The not-so-tolerant left fears nothing....
![[Photo Credit: Georgetown U. Republicans]](https://legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Christina-Hoff-Sommers-Protest-Signs-Georgetown-Trigger.jpg)
[Image Credit: Georgetown U. Republicans][/caption]Now, Georgetown University itself is putting pressure on the Georgetown College Republicans to make CBLPI edit its video of the lecture.
In an email, the assistant director for Georgetown’s Center for Student Engagement told the lecture student organizers that if CBLPI is “unwilling or unresponsive to the request, Georgetown will need to step in.”
The vague language used by Barry University in issuing the suspension, coupled with the timing, suggest that Barry does not have an actionable claim against Laura. Rather, it appears that they object to the negative publicity the school has received due to the statements of their administrative and academic staff.
Many Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy or unbelief [for his novel The Satanic Verses] and in 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. Numerous killings, attempted killings, and bombings resulted from Muslim anger over the novel. The Iranian government backed the fatwa against Rushdie until 1998, when the succeeding government of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said it no longer supported the killing of Rushdie. However, the fatwa remains in place.
France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and those glorifying terrorism... Authorities said 54 people had been arrested for hate speech and defending terrorism since terror attacks killed 20 people in Paris last week, including three gunmen... Like many European countries, France has strong laws against hate speech, especially anti-Semitism in the wake of the Holocaust. The Justice Ministry sent a letter to all French prosecutors and judges urging more aggressive tactics against racist or anti-Semitic speech or acts."Speech or acts"---there's a big, big difference between the two. It is easier to justify criminalizing acts rather than speech---although of course it depends on what the speech is. To be legally actionable, the speech had better be the rough equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded auditorium.
White House: Obama Will Fight Media To Stop Anti-Jihad Articles President Barack Obama has a moral responsibility to push back on the nation’s journalism community when it is planning to publish anti-jihadi articles that might cause a jihadi attack against the nation’s defenses forces, the White House’s press secretary said Jan. 12. “The president … will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform” whenever journalists’ work may provoke jihadist attacks, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at the White House’s daily briefing. The unprecedented reversal of Americans’ civil-military relations, and of the president’s duty to protect the First Amendment, was pushed by Earnest as he tried to excuse the administration’s opposition in 2012 to the publication of anti-jihadi cartoons by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.Here's a video report:
The organization set up the holiday display, which featured an angel falling into a pit of fire, as a protest for the state allowing a Nativity scene in the government building.An unidentified woman has been arrested for the damage.
Officers were present on-site, and once the chanting started, moved to close almost 100 stores and several entrances to the mall. I say "moved to" as opposed to "were forced to" because the shutdown occurred as soon as the protests began, and there were no reports of some sort of violent instigating event; but perhaps it's a good thing the officers moved so quickly, based on how mall employees describe what happened next: From CBS Minnesota:Awesome. Mall of America is going to sue the protest puppet masters. http://t.co/xo4v6er0VN
— SFK (@stephenkruiser) December 23, 2014
Nate Bash works at one store near the rotunda, which he didn’t want us to name. “You had people yelling and screaming inside the mall that wanted out and you had people yelling and screaming outside the mall that wanted in,” he said. “I would say the mall was less than half as busy as it should have been considering what day it was.” “This was a powder keg just waiting for a match,” said Johnson.Police officers are busy using social media in an attempt to single out the organizers (arresting every single protester would be chaos, and not worth the trouble;) their goal is to target the organizers and participants who encouraged others to come to the mall even after officials made moves to emphasize that the Mall of America is privately owned, and those disrutping business would be asked to leave. Officials don't yet know how much money was lost during the shutdown, but they're throwing around words like "staggering," so I'm willing to assume that losses were well worth the effort to track these people down and file a lawsuit.
Today the Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of Tucson, Ariz. teacher Brad McQueen, who was retaliated against by employees of the Arizona Department of Education for speaking out against the Common Core State Standards. For years, Mr. McQueen was paid to serve on several committees of teachers who advised the state department of education on issues related to standardized testing. When he spoke out against the Common Core and its accompanying standardized test earlier this year in a newspaper article, he was removed from the committees (even those that had nothing to do with the Common Core), notes were made in his file at the department that could impact future employment opportunities, and he was disparaged in official department emails. “The First Amendment guarantees that all Americans have the right to speak out on important issues of the day without fear of being persecuted,” said Kurt Altman, a senior attorney at the Goldwater Institute. “When you exercise your rights and find your livelihood and reputation are threatened, especially by the government, that sends a message to everyone around you to keep their mouths shut.”
