Media ignores healing, instead talks heels

The below footage was probably never seen by anyone relying on the fake news mainstream media for essential information and intelligent analysis free from bias: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7__LIAAGNbE

It depicts scores of average residents of Corpus Christi, Texas. On 8/29, they lined the street, shoulder-to-shoulder -- some holding homemade signs, others having donned red-and-white, Make America Great Again caps --  to hail the arrival of President Trump. 

The president was there to commiserate with citizens, be briefed on rescue efforts, and view Hurricane Harvey's devastation. And the beleaguered but proudly resolute locals loved him for it.

But, never mind all of that. Overly paid media professionals in cushioned, coastal precincts know better what's truly important. 

They ignored the stalwart American people, instead focusing their eagle eyes and journalistic acumen on Melania Trump's choice of footwear. 

These same press voices, remember, deride as 'sexist' any attention paid to Democrat women's apparel selections.

"Dog whistle," explained

Identified as a Northwestern University student, Sumaia Masoom recently attacked President Donald Trump in Huffpost for allegedly making scurrilous "dog whistle" remarks following the Charlottesville horror. ("Trump Set Down His Dog Whistle For Racists -- And Picked Up A Bullhorn."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-set-down-his-dog-whistle-for-racists-and-picked_us_5993f69be4b0a88ac1bc3856)

The annoying dog whistle phrase frequently turns up these days. Mainstream journalists and publicity-stalking partisans unencumbered by ethical consciences resort to it in nearly each sputtered utterance, it seems.

But it is a calculatedly deceptive rhetorical device. When a targeted speaker simply does not explicitly voice actual offensive ideas or terminology, critical observers intent nonetheless on defamation pounce with the deceitful interpretive toy in hand. The speaker, they then declare, did not truly say what he had truly said. He had, in subjective fancying, sounded a dog whistle, thereby implying to select listeners something entirely other.

The opportunistic critic then freely unspools a lengthy, misrepresentative, and damning critique of said speaker, for remarks never made.

The analogy, though, does raise this question: Given that real dog whistles are audible only to, well, dogs, what is to be concluded about Trump opponents who maintain they heard fantasized racist ones?

Political terrorism and theological supremacy enabled now by SPLC 



Since its 1971 founding, the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center has spotlighted repugnant hate groups like the Klan, Nazi skinheads, and the militia movement. The organization has won multi-million dollar judgments, driving bigoted foes into well-deserved ruin.

Every person who would see a society where all citizens enjoy equality hails such effective opposition to hate.


But increasingly, the SPLC betrays a politically partisan institutional nature, casting off its previously claimed mantle as a principled foe of bigotry. 

For example, the organization today is loath to offer any substantive, persistent criticism of radical Islam, seemingly unconcerned that maniacal foot-soldiers of that destructive foulness behead and burn alive 'heretics,' and imprison, oppress, and in other detestable manners torture women and gays. 

Radical Islamic vows to invade the United States, overturn Constitutional protections, establish Sharia Law, and despoil our culture of enlightenment and universal equality certainly give reason for rock-ribbed SPLC denouncements.

Or, so logic would dictate.

But, when candidate Donald Trump thundered persuasively against the theological megalomania that now seeks freedom's crushing, SPLC spokesmen hurried to attack him and the tens of millions of common sense, patriotic American citizens who supported his candidacy.

More SPLC opportunity soon loomed with the horrible surge of radical Islam-sympathetic, Antifa/resistance street terrorism, a black-clad, masked fascist effort that scorns all Americans' rights to freely speak, assemble, and enjoy unhindered political expression within a democratic electoral system.

The contemporary SPLC refuses to condemn Talibanesque calls for statues' pull-downs, the re-naming of buildings and boulevards, national anthem repudiation, and other progressive, Cultural Revolution agitations for historical revisionism. 

Like the ACLU, which recently rethought and rejected free speech defense, the SPLC chooses to stand steadfast at the side of modern intolerance and injustice.

Be advised, well-meaning writers of donation checks.

   

Fake News CNN's Chris Cuomo:
Foot-in-mouth, darkly

Today (8/28) Chris Cuomo tweeted a link to The Hill's recounting of one white supremacist's shooting at a black Charlottesville man. In that tweet, Cuomo mocked those pointing out mainstream media's selective condemnation of politically motivated violence: "But antifa."

After receiving numerous Twitter messages castigating his effective indulgence of Left wing rioters' violence, Cuomo shot back: "This is not about minimizing iolence [sic] or crimes by others it is about remembering that white supremacy is an unqualified threat."

Like many in the establishment press, Cuomo advocates the despicable notion that violence employed as an offensive tactic is not invariably wrong, but can be sanctioned, depending on one's ideological affinity with given perpetrators. 


A quick review, now, of only some previous, risible Chris Cuomo claims:


- In a 2/23/2017 tweet, Cuomo blamed a 12 year-old girl's paternal upbringing for her perfectly understandable preference to not see grown "transgender" men lurking in little girl's public restrooms: "I wonder if she is the problem or her overprotective and intolerant dad? Teach tolerance."

Cuomo received backlash. He provided clarification -- though not before several days had passed. "Of course not OK for 12yo girl to be exposed to male genitals," the CNN host generously conceded. 
"[J]ust doesn't happen. That's my point. This is abt tolerance not predation."

Of course, wooly-headed, indulgent inclinations like Cuomo's can well be conducive to predatory atrocities. But that's a risk he's willing to accept -- regarding other people's children.


