Wednesday, August 16, 2017



Sessions: DOJ Taking ‘Vigorous Action’ to Protect Those Who ‘Protest Against Racism and Bigotry’

Because a Leftist demonstrator died at Charlotteville there has been an enormous blast of self-righteousness from the Left.  And in their self-righteousness they have arrogated to themselves the right to call the conservative demonstrators at the Charlotteville rally, "Nazis", KKK", "white supremacists" etc.

But where is the evidence for those accusations?  There were no KKK robes in sight, no swastika flags and no proclamations of white supremacy.  But so loud and persistent have those accusations become, that both Trump and Sessions have now appeared to concede that such groups were present at the march. 

The aim of the march was simply to defend a statue of an historic figure, Robert E. Lee. And some individual marchers claimed to be defending white culture. But culture is not race and you can defend it without calling it supreme.  The motive in fact was to prevent its subjugation, not assert its supremacy.

Various fringe organizations known for violent rhetoric had supported the march and claimed to have members there but such claims could easily have been bravado and none of the organizations were distinctly identifiable at the march, let alone being shown as violent.  The march remained a defence of a statue and nothing more.

The violence at the rally was sparked by deliberately planned attacks by Antifa on the marchers. Antifa came equipped with bats, sticks and flamethrowers.  Yet some of the media describe Antifa as "peaceful"! All the marchers did was defend themselves.  The marchers did apparently foresee attacks on them -- which was a pretty obvious possibility -- but their major preparation was to hand out those death's head shields for self protection. And note that shields are a defensive device, not a weapon.  The death's heads were apparently an attempt to scare off attackers. Who the attackers were and who the defenders were is thus crystal clear.

Unfortunately, one individual was so incensed by the attacks  that he drove his car into the Antifa group.  But that was a response by one individual, not a concerted effort by any group.

So where is the condemnation of Antifa?  I have seen none.  Instead, Jeff Sessions below seems to suggest that he will protect them.  Media hysteria seems to have effectively blinded people to what actually went on.  It's a triumph of Leftist propaganda.



Neo-Nazis and other white supremacists are going to discover that the Trump administration is “coming after them for any violations of the law,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Monday.

Sessions, a recent target of Trump’s criticism, on Monday defended the president for making a “very strong statement” against the “hatred, violence, bigotry, racism, white supremacy” espoused at weekend rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“Those things must be condemned in this country,” Sessions told NBC’s “Today” show. “They're totally unacceptable, and you can be sure that this Department of Justice in his (Trump’s) administration is going to take the most vigorous action to protect the right of people like Heather Heyer to protest against racism and bigotry.

“We're going to protect the right to assemble and march, and we're going to prosecute anybody to the full extent of the law that violates their ability do so, so, you can be sure of that,” Sessions added.

The white supremacists, including neo-Nazis and the KKK, had a permit to protest the removal of Confederate statues in public parks, but their protest attracted counter-protesters. One of those counter-protesters, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, was killed when a car driven by a young white man, apparently a white supremacist, rammed a crowded intersection.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that the Justice Departent has opened a civil rights investigation into the car-ramming to "make a determination about whether it's appropriate to charge this as an act of terror." Pompeo said he is confident that DOJ "will investigate that with enormous rigor and get to the right outcome."

President Trump, meanwhile, is expected to say more about the Charlottesville violence on Monday, but some critics say it’s too late – he missed an opportunity to criticize the white supremacist groups by name when he spoke on Saturday.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence -- on many sides, on many sides,” Trump said at a press conference on Saturday afternoon. “It’s been going on for a long time in our country -- not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama -- it’s been going on for a long, long time.”

Trump’s suggestion that “hatred, bigotry and violence” exists on “many sides” offended some Americans. On Monday, “Today” anchor Samantha Guthrie asked Sessions, “What are the other sides?”

Sessions replied, “Well, we've had violence around the country in any number of ways over decades. We've had these spasms of violence that are unacceptable in America.”

Sessions noted that Trump on Saturday said the problems have been going on for a long time: “He said what happened in Charlottesville is unacceptable. We need to find out what happened, that it's wrong, and we need to study it and see what, as a nation, we can do to be more effective against this kind of extremism -- and evil, really. I thought it was a pretty -- it was a good statement, delivered just a few hours after the event,” Sessions said.

As criticism against the president mounted, the White House on Sunday issued a statement explicitly calling out the neo-Nazis, the KKK “and all extremist groups.”

