Trump suggests cutting off Federal funds to U.C. Berkeley as fascist left riots against free speech

Gotta love it, here.

On the eve of Election 2016, Trump now needs just 4 Electoral College votes to win this thing tomorrow

Here is the No Toss-Ups map from Real Clear Politics, at 1940 hours.

As you can see, Trump just needs NH (Clinton +0.6) or PA (Clinton +1.9) or VA (Clinton +5) or MI (Clinton +3.4) or CO (Clinton +2.9) or NM (Clinton +5) to win this thing.

Come on people. Say No! to the establishment on both sides. Give Trump the chance to turn America around! Take the country back for the people!

This is undoubtedly your last chance. If Hillary is elected, your guns will go away, along with your ammo, freedom of speech will be curtailed, law and order will continue under assault as liberal appointees fill the judiciary, you will become dependent on government for healthcare, foreigners will flood the land even worse than before, your good paying jobs will fly away to cheaper markets abroad, taxes will soar, economic growth will continue to stagnate, and you'll be lucky to inherit your parents' house because you won't be able to afford one of your own. All because of "pussy". 

CIA has been affirmative action employer for communists, like Obama's John Brennan

Brennan, who thinks drone strikes are legal, ethical and wise, quoted here:

"So if back in 1980, John Brennan was allowed to say, 'I voted for the Communist Party with Gus Hall' [in 1976]... and still got through, rest assured that your rights and your expressions and your freedom of speech as Americans is something that's not going to be disqualifying of you as you pursue a career in government."

Laugh of the Day: Libertarian Charles Murray says only business elites, the Republican establishment and New Dealers remain true to the American creed!

In The Wall Street Journal, here:

For the eminent political scientist Samuel Huntington, writing in his last book, “Who Are We?” (2004), two components of that national identity stand out. One is our Anglo-Protestant heritage, which has inevitably faded in an America that is now home to many cultural and religious traditions. The other is the very idea of America, something unique to us. As the historian Richard Hofstadter once said, “It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one.”

What does this ideology—Huntington called it the “American creed”—consist of? Its three core values may be summarized as egalitarianism, liberty and individualism. From these flow other familiar aspects of the national creed that observers have long identified: equality before the law, equality of opportunity, freedom of speech and association, self-reliance, limited government, free-market economics, decentralized and devolved political authority. ...

Who continues to embrace this creed in its entirety? Large portions of the middle class and upper middle class (especially those who run small businesses), many people in the corporate and financial worlds and much of the senior leadership of the Republican Party. They remain principled upholders of the ideals of egalitarianism, liberty and individualism.

And let’s not forget moderate Democrats, the spiritual legatees of the New Deal. ... But these are fragments of the population, not the national consensus that bound the U.S. together for the first 175 years of the nation’s existence. ... Operationally as well as ideologically, the American creed is shattered.

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Of all the objections to the essay which leap to mind perhaps the most important objection is the way Murray glosses over the religious interpretation of the formation of the American character in favor of the modernist preoccupation with ideology.

The English Dissenters who helped establish our country from the beginning did so finally out of a frustration born of being treated as second class citizens, for whom the chartered rights of Englishmen were denied on specifically religious grounds. The desire for equal status has to be understood from its Christian setting, not from the arid point of view of a seminar in political philosophy. These Dissenters went on to populate our country along with other Christians who set about erecting a society, not a libertarian paradise where everyone did as he pleased. Built on agrarianism and the local Protestant church, it is hard to imagine a place less conducive to letting people be all that they could be.

The Richard Hofstadter reference is telling. A former communist, the liberal historian was a life-long anti-capitalist who had a reputation as an historian as something of a hack because he relied on secondary sources, ignoring the primary.

As every ideologue knows, when the evidence doesn't support your view, just ignore it.

Police in Colorado Springs won't investigate ACLUer who called for Trump supporters to be killed, citing freedom of speech

Reported here by CBS Denver:

'The post states, “The thing is, we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, ‘This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before Election Day.’ They’re not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there’s always force…” ... Wirbel did not respond to a request for comment. He is from Colorado Springs and police there say his post is covered by free speech and they do not intend to investigate.'

Evidently as long as you don't threaten a specific individual it's permitted to advocate killing the followers of Obama, or Clinton or Madonna or the Pope and so on.

Whatever happened to incitement laws? to law and order?

Colorado Springs has bigger problems than Planned Parenthood shootings.

