Sandstorm Scholar

Conservative author Charles Krauthammer has passed away at the age of 68. The Fox News commentator had been battling cancer for some time and announced recently that he had only weeks to live.

Krauthammer was born on March 13, 1950 in New York City. During his first year at Harvard Medical School, a diving accident left him permanently paralyzed. After a 14-month long recovery, he returned to Harvard to finish his medical degree. He would later earn his board certification in psychiatry and would contribute to the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

In the 1980s, Krauthammer began writing political columns for a variety of media outlets, including Time Magazine, The New Republic, and the Washington Post. Within a few years, he was a nationally syndicated columnist, a well-known political commentator, and a regular Fox News contributor. He is remembered for both his brilliantly insightful writing and his political independence, willing to hold a critical spotlight on issues across the partisan divide.

Krauthammer’s Fox News colleagues clearly held the highest degree of admiration for both the man and his work, offering moving tributes on Twitter and on air today.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and friend, Charles Krauthammer,” said Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott in a statement provided to RedState. “A gifted doctor and brilliant political commentator, Charles was a guiding voice throughout his time with FOX News and we were incredibly fortunate to showcase his extraordinary talent on our programs. He was an inspiration to all of us and will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his beloved wife Robyn and his son Daniel.”

Brit Hume, Tucker Carlson, Dana Perino, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace also shared their memories of their brilliant friend and colleague.

Krauthammer is survived by his wife, Robyn, and their son, Daniel. May his memory be a blessing.

Follow Sarah Rumpf on Twitter: @rumpfshaker. 

The post RIP Charles Krauthammer appeared first on RedState.

Source: Red State

I’m going to start by saying that if you haven’t if you haven’t seen the Star Wars “Solo” film yet, then I feel you should. It wasn’t at all awful, and the story was a pretty solid one. I have my complaints, but they didn’t necessarily ruin my overall enjoyment of the film.

But regardless of the fact that the film was not at all bad, it still under-performed in the markets. As the Daily Wire has reported, the film is yet to make half of its $375 million budget back. The shock of Solo’s lackluster return has caused Disney to put the “Star Wars Stories” on hold in the mean time.

While I was hopeful for the announced Boba Fett movie, my reaction to the announcement that they wouldn’t keep going was oddly one of relief. Understand that I love Star Wars, but I’d rather love it for it was, not what it is.

But what is it’s problem? What did Solo do wrong?

Nothing major. I have some nitpicks as to the character choice for Han Solo, and the politicization of the droids, but otherwise, the movie was relatively solid. Same can be said for Rogue One before that. A solid movie that had a very “Magnificent 7,” doomed hero feel to it.

The problem isn’t necessarily with Solo or Rogue One, but with the main story. At this time, the Star Wars films currently being made with Kathleen Kennedy at the helm are a despicable mess laced with political messaging and nods to the cause du jour. The galaxy far, far away feels too close to home, and it contains all the most annoying parts of it.

For one, many Star Wars fans find it odd that Daisy Ridley’s character “Rey” is somehow so powerful with the force that she can defeat everyone she comes across, be they a highly trained Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) or the most powerful Jedi living, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamilton) in single combat. Rey’s character is the ultimate Mary Sue who, if not for her supporting cast, would be a boring character. She can do all and defeat all. Her character arch is relatively shallow, and too often anticlimactic.

And while J.J. Abrams’ “The Force Awakens” was essentially a predictable rehash of “A New Hope,” it was Rian Johnson’s “The Last Jedi” that really had fans heading for the exists. Horrible plot direction, shoe-horned in characters, and the heinous misuse of established characters had fans in a virtual riot. Luke Skywalker was nothing like the character we had grown up with, Rey was far more powerful than she had any right to be given her single day of training, and Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) may be a ridiculous character I wish never existed on par with Jar Jar Binks.

Even Hamill couldn’t hold back his disdain for Johnson and the direction of the movie during the filming, and consistently expressed it in interviews. One such interview was during SXSW, where Hamill makes it a point to highlight how Johnson’s philosophy for the movie was to kill the past, and even going so far as to write that into Kylo Ren’s lines, to which Johnson agrees and says “I’m trying.”

The problem is, the past is where the answer lies for the franchise’s success, and yet the people continuing on the legacy have no respect for the place Star Wars came from. They would rather treat the old characters as disposable, and push forward with the new cast, half of which is comprised of dismissible characters.

Also, as Ben Shapiro wrote accurately, much of the blame for the failure of the modern Star Wars films lies in its social justice adherent producer Kathleen Kennedy, who is so focused on creating strong female characters that she forgot to create good ones.

The reception for TLJ was so horrid that now producer Abrams came to the films defense and blamed the hatred for it on — and I’m not kidding — misogyny. Abrams kicked a hornets nest here, and ended up making it even worse, and confirming far too many fears surrounding the film moving into a social justice political realm. He just made it so much worse.

(If you’d like to read my response to Abrams, as well as some further critiques to TLJ, please follow the link here.)

All of this has left an overwhelmingly bitter taste in the mouths of Star Wars fans. As I’ve covered ad nauseum, introducing politics into the realm of escapism results in people turning away and finding something better to do. This applies to anything from sports, to shopping. Star Wars fans don’t want social justice in the movies, and the results of them forcing it down our throats is that many have turned away.

Solo — not a bad movie for all intents and purposes — went largely ignored likely due to the fact that many don’t want to reward Disney for turning a beloved franchise into a sad pile of bad stories, bad characters, and political messages. On top of that, they’re afraid that if they go to another Star Wars movie they’ll just have their heart broken again, and the fandom has had that happen one too many times, ever since the prequels.

If you ask me, it sounds like Disney execs put the wrong films on hold. Rogue One and Solo were just fine. What they need to do is reexamine what they’re doing with the main films, fire those who are poisoning it (Kennedy and Abrams) and push forward with a fresh, clean slate that will deserve the respect of fans both new and old.

If they don’t, then Star Wars will die a tragic but well deserved death within the American film legacy.

The post Disney Puts Star Wars Spinoffs On Hold After Solo Tanks, but the True Blame Lies with the Main Films appeared first on RedState.

Source: Red State

People rally outside the Statehouse, Wednesday, June 20, 2018, in Boston, to protest how immigrants are being treated both on the border with Mexico and in Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

 

As a writer, I depend on other writers. So do…other writers.

I’m not out on the street, with a notepad in my pocket and a pencil in my ear. Neither are the vast majority of people writing these days.

We glean from one another. We research. We find information on the web, in newspapers, in reports, in books, in magazines, or other places.

And lately, getting clear facts has become more difficult than ever, thanks to the left-wing bent of even supposedly right-wing journalists (please see this).

What is a migrant?

What is an immigrant?

What is an asylum seeker?

These are confusing terms, when used to mean something at best more specific and at worst wholly different.

When euphemisms are employed for those breaking the law, not only is the notion of law diminished, but the clarity of the story suffers significantly.

Go on social media right now: I guarantee you can find someone who believes those seeking asylum have to sneak across the border and be put in a cage. Why do they think that? Partly due to the media’s unwillingness to use proper terms even when it obstructs the facts.

People seeking asylum can do so at a port of entry.

But not according to the stories I read.

If the numerous articles regarding family separation are to be believed, “migrants” are being captured and put in cages.

If someone breaks into your house, are they a domestic “migrant?” Is that a fair description?

At times, I find myself exerting ridiculous effort to get to the reality of a story, so I can relay it. What is this person? Someone running from execution in their home country, someone just wandering the plains, someone immigrating to America, or somebody breaking the law? It’s hard to tell. Of course, anymore, virtually zero stories are told about actual immigrants. “Immigrants” are those who come here legally; however, in an effort to skew the truth, the media have taken that word and used it to refer to ILLEGAL immigrants so much that it has almost ceased to be utilized any other way. The impression, therefore, is twofold:

• There is no way to enter the country legally.
• The only (read: correct) way to enter America is to sneak in.

The result is a very confused public. Not a day goes by that I don’t see regular people online, raving about what Donald Trump is doing to “migrants.” “Asylum seekers.” “Immigrants.”

I know those are not the proper terms, but I don’t believe they do.

And I hear songs and see talking heads and typing radicals telling us we’re a nation of immigrants.

To that, I say:

NO, WE ARE NOT.

We are NOT a “nation of immigrants.” Not when the word “immigrants” means, instead, “illegal immigrants.”

Words mean something, and the Left is poaching the language (illustrated here).

As in so many other cases, sadly, the Right seems to be following suit.

How about this: how about, everyone say what they’re actually talking about? So I don’t have to waste time consulting my Baloney-to-English dictionary, and social media isn’t filled with the rants of fools commenting on something that doesn’t exist, because the media was too weak to describe what does.

We can’t have a healthy debate in this country, if the terms being used in the discussion have no direct relation to the ideas behind them. In that event, everyone is talking about something different. And very few know what they are talking about at all.

At the very least, let us say what we mean. Me, you…this American conservative base. Let us not kowtow to the demands of those who want nothing more than to mislead the ignorant into the hypnotically comforting belief they are informed. That is what is happening: “migrant” is the new “illegal immigrant,” and stupid is the new smart. Let’s put a moratorium on stupid. Let’s build a wall against it. Keep it out of ports of entry. Protect the borders of our nation’s understanding of truth.

And in doing so, may we have a conversation in that light, in that mutual acceptance and agreement. Because without the clarity of reality, “nothing” is the new anything.

 

For more on the culture, please go here and here.

Find all my RedState work here.

And please follow Alex Parker on Twitter.

The post The Left’s War on Language: ‘Illegal’ and What it Means appeared first on RedState.

Source: Red State

According to a Rasmussen poll released Thursday in the wake of several days of media hysterics over the separation of children from their families at the U.S. Southern border, more voters blame parents of migrant children for the border crisis than they do the federal government.

When families are arrested and separated after attempting to enter the United States illegally, 54% of Likely U.S. Voters say the parents are more to blame for breaking the law. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that only 35% believe the federal government is more to blame for enforcing the law. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.

The poll questions are below:

Perhaps even more notable (emphasis mine), 82% of Republicans and 56% of voters not affiliated with either major political party feel the parents are more to blame for breaking the law. But 60% of Democrats say the government is more to blame for enforcing the law.

There has been a great deal of chatter that the border situation — and it got about as ugly as these things can get just short of actual violence — was going to be a very bad look  for Republicans in the 2018 midterms. If these numbers are accurate, and especially if the GOP manages to get some kind of immigration reform passed in Congress, the damage to Republican members, and to President Trump himself, may not be as dramatic as people assumed at the beginning of the week.

For what it’s worth, the poll also found that “voters are strongly critical of Mexico’s efforts to keep illegal drugs and illegal immigrants out of the United States, and just over half agree with the president that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a good weapon to use to make our southern neighbor clean up its act.”

The poll was conducted on June 19-20, 2018 by Rasmussen Reports, and surveyed 1000 likely voters.

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Source: Red State