Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category

I wish I could say I was surprised by David Fitzsimmons’ campaign finance reporting tactics. Unfortunately, I’m anything but surprised. While some might criticize John Kern’s LTE highlighting the Emmer campaign’s tactics, I won’t follow suit. This isn’t that dissimilar to how big corporations use a plethora of regulations against small business competitors to reduce competition as much as possible.

John Kern opened the LTE, writing “In July 2016, Congressman Tom Emmer’s chief of staff David Fitzsimmons and GOP delegate Matt Stevens filed multiple Federal Election Commission complaints against me, the AJ Kern for Congress campaign and a private citizen. These frivolous complaints accused me of filing quarterly reports late and apparently attempting to gain undue influence with my wife by exceeding personal campaign contribution limits from our shared assets. Eighteen months later, presidentially appointed FEC commissioners voted 5-0 to dismiss.”

That’s the predictable outcome of these FEC complaints. Rep. Emmer knew he was underperforming at the time. According to Minnesota’s Secretary of State’s website, Emmer, the incumbent, won the primary with a pathetic 68% of the vote. That’s pathetic considering the fact that Emmer “out-fundraised AJ Kern’s 2016 campaign” by a 61-1 margin.

Emmer won’t win by overwhelming margins because he’s ignored his constituents on key issues. Specifically, he’s agreed with the Obama administration lock, stock and barrel on the Refugee Resettlement Program. When questioned by constituents if he’d push for a moratorium of the program, Emmer replied “That isn’t happening.” (I know because I attended that townhall at the Ace Bar on July 1, 2015. That’s also the night Kate Steinle was murdered.) After that meeting, AJ Kern told attendees that she was thinking about challenging Emmer. Here’s the explanation for why Emmer didn’t support his constituents:

President Trump has frequently criticized “the Swamp.” Regulations implemented by the Swamp have a chilling effect on both speech and competition. The truth is that Emmer is part of DC’s Swamp. Bradley Smith, the former Commissioner of the FEC, is one of the fiercest champions of free speech. Here’s what he’s stated on the record:

Charges and litigation are used to harass opposing candidates and make political hay with the press… used most effectively by ‘incumbents’. Many, if not most, of these cases end up being dismissed, but not without distracting the campaigns and using up their resources. …The problem in campaign finance is that unethical politicians are threatening private actors, rather than that unethical special interests are threatening government.

When John McCain and Russ Feingold wrote the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, aka McCain-Feingold, grassroots activists criticized it by nicknaming it the ‘Incumbents’ Protection Act’. That’s exactly right. BCRA didn’t eliminate corruption. It codified corruption by burying challengers under mountains of paperwork. That’s what its intent was.

While career politicians might want to fight the hordes of uppity peasants insisting on being heard, those career politicians won’t silence the activists’ voices.

Emmer can take that to the bank.

Students: Leaders or Pawns?
By Rambling Rose

A month after the massacre of more students in another ‘gun-free zone,’ thousands of students of all ages left their classrooms to protest gun violence. No one doubts their need for a sense of security in the classroom. However, are the students themselves organizing this movement from the grassroots or are they being manipulated by teachers, administrators, liberal parents or other organized groups with progressive, leftist ideologies and funding?

How many truly believe that the walkouts were completely voluntary? Teachers may not leave students unsupervised in classrooms. Hence, entire classes marched at the behest of the organizers of the school/district. Nor do teachers ignore mandates from building or district supervisors if they hope to continue employment in that school district.

How many believe that elementary, or even middle school students, even understand the gun-control debate? Did the children make the posters and memorize the chants as directed by their teachers, or did they in their own yet-developing minds eagerly organize the march for their school, replete with posters? Is this PC indoctrination of the most eager and receptive learners? Even preschoolers echo a need for peace and a belief that they can (currently) change the world.

How many believe that the protests are really about gun control? It appears more about a power struggle to control the discussion of a left-wing agenda. No one would oppose a chance to protect innocent lives, would they? Since school massacres occurred by someone entering schools with guns to commit the heinous crime, why not ban guns? Schools are gun-free zones filled with many potential victims with no means to defend against the perpetrator. And if it’s harder to obtain a gun (legally) and only by older persons, there would not be any more shootings, right? It’s a tug of war, and to the victor go the spoils—power.

