Missing In Action--Freedom Of Speech In College

Left-wing protesters invade College Republicans meeting, reportedly declare ‘dialogue is violence’

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Leftist students invaded a College Republicans meeting at the University of California, Santa Clara, on Sunday, reportedly chanted that "dialogue is violence" and accused the GOP students of being Nazis, fascists, racists and white supremacists. (Image source: YouTube screenshot)

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Leftist students invaded a school-approved meeting of the College Republicans at the University of California, Santa Cruz, on Sunday, reportedly chanting that “dialogue is violence” and accusing the GOP students of being Nazis, fascists, racists, and white supremacists.

How did this start?

• Student activist Haik Adamian — a “ringleader” of the protest, according to Campus Reform — posted on the official UCSC Student Facebook group about the College Republicans meeting, the outlet said.
• “White Supremacist, fascist sympathizing College Republicans are having a meeting at McHenry library, room 0332. Everybody be aware of this violent racist activity happening everyday on this campus!” his post said, Campus Reform reported. “We need a movement of people on this campus that rejects the ‘right of assembly’ or ‘right of free speech’ for white supremacists and fascists.”

What happened next?

• According to a statement from the College Republicans, posted by City on a Phil — which Campus Reform referred to as a moderate school news site — the student activists “banged open the door and started screaming at the top of their lungs and demanding we leave the space immediately.”
• The protesters called the meeting “a threat to the library,” the statement read.
• “We invited the activists to stay and discuss ideas,” the statement continued. “However, any attempt at civil communication was met with the response, ‘Dialogue is violence.’”
• “The protesters called us a number of different epithets, including ‘fascists,’ ‘racists,’ and ‘white supremacists’ and berated McHenry Library staff, calling a school employee a ‘white supremacist,’” the statement added.
• One protester was caught on video telling a school official to not follow the “f***ing rules.”

Image source: YouTube screenshot

• Some of their targets included students of color at the meeting, the statement said.

What else did video catch the protesters saying to meeting attendees?

• “Your existence is a disturbance.”
• “It’s gonna help if these motherf***ers leave, and we don’t allow racists on this campus.”
• When a meeting attendee argued that Communist students wouldn’t be treated this way, one protester replied that’s “because Communists aren’t f***ing racists.”
• “So you believe that Nazis should be able to express their racist ideas?” a protester asked, adding that he concluded the group members are Nazis because they “had a Build the Wall march” a year before.

How did it end?

• A school official was on hand attempting to mediate the dispute and got nowhere.

A school official tried to calm things down. (Image source: YouTube screenshot)

• The College Republicans refused to vacate the room.
• One attendee who identified himself as a Democrat and defended the GOP students was heard on video saying in reference to the protesters that “we’re not indulging these children.”

A self-described Democrat defended the College Republicans against the protesters. (Image source: YouTube screenshot)

• All those not actively attempting to get the College Republicans out of the room became a “white supremacist” to the protesters, the statement continued.
• One of the protesters even ran into the main library area screaming that there were “Nazis downstairs,” Campus Reform reported.
• School officials called campus police, the College Republicans’ statement read, and three protesters were arrested for disturbing the peace.

How did one Democrat react?

• “As a Democrat, I am embarrassed that some people on the left act this way,” Phil Leonard Vogel, creator of the City on a Phil, told Campus Reform. “They give all of us a terrible name.”
• “I have a lot more sensational footage of the protesters being arrested and yelling at police,” City on a Phil added. “I don’t feel comfortable releasing that at this time. Although the protesters called me a litany of hurtful names and acted belligerently, I realize they are very young, and may not understand the full ramifications of their actions.”
• In regard to the “your existence is a disturbance” statement, the City on a Hill post noted: “This is the exact rationale that the NAZIs used to murder members of my family. Basically, a Jew’s existence is such a ‘disturbance’ to the lives of other people, that any action of extermination is justified for the good of society. Many fascist groups frame their political enemies in this light, before taking violent action against them. The protesters who interrupted our meeting made it clear that they see everybody in that room (regardless of their viewpoints or ideologies) as defective people, who have no right to an opinion, or to assemble. I think it is important for the students on campus to see what fascism actually looks like.”

The College Republicans’ statement also said “many liberal students, who were initially skeptical of our group, now come to our meetings on a regular basis.”

Here’s an edited clip of the confrontation via Campus Reform. You can view the full video here. (Content warning: Rough language):

This story has been updated.

Its Time For Sanctuary Cities To Change Their Status

Sanctuary Cities Face Aid Cuts as Justice Dept. Tightens Screws

By CHARLIE SAVAGEAPRIL 21, 2017

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions outside the White House on Monday. CreditAl Drago/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration escalated its confrontation with so-called sanctuary cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, threatening them anew Friday with the loss of grant money if they do not remove certain barriers.

The Justice Department sent letters to officials in New York City, Philadelphia, California and other places that were singled out last year by the agency’s inspector general for regulations that interfere with the ability of police or sheriffs to communicate with federal immigration authorities about the status of prisoners in their custody.

“Many of these jurisdictions are also crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime,” the Justice Department said in a news release.

The agency cited the rising murder rate in Chicago and cast blame for gang murders in New York on what it labeled a “soft on crime” stance. It also complained that after the recent arrests of 11 members of the MS-13 Salvadoran street gang, the deputy police chief of Santa Cruz, Calif., had stressed that the raid was unrelated to immigration instead of “warning other MS-13 members that they would be next.”

President Trump ran on a platform of cracking down on illegal immigration and issued an executive order during his first week in office aimed at starting that process. Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned that recipients of federal law enforcement grants were required to comply with a 1996 law that bars the local authorities from forcing officials to withhold information from federal immigration authorities about people’s immigration status.

