Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category

Al Franken’s anti-religious bigotry is getting more disgusting by the day. Last week, Franken criticized Amy Coney-Barrett, President Trump’s nominee to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, for being associated with a civil rights law firm that the Southern Poverty Law Center, aka SPLC, has designated as a hate group.

First, the name of the civil rights group is the Alliance for the Defense of Freedom, aka ADF. ADF represented Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, MO in the Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer in the Supreme Court. According to that ruling, the Trinity Lutheran Church Child Learning Center ran a “preschool and daycare center.” The Center applied to “replace a large portion of the pea gravel with a pour-in-place rubber surface by participating in Missouri’s Scrap Tire Program.” ADF not only won the case. They won by a 7-2 margin, meaning it was a pretty clear-cut case.

After Ms. Barrett’s confirmation hearing, “ADF president, CEO and general counsel Michael Farris” issued this statement. The statement said “It is deeply regrettable that Sen. Franken is misinformed about our work on behalf of religious freedom, something so ‘extreme’ that even seven justices of the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with our position three months ago in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer. There is a real danger of conflating genuine hate groups, like the Ku Klux Klan, with mainstream religious beliefs that are shared by millions of Americans and people from all walks of life across the world. As a member of Congress, Sen. Franken needs to fact-check before parroting discredited attacks by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a once-proud civil rights organization that is now a left-wing smear machine known to incite violence. Alliance Defending Freedom is the largest religious liberty legal advocacy organization in the world and advocates for the freedom of all people—including Sen. Franken’s constituents—to peacefully live, speak, and work consistently with their convictions without fear of government punishment.”

Greg Gutfeld summed up the SPLC perfectly in this segment:

This week, Sen. Franken’s credibility as a legislator took a major hit. You wouldn’t know that by the Twin Cities media but it’s there. Franken is still pouring through the handful of Minnesota Supreme Court rulings that Justice David Stras participated in but the SPLC has gotten a total pass by Franken. Sen. Franken accepts the SPLC’s hateful statements as though they were carved on stone tablets without examining their principles but he criticizes organizations he knows nothing about because they don’t share his warped ideology.

Sen. Franken is a shill and ideologue. He isn’t a serious legislator. His accomplishments are virtually nonexistent. He reflexively rejects opinions held by people he ideologically disagrees with. This is consistent with the alt-left’s practices. Sen. Franken and the alt-left don’t believe in compromise, discussion or coming together based on principle. This is the end result:

Based on Sen. Franken’s affiliation with Antifa’s thugs, it’s fair to ask if we have more to fear from Sen. Franken and Antifa than we have to fear from Prof. Coney-Barrett and ADF.

Technorati: Al Franken, Confirmation Hearing, Amy Coney Barrett, SPLC, Hate Groups, Special Interests, Democrats, SCOTUS, Trinity Lutheran Church, SCOTUS, Religious Liberty, Alliance for the Defense of Freedom

Last night, Kansas City cornerback Marcus Peters sat during the National Anthem in an all-too-familiar display of ingratitude. First, let’s clear up the misconception that players can protest the Anthem because it’s protected by the First Amendment. The football pundits that have said that, aka Trey Wingo, don’t know what they’re talking about.

When they’re in uniform, their team has the undisputed right to dictate behavior. That’s because the team controls work product. From the time an employee punches in until that employee punches out, that employee’s employer can dictate to them what they shall do and how they must behave. But I digress.

Later in the article, it says “Peters’ protest comes days after Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett – who has also sat for the anthem – accused Las Vegas police of unfairly targeting him because of his race. Vegas police have pushed back on the accusation, saying officers chased down Bennett because he ran from an active shooting scene.”

NFL teams go out of their way to emphasize how they “give back” to their communities. It’s a little disingenuous for them to say they’re giving back while displaying such anti-patriotic behavior. It gives fans the opportunity to question whether NFL teams understand their fans.

