Twitter’s War On Conservatives

In the social media giant’s never-ending effort to purge itself of “fake news” it deleted thousands, if not millions  Aja Smith for Congressof accounts on Tuesday night.

Among our friends who were caught in the Twitter purge were former Secret Service agent, author and Fox News contributor Dan Bongino (@dbongino) and California Republican congressional candidate Aja Smith (@AjaforCongress).

Bongino, host of one of the net’s hottest podcasts, The Dan Bongino Show by CRTV (available on Apple Podcasts), also appears on NRA TV and has been deemed ineligible to buy ads by Twitter based on what Twitter calls “inappropriate content.”

Bongino tweeted out this protest after the social media giant’s faceless judge, jury and executioner algorithm banned him from promoting his content:

I’m respectful of your time & I don’t ask for help that often,but I need your help now. @Twitter is discriminating against conservative voices & banned me,& many others,from posting ads while wiping out 1000s of followers.Please follow & spread the word.

Family oriented country music star Benton Blount (@bentonblount) responded that he too had been hit:

In the mean time on the west coast, Republican candidate for California’s Congressional District 41, Aja Smith (@AjaforCongress) an Air Force veteran who has been doggedly pursuing scandal-plagued Democrat Rep. Mark Takano, was locked out of her Twitter account for being, wait for it, a bot.

That’s right, Twitter’s algorithm identified one of the handful of American veterans running for Congress as a potential Russian bot and locked her account.

As of this writing @AjaforCongress is back online, but there’s no guarantee that as the campaign heats up Twitter won’t drop another bomb on Smith or any other conservative candidate.

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Supreme Court considers free speech vs. retaliatory arrests

Fane Lozman contends he was wrongly prevented from speaking at a city council meeting through an arrest on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting

MIAMI — A Florida man who already won an improbable victory before the U.S. Supreme Court is hoping legal lightning strikes twice in a First Amendment case pitting police powers of arrest against the right to speak freely and protest.

Oral arguments are scheduled Tuesday in Fane Lozman's lawsuit against the City of Riviera Beach, which is just north of West Palm Beach. Lozman contends he was wrongly prevented from speaking at a 2006 city council meeting through an arrest on bogus charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest that were later dropped.

The officer apparently concluded that Lozman was about to create a disturbance, so that was enough probable cause, according to court papers.

"There's nothing to preclude elected officials and police to do this anytime they want when they don't like the content of someone's speech. There's no accountability," Lozman said in an interview. "It intimidates the public and they say it's not worth participating in our democracy."

Numerous First Amendment and media organizations, including The Associated Press, have filed "friend-of-the-court" briefs supporting Lozman's position.

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Must not say that toothy Prime Ministers are attractive



Viewers have slammed 60 Minutes [TV] reporter Charles Wooley after he called Jacinda Ardern 'attractive' in what has been labelled a 'patronising' and 'repugnant' interview.

Speaking to the New Zealand Prime Minister on 60 Minutes on Sunday night, Mr Wooley said 'I've met a lot of Prime Ministers in my time, but none too young and not so many so smart, and never one so attractive'.

After the episode aired, scores of offended viewers flocked to Twitter to share their outrage.

'Commenting on Jacinda Ardern's level of attractiveness doesn't seem to be at all relevant to her ability as a nation's leader,' one woman said.

'Absolutely cringeworthy. The things women have to put up with,' another said.

Viewers also questioned Mr Wooley's general approach to the interview.

'Charles Wooley interviewing Jacinda Ardern on 60 Minutes would have to go down as the most patronising interview for a long time,' one critic said.

'"I've met a lot of Prime Ministers in my time, none as good looking". Imagine a woman reporter saying that about a man.'

Another critic said the tone of the interview left him 'gagging'.

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Must not offer traditional black food on black history month

Two Aramark employees have been fired by the food service after preparing a meal at NYU during Black History Month that was deemed racially "insensitive."

According to CBS News, the two employees were fired as a result of a complaint by a sophomore, who says she confronted the head cook about the "racially insensitive" meal but was "lied to" and ultimately "ignored." The meal, the student claimed in a Facebook post, consisted of barbecue ribs, collard greens, watermelon-flavored water, Kool-Aid, and mac and cheese.

"Sophomore Nia Harris, who is black, said the head cook dismissed her objections and told her black employees planned the menu," reports CBS News. "She posted about the menu and her experience on Facebook, saying she 'was lied to, placated, and ignored.'"

"This is what it's like to be a black student at New York University," Nia wrote in her Facebook post. "You go to a dining hall during February and you see 'Black History Month Meal' plastered outside the entrance. You walk inside the dining hall only to find ribs, collard greens, and mac and cheese.

"In 2018 I literally had to explain why displaying watermelon and koolaid in celebration of Black History Month was not only racially insensitive but just ignorant."

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Australia: Must not mention differences between blacks and whites

Australian Aborigines usually live apart from whites and their living conditions in their communities tend to horrify all others who see it -- but somehow you have got to pretend that they are "equal" in some sense.  It's perfectly fine for good kind people to make that pretence but such people also tend to condemn others who choose just to look at reality.  It seems to me that the real racists are people who base their perceptions of Aborigines on their race rather than on any objective circumstances

After niggling disagreements with campmates including Peter Rowsthorn and Paul Burrell, David Oldfield has had his first full-on I’m A Celeb fight.

The blow-up happens in tonight’s episode, and sees former One Nation politician Oldfield and comedian Fiona O’Loughlin clashing over Indigenous welfare issues.

A question from AFL player Josh Gibson to Oldfield - “What do you actually think about Aboriginal people?” - quickly led to a heated argument between Oldfield and O’Loughlin, who lived in Alice Springs for 27 years and fostered “many” Indigenous children during her time there.

Oldfield had questioned how much Aboriginal people had contributed to modern society, while O’Loughlin explained that her own son works closely with Aboriginal communities and has seen first-hand the effect of ignorant comments and beliefs like Oldfield’s.

“You’re suffering white guilt,” Oldfield told her. “They didn’t invent anything.”

“Oh, you racist pig,” O’Loughlin shot back.

“People talk about reconciliation, which is inappropriate because we have never been together and it’s to bring together two peoples that have not been estranged. What time do Aboriginal and others feel they’re together as one group?” Oldfield asked.

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Must not disrespect Pakistanis

The high court awarded Shakir Ali and Shahida Aslam £10,000 apiece after the Channel 5 reality series "Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away!" showed them being evicted for non-payment of rent. As Mr Justice Arnold noted, Channel 5 made no attempt to look at the rights and wrongs of evicting people from their homes. Its cameras just went in with the bailiffs.

They “recorded videos with abusive, dirty ,disrespectful shouting commentary”, Mrs Aslam complained. Mr Ali appears in a vest and pyjama bottoms. There are shots of their bedroom and their children’s rooms. Inevitably, their children were ridiculed at school after the show was broadcast.

Channel 5 was so keen to revel in the poverty porn it missed the story that Ali was a former official with the British branch of Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and, as such, had once been a figure of some consequence in Asian Britain before his health failed.

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Must not have an opinion about when jail is justified

'At least they put him where he belongs': Primary school teacher could be FIRED for her Facebook comments about a transgender prostitute being sent to a male prison for infecting a client with HIV

A primary school teacher faces disciplinary action for claiming a transgender prostitute was put where she 'belongs' after being sent to a men's prison.

Perth teacher Melanie Kennedy made the comment on a Perth Now Facebook post about Clayton James Palmer, who was jailed last Friday for infecting a client with HIV.

The transgender prostitute - also known as CJ - was sentenced to six years in a men's prison for causing grievous bodily harm.

'At least they put him where he belongs...in a male prison. That is what he is!!!' Ms Kennedy - a primary school teacher at Pickering Brook Primary School - wrote in response to the sentence.

Ms Kennedy's comment received more than 40 'likes' before an outraged reader shot back at the teacher.

Another person took to her employer's Facebook page, claiming Ms Kennedy was spreading 'uneducated bile' and calling for her sacking.

Ms Kennedy's comment was reported to the Department of Education who confirmed she could face disciplinary action, WA Today reported.   

'The matter relating to a primary school teacher had now been referred to the Standards and Integrity directorate for assessment,' the Department of Education said in a statement.

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Seattle Residents Complained About A 'Confederate Flag' flying. Except that it wasn't



Over the weekend the Seattle Times jumped at a news tip: there was a Confederate flag flying beneath the American flag in the city's Greenwood neighborhood, and residents were very concerned.

