College Protests Run Amok

For John, BLUF:  I am probably slow, but when in college I didn't have time to take off for protests.  I needed to be cracking the books, as we used to say.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

“This is an openly anti-American movement, which is using Israel as the scapegoat”

Here is the sub-headline:

“Academia, particularly at the level of Columbia and the Ivy League, is completely broken. I don’t think it can be repaired internally. They have created over 20 to 30 years a unified monoculture which is hostile to western values, which is hostile to capitalism, and which exploits and singles out Israel as the object of their ire as a mobilizing tactic…. People need to understand that there is no internal opposition left.”

From Legal Insurrection, by Professor William A. Jacobson, Tuesday, 23 April 2024 at 08:30pm.

Here is the lede plus three:

There is a plus-side to the vile anti-Israel and antisemitic encampments at Columbia and several other universities – the anti-American side of the movement is on full display.  As I’ve been saying for years, the racialized and radicalized campuses are a threat to our nation, now they have shown their hand for all to see.

When they burn American flags, and when they chant for the destruction of the U.S., they are showing us who they really are.

It’s going to get worse.

After spending months screaming for an Intifada (the suicide bombing campaign against Israel), don’t be surprised when some of them try to fulfill their sick fantasies.

I know a former Professor from Columbia and have had numberous conversations with him about various issues in the Middle East (his area of expertise).  I have never thought of him as radical or anti-semetic.  I learned, and at the same time I felt my views were respected.  But, he retired a decade ago.  There are, or at least, have been, intelligent, thinking adults in academia.  But, they seem absent today, and that is bad for our Republic.

The current state of the Ivy League and other elite schools makes me think the smart, informed, parent of a high school senior would consider two years at a community college and then a state university.  Or a known non-radical school, such as Franciscan University of Steubenville.

There is also the view of opinionnater Stephen Kruiser, "Let the Protesters Stay Until Academia Burns to the Ground."  As Professor Glenn Reynolds says from time to time, "what can't go on won't."

I defend the right of the college campus protesters to protest.  I do not condone their intimidating fellow college students, such that those students do not feel safe going to class.  I defend the right of the college campus protesters to be ignorant slobs.  I don't have to accept their uninformed views.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Ms Griner Stands Up

For John, BLUF:  Ms Brittney Griner has not always been easy on the U nited States.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Brittney Griner plays in first game since detainment, says hearing national anthem 'definitely hit different'

Here is the sub-headline:

Griner spent nearly 10 months in a Russian prison

From Fox News, by Reporter Joe Morgan, 13 May 2023 10:40am EDT.

Here is the lede plus one:

Seven-time WNBA All-Star Britney Griner returned to game action on Friday for the first time since being arrested in February 2022 at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport after authorities discovered vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage.

Griner spent nearly 10 months in a Russian prison after she pleaded guilty to drug charges, and she returned to the United States in December after a prisoner exchange.

I take her comment to be a kind statement about her Country and applaud it.

Hat tip to the Drudge Report.

Regards  —  Cliff

Citizens police Tour de France

For John, BLUF:  The Legislature should understand what the People are feeling and be responsive to it, either legislating as they want or stnading up and leading the People in a new direction.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Tour de France fans take justice into their own hands and tackle militant eco-protesters before dragging them off the road to stop them blocking the race

Here is the sub-headline:

• Climate activists held a fourth protest at the Tour de France today but were dragged off the road by fans
• The incensed bystanders piled into the road and hauled the eco-protesters off the tarmac so bikes could pass
• Police later arrived and arrested eight activists from the sideline of the competition, which finishes today

From The Daily Mail, by Reporter Charlotte McLaughlin, 25 July 2022, 03:01 EDT.

Here is the lede plus two:

Tour de France fans took matters into their own hands yesterday as they angrily removed a gang of eco-protesters threatening to disrupt the historic bike race by sitting in the middle of the road to block oncoming riders.

Eight climate activists from French campaign group Dernière Rénovation (Last Renovation) sporting T-shirts emblazoned with the message 'we have 978 days left' to tackle environmental decline tried to stop the race during the 20th stage between Lacapelle-Marival and Rocamadour on Saturday.

But their attempts to wreak havoc at the stage were thwarted by spectators, who stormed onto the road and dragged them out of the path of the oncoming bikes even before the police arrived on the scene to make arrests.

