Free Speech

Gutfeld on the canceling of “Live PD”

“Live PD” has been pulled by the A&E network. The show was a hit, revealing an unspeakable truth: that cops are human. Maybe that’s why it was canceled, for showing the police as hardworking folks facing unpredictable and sometimes dangerous circumstances. And because that didn’t fit the current narrative, it got pulled. And this reveals that the real censorship doesn’t arrive via autocracy, but via the emasculation of network execs. Here’s an idea: replace “Live PD” with a show called “No PD.” Just show crimes committed without cops around. So will “Live PD” come back? Not when the media see police as somehow worse than criminals. And the crime of “Live PD” is showing the reality of policing ignored by other networks, where cops are either relentlessly heroic or horrifyingly bad. And so A&E cancels the show. Censorship out of fear. Do you know up to that up to 440,000 Americans die each year from preventable hospital errors? That’s the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. Shall we cancel “Grey’s Anatomy?” And cancel all those other hospital programs that show health care workers in an aspirational glow? And I say all of this knowing full well that “Live PD” was competition for my show Saturday nights. “Live PD” put up great numbers on Saturdays. I should be thrilled it got knocked out of the lineup. I could be No. 1. But that would be stupid and wrong. Because I may not be No. 1. I may be next.

Yeah… No kidding..  For over 20 years, the liberals have been trying to figure a way to censor Rush Limbaugh on AM radio.  As usual, Greg Gutfeld nails it.  That was adapted from Greg Gutfeld’s monologue (otherwise known as a “Gregologue”) on Thursday, June 11, 2020.

Opinion/Analysis: Donald Trump Is Defending the First Amendment; Joe Biden Is Attacking It

President Donald Trump’s executive order on Thursday cracking down on social media censorship stirred protests from the usual quarters. Former Vice President Joe Biden claimed that Trump’s order is “an extreme abuse of power” and “demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the role and function of the federal government.” The opposite is true. Trump’s executive order is well-founded in the principles of the First Amendment and stays well within existing law. The order tackles the thorny problem of selective censorship by platforms that, while privately owned, have become the public spaces of our digital era. At a moment when most of us are literally prohibited from gathering physically in large numbers, due to coronavirus restrictions, the only spaces in which we can exercise our First Amendment rights meaningfully are online. And the companies that own those spaces have monopoly power; there are few alternatives. There is nothing in the executive order that violates those companies’ right — under the First Amendment — to say, or exclude, what they want. But it enforces the terms of the special exemption that those companies have enjoyed from the libel laws that apply to everyone else. It also emphasizes the government’s own right not to advertise on platforms that practice censorship. And the order holds those companies to their own terms of service, reporting instances of bias. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” The moment social media companies begin policing ordinary opinions — or “fact-checking” matters very much in dispute — they cease to become mere platforms and become publishers, as vulnerable to libel laws as any ordinary person is. Twitter’s extraordinary intervention this week in slapping a fact-check warning on President Trump’s tweets about California’s plan for mail-in voting was not only factually incorrect itself, but also premature. Two separate lawsuits were filed in the past few days challenging Gov. Gavin Newsom’s authority to send mail-in ballot applications to all registered voters. Twitter’s “fact check” was just another statement of opinion. It has no special claim to immunity. Trump’s executive order on social media censorship follows the pattern of a similar order last year about free speech on college campuses. In that case, Trump insisted on “compliance with the First Amendment for public institutions and compliance with stated institutional policies regarding freedom of speech for private institutions.” He directed federal agencies to make sure “institutions that receive Federal research or education grants” upheld free speech principles. That executive order was constitutional, and so is the new one. It does not dictate to private institutions what they can and cannot say, or exclude. But it removes the sense that they are entitled to federal money and regulatory shelter. It is Biden who seems not to understand free speech and the Constitution. In his statement Thursday evening, Biden complained that “President Trump believes that he should be permitted to say whatever he would like, regardless whether it is true or false.” Of course he can, within the boundaries of the law. So can anyone. That is precisely what the First Amendment is about. It protects Biden’s lies about the NAACP just as much as it protects Trump’s tweets. Biden does not understand that. And on the question of social media companies, he cannot help contradicting himself. On the one hand, he says that private companies should not be required to “provide a venue for, and amplification of, the President’s falsehoods.” In the same paragraph, Biden says that the same private companies “should be held accountable” for content they allow to be disseminated on their platforms that he deems “false.” So — which is it? Amazingly, Biden is running against the First Amendment. Like Hillary Clinton before him, he rejects the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United (2010), which protected the free speech of corporations. In his platform, Biden calls for a constitutional amendment to reverse that decision. He has a poor record on free speech generally: the Obama-Biden administration even backed a proposal at the United Nations by Muslim nations to restrict “blasphemy.” Trump’s rhetoric on this issue, as on others, is combative and over-the-top: he cannot “close … down” social media companies. Yet his actions, as usual, not only obey the Constitution, but also reinforce it. Biden would do the opposite.

