Democrats and their news media allies are pushing a Marxist class warfare narrative toward Republican proposals to reform federal health care and insurance regulations; framing GOP efforts as the rich exploiting the poor.

<a href="https://www.budget.senate.gov/bettercare">H.R. 1628</a>, the proposed Senate Republican &#8220;health care bill,&#8221; is being described by Democrats and assorted leftists as &#8220;mean-spirited,&#8221; with the usual suspects alleging the proposal as somehow reducing state-driven redistribution of wealth.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) pushed the neo-Marxist &#8220;one percenter&#8221; narrative &#8212; popularized by the Democrat-funded Occupy Wall Street movement &#8212; on NBC&#8217;s <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-june-25-2017-n776471">Meet The Press</a>:

<blockquote>
&#8220;They&#8217;re seeing almost all new income and wealth going to the top 1 percent. &#8230;

This is a large tax cut for the wealthy. &#8230;

They are going to provide some $500 billion in tax breaks to the top 2%, to the insurance companies, and to the drug companies. Is what America supposed to be about, taking away health insurance from kids with disabilities, from people with cancer, in order to give tax breaks to billionaires?&#8221;
</blockquote>
Barack Obama described H.R. 1628 as a &#8220;massive transfer of wealth&#8221; to the nation&#8217;s &#8220;richest people&#8221;; making his case on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/barackobama/posts/10154996557026749">Facebook</a> (emphasis added):

<blockquote>
The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It&#8217;s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Those with private insurance will experience higher premiums and higher deductibles, with lower tax credits to help working families cover the costs, even as their plans might no longer cover pregnancy, mental health care, or expensive prescriptions. Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions could become the norm again. Millions of families will lose coverage entirely.
</blockquote>
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) derided H.R. 1628 as rich predation on the &#8220;middle class&#8221; and poorer Americans; pushing his narrative with a compliant George Stephanopoulos on ABC&#8217;s <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-25-17-kellyanne-conway-sen-chuck/story?id=48254926">This Week</a> (emphases added):

<blockquote>
But the bill is just devastating. And that&#8217;s what&#8217;s making it so hard for them to pass it. Here&#8217;s what it does. It kills the middle class and gives money to the wealthy. And let&#8217;s not forget one thing, George. The hard, hard right, these thousand very wealthy people have such dominance in the Republican Party, they have had two goals for decades.
One, reduce taxes on the rich. People who make over $1 million get an average of a $57,000 tax cut. Two, destroy the social safety for the middle class of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This is the first step where they&#8217;re doing that in the Senate bill.
So that&#8217;s why there is such pressure on these Republicans, this narrow group of wealthy people with power. But the American people are crying out and saying no.
</blockquote>
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) framed H.R. 1628 as a theft of wealth by &#8220;billionaires&#8221; and &#8220;giant corporations&#8221;:

<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
But <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump</a> is right: The GOP healthcare bill IS mean. Cutting healthcare for 23M people to give billionaires a tax break is mean.
&#8212; Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/877262177794699264">June 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Giant corporations are squealing for tax cuts &#8211; but they&#8217;re not saying a word about the millions of people about to lose their health care.
&#8212; Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/875702415504416769">June 16, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Speaking on the Senate floor about how 13 men are trading away women&#8217;s healthcare for tax cuts for the rich. Watch: <a href="https://t.co/jc1R7Es8hG">https://t.co/jc1R7Es8hG</a>
&#8212; Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/877628500508893184">June 21, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) derided H.R. 1628 as a boon for America&#8217;s &#8220;wealthiest people&#8221; and &#8220;pharmaceutical companies,&#8221; making his case on <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2017/06/25/sec-tom-price-breaks-down-senate-health-care-bill.html">Fox News Sunday</a>:

<blockquote>
What&#8217;s driving [H.R. 1628] is not health care reform, what&#8217;s driving this is a tax cut. A tax cut the Republicans insist on of about $700 billion for the wealthiest people in America and pharmaceutical companies. That is what the Republicans had to put in the plan to make it work for Republicans, and then they took the money out of health care, out of Medicaid, and that&#8217;s why we see 23 million Americans losing their health insurance. So, those at the highest income categories can get a tax break.
</blockquote>

