Last week, the financial world was shaken when billionaire Robert Mercer, co-CEO of RenTec which is arguably the world"s most profitable and secretive hedge fund, announced he was quitting on Jan 1, 2018. While the prominent Trump and Bannon supporter did not reveal the reason behind his departure, he did make it clear that he does not agree with everything Steve Bannon does and say, and made it very clear that he is especially disappointed with outspoken conservative media personality, Milo Yiannopoulos, whom he threw under the proverbial bus saying "actions by Yiannopoulos have caused pain and divisiveness undermining the open and productive discourse that I had hoped to facilitate."
Now, in a follow up report from Bloomberg, it has emerged that Mercer did not quit RenTec out of his own volition, but was instead pushed out by Rentec"s retired founder, and prominent Democrat and Clinton supporter, Jim Simmons. According to Bloomberg, Simons urged Robert Mercer "to step down from his role as co-chief executive officer over concerns that his backing of Breitbart News was hurting morale at the world’s most profitable hedge fund."
Which is another way of saying that Mercer"s support of Trump"s policies, Steve Bannon (not to mention monetary investment in Breitbart) cost him his job.
That, perhaps, is not surprising: after all, in recent months, Mercer’s personal political projects dragged what has otherwise been the world"s most secretive firm into the national spotlight. As a result, a backlash from RenTec"s founder, and ideological opposite of Mercer was to be expected. Simons, who is a major donor to Democratic causes, negotiated Mercer’s move from top executive to researcher at the computer-driven firm over the past three months, one of the people said. Mercer’s role will change on Jan.
Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, are prominent Republican donors and patrons of Stephen Bannon, chairman of Breitbart News, a website that backs the nationalist movement that helped elect President Donald Trump.
"I appreciated Bob’s willingness to take this step," Simons said Monday night while attending a fundraiser for the New York Public Library.
While Simons had never spoken publicly about Mercer’s political views, he has expressed his own opinions about Trump. At a speech in New York City in late October, Simons said “I think it’s basically terrible that we have a president remotely like our current president. We’ve had some doozies but never of that caliber.”
As Bloomberg adds, Mercer had become over the past year a lightning rod for activists. One group had begun targeting Renaissance Technologies’ investors to encourage them to fire the money manager.
Simons was supposedly less concerned about an investor revolt than he was about employee morale and recruitment, according to one of the people. That is explainable: in the past month, RenTech received a net $1 billion in inflows this month.
In a memo sent last week to employees to announce his resignation as co-CEO and member of the board, Mercer said he sold his stake in Breitbart News to his daughters. He also said that he was "mistaken to have supported" Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart writer, and was severing ties with him because statements by Yiannopoulos have caused "pain and divisiveness."
Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos says he will spend “hundreds of thousands of dollars” on security during an upcoming event at the University of California-Berkeley.
Yiannopoulos being led away from a 2016 event that was cancelled by violent protesters.
In an interview with Campus Reform,Yiannopoulos said that he is “prepared to spend whatever it takes” to provide security for the “Free Speech Week” that is scheduled for the end of September, underscoring his sincerity with the six-figure commitment.
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the September 24 event at UC-Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza is slated to feature a lineup of popular conservative firebrands, including Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, and former White House strategist Stephen Bannon.
Despite the university’s recent pledge to hold a “free speech year” and crack down on those who use violence to shut down speakers, however, the administration has come under increasing pressure to derail the upcoming event.
Earlier this week, for instance, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin asked Chancellor Carol Christ to reevaluate her commitment to allowing the conservative speakers on campus.
“I’m very concerned about Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter and some of these other right-wing speakers coming to the Berkeley campus,” Arreguin told The San Francisco Chronicle.
“It’s just a target for black bloc to come out and commit mayhem on the Berkeley campus and have it potentially spill out on the street.”
Other local lawmakers also echoed the remarks of the Berkeley mayor, citing security concerns as the primary danger of allowing Yiannopoulos and others to hold the event on a university campus.
"We don’t want the moral, psychological and fiscal expense of having these agents of hate coming to our town,” Berkeley City Councilman Ben Bartlett told The Los Angeles Times.
"We know the contest of ideas is at the very heart of freedom, but at the same time when the ideas are certain to cause bloodshed I’m inclined to err on the side of protecting the population, and I say that with a heavy heart.”
Councilwoman Cheryl Davila likewise told the publication that she does not “appreciate that there are racists coming to UC Berkeley to spew hate.”
A UC-Berkeley spokesperson told Campus Reform in an email that the speakers for the upcoming event are being hosted by independent student organizations, and that the school therefore does not have “the legal right or desire to interfere with or cancel their invitations based on the perspectives and beliefs of the speakers.”
“Where we do have discretion is around everything that has to do with the safety of our communities,” the spokesperson said.
“That priority, along with our commitment to Free Speech, remains at the center of our planning and preparations for future events.”
Yiannopoulos, for his part, is well aware of the severity of the threat posed by Antifa and other leftist groups, having been driven from Berkeley’s campus by violent rioters last time he was scheduled to speak at the school earlier this year.
It appears Bay Area TV anchor Frank Somerville"shonest description of "the hate" he experienced from "violent, clad in black" protesters in Berkeley was the tipping point for the liberal media to turn against AntiFa en masse.
I experienced hate first hand today... It came from these people dressed in all black at a protest in Berkeley.
Ironically they were all chanting about NO hate.
Some had shields and gloves. Some had helmets. Some had gas masks.
The masked "antifa" anarchists have more in common with the Tiki-torch Nazis than with American ideals.
As America feels like it"s coming apart at the seams, I have a modest proposal. The hard-right and hard-left activists who so enjoy protesting one another should meet every few weekends in a large national park and have at it.
The rest of us could begin to treat this wave of street agitation as the sideshow it is.
After all, this is not a fight for the soul of America. Neither the Tiki-torch Nazis nor the masked anarchists represent a viable American future. They are simply engaging in nostalgia, a scarier version of Civil War battle re-enactments.
Lumping them together does not equate two unequal sides. The cause of anti-fascism is noble, whereas the racists marching in Charlottesville are telling journalists like me I should be sent to the ovens. I"m not talking about the folks on the left who are nonviolent and unmasked, showing up to protest the fascists. I"m referring to the extreme wing that invites itself to these gatherings to "protect" these model citizens. Those "antifa" are something altogether different.
You may have heard of them recently. Human rights historian Mark Bray, who has recently become an unofficial spokesman for the movement, says that "its adherents are predominantly communists, socialists and anarchists who reject turning to the police or the state to halt the advance of white supremacy."
Recently this crowd has been getting some good press. No less a public intellectual than Cornel West said after Charlottesville that had it not been for antifa, "we would have been crushed like cockroaches."
Following the president"s vacillations and equivocations after that horror, a popular Twitter meme emerged comparing the antifa to the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy.
Not quite the most apt historical parallel. Zoom back to between the world wars. Most of the people who fought the fascists in Europe"s streets were themselves radical leftists. Both extremes helped to weaken already weak governments in Germany, Italy and Spain.
To get a sense of the depravity of that political moment, read George Orwell"s "Homage to Catalonia," a brilliant memoir of his time fighting in the Spanish civil war. Spoiler alert: The socialists and the fascists fighting for Spain were both authoritarians. Antifa today is the heir not to the Western allies who fought the Nazis, but rather the Soviets who bled them out on the eastern front. After the Third Reich fell, the red army turned the Eastern European states in its dominion into vassals. "Antifa" is a misnomer. It"s more like "also-fa."