Exactly!!  And well said, Joel.  Joel B. Pollak is the author of that spot-on op/ed.  For more, scroll down, and read the next article written by Jim Hanson, a former U.S. Army Special Forces operator.

Jim Hanson: Trump’s social media executive order is justified – protects free speech, combats censorship

President Trump was right and justified Thursday to sign an executive order calling for new regulations to strip legal liability protections from social media companies that censor posts and engage in political conduct on their sites. I hope the president never has to take action against any social media company. The solution to the very real problem of social media company discrimination – which most often is directed against conservative views – is to end the discrimination, rather than for the government to intervene. However, President Trump and many conservatives have identified a serious problem. Twitter and some other social media companies want to be two things at the same time: common carriers where anyone can post comments, and news organizations that selectively fact-check some posts and determine which ones are accurate and which ones are not. Making such determinations is an editorial decision that is often very subjective. Right now social media companies enjoy protection from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for what is posted on their sites, because in most cases they allow people to post whatever they wish – as if they were posting on a giant virtual bulletin board. In contrast, news organizations can be sued for libel if they publish false information with “’actual malice’ – that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not,” according to a 1964 Supreme Court decision in the case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. On average more than 500 million tweets are posted each day. It would be impossible for Twitter to review each of these tweets and fact-check them all before posting. Other social media companies face a similar impossible task. However, Twitter has selectively targeted conservatives – most recently President Trump this week – and has either taken down their tweets or labeled them as misleading and added a fact check, as was the case with two of the president’s tweets dealing with problems with mail-in voting. Ironically, the president’s tweets saying voter fraud can take place with mail-in voting were accurate. Twitter’s fact check claiming that the president’s tweets were factually inaccurate was itself inaccurate. What is crucial here is that by deciding to selectively review a tiny number of tweets on its site and running supposed fact checks on them, Twitter is exercising editorial judgment and deciding what people are told is true. Even Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, told Fox News’ Dana Perino that social media companies should not act as the “arbiter of truth.” President Trump’s executive order states that social media companies that remove or restrict content should be exposed to liability “like any traditional editor and publisher that is not an online provider.” Will Twitter now fact-check every tweet by former Vice President Joe Biden and every Democratic elected official in the nation? Will it fact check every tweet critical of President Trump? Obviously not. But by selectively running a fact check (which was actually inaccurate) on Trump’s tweets, Twitter abandoned all pretense of being an unbiased common carrier. Social media companies should be like trains that allow anyone to board. As common carriers they should allow any ideas to be transported on their platforms without selecting which ones are permitted. Once the companies start picking and choosing among the ideas, they should lose their status and liability protection as common carriers. Telephone companies are appropriately designated as common carriers. You can call anyone you want and say anything you want without exposing the phone company to liability for what you say. While a caller can be held liable for what he or she says on the phone – such as making a death threat, or plotting a terrorist attack – the phone company cannot be held liable because it does not censor calls. President Trump’s executive order doesn’t restrict speech or require Twitter, Facebook or other social media companies to publish any particular speech. It focuses on whether the companies act as publishers exercising editorial control or simply as unbiased platforms for content created by users. The order also asks federal agencies to evaluate whether the companies are applying their terms of service in ways that do not match the published terms of service. There is plenty of evidence showing that social media companies treat ideas and accounts differently based on political and ideological affiliation. The executive order calls for the Federal Trade Commission and a consortium of state attorneys general led by the U.S. attorney general to examine whether the actual practices of the social media companies are deceptive. The president’s executive order is a shot across the bow of the major social media firms. The order is an attempt to address the longstanding concern of many on the political right that the liberal activist nature of most social media company employees and the companies themselves has unfairly damaged conservative ideas and accounts. The companies deny they act in a biased manner, but they have been caught doing so in the past. During the 2018 midterm elections Twitter was exposed for shadow-banning conservative accounts, thereby limiting their reach to a much smaller audience. This affected Republican officeholders and candidates, but was not applied to their Democratic opponents. Twitter initially denied this, but was eventually confronted with enough evidence that it had to remove the “quality filter” it had imposed that was causing this problem. President Trump announced he was considering all options such as the ones in the executive order during a Social Media Summit at the White House last July that I attended. There are several other aspects of social media company operations not called for in the executive order that could come under scrutiny in the future. One is an investigation by the Federal Election Commission into whether unfair treatment of Republican accounts compared to Democratic accounts amounts to an in-kind contribution by the social media companies to the advantaged campaign. The Federal Trade Commission could also look at the potential monopoly of the public information space by a handful of social media companies. President Trump has been clear that he does not want to trade the control now exercised by the tech firms for the unsubtle hand of a government overseer. But the social media censorship of our shared public information space in a way that discriminates against some ideas is an intolerable situation. Let’s hope the social media companies take the hint and change their ways.

