More from Sutherland Springs

JOHNNIE LANGENDORFF, TAKE 2

by Scott Johnson at PowerLine:

“Rich Lowry has posted another interview with our man Johnnie Langendorff, who answered the call in Sutherland Springs yesterday (video below). Rich salutes him “as one of the heroes” to emerge from the church shooting massacre. The interview gives us another take on self-help, Texas style, and a small ray of sunshine on a sad day for the United States. The Washington Post’s Kyle Swenson has more here…..”

https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1636891/sp/163689100/embedIframeJs/uiconf_id/36216731/partner_id/1636891?iframeembed=true&playerId=media-preview_0_0_n2l7m88q&entry_id=0_n2l7m88q&flashvars%5BstreamerType%5D=auto

 

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/11/johnny-langendorff-take-2.php

(A crime, a tragedy straight out of Hollywood, but occurred in real life time.   An  assassination in an American  Church is about the zenith of evil in our culture….or, it used to be in my life time.  Guns rarely kill people….people do.  ghr)

Democrats Oppose Trump’s Nominee to US Court of Appeals: TOO CATHOLIC!

AMY CONEY BARRETT NOT ATHEIST ENOUGH?

President Trump’s nominee to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has been confirmed by the Senate. The vote was along party lines and could prove incredibly problematic to Senate Democrats in purple and red states who are facing voters.

In September, Amy Coney Barrett faced questioning by Senate Democrats during her confirmation hearing that some are saying was possibly illegal. Several Democratic Senators verbally took issue with the Notre Dame law professor’s choice of religion – Catholicism.

Senator Dianne Feinstein challenged Barrett on a paper she wrote 20 years ago titled “Catholic Judges in Capital Cases.” The paper discussed judges with religious beliefs opposing the death penalty deal with those cases and how they can recuse themselves from those cases.

Even though Barrett’s paper read, “Judges cannot-nor should they try to align our legal system with the Church’s moral teaching whenever the two diverge,” Feinstein condescendingly attacked Barrett’s religion as a reason against her confirmation. “The dogma lives loudly within you,” Feinstein said in response to the paper.

“I think your article is very plain in your perspective about the role of religion for judges, and particularly with regard to Catholic judges,” Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono said.

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin took this anti-Catholic bias even further. The Illinois Senator asked Barrett if she is an “Orthodox Catholic.” Durbin, who tells voters he is Catholic, has been denied Communion for his support of abortion.

Senator Ben Sasse jumped into this line of questioning by asserting the line of questioning by these Democrat Senators was unconstitutional and violates the religious test clause.

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FFreeBeacon%2Fvideos%2F1420429148006104%2F&show_text=0&width=560

This was not a fight the Democrats were ever going to win, but they still made the decision to attack Barrett’s Catholicism. This has opened a possible wound for Democrats in blue and purple states who are facing voters next year.

Sherrod Brown is one of those vulnerable Democratic Senators. He represents Ohio, which swung heavily to President Trump last year. He votes in lockstep with the left. Brown’s votes mimic Elizabeth Warren’s a whopping 95% of the time. This on its own won’t sit well with voters in this swing state who recently have been consistently voting for Republicans.

When contacted by phone for comment regarding the alleged violation of the religious test clause, Brown did not reply. A follow-up email to Brown staffers Rachel Petri and Charissee Ridgeway was not acknowledged. Coupling this information with Sherrod Brown’s vote against Amy Coney Barrett, it’s easy to hypothesize that Brown agrees with his colleagues that a devout Catholic does not belong on the court.

With over 17% of Ohioans identifying as Catholic, his objection to Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination could be used in micro-targeted campaigns directed at Catholics. This could be catastrophic for the two-term Senator and Democrats in similar positions.

Warren’s constituency is 45% Catholic. If played correctly, this could also be problematic to her 2018 re-election. But the blowback might not be as swift for her as Massachusetts voters tend to be more forgiving to leftists.

Democrats have a religious problem. Pandering to people of faith is going to prove even more burdensome to them after the perceived religious bigotry they threw at this Catholic during the nomination process. Voters supporting religious liberty might be the determining voices that send them packing.

https://hotair.com/archives/2017/11/04/blowback-possible-senate-democrats-vote-nominee-claim-catholic/

Note:  Leftist Dianne Feinstein is Jewish.   Should Jews be banned as judges for being too Jewish?

