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Liberals Tag

A former State Department watchdog told Fox News that previous secretaries of state did not use a personal email address for official business. Leading Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claims over and over she did nothing wrong because her predecessors used personal email addresses. Howard Krongard, who served as inspector general of the State Department from April 2005 to January 2008, strongly disagrees:
“Certainly to my knowledge at least, Secretary [Condoleezza] Rice did not have a personal server. I certainly never either sent an email to one or received an email from one,” said Krongard, who served during Rice’s tenure. Further, he said, “I would have been stunned had I been asked to send an email to her at a personal server, private address. I would have declined to do so on security grounds and if she had sent one to me, I probably would have started an investigation.”

Supporters of Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders hopes the FBI swoops in and takes out front runner Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server. An inspector general report found that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke State Department rules when she opted to use a private email server for work. The FBI has an open investigation against Clinton, which has puzzled some supporters of Sanders like Julie Crowell:
Like many of Mr. Sanders’s supporters, Ms. Crowell, 37, said she hoped that Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state would eventually yield an indictment, and she described it as the kind of transgression that would disqualify another politician seeking high office. “She should be removed,” said Ms. Crowell, of Tustin, Calif., who attended a Sanders rally here on Tuesday and said she planned to vote for a third-party candidate if Mr. Sanders failed to overtake Mrs. Clinton and capture the Democratic nomination. “I don’t know why she’s not already being told, ‘You can’t run because you’re being investigated.’ I don’t know how that’s not a thing.”

Katie Couric's documentary Under the Gun edited out remarks by a guns rights group to make them look unprepared for a simple question. Couric sat down with the Virginia Citizens Defense League and asked them, “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” The clip shows the members sitting silently for around nine seconds, but audio provided to the Washington Free Beacon's Stephen Gutowski shows the group provided an answer.

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has his problems, including a probe into alleged campaign fundraising improprieties. So what did he do? Pick-a-Fight with Chick-fil-A. Via BizPac Review (h/t Bo Snerdly):
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for a boycott of popular restaurant chain Chick-fil-A, presumably for its founder, Dan Cathy’s, past public statements supporting traditional marriage.

FOX News lives rent free in the heads of liberals all over America. They just can't stand the fact that one news network dares to include conservative voices alongside liberal ones. Obama has been complaining about the network since taking office and now Bernie Sanders is singling out FOX and suggesting that liberals should have a similar network. Here's the best part - He made the comments to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. The Hill reports:
Sanders calls for Democratic version of Fox News Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders called for a more liberal version of Fox News to help fix the problems he sees in corporate media.

Some woman screamed at Florida Governor Rick Scott the other day, including calling him an a-hole, in a video that went viral. Language Warning The Gov just released his response:
After a viral video of a woman cursing him out in a coffee shop went viral this week, Florida Governor Rick Scott decided to unleash his own retaliatory clip on the world — and his very vocal critic. The video, titled “Latte Liberal Gets an Earful,” begins with a brief replay of the verbal barrage Scott encountered.

There are many reasons and ways to oppose Donald Trump. Policy, temperament, qualifications are all in play. But leftists have come up with some very left-wing ways to protest. One of the left-wing ways is to shout-down and disrupt his rallies:

Last week's protests and mini-riot that prompted Donald Trump to cancel a rally in Chicago were the latest example of a concerted effort to disrupt candidates' campaigns. As Trump edges closer to locking up the Republican nomination, such agitation will likely grow more frequent and more extreme. The questions, then, are what limits hecklers from interrupting campaign events, and does enforcing those limitations work.

Legal Restraints on Hecklers

Two preliminary matters, though. First, although there is some First Amendment protection for "speech" in the form of physical action, it is inapplicable for this conversation.  Storming the stage is not protected speech; it is likely assault.  If a protester crosses the line and lays hands on a candidate or somebody attending an event, that would be battery, at a minimum.