Only, it turns out, it wasn't the Confederate flag at all. It was the state flag of Norway, and a group of friendly Norwegians were just trying to show their patriotism and support for their Olympic Team when their very concerned neighbors contacted local media.

“Hi. Suddenly there is a Confederate flag flying in front of a house in my Greenwood neighborhood. It is at the north-east corner of 92nd and Palatine, just a block west of 92nd and Greenwood Ave N.," the tipster wrote, according to the Times. "I would love to know what this ‘means’ … but of course don’t want to knock on their door. Maybe others in the area are flying the flag? Maybe it’s a story? Thank you."

Eager to get the scoop, reporters for the Seattle Times hopped into a car and hightailed it to view the offending flag for themselves. Only, it turned out, they weren't in for quite the controversial sighting they'd anticipated.

“That’s a Norwegian flag,” said the Norwegian owner of the flagpole in question. “It’s been up there since the start of the Olympics."

“I’m a proud Norwegian-American. My parents emigrated here in the mid-1950s. He skippered tugboats," the man continued.

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Customer hits out at Taco Bell employee who left racial slur on his receipt

AN ORDINARY, “fun night out” with friends was ruined after a man found a shocking racial slur on his takeaway receipt.

University student In Young Lee visited a Taco Bell chain in Philadelphia in the US last week after spending the evening with a couple of friends.

Mr Lee, who is Asian-American, had an interaction with a cashier that was “very ordinary, and cordial even” — until he spotted his receipt.

It listed his name as “Steve Chink” — a common, offensive slur aimed at people of Asian descent.

Mr Lee confronted the staff member at the time, and later posted a photo of the receipt to Facebook, saying he was “infuriated” by what had happened.

The post attracted an outpouring of outrage, and according to the New York Post, Taco Bell has confirmed the staff member no longer works for the popular Mexican fast food chain.

The company has apologised directly to Mr Lee, and it confirmed the franchisee was retraining staff at the restaurant.

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Must not address women as 'darling'

South Australian Liberal MP Tim Whetstone has come under fire after calling another election candidate 'darling' during a public meeting.

At a forum at Renmark in the Riverland yesterday, Mr Whetstone told SA Best candidate Michelle Campbell to "get a brief, darling" after she described regional Port Pirie as being a marginal seat.

It prompted a member of the audience to call out Mr Whetstone's actions as "aggressive and sexist", and he went on to apologise.

But on ABC Riverland today, Ms Campbell said she had received no personal apology, despite his public backdown at the meeting.

"I can understand he is trying to make a point of difference and he is trying to be noticed," Ms Campbell said. "It's always a bit tricky sometimes for men when there are women stepping up and trying to be leaders in the community."

Ms Campbell said she approached the audience member who spoke up at the meeting to thank her.

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Candidate files lawsuit alleging Hamilton County sign ordinance violates political speech

NOBLESVILLE, Ind. — Rick Sharp filed a lawsuit today in Hamilton County Superior Court 4 alleging the county's sign ordinance is violating political free speech.

The county commissioners voted unanimously Feb. 12 to enact a $500 fine for placing signs in the unincorporated areas they control, largely targeting the right of way along roads. Candidate signs that pop up every election are the biggest offenders, though signs advertising open houses and homebuilders are a close second.

Sharp's attorney, Tim Stoesz, filed the lawsuit alleging the ordinance violates the First Amendment. The lawsuit asks Judge William Hughes to set aside the ordinance and award Sharp legal fees.

Sharp thinks the ordinance will disadvantage lesser-known candidates, people who have little name recognition or money for TV spots and mailers.

"I believe this infringes on free political speech, and there is no more precious form of speech in this country than political free speech," said Sharp. "I think it's also a blatant effort by entrenched and established politicians to favor their candidates."

Legal experts say Sharp has an uphill climb based on past Supreme Court case rulings.

Sharp is a former Carmel Council president. He is running in the Republican primary for an open seat on the Hamilton County Council against information technology professional Sheldon Barnes, Carmel Clerk-Treasurer Christine Pauley and Ken Alexander, the former director of Westfield's Grand Park Sports Campus.

Sharp said candidate signs provide name recognition, which he thinks is one of the most important factors in winning elections. He said voters who see his campaign signs may decide to find out more information about him as a candidate.

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Campaign against use of the word 'retard' targets social media

The West Australian Government has helped launch a social media campaign aimed at getting people to stop using the word "retard" to demean people with disabilities.

Disabilities Minister Stephen Dawson said the word appeared on social media every five seconds and was used casually and unthinkingly by people every day.

"The R word is insulting and disrespectful — not just to people with disability but also to their families, friends and carers," he said. "It's never OK to use the R word — not in humour or frustration.

"People should stop and think about whether they would use the word on someone they love before they direct it towards somebody else."

The campaign is being run by not-for-profit disability advocacy group Avivo.

Mr Dawson said Twitter users who used the word would be targeted with a tweet containing one of the campaign's videos, which focus on people with a disability sharing their experiences with the word.

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The Free-Speech University

Steve Bannon is giving a talk at Chicago. Its president is confident he won’t be shouted down.

Snow carpets the ground at the University of Chicago, and footfalls everywhere are soft, giving the place a hushed serenity. Serene, too, is Robert Zimmer, the university’s 70-year-old president, as he talks about a speaking invitation that could turn his campus turbulent.

Steve Bannon is scheduled to talk at the school early next month—there’s no confirmed date—and Mr. Zimmer is taking criticism for the imminent appearance of Donald Trump’s former right-hand man, a paladin of alt-robust conservatives. Mr. Bannon is precisely the sort of figure who is anathema on American campuses, yet Mr. Zimmer is unfazed by the prospect of his visit, confident that it will pass with no great fuss.

“It’s been quite interesting to watch this because, as you can imagine, there are many people who are opposed to Steve Bannon and wish that he hadn’t been invited,” Mr. Zimmer says. Nonetheless, “the students have been remarkable. The student government had a ‘town hall’ with the faculty member who invited Bannon.” The students ran the event, “and they were very clear that there was to be no disruption, that they wanted to have a conversation.”

But at American universities, it isn’t just the students you need to worry about. More than 100 Chicago professors have signed an open letter to Mr. Zimmer objecting to Mr. Bannon’s invitation: “The university should model inclusion for a country that is reeling from the consequences of racism, xenophobia, and hate.” They propose to “model inclusion” by excluding viewpoints they find objectionable: “We believe that Bannon should not be afforded the platform and opportunity to air his hate speech on this campus.”

Mr. Zimmer says most Chicago faculty support free speech, and the letter’s signers are exceptions. “What we see among our faculty is that only a few of those who dislike what they view Bannon as representing have asked that he be disinvited.” Most of their colleagues have instead “talked about counterprogramming, and have talked about protests—nondisruptive protests—which, of course, is totally fine.” He sums up their strategy: “It’s ‘How are we going to effectively argue with this guy?’, not ‘How are we going to prevent him from coming to campus?’ ”

Mr. Bannon was invited to the university by Luigi Zingales, a finance professor. Would Mr. Zimmer ever contemplate having a quiet word with the prof and asking him to withdraw his invitation to Mr. Bannon? “I wouldn’t even think of it,” Mr. Zimmer answers, in a mildly but unmistakably indignant tone. And no, he won’t be attending the Bannon event. “We have many, many talks,” he says. “I’m really pretty busy.”

Mr. Zingales’s attitude is consistent with the norm Mr. Zimmer seeks to uphold. When I asked the professor by email why he extended the invitation, he replied that Mr. Bannon “was able to interpret a broad dissatisfaction in the electorate that most academics had missed. Remember the shock on November 9, 2016? Regardless of what you think about his political positions, there is something faculty and students can learn from a discussion with him.” Mr. Zingales, too, welcomed peaceable protests as a healthy exercise of free speech. “I admire the way our students have conducted their protests,” he wrote. “It speaks very well to the values that our university shares.”

The University of Chicago has long enjoyed a reputation for tough, even remorseless, intellectual inquiry. Its world-famous economics faculty, for instance, is not a place where faint-hearted academics go to road-test their research. In recent years, as colleges across America have censored unfashionable views, Chicago has also come to be known for setting the gold standard for free expression on campus. Mr. Zimmer, who became president in 2006, deserves much credit. He has been outspoken in defense of free speech and in 2014 even set up a committee—under the constitutional law scholar Geoffrey Stone —that produced the Chicago Principles, the clearest statement by any American university in defense of uninhibited debate.

