Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
— First Amendment to the United States Constitution

We’ve seen and heard arguments from those who interpret the First Amendment to suit their immediate desires but I don’t look between the lines as there’s never anything there.

The First Amendment allows for freedom of speech. I’ve always disagreed with the conditions some readily quote like shouting fire in a crowded theater. You can do it. You just have to be ready to accept the consequences, which is obviously problematic to those who want limited responsibility for those actions.

Whether it be on a street, highway, or college campus, a growing segment of our population believes they not only have the right to say what they want and because of where they’ve strategically decided to say it, but they also have the right to be heard.

I don’t see that right in any of our Constitutional amendments.

When the Tea Party held their many events across the United States, they first applied for and obtained a permit. They held their event in a static place so people had the choice to attend and hear speakers exercising their First Amendment right of speech. Police were in attendance due to the size of the gatherings, and almost all were relaxed as those in attendance were appreciative of them and their service. Permits for Tea Party events appear to have been issued with relative ease as the reputation was the areas used were normally left cleaner than when the group first arrived. Attendees did not routinely vandalize or destroy surrounding public, private property and businesses.

Speakers at Tea Party events enjoyed the right to speak and did not force anyone to hear their words.

For the last decade or so, left wing groups seldom acquire permits for their “events”, and I use that term loosely.

They exploit any opportunity to take to the streets, disrupt the free flow of traffic on our highways because it’s loosely illegal.

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants … of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State.
— Articles of Confederation, Article 4

The Founders thought our right to freedom of movement so obvious, they didn’t bother adding it to the Constitution. The informal education system was better then than today’s taxpayer-funded abomination so the obvious didn’t require dumbing down. We can be detained and even arrested for walking in the middle of the road but if it’s a “protest” and it’s “free speech”, you get some leeway?

The left considers their modern mode of free speech via disruption as the “right of the people to peaceably assemble”. They obviously have no permit to block traffic and yet get in the faces of captive motorists and demand they listen to their message. Maybe that’s “mostly peaceably”.

The same now can be said as to their activities on college campuses. They take over large areas, decide who can and cannot be admitted to facilities, and force all in the area to listen to what they have to say. Their areas are routinely left in a more disheveled condition than when originally occupied, surrounding buildings and statues are vandalized and sometimes local areas experience disruptions in commerce, if not also damage to property. Let’s not leave out violence than can lead to injury and/or death.

And when it all gets ugly and fingers are pointed, we’re all told it’s a free speech issue.

It is not.

In this case, all of these protesters can call for the divestment from Israel, issue death threats, hurl racial slurs at a black congressman, and more. Those involved believe that their abhorrent words are justified and they should be able to say them. I agree as we should know what’s in their little heads.

But what really pisses them off is that our ability to ignore nullifies their speech. In this case, we can blow their words off as the sophistry of the young, uninformed and duped. If they don’t even know what they’re protesting, there’s no reason to succumb to demands. That would be dumb.

Until there’s a Constitutional Amendment forcing The People to have to hear the words of others (which would be kind of interesting to enforce), the children will have to scream until they’re hoarse.

Then again they’d go full Clockwork Orange on their opponents if they could force us to see and hear them at their worse.

I’ll preface my commentary with the obvious: All of the “mostly peaceful” protests by our “college educated” on campuses nationwide that are clearly pro-Hamas and aimed at Jewish students are wrong, illegal, and all involved should either go back to the classes their parents and taxpayers are funding or be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But why the sudden sanctimonious outrage from the media and pundit class, billionaire donors, business leaders, and politicians? Why are the harassment and threats against Jewish students a red line that’s been crossed and now found to be totally unacceptable? It’s only because the current violence hits too close to home.

Several major donors have called a hard stop to their past donations:

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a Columbia graduate, said he was stopping donations immediately and charged the college with failing to keep its Jewish students safe. Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman, a business school graduate, said he would stick with a stop on donations which began shortly after the October 7 Hamas massacres. Cooperman, industrialist Len Blavatnik and Kraft have donated nearly $100 million in total to Columbia, according to some estimates — money that has created multiple buildings on campus, scholarships for engineers, and a center for Jewish students.
— New York Post, 4/22/24

These opportunistic hand-wringers are hardly consistent.