This movement in the U.S. has been around for decades. Originally it confronted neo-Nazis at punk concerts and the like. Today though, antifa has become the violent vanguard of the censorious progressive "safe space" movement, in which ideas and speakers deemed offensive are equated with physical violence. It was the Berkeley chapter of antifa that prevented Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter from speaking at the college this year.
Now whatever one wants to say about those two, they are not Nazis. Indeed, the hysterical reaction to their appearances proves a point Yiannopoulos often makes, that political correctness on campus is a great menace to the principle of free speech.
Antifa"s vigilantism is dangerous in part because its aim is so poor. We can all agree in the abstract to oppose Nazis and other assorted fascists. The disagreement arises in labeling who"s a fascist. So far antifa has shown little discernment in this respect.
Many antifa activists showed up at Trump rallies, where presumably everyone supporting him was lumped in with the Nazis and Klansmen. Antifa activists this month clashed with the police at a rally in Boston, which was ironically called to support "free speech." It"s true that some of the speakers invited to this event were reactionaries. But the rally was open to people of all political stripes to support the idea that in America we are free to assemble and say what we wish.
So if any neo-Nazis or antifa activists are reading this, please agree on a schedule and demonstrate against one another far away from the rest of us. I recommend Yellowstone National Park. I promise to get the word out to the media to cover these events with the same seriousness we reserve for Renaissance fairs and Star Trek conventions.
* * *
Anyone who’s been paying attention has been presented with many examples of Antifa’s violent thuggery. Now, it’s almost encouraging to hear that the MSM at least has enough sense not to fall on its sword protecting a bunch of violent, embittered hoodlums.
So that"s four mainstream liberal media outlets decrying AntiFa... did they just admit - ever so sheepishly - that President Trump was right? There are "bad people" on both sides?!
Yesterday, the Washington Post surprised readers by turning against black-clad “Antifa” protesters who violently assaulted no fewer than five conservative demonstrators at a rally in Berkeley, Calif. on Sunday. Previously, the US capital’s paper of record and its mainstream media cohorts had focused their scorn on violence committed by conservative protesters, particularly in the aftermath of the tragic car-attack in Charlottesville, Va. earlier this month.
But as it turns out, WaPo was ahead of the curve.Because today, both the Los Angeles Times AND The Atlantic published similarly scathing attacks on the black-clad demonstrators, portraying members of Antifa as brutal thugs who routinely gang up on overmatched supporters of President Donald Trump at events like Sunday’s anti-Marxist rally in Berkeley. Violent confrontations instigated by AntiFa have also occurred at rallies and events stretching from Portland, Ore. to Washington D.C. However, before this week, accounts like these were mostly confined to “conservative” media like the Daily Caller and Washington Times.
The LATimes" report focuses on how Antifa has alienated other leftist groups, who object to its violent tactics. One of the individuals quoted in the story, Todd Gitlin, founder of Students for a Democratic Society, one of the original anti-Vietnam War groups, blamed Antifa for sullying the left’s reputation and accused them of being “food for the adversary.”
…first, the headline…
…now, the story...
“But as the protest got underway, some of those in masks would resort to mob violence, attacking a small showing of supporters of President Trump and others they accused, sometimes inaccurately, of being white supremacists or Nazis.
The graphic videos of those attacks have spurred soul-searching within the leftist activist movement in the Bay Area and beyond. Emotions remain raw in the wake of this month’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., which left one woman dead and dozens injured.”
...
‘This is food for the adversary,’ said sociologist Todd Gitlin, a founder of Students for a Democratic Society, which organized the first national protests against the Vietnam War. He pointed out that violent acts committed by a few will almost always hijack the narrative of the entire protest, and that it is happening now should be no surprise.”
The Atlantic continued with a more comprehensive accounting of Antifa’s sins, beginning with the protester who famously punched Richard Spencer in the face on inauguration day…
“In Washington, D.C., the response to that question centers on how members of Congress can oppose Trump’s agenda, on how Democrats can retake the House of Representatives, and on how and when to push for impeachment. But in the country at large, some militant leftists are offering a very different answer. On Inauguration Day, a masked activist punched the white-supremacist leader Richard Spencer. In February, protesters violently disrupted UC Berkeley’s plans to host a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart.com editor. In March, protesters pushed and shoved the controversial conservative political scientist Charles Murray when he spoke at Middlebury College, in Vermont.”
...responses sometimes spill blood. Since antifa is heavily composed of anarchists, its activists place little faith in the state, which they consider complicit in fascism and racism. They prefer direct action: They pressure venues to deny white supremacists space to meet. They pressure employers to fire them and landlords to evict them. And when people they deem racists and fascists manage to assemble, antifa’s partisans try to break up their gatherings, including by force.
Such tactics have elicited substantial support from the mainstream left.
...
Antifa believes it is pursuing the opposite of authoritarianism. Many of its activists oppose the very notion of a centralized state. But in the name of protecting the vulnerable, antifascists have granted themselves the authority to decide which Americans may publicly assemble and which may not. That authority rests on no democratic foundation. Unlike the politicians they revile, the men and women of antifa cannot be voted out of office. Generally, they don’t even disclose their names.
...
Revulsion, fear, and rage are understandable. But one thing is clear. The people preventing Republicans from safely assembling on the streets of Portland may consider themselves fierce opponents of the authoritarianism growing on the American right. In truth, however, they are its unlikeliest allies.
Antifa has until now effectively enjoyed immunity from criticism in the mainstream press.
But the first inklings of a sea-change in public opinion emerged over the weekend, when one local reporter shared his story about being harassed and attacked by members of Antifa at Sunday’s rally. His remarks appear to have struck a chord...
KTVU anchor Frank Somerville, a well-known Bay Area TV personality, took to Facebook this weekend to share what happened to him when he took a day trip to Berkeley on Sunday. Somerville – hardly a conservative – explained how the Antifa protesters threatened to destroy his phone and needlessly demeaned and attacked him for the simple act of trying to document a rally taking place on public property.
In response, Somerville declared that he “experienced hate first hand today... It came from these people dressed in all black at a protest in Berkeley.”
“Ironically they were all chanting about NO hate.
Some had shields and gloves. Some had helmets. Some had gas masks.”
Anyone who’s been paying attention has been presented with many examples of Antifa’s violent thuggery. Now, it’s almost encouraging to hear that the MSM at least has enough sense not to fall on its sword protecting a bunch of violent, embittered hoodlums.
Progressive intellectual icon Noam Chomsky has publicly stated that the Antifa movement, while being embraced by the mainstream media after the recent violence in Charlottesville, will only serve to embolden militant right-wing extremists – essentially creating a feedback loop of escalating violence.
“As for Antifa, it’s a minuscule fringe of the Left, just as its predecessors were. It’s a major gift to the right, including the militant right, who are exuberant,” Chomsky told the Washington Examiner.
While the mass media has taken up the cause of portraying Antifa as freedom fighters who defend against “Nazis,” the reality is starkly different, as many of the activists affiliated with the movement consider themselves left-anarchists or socialists, who often wear all black and masks to conceal their identity.