Call Dianne Kelly Superintendent of Schools in Revere MA about disciplining a student for exercising freedom of speech

This woman is banning a high school cheerleader from cheering for tweeting her opinion about low voter turnout for mayor, saying "If you're going to stand up and say something that other people will find offensive- than you need to be prepare to deal with the ramifications of that."

The student had tweeted:

"When only 10 percent of Revere votes for mayor cause the other 90 percent isn't legal".

Maybe people would like to telephone the superintendent and remind her that if there are official sanctions for expressing an opinion then that's not freedom of speech.

Full story here.

Democrat General Wesley Clark wants to put radicalized Muslims in camps: And you thought deportation of illegal aliens was impractical

From the story here:

"It's a sad choice, but if people choose ISIS, they should be treated as spies or enemy combatants – or both. I’m frustrated with the argument that sedition is free speech because there is a role for government to step in to prevent a dissenter from becoming an active shooter, or worse.

"Any implication that I support racial profiling or interning people based on their ethnicity or heritage is dead wrong. I’m for separating people who have made dangerous decisions from the rest of society.

"The US has the obligation to protect our own population from terrorists. And ‎if the domestic terrorist threat grows due to ISIS, we must act responsibly and promptly."

Are bankrupt people who commit crimes absolved of them because they were bankrupt?

Then why should GM get off for killing over 80 people?

If corporations are people who have free speech rights just like everyone else, they have personal liability when they break the law, bankrupt or not.

Poor people go to jail all the time, but rich, well-connected corporations do not. How convenient.

Roger Kimball doesn't believe in freedom of speech anymore than anyone else

Here, in The New Criterion:

'As for the herds of “Je Suis Charlie” marchers in Paris and elsewhere, it is worth noting how very few actual “Charlies” there were. It is one thing to carry a placard. It is another to take a stand by, for example, publishing a caricature of Mohammed.'

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You see, by Roger Kimball's standard, unless I myself engage in a certain form of speech of which he approves, nay requires, I am an enemy of the West and all it stands for. It's not enough that I subscribe to the principle that one has a right to say or publish anything. Unless I actively read it and publish it myself I am not worthy. Kimball's world has no room in it for people who censor themselves out of religious and moral principle, who believe that without such principles there can be no civilization to begin with. Instead I must become a pornographer, I must become a blasphemer, I must join The Party.

Totalitarian ideology never looked so familiar.

Paris to sue Fox News for insults: "Free speech for me but not for thee"

Charlie Hebdo gets to insult every religion and every follower of same, but don't you dare insult Paris!

Story here.

Hillary Clinton doesn't have a Charlie Hebdo problem: The Neoconservatives have a pope problem

The Weekly Standard thinks Hillary Clinton has a Charlie Hebdo problem, here:

Clinton blamed an "awful internet video that we had nothing to do with" for the "rage and violence directed at American embassies." Clinton did not, in the course of her speech, defend the right to free speech. ... [D]oes Clinton see any difference between the blasphemous Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the blasphemous anti-Islam YouTube video?

All Hillary has to do is quote the pope:

"One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people's faith, one cannot make fun of faith. There are so many people who speak badly about religions, who make fun of them ... they are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to [my dear friend] if he says a word against my mother."

Victor Davis Hanson's loyalty is to a part of antiquity about free speech admired by the Enlightenment, not to all of it

Here, idealizing the record of the ancient world on freedom of speech, which is much more complicated than he lets on:

Western civilization’s creed is free thought and expression, the lubricant of everything from democracy to human rights. Even a simpleton in the West accepts that protecting free expression is not the easy task of ensuring the right to read Homer’s Iliad or do the New York Times crossword puzzle. It entails instead the unpleasant duty of allowing offensive expression. ...

Westerners cannot return to the Middle Ages to murder those whose ideas they don’t like. “Parody” and “satire” are, respectively, Greek and Latin words. In antiquity the non-Western tradition simply did not produce authors quite like the vicious Aristophanes, Petronius, and Juvenal, who unapologetically trashed the society around them. If the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo loses the millennia-old right to ridicule Islam from within a democracy, then there is no longer a West, at least as we know it.

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Do we really need to remind a classicist that Socrates was put to death for expressing ideas the Athenians didn't like, long before "the West" even got going?

Or that Solon's reforms of the Draconian laws were approved of in the time of Plutarch precisely for the way they restricted impious and intemperate speech?

