Act 1: The Free Speech movement that began at UC Berkeley in 1964, which was about saying what you want to say. It was started by student radicals.

Act 2: Campus speech codes, which restrict free speech in order to enforce political correctness, get enacted. Originally conceived to protect minority students from harassment, they metastasize to become a bludgeon to stifle legitimate dissent. They were started by former student radicals, by then in positions of authority in academia.

Act 3: Students demonstrate for free or heavily subsidized tuition at University of California campuses, whining about suffering part of the state’s fiscal hangover.

As a parent of a student about to start at UC, I’m not happy with a 32% fee increase either. But someone has to pay the bill, and it can’t always be someone else.

A tip to Justine Batemen: a little makeup goes a long way.

One appreciates the First Amendment the most when seeing how its absence in Canada and Europe leads to criminalizing political speech.

Mark Steyn writes about the trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders for anti-Islamic statements.

At a certain level, the trial of Geert Wilders for the crime of “group insult” of Islam is déjà vu all over again. For as the spokesperson for the Openbaar Ministerie put it, “It is irrelevant whether Wilders’s witnesses might prove Wilders’s observations to be correct. What’s relevant is that his observations are illegal.”

Ah, yes, in the Netherlands, as in Canada, the truth is no defence. My Dutch is a little rusty but I believe the “Openbaar Ministerie” translates in English to the Ministry for Openly Barring People. Whoops, my mistake. It’s the prosecution service of the Dutch Ministry of Justice. But it shares with Canada’s “human rights” commissions an institutional contempt for the truth.

As for “Wilders’s witnesses,” he submitted a list of 18, and the Amsterdam court rejected no fewer than 15 of them. As with Commissar MacNaughton and her troika of pseudo-judges presiding over the Maclean’s trial in British Columbia, it’s easier to make the rules up as you go along.

And in Amsterdam the eventual verdict doesn’t really matter any more than it did here. As Khurrum Awan, head sock puppet for Mohamed Elmasry, crowed to the Canadian Arab News, even though the Canadian Islamic Congress struck out in three different jurisdictions in their attempt to criminalize my writing, the suits cost this magazine (he says) two million bucks, and thereby “attained our strategic objective—to increase the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material.” Likewise, whether Mijnheer Wilders is convicted or acquitted, a lot of politicians, publishers, writers and filmmakers will get the message: steer clear of the subject of Islam unless you want your life consumed.

But at that point comparisons end. Had the CIC triumphed at our trial in Vancouver, the statutory penalty under the B.C. “Human Rights” Code would have prevented Maclean’s ever publishing anything on Islam, Europe, demography, terrorism and related issues by me or anybody of a similar disposition ever again. I personally would have been rendered legally unpublishable in Canada in perpetuity. But so what? I’m an obscure writer, and my fate is peripheral to that of the Dominion itself.

Geert Wilders, by contrast, is one of the most popular politicians in the Netherlands, and his fate is central to the future of his kingdom and his continent. He is an elected member of parliament—and, although he’s invariably labelled “far right” in news reports, how far he is depends on where you’re standing: his party came second in last year’s elections for the European Parliament, and a poll of the Dutch electorate in December found it tied for first place. Furthermore, if you read the indictment against him, you’ll see that among other things Wilders is being prosecuted for is proposing an end to “non-Western immigration” to the Netherlands: the offending remarks were made in response to a direct question as to what his party would do in its first days in office. So the Dutch state is explicitly prosecuting the political platform of the most popular opposition party in the country, and attempting to schedule the trial for its own electoral advantage. That’s the sort of thing free societies used to leave to Mobutu, Ferdinand Marcos and this week’s Generalissimo-for-Life.

ATHEISTS HAVE begun a campaign against the Government’s new blasphemy law, which came into force on January 1st as part of the Defamation Act.

The group Atheist Ireland has published 25 quotes it says are blasphemous, attributed to people from Jesus Christ to Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.

Under the new law, which the group is campaigning to have repealed, blasphemy is punishable by a fine of up to €25,000.

It defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, and intending by such publication to cause such outrage.

One wonders: does this cover the religion of climate change?

Would mocking Al Gore be a criminal offense? Remember, NYT columnist Paul Krugman called skepticism of global warming treason.

For an example of how the left treats dissent (destroy the messenger, don’t debate the issues), Rush Limbaugh is exhibit A.

Racist is a powerful, damning epithet. And if someone isn’t truly racist, just fabricate facts to make it so. Toby Harnden in the UK Guardian nails it:

Which public figure can be quoted as having said something bigoted and disgusting and it doesn’t matter whether he did or not because he might have? Who can Big Media brand a racist without checking the facts? Who has to prove he did not say something racist, rather than the accuser proving he did?

A pat on the back for anyone who guessed the answer: Rush Limbaugh (OK, the blog headline was a clue). From CNN to MSNBC to ABC, it’s been put about that Limbaugh said this:

I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.

It’s also been spread around that he said this, about the death of the man who assassinated Martin Luther King:

You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honour? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed.

Trouble is, he didn’t say either of these outrageous things. And it wasn’t difficult to check, as protein wisdom shows here. They originated from, er, Wikipedia and Wikiquotes. Both quotes ended up in this book – a hit job that doesn’t cite any sources. They’re also included in this internet list posted a year ago and endlessly ripped off ever since.

The irony is, of course, that the people reporting this as fact are the same types who are always denouncing bloggers and the internet as forces of evil intent on destroying proper journalism – proper journalism being the kind that involves checking facts. In the case of Rush Limbaugh, however, it seems to be enough that the intention (i.e. to show the talk radio host is a racist) is considered pure.