Chomsky said, “what they do is often wrong in principle – like blocking talks – and [the movement] is generally self-destructive.”
Chomsky is likely referring to the repeated violence seen on college campuses, where Antifa violently assaulted anyone attempting to attend events by controversial right-wing speakers, like Milo Yiannopolous, whose speech at the University of Berkley was canceled earlier this year as numerous attendees were violently beaten for simply trying to attend the event. Antifa then proceeded to cause over $100,000 dollars of damage in their subsequent rioting on the UC Berkley campus.
According to a report by Forbes:
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Yiannopoulos had been invited by the Berkeley College Republicans to speak, but announced around 8pm PT on Wednesday that he had been evacuated from the campus due to massive protests. “The hard left has become so antithetical to free speech in the last few years,” he said in a video posted on Facebook.
The event began as a peaceful protest. Some students reported on Facebook that things turned violent when masked individuals not affiliated with the school turned up, though the details of what happened are still unverified. Images on Twitter depicted violent protests with damage to local business.
The excuse used by Antifa is that they are smashing “fascism,” while in reality, they are simply attempting to shut down public discourse, through violence, that challenges their ideological views.
READ MORE:West Point Professor Calls for "Eradicating Islam" Treat Anyone Who Criticizes War as the Enemy
“When confrontation shifts to the arena of violence, it’s the toughest and most brutal who win – and we know who that is,” said Chomsky, a professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “That’s quite apart from the opportunity costs – the loss of the opportunity for education, organizing, and serious and constructive activism.”
While the mainstream media, and some prominent members of the GOP, came out to condemn President Trump’s Tuesday statement at a press conference – where he noted that “both sides” deserved blame – the reality is that both sides are to blame for the steadily increasing violence connected to political speech. Critics believed that the president should have solely singled out white supremacists.
“There was a group on this side, you can call them the left, you’ve just called them the left, that came violently attacking the other group,” Trump said on Tuesday. “So, you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.”
Make no mistake that what you are witnessing is a self-sustaining feedback loop of violence. As the alt right rose to prominence as a nationalist movement, with overtones of protectionism, which many on the left label as racist (obviously there is fringe minority of racist elements within the larger alt right movement), the hard left felt a rising tide of open bigotry towards minorities and foreigners, which precipitated their attempts to shut down anyone who espouses ideas that conflict with their progressive and inclusive worldview.
In response to seeing people beaten for simply trying to attend a speech, or wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, the hard right began to gain conflict solidarity as a more cohesive movement due to the repeated and continuous assaults on Trump supporters – which interestingly the mainstream media never seemed to condemn nor publicize.
READ MORE:Chomsky Exposes Russiagate as Propaganda: "It is a Joke" & "The World is Laughing at Us"
Mark Lance, professor of justice and peace at Georgetown University, said he views the Antifa movement’s rise as a response to more open fascists organizing.
“I’m seeing more concrete productive discussion between anti-fascists and others on the Left these days than ever before in my life,” Lance said.
“There is reason to think that it will become integrated into an emerging coalition that includes Sanders supporters, democratic socialists, dreamers, the Movement for Black Lives, environmentalists, [and] Native American organizers,” he said.
Lance said Antifa actions “need not be violent confrontation, but most Antifa, in practice, are willing to physically resist fascist marches and defend themselves against fascist attack.”
But therein lies the rub…
How can a college student that supports Trumps, and attends a speech by Milo Yiannopoloulos be given a blanket label of being a fascist?
So, is anyone who voted for Trump now considered a racist, fascist or Nazi?
It is important to point out that this is not an endorsement of Trump. While Americans fight amongst themselves, under Trump’s watch, the military-industrial complex is laying waste to the Middle East and the police state is continuously expanding — just as they did under Obama.
While it’s one thing for “Antifa” to physically resist or defend themselves, Lance’s assertions of what has manifested seem disingenuous to the reality seen over the past 16 months, as the majority of the offensive violence was perpetrated against non-violent people whose ideological views are at simply at odds with that of the “Antifa” movement.
While it may be ok to punch an actual Nazi who is threatening you, when did it become ok to punch people for simply attempting to listen, or espouse, ideas you don’t like or find repugnant?
What we see transpiring is blanket label being given to anyone whose views conflict that of Antifa, thus being labeled as a Nazis, racist, or fascist – when in reality the person being assaulted may be none of those things.
READ MORE:Noam Chomsky: If Trump Support Drops, US May See "Staged Terrorist Attack"
Ironically, this how the actual Nazi movement in Weimar Germany was able to marginalize Jews, labeling them as subhuman and vermin. Essentially, Antifa is operating with similar tactics as they attempt to dehumanize those they want to politically marginalize. Calling them racists, fascists or Nazis, is a means of legitimizing the violence they perpetuate in the name of their political ideology.
No one is condemning the defensive use of force against those attempting to perpetrate violence on others, but using violence to silence those whose politics differ from yours — who are not a violent threat — is when you cross the line from being an anti-fascists to being an actual fascist.
The alternative media has, for good reason, slammed CNN time and again for fabricated news stories, untruths and left-leaning propaganda.
But the following opinion report from CNN’s Fareed Zakaria is a must-watch, as it touches on the very core of the purported tolerance among liberals.
As progressive Evergreen State College professor recently stated in an interview after demands by social justice warriors that he be fired for racism, “I am troubled by what this implies about the current state of the left.”
While America’s White Left believes their policies of socialism, cultural assimilation and outright disdain for anything other than their own righteous ideologies are the only way forward, Zakaria succinctly explains that it goes against the whole idea of what Liberalism is supposed to be.
American universities these days seem committed to every kind of diversity except for intellectual diversity… Conservative voices and views, already a besieged minority, are being silenced entirely… The campus thought police have gone after serious conservative thinkers like Heather McDonald and Charles Murray, as well as firebrands like Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter…
Some were dis-invited… others booed interrupted and intimidated…
It’s strange that this is happening on college campuses that promise to give their undergraduates a liberal education… the word ‘liberal’ in this context has nothing to do with today’s partisan language… but refers instead to the Latin root ‘pertaining to liberty’
And at the heart of the liberal tradition in the Western world has been freedom of speech… from the beginning people understood that this meant protecting and listening to speech with which you disagreed.
…
Freedom of speech and thought is not just for just warm fuzzy ideas that we find comfortable… it’s for ideas that we find offensive.
…
There is also an anti-intellectualism on the left… an attitude of self righteousness that says we are so pure, so morally superior, we cannot bear to hear an idea with which we disagree.
Liberals think they are tolerant, but often they aren’t.
The left is so intolerant of other ideologies that it is only a matter of time before their refusal to accept differences among cultures, races and creeds fractures their entire chaotic movement.
Social media giant Facebook - whose "Fake News" thought police include the degenerates over at Snopes, and which has banned conservative accounts such as iBankCoin from accessing the platform - is apparently really cool with child pornography and beheading videos.
According to UK publication The Times, Facebook could face criminal prosecution for refusing to remove dozens of images and videos depicting child porn, pedophilic cartoons, child rape, an ISIS beheading video, and propaganda posters glorifying terrorist attacks in London and Egypt.
Instead of removing the content, moderators said that the posts did not breach the site’s “community standards”.
Facebook’s algorithms even promoted some of the offensive material by suggesting that users join groups and profiles that had published it.
