#FreeStacy #CPAC2016 ‘Free Speech Should Flourish’ #DontTreadOnTheNet

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NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland
Interesting headline today:

‘Free speech should flourish’:
Jewish head of Oberlin college
defends his decision not to sack
female professor who claimed
Jews were behind 9/11 attacks

You will recall that students at Oberlin College (annual tuition of $50,586) consider themselves victims of “imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and a cissexist heteropatriarchy.” Evidently, it’s OK for these Special Snowflakes™ to have Jew-hating 9/11 “Truther” conspiracy theorists as their professors, yet they need “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” to deal with the emotional trauma if someone like Christina Hoff Sommers is allowed to speak on campus.

Ever since Obama was elected president, it seems, many of our nation’s young people have become incapable of thinking rationally, and demand that they be protected from dangerous things like facts, truth and reality.

“Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. He’s playing the American public for suckers . . . His domestic policies would lead to recession. His foreign policies would make America and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president.”
— Mitt Romney

Gosh, Mitt, if only you’d criticized Barack Obama half as much . . .

Tonight there will be a debate. We’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, the #FreeStacy message is spreading at CPAC, one selfie at a time.

News from CPAC:

No matter what your policy priority is, it is an Internet issue. Whether it’s Internet regulations that threaten the rollout of new and innovative Internet services, or liberal activists’ attacks on Internet speech, supporters of big government are moving aggressively to replace Internet freedom with more government control. That’s the last thing we need.
Join Protect Internet Freedom now to prevent censorship and protect the Internet from unelected bureaucrats and safe-space social justice warriors.
Be sure to attend the PIF panel on Internet Freedom on Thursday, March 3rd at 4:15 PM, National Harbor #15.

 

#CPAC2016: Trumpsters and RINOs and Immunity for Witnesses, Oh, My!

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NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland
Last night, the annual “RINOcon” party gathered at the Public House here, and I arrived late, having first stopped by National Pastime to have refreshments with Jazz Shaw and Ed Morrissey of Hot Air. We discussed the latest news:

Justice Dept. grants immunity to staffer
who set up Clinton email server

That certainly adds a new dimension, eh? Ed writes: “Gee . . . does the Department of Justice offer immunity to potential witnesses for routine ‘security reviews’? Bryan Pagliano, who declared his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent when the FBI sought to question him about Hillary Clinton’s secret e-mail server, will have to start talking soon.”

Anyway, this morning I got up and read Matt Lewis’s Daily Caller column about CPAC and there’s this:

Robert Stacy McCain deserves mad props for dubbing it the “Mardis Gras of the Right”

Thanks for the hat-tip, Matt. The Lonely Conservative is coming to hang out and Da Tech Guy examines the problems faced by Marco Rubio.

The Trump campaign is all anyone is talking about here:

Donald Trump’s speaking slot at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturdayis prompting an acrimonious backlash from the conservative critics desperately trying to mount a last-ditch campaign to block the GOP presidential front-runner from winning the party’s nomination.
A top aide to Trump rival Marco Rubio has accused CPAC organizers of being in the tank for Trump and clearing the way for his acceptance into mainstream conservatism, while an anti-Trump super PAC is pressuring organizers to rescind their invitation to the surging GOP front-runner.
Potentially complicating matters further, sources tell POLITICO that Trump has made multiple donations totaling more than $100,000 ? including a $50,000 check last year ? to the American Conservative Union, the group that organizes CPAC. That dwarfs the amounts donated in recent years by allies of Trump’s rivals, all of whom are also scheduled to speak at the annual gathering, and seems likely to fuel already percolating suspicions among his opponents that the ACU has its thumb on the scale for Trump.

Can he be stopped? More to the point, should he be stopped?

Republicans in Washington are divided over how to handle Donald Trump, who after Super Tuesday is a step closer to becoming the GOP standard-bearer this fall.
Trump’s rise has stunned establishment Republicans, who have been grasping for any strategy that might deny Trump the nomination.
But with the businessman’s delegate lead growing, a number of GOP lawmakers also say they’re preparing to work with whoever the Republican nominee is.
“Either we trust the primary system or we don’t. We trust the primary voters or we don’t,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), who had endorsed Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) before he dropped out of the race. “I will be supporting our nominee against Mrs. [Hillary] Clinton.”
Among Senate Republicans, there’s a growing feeling that opposition to Trump would backfire, given voter distrust of the GOP establishment.
“My impression is the voters are voting with their own minds and they’re not looking for direction or guidance from me or anybody else,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

My concern is this: If the GOP Establishment could stop Trump, he would the likely run third party, and that’s game, set, match. The #NeverTrump movement is therefore problematic, if your goal is to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House, which certainly should be your goal.