When Commissioner Goodell first suspended Ray Rice for 2 games for physically assaulting his then-fiancé, people were rightfully outraged. People, including me, accused Goodell of being out of touch. I suspect that NFL teams’ PR departments came up with the “giving back” spin to somewhat mitigate their players’ negative reputations. Peters is one of those players whose reputation requires, putting it charitably, mitigation.

One retired player whose reputation is solid is Burgess Owens. Check out what he said on Fox & Friends this morning:

That’s what an adult with integrity sounds like.

Technorati: Marcus Peters, Collin Kaepernick, Marshawn Lynch, National Anthem, Burgess Owens, Accountability, Integrity, Ray Rice, Greg Hardy, NFL, Roger Goodell, First Amendment, Patriotism

Berkeley’s mayor is getting called out in Allahpundit’s post. In his post, AP quotes Mayor Arreguin as saying “I don’t want Berkeley being used as a punching bag. I’m very concerned about Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter and some of these other right-wing speakers coming to the Berkeley campus, because it’s just a target for black bloc to come out and commit mayhem on the Berkeley campus and have that potentially spill out on the street. I obviously believe in freedom of speech, but there is a line between freedom of speech and then posing a risk to public safety. That is where we have to really be very careful; that while protecting people’s free-speech rights, we are not putting our citizens in a potentially dangerous situation and costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars fixing the windows of businesses.”

Actually, it isn’t obvious that Mayor Arreguin believes in free speech. I’d argue quite the contrary, in fact. It’s obvious that Mayor Arreguin is letting thuggish rioters like Antifa cast a ‘rioters veto’, thereby chilling the exercise of free speech.

If Mayor Arreguin wants to restore free speech to Berkeley, he should take a page out of President Trump’s immigration handbook. Before President Trump took office, Fox News interviewed Sen. Schumer. One of the topics discussed was building the wall. Sen. Schumer insisted that Democrats wouldn’t budge on building the wall, that they’d insist on “comprehensive immigration reform” instead. I said at the time that Schumer was blowing smoke because Jeff Sessions could stop Sen. Schumer in his tracks simply by enforcing the law.

The point is that Gen. Sessions’ enforcement and President Trump’s belligerent tone on immigration, illegal immigration has slowed to a trickle. The point Mayor Arreguin should take from this is simple: If you’re willing to enforce the law and dangle the possibility of stiff prison sentences in front of Antifa, the conditions on the ground shift pretty dramatically. BTW, forget about expensive fines. They won’t work because Soros is willing to pay the fines.

Enforcement is the only way to restore free speech in Berkeley or any other place where Antifa threatens to cast a rioter’s veto. If they know you’re serious, they’ll stop. If they don’t stop, then they’ll be thrown in prison for a lengthy stay. According to this TV segment, there was a standoff between law enforcement and Antifa:

The reporter then said that law enforcement “withdrew.” If Mayor Arreguin wants to be seen as a wimp who won’t defend his citizens’ civil rights, then he should be impeached, then immediately thrown out of office without his pension. When rioters threaten citizens’ civil rights, it’s time to take action.

Technorati: Jesse Arreguin, Berkeley, Mayor, Civil Rights, First Amendment, Antifa, Riots, Public Safety, Law Enforcement, Democrats

Apparently, the Seattle Seahawks’ Michael Bennett thinks he’ll affect positive racial change by acting like an idiot.

The article starts by saying “Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett sat on the bench during the national anthem before the team’s game at the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday night. The rest of the Seahawks continued last season’s ritual, linking arms during the anthem.”

When asked later what he was trying to accomplish, Bennett is quoted as saying “I’m hoping that I can activate everybody to get off their hands and feet and go out into the communities and help each other. Sit down with somebody of the opposite sex. Sit down with somebody who’s the opposite race, different religion and understand that people are different.”

Later in the article, Bennett said that “he knows there will be a backlash for his actions but, this is bigger than football. ‘This is about people. This is about bringing opportunities to people. Giving people equality. This is bigger than a sport.'”