CNN&#8217;s Dana Bash &#8212; filling in for Jake Tapper as host of <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1706/25/sotu.01.html">State of the Union</a> &#8212; hyped reduced taxes for the &#8220;wealthiest Americans&#8221; as inherently problematic, asking Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price about H.R. 1628&#8217;s possible impact on his federal income tax payments:
<blockquote>
It would slash taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Looking at the bill that came out of the House, billionaire investor Warren Buffett said that your plan would reduce his tax bill by $680,000. &#8230;
So, what&#8217;s the answer? How much would you save under the House and Senate bills?&#8221;
</blockquote>
ABC&#8217;s George Stephanopoulos hyped class warfare during his introductory monologue on <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-25-17-kellyanne-conway-sen-chuck/story?id=48254926">This Week</a> (emphasis added):
<blockquote>
We know [H.R. 1628] follows the basic outline of the legislation passed by the House in May: repeal of the Obamacare taxes, those benefits flow largely to the wealthiest Americans, paid for by massive cuts, more than $800 billion, in the Medicaid public insurance program, which covers 1 in 5 Americans, 40 percent of poor adults.
</blockquote>
NBC&#8217;s George Will &#8212; who is presented as a conservative across the news media landscape &#8212; echoed the left-wing and Democrat narrative of H.R. 1628: &#8220;This is a large tax cut for the wealthy.&#8221;

None of the Sunday show&#8217;s hosts &#8212; with the exception of Fox News Channel&#8217;s Brit Hume (filling in for Chris Wallace) on Fox News Sunday &#8212; inquired about the fiscal solvency of federal &#8220;social welfare&#8221; programs that ostensibly facilitate health care. No questions were asked about free market reforms, judicious administration of taxpayer funds, or moral hazards associated with diffusion of responsibility via state-driven redistributive &#8220;social welfare&#8221; programs.

ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN all present themselves as politically objective and non-partisan news media outlets.

Follow Robert Kraychik on <a href="https://twitter.com/kr3ch3k">Twitter</a>.

Sunday Shows Push Class Warfare To Protect Obamacare

ABC News

Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA)

American Health Care Act (AHCA)