The action before Frazzini was in juvenile court session, where judges have the discretion to limit proceedings to those participants deemed necessary. A writer representing the Law Tribune was not permitted to remain in the courtroom to witness the proceedings, after his presence was objected to by a lawyer for one of the parents in an underlying custody case and by a guardian ad litem. Klau said he was not sure he could talk specifically about who the lawyers were in the case, or even the judge. The lawyer for the mother in the custody case is Stephen Dembo, of West Hartford, who took the unusual step of requesting the injunction to prevent the newspaper's publication of a story about the court filing. The guardian ad litem is Susan Cousineau, a prominent voice in the ranks of guardians ad litem, who also cochaired a legislative task force on GAL reform in the last legislative session. The Department of Children and Families legal director, Barbara J. Claire, wanted to make it clear that her agency was not behind the request for the publication ban, and said in a statement: "The department did not request that a court grant a motion to prevent media coverage in a confidential child protection case." The motion to bar publication was filed on Friday, Nov. 17. The Law Tribune immediately filed an objection to the motion, arguing that any prior restraint on publication is unconstitutional. "Prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringements on First Amendment rights," the brief states, quoting the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case of Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart.
John Elwood, a lawyer for Mr. Elonis, said prosecutors should have to show that someone accused of making threats intended to put the listener in fear. Merely being reckless with comments on Facebook or elsewhere shouldn’t be enough to make someone guilty, he said. “Many of the people who are being prosecuted now are teenagers who are essentially shooting off their mouths or making sort of ill-timed, sarcastic comments which wind up getting them thrown in jail,” Mr. Elwood said. He cited a Texas prosecution of a teenager who made remarks in a videogame chat room about attacking a school. And he suggested the government’s preferred legal approach would allow the prosecution of someone from Ferguson who tweeted a violent message along with a picture of police officers during the riots.Justices Alito and Ginsburg balked at this argument, with Alito citing concerns that condoning Elonis' conduct could lead to a situation where estranged spouses could post threatening content against their partner and get away with it, and Ginsburg asking how a prosecutor could somehow tease out what was in the perpetrator's mind when he posted the threatening content.
About a week after Tara Elonis convinced a judge to issue a protective order against her estranged husband, Anthony, her soon-to-be ex had this to say:“Fold up your PFA [protection-from-abuse order] and put it in your pocket Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?”... He was fired after co-workers interpreted one of his Facebook postings as a threat to them. He responded: ““Someone once told me that I was a firecracker. Nah, I’m a nuclear bomb and Dorney Park just f----- with the timer.” ... In other postings, Elonis suggested that his son dress as “Matricide” for Halloween, with his wife’s “head on a stick” as a prop. He pondered making a name for himself by shooting up an elementary school and noted that there were so many nearby to choose from — “hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten class.”
This smiling, normal-looking woman is Ann Ravel. She heads the FEC — the Federal Elections Commission. She’s a Democrat in a Democratic administration pursuing the Democratic party’s goal of intimidating, jailing and otherwise harassing their political opponents, who are mean because they don’t like being told what to do, or to think — the way nice people do. So she has been ordered to weaponize the government against unregulated speech — we don’t call it “free speech” any more because that term is archaic and also probably racist. It’s not like she doesn’t want to! As a typical progressive Democrat, Ann Ravel has two overriding psychological needs: First, regulate everything. How on earth with people like Ann Ravel and, for that matter, the President of the United States, ever be able to feel secure when the American people are just running around starting businesses willy-nilly, or irresponsibly making internet videos that don’t conform to the Official Truth, or reading news stories — “news stories!” — on places like Fox or the Drudge Report.Watch the video: This actually dovetails perfectly with Professor Jacobson's new column at Townhall.com:
#Canada: Turns out the attacker was Islamic - what are the odds, huh? Its almost like there's an elephant in the room. #ImTheLiberal
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) October 23, 2014"The UC Berkeley administration cannot and will not accept this decision, which appears to have been based solely on Mr. Maher’s opinions and beliefs, which he conveyed through constitutionally protected speech," said a statement from the university. "For that reason Chancellor Dirks has decided that the invitation will stand, and he looks forward to welcoming Mr. Maher to the Berkeley campus. It should be noted that this decision does not constitute an endorsement of any of Mr. Maher’s prior statements: indeed, the administration’s position on Mr. Maher’s opinions and perspectives is irrelevant in this context, since we fully respect and support his right to express them. More broadly, this university has not in the past and will not in the future shy away from hosting speakers who some deem provocative."
UC-Berkeley students try to derail Bill Maher from speaking at graduation Comedian, pundit and HBO host Bill Maher is scheduled to speak at the University of California-Berkeley’s December graduation, and students are already lining up to get him disinvited, citing his controversial remarks on Islam, the Daily Californian reports:Here's an example of what's gotten Maher into trouble with Berkeley students. (language warning – NSFW) If you watched the video, you may have noticed that Maher mentioned Ayaan Hirsi Ali.The Change.org petition was authored by ASUC Senator Marium Navid, who is backed by the Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian Coalition, or MEMSA, and Khwaja Ahmed, an active MEMSA member. The petition, which urges students to boycott the decision and asks the campus to stop him from speaking, has already gathered more than 1,400 signatures as of Sunday. … “It’s not an issue of freedom of speech, it’s a matter of campus climate,” Navid said. “The First Amendment gives him the right to speak his mind, but it doesn’t give him the right to speak at such an elevated platform as the commencement. That’s a privilege his racist and bigoted remarks don’t give him.” … “(Jon) Stewart and (Stephen) Colbert are critical of religion, too, but Bill Maher has, on several occasions, said to rise up against religious people and religious institutions and take action,” Ahmed said.