I wouldn’t hold your breath, Jim..  Jim Hanson is the author of that piece.  He is President of Security Studies Group and served in US Army Special Forces.

Opinion: The dangerous liberal ideas for censorship in the United States

Almost everywhere you turn today, politicians are telling the public to “get used to the new normal” after the pandemic. For some people, this means public health precautions from social distancing to banning handshakes. Others have quickly added long standing dreams for everything from the guaranteed basic income advocated by Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, which was also recently raised by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to mailed voting elections advocated by many Democrats. The most chilling suggestion, however, comes from the politicians and academics who have called for the censorship of social media and the internet. The only thing spreading faster than the coronavirus has been censorship and the loud calls for more restrictions on free speech. The Atlantic recently published an article by Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizona law professor Andrew Keane Woods calling for Chinese style censorship of the internet. They declared that “in the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong” as “significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in such practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with society norms and values.” The justification for that is the danger of “fake news” about coronavirus risks and cures. Yet this is only the latest rationalization for rolling back free speech rights. For years, Democratic leaders in Congress called for censorship of “fake news” on social media sites. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have all engaged in increasing levels of censorship and have a well known reputation for targeting conservative speech. Hillary Clinton has demanded that political speech be regulated to avoid the “manipulation of information” and stated that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg “should pay a price for what he is doing to our democracy” by refusing to remove any opposition postings. In Europe, free speech rights are in a free fall, and countries such as France and Germany are imposing legal penalties designed to censor speech across the world. Many of us in the free speech community have warned about the growing insatiable appetite for censorship in the West. Yet we have been losing the fight, and free speech opponents are now capitalizing on the opportunity presented by the pandemic. Representative Adam Schiff sent a message to the executives of Google, Twitter, and YouTube demanding censorship of anything deemed “misinformation” and “false information.” Yet YouTube did exactly that a few days earlier by removing two videos of California doctors who called for the easing of state lockdown orders. The doctors argued that the coronavirus is not as dangerous as suggested and that some deaths associated with the pandemic are not accurate. There is ample reason to contest their views but, instead, YouTube banned the two videos to keep others from reaching their own conclusions. Facebook will not only remove posts it considers misinformation about the coronavirus but will issue warnings to those who “like” such postings. Facebook said that it wants to protect people from dangerous remedies and false data. Ironically, the World Health Organization praised Sweden for its rejection of the very restrictions criticized by the two doctors. The group declared that Sweden is a “model” country despite its rejection of lockdown measures being protested in the United States. Moreover, many mainstream media sources have reported information that is now known to be false from the lack of any benefits of wearing masks to the failure in trials of drugs like remdesivir to the shortage of thousands of ventilators. Despite those being wrong, related opposing views were often treated as either fringe or false positions. This subjectivity of censorship is why the cure is worse than the illness. The best cure for bad speech is more speech rather than regulation. The fact is that the pandemic, as Clinton reminded voters, is a “terrible crisis to waste.” Yet the waste for some would be to emerge from the pandemic with free speech still alive. Even former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, who has falsely declared that hate speech is not protected under the First Amendment, recently boycotted MSNBC until it stopped airing press briefings by President Trump as “fake news.” Ocasio Cortez has called for action against Facebook for not censoring false or misleading political ads. In a confrontation with Zuckerberg, she dismissed concerns over censorship of speech and demanded, “So you will not take down lies or you will take down lies? I think that is a pretty simple yes or no.” Whether contesting lockdown orders by officials or challenging the views of politicians, you can just declare an opposing view as “misinformation” and demand that others not see it. This crisis is a chance to redefine free speech to allow greater ability to control what opponents say and what the public reads. Academics have been laying the foundation for an anemic form of free speech for years. Even college presidents a few years ago had declared that there is no protection for “disingenuous misrepresentation of free speech.” Goldsmith and Woods wrote that the public should resist those “urging a swift return to normal,” and the “extraordinary measures we are seeing are not all that extraordinary.” So this is the new normal that some leaders and academics want the public to accept. After all, it is tough to get people to give up freedoms. It takes a crisis to convince them that notions like free speech are no longer relevant. After spending years seeking to convince Americans to follow the European trend against free speech, these folks are using the pandemic to claim that free speech could kill you. Censorship works in a country much like the coronavirus. Initially, you feel better from silencing those views that you consider lies. Then comes the crash as others demand more and more censorship, including views that you consider to be true. That is what has happened in Europe, where an expanding range of speech is being criminalized or censored. Without uncensored speech, the political system is left gasping for air. China has been particularly eager not to “waste” the opportunity of this crisis. Chinese professor Xu Zhangrun is one of many citizens arrested after publishing criticism of Xi Jinping on his handling of the crisis. The government deemed such criticism to be fake news causing panic. It has censored accounts of its concealing the source of the original outbreak, including censorship on popular Chinese apps such as WeChat. Citizens now will have to decide, as Goldsmith and Woods insist, if “China was right.” For my part, I remain hopeless in my longing for old fashioned free speech before the pandemic. You see, this “new normal” seems a lot like the old normal which the Framers changed with the First Amendment. China may be right for many in Congress and academia, but it remains on the wrong side of history. Not even a pandemic will change that.