“Amazingly, Nazism remains alive after all the evil it has caused in the world, and so I think that we take this seriously,” Sessions said. “We go at it directly, morally, legally, politically, legitimately and any way possible to reject this kind of ideology that that causes division and hatred in America. It's just not part of our heritage.”

Sessions said he expects President Trump to speak about the violence later today.

“He will be speaking to the people today, I'm not sure what he'll say, that's my understanding. And he's been firm on this from the beginning. He is appalled by this.”

SOURCE






Tech companies shift free speech mindset

The neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer had its internet domain registration revoked twice in less than 24 hours in the wake of the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, part of a broad move by the tech industry in recent months to take a stronger hand in policing online hate-speech and incitements to violence.

GoDaddy Inc, which manages internet names and registrations, disclosed late on Sunday via Twitter that it had given Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its domain to another provider, saying it had violated GoDaddy's terms of service.

The white supremacist website helped organise the weekend rally in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man ploughed a car into a crowd protesting against the white nationalist rally.

After GoDaddy revoked Daily Stormer's registration, the website turned to Alphabet Inc's Google Domains. The Daily Stormer domain was registered with Google shortly before 8 am on Monday PDT (0100 Tuesday AEST) and the company announced plans to revoke it at 10.56 am Monday PDT (0356 Tuesday AEST), according to a person familiar with the revocation.

As of late Monday (US time), the site was still running on a Google-registered domain. Google issued a statement but did not say when the site would be taken down.

Internet companies have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs over hate speech and other volatile social issues, with politicians and others calling on them to do more to police their networks while civil libertarians worry about the firms suppressing free speech.

Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc, Google's YouTube and other platforms have ramped up efforts to combat the social media efforts of Islamic militant groups, largely in response to pressure from European governments. Now, they are facing similar pressures in the US over white supremacist and neo-Nazi content.

Facebook confirmed on Monday that it took down the event page that was used to promote and organise the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville.

Facebook allows people to organise peaceful protests or rallies, but the social network said it would remove such pages when a threat of real-world harm and affiliation with hate organisations becomes clear.

"Facebook does not allow hate speech or praise of terrorist acts or hate crimes, and we are actively removing any posts that glorify the horrendous act committed in Charlottesville," the company said in a statement.

Several other companies also took action. Canadian internet company Tucows Inc stopped hiding the domain registration information of Andrew Anglin, the founder of Daily Stormer. Tucows, which was previously providing the website with services masking Anglin's phone number and email address, said Daily Stormer had breached its terms of service.

"They are inciting violence," said Michael Goldstein, vice president for sales and marketing at Tucows, a Toronto-based company. "It's a dangerous site and people should know who it is coming from."

Anglin did not respond to a request for comment.

Discord, a 70-person San Francisco company that allows video gamers to communicate across the internet, did not mince words in its decision to shut down the server of Altright.com, an alt-right news website, and the accounts of other white nationalists.

"We will continue to take action against white supremacy, Nazi ideology, and all forms of hate," the company said in a tweet on Monday. Altright.com did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Twilio Inc chief executive Jeff Lawson on Sunday tweeted that the company would update its use policy to prohibit hate speech. Twilio's services allow companies and organisations, such as political groups or campaigns, to send text messages to their communities.

Internet companies, which enjoy broad protections under US law for the activities of people using their services, have mostly tried to avoid being arbiters of what is acceptable speech.

But the ground is now shifting, said one executive at a major Silicon Valley firm. Twitter, for one, has moved sharply against harassment and hate speech after enduring years of criticism for not doing enough.

Facebook is beefing up its content monitoring teams. Google is pushing hard on new technology to help it monitor and delete YouTube videos that celebrate violence.

All this comes as an influential bloc of senators push legislation that would make it easier to penalise operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking of women and children.

That measure, despite the non-controversial nature of its espoused goal, was met with swift and co-ordinated opposition from tech firms and internet freedom groups, who fear that being legally liable for the postings of users would be a devastating blow to the internet industry.

SOURCE





Treason Is Now in Vogue

Bradley Manning graces the cover of the latest issue of Vogue in a sickeningly sycophantic puff piece.

“Chelsea Manning Changed the Course of History. Now She’s Focusing on Herself,” is the sickening headline of the September issue of Vogue magazine. The fawning story begins with what we guess is supposed to be an endearing description of “her” appearance and newfound comfort in “her” own skin. It goes on to tell much of Manning’s story, though it’s factually wrong in some details. More on that in a minute, but suffice to say the Left is in full swing happily celebrating its new transgender poster child.

We say the story is sickening for two reasons. First, Bradley/Chelsea Manning is an individual who deserves our pity, prayer and help, not vacuous celebrations. His gender dysphoria and what strikes us as narcissistic personality disorder is tragic, not heroic. He’s had a difficult life, including his father leaving at a young age and his mother attempting suicide. Transgendered people are at a drastically higher risk of suicide attempts than the general population, and it’s no surprise that Manning, too, has tried. And yet to Vogue, his only “problem” is that he couldn’t be “herself” until taxpayer-funded transition surgery.

Second, Manning is a traitor who released more than a million pages of classified information about U.S. intelligence operations to WikiLeaks, endangering lives and disrupting policy. He aided and abetted the enemies of America while in our nation’s uniform, all because he decided, on his own authority, to stimulate “worldwide discussion, debate and reforms.” Yet his disclosures were totally self-serving. And Vogue lied about some of the information: “The breach’s breadth was startling, as were its contents,” the magazine reports, including “the so-called Collateral Murder video, showing a U.S. helicopter killing a group of Baghdad pedestrians that included children and press.”

“On the contrary,” rejoins the Washington Examiner’s Tom Rogan, “it shows the lawful targeting of insurgents armed with rifles and a grenade launcher. Those ‘Baghdad pedestrians’ were threatening a U.S. Army unit that suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any unit in Iraq.”

In any case, it’s fair to say he’d still be in prison — or the grave — if he was still a man. Barack Obama would have had no politically advantageous reason to give him a ridiculous commutation deal, all while couching it as enough being enough. “Let’s be clear,” Obama said (using a phrase typically indicating he’s lying), “Chelsea Manning has served a tough prison sentence. I feel very comfortable that justice has been served.”

No, Obama’s political objective was served, and it is still being served by this tripe from Vogue and other outlets that sycophantically flatter Manning and their own “enlightened” cosmopolitan egos.

SOURCE






Businessman Dick Smith spends $1million on 'chilling' new anti-immigration ad warning Australia is doomed

Businessman Dick Smith is pressuring politicians to slash the number of immigrants accepted into Australia in a $1 million 'disturbing' ad campaign threatening violence and poverty.

The television advertisement, which will air on Tuesday, is based on the 1980s Grim Reaper AIDS campaign and will feature original actor John Stanton.

Using a pitchfork as an ominous symbol for a violent revolution, Mr Smith warns that 'endless growth will destroy Australia as we know it today.'

'Our growth-addicted economic system will see our children living in a world of eleven billion people, consuming and polluting more than our finite planet can withstand,' the millionaire entrepreneur claims in the Dick Smith Fair Go campaign ad.

'It's a path to either more and more inequality, or famine, disaster, war and collapse. Are we that stupid?'

Mr Smith appeals for politicians to cut the annual number of immigrants in half and offers to invest $2 million into marginal seats in the next election for the political party that drafts a population plan.

The outspoken One Nation supporter is also calling to close the gap between Australia's wealthiest people and the poor.

'Australia's wealthiest 1 percent own more than the bottom 70 percent, that's 17 million Aussies,' he said.

Mr Smith said that as a member of that top tier, he knows the group can 'certainly afford to pay more tax,' according to The Daily Telegraph.

A few of his own office staff members have called the ad 'disturbing,' Mr Smith said.

'It is so disturbing people in my office said they did not want their children to see it, but it is what we see on the news every night,' he said, according to the publication.

Mr Smith and radio host Alan Jones will launch the ad campaign at an event in Sydney on Tuesday morning.

SOURCE

*************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

***************************



1 comment:

Anonymous said...


I've seen the videos of the "car plowing into the crowd". Several things become evident to anyone watching the video.

First the car was slowly following other cars down a street with protestors crowding both sides, at one point someone steps off behind his car and swings at it, despite the distance you can hear the impact.

That evidently startles the drivers who then plows into the demonstrators who had stepped between his car and the previous car.

A number of other protestors mobbed the car at that point striking it and attempting to break out it's windows.

The driver quickly backed up striking those who had jumped behind his car which is where the majority of those who were struck got hurt. By that time it was apparent that there was no way he would be safe in that violent crowd.

Those are all points his lawyer is going to be raising when this goes to trial, that he also participated in rallies earlier that day is the kind of evidence that typically will not be allowed to be presented in court.