VIDEO: "An Alamo moment for the First Amendment" - Matt Taibbi

At the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, award-winning author Matt Taibbi spoke passionately about government efforts to censor free speech. Here's what he had to say.

Just because Donald Trump won the election [honestly! Ed.] doesn't mean that the fight against the Deep State and its controlled media is over.

Matt Taibbi stands up for free speech at "Rescue the Republic"

"...every American has a little bit of asshole in him. William Blake said, 'Always be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.' Some struggle with this concept. Americans are born knowing it.... Propaganda is...always someone trying to make you feel bad for their weakness, their mistakes. Don’t be ground down by it. Stand up straight and give it back."

Matt Taibbi, speaking at Rescue the Republic, 29/9/24.

How I wish I'd been there! Rescue the Republic was a one-day celebration of freedom, organized by jointheresistance.org, yesterday in Washington DC. The event featured an all-star cast of musical artists, comedians, and thought leaders, including Dr Jordan Peterson, Tulsi Gabbard, Russell Brand, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Matt Taibbi.

Yes, it's the same Matt Taibbi who wrote Smells Like Dead Elephants and several other good books of social and political commentary. He used to be a raging liberal. In recent times, he has had his eyes opened and now subscribes to the Rescue the Republic credo, which you'll see below. Click here to read the complete transcript of Mr Taibbi's speech. 

In the promotional material for Rescue the Republic, the organizers say, "Let’s come together to celebrate the essence of what makes America and the West so special." Walt says AMEN. Wish I'd been there....

ANOTHER great day for America! SCOTUS rules freedom of speech trumps LGBTetc "rights"

Today is a great day for America! This morning, the Supreme Court released its judgment in the case of Lori Smith, an Evangelical Christian web designer in Colorado who refused to create websites to celebrate same-sex weddings, contrary to her religious beliefs. The basis for the ruling is that to force her to affirm the queer lifestyle would violate her rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The case, 300 Creative LLC v. Elenis et al., was decided by 6-3 majority, with all of the Court's male, Republican appointees siding with the website designer. All three of the female Democratic appointees dissented.

Ms Smith wanted to expand her web design business, 303 Creative,  to create wedding websites to express "God's design for marriage as a union between one man and one woman." She also wanted to post a message on her website saying same-sex marriage is "a story about marriage that contradicts God’s true story of marriage." 

For some reason (!) Ms Smith feared that message would run afoul of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, so she filed for a declaratory judgment. She lost in the lower and federal appeals courts, but then appealed to SCOTUS, which held that "The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees."

The majority opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who issued the 2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores decision as an appellate judge, and often writes for the court in religious liberty cases.

The dissent was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who, as Walt told you yesterday, admits to being an affirmative action appointee.

The case picks up the argument over the First Amendment and same-sex "marriage" where SCOTUS left off in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a 2018 decision in which the Court sided with a Christian baker who did not want to prepare a cake for a same-sex "wedding". As that decision was largely on procedural grounds, the Court did not decide the question of whether the baker could be compelled to join in the celebration of "gay marriage".

The issue in 300 Creative is slightly different, because it involves the actual expression of words. Ms Smith said she would have been happy to work for same-sex couples, but not to create messages that conflicted with her own Christian faith.

Justice Gorsuch reviewed the history of the Court’s jurisprudence on freedom of expression and association. He then gave reasons for the Court's ruling, summarized here. [Citations of previous cases are omitted. Click here to read the full text of the ruling.]

[T]he First Amendment protects an individual’s right to speak his mind regardless of whether the government considers his speech sensible and well intentioned or deeply “misguided,” … and likely to cause “anguish” or “incalculable grief.” … Equally, the First Amendment protects acts of expressive association. …

Generally, too, the government may not compel a person to speak its own preferred messages. …Nor does it matter whether the government seeks to compel a person to speak its message when he would prefer to remain silent or to force an individual to include other ideas with his own speech that he would prefer not to include. … All that offends the First Amendment just the same. … 

Consider what a contrary approach would mean. Under Colorado's logic, the government may compel anyone who speaks for pay on a given topic to accept all commissions on that same topic — no matter the underlying message — if the topic somehow implicates a customer’s statutorily protected trait.