A leading QC who reviewed the content said that, in his view, much of it was illegal under British law. Facebook was at risk of committing a criminal offence because it had been made aware of the illegal images and had failed to take them down, he said.
This isn"t the first time Facebook has defended pedos...
In March, the BBC - which busted a Facebook pedo ring in 2016 (resulting in a 4 year prison sentence) - reported dozens of examples of child pornography. Facebook"s response? They removed around 20% of the images, then reported the BBC journalists to the police - and canceled plans for an interview!
Using Facebook’s own moderation tools, the BBC’s recent investigation attempted to report 100 images that appeared to violate Facebook’s terms of service for sexualized images of children. The BBC found that just 18 of the 100 were eventually taken down on Facebook. -Gizmodo
What in the hell is going on?
In November, we reported how Twitter banned a user for exposing thousands of child porn accounts, while allowing the offensive content to remain on the platform.
Meanwhile the New York Times and Salon have tried to "normalize" pedophilia by running an article in defense of pedos. Salon went on to scrub the article from their website the day before a hit-piece on Milo Yiannopoulos, however the NYT continues to run it. I wonder why?
So we have social media giants Twitter and Facebook allowing pedophilic and pro-terrorism content on their platforms, while MSM outlets such as the New York Times and Salon defend it. And it"s not just those outlets... Think about it - how much attention has the record number of human trafficking busts since the inauguration received from the MSM? Meanwhile, conservative voices with divergent opinions are being throttled, banned, "un-followed," or otherwise limited from reaching audiences.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) staged a nationwide training event Saturday to make sure people are aware of their rights as protesters and urge organized, public resistance by those opposed to policies of President Donald Trump.
A month ago Kellyanne Conway pointed out the media"s role in "emboldening" violent protesters (in this case at Berkeley).
“What’s going on out there is what’s going on all across the country,” Conway, a key aide to President Trump, said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” Thursday.
“You have protesters who feel very emboldened,” added Conway, who served as Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign manager. "They’ve got media cameras following them, they give interviews.”
“I don’t even know if they know what they’re protesting. Really, what is it, the free speech? Having someone on your campus who has a dissenting point of view or wants to present an alternative point of view?”
Conway said students lashing out at Yiannopoulos, who is a popular figure with the alt-right, are in for a rude awakening upon graduation.
“In the real world, when these kids grow up and try to find jobs – which they will in the Trump economy – [they’ll see] life doesn’t work that way, folks.”
Which was followed last week by the violent clashes between pro-and anti-Trump protesters (in Berkeley)...
And so, as tensions roil between the left and the right, the gay and the straight, the "everyone else" and the white, the legal and the illegal immigrants, and the taxpayers and the freeloaders; it appears the ACLU has decided the already-divided nation needs help... in becoming more divided(as AP reports):
Organizers said the event at a sports arena on the University of Miami campus was livestreamed to locations in all 50 states. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said 200,000 people had signed up to attend one of an estimated 2,000 local events.
The event, staged in town hall style, was aimed at capitalizing on numerous demonstrations since Trump"s election in November and to make sure people know their rights to protest, Romero said. He said priority issues are immigration, the First Amendment free speech and religious freedom rights, civil and reproductive rights and rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people.
"We will bring all the lawsuits necessary to defend these rights," Romero said. "We"ll do the work in the courts. You do the work in the streets. People are motivated. They want to be engaged."
The ACLU also launched a new grassroots online organizing platform called PeoplePower.org. It"s billed as a way for people considering a local protest or rally to connect and coordinate with others around the country with similar intentions, and to provide details of ACLU initiatives.
Another plan is creation of "freedom cities" around the country that would encourage local officials to pass laws resisting Trump policies such as stepped-up deportations of people living in the country illegally, said Faiz Shakir, ACLU national political director.
Other parts of Saturday"s event detailed the rules for demonstrations on streets, sidewalks and in public parks, and the rights people have when arrested such as the right to remain silent. ACLU attorney Lee Rowland said large demonstrations generally require a local permit, but government can"t typically shut down protesters in public places without good reason.
"The government can"t censor you just because it disagrees with your opinion," Rowland said.
Also speaking at the event was Padma Lakshmi, an Indian-born cookbook author, actress, model and television host. She said she emigrated to the U.S. at age four and said the nation appears to be retreating from its welcoming ways.
"Lately I"ve started to feel like an outsider," she said. "What makes America great is our culture of inclusion. We must not tolerate the intolerance."
With half the nation being pumped on the belief (by various entities) that their protests will unseat a president that they have been told - day in and day out - is as bad as hitler, is a racist, sexist, mysoginist, pussy grabber - we suspect this will only end badly. As Chindit13 previously concluded, the "other side" has been waiting...
The Deplorables have already considered what is coming. They are as prepared as they can be. Years of decline have enabled many to build their survival skills, to make due with less, to build real communities where one man can trust another, to discover what is truly important and what can and should be salvaged from this society.
Outside of that demographic, however, people are stark naked. They are vulnerable in ways they simply cannot imagine. They are unprepared and unskilled for what will matter most. They are cannon fodder living on borrowed time.
History is full of examples of this sort of collapse. We humans have always rolled along a sine wave of progress and decline, of civility and social unrest. We think we have outgrown the sort of mayhem with which the history books are full, but that thought stems from recency bias. Most of history---the vast majority---is not peaceful.
Societies are not, on average, stable and safe. Thomas Hobbes knew that quite well, as evidenced in his most famous quote. Humanity is likely on the verge of returning to the mean, and the mean is exactly that: mean. In case some have forgotten their Hobbes: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
Angry unemployed children, AKA Antifa, held another Trump protest today in Berkeley, CA. It"s Trump"s fault of course that they took out 6 figure student loans and haven"t been approached by numerous employers to put those English majors to work.
Unlike the UC Berkeley riots which shut down a Milo Yiannopoulos speech, several Trump supporters showed up today to counter-protest the Antifa idiots - resulting in civil discourse.
Just kidding, an elderly Trump supporter and a homeless advocate were attacked:
Liberals finally find a ‘pervert’ they don’t like! Libertarian icon Milo Yiannopoulous quits BREITBART over controversial podcast comments — but WHY did Milo quit, and HOW did he rise so quickly in the public eye?
After arriving in the USA from England, Milo Yiannopoulous became an overnight sensation among gay and libertarian youth on the college speaking circuit. After Berkeley riots covered by Fakestream Media and an epic appearance on Bill Maher, Milo became a household name as a so-called ‘Conservative’ leader.
Such prominence for a ‘conservative’ gay triggered a red alert at Soros headquarters. A few days after Milo appeared on Bill Maher, the Soros Uniparty attacked, savaging Yiannopoulous as a pervert who made controversial remarks on a podcast a year prior. The Uniparty isn’t bothered by rampant DC perversion or spirit cooking parties — but nothing panics the Deep State like a renegade homosexual promoting free speech.
CPAC canceled Milo’s keynote speech, then Milo quit Breitbart.
But the question remains: Is ‘Milo’ the real thing (as advertised), or is he another Uniparty puppet promoted by the Deep State to stampede young libertarian voters in the preferred direction?