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Australia: Racist black woman

Your race should not restrict what you can say

This is the moment an Aboriginal woman interrupted a cabinet minister on Q&A and told him he had no right to talk about indigenous issues because he's white.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and shadow treasurer Chris Bowen were debating the idea of a constitutional referendum to create an indigenous voice to parliament when actress Shareena Clanton theatrically put her hands in the air.

'Can you stop? I’m really sick of non-indigenous peoples making comments about non-indigenous Australia,' she told the ABC panel show in Sydney on Monday night.

'We want to be the voice because we are tired of non-indigenous Australia thinking that they know what is good for us and thinking that they can be the voice for Aboriginal Australia.

'So they should all learn to keep their mouths shut and start engaging Aboriginal Australia into the conversation.' 

Ms Clanton became agitated when Mr Frydenberg, a Liberal MP, pointed out that Labor's indigenous former national president Warren Mundine had objected to the idea of an indigenous parliament as 'a solution looking for a problem'.

The thespian, who has appeared in Redfern Now and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on the ABC, pointed at Mr Frydenberg when he repeated Mr Mundine's name during her rant.

'Yourself included,' she said to the minister before continuing.

'We have spent 230 years, 230 years of not being included in this constitution.'

The 27-year-old actress argued the Queen, as Australia's head of state, still owned traditional lands, despite native title provisions that had given Aboriginal people control of their soil.

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It’s Not About Free Speech, It’s About Respect: Shaelyn Barber writes from the University of Utah

We see below a typical instance of Leftists talking the talk but not walking the walk.  They want respect for their causes but where is their respect for what conservatives and Christians say?  There is none.  They just do their best to shut up anyone they disagree with.

And what is respectful about describing Ben Shapiro as "Alt-right"?  How about describing him as a conservative Orthodox Jew who graduated "cum laude" from Harvard Law School?  THAT would be respectful

Tensions have been rising between those who argue for political correctness and those who decry it in the name of free speech. Arguments, anger, protests and counter-protests rage on, each side arguing vehemently for their point of view. It has been an issue on our own campus. Back in September, infamous alt-right speaker Ben Shapiro visited the University of Utah for a speech entitled “Trigger Warning.” The speech triggered a massive protest against his ideologies and presence on the campus. As protesters marched across the U grounds, hordes of counter-protesters stood on the sidelines to fight back in favor of free speech, yelling counter-arguments and holding signs that declared their rights.

Free speech is a constitutionally protected right. You are given the right to say whatever you want in our country, even if it is offensive or crude. When people ask you to use politically correct speech, they are not trying to take away your rights. They are asking for your respect. The request for you to try and be more politically correct does not halt free speech in any way because it has no legal backing. If you choose to say things that are hateful or disrespectful, no one can do anything about it. Nothing will happen to you. The government cannot (and will not) do anything. You cannot be arrested for it. You cannot be forced to use politically correct speech.

When people ask you to use a phrase, correct pronoun or proper term, they are asking you to respect them. By choosing not to use this language, you are essentially telling them that you refuse to do that. You are invalidating the hardships they have been through and displaying a lack of empathy for your fellow humans and their emotions.

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Free speech is for everyone

I find the oxymoron of liberals extremely funny. I attended a lecture on free speech at the U of M that was protested by liberals who, while exercising free speech, protested free speech. They don't seem to understand the constitutional amendment that free speech is free speech. It doesn't matter what's said; even if you don't like it, they still have a right to speak it.

Sadly, colleges aren't teaching free speech, nor do professors understand it. I spoke with a young man from the journalism school and asked why his Dean didn't want this speaker on free speech to talk. He answered the Dean didn't think free speech had anything to do with journalism. I'd say this Dean needs to learn the Constitution.

The motto of UM is "Light and Truth," yet they didn't want a speaker to come because they didn't like his politics and religion. I think they need to change their motto now that they don't want speakers who come to bring light and truth about free speech.

Many colleges are trying to shut down free speech with Cultural Speech Codes and micro-aggression. It's a roundabout way to say speech must be comfortable for everyone, which is another way to shut down opposing views. Colleges seem to forget their purpose was to exchange ideas in order to promote thinking on the students part.

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Citizens United loses free speech appeal over New York donor rules

This is a very troubling ruling.  It may inhibit people from donating to conservative organizations.  People have lost their jobs over such donations, notably Brendan Eich

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Thursday threw out a constitutional challenge by the conservative group Citizens United to New York state’s requirement that registered charities disclose their donors annually.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected claims that the requirement violated the First Amendment because it intimidated donors from contributing, cutting off money needed to conduct free speech, and was a prior restraint on the ability to solicit donations.

Writing for a 3-0 panel, Circuit Judge Rosemary Pooler said New York has important interests in stopping fraud and abuse by charities, and requiring them to disclose names, addresses and contributions of their largest donors makes enforcement easier.

“While we think it plausible that some donors will find it intolerable for law enforcement officials to know where they have made donations, we see no reason to believe that this risk of speech chilling is more than that which comes with any disclosure regulation,” Pooler wrote.

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With blackface and monkey suit, Chinese gala on Africa causes uproar



BEIJING — A lavish four-hour Lunar New Year show televised to millions across China on Thursday night set off a flood of indignation with its caricatures featuring blackface and African men in animal suits.

The gala, televised by China’s state broadcaster, featured a well-known Chinese actress as an African woman with exaggerated buttocks, a large chest, and a face painted black. Carrying a platter of fruit on her head, she was accompanied by an African man dressed as a monkey. [At about the 3 minute mark]

Many said the portrayals were offensive.

Hannah Getachew, 30, a law student at Peking University from Ethiopia, said that while an apology from CCTV would be welcome, the damage had already been done.

“For all of his faults, Bill Cosby hired a Harvard professor of psychiatry to consult on almost every episode of ‘The Cosby Show’ to ensure that there wasn’t a single stereotype of people,” Getachew said. “China should consider similar action. What we need now is a clear signal that this sort of event will never occur again.”

The show, designed to celebrate China as an economic and cultural powerhouse and rehearsed many times before senior propaganda officials, is one of the most watched in the world, with an audience estimated at 800 million. The skit was intended to highlight relations between Africa and China.

The skit was set in Kenya, home to a new Chinese-built railroad between the capital, Nairobi, and the coastal town of Mombasa, part of China’s Belt and Road development initiative.Dancers dressed as zebras, giraffes, lions and antelopes opened the sequence before actress Lou Naiming appeared with her outsize rear and voluminous dress.

Amid banter and confusion about a blind date for her daughter, the character expresses gratitude to Chinese doctors who once saved her life and says that “China has done so much for Africa.”

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I must say that I found it funny.  Very wicked of me, undoubtedlty -- JR

A US radio host has been fired after calling teenage Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim a 'little hot piece of a**'

Patrick Connor made the sexual remarks on Tuesday after the 17-year-old won the gold medal in the women's halfpipe in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Connor, who is co-host of Barstool's new Sirius XM talk show Dialed-In with Dallas Braden, was speaking with ex-baseball pitcher Dallas Braden and comedian Brody Stevens.

He called Kim 'fine as hell' along with more vulgar sexual comments, then said 'the countdown is on' until Kim's 18th birthday.

Connor apologized on Twitter, calling his comments 'inappropriate.'

And on Wednesday, program director Jeremiah Crowe of KNBR-AM said in a statement that he has been fired.

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Australian TV commentator and former world champion Jacqui Cooper is blasted for 'racist' comments about Chinese skiers

Seven's Olympic coverage has attracted further criticism after a commentator was accused of being 'racist' for saying 'all Chinese competitors look the same'.

Former Australian Olympian Jacqui Cooper was commentating the first stages of the women's aerials at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Thursday evening when she was speaking about the Chinese skiiers.

'Very Chinese,' Cooper said of Yan Ting's first jump. 'They all look the same, they're very hard to tell who's who.'

Cooper's comments were immediately slammed on social media, with many stunned by what they had heard.

'Did Jacqui Cooper really just say that all the Chinese athletes look the same? #7Olympics' one shocked viewer asked.

'Jacqui Cooper with the casual racism whilst commentating on #7Olympics,' another person tweeted.

Channel Seven issued a statement through their social media accounts on Thursday night explaining Cooper was specifically discussing the Chinese style of aerials and not their physical appearance.

