Cooper's Eye on the Left: Attempting a Swift takedown

Singer Taylor Swift, shown with the Billboard Music Awards she won in 2015, apparently has to be down with the Trump resistance in order to get a little love from left-wing critics.
Singer Taylor Swift, shown with the Billboard Music Awards she won in 2015, apparently has to be down with the Trump resistance in order to get a little love from left-wing critics.

Taylor-ing her politics

Pop music star Taylor Swift may be talented, but she may or may not be part of the Trump resistance. For that, she apparently is worthy of being destroyed.

A recent Daily Beast article judged her to be "inarguably talented" but "highly secretive at best and deceitful at worst." But unless she wants her "vision of glowing headlines and a fresh new start" to "stay a fantasy," wrote Amy Zimmerman, she should publicly announce "that she didn't vote for Donald Trump - even if that means p--- off some of her fans."

It sounds a little like blackmail to us. What does Swift's music have to do with one presidential vote specifically or her politics in general? Is ideological purity necessary for musicality?

One didn't need to be a fan of the singer to smell a rat.

"How can you go on enjoying T-Swift music without knowing her thoughtcrime rap sheet," one Twitter user wrote.

"[S]eek help," another tweeted to Zimmerman. "It's going to be OK."

A third tweet spoke about the left in the days of Trump: "Prove you are firmly on our side," it said, "or we will take you down."

Her thoughts a little Sandy

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee represents some of the area in Texas devastated by Hurricane Harvey, but she was unable to distinguish between a hurricane and an elementary school during a recent interview with CNN.

"Let me be clear," she said. "I voted on many votes for Sandy Hook funding."

Jackson Lee apparently was alluding to Hurricane Sandy, which raked part of New England in October 2012 and which has been brought up in recent days when charges were made that some of the same Texas politicians that didn't vote then for funding for Hurricane Sandy victims now want to be sure money will be in place for their constituents after the storm.

But the often confused congresswoman, whose pronouncements are becoming legendary, referred to Sandy Hook, the Connecticut elementary school where gunman Adam Lanza took the lives of 20 students and six adult staff members in December 2012.

"I voted on the main legislation for Sandy Hook funding," Jackson Lee went on, "and so I think it's important to focus on what was offensively done and here in Houston ... we're going to be on the offensive in introducing a package to make sure that we have the funding for what we need."

Some of her previous greatest hits include referring to the U.S. as a 400-year-old country, referring to Congress's need to "write up" executive orders for President Obama and referring to a continuing resolution in Congress as the country being under "martial law."

Chris crossed

The man many people have credited for the past 500 years as having discovered America can't get any respect in Los Angeles.

Last week, the Los Angeles City Council voted to replace Columbus Day, a federal holiday honoring Christopher Columbus and celebrated on the second Monday in October, with a day to commemorate indigenous people.

Officially, it will be a day for "indigenous, aboriginal and native people." While city officials made themselves feel warm and politically correct with their decision, their constituents only wanted to know one thing: Will we still get the day off? They will.

Italian American groups objected to the decision, feeling their Italian ancestor was getting the shaft, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

Columbus Day has been a federal holiday since 1937. Still, the new name will be a bit cumbersome for the Indigenous, Aboriginal And Native People Sale advertising, though.

Bananarama

A littered banana peel caused racial strife at the University of Mississippi last week and sent many students seeking a safe space.

A student named Ryan Swanson finished eating a banana, couldn't find a garbage can and threw his peel in a tree.

Makala McNeil, who leads the campus's historically black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, later saw the peel.

"The overall tone was heavy," she said. "I mean, we were talking about race in Mississippi and in the Greek community, so there's a lot involved."

She later said bananas "have been used by white people ... to dehumanize and denigrate black people."

A Greek life retreat going on at the time was promptly ended as word about the peel spread throughout the campus, and the school's interim director of fraternity and sorority life, Lee Arndt, said it was "imperative to provide space immediately to students affected by this incident."

"To be clear," she wrote to Greek leaders, "many members of our community were hurt, frightened, and upset by what occurred at IMPACT. Because of the underlying reality many students of color endure on a daily basis, the conversation manifested into a larger conversation about race relations today at the University of Mississippi."

Arndt apparently didn't elaborate, either.

Swanson, for his part, apologized for his "unintentional" deed and "for the pain that was caused to members of our community."

The school's vice chancellor for diversity and community engagement is now looking into creating a plan to handle similar incidents.

She didn't say what other fruit peels were involved.

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