As mentioned the other day with regard to a surge in "Move to Canada" Google Searches, there will be a collective freak out in certain places if Trump wins. The freak out has already started. The Washington Post reports Psychologists and massage therapists are reporting ‘Trump anxiety’ among clients
If there is an unofficial capital of psychotherapy, it’s New York’s Upper West Side, where it’s easier to find a therapist than a parking space. Judith Schweiger Levy, a psychologist in the neighborhood, has noticed a recent uptick in Trump references among her patients, including a middle-aged businesswoman who blurted out this week that her sister is supporting the billionaire.

One question I frequently get is something along the lines of "How did college campuses get this way?" And by "this way" people refer to the leftist intolerance of opposing viewpoints, now expressed through the misnomered "social justice" movement and Social Justice Warriors. My response is pretty consistent, that we abandoned the campuses and what you are seeing now was one or two generations in the making. What you are seeing play out now in the intolerance at Vassar related to Israel -- and many other campuses such as Oberlin College -- is just a variation on a theme that has been growing for decades. A reader, who is a Vassar alum, send me an interesting historical anecdote. William F. Buckley, Jr.'s was invitated to be commencement speaker at Vassar in 1980.

Fight Twitter management behavior, but don't leave the arena....

On Saturday morning we posted a brief compilation of recent events suggesting Twitter might be targeting conservatives, Is Twitter Silencing Conservatives? The impetus Saturday was the suspension of Robert Stacy McCain's account (@rsmccain).  McCain blogs at TheOtherMcCain.com and last February published a book, Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature.  That followed de-verification of Milo Yiannopoulos's account (@Nero).  Like McCain, Yiannopoulos is a prominent critic of modern feminism and the Gordian Knot of accusations and recriminations known as "Gamergate."  Oversimplified, Gamergate involves issues about the poor treatment of women in the gaming community.

Twitter, an invaluable news aggregator when properly run and used, has seemingly taken aim at conservatives and those advocating conservative causes. In early January, Twitter stripped Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero on Twitter) of his "verification," saying he violated the anti-harassment Terms of Service. https://twitter.com/Nero/status/685601754654871552

The video below was released last night on Facebook by former Clinton Secretary of Labor and noted liberal Robert Reich. Reich's argument is that Cruz actually believes his conservatism. Reich is right on a big picture basis, even if he exaggerates or distorts a couple of Cruz's positions. Trump, by contrast, is someone Reich feels will make deals and has no ideological foundation so while he's a bully, there's actually less to fear. Basically, Reich is telling liberals to be afraid, very afraid of Ted Cruz. This Facebook comment reflects the general sentiment:

I don't normally watch Stephen Colbert on the Late Show. Somehow, it turned up on my TV last night. I'm not even sure I could replicate the error. When I heard him turn to the topic of Antonin Scalia I thought, oh boy, here we go. But I was so pleasantly surprised. Colbert told of his one personal interaction with Scalia, and it was both funny and moving, as Salon.com reported:
“Whether or not you agreed with him–or made a lot of jokes about him, like I did–one thing you’ve got to admit is that he had a great sense of humor,” Colbert began. “People have actually broken down the transcripts of oral arguments, and he told more jokes and got more laughs than any of the other justices.” “I was lucky enough to have one conversation with Antonin Scalia that explained his appeal to me,” Colbert continued, describing his speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner. “Not many people laughed in the front row,” where the “important people” sit.

Media discussion of Justice Scalia's death and its implications for the public unions case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association overstates the impact and misses the larger issue. Before Justice Scalia died, it was very likely the Court would hold that it is unconstitutional for state law to require, or even simply allow, "agency shop" agreements compelling non-union members to nevertheless contribute to the union's collective bargaining and related expenses.  Now, the Court will probably affirm the Ninth Circuit's decision upholding agency shop agreements, but without setting precedent. That is obviously a better outcome for the Union, but how long will it last?  The New York Times says "a major threat to public unions has evaporated."  Reuters writes more temperately that "a 4-4 split is a likely outcome, which would hand a win to the unions as that would leave the lower court's ruling in their favor in place."