'During tonight's cover of the women's aerials, commentator Jacqui Cooper a former Olympian and World Champion - noted than an aerial manouevre was in a technical and style sense, very Chinese,' Seven said.

'Meaning that the whole of the Chinese aerial team are trained in the same way - and the manouevre referenced was a classic technically perfect, trademark of that team's style.

'At no time was the commentary racist, intended to be racist or offensive.'

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Wikipedia Earns Censor of the Year Tag for Botching Evolution, Intelligent Design

Today is the birthday of Charles Darwin, aka Darwin Day, which Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture recognizes each year as the occasion for naming a Censor of the Year, or COTY. As Darwin himself said, in a scientific context, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” But through intimidation and silencing of views counter to evolutionary orthodoxy, such a “fair result” is just what our Censor seeks to undermine.

For 2018, we’ve chosen what is I think our best, or rather worst, COTY yet: the omnipresent online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Let’s review the facts briefly.

Intelligent design poses an ultimate question: Does nature offer evidence of purpose and design, or not? All thoughtful people must ask themselves that. Today, the natural first recourse for the questioning individual is to turn to Google. Looking up ID online will bring you immediately, the first entry, to the Wikipedia article. It commences with a lie:

“Intelligent design (ID) is a religious argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins", [sic] though it has been discredited as pseudoscience.”

Actually, there are three lies. Here’s the truth: ID is a scientific, not a religious argument. It is a theory of evolution, of why the forms of life originated and changed over the past 3.9 billion years. An alternative to the increasingly shaky neo-Darwinian theory of blind churning, it argues exclusively in scientific terms, never from religious authority. It’s an argument for design in biology and cosmology, not for the “existence of God.” Compatible with methodological naturalism, it candidly professes that science sheds no light on the source of the design in life, other than to say that source operates with purpose and forethought. And while it has certainly been attacked in scabrous terms, it hasn’t been “discredited.” Far from it. Even an atheist philosopher like Thomas Nagel concedes that ID poses a “fiendishly difficult” challenge.

Yet anyone looking up ID on the Internet, or asking Amazon’s Alexa, which simply regurgitates Wikipedia, will be instantly turned off and likely give up investigating. That is, unless you already know how Wikipedia works, about the pseudonymous volunteer editors who run the place, with their axes to grind, standing ever ready, on a moment’s notice, to erase changes to pages they care about. The number of innocent people who have been misled by this article alone is beyond calculation.

We’ve been aware of the problem, of course, for years. But the erasure of notable paleontologist Günter Bechly, after he came for ID, was the occasion of much discussion of censorship on the part of this ubiquitous source of information and disinformation, both here and among Darwinists and ID critics too. Another ID scholar, Walter Bradley, similarly saw his entry disemboweled.

Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, who personally rejects intelligent design, has blasted the editors for the “appallingly biased” article on ID. He adds, “I completely despair of persuading Wikipedians of the error of their ways. I’m just officially registering my protest.”

On the subject of Bechly, our view is echoed by ID critics including Alex Berezow, a founding editor of the popular news aggregator site Real Clear Science, by the Darwinist group blog Panda’s Thumb, and as far afield as the liberal, secular Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Berezow writes:

“If a respected scientist endorses a controversial view, should he or she be erased from history? The editors at Wikipedia think so, but only if the controversial opinion is one they personally dislike.

“That's precisely what happened to a respected German paleontologist, Günter Bechly. His biography on Wikipedia has been deleted. Poof. Gone. It's like he never existed. …

“Dr. Bechly … is guilty of committing a thought-crime, and his sentence is to be purged from the Internet. This is deeply troubling, and any true free speech and free thought advocates should be alarmed.”

You go, Alex Berezow! This year’s COTY, compared to past winners (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), stands out for being widely recognized as a censor, not only by us. Wiki editors, behind their masks, also depart from the ways of past Censors in how frank they are, on their User pages, in admitting their biases.

We struggled with whether to name Jimmy Wales, the encyclopedia’s other co-founder, as Censor. But the clowns, the masked mob, who do the actual “editing” win out for their tireless, frequently spiteful dedication to misleading the public. To solve the problem would require a massive rethinking of the entire concept behind Wikipedia. But like Larry Sanger, we despair of that.

Fortunately, the public is increasingly sensitized both to fakery on the Internet (“fake news”) and agenda-driven behind-the-scenes shenanigans at online behemoths like Twitter and Facebook. And as we’ve pointed out, it’s not only ID that is misrepresented on Wikipedia. It can only be hoped that skepticism will spread, and drive Internet users to examine other sources and, yes, to think and read for themselves, without being led by the nose.

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Princeton Professor Cancels ‘Hate Speech’ Class After Backlash from Offended Students

Remember the Princeton University professor whose students walked out of class after he used the N-word in order to make an important point about hate speech? The class, "Cultural Freedoms: Hate Speech, Blasphemy, and Pornography," is now cancelled for the rest of the semester.

"I have reluctantly decided to cancel this year's offering of Anthropology 212," Professor Lawrence Rosen wrote in an email to students, according to The Weekly Standard. "This is a time to reach out to all those who came into the course, and beyond—to do what we do: to listen, to converse, to grapple with the categories by which we create our own experience. I wish you all the best."

Rosen did not respond to a request for comment as to why he decided to cancel the class. A Princeton spokesperson told The Weekly Standard that the administration had put no pressure on the professor to do so. But a student in the class had more information:

One student in the class tells TWS that he believes the course's cancelling may have had something to do with an interaction that happened "about halfway through the first seminar." A male student of color stood up, inches from professor Rosen's face and shouted "FUCK YOU," this witness claimed. Just before that, a female student of color had shouted at Rosen, as the first was approaching, "do you feel safe right now." "There was no physical contact," this witness claims, though at the time the student feared there might be. During that class, "nobody except Rosen defended Rosen," the student told me. Another student in the class confirmed this account to TWS.

What was that about students having very little real power?

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AG Jeff Sessions used the phrase ‘anglo-American’ in a speech and left is freaking out

Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke to the National Association of Sheriff’s Monday and made a comment about the “anglo-American heritage of law enforcement.” He was referring specifically to the history of the office of sheriff.

I want to thank every sheriff in America. Since our founding, the independently elected sheriff has been the people’s protector, who keeps law enforcement close to and accountable to people through the elective process. The office of sheriff is a critical part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement. We must never erode this historic office.

Despite the fact that Sessions was clearly talking about the history of the office his listeners hold, his remarks prompted articles like this one at Splinter headlined, “Jeff Sessions Let His Racism Peek Through a Little More Than He May Have Intended To.”

“Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement”? Hmm, what could that possibly mean?

This comment does not appear in Sessions’ prepared remarks. As Vice News’ Tess Owen points out, Sessions could have been referring to the Anglo-Saxon origins of the role of the sheriff (the sheriff of Nottingham, etc.)

Still, considering every single god-given thing we know about Jeff Sessions, that is a very generous interpretation of his remarks. When you are Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, and are viewed as a racist by a wide variety of people, one would think you might consider the optics of praising “Anglo-American heritage” in front of a largely white crowd of cops.

Ian Prior, a spokesperson for the DOJ, said in a statement that the term “Anglo-American law” is common parlance among lawyers and legal scholars, pointing to a number of opinions from the US Supreme Court.

“As most law students learn in the first week of their first year, Anglo-American law — also known as the common law — is a shared legal heritage between England and America. The sheriff is unique to that shared legal heritage. Before reporters sloppily imply nefarious meaning behind the term, we would suggest that they read any number of the Supreme Court opinions that use the term. Or they could simply put ‘Anglo-American law’ into Google,” Prior said.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer used the term in a speech in 2016.

In other words, lawyers use this phrase occasionally when talking about the history of law. That’s clearly how Sessions intended it, but the left freaked out over it anyway.

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UK: The words midwives are BANNED from using because they are disrespectful to pregnant women

An 'alternative' language guide has been created for midwives to use in the hope of instilling a 'culture of respect' for pregnant women.

Three experts devised the list of suggested phrases for common terms, in the hope it will ensure women are 'empowered to make decisions'.

Medics have been asked to say, 'you're doing really well', to women pushing a baby out - instead of the old-fashioned term, 'good girl'.

It also stresses that midwives and obstetricians should never address the pregnant woman as a 'she' when they are discussing the situation at hand.

Instead, they should constantly refer to her first name, according to the guide that was published in the British Medical Journal. 

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has announced it will 'abide by these principles' in its own guidelines issued to its members.