- During an October 2016 CNN segment, Cuomo admonished viewers to refrain from independent investigation of Hillary Clinton emails Wikileaks had released: "Also interesting is, remember, it's illegal to possess these stolen documents. It's different for the media, so everything you're learning about this, you're learning from us."

Cuomo was not only misleading his audience about their First Amendment guarantee to freely read available information -- and, by the doing, throwing up undeserved cover for struggling candidate Clinton -- but voicing astounding, outrageous scorn for the principle of the public's right to know. 

Mainstream media journalists like Cuomo don't enjoy Constitutional supremacy over regular citizens, no matter that they would doubtless prefer otherwise.


- On 5/16/2015, in a tweet that shall forever live in infamy, Cuomo asserted erroneously that: "Hate speech is excluded from protection" under the first amendment.

"Hate speech" of course, is a faddish category cobbled by nattering partisans, and has never been a distinction codified by Supreme Court authority. With the traditional exceptions of 'time, place, and manner' specifications, free speech is safe from oppressors' boots, as well it should be.

(Cuomo did subsequently claim he was referring to Chaplinsky's "fighting words" standard, though that supposed distinction was not reflected in his initial tweet.)


And CNN president Jeff Zucker actually pays Chris Cuomo to talk?

Media hacks knew Antifa rioters were snakes when they took them in

The Hill recently ran an informative essay by Ned Ryun, former George W. Bush advisor and CEO of American Majority.
("The real threat to our republic is the Orwellian Antifa" 8/27)
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/348137-the-real-threat-to-our-republic-is-the-orwellian-antifa

Ryun offered a list of Antifa protesters' crimes: "[T]earing down statues, burning the American flag, shutting down town hall meetings, destroying private property, and looting."

"Yet, the likes of CNN, and the New York Times, and the Washington Post spend much of their time touting the alt-Right threat," Ryun observed. "[M]ost mainstream media types are philosophically inclined toward anti-establishment organizations from the start; they see little wrong with crypto-fascist violence if the stated goals are in line with their own values systems."

(To ideological zealots, including those with bylines or teleprompters, offensive violence -- and not the legitimate, defensive variety -- is not invariably wrong. It can instead be cheered as justified, depending not on its own merits, but on antagonists' philosophical motivation. 'Extremism in the pursuit of resistance is no vice,' would seem to be their guiding faith.)

Fourth Estate approbation of political rioting, physical mayhem, and property destruction has only further encouraged masked and seditious miscreants. And increasingly, the masked monster whose germination the mainstream media enabled is now turning its unnatural fury on press room Dr. Frankensteins, themselves:

- On 8/13, Breaking911 tweeted: "Photojournalist assaulted while covering protest in Richmond, Virginia." Antifa later sought to justify the attack, maintaining ludicrously that the reporter didn't have their "consent" to chronicle the public event. In a subsequent statement, Antifa argued that the reporter persisted in filming, despite being told to cease. That journalistic independence, Antifa sniffed, was "disgusting and parasitic behavior."

- CNN's Jake Tapper tweeted on 8/16 that "At least two journalists in Charlottesville were assaulted by people protesting the Klan/Nazi/alt-right rally." Tapper added subsequently that said journalists required medical attention, with at least one hospitalized for several days.

- In an 8/27 Twitter post that included video, KTVU Fox2 reporter Leigh Martinez related that Berkeley protesters had that afternoon assaulted both she and her photographer. One alt-Left rioter hit the photographer, then dashed the camera to the street. Other protesters blocked cell phones and even stole and destroyed them. lest their images be recorded. Seditious street-swarmers bragged of their desires: "No Trump! No wall! No USA at all!" https://twitter.com/LeighMartinezTV

- The Gateway Pundit noted that, at a San Francisco Antifa appearance the previous day, Leftist thugs in red-and-white "Frisco Resistance' t-shirts stole the camera-able cell phone held by independent journalist Nathan Stolpman. His practically teary protestations that he was not a "Nazi," and was in fact sympathetic to the scatter-witted and malicious Antifa, went unheeded. "Keep walkin'! You're not gonna get it back!" one thug sneered. Another advised the reporter to leave the public area "if you wanna be safe."

And mainstream media voices urge the public to believe that Trump supporters are imperiling the press?

Antifa, and the Resistance in general, evidence hostility toward not only democracy and national sovereignty, but also the very concept of a press that is free to observe, chronicle, and offer commentary on matters of public interest.

Resistance revolutionaries bent on toppling established systemic institutions, Ryun wrote in The Hill, "have little loyalty to even their most ardent supporters and enablers...The media like CNN and others on the Left coddling them should be careful; you can only embrace vipers for so long, before they turn on you."

Progressive pretension:
New York Times essayist Jill Filipovic and selective compassion

In an overly lengthy, 8/24 New York Times essay, writer Jill Filipivic attempts, predictably without success, to paint Hillary Clinton as a sort of Everywoman. ("Donald Trump was a creep. Too bad Hillary couldn't say it.")

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/opinion/sunday/donald-was-a-creep-too-bad-hillary-couldnt-say-it.html?ref=todayspaper

Clinton's televised debate with Donald Trump was, Filipovic argues, just like threatening encounters real life women suffer: Sidewalk stalkers, workplace discriminators, subway lurkers.

Debate competitors, too, are of that detestable rank, Filipovic wrongly imagines. 

