1. Variety Smears Donald Trump with invented invective 
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4. In an August 28 Variety article, "Latin Grammys Ask Donald Trump to 'Discontinue His Affront' on Latinos," News Editor Marianne Zumberge did not even feign objectivity - or honesty.
5. “In the wake of Donald Trump’s slew of negative comments about the United States’ Latino population..." was how Zumberge opened her disingenuous smear piece. The Variety writer actually palmed off that poisonous fiction as fact though it sounded like a quote from some zealous activist’s canned street-corner patter.

   Of course, Trump never made any such comments. He has criticized illegal immigration and related criminality, including murders. To imply as Zumberge does that those are legitimate components of the "Latino community" (which they of course are not) is genuine racial bigotry.

   
   
6. Simply advocating observance of existing laws and the ensuring of sufficient border security hardly qualifies as an "affront" to an entire community, or a form of bigotry, at least not to reasonable people. To claim otherwise as Zumberge does is more than just ridiculous. It cheapens a legitimate issue and seems to sympathize with an anarchic ‘no laws’ attitude.
7. The Variety writer also claims against evidence (the video now abounds online) that Univision's Jorge Ramos was innocently asking questions of Trump before being ejected from the 8/25 Dubuque, Iowa press conference.
8. In honesty, though, the intentionally hostile, disruptive cause advocate read numerous “You can’t” declarative statements. None were questions, nor did he cite sources for the statistics he shoehorned into his hectoring.
9. I understand having a point of view. But Marianne Zumberge editorialized, going so far as to lie to Variety readers.
   Of course, considering her apparent ease with unethical posturing, it is small wonder that she lionizes the reprehensible Ramos.
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Tennessee disgrace

As recently reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Raw Story, Fox News, and numerous other small and large market media outlets, school officials in Dickson County, Tennessee have banned all flags, including the American one, from student display on school grounds. The wholesale banning is said to have been in response to the Confederate Flag controversy. 

A similar blanket flag-stifling was undertaken at UC Irvine, not long ago. That unpatriotic endeavor attracted abundant media attention and public condemnation, and was promptly scrapped. But in its moment, it did also attract scattered professorial support in other regions, indicating that hostility toward pride in singular national identity does have some nationally-dispersed adherents.

The American flag is, of course, a symbol of the nation whose taxed people pay the salaries of these same professors and school board officials. Many Americans died for this country's flag, and for its values - like freedom of conscience and of expression. 

Dickson County officials have effectively spat on their memories and sacrifices by banning the Stars and Stripes. And it's further reported that school officials there have threatened to punish students who carry the American flag onto school grounds.

In news accounts, this unconstitutional and morally ugly crushing of students' free expression has been defended by one Steve Sorrells, reportedly Dickson County Director of Student Services. I suspect that as rightly critical press attention increases, Sorrells will stop responding to reporters' inquiries and seek refuge behind some faceless office door. 

The matter of students' First Amendment protection is a settled one - in favor of students. Constitutional experts and law professors discussing this issue often cite the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District decision. That case, set in my own home state of Iowa, concerned anti-war expression. 

Political viewpoints, be they popular or unpopular, enjoy constitutional protection. That's as true for students as for any other U.S. citizen. 

Clearly, displaying a flag is about as political as speech can get. And no reasonable person would claim that a symbolic representation of our own nation's flag constitutes a disruption of the learning environment schools are expected to provide.

I would greatly enjoy seeing this all end up in a courtroom. Quite frankly, in a PC era that values "hate speech" restrictions and in which Tennessee school officials (and who knows what others) feel comfortable treading on the Stars and Stripes, I'd say America needs refresher courses in both free speech and national pride.

Rand Paul takes America back to basics in cause all can support

by

DC Larson              

"There is a consistent, profound consensus among the American people as to the many directions our society must pursue. To be sure, there are consistent and profound differences as well, but the former outweigh the latter and should not be subordinated to them." 

- Ralph Nader, Unstoppable (2014)

To my knowledge, the legendary consumer activist and former presidential aspirant has not officially endorsed any current candidacy. But his insistence that citizens across the ideological spectrum can join to advance common interests is one worth considering in the context of the Rand Paul effort.

(Full disclosure: I was in 2004 the Iowa Coordinator for Nader's independent political campaign, and in 2008 accepted the responsibility of serving as an Iowa Nader elector. I am today an independent and not connected to any candidate.)

One major area where voters of varying stripes can find common cause is preservation of traditional constitutional rights. Throughout U.S. history, these have served to bolster not only individuals but popular movements like the antiwar, women's suffrage, and civil rights one.

Some today misrepresent the "Take Back America" call as urging national return to discriminatory thinking and codes long since rightly discarded.