The authors accepted that some may think the new recommendations, which are only a suggestion and aren't from the NHS, are 'political correctness gone mad'.

And the authors pointed to evidence that shows positive communication can alter the course of pregnancy for the better.

'Good communication during the birthing process is critical to good maternity care, but achieving a shift in deeply ingrained language, and the thinking it reflects, is difficult.

'There is a fine line between changing terminology to integrate language which is more respectful, inclusive, and less intimidating for the mother, and substituting vague, verbose language which hinders the original message.'

The guide also asks midwives to avoid discouraging or insensitive language, such as the phrase 'terminate pregnancy'.

Should this distressing situation arise, women should be told it is a 'compassionate induction' to ease their feelings.

And if a medical procedure doesn't work, midwives should describe the attempt as 'unsuccessful', rather than 'failed'.

In another move, it asked for coded language, frequently used by medics to describe certain situations, to be replaced in plain English.

According to the guide that was published in the British Medical Journal, midwives and obstetricians should avoid certain terms when dealing with pregnant women. The list included:

    Painful contractions
    High risk
    Terminate pregnancy
    Failure to progress
    Poor maternal effort
    Codified language
    Patient refused
    You must/have/need
    Fetal distress
    Trial of forceps
    Labour ward
    Big baby
    My woman
    Good girl
    Delivered
    The primigravida in room 12
    She

Anxiety-provoking phrases have also been slashed in the guide, asking medics to avoid the use of 'fetal distress' or 'big baby'.

Instead, they should announce the two common problems as 'changes in the baby's heart rate pattern' and describe a larger infant as 'healthy'.

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The Obama portraits

Even the usual sycophants had trouble saying anything positive about the "official" Mr and Mrs Obama portraits. The one of Mr Obama looks frankly childish and the one of Mrs Obama is a poor likeness. 

The paintings were done by black artists so that is the first straw in the wind.  Might not there have been some white artists who could have done a better job?  No way!  In the great spirit of Leftist racial bigotry, the artists had to be black



But that's not the end of the racism.  Why was Mrs Obama shown with much lighter skin than normal?  Above is a copy of the image shown at the time of the unveiling, where her skin is a mottled white. The NYT appears to have got photoshop to work, however and show her arms as uniformly light grey.  But neither is anywhere near true to life.

So even the Obamas would rather be white? Is that how they would like to be seen?  I believe it but it's pretty sad. Are we allowed to say "cultural appropriation"?

Europe’s War on Freedom of Expression

I think very highly of the heroic Polish people.  But all the Poles I have met seem to have a little broken bit in their brains that makes them compulsive Jew haters. And it is a matter of record that many Poles enthusiastically helped the Nazis round up Jews.  So that is what the Polish government is touchy about.  They too want to erase history

Any American who ever questions whether the First Amendment is vital to protect free speech should just cast a glance across the Atlantic. Europeans share the same values we do—indeed, our concept of rights derives from European philosophers—and yet they often adopt misguided laws that circumscribe freedom of expression.

The latest blunder comes courtesy of Poland, which is in the midst of passing one of the silliest laws ever devised. President Andrzej Duda signed a law Tuesday that makes it illegal to accuse Poland of complicity in Nazi crimes, including the Holocaust.

The law would also make it punishable with a fine to use terms such as “Polish death camps” when referring to concentration camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, which were located within Nazi-occupied Poland. Former President Barack Obama deeply offended Poland when he used the term in 2012, and later apologized.

Like all these other laws, the intention is undoubtedly honorable. Poland takes extreme umbrage at being associated with the terror that was the Holocaust.

But Poland must understand that the way to fight misleading information is not to ban it, but to counter it with good information.

It is, moreover, perfectly legitimate to query the extent to which non-Germans collaborated with Nazi crimes in Poland, France, the rest of Europe, and in fact, the world. To attempt to chill that debate is ill-advised.

Poland is but the latest European country to ban freedom of expression it finds uncomfortable. Many of these speech codes and laws have to do with the trauma of the Nazi legacy, but others extend far beyond.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the Public Order Act 1986 prohibits the “expressions of racial hatred, which is defined as hatred against a group of persons by reason of the group’s colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.”

People have been fined and jailed both for expressing religious objections to the gay lifestyle or, at the other end, for displaying anti-religious bigotry.

In Germany, Holocaust denial is punishable by law. New hate speech rules, known locally as NetzDG and which came into full force last month, demand that social media giants promptly remove potentially illegal material, some of it within 24 hours of being notified, or face fines.

And France in 1990 passed a law that also made it a crime to deny the Holocaust.

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Scout master is forced to quit after comparing a Muslim leader wearing a niqab to Darth Vader

A Scout master who compared a Muslim leader wearing a niqab, a veil covering the face, to Darth Vader has been forced to quit.

The woman featured in a Scouting magazine article where it stated she wore a veil 'when she took the girls out canoeing'.

Outraged Brian Walker, 63 emailed the magazine saying: 'Canoeists don't dress like this; they need all-round unobstructed vision, they protect the group.

'They will most likely drown wearing that Darth Vader tent', reports the Sunday Times

However the woman Mr Walker was blasting, known only as Zainab, has hit back saying that it's not about being Muslim, it's about being human.

She insists her niqab does not hinder her in any way and often receives positive comments while out hiking.

In his email Mr Walker also suggested that Zainab would scare children and animals while wearing her veil.

Mr Walker, from Bristol, was fired from his role as assistant Scout leader last March as he breached some of the key values including integrity, respect, care and co-operation.

He later insisted that as the father of a child with Asperger's he understood the need for inclusion and stated that he would work in a group with Muslim or LGBT children.

Although he suggested he didn't want to offended anyone, during his review hearing, Mr Walker said: 'Scouting should stick to its Christian traditions.'

He has since attempted to sue the Scout organisation for breach of contract and hurting his feelings which they plan to contest.

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Olympic analyst fired for insensitive remarks about Korea

Incredible that he would be unaware of how much Koreans hate the Japanese

AMERICAN TV network NBC was forced to fire one of its Olympic analysts after he inexplicably said Koreans are grateful for Japan’s role in their economic development — while ignoring the one-time imperial power’s brutalisation of the peninsula.

The network was left red-faced by the comments of former journalist Joshua Cooper Ramo, who worked as a commentator during coverage of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.

Japan ruled Korea with an iron fist from 1910 to 1945 in a bloody occupation that still strikes a raw nerve. Koreans around the world criticised Ramo’s remarks on social media and a petition soon circulated online.

“Every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural, technological and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation,” said Ramo, who sits on the board of Starbucks and FedEx while working as co-CEO of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s consulting firm.

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Jordan Peterson Reacts to Justin Trudeau’s Telling a Woman to Say ‘Peoplekind’

Some in the crowd cheered when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau corrected a woman’s usage of the word “mankind” to “peoplekind” — a word more politically correct, but not found in either the Merriam-Webster Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary.

Had he been there, Dr. Jordan Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist, would not have been one of those cheering.

“We like to say ‘peoplekind,’ not necessarily ‘mankind,’ because it’s more inclusive,” Trudeau said at a town hall meeting in Edmonton, Alberta, on Feb. 2, interrupting the woman, who had asked him about Canadian laws on volunteering with religious organizations.



Peterson weighed in on TV’s “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday on the prime minister’s interjection. Besides being a psychologist, he is a professor at the University of Toronto and a best-selling author.

Peterson has been an outspoken critic of the government compelling individuals to refer to others by their “preferred” pronouns and making it illegal to “misgender” someone.

An example of “misgendering” someone is the act of referring to a man who “identifies” as a woman as “him” or even calling a man “him” when he uses the artificial pronoun “ze.”

“It’s completely inappropriate of the government to decide which language the citizenry should speak,” Peterson said.

He described Trudeau as someone only capable of “running his ideas on a few, very narrow ideological tracks.”

The “most egregious example,” Peterson said, occurred when Trudeau assembled his Cabinet in 2015 and mandated that it be made up of 50 percent women and 50 percent men, despite the fact that only “about 22 percent” of the elected members of the Canadian Parliament are women.

“It was easier for him to do that than it was for him to screen people for the sort of competence that would actually be necessary to be Cabinet members,” he said.

When Trudeau, who took office in November 2015, was asked why he chose to make his Cabinet 50 percent women and 50 percent men, he replied, “because it’s 2015.”

“It’s quite the performance,” Peterson said. “I think we’re really going to pay for it in Canada in ways that we can’t yet imagine.”