Genuine, vicious, disgusting sexual crimes well deserve universal 
castigation. They are far distant from the basic, respectful goodness hoped extant in all men. But, momentarily standing near an adversary during a debate televised before millions is hardly a legitimate example.

Distasteful though it certainly is, the following illustration of actual sex criminality is relevant to this Hillary Clinton discussion.

In 1975, then-Arkansas defense counsel Hillary Clinton championed the stomach-turning cause of child-rapist Thomas Alfred Taylor. Hillary's contemporary advocates argue Clinton did not choose to defend Taylor, but was appointed to do so. That distinction, though, does not justify Hillary's laughing about the case years later, at which time she was no longer professionally associated with Taylor. (An audio tape of her shameful chortling can be found here: http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-hillary-tapes/.)

During the debate Filipovic now daubs with garish, melodramatic hues, Hillary refused to apologize to, or even so much as look toward, Taylor's child sex crime victim, Kathy Shelton. (Trump had seated Shelton, and several alleged sexual assault victims of Bill Clinton's, in a front row. Footage of utterly caught-out Bill's strained face during the event was priceless.)

Filipovic mentioned none of that, of course. It would, obviously, conflict with her contrived caring for women's plights.

Has Filipovic ever written a piece for the New York Times (or any publication) explicitly condemning Thomas Alfred Taylor for his monstrous predation? Has she ever used epithets identical to the ones she now hurls at the President of the United States to describe either Taylor or Hillary, his laughing mouthpiece? 

Or, for that matter, has Filipovic ever condemned notoriously lecherous and allegedly law-violative Bill Clinton? Perhaps even middle eastern nations like Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Qatar, whose donation dollars the Clintons avariciously amass (without apparent care that those primitive countries mistreat women and gays in manners too horrible to detail)?

Somewhat early in 1988 film drama The Accused, the lower middle class rape victim portrayed by Jodie Foster confronts Kelly McGillis, who played what amounted to a limousine liberal. McGillis had abandoned Foster. Her mercenary heart simply was not in a case that offered scant opportunity. 

Finding McGillis at an upscale, progressive professionals cocktail party, Foster railed at her for hypocrisy, for only pretending at concern for sexual assault victims. And McGillis, resultantly self-aware and repentant, pursued Foster's cause to eventual courtroom vindication.

But that's the stuff of cinema, and not likely to ensue for Hillary's New York Times fan-girl Jill Filipovic.



----------

Outsiders of distinction

Popular American political legend has it that FDR, after agreeing with civil rights leaders' exhortations, requested that they: "Go out and make me do it." 

Accounts vary. Some even wonder if that happened, at all. Regardless, progressive Democrats searching for validation for their activism have long consoled themselves by repeating it. 

I was reminded of that well-thumbed anecdote by Steve Bannon and Dr, Sebastian Gorka's recent departures from the Trump White House. Each is an indefatigable champion for the populist, Make America Great Again body of beliefs with which candidate Trump barnstormed from sea to shining sea, leaving in his historic wake arenas-full of roaring, patriotic troops eager to storm balloting sites, and take back their country.

And, both men have redoubtable journalistic resumes. Single-minded strategist Bannon crafts heady conservative prose with blade-edged precision, taking no prisoners and stating decisively his messages. Gorka, an enviable intellectual and a positive heavyweight debater, eats pencil-necked cable news commentators for breakfast, and makes such events delightful to behold.

Immediately after departing the White House, Bannon returned to Breitbart, from whence he'd come. And, Gorka revealed his own intention to possibly take up Breitbart residence, the better to advocate the Trump message that proved so popular with voters.

Given stories holding that Never-Trumpers and others opposed to the president's America First agenda infest at least some of Washington government, and the White House, itself, it may well be that Steve Bannon and Dr. Gorka will prove to be of greater persuasive effect outside the Trump Administration, than within it.

You know, they could 'make him do it.'



[This piece has been updated.]

Latest evidence that CNN hates you

On 8/24, CNN's John Blake smeared the 60 million plus hard - working and tax-paying Americans who'd voted for President Trump.

"White supremacists by default: How ordinary people made Charlottesville possible," his essay was titled. 

Blake didn't bother to actually examine the differing but valid perspectives found apart from the rancid Nazi and Antifa extremes. Nor did he acknowledge that sincerely good-hearted, well-intentioned citizens might simply disagree on matters at hand, but yearn equally for just resolution. 

Instead, Blake lazily opted for a shortcut, dismissing without due consideration his every ideological opponent as enabling the commonly despised and unAmerican foulness of bigotry.

Of course, such disregard occludes necessary, exhaustive discussion, and unfairly disqualifies all citizens innocently holding contrary viewpoints. 

Blake's article was itself an expression of bigotry, founded on a falsehood. Which made it appropriate for CNN.

Iowa City Mayor Jim Throgmorton hops aboard progressives' anti-Constitutional rights bandwagon

The Iowa City Press-Citizen recently ran a guest opinion piece by that city's top official, "Mayor Throgmorton: Iowa City rejects neo-Nazis, white supremacists." 

It was the sort of full-throated denunciation of racial and religious hatred that we all appreciate hearing. It's important for governmental officials to make clear their robust opposition to such execrable, divisive beliefs.

And, were only those titular objects of rightful condemnation soundly batted in Mayor Jim Throgmorton's article, there would certainly be no cause for good persons to find fault with it.

A full reading, though, reveals that such cause does exist. 

