I will debate Dennis Prager any place, any time, but he won’t debate me…

Just for the record, I have offered on many occasions to debate Dennis Prager. I have even offered to give him my show every Sunday 1-3pm on WCGO in Chicago. On his show today he said that he would debate liberals anywhere at any time. He said that liberals don’t want debate. I am not asking Mr. Prager, I am begging. But I know that he won’t. Likely, rather than respond, he or his network will send an attorney to shut down my free speech.

Dennis Prager is a liar. That isn’t opinion, it is a fact. he is a liar by omission. He self-aggrandized himself over  a partisan speech he delivered before Republican cohorts in the Senate in a bid for an end run for complete control of the flow of information. he propagandized and lied about the threat to free speech. He is a Troll, who has found worth within the Rightwing in harassing Google as a means of forcing Republican messaging as a priority and preference in internet searches. Prager uses cover of the government and corporate-integrated network he ingratiates himself within. my evidence? Never once did he acknowledge the absolute hegemony of Rightwing radio over all other voices. His pretense at intellectualism merely masks an arrogance and pomposity, abusing the good believe in faith of listeners that borders on, and I generally eschew this word, evil. he never has questioned the free speech writes of CNN and MSNBC, the BBC and other news channels who are not allowed or included in basic cable as FOX News is. That market reality allows FOX and men like Prager to extoll the wildly inflated popularity of FOX over other market crippled channels. That seems like a glaring oversight by the pious and brilliant Prager. That either makes him woefully uninformed about what he is talking about, in which he had no place sitting before congress, or it makes him a liar by omission.

Prager is not interested in free speech. He is interested in monopoly that he pretends as free speech. on the same program today Prager was breathless with outrage when a guest asserted that Google was cooking its search engine in favor of the Left. that guest, who was not challenged in the slightest by Prager lied in saying that a simple Google search garnered page after page of anti-Trump results. The fact that Prager accepted something that turns out to be blatantly untrue, who claims accuracy is a standard, without verification makes him either a near criminally irresponsible broadcaster or a liar.

I’m not sure which. Perhaps it is both. a debate would help clarify this issue. as evidence that Prager and his guest were being, at the very least disingenuous, below are screen shots for the Google Search in question. There are 7 which shows all of the first page of more than 1 billion results. do your own search. Men like Prager hope you won’t…

 

Agitation Industry: The Whole truth about Antifa and the Andy Ngo Incident

It is shocking to watch. An innocent unsuspecting young Vietnamese journalist, pining for the truth, a  simple illumination on the confusing and  unsettling  state of our national  discourse. Suddenly, like sharks agitated by blood in the water masked thugs, some claiming the moniker Antifa attack without warning.

Salem radio host Dennis Prager will interview a bruised,  soft-spoken young Andy Ngo, the victim of this unprovoked attack and praise  him with the greatest compliment he can muster in calling Ngo courageous. Another example of the ” violent” Left arresting free  speech and curious, honest and unbiased journalism. That’s what our hapless and random victim is all about, unlike the Marxist vultures at The godless New York Times or the fake News CNN. Prager, FOX and others paint Ngo’s assault atrocity with impassioned platitudes as dramatic as many of the first hand stories I’ve heard from Holocaust survivors, survivors of sexual assault and victims of 9-11.

Wait, not so fast.

What men like Prager rely is that their audience will never look behind the Right’s own massive messaging machine to cover the layered tactics of an industry. Follow the trail from the Ngo incident and a disturbing picture emerges of an industry of agitation, and a political struggle taking place far from the centers of political power on the streets and among the socially and politically engaged ranks of young people.

Political agitation has always been a tactic on the Left and on the Right, or  simply to opposing political temperatures. Ancient Greek, Chinese and Roman politicians were known to incite mobs, thugs, criminals and crowds, sometimes to violence. They postured for sympathy, narcissistically wrapping themselves in the redirected sympathy for victims of that violence to further their own agendas. Each side would frame the other as violent and dangerous. this characterized the often extremely violent clashes between the Right-wing Nazis( See: I Shall Bear Witness the Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1933-41, by Victor Klemperer ) and Communists.

