Tag: conservatives

Commentary: Conservatives Shouldn’t Accept the Idea of ‘Systemic Racism’

Ohio Star Staff
Black Lives Matter protest

The official “Conservative Case Against Banning Critical Race Theory” appeared in the New York Times last week. Penned by a progressive Yale professor, two non-progressives, and the allegedly conservative David French, the article claims state efforts to ban CRT undermine a good, free-thinking education. Others have dissected this silly claim in detail, so it’s not worth rehashing all of that here. What readers should take away from the Times op-ed is an increasing willingness among respectable conservatives to grant the idea of “systemic racism.” They believe there is nothing wrong with accepting this core tenet of modern liberalism and that it’s absolutely true. 

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Shrier: ‘Aw Shucks Conservatives’ Are Handing America Over to the Woke

Ohio Star Staff
Christopher Rufo

Both meek “aw shucks” conservatives and “chest thumpers” conservatives are handing America over to woke activists, author Abigail Shrier claimed in a Monday Substack.

The journalist and author highlighted the successful work of anti-Critical Race Theory writer Christopher Rufo, who Shrier praised for speaking not to elites, but to Americans, by “gathering evidence and pointing out the glaring harm in clear, unapologetic (but never crass or rude) language.”

“Rufo is out there identifying the problem, alerting the public, and sounding all available alarms,” Shrier wrote. “If he hasn’t yet slain the beast, he has at least awakened American parents from their coma, convinced them that they cannot trust the teachers and administrators and school boards who treat children, not as students, but as recruits for their revolution.”

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Clemson School Administrators Used COVID Caps and Fake RSVPs to Suppress Turnout at Conservative Event

Ohio Star Staff
Assortment of conservative buttons with a "Get Involved" Turning Point USA fillout

During the height of the pandemic, two college administrators from Clemson University used phony ticket reservations to suppress attendance at a conservative student event and bragged about it on Facebook.

The conservative group Turning Point USA’s local chapter hosted speakers Tomi Lahren, Brandon Tatum, and Graham Allen for an event on the South Carolina campus in April 2020.

The event was limited in capacity because of COVID-19, and people had to reserve tickets from a smaller pool in advance.

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Commentary: The Battle Against Big Tech Is an Existential Fight for Conservatives

Ohio Star Staff
Person holding phone up in Times Square.

For Big Tech billionaires, these are the best of times, and the worst of times.

Why the best? Because the long arm of social media and online commerce has never reached further and deeper into Americans’ culture, spending habits, lifestyles, and worldview. Likewise, the net worth of these billionaires has risen to undreamed-of heights. COVID was, for tech barons, a blessing in disguise: it trapped Americans indoors, where they could do little else but browse the web, consume digital entertainment, and spend their stimulus dollars on imported Chinese doohickeys. Even as the dreaded virus has retreated, Big Tech has successfully locked in its gains.

Why the worst of times, though? The very rise of Big Tech has portended greater scrutiny. The debasement of Big Tech’s competitors and natural enemies—from brick-and-mortar stores to Trump supporters—has ensured that the drumbeat of criticism of social media companies and online retailers has never been more stridently percussive. 

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Facebook Is Spamming Conservative Users With Messages About a Support Group for ‘Extremists’

Ohio Star Staff

Facebook users are expressing shock and dismay after being spammed with messages touting a support group for people concerned about “extremists.”

“Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?” the message begins. “We care about preventing extremism on Facebook. Others in your situation have received confidential support,” the message continues.

The Facebook message goes on to suggest that “you can help” by joining their support group. “Hear stories and get help from people who have escaped violent extremist groups,” the message concludes.

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Republicans Win Big in Texas Mayoral Races with Increased Latino Support

Ohio Star Staff
Jim Ross Javier Villalobos, and Mattie Parker

Republicans swept Texas’ mayoral elections over the weekend, relying on increased Hispanic support to win in large and mid-sized cities alike.

In Forth Worth, a city of just over 1 million, 37-year-old Republican Mattie Parker cruised to victory against Democrat Deborah Peoples, making her the youngest mayor in the city’s history, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. In McAllen, Texas, a border town of approximately 150,000 where 85% of residents are Hispanic, Republican Javier Villalobos became the first GOP mayor elected since 1997, Valley Central News reported.

