republicans successfully portrayed President Bill Clinton as a “tax and spend” liberal and propounded the so-called “Contract with America” as their electoral promise.
They excoriated the Clinton over the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas and his effort (alongside that of spouse Hillary Clinton) to move health care reform legislation through Congress. Health care reform died miserably, never even hitting the floor.
In retrospect, some Republicans now may take the Clinton proposal over ObamaCare, which didn’t develop until 16 years down the road. But that’s another story.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
Combine GOP efforts to tarnish Clinton’s record with the impacts of redistricting from the 1990 census and congressional Democrats were cooked.
One would think that sophisticated political analysts would be prescient enough to see such a landslide months in advance. However, the most compelling narrative of the 1994 midterm elections was that virtually nobody was able to detect the possibility of one of the most lopsided shellackings in American history until just a few weeks ahead of time.
This brings us to this year’s House and Senate contests and what could happen down ballot. There are questions about what November could mean for congressional Republicans if GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump continues to perform as poorly as he is now and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, ignites the Electoral College scoreboard.
We have known since before this election cycle started that retention of the Senate for Republicans was a jump-ball proposition at best.
However, the House is another story. It has always been a challenge for Democrats to cobble together an electoral strategy that bounces the GOP from the majority and pockets them 30 seats.
Democrats salivated at the possibility of Republicans nominating a candidate like Trump or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, thinking either would be so toxic that it could help them in congressional races.
Well, Democrats got their wish. Even so, Trump’s nomination doesn’t predict much of anything for House contests this fall.
Yet.
Yes, it’s August. Early voting begins in many states in about four weeks. So far, there’s little reason to think the House is in jeopardy for Republicans. And if there is going to be a hint that the House could flip -- like 1994 -- such indiciators are most likely going to emerge rather late.
It won’t take 54 seats. But a 30 seat bar is a lot for Democrats. And handing over control of the House to the Democrats constitutes a landslide.
Major factors still inhibit Democrats from having a snowball’s chance of picking up the lower chamber. They’ve struggled to recruit strong candidates in some key districts.
Some may even criticize Democratic leaders for failing to convert the Trump nomination into a cakewalk for House Democrats. In other words, if the GOP could galvanize opposition around Bill Clinton in 1994, shouldn’t Democratic demonization of Trump be child’s play in 2016?
To be fair, those aren’t apples to apples comparisons.
One of the biggest problems House Democrats face is the political map. In the 22 years since the Republican sea change, both parties have worked to narrow the playing field. They segregated Democratic and Republican votes into districts that are more and more Democratic or Republican.
The result is that electoral politic experts denote only about 56 districts out of 435 as competitive. That means Democrats have to hold the approximately dozen seats they now control -- which are in the swing category -- and simultaneously lock up three-quarters of every GOP seat that could fall into play.
But that doesn’t tell the full story.
In reality, only about 25 seats are truly competitive. The issue for Democrats is that there might not be enough seats available to flip to capture the House.
Here’s another problem for Democrats. The electorate isn’t excited for Hillary Clinton. However, Democratic voters are energized against Trump.
Still, that cuts two ways. Many Republicans may not be ready to vote for Trump. But theories now abound that GOP voters could show up to vote Republican in House and Senate contests to represent a check against Clinton, should it be obvious she may win.
All of this centers on turnout.
Trump’s nomination could spark a sit out by Republicans. Couple that with an Electoral College landslide by Clinton and various House contests that aren’t on the board now could become competitive in late September and October.
Trump’s hiring of Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon could result in the unleashing of an even more bellicose nominee.
If that’s the case, congressional Republicans are in trouble and will have to scramble to further distance themselves from the top of the ticket. Of course, the good news on that front is that many Republicans are running races that form a firewall between them and Trump. That strategy has been in place for months.
One of the best things going for Republicans is that they sit on an historic majority that could serve as a failsafe.
In 2014, House Republicans won 247 seats, their biggest majority since 1928. The 2010 Census and subsequent redistricting process dramatically favored Republicans. The body politic still feels reverberations from those electoral exercises.
The Census and redistricting stopgaps could mean there’s almost no way for Democrats to claim the House until the midterm election of 2022. That would follow the 2020 Census and another round of reallocating congressional seats.
An Electoral College landslide in favor of Clinton -- coupled with a prodigious number of Republican voters simply staying home -- is probably the best scenario Democrats can hope for in House races this year. Electoral College landslides aren’t enough.
Republicans only earned 12 seats in 1984 after President Ronald Reagan won 49 states over Walter Mondale. In 1972, President Richard Nixon walloped George McGovern with 49 states. That provided a minimal 12 seat GOP pickup in the House.
It comes down to voter turnout. It’s still too early to understand who might show up in November or participate in early voting.
Thus, it remains an outside shot for Democrats to win the House. But if the House does move into play, it’s likely the scenario will mirror 1994 in at least one fashion: we won’t spot that possibility in the viewfinder until very late.

