Category Archives: Freedom of Speech and of the Press

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Freedom of Speech even for those who hold repugnant views. Today's election is a referendum on conservatives who protect Freedom of Speech, and liberals who would like to shut you up

It will be no surprise to either of my two regular readers that I do not thing particularly highly of Bill Kristol. The scion of a well-to-do family, now with an estimated net worth of $10 million, was born on December 23, 1952, which had him turning 18 in late 1970. If he really believed that war was a great idea, he was of age to have enlisted in the United States Army to help fight in Vietnam .  .  . but he didn’t. His draft lotter number was 171, so he was kind of on the cusp of being called up to serve, but in any event, never served a single day in uniform. Being Jewish, Mr Kristol could also have volunteered to serve in the Israeli Defence Force, which could have used his service in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, but he didn’t do that, either.

Mr Kristol just loves him some American involvement in wars, advocating American involvement in just about any war, anywhere, but let’s tell the truth here: he supports having other people fight in those wars, not himself and not his children. He has been advocating a position, immediate Ukrainian membership in NATO, in which even his fellow traveler, Max Boot, has said would probably involve the United States directly in a war with Russia, with nuclear-armed Russia.

We get it: Mr Kristol hates Donald Trump. I’m not sure why, because our 45th President was the greatest friend to Israel that there could have been, moving our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and getting the negotiations which resulted in the Abraham Accords, but #TrumpDerangementSyndrome knows few bounds.

But, to me, this tweet by Mr Kristol, saying, “We’ve all had the privilege of being allowed to fight a good and worthwhile fight,” in which he meant fighting against Mr Trump, and he was doing so on Twitter — I refuse to call it 𝕏 — which demonstrates owner Elon Musk’s dedication to the Freedom of Speech! Mr Musk vocally supports President Trump, but my Twitter feed is full of posts from those supporting the crackpot from California, the war in Ukraine, and the anti-Semitic babble of those who support Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and who hate Israel.

That’s important, because we cannot forget that today’s liberals are the ones who want to ‘regulate’ speech, to prevent the dissemination of Wrongthink.

Remember, how the Biden Administration tried to create a Ministry of Truth Disinformation Governance Board under the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security, and that very liberal hater of free speech, Nina Jankowicz.

This is part of what is at stake in today’s election: whether we will have people who are dedicated to freedom of speech and our constitutional rights in office, or those who believe that our individual rights must be curtailed, for some cockamamie concept of what they see as a ‘greater good.’ We’re already seeing that in Europe, where governments are arresting and imprisoning people for praying outside of abortuaries, or protesting against Israel’s conduct of the war, two radically different things from two diametrically opposite parts of the political spectrum. Don’t think that there are not a whole Americans who would do the same thing.

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The losses at The Washington Post * Updated! *

My subscription to The Washington Post is very reasonable, and far less than subscriptions to The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other newspapers. Both the Times and the Inquirer endorsed Kamala Harris Emhoff, whom I regard as a crackpot, socialist, and unChristian supporter of prenatal infanticide, but I didn’t cancel my subscriptions to them over their endorsements.

I doubt that anyone would have cared had the Post endorsed Mrs Emhoff, and I also doubt that newspaper endorsements mean much, especially now that their circulation continues to decline. Newspapers are, as I have previously called them, 18th century technology.

We have previously noted how the butthurt left were cancelling subscriptions to the Post, but have apparently misunderestimated just how butthurt they have been! From National Public Radio:

Over 200,000 subscribers flee ‘Washington Post’ after Bezos blocks Harris endorsement

Continue reading →

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Once again, the left want opponents to just to just shut the heck up!

It all seems so familiar. We reported, in December of 2021, how the female members of the University of Pennsylvania’s women’s swim team were told to keep their mouths shut about Will ‘Lia’ Thomas, the mentally ill man male who claimed he was female on the team:

‘It’s bringing people to tears’: SECOND UPenn swimmer speaks out against trans Lia Thomas competing for the women’s team and says the crowd was silent when she won most recent meet

  • An second anonymous female swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania has spoken out to say she and her teammates are upset by transgender teammate
  • Lia Thomas, 22, smashed three US swimming records at an Akron, Ohio contest last weekend 
  • Thomas also gave an interview to SwimSwam touting the fairness of inclusive but controversial IOC guidelines allowing transgender athletes to compete 
  • Thomas previously competed for the school’s men’s team for three years before joining the women’s team with her last men’s competition in November 2019 

By James Gordon | Published: 18:29 EST, 10 December 2021 | Updated: 21:33 EST, 10 December 2021

A second female swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania has aired her frustrations and fury as her transgender teammate Lia Thomas continues to smash records.