 

 

Prager University Sues YouTube for Its Leftist Bigotry Censorship of Conservative Lessons

PRAGER U SUES YOUTUBE FOR DISCRIMINATING AGAINST CONSERVATIVE VIDEOS!

PragerU’s suit against Google and YouTube alleging unlawful censorship and free speech discrimination has the potential to be groundbreaking.

by Ben Weingarten at the Federalist:

“Those blackballed from social media platforms for sharing views dissenting from prevailing progressive Silicon Valley orthodoxy have to date had little recourse against the tech speech police. That is why PragerU’s newly filed suit against Google and Google-owned YouTube alleging unlawful censorship and free speech discrimination based on the educational video purveyor’s conservative political viewpoint has the potential to be groundbreaking.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, details upwards of 50 PragerU educational videos that YouTube has, in PragerU’s view, unjustifiably slapped with “restricted mode” or “demonetization” filters, violating its First Amendment right to free speech. These filters limit or otherwise prevent viewers, based on characteristics like age, from consuming content deemed “inappropriate.”

Basic Conservative Ideas Are Totally ‘Inappropriate’?

The videos in question cover a wide range of subjects from national security and foreign policy, to the Second Amendment and abortion—that is, the very political speech that our courts have argued is at the core of the First Amendment. Some of the offending titles include:

• “Why Did America Fight the Korean War?” delivered by historian and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor David Hanson.
• “Why America’s Military Must Be Strong,” delivered by British historian Andrew Roberts.
• “The Most Important Question About Abortion,” delivered by radio host, author, and PragerU founder Dennis Prager.
• “What Should We Do About Guns?” delivered by Fordham law professor Nicholas Johnson.
• “Gun Rights Are Women’s Rights,” delivered by journalist and author Katie Pavlich.

More arguably provocative videos touch on topics such as Islamic terrorism, campus rape, and gender identity. According the suit, “The videos do not contain any profanity, nudity, or otherwise inappropriate ‘mature’ content. The censored videos fully comply with the letter of YouTube’s Terms of Use and Community Guidelines.” Moreover, PragerU illustrates that comparable videos from non-conservative sources like BuzzFeedVideo, CNN, and “Real Time with Bill Maher” have not been subjected to such filters.

Leaving aside the inherent subjectivity for a moment, if PragerU’s content is “appropriate,” and other publishers are able to upload similar content without being penalized, then what better explanation is there for YouTube’s censorship than viewpoint discrimination? PragerU’s dealings with YouTube over its content restrictions only strengthen the validity of this question.

We Won’t Tell You Why We’re Cutting You Off

PragerU filed the suit after months of pleading with YouTube, unsuccessfully, to remove the filters, without receiving a coherent let alone consistent rationale for why its work should continue to be censored, under an arguably unfair and imperfect appeals process.

In some instances, YouTube claimed the videos were being restricted due to its automated content algorithms. In other instances, it admitted they were being flagged following “human reviews,” i.e. due to the whims of YouTube’s reviewers. In still others, videos such as “Why Isn’t Communism as Hated as Nazism?” and “What’s Holding the Arab World Back?” were restricted purportedly for discussing the topics of “hate and genocide” and “terrorism and genocide” respectfully, a standard which if applied uniformly, as PragerU hints at, would require censoring thousands of other videos.

When pressed on its restriction procedures, YouTube reportedly told PragerU it “can’t share more details about our review process, as doing so could benefit channels that do not play by the rules (those who game the system).” As PragerU summarizes it:

Google/YouTube seek to justify…[its] animus and bias [towards PragerU’s political identity and viewpoint] not by claiming that PragerU has violated YouTube’s restricted content guidelines or criteria, but by arguing that they retain unfettered discretion to censor any video content that they deem “inappropriate,” no matter how subjective, baseless, or arbitrary that decision is…For over one year, PragerU has worked patiently and cooperatively to try to resolve the censorship issues that comprise this Lawsuit. In response, Google/YouTube have provided vague, misleading, confusing, and often contradictory information that not only has prevented resolution of the issues, but constitutes further evidence and indicia that their restricted mode filtering applied to PragerU is based on Defendants’ [Google/YouTube’s] intentional discrimination and animus…

Indeed, PragerU’s suit confirms what conservatives have recognized for some time: the rules that govern banning users, taking down content, or otherwise disadvantaging posts and tweets on the basis of the sharer’s ideology or the message’s bent have been capriciously written and arguably even more capriciously applied.