Bennett apparently thinks he’s letting America in on a profound life perspective. This sort of thing works in Seattle because it’s fashionable to be a leftist that hates the principles that this nation was built on.

What’s astonishing to me is that Bennett hasn’t understood that he isn’t helping his cause. He said in that interview that he wants to affect change. Then he sits on the bench during the playing of the National Anthem before the game. Afterwards, Bennett admits that there likely will be a backlash to his actions.

Hasn’t he figured it out that pissing people off isn’t the way to uniting people? Whether it was Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the National Anthem last year or Michael Bennett or Marshawn Lynch sitting on the bench this preseason, the message is the same. These athletes, who should be grateful for the opportunities that professional football has given them, look totally ungrateful.

Finally, before a sportscaster says that these athletes have the right to do this because of the First Amendment, it’s time for these sportscasters to read what the First Amendment protects and doesn’t protect. The First Amendment protects against the federal government censoring people. Employers, however, have every right to tell their employees what they can or can’t do while they’re at their place of employment.

Technorati: Michael Bennett, Marshawn Lynch, Colin Kaepernick, National Anthem, NFL

Wednesday morning, Chris Cuomo essentially bragged about threatening a Reddit user with violence if this Reddit user didn’t apologize to CNN. Forget about Big Brother chilling speech. Now, big multi-national corporations are getting into the act. I’m not here to defend the man who created the now-infamous Gif of President Trump clotheslining CNN at a WWE event. I’m here to criticize big corporations who use their position to bully people that mock them. I’m also here to criticize them for not being smart journalists.

Friends know I’m not a Bill O’Reilly fan. Still, I agree with pretty much everything in this op-ed. That’s especially true of when O’Reilly said “On live TV during the campaign, Donald Trump told me I should see a psychiatrist because I was too “negative.” So what? I continued to cover him fairly and retained access, even though I criticized him when I felt it necessary. But I based my analysis on facts, did not cheap-shot him, and did not quote anonymous sources that made him look bad. I was straight with Trump and, in return, he was straight with me.”

Let’s be clear about this. CNN hasn’t been straight with President Trump. In fact, they haven’t tried to be straight with him. They’ve seemingly tried to undercut him at each time they’ve had the opportunity. They aren’t a news network when it comes to President Trump. They’ve looked like the DNC Network most of the time.

PS- Their chief anchors aren’t too bright, either. Check this video out as proof:

Hint to Chris Cuomo: Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. Popular speech doesn’t need to be protected.

Finally, on a serious note, it’s worth asking whether CNN is capable of setting aside their Trump hatred and report the news on a consistent basis. At this point, it doesn’t seem possible. As long as they have Chris Cuomo as an anchor, it’s difficult to take them seriously.

Technorati: CNN, Chris Cuomo, Reddit, Big Brother, DNC, Propaganda, Donald Trump, First Amendment, Hate Speech, Journalism

It’s time for the Democrats’ Resistance Movement to die. It’s time for the Evergreen College intolerance to stop. Both movements are built on intolerance and hostility. Bret Weinstein, the professor at the heart of the Evergreen protests, was reviled for telling Tucker Carlson “They imagine that I am a racist and that I am teaching racism in the classroom. And that has caused them to imagine that I have no right to speak, and that I am harming students by the very act of teaching them.”

The truth is that it’s time to set aside disagreements while elevating the debate on both sides. This is a teaching moment for both political parties. For instance, Republicans need to learn when to accept three-fourths of a loaf in negotiations rather than insisting on the entire loaf.

The Democrats have a tougher task. They’ve lost the ability to make rational policy arguments. The other problem that the Democratic Party has is that their most amped-up activists think people who don’t agree with them essentially as infidels. They don’t see conservatives as just wrong on policy. The hard left that James T. Hodgkinson was part of thinks of conservatives as evil. Hodgkinson himself was part of a far left organization that called for violence against Republicans, including President Trump.