The entire team has been ‘strongly advised’ not to speak to the media and the second swimmer has been granted anonymity.

Nevertheless, the teammate stepped forward to tell how UPenn swimmers are ‘angry’ over what has been perceived as a ‘lack of fairness’ as Thomas smashes record after record in the pool.

The officials at the University of Pennsylvania told the women basically to shut their mouths and swim. Another female team member said that “she feared for her ability to find employment after graduating from college for sharing her honest opinion about a transgender teammate,” a fear that the university’s officials pushed. In a letter that sixteen of Mr Thomas’ teammates anonymously released, they stated that they “have been told that if we spoke out against her inclusion into women’s competitions, that we would be removed from the team or that we would never get a job offer.”

Well, it’s happening again, this time in Nevada: Continue reading →

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Journolism: When the credentialed media fail in their duties They want to "speak truth to power," but only when it doesn't interfere with their political preferences

When I was a teenager in Mt Sterling, Kentucky, I delivered the morning Lexington Herald and the afternoon Lexington Leader, back in those quill pen and inkwell days when the Lexington newspapers were actually delivered throughout central and eastern Kentucky. Now the print editions of the combined Lexington Herald-Leader, published only thrice a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and (ostensibly) Sundays but actually delivered on Saturdays, are delivered via the United States Postal Service in the mail; no more paperboys! The Herald was “moderately liberal” while the Leader was “conservative” in their editorial stances, but by the mid-1980s, after the two dailies merged to form the Herald-Leader, my now late best friend started calling them the Herald-Liberal.

Nevertheless, my recollections of the newspaper back then never had it as blatantly partisan as what I see in the newspapers of today.

We learned in journalism classes — though I was a staffer for the Kentucky Kernel, the university’s student newspaper, in the early 1980s, I was not a journalism major — that journalists were supposed to be independent, even-handed, and impartial in their work. The term “yellow journalism” was often misapplied, but we were supposed to eschew:

In journalism, yellow journalism and the yellow press are American newspapers that use eye-catching headlines and sensationalized exaggerations for increased sales. The English term is chiefly used in the US. In the United Kingdom, a similar term is tabloid journalism. Other languages, e.g. Russian (Жёлтая пресса zhyoltaya pressa), sometimes have terms derived from the American term. Yellow journalism emerged in the intense battle for readers by two newspapers in New York City in 1890s. It was not common in other cities.

Joseph Pulitzer purchased the New York World in 1883 and told his editors to use sensationalism, crusades against corruption, and lavish use of illustrations to boost circulation. William Randolph Hearst then purchased the rival New York Journal in 1895. They engaged in an intense circulation war, at a time when most men bought one copy every day from rival street vendors shouting their paper’s headlines. The term “yellow journalism” originated from the innovative popular “Yellow Kid” comic strip that was published first in the World and later in the Journal.

This type of reporting was characterized by exaggerated headlines, unverified claims, partisan agendas, and a focus on topics like crime, scandal, sports, and violence. Historians have debated whether Yellow journalism played a large role in inflaming public opinion about Spain’s atrocities in Cuba at the time, and perhaps pushing the U.S. into the Spanish-American War of 1898. Most historians say it did not do so. The two papers reached a working class Democratic audience, and the nation’s upscale Republican decision makers (such as President William McKinley and leaders in Congress) seldom read the Yellow press.

The use of partisan newspapers had a long history in the 20th century, with the Soviet Communists publishing Правда (Pravda, which means ‘truth’ in Russian) and Известия (Izvestia, which means ‘news’ in Russian), to spread their propaganda. Beginning in 1920, the Nazi party in Germany began publishing the Völkischer Beobachter (literally ‘People’s Observer,’ but by ‘Völkisch‘, the people to which it refers are not everyone, but ethnic German nationalists, a term which excluded Jews) to spread, eventually successfully, their political arguments.