Taken seriously, that principle would allow the government to force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe on pain of penalty. The government could require "an unwilling Muslim movie director to make a film with a Zionist message," or "an atheist muralist to accept a commission celebrating Evangelical zeal," so long as they would make films or murals for other members of the public with different messages. … Equally, the government could force a male website designer married to another man to design websites for an organization that advocates against same-sex marriage. … 

Of course, abiding the Constitution’s commitment to the freedom of speech means all of us will encounter ideas we consider "unattractive," … "misguided, or even hurtful." …. But tolerance, not coercion, is our Nation’s answer. The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. 

While laws against discrimination in places of public accommodation were important, Justice Gorsuch wrote, they did not violate fundamental civil liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights. 

Hooray for the judge, and long live free speech! Try to make me write pro-queer propaganda for WWW! I dare ya. I double-dare ya!

Waiting for the 8th - YouTube bans Remnant Underground... again!

Our old friend Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper and host of Remnant Underground, has sent us an email which confirms that the establishment media, the Alphabet People [not the LGBTQ+++, the other ones. Ed.] are silencing those who dare to suggest that all is not well in Brandon's America. 

If you don't believe me, search Google Images for "Michael Matt" or "Remnant Underground" and see how far you have to scroll down before you get to the champion of Traditional Catholicism. Anyway, here's what Mr Matt has to say, including a link to tomorrow night's pre-election Remnant Underground special, available only at RemnantNewspaper.com.

I’m proud to report that the insufferable fascists over at YouTube have banned us from posting any new RTV video until after the midterm elections.

What are they so afraid of? Well, apparently, last November we dared to suggest there may have been some cheating going on in the last presidential election. Perish the thought! One year later, they removed that video and restricted our channel. 

Do you feel safer, knowing Big Brother is protecting you from Remnant TV? I hope so!

We’re used to this, of course. Back in 2020, when RTV started hitting a million-plus views, YouTube started kindly "adjusting our algorithm" for us. Since that time and thanks to you, we built RTV back up again, and now that our videos are topping 100,000 views once again, YouTube is trying to rescue you. 

Thankfully, we don’t need no stinkin' YouTube! But please do spread the word that this Sunday night, our pre-election Remnant Underground special will be available at RemnantNewspaper.com. 

Walt will be watching, for sure, and hopes that you, dear reader, will join us. Between now and then, I recommend that you read "COUNTERREVOLUTION: Pope Francis, Joe Biden Losing Control", published in The Remnant newspaper this past Sunday. I'll see you on the beach!

Is diversity really good for us? An American professor's view

Maxime Bernier, a Conservative member of the Canadian Parliament, made this week's news bigtime by posting a series of six tweets in which he dared to suggest that the "diversity" preached incessantly by Canuck PM Just In Trudeau has gone far enough, even too far. Canada is diverse enough, said M Bernier, and more diversity will destroy what was a great country. "The Great White North"... no more.

That M Bernier dared to say what hundreds of thousands of Canadians are thinking has led to his being pilloried in the lamestream media, particularly the state-owned Canadian Broadcorping Castration. Just today they are seeking to connect him to the cutting down of a sign in a Winterpeg park which, for some bizarre reason, was renamed to honour the Pakistani leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who insisted on the partition of India, at the end of the British Raj, into separate Hindu and Muslim states, which resulted in a bloodbath in which millions were killed.

But I digress. Here are a couple of excerpts from the now-famous Bernier tweets.
Having people live among us who reject basic Western values such as freedom, equality, tolerance and openness doesn’t make us strong. People who refuse to integrate into our society and want to live apart in their ghetto don’t make our society strong....
Trudeau's extreme multiculturalism and cult of diversity will divide us into little tribes that have less and less in common, apart from their dependence on government....
More diversity will not be our strength, it will destroy what has made us such a great country.
Click here to read all six tweets, in their entirety.

Such views are not often aired in Canada, especially since the Liberal-majority House of Commons adopted bill M-103, which is a thinly veiled warning to anyone thinking of challenging the progressive narrative. Political incorrectness will be punished! In the USA, however the First Amendment to the Constitution still protects freedom of speech, although sometimes you really have to fight for it.

One person who has had the courage to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy is Edward J. Erler, Professor Emeritus of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and co-author of The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration: Principles and Challenges in America. On 11 April 2018, Prof. Erler delivered a speech to a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Colorado Springs. In it, he raised points very similar to those raised three months later by Maxime Bernier. Like these...

Our progressive politicians and opinion leaders proclaim their commitment to diversity almost daily, chanting the same refrain: "Diversity is our strength." This is the gospel according to political correctness. But how does diversity strengthen us? Is it a force for unity and cohesiveness? Or is it a source of division and contention? 

Does it promote the common good and the friendship that rests at the heart of citizenship? Or does it promote racial and ethnic division and something resembling the tribalism that prevents most of the world from making constitutional government a success? When is the last time we heard anyone in Washington talk about the common good? We are used to hearing talk about the various stakeholders and group interests, but not much about what the nation has in common.

This should not be surprising. Greater diversity means inevitably that we have less in common, and the more we encourage diversity the less we honor the common good. Any honest and clear-sighted observer should be able to see that diversity is a solvent that dissolves the unity and cohesiveness of a nation -- and we should not be deceived into believing that its proponents do not understand the full impact of their advocacy!

The emphasis is mine. For the full text (adapted for print) click here to read "Does Diversity Really Unite Us? Citizenship and Immigration", in Imprimis, July-August 2018.

Footnote: While researching this piece, Ed. stumbled (aided by Ma Nifkins' jellied gin, perhaps) on a truly ridiculous "Table of Diversity", devised by "diversity leaders" to help in "hiring, retaining, and developing diverse talent". Click on the link to evaluate how the intersectionality of your diversity qualifies you for a highly-paid position in the human rights industry... or welfare.... As long as you're not a straight, white, born-in-the-USA male, the choice is yours!

CENSORED VIDEO: Evalion responds to biased Global TV "interview"

Evalion (real name Veronica Bouchard) is a young Canadian woman -- she lives in the eastern reaches of the so-called Greater Toronto Are -- who has become famous for producing dozens of YouTube videos attacking Jews, Zionism, multiculturalism, race-mixing, anti-white racism and... you get the picture. She's saying stuff that the chattering classes, "progressives", SJWs and other snowflakes find "hateful". And what gets them is that she's a pretty white girl with a sweet little-girl voice. How can she say such awful racist things? And, oh yeah, she drops the F-bomb too.

Evalion's channel quickly became notable, gaining 16,000 subscribers within a day, and thus the object of ferocious attacks by the PC police. She started to get mass-flagged by the libtards and "anti-haters", and pretty soon had her channel terminated and her videos deleted. But fans who wisely downloaded her "offensive rants" keep reposting them, so if you want to see for yourself what all the fuss is about, search YouTube for "Evalion" or "anti-semitic" or "Jews" and eventually one of her videos will appear in the suggestions column.

Last year, around Hallowe'en, Canada's No. 3 TV network, Global TV, decided to run an interview with Evalion, who had been stopped by Canada's "border services" (= border police) on suspicion of being a "hate criminal". (Yes, voicing "hateful thoughts" is a crime in Canada. There's no First Amendment there.) According to Ms Bouchard, Global interviewed her for 40 minutes, but less than 2 minutes of what she said in the "interview" is heard in the lengthy TV report. So she made a video to fill in the blanks, so to speak. Here it is. Running time: 20:45.

UPDATE 14/1/17: THE VIDEO EMBEDDED BELOW HAS BEEN DELETED BY (((YOUTUBE))). Draw your own conslusions.



Just so you know... Global TV began life as part of the Canwest Global media group led by (((Israel Asper))). The company was already one of the largest owners of Canadian local TV stations, when Canwest and (((Goldman Sachs))) in 2007 announced they would jointly acquire Canadian producer and broadcaster Alliance Atlantis Communications and its large stable of wide-distribution specialty channels. Following some "financial difficulties", Shaw Communications purchased the entirety of Canwest's broadcasting operations, including the portion owned by (((Goldman))). This deal was later modified to include a settlement agreement between Shaw, creditors, and the Official Ad Hoc Committee of Shareholders, led by the (((Aspers))), (((Blott Asset Management L.L.C.))) and two other hedge funds. Canwest was renamed to 2737469 Canada Inc. and ceased doing business that same date. Meanwhile, Shaw Communications reorganized Canwest into Shaw Media. Rumours that Jews control the Canadian (and American) media are, of course, groundless.