This is the kind of thing thaat happens when the ordinary citizenry gets tired of being pushed around by criminls or protestors and the police are not doing their job.

The good news here is that the citizens just pushed the Climate Change protestors oult of the way.  They did not, themselves, ingage in vioolence..

On of the issues for the Public is if the Climate change we are experiencing is of a magnitude and velocity as to require rapid change, thus justifying massive civil disobedience.  I am doubtful that is what the science is saying.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

A View of Canada

For John, BLUF:  Not all Canadians are happy with the performance of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The Reason for the Police Violence in Ottawa is Not What You Think

Here is the sub-headline:

It’s way way worse

From the Blog Welcome to Absurdistan, by Blogger Elizabeth Nickson, 10 February 2022.

Here is the lede plus four:

“So we’re dealing with cornered feral humans who are terrified. Arguably the entire thing from the lockdowns till now is their knowing what’s coming (They see polls you don’t see. 39% approval my sore ass. More likely 9%) And they know how much they cheated, and it wasn’t enough so they had to cheat at the last minute. Oh, and all of them are criminals, steeped deep in horrible crap. And they can’t afford for it to come out. In their little pin heads, they have to keep control.” -Sarah A Hoyt

The black clad army of mercenaries and police brutalizing a peaceful protest in Ottawa this weekend has been planned for years. It is overkill for a reason. It is theatre. It is an othering, a willful flagrant statement on the future of the working class everywhere. It instructs them: you will die. If not now, then sometime in the next ten years. Your towns will be gutted, your jobs will evaporate, you will scramble for pennies until you fall over dead and your children will have nothing to look forward to. You are Tutsi, you are Jew, you are Kulak, you are compromador, you are Othered. You are headed for the slagheap of history. Fight back and you will be deemed domestic terrorists and encamped indefinitely.

This week, Canada’s intelligentsia unmasked themselves as fully on side of this demonic enterprise, competing to hate on the truckers. I watch or read very little of it because 95% of newsrooms vote either Liberal or Socialist and I spent two years in my early 20’s dating and arguing with a black Marxist professor, so I know exactly what they think.

And what they “think” is hate:

“So why was I, at the trucker convoy in Toronto, gripped by a deep physical loathing, true abjection?”

She has a reasonable position.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

A Critique of American Media

For John, BLUF:  The same basic sitution and two very different takes by the same news outfit.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

BLM-Loving NYTimes: Canadian Trucker Vax Protest ‘Scene of Disruption and Desecration’

From News Busters, by Reporter Clay Waters, 10 February 2022, 10:06 AM.

Here is the lede plus one:

The Canadian trucker protest in Ottawa against vaccine mandates and overzealous Covid restrictions is certainly not getting the fawning Black Lives Matter treatment from The New York Times.  Tuesday’s front-page story was crammed with contempt for the protesters, smeared for allegedly committing the same sort of acts that BLM protesters did during the often violent nationwide protests after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020:  Theft, disruption, and “desecration” of statues.

The headline under a story by Catherine Porter, Ian Austen and Sheera Frenkel upped the sense of danger, throwing in a “far-right” in the front-page headline “Ottawa Protests Become Rallying Cry for Far-Right and Anti-Vaccine Groups.”  The “far-left” is barely if ever noticed by The Times

it speaks for itself.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

About Truckistan

For John, BLUF:  It is only getting worse under Pime Miniister Justin Trudeau.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Meanwhile in Truckistan

Here is the sub-headline:

From The Instapundit, by the Instapudit, Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 12 Febrary 2022.

Here is the line:

If you can’t understand the difference between trucks peacefully blocking a road and a rioting mob surrounding drivers, you might be a Progressive.”

On the other hand, it might be because you have a short term memory problem.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

For John, BLUF:  The McCloskey home defense (2nd Amendment) issue is back in the news, with a resolution.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

McCloskey Gets Last Laugh:  Posts Pics Of New Gun After Being Forced To Surrender Old One

From The Lid Blog! by Reporters Wes Walker and Jeff Dunetz, 21 June 2021.

Here is the lede plus three:

If authorities thought that compelling the McCloskeys to plead to a misdemeanor firearms violation would scare them into bending the knee, they have grossly underestimated the McCloskeys.

For anyone who missed it, here is a quick recap of events that had their detractors gloating.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges after they brandished weapons against protesters outside their home in June 2020 during the height of riots surrounding the death of George Floyd.

