We recently discussed the inclusion of “trigger warning” as an oppressive term. However, the failure to include such a warning is the basis for a campaign to fire Sonoma State University film Professor Ajay Gehlawat. Gehlawat has opposed such required warnings and later was targeted for failing to include such a warning on an assigned film that depicted as rape scene. Continue reading “Sonoma State Professor Faces Calls For Termination Over Failure to Include Trigger Warnings in Film Course”
While Johnny Mandel sang “suicide is painless,” it is apparently also ethical. Duquesne University Psychology professor Derek Hook is under fire this week after arguing in class that white people may find that the ethical option for the dismantling of white culture is suicide. As will likely come as little surprise to many on this blog, I oppose calls for Hook’s termination as a matter of academic freedom. Continue reading “Duquesne Professor Under Fire After White Suicide Lecture”
For many waking up yesterday, they must have thought that they had a real Rip Van Winkle of a snoozer for the last 50 years. Across the spectrum, legal experts were declaring the death of Roe v. Wade after the Supreme Court refused to enjoin a Texas anti-abortion law in an emergency filing. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced that the Supreme Court just “overturned” Roe in the order. The mainstream coverage ranged from the outright death of Roe to its being rendered to a vegetative state. Even more reasoned analysis asked “Is this how Roe v. Wade dies?” The answer is no. This is how legal analysis dies. Continue reading “Supreme Court Rejects Injunction of Texas Abortion Law . . . Media Erupts With Roe Obituaries”
Below is my column in The Hill on the subpoena tsunami coming out of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6th riot in Congress. The list of hundreds of targets include not only GOP members of Congress but demands for secrecy from these companies on the identity of targets. Just two months ago, the Democrats denounced such secret orders by the Justice Department as a threat to our civil liberties.
Here is the column: Continue reading “Subpoena Tsunami: House Democrats Issue Hundreds of Secret Subpoenas Targeting GOP Colleagues and Others”
This week we discussed the California Government teacher Gabriel Gipe who boasted about his flying an Antifa flag at Inderkum High School and explaining that he has only “180 days to turn them into revolutionaries.” On MSNBC, host Joy Reid went to social media to defend Antifa as an organization as merely those fighting fascism. She based that claim entirely on the name rather than the well-documented violent history of the group. Since I have written previously about Antifa and testified in the Senate on that history, I wanted to offer a counter view. What is breathtaking is that Reid defends Antifa despite its attacks on journalists, bloggers, and other writers but says that criticism of the group indicates that you are also a fascist.
Two California teachers are under investigations in separate incidents involving classroom flags and videos this month. Government teacher Gabriel Gipe is under fire for boasting about his flying an Antifa flag at Inderkum High School and explaining that he has only “180 days to turn them into revolutionaries.” That controversy comes just days after another California teacher, Kristen Pitzen, boasted how she removed the American flag because it made her uncomfortable and replaced it with a gay pride flag. She laughed how students were then left to say the pledge of allegiance to the gay pride flag at Back Bay High School in Costa Mesa. Both raise similar issues of when free speech is not a complete defense for educators. Continue reading “California Teachers Trigger Free Speech Debate Over Antifa and Gay Pride Flags in the Classrooms”
There is an interesting constitutional challenge brewing in Tennessee where 3,000 physicians and health care professionals are suing the Biden Administration over the mandate for doctors to perform gender transition procedures. One of the first changes ordered by the Biden Administration was redefine the discrimination laws to include the denial of such gender transition procedures. The case could force courts to address a direct conflict between anti-discrimination laws and religious values–a medical version of cases like Masterpiece Cake shop.. The Defendants include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Office for Civil Rights of the HHS, including Xavier Becerra, the secretary of the HHS, and Robinsue Frohboese, acting director and principal deputy of the Office for Civil Rights of the HHS.
Universities and colleges have responded to the pandemic with widely differing approaches from mandated vaccines to bimonthly testing. Amherst College however, stands out in its prohibition of off-campus travel without the express approval of the school. The rule has triggered a backlash by students.
Continue reading “Amherst College Bars Students From Leaving Campus Without Permission”
Chase Bank’s motto “What Matters Most” took on a menacing meaning this week after Michael Flynn claimed that the bank canceled his account and the credit card due to the “possible reputational risk to our company.” If true, the report is a chilling expansion of the role of private companies to isolate and harass those with controversial views in our society. As shown with censorship, such private enforcement of speech controls has proven far more dangerous and effective than the traditional government programs. Indeed, the move would show how a type of Chinese “social scoring” could easily take hold in the United States.
Roughly 50 years ago, Don McLean released his son song, “American Pie” with its famous line about “The Day the Music Died.” It was a reference to when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson died along with pilot Roger Peterson in an airplane crash. For Afghans, the day the music died coincided with the Taliban takeover of their country. Nothing drove home that fact than the horrific killing of Afghan folk singer Fawad Andarabi, who was executed by the Taliban for playing music. Continue reading “The Day the Music Died: Taliban Ban Music and Then Execute Leading Afghan Folk Singer”
Here is my column in The Hill on the recent interview of Lt. Michael Byrd who was the hitherto unnamed Capitol Hill officer who shot Ashli Babbitt on January 6th. The interview was notable in an admission that Byrd made about what he actually saw . . . and what he did not see.
Here is the column:
We previously discussed how Twitter’s growing censorship program has targeted former New York Times journalist and author Alex Berenson who is an outspoken critic of the government’s scientific claims and response to the pandemic. Berenson was previously suspended for merely expressing an opinion over the need for a “pause” on any federal mandates on Covid-19 as new research is studied. Twitter also suspended a journalist for posting CDC information that was deemed as critical of its own official line on vaccines. Now he is permanently suspended after his criticism the vaccine and possible side effects. Twitter has again showed that it will silence those who dare to disagree or even question its approved narrative and that of government.
Continue reading “Twitter Permanently Bans Former NYT Journalist Alex Berenson”
Recently, I was critical of a Washington Post column by University of California-Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor Aaron S. Edlin, who argued for a legal challenge of the recall election of Callifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom as unconstitutional. They insisted that the recall election violated the concept of “one person, one vote.” While Chemerinsky and Edlin insisted that the unconstitutionality of the recall election “should not be a close constitutional question,” I argued that most judges would likely agree but come to the opposite conclusion. Apparently, one such judge is United States District Court Judge Michael Fitzgerald who went out of his way to say that this was not a close question before summarily dismissing the Chemerinsky/Edlin theory. Continue reading ““A Matter of Logic and Common Sense”: Federal Court Rejects Chemerinsky Theory on the Unconstitutionality of Newsom Recall”
There is growing controversy in San Diego after the county board of supervisors introduced a proposal to declare “health misinformation a public health crisis” and enact measures to try to “combat” views deemed untrue or misleading. As a free speech advocate, I do not share some of the objections made to the proposals. However, one item is deeply concerning. Continue reading “San Diego Proposal On Combatting Covid “Misinformation” Triggers Free Speech Concerns”