"Praise is given also to that law of Solon which forbids speaking ill of the dead. For it is piety to regard the deceased as sacred, justice to spare the absent, and good policy to rob hatred of its perpetuity. He also forbade speaking ill of the living in temples, court-of‑law, public offices, and at festivals; the transgressor must pay three drachmas to the person injured, and two more into the public treasury. For never to master one's anger is a mark of intemperance and lack of training; but always to do so is difficult, and for some, impossible." -- Life of Solon 21.1

Or that the Bible has a venerable tradition advocating self-censorship, arguably with a greater claim to forming the basis of Western experience among more people than Petronius or Juvenal could ever make?

"A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards." -- Proverbs 29:11

"I will guard my ways, Lest I sin with my tongue; I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle, While the wicked are before me." -- Psalm 39:1

"If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." -- James 1:26

"And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell." -- James 3:6

Or that certain forms of self-censorship could get a person killed under the Romans?

'And the Irenarch Herod, accompanied by his father Nicetes (both riding in a chariot), met him, and taking him up into the chariot, they seated themselves beside him, and endeavoured to persuade him, saying, "What harm is there in saying, Lord Cæsar, and in sacrificing, with the other ceremonies observed on such occasions, and so make sure of safety?" But he at first gave them no answer; and when they continued to urge him, he said, "I shall not do as you advise me." So they, having no hope of persuading him, began to speak bitter words unto him, and cast him with violence out of the chariot, insomuch that, in getting down from the carriage, he dislocated his leg [by the fall]. But without being disturbed, and as if suffering nothing, he went eagerly forward with all haste, and was conducted to the stadium, where the tumult was so great, that there was no possibility of being heard.' -- Martyrdom of Polycarp 8

All of these "speech codes" and more existed in the West long before the West became the West, right alongside the traditions challenging them which Hanson mentions. And speech codes also still exist in our own time, as the anti-Semitic laws of France and a few other countries demonstrate.

Arguably there should be more such laws punishing defamation of more religions if we are going to permit laws benefiting one religion in this respect, if, that is, we are going to continue to emphasize the Western principle of equality before the law. Otherwise the "duty of allowing offensive expression" must also apply to all, including Jews.

Bill Donohue to Hugh Hewitt: a single bishop has been found to agree with me, namely the Bishop of Rome

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, here, happy that the pope agrees that there are limits to freedom of speech, limits we impose on ourselves:

"I am obviously delighted that the pope has taken the same position I have on this issue. Radio chatterbox Hugh Hewitt doubted last week whether a single bishop would side with me. What does he have to say now?"

Michael Savage attacks the pope for saying limits exist to free speech, ends up saying the same thing

Michael Alan Weiner

Michael Savage attacked the pope yesterday for two things: for stating that there are limits to freedom of speech, and for opining that human beings bear some responsibility for global warming.

Savage found the first idea an affront to the First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights ("Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"), wondering how the pope never heard of it.

The pope in his capacity as the vicar of Christ on earth, however, wasn't telling Congress to abridge the freedom of speech of anyone. He was simply reminding Christians everywhere (and chiding the secularists of France and the United States especially--hello Hugh Hewitt) to restrain their own speech as a matter of spiritual principle, in obedience to the teaching of Jesus:

"Hear and understand: not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man. ... [W]hat comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."

-- Matthew 15:10f, 18ff.

The pope was reminding the world that there is a higher law than the laws of France or the laws of the United States when it comes to what we say. Every Jew should be able instantly to recognize this idea, since practicing Jews frequently restrain their own speech as a matter of principle. They will often write "G-d" instead of "God" for fear of taking God's name in vain as the commandment in the decalogue warns. More to the point, every Jew should already grasp the Jewish basis for the Christian idea of self-restrained speaking because it comes from the prophet Jeremiah who said that "the heart is evil above all things". And neither do Jews have any excuse to be surprised by the doctrine since it is well worked out by the rabbis in the doctrine of "the evil inclination" which must always be guarded against.

Michael Savage, however, is lately more interested in removing the guards, indeed in "unprotected talk", rather than in the circumspect speech implied by his well-known motto of borders, language, culture. Freedom of speech as understood absolutely by civil libertarians is at war with that, because it leads to open borders, many languages and multiculturalism. Savage should understand by now that such libertarianism is incompatible with conservatism, and that when it comes to mental disorders, liberalism does not have a corner on the market.