Agreed, and well said, Jonathan.  Professor Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. His legal opinion is widely respected on BOTH sides of the political aisle.  And, to be VERY clear, he is a liberal Democrat.  You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley

Gorsuch: Supreme Court’s rejection of Metro ad ban case won’t be last word on religious speech

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the Catholic Church’s demand to display pro-Christmas ads in the D.C. metro system, but one justice warned that this would not be the high court’s last word on this religious speech issue. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said it was a clear-cut case of viewpoint discrimination when the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority put the kibosh on the church’s Christmas ad. He said the ad would have been allowed without question had Macy’s sponsored it. “Once the government allows a subject to be discussed, it cannot silence religious views on that topic,” Justice Gorsuch wrote in a statement joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. If Macy’s or Amazon wanted to run a Christmas ad with silhouettes of reindeer and the words “Find the Perfect Gift,” that would have been permitted, the archdiocese argued while noting that its 2017 advertisement depicting shepherds could not be placed on the sides of buses. Justice Gorsuch reasoned that the government can’t permit a forum for art and music but then forbid Handel’s “Messiah” or Michelangelo’s “David.” “And once the government declares Christmas open for commentary, it can hardly turn around and mute religious speech on a subject that so naturally invites it,” he said. The Archdiocese of Washington brought the case after WMATA rejected its 2017 ad with the shepherds and sheep. The transit agency cited a policy that barred it from promoting or opposing religion through advertisements.

Tucker Carlson says ‘fascist’ Elizabeth Warren is pitching her own Ministry of Truth

Tucker Carlson harshly criticized Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s call to implement criminal and civil penalties for spreading disinformation regarding U.S. elections Wednesday, calling her proposal “fascist” and noting the “irony” that a political figure who many criticize for not being truthful wants to address disinformation. “Warren’s decided to go full fascist because that’s who she is and has always been,” Carlson said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” “Try to ignore the redolent irony here. This is the person who for years posted false claims online that she was a Cherokee Indian to sway voters. This is the candidate who pretended she lost her job for being pregnant and her kids went to public school. Now, this very same person is threatening to send you to prison for telling tall tales.” “The most florid liar in the race, someone the New York Times once euphemistically described as a ‘gifted storyteller,’ says she’s going to criminalize lying,” Carlson said. “Paging Dr. Freud. That is more than hypocrisy. It’s a sickness.” Earlier Wednesday, Warren announced her plan to protect elections from Russian interference and other forms of disinformation, saying in a statement: “The stakes of this election are too high — we need to fight the spread of false information that disempowers voters and undermines democracy.” As part of her plan, Warren vowed to “push to create civil and criminal penalties for knowingly disseminating false information about when and how to vote in U.S. elections,” claiming that such information “has the explicit purpose of undermining the basic right to vote” and that such efforts targeted “chiefly Black voters” in 2016. Carlson blasted Warren saying she was dreaming of establishing a “Ministry of Truth,” a la George Orwell’s “1984.” “But what does that [her plan] mean?” the host asked. “Well, it means that when people say things that Elizabeth Warren doesn’t like or that impede her attempts to accumulate power, they should go to jail. Warren isn’t the first person to fantasize about this. Of course, all megalomaniacs dream of running their own ministries of truth.”