That as unimpeachable a source as the video-producing nonprofit PragerU is challenging YouTube should serve as a powerful signal that conservatives and others whose views social media companies deem unworthy will no longer permit their rights to be trampled upon. This is significant regardless of the case’s outcome.

Free Speech Rights Can Apply in Private Contexts

PragerU’s argument rests on the idea that modern social media behemoths constitute the digital equivalent of today’s public square. Thus, their users must be provided the same free speech protections in cyberspace as in the town green. The suit reads in part:

The United States Supreme Court…recognized more than a half-century ago that the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution can apply even on privately owned property. One of the most important places to exchange and express views is cyberspace, particularly social media, where users engage in a wide array of protected First Amendment activity on any number of diverse topics.

Where, as in the case of Google/YouTube, a private party operates as one of the largest internet forums for speech and expression in the history of the world and such forum is accessible to and freely used by the public in general, there is nothing to distinguish it from any other forum except the fact that title to the property on which the forum exists belongs to a private corporation. As the highest court in the nation has made clear, ‘[t]he more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.’

Time will tell what the courts make of this argument. On the one hand, it is hard to imagine Google and YouTube wanting to disparage themselves by arguing down YouTube’s size and reach. What social media platform would not want to be known as the “digital public square”? On the other, it is easy to see YouTube asserting that as a private business, it is entitled to make whatever decisions it wants about its platform, including regulating the content disseminated on it.

In Packingham v. North Carolina, a case the Supreme Court heard earlier this year, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated of platforms like Twitter that, “Their utility and the extent of their coverage are greater than the communication you could have ever had, even in the paradigm of public square.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added that those being restricted from using such platforms “are being cut off from a very large part of the marketplace of ideas. And the First Amendment includes not only the right to speak, but the right to receive information.”

The particulars of that case illustrate the thorny nature of this issue. It is also important to note that the court was ruling on a state law, not the conduct of a social media company. Related legal efforts, for example challenging federal law allegedly used to enable social media companies to violate First Amendment rights, have failed.

Don’t Sacrifice the Market to Save It

One remedy some conservatives have been coalescing around involves treating social media platforms as government-regulated public utilities. The arguments have merit. But getting the government involved is dubious on both free market grounds and the practical slippery slope such regulation may create, with broader political and economic implications. “Sacrificing the free market to save the free market” is not sound, and we can little afford to set the country down a path of tech hyper-regulation that kills one of our few growth industries.

To the degree to which there is still a relatively free market in technology, there are plenty of measures we can take to challenge Silicon Valley’s speech muzzlers. Unlike the Left, which knows how to organize and strategically execute its political campaigns, to date conservatives have not committed to such a concerted effort to protect free speech in cyberspace. We should. These efforts would have to encompass extensive, highly coordinated and unceasing:

• Public relations campaigns in favor of free speech on technology platforms;
• Educational initiatives to instill a dedicated belief in free speech in both media and academia, something evidently sorely lacking in the present “hate speech equals violence justifies physical violence” paradigm;
• Lobbying technology companies on behalf of the interests of those discriminated against;
• Lawfare, which if not precedent-setting at least forces technology companies to grapple with our complaints and puts their positions on record;
• Protests including boycotts, viral messaging campaigns, and other principled acts to drive public notice to the issue and force social media companies to respond;
• Building alternative platforms.

While enjoying a so-called first mover advantage, powerful lobbying efforts, and robust network effects that make their adapters unlikely to leave soon, major social media companies are not invincible. Lest we forget, financial services firms that appeared indestructible disappeared in the course of a few short weeks during the last financial crisis. Empires rise and fall for all sorts of reasons, economic, cultural, and political.

PragerU’s efforts are essential, and may serve as the vanguard of a successful lawfare effort. But while legal action is necessary, it is by no means a sufficient and sure safeguard of our rights. As we have seen time and time again, judges routinely permit our liberties to erode, and sometimes actively assist. Preserving free speech, like all of our cherished freedoms, requires constant vigilance and persistent defense…..”