On Thursday, Mark McCloskey pleaded guilty to a fourth-degree misdemeanor of assault and was ordered to pay a $750 fine, while Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to a second-degree misdemeanor of harassment and mandated to pay $2,000.  Neither will face jail time, though the pair’s firearms will be destroyed by state authorities.

This seems like a major reduction in the charges, as times has worn on.  How much right does one have to defend the lives of loved ones and one's own property?  Apparently quie a bit.  Just don't yell at the protestors, such that they feel as frightened as oneself.

Will Mr Mark McCloskey be running in 2022 for the US Senate from Missouri, to replace Republican Senator Roy Blunt?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

2020 is like 2016, Reversed

For John, BLUF:  The hypocrisy is strong in the Democrats.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Democrats are now reaping the whirlwind of their 2016 election ‘Resistance’

From The New York Post, by Columnist Michael Barone, 4 December 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

“My sense is that if Trump wins, Hillary supporters will be sad,” left-wing writer Sally Kohn tweeted the day of the 2016 election.  “If Hillary wins, Trump supporters will be angry.  Important difference.”  Kohn turned out to be wrong about her own side that year, which angrily set about delegitimizing Donald Trump’s victory.  She was wrong, too, in her apparent assumption — shared by shop owners who boarded up their windows — that Trump supporters would react as violently to his defeat as the Black Lives Matter movement reacted to a death in Minneapolis.

Which is not to say President Trump and many of his supporters are responding gracefully to their candidate’s failure to repeat his 2016 feat of winning the presidency by a margin of 77,736 votes in three crucial states (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania).  They are not consoled that Joe Biden’s margin of victory in this year’s three crucial states (Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin) was an even smaller 43,809 votes.

There is more to the article than these two paragraphs.  After surveying the numbers, the writer goes on to look at reactions in 2016.  Twice, in twao adjacent paragraphs he writes "in violation of longstanding norms" to talk about how Democrats♠ acted in 2016.

Yes, the Democrats are reaping what they sowed in 2016 and 2017.  It is to their advantage that they hold the House of Representatives going into 2021.  Will they be so lucky in 2023?♥  If the Democrats don't clean up their act there could be interesting hearings in 2023 and 2024.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  And, I would add, the established bureaucracy.
♥  While one can steal an election on the margin, if the voting is overwhelming for the other side then stealing will be obvious to the casual observer, and that is a bad look for the theives.

Antifa Protests Those Protesting the Government Lockdown (Germany)

For John, BLUF:  And I had thought that the dreaded Antifa was found mostly around US college campuses.  I was wrong.  Here it is in Germany.  However, I doubt it exists in Russia or Mainland China or North Korea.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Antifa protests against ending the lockdown in Germany

From The Post Millennial, by Reporter Collin Jones, 25 May 2020.

Here is the lede plus four:

Police deployed water cannons on Saturday in an effort to break up an antifa demonstration that was disrupting an anti-lockdown rally in Hamburg, Germany.

The authorities were called to action after 120 antifa counter-protesters, dressed in black hoodies, consistently ignored requests to steer clear of the "Vigil for the Basic Law" rally against the lockdown measures.

The initial lockdown protest featured those who insisted that the government reopen the economy.  This group was given the go-ahead to move forward with their event after the organizers agreed to keep the limit of attendees below 750 as opposed to the thousands who would usually be allowed to show up if not for social distancing measures installed due to the pandemic.

The protestors who were permitted to be out were obeying social distancing protocols, and asking that the government make testing more available as opposed to keeping everyone quarantined.

But it did not take long before antifa counter-protesters took to the streets to ironically side of the government against those who simply want to get back to work.

Signs saying "Vigil for the Basic Law" mean Vigil for the Constitution, since the German "Basic Law" is what we would call the Constitution.

My Wife's comment to me:  "They just want the Government to fail."  That makes sense, so the Antifa crowd can capitalize on the ensuing chaos to install their own Fascist system.  Individual freedom take the hindmost.

If we keep in mind the Antifa crowd hates those who think for themselves, those who do not conform to Antifa current thinking, it is at least capable of being binned.  Otherwise they make no sense.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Knowing What Really Happened

For John, BLUF:  Freedom requires a certain degree of informational accuracy in order to be effectively exercised.  It seems to me that News institutions have a duty to provide the unvarnished facts.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Triggered NBC News correspondent Gabe Gutierrez tries to pass off the Pledge of Allegiance at Virginia gun rights rally as something very different [video]; UPDATED

From Twitchy, by Sarah D., 20 January 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

NBC News correspondent Gabe Gutierrez is on the ground in Virginia today to cover today’s gun rights rally. And what he heard will shock you:

[Then the article cuts to the Tweet]

Chants of “we will not comply” from gun rights protesters in Richmond.

