AZ ACLU advises students on reciting Pledge of Allegiance

Though reciting the Pledge of Allegiance is a bridge too far for leftist ACLU, Republican Gov. Ducey is supportive, reported to have expressed surprise that grade school students no longer begin their mornings with the pledge

As difficult as it is to fathom, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona has a 25-page manual for public school students, titled, “Know Your Rights,” urging them “Don’t just know your rights…fight for them!” The advice includes:

 “Act Now! Get a copy of your school’s Code of Student Conduct. Learn from this booklet what rights you have, and ensure those rights are protected by the school. Don’t wait until your rights are violated to speak up.”

“Document and Organize! If you feel your rights have been violated, write a statement with details of the incident, including: who, what, when and where. Get witness statements…” seemingly preparing them for a lawsuit.

Page five addresses the question: “Do we have to say the Pledge of Allegiance?”

The ACLU’s answer is “No. The courts say that students have the right to sit silently during the flag salute and Pledge of Allegiance. As long as you do not disrupt the pledge, you may refuse to participate.”

According to the ACLU, needing a parent’s permission to opt out, could have a “chilling effect on students’ free speech.” Seriously.

The pledge, long regarded as a symbol of patriotism, has reached red flag urgency status due to a bill currently in the state legislature, allowing for the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of each day — apparently now regarded as an outrageous assault on the tender psyches of Arizona children. Not only does it support allegiance to the United States of America, but it contains the two words, “under God,” that are anathema to the ACLU.  HB 2017, a simple one-page bill sponsored by Rep. John Fillmore (R-LD16) allows for “quiet reflection” in lieu of the recitation.

In 1954 Congress added the words “under God” at the request of President Eisenhower. The thirty-one words now creating a commotion are, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Count on this…Quiet reflection will still be considered an affront.

Campus mobs hijack free speech, stifle 1st Amendment

In light of increasing student disruptions while invited expert speakers attempt to discuss pertinent issues, Jonathan Butcher, a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute, addresses the issue of demonstrators intent on canceling events by shouting down an invited guest and how school administrators should deal with those who apply the “heckler’s veto.” He writes, “School leaders must explain that this behavior is unacceptable before the events take place. Incorporating discussions about the importance of free speech into freshman orientation and adding the school’s commitment to free inquiry to student handbooks.”

The fact that this lack of respect for the First Amendment rights to which Americans are constitutionally entitled takes place on university campuses should strike fear in the hearts of us all — regardless of our political bent.

Recent incidents where mob rule has taken place include the University of Pennsylvania, which shut down an event Wednesday on immigrant detention and deportation after student protesters demonstrated against retired ICE Director Tom Homan’s appearance on the panel.

Georgetown University law school — of all places — was recently the site of another such disruption. Butcher’s opinion piece, “Free speech jeopardized on college campuses,” printed this past week in The Detroit News is definitely worth reading.

This student derision for opinions other than their own has escalated. In December 2009, SRAZ posted, “How liberals at ASU honor the First Amendment and treat guests,” which includes a video of then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an invited guest, being heckled off the stage at a forum at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

If budding journalists and law students, who should be more aware of our enshrined freedoms than most, hold the First Amendment in contempt, what hope is there for our nation’s future?

This abhorrent trend is the direct result of leftist educrats propagandizing on the hot button issues of man-caused (rather than cyclical) climate change, recycling, identity politics, pushing gender-neutral pronouns and transgenderism, while giving short shrift to imperative studies encompassing American History, the history Western Civilization and our enviable U.S. Constitution, that provides freedoms others can only dream of attaining. 

NYC language police curtail 1st Amendment, issue hefty fines

“Illegal alien” verboten as left escalates its war on free speech

The Heritage Foundation reports New York City will now impose fines up to $250,000 — per offense — on Americans who use constitutionally precise language when describing invaders.

What have we devolved to when a major U.S. city censors and penalizes citizens for using the correct legal term,” illegal alien,” that has been used in both federal immigration law and numerous court decisions?

The NYC Commission on Human Rights has issued a preposterous 29-page manual imposing guidelines on speech as it relates to illegal aliens.

The opening sentence of the Heritage Foundation report warns, “The propaganda, surveillance, and censorship of Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel “1984” has now arrived in New York.”

 SRAZ used the same analogy in 2010, describing the government imposed theft of our rights in the post, ’Orwell’s 1984: Alive and well with journalistic word police.”

You can’t put four minutes of your time to better use than acquainting yourself with this alarming curtailment of our First Amendment freedoms.