After Eric Garner’s death in 2014 death and Freddie Gray’s in 2015, college students eagerly joined the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter #DefundThePolice movements. Permitless street protests started becoming a new norm where traffic was strategically snarled, and thousands of commuters were held hostage to those who believed they could demand to be heard at the inconvenience of others.

Many of those protests resulted in millions of dollars of public and private property damage, looting of businesses, and burning of buildings and homes in predominantly black neighborhoods. Still, we were all told to deal with it because protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal, and the few charged were dismissed.

Those protests also resulted in compliant progressive local legislatures beginning to actually defund their law enforcement agencies, resulting in unsafe streets for citizens and the assassination of police officers nationwide. The negative ramifications to public safety felt since have been profound.

After President Donald Trump’s 2016 election, students from high school through college were encouraged to leave campuses and take to the streets, again without permits, and to disrupt traffic, again resulting in the expected public and private property damage. The outrage from those with influence was minimal because the protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal, and the few charged were dismissed.

After George Floyd’s death in 2020 (and too many still don’t know that the actual cause was self-inflicted), tens of thousands of protesters, including college students, took to highways and streets for the summer, causing intentional disruptions for thousands of commuters, damaging and/or destroying hundreds of public and private buildings, attacking law enforcement, burning and looting businesses and homes, primarily in black neighborhoods. Once again, the American people were told to suck it up because the protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal and the few charges were dismissed.

Many politicians embraced, encouraged and rewarded the tumult.

Conservatives have been met with threats and eventual violence after being invited to speak on college campuses for many years, but the outrage was minimal and we were told to suck it up because the protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal and the few charges were dismissed.

Female activists have been met with threats and eventual violence after being invited to speak on college campuses against the unfair and dangerous incursion of transgender athletes into their sports. The outrage was minimal and the women were told to suck it up because the protesters were exercising their right to free speech.

Arrests and prosecutions were minimal and the few charges were dismissed.

It could be argued if those now expressing their outrage had stepped in and efficiently cracked down on the illegal street takeovers and protests back in 2014, the red line between common decency and anarchy would not have been crossed. In almost every case, college students contributed to the ranks of unruly protesters, participated in the mayhem, destruction and afterward returned to the safety and warmth of their dorms or homes.

Almost all of the pundits on the left and the news networks gave aid and comfort to the violent protesters by labeling them as #MostlyPeaceful despite the clear optics to the contrary.

Almost all of those who donate hefty sums to colleges and universities and are quite vocal today forced their businesses to fully embrace the #BlackLivesMatter grift, despite the internal rifts that would be caused.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Robert Kraft and others to admit their error in judgment and apologize to the many Americans who’ve been casualties of crime because the police couldn’t come when needed.

There was no legislation introduced on Capitol Hill offered to outlaw the activities of #Antifa and other anarchists whose sole mission was to exploit grievances as an excuse to commit acts of destruction; maybe because some of the protesters are relatives of those same legislators.

All of the protests, excused and/or applauded by the left, resulted in hundreds of injuries and death. Those lives didn’t matter and have been forgotten by all those now belatedly expressing horror and outrage.

And who are Ivy League college presidents and administrators now calling to quell unruly antisemitic students and outside agitators? Ah yes, the very police they had no problem smearing, defunding and/or removing from their campus safe spaces, acquiescing to activists and radicals. Funny how irony inconveniences the small college-educated mind.

The threats and violence against Jewish students on college campuses and street/highway takeovers by the pro-Hamas-indoctrinated are the direct result of not shutting down misguided and illegal student-fueled protests ten years ago. It’s shameful that it took a decade of this societal breakdown and violence before wealthy Jewish donors finally woke up to the fact that it was always going to end with attacks on the Jews.