Remember that one? It was about as weird as it gets. A meme generated out of the voluminous hacked John Podesta emails that some conspiracy connoisseurs cooked up into a tale of satanic child abuse revolving around a certain chi-chi Washington DC pizza joint. I never signed on with the story, but it was an interesting indication of how far the boundaries of mass psychology could be pushed in the mind wars of politics.
Sex, of course, is fraught. Sex and the feelings it conjures beat a path straight to the limbic system where the most primitive thoughts become the father of the most primitive deeds. In our American world, this realm of thought and deed has turned into a political football with the Left and the Right scrimmaging ferociously for field position — while the real political agenda of everything important other than sex lies outside the stadium.
The Comet Pizza story was understandably upsetting to Democrats who didn’t like being painted as child molesters. Unfortunately for them, it coincided with the bust of one Anthony Weiner — and his infamous laptop — disgraced former “sexting” congressman, husband of Hillary’s top aide and BFF, Huma Abedin. The laptop allegedly contained a lot of child porn.
That garbage barge of sexual allegation and innuendo couldn’t have helped the Hillary campaign, along with all the Clinton Foundation stuff, in the march to electoral loserdom. I suspect the chthonic darkness of it all generated the “Russia-did-it” hysteria that cluttered up the news-cloud during the first month of Trumptopia. The collective superego of America is reeling with shame and rage.
On the Right side spectrum stood the curious figure of Milo Yiannopoulos, the self-styled “Dangerous Faggot,” who has made a sensational career lately as an ideological provocateur, especially on the campus scene were he got so into the indignant faces of the Maoist snowflakes with his special brand of boundary-pushing that they resorted to disrupting his events, dis-inviting him at the last moment, or finally rioting, as in the case at UC Berkeley a few weeks ago.
Milo’s battles on campus were particularly ripe because his opponents on the far Left were themselves so adamant about their own brand of boundary-pushing along the frontier of the LGBTQ agenda. The last couple of years, you would’ve thought that half the student population fell into one of those “non-binary” sex categories, and it became the most urgent mission of the Left to secure bathroom rights and enforce new personal pronouns of address for the sexually ambiguous.
But then Milo made a tactical error. Despite all the mutual boundary-pushing on each side, he pushed a boundary too far and entered the final dark circle of taboo: child molesting. That was the point were the closet Puritan hysterics went in for the kill. This is what he said on a Web talk radio show:
What normally happens in schools, very often, is you have an older woman with a younger boy, and the boy is the predator in that situation. The boy is like, let’s see if I can fuck the gym teacher, or let’s see if I can fuck the hot math teacher, and he does. The women fall in love with these nubile young boys, these athletic young boys in their prime. We get hung up on the child abuse stuff to the point where we’re heavily policing consenting adults, grad students and their professors, this arbitrary and oppressive idea of consent, which totally destroys the understanding many of us have about the complexities, subtleties, and complicated nature of many relationships. In the homosexual world particularly, some of the relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming-of-age relationships in which these older men help those young boys discover who they are, and give them security and provide them with love…. [Milo is shouted down by his podcast hosts]
So that was the final straw. Milo got bounced by his platform, Breitbart News, and went through the now-routine, mandatory, abject ceremonial of the televised apology required by over-stepping celebrities — though he claimed, with some justification I think, that his remarks were misconstrued. Anyway, I’m sure he’ll rebound on his own signature website platform and he’ll be back in action before long.
His remarks about the “coming-of-age” phase of life prompted me to wonder about the boundary-pushers on the Left, on the college campuses in particular, who are encouraging young people to go through drastic sex-change surgeries, at an age before the development of that portion of their frontal lobes controlling judgment is complete. Who are these diversity deans and LGBTQ counselors who lead confused adolescents to self-mutilation in search of some hypothesized “identity?” Whoever they are, this dynamic seems pretty reckless and probably tragic to me. There ought to be reasonable doubt that an irreversible “sexual reassignment” surgery may not lead to personal happiness some years down the line — when, for instance, that person’s frontal lobes have developed, and they begin to experience profound and complicated emotions such as remorse.
Our sexual hysteria has many more curious angles to it. We live in a culture where pornography, up to the last limits of freakishness and depravity, are available to young unformed personalities at a click. We stopped protecting adolescents against this years ago, so why should we be surprised when they venture into ever-darker frontiers of sexuality? It was the Left that sought to abolish boundaries in sex and many other areas of American life. And yet they still affect to be shocked by someone like Milo.
I maintain that there is a dynamic relationship between our inability to act on the truly pressing issues of the day — energy, economy, and geo-politics — and our neurotic preoccupation with sexual identity.
The epic amount of collective psychic energy being diverted from what’s important into sexual fantasy, titillation, confusion, and litigation leaves us pathetically unprepared to face the much more serious crisis of civilization gathering before us.
In case you’ve been under a rock for the last 96 hours, Milo Yiannopoulos, the right’s darling gay activist and troll extraordinaire has been in a full on downward spiral after making controversial comments about young boys having sexual relations with older men. Starting last week with his Bill Maher appearance, the conservative Trump fanatic paved the way for what happened in the last four days.
Here is the uncut 5 minute video of Milo Yiannopoulos advocating for Pederasty involving "13 Year old" and "older men." HIS WORDS.@Mschlapppic.twitter.com/mAgmfpuyvu
Interestingly enough, George Takei made a similar blunder in which he spoke gleefully of child molestation and the world didn’t seem to care.
After Milo made the highly controversial comments, the CPAC canceled his speech, his publisher dropped him, the world began calling him a pedophile, and he ‘resigned’ from his position at Breitbart.com.
Now, four days later, the internet is still abuzz with this story. Meanwhile, everyone is missing the entire point — who gives a shit about Milo Yiannopoulos?
If you don’t like Milo, don’t listen to Milo. If you do like Milo, listen to Milo. It is that easy. The fact that the internet is up in arms and people are lighting things on fire over what a gay British man says or does is ridiculous.
Milo has ZERO control over your life.
However, while everyone remained transfixed on the rantings of one highly irrelevant Milo Yiannopoulos, real issues that can actually affect our lives slipped quietly under the radar.
If half as many people who obsess over celebrity fluff cared about real shit, we"d have fucking jetpacks by now. pic.twitter.com/gkpyLrxVhp
Sadly, celebrity fluff and divisive non-issues are used to cloud the minds of Americans and keep them so distracted that they fail to see the fact that they are being robbed blind by a corrupt and deadly government.
Below is a list of five important matters that the media ignored while shoving useless blather down our collective throats.
1. Pablo Escobar’s Son Reveals His Dad “Worked for the CIA Selling Cocaine”
Conveniently absent from the mainstream media headlines this week is a bombshell admission from Juan Pablo Escobar Henao, son of notorious Medellín cartel drug kingpin, Pablo Escobar, who now says his dad worked for the CIA.
In a new book, “Pablo Escobar In Fraganti,” Escobar, who lives under the pseudonym, Juan Sebastián Marroquín,explainshis“father worked for the CIA selling cocaine to finance the fight against Communism in Central America.”
“The drug business is very different than what we dreamed,”he continues.“What the CIA was doing was buying the controls to get the drug into their country and getting a wonderful deal.”
“He did not make the money alone,”Marroquínelaboratedin an interview,“but with US agencies that allowed him access to this money. He had direct relations with the CIA.”
READ MORE:3 Men In Ski Masks Open Fire On LAPD Days After Police Kill Unarmed Homeless Man
The Free Thought Project broke this story in English speaking media.