The problem is, it sure sounds, in the video Reporter Gabe Gutierrez provides, like the US Pledge of Allegiance.

I am thinking that this isn't so much on Reporter Gutierrez as on his production team.  Still, it is on NBC as a media institution.  Alternatively, it is a deliberate distortion for the purposes of influencing political sentiments.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

For John, BLUF:  Something interesting happened in Iran.  With the downing of the Ukraine airliner, and the Iranian Government's initial coverup, the protestors in the Iranian streets flipped from Anti-American to Anti-Iranian Government.  Not everyone got the memo.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Nancy Pelosi Disses Courageous Iranian Protestors

From the Victory Girls, by Ms Nina Bookout, 13 January 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

Nancy Pelosi had her own “some people did something” moment yesterday.  She made it clear that she could care less about the Iranian protestors while talking with George Stephanopolous on ABC’s This Week.

Nancy literally “whatevered” Iranians who are courageously standing up to one of the most evil and oppressive regimes in the world.  She completely dissed Iranian citizens who know that they could be killed for what they are doing.

It isn't like the Press picked up the protest flip, so maybe Speaker Pelosi is just uninformed.

Kudos, however, to the President, who did get the memo, and tweeted out support, in Farsi.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Listening to the Other Side

For John, BLUF:  People doing like being bullied, including being intellectually bullied.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From Twitter, by Journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Here is the lede plus five:

@ggreenwald
Glenn Greenwald Retweeted Neera Tanden
The inability of rich neoliberal centrist elites in western capitals to understand - or even hide their scorn for - the anger & grievances of rural and working-class people over their economic suffering is one of the 2 or 3 most important causes of contemporary political changes:

Neera Tanden
Verified account
@neeratanden
I don’t understand why any progressive is cheering French protesters who are amassing against a carbon tax.

4:54 AM - 9 Dec 2018

This is over a month old, but the Yellow Jackets continue to protest in France and people continue to misunderstand and underestimate the story.  That is to say, it is like when the Tea Party in the US, and its agenda, was rejected by all the right-thinking people.  The result was the election of Donald Trump as President.♠

Not everyone takes the views of their betters as gospel.  Democracy, at the end of the day, means these other folks get a voice.  Not that they win, but that they get a say.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  See, for example, this Professor Glenn Reynolds article from 2016.

The New Class

For John, BLUF:  I don't think the Progressives yet understand this.  I think they still think it is just ignorance and bigotry.  Sadly, they are misinformed.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Donald Trump is a symptom of a new kind of class warfare raging at home and abroad

Here is the sub-headline:

What’s happening in America is an echo of what’s happening in democracies around the world, and it’s not happening because of Trump.

From USA Today, by Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds, 15 January 2019.

Here is the lede plus three:

To understand events around the world today, one must think in terms of the class struggle.

This sentence sounds like something that could be written by a doctrinaire Marxist.  But it is nonetheless true.  Much of the current tension in America and in many other democracies is in fact a product of a class struggle.  It’s not the kind of class struggle that Karl Marx wrote about, with workers and peasants facing off against rapacious capitalists, but it is a case of today’s ruling class facing disaffection from its working class.

In the old Soviet Union, the Marxists assured us that once true communism was established under a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the state would wither away and everyone would be free.  In fact, however, the dictatorship of the proletariat turned into a dictatorship of the party hacks, who had no interest whatsoever in seeing their positions or power wither.

Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas called these party hacks the "New Class," noting that instead of workers and peasants against capitalists, it was now a case of workers and peasants being ruled by a managerial new class of technocrats who, while purporting to act for the benefit of the workers and peasants, somehow wound up with the lion’s share of the goodies.  Workers and peasants stood in long lines for bread and shoddy household goods, while party leaders and government managers bought imported delicacies in special, secret stores.  (In a famous Soviet joke, then-leader Leonid Brezhnev shows his mother his luxury apartment, his limousine, his fancy country house and his helicopter only to have her object:  “But what if the communists come back?”)