The toothpaste is out of the tube.

Harvard and UPenn donors are furious over Israel statements
Another big donor cuts ties with an Ivy League school for its ‘misguided moral compass’
Harvard letter: Law students who took anti-Israel stance lose job offers
NYU law student has job offer withdrawn after posting anti-Israel message
3 law students from Harvard, Columbia lost job offers over Israel-Hamas war statements

There comes a time when these students should be considered grownups and held to a standard that involves being accountable for actions.

A question that’s yet to be asked is where was all this outrage over the stance of impressionable (and wrong) college students while they were eagerly protesting on behalf of the fraud that was Black Lives Matter? Not to equate the barbaric loss of life in Israel at the hands of Hamas to what happened here in the United States alone, but why were the adults with checkbooks silent for the entire Summer of 2020?

It’s not like the BLM riots were “mostly peaceful” and relatively harmless. In fact, the aftermath still plagues the United States to this day with ongoing deadly consequences.

Remember “Defund the Police” for starters?

More than 2,000 law enforcement officers were injured in the first weeks of protests over the summer following the in-custody death of George Floyd, according to a report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
— Police Magazine, 12/3/20

The language in the streets and on many college campuses called for the killing of police officers and their “Pigs in a Blanket: Fry ’em Like Bacon” fantasies were met.

According to organizations that track violence against police, 56 officers have been killed by gunfire this year — 14% more than this time last year and about 45% ahead of 2020’s pace. While the figures include a few officers killed by accidental gunfire, the number of ambushes in which police were injured or killed in surprise attacks with little chance to defend themselves has soared since 2020 and accounts for nearly half the officers killed this year.
— Associated Press, 10/15/22

One doesn’t have to be an Ivy League college student to know if you have fewer police, you have more crime. While that may not immediately affect millionaires and billionaires who live in protected enclaves, the rest of the country continues to suffer the ramifications.

At least 11 Americans have been killed while participating in political demonstrations this year and another 14 have died in other incidents linked to political unrest, according to new data from a non-profit monitoring political unrest in the United States.
— The Guardian, 10/31/20

The “mostly peaceful” protest came with a hefty price tag.

The protests that took place in 140 U.S. cities this spring were mostly peaceful, but the arson, vandalism and looting that did occur will result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims.
— Axios, 9/16/20

We’re not talking about young people making foolish, harmless statements. In all too many cases, their words and deeds harmed the very people they claimed to be advocating. Some of the white sympathizers even justified the looting and burning of black-owned businesses.

At a recent antifa gathering in Portland, Ore., protesters shared literature arguing for the righteousness of property destruction with titles like “Why Break Windows.” In a media critique earlier this year published on the website Refinery29, Britni de la Cretaz wrote:

“Putting the focus on stealing objects from a store (during a pandemic, no less!) rather than on the injustice behind the looting, the horrific loss of life and racial violence that Black folks live with every day, is sending the message that property matters more than people. It just demonstrates the way that white supremacy sees more value in a TV set than in the life of a Black man.”
— New York Times, 11/9/20

Whether we’re talking Antifa or Britnies, black businesses were considered acceptable collateral damage by young, white so-called activists who were clearly narcissists in need of inclusion in a movement they didn’t create. Many of these young people were either in college or employed.

Where were the billionaire donors while college students nationwide were promoting and participating in activities that resulted in billions of dollars of public and private property damage, much of it in black neighborhoods? Where were the billionaire donors while college students nationwide were promoting the misguided “Defund the Police” concept that have made neighborhoods unsafe, now including the affluent ones? Where were the billionaire donors while college students nationwide were calling for the killing of police offices and those assassinations continue to this day resulting in record-low officer retention and recruitment?

There appears to be few, if any, reports of outraged college donors withdrawing job offers or firing those who may have been involved in disruptive street protests and closures or participation in protesting in black neighborhoods where the looting and burning of businesses was prevalent.