"A few days ago, Charlottesville was the site of a 'Unite the Right; rally by armed white supremacists," Throgmorton wrote, adding that they "brandished Swastikas, Confederate battle flags, anti-Semitic banners, and 'Trump/Pence' signs while chanting 'blood and soil.'"

The Mayor might have thought himself clever, linking the duly elected President of the United States with the relatively scant,   odious hate mongers. Instead, he betrayed scorn for the common man: Trump did win election with the support of more than 60 million Americans. And, national commentators were knocked back on their pins when Iowa turned from a deep blue state to a rich red one by some ten percentage points. (To its shame, Johnson County, including Iowa City, endorsed Clinton over Trump.)

Tellingly, Throgmorton offered zero criticism of Antifa violence, or of the communist hammer-and-sickle banners boosted high by his destructive Charlottesville comrades. (Not without reason did former Des Moines Register political editor David Yepsen refer to "The People's Republic of Iowa City.")

Throgmorton was practically giddy in his lambasting of President Trump for assigning culpability for the Charlottesville violence to "many sides." The mayor's is a common misrepresentation, though no less blameworthy for that prevalence. 

Racism and anti-racism are philosophical essentia. There can be no morally equating those ideas, nor did Trump ever imply such. Instead, the president made the wholly logical comparison of each side's employ of physical violence as an offensive tactic. 

Charlottesville first-person accounts and videos illustrate that various players were indeed armed and engaging in offensive, not defensive, acts of violence. So, any person who condemns offensive violence as a matter of principle must share Trump's initial judgement.

One feels safe in assuming presidential critics like Throgmorton well understand the distinction between offense and defense, between philosophy and tactic, and only pretend at obtuseness for momentary partisan edge.

Later in his essay, the Iowa City mayor proclaims "We reject hate speech and acts or threats of violence." As before, Throgmorton's attempted rhetorical sleight-of-hand falls to failure in the eyes of perceptive readers. "Hate speech' is a subjective concept, and not one recognized by the First Amendment. Speech enjoys Constitutional protection, as well it should. Violent actions do not. Speech and violence cannot be equated.

All expression is legally protected, whether it be comforting or provocative, nice or ugly, positive or negative. Digesting expressed ideas, and either accepting or rejecting them, is a responsibility for each citizen to freely undertake. And, it is not for individual rights-restricters, campus speech code-contrivers, or office-ensconced, authoritarian-inclined elitists to wrench that intellectual liberty from us.

To freely believe and speak one's mind is the God-given and Constitutionally-safeguarded right of every America citizen. Doubtless, opportunistic mischaracterizations of Constitutional principle, and inherently flawed speech/violence bonding -- like those penciled by Throgmorton -- enjoy beaming sanction among persons preferring authoritarianism and the straitjacket of identity group-think to healthy, liberated individualism.

(Hopefully, the ICLU will, when appropriate, rise to defend free speech's noble cause. But then, remember that the national ACLU now opposes the First Amendment, preferring instead to stroke faddish, progressive terrorists.) 

Worth note, in closing, is that Mayor Throgmorton does have another reason for reviling the president: Trump has long advocated that the federal government withhold millions of tax dollars from so-called "Sanctuary Cities" that routinely flout applicable citizenship laws, indulging illegal immigration over the legitimate interests of national sovereignty and legal citizens' safety. Iowa City effectively is a Sanctuary City. Its legal citizenry, then, could suffer tremendous financial punishment for local officials' vote-covetous virtue signaling.

CNN's Don Lemon: Effete agent of deceit and discord

Alarms sounded in the mainstream media following President Trump's spectacular 8/22 Phoenix speech. A packed arena of exuberant Americans had roared approval as the populist Commander In Chief rebel yelled flame thrower denunciation of our "fake news" enemies.

"The media can attack me," Trump declared. "But, where I draw the line is when when they attack you. Which is what they do. When they attack the decency of our supporters...You're tax-paying Americans who love our nation, obey our laws, and care for our people. It's time to expose the crooked media deceptions, and to challenge the media for their role in fomenting divisions...

"For the most part, honestly, these are really, really dishonest people, and they're bad people. And I really think they don't like our country. I really believe that."

The patriotic crowd was ecstatic at hearing the President of the United States whaling the daylights out of a sniffing media that regularly acts against them. 

"CNN sucks! CNN sucks! CNN sucks!" was the mass chant that echoed through the hall, that electrifying night.

Meanwhile, at that ethically corrupt network, ears were surely burning. 

"Well, what do you say to that," asked CNN's Don Lemon, whose analysis immediately followed. "I'm going to speak from the heart, here. What we have just seen is a total eclipse of the facts. He's unhinged. It's embarrassing...There was no gravitas. There was no sanity there." 

Later, as if to illustrate Trump's point that the media despises the common people, Lemon sneered that Trump's supporters were "complicit" in the president's alleged "racism."

Commentators like Lemon that accuse President Trump and his nationwide, tens of millions-strong support base of innate hostility toward the concept of an independent political press are lying. Consider their own disgraceful malpractice and the deleterious effect it has on American society, our civil government, and their calculated betrayal of the news media's theoretical function in a democratic society.

Ideally, an independent press provides citizens with the essential information we need to understand the world, and to effectively choose our government's trajectory. It challenges elected officials to uphold legitimate public interest, and rightly exposes them when they disserve it.