2. Fukushima Radiation Soars to Record Level
Radiation levels inside Fukushima Number 2 have reachedastronomical levels— experts describe the 530 sieverts per hour as“unimaginable”— yet the political establishment and its corporate media mouthpiece insist ondeemingthose concerned about the catastrophe ‘conspiracy theorists.’
Officials at the nuclear plant had been preparing to dismantle the paralyzed facility when they found levels of radioactivity inside the reactor’s containment vessel — where fuel rods originally generated power — to be more than seven times a previous high of 73 sieverts per hour, recorded by Tepco shortly after the fateful day.
Alarmingly, officials can’t pinpoint a reason for the colossal spike — they don’t know if previous readings were incorrect, inadequate, or if something altogether unforeseen is taking place inside the eviscerated reactor.
Highly-specialized, camera-equipped, remote control vehicles have explored the interior of reactors to determine what physically happened to the fuel, but — despite the ability to withstand conditions humans can’t — radioactivity has been so intense, itkillsthe robots.
3. Former British PM is Ousted by Police Chief as Child Rapist While UK Bans Naming Streets After Politicians Because they Keep Getting Exposed as Pedophiles
Pedophilia in Britain has apparently become so rampant among the elite, that the government has issued official guidance to city councils to stop paying homage to local heroes with plaques, footpaths, and municipal buildings in case the individual is one day exposed as a child molester.
According to the official guidance, handed down from Geoplace, the local government quango that oversees the official database of addresses used by councils and emergency services, street and landmarks should no longer be named after individuals because they could later be linked to “inappropriate activities.”
“It avoids the possible occurrence of future information coming to light that may then taint that specific road name based on an individual and give rise to costly street rename procedures,” Geoplace said.
READ MORE:Teen Girl Faces "Sexual Exploitation" Charges After Police "Caught" Her Sending Non-Nude Photos
Giving just cause to their ban on naming was the case of Sir Edward Heath, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who’s reportedly been accused by the police chief as being a pedophile. His vile crimes against children were allegedly ‘covered up by the establishment.’
More than 30 people have now come forward with claims of sexual abuse by the former leader of the Conservative Party and PM. Police investigators told the Daily Mail that the victims all gave ‘strikingly similar’ accounts of the sexual abuse and none of the individuals were known to each other.
For decades, some of Britain’s most powerful politicians were exposed for murder and child rape. However, all of these allegations were swept under the rug and remained unchecked thanks to a concerted effort by the power elite to cover it up. Promoting irrelevant issues like Milo Yiannopolous helps in this coverup.
4. US Admits Using Radioactive Weapons in Syria that Left Thousands of Iraqi Babies Deformed
One of the least talked about war crimes committed by the United States is the use of depleted uranium — a highly controversial radioactive waste that’s been dumped into Iraq by the ton. In spite of multiple international watchdog groups and health organizations pointing out the dangers of using DU, and in spite of the Pentagon claiming they wouldn’t use it, the United States just admitted to using it in Syria.
Not only does DU pose a significant risk to those who live in the areas where the US has dumped it but it is also linked to tens of thousands of potential cancer cases among American troops.
However, those numbers are only estimated because immediately after the US began dumping tons of it in Iraq, the Veteran’s Administration began blocking medical journals from accessing cancer stats in its registry.
In spite of horrific cases of cancer among us troops — who were proven to test positive for DU in their urine AFTER coming back stateside — the DoD continues to claim it is safe.
In spite of this coverup in the West, Iraqi doctors and multiple peer-reviewed studies have documented a dramatic increase in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the aftermath of US military bombardment. In Fallujah, doctors are witnessing a “massive unprecedented number” of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects.
READ MORE:Cop Beat Wife While She"s Driving, They Crash, He Kept Beating Her Until a Citizen Stopped Him
Analysis of pre-2003 data compared to now showed that “the rate of congenital heart defects was 95 per 1,000 births – 13 times the rate found in Europe.”
And now, the people of Syria will begin their horrifying journey down the deadly path to the same fate as Iraq.
5. Newly Released WikiLeaks Documents Expose Role of CIA Espionage in FRENCH Elections
In a devastating blow to the US propaganda machine, who’s been hellbent on pointing the finger at other countries for interfering in elections, (ahem Russia), WikiLeaks released CIA documents detailing espionage orders to infiltrate all major political parties in France — a strong US ally.
The document, drafted in 2011 was classified SECRET//NOFORN, meaning no foreign eyes can view it — for obvious reasons. It details how analysts in CIA’s Office of Russian and European Analysis (OREA) closely watched the Oct 9th and Oct 16th Socialist primaries and will be closely monitoring the April 22nd and May 6th 2012 Presidential elections.
According to the WikiLeaks press release:
All major French political parties were targeted for infiltration by the CIA’s human (“HUMINT”) and electronic (“SIGINT”) spies in the seven months leading up to France’s 2012 presidential election. The revelations are contained within three CIA tasking orders published today by WikiLeaks as context for its forth coming CIA Vault 7 series. Named specifically as targets are the French Socialist Party (PS), the National Front (FN) and Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) together with current President Francois Hollande, then President Nicolas Sarkozy, current round one presidential front runner Marine Le Pen, and former presidential candidates Martine Aubry and Dominique Strauss-Khan.
And there you have it. If people cared half as much about what Milo Yiannopolous’ rantings as they do about real issues that actually affect their lives and the lives of countless others — much of this corruption and suffering would be a thing of the past.
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter and now on Steemit
Publishing giant Simon & Schuster has canceled the publication of "Dangerous" by Milo Yiannopoulos. Publishers Weekly tweeted Monday that the company was canceling the book"s publication "after careful consideration."
Simon & Schuster is canceling the publication of "Dangerous" by Milo Yiannopoulos "After careful consideration." Full story coming soon.
Shortly after the tweet, Yiannopoulos confirmed in a Facebook post that "They canceled my book." Simon & Schuster inked the book deal with Yiannopoulos - which spurred controversy as writers threatened to boycott the company - at the end of December.
The decision to cancel the book came amid controversy over a video in which Yiannopoulos was said to defend pedophilia, although the outspoken commentator has denied that to be case. The video clip gained traction on social media after a conservative blog shared it Sunday. In the video, Yiannopoulos said relationships between older men and young boys can be beneficial.
In a Facebook post Monday, Yiannopoulos denounced the claims that he was advocating for pedophilia. "I am a gay man, and a child abuse victim,” Yiannopoulos wrote.
"I would like to restate my utter disgust at adults who sexually abuse minors. I am horrified by pedophilia and I have devoted large portions of my career as a journalist to exposing child abusers. I"ve outed three of them, in fact -- three more than most of my critics. And I"ve repeatedly expressed disgust at pedophilia in my feature and opinion writing. My professional record is very clear.”
"But I do understand that these videos, even though some of them are edited deceptively, paint a different picture.”
It was the second Facebook post from Yiannopoulos after the tapes resurfaced.
"I"m partly to blame. My own experiences as a victim led me to believe I could say anything I wanted to on this subject, no matter how outrageous,” he continued in the Monday post. "But I understand that my usual blend of British sarcasm, provocation and gallows humor might have come across as flippancy, a lack of care for other victims or, worse, "advocacy." I deeply regret that."