During the post-World War II era, newspapers strove to keep their editorial and reportorial functions separate. Among the most notable newspapers in the country, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and several others, the editorial slant was obviously to the liberal side, though rarely wild-eyed, far-out leftism. The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, was more conservative in its editorial department. But in none of those great newspapers were there serious questions about the accuracy of their reporting. Their biases did inevitably creep in, but that was primarily evident in what they chose to cover, rather than the accuracy of what was reported.

Today? As this site reported on Friday evening, the readers and subscribers of The Washington Post have waxed wroth because the newspaper, under the instructions of owner Jeff Bezos, declined to endorse anyone for President, the left being absotively, posilutely incensed that they didn’t endorse Kamala Harris Emhoff. Teeth have been gnashed, garments have been rent, and subscriptions have been cancelled.

Cancelled subscriptions? That’s what really gets to the reporters. CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted:

Canceling a newspaper subscription helps politicians who don’t want oversight, does nothing to hurt the billionaires who own the newspapers and make decisions with which you may disagree, and will result in fewer journalists trying to hold the powerful to account.

Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah tweeted:

I didn’t sign up to be a journalist to be silent on what matters most.

I didn’t come here to be a coward. Some of us really, truly believe in speaking truth to power.

We were betrayed today.

Herein lays the problem: the mission of a true journalist shouldn’t be “speaking truth to power,” but to report the news impartially. How are we to have confidence that you are reporting the truth impartially when you blatantly support one position over another? Miss Attiah apparently aspires to the status of journolist, not journalist.

The members of the credentialed media mostly knew of President Joe Biden’s continuing mental decline, but, rather than “hold(ing) the powerful to account” and “speaking truth to power,” they kept their mouths, and keyboards, quiet. The stories of Mr Biden’s slow descent into dementia were many and obvious, but only in independent blogs and on social media; of the credentialed media, the New York Post is the only one I can recall which ever mentioned it. Fox News probably did as well, but as I don’t watch television news — my hearing is so poor that I have to rely on reading the news — and the left-leaning media said virtually nothing.

Remember: they covered up for Hillary Clinton as well, her several falls and then her brief lapse into catatonia, minimizing what they couldn’t completely hide.

If you only paid attention to CNN and the major newspapers, you would never have known that President Biden was zombifying, and it’s all because the media were so consumed with #TrumpDerangementSyndrome that they didn’t want to say anything which might hurt his prospects for re-election, right up until the time of his infamous debate performance, when it was exposed to the American public.

“Speaking truth to power” means telling us all of the truth, including truths which do not fit with your political preferences. That’s what Mr Tapper and Miss Attiah and the vast majority of the journolists who were aware of his conditions failed to do.

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The butthurt children on the left.

I’ve never read Stephen King’s books. While he’s obviously a talented writer, to judge from the enormous sales he’s earned, it’s not that I am somehow boycotting his books due to his well-known liberal opinions, but simply that his particular niche, horror novels, just doesn’t appeal to me.

So, what has led to Mr King’s fit of pique?

The Washington Post says it will not endorse a candidate for president

Publisher William Lewis explained the decision as a return to the newspaper’s roots.

By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Laura Wagner | Friday, October 25, 2024 | 1:09 PM EDT | Updated: 8:17 PM EDT

The Washington Post’s publisher said Friday that the paper will not make an endorsement in this year’s presidential contest, for the first time in 36 years, or in future presidential races.

The decision, announced 11 days before an election that most polls show as too close to call, drew immediate and heated condemnation from a wide swath of subscribers, political figures and media commentators. Robert Kagan, a longtime Post columnist and editor-at-large in the opinion department, resigned in protest, and a group of 11 Washington Post columnists co-signed an article condemning the decision. Angry readers and sources flooded the email inboxes of numerous staffers with complaints.

In a column published on The Post’s website Friday, publisher and CEO William Lewis described the decision as a return to the newspaper’s roots of non-endorsement. The Post did not begin regularly endorsing presidential candidates until 1976, when the paper endorsed Jimmy Carter “for understandable reasons at the time,” Lewis wrote.

“We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable,” Lewis wrote. “We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects.”

There’s more at the original.

