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The Grammy Awards, according to The Daily Beast, had a whiteness problem. Plenty of others criticized the awards show for having race issues as well. And what prompted this criticism, you wonder?

Adele, the vastly talented English singer, won Album of the Year over Beyonc.

Mind you, at Sunday nights ceremony, the rap group A Tribe Called Quest rocked the stage and lobbed direct Donald Trump insults while African-American artists like Chance the Rapper walked away with multiple Grammys. Even Beyonc didnt go home empty-handed. Her Lemonade album won for Best Urban Contemporary Album.

Still, outlets like The Daily Beast insisted the night was an example of institutionalized racism.

Accusations of racism at Hollywood awards shows are about as predictable as the aggressively liberal stances spewed from the stage. Whether it's #OscarsSoWhite or other charges, Hollywood awards shows cannot escape criticism from those obsessed with identity politics. It seems impossible in today's world of entitled social justice warriors and social media trolls.

Adele and Beyonc both put out high-selling and highly praised albums this year. You can likely find just as many people arguing for Adele's "25" as the Best Album of the Year as you can for Beyonce's "Lemonade."

There's a simple explanation for why Adele won her album was better. It connected more with people and on a bigger scale. That says nothing bad aboutBeyonc's "Lemonade" album. Adele likely didn't win by much.

The singer even humbly acknowledged Beyonc onstage and had her award broken in half so she could share it with Beyonc. "My artist of my life is Beyonc," said Adele in her acceptance speech Sunday night. "This album for me the 'Lemonade' album was so monumental, Beyonc."

She continued, "So monumental, and so well thought-out and soul-bearing, and we all got to see another side to you that you don't always let us see. And we appreciate that. All us artists here adore you. You are our light."

Beyonc appeared genuinely moved by Adele's words.

This humility and an example of artists coming together does not, however, please the sharks looking for blood in the water. They're more interested in being divisive and using identity politics to shame winning artists.

People who complain of racism at the Grammy Awards do the world a disservice. There is very real racism in the world. It is blatant and it is ugly and has nothing to do with an awards show meant to celebrate art, and at which performers of all backgrounds were able to take the stage.

Related: Joy Villa Wears Pro-Trump Dress, Gets Trashed by Liberals

Perhaps if Beyonc and other black artists had been snubbed in the nominations, there would be an argument. However, break down the nominees of Sunday's show and you'll see how ridiculous the "outrage" is on this topic.

Both Beyonc and Drake were nominated for Best Album of the Year. Rihanna and Beyonc were both nominated for Record of the Year. On and on it goes. Chance the Rapper walked away with three Grammy Awards, and Drake walked away with two.

At its best, art especially music can help people of all kinds, of all income levels, of all backgrounds, come together and forget identity politics. Unfortunately, many today are not satisfied until art itself is crippled into something divisive and aggressive.

Adele won Best Album of the Year because she had the best album of the year. Period. End of story. She didn't win because voters preferred her "whiteness." Her rich voice and vocal range have been widely praised by critics for a number of years; Jon Pareles, the chief music critic for The New York Times, once said of Adele, "She can seethe, sob, rasp, swoop, lilt and belt, in ways that draw more attention to the song than to the singer."

She and Beyonc are two impressive and accomplished artists regardless of skin color who put out very popular and influential albums. However, when there needs to be a winner, there will be one no matter how close the race is. And, in this case, it had nothing to do with skin color, no matter what some people would have the rest of us believe.

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Liberals Charge 'Racism' at the Grammys Please - LifeZette

After President Barack Obamas inauguration in 2009, conservative talk host Rush Limbaugh made headlines when he said, I hope Obama fails. Many considered it a gauge of how bitter conservatives had become post-election.

Why would anyone, right or left, not want the new president to succeed?

The country was divided for a number of reasons then, but due in large part to too many conservatives drawing battle lines and retreating to the trenches.

Now, its the lefts turn.

In Sundays New York Post, gay Brooklyn-based journalist Chadwick Moore penned a thoughtful yet unsettling op-ed explaining why, although he had been a lifelong liberal, the lefts current intolerance has pushed him to the right. In September, Moore wrote a profile of hard right Breitbart provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos for the LGBT publication Out! For this unpardonable sin, he was shunned by his friends, even those he thought were genuinely close to him.

After a barrage of negative messages and attacks on social media, (neither the author nor the magazine signaled in any way that they agreed with Yiannopoulos controversial views), Moore wrote, I lay low for a week or so. Finally, I decided to go out to my local gay bar, where Ive been a regular for 11 years.

Nothing felt the same; half the place people with whom Id shared many laughs seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder, Moore lamented. A friend who normally greets me with a hug and kiss pivoted and turned away.

Moore continued: I realized that, for the first time in my adult life, I was outside of the liberal bubble and looking in. What I saw was ugly, lock step, incurious and mean-spirited. I began to realize that maybe my opinions just didnt fit in with the liberal status quo, which seems to mean that you must absolutely hate Trump, his supporters and everything they believe. If you dare to question liberal stances or make an effort toward understanding why conservatives think the way they do, you are a traitor.

Partisanship is not new, but left and right do seem to become shriller with each election. This has been particularly true in regard to perhaps the most uniquely polarizing president in modern American history, Donald Trump.

The division in 2017 compared to 2009 seems broader and deeper, something Chadwick Moores unfortunate experience illustrates. When the right was concocting every angry accusation imaginable against Obama, most dismissed it as right-wing propaganda from a conservative echo chamber.

But the current Trump hate presents a different and perhaps more troubling dynamic. Right now its not just progressive outlets, but the mainstream media that too often behaves like a liberal echo chamber.

So, if youre a left-leaning American already distraught over the election, and the mainstream media is telling you that Trump is an anti-gay white supremacist who hates MLK and wants to invade Mexico, how is this different from right-wingers who used to believe Obama was a secret-Kenyan-radical-Muslim-who-hated-America?

Because its what you already believe Trump really is, its what most of your friends believe, and most of the news you consume reinforces those biases.

Conservatives during the Obama era risked having their biases shattered the moment they turned off Fox News. Liberals right now are having their biases confirmed at every turn, which allows them to insist that what they believe genuinely reflects the unassailable truth about Trump.

They could be right. Trump is problematic on many levels. But how can liberals, living in so broad a bubble, truly know?

And if their intolerance toward anyone who dares challenge their worldview continues to increase, how will they ever know?

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What happened to tolerant liberals? - MyDaytonDailyNews

posted at 6:21 pm on February 13, 2017 by Jazz Shaw

A new op-ed from Ari Berman at The Nation posits an interesting theory for us to consider this week. Its based on the repeated claims by President Trump (and more recently by Stephen Miller while making the rounds of the Sunday shows) regarding voter suppression during the last election. The specific claims in this case deal with busloads of voters being brought in from Massachusetts to New Hampshire and leading to the loss of the state not only by Trump, but Kelly Ayotte as well. While such specific charges clearly require more evidence than has been presented, the overall question of voter fraud remains open for debate. Still, according to Berman, the end result of this will not be some cleaning up process in the electoral system but instead, increased suppression of the oppressed.

Yet heres why Trumps lies about voter fraud are so dangerous: Republicans in New Hampshire, who now control state government, have introduced forty bills in the 2017 legislative session that would make it harder to vote.

The proposed legislation includes ending same-day registration, which boosts voter turnout by up to ten percent; restricting voting rights to only residents of New Hampshire who plan to live in the state for the indefinite future, which could prevent college students and military personnel from voting; and requiring that New Hampshire residents live in the state for thirteen days before voting and get an in-state drivers license and register their car in New Hampshire within 60 days of registering to vote, which the New Hampshire ACLU calls a post-election poll tax.

The basis of Bermans claim is nothing new. If New Hampshire enacts new laws tightening up the voter registration process and increasing security at the ballot box this apparently leads by default to a condition liberals love to refer to as, making it harder to vote. The question most of us should be asking in response is, making it harder for who to vote?

Most of the New Hampshire bills under discussion are nothing which hasnt been experimented with in other states before. Same-day registration has been recognized as being problematic nearly everywhere its been implemented. With the rare exception of special elections, voting takes place pretty much the same time every year. Its not as if you didnt have plenty of notice. To proponents of same-day registration I generally invoke the standard signage hanging behind the desks of many administrative assistants: A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

Most of the other proposals run along similar lines, though even I will admit that requiring prospective voters to state an intention to live in the state for the indefinite future is a bit dubious. But beyond that theres really nothing all that unusual going on.

Reading through Bermans entire op-ed, its difficult not to notice one glaring omission in his analysis. A charge has been levied stating that voter fraud was taking place in the form of out-of-state residents showing up, registering, voting and going back home to the Bay State. Perhaps, as the critics state, there is nothing to this charge despite the number of residents who regularly claim that it takes place. Or perhaps it has happened. This leads us back to the question I keep asking every time the subject arises and will likely continue to do so until I am blue in the face. Whether such incidents of voter fraud are taking place or not, wouldnt you want to know?

Rather than sitting here and shouting back and forth at each other across the aisle, might it not make sense to pursue the obvious and easily achievable remedy? A survey of the list of voters who cast ballots in the 2016 election (particularly in precincts closest to the border) could be readily obtained and then the alleged addresses of the voters in question could be checked. Are they all in fact happily living and working in New Hampshire? Or are perhaps some of them back across the border in Massachusetts, residing there and registered to vote in that state as well? This isnt long division, people. It wouldnt be that difficult to check. And once you did, the matter would be put to rest.

Wouldnt that be refreshing? Or would you be disappointed because we had one less thing to scrap about every Sunday morning on cable news?

See the article here:
Liberals: talking about voter fraud is what causes voter suppression - Hot Air

Joy Villa made one heckuva statement at the Grammys Sunday night.

Miss Villa, a self-described singer-songwriter and vegan-bodybuilder, stormed the red carpet wearing a Make America Great Again dress.

Click here to read the most deplorable book in America! Its a best-seller and its driving liberals nuts!

The jaw-dropping, star-spangled ensemble also included a train emblazoned with President Trumps name.

Sometimes you just gotta be free to express yourself, she wrote on Twitter.

It was a truly remarkable moment of diversity and inclusion in Hollywood one that will surely land the relatively unknown performer on the Worst Dressed List.

My Fox News colleague and resident millennial Caleb Parke gave Miss Villas ensemble a thumbs-up.

I dont care what your politics are, this girl is bold and might I add, beautiful, he said.

She did look stunning and patriotic.

The dress was designed by Andre Soriano, a Filipino immigrant who came to our shores in search of the American dream.

Ive never been in the political area, Soriano told The Hollywood Reporter. However, its just so crazy that people are getting beat up because they voted for Trump.

Soriano was inspired to create his masterpiece after watching the Nasty Woman protest in Washington, D.C.

I am an American, he told THR. I moved here from the Philippines and I highly believed in the trueness of what this country can bring. Its about bringing people together, thats the message.

Its worth repeating that Soriano came to America legally.

Unfortunately, the red, white and blue dress is not available at Nordstrom, Sears or TJ Maxx. Sorry, fashionistas.

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is The Deplorables Guide to Making America Great Again. Follow Todd on Twitter @ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.

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Todd Starnes: Liberals Panic Over Pro-Trump Grammy Dress - Fox News

Eight years after the tea party turned town hall meetings on Obamacare into hands-on melees, liberals furious with President Trump are flipping the script by shouting down Republicans who have struggled to outline better health care plans.

Police escorted Rep. Tom McClintock out of a recent event in which protesters fumed over the Californians support for Obamacare repeal and Mr. Trumps travel limitations involving several Muslim-majority nations.

In Florida, Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis stood quietly as a speaker in bluejeans clutched the microphone and told him how to deal with the health care law: keep it and fix it.

And a Tennessee woman became a Twitter sensation after she tied her Christian duty to pull up the less fortunate to Obamacares mandate requiring even healthy Americans to get insured.

The healthy people pull up the sick, she told a panel that included Rep. Diane Black, a Tennessee Republican tasked with crafting Obamacare repeal legislation under fast-track budget rules this spring.

Its a stark turnaround from 2009, when conservative protesters tried to shove their way into packed meetings and shouted Tyranny! at Democrats advocating for the Affordable Care Act, saying it amounted to a federal takeover of the health care system.

A Pennsylvania man told then-Sen. Arlen Specter that he would be judged by God. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat in Congress at the time, rebuked a woman for comparing President Obamas overhaul to Nazi policy, saying he might as well debate a dining room table.

The protests demonized Mr. Obamas plan, which led to a rout for House Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections, taking control of the chamber for the first time since 2006.

While todays protests offer a 180-degree turn on policy, the amplitude is eerily similar, as Republican lawmakers struggle to explain why they have taken steps toward repeal without a firm plan for what comes next.

Republicans are making the same mistakes Democrats made in 2009. They are moving so quickly that they are creating needless anxiety and opposition, said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. They have to be careful not to turn 2018 into a wave election for Democrats.

Liberals who feel cheated by Mr. Trumps victory he swept the Rust Belt but lost the popular vote are riding a wave of anti-Trump sentiment after a caustic election featuring pejorative nicknames, chants of Lock her up against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and hot-mic talk about grabbing womens genitals.

Grass-roots activists have channeled their anger into an organized campaign to flood the town hall meetups that Republican lawmakers hold to stay connected with voters.

Theyre using spreadsheets from Town Hall Project 2018 and other websites to keep track of when and where House and Senate lawmakers will face their constituents. The resulting standoffs are then shot across cyberspace, thanks to ubiquitous camera phones and the magic of YouTube and Twitter.

A huge Utah crowd greeted Rep. Jason Chaffetz with boos late Thursday, even as he touted his criticism of Kellyanne Conway, the White House adviser who may have flouted ethics rules by endorsing the fashion line of presidential daughter Ivanka Trump.

The crowd wasnt satisfied, saying the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman needed to probe Mr. Trumps business ties and coziness with Russia.

Some Republicans are avoiding town halls altogether, saying the political climate is too poisonous.

Unfortunately, there is more anger in politics today than ever before. And we are receiving many very hateful, very angry emails and phone calls from some on the liberal-left side of the political spectrum, Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., Tennessee Republican, said in a letter to groups requesting a town hall.

I am not going to hold town hall meetings in this atmosphere, because they would very quickly turn into shouting opportunities for extremists, kooks and radicals, he said.

While Mr. Trumps brash style feels brand new, the health care fight is steeped in deja vu, even if the two sides have switched.

Mr. Obama relied on Democratic majorities to brush aside protests and pass the Affordable Care Act in early 2010, though it failed to drive down premiums or increase choices as he had repeatedly promised in its first three years of full implementation.

It has, however, driven the uninsured rate to historic lows by doling out taxpayer-funded subsidies on its insurance exchanges, expanding Medicaid in 31 states and allowing adults to stay on their parents plans until age 26.

Big programs have constituencies that are being helped, Mr. West said. Unwinding them always is going to be contentious.

Republicans who railed against Obamacare for seven years are now realizing that. While blueprints and draft bills abound, Republicans are struggling to coalesce around a replacement plan that can be vetted by budget scorekeepers to see how it stacks up against Obamacare.

Ms. Black confronted questions about their plans Thursday at an event hosted by the Middle Tennessee State University College Republicans outside of her district.

Responding to the woman whose stand went viral, she said Obamacares individual mandate simply didnt work. It failed to attract the types of young people needed to keep rates down for everyone in the marketplace, as millions claimed an exemption from the mandate or just paid the tax penalty for remaining uninsured.

While there were strong feelings at this forum, there is no mistaking the clear message Tennesseans sent last November at the ballot box when they sent [Rep.] Black and President Trump to Washington to repeal Obamacare and put patients back in control of their health care choices, said Ms. Blacks spokesman, Jonathan Frank.

House Republicans insist they will produce an effective plan this year alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who assumed office Friday after the Senate confirmed him on a 52-47 vote along party lines.

When the left doesnt get its way at the ballot box, the next step it to intimidate everyone around them until they do, Republican strategist Ford OConnell said. And that is what we are seeing. Once the GOP coalesces around a plan to replace Obamacare, that is when I expect the real fireworks to start on the left.

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Liberals commandeering Obamacare town halls, blasting GOP plan for repeal - Washington Times