But to me, and doubtless to many others, "Take Back America" means to remember and restore the national ideals and Constitutional guarantees that have for centuries defined our country and helped make it great. These have in recent years been eroded.

Examples spring: The First Amendment's promise of free speech is now stifled by laws punishing expression. The right to bear arms enunciated in the Second Amendment has been chipped away at by innumerable governmental restrictions. 

Rand Paul is alone among major presidential nomination candidates in standing as a strong advocate for the Fourth Amendment's guarantee of law-abiding citizens' rights to be left alone by the government. To live in liberty, without the shadow of Big Brother surveillance. (Democrat Bernie Sanders has also spoken on this issue, though less often and less vigorously than Paul.)

As a U.S. senator, Rand Paul has a long history of advocating for citizens' Constitutional rights. For years, he stood against those who pushed for Patriot Act and National Security Agency indiscriminate, warrantless spying on all citizens.

Most recently, Sen. Paul conducted a marathon senate floor filibuster against government surveillance that illustrated his genuine passion for liberty and set him far above his fellows. Broadcast by CSPAN, his action was inspirational in an era too often unappreciative of long-standing Constitutional safeguards and eager to discard them in favor of supposed security.

Advocacy of traditional freedoms and guarantees should unite Americans across lines of political partisanship. It's bigger than parties. And we all have a stake in the fight.

Rand Paul merits recognition and support for tirelessly championing traditional civic values and Constitutional rights and liberties that, if eroded, would be all but impossible to restore.

His cause is ours, also. 

Waterloo's DC Larson is a science fiction novelist, blogger, and freelance journalist. Previously on the staffs of Rockabilly and Pin Up America magazines, he has contributed writings to Daily Caller, Counterpunch, Huffington Post, American Thinker, Independent Political Report, and Opednews.com,, among others. Newspaper credits include USA Today and the Iowa City Press-Citizen. He served as Iowa Coordinator for Ralph Nader's 2004 presidential campaign.

Nevermind their smiley faces
When writers don jackboots 
             
It might seem a given that persons who work in words for a living, or who at least aspire to do so, would support free speech and intellectual openness. That they would champion unbound inquiry and not press for restrictions on creative expression.

Writers, ideally, are believers in untrammelled thought and communication liberty. They do not endorse the stifling of any voices. (It's an old idea that freedom of thought must enjoy preeminence over every other faith for truths to be established; I won't drag out the "I may disagree" quote so often attributed to Voltaire.)

But as was just impressed upon me, some contemporary writers who litter their prose with earnest appeals to "inclusiveness" and "diversity" can be no less cruelly intolerant and demanding of ideological orthodoxy than any book-burning tyrant from Central Casting.

Recently, the administrator of a science fiction writing group's Facebook page posted a cartoon based on male-female interaction. Its ultimate message was that a speaker's genuinely non-offensive intent was wholly irrelevant, and that a listener's erroneous, negative interpretation should be the standard honored.

Or, as the post declared, "Impact, not intent!"

That is, obviously, a silly, unfair, and illogical notion. There probably are no statements that would not be objected to by some random audience member. 

Were that rule accepted, no one, including its endorsers, could put even one sentence to paper. (Besides, how many now-favored ideas were once controversial?)

As a reader, I greatly value differing perspectives. Contrasting them is educational -- much more so than simply redigesting the same point of view, articulated in identical vocabulary, each time I take up a book.  

I responded simply that any writer who censored himself in favor of an imagined majority prejudice should put away his pen, as he would not be likely to produce distinctive or interesting writing.

(Yes, I am familiar with 'writing to market dictates' for commercial viability. I have always thought persons so devoid of personal auctorial ambition as to follow that path should look into bricklaying.)

Others in that Facebook writing group conversation were furious with my advocating basic writing freedom. The administrator blasted me as an "insensitive boor," cursed at me, accused me of speaking from a "privileged perspective," and advised me to "GTFOH."

Another attributed misogyny to me - bizarre, as I had not so much as broached that or any other odious and condemnable bigotry, simply stood up for free expression. But such is the zealot's belief. The world is neatly divided into two sides, and all who do not share their particular zealotry are automatically the hated enemy, no evidence being required. 

I was advised to heed PC decorum, "if you want to get paid." Seeking to facelessly cater to audience desires may be a fine rule for penning microwave mashed potato directions, but not for worthwhile literature.

I wanted to punch down, so to speak. To inform these critics of my writing credits which stretch back to 1982, include not only music and political magazine and newspaper bylines but contracted website and book writings, and for which I've enjoyed remuneration despite not having the benefit of their wise counsel.

But I did not. Though I did leave the group.

And I recalled advice I've seen attributed to Malcolm X:

"Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today."