The coup de grace came yesterday when Savage turned to the global warming statement made by the pope. Savage said he objected to the pope addressing a matter that had nothing to do with religion because it was outside the pope's area of expertise, outside his scope, as Savage put it, which it certainly is.

But isn't that nice. The pope exercises his freedom of speech on a matter not expressly religious and Savage all of a sudden wants to limit it, obviously because he disagrees with it but also because the pope is not an expert. But the pope has every right to speak his nonsense in the United States, whether religious or otherwise. The point of criticism on this matter should be on the substance of what the pope says, not on his role as pope supposedly "pontificating" about it.

In this still Protestant country, the pope is viewed as nothing more than a man who is no different from us, whether he speaks about the teaching of Jesus or anything else. We can say that the pope is right about the limits to freedom of speech as he stated them, and that he is probably quite mistaken about the human role in global warming, because on both counts we can look into the matter and decide for ourselves from the evidence.

We read, mark, learn and inwardly digest, but unless we do, we risk appearing Christians or Jews or Americans in name only.

Pope Francis reminds everyone that freedom of speech is not absolute

Quoted here:

"If my good friend Dr. Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch," Francis said, throwing a pretend punch his way. "It's normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others."

"There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others," he said. "They are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to Dr. Gasparri if he says a curse word against my mother. There is a limit."

Glenn Greenwald eviscerates the Solidarity with Charlie Hebdo hypocrisy of the left and right

Excerpts from his excellent analysis, here:

[T]his week’s defense of free speech rights was so spirited that it gave rise to a brand new principle: to defend free speech, one not only defends the right to disseminate the speech, but embraces the content of the speech itself. Numerous writers thus demanded: to show “solidarity” with the murdered cartoonists, one should not merely condemn the attacks and defend the right of the cartoonists to publish, but should publish and even celebrate those cartoons. “The best response to Charlie Hebdo attack,” announced Slate’s editor Jacob Weisberg, “is to escalate blasphemous satire.”

...

Anti-Islam and anti-Muslim commentary (and cartoons) are a dime a dozen in western media outlets; the taboo that is at least as strong, if not more so, are anti-Jewish images and words. Why aren’t Douthat, Chait, Yglesias and their like-minded free speech crusaders calling for publication of anti-Semitic material in solidarity, or as a means of standing up to this repression? Yes, it’s true that outlets like The New York Times will in rare instances publish such depictions, but only to document hateful bigotry and condemn it – not to publish it in “solidarity” or because it deserves a serious and respectful airing.

...

[T]he journalist Chris Hedges was just disinvited to speak at the University of Pennsylvania for the Thought Crime of drawing similarities between Israel and ISIS.

That is a real taboo – a repressed idea – as powerful and absolute as any in the United States, so much so that Brooks won’t even acknowledge its existence. It’s certainly more of a taboo in the U.S. than criticizing Muslims and Islam, criticism which is so frequently heard in mainstream circles – including the U.S. Congress – that one barely notices it any more. ...  When those demanding publication of these anti-Islam cartoons start demanding the affirmative publication of those ideas as well, I’ll believe the sincerity of their very selective application of free speech principles. One can defend free speech without having to publish, let alone embrace, the offensive ideas being targeted. But if that’s not the case, let’s have equal application of this new principle.

Freedom of speech in France: Comic says he's Charlie Coulibaly, gets investigated by police

"I am Charlie Coulibaly"

Reported here in WaPo:

'Almost 4 million people across France turned out Sunday in support of free speech. Yet, on Monday, for instance, a 31-year-old Tunisian-born man was sentenced to 10 months in jail after verbally threatening police and saying an officer shot in last week’s attack “deserved it.” Also on Monday, a Paris prosecutor opened an investigation against an anti-Semitic French comedian, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, for a post on his Facebook page calling himself “Charlie Coulibaly” — a reference to Amedy Coulibaly, the gunmen who killed four people Friday inside a Paris kosher market. The comedian — whose comedy show, which featured an explicit skit mocking the Holocaust, was banned last year for inciting hate — suggested that he was a victim of a double standard.

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France has anti-Semitism laws on its books, but many of its Muslims wonder why there aren't any laws protecting Muslims from anti-Islamic speech, such as Charlie Hebdo routinely practices against the prophet Muhammad.

Charlie Hebdo's Jewish connection: Is "Hebe Dough" behind the controversial Muslim-baiting cartoons?