Even those who have been primary movers in spreading these malicious falsehoods – which would lead to payouts of hundreds of thousands in British libel courts if lawsuits were ever filed there – are brazenly unapologetic.

Of course not, destroying Limbaugh — whose influence threatens the left’s statist agenda — is doing God’s work. Truth be damned.

The NFL’s chief weenie, Roger Goodell, said that Rush Limbaugh was too “divisive” to be allowed into his club. Oh?

Powerline notes:

Well: as I wrote last night, it is ironic that Keith Olbermann, who, unlike Rush, is actually a hatemonger, is a network commentator on NFL games. Apparently no one thinks Olbermann is too “divisive” to be associated with the league.

Which raises this thought: has any liberal ever been labeled “divisive”? I can’t recall a single instance. President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are trying to dismantle our health care system, an effort to which most Americans object and about which many millions care deeply. So, why are they not divisive? If that isn’t divisive, what is?

These thoughts are prompted by Olbermann’s latest outrage: another attack on Michelle Malkin, in which he accused Michelle of being a “fascist” and described her as “a big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it.” It is impossible to imagine a conservative with a network television contract using language like that about a liberal woman. Impossible. It is, to begin with, misogynistic; it’s also aesthetically ridiculous. Agree with her or not, Michelle is a beautiful woman. One can only wonder what kind of twisted, sick psyche could produce this sort of venom. (Michelle writes about Olbermann’s bizarre outburst here.)

But let’s apply a much lower threshold: by what conceivable standard is Keith Olbermann not a divisive figure? It would be impossible to be more intensely partisan or to be more vicious toward those with whom he disagrees. How can that not be considered divisive, by the NFL’s standards?

The only answer is that “divisive” is a criticism that applies only to conservatives. It is not possible for a liberal to be “divisive,” however crazed he or she may be. This is true even though the whole point of a political system is to decide issues about which people disagree. If people don’t disagree, it isn’t a political issue. So to argue for any political point of view is necessarily divisive. But divisiveness is a one-way street. When liberals express liberal views, that’s just being a patriotic American. When conservatives express conservative views, it’s “divisive.”

That is, sadly, how much of our country’s establishment thinks.

Brussels Journal:

In early October, Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist, visited Princeton and Yale, two of America’s top universities, to speak to students, who are supposed to be tomorrow’s elite. The students did not feel any sympathy – indeed, were almost hostile – towards Mr. Westergaard, an artist who has been living under constant police protection since he drew a cartoon of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, four years ago.

Mr. Westergaard arrived at both Princeton and Yale heavily guarded by policemen. Ten officers kept watch inside the room – with more on guard outside – when he addressed his audience in Princeton. Such is life for Mr. Westergaard these days. “When, early in September 2005, I got a brief request from my editor to draw my impression of the prophet Muhammad, I had little idea of what I was getting myself into,” he told the students.

He drew the Islamic prophet with a bomb in his turban. “My cartoon,” Mr. Westergaard said, “was an attempt to expose those fanatics who have justified a great number of bombings, murders and other atrocities with reference to the sayings of their prophet. If many Muslims thought that their religion did not condone such acts, they might have stood up and declared that the men of violence had misrepresented the true meaning of Islam. Very few of them did so.”

…

How would the American establishment react, however, if confronted with a similar case? American newspapers have refused to reprint his cartoons, even as illustrations to articles about the case. Yale University Press has published a whole book about the affair, without showing the cartoon. While an image of the cartoon was projected on a screen during Kurt Westergaard’s talk at Princeton, the university authorities at Yale refused to do so when Mr. Westergaard was giving his talk there. They told Mr. Westergaard that they would only allow the cartoon to be shown in a separate room, “so that students who do not want to see it, do not have to see it,” thereby treating the drawing as they would treat a vile piece of pornography. As it turned out, however, the cartoon was not even shown in a separate room.

Despite the Danish cartoon affair being a watershed test for the freedom of the Western media to criticize religions and ideologies without fear of violent reprisal, only a small number of students turned up at both Princeton and Yale to hear Mr. Westergaard plead his case. At Princeton, there was a turnout of about sixty people, at Yale of about eighty. Both at Princeton and at Yale, half of the audience was Muslim, while the other half either agreed with them or was intimidated into appearing to do so. Perhaps the non-Muslims among America’s Ivy League students are simply unaware of the Danish cartoon affair or do not care about it.

George Will:

“This is just the beginning,” Yosi Sergant told participants in an Aug. 10 conference call that seems to have been organized by the National Endowment for the Arts and certainly was joined by a functionary from the White House Office of Public Engagement. The call was the beginning of the end of Sergant’s short tenure as NEA flack — he has been reassigned. The call also was the beginning of a small scandal that illuminates something gargantuan — the Obama administration’s incontinent lust to politicize everything.

Sergant’s comments, made to many individuals and organizations from what is vaguely and cloyingly called “the arts community,” continued: “This is the first telephone call of a brand-new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government.” Wrong preposition. Not “with” the government, but for the government.

Did the White House initiate the conference call-cum-political pep rally? Or, even worse, did the NEA, an independent agency, spontaneously politicize itself? Something that reads awfully like an invitation went from Sergant’s NEA e-mail address to a cohort of “artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, tastemakers, leaders or just plain cool people.”

They were exhorted to participate in a conference call “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda.” The first core area mentioned was “health care.”

The NEA is the nation’s largest single source of financial support for the arts, and its grants often prompt supplemental private donations. He who pays the piper does indeed call the tune, and in the four months before the conference call, 16 of the participating organizations received a total of nearly $2 million from the NEA. Two days after the call, the 16 and five other organizations issued a plea for the president’s health-care plan.