Ben Weingarten (@bhweingarten) is a writer, podcaster and media consultant. You can find his work at benweingarten.com.

 

http://thefederalist.com/2017/11/01/prageru-sues-youtube-discriminating-conservative-videos/

Slaughter at a Texas First Baptist Church

THE WORSTS ARE CONTINUING TO HAPPEN IN GODLESS, LEFTIST AMERICA

I am in my 80s, a man who still loves his America.   But the America I love is fading, fading, fading…….for nearly fifty years this United States has spent much energy to rid itself of that which has always made America GREAT……its JUDEOCHRISTIAN democratic Godfearing roots.

Today’s American has been much cheated out of becoming closer to GOD…….I learned in public school, kindergarten through high school, the the more learning I can amass in my lifetime, the closer to God I will become, for God Knows All Knowledge.

However, the cultural diseases, Feminism, Communism, Socialism, Atheism,  greed, jealousy, black and white racism, have all replaced the primary principles and that religion upon which this unique GODFEARING country was founded.

Goodness, fairness,  knowledge, learning,   equal opportunity, and care for others were values to be cherished in a world of the  Godfearing in the human struggles against evil.

Even in my lifetime the JudeoChristian Church was still a sacred place,  a sanctuary where one could meditate, could learn, could listen to beautiful music, to  be made constantly  mindful of the differences between right and wrong, truth and untruth, beauty and the ugly…..that experiment, the basis upon which this nation would raise its “free” citizens.

However, since the cultural revolution beginning in the late 1960s through today,  the Democrat Party has gradually  chosen a different path, a more leftist, authoritarian future  for our America, ONE MORE PLANTATION-LIKE,  one to be  created socialist, atheistic, fascistic, authoritarian by   Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and ditsy Nancy Pelosi, Al Franken, and such, as its leaders dictate what’s good to eat and read and how to feel and steal from others.

These fascist oriented folk are not interested in Truth and its GOD.  They are the sales folk Leftists  without SOUL.  They sell America to believe guns shoot people, which makes sense to this lazy atheistic unthinking feminized  socialist class.

People, NOT GUNS, kill people.   A gun didn’t decide to load itself with bullets,  enter the First Baptist Church, aim and shoot these JudeoChristians,  nor did a rabbit.  A human male did.

Human males are thinking born killers.  Human females are thinking born ditsy.  Both, by Nature’s GOD,  have been designed to survive as a species by producing off spring, whom the male and female are to  teach and  train to know the wiles and needs of living and reproducing and to know civility, the differences between JudeoChristian  right and wrong…..

Today, the  feminized atheistic Left controls teachings in America, nearly everywhere K through graduate school.   The majority of American families don’t have the  mother and father living “at home” anymore.   Knowledge has disappeared from the American school curriculum.   Knowledge was “invented” by human males.

Today, feminized feelings are favored……there are no differences between human male and female, ONE SEX FITS ALL!

A 26 year old Devin Patrick Kelley has been identified as the assassin of 26 and the crippling of 24 others who were worshiping  their JudeoChristian God peacefully Sunday morning……It’s not the first such JudeoChristian Church attack….a “colored” group of worshipers suffered a racist attack upon their parish a few years ago.

It’s not the bullets killing these innocent folks….It’s the human being!!  Our American population is no longer Godfearing, mindful of our JudeoChristian teachings.   The university atheists teach  black racism, feminism, revolution and Islamic ‘peace’ saying antiAmericanisms in the name of Communist- Socialist equality of the ignorant.   Eight years of deceit, corrupt, foreign rule by Barack Hussein Obama has taken its toll.

Hang on to your weapons, American heroes.   People murder, guns don’t.   Remember too, its the human male animal who carries the genetic material  driving him to be curious, a problem solver, a builder, a protector, an inventor, a soldier, a defender, a father to his sons and daughters upon whom ones culture must grow or die.

Our America has  been dying as a JudeoChristian culture  for about fifty years beginning with the Democrat,  Lyndon Johnson destruction of the American black family, and then the  race riots, anti war riots, free and open sex for fun, sloth and  drugs, and the rise of  the Betty Friedan woman and the collapse of learning knowledge at university.

PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE……WE NEED A MORE GODFEARING AMERICA!