A post on Facebook stated that the USA is #3 in the world for murders but drops to 189 of 193 countries if Chicago, Detroit, Washington, DC, St. Louis and New Orleans, all with strict gun control laws, are removed from the list. Does gun control work, or does it effectively invite criminals to do their dastardly deeds?

How many believe there is a need to encourage students to exercise their First Amendment rights to destroy their Second Amendment rights? Another post on social media, apparently from a student, called his fellow students “pawns” and challenged them to return to class and learn from history the rationale for the Second Amendment.

One might argue that the students at Rocori High School could have chosen this event to honor their fellow classmates who lost their lives in a school shooting in 2003. One could also contend that such a ceremony could have occurred before or after school.

When one considers the walkout at St. John’s Prep, Sartell and Sauk-Rapids, they fall under the questions above. As reported today in the Times, the principal at St. John’s Prep stated “students were responsible for anything they missed in class, but there would be no punishments for students who walked out.” By contrast, the superintendents of the other two districts reported “students from Sartell and Sauk-Rapids Rice high schools who decided to participate in the walkout will face the standard penalty of an unexcused absence.”

Across the nation, the divide continues. In Baltimore, where there is not enough money to heat the classrooms, the mayor provided $100,000 to bus students to Washington, D.C. to participate in the protests at the Capitol. A parent in Chicago pointed to the political indoctrination on public property stating students “not old enough really to have formed an informed political opinion on this and they’re going to do what their teachers tell them in this case, what their peers are saying they should do.”

What did other students do who chose, probably with the help of adults in their lives, not to be truant? Students at Arbor Preparatory High School (Ypsilanti, MI—likely location determined from a Google search) received 17 sticky notes with instructions to leave 14 messages for fellow students and 3 for adults with an encouraging message. No locker in the school was without notes. Others honored a Walk Up challenge and invited other students to join them or just be nice to someone else. One of those promoting this alternative was Ryan Petty whose 14-year-old daughter was murdered a month ago in Florida.

Those acts will probably impact more lives than the noisy protests and assaults. In Minneapolis, a student was attacked and beaten for carrying a Trump poster. No one was arrested in that assault. In New Prague, the principal walked a student off campus and threatened to place him in a patrol car for carrying a sign that claimed people, not guns, kill. That incident was captured on tape and has gone viral. Who gained from those actions?

Yesterday, March 14th, Dr. Andzenge’s column “Obsession with violence, crime has created major crime industry” on the opinion page of the St. Cloud Times was on target. We have created a society that honors violence. This may be the reason for the increased number of violent acts in this country. We can decide if we choose to perpetuate violence by responding with more violence, or if we opt to make a change in life by kindness.

When I read this article, it confirmed that our schools have failed us. Here’s what happened:

New Prague High School senior Andy Dalsin held a poster during the protest which said “Gun Don’t Kill People. People Kill People.” Principal Lonnie Seifert was having none of it, however. Seifert even threatened Dalsin with being hauled away by the police if he didn’t comply.

That’s just the start of it. Things quickly devolved:

Seifert claims he was just going by district policy, according to KSTP-5. In a statement, the district said “such items [as Dalsin’s] must be submitted to and reviewed by school administration at least 24 hours in advance.”

That’s an unenforceable policy because the First Amendment protects such speech. In fact, when the Supreme Court gutted McCain-Feingold, part of the reason for SCOTUS striking it down was because the bill told people when they could and couldn’t run advertising against candidates. This isn’t exactly on point but it’s close.

First, who gave Principal Seifert the constitutional authority to accept or reject communications of any sort? Next, why is expressing a contrarian opinion on another of our civil rights unacceptable? Didn’t the Founding Fathers put the First Amendment into the Bill of Rights to protect contrarian communications? I’ve said this before but I’ll repeat it again — there’s no need to protect non-controversial speech because everyone agrees with it. Finally, the First Amendment implicitly states that nobody in government has the authority to accept or reject student communications.

