Ann Coulter Forced To Cancel Speech At Berkeley - And How We Fight back

Ann Coulter was forced to cancel her speech at UC Berkeley after the city of Berkeley's Police Department told her they could not (read, would not) guarantee her safety. That should be no surprise, since they essentially followed orders from the mayor and police chief to stand down and allowed radical antifa and black prog-facist terrorists to freely assault and seroiusly injure people whose only crime was to be in line to hear Milo Yiannopoulos speak. Not to mention the over $100,000 in damages to private property they were allowed to act out and commit before the police finally got the OK to quash the carnage.

The university made a show in the beginning of permitting Ann Coulter to speak, but there were so many additional fees and numerous conditions they insisted on designed to limit access and reduce turnout for the event that it was obvious they were attempt in to quash it. Needless to say,no radical Leftist (and Berkeley has had a number of those creeps speakers there) has ever been subject toanything like these special fees and conditions. When that didn't work, they simply banned her because of course, they weren't going to have the campus police protect her.

So in the end University officials sent the Berkeley College Republicans, who were hosting the event  a letter Tuesday, saying that in their wisdom, they had determined it was just too much of a security risk to allow here to speak.

“We have been unable to find a safe and suitable venue,” said the letter from Vice Chancellor Scott Biddy (what a perfectly surnamed official) and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Stephen Sutton. Especially when you'd much rather avoid having someone speak whom might challenge what's being poured into the lil' snowflake's heads (horrors, they might learn something!!) and anger the mob.

La Coulter toyed with the idea of speaking in public at Sproul Plaza, where Mario Savio started the original free speech movement and which is open to the public. After which the powers that be in Berkeley who are responsible for law enforcement let her know that they weren't going to do much to protect her either.

You can't really blame the Berkeley Police. Like most cops, I'm sure they are admirable people who take their jobs seriously, a job most of us wouldn't do for any money. But they are also human beings with pensions to protect, bills to pay and families to support. When the word comes from upstairs to knuckle under and not get in the way of some of the Lefty brown shirts beating up on people who came to hear the latest subject of the Two Minute Hate commit thought crimes,  they going to obey.

So, the Young America's Foundation decided it was too risky to participate,Berkeley College Republicans are suing the university and Ann Coulter is staying home.

And the powers that be in Berkeley? The college administrators are undoubtedly getting a few fist bumps and atta boys in the faculty room. And Jesse Arreguin, the mayor, who has deep ties with the Antifa group By Any Means Necessary and publicly supports them is enjoying another win. After all, why do you think he was elected mayor of a place like Berkeley in the first place if not to suppress thought crimes in Lenin's Little Acre?



He's not facing re-election until 2020, and anyone who participated in Black Lives Matter protests and the Occupy Movement. and called - officially - for the impeachment of President Trump is not worried about his job or reputation when it comes to anyone he thinks counts.

So if you're expecting any remorse or even mild embarrassment over this blatant display, forget about it.

With increasingly rare exceptions, the Left feels the same way about free speech as they do about democracy in general. They only approve of it when it applies to them and works for The Cause. They are totalitarian to the core, and Berkeley is a yet another superb example of what happens when they actually have power and hold all the cards.

Milo was making some noise earlier today about invading Berkeley with what he called 'a free speech army' in the future. As far as I'm concerned, that is a uniquely futile gesture. What it would do, unless it happens earlier is to simply become the occasion when someone who merely wants to exercise freedom of speech gets murdered by the Left's brownshirts. And when that happens, you're going to see people defend themselves. Which is exactly how brownshirt street thug Horst Wessel became a 'martyr' and got famous. He simply tried to beat up on the wrong person and a virtual civil war erupted. And those of you saying 'bring it on' might perhaps have noticed that Antifa, Black Lives Matter and the rest of the Left's violent cadres only really operate in areas where they know they're going to be protected by the local authorities; university campuses like Berkeley and Blue fifedoms like coastal California. So don't expect justice when it comes to defending yourselves.Or count on the police to protect you.

