Written on March 8th, 2010 by adminno shouts
-By Warner Todd Huston
We send our young adults to university to be educated in the ways of the world, we all know. Following that well-worn path, young James Schackleford decided on the publicly funded Florida Atlantic University for his edification and boy did he learn a lesson about modern education last week. Mr. Schackleford learned that the FAU administration prefers on its campus Islamic terrorist supporters over representatives of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom organization. He also learned that it’s open season on all conservatives at our American universities.
At the Boca Raton campus Mr. Schackleford determined that his school needed a chapter of YAF, a 40-year-old conservative student organization, and so gathered a few like-minded students to meet with YAF State Director Daniel P. Diaz to discuss how they should proceed on organizing a chapter in the school.
As the few gathered were meeting, university administrator *David Blank burst into the room and demanded that they cease their meeting and vacate the room. According to the YAF press release, Mr. Schackleford asked for an additional 15 minutes to finish and Blank acquiesced to the request. But the 15-minute grant was short lived.
Upon hearing Diaz address the liberal bias on the FAU campus, Blank stopped the meeting again and boorishly ordered the students to vacate the meeting room. Blank then shut off the room lights, tore down the group’s promotional posters, and called the campus police.
It didn’t end there. According to YAF, the campus police arrived and began to harass the students and Mr. Diaz outside as they were in the process of leaving the campus. The police demanded to see student IDs and then menacingly followed YAF rep. Diaz to his car.
Police told Diaz that they were investigating a “possible trespassing charge,” and then loudly joked that Diaz “probably had tea bags hanging out the back of his car” as Diaz prepared to leave.
Diaz says that the whole incident is proof positive of why a conservative group is needed at Florida Atlantic University.
“If we were a Marxist, Socialist or Liberal group they would have let us finish our meeting, but the university officials and police harassed us because we are conservatives. This was the exact liberal bias on campus that I was discussing in the meeting that these future YAFers experienced firsthand. The university is no longer a place of open discussion and freedom of expression, but a breeding ground of intolerance for conservative beliefs.”
One question immediately comes to mind over this incident: did student organizer Schackleford and YAF representative Diaz officially reserve a room at FAU for their informal meeting? I asked Diaz this very question.
Diaz told me that since it was an informal meeting that should have been over rather quickly, Mr. Schackleford did not think that he needed to officially reserve a room through the university staff. In fact, according to Diaz, himself a former FAU student, such unscheduled meetings occur all the time.
No we did not reserve a room. When I was a student at the university when a room wasn’t being occupied one could go in and meet or study, and as long they left before the next scheduled group arrived they would be ok. After asking around that is how it still is.
In retrospect it was an obvious lapse in judgment not to officially reserve a room. Or perhaps they should have met off campus.
However, that small lapse in judgment does not absolve this oppressive, over-the-top reaction that university administrator David Blank exhibited. After all, not long ago Florida Atlantic University hosted a whole slew of Islamic terror supporters on campus. In 2006, for instance, the Muslim students group at FAU hosted an event at which appeared Hamas and Hezbollah supporter, Al-Haaj Ghazi Khankan; alleged Neo-Nazi, William Baker; and potential co-conspirator of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Siraj Wahhaj.
Apparently it’s perfectly O.K., as far as the FAU administration is concerned, to have Islamofascist terror given full-throated support on its campus but it is a serious no-no to talk about organizing a patriotic American conservative student’s organization there.
Perhaps Mr. Diaz is right in his contention that a YAF chapter is sorely needed at Florida Atlantic University?
*David Blank appears to be the Event Planning Specialist for the Student Union at FAU. He can be reached at dblank@fau.edu.
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Written on March 2nd, 2010 by adminno shouts
-By Warner Todd Huston
Back in January of 2007 math teacher Brad Johnson of Westview High in San Diego County, California was told by his school administrators he had to take down the patriotic banner he had put up in his classroom because the word “God” appeared on it.
Johnson, of course, was quite upset about being told to take down his banner and took the school to court. In 2008 Judge Roger T. Benitez sided with the patriotic-minded teacher saying that the school was “brash” in its effort to force the teacher to take down the banner.
Well, after so long we have some news to report on this story and it is good news, indeed. The very same judge that sided with Mr. Johnson two years ago has officially ruled in favor of the teacher’s right to free speech.
Judge Benitez’s 32-page opinion was strongly worded and critical of the Poway school districts aversion to mentioning God: “[The school district officials] apparently fear their students are incapable of dealing with diverse viewpoints that include God’s place in American history and culture. . . . That God places prominently in our Nation’s history does not create an Establishment Clause violation requiring curettage and disinfectant for Johnson’s public high school classroom walls. It is a matter of historical fact that our institutions and government actors have in past and present times given place to a supreme God.”
The Thomas Moore Law Center represented the repressed teacher to good effect. Likely this isn’t over as left-wingers are not apt to being told “no” very often, especially by a judge.
We will have to await to see what further comes of this. but as of right now, we have a victory for free speech to celebrate.
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Written on December 31st, 2009 by adminno shouts
Warning to all: don’t send a mean email about Obama, because you may be labeled racist. Oh, and potentially fired
It’s a reminder that the emails you send at work, can sometimes come back to haunt you.
At least one Colorado Department of Transportation employee is being investigated for sending an inappropriate email featuring President Barack Obama and Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
When we got our hands on the email Tuesday, we immediately contacted CDOT. (in other words, the newspaper ran like girly men to the CDOT. Imagine if the email was negative towards a conservative. Think they would have still contacted the CDOT? Yeah, I thought not)
They tell us at least one employee could be fired for this.