Further, Dailywire.com added to the story saying:

The video was first posted to Facebook by Kenny MacDonald, a student at New Prague High School in New Prague, Minnesota. The short video does not show what took place before or after the principal singled-out the student. In the post, MacDonald provided the following account of what took place:

Kids at our school today walked out, in honor of the 17 students killed in Florida. Students held signs that said, “Arm our teachers” they had two signs. A student walked out without saying a word peacefully put up his sign which said “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” he was escorted off the property by our principal and threatened to be put into a police car. This violates the first amendment and makes me sick that they can do whatever they want. Please make this go viral

It went viral alright:

Within a few hours, the video had already been viewed nearly 300,000 times, shared over 17,000 times, and received thousands of comments from people who expressed anger and disgust over the suppression of free speech and political indoctrination at public schools.

Then there’s this:

It’s appalling to read that “New Prague Area Schools fully respects and recognizes that students have free speech rights. Those rights, however, are to be balanced against the District’s responsibility to maintain a school environment focused on education.”

New Prague Area Schools obviously doesn’t respect students’ free speech rights because it threatened a student if he didn’t remove his sign. Further, a student’s First Amendment rights aren’t “balanced against the District’s responsibility to maintain a school environment focused on education.” A student’s First Amendment rights are to be balanced against the constitutional tests established by the Supreme Court. In literally hundreds of cases, the Supreme Court (and other appellate courts) have ruled against restrictions placed on people by city governments and school districts.

Finally, it’s frightening that a high school principal has such a flimsy understanding of the First Amendment. The School Board should order him to take an online class on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights from Hillsdale College. Principal Seifert’s understanding of the Constitution is embarrassing.

Technorati: First Amendment, Andy Dalsin, New Prague High School, Lonnie Seifert, Legal Precedent

Xavier Becerra’s op-ed isn’t just dishonest. It’s also filled with Democrat propaganda.

Early in his op-ed, Becerra wrote “The Trump administration and California can agree on this point: Public safety must be a top priority. But in California, we believe our communities are safest when we have trust between our law enforcement and the communities they serve.” Thus far, California’s approach has failed. Just ask Kate Steinle’s family. Thanks to Becerra’s policies, they’ll never get to talk with Kate again. Suffice it to say that Democrats haven’t put a high priority on keeping communities safe.

Later, Becerra wrote “Just ahead of visiting California for the first time as president Tuesday, President Trump tweeted misleading claims about California’s public-safety policies, suggesting that our state laws put people at risk. In fact, our laws are in place to protect our families and strengthen public safety.” That’s a non sequitur answer. California’s laws have put people at risk. It’s entirely possible that the California legislature wanted to protect people. It’s also possible that their laws have failed to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish.
The proof that Gen. Becerra is utterly dishonest comes in this video:

First, the video highlights the fact that Becerra was a member of Congress “for almost 25 years” and that he was part of the House Democratic leadership team. Then it shows Becerra saying “You can trace all of this back to the fact that Washington, DC, the Trump administration as the Governor said, has just failed utterly to help us fix a very broken immigration system.”

What a liar. President Trump has put together a totally reasonable offer to fix the US immigration system. Further, it’s Becerra and the Democrats who’ve failed. In 2009, Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, a supermajority in the House and a Democrat president. They had the perfect opportunity to fix the US immigration system. It’s stunning that Becerra thinks that it’s Trump’s fault for not fixing the immigration system. Becerra had a quarter of a century and didn’t fix it. President Trump has been in office 18 months.

None of our state’s laws regulate immigration or interfere with the ability of federal immigration authorities to do their jobs. Rather, California is acting on its own turf by regulating its own law enforcement officers, detention facilities and workplaces to ensure that the confidentiality of the state’s residents is safeguarded and their constitutional rights protected.

That’s a lie. One of California’s ‘immigration laws’ prohibits employer cooperation with immigration enforcement:

AB 450, Chiu. Employment regulation: immigration worksite enforcement actions.