The Nazis ultimately won that battle until after 11 million lives and the destruction of Europe they were defeated by the forces of anti-fascism. On June 6th Europe, Canada and the United States memorialized thousands of anti-fascists who died storming the beaches of Normandy in 1944.  Ironically, 75 years later the Right in this country, which along with a sitting American president, not only clandestine cover to pro-fascist groups with benignly crafted names like Christian Identity, American Freedom Party, Proud Boys and Liberty Lobby-just to name a very few-the Rightwing media, with compatriots in the government is actively attempting to demonize and criminalize a street-level anti-fascist movement-Antifa. The street-level point of that Rightwing spear are a loose but affiliated network of white-nationalist and outright and often unabashedly admitted Nazi groups. They have a powerful corporate backed, multi-tiered media apparatus to support and proliferate their culture message.

Their interest is in agitation of the Left, posturing as victim champions of so-called free speech in an effort to gain broader acceptance. The Limbaughs, Hannits and Pragers occupy the highest populace tier of that network. Their audiences are, through predatory media consolidation by a compliant Congress and FCC. below them are more focused types, like Kate Daley, whose caustic rhetoric proliferates confusing and complex conspiracy fictions, such as the Pizza-gate conspiracy, birtherism and supporting Alex Jones’ SandyHook Hoax conspiracies and more. All of them frame Antifa as a terrorist organization. the qualitative difference is that Antifa does not have any such media messaging opportunity.

There is a history here, and it is a violent one. On that note, I will submit the Nazi’s record of mass exterminations, torture, political and media monopoly, plunder, bigotry and a culture of violence and unprovoked warfare for the purpose of economic advantage.

Anti-fascist movements emerged first in Italy, in reaction to the rise of Benito Mussolini. With the global rise of well- funded often government protected fascism the movement  spread to other European countries and around the world. Hardly communist, from the start the anti-fascist movement attracted Communist, socialist, anarchist, Christians, workers and intellectuals became involved. Large-scale anti-fascist ornaizations coalesced in reaction to Franco’s fascist-Nazi-allied government. throughout the 1930s. These antifascists swelled the ranks during the Spanish Civil War. With the Nazi occupation in 1940, the French Resistance battled the German occupation and against the collaborationist Vichy régime. In the United States in the 1930s pro-Nazi fascists attempted to build consensus support through groups like Friends of New Germany, the German American Bund, the and Ku Klux Klan. The pioneer of Rightwing radio and fascist sympathizer Father Charles Coughlin  became their defacto champion on the radio. “After World War II, Jewish war veterans in the 43 Group continued the tradition of militant confrontations with Oswald Mosley‘s Union Movement. In the 1960s, the 62 Group continued the struggle against neo-Nazis.” Between 1989 to 1991, amid the collapse of the Soviet Union there was a surge in fascist activity across Europe.

The Brutal Ngo Attack in Context

This was how FOX News, posted to MSN, framed the confrontation: “Several people were injured in connection with demonstrations as marchers with an anti-fascist group clashed with conservative protesters with the Proud Boys and supporters of the #HimToo movement. Conservative writer Andy Ngo was assaulted by Antifa members and spent the night in an emergency room.”

Andy Ngo did not simply happen upon the Portland Proud Boys rally by accident. he has a long history of agitation for the Right. As a gay Vietnamese man, one can only wonder his motivation. Perhaps these are deeply held views about western culture in decline, as the Right loves to frame their lack of intellectual argument for those based upon fear and emotion. perhaps Ngo is simply part taking advantage of an opportunity for self-enrichment, as the money is flowing fast and furious from the Right eager to promote the fictitious narrative of broader appeal and inclusion. Ngo grew up Buddhist but was educated in a Christian evangelical school and guilt over self identity clashes with fundamentalist rhetoric. Only Mr. Ngo knows.

He has a long record of showing up to  message support far and extreme-Right groups. he purposely proliferates themes at the core of far-right ideology. There is an excitement in many of these far-Right agitators and so-called “journalists” showing up amid to emotional charged atmospheres of street protests and ideological confrontations hoping for video and audio, many times directly provoking it to vilify the opposition. I’ve personally witnessed it and confronted a number of them. They are smart asses. They are there to, in a phrase, touch Indians.

Ngo was agitating regular ahead of the event with pro-Right transgender, crime, racism and anti-Muslim rhetoric. he also agitates against Antifa. His, on the surface uninteresting, live video feeds from the event seem more a sort of surveillance video than reporting. it is as if he is attempting to identify anyone associated, however distantly with Antifa for possible retaliation at a later date. That is speculation, but if true, it leads to a disturbing question of who pays Andy Ngo and why? How is he paid?