But, as evidenced by its clockwork sludge-pumping of partisan propaganda and personal smearing of targets selected for reasons of ideological prejudice, the accurately dubbed "fake news" industry 
strives to undermine America and citizens' welfare. 

Such a purposefully counterfeit press, controlled as it is by a handful of wealthy political bigots indifferent to the public's valid interest in objective relating of facts, is plainly of enemy character.
When President Trump notes this, he's only articulating what everyone already knows. 

Daily, media elitists like Don Lemon essentially spit on common Americans. They despise our national character, ideals, Constitutional traditions, and cultural and political perspectives. We the People cannot reach through television screens or editorial pages to strike back at seditious newsroom enemies. But President Trump effectively does -- with preciseness, brutal honesty, righteous storm, and the attention-commanding manner of a showman-with-a-point whose loyal audience thrills to his blast-volume barn burnings.

He does what we cannot. And, damned if we don't love him for it!

Postscript: Recently, Missouri State Senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D) tweeted, then hurriedly deleted, her wish that President Trump be assassinated. She has now been removed from all 8 of her committee assignments. Her future as an office holder is in doubt, with numerous national petition drives urging her complete removal from the legislative body.

Meanwhile, CNN is still employing notorious Never-Trumper Rick Wilson as a commentator. (Wilson is a panelist on Don Lemon's show.) During the 2016 campaign, in addition to smuttily slurring Trump voters, Wilson called for status quo-supporting donors to "put a bullet" in Donald Trump.

Had only Chappelle-Nadal endorsed presidential assassination on fake news CNN, Jeff Zucker-signed paychecks would flow to her mailbox without cessation.

'To Hell with First Amendment,' says 2017 ACLU

2017 ACLU says: 'To Hell with First Amendment'

In his exhaustive 1990 study of the American Civil Liberties Union's history, "In Defense of American Liberties" (Oxford University Press), University of Nebraska at Omaha Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice Samuel Walker recalled the organization's challenging WWII-era interning U.S. citizens of Japanese descent.

That was truly a distinguishing moment in the ACLU's life. Today looms another Constitutional rights test with profound implications. But unlike their past counterparts, current ACLU officials seek the comfort afforded by shadows of acquiescence to perceived popular prejudices.

Previously supposed an unvarying advocate for all citizens' free speech rights, the ACLU recently announced its support of the First Amendment would henceforth be contingent on citizens not availing themselves of equally valid and judicially accepted Second Amendment ones.

Public assembly and statement making are acceptable enough and deserving of protection, the organization now declares, but only so long as participants don't legally carry arms. 

A civil liberties group that institutionally denounces Constitutional rights? Paging George Orwell!

(No perceptive observer will likely be fooled by this 'public safety' gimmick. Protection of controversial expression is being denied. One understands that's the goal.)

Harry Frumerman, in his Library Journal review of Walker's book, observed that the author "makes plain that it was by fearlessly championing unpopular or even 'dangerous' ideas of the [1920s] that the ACLU became a major force in shaping American attitudes on civil liberties."

But that was then, and this is now. And reports are that the 2017 ACLU's coffers have filled to overflowing during these days of progressive-authoritarian resistance to the populist Trump Revolution. 

So, no more strict adherence to free speech rights for the professional civil liberties group, lest clucking social justice scolds pounce and moneyed donor's ire be piqued. (One longs for the ACLU of 1973/Skokie.)

True, the organization did recently lend official support to conservative speaker and author Milo Yiannoupolos. His "Dangerous" book advertising was quashed by the Washington Metro Transit Authority, and some of his public events have been 'shut down' by violent progressive terrorists.

That action, though, now seems but a gesture. A final gasp of respectable belief. An ACLU lawyer named Chase Strangio refused to support Yiannoupolos, tweeting: "I don't believe in protecting principle for the sake of principle in all cases." 

Nevermind that that's pretty much the ACLU's defining philosophical essence. 

Today In Civil Liberties recalls that, in 1929, an address on the importance of free speech, set to be delivered by ACLU Director Roger Baldwin, was canceled by the Superintendent of New York Schools. In 1989, the group established the Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award.

But while that's fine for glittery statuary, the organization is now typified more by the anti-principle Strangio than the superficially venerated Baldwin.

The ACLU's upper echelon is surely populated by ostensibly high-minded sorts, ones waving impressive educational degrees, and with years if not decades of free speech theorizing and legal advocacy to their credit. 

Doubtlessly, they would resent critics reminding them of the First Amendment's importance. To which would come this logical response: Someone clearly needs to.


----------

The soul-ugly three

Carla Herreria of HuffPost recently noted that U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif), introduced a bill requiring President Trump to undergo a physical and mental health examination. The purpose, per Herreria, is to ensure Trump is "stable enough to remain in office." 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/california-democrat-bill-trump-mental-health_us_5998d558e4b0a2608a6cb6b1?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009)

Speaking to Mercury News, Lofgren conceded her bill will not pass. But "it will stimulate conversation."

That's exactly the reasoning proffered by leftist college students who manufacture fake hate crimes. The falseness isn't the point, they insist. Raising general consciousness is more important. (You know, 'the end justifies the means.')

But, for Rep. Lofgren, this matter carries greater and different weight: Should an elected official use taxpayer-provided resources to pursue a gambit she herself knows will go down to defeat, merely that some desired conversation might be kick-started?  