Existing law prohibits an employer or other person or entity from engaging in, or to directing another person or entity to engage in, unfair immigration-related practices against a person for exercising specified rights.

That law is unenforceable because it limits an employer’s right to free speech. If an employer wants to work with, for instance, ICE, that’s their right under the First Amendment. Period. AB 450 interferes “with the ability of federal immigration authorities to do their jobs.”

Simply put, Xavier Becerra isn’t skilled at telling the truth.

Technorati: Xavier Becerra, Sanctuary State, Attorney General, Immigration, Democrats

It’s been well-reported that the Edina Public Schools have implemented an indoctrination agenda. This Strib hit piece attempts to discredit those reports.

According to the Strib’s hit piece, “many parents and school board members dismissed the piece for providing little context and cherry-picking data.” That’s nonsense. Dictionary.com’s definition for cherrypicking is “to select with great care.” That isn’t what’s happening. Conservative students have testified in front of legislative committees. One of those students, Tatum Buyse, said during her testimony “The environment at school is so political. Everything is viewed as comparing white versus black when all I want to do is be a high-schooler.”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. This article tells the story of Edina High School’s hostility towards conservatives:

Last month, some students sat in protest during the playing of taps and the national anthem in a Veterans Day assembly, the lawsuit says. Members of the Young Conservatives Club were outraged and took to Twitter to express that, according to a statement by the students who filed suit.

Members of the club also sent private chat messages among themselves that contained disparaging remarks about other students, including Somali-Americans. Those were made public in a YouTube video from an Edina High “anti-fascist” group, which demanded an apology. Afterward, school leaders revoked the Young Conservatives Club’s status as a school-sponsored organization, said attorney Erick Kaardal, who’s representing the students: Nick Spades, Elizabeth Ebner, Jazmine Edmond, Tatum Buyse and Ana Doval.

I’d argue that it’s difficult to “select with great care” episodes that apparently happen with great frequency. Further, I’d love hearing the Edina Public School’s explanation for revoking the Young Conservatives Club’s status as a school-sponsored organization. BTW, that’s a lawsuit EPS will lose.

Contained in John Hinderaker’s post is this information:

This one is from a student:

The day after the election I was texting my mom to pick me up from school and she almost had to!! Every teacher was crying in class, one even told the whole class “Trump winning is worse than 9/11 and the Columbine shooting.” The amount of liberal propaganda that was pushed every single day in class this year was worse than it’s ever been–and you’re bullied by the teachers and every student if you dare speak against it.
Yeah its horrible, the teachers can absolutely do whatever they want. The administration will do nothing about it!! The day of the election every single student was in the commons chanting “F*** TRUMP” and the teachers never did anything. A LOT of people are starting to complain and my mom has some friends who are leaving the school district.

A parent describes her daughter being abused in class in an email to a school administrator:

In talking with [my daughters], it came out that yesterday in my 10th grader’s AP World class, [the teacher] called out any Trump supporters and asked them to assure the class that they weren’t racist. Both my husband and I were aghast and we felt strongly that we should say something to you. … Yesterday’s incident in her class really surprised us as it is so completely inappropriate and unprofessional. If you talk with [the teacher] about this, please don’t mention my daughter. She doesn’t want to be identified for fear of retribution.

It sounds like this retaliation is pretty widespread. It’s difficult to cherry-pick information when it’s this plentiful. Mr. Hinderaker expresses his thoughts in this presentation:

Almost 10 minutes into his presentation, Mr. Hinderaker listed a series of statements. The anti-conservative hostility was described as “pervasive.” Based on the information in the presentation, I’d consider that description indisputable. FYI- the definition of pervasive is “spread throughout.”

Please take the time to watch Mr. Hinderaker’s entire presentation. I did and I’m glad I did.

Technorati: Edina Public Schools, Indoctrination, Star Tribune, Media Bias, Censorship, Fascism, DFL, Young Conservatives Club, First Amendment, Center for the American Experiment

U of M President Eric Kaler is blatantly biased against conservatives. He’s quoted as saying “We are … mindful of the fact that he is a controversial speaker and that at several places where he’s spoken, protests have objected, and we intend to ensure the event is safe for all who attend.” That’s dizzying spin and then some. Ben Shapiro isn’t controversial to anyone that’s mainstream. Period. That President Kaler thinks he’s controversial because a bunch of left wing anarchists say he’s controversial indicates that Kaler is either an intellectual lightweight or that he’s a far left sympathizer.