Moreover, he was geared up for battle, in goggles, gloves, or its potentia. In photos and video it is obvious he is agitating by his unwelcome presence among people who know exactly who he is and what he is doing.

The path from Ngo to the deepest darkest fascist elements of the Right isn’t a long one. He is curiously ubiquitous with camera at many Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys agitation rallies, like this one. They are allies and sympathetic to one another. From Wikipedia: ”

On May 26, 2017 a white supremacist named Jeremy Christian murdered two men and injured a third on a train when they tried to stop his racial harassment of two teenage girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab. NGO was at a far-Right protest which sought to capitalize off sympathy for Christian’s victims. the rally was organized by Patriot prayer, led by Joey Gibson, and marketed as a free speech rally in support of Donald Trump. Antifa and many other anti-fascist groups counter-protested. Christian had been photographed at previous Patriot Prayer rallies. (Ref:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/alt-rally-draws-protests-portland-oregon-170605081719281.html)

While Gibson’s views are muddled and incoherent, his allies such as the Neo-Nazi Evropa and The Proud Boys is anything but. started by Gavin McInnes, The Proud Boys is a far-Right organization which admits only men as members and promotes political violence. “McInnes is a former contributor to Canadian far-right portal The Rebel Media^[41] and a regular on conspiracy theorist media platform Infowars’ The Alex Jones Show, and Fox News’ Red Eye, The Greg Gutfeld Show, and The Sean Hannity Show. He writes for Taki’s Magazine^[42] and previously wrote for TruthRevolt,^[43] Death and Taxes,^[44] The Federalist,^[45] American Renaissance, and VDARE. In 2016, McInnes referred to Jada Pinkett Smith as a “monkey actress” on his radio show. In a speech given at New York University in February 2017, after a clash between his Proud Boys and Antifa anti-fascist protestors, McInnes said: “Violence doesn’t feel good, justified violence feels great, and fighting solves everything…I want violence. I want punching in the face.” He is also quoted as saying that,”the Proud Boys do enjoy a good brawl.” (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes) 

Andy Ngo went looking for trouble, and as my late father was keen to say, one will always find it if one is looking. That doesn’t forgive the physical assault, but it does put it in context, and brings up some disturbing questions about Ngo and his affixations. I cringe and am bothered seeing the video, but to frame Andy Ngo as a hapless victim is laughable. In doing so it must create serious doubts over the true motivations of men like Prager , the least of which is why he is providing real or at least tacit support for fascists by demonizing those standing against fascism?

 

Dennis Prager: So very close to evil…

I eschew the religious concept of “evil” as both morally and intellectually lazy and corrupt. In part I hate the concept, because all too often it is meant to demonize opposition without regard the history or process which brought two sides into conflict. hardly does that position ignore, overlook or forgive injustice, corruption or criminality at any level or scale. Understanding process and history offers the best way of rendering judgment and justice, and in preventing, or helping to prevent the mistakes and ignorance-s of the past. That said, Rightwing zealot and political-religious talk show host Dennis Prager leaves me at such a loss for words with his historic dishonesty that I am tempted to use that word to describe him.

Examples perhaps provide the clearest view of a level of, what I can only conclude from the available evidence, dishonesty on the part of the propagandistically pompous and elitist Prager. Take for an example of a harassment lawsuit against Youtube(A private company) by Prager. I say harassment, because we see regularly attacks by the Right against media to force minority, and most often socially abhorrent views on the majority under the auspices of freedom of speech. None of those agitators, like Prager ever make mention that the giant media companies they pander for have purposely and maliciously eradicated, or virtually eradicated Progressive programming from public airwaves. For example, Progressive talk show host Stephanie Miller, when adjusted for the number of stations she is on compared with Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh or Dennis Prager garners more than 20% more listeners, according to Arbitron, than Limbaugh or Hannity. Prager, she leaves in the dust. Miller is on fewer than 50 stations, while the lower rated Limbaugh is on hundreds. It isn’t about money or ratings . It is about saturation of dark and cruel sides of the human heart.

Prager is propped up by a great fraud in the modern consolidated radio business. That is monster Rightwing media companies forcing their message upon the nation. They are pandering to their base while polluting the nation’s more civil, inclusive, forward thinking and moderate voices.