Yeah..  No kidding!  Tucker absolutely nails it here.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is not only a self-serving, self-righteous fascist, but she’s also a well-documented, pathological liar and a brazen hypocrite.  To even have the nerve to bring something like this up shows just how dangerously clueless, and out of touch with reality she really is.  Tucker is right.  She’s sick.

Michigan student reacts after university announces it won’t reinstate the ‘Bias Response Team’

In a victory for free speech on college campuses, the University of Michigan announced it would disband its “Bias Response Team.” After a nearly 18-month legal battle, Judge David McKeague of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit announced that “The very name ‘Bias Response Team’ suggests that the accused student’s actions have been prejudged to be biased.” First Amendment watchdog Speech First settled a lawsuit with the school over its “subjective” speech policies. According to the settlement, the university will maintain its new definitions of “bullying” and “harassing” and will eliminate the Bias Response Team. The team will be replaced with “Campus Climate Support” or CCS. The Department of Justice (DOJ) also filed a Statement of Interest in the case. Appearing on “Fox & Friends” with hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt, Campus Reform Correspondent and University of Michigan student Austin McIntosh said he was happy the Bias Response Team could no longer act as “language police.” “If somebody found something hateful, or if they understood it as hate speech or offensive, then they could report you and you could face punishment from some bureaucracy from the college,” he explained. He told Doocy he was attacked by a classmate last week just for sharing his conservative ideals, noting that campuses “aren’t doing a whole lot to protect freedom of speech either.” In October, University of Michigan spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald said that the settlement “makes it ‘abundantly clear’ the lawsuit was unnecessary. …Vigorous debate on all sides of an issue has been a hallmark of this campus before and during the lawsuit. We have confidence that true diversity of thought will continue to flourish on our campus.” McIntosh told the “Fox & Friends” hosts that he believes the campuses which still have Bias Response Teams “inhibit our freedom of speech.” “I think that these bias response teams create an environment where — they live in this liberal bubble…and when you bring in your conservative morals and values it pops and people get upset. And, it’s sad to see,” he said.

Indeed..  Kudos to Campus Reform, Speech First, and others who secured this legal victory.  Excellent!!    🙂

Watch: ‘Killing Free Speech’ Documentary Exposes Far-Left Propaganda in Schools

Independent filmmaker Michael Hansen has a new documentary out titled Killing Free Speech. It features internal emails from a New Jersey school showing teachers pushing political propaganda in the wake of President Trump’s travel ban. The documentary shows a teacher encouraging colleagues to wear hijabs and/or burkas, and distribute pamphlets in solidarity with Muslims to protest Trump’s policies — even though the White House’s restrictions on travel from countries, erroneously described as a “Muslim ban” by his opponents in the media, includes North Korea, a non-Muslim country. Hansen interviews the school principal who claims to know nothing about the agitation, even though Hansen obtains staff emails showing she had been made aware of it. “Everyone is allowed to have their own opinion on this issue, however, the administration is using this school as a platform to push their political agenda,” explains Hansen. Killing Free Speech is the second documentary released by Hansen, the first being Killing Europe, a feature about mass migration from Muslim countries into Europe. A planned screening of Killing Europe was canceled by the Ottawa Public Library last year following pressure from left-wing activists. Killing Free Speech: Part 1 depicts the rise of street violence by the extremist “Antifa” movement in the United States, as well as campaigns of pressure by CAIR and other groups to shut down political expression they disagree with. Click here to watch part one of Hansen’s documentary, which features the investigation. Part two is scheduled for release later this year.

