Much like Ivanka Trump defends her daddy as supportive of affluenza and telegenic women, Ann Coulter defends free speech because she should have her say and get paid. Grifters gotta grift.
While the left concerns itself primarily with potential street violence, the student group promoters of an Ann Coulter campus speech at UC Berkeley are trying to score as many obtuse RWNJ points, even if history will out.
Apparently, the $20,000 speaking fees, among other funds are coming from YAF and organized by Berkeley College Republicans, with ultimate bankrolling from the now usual suspects, the Koch Bros and the DeVos Family.
Now the two student groups have filed a lawsuit that will exhaust funds much like those bulk orders of books designed to improve the ratings, because that’s the Trumpian PR metric. Because the free speech market is also under Citizens United, an auction, but not for ideas, pro bono. And hate under Trump is a profit center.
The reality seems to be incompetent negotiation by the student group with the University in terms of scheduling confirmation plus some reasonable / unreasonable demands and counter-demands, including a stipulation that students who engage in violence be automatically expelled.
Aside from the historical absurdities comparing free speech rights from earlier eras and the inability to appreciate the desire to maintain order, Coulter and the students seem more interested in the potential confrontation and its flack than in any accommodation offered in terms of rescheduling.
We’ll soon see whether she tries to cause a scene at a canceled event this Thursday in time to help the current state of manufactured tension. The rescheduling of her speech to either May 2 or some day in September may still be on the table, if only because there are also reasonable arguments that there would be on a Reading Day, an opportunity for even more students to attend, and that whether day or evening, public events are just that.
It seems less about Coulter speaking on immigration than helping local agents provocateurs looking to rumble. And then there will be MSM coverage if stuff gets trashed and folks get injured.
The University of California, Berkeley was just slapped with a lawsuit over its mishandling of Ann Coulter's scheduled lecture on campus.
Young America's Foundation (YAF) and the Berkeley College Republicans (BCR) filed a suit in federal court suing the school for violating their rights to free speech, due process, and equal protection on Monday. The suit, which is available on YAF's website, names several Berkeley administrators along with University of California President Janet Napolitano as defendants. www.washingtonexaminer.com/...
Tuesday, Apr 25, 2017 · 8:18:50 PM +00:00 · annieli
Prosecutors on Monday charged a couple in connection with a Seattle shooting during a demonstration over an appearance by the rightwing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in January.
Elizabeth Hokoana, 29, was charged with first-degree assault for shooting a 34-year-old protester in the abdomen. Her husband, Marc Hokoana, was charged with third-degree assault. ...
Marc Hokoana messaged a friend on Facebook the day before Yiannopoulos was scheduled to talk and said he “can’t wait for tomorrow”, according to police officials. In the Facebook message, obtained by a search warrant, he wrote: “I’m going to the Milo event and if the snowflakes get out off hand I’m just going to wade through their ranks and start cracking skulls.”
University officials said Tuesday that they learned Coulter plans to speak sometime Thursday afternoon at the plaza where activist Mario Savio’s iconic speech ignited a movement 52 years ago.
The school has “neither the desire nor the ability to keep people from coming on to campus,” UC spokesman Dan Mogulof said Tuesday afternoon. “Campus is open to the public.”
While he declined to go into specifics, he said university police had come to the administration with an “assessment of the resources” they think they need to keep everyone safe, including increased staffing for crowd control, and that the school was “working to provide them.”