The automobile industry and much of the financial sector have been broken to the saddle of the state. Ninety percent of new mortgages and 80 percent of student loans — the average family’s two most important financial transactions — are financed or guaranteed by the federal government. Now the Obama administration is tightening the cinch on subsidized artists, conscripting them into the crusade to further politicize the 17 percent of the economy that is health care.

Time was, artists were proudly adversarial regarding authority, the established order, etc. “Epater le bourgeois!” and all that. Now they are just another servile interest group seeking morsels from the federal banquet. Are they real artists? Sure, because in this egalitarian era, government reasons circularly: Art is whatever an artist says it is, and an artist is whoever produces art. So, being an artist is a self-validating vocation.

George Will:

Last March, during the Supreme Court argument concerning the Federal Election Commission’s banning of a political movie, several justices were aghast. Suddenly and belatedly they saw the abyss that could swallow the First Amendment.

Justice Antonin Scalia was “a little disoriented” and Justice Samuel Alito said “that’s pretty incredible.” Chief Justice John Roberts said: “If we accept your constitutional argument, we’re establishing a precedent that you yourself say would extend to banning the book” — a hypothetical 500-page book containing one sentence that said “vote for” a particular candidate.

What shocked them, but should not have, were statements by a government lawyer who was only doing his professional duty with ruinous honesty — ruinous to his cause. He was defending the mare’s-nest of uncertainties that federal campaign finance law has made and the mess the court made in 2003 when, by affirming the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold’s further speech restrictions, it allowed Congress to regulate speech by and about people running for Congress.

The government lawyer was trying to justify the FEC’s 2008 decision that McCain-Feingold required banning “Hillary: The Movie” from video-on-demand distribution. The lawyer said, in effect:

Don’t blame me. McCain-Feingold orders people to shut up when political speech matters most. It bans “electioneering communications” (communications “susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate”) paid for by corporations in the 30 days before primaries and 60 days before general elections. Corporations include not only, or primarily, the likes of GM and GE; corporations also include issue advocacy groups, from the National Rifle Association to the Sierra Club. So, yes, if a book published (as books are) by a corporation contains even a sentence of election-related advocacy, the book could — must — be banned by the federal government, and not just during the McCain-Feingold muzzle period.

Stunned, the court ordered that the case be reargued Sept. 9. On Aug. 30, a New York Times story included a delicious morsel about Fred Wertheimer, an indefatigable advocate of increased government control of the quantity, timing and content of campaign speech — speech about the composition of the government:

“In an interview, Mr. Wertheimer seemed reluctant to answer questions about the government regulation of books. Pressed, Mr. Wertheimer finally said, ‘A campaign document in the form of a book can be banned.’ “

Our president, who care barely bring himself to call terrorists terrorists, has his campaign website libel those opposing Obamacare.

Blogger Pat Austin blows the whistle.

(You can see a screenshot of the Obama campaign website here. The page was subsequently removed.)

Many Americans took off work and sacrificed family time this past August to attend congressional town halls, where they voiced opposition to a government-run overhaul of their personal health care choices. They hand painted signs, grabbed their children and drove to their local church or school gymnasium for valuable lessons in community organizing and democracy. While they lived the Rockwellian version of American discourse, they were called names, labeled as ‘too organized’ or “un-American”, and likened to mobs, Nazis and Fascists. And now President Obama’s team has designated September 11 as the day to liken conservatives to Al Qaeda terrorists.

Today, President Obama’s campaign organization “Organizing for America” sent out a notice to its “grassroots” supporters. It asked them to wage a coordinated phone campaign for health care by calling their U.S. Senators on September 11 – also known as Patriot Day in honor of the thousands of Americans killed by Al Qaeda terrorists eight years ago. It goes on: “All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.” Please read that again.

Typically when this type of outrageousness is unleashed on the American public, the appropriate response is to recall the webpage and explain the gray area, with phrases such as ‘that was taken out of context’ or ‘we didn’t mean that conservatives were actually terrorists’ or ‘that was written by a junior staffer who has been admonished’. But that should not be sufficient this time. There are several lessons America must learn from this:

Bipartisanship: Rather than rally our nation, which is certainly more divided than ever, they seek to make those divisions even more distinctive this September 11. The President often talks about reaching across the aisle, working with people of differing viewpoints, but that rhetoric is not matched by this reality.

Zealots: This type of irresponsible rhetoric can make dissent against the President seem dangerous. Down the road, the President could paint his detractors as nothing more than right-wing zealots bent on destroying his vision for the nation. Remember, these ‘zealots’ are not smuggling weapons, they’re smuggling poster board and markers. They’re not flying planes into buildings; they’re flying to see their parents for Thanksgiving.

Free Press: How does it help our nation to rally against a free press? If Fox News doesn’t report the story as the White House sees it, does that make them a “propaganda network” as it says on today’s release? Who are the “treacherous leaders” that Fox News is reporting to by the way? These questions need answering.

Sherman Fredrick, publisher of the Review-Journal.

We’re still here doing what we do for the people of Las Vegas and Nevada. So, let me assure you, if we weathered all of that, we can damn sure outlast the bully threats of Sen. Harry Reid.

On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber’s board members for a meet-’n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal’s director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.

Yet, as Bob shook hands with our senior U.S. senator in what should have been nothing but a gracious business setting, Reid said: “I hope you go out of business.”

Later, in his public speech, Reid said he wanted to let everyone know that he wants the Review-Journal to continue selling advertising because the Las Vegas Sun is delivered inside the Review-Journal.