Some of these guilt-assuaged billionaire donors may have embraced the trendy-yet-toxic side effect of the BLM riots: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The impact of the Black Lives Matter movement in corporate America is palpable and the business justification for having meaningful diversity and inclusion programs in the workplace is proven. Diverse businesses are better places to work; they make better decisions, have a more positive profile in the community and earn greater respect in the marketplace. These and other factors generally result in greater financial returns.

So how can you re-define or invigorate diversity and inclusion initiatives in your business?
— Human Resource Executive, 10/2/20

DEI infected almost every entity possible and (as with most liberal experiments) a subsequent underbelly has been exposed.

As a black woman, I was the perfect person for the job — on paper. Yet I made the mistake of trying to create an authentically inclusive learning environment for everyone, including Jewish students.

I saw antisemitism on a weekly basis in my two years as a faculty “diversity, equity and inclusion” director. In fact, I can safely say that toxic DEI ideology deliberately stokes hatred toward Israel and the Jewish people.
— New York Post, 10/18/23

DEI is going to be going away much quicker than the drips over the last year. As DEI is antisemitic, it’s got to go and its removal you know will be tied to any future college donations.

The Hamas massacre in Israel deserved the near-universal condemnation it’s received from those with normal brains. The case could be made that all of the campus Jew-hate delusion the world it witnessing now could have been nipped in the bud years ago had the wallets to these colleges been closed shut.

What’s sad is that an outrage that took place halfway around the world has gotten the attention of the donor class. The outrage of death and destruction that occurred in this country, and the ramifications, since is still pending (if realized at all) from the triggered rich.

UPDATE

During the October 20 episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher”, he piled-on… sort of.

Seeing how he almost always has to reach into his default bash-Republicans mode, Maher took time near the end of his closing monologue to remind us that many of the stoopids who attended Ivy League colleges hold federal offices and he pointed squarely at the GOP. Unlike Maher, let’s not conveniently give Democrat Ivy League alumni like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Steny Hoyer, John Kerry, Eric Holder, Jack Lew, and Valerie Jarrett a pass.

Look at how much damage they’ve done “transforming” America.

Of course, THAT was entirely proper.

Considering how easy it is for Barack Obama to whine about anything involving pushback to his agenda, one can only imagine how much he’d be bitching if a foreign entity came to the United States in 2012 to help facilitate HIS defeat. Then again, we’re way past redundant when it comes to the hypocrisy oozing from this administration.

It wasn’t just Israel’s left-wing parties that lost big as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dramatic victory yesterday. Team Obama, which pulled as many strings as it could to defeat Netanyahu, was embarrassed. It had dispatched Jeremy Bird, the architect of the grass-roots and online organizing efforts behind both of Obama’s presidential campaign, to Israel to work the same magic there with a group called Victory 15.
— Newsmax, 3/18/15

The possibly illegal meddling was flagged early on, resulting in the typical petulant, Obama-style mocking response.

V15 denied the charges, and said that “the Netanyahus and Likud gathered so many recycled bottles that they are convinced that they will be able to make imaginary genies come out of them… V15 activists will continue to capture the junctions and the street, while they continue to recycle and hallucinate.”
— Times of Israel, 2/1/15

Obama and his minions are really good at gloating when they win but are seldom gracious in defeat.

Among the most disappointed with the results of Tuesday’s elections are the activists of the V15 group – the organization that may or may not have been funded by American and European interests, but whose aim was to remove Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from office. “A confusing night turned into a painful morning,” the group said in a statement. “It was painful not because we lost, but because we have no faith in the winners.”
— Israel National News, 3/18/15

We know the feeling.

As in anything involving the Obama administration, there are now questions as to the legality of what Victory 15 did, let alone the propriety.

A US Senate investigatory committee has launched a probe into an American nonprofit’s funding of efforts to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the State Department of US President Barack Obama gave the nonprofit taxpayer-funded grants, Fox News reported on Saturday. According to the source, the probe is looking into “funding” by the OneVoice Movement – a Washington-based group that has received $350,000 in recent State Department grants, Fox News reported.
— Jerusalem Post, 3/14/15

So, of course, those possible improprieties can quickly be mended when you have the power of the top office behind you….