I am not sure the New Class sees the problem here.  Maybe the increasing number of working homeless on the Coast will help them visualize the problem.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

A Look From Inside the Barricades in France

For John, BLUF:  A too quick dismissal of this French protest movement would lead to missing some important political points.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The Truth About France's Yellow Vests

From The New English Review, by Author Erik Svane, January 2019 edition.

Here is the start:

The more laws and restrictions there are,
The poorer people become
The more rules and regulations,
The more thieves and robbers.
     —Lao Tzu

Not a single media report I have read or seen about the Yellow Vest demonstrations in Paris and across France has not been slanted by Fake News.  The problem is that crucial information has been omitted.

It is not wrong to say that the demonstrations were caused by the government's decision to raise gas prices.  But that view seems to pit two more or less equal sides against each other—people (responsible government officials) seeing the necessities of taxes in life versus carefree people (common citizens) unconcerned with the sacrifices that life entails and who go overboard with their protests.

What is missing from most all of the coverage of this crisis in France is that this is just one of several draconian measures dating back half a year, i.e., the recent tax hike that sparked the wave of protests was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

For the past four to five months, the nation's drivers and motorcycle riders have been growing increasingly irate at les sangsues (bloodsuckers) in the French government who seem to do little else, road-security-wise, but double down on bringing more and more gratuitous oppression upon their necks and saddling them with more and more unwarranted fines and costs.

In fact, the imposition of ever harsher rules has been going on for the past decade and a half or so—whether the government was on the right or on the left—and that is why the choice of garb, les gilets jaunes (the yellow jackets), by the demonstrators is particularly ironic.

The 2008 law (under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy) that requires the presence of high-visibility vests (gilets de haute visibilité) aka security vests (gilets de sécurité) in every vehicle—hardly an unreasonable rule, for sure, as similar ones exist throughout the continent—was just another example of the myriad of evermore-onerous directives for car and motorcycle owners over the past 15 years, and so the government, in effect, provided the 2018 rebels with their "uniforms."

This unsettled populace is not just some creation of Donald J Trump.  Rather, it is the unsettledness the has given us President Trump.  There is a segment of the voters, across the West, that is restless.  They would go along with the Gleichschaltung if the bien-pensant didn't seem to be stepping on them.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Yellow Vests Protest into 2019

For John, BLUF:  No everyone in France (in Europe) is happy with the vision of the EU bureaucrats.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

French Democracy Dead or Alive?

Here is the sub-headline:

The Gilets Jaunes in 2019

From Unz, by writer Diana Johnstone, 11 January 2019.

Here are two important paragraphs:

That objection is answered by what has quickly emerged as the single overriding demand of the movement:  the Citizens’ Initiative Referendum (CIR).

This demand illustrates the good sense of the movement.  Rather than making a “must” list, the GJ merely ask that the people be allowed to choose, and the referendum is the way to choose.  The demand is for a certain number of signatories – perhaps 700,000, perhaps more – to gain the right to call a referendum on an issue of their choice.  The right to a CIR exists in Switzerland, Italy and California.  The idea horrifies all those whose profession it is to know best.  If the people vote, they will vote for all sorts of absurd things, the better-knowers observe with a shudder.

Yes, Democracy is dangerous.

The thing is, it looks like the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) or (GJ) are going to continue into 2019.  How that will work out is yet to be see.  One finds it hard to believe the graduates of Sciences Po, or the Civil Service, are going to go along with it.

As for a referendum, or a ballot initiative, that has to rattle cages of the establishment.

Regards  —  Cliff

France, In Trouble

For John, BLUF:  While the number of protestors is down this week,President Macron is not yet out of the woods.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

A Tweet Regarding France

A Tweet from Richard Fernandez.

wretchardthecat
@wretchardthecat @wretchardthecat
If France can't buy off the revolting Deplorables that means the global system is close to short on money.  Like a Hollywood star in a drug haze and spending habit it finally finds itself overdrawn.
12:52 PM - 11 Dec 2018

For those who think that President Donald Trump is a unique phenomenon, there might be value in casting a glance toward Europe.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Being Ugly in Public

For John, BLUF:  Everyone has a First Amendment right to free speech.  On the other hand, those taking the King's shilling [a classic reference] are expected, in my mind, at least, to not be out disrupting the King's work, so to speak.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

SOCIALIST ACTIVIST WHO HARASSED HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY WORKS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

From The Daily Caller, by Reporter Joe Simonson, 20 June 2018.