The excuse however failed to stem public blowback: earlier in the day, the Conservative Political Action Conference rescinded its invitation Monday for Yiannopoulos to speak at its event. ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp said Yiannopoulos" attempts to address the tapes have fallen short, calling the remarks "disturbing." "We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook, but it is insufficient," Schlapp said in a statement. "It is up to him to answer the tough questions and we urge him to immediately further address these disturbing comments."
Meanwhile, according The Hill, the blowback against Milo"s statements has even threatened his job at Breibart where employees are reportedly prepared to leave the company if controversial senior editor Milo Yiannopoulos is not fired.
Another senior editor at the publication told Washingtonian Monday that "at least a half dozen" employees are prepared to leave to organization because of remarks Yiannopoulos made about pedophilia that gained attention this weekend.
“The fact of the matter is that there’s been so many things that have been objectionable about Milo over the last couple of years, quite frankly. This is something far more sinister,” the senior editor said. “If the company isn’t willing to act, there are at least half a dozen people who are willing to walk out over it.”
Trump did not cause the deep division in the country. It caused him. There are two very different Americas. I suspect that the half of the country that voted for Trump, that voted with wild enthusiasm, that roared at huge rallies, was not so much voting for Trump as against the other America. It was just that they had never had a chance before. The two countries have little in common and do not belong on the same geography.
Whether Trump proves to be the catastrophic buffoon he apparently aspires to be, the current protests illuminate a stark difference between his supporters and Hillary’s. The chasm is far deeper than just politics, embracing culture, taste, manners and morals. The groups are distinct and incompatible .
The difference begins with manners. Throughout the campaign Trump’s partisans forgathered in huge rallies, applauded, calmly went home, and later voted. At the same time we saw on Clinton’s behalf mobs of ill-bred, worse mannered, loutish, perennial adolescents blocking highways, shutting down rallies, engaging in vandalism and physically attacking supporters of Trump. Cars were destroyed, fires set, ATMs smashed. Black Lives Matter, always ghetto predators, were worst, but low-grade college students and their equally dismal professors joined in. They were obscene, infantile.
And naive: They apparently believe that they harm Trump though of course their behavior drives people in the other direction. I am no fan of Donald , but I look the foregoing and think Anything else.
The desire to shock of the eternally pubescent. Smirk, smirk, look at me, smirk, smirk.
We saw Ashley Judd, apparently an actress, addressing the “Women’s March.”
“I am not as nasty as racism, fraud, conflict of interest, homophobia, sexual assault, transphobia, white supremacy, misogyny, ignorance, white privilege. I’m not as nasty as using little girls like Pokemon before their bodies have even developed. I am not as nasty as your own daughter being your favorite sex symbol, like your wet dreams infused with your own genes.”
The astonishing thing is not that some foul-mouthed twit came up with such cloacal gush, but that the “Women’s March” sponsored her, did not eject or even censure her.
Can you imagine any of Trump’s middle-American supporters accusing Obama of lusting for incest with his daughters? The two camps are different peoples. Half of the country seems culturally dominated from the ghetto. The other half embodies standards of behavior that have usually been thought congruent with civil society. While Trump himself is crass, making menstrual jibes on the air at Megyn Kelly for example, his supporters are not.
Any number of arguments can be adduced against Trump but so much of the outpouring of hostility, even from the intelligent, lacks thought. Thisaphobe, thataphobe, Nazi, misogynist. Putin’s Bitch. Most seem not to know what the words mean, or care.
Wild thought: We may be seeing Darwinian regression. The intellectual nanoparticles waving placards, the sobbing talking headesses may represent the return of the procaryote IQ. They give us a living paleontological record of what life looked like before it evolved. Think “Cambrian Implosion.” I imagine Rachel Maddow with twelve body segments and compound eyes.
Different peoples. I would like to see a comparative poll: How many women who voted for Trump would allow themselves to be associated with Ms. Judd’s remarks? None, I suspect. How many women voting for Trump would parade around in “pussy hats”? How many fathers voting for Trump would allow their daughters, have raised their daughters, to behave as the “Women’s Marchers”? Their children to copy Black Lives Matter?
Different civilizations. Virtually no overlap.
The media are decidedly of the Clinton America. In Washington at least some journalists donned pussy hats and jointed the demonstrators. Trashy behavior has seeped into many in the professional classes. Trump recently sued a journalist and the London Daily Mail for describing Melania as “a high-end escort”–i.e., a take-out call girl, a prostitute. Can you imagine a conservative paper–say, the Washington Times, The American Conservative, National Review–describing Michelle Obama as a whore? Or Trump’s fans wearing scrotal hats?
There is a brattyness in the apparent belief of the Clinton Americans that they are entitled to the electoral result of their choice. When they don’t get it,they act like spoiled two-year-olds. Poor widdle fings! It is embarrassing. If Hillary had won, would disappointed Trumpists be squalling and posing in genital headgear or looting and burning? Whatever the merits of the politics of either side, the two have little in common culturally.
The divide is far deeper and more general than the heat of the election. The sprawling class from which the protesters come, not just in Washington or just recently, opposes the bedrock of our approximation of democracy. It is not an economic divide. On American campuses almost everywhere “students,” most of whom do not have the intelligence for college, use the tactics of Brown Shirts to shut down speeches by anyone who does not agree with them. They have no conception of reasoned debate, toleration of disagreement, or respect for law. Rather than promote assimilation to the American norm, or what was the American norm, the only hope to keep the country from devolving into warring tribes, they promote identity politics. They do not, for example, disavow the depredations of Black Lives Matter. Any behavior is acceptable, even admirable, if engaged in by their side.
Decorum and its lack are recurrent themes. I have no hard evidence, but suspect that the Other America believes that men should behave as gentlemen and women, ladies; that sex should be a private matter and in particular that children should not be too early exposed to it. Clinton’s America leans more to the view that sexual language is authentic and natural. Hemorrhagic tuberculosis is natural, but perhaps not to be encouraged. And so from a mainstream performer, Beyonce, the lyrics
“Can you lick my Skittles, it’s the sweetest in the middle/ Pink is the flavor, solve the riddle”
Painfully cute. Can you imagine Billie Holiday singing this? Ella Fitzgerald? From rappers there is far more explicit, scatological, and sadomasochistic “music.” Whether you think this is people’s art, the authentic expression of an oppressed race, or something that should be scrawled on the wall of a public toilet, tracks with who you voted for. Again, two countries.
“Berkeley Protests of Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos Caused $100,000 in Damage”
“Protests that erupted at UC Berkeley ahead of a planned Wednesday appearance by right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos caused $100,000 worth of damage to the campus, the school said Thursday.”
These vandals are the storm troopers of the Clinton America. I cannot imagine the Other America behaving thusly because of the scheduling of any speaker whatever.
For whatever reason, those who regard themselves as liberals are far more given to demonstrating and rioting than conservatives, and far more vulgar. I say “regard themselves as liberals.” Their behavior is opposite to classical liberalism. Vulgarity is not liberalism. Neither is arson. Neither is suppression of free speech. All of these are now the norm on campuses, in the media, among both students and professors. And among the protesters.
Another country.