Naturally, the left waxed wroth, as the newspaper’s Editorial Board already had a draft endorsement of Kamala Harris Emhoff in hand, and the order came down from on high: owner Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com, ordered the change. Only two days earlier, Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, blocked a planned endorsement of Mrs Emhoff, which led to the resignation of editorials editor Mariel Garza, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene. The Post’s editor-at-large Robert Kagan quit, and other resignations are expected. The Spectator mused:

Of most interest to Cockburn, however, were the remarks of fellow columnist and MSNBC mainstay Jennifer Rubin to the LA Times resignations earlier in the week. In response to Sewell Chan’s resignation from the Times, she wrote, “Bravo. All respect.” Followed by, “and where are the rest of them?”

LOL! Mrs Rubin has now put herself in the position of either having to resign, or proving herself what we already knew she is, a total hypocrite. From Wikipedia:

Rubin has been one of the most vocal conservative writers to criticize Donald Trump, as well as the overall behavior of the Republican Party during Trump’s term in office. Rubin denounced Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement as “a dog whistle to the far right”, and designed to please his “climate change denial, right-wing base that revels in scientific illiteracy.” Previously, after Barack Obama had approved the agreement, Rubin characterized it as “nonsense” and argued that it would not achieve anything. Rubin described Trump’s 2017 decision to not implement parts of the Iran nuclear deal as the “emotional temper tantrum of an unhinged president.” She had previously said that “if you examine the Iran deal in any detail, you will be horrified as to what is in there.” Rubin strongly supported the United States officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Early in his presidency, she criticized Trump for not doing so, saying that it was indicative of his tendency to “never keep his word.” She concluded that Trump “looks buffoonish in his hasty retreat”. In December 2017, after Trump announced that he would move the embassy, she said it was “a foreign policy move without purpose.”

Also read: Robert Stacy McCain, “The Schadenfreude Smorgasbord“

Fourteen opinion columnists of the Post wrote that the decision not to make an endorsement — meaning: an endorsement of Mrs Emhoff — “is a terrible mistake,” but that, to me, brought a smile to my face. In all of this, I mused that perhaps Dr Soon-Shiong and Mr Bezos had devised a nefarious plot to reduce expenses at their newspapers, as some veteran columnists have, and might still, leave their jobs, without the owners having to fire them.

Does the Post really need fourteen opinion columnists?

Semafor reported:

One person familiar with the figures told Semafor that the decision already seemed to be impacting subscriptions. In the 24 hours ending Friday afternoon, about 2,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions, an unusually high number, an employee said.

So, Stephen King and “Meathead” Rob Reiner and a bunch of other people have cancelled their subscriptions. Yet, had conservatives announced a bunch of subscription cancellations following the newspaper’s endorsements of Democrats — every presidential endorsement the Post has made has been for the Democratic candidate — the left would have called it childish petulance. The Philadelphia Inquirer just endorsed Mrs Emhoff, but I’m not going to cancel my subscription over that. It was something that everyone who reads the Inky expected.

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Once again, I was right: the Lexington Herald-Leader has endorsed all Democrats.

On October 4th, I engaged in a Twitter — I refuse to call it 𝕏 — conversation with Rick Green, the executive editor of what passes for my closest newspaper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, concerning newspaper’s endorsements of candidates. In a response to Daniel Pearson, the primary editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, I wrote:

How much good do you think newspaper endorsements actually do? My ‘local’ newspaper, the Lexington @heraldleader, will endorse every Democrat running in the Sixth District, and every last one of them, other than for small districts, will lose. @EditorRAG

Mr Green responded, with a quoted retweet:

Well, considering our editorial board hasn’t yet interviewed all the candidates, your predictions may be flawed. The endorsement process allows us to ask tough questions + probe deeper on visions + platforms than most voters get to hear. Our report-out in the form of endorsements is designed to inform voters, not direct them for whom to vote.

Was my prediction wrong? Continue reading →

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Waging war against Israel, from the safety of Morningside Heights

That our oh-so-noble leftists will lie through their scummy teeth whenever they think it to their advantage is of no surprise to anyone who pays attention. That The New York Times would report on it actually is at least slightly surprising.