PS- I’m tired that academicians immediately cave the minute far left anarchists (like Antifa and Black Lives Matter) threaten to protest. The thought that Ben Shapiro is controversial is laughable.

The U of M didn’t move Elizabeth Warren’s speech when she spoke there. She’s significantly more controversial than Shapiro. That’s because conservatives cherish free speech while anarchists don’t. That’s verified in this:

He said that in a harshly critical review in The Washington Post of a new book, “Must We Defend Nazis?: Why the First Amendment Should Not Protect Hate Speech and White Supremacy.” In that book, authors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic advocate what Dershowitz says amounts to a “free speech for me, but not for thee” credo favoring the left.

Further, that’s a wimp’s excuse. If the U of M won’t stand up to these anarchists/rioters, they’ll continue disrupting events. They’ll keep censoring conservatives with a publicized threat.

What’s required is for the U of M, starting with President Kaler, to grow a pair and stand up to these anarchists. Have lots of security for the event. If the anarchists get out of hand, arrest them and prosecute them to the maximum extent allowed. If some of them get convicted of felonies and it ruins their lives, so be it.

Further, these aren’t kids. They’re adults. If they won’t act like it, put them in prison and teach them that society won’t tolerate their spoiled brat behavior. But I digress.

I couldn’t put it better than this:

Wittingly or unwittingly, university administrators are often complicit in the suppression of conservative speech on campus, cloaking it in a concern for public safety.

The article continues, saying:

The University of Washington sought to charge the College Republicans group a $17,000 security fee, but was blocked from doing so by U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman, who held that such an exorbitant fee would effectively shut down the group’s free speech rights.

Free speech shouldn’t cost $17,000, especially when public safety wouldn’t have been an issue at all were it not for the intolerant, violent left. Pechman, a 1999 judicial appointee of President Bill Clinton, rightly vetoed what effectively would have been a heckler’s veto.

That’s fantastic. It’s time to veto the heckler’s veto. It’s time to tell these punks that they won’t get their way just because they’re threatening conservative events.

I’d love hearing President Kaler’s explanation of whether this is controversial:

The U of M (and other universities) need to grow a pair.

Technorati: Ben Shapiro, Campus Conservatism, Heckler’s Veto, Eric Kaler, Censorship, University of Minnesota, Anarchists, Antifa, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, Democrats

Being Escorted Out of a City Council Meeting Was Not on My Bucket List
By John W. Palmer, Ph.D.

At tonight’s St. Cloud City Council meeting, the sale of a portion of Heritage Park was up for consideration. As has become my practice during council meetings, I use an internet search engine to find facts related to the matter being discussed. Having previously searched for some basic information about Costco’s business practices, my curiosity was peaked regarding investment in Costco. With the council discussion focused on their fiduciary responsibility, some information relevant to that discussion came to my attention. I moved to the dais as Councilman Hontos was finishing his commentary supporting his position on the sale. Having reach the dais, I waited for a pause in the debate and when the pause happened I asked if any council member would recognize me to speak to the issue before the council.

Under council rules, any council member may recognize a person to speak to the issue at hand. When no response was given, I repeated my request. Council President Lewis then said we are not doing that now, we’re discussing the matter among the council. I unsuccessfully tried to have Council President Lewis follow the council rules and give all members of the council a chance to exercise their right to recognize a speaker. She repeated that that was not going to happen. Councilman Masters spoke up and advised me to wait until the council had finished its discussion to be recognized to speak.

While waiting for the council discussion to end I stayed at the dais. After a few minutes, I heard a voice behind me and to the right say: You need to leave where I was standing. I asked why and heard the voice repeat their statement. I then asked whether the speaker had heard what Councilman Masters had said and that I was waiting to be recognized. The voice which, I later learned, was that of the City Attorney said that I’m going to have the police officer escort me out.