Protests as such give little to deplore. Demonstrations are both legal and constitutionally protected if well behaved, and the women in Washington were. It is the values they represent that marks them as another country. The self-satisfaction appalls, the belief that they represent the universe. Coming together in vast shared tantrums, endlessly reaffirming each other on Facebook, may give them an exaggerated impression of their numbers. Thus the frequent use of the phrase “we the people.” Actually they are “we, quite a large number of the people.” As I write Trump’s approval stands at 52%. My guess is that the man’s unending truculence will lower his numbers, but it hasn’t yet. And a complete failure of his presidency will not change the fact that half of the country is thoroughly sick of the other half.
This past week Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative writer for Breitbart news, was supposed to be a guest speaker at UC Berkeley, however Berkeley’s campus police had to halt the event when over 150 “protestors” (aka domestic terrorists), began violently rioting, assaulting people, causing property damage, and setting large fires, and all because they did not agree with Milo politically.
In the wake of that fiasco, Berkeley’s Robert Reich had the nerve to go on CNN and claim the organizers of the riot were most likely Milo Yiannopoulos and Breitbart News, and that the violence was orchestrated as part of a big publicity stunt to help Donald Trump strip the University (COUGH) of federal funds. WHAT?!?!? For Reich to say such a thing, just shows what an utterly shameless and despicable human being (COUGH) he is. For those who don’t know, Reich is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economics, and he also served as Secretary of Labor during the Clinton administration (shock right?).
Sadly, Robert Reich is not the only member of Berkeley’s faculty with a very warped sense of reality. In the last few days it has also come to light that Dabney Miller, another Berkeley faculty member, beat a student showing support for Donald Trump to a pulp, took pictures of the bloodied student while he was curled up in a fetal position on the sidewalk, and then posted the pictures to his Twitter account. And these lunatics wonder why President Trump is talking about taking away federal funds? Seriously?
The following video summarizes who was really behind the riots, and it shouldn’t come as a shock to learn that the group responsible, The Global Alliance for Justice, gets a large percentage of its financing from George Soros by way of his non-profit organization known as The Tides Foundation. Go figure right? Who would have thought George Soros was involved? Don’t expect to hear a word of this from the mainstream media…
The left-wing group that helped organize the violent shut down of the Milo Yiannopoulos event at the University of California, Berkeley on Wednesday is backed by a progressive charity that is in turn funded by George Soros, the city of Tucson, a major labor union and several large companies.
The Global Alliance for Justice, based in Tucson, is listed as an organizer and fiscal sponsor for Refuse Fascism, a communist group that encouraged left-wingers to shut down the Yiannopoulos event.
…While it is unclear whether those who carried out the violence were paid to do so, the benefactors of the Alliance for Global Justice — and Refuse Fascism — are listed online.
According to its most recent 990 tax form, Alliance for Global Justice (AfGJ) received $2.2 million in funding for the fiscal year ending in March 2016.
One of the group’s biggest donors is the Tides Foundation, a non-profit funded by billionaire progressive philanthropist George Soros. Tides gave AfGJ $50,000.
Other notable donors include the city of Tucson and the United Steel Workers labor union. The former gave $10,000 to AfGJ while the latter contributed $5,000.
Charities associated with several major corporations also donated. Patagonia.org, the outdoor apparel and equipment company, gave $40,000. The Ben & Jerry Foundation, the charity associated with the ice cream maker, gave $20,000. And Lush Cosmetic gave $43,950.
Another bit of irony is seen in the $5,000 contribution from the Peace Development Fund, a group that claims to support organizations that fight for human rights and social justice.
Another major donation came from a group that was chaired by Hillary Clinton during the 1980s. The New World Foundation gave $52,000 to AfGJ.
I was assuming this was a grassroots group funded by small donations averaging under $20.
As you may know, on Wednesday night, February 1, Berkeley gave Yiannopoulos a major forum to spout his racist and misogynistic vitriol. But police had to cancel the talk because about 150 masked agitators threw Molotov cocktails, smashed windows where Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak and threw rocks and fireworks at the police – delivering made-for-TV images of a riot.
According to a promotional Breitbart story that ran before the event, Yiannopoulos was going to “ call for the withdrawal of federal grants and the prosecution of university officials who endanger their students with their policies.”
Which is exactly what Trump did via tweet early the next morning:: “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view — NO FEDERAL FUNDS?”
Thursday night, Yiannopoulos had a friendly interview on Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” – a show that, according to the Washington Post, has ridden anger at left-wing activism into best-in-class prime time ratings.
Yiannopoulos wasn’t asked about the content of the speech that was shut down. The conversation focused instead on how Berkeley proved the point that the Left was ceding its right to federal grants by cracking down on free speech.
Protesters on February 1, 2017 in Berkeley, California. Robert Reich asks, were Milo Yiannopoulos and Brietbart News in cahoots with the agitators, in order to lay the groundwork for a Trump crackdown on universities and their federal funding? Elijah Nouvelage/Getty
Which raises the possibility that Yiannopoulos and Brietbart were in cahoots with the agitators, in order to lay the groundwork for a Trump crackdown on universities and their federal funding.
(1) Yinnopoulos writes for Breitbart News, which Steve Bannon – Trump’s strategy director – ran before joining Trump.
(2) Before Yiannopoulos speaks at Berkeley, Breitbart publishes an article saying that Yiannopoulos will call for the withdrawal of federal grants and the prosecution of university officials who endanger their students with their policies.
(3) Berkeley opens its doors to Yiannopoulos, but campus police have to cancel the event because of masked agitators.
(4) Hours later, Trump issues a misleading tweet, accusing the university of not allowing free speech and promoting violence against innocent people with different views and threatening to withhold federal funds.
(5) The next night, Yiannopoulos on Fox News says the incident proves that universities like Berkeley don’t deserve federal grants by cracking down on free speech.
(6) That same night, on CNN, I raise the possibility that Yiannopoulos and Breitbart could have been collaborating with the agitators – saying “I wouldn’t bet against it.” This generates a belligerent column in Breitbart with a misleading headline calling me a liar for claiming that Breitbart News organized the riots.
I don’t want to add to the conspiratorial musings of so many about this very conspiratorial administration, but it strikes me there may be something worrying going on here.
I wouldn’t bet against it.
Robert Reichis the chancellor’s professor of public policy at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, and Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective Cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. He has written 14 books, including the best-sellersAftershock,The Work of NationsandBeyond Outrageand, most recently,Saving Capitalism. He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and co-creator of the award-winning documentary Inequality for All.
THE VOICE OF REASON is the pen name of Michael DePinto, a graduate of Capital University Law School, and an attorney in Florida. Having worked in the World Trade Center, along with other family and friends, Michael was baptized by fire into the world of politics on September 11, 2001. Michael’s political journey began with tuning in religiously to whatever the talking heads on television had to say, then Michael became a “Tea-Bagging” activist as his liberal friends on the Left would say, volunteering within the Jacksonville local Tea Party, and most recently Michael was sworn in as an attorney. Today, Michael is a major contributor to www.BeforeItsNews.com, he owns and operates www.thelastgreatstand.com, where Michael provides what is often very ‘colorful’ political commentary, ripe with sarcasm, no doubt the result of Michael’s frustration as he feels we are witnessing the end of the American Empire. The topics Michael most often weighs in on are: Martial Law, FEMA Camps, Jade Helm, Economic Issues, Government Corruption, and Government Conspiracy.