Have the Jews brought the terror upon France as much as the leftists did who brought in all the Muslims in the first place?

The anti-Semitic terrorist incident at the Paris kosher shop by a member of the same terrorist cell which attacked satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo ("Charlie Weekly") should have been a clue.

The whole affair, including the attack on Charlie Hebdo, was primarily an anti-Semitic affair, but no ordinary anti-Semitic affair brought to you by a good ole' 'Murican bubba wearing a white sheet. No, it appears this was strictly an internecine battle between fellow Semites. 

In the comments section to a post at Takimag here one wag mocks Charlie Hebdo for its far-left pro-Israeli support backed by "Hebe Dough".

Does that stand up to scrutiny?

At least two of the victims at Charlie Hebdo were Jewish: Elsa Cayat, 54, and Georges Wolinski, 80. (The terrorists left all the women alive, except the Jewess).

Wolinski, who goes all the way back to the very beginning of the paper in 1960, had helped resurrect the defunct publication in its current form in 1992 with the help of a strongly pro-Israel figure named Philippe Val. It was Val who had authorized the republication of the controversial Danish Muhammad cartoons in 2005 and who also fired an allegedly anti-Semitic contributor in 2008, the noteworthy cartoonist Maurice Sinet. Val also had published controversial value judgments about the Palestinians. In addition, one of Wolinski's co-workers at Hara-Kiri, the predecessor to Charlie Hebdo, was the Polish-Jewish novelist Roland Topor.

Whatever else comes out about the decidedly pro-Jewish, anti-Palestinian, atheistic, anti-religious, morally offensive and far-leftist character of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo in the coming weeks and months, one thing is for sure: CHARLIE HEBDO COULDN'T CARE LESS ABOUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH, in France or anywhere else.

Conservatives in America should take note: Philippe Val and the late editor Charb had tried unsuccessfully in 1996 to get the political party of Marine LePen, Front National, outlawed, one of the only political parties in Europe with the guts to stand consistently against the invasion of Europe by Muslim populations.

So-called conservatives in the United States standing in solidarity today or anyday with this bunch of lunatics, perverts and malcontents are as crazy as Charlie Hebdo is.

Useless Steve Gruber Show shields Rep. Tim Walberg from heat for Cromnibus vote

Steve Gruber had his opportunity this morning to let Congressman Tim Walberg feel the heat for his vote last week which helped move Cromnibus through the Congress, and instead shielded him by talking about anything but that.

1320 WILS' Michael Cohen had a much better interview of the Congressman here on Monday addressing the issue in depth, but alas it was not a talk show which takes callers' questions and comments.

They call it freedom of the press in America, but its organs make sure that they continue to protect the liberal status quo for obscene government spending and its representatives, because they PROFIT from it.

Justin Amash represents DC's Club For Growth, not Michigan's Third District

Justin Amash must be worried about his reelection prospects.

Amash is blanketing Michigan's 3rd Congressional District with a barage of anti-Brian Ellis radio ads and mailings even though Amash claims an overwhelming lead against his humble opponent based on his own polling data. Why waste the money if he is so far ahead? Well, maybe it's not exactly his money.

What the voters probably don't realize is how much of Amash's anti-Ellis attack is financed by the Club For Growth, a libertarian organization founded by a former editor of The Wall Street Journal who is now employed by The Heritage Foundation, one Steve Moore (Heritage, it will be remembered, gave us ObamaCare long before Obama came along, as their answer to HillaryCare). Like Heritage, Club For Growth is based in Washington, DC, not in Michigan's Third. Amash gets the benefit of their negative attack ads while being able to claim he has nothing to do with them.

So far in the campaign, Club For Growth appears to be responsible for almost $400,000 of spending in attack ads against Brian Ellis, who by contrast is in large measure underwriting his own campaign with a remarkably similar amount of his own money. It is notable that Ellis is pledging to overturn ObamaCare, which in Michigan is causing health care workers to lose their jobs, while showcasing his endorsements by Michigan Right To Life, veterans groups and other conservatives upset with Amash's failure to walk the conservative talk.

Amash has an excuse on Facebook for every vote which he has failed to deliver on behalf of social and economic conservatives in his own district, just as Obama can always point to someone or something for why he never gets anything accomplished as president.

Republicans ought to consider the similarity and ask themselves if those two aren't really just cut from the same cloth.

h/t Detroit Free Press