Barack Obama

Bernie Sanders

Charles Schumer

Dana Bash

Democratic Party

The Student Life, the Claremont Colleges&#8217; sole weekly newspaper left-wing tabloid, <a href="http://tsl.news/opinions/6492/">published</a> an article on February 24 titled &#8220;Milo&#8217;s Hate Speech is Not Free Speech.&#8221; Scripps College freshman Tiara Sharma discussed her contempt for those who disagreed with those who censored Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley and stated that individuals who possessed his ideals should never be welcomed at the Claremont Colleges.
<blockquote>
In the aftermath of the Berkeley riots that forced him to cancel his speaking engagement, I had many conversations with people who claimed to condemn Yiannopoulos&#8217;s ideologies, but defended his right to disseminate them on college campuses. My response to these people is simple: college campuses are not, and should not be, responsible for financially supporting figures like Yiannopoulos whose politics are founded upon the marginalization of certain identities. Our campuses cannot host public figures who claim that &#8220;gay rights have made us dumber,&#8221; call transgender people &#8220;mentally ill,&#8221; or claim that rape culture is a &#8220;fantasy.&#8221;
</blockquote>
To justify her claim that the Claremont Colleges should follow that course, she alluded to Scripps College&#8217;s decision to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/08/scripps-college-uninvites-george-will-because-of-column-on-sexual-assault/?utm_term=.b92f70fbb749">disinvite</a> syndicated columnist George Will three years ago for writing a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e90e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html?utm_term=.e4ab308f8836">piece</a> about how campus progressives turned into a coddled community of safe spaces and trigger warnings while alluding to the &#8220;college rape epidemic&#8221; <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/12777/9-things-you-need-know-about-campus-rape-epidemic-aaron-bandler">myth</a>. 
Sharma also expressed grievances with Simon &amp; Schuster and the Conservative Political Action Conference, observing that a pedophilia controversy was necessary revoke Yiannopoulos&#8217;s book deal and his keynote address. She concludes her sophomoric article with the following assertion:
<blockquote>
By continuing to fund speakers like Yiannopoulos, colleges like our own are not advocating for free speech; they are encouraging a type of ill-informed, hateful discourse that has no place on our campuses. If our colleges want to flaunt diversity on their brochures and websites, they should be willing to address the needs of their diverse students. They are entirely responsible for assuring that white supremacists, sexists, and bigots masquerading under the label &#8216;political pundit&#8217; do not impinge upon the lived experiences of their students. 
</blockquote>
According to Sharma, &#8220;hate speech&#8221; does not constitute free speech. However, the First Amendment of the Constitution does not outline such exceptions and it is unfortunate that The Student Life does not give its writers a crash course on the very constitutional right that gives them the ability to publish such unadulterated garbage:
<blockquote>
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
</blockquote>
Naturally, I wrote the following comment dissenting from Sharma&#8217;s assertions:
<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" alt height="178" src="https://dw-wp-dev.imgix.net/2019/09/screen_shot_2017-02-26_at_1.44.53_am.jpg" width="780" /></div>
In short, I stated that the First Amendment never had a &#8220;hate speech&#8221; exception because hatred is in the eye of the beholder. If such an exception existed, then snowflake millennials like Sharma would justify silencing individuals like Milo Yiannopoulos, George Will, or Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro. I also stated that whomever sponsors her education is getting a terrible return on their investment if Sharma cannot even properly read the First Amendment. It calls into question what she is learning inside the classroom (nothing insightful, I assume).
It does not surprise me that The Student Life and the Claremont Colleges peddle such fascistic and tyrannical views. When I was a student at Pitzer College, I was an opinion columnist for The Student Life as I was transitioning from a disgruntled classical liberal to a conservative. In my <a href="http://tsl.news/opinions/3557/">first article</a>, I wrote that the student body should have open, fruitful dialogue on controversial topics; using the Arab-Israeli conflict as an example. In response, people on campus equated my pro-Israel position with those who harbor sympathies to the Ku Klux Klan. I also <a href="http://tsl.news/opinions/4081/">warned</a> that the liberal left&#8217;s stranglehold on campus dialogue would ruin the Claremont Colleges&#8217; reputation as a beacon of liberalism in academia. A year later, I wrote a strongly-worded <a href="http://tsl.news/opinions/4127/">article</a> slamming the left&#8217;s anti-Semitic crusade demonizing Israel, resulting in a few individuals calling on TSL&#8203;&#8217;s editors to fire me for having the audacity to present an opinion that did not fit the leftist collective in Claremont.
Since I graduated, The Student Life transformed from being a reasonably moderate voice committed to intrepid campus journalism and including a diversity of ideas into a leftist rag where ill-informed progressive students air out their nearly unlimited grievances at <a href="http://tsl.news/opinions/5605/">commencement speakers</a>, <a href="http://tsl.news/opinions/5288/">Monsanto</a>, <a href="http://tsl.news/opinions/6467/">Birthright</a>, and <a href="http://tsl.news/opinions/6291/">President Trump</a>. While their editors attempt to include dissenting voices, their readership takes such significant issue with it that the newspaper functions as a de facto echo chamber of the campus left. Their decline as a reliable source also allowed <a href="http://claremontindependent.com/">The Claremont Independent</a>, the independently run conservative news magazine, to overtake the TSL as Claremont&#8217;s most widely read news source.
Articles like Sharma&#8217;s continue to demonstrate how college students are subjected to indoctrination that not only vilifies our system of governance, the laws of our land, and the individuals in power, but it also creates a community that preaches tolerance while not understanding what the word means. &#8220;Tolerance&#8221; does not disappear the moment somebody projects an opinion you strongly dislike. However, the community that The Student Life fosters with its readership and writers promulgates the very victimhood culture that rationalized Sharma&#8217;s fascistic belief that silencing dissent is a worthwhile, socially &#8220;just&#8221; endeavor. This is a dangerous precedent. It led to the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-claremont-marches-20151112-story.html">deplorable protests</a> that resulted in Dean Mary Spellman&#8217;s resignation from Claremont McKenna. It also justified <a href="http://claremontindependent.com/3210-2/">vilifying</a> conservative people of color as &#8220;shady.&#8221; It gives students a &#8220;principled&#8221; reason to <a href="http://claremontindependent.com/safe-spaces-segregate-the-claremont-colleges/">segregated safe spaces</a> based on the color of their skin and <a href="http://claremontindependent.com/cmc-funds-racially-exclusive-program-to-fight-racism/">campus programs that specifically cater to specific races</a> instead of the entirety of the community.
The victim hierarchy that takes absolutely no responsibility for an individual&#8217;s failures or inability to think rationally when they get challenged by the real world&#8217;s dilemmas spells doom for our country. This should not be the kind of community that any college campus should foster. Unfortunately, The Student Life only ensures that students from the Claremont College seem mentally and intellectually unfit to take the bull by the horns and make a substantial impact in the real world.
There are <a href="http://claremontindependent.com/pitzer-college-vp-defends-racist-ras-despite-college-presidents-condemnation/">several</a> <a href="http://claremontindependent.com/hispanic-pitzer-student-criticized-for-denying-the-word-trump-is-hate-speech/">reasons</a> <a href="http://claremontindependent.com/pitzer-senate-yacht-club-is-too-offensive/">why</a> <a href="http://claremontindependent.com/pitzer-senate-dreamcatchers-foundation-tabled-indefinitely-due-to-cultural-appropriation/">I refuse</a> to donate to my alma mater. The Student Life&#8217;s opinion section and its blatant political bend in its news reporting display most of them without fail.
Follow Elliott on <a href="https://twitter.com/ElliottRHams">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ElliottRHams/?fref=nf">Facebook</a>.