Here is the lede plus five:

One of the activists who chased Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen out of a Mexican restaurant Tuesday night over the Trump administration’s immigration policies is an employee of the Department of Justice, The Daily Caller News Foundation has confirmed.

Members of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America crashed Nielsen’s meal with a demonstration full of chants and other outbursts.

One of those participants, _______ ______,♠ actually works for the Trump administration — as a paralegal in the DOJ.

“Kirstjen Nielsen, you’re a villain, locking up immigrant children,” activists can be heard saying in a video.

The right to free speech is the right to be stupid, or uncouth, as in this case.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Not doxxing here.

A Theocracy Threatened

For John, BLUF:  The Iranians may be fomenting trouble abroad (Syria, Iraq, Germany) but they also have trouble at home.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Why Are the Iranian Protesters Islamophobes?

Well, they might be if they were Anglo-Saxon identifying folks♠ here in the US.

From Pajama Media, by Reporter Robert Spencer, 15 January 2018.

Here is the lede plus two:

“We should have an Iranian republic, not an Islamic republic,” said one Iranian protester.  “Islam cannot address our needs.”

The protesters chanted:  “We don’t want an Islamic republic! … Clerics, shame on you, let go of our country!”  Some even chanted:  “Reza Shah, bless your soul!”, referring to the former Shah of Iran who had set the nation on a secularizing, pro-Western course.

All of this raises the question: in the U.S., we are constantly told that opposition to Sharia constitutes bigotry and “Islamophobia.”  So how did Iran come to be filled with bigoted “Islamophobes”?

Here is a further excerpt:

Julie Lenarz of Britain’s Human Security Center observed in December 2015: “It is astonishing that the West cultivates an ever-closer alliance with a theocratic regime widely known for its abysmal human rights record and aggressive behavior in the region. They hang men for the ‘crime’ of writing poems; or engaging in peaceful protest; or loving someone of the same sex. Women are stoned for being raped and Iranian law even allows for juvenile executions. Iran is averaging three hangings per day at the moment and remains a pariah state with no regard for human life. In a despicable form of moral myopia, the gold rush for business, as the international sanctions regime begins to unravel, has made Western governments blind to the suffering of ordinary Iranians at the hands of the Ayatollahs.”

While I won't try to characterize Iran, it is not a place I would wish to live.  Would you?

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  You know, those who believe in the Rights of Englishmen, common law, the Declaration of Independence, private property and capitalism and the concept of subsidiarity and similar ideas.

No Limits Protests

For John, BLUF:  The Left should be embarrassed, but they are too ignorant for that to sink in.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

The New Night-Riders are Just Like the Old Ones

From Da Tech Guy and Ms Juliette Akinyi Ochieng (Baldilocks), 26 December 2017 .

This is about talk host Ms Stacy Washington telling her fans to report a leftist page called “New Years Rave at Ajit Pai’s House”, which was about protesting, between 2200 and 0300, over Mr Pai's Net Neutrality Decision.  So, they went after Ms Washington on line.

Here is the lede (emphasis mine):

Commenting on this situation, a friend observed that “Leftists don’t like being exposed for returning to their night rider KKK roots.”  A searing assessment that is, but I don’t think that these foot-soldiers for Leftism have the slightest bit of self-awareness or historical perspective about this proposed action against a man’s home or about harassing brown-skinned Americans for what they believe.  If they did, outside of the psychopaths, they wouldn’t be participating.  Then again, the group is probably composed of nothing but psychopaths. 12,000 of them.

I am not which is a greater indictment, using Klan like tactics or being so historically ignorant they don't realize they are acting like the Klan.

Either was, it is bad  The left in this Country is working to destroy free speech.  I would hope that if they had a clue they would be embarrassed and hide their faces—Oh, right, they do hide their faces, while they keep on acting like a 21st Century Klan.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Charlottesville Revisited

For John, BLUF:  Remember the Demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier in the year.  Another strange turn.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Study blames law enforcement for the injuries and death at the Charlottesville protests.

By Emeritus Law Professor Ann Althouse, at her blog, 1 December 2017.

Ms Althouse links to a USA Today article:

“This represents a failure of one of government’s core functions — the protection of fundamental rights,” reads the 220-page report from Timothy Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney who reviewed the protest for the town's city council.  “Law enforcement also failed to maintain order and protect citizens from harm, injury and death.”

This isn't good.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff