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Senate Dems Claim Censorship Industrial Complex Never Happened — And If It Did It Was A Good Thing

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Democrats had a tough time at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing yesterday on the censorship industrial complex.

They had to argue there was never any censorship during the Biden administration (including during Covid!) and that free speech and freedom of the press were never threatened by the partnership of government agencies with private institutions to combat “disinformation.” After all, the government was just trying to catch foreign disinformation operations, they argued, so any censorship that did happen was necessary and proper.

Put another way, the censorship industrial complex never happened — and if it did it was a good thing and the targets deserved it.

At one point early on in the hearing, Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., more or less came right out and said as much. While his staff displayed a large placard showing a screenshot of a piece I wrote in February 2023 about the Twitter Files — with “NOT TRUE” stamped across the screenshot in read letters — Welch claimed that there was nothing whatsoever to the Twitter Files story. Government funding that went to private entities for “disinformation” monitoring, he said, was actually “to help counter foreign disinformation.” All the government did, in Welch’s telling, was alert Twitter when users violated the company’s own terms of service and community guidelines. Nothing to see here!

If anything is “NOT TRUE,” it’s this absurd characterization of what the Twitter Files actually revealed. Released in tranches to a group of journalists shortly after Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, the Twitter Files exposed a coordinated and sustained effort by the intelligence community to co-opt and deputize social media platforms like Twitter into censoring American citizens. Basically, it was a scheme to allow the government to censor Americans in a way that would have been straightforwardly unconstitutional if the feds had tried to do it directly. (Read more from “Senate Dems Claim Censorship Industrial Complex Never Happened — And If It Did It Was A Good Thing” HERE)

‘Free Speech’ Group Forces Taxpayer-Funded Texas University To Feature Trans Sex Shows

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When Texas A&M University banned drag shows on campus, it took a vital step to defend its institutional mission. But a so-called “free speech” group went to court, and now a judge is forcing the school to host these explicit transgender sex shows.

The university’s board of regents recognized that “Drag Show Events are likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women,” involving “unwelcome and objectively offensive conduct based on sex,” in a Feb. 28 resolution. As drag shows “involve sexualized, vulgar or lewd conduct; and involve conduct that demeans women,” the board found it “inconsistent with the System’s mission and core values” for A&M venues to host drag shows.

But the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a misguided “free speech” group, sued to make A&M host these obscene sex shows. The university’s ban had canceled the upcoming performance of “Draggieland,” hosted by the radical student group Queer Empowerment Council, so FIRE sued on behalf of the group earlier this month. Federal Judge Lee Rosenthal for the U.S. Southern District of Texas issued an injunction on March 24, forcing the school to host drag shows while the case is in progress.

“This is another display of the resilience of queer joy, as that is an unstoppable force despite those that wish to see it destroyed,” the Queer Empowerment Council said in a FIRE press release.

Rosenthal specifically forced A&M to host “Draggieland” — which she lauded as “cleverly named.” Previous “Draggieland” performances featured scantily-clad men dressed as women in sexual poses. At the time of publication, the upcoming event was scheduled to take place in a university theater on March 27. (Read more from “‘Free Speech’ Group Forces Taxpayer-Funded Texas University To Feature Trans Sex Shows” HERE)

CBS News: Free Speech Caused The Holocaust

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CBS News’ Margaret Brennan claimed Sunday that free speech was to blame for the Holocaust.

During an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Brennan spun a wild theory that free speech in Germany paved the way for the Holocaust, arguing that Vice President J.D. Vance’s criticisms of European attacks on free speech were problematic because, according to Brennan, free speech was “weaponized” in Nazi Germany.

“Well, [Vance] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups,” Brennan said. “The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that, the censorship was specifically about the right.”

Brennan’s assertion was not only historically inaccurate, but outright offensive to the millions who were murdered at the hands of the Nazi party.

But suppose Brennan was correct in her claim that free speech caused the Holocaust. Then, as The Federalist CEO and co-founder Sean Davis said in a post on X: “That means Trump needs to shut down CBS to prevent another Holocaust.”

(Read more from “CBS News: Free Speech Caused The Holocaust” HERE)

T-Shirt With Factual Message Gets Boy Suspended: Supreme Court Now Involved

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A coalition of many groups, organizations and states is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a school’s decision to apply its own political ideology to students’ speech, and censor by ejecting from class those with other perspectives.

It’s all over a student who wore a T-shirt stating “There are only two genders,” and was tossed from his school. Then he tried to wear one that said “There are CENSORED genders” and he got the same result. . .

One of the supporting briefs, filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, pointed out that the lower courts couldn’t even agree on why they were attacking the student’s rights.

“The district court denied L.M.’s request for a preliminary injunction and later entered final judgment against him, reasoning that the shirt constituted an impermissible ‘invasion of the rights of others’… The First Circuit affirmed on alternative grounds, adopting a novel test that would allow schools to censor speech that neither targets nor harasses a specific student,” the brief charges.

That precedent, FIRE said, allows schools to target “passive, silently expressed speech that targets no student in particular if the student’s expression (1) is reasonably interpreted to demean one of those characteristics of personal identity, given the common understanding that such characteristics are unalterable or otherwise deeply rooted and that demeaning them strikes a person at the core of his being, and (2) the demeaning message is reasonably forecasted to poison the educational atmosphere due to its serious negative psychological impact on students with the demeaned characteristic and thereby lead to symptoms of a sick school – symptoms therefore of substantial disruption.” (Read more from “T-Shirt With Factual Message Gets Boy Suspended: Supreme Court Now Involved” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

The Lesson Some Leftists Have Learned From Trump’s Win Should Terrify Americans

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Since Donald Trump’s landslide victory over Kamala Harris last Tuesday, the legacy press has been hosting a public inquest into her demise. Three competing theories soon dominated the discussions — only one of which accepted the reality that Americans rejected the far-left policies and candidate on the merits.

While some Democrats and media outlets took this somber approach to the post-mortem, a second and more vocal segment of the press and Harris voting bloc instead declared that Trump’s election proves a majority of Americans are racist, sexist autocrats. The election of Barack Obama, Harris’ previous victories as a senator and a vice-presidential candidate, coupled with the increase in support Donald Trump garnered from minorities and women, quickly disprove this theory.

After an intense and nerve-wracking election season, these delusional tirades provided the still-sane populace some much needed levity. But Republicans should also note that at least a small segment of the left plans to double down on identity politics and prepare to counter these messages — not merely to protect their electoral victory, but more importantly to return to the pre-DEI unity that reigned supreme in our country until Barack Obama somehow converted his election as the first African-American president into a launchpad for racial divisiveness.

But it is a third theory for Trump’s resounding victory, posited by many on the left, that should cause grave concern to liberty lovers because it forewarns of an acceleration of efforts to control the marketplace of ideas. Here, Harris’ loss was blamed not on the far-left policies and candidate voters rejected or on the supposed racist and sexist beliefs of the electorate, but on voters purportedly being “misinformed” by the right-wing controlled media.

By the end of last week, this theme had flooded the airways and social media. But it was the New Republic’s article, “Why Does No One Understand the Real Reason Trump Won?,” that best capsulated this spin. (Read more from “The Lesson Some Leftists Have Learned From Trump’s Win Should Terrify Americans” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Man Facing Charges for Displaying ‘Intimidating’ Signs on His Property

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Lots of free speech fights have erupted in recent years in America. There have been all of those people, and groups, censored by social media because the Biden administration disliked their opinions. . .

But now a speech fight has erupted in the unlikely place of Evanston, Wyoming, where a man is facing a felony charge for posting signs criticizing his neighbor, who had filed a complaint about the condition of his property.

The charge comes because, a report in the Cowboy State Daily explains, the woman who filed the complaint is a “witness” against her neighbor, and she perceives his comments as “intimidating.” . . .

The messages included, “When did the opinion of one nosey neighbor become enough to violate the rights others by the city?”

Also, “Mind your business,” “Snoby opinion Don’t take …” “Those who matter don’t mind, those who mind don’t matter,” and “You can go F*** Way off!” (Read more from “Man Facing Charges for Displaying ‘Intimidating’ Signs on His Property” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

This Ivy League Was Just Named the Worst School for Free Speech

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Harvard University has been named 2023’s worst school for free speech by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). The organization recently released its annual college free speech rankings, in which it dubbed the state of free speech at the Ivy League school “abysmal.” Harvard’s rating of zero out of 100 is a full 11 points lower than its closest woke rival.