Republicans were also victorious in Arlington, Texas, a suburb of 400,000 just outside Forth Worth. GOP candidate Jim Ross, a former police officer in the city, beat the Democratic candidate after campaigning on an anti-crime platform and earning endorsements from several police groups, according to the Star-Telegram.

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Commentary: Conservatives and Republicans Must Reclaim Memorial Day

Ohio Star Staff
Veteran cemetery with table set for lives lost who served America

In the face of the Far Left’s attempts to rewrite American history through the now-discredited 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory, Republicans and conservatives must reclaim the key dates and events in American history and there is no better place to start than Memorial Day 2021.

Memorial Day was created not as a “holiday” or an excuse for corporate merchants to advertise sales, but as a solemn commemoration of the dead of both sides in the American Civil War.

In that context Memorial Day commemorates a number of constitutional conservative values, not the least of which is the inviolability of the Constitution itself.

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Trump Antagonist Opposes Arizona Election Audit as Justice Department Official

Ohio Star Staff
Polling station sign

A foe of former President Donald Trump is leading the Biden Justice Department’s push to discredit or halt an election audit in Arizona’s largest county—an issue that is heating up this week. 

Pamela S. Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, warned the leader of the Arizona state Senate that the audit of Maricopa County’s election results in November could run afoul of federal law regarding security of voter information and voter intimidation. 

President Joe Biden, who appointed Karlan, narrowly defeated Trump in Arizona, where Maricopa County was a crucial battleground. 

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Battle Brews Between Conservative Authors and Mainstream Publishers in Era of Cancel Culture

Ohio Star Staff
Simon and Schuster

It’s a contentious time for conservatives in the publishing industry, and it’s a contentious time for publishing houses working with those in the conservative industry.

“As the cancel culture has revved up, the pressure has heated up on all of these big New York publishers,” says Marji Ross, the former president of conservative Regnery Publishing.

In recent months, New York publishing house Simon & Schuster has canceled Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley’s forthcoming book about Big Tech, decided not to distribute a book written by the Louisville police officer who was shot while executing a no-knock warrant at the home of Breonna Taylor, signed a $3-4 million deal with former Vice President Mike Pence, and received a letter from more than 215 members of its staff demanding that the company not publish any books written by members of the Trump administration.

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Banks, Financial Services Firms Next to Bow to ‘Woke Left,’ Ban Conservatives, Warns Rep. Ted Budd

Ohio Star Staff

A new frontier in “cancel culture” is looming on the horizon: Banking and financial services firms could ban conservative customers and others from industries targeted by the left, warns North Carolina Republican Rep. Ted Budd, a member of the House Financial Services Committee.

The targets appear to include Republican members of Congress who voted to challenge the 2020 election results (just as some Democrats did in 2017, 2005 and 2001 without facing financial backlash). Additional possible targeted industries range from fossil fuels and firearms to for-profit colleges and payday lenders.

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Conservative Activists Protest at Bed Bath & Beyond for Removing MyPillow Products

Ohio Star Staff

Conservative activists gathered in-person to protest at a Bed Bath & Beyond store in California, in opposition to the company’s decision to cancel all MyPillow products due to the CEO’s support for President Trump, according to Breitbart.

The group consisted of members of the Media Action Network, an activism group founded by former Fox News executive Ken LaCorte. As part of the protest, the  gathered members pretended to shop through the store, filling up their carts with various products, before leaving the filled carts behind throughout the store and leaving. They left behind brochures urging the chain to “stop promoting cancel culture,” and bring back MyPillow products.

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Commentary: Conservatives Need to Stand Up for Their Own Civil Rights

Ohio Star Staff

For those making their arguments about whether Section 230 should be repealed or reformed to protect conservatives on social media, it’s time to declare that this ship sailed long ago. Most of the world has now come to accept that these monolithic platforms can remove people or their content at will. The banning of President Trump and a host of other conservatives from all major platforms has proven this point beyond dispute. 

