Dana Loesch responds to Eric Church’s unfounded attack on NRA members. “He’s blaming an organization of millions of members. These are people who are his fans. Or at least were his fans. He’s attacking his fans and blaming them for gun violence.”
Didn’t We Already See This Play out With the Dixie Chicks?
Listen here to the full podcast, which features an interview with Mona Charen and a discussion of a new study showing kids don’t play as much outside, or read the lightly edited transcript of the Charen interview below.
Katrina Trinko: Joining us is Mona Charen, the author of the new book “Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense.” Mona is a columnist, a contributor to National Review, and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Mona, first I wanted to touch on something you bring up in the intro to the book: Women aren’t happy. You note that women’s happiness has declined since the early 1970s, that women are significantly more likely than men to be on antidepressants. Is there a relationship between women’s dissatisfaction and feminism in your view?
Mona Charen: I think there is a connection because I think that one of the things that the feminist movement did is it removed something from the lives of women that’s very important to them, and that is security. Women need security because we are more vulnerable than men. We’re the ones who are smaller and weaker. We are the ones who have babies, who nurse babies. Security is very important to us. Because of the decline of marriage and the more raw, sexual environment that women are forced to live in now, there’s less security than there used to be.
Trinko: Interesting. As someone who hates being out of my comfort zone, I can relate to that. You also mentioned in the introduction to your book [Facebook Chief Operating Officer] Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In”. Obviously that’s an enormously influential book. It’s encouraged women to lean in to their careers, even if they’re having children—to essentially still be aggressive on the career front. What do you think about Sandberg’s advice and can women have it all?
Charen: Women can have it all, but not all at once. We are lucky that most of us can expect to live long lives, and there’s time enough to do everything in a sequential pattern, not necessarily all at once.
I also resist this idea of having it all because I believe that to be our fullest and best selves, we have to also focus on giving to others and not just living for ourselves. When I was a mother and when I was with my kids, I felt that I was where I really needed to be. That was a good feeling, and it made me happy. There was another part to your question about having it all. What was it?
Trinko: Well, women can have it all, but it sounds like you’re saying …
Charen: Yes, women can, but again, I would just push back a little bit on this idea of having as being the goal. I think we should all want to live rounded lives where we give and receive love to one another.
Trinko: Good. What do you think about sexual assault right now, particularly on college campuses? What is the right approach to this matter?
Charen: Well, conservatives have made a point of saying that the 1 in 5 or the 1 in 4 statistic is not true, and I agree, that is not. It’s an exaggeration, but I think conservatives have gone a little too far in stressing only the stories about mattress girl and others or the University of Virginia case, a rape on campus where they turned out to be hoaxes, because there really is a problem.
There really is a lot of very bad behavior going on. Conservatives should not be perceived as indifferent to the mistreatment of women or the rape of women. It is happening in numbers way beyond what should be tolerable.
That’s my plea is to take it seriously and begin to examine what is going wrong between the sexes. Why is there so much sexual assault? I point to a number of things, the hookup culture, the excessive drinking that characterizes dating life now (if you can even call it dating), and the confusion about sex where people aren’t getting clear signals about what is acceptable and what isn’t. The whole regime of so-called affirmative consent is confusing and unhelpful.
Trinko: Yeah, it seems like many of these people are saying, “Well, you didn’t read my signals.” It’s like, well, how could someone you’ve met a couple hours ago …
Charen: Exactly.
Trinko: … read your signals? Maybe the bigger question is why are you having this intimate activity right away?
Charen: Yes.
Trinko: I make a point of trying to read a lot of feminist takes just to keep that in mind. Obviously the term toxic masculinity is used a lot.
Charen: A lot, yeah.
Trinko: What do you think about that term, and in general, what should we be doing about the boys right now?
Charen: One of my critiques about feminism is that they have a tendency to disparage men as a sex. To say even the phrase toxic masculinity …
Imagine toxic femininity. Feminists would be up in arms if there were such a term being bandied about, much less whole courses about it in men’s studies departments. Look, men are human beings. They have strengths and weaknesses. Masculinity brings with it some serious problems, like aggression, like a huge sex drive that has to be controlled, but masculinity also brings with it a self-sacrifice, a willingness to be brave and to protect those who are weak and vulnerable.
One of the things that I cite in my chapter on this where I’m talking about toxic masculinity are the cases where for example, when that shooter entered the theater in Aurora, Colorado, no fewer than four young men covered their girlfriends with their own bodies to protect them.
Trinko: Wow.
Charen: Three died doing so.
Trinko: I did not know that.
Charen: You can say what you want about men and about masculinity, but that’s part of masculinity, that natural, self-sacrificing heroism.
Let’s be fair to men. If men have become very sexually aggressive and insensitive, maybe it’s because all of the rules about dating have been thrown out the window, and we live in a culture that is drenched in pornography and in which we are told that the old standards about courtship and dating are completely passe.