These speeches, by Speaker Ryan and Minority Leader Pelosi need to be the starting point in changing the culture in DC:

This has to stop, too:

An upstate New York congresswoman already in shock at the shooting of her colleagues at a baseball practice also received a chilling email entitled “One down, 216 to go.” Claudia Tenney, a freshman representative from the Utica area, received the message Wednesday in the hours after her fellow House Republican Steve Scalise, from Louisiana, was shot in Alexandria, Va.

It’s time to declare a zero-tolerance policy on speech advocating violence. (Think hollering fire in a crowded theater.)

By now, tons of ink has been spilled talking about the riot that happened prior to Milo Yiannopoulos’s performance at UC-Berkeley. Hopefully, this post will talk about something that hasn’t been talked about. I hope this takes a bit more of an historic perspective than those other articles. I hope this article exposes the wimpiness of the anarchist/Soros/progressive movement.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, UC-Berkeley gained notoriety for celebrating some of the greatest debates imaginable. The exchanges were testament to the intellectual heft of the students and personalities that participated in those debates. Today’s reporters, by contrast, talk about the students’ First Amendment rights to protest. Shame on them for that wimpy, obvious drivel. Nobody’s disputing the fact that students have the right to protest. That ‘reporting’ is missing the point, though.

The anarchists that inflict bodily harm on other students are the point that the MSM is missing. The point is that these anarchists aren’t interested in putting together a coherent argument, much less win a substantive debate. These rioters’ first instinct is to injure defenseless people. This is a perfect example of that:

People that pepper spray a student like that should be arrested, convicted and thrown in prison for lots of years. Period. That rioter’s intent was to harm and/or terrorize that young lady. There’s no justification for that.

BONUS QUESTIONS: Q1: Why do the anarchists show up wherever the Soros-funded protesters protest? Q2: Is Soros funding both operations?

Keeping the protesters and the rioters separate is important because the protesters, aka snowflakes, are intellectual wimps. They’re also fascists without knowing it. The snowflakes and anarchists don’t vote for Republicans. That word sets them off. If the Democratic Party wants to rebuild itself, they need to utterly repudiate these fascists’ actions. Otherwise, Democrats will become known as the party that won’t stand up to fascist or stand for the rule of law.

Technorati: Milo Yiannopoulos, UC-Berkeley, Debates, First Amendment, Law Enforcement, Republicans, Political Correctness, Anarchists, George Soros, Riots, Snowflakes, Pepper Spray, Democrats

In picking Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court, President Trump didn’t hit a home run. Metaphorically speaking, he hit a grand slam in his first major league at-bat. It’s apparent that it’s a grand slam when the NY Times publishes an op-ed gushing about Judge Gorsuch.

Neal Katyal’s op-ed isn’t something that you’d expect to find on the NY Times’ op-ed page. The fourth paragraph of Katyal’s op-ed is gushy, saying “I believe this, even though we come from different sides of the political spectrum. I was an acting solicitor general for President Barack Obama; Judge Gorsuch has strong conservative bona fides and was appointed to the 10th Circuit by President George W. Bush. But I have seen him up close and in action, both in court and on the Federal Appellate Rules Committee (where both of us serve); he brings a sense of fairness and decency to the job, and a temperament that suits the nation’s highest court.”

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, the editors at National Review wrote “Originalism has faced resistance in modern times mostly because liberals would rather not go through the formal process of amending the Constitution in order to edit it to their liking, removing its structural limits on governmental power and putting their preferred policies beyond democratic review. Gorsuch’s record gives us cause to believe that he would use his vote and his voice to side with the actual Constitution.”

President Trump looked totally confident when he announced his pick:

President Trump explained why he picked Judge Gorsuch. He outlined the lengthy, impressive list of qualities Judge Gorsuch possesses. After President Trump finished his presentation, he turned the microphone over to Judge Gorsuch.