On his show today he attacked feminist men, musing aloud what women want a feminist man. As a Leftist, who owned a weapon, went to war and is an avowed even militant feminist. I am married to, for 25 years, unlike the divorced Prager(Who pontificates on so-called traditional marriage), an unapologetic, strong, brilliant and gorgeous feminist. being a feminist man, Mr. Prager, is an ascension for men. You, Mr. Prager, are propagandizing and selling, a Taliban style of regressive-and might I say, weak masculinity.

He blathers about abortion in America, while portraying the unquestioned allegiance to Israel by American taxpayers as essential. He conveniently ignores that abortion is legal and free in Israel. Although, which brings me to the next example, for an abortion a woman must go before a government termination board. that said, virtually all abortion requests are granted(“It was reported in 2012 that about half of all abortions in Israel were performed in private clinics, i. e., without committee approval. Women who undergo such an abortion do not face criminal penalties, but physicians who perform them face a fine or up to five years’ imprisonment; however, there have been no known prosecutions of physicians for performing non-committee-approved abortions.^[6] It was also reported in 2007 and 2011 that about 40,000 abortions take place in Israel every year, about half of the committee approved.” http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/22647/Default.aspx).

So, let’s talk about healthcare, which Prager says he fears will be taken over by Communists in America. Are we back in 1964? How about asking a rhetorical question about healthcare? He asked if Americans wanted Canadian healthcare, with a side comment about the wait time for procedures in Canada. he relies on the ignorance and laziness of his audience. I have family in Canada and they would not trade it in a second for US healthcare. The wait time, for the curious, depends upon many factors in both countries. The biggest factor in the US is the penny-pinching and profit motive of insurance companies. I personally waited for more than 6 months, battling an insurance company for approval for neck surgery from an injury. In America!

Moreover, my own father-in-law has had three kidney transplants(two rejections). The Canadian healthcare system not only installed a dialysis machine in his home, but comes weekly for regular maintenance, and arrives within and hour for any emergence repairs. In America, Mr. Prager, a for-profit insurance company would have cut him off years ago, which would have likely led to his death. at the very least it would have bankrupted the family. My father-in-law and his wife were war refugees. Prager would have argued to keep them out of the US, but their daughter went on to graduate with honors sans student debt and now is a contributing member of a civilized society.

Prager and his ilk would take us in the opposite direction. But that isn’t the worst part, and brings me back to the original premise. Either he knows he is selling America’s cancer of hate as an elixir, or is so fundamentally misguided as to be dangerous to be allowed on the public  airwaves. My conclusion is that he represents to messaging end of what is emerging as cult of control. In that regard he is doing it because a dirty company like Salem is paying him enough to compromise of sell his soul. I am also in radio, but there is nothing and no one who could ever compel me to sell my soul to the detriment of my neighbors and community. That he does it behind the guilty veil of religion is just, well, as close to evil and I can conceive.

I have top guests on my show and I have challenged Prager and others on the Right to debate. I have offered to sweep my schedule clean. They refuse to debate me, because they don’t care for debate. When was the last time they truly had a debate, a sustained real debate, not talk radio circus-playing with a substantial member of the opposition? they have no interest. It isn’t Prager’s job to honestly debate, but rather push the message he’s told to sell.

PRAGER FARCE: On the Mueller Report- They caught murdering Al Capone on Tax Evasion

Bear in mind, no one in the public or media has seen or read the full report, yet, so spin from anyone is B.S. No one really knows The Republicans are cheering today because Mueller couldn’t prove-couldn’t or wouldn’t prove- collusion with Russia, even though corruption was all around him. Three convicted top associates, his campaign advisor, personal lawyer and National Security advisor are all in jail. Roger Stone, a top Trump advisor is about to go to jail Why? Because there were no crimes? Just 4 lucky coincidences? The FBI does not indict on bad memory but on provable lies in testimony. Cohen’s grilling by Congress earlier this month at times appears as an effort to confuse issues in the public’s mind even fuller.

Lindsay Graham, in the face of the report today, acknowledged a concerted Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 elections. The effort benefitted, indeed, was intended to benefit Trump. Paul Manafort had direct contact with the highest levels of the Russian government.

Mueller, at least as has been reported, stopped short of vindication for Trump. The Right simply will use their contrived and fraudulent media dominance to message their spin. Look for Trump and Hannity to pretend ebullience. Watch for the pontificating Prager to defraud his audience that a lack of evidence in the face of conspiracy equals innocence.

