John Sununu Takes Down Obamabot Soledad O’Brien Over Using Donald Trump 'Birtherism' Card: ‘Why Is CNN So Fixated On This?’

Mediaite.com:

Following a contentious opening segment on CNN’s Starting Point on Wednesday, former New Hampshire Governor and Romney surrogate John Sununu clashed with Soledad O’Brien over CNN’s Donald Trump coverage.


“Why the birther thing?” O’Brien questioned Sununu. “I don’t know,” Sununu shot back. “Why is CNN so fixated on this? Why don’t we talk about the jobs issue in this country?”


“Sure and we’ll get to that in a moment but let’s start with this,” O’Brien pressed.


“It’s CNN that wants to bring it up. I don’t want to bring it up. Mitt Romney made it clear that he believes that President Obama was born in the U.S. You had Donald Trump on last night. And now you are asking the question this morning. It’s CNN’s fixation,” Sununu responded sharply.


“You don’t think it’s a valid question of someone posing as a supporter/surrogate?” O’Brien countered.


“He’s a high level big funder. He’s talking about millions of dollars he’s thinking of donating. You don’t think it’s a big deal that person talks about the fact that the President of the United States is not a citizen of the country?”


“I think it’s equivalent an issue as Bill Maher, who gave a million dollars to President Obama talking with such a foul mouth about women,” Sununu explained. “But you can’t pick your supporters in this country.


The fact is that this country has a jobs problem and supporters of the President like CNN keep wanting to talk about other issues.”


O’Brien doggedly stuck to peppering Governor Sununu with questions relating to birtherism.


“Come on, let’s talk jobs,” Sununu said.


“Is that because you don’t want to talk about the fact that a major fund-raiser is a birther?” O’Brien asked.


“It’s not an issue,” Sununu argued. “There is nobody in the Romney campaign that believes that the president was not born in the United States.”


“So then how come someone doesn’t say, Donald Trump is wrong?” O’Brien pressed.


“Donald Trump is wrong,” Sununu acknowledged. “The President was born in the United States.”


“That may be the first time,” O’Brien grinned.


“No it isn’t, ma’am,” Sununu snapped. “It’s just because you don’t read enough.”

RELATED:  O’Reilly And Panel Clash Over Legitimacy Of Soledad O’Brien Asking About The ‘Stupid Birth Certificate’

If Barack Obama Can't Do Anything About Crime-Ridden Chicago, How Can He Run The Country?

Chicago, Illinois is where Barack Obama made a name for himself as politician. And despite Chicago having a long history of sleazy, corrupt Democrat politicians having their way, thanks to anti-Bush furor, an upset win over Hillary Clinton in the primaries and a liberal media hellbent on making him POTUS, in 2008 Barack Obama became President. But now, four years later Chicago is suffering from a huge crime and violence epidemic that is mostly affecting minorities. But Barack Obama, who has done nothing to address crime, guns in inner cities or the breakdown of the American family since he became POTUS, still expects these people to vote from him to be re-elected POTUS come November. The nerve of the guy:

Last year Chicago saw four people slain during Memorial Day weekend. This year the city saw 40 shootings and 10 murders over the four-day weekend. (Yes, some people had four days off.)

Scary right?  "According to the summaries, there have been at least 200 homicides so far this year compared with 134 during the same period in 2011. That's a 49.25 percent increase over last year," reports the Chicago Tribune's Stacy St. Clair, who added that police aren't confirming the 40-10 tally because they say several incidents are still under investigation. 

Sure you could probably point to large Memorial day parties and gatherings, as St. Clair and police do, as one explanation for why so many shootings and killings occurred--the thought being that there are more people in town, hence the bigger figure. But St. Clair notes that shootings in Chicago are up 14 percent for the year, casting doubts on Rahm Emmanuel's crime-fighting initiatives. And hey, there's always the intangible "heat brings out more crime" theory which some news outlets are sticking to. Temperatures apparently hit the mid-90s in Chicago this weekend.

RELATED: Obama to return to Chicago for Friday fundraisers

John Edwards Found Not Guilty On 1 Count, Judge Declares Mistrial On 5 Others

Mediaite.com:

After nine days of deliberation, the jury (which was seated on April 23) reached a verdict in the John Edwards trial, finding him not guilty on count 3, which pertained to illegal campaign contributions in 2008. With the jury deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial on the 5 other counts.


Edwards faced six felony counts — including four counts of collecting illegal campaign contributions, one of conspiracy and one related to filing false records. A two-year investigation looked into whether Edwards used political donations to cover up his affair and illegitimate child.


The charges carry a sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine, though legal experts had said it’s unlikely that Edwards, if convicted, would face those full penalties. Among its arguments, the defense team said the money was a personal gift from friends.

RELATED: Edwards gets acquittal on one count, mistrial on others

Elizabeth Warren Admits Listing Herself As Native American At Harvard, Penn

Conservatives are well aware that white liberals love to use black people to foster and push their corrupt, anti-God, social agenda--it's a tactic that's worked well for the Left for decades now and black liberals continue to let them get away with it. But a rising white liberal attempting to use another minority, say Native Americans, to get ahead in life? Well, let's just say that when it comes to getting used, the Natives don't play that:

Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren acknowledged for the first time late Wednesday night that she told Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania that she was Native American, but she continued to insist that race played no role in her recruitment.
 

“At some point after I was hired by them, I . . . provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard,’’ she said in a statement issued by her campaign. “My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it and I have been open about it.’’
 

Warren’s statement is her first acknowledgment that she identified herself as Native American to the Ivy League schools. While she has said she identified herself as a minority in a legal directory, she has carefully avoided any suggestion during the last month that she took further actions to promote her purported heritage.
 

When the issue first surfaced last month, Warren said she only learned Harvard was claiming her as a minority when she read it in the Boston Herald.

Warren’s new statement came after the Globe asked her campaign about documents it obtained Wednesday from Harvard’s library showing that the university’s law school began reporting a Native American female professor in federal statistics for the 1992-93 school year, the first year Warren worked at Harvard, as a visiting professor.

A campaign official said they had no records indicating that she had informed Harvard of Native American heritage that year.
 

The official further said that Warren had been unable to answer questions about the issue before now because she had forgotten many of the details and had asked her campaign to thoroughly review the evidence. The campaign declined to say whether Warren provided the information to Harvard and Penn verbally or by checking a box on a form.

The Harvard records do not list a Native American during the years Warren returned to her post at the University of Pennsylvania, but begin to list one in 1995-96, when she returned to Cambridge as a tenured professor.

RELATED:  Video: Deval Patrick heroically shields Elizabeth Warren from having to explain her ancestry nonsense

Artur Davis, Former Prominent Obama Backer, Leaves Democratic Party for GOP

If black liberals leaning towards leaving the confines of a President who takes their issues for granted while doing absolutely nothing for them were looking for a sign and/or someone to take the 1st step, this could be it:

Artur Davis, one of President Obama’s earliest supporters and a former co-chairman for his presidential campaign, announced Tuesday that he was leaving the Democratic Party for good.

In a post published Tuesday on his website, Davis was vague about his future political endeavors, but declared: “If I were to run, it would be as a Republican. And I am in the process of changing my voter registration from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another.”

Davis, who represented Alabama’s 7th Congressional District from 2003 to 2011, was notably the first member of Congress outside of Illinois to endorse then-Sen. Obama’s 2008 presidential bid. And it was Davis who seconded the official nomination of Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Along with making hints at the future, Davis reflected on his experiences as a Democrat, and condemned the path he believes the party is taking.

Renouncing the party “is no light decision on my part,” he wrote. “Cutting ties with an Alabama Democratic Party that has weakened and lost faith with more and more Alabamians every year is one thing; leaving a national party that has been the home for my political values for two decades is quite another.”

But “wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities,” he said.

“On the specifics, I have regularly criticized an agenda that would punish businesses and job creators with more taxes just as they are trying to thrive again,” he said. “I have taken issue with an administration that has lapsed into a bloc by bloc appeal to group grievances when the country is already too fractured: frankly, the symbolism of Barack Obama winning has not given us the substance of a united country.”

RELATED: Psst, Don't Tell Anyone: Four-term Former Congressman and Obama 2008 Co-Chair Artur Davis Announces That He's a Republican

White, Morally Bankrupt, Far-Left Actress Charlize Theron Adopts A Black Boy

When it comes to politics actress Charlize Theron is typical of Hollywood actors who suffer greatly from white guilt (i.e. white privilege) as they make millions from doing relatively easy labor. As her white guilt encompasses her, Theron pacify's it by being an openly liberal activist which means joining "women's rights" organizations, being an active member of PETA, playing gay roles, marching in pro-choice rallies, supporting radically leftist politicians like Barack Obama and of course, being an open supporter of "marriage equality". In fact, Theron was so adamant that gays in the U.S. be allowed to "marry" that she once famously declared that she wouldn't marry then-boyfriend Stuart Townsend until they do. And for her "BOLD!!!" stance, Theron was quickly given praise by the liberal press, not to mention a spot in the top hierarchy of the the rich, white, Hollywood, liberal elite that Barack Obama finds so endearing.

But apparently Theron wasn't done there as she's now taken on a role only a few have dared to go: getting with the latest Hollywood trend of white actresses adopting a black kid and then crying about it on TV. Forget that Theron is now single and will be a mother for the first time, it'll be another black kid being lucky enough to be picked and saved from the "evil" white man's world by a far-left liberal actress with no morals, but plenty of money and nannies to spare:

Charlize Theron has joined the Hollywood mom's club!

The actress, 36, "has adopted a child," her rep says in a statement to PEOPLE. "She is the proud mom of a healthy baby boy named Jackson."

Jackson is the first child for the South African-born Theron, who recently starred in Young Adult. She won an Oscar for her role as a serial killer in 2003's Monster. 

No further details about her new addition were released.

Though Theron is surely thrilled about expanding her family, she has previously spoken out about not feeling the need to tie the knot. Marriage, she said last year, was "never something that was important [to me]." 

RELATED: Hollywood family values

Mitt Romney Learns From John McCain, Not Playing The Hypocritical Liberal Repudiation Game

Of course if the Left was really concerned about Mitt Romney's association with Donald Trump they'd call on Barack Obama to give back that $1M donation he got from vile, disgusting, misogynist Bill Maher some time back. But not only are they not concerned about Romney's best interests, they also have no interest in talking about the issues that really matter to most Americans and Mitt Romney knows it:

Mitt Romney's refusal to repudiate Donald Trump sends a signal, both to Democrats and the voting public: With the nation's future at stake in this November's election, Romney will not accommodate calls that he disown supporters who make ill-considered, unpopular, or sometimes outrageous statements on matters not fundamental to the campaign.

Romney aides believe that cooperating with Democrats and media figures who are demanding a Trump disavowal would most certainly lead to more calls for more disavowals of other figures in the future -- leaving Romney spending as much time apologizing for his supporters as campaigning for president.  Team Romney views it as a silly and one-sided game designed to distract voters from the central issue of the race, which they remain convinced will be President Obama's handling of the economy.

By one-sided, they mean not only that Obama has not disavowed SuperPAC contributor Bill Maher for a number of Maher's statements that were particularly insulting to Republican women.  They also mean the press, with, as Team Romney sees it, questionable associations of its own. Has David Gregory, moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," repudiated his colleague Al Sharpton, the MSNBC host with a decades-long record of incendiary statements and actions?  And has, say, the New York Times columnist Gail Collins repudiated her colleague Charles Blow, who once wrote to Romney, "Stick that in your magic underwear"?  Romney, his team believes, understands that the calls for him to repudiate Trump over the issue of birtherism -- and future calls to repudiate this or that supporter next week or next month over some other issue -- are at the core all about politics.

Another reason Romney is wary of such concessions is that John McCain tried them, and they didn't do him any good.  For example, in February 2008, a local Ohio radio host, Bill Cunningham, introduced McCain at a rally in Cincinnati.  In the introduction, Cunningham referred to Obama three times by his full name, which at the time some Republicans feared would open them up to unspecified accusations of intolerance. "At one point, the media will quit taking sides in this thing," Cunningham said, "and start covering Barack Hussein Obama."  McCain immediately apologized and disavowed Cunningham's remarks.  Eleven months later, of course, Obama took the oath of office, beginning, "I, Barack Hussein Obama…"  In retrospect, the Cunningham episode looked ridiculous.  But at the time, it contributed to an image of McCain in retreat.

So the bottom line is, Romney is determined to stay away from anything that distracts him from the main issue of the campaign.  In the end, the thinking goes, the heart of the campaign will always be the economy and Barack Obama's stewardship of it.  Repudiating, or not repudiating, Donald Trump won't change that.

RELATED: Romney clinches GOP nomination with Texas win

New Video Shows Obama-Supported Planned Parenthood Encouraging Gender-Selective Abortion And Medicaid Fraud

It's no secret to conservatives that the Obama administration and the corrupt, radical and historically racist Planned Parenthood have a profound love for each other--a love that stretches into cronyism, policy and of course, heavy funding and corruption. But who knew it also involved turning a blind eye to gender-selective abortions and medicaid fraud? Well, here's a looksee:

Want to see a real war on women?  Not one defined by the opposition to the imposition of a Hubby State and subsidies, but one in which women of the future are systematically eliminated?  Live Action went undercover last month at a number of abortion clinics across the nation to expose how the abortion industry assists and even encourages gender-selective abortion, a global trend that has eliminated tens of millions of girls before they ever draw breath outside the womb.  The video also shows a Planned Parenthood counselor in Texas explaining to a young mother how to defraud Medicaid:




“This was a multi-state, national investigation demonstrating that this is a widespread problem across our country,” Live Action president Lila Rose told The Daily Caller in an interview Monday.


“First of all, the statistics and studies indicate that we are adding to the growing problem across the world of sex-selective targeting of unborn girls for abortion. We are going to be demonstrating — starting with this video from Texas — that the abortion industry in the United States is aiding and abetting this horrific problem.”


The first in what Live Action says is a series of videotaped incidents exposing American abortion facilities’ willingness to assist in sex-selection abortions took place at a South Austin, Texas Planned Parenthood clinic. In the footage, a Planned Parenthood counselor appears to readily assist and advise a Live Action actor who said she was trying to obtain an abortion if her baby is female.


“In this video, what is astounding is that Rebecca, the Planned Parenthood counselor, starts arranging with the actor about how to get a late-term abortion,” Rose said. “To wait until her pregnancy is so developed that — and using Medicaid for this, using the state to pay for the ultrasound to determine the gender, and then to do a late term abortion if it was a little girl.”


Welcome to the real war on women. This one has real casualties, too. But even if one supports abortion rights for whatever purpose, should taxpayer dollars flow to organizations that offer advice on how to defraud Medicaid?

RELATED: Planned Parenthood: We Won’t Deny Women Sex-Selection Abortions

Another Deadly Taste Of ObamaCare

NYPost.com:

The US Preventive Services Task Force ruled last week that screening for prostate cancer is a waste of money. 

Get ready for many more such outrages: This is the agency that will determine which preventive services ObamaCare will require health plans to cover free of charge.

The task force claims that screening all adult men with the PSA (protein-specific antigen) test doesn’t prevent death from the disease. It argues that “the number of men who avoid dying of prostate cancer because of screening after 10 to 14 years is, at best, very small.” 

Adding to the “costs” of the test are “false positives” — they tell people they have cancer when they don’t about 10 percent of the time. The task force thinks this problem makes the cost of screening higher than the tiny benefit screening generates for society. 

It’s worth analyzing the road to this conclusion, because it tells us a lot about how ObamaCare rations medicine. 

First, the task force measures the effect of testing on the death rate from any disease (all-cause mortality). That’s a bogus benchmark, because, as John Maynard Keynes famously noted, in the long run we all die. In fact, death rates from prostate cancer have dropped 57 percent among men ages 49 to 64 and 80 percent among adult men over 75. National Cancer Institute data show that prostate cancers are being detected and treated earlier and that life expectancy is rising as a result. 

The task force claims there is no evidence that screening directly reduces prostate cancer. But how, then, did death rates decline, if screening doesn’t work?

It does, of course. As prostate-cancer expert William Catalano notes, PSA screening is why the horror of not diagnosing this cancer until it has metastasized (advanced and spread) has all but disappeared. 

The task force states that because the PSA test is imprecise, it will always lead to overdiagnosis. But false positives are a risk of all screening, and the error rate for prostate-cancer screening is no higher than screening for other illnesses or cancers. 

Catalano also points out that it’s regular testing — not the test being used — that has likely contributed to raising the odds against the disease. 

The task force also claims that the PSA test can’t tell us which tumors to treat. Yet it gives the patient and his doctors time to figure that out. 

For most patients, PSA screening gives a 5-to-10-year lead time — a vital window in which other new techniques (needle biopsies plus improvements in surgery and radiotherapy) can work. 

Finally, the task force argues that PSA testing causes men to suffer from painful treatments and endure anxiety about false-positive results. It doesn’t measure this cost or have any data to support it. Worse, it disregards the scientific evidence that treatments reduce suffering and improve quality of life, even if they don’t always increase survival. 

In reality, this ban is based on politics, not science. The task force — and similar ObamaCare agencies — applies standards that aren’t achievable. Going forward, new technologies would require decades of data and would have to demonstrate they’re nearly 100 perfect before ObamaCare would cover them. 

Unless, of course, the procedure is politically popular: ObamaCare will treat contraception as cost-effective, although there’s no hard data to support that claim. 

The value of health-care services, in other words, will be measured by political criteria, not by their ability to reduce suffering and death. 

That’s an ugly future, indeed.

RELATED: 10 Reasons Why Obamacare is Dead

20 Years Later, It Turns Out Dan Quayle Was Right about Murphy Brown and Unmarried Moms

WaPo.com:

On May 19, 1992, as the presidential campaign season was heating up, Vice President Dan Quayle delivered a family-values speech that came to define him nearly as much as his spelling talents. Speaking at the Commonwealth Club of California, he chided Murphy Brown — the fictional 40-something, divorced news anchor played by Candice Bergen on a CBS sitcom — for her decision to have a child outside of marriage. 

“Bearing babies irresponsibly is simply wrong,” the vice president said. “Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this. It doesn’t help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.”

Quayle’s argument — that Brown was sending the wrong message, that single parenthood should not be encouraged — erupted into a major campaign controversy. And just a few weeks before the ’92 vote, the show aired portions of his speech and had characters react to it.

“Perhaps it’s time for the vice president to expand his definition and recognize that, whether by choice or circumstance, families come in all shapes and sizes,” Bergen’s character said.

Her fictional colleague Frank, meanwhile, echoed some of the national reaction: “It’s Dan Quayle — forget about it!”
 
Twenty years later, Quayle’s words seem less controversial than prophetic. The number of single parents in America has increased dramatically: The proportion of children born outside marriage has risen from roughly 30 percent in 1992 to 41 percent in 2009. For women under age 30, more than half of babies are born out of wedlock. A lifestyle once associated with poverty has become mainstream. The only group of parents for whom marriage continues to be the norm is the college-educated. 

Some argue that these changes are benign. Many children who in the past would have had two married parents could have two cohabiting parents instead. Why should the lack of a legal or religious tie affect anyone’s well-being? 

There are three reasons to be concerned about this dramatic shift in family life.

First, marriage is a commitment that cohabitation is not. Taking a vow before friends and family to support another person “until death do us part” signals a mutual sense of shared responsibility that cannot be lightly dismissed. Cohabitation is more fragile — cohabiting parents split up before their fifth anniversary at about twice the rate of married parents.  Often, this is because the father moves on, leaving the mother not just with less support but with fewer marriage prospects. For her, marriage requires finding a partner willing to take responsibility for someone else’s kids.

Second, a wealth of research strongly suggests that marriage is good for children. Those who live with their biological parents do better in school and are less likely to get pregnant or arrested. They have lower rates of suicide, achieve higher levels of education and earn more as adults. Meanwhile, children who spend time in single-parent families are more likely to misbehave, get sick, drop out of high school and be unemployed.

RELATED: What’s Worse Than Being a Single Mother?

Kirsten Powers: ‘Obviously There Is A Bias’ In Media Not Covering Catholic Insurance Lawsuits

Mediaite.com:

The struggle between the federal government and the Catholic Church in whether the latter should be required to purchase insurance for its employees including birth control coverage continues, as 43 Catholic institutions have sued the White House over the issue. On Fox News today, Kirsten Powers and Gretchen Hamel debated the struggle between women’s rights and religious freedom and, in particular, the media’s reaction to the public discourse, and its comparative silence on the lawsuits when indicated to Powers that “obviously there is a bias.”


Powers did not agree with the Church’s position to not provide health insurance coverage in this specific instance, describing it as “church overreach” to intrude into the services a doctor provides to an employee, but explained that she understood the Church’s position. “I think they are acting in good faith– I don’t think this is some anti-woman campaign; they really feel this is infringement on their beliefs,” she told host Juliet Huddy. More importantly, she added, the Church likely sees the issue as a “slippery slope” that will lead to the government intruding on other issues aside from birth control.


Hamel found it “highly ironic” that religious freedom was at issue on Memorial Day, a day to celebrate those who protect our freedoms. She didn’t see the overreach issue with the Church, but with the government. “We have a government that is continuously governing and telling people what they should do and they are spending more.” Huddy then asked about the lawsuits against the White House coming from Catholic institutions. “Obviously there is a bias behind because when it came to covering this from the perspective of covering this as a war on women… it was pretty startling how much time they spent on it,” Powers argued. She noted there appeared also to not be “a lot of interest in understanding where the church is coming from” on the part of the media.

RELATED: Matalin: Religious liberty is the issue at stake in the HHS mandate

Why White, Elite, Liberal Prick Paul Krugman Is The World's Most Dangerous Economist

NYPost.com:

When Paul Krugman dies, he’ll be primarily remembered for three things: He won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics; he has been one of the world’s most-read and most-influential political pundits; and he said with total seriousness (watch the video) that a way to fix America’s economy would be for the government to spend a ton of money preparing for a nonexistent alien invasion because at least that would get people working.
 
I’ll save you the trouble of writing in with the riposte, “Where’s your Nobel Prize?” The Nobel committee is not infallible (the guy who invented the lobotomy and declared it “always safe” got a Nobel), but even if it was, Krugman’s award was not for political philosophy but for an arcane point of technical analysis, and even if it were for political philosophy, many economists with the opposite philosophy (Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, Friedrich Hayek) have also won the Nobel. 

Krugman is a most unusual economist. Others may measure their words, issue caveats, acknowledge that the research isn’t conclusive, admit that their biases influence their reading of facts. Not Krugman. Krugman is remarkable for his freewheeling writing style, which frequently leads to lively metaphors (“invisible bond-market vigilantes,” “confidence fairy”). He is often dismissive, misleading and tendentious. He changes the subject, ignores inconvenient evidence and plays playground bully to people he sees as ideological enemies (a list longer than Nixon’s). He blasts away at others’ work without even providing the basic courtesy of a link to what he’s talking about, which is a disservice to readers who might like to review the other side of the argument to decide for themselves. 

In his new book “End This Depression Now!” (W. W. Norton & Company), he compares Ben Bernanke to the moronic Chance the Gardener in “Being There” — and Bernanke is the man who hired Krugman at Princeton.

Krugman “writes with more vitriol than I find attractive,” writes Harvard economist and fellow Times columnist Greg Mankiw. He treats anyone who disagrees as “a mendacious idiot,” writes George Mason University economist Alex Tabarrok. “Krugman should stop bullying people,” wrote columnist Michael Kinsley.

In short, to use the kind of colorful language the great Nobelist favors, Paul Krugman is a jackass.

Take his recent, bizarre feud with economist Veronique de Rugy. Whenever she cites a number, he wrote recently, “You can pretty much assume that it’s wrong.” Rugy writes from a pro-free-market perspective. Krugman’s principal job may be to throw his readers the liberal equivalent of red meat (organic, sustainable, fair-trade soy with nontoxic pink dye?). But is this the professional courtesy one academic has for a colleague in the field?

RELATED: The Illogic of Paul Krugman

MSNBC's Chris Hayes Disses All Soldiers, Says He's 'Uncomfortable' Calling Fallen Troops 'Heroes'

It's no secret that MSNBC (not including Joe Scarborough) is a tool of the "progressive" Left, but dissing the men and women who volunteer to serve our country and risk their lives fighting for our country? That's just beyond stupid. Any wonder why soldiers these days will most likely vote Republican in November? Why vote for a Democrat president that supports an ideology that constantly ridicules, belittles and criticizes your sacrifice while standing safely on the land you battle to protect. Whose the real cowards again?

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and while many may be marking this occasion as a time for barbecuing with the family, it’s also an important time to reflect on the sacrifice of those who lost their lives serving the country. We like to remember them as heroes, men and women who risk everything to protect their fellow citizens, but on MSNBC today, Chris Hayes admitted he feels “uncomfortable” about doing that, suggesting the “hero” label gives us more rhetorical reasons to continue the wars.


Hayes observed that in much casual conversation about war and fallen soldiers, talk of heroism often comes up, and he doesn’t necessarily think that’s a good thing.

“I feel… uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism, you know, hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers, and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”

Columnist John McWhorter agreed with Hayes’ discomfort because the word “hero” and others like it can be used as “argumentational strategies” whether we are consciously aware of that or not. Hayes did acknowledge the other side of the argument, namely that there is no mandatory conscription and service is purely voluntary, therefore all those who choose to sign up and take heavy risks are heroes in their own right.


Michelle Goldberg, columnist for The Daily Beast, argued that the reason “hero” comes across as a loaded word is that it implies “they died in the pursuit of a worthy endeavor.” But see, I don’t think that’s the case. I’m sure there are many people who would disagree with U.S. military interventionist policy who recognize that the troops are just people following orders and doing their jobs under difficult circumstances. As fellow panelist Liliana Segura noted, people can certainly make the obvious distinction between the policy and the troops.


There’s nothing wrong with remembering the fallen as heroes. I can’t imagine the kind of courage it takes to voluntarily take a position with the understanding that you could die at any moment.

RELATED: Video: MSNBC observes Memorial Day