Today there will be a 4:30 p.m. CPAC panel by Protect Internet Freedom about the growing threats to online free speech.

 

+ o + o +

BANNED BY TWITTER!

The #FreeStacy movement, a grassroots response to Twitter’s Feb. 19 decision to suspend my popular @rsmccain account, has received international attention. You can help support this movement by including the #FreeStacy hashtag on your Twitter messages, by retweeting messages in support of this movement, and by signing up at PublicStatus.org, which is dedicated to defending free speech rights on social media. Thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word.

— Robert Stacy McCain




 

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#FreeStacy #CPAC2016: Because ‘Freedom of Expression Is Essential’

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Hitting the road tonight, folks! For the 11th consecutive year, I’ll be covering the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this week at National Harbor. The big political news today is that Ben Carson appears to be out of the GOP campaign, but will speak Friday at CPAC, while Mitt Romney plans to use his Thursday CPAC speech to make the case against Donald Trump, who will speak Saturday at the conference.

As for me, in addition to covering CPAC, I also plan to call attention to the Left’s war against online free speech:

On February 19, Twitter suspended the account of award-winning conservative journalist Robert Stacy McCain. His supporters immediately launched the #FreeStacy hashtag campaign as a protest against this censorship.
McCain’s suspension came 10 days after Twitter had announced the creation of a “Trust and Safety Council” that included radical feminist Anita Sarkeesian and many left-wing progressive organizations. McCain had been using Twitter since 2009 and his account (@rsmccain) had tens of thousands of followers. In addition, Twitter also suspended @SexTroubleBook, an account McCain created in 2015 to promote his book Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature. . . .

You can read the rest at Da Tech Guy Blog.

The #FreeStacy campaign is getting widespread attention, including an editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Back in 2011, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone boldly declared that “freedom of expression is essential,” and that while some tweets on the social media platform might “downright anger a vast majority of users” — and that while even Twitter itself didn’t always agree with what its users chose to tweet — the company would “keep the information flowing irrespective of any view we may have about the content.”
Five years later, however, that pledge has pretty has much fallen by the wayside.
Last month, the social media platform rescinded the “verified” user status of ring-wing pundit Milo Yiannopoulos, and, in the weeks since, has also banned controversial right-wing writer Robert Stacy McCain, as well as censor a hashtag protesting the move.
Why did Twitter take these actions? Presumably because they align with the mission of its new Trust and Safety Council. The council, unveiled by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey earlier this month, strives to “ensure people can continue to express themselves freely and safely on Twitter,” while also striking “the right balance between fighting abuse and speaking truth to power.”
While Twitter, much like college campuses, claims to support all things diversity, the makeup of this council shows that the company has no interest in true diversity of thought. As Mr. McCain pointed out in a recent interview with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders, of the 40 organizations on the council, many are left-leaning and none is conservative or libertarian. If Mr. Dorsey truly valued diversity, he wouldn’t have assembled what amounts to an echo chamber that places liberal thought-police ideology over (truly) free speech. . . .

Meanwhile, I’ve written an 1,800-word column about it:

Feminism is always a lecture, never a debate. Any criticism of feminist discourse is cited as proof that the critic is a vile misogynist. Objections to the anti-male rhetoric of feminist ideologues like Anita Sarkeesian are construed by her as threats to her safety.
“Every day I see my words scrutinized, twisted and distorted by thousands of men hell-bent on destroying and silencing me,” Sarkeesian told her sympathetic listeners at a feminist conference in Sydney, Australia. . . .
Who is being destroyed, and who is being silenced? I’d like to explain this to the tens of thousands of people who followed my Twitter account, but unfortunately my account has been destroyed and silenced. . . .

Read the whole thing at The American Spectator.