Such behavior cannot go unchallenged.

You could call Reid’s remark ugly and be right. It certainly was boorish. Asinine? That goes without saying.

But to fully capture the magnitude of Reid’s remark (and to stop him from doing the same thing to others) it must be called what it was — a full-on threat perpetrated by a bully who has forgotten that he was elected to office to protect Nevadans, not sound like he’s shaking them down.

No citizen should expect this kind of behavior from a U.S. senator. It is certainly not becoming of a man who is the majority leader in the U.S. Senate. And it absolutely is not what anyone would expect from a man who now asks Nevadans to send him back to the Senate for a fifth term.

If he thinks he can push the state’s largest newspaper around by exacting some kind of economic punishment in retaliation for not seeing eye to eye with him on matters of politics, I can only imagine how he pressures businesses and individuals who don’t have the wherewithal of the Review-Journal.

For the sake of all who live and work in Nevada, we can’t let this bully behavior pass without calling out Sen. Reid. If he’ll try it with the Review-Journal, you can bet that he’s tried it with others. So today, we serve notice on Sen. Reid that this creepy tactic will not be tolerated.

We won’t allow you to bully us. And if you try it with anyone else, count on going through us first.

That’s a promise, not a threat.

And it’s a promise to our readers, not to you, Sen. Reid.

This newspaper traces its roots to before Las Vegas was Las Vegas.

We’ve seen cattle ranches give way to railroads. We chronicled the construction of Hoover Dam. We reported on the first day of legalized gambling. The first hospital. The first school. The first church. We survived the mob, Howard Hughes, the Great Depression, several recessions, two world wars, dozens of news competitors and any number of two-bit politicians who couldn’t stand scrutiny, much less criticism.

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, was having second thoughts – or was he? – about the way he had characterized people who are disrupting town halls with “lies, innuendo and rumor,” and not letting others speak. They are, he had said, “evil-mongers.”

Bush was ridiculed for calling Iran, Iraq and North Korea members of an “axis of evil.” All three nations promoted terror and murdered their own citizens.

North Korea is believed to have starved 2 million of its own to death. That’s really starving, not just skipping lunch and having a big appetite for dinner.

Iran is still promoting terror and murdering its own on the street. When this happened a month ago, Obama was “deeply concerned” about it.

Iraq is no longer a terror state, but a fledgling democracy, the first Arab democracy. For the first time in a long time, Iraqis feel free to express their political opinions openly and vehemently.

In America, it’s a tradition. But Harry, Nancy and Barry find criticism not just distasteful, but evil.

Democrat Karen Bass, speaker of the California Assembly, in the LA Times.

Q: How do you think conservative talk radio has affected the Legislature’s work?

A: The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: “You vote for revenue and your career is over.” I don’t know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist. I guess it’s about free speech, but it’s extremely unfair.

The conservative-talk-as-terrorism meme is persistent. Remember, the left kept bitching about (non existent) censorship and claimed dissent was patriotic. But that’s only when they’re talking.

In a satirical jibe at stringent censorship imposed by Fiji’s military Government, the Daily Post newspaper has been filling the space with some no news.

Headlines in Wednesday’s edition included “Man gets on bus” over an item reading: “In what is believed to be the first reported incident of its kind, a man got on a bus yesterday. ‘It was easy,’ he said. ‘I just lifted one leg up and then the other and I was on.’ ”

Another headed “Breakfast as usual” began: “It was breakfast as usual for the staff of this newspaper. ‘I had leftover roti from last night,’ senior reporter Manueli told his colleague yesterday morning.”

A third story began, “Paint has apparently dried on his old couch, Max reports. Given the job of painting the couch, Max was excited at the prospect of the paint drying. But when asked how it dried, he was nonplussed.

” ‘It just went on wet, but after about four hours, it started to dry. That was when I realised, paint dries,’ the young scholar observed.”

Fiji’s military ruler Frank Bainimarama has posted censors in the offices of newspapers and radio and television stations, ordered foreign journalists out of the country and shut down the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio transmitters.

Rush Limbaugh:

Dear President Obama:

I have a straightforward question, which I hope you will answer in a straightforward way: Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as “local content,” “diversity of ownership,” and “public interest” rules — all of which are designed to appeal to populist sentiments but, as you know, are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band?

You have singled me out directly, admonishing members of Congress not to listen to my show. Bill Clinton has since chimed in, complaining about the lack of balance on radio. And a number of members of your party, in and out of Congress, are forming a chorus of advocates for government control over radio content. This is both chilling and ominous.

As a former president of the Harvard Law Review and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, you are more familiar than most with the purpose of the Bill of Rights: to protect the citizen from the possible excesses of the federal government. The First Amendment says, in part, that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The government is explicitly prohibited from playing a role in refereeing among those who speak or seek to speak. We are, after all, dealing with political speech — which, as the Framers understood, cannot be left to the government to police.

Read it all.

Here’s a preview of the British-European future Newsweek is so hot for — letting Muslims bully the government into preventing free speech.

The Dutch MP and Party leader, Geert Wilders, has been told he cannot enter the UK.  Wilders was due to speak to fellow Parliamentarians at the House of Lords tomorrow and show his film ‘Fitna’.

I blogged on ‘Fitna’ for Conservative Home when it came out, just after interviewing Wilders for The Spectator.  The film, which can be seen here, equates verses in the Koran with actions carried out in their name by Islamist terrorists.

The meeting scheduled for tomorrow had already been cancelled once.  Yesterday Wilders was presented with a letter written on behalf of the Home Secretary stating that she ‘is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK.’

The thing that would ‘threaten public security’, let alone ‘community harmony’ is that twice in the last month Wilders has been invited to speak in the House of Lords and twice Lord Ahmed of Rotherham (soon to go to prison himself) and other Muslim ‘leaders’ have explained that they will provide a mob to object to the film.  Ahmed proclaimed the previous effort to stop Wilders coming to Parliament as ‘a victory for the Muslim community.’

You’d think the Democrats were the minority party with all their hissy fits about Rush Limbaugh. I suppose their idea of free speech is all speech free of ideas they dislike.

Russell Cook at American Thinker:

…Wednesday, we witnessed the “Epic Fail” of a petition aimed at Rush Limbaugh by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), who apparently were unaware of the previous Epic Fail of Senator Harry Reid’s “phony soldiers” petition calling for Limbaugh to repudiate and apologize for a comment that critics took entirely out of context. Limbaugh ultimately got it back from its intended receiver, and he turned it over to Ebay for a charity auction, where the winning bid was $2,100,100. Limbaugh then matched the amount, for a total gift to the Marine Corps – Law Enforcement Foundation of $4,200,200.Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Our friends at the DCCC heard simply heard four words said by Limbaugh – “I hope he fails” – out of their original context in reference to an email request he received, and more specifically in reference to a basic opinion that he doesn’t agree with Obama’s policies and therefore wouldn’t want them to succeed.

A week after that broadcast came Obama’s own call for GOP leaders to stop listening to Limbaugh, prompting the DCCC to create their petition to “Stand strong against Rush Limbaugh’s Attacks – sign our petition, telling Rush what you think of his attacks on President Obama. We’ll send Limbaugh your comments.” Nicely placed on that page is a 19 second Youtube video of his famous four words.

What makes this an Epic Fail is actually a triumph for full disclosure — Limbaugh found out about the petition and prompted readers of his web site to go over and sign the petition. We did, each commenting as we saw fit, and the DCCC has either decided not to scrub the overwhelming number of comments supporting Limbaugh, or else they are totally unaware of them and are simply patting themselves on the back while watching the petition counter rack up ever-increasing numbers.

Of the 1,400 comments appearing on their web site as of 8pm PST Wednesday night, the vast majority are in support of Limbaugh - this link will put you square in the middle of ‘em, hit the Previous Page or Next Page links at the bottom of the page and see for yourself.

Mark Steyn:

Marc Lebuis (of the excellent Quebec website Point de Bascule) has had his complaint against a Montreal imam, Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus al-Hayiti, rejected by the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission. M Lebuis filed the case to test the consistency of the CHRC: Do they apply their speech codes equally to all Canadians? Or do they just screw over the soft targets who’ve had the misfortune to catch the eye of serial plaintiff Richard Warman? Well, M Lebuis has his answer. In the eyes of the CHRC’s international laughingstock Jennifer Lynch, QC and the rest of the Lynch Mob, not all hatemongers are equal. As the headline in Le Devoir puts it:

Commission canadienne des droits de la personne – S’attaquer aux gais, aux occidentales et aux juifs n’est pas nécessairement haineux

That’s to say, “CHRC: Attacking gays, western women and Jews isn’t necessarily hateful.” Hey, that’s great to know, isn’t it? At least if you’re an imam. If you’re an Alberta pastor opposed to gay marriage, you might want to tread more carefully. Over at Point de Bascule, M Lebuis lists some of the choicer statements from Imam al-Hayiti’s book:

* Homosexuality is a “perversion”

* Homosexuals “spread disorder on earth”

* Homosexuals and lesbians should be “exterminated in this life”

* “Homosexuals caught performing sodomy are beheaded…”

* Most Infidels “live like animals”

* “they are evil people, they love perversity”, and “they are our enemies…”

* “Men are superior to women and better than them…”

* “This is the reason why ethnic groups are not equal…”

* “It is because of this religion of lies [Christianity], which goes against human nature, that the West is now full of perversity, corruption and adultery…”

* Jews “spread corruption and chaos on earth.”

* Most Jews “seek only material goods and money, apart from that, they have nothing…”

Etc. (The entire book can be found here.) I support the right of Imam al-Hayiti to say exactly what he likes. It’s far better to let these guys sound off and clear up any confusion. But I’m puzzled by the decision of Commissar Lynch’s enforcers: If it’s okay for Imam al-Hayiti to say homosexuals and lesbians should be “exterminated”, why is the Reverend Stephen Boissoin under a lifetime speech ban merely for objecting to gay marriage? Why are bald statements of Islamic supremacism cool when an imam makes them but the subject of a week-long trial in Vancouver for an infidel magazine that quotes such an imam?

Brussels Journal:

SHOWING OF THE FILM FITNA BANNED BY ORDER OF THE CONFERENCE OF PRESIDENTS

It is with great regret that I have to announce the cancellation of the showing of the film Fitna at the meeting with Mr Geert Wilders MP today at 2pm.

I was informed of this decision today.

Nevertheless a press conference will take place at 2pm in room R 3.1 with Mr Wilders and myself.

The banning of this film is a direct attack on free speech. A parliament that constantly talks of freedom, democracy and tolerance has shown once again that these are empty words when it does not agree with what is being said.

On the same day that the European Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize to the Chinese freedom campaigner Hu Jia the Conference of Presidents deny free speech to one of its own members.

You can watch the “offending” film below:

Mark Steyn:

On Friday I had the honor of addressing the Federalist Society in Washington on the matter of my free-speech travails up north. And, in response to a question on whether the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission were surprised that I’d pushed back against them, I quoted that great line from the Kevin Bacon film Tremors when the giant mutated killer worms attack Michael Gross and Reba McEntire’s well-armed basement and wind up blasted to smithereens: “Looks like they picked the wrong rec room to break into.”

The giant killer worms of the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission picked the wrong rec room to break into. Ezra Levant and I and a few others went nuclear on the Dominion’s thought police and gave them the worst year of publicity in their three-decade existence. The result is that, earlier this month, over 99 per cent of delegates to the Conservative Party convention voted to abolish Section 13 (the “hate speech” provision) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and a brave principled Liberal, Keith Martin, renewed his private member’s motion in the House of Commons to do the same.

This morning, the CHRC issued the so-called Moon Report on free-speech issues. Most of us expected it to be a whitewash. Instead, Professor Moon says:

1. The first recommendation is that section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed so that the CHRC and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) would no longer deal with hate speech, in particular hate speech on the Internet.

This is a great tribute to what Ezra calls his campaign of “denormalization” of Canada’s Orwellian “human rights” racket. They’re not yet ready to throw in the towel completely, but it’s fluttering limply on the edge of the ring. Canada may be preparing to rejoin the ranks of free nations.

The prolonged snit over passage of Proposition 8, which amended the California constitution to define marriage as a strictly one man, one woman affair has exposed the idiocy of the left.

It’s important to note that many gay people do not support gay marriage, seeing it as unnecessary in light of the legal protections offered by civil unions. They do not see it as a civil rights issue.

But that’s unacceptable, say gay marriage bigots. And they’re not just throwing public tantrums, showing up in churches and behaving ugly, they’re viciously going after those who disagree with them.

Hollywood, which has made dozens of weepers about the Blacklist, is actively blacklisting.

Should there be boycotts, blacklists, firings or de facto shunning of those who supported Proposition 8?

That’s the issue consuming many in liberal Hollywood who fought to defeat the initiative banning same-sex marriage and are now reeling with recrimination and dismay. Meanwhile, activists continue to comb donor lists and employ the Internet to expose those who donated money to support the ban.

Already out is Scott Eckern, director of the nonprofit California Musical Theatre in Sacramento, who resigned after a flurry of complaints from prominent theater artists, including “Hairspray” composer Marc Shaiman, when word of his contribution to the Yes on 8 campaign surfaced.

It doesn’t stop there. Write an offending letter to the editor and watch out.

A supporter of Proposition 8, fed up with what he believed was the gay community’s and “liberal media’s” refusal to accept the voters’ verdict, fired off a letter to the editor.

“Please show respect for democracy,” he wrote, in a letter we published.

What he encountered instead was an utter lack of respect for free speech.

Within hours, the intimidation game was on. Because his real name and city were listed – a condition for publication of letters to The Chronicle – opponents of Prop. 8 used Internet search engines to find the letter writer’s small business, his Web site (which included the names of his children and dog), his phone number and his clients. And they posted that information in the “Comments” section of SFGate.com – urging, in ugly language, retribution against the author’s business and its identified clients.

“They’re intimidating people that don’t have the same beliefs as they do … so they’ll be silenced,” he told me last week. “It doesn’t bode well for the free-speech process. People are going to have to be pretty damn courageous to speak up about anything. Why would anyone want to go through this?”

What’s amusing is these folks are the same bunch who whined for 8 years that Bush suppressed their civil liberties.

Is Obama the bully his campaign tactics suggested? American Thinker thinks so:

Barack Obama sought to silence his critics during his 2008 campaign.  Now, with the ink barely dry on this November’s ballots, Obama has begun a war against conservative talk radio.

Obama is on record as saying he does not plan an exhumation of the now-dead “Fairness Doctrine“. Instead, Obama’s attack on free speech will be far less understood by the general public and accordingly, far more dangerous.

The late community organizer Saul Alinsky taught his followers to strike hard from an unexpected direction, an approach known as Alinsky jujitsu

Obama himself not only worked as an organizer for an Alinsky offshoot organization, Chicago’s Developing Communities Project, but would go on to teach classes in Alinsky’s beliefs and methods

“Alinsky jujitsu” as applied to conservative talk radio means using vague rules already on the books to threaten any station which dares to air conservative programs with the loss of its valuable broadcast license.

Team Obama and the “localism” weapon

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule in question is called “localism.”  Radio and television stations are required to serve the interests of their local community as a condition of keeping their broadcast licenses. 

Obama needs only three votes from the five-member FCC to define localism in such a way that no radio station would dare air any syndicated conservative programming.

Localism is one of the rare issues on which Obama himself has been outspoken. 

On September 20, 2007, Obama submitted a pro-localism written statement to an FCC hearing held at the Chicago headquarters of Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.’s Operation Push.

Furthermore, the Obama transition team knows all about the potential of localism as a means of silencing conservative dissent.  The head of the Obama transition team is John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress.

In 2007, the Center for American Progress issued a report, The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.  This report complained that there was too much conservative talk on the radio because of “the absence of localism in American radio markets” and urged the FCC to “[e]nsure greater local accountability over radio licensing.

Daniel Gallington proposes a new Fairness Doctrine:

My proposal:

Let’s have the FCC require that the networks designate their news people with either a  “D” or a little “R”. Some examples: “Katie Couric (D-CBS)”, Wolf Blitzer “D-CNN”, “Keith Olbermann (D-MSNBC), “Chris Mathhews (D-MSNBC), Bill Moyers and Gwen Ifful (D-PBS) and yes, Joe Scarborough (R-MSNBC). Get the idea?