DC Larson is a science fiction novelist, blogger, and freelance journalist. Previously on the staffs of Rockabilly and Pin Up America magazines, he has contributed writings to Counterpunch, Huffington Post, OpEdnews.com, American Thinker, Daily Caller, and Independent Political Report, among others. Newspaper credits include USA Today and the Iowa City Press-Citizen. He served as Iowa Coordinator for Ralph Nader's 2004 presidential campaign.

His blogs are http://www.AmericanSceneMagazine.blogspot.com and http://www.DamnationDanceParty.blogspot.com. He may be contacted at dcltrueleft@yahoo/com.

One man's free speech is another man's destruction tactic -- and Credo is both men

For Credo, apparently, the matter of a tactic's legitimacy and respectability can change in one moon's time.

The progressive-activist wireless phone concern regularly plagues the net with hand-wringing e-missives, urging that this or that action be undertaken lest evil befall us. But such is the counterfeit quality of Credo that it can without a moment's hesitation rip up yesterday's claimed beliefs to suit today's circumstance.

Consider:

A 7/25 Credo petition email, "Democrats Must Stand Strong On Republican Attacks On Planned Parenthood," stormed, "The right-wing has a long history of using selectively edited, secretly obtained video to discredit vital progressive institutions and provide political cover for Republicans in Congress to destroy them."

Credo's official position couldn't be clearer.In that group's estimation, undercover, edited videos secretly obtained by activists were flatly objectionable and unworthy of serious regard.

But Credo's opinion of undercover videotaping had whirled about completely by the following day.

A 7/26 Credo petition email, "Stop factory farms from hiding their abuse," was an entreaty to stop "ag-gag bills." Such legislation would criminalize activists' misrepresentations to gain access to animal facilities, and stifle undercover videotaping of dire conditions at those facilities. Numerous state legislatures have unfortunately adopted anti-speech ag-gag laws.

The 7/26 email stressed, "These so-called 'ag-gag' bills appear to be a coordinated, nationwide attempt by corporate big agriculture to silence and criminalize the heroic whistleblowers and journalists who expose abusive, unsanitary, and environmentally harmful practices on factory farms through photos and videos.

"State by state," Credo continues, "legislatures are passing bills that criminalize filming or photographing on farms without the prior consent of farm owners. Passing laws that limit the freedom of ordinary Americans, in order to hide abhorrent corporate practices, is beyond the pale. It's time for Congress to step in and reassert the people's freedom to document and stop these practices."

The activists who secretly taped Planned Parenthood officials allege that abuses and law-breaking are regularly perpetrated by that tax payer-funded private corporation. And regarding Planned Parenthood, Congress did step in - though not to defend citizen speech rights and efforts to expose wrongdoing, but to block attempts at cutting off federal funding and to "investigate" the videotapers.

Those Congressional clamp-down actions might have drawn Credo's ire, had they involved bacon and not babies.

Credo is hardly a disinterested party. According to a 2/4/2014 Huffington Post piece, Credo had that year contributed over $80,000 to Planned Parenthood.

Apparently, then, Credo supports activists exposing wrongdoing via undercover videos. Except that it doesn't.

Aberrant, brackish, and wholly unneeded

Rutgers University's pro-terror Professor Deepa Kumar has of late come under intense, wide-lens criticism. The catalyst was a recent tweet in which the bent, bespectacled academic asserted that "Yes, ISIS is brutal, but the US is more so, 1.3 million killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan."

Of course, all deaths are to be lamented. And not all wars are just. But it takes a particular sort of ideological imbecile to blur warfare concerning established national combatants and raggedy terrorism mobs whose tactics are viciously foul, whose targeted victims are innocent noncombatants, and whose only goal is monomaniacal theological oppression.  

Apparently somewhat knowledgeable in the ways of deceitful propagandizing, Kumar made no mention of such ISIS habits as mass rapes and throwing gays from building tops (atrocities not attributable to the supposedly worse U.S.). 

It may be that Deepa Kumar finds those horrors acceptable. Sane, good people do not.

The frizzy, oddball lecturer also has not, to this author's knowledge, laid out a time plan for leaving behind her comfortable, tenured post at Rutger's in the hated America to take up housekeeping in any backward terrorist Hell hole.

I do have a possible theory as to why Deepa Kumar (and her few campus-crawling comrades) find terrorists in general and ISIS in particular to be beyond condemnation. 

A truth about racial prejudice is that for some, believing stereotypes to be plausible is easy when living in isolation. With no practical experience against which to judge them, stereotypes can seem fair, accurate.

Deepa Kumar, to my knowledge, has never lived in an uncivilized terrorist milieu. And so, with no balancing practical knowledge and trusting entirely upon airy, abstract theorizing, she concludes foolishly and without the slightest crumb of reality-grounded sense.

Of course, I may be unwarrantedly generous. Deepa Kumar may well simply be very stupid.