 

+ o + o +

BANNED BY TWITTER!

 

The #FreeStacy movement, a grassroots response to Twitter’s Feb. 19 decision to suspend my popular @rsmccain account, has received international attention. You can help support this movement by including the #FreeStacy hashtag on your Twitter messages, by retweeting messages in support of this movement, and by signing up at PublicStatus.org, which is dedicated to defending free speech rights on social media. Thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word.

— Robert Stacy McCain




 

 

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In The Mailbox: 03.02.11

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— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Rubio’s Fargo
Da Tech Guy: Charlie Baker’s Blueprint For Trump’s Revenge On The GOPe
The Political Hat: Canada To Go Full Action T4 On The Mentally Ill
Michelle Malkin: Culture Of Corruption – The VA’s Dirty Watchdog Exposed
Twitchy: NATO Commander Warns ISIS “Spreading Like Cancer” Among Refugees
Shark Tank: Former Romney, Rubio Supporters Turning To Cruz In Florida
Real Clear Politics: Super Tuesday Results With Delegate Allocations


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Rubio Finally Takes A State (Minnesota)
American Thinker: Trump May Not Know The Secret Of His Own Political Success
Conservatives4Palin: Suit Questioning Cruz’ Eligibility Tossed Out On Technicality
Don Surber: Hitler Finished Second, And Why That’s Important
Jammie Wearing Fools: “Unifier” Trump Threatens Paul Ryan After Criticism
Joe For America: Obama Threatens Border Agents With Firing If They Enforce The Law
JustOneMinute: Megan McArdle On #NeverTrump Versus #TrumpOn
Pamela Geller: Muslim Migrants’ Mass Rapes At German Shopping Center
Shot In The Dark: Lest One Think…
STUMP: Puerto Rico Round-Up – Pensions Before Bonds?
The Gateway Pundit: Huckabee Calls For GOP To Get Behind Trump
The Jawa Report: Huffpo Hates??? Oh, Come On, One Guess
The Lonely Conservative: If Unemployment Is So Low, Why Is Food Stamp Use So High?
This Ain’t Hell: SFC Charles Martland – To Free The Oppressed
Weasel Zippers: Ben Carson To Suspend Presidential Bid, Campaign Issues Statement
Megan McArdle: Trump’s Shock Strategy Works, Until It Backfires
Mark Steyn: The Post-Super Tuesday Arithmetic


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Democrat Raped 14-Year-Old Babysitter; Liberal Publisher Helped Cover It Up

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Neil Goldschmidt was Secretary of Transportation in the Carter administration from 1979 to 1981, and governor of Oregon 1987-1991, but before that . . .

In the 1970s, Portland, Oregon, mayor Neil Goldschmidt started sleeping with his kids’ babysitter. She was 14 when it started. It didn’t become public, but it also wasn’t a well-guarded secret. Goldschmidt took her to parties with other power brokers in the state, but no one said anything. . . .
That Goldschmidt raped a babysitter didn’t become public until 14 years later later in the wake of a scandal involving Goldschmidt and his lobbying clients, as well as some dogged Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting from Willamette Week that brought it to light. They were referred to as the “light rail mafia” because Goldschmidt was exploiting all of the transportation rules and development restrictions that he himself had put in place when he was in office. The story was that Goldschmidt’s victim had threatened to go public and one of the conditions of the settlement was that he would leave public life. So he became the state’s top lobbyist, not that the move would necessarily prevent him from doing less political damage. . . .

One of those in on the cover-up? Liberal publisher Win McCormack, who co-founded Mother Jones and recently bought The New Republic. Kicker:

In 2011, Elizabeth Lynn Dunham, Goldschmidt’s teenage victim, died in hospice at age 49. She spent most of her life battling addiction and mental illness. Neil Goldschmidt is still with us. When he’s not in Oregon, he lives on an estate in the South of France.

Democrats are the “rape culture” feminists never notice.

(Hat-tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

UPDATE: Here’s a Weekly Standard story from 2012 in which Mark Hemingway remarks: “Portland is quietly closing in on San Francisco as the American city that has most conspicuously taken leave of its senses.”

 

Those Danged Voters!

