"Subsidy is for art, for culture. It is not to given to what the people want. It is for what the people don't want, but ought to have!"

~ Sir Humphrey, from the episode 'Middle-Class Rip-Off' from Yes Minister

 

Ayn Rand overcame tremendous challenges to publish her first bestseller, The Fountainhead.

The post <i>The Fountainhead</i> ’s Long Road to Publication appeared first on New Ideal - Reason | Individualism | Capitalism.

 

Earlier in the primary season Trumpists encouraged or aided Green crusader/anti-vax conspiracy nut RFK, Jr. -- first as a primary challenger to Joe Biden and then as an independent candidate for the Presidency. They did the latter because they saw him as doing more damage to Biden's prospects than to Trump's.

I disputed that idea months ago, in part due to the kind of voter that finds appealing the likes of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump -- and historically, George Wallace and RFK, Sr.

This morning, I ran across a piece at UnHerd that comments on what it calls "the growing RFK Jr. coalition." It comes from a far-left perspective -- given away by its assertion that the Kennedy's relatively sane position on Israel is a liability.

Most interesting are its quotes from disenchanted Trump supporters:

Steve, a musician, tells me that over the past three elections, he has moved from Bernie Sanders (until the DNC "rigged" the selection) in 2016 to Trump in 2020 to RFK Jr in 2024. "Kennedy talks about issues that the other two candidates totally ignore," he says. "This is Kennedy against the uni-party -- something I thought Trump did until he became President."

Uh-oh.

As a conservative said of Steve Bannon's earlier promotion of RFK, Jr., "Blame Bannon. His monster got out of the cage."

Here's another one of those voters, as well as a Trump supporter who doesn't quite fit that mold:

Anti-vax nuts have been popping up in conservative circles longer than lots of us would care to think. This photo comes from a Tea Party protest. (Image by Fibonacci Blue, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)

Suzanne, another Bernie-Trump-RFK supporter, admires Kennedy for his commitment to prising the US out of "foreign misadventures". "He's not an America First-type like Trump," she says. "His positions are much more considered -- he doesn't want to withdraw us from the world, but merely thinks that we should not be funding all these wars abroad." Along with various other people I speak to there, Suzanne has particular ire for the man she voted for in 2016. "Trump talked a big game, but the debt blew up under him and he was the one that implemented all the Covid shutdowns ... I'll never forgive him for that."

While RFK's views on Covid are well-documented, ranging from the credible to the crankish, it would be misleading to characterise all his supporters as militant anti-vaxxers. Many would rather emphasise the importance of medical freedom in general. "I was vaccinated but I was against the shutdowns and mandates," John Myers tells me. "But this isn't just a Covid thing -- it's about the right to choose what's best for you and not have the government tell me what to do."

To borrow from the UnHerd piece, the reasons former Trump voters might defect to RFK, Jr. range from the credible to the crankish, but I think it is a real possibility that a second candidate positioning himself as outside the establishment is more dangerous to the other such candidate among voters most unhappy about that establishment.

-- CAV

Stephen Colbert discovered free speech this week.

For years, Colbert either ignored attacks on free expression or even cheered them on.

He looked the other way when intrepid journalists revealed Big Tech significantly suppressed speech, courtesy of the Twitter Files. He tut-tutted the rise of Cancel Culture and its insidious impact on comedy.

He chortled when the woke mob canceled books by beloved author Dr. Seuss.

Now, suddenly, Colbert is using his CBS pulpit to defend speech. What changed?

Politics.

The pro-Palestinian protests raging across campuses all hail from the Left. They’ve destroyed property, prevented students from attending class, threatened Jewish students and echoed terrorist talking points.

All of the above coaxed Colbert to rise to their defense.

“It’s their First Amendment right,” Colbert said on Tuesday’s “The Late Show” telecast, assuming it’s done peacefully. Note: It isn’t, something he aggressively downplayed.

Instead, the propagandist attacked police officers summoned to restore order on multiple campuses.

“And it’s not just at Columbia. Yesterday, cops arrested at least 100 protesters at UT Austin. This morning they arrested at least 30 protesters at UNC Chapel Hill. Yes, college administrators are using the classic de-escalation tactic of sending in heavily armed police and threatening to call the National Guard,” Colbert said, ignoring the obvious context.

He also ignored a Jewish student getting physically blocked from attending class at UCLA along with many antisemitic chants across the country.

Brave Jewish UCLA student who was denied entry to the university building by anti-Israel protesters delivers powerful speech calling out the masked activists.

“Whilst they cower behind their masks and hide who they are, we stand tall and proudly voice our message to the world.” pic.twitter.com/iZDZ0kjWsd

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 30, 2024

It’s possible the show taped before he could learn about this:

100+ Californian Jews and their allies have arrived at the “Liberated Zone” on the UCLA campus and are tearing it down.

It comes after the pro-Hamas students and activists beat a Jewish girl unconscious on campus grounds a few hours earlier. pic.twitter.com/dlNKQvg2wf

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 1, 2024

But that’s what Colbert does best, leave out vital information that clashes with his progressive narrative. It’s why he pretended Special Counsel Robert Hur’s blistering assessment of President Joe Biden’s mental state actually declared the leader mentally sharp.