Trinko: Actually, you just mentioned pornography, and I think that’s something that we don’t really talk about very much publicly, which is interesting. You see that studies show that an enormous number of people are looking at it, including some women as well. How do you think that forms part of the problem between the sexes right now?
Charen: I think it’s a huge part of the problem. I think it definitely invades people’s imaginations and infiltrates what people think is normal behavior. The Harvey Weinstein story with some of the behaviors that he engaged in were just so grotesque. I thought, “Where did he get these ideas like masturbating into a potted plant?” No normal woman would have ever told him that that was a turn on. He had to have gotten that from some pornographic thing somewhere.
Trinko: Yeah, I think it’s definitely shaping desires. It seems every, I don’t know, [every] few months you read another story about high schoolers or college girls feeling they have to engage in some new behavior. They’re told, “Oh, well, I saw it in porn.”
Charen: Yeah, exactly. I’m sorry, but it used to be that boys would think they were lucky if a girl would let him kiss her or touch her somewhere, right. Now boys are making these demands that women do things to their bodies to make themselves appealing that are totally unnatural and weird. Is this progress?
Trinko: Not in my view. A lot of conservative conversation focuses on what’s wrong with the current culture, but are there any positive ideas that could help women lead more fulfilling lives?
Charen: Absolutely. One of the things that I liked in the research for my book is that I’ve found there are countercultural movements afoot. There’s a professor at Boston College called Kerry Cronin who has assigned dating to her students and taught them how to ask someone out on a date and how to go out on dates. She gives advice in class about how to do it. The students support each other, and they’re very enthusiastic.
Under her rules, the students have to be home by 10 p.m. There can be no drinking on the date. It can’t be a movie because there has to be an opportunity for conversation. In any event, and they have to ask someone they’re genuinely interested in, not just a friend to get out of the assignment, I suppose. It’s just reintroducing these things, reintroducing the idea of romance. I think it might just catch on.
Trinko: Yeah, I think it might. It’s always interesting to me. I’m a bit older than a college student, but at the same time, it seems that so many people in the overall millennial generation are more comfortable being physical with a stranger than being verbally intimate.
Charen: Exactly. I said to one of my sons that they can’t protect their bodies, but they do protect their souls. They put up walls so that people can’t really get to know them.
Trinko: Absolutely. You see that a lot on dating sites. Now one critique I imagine the left would say about this book is that essentially it’s wanting to go back to the 1950s. Is that your ideal era?
Charen: No.
Trinko: Let’s say you could wave a wand and change society. What does it look like?
Charen: If I could wave a wand and change society, I would change it to 2018 to the habits of people who are living right now but who happen to be college graduates. If you look at the patterns of dating and marriage and childbearing of the college graduate cohort in our society, you don’t have to go back to the 1950s, they’re doing it right now. Their patterns of finishing school, getting married, and having babies in that order, it hasn’t changed very much from the patterns that used to characterize everybody in the 1950s.
Some people say, “You want to go back to the 50s.” No, I just want all of our people in every income category, especially those at the bottom who need the support of families even more than the people at the top, to be able to benefit from having a mother and a father in the home, having two incomes, having that stability and that great start in life.
Trinko: OK, thank you very much, Mona. Again, she’s the author of the new book, “Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense.” Check it out.
Katrina Trinko is managing editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. She is also a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors. Send an email to Katrina. Twitter: @KatrinaTrinko.
Daniel Davis is the commentary editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. Send an email to Daniel. Twitter: @JDaniel_Davis.
The Daily Signal podcast is a 25-minute weekday podcast that shares the news highlights conservatives need to know and features an in-depth interview. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud.
The fake news media melts down over a flame being held near The New York Times. What have they ever said about these socialists who burn our American flag?
“What is it that everyone thinks is going to happen next? The peaceful transfer of power? Calm elections? We’re destroying ourselves from the inside and apparently the Maxine Waters of this world think that’s a great thing.” —Dana Loesch
TRANSCRIPT
Why do politics matter? Why are we devoting some of our resources to this? What does it all have to do with the Faith?
Those are legitimate questions, and here are the answers.
First, the U.S. bishops, pretty political animals during the past 50 years or so, have really become political in the last five years or so. What was pretty much known privately and in some select circles is now a secret no longer, and that is that the U.S. bishops taken collectively are dyed in the wool Democrats, supporters of the Party of Death in nearly every instance. It is the bishops who have become political and invested loads of their resources in the form of money, time and personnel into supporting Democratic Party politics.
In the rare instances they — probably — disagree with the party chieftains, like abortion and contraception, they just fall in lockstep by turning decidedly quiet and uninvolved. And on the whole homo-fascist movement sweeping across America, they have offered almost no resistance whatsoever, which is understandable given the enormous numbers of sodomites among them or their respective clergy.