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Donald Trump scored huge victories in the Super Tuesday primaries and is now “unstoppable” in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, according to veteran GOP campaign strategist Ed Rollins:

Game over! This was a rout, America. Winning seven states and the vast majority of delegates is a landslide. Donald Trump and the millions of his supporters have changed American politics and the Republican Party for the foreseeable future.
The nomination is within his grasp and if he does what he said he would do Tuesday night: “[I will] be a unifier!” he may be a very viable candidate against Hillary Clinton in the fall.
After his victories Tuesday night in multiple states and his second place finish in others, Trump is in an unstoppable position. Whether the junior senators from Texas and Florida choose to pursue him, it doesn’t matter, the end is near.
Trump, who is an unconventional candidate, to say the least, has tapped into the anger and frustration across America and has mobilized voters to turn out in record numbers.

This is woe and misery, many of my conservative pundit friends are convinced. For the third consecutive campaign cycle — 2008, 2012 and now 2016 — Republican primary voters have failed to choose the candidate the blogosphere wanted. In 2008, bloggers wanted Fred Thompson, but voters chose the hated “maverick” John McCain. In 2012, bloggers got on the Rick Perry bandwagon, but voters chose the despised liberal Republican, Mitt Romney. Now in 2012, it seems, voters decided to give the ultimate “f–k you” to conservative pundits by giving their votes to the vulgar billionaire Donald Trump:

Donald J. Trump won sweeping victories across the South and in New England on Tuesday, a show of strength in the Republican primary campaign that underscored the breadth of his appeal and helped him begin to amass a wide delegate advantage despite growing resistance to his candidacy among party leaders.
Mr. Trump’s political coalition — with his lopsided victories in Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts and Tennessee, and narrower ones in Arkansas, Vermont and Virginia — appears to have transcended the regional and ideological divisions that have shaped the Republican Party in recent years.
With strong support from low-income white voters, especially those without college degrees, he dominated in moderate, secular-leaning Massachusetts just as easily as he did in the conservative and heavily evangelical Deep South.

What can be done? Why aren’t voters paying attention to pundits? Could it be that Idiocracy is upon us? Well . . .

The man behind the 2006 cult sci-fi film “Idiocracy” is lamenting that his fictional movie appears to have become reality.
“I never expected #idiocracy to become a documentary,” tweeted screenwriter Etan Cohen in an apparent jab at the 2016 presidential race.
Together with “Beavis & Butt-head” creator Mike Judge, Cohen co-wrote the time-travel comedy. The plot revolves around the misadventures of a man who wakes up in a futuristic America only to discover that everyone around him, including lawmakers and government officials, is an idiot.
“I thought the worst thing that would come true was everyone wearing Crocs,” Cohen told his Twitter followers.
“Idiocracy” star Terry Crews, famous for his role as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, also used the satirical film to take a shot at the surreal election cycle.
“All y’all need to stop tripping,” Crews tweeted in character. “Chill the F out, ‘Merica.”

When TV filled up with idiotic “reality” shows like Survivor and The Bachelor, and when “motor voter” registration ensured that nearly everyone with a driver’s license was eligible to vote, we knew there would be bad consequences. Do I sound like a snob? Man, I hate snobbery, but really, anyone who spends their evenings watching wretched crap like that on TV needs to be disenfranchised. If your idea of quality programming is Keeping Up With the Kardashians or MTV’s The Real World? Stay home on Election Day, please. If you have seen Idiocracy and if you have also read The Bell Curve, you understand the connection here. You might also wish to read, for example, What to Expect When No One’s Expecting and Adam and Eve After the Pill. Demographics is destiny, and the United States has been in demographic decline for at least 40 years.

Who can save us from utter ruin?

 

Well, OK, you can see my six kids. Where are your six kids?

The future belongs to those who show up, as Mark Steyn says, and if you are sufficiently intelligent, literate and civic-minded that you spend your leisure time reading political news and cultural commentary, you need to maximize your personal contribution to the future. Have more kids and home-school them. Do not surrender your kids to the government education system, which is run by corrupt bureaucrats who teach children to hate God, hate America and vote Democrat.

What does the Trump juggernaut mean? That is not for me to decide. If you’re smart enough to read this, you’re smart enough to decide for yourself what it means. But one way or another, it’s not a good sign. As I said when Obama was re-elected, we are Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption. Does anyone now doubt we are doomed?