Bear this in mind. The notorious gangster Al Capone, responsible for dozens, if not hundreds of murders, including the infamous St. Valentines Day massacre, for bank robberies(I once knew one of Capone’s drivers, who carried to his grave a cop’s bullet in his hip), strong arms, loansharking, protection schemes, prostitution and more, was so perfectly insulated from all of those crimes that the authorities could only get him on Tax Evasion.

There is mountains of evidence of Trump being a filthy human being. Evan his evangelical followers acknowledge that. Conservatives including William Kristol, Joe Walsh and Ben Shapiro have openly acknowledged he is a liar and immoral individual, he is just as insulated by his conspirators.

Here is the takeaway. You want to make decisions for yourself in reading the full report. No one on the Right is calling for a release of the complete report to the public. They ony want you to know what they decide you should know.

 

 

Prager Farce

No one who knows me maintains any confusion on how I feel about the fraudulent rhetorical slight of hand that is Dennis Prager’s radio show. I have challenged Mr. Prager a number of time to debate, but he has ignored that challenge. For good reason, I might add. His habitually pompous and ill-informed (or perhaps intentionally mal-formed) arguments, particularly on equality, should crumble as self-evident before any listener with a modicum of intelligence. Moreover, how those listeners don’t hear Prager’s his hypocrisy always astounds me.

Because his listeners apparently don’t get the hypocrisy and call him out loud and sharp only supports Donald Trump proclaiming his love for dumb people. Prager has said in the past, overlooking all of Trump’s disgusting and often immoral and reprehensible actions that he only cares what the man does as president, but not  what he does in his personal life. On today’s show, regarding the celebrity and CEO school bribery scandal he is suddenly interested in who these kids are personally. Prager listeners, please turn right or left, you are walking against a wall. Sorry, they just seem that dumb.

Today Prager had rightwing faux-economist and ideologue Thomas Sowell, who has written a scree indemnifying inequality and, by default, discrimination. Prager and Sowell railed against a complaint by British female flight attendants regarding gender inequality in pay. Prager argued that the “female” flight attendants were lying in also not acknowledging that the survey also included pilot salaries. The brilliant minds of Sowell and Prager, keen to thoroughly deconstruct every issue, somehow missed the essential idiocy of Prager’s observation. The easiest is that it would have also illuminated salaries for male flight attendants, which, having flown out of London a number of times, and working in the airline business, I know exist. Second, Prager and our brilliant economist, Sowell, also missed the revelation that the lump average which included pilots would have been more equitable if British Airlines had more female pilots! Prager and Sowell actually proved female flight attendants in Great Britain make less than their male counterparts!

Later in the show the self-described “wise” Mr. Prager disclaimed Affirmative Action, revealing his underlying and latent racism, in my humbly informed and “wise” opinion. He said, “Why isn’t Affirmative Action Cheating…You might have a noble reason. It’s still cheating.” That is the twisted interpretation of race-baiting and racist-pandering filth. The cheat was creating a system which excluded people of color for many decades, a system defended and protected by people like Prager. Affirmative Action was a correction to  systemic  cheating…Mr. Prager.

Regarding that debate, Mr. Prager…Anytime.

The Irresponsible Mr. Prager

Something happened yesterday on the radio that strikes at what I aspire to both as a responsible broadcaster and as an artist. I cover the Arts on a fast growing radio program, Playtime with Bill Turck and Kerri Kendall, Sundays on AM1590 WCGO in Chicago. I have 5 published books including a War Memoir, had two plays that garnered critical and national attention, was a visual Artist, activist, relief worker and war photographer. As a broadcaster my focus is on building community not fracturing it for personal of political advantage.

Broadcasting is or was suppose to be a public trust. I’m a bit old school in that regard. The airwaves are in fact public, although your airwaves have been hijacked in the era of deregulation. Those public airwaves have become over-saturated with a single predatory political ideology which habitually parades garbage. Virtually anything that radio talk host Dennis Prager says on his syndicated radio show is a tragic case in point. A recent radio broadcast by Prager about Art only serves to underscore the point.

“…let’s tear down a mural of William Shakespeare,” Prager pontificated on his December 19th radio program, “to put up a picture of a Latina Lesbian Poet.”