When I returned to my seat and began to sit down, the officer said I had to leave the council chambers. Having believed that once I left the dais that the matter was resolved, I was shocked. Not wanting to create a scene and believing that a reasoned conversation with the officer could result in my return to the council chambers I left the council chambers.

In my conversation with the officer it became clear he was not going to allow me to return to the chambers, I asked him who had directed him to remove from the chambers. That is when I learned the voice was the City Attorney’s. When I had a chance to search the internet for the recent Minnesota Supreme Court Ruling regarding behavior by citizens at public meetings, I found the following:

How a Chair Brought Down Minnesota’s Law Against Disturbing Government Meetings
TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE | SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 By Matt McKinney
It’s no longer illegal in Minnesota to disturb a public meeting, the state Supreme Court has ruled, reversing the conviction of a Little Falls woman who was charged with disorderly conduct for protesting before the City Council.

The 54-year-old law was deemed overly broad and potentially criminalized free speech, the court ruled Wednesday.

“I feel like justice was finally served,” said Robin Hensel, whose refusal to move her chair at a 2013 Little Falls City Council meeting was at the heart of the court’s decision.
Hensel, a grandmother and peace activist who frequently protests at Camp Ripley, said she never thought she would actually get charged when she moved a folding chair to the open space between the public galley and the City Council’s dais.

“All I wanted to do was sit there quietly within eyeshot range of them and look them in the eye so that their conscience would be pricked,” she said Wednesday. A video of the incident shows that it was peaceful and that she eventually agreed to leave the chambers with an officer of the law.

In its ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court sided with Hensel, saying: “The statute is broad and ambiguous, prohibiting any conduct or speech that ‘disturbs an assembly or meeting,’ whether expressive or not. An individual could violate the statute by, for example, wearing an offensive t-shirt, using harsh words in addressing another person, or even raising one’s voice in a speech.

When I read the full article, it became crystal clear that what happened to me tonight was not within the legal power of the City Attorney, who is not an employee of the council, and was also outside of the powers granted to the City Council.

What happened tonight felt like I was living in authoritarian city and state. I hope no one ever has to endure what I endured this evening and that St. Cloud citizens will express their disappointment and outrage with the behavior of the City Council and City Administration.

A little while ago, I received a phone call from Dr. John Palmer. Dr. Palmer informed me that he’d just been kicked out of the St. Cloud City Council meeting after attempting to speak about Costco’s proposed purchase of land on the west end of St. Cloud.

Dr. Palmer is putting an article describing what happened. I will publish that article verbatim when I receive it. I won’t edit it. I want LFR readers to learn what happened that led up to this tyranny. Before he started writing his article, though, Dr. Palmer wrote this email to the St. Cloud City Council:

I guess I should have insisted on my 1st amendment rights even thou I was not disrupting the meeting. Maybe next time I should toss a chair?

I do believe I am owed a public and formal apology. I was waiting for the council members to finish their discussion as suggested by my 1st Ward councilman when I was ordered to leave and given no reason. Each council member present could have defended my rights but you ignored the unlawful actions of the city attorney. When you read the post regarding the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling on public meetings you will understand my reference to chair tossing.

As a citizen of the City of St. Cloud, I am offended by your failure to act to protect a citizens rights. This was not the Administration’s meeting; it was your council meeting. What message did your inaction send to the Citizens of St. Cloud. You lost the opportunity to be better informed by not allowing me to address the council regarding the sale of the Heritage Park land. I followed your rules respectfully, listened to Dave Master’s wise counsel and then was removed from the council chambers. What are you afraid of that prevented you from allowing a citizen to exercise their constitutional rights. What choice did I have in the face of unreasonable use of police force? Based on what was happen nothing would have prevented an escalation of police action. What would you have done if the officer started to handcuff me and perp walk me out of the chamber? I certainly did not want the trouble of having to defend my rights in a court of law or spend a night in jail and that is why I did not stand my ground and assert my rights. Just because people in authority can abuse their power does not mean others should allow this to happen.