A better way to fight this? Sure there is. What tactics work?

• Lawfare: There's no question that the City of Berkeley and UCSB are guilty of violating the civil rights of the people who were beaten up while police stood by. Or that Ann Coulter's civil and Constitutional rights were violated  as well as those whom wished to hear her speak...just read the First Amendment. There is also a clear claim based on unequal treatment, since she and the College Republicans were subjected to fees and regulations Lefty speakers weren't. Second wave feminists cut a path on that one.The Berkeley PD can also probably be sued for negligence by those whom were injured. Sue the bastards and make them pay through the nose. And remember, Judge shopping works two ways.

• Boycotting: Berkeley is a public university and receives public funds. But it also receives money from alumni and from the proceeds of its sports event as well as merchandising. Don't go to Berkeley sporting events. Don't attend concerts or exhibits at the university's facilities.If any TV or radio shows carry their games, don't watch or listen and write the companies that sponsor the games  that you don't patronize companies that aid and abet such fascism. Don't buy their tee shirts, mugs or other garbage.  Picket and disrupt any speakers from Berkeley who do events in Red States. Make it expensive security wise for universities to invite them. And one way of disrupting them is to ask them how they can continue to represent such a fascist institution.

• Ridicule, shame and target Berkeley's prog-fascist view point as socially unacceptable at every opportunity: Remember back in the old days of the fledgling  civil rights or women's lib movement? Remember how you and perhaps other people responded to remarks and 'jokes' that were racist or misogynist, with a nasty look and a remark to the effect that you didn't find that funny but offensive? Make Berkeley's prog-fascist attitudes just as socially unacceptable when you run across them. In public. Make 'Berserkeley' a figure of ridicule.

• And yes,  be aware at anytime that you might just have to physically defend yourself and conduct yourself accordingly: Bullies like the antifa crowd are usually physical cowards who hide their faces and only attack in mobs where they can get away with it. Faced with opposition, especially in areas the Left doesn't control,they can be beaten badly at their own game.

Pentagon Now Buying Helicopters From Russia - For The Afghan Air Force!

Every time you think the Obama Administration has hit bottom when it comes to ridiculous nonsense, they surprise you by sinking to a new low. Get your mind around this...the Pentagon is using your tax dollars to buy helicopters from Russia - for the Afghan air force.

The Pentagon must pay Russia’s state- run arms trader to provide helicopters for Afghanistan’s air force even though the company also been has supplying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with weapons to kill his own people, according to the Defense Department’s top policy official.

The U.S. Army has taken delivery of nine Russian-made MI-17 helicopters for the Afghans from Rosoboronexport under a $375 million contract issued in May 2011, with six more awaiting shipment and another six to be delivered by May 31, Acting Undersecretary for Policy James Miller said in a previously undisclosed March 30 letter to lawmakers. The U.S. has an option to buy an additional 12 Russian helicopters for the Afghans, who have been flying them for 30 years.

“I share your concern that Rosoboronexport continues to supply weapons and ammunition to the Assad regime and acknowledge there is evidence that some of these arms are being used by Syrian forces against Syria’s civilian population,” Miller wrote Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, who’s led opposition to the contract in Congress.

The U.S. barred deals with Rosoboronexport from 2006 to 2010, citing its arms sales to nations including Iran and Syria as violating efforts to curb proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

In his letter to Cornyn, Miller sought to reconcile the Pentagon’s purchases from the Russian government arms company with the Obama administration’s pleas for nations and companies to stop doing business with Assad.

The Syrian angle aside - and that alone is a pretty large one in view of all the pious rhetoric and inaction from the Obama Administration - a few other questions come to mind. Why are we paying the Russians to build helicopters with U.S. tax dollars when we have American companies here that can do it, combined with an 'official' unemployment rate of over 8% nationally? Is building helicopters yet another one of those jobs Americans won't do? And if we are outsourcing this, why not to one of our allies, instead of to a nation that is in many ways hostile to us and our foreign policy aims?