Pager is perversely obsessed with a mural of Shakespeare at UPenn which was replaced with (Oh, god don’t let it be true) a woman. Nowhere and at no time on that show, nor any of the other programs he’s used a Poet Laureate as a whiffle bat to pummel the Left and Progressives was there any mention of Audre Lorde’s-the Latina Lesbian Poet-name. Nor was there any attempt by Prager to enlighten his audience on the merits, or lack thereof, of a woman whose Art and work resonated around the planet.

No offense to Shakespeare, whose brilliance is undisputed, but Prager alludes or ignores the fact that Shakespeare is part of the English curriculum at UPenn and every university, virtually on the planet. He also seems to be disquieted by the reality that literature and theatre did not end with Shakespeare. In fact, despite Prager, literature and Art has continued to evolve in the ensuing four hundred years. Whoa unto the abandonment of “Western” civilization that Prager decries daily, but this year, covering Chicago’s Theatre scene, I attended three Shakespeare plays by largely Millennial theatre companies. That was but a fraction of the actual number staged in Chicago.

The problem here is, apart from Prager’s skewing the mundane and everyday into some obtuse partisan argument, that Prager is deeply ridiculous and thoughtless, while posturing as an authority. Prager is in fact an authority, but only on his own hubris and insipidness.

Yesterday’s meltdown had to do with appointment of Kaywin Feldman to head the National Gallery of Art. Kaywin transformed and modernized the Minneapolis Institute of Art. “Kaywin Feldman is a dynamic and highly principled leader,” said Frederick W. Beinecke, President of the National Gallery of Art, in a statement, “a gracious collaborator, and an innovator with the skills and vision to lead the National Gallery of Art in the 21st century,”

But Prager used a celebratory announcement of a highly qualified woman as part of his tirade against anyone who dares disagree with his over-privileged top down view of American society. Thanks to the “Left,” he says, “noteriety became the chief goal of Art.” Perhaps he’s never heard of Albrecht Dürer, the 15th Century master who created the notion of “personality” by brazenly signing his own work and even rendering himself in the role of Jesus. Prager told his audience that the appointment of Feldman would “turn the Art museum into a Leftist institution.”

A news flash for the good if twisted Dennis Prager- ART IS LEFTIST! Art is humanistic by definition, nowtpower and privilege centered. His definition of Art as “excellence, greatness and beauty” is as simplistic as a 2nd Grade teacher asking 7 year olds for a definite and concise definition of liberty. Art is all of these things and none of them, as well as much, much more. Art, at its core, eschews and questions power. It transcends, not merely and often without, unyielding and purposeful structure and convention. It is, by its very essence, revolutionary. Prager’s Taliban-style views on Art reflect a deeply flawed intellect and a broken moral compass. He is part of the reason that here in the great and glorious West we immediately recognize Titian, da Vinci and Botticelli but not master female artists of the Renaissance like Plautilla Nelli or Sofonisba Anguissola.

In 1994, travelling alone as an Artist through Bosnian Serb-held territory and through combat zones, I was treated by regular folks as some sort of vagabond royalty. I travelled places where journalists were barred from going. The reason being, that in the former Yugoslavia, as well as other Eastern European and former Communist countries journalists were viewed as a function of oppressive government. Artists, by contrast were heroic dissenters and champions of the moral and ethical soul essential to universal human liberty and true.

The sad part is that Prager’s ignorance, like his sexism and racism, is so thinly veiled that I am forever astounded that his listeners fail to see through it. Then again, perhaps it reflects their own, or perhaps Prager’s success as part of a broader Rightwing effort to undermine the value of information and education in favor of doctrine.

 

Proving Pocahontas

Is she or isn’t she. Satisfying another file in the Right’s, and Donald Trump’s portfolio of personal assaults was Trump’s success in compelling a game of ‘you show me yours, but I don’t have to show you mine.’ I am talking about non-question questions regarding Elizabeth Warren’s native American heritage.

Rightwing pseudo-intellectual (I’ve offered to debate him on my radio show numerous times)and propagandist Dennis Prager went so far as to ask that if a person is equal parts 64 different tribes, nationalities, ethnicities, what would they proclaim themselves. Answer: Whatever I want in a free country.

Let’s foregone, as my wife a Sarajevo siege survivor reminded, that this was part of the nationalist precursor to genocide, or that I heard it throughout the war, as well as amid the Rwandan Genocide. The real question isn’t what Elizabeth Warren or anyone is or isn’t. Funny that the party that throws around the empty word “freedom” (Like the words Love or Hate; I love you, hate seafood) and yet the fundamental freedom to be whomever you wish so antagonizes them into a lather.