Footnote: Isn't Global TV's Farah Nasser (née Farah Khan) an eyeful? Mrs Nasser is, errr, "Muslim-Canadian", and you have to wonder if her heart is really in the shock she expressesd at Evalion's alleged anti-Semitism.

Free candy! Ku Klux Klan recruiting in South Carolina

FOX Carolina brings us news from Seneca, South Carolina, where the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan have staged a recruiting drive they call a "night ride".

A Seneca subdivision woke up Sunday morning to find bags of candy on their driveways with literature inviting readers to find out how to "Save our land, join the Klan."

When you call the number shown on the flyer (and on the website) -- (336) 432-0386 -- you get a voicemail message which starts with, "Be a man join the Klan! Illegal immigration is destroying America!" It goes on to discusses immigration concerns and ends with, "Always remember if it ain't white, it ain't right. White power!"

Robert Jones, the Imperial Klaliff of the sect, the Loyal White Knights, returned a call to FOX Carolina. Part of the conversation can be heard in the video report. Mr. Jones said that Klan chapters across the country drop literature overnight to attract new members. Their hotline, he added, has received around 20,000 calls, many from people are interested in joining the cause.

Mr. Jones said that his members don't target the homes of non-white or mixed couples for their night ride. "I mean, we can't tell who lives in a house, whether they're black, white, Mexican, gay, we can't tell that," he said. "And if you were to look at somebody's house like that, that means you'd be pretty much a racist."

He went on to say that the Loyal White Knights are not a hate group but a civil rights organization following the Bible. He said the Klan has always been strong throughout South Carolina and that this type of recruitment is nothing new. With more than 8,500 members, Jones said these days their focus is protesting against illegal immigration. His chapter is planning a public protest against illegal immigration in North Carolina on August 9th, with a cross-burning planned after dark.

As the silent majority of Americans wake up to the reality of Obama's "hope and change" agenda, don't be surprised to see more of this type of recruitment...and an increase in membership of organizations standing up for America!

DISCLAIMER! As a traditional Catholic -- a recusant -- Walt is forbidden to belong to the Ku Klux Klan or any other secret society. Moreover, Walt finds repugnant the anti-Catholicism -- implicit and explicit -- of the Klan. However, the things the Klan is saying about immigration and the destruction of American society very much need to be said. Mr. Jones and his colleagues are fortunate to be living in a country where their right to say things that are not politically correct is protected by the First Amendment. In Canada or elsewhere, they'd be hauled in front of a "human rights" tribunal...or worse. Thank God for freedom of speech! And God save the United States of America!

Aggressive secularism trumps Christianity in Ohio

Portraits of Our Lord Jesus Christ similar to this one are to be found in thousands, perhaps millions of homes and churches around the world. And in some schools too. One such used to hang in Jackson (Ohio) Middle School from 1947 until... this Easter.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation devoted to attacking all religions and all displays of religious faith, got a student and two parents to bring a lawsuit against Jackson City Schools, demanding removal of the "offending" painting, which they called "an unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity". The militant secularists were supported by... wait for it... The American Civil Liberties Union.

Jackson City Schools at first resisted the challenge, saying that the portrait of Jesus was private student speech displayed in a "limited public forum" and was not school-endorsed "governmental speech."

But, at a hearing in the US District Court yesterday, the school board threw in the towel, and agreed to remove the painting. Although they said they believe in the school's right to keep the painting up, they simply can't afford to fight the court battle, nor can they pay for insurance against costs which might be awarded against them.

Today's report from the Columbus Dispatch quotes a statement from Superintendent Phil Howard saying that "our insurance company denied coverage, and we cannot risk taxpayer money at this time."

The painting has now been removed from its place of honour, and placed in a storeroom -- out of sight and, sadly, out of mind.

Free speech only for LGBT activists? Only in Canada, you say?

Walt just finished reading -- and recommends highly -- Egg On Mao, by Canadian author Denise Chong. (Random House Canada, 2009) It's a highly readable account of the life (so far) of Lu Decheng, a young man who threw a clutch of ink-filled eggs at the iconic portrait of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square. This was in May 1989, just before the massacre of student protesters which even today may not be spoken of in China except in the most oblique terms.