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Commentary: Fox News’ Media Suicide

Ohio Star Staff

It was entirely expected that the worst year in my lifetime should have the worst election in my lifetime. Not because the second-best president in my lifetime (after Ronald Reagan) lost, but because we don’t know for sure that he did. I would rather be certain that the ghost of Joe Biden won outright than see the greatest nation on Earth embarrass itself like Venezuela. Sadly, the unprecedented goalpost-shifting and manipulation by the Left, bolstered by the usual obsequious accommodation by the Right, has created a national humiliation that will fester for a long time to come, no matter who gets inaugurated in January. Should that be Biden, I shall leave it to more expert political analysts to dissect the cause and effects of such a disaster, while I’ll focus on the cultural, media, and artistic ramifications. And I’ll start with the most astonishing example of media suicide in my lifetime — that of the Fox News Corporation (FNC).

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Commentary: An Unserious Movement for an Unserious People

Ohio Star Staff

We all should probably acknowledge that we Americans, in many ways, have become an unserious people. No serious civilization and society would allow a fraction of what is taking place here—from the absurdity of our education system to the dominance of big tech monopolies to our current form of elections. A list of our nation’s follies demonstrating our unseriousness would fill pages. But it’s not just about the American people as a whole: conservatism is an unserious movement (if one can even call what exists a movement), and Republicans are deeply, deeply unserious as a political party. 

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Commentary: Reviving The Conservative Heart of Organized Labor

Ohio Star Staff

It is no coincidence that what finally broke the Soviet Union was a Catholic trade union — a group of shipyard workers, led by an electrician and motivated by a faith that their oppressors deemed an opiate.

Christianity and its sweeping social vision enlivened the workers in Gdansk and their entire nation and, a decade later, a totalitarian superpower claiming to speak on behalf of all workers around the world had vanished. The forbidden revolution of workers bound together in solidarity around a shared vision of dignity, work, and the common good did what tanks and armed divisions had failed to do: it ended communism and gained freedom for millions.

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State Department Monitored 13 Americans’ Social Media in Possible Legal Violation

Ohio Star Staff

Officials at the U.S. embassy in Kiev ordered the monitoring of 13 prominent Americans’ social media accounts during the early days of the Ukraine scandal in spring 2019 and later were informed their activities potentially violated the Privacy Act, according to State Department memos made public on Tuesday.

The memos, released under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, show those targeted for monitoring included President Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., the president’s personal lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Fox News personalities Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Lou Dobbs. This reporter was one of the 13 individuals on the list targeted.

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Commentary: Supreme Court Bypasses Congress Legislates Radical Homosexual Agenda from Bench

Ohio Star Staff

In a ruling that shocked conservatives and religious liberty advocates, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, ruled Monday that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gays, lesbian and transgender people from discrimination in employment.

The court held that a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 known as Title VII that bars job discrimination because of sex, among other reasons, encompasses bias against LGBT workers.

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Commentary: Conservatives and Liberals Are Responding to COVID-19 in Such Different Ways

Ohio Star Staff

In a 2008 TED Talk, psychologist Jonathan Haidt said the worst idea in psychology is the notion that humans are born as a “blank slate.”

Like the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, Haidt was rejecting the notion that the human mind is a blank slate at birth, an idea that can be traced to thinkers from Aristotle, to John Locke, to B.F. Skinner and beyond.

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Conservatives Ask Amazon to End SPLC’s Role as ‘Hate Group Sheriff’

Ohio Star Staff

A conservative free-market group hopes to convince Amazon, the world’s largest retailer, not to rely on the Southern Poverty Law Center as a gatekeeper for its philanthropic giving.

The scandal-plagued SPLC, a left-wing advocacy organization, routinely labels mainstream center-right organizations as “hate groups” on a list that includes actual hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazis. 

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Google Employees Blame Conservative Backlash for Canceled Racial Justice Program

Ohio Star Staff

Google acknowledged nixing an internal racial justice program Wednesday, and some employees believe the company did it fearing lawsuits from “right-wing employees,” according to an NBC News report.

The company ended Sojourn in 2019, claiming the program designed to teach about racial injustice was too difficult to expand beyond the United States, NBC News reported Wednesday. Current and former employees, however, told NBC the program ended because Google feared backlash in the wake of former software engineer James Damore’s 2018 lawsuit that accused the company of ideological discrimination.