If FOX News is really “fair and balanced” – like they say they are – let’s make them put a “D” or “R” under the person’s picture as he/she talks. I want to know for sure if that feisty Irish guy on the “No Spin Zone” is a Democrat or a Republican – and not, as he alleges, an “independent.”

A caveat: I’m afraid if we let FOX use an “I”, then all the networks would want to use it and we would end up exactly where we are now. So, to keep the system brutally honest – absolutely no “I’s” would be permitted. After all, that’s what they all say they are now.

Also helpful would be short bits of bio information, like: “Stephanopoulos (D-ABC) was Bill Clinton’s press secretary”, “Buchanan (R-MSNBC) ran for president three times, was a speech Writer for Richard Nixon, and communications director for Reagan,” “Matthews (D-MSNBC) was press secretary for former House Speaker Tip O’Neil (D-MA)” and “Mark Shields (D-PBS) worked on several Democratic presidential campaigns”.

NBC must already be concerned about its liberal political image because they hired this guy Chuck Todd as their so-called “Political Director” [an odd title – as if they are somehow in need of "political direction"].

And, NBC lists him as having “practical political experience in national campaigns” – however, and a really big surprise here – this turns out to be the 1991 presidential campaign of super-lefty Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA).

But none of this would matter with my proposal:  They would simply caption Political Director Todd as “D-NBC” – right along with the jabbering Matthews and sulking Olbermann.

Is this a neat idea, or what? Perhaps the only real question now is who will have the courage to do it voluntarily, as I have here:

Daniel Gallington was a liberal “D” in the 60’s – now, he’s more of a conservative “R” with some definite libertarian leanings

Assistant Village Idiot writes: “Why media bias is a spiritual problem.”

I want to bypass all the arguments and evidences whether media bias is real. Conservatives say it is, progressives say it isn’t, and everyone believes that the other side is responding with confirmation bias. Confirmation bias, the natural tendency to remember items that support your POV and disregard those things that don’t, is quite powerful, and none of us is immune to it. Therefore, it pays to intentionally attack one’s own confirmation bias from time-to-time, even if you’re right. Especially if you are right.

Each of us is obligated to ask ourselves the hard questions, and I don’t see evidence that the folks in the traditional media do that. Their answers to such questions, in fact, strongly suggest evasion – a refusal to open certain doors inside.

Progressives know a lot about a lot, but they don’t seem to see themselves very clearly. This places a severe limitation on their understanding events around them, which is a shame, because they tend to know much more about the events around them than the average person.

Self-awareness is difficult to purchase, because you have to buy it from the worst parts of yourself, which will drive a punitively hard bargain. Yet as a psychologist friend humorously repeats “It’s good to keep in contact with reality. You might need it someday.”

Even Obama supporters should wonder about the bullying nature of his campaign. This is just the latest.

Journalists from three major newspapers that endorsed John McCain have been booted from Barack Obama’s campaign plane for the final leg of the presidential race.

The Washington Times reported Friday that it was notified of the Obama campaign’s decision Thursday evening — even though the paper has covered Obama from the start.

Executive Editor John Solomon told FOXNews.com that the Obama campaign said it didn’t have enough seats on the plane, but “I don’t think the explanation makes sense to us.”

“We’ve been traveling since 2007 with him. … We’re a relevant newspaper — every day we break news,” Solomon said. “And to suddenly be kicked off the plane for people who haven’t covered it as aggressively or thoroughly as we are … it sort of feels unfair.”

Jim Pankiw, an MP who served from 1997 to 2004, is on trial for sending out flyers criticizing Indian crime in Saskatchewan. If convicted, Pankiw can face massive fines. He could also face other orders, ranging from a forced apology to a lifetime ban on commenting about aboriginal issues. If Pankiw refuses to comply with such an order, he could serve time in jail.

Aboriginal crime was a big issue for Pankiw’s constituents. According to Statistics Canada, aboriginals make up only 9% of Saskatchewan’s population, but they are 52% of the province’s criminally accused.

Pankiw wanted to get tough on crime; he wanted to abandon aboriginal “sentencing circles,” and end racial quotas. His tone was aggressive, but talking tough about crime isn’t supposed to be a crime in itself. Whether or not his was the best solution was up to his constituents. That’s how a democracy works.

But for CHRC lawyers and bureaucrats to weigh and measure Pankiw’s political views is an outrageous incursion into the political affairs of Parliament.

It’s unlikely that Pankiw will win, because the CHRC isn’t a real court, and real defences don’t apply. It’s presided over by a non-judge, and the hearing is stacked with every kind of politically correct apparatchik around. Take one of the “experts” relied upon by the CHRC, Derek Smith of Carleton University. As Terry O’Neill reported when

the complaint was filed more than four years ago, Smith found proof of Pankiw’s racism in the colour of ink used in the brochures: black and red, on white paper.

Those are “colours very much associated with aboriginal people, for whom four colours have come to be associate with the four cardinal directions and have great spiritual significance,” wrote Smith. “One can hardly claim that the symbolism in this pamphlet is not inflammatory.” A real judge would laugh that out of court. A real prosecutor would be too embarrassed to run with it.

The suit against Pankiw is clearly unconstitutional. In 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that human rights commissions could only pursue “hate” cases against Canadians whose messages were pure evil — they were explicitly forbidden from touching political speech. Whether or not Pankiw’s views on Indian crime are “right” should therefore be up to the voters.

If Pankiw can be prosecuted for spreading “discrimination,” every MP is at risk. Not a day goes by when MPs don’t offend one group or another. We allow it; we expect it; in fact, we give MPs more freedom than any other Canadians, even exempting their debates from defamation law, on the liberal theory that all ideas should be heard, and in the clash of views, the truth will emerge and the country will be better off. It’s called parliamentary privilege, and it goes back centuries. It’s one of our ancient civil rights, designed to protect the people’s representatives from political interference from the King.