One thing that seemed to jump out at everyone was when Judge Gorsuch said that a judge that agrees with every ruling he’s made “is probably a bad judge.” The clear intent of that statement is that judges that agree with their rulings are most likely substituting their policy preferences for the text on the page. For instance, a judge that bans flag-burning isn’t doing his/her job. Few people think that burning the flag is the right thing to do. Most people would criticize it. The First Amendment, though, says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” It doesn’t prohibit people from saying things we find hateful.

Based on what’s out there, Judge Gorsuch understands that perfectly. That’s why we should think he’s the best possible pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.

It isn’t a secret that CAIR isn’t a legitimate civil rights organization. They’ve supported terrorist groups like Hamas. They were funded by Hamas. Thursday night, Hassan Shibly, the “chief executive director of CAIR-Florida’s chapter, attempted to shame Carl Higbie, a former Navy Seal and the spokesman for the pro-Trump Great America PAC. Wednesday night, Higbie was on Megyn Kelly’s show when Higbie talked about a registry of immigrants from Muslim countries. Higbie said “To be perfectly honest, it’s legal. It’ll hold constitutional muster. I know the ACLU will challenge it but I think it’ll pass. We did it with Iran back a while ago. We did it during WW II with the Japanese.”

Thursday night, Higbie was Megyn’s guest again. This time, he expanded on his statement of Wednesday night, saying “It was strictly a reference to the scrutiny of immigrants and registration of immigrants coming from places like Japan, Germany and Italy and places like that.”

When it was Shibly’s turn to speak, he immediately said to Higbie “To Carl, I say ‘have you no sense of decency? Sir, America is a country based on freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is a fundamental principle that I have taken an oath and I’m sure that you have taken an oath to protect. It is ineffective to target people based solely on religion. Let’s target criminals. Let’s target terrorists…”
Here’s the video of Thursday night’s interview:

It isn’t that religious freedom isn’t a fundamental right in the United States. It’s that protecting its citizens from Islamic terrorists is one of the federal government’s primary responsibilities, too. There’s judicial precedent stating that forcing people coming from terrorist nations to sign into a register before entering our nation is a reasonable thing. It’s interesting that CAIR is ok with registering guns in the name of preventing attacks but it’s protesting against registering people who might be violent terrorists.

It’s foolish to think that sovereign nations don’t have the right to protect its citizens from potentially violent immigrants. In fact, as commander-in-chief and as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States, the president has an affirmative responsibility to protect his citizens from violence.

Technorati: CAIR-Florida, Hassan Shibly, National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, NSEERS, Iran, Japan, Italy, Germany, Religious Liberty, National Security, Donald Trump, Terrorism, Carl Higbie, Navy Seals, Homeland Security, Republicans

Saying that this Aaron Sorkin op-ed sounds like a liberal that’s unhinged is understatement.

Sorkin’s op-ed starts by saying “Sorkin Girls, Well the world changed late last night in a way I couldn’t protect us from. That’s a terrible feeling for a father. I won’t sugarcoat it—this is truly horrible. It’s hardly the first time my candidate didn’t win (in fact it’s the sixth time) but it is the first time that a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn has.”

It’s hard to read that, then think it gets more unhinged after that. That’s what happens, though. Sorkin continues, saying “And it wasn’t just Donald Trump who won last night—it was his supporters too. The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons. Angry young white men who think rap music and Cinco de Mayo are a threat to their way of life (or are the reason for their way of life) have been given cause to celebrate.”

I won’t pretend that I think Mr. Trump is a policy wonk. Clearly, that isn’t fact. Further, it’s indisputable that the KKK endorsed Mr. Trump. That doesn’t mean Trump is a bigot.

Apparently, Sorkin didn’t have a problem voting for a corrupt woman who lied repeatedly to Congress and to various judges.

Mr. Sorkin has the constitution right to make these statements. He should consider, though, that it’s Trump voters’ rights to ridicule him for being this unhinged. It’s also within the Trump voters’ constitutional rights to boycott his products.