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KFC is hit with a storm of complaints after releasing an  advert about a child drawing a picture of their parents 'naked wrestling'

Very strange.  I guess they are relying on the adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity

A controversial KFC ad featuring two parents 'naked wrestling' has prompted an investigation by the advertising watchdog.



KFC Australia's summer ad campaign sparked 30 complaints over its sexual content being inappropriate for children.

It featured a child's drawing of a mum and dad wrestling nude held up by a teacher and presented to them at a consultation evening.

Among the complaints about the wrestling ad were adults concerned that children would be subjected to material in the ad which was overly sexual and suggestive.

Bosses have been forced to defend the ad as they await the final outcome of an investigation by the Advertising Standards Bureau

KFC said the series was attempting to represent real-life moments that the public could relate to.

The fast food chain's chief marketing officer Angela Richards said: 'KFC has strict review and approval processes in place to ensure all creative work adhere to relevant codes and standards.

'In this case the Advertising Standards Bureau has decided that the advertisement and associated posts in question do not breach the AANA's (Australian Association of National Advertisers) code of ethics'.

The ASB states the relevant section of the Australian Association of National Advertisers relates to 'sex, sexuality and nudity with sensitivity to the relevant audience'.

The final report from the ASB board is due to published in the next week

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Must not associate blacks with bananas



A photo of two women in a sorority at George Washington University holding a banana peel posted on Snapchat with the caption of 'I'm 1/16 black' is being called 'distinctly racist' by their own chapter.

The photo, which was shared on January 31, showed two members of Alpha Phi and appears to have been taken on the sorority's on-campus townhouse. The two women in the photo were not the ones that posted the image to Snapchat.

George Washington University Provost Forrest Maltzman said in a statement that the incident was 'disturbing, hurtful and not reflective of who I know we are as a community.'

The three members in question are in the process of having their membership terminated.

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Minnesota school district REMOVES To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the English curriculum because they repeatedly use the n-word

The new puritanism.  "To Kill a Mockingbird " was once used to preach the evils of racism but even that is not enough to save it these days.  And it is total nonsense to say that blacks are offended by the n-word.  They use it among themselves all the time

A Minnesota school district has removed To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because it fears it could leave students feeling 'humiliated or marginalized'.

Duluth School District officials cited Harper Lee and Mark Twain's repeated use of the racial slur in the classic American novels as the reason for the decision.

'We felt that we could still teach the same standards and expectations through other novels that didn't require students to feel humiliated or marginalized by the use of racial slurs,' director of curriculum and instruction Michael Cary told the Duluth News Tribune.

Cary added the move comes after years of complaints by parents and students, who said the books made them feel 'uncomfortable'.

Although the novels will no longer be required reading, they are not banned and will still be available at the school libraries for any student who wants to read them.

The local chapter of the NAACP welcomed the school district's decision, which they called 'long overdue.'

This isn't the first time Harper Lee's novel is considered too controversial for schools: last year, Mississippi's Biloxi School District also removed the book from their required reading list.

School districts in Virginia and Pennsylvania have also dropped the book after receiving complaints from students and parents.

Both Lee's 1960 novel about a little girl navigating the segregated South, and Mark Twain's 1884 novel about a poor white boy and a slave running way down the Mississippi river are required readings in high school literature classes.

Still, the novels have always been controversial, and their use in English classes has long been debated; both works have been featured on the American Library Association's Frequently Challenged Books list.

The National Coalition Against Censorship opposed the Duluth School District decision.

'While it is understandable that a novel that repeatedly uses a highly offensive racial slur would generate discomfort among some parents and students, the problems of living in a society where racial tensions persist will not be resolved by banishing literary classics from the classroom,' the group said in a statement.

'On the contrary, the classroom is where the history, use and destructiveness of this language should be examined and discussed.'

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Doritos For Women Trigger SJWs And Feminists

The CEO of PepsiCo (the company that owns Doritos) was doing an interview with the podcast “Freakonomics Radio” when she dropped a potential future product: “Doritos for Women”. The logic behind this potential new type of Dorito was that their research showed that many women don’t enjoy the loud crunch that the crisps make in public places.

Seems straightforward enough, but the SJW crowd has a different opinion. Many of these schizophrenic baboons took to their social media to say that even the suggestion of making a product that women could choose to buy or not was actually a sexist attack, meant to silence women and promote an outdated standard of femininity.

This outrage has led to the hashtag: #CrunchLouder, meaning women should instead try to make as much noise as possible when eating chips, a trait that is irritating across cultures, ethnicities, and gender.

And many other outraged lefties voiced their opinion over an irrelevant potential product that would offend nobody who doesn’t have a trigger-happy temper or a severe mental disorder

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The Golliwog horror rumbles on

Dolls that tend to foster love of blacks are deeply incorrect, apparently



The sale of 'racist' golliwog dolls online and in Australian shopping centres has sparked outrage among tourists and indigenous advocates.

Hundreds of thousands of the controversial toys are sold each year by manufacturer Elka, which ships them across Australia.

Indigenous advocate Henrietta Marrie said the sale of the toys was 'a huge problem'. 'It's laughable this is happening in the 21st century,' she told the ABC.

'It's the look, the connotation and the naming which sends a negative measure. Years ago it was an insult and it's still insulting to us. It gives a negative image about who we are and what we can do.'

Ms Marrie said the golliwogs should be taken off the shelves, and people should be educated as to why they are inappropriate toys.

Soyla Echeverria confronted management at a souvenir store in a shopping centre in far north Queensland while on a working holiday from Melbourne after seeing golliwog toys for sale.

Elka national sales manager Jan Johnco defended marketing the toy, saying they had no racist connotations.

'Traditionally, in my childhood and most certainly my mother's, everyone had a golly and it was a beloved doll, it was so wholesome and lovely,' she said.

'People need to get a grip, it's a doll. We're talking about an innocent, benevolent, beautiful black doll.'

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‘Hate speech’ is no reason to ban Bannon

In the past week, we’ve seen fervent objections to the news that University of Chicago professor Luigi Zingales has invited former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon to take part in a debate at the university over globalization and immigration. Many students and faculty are calling for the invitation to be withdrawn and for Bannon to be banned from campus, since he “traffics in hate speech and white supremacist ideologies."

This is the familiar “hate speech isn’t free speech” argument being used to de-platform or censor campus speakers, usually on the right. But the argument is feeble.

For one thing, it violates the spirit of our First Amendment, which the courts have interpreted to mean that there should be no restrictions on public speech unless it incites clear and present danger. The argument also violates the University of Chicago’s liberal speech code, which states that the proper response to ideas deemed offensive is “robust counterspeech that challenges the merits of those ideas and exposes them for what they are.” Properly, the university has refused to ban Bannon.

The Constitution and the university protect nearly all forms of speech because the free exchange of ideas — the bulwark of education, democracy and the quest for justice — requires that speech be allowed, even when it strongly counters our own beliefs, nearly everyone’s beliefs or, indeed, advocates censorship itself.

Why? Because one person’s hate speech is another person’s free speech. Not so long ago we saw left-wing speakers banned for what was considered “hate speech” — speech in favor of Israel, against abortion or promoting evolution. Banned speakers have included Michael Moore, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Tony Kushner, Richard Dawkins, Julian Bond and even Archbishop Desmond Tutu. This shows that one generation’s “hate speech” can be another generation’s norms.

Further, who gets to decide what “hate speech” is? Whom would you trust to censor speakers? And how would you feel if your own views were censored? That’s why the founders wisely chose to make nobody a censor. Censorship may make you feel vindicated, but it doesn’t eliminate offensive ideas; it only drives them underground. The best disinfectant, and surest path to the truth, is open airing of all views.

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Heavy pressure on critic of Islam

Tom Kawczynski was voted out of his job as a town manager of a small community in Maine because of what many viewed as racist ideas promoted by a group he started.

And then he got shunned from crowdfunding sites too.

"After my firing without cause from the position as town manager in Jackman, I have gone out to seek help to sustain myself and my wife," Kawczynski told ABC News.

"The challenge that we've run in to is that many fundraising sites, because of the inaccurate characterization of my views, have deemed that what I'm trying to promote is a violation of my terms of service," he said.

His group, called New Albion, focuses on "defending the people and culture of New England," according to their site, and he told the Portland Press Herald that he opposes Islam because it is "not compatible with Western culture."

Though he denies being a racist or bigot, a spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, told ABC News that his opinions qualify as "white nationalist views."