screen_shot_2017-02-26_at_1.44.53_am

Claremont Colleges’ Newspaper: ‘Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech’

Donald Trump

Fascism

First Amendment

Free Speech

Freedom of the Press

George Will

Milo Yiannopoulos

Scripps College

Social Justice

Last Wednesday, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author George Will, who has been espousing the virtues of conservatism for decades and joined the GOP in 1964, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-save-your-party-dont-give-to-trump/2016/06/22/f56a8cda-37eb-11e6-a254-2b336e293a3c_story.html">slammed</a> Donald Trump in an op-ed in The Washington Post, writing:
<blockquote>
He should be taunted into putting his meager campaign funds where his ample mouth is. Every dime or day he squanders on those states will contribute to a redemptive outcome, a defeat so humiliating &#8212; so continental &#8212; that even Republicans will be edified by it &#8230; Events already have called his bluff about funding himself and thereby being uniquely his own man. His wealth is insufficient. Only he knows what he is hiding by being the first presidential nominee in two generations not to release his tax returns.
</blockquote>
On Friday, Will told <a href="https://pjmedia.com/election/2016/06/24/this-is-not-my-party-george-will-goes-from-gop-to-unaffiliated/?singlepage=true">PJ Media</a> at a Federalist Society luncheon that he was leaving the GOP and registering as unaffiliated. His message to GOP voters? &#8220;Make sure he loses. Grit their teeth for four years and win the White House.&#8221; During his speech at the luncheon, Will asserted, &#8220;This is not my party,&#8221; adding that a &#8220;President Trump&#8221; with &#8220;no opposition&#8221; from a Republican-led Congress would be worse than a Hillary Clinton presidency with a Republican-led Congress. When asked how a Trump loss would affect the Supreme Court, Will responded, &#8220;I&#8217;m also concerned with the fact that I do not really believe Republicans think clearly enough about what they really want in judges. Republicans have given us Earl Warren, Brennan, John Paul Stevens, Burger, who was kind of mediocre, Blackmun. Having a Republican president is not an answer in itself,.&#8221;
On Sunday, speaking on Fox News Sunday, Will reiterated why he left the GOP, and made it <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/747027629652443136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">abundantly clear</a> when Chris Wallace asked him why:
<blockquote>
I left it for the same reason I joined it in 1964 when I voted for Barry Goldwater. Because I was a conservative. I leave for the same reason, I&#8217;m a conservative. To give you a time line, shortly after Trump became the presumptive nominee, he had a summit meeting with Paul Ryan where they stressed their common principles and their vast shared ground, which is much more important than their differences.
I thought that was puzzling doubly so because Paul Ryan still didn&#8217;t endorse him. After Trump went after the Mexican judge from northern Indiana, then Paul Ryan endorsed him. I decided that, in fact, this is not my party anymore. I changed my registration to unaffiliated 23 days ago. I hardly made an announcement. I just mentioned this in a meeting with the Federalist Society. The long and the short of it is, as Ronald Reagan said when he changed his registration, I did not leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left me.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
&#8220;The long and the short of it is, as Ronald Reagan said when he changed his registration, I did not leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left me.&#8221;
George Will
</blockquote>
Wallace then posted onscreen Trump&#8217;s reply, which was truly amusing, as the candidate who only recently decided he was a conservative somehow twisted himself into a pretzel to insist that the lifetime conservative Will had &#8220;lost his way&#8221;:
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
George Will, one of the most overrated political pundits (who lost his way long ago), has left the Republican Party.He&#8217;s made many bad calls
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/747027629652443136">June 26, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
Will responded caustically, &#8220;He has an advantage on me because he can say everything he knows about any subject in 140 characters and I can&#8217;t.&#8221;

George Will Leaves GOP, Drops The HAMMER On Trump

On Wednesday morning, the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump blasted conservative columnist George Will yet <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/what-happened-between-donald-trump-and-george-will/article/2570148">again</a>, reverting to third-grade insults, calling Will a &#8220;major loser.&#8221;
Will, an ardent Never Trumper, wrote a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-trump-is-nominated-the-gop-must-keep-him-out-of-the-white-house/2016/04/29/293f7f94-0d9d-11e6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html">column</a> last week in the Washington Post calling for all true conservatives to keep Trump from the White House at all costs. &#8220;If Trump is nominated, the GOP must keep him out of the White House,&#8221; was the headline to the very direct anti-Trump piece.
Appearing on Trump-friendly &#8220;Morning Joe,&#8221; Trump <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/278639-trump-blasts-george-will-as-a-major-loser">declared</a> Will to be a &#8220;major loser,&#8221; in response to the mention of the anti-Trump piece authored by Will. &#8220;You know, he&#8217;s a dour guy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Nobody watches him. Very few people listen to him. It&#8217;s over for him, and I never want his support.&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s massive ego has led him to sincerely believe that Will is against the Manhattan socialite merely because Trump decided to supposedly skip out on a speech the conservative columnist gave at Trump&#8217;s Mar-a-Lago some years ago, since Will is &#8220;boring and dull,&#8221; per the real estate mogul.
&#8220;You know, I had a run-in with him when I was in civilian life,&#8221; said the self-absorbed billionaire. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t wanna go to one of his speeches at Mar-a-Lago. He made a speech at Mar-a-Lago, and I find him to be a very boring person. You know, he&#8217;s boring and dull, and I didn&#8217;t go to the speech.
&#8220;I said I just don&#8217;t wanna go, and he wanted me to go. And I just, you know, it was one of those things. I had something else to do,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;He never forgot it, and he&#8217;s a nasty guy. He&#8217;s a very nasty guy. But I have to tell you this: Nobody reads him, he has no influence.&#8221;
That&#8217;s right, Will doesn&#8217;t support Trump because of a silly made-up tiff over almighty Trump&#8217;s absence, not the fact that Trump stands against nearly every principle of conservatism.
The businessman turned politician also diminished the Never Trump movement, pinpointing Will in particular. Trump reasoned if Will had any real influence, he wouldn&#8217;t currently be the presumptive nominee of the party.
Finishing off the insults, the real estate added: &#8220;Look, let&#8217;s face it, I mean, the guy writes a bad column every time he writes a column. I don&#8217;t know how often he writes them. I don&#8217;t really know.&#8221;
Trump has continuously trashed Will. Back in August, the Manhattan socialite, again, bragged about not attending Will&#8217;s speech at Mar-a-Lago.
<blockquote>
&#8220;I mean, the guy writes a bad column every time he writes a column.&#8221;
Donald Trump on George Will, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize
</blockquote>
Will pointed out that couldn&#8217;t care less about the attendance of the <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-strikes-back-at-dumbest-political-commentator-of-all-time-george-will/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">&#8220;bloviating ignoramus.&#8221;</a> &#8220;My talk at Trump&#8217;s place was long ago and my memory about the event is hazy, but I thought he was there,&#8221; <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/what-happened-between-donald-trump-and-george-will/article/2570148">said</a> Will. &#8220;Be that as it may, it is amusing that he thinks that I would care one way or the other.&#8221;
The great unifier Trump sure has a lot of enemies from within his own party. But apparently, they are only over petty, fictitious memories from Trump&#8217;s very good brain&#8211;nothing over substance and principle. 
<div class="media_embed"></div>

Trump Blasts George Will Again: ‘Major Loser’

As the new baseball season begins, columnist George Will explains in a new <a href="https://www.prageru.com/courses/life-studies/baseball-unique-america">video</a> from Prager University that baseball is emblematic of the uniqueness of America.
One of the reasons for America&#8217;s exceptionalism, Will argues, is that the country&#8217;s free society champions regular, everyday people.
&#8220;Of course baseball players have extraordinary talents, but most players resemble ordinary people,&#8221; he says. &#8220;As a wise baseball man once said, &#8216;To play baseball you do not need to be seven feet tall or seven feet wide.'&#8221;
The umpires in baseball represent America&#8217;s judiciary, as they are the independent arbiters to ensure that everyone is playing by the rules. Will argues that umpires may in fact be better than the America judiciary, because even the most talented, telegenic athletes can&#8217;t be helped by powerful lobbyists and attorneys if an umpire calls strike three.
Baseball was ahead of the federal government on issues of race, as the league allowed any person of color to enter the league the year before the armed services were racially integrated. Currently, approximately 20 percent of baseball players in the league are from countries outside of North America.
&#8220;In baseball, the only race that matters is the race to the base,&#8221; says Will. 
Additionally, baseball is a sport that thrives on personal accountability. Every day, fans, sports executives and ball players alike can check the box scores to determine how well certain players performed in the previous game. Whether a player struck out three times or went 5-for-5 with a pair of home runs, the information is easy to access and provides people with the numbers necessary to formulate their own assessments about a particular player or team.
&#8220;Imagine if everyday America&#8217;s lawyers and teachers and business people and journalists had to read in the morning&#8217;s paper a box score measuring the caliber of their previous day&#8217;s work,&#8221; he notes.
America&#8217;s free market provides an atmosphere where people are free to succeed or fail based on their merits. In a similar vein, baseball&#8217;s 162-game season over a span of 185 days makes it &#8220;the sport where luck matters least.&#8221;
&#8220;From the beginning of April to the end of October, the bad bounces and lucky hits even out, which means baseball is what America aspires to be: a real meritocracy,&#8221; he states.
Baseball also rewards individualism and cooperation: the battle between the pitcher and batter is watched intently, but each team needs to rely on cooperation with the base-runners and those playing defense to win, just as America celebrates individual liberty and voluntary cooperation and exchange.
&#8220;Take yourself out to a ballgame and savor all the ways the national pastime illustrates the nation&#8217;s values,&#8221; Will concludes. &#8220;And while you&#8217;re there, have a hot dog. That&#8217;s American culture too.&#8221;
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" width="480" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UBOTqihbMgs?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

George Will: Baseball Is As Unique As America

Baseball

Sports

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will highlights the absurdity of the left&#8217;s penchant for political correctness in Prager University&#8217;s latest <a href="https://www.prageru.com/courses/political-science/progressives-guide-political-correctness">video.</a> 
Will begins by highlighting The Washington Post&#8216;s &#8220;warpath against the Washington Redskins football team&#8221; for having a supposedly racist team name. Under the logic of political correctness, The Washington Post would have to change its own name for having the word &#8220;Washington&#8221; in it. The name comes from George Washington, a slave owner and a tobacco farmer.
&#8220;Surely the Post should change its name and should demand that the nation&#8217;s capital [Washington, D.C.] be renamed, perhaps as Eleanor Roosevelt City,&#8221; Will said. &#8220;Obviously it cannot be named for her husband [Franklin Delano Roosevelt], he who ordered the internment of 117,000 persons of Japanese descent, two-thirds of whom were native-born American citizens.&#8221;
Another name that progressives should be incensed over is &#8220;Oklahoma,&#8221; since the name is Choctaw for &#8220;red people.&#8221;
&#8220;If it is intolerable to have a football team named Redskins, it must be worse to have a state named red people,&#8221; Will said.
Other examples of political incorrectness that should cause progressives to be volcanically angry include:
<ul>
<li>The Thomas Jefferson memorial, since Jefferson was a slaveholder.</li>
<li>Jacksonville, FL and Jackson, MI since they&#8217;re named after Andrew Jackson, &#8220;tormenter of Native Americans.&#8221;</li>
<li>Cities like San Antonio and St. Louis, since they&#8217;re named after religious figures. </li>
<li>The Massachusetts state flag, which features a Native American holding a bow-and-arrow, which obviously perpetuates the stereotype that Native Americans are violent.</li>
<li>The Minnesota state seal, which features a Native American riding a horse and holding a spear and a white farmer tilling the field. This perpetuates &#8220;subliminal slander&#8221; that Native Americans are violent as well as &#8220;nomadic&#8221; and &#8220;unproductive,&#8221; while the white farmer is &#8220;industrious.&#8221; </li>
</ul>
&#8220;You should feel sorry for the progressive sensitivity enforcers,&#8221; Will said. &#8220;Those who constantly find reason to take offense are rarely happy people. The problem, however, is that such people make almost everyone else miserable too.&#8221;
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Will: A Progressive’s Guide to Political Correctness

Political Correctness

Prager University

Iconic columnist George Will has now <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-conservative-party-jeopardized-by-trump/2015/12/23/3335339c-a8e2-11e5-8058-480b572b4aae_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory">sounded the latest admonition</a> of DOOM! for conservatism if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination. &#8220;If Trump wins the nomination, prepare for the end of the conservative party,&#8221; reads the headline. And the piece is no less ominous. After ticking off Trump&#8217;s myriad personal and political flaws, Will comes to his true point: better for the Republicans to lose the presidency than win with Trump. He writes:
<blockquote>
Certainly conservatives consider it crucial to deny the Democratic Party a third consecutive term controlling the executive branch. Extending from eight to 12 years its use of unbridled executive power would further emancipate the administrative state from control by either a withering legislative branch or a supine judiciary. But first things first. Conservatives&#8217; highest priority now must be to prevent Trump from winning the Republican nomination in this, the GOP&#8217;s third epochal intraparty struggle in 104 years.
</blockquote>
How odd. Just days ago, Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal was <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/2070/wsjs-stephens-trump-cruz-supporters-want-hillary-ben-shapiro">busy writing</a> that clearly the only thing that mattered to backers of Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was losing to Hillary Clinton. Now, Will openly says he&#8217;d prefer to lose if it means stopping Trump. The panic is palpable amongst the establishment pundits.
Will rightly points out that Trump represents a strain of thinking foreign to conservatism. He&#8217;s more along the lines of Teddy Roosevelt&#8217;s progressivism or the supposed &#8220;pragmatism&#8221; of Rockefeller Republicans than Ronald Reagan. All that is true. But then Will concludes:
<blockquote>
[T]his avatar of unfettered government and executive authoritarianism has mesmerized a large portion of Republicans for six months. The larger portion should understand this: One hundred and four years of history is in the balance. If Trump is the Republican nominee in 2016, there might not be a conservative party in 2020 either.
</blockquote>
This is wildly overstated. The fact is that the Republican Party has shifted the definition of conservatism to meet non-conservative presidential candidates over and over again. As I wrote about <a href="http://m.cnsnews.com/blog/ben-shapiro/great-conservative-sell-out">Mitt Romney in early 2012</a>:
<blockquote>
Yes, defeating horrible politicians like Barack Obama is the top goal &#8212; but that doesn&#8217;t justify redefining conservatism entirely&#8230;. When we deliberately broaden conservatism to encompass government-forced purchase of health insurance or raising taxes or appointing liberal judges or enforcing same-sex marriage or using taxpayer money to bail out business or pushing trade barriers, we destroy conservatism from within. If we do that, why would our politicians even bother to pay lip service to the standard?
</blockquote>
I have great sympathy for the argument that Trumpism harms conservatism. But so did McCainism and Romneyism and Bushism and Doleism. None of the current Trump critics seemed to have a problem with any of that. The Republican Party stumbles ever forward, pushing such candidates. Why would Trump be any different &#8212; except that the base likes Trump, where many in the base disliked the others?

George Will: Stopping Trump More Important Than Stopping Hillary

Conservatism

Monday&#8217;s <a href="https://www.prageru.com/courses/political-science/campaign-finance-reform-corrupts">Prager University</a> video features Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist George Will discussing how campaign finance reform breeds corruption.
Will explains that in 1968, Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-M.N.) was able to launch a primary battle against sitting president Lyndon Johnson because five donors provided &#8220;seed money&#8221; that allowed McCarthy to raise $11 million, which would be worth $75 million today. Even though McCarthy didn&#8217;t win the primary, his challenge forced Johnson to refrain from running in 1968.
The Democratic party establishment was not pleased, so they pushed campaign finance regulations to ensure that nobody would ever challenge a sitting Democratic president again. Under today&#8217;s campaign finance laws, the most McCarthy could have raised from the five donors was $13,000. 
The whole point of campaign finance reform is to allow incumbent politicians to remain entrenched in the political system. It is far more difficult for upstart campaigns to raise enough money to challenge incumbents because of the limits on campaign donations. While advocates of campaign reform argue that money allows donors to buy politicians, Will cites research showing that most donors contribute to politicians who already agree with them.
The full video can be seen here:
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