Did voters elect her to pluck dollar bills from their wallets to fund partisan larks -- especially ones such as this, that could interfere with the orderly progress of national governmental affairs that impact the daily lives of all citizens, including those of her own constituents?  (And, shouldn't she turn her attentions instead to jobs and economic concerns?)

"Does the president suffer from early stage dementia?" asked the perhaps-smirking Lofgren, when announcing her legislative antic. "Has emotional disorder so impaired the president that he is unable to discharge his duties? Is the president mentally and emotionally unstable?"

Millions of American families currently suffer the horrors of dementia, watching helplessly as loved family members devolve from intelligent, witty, and productive people into mere shadows of themselves. 

It would seem a measure of the meagerness of Lofgren's moral character that she would cruelly exploit heart-wrenching human tragedy for momentary political partisan advantage. 

Perhaps Lofgren's own family has not been plagued by dementia. One would hope it hasn't. Mine has, and I wouldn't toss the subject about with Lofgren's light-spirited uncaring.

But, there's yet more damning evidence (as if the addition were even needed). Come now reports that Rep. Lofgren is effectively picking over the bones of 88 year-old Senate Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers, lusting without apparent conscience after his status -- never mind that Conyers is (thankfully) still quite alive.


*****


Daily Beast columnist Matt Lewis has just made clear his contempt for democracy, and for the common man.

Trump voters are "asses," Lewis wrote with boldfaced haughtiness. He proposes an effort by establishment political swamp snakes like himself to challenge President Trump in an upcoming primary. The smug Lewis -- pinky perhaps upraised, nose aloft -- unveiled proudly the presumption of innate superiority he and his fellow pampered elitists harbored all along.

"The masses, it turns out, sometimes are asses," he snickered, crudely. "Sometimes, the people who actually pay close attention to politics know more than the disgruntled populists and nationalists who are willing to gamble on the future of this great republic -- and on the reputation of a conservative philosophy that goes from Aristotle to Burke to Buckley -- in order to boost a reality show host."
(http://www.thedailybeast.com/dear-trump-voters-youre-a-bunch-of-idiots)

Earlier this year, I published: That a Man Can Again Stand Up: American spirit vs sedition during the incipient Trump revolution (Bromley). In it, I wrote of the annoyingly pompous Matt Lewises:

In typical press coverage of the Trump campaign, I wrote: 
"[E]litist natures had loomed as the clucked observation that some rank-and-file Trump supporters lacked higher-level formal educations. The conceit there is that democracy is not properly a mechanism for self-governance by all, but instead the privately harbored geegaw of lettered cake-eaters.)"

I later added, of "inflated-head, champagne and limos" anti-Trump sorts: "They seemed of the notion that the common people should remain in the ship's belly, manning the oars. Meanwhile, they, believing themselves ever so clever, would strut about topside and chart navigation beneficial to their fancies."

Of course,  Matt Lewis is without significant practical influence. After all, had the Lewises the sway they surely wish, Donald Trump wouldn't be in the White House. Among the lessons of 2016 is that the common man doesn't care about prattling popinjays like Lewis, whether they be in Hollywood, corporate recording studios, the 'Deep State,' or fake news mainstream media.


*****


During the 8/14 broadcast of the Fox News Specialists show, co-host Eboni K. Williams offered a carefully prepared attack on the president of the United States. Her words were vile, the charges she recklessly tossed out were irresponsible, and her manner was that of an icily precise, mercenary assassin.

In Trump's remarks following the Charlottesville horror, Williams asserted, the president (and, by manifest implication, his average supporter) was racially bigoted. Her gamy brickbats were endorsed by malevolent ditz Kat Timpf.

Following that channel being deluged with rightful complaints from patriotic citizens understandably outraged at Williams's despicable slurring of them (Trump was, of course, handily elected by more than 60 million good Americans), the vapid teleprompter prose-regurgitator claimed to have received threats. 

But that 'gimmie sympathy' stunt stank, and immediately faded away. It reeked of a paycheck-angling PR person's scheming. And it reminded of the fake assault charge contrived by former FNC guest commentator Michelle Fields against then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. (Fields was initially aided in her lying by the Washington Post's Ben Terris.)

Williams continued her deceitful sliming of President Trump on the WABC radio program she co-hosts with Guardian Angel founder Curtis Sliwa. Like Williams, Sliwa seems to relish slurring the U.S. president, sometimes with grade school epithets.

Eboni K. Williams barely turns up on Fox News since her ill-considered, untrue, and personally destructive assault on the president and his nationwide support base. But, her cause was championed by fellow Fox personage Sean Hannity. Hannity publicly attacked those in his own audience who had thronged to petition against Williams. Hannity berated them for allegedly not appreciating opinion diversity. 

Of course, Eboni K. Williams doesn't offer well-reasoned, substantive arguments from which listeners can derive intellectual benefit and philosophical enrichment-- just squawky propagandizing that revels in personal slurs and smears all dissenters with the bigot's broadbrush.   

I don't doubt Sean Hannity can distinguish between legitimate articulation and gutter splashing. Which makes puzzling his barrel-chested support for Williams, and apparent willingness to as much as spit on the protective Trump backers she nastily smeared.




--------------------

Fundamental despoliation

Fundamental despoliation
America 2017 still under Obama's ominous spectre

To best grasp the song, ignore the distinct notes. Focus on the coldly dire melodic significance. 