Pro-Palestinian Group at Columbia Now Backs ‘Armed Resistance’ by Hamas

Columbia University Apartheid Divest has withdrawn an apology it made last spring for a member who said “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”

by Sharon Otterman | Wednesday, October 9, 2024

The pro-Palestinian group that sparked the student encampment movement at Columbia University in response to the Israel-Hamas war is becoming more hard-line in its rhetoric, openly supporting militant groups fighting Israel and rescinding an apology it made after one of its members said the school was lucky he wasn’t out killing Zionists.

The ‘student’ in question is Khymani James, who, according to NBC News “uses he/she/they pronouns,” thus proving that he’s mentally ill and an idiot, was barred from Columbia’s campus on Friday, April 26th, and is now suing Columbia over his dismissal. Apparently Mr James open support of “militant groups fighting Israel” means fighting Israel in Morningside Heights, and not actually picking up a rifle and heading to Gaza to face the Israel Defense Force in real life.

“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, said in its statement revoking the apology.

The group marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by distributing a newspaper with a headline that used Hamas’s name for it: “One Year Since Al-Aqsa Flood, Revolution Until Victory,” it read, over a picture of Hamas fighters breaching the security fence to Israel. And the group posted an essay calling the attack a “moral, military and political victory” and quoting Ismail Haniyeh, the assassinated former political leader of Hamas.

“The Palestinian resistance is moving their struggle to a new phase of escalation and it is our duty to meet them there,” the group wrote on Oct. 7 on Telegram. “It is our duty to fight for our freedom!”

Also see: William Teach, “Unhinged Jew Hating Group At Columbia U Rescinds Apology For Anti-Semite Comrade

“Apparently, to judge by their support of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and their statement that they “support liberation by any means necessary” means that they support the rapes, murders, and kidnappings perpetrated by the attackers.

Reporter Sharon Otterman’s article noted the problems the university’s leadership have with statements made under our First Amendment protections, but which can also create a “hostile environment for Jewish students.”

Laughably, Mr James, in his lawsuit against Columbia, as reported by the Columbia Spectator, is claiming that he is the one being victimized by a ‘hostile environment’:

“The environment at Columbia, which has been rendered hostile for James, is sufficiently severe, pervasive, persistent, and offensive such that it deprives James of equal access to the opportunities and benefits that Columbia provides to other students,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit states that after James began sharing “anti-war and anti-genocide political beliefs” on their personal Instagram account, they (sic) became the target of “racist, homophobic, and physically threatening messages,” including ones that called James slurs. These messages distracted James from their (sic) schoolwork and caused them (sic) to feel “uncomfortable, anxious, and unsafe,” according to the lawsuit.

Laughing out loud! At least the Times wasn’t silly enough to use Mr James’ preferred pronouns, but the Spectator, produced by the foremost School of Journalism in the country, was. 🙂

I have to ask, are Mr James and his attorney claiming that he has “anti-war . . . political beliefs” at the same time he and his supporters are calling for war against Israel, and are actively supporting the war Hamas started against Israel? But, I can answer my own question: for the anti-Semitic left, violence in advance of their cause is perfectly acceptable; they are simply “anti-war” when it comes to other people and other people’s defense.

There have been several stories about Americans, primarily combat veterans, who have left the United States and gone to Ukraine, to fight against the Russians, and at least a few of them have been killed in action. Hey, they were vets, knew the dangers, and chose to brave them anyway!

And there have been many stories about Americans and Europeans, primarily Jews, who have gone to Israel to fight with the Israel Defense Force. Some are dual citizens, and the anti-Semitic left have been calling for them not to be allowed to return to their European countries, saying that they are “war criminals.”

But pro-‘Palestinian’ Europeans and Americans? I can’t say that none have gone to Gaza to join the fight, but if any have, there haven’t been enough of them to have merited any story that I have seen in the credentialed media about it.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer conceals a truth that everyone already knows Is the Inky actually perpetuating a stereotype it wishes to avoid?

This site has reported, many times, on how The Philadelphia Inquirer censors the news, at the direction of published Elizabeth “Lisa” Hughes. Miss Hughes told us that “racial justice” concerns will be considered in the newspaper’s “crime and criminal justice coverage.”