And while we're on the subject, why do we need to subsidize the building of an Afghan air force anyway? Just like the shiny new armies we have built at U.S. expense for the 'Palestinians' and for the Iraqis, exactly what good is America going to get out of spending over a billion dollars to buy helicopters from Russia to give to the Afghans?

Dumb and dumber.

California Federal Judge Rules Assault On Jewish Students By Muslims Is 'Protected Speech'

No, I'm not kidding.

Over at UC Berkeley, Muslim students and were holding an anti-Israel “Apartheid Week” demonstration sanctioned by the university and conducted by the Muslim Student Association, Students for Justice in Palestine and their assorted leftist allies on campus in 2010.

For anyone who's never been to these little gatherings, they feature anti-Semitic,inflammatory rhetoric as the main course along with street theater like trampling and burning Israeli flags ( which contain a religious symbol, by the way)and simulated 'checkpoints' blocking off essential parts of the campus and forcing students to run a gauntlet of violent and intimidating students to get by.

At the 2010 protest at Berkeley, 20-year-old Jessica Felber and a few other Jewish students in the pro-Israel Tikva group had the courage to confront this mob by mounting a small pro-Israel demonstration in response.

The anti-Israel crowd responded by issuing violent threats against the Jews, culminating in leader of the Students for Justice in Palestine, Husam Zakharia, assaulting Ms. Felber and ramming her from behind with a loaded shopping cart.Ironically, Felber was carrying a sign that read “Israel Wants Peace” when she was assaulted.

Zakaria was later arrested but the local district attorney apparently declined to prosecute him.

In an interview, Felber said Zakharia has been involved with numerous violent incidents involving Jews:

According to her, physical intimidation has frequently been employed as a tool by SJP to silence students opposing their anti-Zionist activities on campus. “SJP students have been terrorizing us for three years with intimidation, accusations and threats. This incident is simply the culmination of it all and we are not going to tolerate it anymore.”

SJP’s tactics backfired on at least one occasion when, in November 2008, the group attempted to disrupt a concert organized by the Zionist Freedom Alliance during “Israel Liberation Week” on the UC Berkeley campus. After striking a ZFA activist in the head, Zakharia found himself beaten to the ground. Following the incident, Zakharia and two fellow SJP members, along with two Zionist activists, were cited for battery but no charges were officially filed.

Felber then decided to file a civil rights action against the University of California at Berkeley, the Regents of the University of California and their ranking officials. The complaint stated that Defendants were fully aware that Zakharia, the SJP and similar student groups had been involved in other similar incidents on campus against Jewish and other students, but took no reasonable steps to protect Ms. Felber and others.

The complaint charged that the assault was the result of the university having essentially sponsored and encouraged similar incitements by the SJP and the MSA and failing to discipline them for past incidents.

It documented how the university had ignored numerous complaints from students about the poisonous climate on campus and accused the university of tolerating 'the growing cancer of a dangerous anti-Semitic climate on its campuses' thus violating the civil rights of Ms. Felber and other students to enjoy a peaceful campus environ.

Now, if Ms.Felber had been black and was injured by, say, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood or White Aryan Nation during a campus demonstration, you know without even guessing that the Obama Department of Justice would be in this up to their necks and providing DOJ lawyers for her by the busload. Instead, she was forced to hire private counsel.

The case went to trial in Federal Court in Oakland and was heard by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg, an Obama appointee.

He dismissed the case out of hand.

He claimed that the harassment constituted 'protected political speech':

Seeborg said the university did not have any obligation to intervene in any dispute where a private individual on campus was allegedly interfering with another’s constitutional rights. He instead appeared to indicate that the incident was an outcome of Felber’s counter protest.