"Now, Mizzou," said 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama to his college audience. "I have just two words for you, tonight: five days. Five days. After decades of broken politics in Washington, and eight years of failed policies from George W. Bush, and 21 months of a campaign that's taken us from the rocky coast of Maine to the sunshine of California, we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."

He specified economic policies. But, as Breitbart's Joel B. Pollak later pointed out, Obama would backpedal on the radical chic "fundamentally transform" line.  

Had Obama truly been benign in his rhetoric, Pollak wrote, "he would have said 'restore,' instead of 'transform.'"
(http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/16/obamas-fundamental-transformation-began-at-mizzou/)

In 2017, per Obama's apparent wish, America is indeed being fundamentally transformed. And that's a very bad thing.

Before our eyes, traditionally defining, Constitutional ideals like citizens' rights to assembly, speech, bearing arms, and exercising democratic control over civil government are increasingly being challenged and even attacked.

Sedition enjoys a vogue only hinted at in moments past. Today, the destruction of American democracy is priority #1 for surging masses of violent, black-clad street terrorists, mainstream media bafflegabbers, power-protective establishment politicians, and button-down boardroom barons so obsessed with globalism as to visit ruination upon the sterling nation our ancestors struggled and suffered to create.

Average citizens' cultural, social, and even historic connections are reviled by oddball cretins at turns ignorant of and contemptuous toward America's historic status as robust defender of liberty, and a glorious experiment in self-governance. One that prizes the independently thinking individual over the featureless,
unremarkable collective herd.

In bomb-chucking warfare against all that, the despoiling Obama legacy endures. 

Norman Lear no one to laugh about


On 8/22, MSNBC's Ali Velshi conducted a remarkably tender interview with fellow Trump-hater Norman Lear. 

Lear, having gotten wealthy several times over from creatively inadequate television product, now lives the life of a gentlemen radical and insists on wearing a too-small fishing hat that reminds of Pinky Lee.

The MSNBC spotlight fell on Lear that day because of the upcoming Kennedy Center Awards. President Trump had announced he would not attend. Lear had already broadcast his intention to skip the event, so abiding was his loathing of the President of the United States.

Lear claimed, in his exchange with Velshi, that "art" was important to him. But critical consideration of Lear's vandalistic oeuvre inspires abundant doubt.

I grew up in the 60s, religiously watching and loving genuinely funny, escapist television comedies like the Andy Griffith show, Green Acres, the Beverly Hillbillies, Bewitched, Mayberry RFD, and Petticoat Junction. Too, I prized reruns of early legends like the Honeymooners and Phil Silvers Show.

Those were examples of fine, effective entertainment, masterfully written programs packed with colorful characters and side-splitting scenarios. Their producers understood that viewers -- having put in full workdays, dealing with obnoxious co-workers and confronting the various unpleasantries and full-blown social and political storms of the Larger World -- collapsed into their living room chairs, kicked off their shoes, and turned the channel dial toward comfort, not renewed stress. Entertainment, not finger-wagging ideological proselytization.

Those were the days. But nothing gold can stay.

In came annoyingly didactic Norman Lear, who devilishly mixed agit-prop with the punchlines. His foul brew became the pixelated standard. And, as is generally the case with revolutions, that which already stood was leveled to make space for the newer fancy.

Networks were suddenly obsessed with demographics, deriding the heartland in favor of urban attentions. (Veteran actor Pat Buttram -- "Mr. Haney," on Green Acres -- would say of CBS: "They canceled everything with a tree.") Networks purged from broadcast schedules truly entertaining fare that asked nothing more of viewers than that they enjoy good laughs. 

Suddenly, though, humorousness wasn't enough for comedy TV.

As now cast by the odious Norman Lear method, shows needed to be socially and politically 'relevant,' as defined by liberalism, and always reflective of its precepts. That more than a few innocent viewers who'd tuned in hoping only for amusement were instead insulted, their faiths and values mocked, was of no consequence to the Lears. 

Contempt, then, is well deserved by popular culture despoiler Lear. His wealthy, Hollywood liberal sort counsels social and political theoretical notions whose consequences we common people must suffer with -- while they loll and frolic in sumptious, wall-surrounded mansions, with armed, private armies ensuring the 'riff raff' who watch their shows and movies are never allowed human contact.

All of which are valid points. Though Lear, MSNBC, and Ali Velshi will never admit them.

Freedom of speech endangered for every musician 

"Amid the ongoing fallout from the violence that saw a civil rights activist killed, music subscription service Spotify began removing so-called white power music, flagged by the SPLC as racist 'hate bands.' 

"A Spotify spokesperson said: 'Illegal content or material that favours hatred or incites violence against race, religion, sexuality or the like, is not tolerated by us. Spotify takes immediate action to remove any such material as soon as it has been brought to our attention. 

"We are glad to have been alerted to this content -- and have already removed many of the bands identified, while urgently reviewing the remainder." ("Apple denounces neo-Nazis as Spotify bans 'white power' tracks," Guardian 8/17/2017)

This should be of concern to anyone who would write, play, and sell music without first considering the authoritarian prejudices of ideological overlords. 

It should go without saying that 'white power' music (or anything at all complementary) is both morally repugnant and inherently hostile to the American, Constitutional equality ideal we commonly cherish. 

Also, as private company, Spotify can set any participatory standards it chooses. 

But the notion of suppressing articulation based on subjective assumptions of propriety is also contrary to traditional Constitutional guarantees. A censor's red pencil can deny liberty even more effectively than an obscure Charlottesville lackwit with poison fancies and substandard grooming habits.