Kawczynski told ABC he launched a GoFundMe page following his dismissal but "the same day I posted it up it was taken down."

While not directly addressing Kawczynski and his fundraiser, GoFundMe spokesperson Bobby Whithorne told ABC News in a statement that "White nationalists and neo-Nazis cannot use GoFundMe to promote hatred, racism, or intolerance, and if a campaign violates GoFundMe’s terms of service, we’ll remove it from the platform."

In Kawczynski's case, he turned to a different site called FreeStartr, which bills itself as "Free speech crowdfunding."

The site, which did not respond to ABC News' requests for comment, is run by CEO Charles C. Johnson, a controversial figure who describes himself as an "investigative journalist" who touts his ban from Twitter.

In Freestartr's community guidelines, in a section labeled "Hate Speech" it reads: "Do not hate on individuals or groups, including on account of their sex, height, race, religion, lack of religion, sexual preferences or—wait, of course we’re kidding. There is no such thing as prohibited hate speech. It’s a term that censorship advocates have invented to justify their censorship."

Gene Policinski, the president of the Newseum Institute which includes the First Amendment Center, concurred that "hate speech is not a particular legal term." "One person's hate speech is another person's patriotic language," Policinski told ABC News.

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Feel the hate

Despite their constant claims that conservatives are guilty of hate speech, the Left are the real haters.  Below a self-report from a participant in the "women's march" in Washington, D.C.

I had spent the morning sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with my 16-year-old daughter, Katherine, whose silent tears on election night in 2016 had marked the beginning of this national nightmare for me. She had insisted we drive from Charlotte to D.C. this year so that we could "protest in front of the president’s house." We heard all of the inspiring speakers; we relished the creativity of the posters and slogans. Being among so many like-minded people was comforting. I heard one woman say, "I love being here today. It makes me feel less alone."

I wanted to be with people who shared my anger. Because I have been so angry about Donald Trump this past year. I have been angry at my country for electing this man, angry at my neighbors who support him, angry at the wealthy who sacrificed our country and its goodness for tax breaks, angry at the coal miners who believed his promises.

My fury has been bottomless. I drink my morning coffee from a cup that says, "I hate to wake up when Donald Trump is President." The constancy of my outrage has been exhausting, yet I have not yet found a way to quell it — nearly each day has brought a new reason to stoke the fire. But a day with my daughter, communing with the angry and the aggrieved, seemed a good way to try.

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Critic of coral reef alarmism Raised $99K To Defend Freedom Of Speech In Just 48 Hours

Last week Professor Peter Ridd launched a GoFundMe to fundraise for his legal costs against James Cook University in the Federal Court.

Amazingly, after a public appeal, he has reached the required $95,000 to cover his defence in just 48 hours.

Institute of Public Affairs Executive Director, John Roskam, spoke to Alan Jones on 2GB this morning about Professor Ridd’s case.

In August last year Professor Ridd was interviewed by Alan Jones on Sky News about his chapter in a book Climate Change: The Facts 2017 published by the Institute of Public Affairs.  In his chapter, The Extraordinary Resilience of Great Barrier Reef Corals, and Problems with Policy Science, Professor Ridd wrote:

"Policy science concerning the Great Barrier Reef is almost never checked. Over the next few years, Australian government will spend more than a billion dollars on the Great Barrier Reef; the costs to industry could far exceed this. Yet the keystone research papers have not been subject to proper scrutiny. Instead, there is a total reliance on the demonstrably inadequate peer review process."

Professor Ridd said on Sky News:

"The basic problem is that we can no longer trust the scientific organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, even things like the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies – a lot of this is stuff is coming out, the science is coming out not properly checked, tested or replicated and this is a great shame because we really need to be able to trust our scientific institutions and the fact is I do not think we can any more…

…I think that most of the scientists who are pushing out this stuff they genuinely believe that there are problems with the reef, I just don’t think they’re very objective about the science they do, I think they’re emotionally attached to their subject and you know you can’t blame them, the reef is a beautiful thing."

JCU claimed that Professor Ridd’s comments denigrated the university and the university directed him to make no future such comments.

Thanks to the contributions of many IPA members and supporters of Professor Ridd, he is able to defend scientific integrity and academic freedom in the Federal Court.

You can now read the Professor Ridd’s full chapter. The extraordinary resilience of Great Barrier Reef corals, and the problems with policy science, here

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Don't forget first principles in rushing to #MeToo

Should a high profile Australian lawyer, Charles Waterstreet, be denied a voice in commenting publicly on sexual harassment of women?

"Castrate him!" came the call on Facebook. "Castrate them all." It wasn't serious, presumably, or at least not literal. But the comment captured the spirit of the backlash against the ABC's invitation to Charles Waterstreet for the #metoo Valentines Day Q&A special, and that was serious. It's also seriously dangerous, and can in the end only enfeeble the values and individuals it seeks to uphold.

Did I say backlash? Honestly, the argument became so vituperative so quickly it was hard to know what was backlash, and what simply lash.

I posted Nina Funnell's piece arguing that the Waterstreet inclusion was a terrible mistake. Not because I agreed with it. Quite the reverse. I put it up because – although of course sexual harassment is both systemic and appalling and I'm scarcely a Waterstreet devotee – I profoundly disagree with the urge to silence dissent. The response was immediate and fascinating.

It's not all about Waterstreet. He's just the lightning rod (and quite likely, in truth, this suits his inner narcissist, as well as the ABC ratings geeks.) But I digress. The principles at stake far outweigh even the male ego.

The anti-Waterstreet argument is essentially that it's "inappropriate" for the national broadcaster to give voice on the harassment issue someone who is himself so accused. This view has immediate appeal, both emotionally and to our sense of rough justice.

But wait. Do you know how many fundamental principles it violates?

First, the presumption of innocence. Waterstreet is accused of showing naked images of himself to young female assistants on two different occasions. I say nothing of the gravity or truth of the allegations, or the images' likely appeal, but these are unproved claims against Waterstreet and we must treat him as innocent.

He may be the model for the ABC's fictional anti-hero lawyer Rake. He may be vain, self-obsessed and relentlessly absorbed in trying to prove his sexuality in a way that seems adolescent. He may, as many note, have a weird or unattractive hairstyle. These are not crimes.

Second, even if they were crimes, even if he were charged and convicted, he'd still be entitled to a voice. We listen to thieves, fraudsters, murderers. They may be barred from profiting by their crimes, but they're not barred from speaking.

A landmark US Supreme Court decision in 1977 ensured – although at 5-4 it was admittedly close – that even Nazis have First Amendment rights to speak freely.

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WHITE CREME EGGS ARE ‘RACIST’

MILLIONS of Brits have been scampering to supermarkets and local shops, buying armfuls of Cadbury Creme Eggs in the hope of winning a cool £1,000.

Special edition white chocolate eggs have been produced and anyone who finds one is in the running to win a cash prize – of up to two grand!

But now the popular promo has run into trouble – for being RACIST! Meadow Sugarsweet, boss of the Melting Pot Community Foundation raged: “Why should a WHITE product be seen as inherently more valuable than a BROWN one?

“This is just the sort of unconscious racism that runs through Britain from top to bottom.

“We are calling on Cadbury’s to end this so- called promotion and demand that any prize money already paid out is diverted to inclusivity and diversity community projects. “We also want a full apology for this terrible slur on the minority ethnic community.”

Last night an insider at makers Cadbury’s said: “Oh f** k! Here we go. There’s always some daft c** t, isn’t there?!”

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Yoga is cultural appropriation and racism?

Some seriously nutty claims below.  It's all just hate

Michigan State University religious studies professor Shreena Gandhi and self-described "anti-racist white Jewish organiser, facilitator and healer" Lillie Wolff co-authored the piece titled Yoga And The Roots Of Cultural Appropriation.

The pair argued "the explosion of yoga studios, yoga video, apps, yoga pants and other yoga swag over the last two decades is evidence" of the "(mis)appropriation of yoga" that "is part of systemic racism" built on "the labour of black people and people of the global south".

"We would argue one of the goals of white supremacy is to buffer white people from the pain that comes from the process of exchanging cultural grounding for the unearned power and privilege of whiteness," they wrote.

"This modern-day trend of cultural appropriation of yoga is a continuation of white supremacy and colonialism, maintaining the pattern of white people consuming the stuff of culture that is convenient and portable, while ignoring the wellbeing and liberation of Indian people."