It’s noteworthy that in another part of the monologue, Colbert and his sycophantic audience cheered the notion that former President Donald Trump might be jailed for violating his gag order.

It’s even worse, though.

RELATED: CAN COLBERT IGNORE ‘GENOCIDE JOE’ CHANTS?

During the pandemic, Colbert shamed small business owners who peacefully protested against lockdowns we now know were both ineffective and cruel.

Did Colbert defend their free speech rights at the time? Did he agree to disagree with their points of view?

No. He mocked them, tying their messaging to the MAGA movement.

Colbert: Not All Protests Are Created Equal

The New York Times cited at least three times when Colbert’s anti-science shtick got the better of him. And it’s worth noting Colbert didn’t use this logic to mock BLM protests of the same era.

“Many of the protesters lamented the loss of their everyday activities, like this woman in Wisconsin with the sign, ‘I want a haircut.’ Uh, looks like your sign has a typo. We fixed it for you. It should read, ‘I want to endanger the lives of your grandparents in exchange for frosted tips.’”

“Now we’ve all been isolating for over a month now, and some of us are starting to go a little kooky in the old squirrel cage, like a handful of idiots who were out this weekend protesting against social distancing. For instance, this man in Washington State, carrying the sign ‘Give me liberty, or give me Covid-19.’ Buddy, you’re in a large crowd, you’re not wearing a mask, you’re not six feet away from people — you might not need to choose.” 

“Just because you have cabin fever doesn’t give you the right to go out and spread ‘fever’ fever!”

All the lockdown protesters had to do was destroy property, scream antisemitic slogans and interrupt college education for thousands to earn Colbert’s approval.

The post Colbert Defends Anti-Israel Protests, Shamed Anti-Lockdown Voices appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been imprisoned in London for five years, while Texas journalist Priscilla Villarreal was only briefly detained at the Webb County Jail. But both were arrested for publishing information that government officials wanted to conceal.

Assange and Villarreal argue that criminalizing such conduct violates the First Amendment. In both cases, the merits of that claim have been obscured by the constitutionally irrelevant question of who qualifies as a "real" journalist.

Assange, an Australian citizen, is fighting extradition to the United States based on a federal indictment that charges him with violating the Espionage Act by obtaining and publishing classified documents that former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning leaked in 2010. He has already spent about as much time behind bars as federal prosecutors say he would be likely to serve if convicted.

President Joe Biden says he is "considering" the Australian government's request to drop the case against Assange. But mollifying a U.S. ally is not the only reason to reconsider this prosecution, which poses a grave threat to freedom of the press by treating common journalistic practices as crimes.

All but one of the 17 charges against Assange relate to obtaining or disclosing "national defense information," which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Yet all the news organizations that published stories based on the confidential State Department cables and military files that Manning leaked are guilty of the same crimes.

More generally, obtaining and publishing classified information is the bread and butter of reporters who cover national security. John Demers, then head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, implicitly acknowledged that reality in 2019, when he assured reporters they needn't worry about the precedent set by this case because Assange is "no journalist."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit took a similarly dim view of Villarreal in January, when it dismissed her lawsuit against the Laredo prosecutors and police officers who engineered her 2017 arrest. They claimed she had violated Section 39.06(c) of the Texas Penal Code, an obscure law that makes it a felony to solicit or obtain nonpublic information from a government official with "intent to obtain a benefit."

The cops said Villarreal committed that crime by asking Laredo police officer Barbara Goodman to confirm information about a public suicide and a fatal car crash. As interpreted by the Laredo Police Department, Section 39.06(c) sweeps even more broadly than the Espionage Act, making a felon out of any reporter who seeks information that is deemed exempt from disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act.

Gliding over the alarming implications of making it a crime for reporters to ask questions, the 5th Circuit dismissed the idea that Villarreal is "a martyr for the sake of journalism." The majority opinion by Judge Edith Jones dripped with contempt for Villarreal, an independent, uncredentialed journalist who posts her unfiltered reports on Facebook instead of publishing vetted and edited stories in a "mainstream, legitimate" news outlet.

Seemingly oblivious to what quotidian news reporting across the country entails, Jones faulted Villarreal for relying on a "backchannel source" and for "capitaliz[ing] on others' tragedies to propel her reputation and career." But like the judgment that Assange is "no journalist," such criticism fundamentally misconstrues freedom of the press, which applies to anyone who engages in mass communication.

The 5th Circuit's decision provoked four dissents authored or joined by seven judges, and it is not hard to see why. "If the First Amendment means anything," Judge James C. Ho wrote, "surely it means that citizens have the right to question or criticize public officials without fear of imprisonment."

In a petition it filed on Villarreal's behalf last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression urges the U.S. Supreme Court to vindicate that right. "Villarreal went to jail for basic journalism," it notes. "Whatever one may make of Villarreal's journalistic ethics, they are of no constitutional significance."

© Copyright 2024 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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