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Conservatives Say Obhof’s Canceling Session Before Acton Vote is ‘Betrayal’

Jason M. Reynolds

Conservatives are using words like “betrayal” to describe Ohio Senate President Larry Obhof’s late-night move to kill a vote on a bill to curb Dr. Amy Acton’s unrestrained powers in shutting the state down, and suggests he had an ulterior motive.

The Senate will not act this week on Senate Bill One pulling back the Health Department director’s powers, meaning it will likely fail, Fox 19 Now reported. The Senate is only having committee meetings this week and will hold a session next week.

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Commentary: When Will Conservatives Understand That It’s Not a Contest of Ideas?

Ohio Star Staff

Even as Donald Trump continues to frustrate #TheResistance after three years of ceaseless fabrication and hysteria, conservatives must not forget just how close they are to the edge. We have a defender in the White House, but the social ideas of the Left prevail in nearly every other elite and cultural space in the United States.

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Commentary: Britain’s ‘Red Tory’ Future

Ohio Star Staff

It appears that social media is not the real world. Indeed, contrary to the predictions I read there, the most seismic election in British history was not even close.

Boris Johnson on Friday morning returned as Great Britain’s prime minister atop a landslide of voters whom the progressive Left abandoned long ago.

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Commentary: The Standing of Blacks in the Republican Party

Ohio Star Staff

Barack Obama launched his meteoric political rise in 2004 by plagiarizing a message published in my 1991 essay, “Black and White Together: A Reconsideration,” which was included in the book Reassessing Civil Rights. Unfortunately, while Obama embraced the winning rhetoric, he did not embrace the argument. Otherwise, he would have transformed the political character of our nation. For the first thing he would have done would have been to lead the Democratic Party away from its practice of maintaining political ghettos for minorities.

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Commentary: How Conservatives Can Protect the Environment and Win Voters, Too

Ohio Star Staff

Conservatives need to do a better job on the environment. That seems like a controversial thing to say, because usually when you hear a conservative speak positively about an issue closely identified with liberalism, it is the precursor to a sellout of conservative principles. How many times have you read an essay claiming to make “the conservative case” for some profoundly anti-conservative project like voting for Hillary Clinton or government-run healthcare?

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Professor Finds Lower College GPAs Among Conservatives Compared to Liberals

Ohio Star Staff

Research finds that conservatives on average earn higher GPAs and test scores in high school, but ultimately receive lower GPAs in college when compared to their liberal classmates, at least partly due to liberal ideological bias. This grade discrepancy is even more evident in the humanities and social sciences, as compared to the more objective STEM fields.

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Commentary: Who Is for Middle America?

Ohio Star Staff

 by Pedro Gonzalez   The late Edward Abbey, an irascible and irreverent American environmentalist, took aim at the immigration ideologues in terms still relevant for our time: “The conservatives love their cheap labor; the liberals love their cheap cause.” In other words, if the Republican Party and the Democratic Party…

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Facebook’s Recent Algorithm Changes Are Laying Waste to Conservative and Liberal Outlets

Admin

by Chris White   Facebook recently changed its algorithms to steer focus away from explicitly political content, but now that alteration is laying waste to conservative and liberal outlets. Conservative pundit Deneen Borelli laid into Facebook last week, telling her followers on July 9 that the company’s bias against conservatives…

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Commentary: A Conservative Resistance?

Ohio Star Staff

by Angelo Codevilla   Leftists in America treat conservative voters, elected officials, and policies as illegitimate. Should conservative Americans return the favor? Could they? Few outside the corporate leftist media took seriously Hillary Clinton’s accusation that Donald Trump might refuse to accept defeat in the 2016 election. Though Americans’ sociopolitical divisions…

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Commentary: Bible Verses Now ‘Unsafe’ on Social Media

Ohio Star Staff

by CHQ Staff   Our friend James O’Keefe and his team at Project Veritas have obtained a massive “Sensitive Terms List” from a Pinterest insider, which revealed the social media giant manipulates search results for “Bible verses,” “Christian Easter,” and other Christian terms. The terms on the list are marked…

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Trump’s Campaign Considers Creating a New Account on a Conservative Version of Twitter

Ohio Star Staff

by Chris White   President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign may create a profile on what is being called the conservative version of Twitter, Politico reported Tuesday, citing an anonymous source inside the president’s campaign. “It’s something he’s aware of and is checking out,” a senior Trump campaign official told Politico,…