The American nonprofit OneVoice Movement – under scrutiny by a U.S. Senate panel over possible links to a campaign to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – quietly filed paperwork that would allow it to engage in political activism after two leading Republican lawmakers questioned its use of government funds, FoxNews.com has learned.
— Fox News, 3/18/15

Like many other issues that have gone unanswered, it will probably take years after the anticipated departure of Obama and his cronies before we know just how many State Department (taxpayer) dollars went into the attempt to unseat yet another foreign leader.

Obama also had boots on the ground during elections in Great Britain where his guys profited off of both sides.

British Prime Minister David Cameron kept hold of power and was moving to form a new government. In the wings, American political guru Jim Messina was adding another to his long list of wins.

Messina, a top aide to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and the chief of his 2012 re-election bid, joined Cameron’s Conservative Party as a paid consultant in 2013 and worked to export the latest innovations in American-style campaigning to the U.K. The former White House deputy chief of staff drew fire from U.S. liberals for joining up with Cameron.

A pair of Obama veterans, meanwhile, was recovering from rival Labour’s loss. Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod and advertising maven Larry Grisolano had worked for Ed Miliband’s Labour Party, which suffered deep losses. Miliband resigned from his post as party leader and the Americans were heading back across the pond in defeat.
— TIME Magazine, 5/8/15

Obama has taken it upon himself (and his superior intellect) to meddle with American lives just because he could, but just because he can also keep his loyalists fat and happy, doesn’t mean they’re consistently good at it.

Messina has agreed to a consulting job in Berlin: He wants to help the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) beat Chancellor Angela Merkel of the conservative Christian Democrats in the next national election in 2017.

This Saturday, Messina will make his first appearance in this new capacity. The SPD plans to introduce their new helper for the first time at the so-called “Campaign Camp” in the Schöneberger Gasometer in Berlin. He will report on the newest trends in campaign work: data analysis, addressing voters and online communication.
— Der Spiegel, 9/4/15

It doesn’t matter where.

The premier relies on the American communication guru for the referendum campaign. The triumphs with Obama and Cameron, the 400 thousand euros of the parcel, the McDonald’s, the psychologist wife, the fast cars, the big data and the door-to-door: this is the “Mr. Wolf” who will try to convince Italy to say Yup.

“You are Matteo, right? I’m Jim Messina, I solve problems.” The first meeting between Prime Minister Renzi and the American guru of communication is good to imagine him so, on the threshold of the house, in full Tarantino style.
— Vanity Fair Italia, 10/7/16

But they travelled well.

Mr Messina has been a paid consultant to three disastrous electoral forays: David Cameron’s campaign for the UK to remain in the EU, Matteo Renzi’s Italian constitutional reform effort, and Theresa May’s Conservative general election campaign.

Unlike the private sector where results determine success, politics pays their fat-and-happy losers well.

His company, the Messina Group, was paid £276,000 by the Remain campaign, and a reported €400,000 for its Italian work. It is not clear how much Mr Messina was paid for his most recent work for the Tories.

The Messina Group declined to comment. Last year it did also work for Spain’s Popular party in its successful campaign. It was paid a reported €290,000 for its work in that election, which took place days after the EU referendum. Mr Messina, a 47-year-old former US Senate staff member, also showed misplaced confidence ahead of last year’s US presidential election.

“Dear panicking Dems, she will win,” he tweeted in September 2016, seven weeks before Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. He also accused Mr Trump of running the “most incompetent [general election] campaign in history.”
— Financial Times, 6/12/17

So while the Democrat left pontificates about the horrors of foreigners meddling in our elections, take a good look at some of Barack Obama’s most trusted campaign lieutenants who are making really good money on foreign soil, working to elect politicians sympathetic to the so-called progressive agenda; not necessarily what’s best for the United States.