According to Ms Gandhi, white people should learn yoga’s history, acknowledge the cultural appropriation they engage in and possibly reduce the cost of classes for poor people — a group that often includes people of colour and "recent immigrants, such as Indian women to whom this practice rightfully belongs".

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Staff at a Melbourne council were BANNED from saying 'Australia Day' and told to call it the 'January 26 public holiday' - but the 1000 employees still enjoyed the day off instead of a planned boycott

Australia day is roughly the equivalent of Columbus day in the USA.  The Left hate both as being about white invaders dispossessing peaceful native people.  The fact that the native people were always fighting with one-another is ignored

Staff at Melbourne's Yarra City Council were given extraordinary orders not to utter the words 'Australia Day' when discussing the public holiday.

The 1000 employees - which included childcare workers, librarians and even gardeners - were forbidden to refer to it as 'Australia Day' and instead instructed to call it 'January 26 public holiday' when with customers and clients.

A bulletin posted by council chief executive Vijaya Vaidyanath gave explicit instructions to staff about how they should describe the controversial public holiday, the Herald Sun reports.

'Council made a resolution to change the way we mark our national day on January 26,' the bulletin read. 'This includes no longer referring to this date as Australia Day.'

'All staff are asked to use the words 'January 26 public holiday' rather than 'Australia Day public holiday' when notifying clients or customers of the opening hours of their service or centre on this day.'

The decision was slammed by Liberal MP Tim Smith who called council members hypocritical for choosing to enjoy the day off despite advocating so hard against Australia Day.

'This is utter hypocrisy from Yarra council, who spent so much time objecting to Australia Day only to take the day off,' Mr Smith said.

'Their thought police shouldn't be going around telling people what to think about our national day.'

The Yarra City Council offices were indeed closed on Australia Day, a revelation made public after 3AW Drive host Tom Elliott paid a visit to the building.

Mr Elliott knocked on the office door repeatedly, calling out and even attempting to ring an old door bell.

He tried to call the council but got an automated message explaining the council was closed.

Matthew Guy, the Leader of the Liberal Party in Victoria, announced he would move to sack all councils which threatened the national holiday if the Coalition is elected in November.

'It's time to stop bagging it. Australia Day is our national holiday and it's an opportunity for us all to come together,' Mr Guy said.

'That's why, if I'm elected, the state government will be able to sack councils that try to divide Australians by banning Australia Day.'

In August, the council voted unanimously to stop celebrating Australia Day on January 26 - with the controversial stand aimed at reducing 'distress' it causes to Indigenous people.

In its place Yarra City's nine councillors - of which four are Greens members - instead chose to hold a number of Indigenous-themed events, with the decision made in the wake of a recent survey of just 300 people which 'showed strong support' locally

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Parroting Trump: Ill. GOP official resigns after calling East St. Louis a certain vulgar name
    
The chairman of the Lottery Control Board in Illinois and a member of the state’s Republican Central Committee resigned both positions after taking heavy criticism for describing East St. Louis, Ill., as the "shithole of the universe!"

Blair Garber deployed the term on Twitter in response to a tweet by country singer Charlie Daniels, who was defending President Trump’s reference to Haiti and African countries with a vulgar term and criticizing Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, for taking offense.

"Mr. Durbin," Daniels tweeted, "I’m so sorry that your virgin ears were blistered by the absolutely horrible language president Trump used in front of you. The president actually thought he was addressing a meeting of members of congress, not a kindergarten class . . ."

Daniels’s tweet provoked a swell of approving comments, one of them from Garber, according to the State Journal-Register.

"Charlie," Garber wrote, Durbin’s home town is (get this) east St. Louis Illinois! The shithole of the universe! Just do a google search."

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Australia: Greenies trying to gag honest scientist

Marine scientist commented on their "unvalidated" public pronouncements about catastrophic damage to the Great Barrier Reef.  The reef is now back to normal so he was proved right.

Marine scientist Peter Ridd has refused to accept a formal censure and gag order from James Cook University and expanded his Federal Court action to defend academic freedoms and free speech.

A revised statement of claim alleges JCU trawled through private email conversations in a bid to bolster its misconduct case against him.

JCU had found Professor Ridd guilty of “serious misconduct”, ­including denigrating a co-worker, denigrating the university, breaching confidentiality, publishing information outside of the university and disregarding his obligations as an employee. [i.e. telling the truth]

Professor Ridd has asked the Federal Court to overturn the university ruling and confirm his right not to be silenced.

In the revised statement of claim, Professor Ridd has dropped an earlier claim of conflict of interest against JCU vice-chancellor Sandra Harding, but has alleged other senior staff had been biased and had not acted fairly or in good faith.

Professor Ridd’s Federal Court action is seen as a test of academic freedom and free speech, and has been supported by the Institute of Public Affairs.

Professor Ridd has subsequently published his concerns about the quality of reef science in a peer-reviewed journal. He said he was determined to speak freely about his treatment “even though it will go against explicit directions by JCU not to”.

“This is as much a case about free speech as it is about quality of science,” he said.

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Privacy not allowed?

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Gov. Eric Greitens' attorneys say ordering the governor and his staff to stop using an app that erases text messages would violate free speech rights.

The Kansas City Star has reported that Greitens and some of his staff use a Confide app that deletes text messages and prevents them from being saved.

Two St. Louis County attorneys sued, contending use of the app violates Missouri's open records law by making it impossible to know if the governor and his staff use their personal phones for state business. They are seeking a temporary injunction to stop the governor and his staff from using the app.

Greitens' attorneys argue in a brief that an injunction would violate free speech rights by preventing Greitens and his staff from using Confide to send personal messages.

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"Safety" as a sick pretext for denying free speech

At that rate street thugs can deny any free spech they wish to.  It's how Hitler's brownshirts shut up anti-Nazis

White nationalist Richard Spencer's visit to the Texas A&M campus in December 2016 drew overwhelming opposition from protesters and required a large police presence to manage the ordeal. When Spencer was invited back last year for a "White Lives Matter" rally, the university barred the event from campus, citing safety concerns.

Ray Bonilla, general counsel for the Texas A&M University System, stood by that decision Wednesday while speaking at the Senate State Affairs Committee's hearing on free speech issues and First Amendment rights on college campuses hosted by Texas State University.

Even unpopular, "repugnant" speech requires protection, Bonilla said, and the Texas A&M University System stands "ready to fulfill that duty." But its first duty, he said, will always be to ensure the safety of its campuses. "We didn't think that we could ensure the safety of our students, faculty, staff and visitors," Bonilla said. "We were convinced it was the right decision."

Bonilla and representatives from five other university systems spoke to the panel Wednesday about free speech zones, costs for providing security, registration requirements for student organizations and other topics related to First Amendment issues on campus. State and student political groups and representatives from the Anti-Defamation League and other organizations also spoke at the event.

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H & M caught up in fresh racism row over offensive ‘Allah’ children’s sock range

SWEDISH fast-fashion giant H & M has apologised and pulled a range of children’s socks from its shelves in response to complaints made by members of the Muslim community.

The offending socks bore an image of a Lego figurine holding a jackhammer — but Muslim shoppers claimed when turned upside down, the image appeared to resemble the word “Allah” in Arabic, prompting outrage.

According to The Independent, a company spokesperson said the resemblance was “entirely coincidental” and that no offence or hidden meaning was intended by the design.

The multinational retailer sells budget-friendly shoes, clothing and accessories for men, women, teenagers and children as well as homewares.

It is the second-largest global clothing retailer, behind Zara’s parent company Inditex, with more than 4500 stores across 62 countries and a workforce of more than 132,000 people.

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Cleveland Indians Scalped by Social Justice Warriors  

Yesterday, Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Indians acquiesced to the demands of the PC police with the pronouncement by MLB Commissioner Robert D. Manfred that the Indians franchise would be scrubbing its “Chief Wahoo” uniform logo next year.

Commissioner Manfred stated: "Over the past year, we encouraged dialogue with the Indians organization about the Club’s use of the Chief Wahoo logo. During our constructive conversations, [team owner] Paul Dolan made clear that there are fans who have a longstanding attachment to the logo and its place in the history of the team. Nonetheless, the club ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate Mr. Dolan’s acknowledgement that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course.

The brouhaha over team mascots across myriad sports has festered for a while now, but the timing of the Cleveland Indians’ jettisoning its logo isn’t surprising. The city will host the All-Star Game next year, which coincides with the formal changes. This is hardly serendipitous.

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