 

#FreeStacy: $2,090,000,000.00

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The headline number? What @Jack has lost for @Twitter investors:

Twitter has lost over $2bn (£1.4bn) since the social network was first launched 10 years ago, with $1.6bn of the deficit happening since it went public two years ago.
According to the Form 10-K annual report filed by Twitter, which gives a comprehensive summary of a company’s financial performance, Twitter’s total accumulated deficit as of 31 December 2015 was $2.09bn, largely due to stock-based compensation awarded to employees.

Basically, Twitter investors have been throwing away $800 million a year since 2014 paying Jack Dorsey and other executives to live large.

Yesterday, I appeared on a podcast with Tami Jackson and Jeff Dunetz.

Dan Gainor reports at FoxNews.com:

Twitter unverified Breitbart technology editor Milo Yiannopoulos’s account in January and ignored repeated requests to reinstate it.
It was a shot across the bow of the conservative movement.
Popular blogger Robert Stacy McCain was suspended and then kicked off of Twitter for the vague thought crime of “violating the Twitter Rules.” The hashtag“#FreeStacy” trended for a while on Twitter. Even his book account was shut down.
Conservative actor Adam Baldwin called to “disband the ‘Trust and Safety’ Council,” and said he was quitting Twitter. Baldwin, who starred in the cult classic “Firefly” and the current apocalyptic drama “The Last Ship,” has been one of Hollywood’s more visible conservatives. And now Sci-fi author Larry Correia all-but shut his account down in sympathy.
Conservative blogger Ace of Spades declared: “I no longer use Twitter except to exploit it as a promotional tool. It’s for ads only. Censorship is the art of idiots, cowards, and thugs.”
Somehow new Twitter CEO claims, “Twitter stands for freedom of expression.” Really?

Bob Belvedere says: “Fight the Power!”

 

+ o + o +

BANNED BY TWITTER!

The #FreeStacy movement, a grassroots response to Twitter’s Feb. 19 decision to suspend my popular @rsmccain account, has received international attention. You can help support this movement by including the #FreeStacy hashtag on your Twitter messages, by retweeting messages in support of this movement, and by signing up at PublicStatus.org, which is dedicated to defending free speech rights on social media. Thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word.

— Robert Stacy McCain




 

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In The Mailbox: Super Tuesday Morning Edition

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— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: A Reason To Support The Donald?
Da Tech Guy: Baldilocks in Kenya
Louder With Crowder: Open Letter To Leonardo DiCaprio
The Political Hat: Is Britain At War With Her Own People?
Michelle Malkin: Super Tuesday
Twitchy: New CNN Poll Shows Trump Only GOP Frontrunner Who Can’t Beat Hillary
Shark Tank: Trump Orders Secret Service To Remove Black Students From Rally


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: The GOP Implosion
American Thinker: The Republican Party Is Dead – They Just Don’t Know It Yet
Conservatives4Palin: Socialism’s Strange Appeal
Don Surber: The GOP Should Have Listened To Mickey Kaus
Jammie Wearing Fools: Black SUNY Students Who Faked Hate Crime To Be Charged With Assault On White Woman
Joe For America: School Promotes Cop Hate With Art Display
JustOneMinute: Ratings Gold! Or Ice Cold…
Pamela Geller: Facebook’s Zuckerberg – German Refugee Policies “Inspiring”, Says U.S. Should “Follow Their Lead”
Protein Wisdom: What The Hell?
Shot In The Dark: Adolescent
STUMP: Leap Day Pensions & Finance Watch – Detroit, Chicago, And California
The Gateway Pundit: 20,000 Democrats Switch Parties In Massachusetts, Officials Credit “Trump Phenomenon”
The Jawa Report: Gawker Trolls Trump
The Lonely Conservative: What Did Trump Tell NYT In Off-The-Record Conversation?
This Ain’t Hell: George Kennedy, RIP
Weasel Zippers: Just 75 People Show Up To hear Chelsea Clinton Condemn “Racist, Sexist, Homophobic” Republicans
Megan McArdle: The Die-Hard Republicans Who Say #NeverTrump
Mark Steyn: Super Du Jour


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