We'll come to the risks of speaking truth to power in a moment. But first I want to recommend Egg On Mao as not just a polemic, but a great love story. Sometimes it reads like a novel -- very personal, very emotive -- but every word is true, as the author's notes confirm. Does the tale of brutality and repression have a happy ending? Well, first you must define "happy". Then you can read the book and find out.

Lu Decheng was not directly involved in creating the famous Free Speech Wall in Beijing just prior to the massacre, but, as Egg On Mao recounts, he and his companions plastered their own anti-dictatorship posters near the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Lu Decheng clearly approves of giving protesters space to express themselves.

So does Ian CoKehyeng, founder of Carleton Students for Liberty, a student activist group at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. (Denise Chong also lives in the world's second-coldest capital city, by the way.) Mr. CoKehyeng and his supporters thought it would be a good idea to set up a Free Speech Wall on the Carleton campus, to prove that free speech was alive and well, in spite of CU's tendency to ban speech it considers to be politically incorrect.

"What we wanted to promote was competition of ideas, rather than 'if I disagree with you I've got to censor you,'" the creators of the wall explained. So they installed a rather small and flimsy wall -- really just a wooden plank wrapped in paper -- in one of school's high-traffic areas, complete with a couple of magic markers with which people could write whatever they felt like.

That was on Monday. Not 24 hours later, the wall was gone, destroyed in an act of "forceful resistance," by one Arun Smith, a "human rights student" now in his seventh (7th!) year of studying and promoting "human rights" [like free speech? Ed.] at good ole CU.

Why did Smith do it? Because, he told reporters, the wall was an "act of violence against... [wait for it. Ed.]... the gay community." Mr. Smith is, you see, an "anti-homophobia" campaigner, or so he describes himself on Facebook.

Free speech is fine for him and all the others pushing the LGBT agenda -- see WWW earlier this week -- but not for people with contrary opinions. His twisted logic goes like this: "In organizing the 'free speech wall,' the Students for Liberty have forgotten that liberty requires liberation, and this liberation is prevented by providing space…for the expression of hate."

Yesterday CBC Radio -- always in the front lines of the war against "haters" -- asked Smith if he could explain himself a little more clearly. The answer was that the area around the Free Speech Wall was a "war zone", because the wall itself was nothing "but another in a series of acts of violence" against gays and gay rights.

He went on to call free speech an "illusory concept" and declared that "not every opinion is valid, nor deserving of expression." It's only his queer ideas that are "valid and deserving of expression", see?

Mr. CoKehyeng begs to differ. "Free speech is a friend of minorities, it shouldn't be people who feel marginalized in society who are trampling on free speech," he said. "Free speech is something you can't monopolize for yourself, you have to give it to everyone else." Indeed.

Commenting in the National Post on the ironies of this story, Jonathan Kay remembers seeing a Free Speech Wall last September at Bard College, in a private liberal arts school in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. (That's near Red Hook. You're welcome.)

Like its made-of-straw Carleton University equivalent [Mr. Kay writes], the Bard free-speech installation was 99% chalk-full of left-wing cant. But there were some heterodox opinions as well. And the best part was that it was a veritable brick-house of indestructibility: It's made of slate and steel. Should any "activist" want to destroy the thing because he didn't like what someone said about gay marriage or whatever, he would have to borrow his parents' car and then plow into it at ramming speed.

Why did the students of Bard build such a solid wall? Very simple. In the USA, unlike Canada, the freedom to express one's opinions is guaranteed by the Constitution, in the First Amendment. And Americans tend to take it seriously...at least at Bard College.

Lesson for Canuck free-speechers? Learn from the three little pigs. Use brick next time!

Comment on the CBC: Having been answerable to a Liberal government for decades, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation seems unable to adjust to having (nominal) Conservatives in power in Ottawa. They continue to give more-than-equal time to left-wingnuts like Arun Smith, and their propagandists ["reporters", surely! Ed.] listen respectfully to the veriest bullshit without batting an eyelash or cracking a smile. I don't know how they do it!

Footnote to book review: Denise Chong also wrote a moving account of what became of "the girl in the Vietnam photo". You remember the iconic [Stop overusing that word! Ed.] picture of the girl running down the road naked and on fire, having been doused with napalm made in Canada and dropped by Americans. Anyway, the book is called (appropriately enough) The Girl in the Picture.