“The incident in which Felber was assaulted with a shopping cart, for example, did not occur in the context of her educational pursuit,” Seeborg wrote. "Rather, that event occurred when she, as one person attempting to exercise free speech rights in a public forum, was allegedly attacked by another person who likewise was participating in a public protest in a public forum."

Now, I always thought that freedom of speech involved talking, not ramming someone from behind with a shopping cart. But apparently the rules are different when it comes to Muslims...and Jews, for that matter.

If attacking someone physically is now protected speech, would that also apply if a bunch of young Jewish men grabbed a few baseball bats and exercised their freedom of speech in breaking up what amounted to a racist assault on their people and their right to self-determination?

Well, your 'Honor'?

I smell the stench of something very old and pungent here...

(hat tip, Louie Louie)

How the Left Uses Children’s Art in the War Against the Jews

That's the title of a new Pajamas Media piece by my friend Bookworm about a cancelled art exhibition in the Bay Area.

Here's a slice:

I challenge you to find a news report with more layers, all of them misleading, than an ostensibly unbiased San Francisco Chronicle “news” article about a canceled art exhibition at the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, California. The story’s core is uncomplicated: The museum agreed with an organization called the Middle East Children’s Alliance to showcase art that Palestinian children created. In response to protests, the museum halted the exhibit.

Through a magical combination of ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision, though, Chronicle readers are left believing that children in Gaza, after suffering horrible abuse at Israeli hands, are now victims of American Jewish censorship. (Of course, Chronicle readers, already primed with a steady diet of this kind of reporting, probably started out believing this statement to be true, so this most recent story is just fuel to an already raging fire.)

Chronicle staff writer Jill Tucker begins her report by saying that the museum, “citing pressure from the community,” canceled the exhibit, which was to have consisted of drawings that Gazan children created in the wake of the 2008 war. The pictures’ subject matter included “bombs dropping, tanks and people getting shot.”

Barbara Lubin, spokesperson for the Middle East Children’s Alliance, the organization sponsoring the exhibit, validated the drawings on the ground that they represent the children’s “experience.”

Except, as one commenter notes in an associated article, a lot of the pictures were almost certainly not drawn by children at all, but by adults

And as Bookworm reveals ( and the Chron article doesn't) , Lubin's background reveals that she's a particularly virulent species of self-hating Jew, a Hezbollah groupie who is also affiliated with International Answer, the terrorist supporting International Solidarity Movement and a number of other radical anti-Israel groups.

Read the whole thing here.

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The Latest On The Israel Divestment Vote At Berkeley

As you'll recall, after passing an anti-Israel divestment motion the 'anti-Zionists' in the UC Berkeley ASUC Senate were attempting to get 14 votes to overide the ASUC president's veto.

Simply put, the veto stands because one 'senator' abstained. The 'anti-Zionists' (which of course includes a great many suicidal Jews like A Jewish Voice for peace) tabled the measure so that they can continue to agitate and revote at a later time.

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Fierce Battle Over Berkeley's Israel Divestment Bill

There's yet another bit of moral delinquency shaping up in that curious corner of bizarro-world known as UC Berkeley.

This particular battle is over a landmark anti-Israel 'divestment' bill passed by the the Berkeley ASUC Senate which calls on the college's regents to to divest UC funds from companies like General Electric and United Technologies, which conduct business in Israel.

Bill 118 is a classic Leftist anti-Israel diatribe that does a crafty job of labeling Israeli self-defense as 'war crimes', particularly the recent Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that selectively quotes the ridiculously flawed Goldstone Report and neglects any mention of Hamas firing rockets at Israeli civilian communities or using civilians in Gaza as human shields. In short, the mindset behind it would have rules and standards imposed on Israel for its self-defense that apply to no other nation on earth.

The bill was passed by the Berkeley ASUC Senate by a nice margin,and then vetoed by the ASUC president. Supporters of the bill are holding a vote tomorrow inth eASUC Senate to try and get enough votes to overide the veto.

