Mediaboss Marketing

A march of the local demonstrators is blocked by riot police officers nearby the headquarter of the governor Fidesz party as students, teachers of the Central European University and their sympathisers protest in Budapest on 9 April. Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty

The urbane, intellectual figure of Michael Ignatieff seems an unlikely candidate to play the role of bogeyman in the eyes of Viktor Orbn, Hungarys populist prime minister, as he strives to turn his country into an illiberal state.

Yet it was on him that Orbns official spokesman focused while scrambling to explain recent mass protests supporting Budapests Central European University (CEU) a small elite institution of higher learning of which Ignatieff is rector, and which could, theoretically, be forced to close because of a new higher education law.

Referring to the academics past as a former leader of Canadas Liberal party, the spokesman, Zoltn Kovcs, dismissed Ignatieff in an interview with the Observer as a failed liberal politician from Canada very obviously representing a different political agenda. He also suggested that Ignatieff had publicly misrepresented the law as an attack on educational freedom.

The comments are a departure from the rightwing Fidesz governments usual target of abuse George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire philanthropist who is the universitys founder and whose Open Society Foundation (OSF) has earned Orbns wrath by helping to fund local civil society groups, some of whom have defended refugees and migrants.

But they also appeared to betray a government caught off guard by the strength of popular opposition to the legislation, which was fast-tracked through parliament in days and signed into law last Monday by President Jnos der.

The university, nestled between popular bistros and Budapests historic St Stephens basilica, has gained an international reputation since its foundation in 1991 in the aftermath of communisms collapse, although it has rarely registered high on Hungarian public consciousness. Yet the capital has been convulsed in the past two weeks by protests over the laws apparent goal of singling out CEU which would be forced to open a campus in its registered country of the United States, in line with 27 other foreign universities operating in Hungary, in order to stay open.

Demonstrators have thronged the citys elegant streets and squares in numbers belying the universitys tiny student body of 1,400, and with an enthusiasm seemingly at odds with the dry principle of academic freedom that Ignatieff and others say is at stake.

An estimated 70,000 attended a rally last Sunday, marching across the Chain Bridge that spans the Danube in scenes with the potential to embarrass a government used to revelling in its popular support. In another mass protest on Wednesday, crowds chanted Russians go home a reference to Orbns perceived intimacy with Russian president Vladimir Putin and shouted Europe, Europe as a young man hoisted the European Union flag in the Oktogon square, in one of the citys busiest thoroughfares. The latter gesture hinted at how the CEU protests have become a focal point for wider discontents while highlighting Hungarys increasing isolation in the EU under Orbns aggressive Brussels-baiting leadership.

The latest confrontation comes amid rising concern over Hungary, which under Orbn has gained a reputation for the draconian and inhumane treatment of migrants, curtailing media freedom and interference in judiciary independence. Orbns government has already drawn widespread condemnation this year by detaining asylum seekers including children of 14 in shipping containers, a practice human rights groups say breaches EU law. Last week Germany citing Hungarys record of ill-treatment became the first member state to declare it would not send migrants back there under the Dublin regulations, which specify that asylum seekers should pursue their claims in the first EU country they arrived in.

Orbn, who has been in power since 2010, has justified the actions by calling migrants a Trojan horse of terrorism and has trumpeted his self-appointed role in defending Christian values.

The new law, dubbed Lex CEU, represents the governments latest front in its declared war on Soros, whom Orbn and his allies have vowed to extrude from Hungary in 2017, encouraged by the belief that they would face little resistance from US president Donald Trump, whose supporters include fierce Soros critics.

The anti-Soros assault gained further momentum last week when Fidesz MPs tabled a bill requiring civil society groups that receive money from abroad to list themselves publicly as foreign-funded organisations or face prosecution. The proposal is widely seen as an attempt at stigmatising groups receiving funding from Soross OSF. Amnesty International has compared the legislation with Russias 2012 foreign agents law, which led to the intimidation and harassment of civil groups.