Here’s the article written about the court case to which Dr. Palmer is referring. Here’s the part pertinent to Monday night’s tyrannical actions:

It’s no longer illegal in Minnesota to disturb a public meeting, the state Supreme Court has ruled, reversing the conviction of a Little Falls woman who was charged with disorderly conduct for protesting before the City Council.

The 54-year-old law was deemed overly broad and potentially criminalized free speech, the court ruled Wednesday. “I feel like justice was finally served,” said Robin Hensel, whose refusal to move her chair at a 2013 Little Falls City Council meeting was at the heart of the court’s decision.

This ruling is directly on point to what happened with Dr. Palmer Monday night.

This isn’t the first time Council President Lewis has ignored the Council’s rules. She ignored the Council’s rules during the Nov. 6 meeting when she adjourned the meeting while an open motion still hadn’t been voted on. She adjourned the meeting after getting upset with City Councilman Jeff Johnson.

If Council President Lewis thinks that the gavel gives her unlimited authority, which she apparently thinks, she needs a refresher course in civil rights. Her actions were those of a tyrant, not of a public servant.

Saying that Jeff Flake is a legislative lightweight is to demean lightweights. It’s insulting that Sen. Flake compared President Trump with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. What’s worse is that he made the comparison on the Senate floor.

Sen. Flake is a wimp and an airhead. Anyone that thinks that a combative president should be compared with a brutal dictator who killed millions of people isn’t intellectually qualified to be a U.S. senator. Further, Sen. Flake essentially capitulated to the Democrats on border enforcement. Thankfully, that’ll make it easier for Arizonans who worry about border security and preventing cartel-related human trafficking to elect a serious senator who won’t cave like Sen. Flake just did.

Sen. McCain wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post (naturally) that criticized President Trump. In that op-ed, “Mr. McCain joined his fellow Arizonan in calling for the president to stop attacking the news media.” In the op-ed, Sen. McCain said “We cannot afford to abdicate America’s longstanding role as the defender of human rights and democratic principles throughout the world. Without strong leadership in the White House, Congress must commit to protecting independent journalism, preserving an open and free media environment, and defending the fundamental right to freedom of opinion and expression.”

Coming from the man who wanted to gut the First Amendment, that’s rich. Further, Sen. McCain should know that the U.S. form of government isn’t a democracy. The Founding Fathers created a constitutional republic that said our rights come from “Nature’s God”, not from government. The difference between the 2 types of government is gigantic.

As President Reagan said in his farewell address, “‘We the People’ tell the government what to do; it doesn’t tell us. ‘We the People’ are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ‘We the People’ tell the government what it is allowed to do.”

When Sen. McCain collaborated with Russ Feingold to write their campaign finance law, they wrote a law that told citizens involved in the political process when they could criticize politicians and what times were off-limits. Anyone who didn’t hesitate in telling ‘We The People’ how they can react is someone who isn’t morally fit to instruct presidents about right and wrong.

According to this article, “Edina Public Schools said in an e-mail that it can’t comment on litigated topics, but that the district respects student free-speech rights.” They issued that statement after students filed a lawsuit after “school leaders revoked the Young Conservatives Club’s status as a school-sponsored organization.” The school revoked this organization’s status because “members of the Young Conservatives Club” spoke out against a protest.

The article noted that school “policy mandates that students respect others who protest.” Attorney Erick Kaardal said that policy “violates the Flag Code. Ending the Young Conservatives Club because students spoke out against policies contradicts the free speech guarantee in the First Amendment.”

Mr. Kaardal will win this lawsuit for his student clients because they absolutely have the right to protest against protesters. The school’s policy of being respectful towards protesters is well-intentioned but unenforceable because anti-protesters don’t have to be respectful. As long as the anti-protest protesters aren’t violent or advocate violence, they’re protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment states “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.”

This is the constitutional equivalent of safe spaces, which is in keeping with the ‘snowflake code’. It’s one thing to wish for respect. It’s quite another to require it.

As for Edina Public Schools’ statement that they respect free speech rights, that’s nice PR fluff but it doesn’t have much to do with reality.