The recipients of the letters were warned that as a condition of receiving 2016 grants, they must certify by June 30 that they were in compliance with the law. That enforced a deadline on a policy first put in place under the Obama administration, which announced the policy last July but gave cities that were not in compliance time to adjust.

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After Mr. Sessions’s remarks last month, several municipal leaders vowed defiance; Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City said that he would fight in court any attempt to strip funding from the city. In 2014, the city enacted a law that barred the Correction Department from telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials about an inmate’s release date, incarceration status or coming court dates unless the inmate was the subject of a detainer request supported by a judicial warrant.

In a conference call with reporters on Friday, Nisha Agarwal, the commissioner for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs in New York, said the city received a similar letter last year and was prepared to respond by the June 30 deadline. She declined to say what the city would tell the government.

“We’re ready as a city to fight in court and to defend New Yorkers, defend the funding we receive from the federal government,” she said. “But ultimately, what they’re doing is conflating immigrants with criminality in ways that certainly don’t reflect the experience in New York City. And they’re also trying to present cities as being places where crime is running amok and New York has had the lowest crime rates in the last several months in history.”

Crime has been falling in New York City for two decades.

The dollar amounts for the grants in question are relatively small compared with the overall budgets of the governments that received the letters. For example, according to the Justice Department, the City of New York received a $4.3 million grant in 2016.

Other places sent the letter included the State of California, which received a total of $10.4 million, divvied up among 128 cities and counties; Chicago and Cook County, where that city is, and which shared a $2.3 million grant; New Orleans, $265,832; Las Vegas’s Clark County, $11,537; Philadelphia, $1.7 million; Miami-Dade County, $481,347; and Milwaukee County, $937,932.

Each of the letters was signed by Alan R. Hanson, the acting director of the Office of Justice Programs, which administers the Byrne law enforcement grant program. Until Jan. 20, Mr. Hanson was a top aide to Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama; Mr. Sessions had been the other Alabama senator until he took the helm at the Justice Department.

“Failure to comply with this condition could result in the withholding of grant funds, suspension or termination of the grant, ineligibility for future O.J.P. grants or subgrants, or other action, as appropriate,” Mr. Hanson wrote.

Anyone Who Lives In A Desert Should Not Have A Lawn! Californians Are Learning This The Hard Way!

California Flooded With People Tattling on 'Water Wasters'

Saturday, 05 Jul 2014 01:36 PM

By Sandy Fitzgerald

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California's drought is creating a deluge of tattletales, after government officials encouraged residents to snitch on their neighbors for wasting water.

The state declared a drought emergency five months ago, but residents have only cut their water usage by about 5 percent, reports The New York Times, cutting back much less than the 20 percent Gov. Jerry Brown asked for in January.

And since people aren't heeding the warnings from the state, cities in the state are asking residents to report their neighbors for wasting water, and are finding that people are all too willing to tell on each other.

Sacramento has already received 6,000 reports this year, or 20 times more than last year, and proudly posted a comparative photo on Twitter showing its lawns turning from green to gold.




Loretta Franzi, who insists she doesn't feel comfortable telling on people she knows, says she's called the hotline "a number of times" in recent months.

"You can hear people running their sprinklers when it’s dark because they don’t want to get caught watering when they’re not supposed to be — it’s maddening,” Franzi, a 61-year-old retiree told The Times. "You can tell the people who are conserving because their lawns are brown. The lawns that are really green, there’s something wrong."

Franzi said her neighbors are now looking at each other, and one elderly woman in her 90s is convinced she's the one who turned her in, which she denies.

As a result of informants like Franzi, Sacramento has handed out more than 2,000 violations since January, including some to Franzi's neighbors. The enforcement means Sacramento and its surrounding region has reduced its water consumption by 10 percent from previous years, marking the highest amount saved statewide.

"It’s becoming a competition to not have the greenest lawn anymore," said Sacramento Utilities Director Dave Brent. "You want to have a lawn that’s alive but on life support.”

And some Californians aren't just tattling on each other, but going out of their way to shame water wasters on social media, on the radio, and other public places.

They're trying to embarrass their neighbors and relatives for taking long showers, washing their cars, and watering their lawns, reports The Times.

“Is washing the sidewalk with water a good idea in a drought @sfgov?” Sahand Mirzahossein, a 32-year-old management consultant tweeted, posting a picture of a San Francisco city employee hosing off a sidewalk. 

Officials at water agencies around the state say they don't want to shame people, but instead are calling the conservation push an "education" or even a "competition. But still, they're hoping to spark a public sense of outrage when it comes to wasting water. In Los Angeles, residents will be able to get door hangers that they can hang anonymously on the doorknobs of neighbors whose sprinklers also water sidewalks along with their grass, to remind them about the drought and water rules.
And the Irvine Ranch Water District is also turning the shortage wars into a competition, showing resident how their water use compares with their neighbors and putting labels on customers' bills that label them as either being "low volume" or "wasteful."

Such actions underscore the seriousness of the situation, said State Water Resources Control Board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus.

“Just showing people what they’re doing vis-à-vis their neighbors motivates them," said Marcus. "Shaming comes in when you’re worse. You want to be as clever as your neighbor."

But then there are neighbors who are using the informant hotline to get back at neighbors over old grudges.

"You get people who hate their neighbors and chronically report them in hopes they’ll be thrown in prison for wasting water,” said Eileen Cross, Santa Cruz’s water conservation manager.

Marcus said that it's especially difficult to get people in urban areas like Los Angeles and San Francisco to cut back, as they're not seeing the water woes going on across the state.

“I might turn the faucet off when I’m brushing my teeth or something,” said Ragan Wallake, 34, a West Hollywood resident. “But I don’t feel like that three seconds of turning off the water is going to make a difference.”

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