Teen critically wounded in shooting on SEPTA bus in North Philly

The shooting occurred on Allegheny Avenue near Third Street, police said. Some gunshots hit the engine area and disabled the bus.

by Robert Moran and Earl Hopkins | Friday, October 4, 2024 | 9:47 PM EDT | Updated: Saturday, October 5, 2024 | 2:33 PM EDT

A 17-year-old was critically wounded in a shooting on a SEPTA bus Friday night in North Philadelphia, police said.

The shooting occurred just after 6:15 p.m. on Allegheny Avenue near Third Street, police said. The teen was taken by private vehicle to Temple University Hospital, where he was listed in critical but stable condition with several gunshot wounds, including to the face, police said Saturday.

The suspected shooter, described as a male wearing all-black clothing, got off the bus and fled in a silver Kia, which was located and pursued by police until it crashed at Fifth Street and Glenwood Avenue, said Inspector D.F. Pace. One person in the Kia ran from the car and was apprehended, according to video of the chase, but another remained at large, police said.

Based on a preliminary investigation, police said an altercation between several males on the bus likely led to the shooting near Allegheny Avenue and Fifth Street. The bus had several bullet holes, and spent shell casings were found on the highway in the 300 block of West Allegheny Avenue, so investigators are looking into the possibility of some shots fired outside the bus, Pace said.

There’s more at the original.

I noticed as soon as I read it: the “suspected shooter” was “described as a male wearing all-black clothing”. He wasn’t described as a white male, or an Hispanic male, or an Asian male, but just a male. And I was 99.44% certain that meant that the “suspected shooter” is a black male. The victim was described only as a “17-year-old,” but the Inquirer does tell us that he was male, through the use of the masculine pronouns.[1]Since, in English grammar, the masculine subsumes the feminine, the masculine pronouns are used when the sex of the person to which they refer are unknown, so that does not tell us, technically … Continue reading

But the reporters knew: the Philadelphia Police Department released a crime notification to the media, which Fox 29 News reporter Steve Keeley duplicated at 7:18 PM Friday evening, 2½ hours before the newspaper’s original story, which stated that the victim is a black male. And NBC 10 News reported last night that the suspect was a black male.

Let’s tell the truth here: when violent crime is reported in the City of Brotherly Love, people who hear about it automatically assume that the perpetrators are black. And, in the majority of cases, they are.

But not all of the bad guys in Philly are black, and when the Inky deliberately conceals the race of suspects and victims, is the newspaper not contributing to the stereotype that they are all black?

The Inquirer is privately owned, by the Leftist Lenfest Institute for Journalism, and absolutely has the right to print what it wishes, and not publicize what it wants to keep quiet. But it ought to be asked just how much journalist respect we can have for a newspaper that censors the news for political purposes.

References

References
↑1 Since, in English grammar, the masculine subsumes the feminine, the masculine pronouns are used when the sex of the person to which they refer are unknown, so that does not tell us, technically speaking, that the victim is male, but I also know that the newspaper’s reporters are too grammatically illiterate to realize that and use pronouns thus.
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When the Jew haters tell you who they are, believe them! "Students for Justice in Palestine" could have protested at Israeli consulate, but chose to protest at Jewish center

This poor site, along with literally hundreds of others, has covered the pro-‘Palestinian, really pro-Hamas ‘demonstrations’ on our college campuses last spring. I did note, with some pleasure, that at least at my alma mater, the University of Kentucky, the protests were carried out the way the First Amendment, which guarantees to all of us both the freedom of speech and the right of peaceable assembly, contemplated, peaceably.

Sadly, many of the pro-savages demonstrations at other schools were not entirely peaceable. But I did gloat report on those demonstrations fading away when school was out for the summer.

Well, it’s a new school year — though October seems like this article is a bit late — and the Usual Suspects have been up to their old tricks. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Temple suspends pro-Palestinian student group; Muslim advocates call to investigate police over alleged hijab removal during campus protest

CAIR is calling for an investigation after Temple University’s handling of a protest, where they say a Philadelphia police officer allegedly removed a Muslim protester’s hijab.

by Max Marin and Robert Moran | Wednesday, October 2, 2024 | 2:02 PM EDT | Updated: 6:37 PM EDT

Temple University has temporarily banned Students for Justice in Palestine from operating on campus, the latest in a wave of suspensions against pro-Palestinian student groups amid sustained protests against the war in Gaza.