On everything else on the agenda of the Party of Death, the bishops have completely thrown in with. They are deceiving Catholics up and down the body politic by pretending that their positions on immigration, climate change and social justice are Church teaching, which they absolutely are not. But, make no mistake, it is the bishops who have thrown down this gauntlet of trying to advance socialism through the electorate by use of their offices.
They get loads of money from their Democratic lawmaker buddies for pretended poverty issues, which all too frequently are really efforts to get more Democrats elected, one way or another. Notice, for example, the outrage from the USCCB over the recent ruling that union workers can’t be compelled to pay union fees which are used to support political actions they disagree with. Extorting money from politically conservative union workers has been a long time tactic of union mobs — almost all Democratic — and the U.S. bishops, with the exception of the solid Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, just couldn’t resist slamming the Court.
Notice the decided lack of cheering in the ruling on the baker gay wedding case — it just goes on and on.
If it’s Democratic, they support it. If it’s not, they attack it, and so it goes.
Notice the hypocrisy of the diocese of Helena, Montana earlier in the month for yet another example of railing against priests who attended Trump’s rally on July 5, yet later it emerged that the very diocesan official, Msgr. Kevin O’Neill, who slammed them for appearing at Trump’s rally appeared at the inauguration of the Catholic pro-abort governor of Montana, Steve Bullock, who also happens to give thousands of dollars to the cathedral, as records show.
Things have intensified to a white-hot intensity in the culture the past few years because the grip that the Left had on American culture is now deeply threatened, and the war is on. And precisely where this war is being fought tooth and nail is in the realm of politics.
That’s exactly why the bishops have ramped up their level of intensity, along with every other concerned group desperate to seize the future of the country right now in the present, and it is exactly the present fight that will dictate the future. Everyone involved in the fight knows that. That’s why the massive war over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court is just that — a war.
It’s why bishops won’t condemn pro-abortion Catholic politicians and deny them Holy Communion. It’s why there is still, almost half a century later, no national collection from the U.S. bishops for the right to life effort. Under no circumstances can the U.S. bishops anger their Democratic Party allies, so they join in when they can, which is most of the time, and fall silent on the few occasions they need to.
All of this is massively misleading to American Catholics who don’t get to keep close track of all this because they are busy trying to build their lives and raise their families. The bishops get to wrap their phony positions up in the robes and make them appear Catholic when they are not Catholic at all. This is an offense against truth, charity and justice and must be combatted.
They won’t tell the faithful that they have spent billions of your dollars on, not just sexually abusive priests, but homosexual sexually abusive priests because that admission would tick off the Democratic leadership.
So tell a half-truth instead and try to sweep the reality under the rug. So yes, politics do matter, elections do have consequences, and the bishops are largely on the wrong side of all this because they no longer make the Faith their first priority and have instead made money the goal. They are both used and being used in the world of politics and it is the duty of faithful Catholics to expose every bit of this. Their activity has nothing to do with saving souls or bringing people into the one true Faith.
If they won’t do it, then we have to.
America needs good men who will stand in the gap to defend or way of life.
Apoplexy is defined as, “incapacity or speechlessness caused by extreme anger.”
It seems that the media, and the Democratic Party, are extremely angry, apoplectic, that President Trump actually met with President Putin. Their anger and incapacity to see the benefits of such a meeting were captured by News Busters in the composite video below. Watch these uncontested absurdities.
News Busters wrote:
Within mere hours of President Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin concluding, cable news had worked themselves into a frenzy that suggested the sky itself must be falling.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper appeared hardest hit by the summit. While many of his colleagues were behaving as though a fire had been lit beneath their feet, Cooper spent the 2 p.m. Eastern hour sulking, sighing at length about how “disgraceful” the President’s performance had been. “I just personally think today is just an incredibly depressing moment in our time, in our history, as an American,” he huffed.
It seems that the media, and some members of the Democratic Party, come unhinged when President Trump meets with our enemies. While Americans see diplomacy as a good thing, the media can’t seen to look beyond the way Trump successfully deals on the world stage with those who are are foes (Russia, North Korea, Iran, China).
The late Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said:
“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
That’s wise advice for critics of the Trump-Putin summit to keep in mind and explains why this and future summits can only benefit our nation.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Trump Derangement Syndrome Reaches Fever Pitch
What’s Next for US-Russia Relationship
Trump Is Right. NATO Countries Need to Up Their Defense Spending.
Podcast: Trump, Putin, and the US-Russia Relationship
RELATED VIDEO: Laura Ingraham commentary on the President Donald Trump/President Vladimir Putin press conference.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Sam Jayne / Axios
On July 12, 2018, I was interviewed by former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Joe Walsh on his program on Newsmax-TV. I have provided a link to the video of my interview below.