“We’re taking this very seriously,” said Mindy Crane, Spokesperson for CDOT.
The title of the email is “Picture of the year” and the photo of Obama and Palin inside may be considered as racially charged and offensive. (Everything is racially charged and offensive, per the left, when it makes fun of Obama)
The one liner in the email says “It appears he has found his niche,” referring to President Obama.
What is the photo?
I suppose, if one was an unhinged lefty, you could see racism. I’m sure Excitable Charles Johnson will have hissy fits and post one of his insane “why I left the right” whine-fests if he sees the story. What I see is Obama reduced to a job he is qualified for, because he is not qualified to be President of the USA. Heck, even Sheriff Joe Biden told us he wasn’t qualified.
What’s your opinion? Racist? Not racist? I will, say, though, that company email is not the appropriate venue for sending out pictures like that.
(The opinion in this post reflects my own, not necessarily the opinion of the website and the other posters)
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Written on October 30th, 2009 by adminno shouts
by Maggie at Maggie’s Notebook
A few days ago, Hans Bader writing for Stop the ACLU reported on the hate crimes legislation Bill. This article is intended to be a further discussion of what is behind the language in the Bill. The question is, is double jeopardy a factor in this new legislative language?
Dual Sovereignty
The answer is kinda-sorta. It’s really more about The Dual Sovereignty Doctrine negating the double jeopardy clause in the 5th Amendment.
The government now does have the right to try hate crime suspects after they have been tried by the state, and even if already tried and found guilty by the state. This position is confirmed by a letter from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to members of the U.S. Senate. Read it at NationaReviewOnLine. So how does it happen a person can be tried twice for the same crime?
Here is a portion that I believe gives the DOJ the opportunity to retry a hate crime: (The text of the Bill is here).
(b) (1) IN GENERAL – No prosecution of any offense described in the subsection may be undertaken by the United States, except under the certification in writing of the Attorney General, or his designee, that- (C) the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence; or (D) a prosecution by the United States is in the public interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.
(b) (2) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION- Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to limit the authority of Federal officers, or a Federal grand jury, to investigate possible violations of this section.
This gives the DOJ the right to try any case on behalf of a victim they feel has not received justice, while also eliminating “the badges…and relics of slavery and involuntary servitude.”
A quick reading of the Bill might lead you to think it will simply “support” state’s with money, but it goes much deeper than the $5 million to be given to states in each of the years 2010 and 2011. If a state can “certify” the need for government assistance to “investigate or prosecute the hate crime,” then that state will get that assistance. But read about the”sham and cover” exception a few paragraphs below. We have to ask why this administration believes this legislation is necessary.
The Dual Sovereignty Doctrine expects those administering under the Doctrine to “limit” their actions. This from TheFreeLibrary:
The court did not, however, fully eliminate the double jeopardy prohibition from this context. The dual sovereignty doctrine continues to be limited by what is referred to as the “sham” exception, which was described by the Bartkus Court.
The sham exception provides that a prosecution by one sovereign cannot be used as a “sham and a cover” for another sovereign’s re-prosecution of the same defendant.
This doctrine would operate to prevent, on double jeopardy grounds, a prosecution brought by one sovereign with the encouragement and support of another sovereign that has already failed in its attempt to prosecute the same defendant.
The doctrine is founded on the rationale that the two sovereigns are acting as one. Unfortunately, this exception has been construed so narrowly as to make it difficult to be utilized successfully.
Apparently, this DOJ and Barack Obama believe that justice is not done often enough, and courts do not punish, often enough, those who commit hate crimes. So the question remains: is it possible for any violent crime to be classified as a “hate crime” when it is perpetrated against a Jewish or a white person?
[Emphasis by Lobo]
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Written on October 29th, 2009 by adminno shouts
Food for thought #1
Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson issued his second apology in 12 months Tuesday and was told to stay away from the team while the NFL and the Chiefs complete their investigation into his use of a gay slur.
As Johnson was releasing his apology, a national gay rights advocacy organization called on the league and the team to take disciplinary action against the two-time Pro Bowl selection.
#2
ESPN broadcaster Bob Griese has been suspended for one week for a remark he made about NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya.
Network spokesman Josh Krulewitz said Griese would not be working a college football game this week. Krulewitz said ESPN has spoken to Griese and “he understands the comment was inappropriate.”
During ESPN’s coverage of the Minnesota-Ohio State game on Saturday, a graphic was shown listing the top five drivers in NASCAR’s points race. Fellow analyst Chris Spielman asked: Where was Montoya?
Griese replied, “Out having a taco.”
#3
Pauline Howe, 67, a committed Christian, was questioned by two police officers after she wrote a letter to Norwich City Council about its decision to allow the march.
She wrote: “It is shameful that this small, but vociferous lobby should be allowed such a display unwarranted by the minimal number of homosexuals.”
#4
Florida Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson issued a written apology Tuesday evening for a comment for a month-old comment that has stirred controversy on Capitol Hill in recent days.
During a September radio interview, Grayson called Linda Robertson, an aide to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who has also worked as a lobbyist, a “K Street whore.”
Hmm, that’s weird, the last one has no consequences, despite being a supposed elected public official. Imagine had he been a Republican. Good thing he didn’t use a gay or racial slur, he might have been in big trouble.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove
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