So aside from a bunch of anti-Semitic Leftists doing what they normally do, what's the big deal?

Since this has no binding effect on the regents, no actual divestment is involved. But this is a test case and involved a meeting of the minds of Leftist students and professors and Muslim activists like the Muslim Students Association. If Berkeley passes this resolution, there will be many other university bodies around the US that will follow. So some of the usual suspects at places like UC Irvine and Michigan State are watching this one closely.

And the pro-divestment forces are recruiting the anti-Semitic celebrities, like the odious Bishop Desmond Tutu.

It's also worth noting, unfortunately, that several fringe Jewish groups are actively supporting this like A Jewish Voice For Peace, Kesher Enoshi and Students For Justice in Palestine (who organized the Israel Apartheid Week on campus). They're all actually are part of the local Hillel, which should give you a good idea of the Berkeley Hillel's overall effectiveness.

Jew haters never seem to have a problem finding Jews on the Left to give them cover for their nefarious activities.

As I said, the vote is tomorrow and will go how it will go, but I'm much more interested in how to deal with these situations in the future.

Today's Jewish students unfortunately seem to lack the stones to get in the faces of these people, the only sure way of stopping this nonsense.

So perhaps a boycott of universities that allow this bigotry might be an alternative countermeasure...no enrollments, no donations, no applications, no cooperation by Jewish academics.

In that way, Jews involved with these universities would get a certain label attached to them and could be shunned by the rest of the Jewish community and most other people with a shred of decency.

It's high time to say enough is enough.

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Berkeley Versus The Marines

hat tip to krs601

You'll remember that I previously wrote about how Code Pink and the City Council of Berkely, California are waging war on the local Marine recruiting office and illegally interfering with them.

Here you have a chance to see exactly what these foul people are doing...as the Berkeley cops explain to a local resident `we're trying to be neutral.'

In response to action by Republican Senator Jim Demint who wants to strip Berkeley of over $2 million dollars in Federal funds for disobeying US law, the city has backed away slightly, with Berkeley's Mayor, Tom Bates now acknowledging that the city `went to far' in passing a resolution calling for the Marines to leave and declaring them uninvited and unwelcome intruders, and in allowing the odious Code Pink special parking spaces and sound permits and encouraging them to interfere with the Marine recruiter's rights and duties.

I'm amazed at the restraint the Marines are showing, and as far as I'm concerned every one of these people ought to be arrested for sedition - including the mayor and the Council members.

Dedicated To The City Council Of Berkeley, California

The City Council of Berkeley, California recently disgraced itself (I can think of no other more appropriate word) by issuing a diktat in the form of a city council resolution attacking the local US Marine corps recruiters, saying that they were unwelcome in Berkeley and that if they chose to stay they will "do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders."

The city council also voted 8-1 to allow the odious Code Pink, famous for taunting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed and giving money to our enemies in wartime with a special designated parking space in front of the recruiting office, with encouragement to Code Pink to "impede" Marine recruitment.

That 'encouragement' has led to members of the group chaining themselves to the doors of the recruiting office and deliberately interfering with the Marine's lawful duty in direct violation of federal law.

For those who wish more detail on this story, a number of my blogpals have excellent pieces on it and I recommend you check out what Ms. Bookworm, Greg at Rhymes With Right or Edwonk have to say about it.

For my part, I just thought I'd share an old favorite poem of mine with you - and dedicate to the members of the Berkeley City council and the harridans at Code Pink who besmirch our beloved Republic with their presence:

TOMMY

I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:

O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”; But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,'’ when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mr. Atkins,'’ when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;
But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy how’s yer soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.

We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;

While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind,
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!” But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country,” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

-Rudyard Kipling

(`Tommy' is the generic British name for an infantry soldier, similar to `GI Joe' in the US)