A primary focus of our conversation was the proposed legislation by members of the Democratic Party that would disband ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The Republicans, sensing political “blood in the water” are proposing that this bill be brought up for a vote. As I said on the show, perhaps the Republicans are looking to “Pin the tail on the Democratic Donkey!”
Our discussion ended with another proposed bill, this one by a Republican member of Congress, that would make illegal entry into the United States a felony. I provided a unique perspective on this proposal that I think will, perhaps, raise some eyebrows.
President Donald J. Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton held a press conference in Brussels following the NATO summit.
The President delivered remarks as he and Secretary Pompeo took questions. Watch the full press conference:
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of President Donald Trump making his latest remarks in a Brussels news conference on July 12. Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters.
Why is it important that national security experts such as Philip Haney and Trevor Loudon support a 2018 candidate?
They will answer that question and explain why Patrick Colbeck is the leader that Michigan needs to keep it secure, safe, and successful!
Who are Philip Haney and Trevor Loudon?
Philip Haney, an author, speaker, counter-terrorism specialist and founding member of the Department of Homeland Security. Very important read from Philip: See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad.
Trevor Loudon, an author, filmmaker and public speaker from Christchurch, New Zealand. For more than 30 years, he has researched radical left, Marxist and terrorist movements and their covert influence on mainstream politics. Very important read, one of many from Trevor: The Enemies Within: Communists, Socialists and Progressives in the U.S. Congress.
Why Patrick Colbeck is Michigan’s best hope for sovereignty? Because he is strong on Constitutional values, has the background needed to manage a state, and because he is NOT afraid to address the national security of his state! He is a proven leader, no matter what names he is called! Unafraid, strong in the face of adversity, and willing to take on very difficult issues! Another good read from Patrick: Wrestling Gators: An Outsider’s Guide to Draining the Swamp.
Please support Patrick Colbeck in Michigan! Go here to support Patrick: https://colbeckforgovernor.com/
Are you tolerant? You probably think so. But who is tolerant in America today? Is it those on the left, or those on the right? In this video, Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report analyzes this question and shares his experience.
Click here to take a brief survey about this video.
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Illegal Immigration Fuels Inequality
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Intersectionality is the newest fad in political activism. What is it? Who’s involved? And furthermore, what does it even mean? No one is better prepared to answer these questions than Daily Wire editor-in-chief and podcast sensation Ben Shapiro, who breaks it all down in this invaluable video.
Click here to take a brief survey about this video.
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INTERSECTIONALITY: Leftist Politics Designed to Fail
In a column titled “Socialism is Not Built on Compassion. It’s Built on Dehumanizing Others.” Barry Brownstein writes:
In The True Believer, a seminal book on mass movements by social philosopher Eric Hoffer, Hoffer writes: “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually, the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil.”
[ … ]
Hatred begins when we dehumanize others. We lump individuals into a single homogeneous group. This other group becomes the target of hate when we believe ‘I am suffering because of them.’ [Emphasis added]
There are those who use this tactic with minorities in America, among them the gay community.
In an article titled “Founder Of The #WalkAway From Dems Movement Explains Why Their Party Has ‘No Future’” DCStatesman.com reports:
Brandon Straka, the founder of the #WalkAway movement, cried the night Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump. Now, he’s urging Democrats to leave the party. Straka created the campaign that shares videos of people telling their stories on why they are now leaving the Democratic Party because Democrats have become too ‘divisive.’
[ … ]
“I think that if you’re a minority in America … there’s sort of this assumption that you are not wanted on the right,” he said.
He added that he believes the left takes minorities for granted and makes people feel that President Trump’s administration is looking to “hurt” them.
“If you’re a minority, you have a choice,” he said. [Emphasis added]
Brandon Straka had an epiphany, an experience of sudden and striking realization that his best interests do not lie in the Democratic Party.
Here is the YouTube video that has gone viral and started the #WalkAway from the Democratic Party movement.
Watch this interview between Brandon and Laura Ingraham.
Brandon Straka has now become a classical liberal. He has walked away from the Democratic party. Wikipedia defines a classical liberal as:
Classical liberalism is a political ideology and a branch of liberalism which advocates civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom.
If these ideas fit you then #WalkAway.
RELATED ARTICLE: Democrats Turn to Socialism
RELATED VIDEO: Why I Left the Left.
Every Republican president since the 1970s has been called a fascist. Ironic, no? After all, fascism has its roots in the left. Dinesh D’Souza, author of The Big Lie, explains.
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EDITORS NOTE: To donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2eB2p0h
The job of a journalist is to report facts, add context where necessary, and leave it to the consumer to decide what he thinks. In this video, James O’Keefe, founder and president of Project Veritas, explains why fewer and fewer people trust modern-day “journalism.”
The Daily Signal’s Facebook Live show “Top 10” features the top news stories of the week.