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Judson Phillips Commentary: Crisis Management for Dummy Conservatives

Ohio Star Staff

by Judson Phillips   In the age of Trump, something has become obvious. The news media is the enemy of conservatives. Across Tennessee and the nation, we see the liberal media attack conservatives with the single objective of destroying the conservative. Why shouldn’t the left wing media attack conservatives? After…

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Twitter Meets with Conservatives for Input on Social Media Practices

Ohio Star Staff

by Evie Fordham   Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey hosted dinners to pick the brains of conservative leaders, including Grover Norquist, about criticism over content policing or lack thereof, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Norquist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, told TheWSJ he asked for help for…

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Commentary: Democrat Excess Leads to New and Improved Trump in 2019

Ohio Star Staff

by Jeffrey A. Rendall   Predictions. It’s what New Year’s is all about. It goes without saying that 2018 was full of surprises. Heading into this year Republican majorities in both houses of Congress had just passed a massive reorganization of the federal tax code, including a sizeable tax cut…

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Kasich Faces Potential Conservative Revolt After Vetoing Pro-Life ‘Heartbeat’ Bill

Andrew Shirley

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) ignited a conservative firestorm Friday after vetoing one of the most comprehensive pro-life bills ever proposed since the passage of Roe v. Wade. House Bill 258 would ban any abortion after a child’s first heartbeat is detected. Since fetal heartbeats, in some cases, can be detected as…

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Commentary: Fighting Democrats Dirty Politics

Admin

by Karin McQuillan   The midterms are in the rearview mirror and the chattering classes are back to debating fake collusion with Russia and a looming indictment of the president. Before the midterms, Republican voters were told this election was consequential. After the midterms, we’re told it is just one…

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Commentary: Don’t Listen to Conservative Quitters

Admin

by Brandon J. Weichert   Ann Coulter thinks Donald J. Trump will be the last Republican president ever. She might be right. In fact, in my darkest moments, I have feared as much. After all, there hasn’t been a Republican like Trump in more than a generation—and there aren’t any…

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Google CEO to Testify Before Congress to Discuss Allegations of Conservative Censorship

Admin

by Evie Fordham   Google CEO Sundar Pichai will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 5 to answer questions about the company’s possible political bias, the committee announced. “Americans put their trust in big tech companies to honor freedom of speech and champion open dialogue, and it is Congress’ responsibility to the…

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Commentary: Fight the Denigration of American History

Ohio Star Staff

by Michael Finch   American history is everywhere under attack. The recent skirmishes started with the campaign to remove Confederate statues, but it surely won’t end there. As our betters in America’s universities want us to know, the whole of American history is suspect. In our media, in the popular…

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Commentary: Why is America Divided?

Ohio Star Staff

by Martin Cothran   In one sense political divisiveness has always been with us. The United States was birthed in political animosity. If you doubt it, go read about the contention between figures such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, or between Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. And, of course, there…

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MSNBC’s Toure Neblett Calls Conservatives Anti-Media, Anti-Intellectual and Anti-Science Conspiracy Theorists

Ohio Star Staff

by Nick Givas   MSNBC contributor Toure Neblett called conservatives “anti-media, anti-intellectual and anti-science” and accused them of believing in conspiracy theories on Up With David Gura Saturday. Neblett was discussing conservatives’ reactions to suspected mail bomber Cesar Syoc Jr., who was arrested Friday on suspicion of sending 12 potential explosive devices to…

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Why Conservatives Can’t Understand Liberals (and Vice Versa)

Ohio Star Staff

by Jon Miltimore   It’s probably important to preface any conversation on morality by noting that humans often struggle—mightily—to agree on what morality is. While it’s a thorny topic to define and explain, it would, of course, be foolish to avoid the pursuit of moral truths for this reason. Jonathan Haidt,…

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Commentary: Democrats About to Discover Conservatives’ Angst That Lies Beneath

Ohio Star Staff

by Jeffrey A. Rendall   There’s mystery in what lies beneath. Or at least it’s true in conservative Republican circles, since the average citizen doesn’t go around shrieking, clutching offensive and abusive signs, disrupting formal government functions or carrying on like a spoiled five-year-old kindergartner who won’t lay down at…

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