What is troubling is that they portray civil society organisations that are holding them to account as enemies of the state, said Goran Buldioski, director of the OSFs Budapest-based Europe office. This is how they depict the bigger, well-established groups in Budapest. Imagine the intimidating message it sends to smaller organisations in the provinces. In line with his attacks on Soros, Orbn launched yet another anti-EU salvo this month in the form of a government-backed consultation exercise provocatively titled Lets Stop Brussels! which asked voters to respond to what critics say are six deliberately loaded questions presented as binary choices.

The move was reminiscent of last years ill-fated referendum proposing to reject the EUs quota scheme for resettling refugees, which won an overwhelming majority but was invalidated by a low turnout. Yet there are signs that Orbn may have misread the mood and that the CEU attack has given the EU an opening to act on longstanding misgivings about his increasingly authoritarian leadership.

Last week Frans Timmermans, the European commissions first vice-president, said he would investigate the law targeting CEU which he described as a jewel in the crown over suggestions that it breached European freedom of movement law on educational services. He promised a decision by 26 April. The European parliament is also scheduled to debate the situation in Hungary after the Easter break.

The EU intervention drew a splenetic response from Kovcs a former PhD graduate from CEU who described it as camouflage for pushing an agenda favouring illegal migration. To sum up, basically its all about illegal migration, he said. What they would like to enforce and push through this year is the quota system and [that] Europe should be more receptive to illegal migration.

That, in turn, provoked an astonished reaction from Ignatieff. My mouth falls open, he said. Does he understand what his words imply, which is that the Hungarian government is involved in some political operation because they have some agenda relating to migration? So their idea of a smart move is to attack an institution which has been part of Hungarian life for 25 years. What relevance does that have?

It just makes perfectly clear that this is a political attack serving some political agenda that doesnt concern me.

The law, Ignatieff said, represented a flagrant and discriminatory attack on academic freedom that is unprecedented in the history of Europe since the second world war. The university would not close under any circumstances, he said, adding that a negotiated solution would be found.

Ignatieff, 70 next month, has lobbied western capitals, including Washington, winning support from the Trump administration in an implied rebuff to Orbns hope of improved ties. A US state department spokesman, Mark Toner, last week called on Hungary to suspend the law, which he said threatened an institution that is an important conduit for intellectual and cultural exchanges between Hungary and the United States.

Just as telling is the public support for the CEU. The direction the government is taking makes me frightened for the future of the country and my place in it, said former student Istvn Szcsenyi. I want the democracy that was promised to my parents when communism collapsed.

Read the rest here:
Hungary's liberals find a hero in their battle against Viktor Orbn - The Guardian

|

Posted: Apr 15, 2017 12:01 AM

It has always been considered over-the-line to attack the family of your political enemies, but liberals believe those rules dont apply when it comes to Donald Trump. Him, they hate so much that theyre willing to even go after his children. Its disgusting, its hypocritical and as you are about to see, its very, very liberal.

1) Rosie ODonnell Speculated That Barron Trump Is Autistic. In a typically classy move, Rosie ODonnell speculated that 10-year-old Barron Trump might be autistic on Twitter.

Barron Trump autistic? If so what an amazing opportunity to bring attention to the AUTISM epidemic.

After she was buried in an avalanche of grief over her attacks on a 10-year-old, Rosie said she meant no harm because speculating about how other peoples children may have some disorder is apparently what caring people do.

2) Saturday Night Live Writer Katie Rich Said Barron Trump Would Be Americas First Homeschool Shooter. I know that Donald Trump intimidates liberals, but do they have to take it out on his 10-year old-son by tweeting things like, "Barron will be this countrys first homeschool shooter?" Even Saturday Night Live thought that was over-the-line and suspended Katie Rich which of course, prompted liberals to publicly support her because adults bullying a 10-year-old kid is okay as long as his dad is a Republican.

3) The Daily Mail Claimed Melania Trump Was A Prostitute: After claiming that Donald Trumps wife was an escort in the 90s, the liberals at the Daily Mail got a lawsuit for their trouble. Worse yet, they LOST that lawsuit and had to pay out 2.9 million dollars for their malicious attacks.

4) The Daily Show Pushed The Idea That Donald Trump Wants To Have Sex With His Daughter Ivanka. Trevor Noah from the Daily Show promoted the hashtag #DonaldTrumpWantsToBangHisDaughter. Liberals, being liberals, laughed it up, spread it around twitter and made multiple webpages tied to that phrase. Imagine the reaction to a conservative TV show asking people to spread the hashtag #BarrackObamaWantstoScrewMalia. Congressmen would be asked to disassociate themselves from the show, MSNBC would spend all day talking about it and the Daily Show would attack the show relentlessly. But you know, since Ivanka is a Trump, its okay to say things like that about her and her father. Hypocrites.

5) Chelsea Handler Attacked Eric Trumps Unborn Child. Not only have liberals launched hate at the Trump family, theyve even gone on to attack the children in the womb as long as theyre Trumps. Chelsea Handler had this to say about Eric Trumps unborn son, "I guess one of @realDonaldTrump's sons is expecting a new baby. Just what we need. Another person with those jeans. Let's hope for a girl." First of all, jeans? What an idiot. A mean spirited, untalented idiot.

6) Baron Trump Is A Handsome Date Rapist To Be. Comedian Steven Spinola, who contributes on Comedy Central, referred to 10-year-old Barron Trump as a handsome date rapist to be. He followed that up by saying, I dont want my Mom to get raped, but if she does I hope its by Barron Trump. Small pp [sic] would be painless and wed win lots of money in court. Wow, I would say this guy has no future in comedy, but liberals apparently love nasty attacks on kids and if Sarah Silverman and Margaret Cho have careers--thats proof that pretty much anyone can make it.

7) Rapper Bow Wow Said He Would Pimp Out Melania Trump. After Donald Trump complained about rapper Snoop Dogg pretending to threaten him with a gun in a music video, the rappers nephew Bow Wow tweeted, "Ayo @realDonaldTrump shut your punk a-- up talking s--t about my uncle @SnoopDogg before we pimp your wife and make her work for us." Lets face it: Melania Trump is worth more than Snoop Dogg and his untalented cousin combined; so if anybody is getting pimped, it would be Snoop and Bow Wow. (PS: Hey, if either of you read this, your names are just stupid.)

12 Arrested as Rallies in Berkeley Turn Violent

Go here to read the rest:
The 7 Worst Liberal Attacks on Donald Trump's Family - John Hawkins - Townhall

The United States dropped a 22,000-pound bomb on Islamic State forces in Afghanistan Thursday, reportedly killing 36 ISIS fighters. The bomb was thelargest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat.

The bomb, a Massive Ordinance Air Blast weapon, is often referred to as MOAB. The acronym led to its nickname mother of all bombs.

Liberals were quick tohash out their thoughts on social media, but one criticism of the days incident was particularly puzzling.

MOAB is the epitome of lethal patriarchy, one Twitter user said:

Others even singled out BBC News and asked them to stop using the term on their broadcast because it was offensive:

LiberalTwitter users were offended at the term for various reasons, one even asking the question, Why isnt it called the father of all bombs?

Others on social media were quick to mock the outrage, pointing out flaws in the baffling argument:

Why is it called the "Mother of all bombs"
Damn sexist bomb. ?

Does the #moab cost .77 cents on the dollar? #wagegap #foab equal rights!

— Mike (@Fuctupmind) April 14, 2017

The term mother of all has commonly been used for quite some time to indicate something is the biggest or the best, as pointed out by the Washington Post.

In fact, all the way back in 1991, New Zealand lawmakers nicknamed their budget the mother of all budgets because it drastically reduced spending and social welfare programs.

Restaurants in cities all across the nation have dubbed their biggest hamburgers mother of all burgers, and some even have food challenges to go along with it.

See the rest here:
Liberals complain that 'mother of all bombs' nickname is 'sexist,' 'lethal patriarchy' - TheBlaze.com

I appreciate the thoughtful approach Doug Berdie utilized in his examination of how liberals might connect with Middle America (Seven ways liberals must realign with Middle America, April 9), but I believe he has overanalyzed the operating dynamic.

For an ever-growing segment of the electorate, a presidential election (and many other political office elections) is nothing more than a pageant in which the candidate who can most convincingly advocate for a given pie-in-the-sky agenda will have the upper hand. The agenda must embrace only the most tried and true clichs and pandering. Once the candidate has established his or her superiority in transferring the excellence of his or her agenda to the public conscience, said candidate becomes the shiny object, and is barring a catastrophic revelation of bestiality or mass murder or some equivalent disqualifying heinous behavior a shoo-in.

Narrowing the discussion to recent presidential elections: 1984 and 1988 shiny object: Ronald Reagan; 1992 and 1996 shiny object: Bill Clinton; 2000 and 2004 no shiny object (elections with no shiny object are often, if not always, close, and the Republican candidate will always win); 2008 and 2012 shiny object: Barack Obama; 2016 special case: Donald Trump was seen both as shiny object to some and viable alternative to a very unshiny object to others, but a net nonshiny object see 2000 and 2004.

Read the original here:
Readers Write (April 16): Responses to 'Seven ways liberals must realign with Middle America' - Minneapolis Star Tribune

April 14, 2017 GREENPOINT, BROOKLYNA year ago, Tammy Rose never imagined shed be active again in church, holding a palm branch with a community of Christians marking the beginning of Holy Week.

For nearly two decades, in fact, she had more or less abandoned the faith, disillusioned by what she saw as a constant focus on conservative social issues and pressing needs for more donations.

But if politics helped drive her away, it is politics that, in some ways, is drawing her back to the fold. And on this sunny Sunday morning at Greenpoint Reformed Church, not too far from the Brooklyn artists collective where she lives, Ms. Rose is beaming as she joins the responsive call to prayer:

Who are we? intones the Rev. Jennifer Aull, the congregations minister for community service. Responding, the congregation says together: We are young and old, gay and straight and in between. We are single and partnered, happy and sad, confused and inspired. We are street smart and college-educated. Some of us cant pay our bills and others have more than enough to share.... We are Gods people. We are the body of Christ.

Like a number of progressive congregations across the country, Greenpoint Reformed has seen both a surge in attendance and a newfound energy within its pews over the past year. Since the rise of Donald Trump to the US presidency, in fact, liberal enclaves have reported something of an awakening.

Hundreds of churches have joined the sanctuary movement to protest the administration's immigration policies since the election, and thousands have begun donating more money to religious groups supporting social justice issues, many report. At liberal seminaries like Union Theological in New York, students and community members have packed into public lectures on the social gospel, standing-room-only crowds that have left administrators stunned.

The call to worship on this Palm Sunday embodied some of the reasons Rose decided to return to church last year. When I visited for the first time last Easter Sunday, I was like, oh my God, these are my people! she says, noting she had been drawn by the rainbow flag and Black Lives Matter banner draping Greenpoint Reformeds front facade. I suddenly felt comfortable in this gang of how can I put it? Everyones a little quirky. I was really happy that there was a place where that diversity could be celebrated.

Yet the congregation also offered something a bit more intangible, says Rose, a playwright and artist with a day job in Manhattans tech industry. Already part of a community of politically-active artists, she is a regular presence at street protests.

But here in a community sharing prayer concerns together, or celebrating a gay couples renewal of their marriage vows, or including children coloring their Easter eggs I come here and I just feel replenished, she says.

The current Trump bump now energizing many progressive congregations, however, may only be a blip on what has been a decades-long decline of liberal Christianity and some of the mainline Protestant denominations that have carried its torch since the early 20th century, many scholars caution.

The social gospel has found its biggest moment of relevance since the Reagan years, says Brett Grainger, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University near Philadelphia. The energy is feeding directly off the current administration's proposed budget cuts, which target the most vulnerable members of society, and its policies on immigration, which rub against the belief that love of the stranger is central to Christian teaching.

But if there is a revival, it's most likely to be temporary, in that it thrives on its antagonism to Trump, Professor Grainger continues.

Liberal Christianity and mainline Protestantism have been contracting for decades, in fact, losing millions of members and the cultural influence it once was able to wield. Mainline Protestant churches, including those in Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Methodist denominations, have lost roughly 5 million adult members since 2007, and now comprise about 15 percent of the US population, according to Pew Research.

Formed in the modernist controversies of the 1920s, liberal Christianity began to demythologize certain teachings like the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, and the literal meaning of Scripture. In response, conservatives emphasized the traditional fundamentals of Christian doctrine, which eventually gave rise to the term fundamentalism.

At the same time, many liberal congregations began to emphasize the social gospel, which focuses on Jesus ministry to the outcast and poor and the call to Christian service. Indeed, Christian congregations on the left were major players in the Civil Rights movement and the rise of the sanctuary churches movement that supported Central American refugees in the 1980s. Many were also part of the spread of liberation theology, first preached by Central American Catholics in the 1960s, who proclaimed that God primarily identifies with the oppressed and marginalized.

Churches that are channeling this new anti-Trump energy into justice and caregiving issues, theyre not leaving their understanding of the Christian gospel behind, says Bill Leonard, professor of Baptist studies and church history at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. They are saying: This is who we are, we have a history of this, and we cant be silent.

Rev. Ann Kansfield, the minister of proclamation at Greenpoint Reformed, isnt sure how much the congregations recent surge can be attributed to a Trump bump. More people voted for Bernie Sanders in Greenpoint, after all, than any other area of New York City in the Democratic primary last year, and Reverend Kansfield noticed a simmering political energy going back to 2015.

Up to then, the church had plateaued with about 35 adult members. On Sunday, there were more than 60, including children. We were already established as the progressive church in the neighborhood, she says, noting that LGBT inclusion and its soup kitchen and food pantry were its primary ministries. But with this new energy, weve been doing some deciding over who we are and what we do, and what following Jesus should look like in our context.

After many members were abuzz following the Womens March on Washington in January, the congregation put together a social justice task force. Kansfield has been making contacts with consortiums of faith groups mobilizing for progressive causes.

But this is a marathon, not a sprint, says Kansfield, who is also one of the chaplains serving the Fire Department of New York. It would be really easy for us to tire ourselves out with all our spreading and fretting. But how do we actually invest our energy and time and resources to where it will strategically matter?

Attending church is most effective when it is the spiritual engine that drives the rest of the week, she says, the way were going to recharge and refuel for the rest of the week. And that isnt going to be ginormous, but church and the spiritual practices that we share together can provide sustainable, ongoing energy thatll keep you capable of the work of the long game.

Sustaining the current spike in attendance at liberal churches may be difficult, however, given the long-term trend of decline, scholars say.

If we do in fact see an uptick in attendance, it will reflect the fact that liberal Christians are searching for spiritual resources to speak to the sense of despair they feel about the current political direction of the country, says Grainger. What organized religion offers is not only that broader network of support but also the theological reassurance that, even if things aren't going well in the short term, in the longer arc of history, God is in control.

Yet with the religious landscape in the US still in the midst of seismic changes, including the decline of church attendance and the rise of the so-called nones, those who do not affiliate with a religious tradition, a liberal de-emphasis of traditional doctrines and a focus on a social gospel might be attractive.

Professor Leonard at Wake Forest notes that many liberal churches have already developed outreach programs to engage nones in public theology discussions, home study groups, and dinner conversation groups. These endeavors are drawing many individuals back to church, or to church for the first time, he says.

For her part, Rose says she wants to become more involved in Greenpoints ministries.

I usually just go the Sunday services now, she says. But Im thinking more and more about volunteering in the soup kitchen every week. I dont want to come here just to participate in the family Ive found. Now I want to give back to the family.

See the rest here:
Church revival? More liberals are filling Protestant pews. - Christian Science Monitor