“Harvard is consistently ranked one of the best universities in the United States. But FIRE frequently finds itself in the odd position of giving this all-star academic school failing grades,” FIRE stated in a press release published Wednesday. . .

Harvard received a free speech ranking of zero on a 100-point scale, putting the Ivy League university a full 11 points behind the second worst school.

“What’s more, granting Harvard a score of 0.00 is generous,” the organization added. “Its actual score is -10.69, more than six standard deviations below the average and more than two standard deviations below the second-to-last school in the rankings, its Ivy League counterpart, the University of Pennsylvania.”

And Harvard’s score has been plummeting significantly over the years. FIRE explained that in 2020, the Ivy League institution ranked 46 out of 55 schools, in 2021, it ranked 130 out of 154 schools, and in last year, it ranked 170 out of 203 schools. (Read more from “This Ivy League Was Just Named the Worst School for Free Speech” HERE)

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Top Law Professor: U.S. Heading Toward Criminalization Of Speech

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America is moving dangerously toward the criminalization of speech, which until now has been protected by the First Amendment, even if it’s offensive, according to constitutional expert Jonathan Turley.

He’s a law professor at George Washington University, and commented recently on a case from Connecticut, where a 16-year-old student at Fairfield Warde High is accused of taking a photo of a black classmate and posting it on social media with a “racial slur.”

AP reported police arrested the student on a state hate crime charge of “ridicule on account of creed, religion, colo9r, denomination, nationality or race.” . . .

“Free speech demands bright lines. One of the greatest threats to free speech is the chilling effect caused by ambiguous or vague standards like the one contained in this statute. Every case of an obnoxious or repugnant individual invites us to make an exception or adopt some nuanced excuse for not following our principles. The temptation is particularly great in cases like this one when defending free speech can be confused with supporting bigotry,” he said. . .

“We can all condemn racist speech without curtailing free speech our society. Otherwise, we will find ourselves on the same slippery slope as Europe toward criminal speech codes and censored speech,” he said. (Read more from “Top Law Professor: U.S. Heading Toward Criminalization Of Speech” HERE)

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U.K. Education Secretary: Prioritizing ‘Emotional Safety’ Over Free Speech Is ‘Dangerous’

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In a report on free speech in higher education, the U.K. Secretary of State for Education decried the chilling effects of “cancel culture” on free speech.

At the beginning of a free speech report presented to Parliament, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson penned a letter dubbing the current culture of “emotional safety” to be counterproductive. “There are some in our society who prioritize ‘emotional safety’ over free speech, or who equate speech with violence. This is both misguided and dangerous,” Williamson said.

The report cites a study from King’s College in London that found that a quarter of students see violence as an acceptable response to speech they dislike. The same study found that 59 percent of “Conservative-supporting” students said that they were reluctant to share their views on campus.

Williamson claims that British society has turned a “blind eye” to the “creeping culture of censorship.” “A culture has been allowed to develop in which it is seen as acceptable, even virtuous, for an academic to sign an open letter that calls for another to be dismissed or defunded,” he wrote.

The report breaks down new laws that the education department believes will champion a newfound culture of free speech. The laws will provide a new legal avenue for those who have faced retribution for their speech, will widen and enhance academic freedom protections, and will require universities to set high standards for free speech codes. (Read more from “U.K. Education Secretary: Prioritizing ‘Emotional Safety’ Over Free Speech Is ‘Dangerous’” HERE)

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WATCH: Student Argues Against Free Speech, Gets DISMANTLED by Steven Crowder

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In this clip, “Louder with Crowder” host Steven Crowder completely dismantles a TCU psychology student’s position on restricting free speech.

Asked for one example of a country that is better off as a result of limiting free speech, the student attempts to turn the tables by demanding that Crowder provide “a scholarly source” for every country that has ever been worse off as a result of restricting free speech. The absurd debate strategy did not go well for him.

“Sorry, I don’t have a scholarly source that says Nazis are bad. You’ll just have to take my word for it,” Crowder stated.

(Read more from “WATCH: Student Argues Against Free Speech, Gets DISMANTLED by Steven Crowder” HERE)

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