President Donald Trump’s comments on Charlottesville during a press conference Tuesday in Trump Tower were remarkable…in the worst way possible.

Not only did Trump equate the counter-protesters (whom he labeled the “alt-left”) to the torch-carrying nazis, but he defended the white nationalists and expressed sympathy for their demonstration against the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

“This week it’s Robert E. Lee,” Trump told reporters. “I notice that Stonewall Jackson’s coming down,” he added, referring to another famous Confederate commander.

“I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”

Many were appalled by the statements, but there were some–like former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke–who praised the president. However, it was a tweet from actor James Woods likening the toppling of a racist statue to the destruction of democracy that inspired a massive meme clap back.

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time… pic.twitter.com/juArhCpiXl

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 14, 2017

“Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time…,” read the the tweet, which was paired with a photo of the Marine Corps War Memorial.

Awed by the sheer ridiculousness of such a tweet, it didn’t take long for the “#liberals” to swipe Woods’ caption and troll him with his own words. Here are some of my favorites:

Michael Jackson and Bubbles Sculpture

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time… pic.twitter.com/7n7V0Gnc9w

— Heidi Hits Children (@heiditron3000) August 15, 2017

Man Assaulting Creepy Green Babies 

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time… pic.twitter.com/M67xuXFhCL

— Anthony Oliveira (@meakoopa) August 15, 2017

This Bronze Bust of Cristiano Ronaldo

Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time… pic.twitter.com/0JqE5obRJj

— Freddie Campion (@FreddieCampion) August 15, 2017

A Giant Butt Plug

before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time… pic.twitter.com/8GzpoF0LCK

— Goth Ms. Frizzle (@spookperson) August 15, 2017

This Lindsay Lohan Wax Figure That Tried to Impersonate Beyoncé

before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time… pic.twitter.com/I9zbhn5yzf

— corey (@corey4evrfamous) August 15, 2017

And Who Could Forget This Gem…

Before the #Liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you would like to see it one last time… pic.twitter.com/8ltPIoGFeJ

— Victor Vega (@Cpt_ShitPost) August 16, 2017

The compilation of wacky sculpture memes managed to make light of the monument debate, but don’t count on a ceasefire from either side. Confederate-era symbols were removed overnight in Baltimore, and a plaque honoring Robert E. Lee was taken down in Brooklyn on Wednesday.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post “Before the #Liberals” Meme Trolls Actor With Wacky Monuments appeared first on Law Street.

Yesterday, you may have seen tweets going around about “the future that liberals want.” It all started when an alt-right account tweeted out a photo of a drag performer and a woman in a niqab sitting next to each other on the New York subway:

This is the future that liberals want. pic.twitter.com/QwterpqQbH

— /pol/ News Network (@polNewsNetwork1) March 1, 2017

And well…that IS the future liberals want–diversity and acceptance for all. And, of course, solid public transportation. So, Twitter users quickly started trolling the account, with all the awesome possible liberal futures. Check out some of the best entries in the slideshow below:

this is the future that liberals want pic.twitter.com/6671NeUw3y

— Amanda M-W (@Manda_like_wine) March 2, 2017

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Some of the Best Tweets About the “Future That Liberals Want” appeared first on Law Street.

A particular viral video has been making its away across the blogosphere and has started to creep into mainstream news. What this video purportedly displays is a man committing clear “voter fraud” in Arizona. Here’s the video if you want to watch for yourself:

Although to be completely honest, it’s quite a dull almost nine minutes. All it is is a hispanic man putting ballots into a reader that he carried in in a box. Clear voter fraud evidence, right?

Wrong. It’s actually a man named Ben Marine, who works for Citizens for a Better Arizona. CBA is a progressive group that was actually founded in response to that god-awful “Papers Please” law that Arizona tried to institute a few years back. CBA succeeded in recalling Arizona State Senate President Russell Pierce, who was the driving force behind that law. Since then, CBA has worked as a grassroots-type organization. One of its stated goals is to increase voter participation in the Latino community. One of the ways they’ve done that has included voter drives to try to bring in those who requested absentee ballots.

CBA can legally gather people together to collect their absentee ballots, and deliver those sealed ballots, which have been sent to real people, to the ballot box. Drives like this make it easier for those who work or have other commitments and can’t always make it to the ballot box themselves to vote. Given the fact that elections are on Tuesdays, this is a common problem. Absentee ballots, early voting, and voter drives make it easier for those people to make sure their voices are heard. According to Arizona law, it’s entirely legal. The Arizona elections rules state:

After they have securely sealed the voted ballot inside the early ballot return envelope,
voters may voluntarily give their voted early ballot to a person of their choice for delivery
to the Recorder or a polling place. The designated person shall not tamper with the
envelope or the ballot and shall not deliberately fail to deliver the ballot to the Recorder
or a polling place within the voter’s county of residence.

So, CBA’s ballot collection would be illegal if Marine had tampered with the envelope or the ballot, but there’s literally no evidence to suggest that. All that the video shows is someone working with the CBA dropping off absentee ballots. Furthermore, Marine is actually registered to be able to drop off ballots.

Of course, a few different stories are being told about what actually happened. A.J. LaFaro, who chairs the Maricopa County Republican Committee called Marine  “a vulgar, disrespectful, violent thug that has no respect for our laws. I would have followed him to the parking lot to take down his tag number but I feared for my life.” That must have all happened off camera, of course.

First of all, how stupid would Marine be if he was committing voter fraud in that video? He’s wearing a shirt from the organization he works for, his face is easily identifiable, and he makes no effort to hide what he’s doing. If he was legitimately committing voter fraud, it would be the lamest attempt at doing something illegal I’ve ever seen.

But more importantly it’s this kind of fear-mongering that has led people to believe that voter fraud is actually a legitimate problem, even though there’s been almost no evidence to suggest so. An incredibly extensive study this summer published by the Washington Post found a grand total of 31 cases of voter fraud since 2000. And most of it was done by individuals, not a systemic effort by a group. But when you circulate a video like this with the inflammatory headlines like, “Liberal Activist Caught on Video Stuffing Hundreds of Ballots,” it’s gratuitous clickbait, it’s fear-mongering, and it’s silly. How about we all just concentrate on winning elections by appealing to the public with popular platforms, and changes that will positively impact constituents’ lives? Apparently, I shouldn’t be holding my breath for that.

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Denise Cross Photography via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Arizona Man Does His Job Dropping Off Ballots, Panic Ensues appeared first on Law Street.

Hey y’all!

This is going to be a fun one!

Some of y’all know a while ago I was writing a personal blog, stumbled across Law Street, and was fired up by one of the contributors, Hannah Winsten. I wrote a rebuttal and the rest is history. I’ve been writing for Law Street for a few months now and have had the greatest pleasure in doing so, the team rocks! But in the back of my mind I always wondered when I would be able to have another encounter with Hannah. I like to think of her as the antithesis of me, she stands for everything that I don’t believe in, but in a good way!

The day has finally come. Ladies and gentlemen, Hannah is back and she has fired me up!

Hannah wrote a piece this week entitled, “LADIES: Vote Republican and You’ll Get the D” and I thought this will be a fun one. Boy was I right! I love how she starts right off with a sarcastic tone, throwing in those traditional pop culture references before pulling out the big words like ‘racist,’ ‘sexist,’ ‘homophobic’ and ‘Republican.’

First, she certainly did get it right that President Obama is getting close to being a lame duck, actually at this point he’s checked out and moved on to retirement on the golf course while still in the White House. Things haven’t gone the way he planned and homeboy has chunked deuce on the country, as pointed out by fellow Law Street writer Katherine Fabian here.

Who isn’t ready for the 2016 elections? I know I am!

Here we go again with Hannah only selecting bits and pieces of a report, only outlining what is beneficial and relevant to how she thinks and not the whole story. Yes, Politico reported a survey that states 49 percent of single women hold a negative view of the Republican Party, but it also says that 39 percent view Democrats unfavorably. If you go deeper into the article you also see that 48 percent of married women prefer a Republican to a Democrat. It isn’t a very positive article for Republicans but at least it is the truth and they are trying to do something about it.

Yes, the Republican Party has been perceived as the “good ole boys” party and women were neglected in some respects. But there are still plenty of Republican women in the country and I’m sorry but the idea that Republicans support rape and domestic violence is just vile. Does Hannah see all Republicans as toothless, alcoholic, wife-beating-if-they-step-out-of-the-kitchen inbreds? Referring to conservatives as ‘conserva-turds’ is almost as ridiculous as your girl, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, making the comment that “What Republican tea party extremists like Scott Walker are doing is they are grabbing us by the hair and pulling us back.” Maybe you and Debbie get together in the last few days and brainstormed creative ways of calling the Republican Party abusive? Even people in the Democratic Party are distancing themselves from that foolish woman and her hideous remarks.

Nowhere in any Republican initiative or in that specific poll does it say that Republicans are planning to tell anyone that they are wrong. Nowhere. The report says that it is a “lack of understanding” between women and Republicans that “closes many minds to Republican policy solutions.” But let’s be honest, we don’t need a poll to tell us that there is a lack of understanding between the American people and politics. Not many in my generation or in younger generations take the time to understand politics, they just go with what they hear on television and we both know that is not an accurate depiction of politics at its core.

Hannah claims that Republicans will basically shake their fingers at all women, tell them they are wrong, and expect them to go out and vote for the GOP. What exactly are you reading that says any of that? Oh right, it is all based on opinion, not fact. Let’s go back to the Politico article where it states that the group that took the poll suggests “Republicans deal honestly with any disagreement on abortion, and then move to other issues.” Again, the report suggests this for Republicans. On the upside, there have been several Republicans who have come out in support of over-the-counter birth control, and many conservatives in general are Pro-Choice. Yes, Republicans should deal with the abortion topic with real facts, solutions, ideas, and then move on. Unlike Democrats who are still ignoring the facts of the IRS scandal, the Benghazi issue, ISIS, and most importantly Obamacare.

R.R. Reno made valid points in his opinion piece on the dilemma facing social conservatives, but my dear Hannah took what she wanted and neglected the rest. She assumes that this piece is to attack single women, assuming that they live with 12 cats and are terrified that they will end up alone so they recognize the strengths of getting a hand out when they are older and thus support the Democratic Party. What Reno was doing was quoting a statistic about marriage and vulnerability and then putting his two cents in on why McKinsey, a fictional character, may feel judged when someone “opposes gay marriage, because she intuitively senses that being pro-traditional marriage involves asserting male-female marriage as the norm — and therefore that her life isn’t on the right path.”

That is a valid argument and a valid way of thinking. I know that I was raised to believe that the order of life is to graduate high school, go to college, get a job, get married and have kids all under the age of 30. Guess what? I’m 29, I have two degrees (working on a third), and two jobs, but I am not married or have kids and it is a scary idea sometimes. Our parents’ traditional ways were engraved in our minds as young children, but the path our parents and older generations took is not what our generation wants to take. It will take time, but not everyone feels supported in their ventures because we aren’t doing what we were “supposed” to do. I’m glad I messed up and took a different path. I’m a better person for it. Reno was simply putting those ideals in a simple statement and showing that McKinsey chose to reject the norm so that she could feel accepted in her choices, and nothing is wrong with that.

I hate to break it to you, Hannah, but if you think women are voting Democrat because they “want to have control over their own bodies, their own reproductive systems, and their own lives. They want to be able to support ourselves. They want to lead lives that aren’t wracked with violence,” then you should probably vote for the unrepresented party. Democrats are taking away more of your rights than Republicans. Remember that tiny thing called Obamacare? Yeah, do some research and you will find there are more restrictions than advantages. You want to live your own life without someone dictating what you can and can’t do? Should probably take another look at the Democratic Party and its belief in big government, controlling every aspect of our lives and making people believe that they are entitled to handouts instead of working hard for what they have in life. Democrats would rather rich people do the work and hand the benefits to the less fortunate and lazy. Democrats believe in helping everyone but also in accruing more debt — that doesn’t help the economy, it hurts it.

At least Republicans are trying to fix their issues, listen to the people, and change (slowly) with the times more so than Democrats. Not to mention they are taking responsibility for their errors.

If you think Hillary is going to be in the White House in 2016 you’ve got another thing coming. The same “what difference does it make?” Hillary who was so flustered and frustrated about being questioned on the topic of Benghazi that she lost her cool? The same Hillary Clinton who admitted to leaving the White House with her husband President Bill Clinton, personally $10 million in debt? I’m not sure that is someone I would want in the oval office. Let’s be truly honest. We all know that while President Clinton was busy getting blow jobs in the Oval Office Hillary was really running the country. So she’s been president, just behind the scenes, and we don’t need her again.

I’ve said this before, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but the moment that opinion turns into something disrespectful I have an issue with it. The holier than thou, self-righteous, talking down to anyone who doesn’t agree with you tone is not cool. I enjoy Hannah’s quick wit and sarcasm but sometimes she crosses the line. Republicans are people too and in most cases highly educated people who just don’t share your views. Ease up on the conservative detest because you are simply putting yourself in the category of abuse that you talk so much about hating.

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Allison Dawson (@AllyD528) Born in Germany, raised in Mississippi and Texas. Graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University. Currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative.

Featured image courtesy of [Joe Wolf via Flickr]

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Response: Let’s Stop with the Republican Bashing appeared first on Law Street.

Jonathan Tobin, a writer for the Commentary, recently argued that ‘Liberals’ hold a contradictory stance regarding the rights of corporations, which has become evident with the Hobby Lobby and Mozilla cases. (To read more about Hobby Lobby’s attempt to overturn the contraception mandate of Obama care check out this article.)

So what are liberals saying about the Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius? They point to historical precedence as the reason why Hobby Lobby’s argument fails. In the past, federal courts have ruled that corporations cannot avoid the law based on religious beliefs, for the simple reason of the bright line problem. Simply, how far can corporations go, in terms of ‘breaking’ the law, to uphold religious beliefs? NPR points out that,

The Justice Department says in its briefs that the government would be unable to function if religious beliefs could be the basis for corporations’ refusing to comply with generally applied laws — be they child labor laws, immunization laws, laws that mandate serving racially mixed groups [etc…]

This is a serious problem with the Hobby Lobby’s argument, because by similar logic and certain unreasonableness, it could entail phenomena like segregated service. (Which is by no coincidence being attempted in certain states with regards to gays.) Thus, liberals want to protect the ‘generally applied laws’, which in this case happens to be health care.

Tobin goes on to argue that by making this argument against Hobby Lobby, liberals clearly contradict themselves when they claim that Mozilla ought to fire Mr. Eich, for the simple reason that he donated $1000 to Proposition 8. (Mr. Eich has since resigned, however it is important to understand that people called for him to be fired). What might a liberal say about this? Someone who promotes intolerant policies should not be leading and representing such a powerful company like Mozilla.

Are these liberal stances in contradiction? Tobin argues yes. He claims that “a corporation ought not enforce its religious beliefs regarding abortion” and “a corporation ought enforce a tolerant belief system” are hypocritical stances. At first glance, it may appear that Tobin has a point. How can liberals contend that corporations should not enforce their religious beliefs, but yet enforce other beliefs, like the fact that Eich’s comments are unacceptable?

The problem with Tobin’s argument is that he is leaving out one critical distinction between the Mozilla and Hobby Lobby cases. Regarding the Hobby Lobby issue, liberals are contending that the company should not be granted legal privilege on the grounds of religion in order to enforce their beliefs. The force of the liberals’ argument here is agreeing with and enforcing the law, and thus, this can be seen as a form of legal pressure against Hobby Lobby. In the case of Mr. Eich at Mozilla, the liberal is simply expressing their opinion that a ‘respectable company’ would refrain from appointing CEO’s who contribute to — in their eyes — hateful and intolerant campaigns such as Proposition 8. The difference here, as compared to the Hobby Lobby case, is that the force of the liberal’s argument is an appeal to moral intuition, and this can be seen as social pressure.

The liberal stance regarding Mozilla and Hobby Lobby is not a hypocritical one as Tobin would have us believe. Once we make the distinction between legal pressure, in the case of Hobby Lobby, and social pressure in the case of Mozilla, it should be clear that the liberal’s position is quite tenable. Further more we should value the liberal’s distinct positions, as they represent the proper workings of a flourishing democracy. I am beginning to notice a frightening trend, that as our society continues to polarize, the parties may begin to try and legislate all of their view-points in order to have the ability to argue them with legal pressure. For instance, South Carolina’s attempt to expand their “Stand Your Ground” laws to fetuses, which in effect, would redefine the personhood status of fetuses. Instead of attempting to prevent something like abortion through social pressure, they will attempt to do so through legal pressure. Anybody who cares about freedom should be concerned about this trend.

[Commentary] [NPR] 

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Bo Donoghue

Featured Image Courtesy of: [Flickr/Ken Teegarden]

Bo Donoghue

Bo Donoghue is a student at The George Washington University. Contact Bo at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What a Conservative Gets Wrong About Liberals appeared first on Law Street.