As witnessed with the 1980s LP-labeling craze, the movie rating system, and the comics code of the 1950s, private industry makes content decisions based on market calculations, not on high-minded, individual liberty priorities. And those dollar-conscious reckonings soon become the orthodoxy. Art is impacted.

Once a measure for speech's 'legitimacy' has been adopted, all expression is threatened. And, whether noxious sloganeering or satirical, under-the-table advocacy of sensibleness (remember Randy Newman's "Short People?"), any lyric containing officially proscribed verbiage would be automatically tossed away.

Rock and Roll itself evolved in wonderful defiance of racial mores. 

The ability to consider ideas -- positive and productive ones, as well as their negative, destructive counterparts -- is crucial to intellectual development. By hearing contrasting perspectives, and judging them side by side, listeners are able to arrive at sufficiently thought-out and dependable conclusions.

(I'm not talking about Chaplinsky's "Fighting words" standard, nor of "clear and present danger" yelling 'fire!' in some packed theater, or the health hazards demonstrable in unlabeled, improper product ingredients. Ideas can be either accepted or rejected; physical poisons have but one logical end.)

Given contemporary mania for toppling statues, ripping down plaques, renaming streets, and other ill-considered efforts at historical revisionism, do not be surprised when, in coming times, rockabilly bands 'disappear' the Confederate Stars and Bars and other southern iconography from presentations.

Such reinvention, though, may not be entirely of musicians' conception. Owners of performance venues, record labels, and radio stations, not illogically apprehensive about adverse publicity and feel-good boycott campaigns, may soon present bands with a choice: Conform or die. Accommodate ideological fascism or be denied the ability to earn a living at your chosen profession.

That used to be called McCarthyism. Today, Spotify hails it as social justice.



----------

.

The hate they love

The hate they love
Media, Democrats encourage anti-Americanism 

by
DC Larson

The MSM/Democrat axis of evil is presently assailing President Trump for not criticizing white hate groups in exactly the manner and to precisely the degree they today pounce to dictate.

Of course, they might boast actual credibility had they not already exhausted any recommendable reputation they might previously have claimed by, since Trump's candidacy announcement, lambasting his every utterance, and each action he's taken.

Bluntly, they've been crying wolf far too frequently to now be accorded serious regard. They are liars -- not sincerely principled -- and they are playing a very scummy game. Every intelligent observer knows that, and the honest ones will say so.

For example, I just did.

The ideal that all men are created equal, and that equality of justice and opportunity are guaranteed to every citizen, is at the heart of America's noble being. For the despicable KKK, or anyone of like-bent, poisonous passion, to advocate for racist philosophies is flatly contrary to the wonderful, true meaning of Americanism.

Here, each of us is every bit his fellow's equal. To argue otherwise is to be an enemy of America. End of discussion.

President Trump was indeed wise to underscore that hate exists "on many sides," though. For it does. But, in MSM and Democrat precincts, as illustrated by coverage selection and commentary in the hours following the horrific events in Charlottesville, only certain hate is condemned. 

Others, of similarly vile and unAmerican character, are allowed uncritical parade. 

Just as the fine equality ideal exists at the core of our national identity, so, too, do the principles of democratic self-governance and the freedom of all citizens to openly express ideas, regardless of popularity. 

Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and their rioting comrades did not accept the legitimate election of Donald Trump. ("Not my president!," shouted streams of destructive simpletons in numerous cities.)

And organized efforts to "shut down" speakers not to progressive seditionists' liking have resulted in violence, arson, and denial of Constitutional rights. We've all seen the terrible footage.

So, President Trump was being fully accurate when he condemned "hate on many sides." Too many of those protesting the foul KKK, Nazis, et al in Charlottesville were themselves eager factors in the ensuing violent disorder. Perhaps they even attended with the intention of fomenting violence.

Infowars' Millie Weaver reported from Charlottesville, during the rioting. She observed counter-protesters from Antifa, etc, hurling bricks, bottles of urine, and spraying opponents directly in the eyes with noxious poisons.

"Punch a Nazi!," went one popular chant. Perhaps the media and Democrats heard it as "Kumbaya."

(Meanwhile, capturing succinctly the fraudulent nature of progressives' claimed ideal, was a sign proclaiming: "Tolerance does Not Mean Tolerating Intolerance" So much for respecting others' Constitutional rights. Suppression now means tolerance.)

Absolutely none of this was given even passing criticism from elite establishment mouthpieces like MSNBC, CNN, or Democrats loath to speak ill of Antifa and BLM, lest they alienate ballot box-support.

I'll make a prediction:

Given recent erasure of Confederate flags and related historical monuments -- and both the perpetual-motion nature of progressivism and the emboldened BLM sorts, none of whom are going back into obscurity -- the Stars and Stripes will in future days come under attack.

The argument will probably be along such lines as: 'Slavery existed under the American flag, as did other types of discrimination. [Never mind that all were properly dispatched under the same American flag, which also flew over successful efforts against Nazism and Communism.]

'A new age has dawned,' may run the rhetoric. 'So, America needs a new flag. We must make a total break with all that came before.

'And, maybe even a new national name, while we're at it...'

Those of media and political influence who do not explicitly condemn both hates cannot believably reject either. Just as racism is to be despised as contrary to America's fundamental character, so must agitations against democracy and the First Amendment.

Trump: 1. Elites (once again): 0.