The move comes after police detained four SJP members, including a Temple student, during a demonstration that interrupted an on-campus career fair last week.

So, the “Students for Justice in Palestine” demonstration was not peaceable in nature, but interrupted a meeting to help more sensible students at Temple who were looking to begin their professional careers after graduation. You know, the sensible thing to do after spending a boatload of money for a university education.

Muslim community leaders are calling for an investigation into the university’s handling of that protest after a Philadelphia police officer allegedly removed a Muslim protester’s hijab and detained the woman without access to her religious head covering.

If that happened, and I will never believe claims by “Muslim community leaders” without outside corroboration, it would have been because the woman was resisting arrest.

While Temple did not cite that specific incident, a university spokesperson said in a statement that the interim suspension stemmed from “recent conduct,” and the student activist group is now forbidden from holding on-campus activities, including “meetings, social and philanthropic events.” The suspension was first reported by the Temple News.

The spokesperson pointed to the university’s on-campus demonstration guidelines that are “in place to ensure the safety and well-being of community members while also encouraging and preserving freedom of expression.” . . . .

This is not the group’s first brush with university leaders. Temple president Richard Englert denounced an SJP-led demonstration in August after protesters chanted outside a Jewish student center on campus.

In a statement, Englert threatened disciplinary action against students who participated in the rally, which he described as a form of “intimidation and harassment.” The pro-Palestinian student group pushed back against Englert’s comments, arguing in a post on social media that the president “distorted our message to serve the false narrative that Temple SJP is a threat to Temple.”

No, I suppose that the pro-barbarian students wouldn’t see accosting Jewish students outside of a known Jewish student gathering place as “intimidation and harassment,” but the Jews on campus certainly would have, and did:

Temple University says it is investigating a student pro-Palestinian demonstration held outside a Jewish center on campus

“Targeting a group of individuals because of their Jewish identity is not acceptable and intimidation and harassment tactics like those seen today will not be tolerated,” Temple’s president said.

by Robert Moran | Thursday, August 29, 2024 | 10:40 PM EDT

Temple University said it is investigating for possible disciplinary action a pro-Palestinian march by students and nonstudents who demonstrated outside a Jewish center on campus Thursday.

The protest march began at the Charles Library, said Temple University president Richard Englert in a statement, then some demonstrators went to the Rosen Center, which is the home at Temple of Hillel, an international organization for Jewish students.

“While there, the demonstrators used megaphones to chant directly at the occupants within the building,” Englert said.

Emphasis mine. Using megaphones to chant directly at the people in the Hillel Center, the majority of who could be assumed to be Jewish, would constitute targeted ethnic and religious harassment.

“We are deeply saddened and concerned by these events,” Englert said. “Targeting a group of individuals because of their Jewish identity is not acceptable and intimidation and harassment tactics like those seen today will not be tolerated.”

This was clearly a protest against Jews in general, not just Israeli policy, as the “Students for Justice in Palestine” have conflated the two. Not all Jews are Israelis, and at an American college 5,774 miles away from Israel, it’s virtually certain that most of the Jews on campus at Temple are not from Israel.

There is an Israeli consulate in Philadelphia, at 1880 John F. Kennedy Blvd, which is just 2.6 miles away from the Hillel Center, at 1441 West Norris Street, pretty much of a straight march down Broad Street, though, admittedly, marching that way takes you partly into the Philadelphia Badlands. If the SJP wanted to protest Israeli government policies specifically, they could have been protesting outside the consulate; instead they were harassing people they knew to be Jooooos.

Temple’s actions won’t stop the SJP from existing; all it does is ban them as a student organization and deny them use of Temple’s facilities.

Our First Amendment was written by civilized men, with civilized behavior in mind; they cited “the right of the people peaceably to assemble”. It does not protect some right to harass others, or gather in mobs, or riot.

But the pro-‘Palestinian’ people in this country, and around the world, are not truly civilized men. They might think that they are, but they are supporting the barbarism of Hamas, they are supporting the antithesis of the Western civilization, the benefits of which they enjoy.  The “Students for Justice in Palestine” have a right to exist, and to protest peacefully; it’s only when the break the code of civilization that they become subject to arrest.

The one thing they do not have is any right to the respect of decent people, and for them, I have none. When the anti-Semites tell you who they really are, you should believe them!