Voting Strategies For Trump Critics

The first caucuses and primaries are fasting approaching and that means it is almost decision time. The “decision” aspect of the upcoming primary season is especially difficult if you are conservative who doesn’t support President Trump. Maybe you opposed Trump in 2016. Maybe you are a past Trump supporter who now finds that yourself unable to vote for a second term for the president due to any of a number of reasons. Regardless, the question for many conservatives is how to vote if you don’t want to cast a vote for Donald Trump and aren’t crazy about any of the Democrats either.

The question is really two-fold. The first part of the decision is how to use your primary vote and the second part is the ultimate decision on how to handle the general election next November. Where you live may influence your choice in both cases.

Before I go any further, let me state plainly that the opinions in this article are my own. Most of my colleagues here at Resurgent have indicated that they plan to support the president’s re-election, some wholeheartedly and some with reservations. In my case, I opposed Trump in 2016 and then tried to give him the benefit of the doubt after he took office, hoping, as many others did, that he would rise to the occasion. In the end, however, the only significant way that Trump has changed since 2016 is to become a worse candidate. Needless to say, I won’t be voting Trump and had hoped to vote for a Republican alternative.

I live in Georgia, however, where the state Republican Party, in its infinite wisdom, decided not to allow challengers to Trump on the primary ballot. Even if you have other Republicans on your presidential primary ballot, however, you may not be happy with the alternatives or you might simply see it as a futile exercise to vote for a different Republican when Donald Trump has 80-90 percent support in the GOP.

In my case, there is little reason for me not to cross over and vote Democrat in Georgia’s open primary. Rather than submit a write-in vote against Trump, I can influence the Democratic primary by taking William F. Buckley’s advice and voting for the most conservative candidate who can win. In the Democratic primary, there won’t be any real conservatives (a statement that also applies to the Republican presidential primary in many states this year), but they are not all equally liberal. Joe Biden is not Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar is not Elizabeth Warren. There are several quizzes on the internet, such as this one from the Washington Post, that match your beliefs with candidates. A conservative won’t find a perfect match among Democrats but you can see which candidates are closest to your views.

Voters in states where Republican challengers are on the ballot face a more difficult choice. They must decide whether to vote in their Republican primary and register opposition to Trump or cross the aisle and vote for a moderate Democrat.

If you are considering changing parties in the primary, you should check with your local election officials. Not all states have open primaries that allow you to decide at the last minute. Some states require you to register as a party member to vote in the primary or caucus. Those deadlines for registering are rapidly approaching and may have already passed in some cases. You can find an online roundup of voter registration data here but check with your state and local officials to be sure.

After the primaries are decided, it will be time for the big decision. Who will I vote for in the general election? At this point, I don’t know.

Barring a miracle, Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate but, we don’t yet know who the Democratic candidate will be. The obvious choice will be between Trump and the Democrat. Some have decided that any Democrat will be preferable to Donald Trump, but I am not there yet. There are Democrats that I would consider holding my nose and voting for and there are Democrats that I would not cast a ballot for any more than I will vote for Trump.

As a constitutional conservative/libertarian, it is painfully obvious that I’m not going to agree with either party nominee on policy. With Trump and the Republicans, I may like about half the policy but I’m not going to like the corruption and abuses of power. With Democrats, I’m not going to like much, if any, policy but I can hold out hope that they will at least be honest and law-abiding. I could see myself supporting such a unifying, caretaker Democrat but not a radical revolutionary Democrat.

The matter may become more complicated. Rep. Justin Amash, who I also agree with about half the time, is considering a third-party run as a Libertarian. I could also see myself supporting Amash, particularly if a Democrat from the progressive wing of the party is nominated.

An additional consideration is whether to vote for down-ticket Republicans. Few, if any, Republicans have fulfilled their 2016 promises to hold Trump accountable. Are they deserving of re-election? If you base the answer to that question on how well they held Trump’s feet to the fire then the answer is almost invariably negative.

One strategy that I’m considering is to delay a decision on whether to support my local Republican congressman and senator until just before the election. If Trump looks likely to win re-election, I would be likely to support the Democrats, who have been willing to hold the president accountable where Republicans have not. If the Democrats are favored to win the White House, I would lean Republican. As an independent voter with a healthy distaste for both parties, my interests may be best fulfilled by preserving the stalemate between the executive and legislative branches.

Before you obsess too much over how to vote in the presidential election, keep in mind that your vote will almost certainly not make a difference. Given the numbers of voters in your state and the structure of the race with 50 states and the Electoral College to consider, your vote for president really doesn’t mean much. The 2016 election hinged on less than 100,000 votes confined to a handful of swing states.

In my home state of Georgia, the state is almost certain to vote for Trump no matter what I do, even though the president’s approval here is at -2 in the latest Morning Consult poll. If the election is ugly enough for Trump that the outcome in Georgia is in doubt, the outcome will have already been decided in the swing states. As a result, I feel no pressure to pull the lever either way. If you’re an independent voter in a swing state, the choice will be tougher.

For most of us, however, our biggest impact will be in congressional and local elections. In the presidential election, we are one vote out of 128 million before being diluted by the Electoral College. However, I am one out of 3.9 million voters in my state and one out of 292,000 in my congressional district who actually cast ballots in 2018. It doesn’t take a genius to see in which elections your vote carries more weight.

Do your research on the candidates and then, as Ted Cruz said several years ago, “Vote your conscience.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

How Should Conservative Trump Critics Vote?

In a few days, it will all be over. This Tuesday is Election Day and Wednesday, unless you live where there is a runoff, there will be no more political ads on television and the only signs that you’ll see are those belonging to candidates that are either too irresponsible or lacking in enough support to clean up their mess. Before that, however, we have to get through Election Day.

If you’re like me, getting through Election Day is a problem because this election resembles 2016 in a lot of disappointing ways. Even though Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton aren’t on the ballot, his influence and the memory of her defeat loom large.

Over the past two years, the Republican Party that I used to consider my political home has changed, possibly irrevocably. This wasn’t as sudden a change as some claim it to be. The roots of the GOP’s transition from a conservative party to a populist party with big government solutions was already underway when Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2015. It’s an open question whether the party was ever actually a small government, fiscally conservative party, but it definitely is not one today.

A local political commercial says the Democrats aren’t the same party they used to be. That’s true, neither are the Republicans.

What has changed is the acceptance of Trumpism. In 2016, most Republicans were willing to stand up to Donald Trump and criticize him when he was wrong. I see very little of that today. Speaker Paul Ryan was one of the few sitting Republicans to criticize Trump’s notion this week that he could unilaterally amend the 14^th amendment and overturn birthright citizenship with an Executive Order, an announcement reminiscent of Obama’s “pen and phone” moment. I have to wonder if Ryan would have spoken out if he weren’t retiring.

The problem is that most Republican officials understand where loyalties of the base lie. Earlier this week, a Harris poll found that 46 percent of Republican voters associate with Donald Trump while only 25 percent associate with the GOP itself. For the time being at least, the Grand Old Party is the Trump Party and Republican candidates innately understand this fact. In most primaries, the question was not whether candidates loved Donald Trump, it was which candidate could show they loved him more. Republicanism is no longer based on objective principles. It is based on Donald Trump.

For a small government, Reagan conservative like me, that presents a problem. Unlike the current iteration of the GOP, I am a pro-immigration, pro-free trade, fiscal conservative who believes that character matters and words have meaning. I no longer fit into the Republican Party.

While I applaud some of Trump’s successes, the president’s victories seem greatly overstated by his supporters and have come at a tremendous cost in terms of Republican principles, national division, damage to the conservative and Republican brand, and basic self-respect. It’s also true that most of the victories came despite Trump, not because of him, through the hard work of Republican congressional leaders like Ryan and Mitch McConnell.

Like Obama, Trump‘s abrasive personality are “my way or the highway” attitude are ill-suited for lawmaking. His singular legislative accomplishment, tax reform, was passed with a bare majority of 51 Republican votes. His Executive Orders are unlikely to outlive his presidency. Obamacare stands unrepealed and unreformed.

What to do then?

Some conservatives who I like and respect (and some I don’t) advocate voting Democrat. I don’t see how any conservative can take a look at the modern Democratic Party and say, “Let’s put that in power.” All the Democrats had to do to ensure a blue tsunami was to act sane for six months prior to the election. They could not pull it off.

I vehemently opposed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton so why would I throw my support behind candidates they endorse? I’m not a liberal and don’t support the platform of even most moderate Democrats. If I oppose Trump because of his bad policy and bad behavior, I cannot bring myself to support the worse policy and worse behavior of the national Democrats.

My personal decision was to become a true independent. I used to be a straight-ticket Republican voter, but when I voted early this year I looked beyond the “R” after the candidate’s name. I looked at their website, their records, debates, and interviews. I contacted candidates with questions and, in the case of my Republican congressman, I received a phone call from his office assuring me that he was a Reagan conservative who favored free trade, entitlement reform, and deficit reduction. Rather than voting Democrat, I chose to evaluate all the candidates, including third parties, and voted a mixed ballot.

I wouldn’t presume to tell people to vote Democrat or Libertarian or Green. Few would listen to me if I did. My best guess, however, is that a lot of people are making their own decision to send a message to Republicans and the Trump Administration. Pew reported today that, by a 14-point margin, more voters consider their vote to be against Trump than for him. Democrats lead Republicans in party preference by an average of eight points.

I’m not a Democrat. I’m not a liberal. I’m not even a Libertarian. I am a traditional conservative and voters of my ilk are bereft in the current political environment. I hope that I will one day be able to proudly call myself a Republican once again.

Originally published on The Resurgent

After The Confirmation, Lindsey Graham Carries The Fight To Chuck Schumer

One of the most unexpected aspects of the Kavanaugh confirmation fight was Sen. Lindsey Graham’s emergence as a champion of the conservative right. Graham, a Republican senator representing South Carolina since 2003, has long been attacked as a “RINO” by Republicans, but now many Republicans are celebrating “Lindsey Graham 2.0.”

In the wake of the confirmation, Graham seems to be ready to continue in his newly aggressive persona. The next target of Senator Graham’s ire is none other than Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who Graham attacked on Fox News Sunday yesterday for politicizing the confirmation process.

Graham held up a list of judges to Chris Wallace and said, “This is a list that was compiled in November, but [Trump] actually put it out during the campaign.” The senator then rhetorically asked Schumer, who was not present, “There are twenty-something people on this list; I'm asking Chuck Schumer, name five, name three, name one that would be okay with you.”

“Brett Kavanaugh was a mainstream judge I would've chosen if I had been president. [Former President George W.] Bush supported him. Everybody running for president on our side believes that Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were outstanding conservative jurists. The other side wants to cancel the election,” Graham said. “So, Chuck, you want someone new? Look at this list and see anybody you agree to, but what you want to do, Senator Schumer, is to overturn the election. We are not going to let you pick the judges. If you want to pick judges, then you need to win the White House. When Obama won that, I voted for two judges that he picked. So, Chuck Schumer, name one person on this list you think is acceptable.”

In fact, Brett Kavanaugh was first mentioned as a possible appointment to the Supreme Court by 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Kavanaugh’s name was circulated on an unofficial list of Supreme Court nominees circulated in October 2012 by the Romney campaign. President Trump’s first appointment to the Court, Neil Gorsuch, also made Romney’s short list.

Lindsey Graham first emerged as a hero to the Republicans who formerly reviled him on Sept. 27 when he delivered a fiery attack on Democrats after the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, who he called a “nice lady, who has come forward to tell a story that's uncorroborated.” Graham added, “I'm not going to reward people for playing a political game” by hiding the accusation until the end of the hearings to delay the confirmation vote.

A week later, Graham was back, telling a protester, “You've humiliated this guy enough and there seems to be no bottom for some of you.”

“Why don't we dunk him in water and see if he floats?” Graham added, alluding to an old method of testing women accused of being witches.

In the midst of the battle, Graham also became a popular meme. A picture posted to Twitter by Benny Johnson of the Daily Caller shows the smooth South Carolinian straightening his tie with a smile as an anti-Kavanaugh protester screams in the background.

Despite Graham’s newfound support for President Trump, his popularity among Republicans probably won’t last. Graham’s support for immigration reform once earned him the moniker “Grahamnesty” among the immigration hardliners who form Trump’s base. Like John McCain, Graham also has a history of crossing the aisle to work with Democrats on issues like climate change. So far, there is no indication that he has changed his mind on these issues.

“I’ve been applauded, and I’ve been a-booed,” Graham told reporters last week. “I know my day will come. I’ll do something that this moment in time will pass. I’ll talk about climate change and overturning Citizens United. These things come and go.”

For now, though, Graham is riding high in conservative circles and will help Republican candidates rally the base ahead of the midterm elections. “I've never campaigned against a colleague in my life,” Graham said, “but that's about to change. I'm going to go throughout this country to let people in these purple states, red states were Trump won, know what I thought, know what I think about this process.”

 Originally published on The Resurgent

Let's Face It: Conservatives Are Not a Majority

The news of Colin Kaepernick’s endorsement deal with Nike came as shock to conservatives. It seemed that Kaepernick was a has-been after his departure from the NFL, but suddenly he’s back with a lucrative deal to be the face of Nike. That should be a wake-up call that conservatives do not represent a majority of Americans.

If conservatives were a majority, then selecting the man whose claim to fame lies in taking a knee during the National Anthem as a spokesman would be an act of corporate suicide. In that case, one would expect that the stock would tank and a meaningful boycott would occur. And that’s exactly what many conservative news outlets were reporting.

The truth is a little different.

The deal was announced on Sept. 3. Nike stock closed on the previous day at $82.20 per share. By the close of trading on Sept. 4, Nike stock had indeed plunged… all the way to $79.60, a loss of a little over three percent. On Wednesday, the stock closed just under $79.92, not far under the 52-week high of $83.68. Trading in Nike was much higher than is the norm. 18,548,800 shares changed hands on Tuesday as opposed to an average volume of 7,073,191.

Nike’s stock declined, but it is only slightly off from prior to the announcement. There were a lot of sellers, but there were also a lot of buyers. That observation says a lot about American politics in general.

What’s more, most conservatives have not heard that Nike received an estimated $43 million in media exposure after the rollout of Kaepernick’s ad campaign. Bloomberg reports that almost half of the exposure was positive. Less than a quarter of the media coverage was negative.

The nature of modern communication is that most of us live in an echo chamber. Conservatives read conservative blogs, listen to conservative radio, watch Fox News and talk to other conservatives on Facebook and Twitter. When we don’t have contact with many – or any – people with opposing viewpoints, we lose sight of the fact that not everyone thinks like we do.

The story goes that Pauline Kael, a film critic for the New Yorker, said after the 1972 election, “I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” The story is somewhat apocryphal. The quote has been paraphrased to make Kael seem more out of touch than she really was, but the sentiment is real.

This week it is conservatives’ turn to say, “I can’t believe they hired Kaepernick. No one likes him.” Two years ago, it was the Democrats. Just substitute Donald Trump’s name.

If conservatives are to be successful in the long term, they need to face some hard truths. The first is that conservatives do not represent a majority of Americans. Close on the heels of that bitter pill is the fact that most voters do not like Donald Trump. Finally, some conservative ideas are popular, but some are not.

We can look back at Gallup’s survey of political ideology to see that, for the 30 years that the poll has been taken, conservatives have never represented a majority. The survey, taken in December 2017, actually shows a slight decline in conservative identification since the Tea Party revolution. About 35 percent of Americans now identify as conservative.

How do conservatives win elections then? The good news is that liberals are actually doing worse. About 26 percent currently identify as liberals. This represents a long slow climb from 17 percent in 1992.

The mathematically astute are probably thinking that liberals and conservatives only represent about half of the people polled. They’re right. The third major group in American politics is the moderates. Weighing in at 35 percent, the moderate group is as large as conservatives and larger than liberals. With neither conservatives nor liberals constituting a majority on their own, moderates are the deciding factor in elections.

The problem faced by both parties is that they need moderates to win, but moderates don’t like extremism from either party. Primary voters, on the other hand, love to vote for the candidates that promise to deliver the most change for their respective ideology.

What happens often is that a party will win an election by a slim margin and then proceed to govern as if they have an enormous mandate. It happened to Barack Obama, who answered a Republican offer of compromise with the words “I won,” and it is happening to Donald Trump now.

The Trump Administration is pushing an agenda that many voters are not happy with, but Republican voters are ecstatic with the “winning.” The problem for the GOP is that rather than winning the hearts and minds of voters, they have pushed their advantage with party-line votes and executive actions while ignoring public opinion. This is basically the same strategy that cost Democrats both houses of Congress and more than 1,000 legislative seats under Obama.

There is a disconnect on several core issues between the Republicans and the rest of the country. The most notable achievement of the Trump Administration is the tax reform bill, but Republicans have not sold the new law to the public. Nine months after passage of the law, numerous polls show that the country is split but the tax plan remains slightly more unpopular than popular.

Opinion on the president’s policy of separating families at the border as a disincentive to immigration is not even close. Numerous polls found that Americans opposed the separations by more than a two-to-one margin. However, the opinion of Republicans was just the opposite with an average of about half of Republicans supporting the plan.

On Colin Kaepernick and the anthem protests, opinion is also split. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken last week before the current brouhaha erupted found that voters felt that taking a knee during the National Anthem was not appropriate by a margin of 54-43 percent. However, a Quinnipiac poll from June showed almost exactly the opposite.

The bottom line here is that the target market for the Nike campaign is not white conservatives. Nike almost certainly test-marketed the Kaepernick campaign before they launched what they had to know was going to erupt into a tornado of fecal material, yet Nike is confident enough that the campaign will make money for them that they did it anyway. The logical answer is that Nike understands that, while millions of people will be angered by the ad, those millions of people are still a minority. In fact, Nike may be banking on conservative outrage to generate more publicity… just as Kaepernick has used the outrage to make his name a household word over the past few years.

The collective clout of American conservatives showing their anger can’t make a mainstream sports apparel company decide against hiring one of the most infamous men in sports because aggrieved conservatives are just one small segment of the population. Nike has apparently determined that angry conservatives don’t buy enough of their merchandise to make a difference. The left learned the same lesson with protests of Chick-fil-a and Hobby Lobby.

What both parties seem never to learn is that in order to propagate real and lasting change, you have to win over the voters in the middle. That isn’t likely to happen by being shrill and calling athletes traitors. If conservatives could find a coherent spokesman for the movement who could reach the moderates in the middle, then maybe one day conservatives will be a majority. Until that day, conservatives do not have the mandate to force their will on the rest of the country. They must remember that or pay the price.

 Originally published on The Resurgent

Ted Nugent Says ‘Rabid Coyote’ Liberals Should Be Shot

From time to time, the conservative community gets up in arms when a liberal says or does something stupid and/or vicious. Part of the process is attacking the rest of the left for failing to call out their own. Silence is consent, as the saying goes. In the interest of fairness, objectivity and not being hypocrites ourselves, conservatives should call out people on the right who say and do stupid and vicious things. Such was the case with Ted Nugent last week.

Appearing on Alex Jones’ show (his first mistake), Nugent compared liberals to “rabid coyotes” and said that they need to be shot on sight.

“Just know that evil, dishonesty, and scam artists have always been around and that right now they’re liberal, they’re Democrat, they’re RINOs, they’re Hollywood, they’re fake news, they’re media, they’re academia, and they’re half of our government, at least,” Nugent said in video posted with full context on Media Matters. “So come to that realization. There are rabid coyotes running around. You don’t wait till you see one to go get your gun. Keep your gun handy, and every time you see one, you shoot one.”

With all due respect to Mr. Nugent, “I discussed this with our lawyers and they consider it murder” (to apply an appropriate “Simpsons” quote).

This level of anger and violence from a conservative is surprising considering that Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress. There is absolutely no chance of liberals coming to take Mr. Nugent’s guns unless President Trump and other Republicans defect to the anti-gun caucus. In calling for attacks  on political opponents, Mr. Nugent sounds more like the frenzied opposition than a member of the party in power.

In fact, Nugent’s comments sound strikingly similar to another entertainer who called for the execution of members of the NRA, where Nugent is on the board. In October 2017, Nancy Sinatra tweeted, “The murderous members of the NRA should face a firing squad.” Conservatives rightfully condemned the tweet, which Sinatra deleted.

It is also surprising that many voters on the right would echo Nugent’s call for violence. When I posted a link to the story on my Facebook page, the Common Sense Conservative, most of the conservative, Christian, law-abiding, Second Amendment supporters who commented shared Nugent’s point-of-view.

Let me state unequivocally that if you claim to be a law-abiding gun owner you should not advocate political violence against other Americans. This undermines your claim that you aren’t a danger to society.

Further, anyone who thinks that mass murder is necessary to advance their policy goals is admitting that they are incapable of making a rational and logical argument to persuade voters. If, in a democratic society, conservatives can’t win support for their policies at the ballot box, how can they hope to garner support for the distinctly un-American idea of slaughtering political opponents?

Over the past three decades, Second Amendment groups have succeeded in convincing voters that gun control does not work. Gun laws have been rolled back, gun ownership is at an all-time high and the crime rate has declined at the same time. Even most Democrats are afraid to support serious gun controls. What is Mr. Nugent afraid of?

Finally, violent rhetoric like Ms. Sinatra’s and Mr. Nugent’s deepens the partisan divide between us. Few Americans want to kill NRA members and, hopefully , few want to kill liberals as well. The left will point to Nugent’s rant as evidence that conservatives and gun owners are dangerous fanatics. Tomorrow conservatives will point the finger back towards the left for some offense.

Mr. Nugent is wrong that all liberals are evil and dishonest. Most liberals are patriotic Americans, just like most conservatives, who, by the way, are not all saints. If you stop to think about it, you probably have friends, relatives and coworkers who are liberals and who are not monsters. Most Americans on both sides of the political spectrum want the best for the country, we just disagree about how to get there.

Most of us don’t eat Tide pods, snort condoms, wear hats shaped like female genitalia and most of us don’t want to kill each other. As both sides focus on the worst examples of their opponents - and become more radical themselves - the divide between us deepens and increases the chance of bloodshed.

The political violence that many on both sides seem to want would be an avoidable tragedy. Law-abiding and peaceful Americans on both sides have a duty to speak out against the radicals, regardless of their political affiliation.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Facebook Deletes Admins On Popular Trump Page

The idea behind net neutrality was that internet users would be protected from punishment or from being restricted from internet access for their political beliefs. Unfortunately, political persecution of social media users already seems to be happening, not at the hands of the government, but by the tech companies themselves. Facebook, recently in the news for sharing data on its users with Cambridge Analytica, has a long history of stifling conservative speech. Now the administrators of a large pro-Trump Facebook page say that the company removed them from control of their page for no reason.

Thomas Pappert and Adam Rogers (a pseudonym), the administrators of the Facebook page “God Emperor Trump,” say that Facebook deleted them from their positions on the page, but did not remove the page itself or any of the posts on the page. At the time of writing, the page was still available for viewing on Facebook, but the pair say that they won't be able to post new content, other than posts that had already been scheduled when they were removed.

The page with its 335,000 followers represents three years of work for Pappert and Rogers. A press release on the Department of Memes says that the page administrators received an email from Facebook at 2:30 pm on March 29. Screen shots provided to Resurgent show a message from Facebook security that says, “You're getting this email to confirm that you're no longer an admin on God Emperor Trump.” The email instructed the admins to have another admin add them back or to contact Facebook.

“In the email we received from Facebook informing us of their decision to remove us from the page, there is a link we could click if we felt it was done improperly. When we click the link, it then leads us to another link, where we can fill out a report,” said Rogers. “When we go to this final page, the 'report' function is broken. It says Facebook had an error and to try again later.”

“It's done this for all of our admins, on different browsers, and across several different states,” he added.

The men say that their page was unpublished twice before and restored by Facebook. Rogers says that publicity from conservative media outlets helped get the page restored in those cases. “They were able to get the attention of actual humans at Facebook, who blamed the decision on an 'algorithmic failure' both times,” he says.

Whether a problematic algorithm or a rogue employee like the one who deleted President Trump's Twitter account last year, biased enforcement of social media rules is a growing problem. The lack of recourse for social media bans and the inability to contact customer service at the tech giants makes getting banned very frustrating for users.

In the wake of “fake news” and Russian bot scandals from 2016, Facebook and Twitter seem to be responding by cracking down on many conservative accounts and pages. A Project Veritas video in January revealed Twitter executives admitting to using “shadow bans” to censor conservative viewpoints. Twitter seems to easily verify liberal accounts while those on the right (including the author) have difficulty getting the accreditation. Conservative pages on Facebook have seen their circulation drop in the wake of new algorithms that prioritize “news that is trustworthy, informative, and local” in Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's words.

Because the social media companies are not the government, the First Amendment does not apply. Private companies can allow or ban posts and users as they see fit. Some, including Zuckerberg, are calling for regulation of the companies to force them to do the right thing with regard to privacy and free speech, but, as the IRS scandal from the Obama Administration shows, even the government can't be trusted to be impartial.

If social media companies want to censor conservative speech, the only other option might be for conservatives to leave the platforms and go to sites that are specifically created for conservatives. This approach has been taken by members of the alt-right who have created alternative sites where their views are accepted.

Social media sites have every right to run their businesses as they see fit, but forcing conservatives to flee to other platforms would be bad for the country as we divide ourselves further into opposing camps that interact with each other less and less. We already have separate news channels and websites. Facebook and Twitter are among the few places where Americans hear opposing viewpoints.

It would also be bad for stockholders if censorship drives users and ad revenue away. Facebook, a company less than 20 years old, has a near monopoly on social media now, but monopolies don't last forever and forcing users to develop competing platforms may accelerate the process of turning Facebook into the next Standard Oil.

Major Conservative Donor Dumps Steve Bannon... For Mitch McConnell

Politics is a finicky business. One week you’re the kingmaker, sitting atop the GOP and the next you’re cast aside for your arch-enemy, the establishment RINO in charge of the Senate. This is the month that Steve Bannon is having.

After Roy Moore’s victory over incumbent Senator Luther Strange in Alabama, the former White House strategist and alt-right media mogul was on top of the world. He had just bumped off the establishment pick for the seat of now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and there was talk that Bannon was now the de facto head of the Republican Party. The insurgent strategist announced plans to challenge every sitting Republican senator who came up for re-election in 2018. Luther Strange was to be only his first victim.

Even before the story of Roy Moore’s affinity for underage girls broke, things were starting to crumble for Bannon. In early November, Robert Mercer, a hedge fund billionaire and major conservative donor, announced that he was selling his stake in Breitbart, Bannon’s alt-right website. In his announcement, Mercer cited differences with Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos, an alt-right firebrand elevated to stardom on Breitbart who was revealed to have links to white nationalists and a soft spot for pedophilia.

The hits seem to just keep on coming for Bannon.

Now Sheldon Adelson, another billionaire conservative donor, has announced that he is breaking ties with Steve Bannon. To add insult to injury, Adelson is making clear that he is not just breaking off relations with Bannon, he is declaring war on the populist wing of the GOP.

“The Adelsons will not be supporting Steve Bannon’s efforts,” Andy Abboud, an Adelson spokesman, told Politico. “They are supporting Mitch McConnell 100 percent. For anyone to infer anything otherwise is wrong.”

Adelson’s break with Bannon comes a day after he addressed the Zionists of America and called on the Jewish group to “work as partners” against the Republican establishment per Haaretz. Adelson, who is Jewish, was originally slated to introduce Bannon at the gala event.

The break between Adelson and Bannon seems to have little to do with Zionism or Bannon’s alleged but unproven anti-Semitism and everything to do with Bannon’s attempted hostile takeover of the Republican Party. With little to show from the Republican control of Washington and retirements mounting from experienced congressional Republicans, last week’s Democrat sweep of the off-year elections and the sudden implosion of Roy Moore’s campaign were apparently the last straw.

Bannon’s problems with Moore and Yiannopoulos were both due to insufficient vetting. Internet sleuths found embarrassing videos of Yiannopoulos while the Washington Post investigated longstanding rumors about Moore. With Bannon openly supporting Kelli Ward in Arizona, a Republican senatorial candidate who once hosted a town hall meeting with chemtrails as the subject, Adelson must have been wondering what other surprises he could expect from Bannon’s handpicked candidates.

Mitch McConnell may not be the most charismatic or conservative of Republicans, but he is a survivor who helped to rebuild the party after the Democrat wave election in 2008. Sheldon Adelson has apparently decided that the Bannon revolution has run its course and decided to choose experience over populist anger.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Liberals Must Have Mixed Emotions As Trump Insults Pence

In what must be an ideologically and emotionally confusing read for liberals, the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer goes on the attack against Vice President Mike Pence and, in the process, manages to paint President Trump in a somewhat sympathetic light for social liberals who are critical of the Christian right.  

The article, “The Danger of President Pence,” is essentially a hit piece on the vice president and a cautionary tale. “The worse the President looks, the more desirable his understudy seems,” Mayer writes, but then warns, “If the job is a gamble for Pence, he himself is something of a gamble for the country.”

It seems that, in spite of his loyalty to the unorthodox President Trump, Mike Pence is (gasp!) “’a full-spectrum conservative’ on social, moral, economic, and defense issues.” Mayer notes that Pence could be easily considered an establishment Republican who has strong connections to deep-pocketed Republican donors including the bogeymen of leftist dark money concerns, the Koch brothers.

Anti-religious leftists will enjoy the most-quoted sections of Mayer’s piece, those which detail how President Trump mocked Pence’s Christian beliefs. Mayer quotes several associates and staff members who say that Trump likes to “let Pence know who’s boss.” Trump reportedly asks people who have met with the vice president, “Did Mike make you pray?”

The president also reportedly teased Pence about his pro-life views and his opposition to the gay rights movement. Sources say that in a meeting with a legal scholar who pointed out that states might choose to legalize abortion if Roe v. Wade were overturned, Trump said, “You see? You’ve wasted all this time and energy on it, and it’s not going to end abortion anyway.”

When talk at the same meeting turned to homosexuality, Trump gestured toward Pence. “Don’t ask that guy,” Trump said. “He wants to hang them all!”

The New Yorker article paints Vice President Pence as someone who believes what he says and who acts on those beliefs. Mayer includes a laundry list of socially conservative issues where Pence took stands as governor of Indiana, from tax cuts (“Pence’s commitment to the Kochs was now ironclad”) to the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, although he does get a pat on the back from her for opting in to Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

Interestingly, Mayer points out that both the height of Trump’s campaign and the biggest scandal that he has faced are both linked to Mike Pence. Pence’s connections to Republican donors made Trump’s election victory possible. Pence also helped make Trump palatable to Midwestern and Christian voters who were not natural supporters of the brash New Yorker.

At the opposite extreme, Pence was embroiled in the Michael Flynn firing that ultimately grew into the full-fledged Russia investigation. Unlike the other potential VP candidate, Chris Christie, Pence did not raise objections to Flynn’s appointment as National Security Advisor. Flynn was fired in February for lying to Pence about contacts with the Russian ambassador during the transition period.

Although Trump’s mocking comments are what has generated the headlines, Mayer’s main message is that, if Trump is impeached or forced to resign, liberals might like Pence even less. “Democrats should hope Trump stays in office,” said Democrat strategist Harold Ickes, noting that Pence would likely be much more effective at working with Congress and implementing a conservative agenda. 

Originally Published On The Resurgent

Survey showing most conservative states is good news for Republicans

Gallup has just released a new survey showing the most conservative and liberal states in the nation. Overall, the picture looks just as you’d expect with liberal states concentrated on the West Coast and in the Northeast while the South and upper Rocky Mountains are the most conservative areas.

Contrary to popular belief, neither liberals nor conservatives hold an absolute majority in any state, although conservatives are very close in Wyoming, the most conservative state in the country. Forty-nine percent of Wyomingites self-identify as conservative. This yields a 35-point advantage over the 14 percent of the Wyoming population considered to be liberal.

A number of other states have conservative populations in excess of 40 percent as well. In fact, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Idaho all have conservative populations of greater than 45 percent.

Vermont tops the list of most liberal states. With 40 percent liberal and only 26 percent conservative, liberals have a 14-point advantage.

Interestingly, far fewer voters identify as liberal in blue states than do conservatives in red states. Many deep blue states are characterized by a difference of only a few points. For example, in Massachusetts, the second most liberal state, liberals only lead conservatives by eight points. In the next two most liberal states, Connecticut and New York, the difference is four and two points respectively. Believe it or not, in deep blue, far left California, conservatives actually outnumber liberals 30-29 percent.

When the state totals are examined, the share of moderate voters remains relatively constant. Moderates make up about a third of the electorate in almost every state. With neither party at a majority anywhere, moderates are the decisive group in most elections.

Even though the poor showing for liberals in blue states may indicate an unwillingness of some liberals to accept the liberal label, the polling results indicate an opening for conservatives in many blue states. If the ideological groups are statistically equal in a state like California, Republicans can win this Democratic stronghold by making inroads to the moderates in the mushy middle of the political spectrum. Splitting the moderate vote could swing the state to the GOP.

Conversely, in the 19 states where Republicans make up more than 40 percent of the electorate, Democrats would need to win virtually all moderate votes to move any of these states to the blue column.

The problem for Republicans is that a Gallup poll from last year showing party identification indicated that almost all of the state’s moderates identified as Democrats.  California’s actual election results showed that, at 32 percent, the Trump vote in California was almost identical to Gallup’s estimates of conservatives and Republicans for the state. Donald Trump lost practically all moderate and independent voters for the state.

The trend is national as well. CNN exit polls show a breakdown of 26 percent liberal, 39 percent moderate and 35 percent conservative in the 2016 election. Trump lost the moderate vote 40-52 percent, but still won the election.

Moderates didn’t flock to Trump, whose share of the group was almost identical to Mitt Romney, but many did abandon Clinton. Trump’s victory was partly due to the eight percent of moderates, the largest ideological demographic, who voted for “someone else.”

Gallup’s survey also showed that the usual swing states all have about a 10-point conservative advantage. Colorado and New Hampshire, both with a 9-point conservative advantage, were the most liberal swing states.

The polling data indicates that winning blue states, as Donald Trump did, is a realistic goal for Republicans. A winning strategy would be to nominate conservative candidates who also have a strong appeal to moderate and independent voters.

Go here to find out how conservative your state is.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Liberal fake news doesn't excuse conservative fake news

News and media (Sollok29/Wikimedia)

Two of the big concerns of many conservatives about Donald Trump were that he would drag the party to the left on policy issues and that he would drag it into the gutter with his behavior. Trump’s proposals for an economic stimulus and more government spending have arguably moved the party toward the position of Keynesian liberalism. The response of many in the party to attacks on fake news sites fulfill the prediction about the corruption of Republican morality.

Articles on conservative sites have popped up all over the internet citing examples of fake news from mainstream media organizations. The examples are numerous and most of them are true. From Brian Williams who was fired for exaggerating his Iraq War reporting at NBC to Dan Rather who was fired for airing a “fake but accurate” report about George W. Bush’s national guard service to Hillary Clinton’s claim that she came under sniper fire in Yugoslavia to reports that Michael Brown was killed while his hands were up, bad reporting has been a frequent problem for even large news organizations.

The problem is that many conservatives seem to take the attitude that since liberal reporters don’t care about truth and accuracy, why should we? This is a bad response that does nothing to curb the publishing of fake news on either the right or left. Instead, it merely cheers on conservative bloggers in a race to the bottom where neither side can be trusted.

A better attitude would to follow your mother’s advice instead of following the mainstream media’s bad example. Who hasn’t been asked by their parents, in response to the juvenile defense that someone else did it too, “If so-and-so jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?”

Put bluntly, the mistakes and faults of others don’t give us an excuse to make the same mistakes. If we criticize the mainstream media for lackadaisical fact-checking and then write and spread stories like last year’s claim that Barack Obama was planning to implement martial law in Texas under the cover of the Jade Helm exercise, that doesn’t make us equal with the liberals who peddle lies. It makes us hypocrites.

An equally appropriate aphorism is that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” It’s impossible to fight lying liberals when conservatives are also lying. To fight lies requires credibility, which many conservative sites lack thanks to stories with no basis in fact like those about Jade Helm or Obama’s birth certificate.

If conservatives want to have the moral authority to criticize fake and erroneous reporting from mainstream outlets, they first have to clean up their own house. There are plenty of good, objective news sites that report from a conservative viewpoint without stooping to dishonesty and constant outrage stories. The Wall Street Journal is notably conservative and one of the best newspapers in the country. If you care about politics and current events, the subscription is well worth the few cents that it costs per day.

I’m proud to say that The Resurgent is also a dependable site. While not a “hard news” site, The Resurgent is a conservative outlet that steers clear of the liberal-outrage-of-the-day brand of journalism. At The Resurgent, we strive to present an accurate look at politics from a conservative viewpoint. We aren’t in the business of manufacturing clickbait. And, unlike the Wall Street Journal, The Resurgent is totally free, although we do accept donations to help defray our costs.

So be skeptical with what you read and forward. Fact check for yourself. Don’t spread false stories. When we put an end to the lies on conservative sites, we’ll be in a better position to attack liberal lies.

Originally published on the Resurgent

Evan McMullin unveils 'Principles for New American Leadership'

Yesterday independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin unveiled his list of conservative principles to a cheering crowd in Provo, Utah. McMullin, who only announced his candidacy in early August, is positioning himself as the conservative alternative to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. His statement of principles, the “Principles for New American Leadership,” put forth core values for the relatively unknown candidate.

In a video accompanying the unveiling of the document, McMullin describes his beliefs. “Our great nation requires a new generation of leadership and civic engagement…. Washington has become distant and disconnected from our needs, and unable to meet the challenges ahead. The two parties have given us gridlock and division, and candidates who care more about themselves than us. That’s why I want to share my vision of new American leadership.”

McMullin’s principles appeal to the core values of the conservative movement, but also reach out to people who are not traditional conservatives. His first principle, that “our basic rights are God-given” is a direct reference to the Declaration of Independence. He also states that “we must honor the Constitution” and “any changes to the Constitution must be made through the amendment process, not by judicial or executive action.”

With respect to elected officials, McMullin’s principles state that “leaders must be honest and wise” and “put the public interest ahead of their own, acting with integrity, transparency and good judgment.” Leaders should also be “fiscally responsible,” McMullin says. “Our country cannot be secure and prosperous with uncontrolled debt and deficits.”

McMullin affirms traditional conservative issues with his declaration of principle. “We have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, which the government must ensure,” he states. He also strikes a strong pro-life stance, declaring “We must protect the lives of the most vulnerable from the unborn to the elderly.”

McMullin goes beyond traditional conservative issues, however.  His principles call for a “safety net for Americans unable to support themselves,” but government programs “should help people to overcome poverty, rather than simply survive it.” Beyond calling for the repeal of Obamacare, McMullin advocates for a healthcare system that will “encourage competition and innovation” to provide “access to affordable, quality health care.” McMullin’s principle of free markets applies to healthcare and other industries as well.

On immigration, McMullin finds a middle ground between the extremes offered by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. “We must secure our borders, enforce our laws and facilitate the legal immigration of those who will contribute to American prosperity, security and culture,” he says.

As an independent, Evan McMullin is an outsider candidate. After graduating from Brigham Young University and earning a Master’s of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He fought radical jihadists as a CIA officer in the Middle East after September 11. He worked for two years as an investment banker after completing his CIA service and then became a senior advisor to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and chief policy director of the House Republican Conference.

After only two months on the campaign trail, there are reports that McMullin is surging. Because he doesn’t appear in most polls, it is hard to gauge the depth of his support, but he has already passed Jill Stein in one recent national poll. 

Originally published on The Resurgent

Evan McMullin in his own words

EvanMcMullin.com

Evan McMullin’s campaign is gaining steam, but a big question for many voters is “Where does Evan McMullin stand on the issues?” As McMullin gains ballot access in a growing number of states, the question of who Evan McMullin is and exactly what he stands for remains. We have combed interviews to find Evan McMullin in his own words.

On why he’s running: “One of the biggest threats this country faces is Islamist terrorism. I am the only credible candidate who has any experience whatsoever, firsthand, fighting terrorists,” McMullin said to Bloomberg. “I know exactly what needs to be done to defeat ISIS and other such groups. On day one, I can start that process.”

He further stated on Fox News, “Donald Trump is already losing this election. I entered the race six days ago when he was down ten points at the national level. State polls in critical states over the past couple of days show that he’s even further down in them. Donald Trump has no chance of winning this election. He has alienated too wide a swath of the American population. He continues to put his foot in his mouth. He will not win. He’s weak and I think he’s melting down…. He is ensuring that Hillary Clinton is our next president.”

McMullin told Heat Street, “I am the only conservative in this race. Donald Trump is not a conservative. He has pretended to be at times and not at other times. I have been a conservative my entire life. I believe firmly that I am the only one that can carry that mantle. And I am committed to uniting this country and I believe that under these [conservative] principles… that the country can be united again. It's been divided for too long and both of these candidates, Clinton and Trump, in their own individual ways, are further dividing us. We need a new generation of leadership.”

McMullin agreed that getting down ticket Republicans elected was very important and called encouraging disaffected conservatives “a positive element of what we’re doing. We’re giving the American people someone to vote for, not just against.”

On Donald Trump: “Donald Trump is no conservative,” he told ABC News. He won the nomination “through misrepresenting himself and exploiting vulnerabilities that the American people have…. I do believe he’s a fraud and a con man. That’s not something I say lightly. That is my professional opinion.”

McMullin told National Review, “I believe Donald Trump is a bona fide authoritarian. I am deeply concerned that if he were president of the United States he would act accordingly.”

On Hillary Clinton: “Hillary Clinton has proven that she doesn’t believe she’s accountable to the American people,” he said to ABC News. The email server issue, a lot of people talk about how classified information was compromised and how lives and sensitive operations were compromised as well… Part of the story that didn’t come out that is even more important is that she believes that she is unaccountable to the American people. She went to great lengths to move her work, her email traffic, off the State Department system. She does not believe that she’s accountable to the American people.”

“So we’re in a time now where Americans, hardworking Americans, don’t feel like they’re being listened to. They don’t feel like their government thinks it’s accountable to them. Are we really going to elect a president who personifies that? I think we shouldn’t.”

On whether Hillary is worse than Trump: “I think they would both be absolutely terrible for the country,” McMullin told ABC News. “I think neither of them understand what makes this country special. Neither of them envision a government that is accountable to the people. Neither of them respect our system of checks and balances.”

“I don’t want either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton to become president. Neither of them is acceptable to Americans.”

On trade: On Fox News, McMullin said, “I’m for [the Trans Pacific Partnership]. We need the trade. Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers are outside our borders and we need access to them. Right now, as it is, we are limited in so many ways in so many countries…. We have got to get to yes on this….”

“On trade, I’ll just mention that there are people who are genuinely suffering as a result of displaced industries and jobs. Automation is another part of that. It isn’t only trade. We do need to hear their concerns. We do need to help them transition more. I believe that and that’s a message conservatives need to promote more, but we can’t stop trading and broadening our trade opportunities. We have to do that.”

On immigration: “I think we need to secure our border first and foremost,” McMullin told the Fox News panel. “It’s a basic part of being a country. It’s a basic piece of national security. We must do that.”

“As far as a wall is concerned,” he continued, “the experts actually say that in some places a wall is necessary, in some places a double wall is necessary and in other places a wall wouldn’t help. I’m for whatever it takes to secure our border with Mexico. We’ve got to do it.”

“I’m for enforcing our laws, but not for deporting 11 million people. I think it’s ridiculous. It would cause so much trouble, economically and in other ways. It’s a ridiculous idea. I oppose that. I think that what we need to do is for those here illegally, who are not criminals and want to stay, there should be a path towards a legal presence in the United States.”

On Heat Street, McMullin said specifically that the pathway would be towards “legal residency and, in some cases, citizenship.”

When asked about Syrian refugees, McMullin said, “If you’re a terrorist and you want to come to the United States, the worse possible way to do it is as a refugee. You go through a year-and-a-half to two years of vetting. If you want to come to the United States and you’re a terrorist, you’re much better off just coming through on the visa waiver program from Europe or just walking across the border from Mexico, so I think there is a lot of hysteria and unjustified hysteria around the refugee situation. I think we need to be more careful and thoughtful and accurate with the way we talk about that issue because it has implications for a variety of other interests that we have overseas.

McMullin told ABC News, “I don’t think we should ban people based on their religion. I don’t think we should call an ethnic group racist.”

On ISIS: “The problem is the pace of what we’ve been doing. President Obama has articulated a containment strategy that sort of has a slow road to defeating ISIS. The problem is for an Islamist organization to have a safe haven the size of the one ISIS has, you buy them time to plot and plan the kinds of attacks that happened in Europe, the United States and elsewhere over the last year, so the pace needs to pick up. This isn’t something that we can sort of get around to casually and that’s my objection to what President Obama is doing.”

When a Fox panelist asked if ISIS should be destroyed, McMullin replied, “absolutely.”

The same panelist then followed up with a question about whether American ground forces should be used. “I don’t think we should take anything off the table,” McMullin answered, “but there are a lot of great options… for us before we put troops on the ground. We need to use CIA operations; we need to use our Special Forces. I’ve been there, done that. We are very good at this. We need to train indigenous forces. There are countries in the region who have volunteered to put up their own troops. We need to exhaust some of these things before we go ahead and put traditional troops on the ground. I don’t think it’s necessary. I think we can defeat ISIS through other means….”

On the prisoners at Gitmo: “I don’t think Gitmo should be closed. These are enemy combatants and 

they deserve to stay where they are until hostilities are completed…. These are people who want to kill Americans en masse. I’ve dealt with these people face-to-face. They are intelligent, many of them, they’re well-traveled, they’re well-studied. These are very motivated people who eat, sleep and drink destroying America and the idea that they shouldn’t be locked up and held…. We need to put ourselves on a war footing and remember that’s what we’re involved in….”

On Russia: “I’m no friend of any authoritarian,” McMullin told ABC. “Donald Trump is an authoritarian and the leaders around the world, in history and currently, that he admires, that he aspires to be in one way or another, are all authoritarians. It’s very interesting that that’s the case. He speaks very openly about it. I think we all need to be concerned with that.”

“I’m no beginner to this game, but Donald Trump is. He sees Putin as a friend. But Putin sees him as a big, fat target.”

In the Washington Post, McMullin called Donald Trump’s pro-Russian advisors “Moscow’s most successful intelligence operation. They must be beside themselves to have co-opted either willingly or unwillingly someone on the doorstep” of the presidency.

-To be continued

Read this on Conservative Firing Line

Marco Rubio gay arrest story debunked

 

Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia

An article began making the rounds on the internet this week alleging that Marco Rubio had been arrested for soliciting a gay prostitute in a Miami park in 1990. If true, the allegations could shatter the campaign of the Republican candidate who is currently surging in the polls.

The story, published on a website called The Political Insider, further claims that Angel Barrios, one of the teens arrested with Rubio that night, was later implicated in a gay porn ring. The article also contains a photo of a “gay foam party” with an arrow pointing to a man that is allegedly Marco Rubio. The Political Insider “bombshell report” concludes with a video from Infowars that makes many of the same allegations.

The Political Insider piece is based on two articles, one from the Washington Post and another from the Miami New Times. The article gets some details of Rubio’s 1990 arrest right, but omits and misrepresents crucial facts that are readily available in the same sources that Political Insider cites. It is true that Marco Rubio was arrested in Wainwright Park in Miami with two friends on May 23, 1990 when he was 18 years old. Political Insider paints this arrest as being connected with gay prostitution and implies that there was no other reason to be in the park at night, but neither original source makes these claims.

According to the Post story, a local homeowner association cited complaints about the park including “gang warfare, gunfire, prostitution (straight and gay), drug dealing and muggings.” The Post also quotes Delrish Moss, a Miami police public information officer, as saying, “It was very dark and had lots of trees. People went out there to smoke illegal substances, have sex, drink.” The Political Insider ignores everything except the gay prostitution angle.

Todd Harris, a spokesman for the Rubio campaign, told the Post, ““When he was 18 years old, he [Rubio] violated a municipal code for drinking beer in a park after hours. He was never taken into custody, never hired a lawyer and never appeared in court. Why The Washington Post thinks that is a story is beyond me.”

In response to the Rubio campaign’s response, The Political Insider breathlessly notes that “the police incident report never mentions alcohol!” The reason is explained in the Post article. The arrest was for the misdemeanor offense of being in the park after it was closed. The Post further explains, “There’s no indication that Rubio was involved in any illegal activity other than drinking beer and being in a public park after closing. The police incident report, which does not mention alcohol, states that drug activity was ‘not applicable.’” The misdemeanor charges were later dropped.

The Political Insider goes on to say that Angel Barrios, one of the boys arrested with Rubio that night, “was sued for running a gay pornography studio in a property his company owned.” The Insider quotes the Miami New Times which says that “Barrios was associated with perhaps the most notorious gay porn ring in Miami history….” Pretty damning guilt by association, right?

Not exactly. At the time, Barrios owned a property management company which rented a house to the firm that produced the porn. Barrios is quoted in the same article that the Insider cites as saying, “We are not in the gay porn business. We are not in the straight porn business. We are not in the porn business. My poor father, he had no idea what was going on in there.” The report continues, “Barrios says that he moved quickly to force the business out and that the gay porn site was gone within six months.” The incident occurred in 2007, 17 years after Barrios’ arrest with Rubio.

The New Times report goes on to say that the City of Miami sued Barrios and Cocodorm, the porn company, for illegally operating an adult business in a residential area. Barrios and Cocodorm countersued. Eventually the city waived the fines against Barrios and removed a lien from the house.

“They [Cocodorm] offered to pay all the attorneys' fees if we sued the city,” Barrios explained to the New Times. “I was looking at these huge civil citation fines from the city for something I had nothing to do with. So I was happy to let them go to court to try to get rid of these fines.”

Barrios denied that he and Rubio had a sexual relationship. “I have nothing against gay people, but this is just so far from the truth,” he said, “I have kids, and now they’re reading all this garbage online. It’s insane.” The New Times reported that Barrios “laughs out loud at the idea of having had a sexual relationship with Rubio.”

Neither source presents any evidence that Rubio and Barrios had any contact after the 1990 arrest.

Barrios did talk about the arrest and his friendship with Rubio in the Post. Barrios says that, while in school, they “were just messing around and partying. Trying to get pretty girls.” Barrios did not recall why they were at the park that night. “We never even used to go to that area,” he said. “That might have been the first time I went there.”

He also said, “I don’t think we got handcuffed and taken to jail.” Instead, they got a “piece of paper.” The Post describes this as a “promise to appear” in court, but Barrios said, ““I don’t think we even ended up going to court.” The Post notes that the charges were dismissed two months later and that “record searches turned up no evidence that mug shots were taken.”

As to the foam party, on the Jimmy Fallon Show Marco Rubio did talk about going to a foam party once, but there was no indication that it was a “gay foam party.” Rubio indicated that he did not enjoy the foam party since the foam ruined his boots, a tacit indication that he was clothed, unlike the men in the Political Insider photo.

The Insider links the picture to a gay website called Towleroad.com. Not mentioned by the Insider is Towleroad’s description of the picture: “Another photo shows a gay foam party at the ’90s South Beach gay nightclub Warsaw Ballroom, and show’s a man’s profile which Madsen says ‘is believed to be’ Rubio. The face is obscured, so it really could be anybody” [emphasis mine].

An additional photo on Political Insider allegedly shows Rubio dancing in what the New York Observer called a “Chippendales performance” when it published the photo in April 2015. The Insider does not provide any context for this photo, but far from being a strip club act, the picture was taken at an annual male talent show at South Miami Senior High School in 1989. The Observer identifies Rubio and the other dancers as members of the school football team, the Cobras.  Rubio also performed a rendition of “Still” by Lionel Ritchie. He did not win the title of “King Cobra.”

One final question is who “The Political Insider” really is. The site makes no pretense of objectivity with its claim that “we break down the barriers employed by the government and the liberal media….” To underscore the site’s pseudonews status, the byline of the Marco Rubio article is an anonymous handle, “Kosar,” not the actual name of a writer. The terms and conditions page of the site invites submissions and makes no mention of journalistic standards, editorial supervision or basic fact checking.

The information presented in this article is readily available. Much of it came from the same sources that the Insider linked in its piece. If a reader bothers to click the link and read the articles from real news sources, the truth is readily apparent. Instead, The Political Insider selectively quoted and misrepresented the real news accounts.

[An attempt was made to contact The Political Insider for this article, but no response was received. I have elected not to provide a link to the original article to avoid driving traffic to a fake news story. Caution should be exercised in visiting The Political Insider site. My computer got slow every time I went to the site.]

Rubio’s previously undisclosed arrest is a legitimate issue. Just prior to the 2000 election, news broke that George W. Bush had a previously undisclosed arrest for DWI in 1976. Bush had been leading in the polls, but the news of the arrest was enough to sway the popular vote to Al Gore.

Even though Rubio’s arrest was real, the charge that he is a closeted homosexual is unsupportable by fact. The article from Political Insider is nothing more than a very thinly veiled attempt to destroy Rubio’s character and standing in the conservative community.