Trump tries to appeal to Hispanic, black voters; argues Dems have abandoned them

GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln
GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln
GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln

GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln

Donald Trump met Saturday with his newly formed Hispanic advisory board, part of a new effort by the Republican presidential nominee and his new-look campaign team to win at least some support from minority voters as the White House race enters its final stages.
Trump met in New York with the National Hispanic Advisory Council for Trump -- a coalition of elected officials, business leaders and faith leaders -- with hopes of improving relations with Latino voters.
Helen Aguirre Ferri, director of Hispanic communications for the Republican National Committee, called the meeting a "game-changing" opportunity.
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said the meeting would be an exchange in which the leaders would “share their insights and experience,” then return to their communities to “relay Mr. Trump's message of ending the failed status quo to their congregations and media audience.”
Priebus also said the meeting was “just one component of our expansive effort to engage the Hispanic community.”
Still, winning over Hispanic voters will not be easy. Trump infamously accused Mexico of sending rapists and criminals across the southern U.S. border at his campaign kickoff event last year. The real estate mogul also vowed to deport all of the estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
Washington Republicans have been trying to improve their standing among Hispanic voters since the 2012 election, when exit polls showed President Obama won re-election with roughly 70 percent of the Hispanic vote, compared to about 27 percent for Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
And most polls show Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with a double-digit lead over Trump among Hispanic voters, with early voting in some states set to begin in less than two weeks.
Earlier this week, the Trump campaign announced that Stephen Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, was its new chief executive and that GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway had been promoted to campaign manager. On Friday, campaign Chairman Paul Manafort resigned.
Trump has also made efforts to try to appeal more to black voters, whom he argues should support his campaign after years of reliably supporting Democrats.
At a rally in suburban Michigan on Friday night, Trump said to the crowd that “no group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton's policies than African Americans.”
"Look at how much African-American communities are suffering from Democratic control,” Trump continued in a speech similar to one he gave the day before in North Carolina. “What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump? … You live in your poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs -- 58 percent of your youth is unemployed."
His efforts are similar to those of other Republicans who have publically argued that Democrats have for decades run major U.S. cities like Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia but have failed their residents, many of them minorities, with poorly-run or under-performing services and facilities.
Democrats were quick to denounce Trump’s comments in Michigan, with Democratic National Committee official Brandon Davis on Saturday saying Trump “has shown little interest engaging the black community and his comments underscore just how out of touch he is with the African American community.”
On Saturday, Trump told supporters in Fredericksburg, Va. that Republicans "must do better, and will do better" at appealing to African-American voters.
Noting that the "GOP is the party of Abraham Lincoln," Trump said, "I want our party to be a home of the African-American voter once again."

However, Democratic politicians have had the black vote for decades, and this year’s election appears to be no different.
Clinton overwhelmingly won the black vote in South Carolina early in the Democratic primary season and continued to win it in other Southern states to secure the nomination, despite challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders’ strong populist promise to cut the social and economic inequality gap in the United States.

CartoonsDemsRinos