Many liberals roll their eyes and grit their teeth when conservatives proclaim the USA the freest country on earth. But just check out what’s happening in Canada, our benign neighbor to the north, where there is no First Amendment.

Instead, they have Human Rights Commissions that function as kangaroo courts. If you offend someone or some group — Muslims, gays, left-handed people, snorers — you’re subject to investigation and sanctions. Truth is not a defense, only whether the “harmed” party was offended by your hate speech.

Mark Steyn was brought up on charges this past year. He had the resources and the megaphone to get the government hounds to release him. But others are silenced.

Ezra Levant is another who is fighting back. We posted this video from his interrogation last May, where he challenges the authority of the government to know why he published certain cartoons.

The kangaroos are still after him. What’s most astonishing is the HRC actually censored parts of his defense document.

Levant:

I received this letter today from the Canadian Human Rights Commission, couriered to my lawyer.

It comes two months after the CHRC received my response to Rob Wells’ human rights complaint against me (the third complaint against me this year).

The CHRC’s Natalie Dagenais waited until the federal election was over before contacting me — I bet that was a direct order from Jennifer Lynch, the chief commissioner of the CHRC, who’s already a big enough embarrassment to the government, and didn’t want to pop her head up during an election.

In her letter to me today, Dagenais says she’s finally going to pass my defence along to the commissioners who will rule on whether I’ve commited a hate crime by republishing an Op-Ed by an Alberta pastor named Rev. Stephen Boissoin. You’ll recall, Rev. Boissoin has been fined, given a lifetime ban on expressing his faith, and ordered to publicly renounce his faith, for daring to express a politically incorrect religious view.

If the commissioners find me guilty, they’ll prosecute me before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. In the thirty years they’ve been prosecuting section 13 “hate speech” cases, they’ve never lost. Political prosecutors in Iran and China would be impressed.

But here’s where Dagenais becomes a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the CHRC and its censorship fetish: she blacked out portions of my defence before passing it on to the commissioners. Seriously — she censored what I wrote in my own defence, before she passed it along to the people who will sit in judgment of me. She’s only allowing me to say things in my defence that she approves in advance. Look at the version of my letter she’s passing on: several of my arguments are blacked out. You can read the full, uncensored version here (.pdf version here).

Here is a pdf of my reply that my lawyer sent in today, which I’ll also paste here:

Can this happen in the USA? On college campuses, yes — it already does. There the Left rules.

Democrats are already talking about reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine on broadcast media as an attempt to kill conservative talk radio. We’ve seen hints of Barack the Bully in Missouri and Chicago, attempting to stifle free speech.

ABC/Disney refuses to rebroadcast or release on DVD “The Path to 9/11″ because of pressure from the Democrats who don’t like how they’re depicted. How ironic, after nearly eight years of Lefties whining about their civil liberties being attacked, that they’re the true fascists.

Mark Steyn:

Mark Hemingway is right to say that free speech in Canada “does not exist in any meaningful way”. As the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal’s rambling and incoherent decision makes plain, Maclean’s and I were acquitted of “flagrant Islamophobia” for essentially political reasons – because neither the court nor its travesty of a “human rights” code could withstand the heat of a guilty verdict. Jay Currie puts it well:

The way I read this decision is that it imposes a two part test: a) are your words offensive and hurtful? b) are you a major media organization with deep pockets represented by serious lawyers. If “a” and not “b” you are a hate monger; if “a” and “b” you are engaged in political debate.

Just so. Because we spent a ton of money and had a bigshot Queen’s Counsel and exposed the joke jurisprudence and (at the federal “human rights” commission) systemic corruption, the kangaroo courts decided that discretion was the better part of valor. The Ontario “Human Rights” Commission ruled they weren’t able to prosecute the case because of a technicality – I offered to waive the technicality, but the wimps still bailed out. If you have the wherewithal to stand up to these totalitarian bullies, they stampede for the exits. But, if you’re just an obscure Alberta pastor or a guy with a widely unread website or a fellow who writes a letter to his local newspaper, they’ll destroy your life.

I sympathize with the Canadian Islamic Congress, whose mouthpiece feels that, if the British Columbia pseudo-judges had applied the logic of previous decisions, we’d have been found guilty. He’s right: Under the ludicrous British Columbia “Human Rights” Code, we are guilty. Which is why the Canadian Islamic Congress should appeal, and why I offered on the radio an hour ago to chip in a thousand bucks towards their costs.

If there was one thing the 1st Amendment was meant to protect, it is political speech. Plenty of accusations get traded in campaigns, and one man’s truth is another man’s lie. The 1st Amendment lets voters sort that out.

But that’s not good enough for Barack Obama. No, he is unleashing the power of the state via “Truth Squads.”

Gateway Pundit:

St. Louis and Missouri Democrat sheriffs and top prosecutors are planning to go after anyone who makes false statements against Obama during his campaign. This is so one sided I can’t even begin to describe how wrong this agenda is.

It’s one thing if they want to keep the campaign fair for both sides, but they clearly only want to enforce the issue for the Obama Camp.
t. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce and St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out falsely against Barack Obama.

KMOV aired a story last night, that stated that St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, both Obama supporters, are threatening to bring criminal libel charges against anyone who levels what turns out to be false criticisms of their chosen candidate for President.

Any case brought by these two Obama clowns will be laughed out of court. But that’s not the point: intimidation is. A bully is what a bully does.

Watch KMOV News report video here.