Tomi Lahren: Free speech isn’t just saying what you want to say, it’s also hearing what you don’t want to hear

President Trump has signed an executive order to protect free speech on college campuses. I like it, but it’s truly sad it had to come to this. It’s time for “Final Thoughts” Yes, another promise made by President Trump is kept. Thursday our president signed an executive order designed to protect and promote free speech on college campuses — threatening to pull federal research funding if colleges don’t play ball. He said, “Under the guise of speech codes, safe spaces and trigger warnings, these universities have tried to restrict free thought, impose total conformity and shut down the voices of great young Americans like those here today.” I couldn’t agree more and I’m glad Trump is using his bully pulpit to push back on the college liberal indoctrination disease. Quite frankly, it needed to be done. I am saddened it took government intervention to make it happen. It shouldn’t be that way. College kids and their school administrators shouldn’t be so fragile, so delicate, so close-minded an executive order is necessary to stop the madness. How did we get here? There have always been liberals, conservatives and competing ideas in this country — that’s part of what makes it so great. When then, are we at the point where safe spaces, trigger warnings, cry-ins, and screaming at the sky are the new norm? All for what? Because Trump won the election? All because conservative college groups invite speakers? Remember the violent ruckus when Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley two years ago? This, from the same people who claim to be all about tolerance, peace, and love? Seriously, UC Berkeley? Your campus used to be a home for free speech, especially political speech, but now your administration and leftist students are so delicate you have to shield your students from free speech? Ironic isn’t it? You claim our president — and yes, he is your president, too, and those who support him are so reprehensible you have to threaten violence and destruction when a conservative speaker comes to campus? Trump is a meanie so you have to beat up anyone who disagrees? Or smash and burn your own campus? Not smart. It’s sad to think some college-age students are signing up to fight for our country in the U.S. military and meanwhile, others are sitting on their precious California campuses whining about Ann Coulter and others. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Our service members and law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to protect and defend free speech and the American way of life and meanwhile some are marching around in black outfits or pink hats crying about how words hurt. Pathetic. You know free speech isn’t just saying what you want to say, it’s also hearing what you don’t want to hear and that includes conservative opinions too. Sorry. And let’s not forget, no one forced these students to go listen to these conservative speakers. It didn’t cost them anything. They aren’t losing college credits or hurting their grades by not going. So people you don’t like are coming to your campus to say things you don’t like? Suck it up. Conservative students have to listen to liberal garbage from professors every day and yes, they are required to be there for that! College campuses are the least diverse places in the country because diversity of thought isn’t a protected class. Over the course of your lives, you’re gonna have to hear things you don’t want to hear from folks you may not like. Get used to it. You’re not that special. And if you can’t be around people you don’t like saying things you don’t like, you can’t go around creating mass chaos and physically attacking people because you think words hurt. Grow up. Get over yourselves and develop a thicker skin. You might learn something more valuable than your professors can teach you. Those are my “Final Thoughts.” From Los Angeles, God bless and take care.

Wow..  Tomi Lahren just nailed it!  You can catch her over on Fox Nation..  Thanks Tomi!     🙂

Georgia Southern University Calls Police on Students Exercising Free Speech

Students at Georgia Southern University were confronted by school staff and campus police last week while recruiting members for the Turning Point USA student group on campus. Staff told the conservative students that they needed to “fill out paperwork” in order to exercise free speech at the public university, and then proceeded to call the police when the students did not leave the public grounds. An administrator at Georgia Southern University (GSU) told students that they needed to “fill out paperwork” in order to exercise free speech within the confines of the school’s designated “free speech zone,” a specific area on campus that school claims is approved for exercising free speech, as long as the space is reserved in advance. The students, who were recruiting members for their Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter, decided not to leave an outdoor area on campus after GSU staff had requested for them to do so, resulting in the police being called as a last-ditch effort to force the students to comply with the school’s perplexing demand. The apparent intimidation tactic, however, was futile, as the TPUSA students filmed their interaction with the officers, who admitted on video that they could not legally arrest the students for exercising free speech at the publicly-funded university, as seen in a report by Campus Reform. “If we do not leave, will we get arrested?” one individual can be heard asking a police officer. “No,” responded one officer. “Well, now, you will be judicially referred,” added the officer. “What does that mean?” inquired a student. “That means you’ll go in front of the Dean of Students for violating Georgia Southern policy,” responded the officer, suggesting that while the police cannot punish students for exercising their free speech rights on public grounds, the university can. “They’re telling me you’re breaking policies, school policies,” added the officer, “But if you’re asking me about laws, which is mainly what I do here, I don’t know of any laws you’re breaking.”

To see the video of this encounter, and read the rest of the article, click on the text above.  It is hard to imagine that publicly funded colleges and universities, students hare bullied for simply exercising their 1st Amendment rights.  Unreal..