And to be fair to the still undiscovered but possible integrity shills like Prager profess, there are elements on the Left that dabble in the same cultural refuse. The fact of the matter is that the real question should be to the anti-personal freedom political correctors, like Prager, would be that they prove who they are. Is Dennis Prager really Jewish, or does he just pretend to be? Is he actually whom he claims to be? Prove it, on paper, from a source I trust, and that I validate. Who should decide what he is able to call or consider himself? Is Trump genetically American, and how much of his DNA contains Neanderthal DNA, as scientists have concluded about the modern Human genome.

Now, let’s take to the logical extreme. Everyone must at all times carry their DNA profile with them at all times. Furthermore, they must surrender it upon demand by any state authority. perhaps they should even wear it on their lapel or upon an armband. Hmm, where have I heard that before, Mr. Prager. Oh, that’s right. Didn’t work then, doesn’t work now.

Blame it on the Media. As if Dennis Prager and the Right couldn’t get any lower…

Mr. Prager, your sanguine, over-burdened verbal pretension does not amount to true human insight.

It is what happens when pompous pseudo-intellectuals who perceive their penchant for twisting obtuse arguments into partisan justifications for actual insight. Right wing talk show host Dennis Prager  in another life might consider auditioning  as a contortionist for Circ du Soleil blames the media in the coverage of the Brett Kavanagh rape accusation, as well as today’s congressional hero not just on the media, but on that “woman” hired by Republicans to grill Kavanaugh’s accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Prager’s fraud is tantamount to a paid mob lawyer asserting that “the victim strangled himself, then shot himself six times in the back before throwing himself into the river, respectfully, your honor.”

Respectfully indeed. And for the record, it is almost unprecedented that virtually every talk station, Left and Right, and most television and cable stations ran today’s testimony with minimal interruption. I guess Prager believes it betrays bias simply in illuminating fully the hearings today. There is no truth, but for that filtered and repackaged by Prager and his ilk. Prager was theatrically incensed, cultishly defending a Supreme Court staggered by the emotional and believable testimony of Dr. Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while the two were classmates at a gathering some 35 years ago. It should be noted here that Prager did not run the hearings uninterrupted, but instead only used cherry-picked moments. Why? Because his job is propaganda not discourse or factual illumination.

And the pathetic passive aggressive, snide little tactic Prager used to impugned Dr. Ford?Let me explain a little talk radio trick.

I am in talk radio. I’ve done political talk radio, a bit of television, more radio interviews than I can count, and now have a new program dedicated to the Arts. I learned very early a nasty little trick about communicating truly cruel or crass statements. The rule is not to cross  a certain line when attacking or defaming someone on air, particularly someone as sympathetic as Dr. Ford. Let your cultivated cadre of nasty callers say those things, while you half heartedly, perhaps with a chuckle, lightly admonishing the caller. The message still gets out. Talk radio people do it all the time. It’s cheap, and amateurish and petty and defines the lack of talent by a ridiculous host.

Moreover, Prager and most on the Right assert, that this incident happened 35 years ago, and shouldn’t matter. They decry that someone squeaky clean and upstanding like Brett Kavanaugh must not be discarded from SCOTUS consideration simply on witness testimony. Twenty years ago we all assumed Bill Cosby would never drug and rape a woman, let alone 60! Climb down from your Taliban-style cross, Prager, and take Kavanaugh with you.

Where is the hard evidence? Kavanaugh was just a child. Of course, if he was Black, Prager would want the “child” thrown in jail and charged as an adult. As for witness testimony, there are Black men in prison and on death row convicted on testimony alone. I listen somewhat regularly to Prager and never once heard him address that injustice. Indeed, I never once heard a denunciation of fake-Rightwing news about President Obama being a Muslim because he liked for a time as a child in Indonesia.

Prager makes it too easy, and I’d be happy to debate him anywhere and anytime. Then again it is always pointless arguing with idiots, except when predatory media companies they work for artificially ram them into every radio market in the nation. It isn’t about ratings.

And so Prager prospers from being the paid salesmen for sycophants. To pull a quote from my war memoir, “Everything for Love,” Prager is an example of  a twisted political ideology that mandates “…the just will suffer while their persecutors luxuriate in their own filth.”