We are on the brink of sacrificing our rights on the reckless altar of political correctness. If we don’t stand up to this expansive encroachment on our constitutional freedoms, our children and future generations will rightly despise us for sitting by idly while Leftist-driven annihilation overtook us.

“Racist”: Dems deliberately hurl lie at Pres. Trump

“When did you stop beating your wife?” is a loaded question which presupposes the man to whom it is directed is a wife-beater. He may not even have a wife, but that detail becomes irrelevant to the agenda being pushed.

This is indicative of the latest trickery employed by the leftist, predominantly Hillary Clinton-supporting media (243 pro-Hillary newspaper endorsements to 20 for Trump) that so despises President Donald Trump, it repeats the derogatory assault that he is a racist, as though it were fact.

Americans are witnessing an unprecedented power struggle between the businessman they overwhelmingly voted for because his message, “Make America Great Again,” resonated with them and the unabashedly biased press that has become an enraged political syndicate based in deceit, now seeing its clout in decline. Fewer Americans than ever before still subscribe to a newspaper.

The First Amendment to the Constitution, passed by Congress September 25, 1789, includes freedom of the press. The civil liberties it enshrines are the cornerstone of our democracy.

In recent years, as leftists expanded control of both print and electronic media, the commitment of what was envisioned as an independent press keeping the public informed, has transmogrified into skewing the news to fit an agenda, truth be damned. This is hardly what the Founders intended with their brilliantly crafted documents.

Yet those Arizonans who waited for hours on a scorching hot August 31, 2016 — in the longest line ever seen in Phoenix — to hear Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and VP candidate Mike Pence at the Phoenix Convention Center, instinctively knew they were witnessing a new phenomenon.

No one in attendance that day was surprised by the overwhelming support for Donald Trump, by people of all ethnicities and backgrounds. (video). The idea that President Trump is a racist is preposterous. The media that broadcast this lie know it, and so do the rest of us.

Biased, anti-Trump coverage admission by ex-NYT editor

Truth has a left-wing messenger who has a book to sell

In her upcoming book, “Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts,” former New York Times executive editor, Jill Abramson spills the beans on the newspaper’s anti-Trump bias. “Some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labeled as news analysis,“ she acknowledged.

Ms. Abramson said the paper enjoyed a significant “Trump bump” in digital subscriptions since the president took office and now that demand is driving coverage.

“Given its mostly liberal audience, there was an implicit financial reward for The Times in running lots of Trump stories, almost all of them negative: they drove big traffic numbers and, despite the blip of cancellations after the election, inflated subscription orders to levels no one anticipated,” Abramson wrote. Her book was reviewed by Fox News.

Abramson also complains about the unabashed liberal bent taken on by her successor, executive editor Dean Baquet.

But don’t be tempted to give her too much credit. She’s no fan of the President either, referring to his “fake news” attacks as a “cheap way of trying to undermine the credibility of the Times’ reporting as something to be accepted as truth only by liberals in urban, cosmopolitan areas.”

Sounds right on target, except for demeaning his accurate account as “cheap.”

 The Washington Times carries the full report. It’s written by Howard Kurtz, formerly of the Washington Post and The Daily Beast. He has written for the leftist New Republic and was a regular on CNN, which he left to join Fox News. If that seems like an odd career trajectory, remember Juan Williams, Jessica Tarlov and that Sean Hannity originally shared duties with extreme leftist Alan Colmes. It’s not at all unusual for Fox hosts to feature liberal guests.

CNN, MSNBC and their media ilk prefer their contributors to be reliable regurgitaters of skewed news and Trump detractors. That desire drove the compelling case for Republicrat Jeff Flake —- and his frequent appearances on those networks. Turncoats have gravitas.

Jill Abramson is simply confirming what we’ve already known.

Loony Leftists go full circle, now claim “God is on our side”

It wasn’t that long ago when a devout Christian Colorado bakery shop owner was the subject of vicious condemnation for refusing to bake a custom ordered cake for a same-sex wedding, explaining that to do so violated his religious beliefs. Because he regarded his cake baking expertise as using “his artistic skills to make an expressive statement,” making a cake for a same-sex couple would require him to convey a message that is fundamentally inconsistent with his religious beliefs.

On June 4, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his right to his freedom of speech. The left raged in protest, saying he had no right to deny the men a cake. The men had been previous customers and the baker offered them a cake from his case that did not have an inscription on it. They refused and initiated a lawsuit.

Even with that victory, it appears as thought the revered First Amendment to our Constitution stands on a shaky precipice.

For some time conservatives have been denied the ability to speak when invited to university campuses by college Republican groups. Ann Coulter got pelted with cream pies thrown onto the stage where she was standing. David Horowitz’ addresses were drowned out by shrieking students who refused to allow him to speak. Both of them have had invitations withdrawn. This explicit article he wrote in 2013 is as relevant today as when it initially appeared in National Review.

Universities, once considered bastions of freedom and enlightenment, are now complicit in repressing the rights of those whose views they do not share.

This past week Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen’s dinner at a Washington, D.C. restaurant was rudely interrupted when protesters arrived to chant, “If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace,” and “Shame! Shame!” Metro D.C. Democratic Socialists of America, a group with ties to Socialistic billionaire George Soros, took credit for the raucous commotion. The restaurant management was complicit in the assault.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and several members of her family were refused service in a Virginia restaurant Friday night. She later tweeted that she ‘politely left’ The Red Hen in Lexington after it was made clear she was not welcome ‘because I work for POTUS.’

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-D) urges more public disruptions (video) against those in the Trump administration, adding, “God is on our side.” Interesting that God is being invoked by this liberal Democrat. In 2012 at the Democrat’s National Convention, delegates booed the inclusion of the word “God” in their Party Platform. A floor vote was taken three times and God was repeatedly booed. Finally, embarrassed convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa declared, “The ayes have it.” His announcement fooled no one and was followed by more and louder booing.

Democrats have an aversion to God. The rest of us have a growing aversion to Democrats.

As Saul Alinsky, stated in “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals,’ “One acts decisively only in the conviction that all of the angels are on one side and the devils are on the other.”

Alinsky, who laid the groundwork for extremist community organizing, and dedicated his book to Lucifer, also said, “We are always moral and our enemies always immoral. The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the immorality of the opposition, of conservatives and Republicans. If they are perceived as immoral and indecent, their policies and arguments can be dismissed, and even those constituencies that are non-political or “low-information” can be mobilized to do battle against an evil party,”

That’s the strategy. It has been followed by Alinsky disciples Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and their claque, since the book was published in 1971, setting the groundwork for today’s Democrat Party.

 

AZ Republic celebrates repression of First Amendment

Liberals determine what constitutes free speech

The First Amendment to the Constitution separates America from repressive regimes and anarchies. In their wisdom, our Founders enshrined free speech as sacrosanct. It does not specify speech they approved of, but all speech. Among the rights detailed is that of people to peaceably assemble. The First Amendment, along with the entire Bill of Rights, was submitted to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789, and was adopted on December 15, 1791.

In recent years there have been efforts, especially in the halls of academia — the last place to imagine such constraints to exist — to shut down dissenting voices. What was held as above reproach for nearly 230 years is now unworthy.  Even newspapers, exemplified by the left-wing, Hillary Clinton endorsing,  Arizona Republic, demean those with views opposing their own skewed vantage point. Letters to the editor are selected to substantiate the skew.

Conservative speakers who have been invited to universities by campus groups are now either “uninvited” or banned from the campus and denied the ability to speak. Supposed scholars, putting their ignorance on display as they oppress opposing opinions, have overseen instances where protests have become violent. Bodily injuries, extensive property damage and intentionally set fires have been the instruments of intimidation.

 In 2004, conservative commentator, author and lawyer. Ann Coulter, invited to give an address to the U of A by the College Republicans, was the recipient of a cream pie attack. Ben Shapiro has been booed, as has FrontPage magazine’s editor David Horowitz. Students from ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism — who should revere the First Amendment — invited then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to participate in a forum, only to shamefully chant ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ over him, denying him the right to speak. (video).

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, invited to give the commencement address at Rutgers University in 2014 was forced to withdraw after students and faculty staged a sit-in protest over her selection due to her involvement in the Iraq war during the G.W. Bush administration. When Rice gave the commencement address at Boston College in 2006, dozens of students and professors turned their backs to her and held up signs protesting the Iraq war.

In this National Review article, conservative author and CRTV host Michelle Malkin, details the absurdity of university students being too offended to hear speakers with whom they disagree — even Vice President Mike Pence, invited as a commencement speaker by the University of Notre Dame. Activist Imanne Mondane told the campus newspaper that she and her peers felt “unsafe” and threatened by “someone who openly is offensive but also demeaning of their humanity and of their life and of their identity.” Pence was formerly the governor of Indiana, where the school is located and was elected to represent the residents in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here in Arizona the local leftist Arizona Republic newspaper uses this incendiary headline to herald another repression of free speech: Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has another Phoenix-area event canceled.

Yiannopoulos, who reportedly received death threats, is unworthy to be heard because he previously worked for conservative Breitbart News. Being openly homosexual would have otherwise placed him on the newspaper’s preferred list.