Gotta love it when one of the Columbia University janitors signs up one of these social justice warriors for a class in fucking around and finding out. That's pure gold.
Has anyone seen a more blatant example of chickenshit leadership & lack of courage than the presidents and administrators of these universities? It’s pathetic to witness the spineless, deer in the headlights paralysis from these people. They are terrified to take a position or make a move against harassment, vandalism, trespassing and violence by these groups and as a result, they now have wide spread destruction of their universities & zero credibility. Portland State will probably never recover and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the activist students and professors don't end up burning the campus to the ground.
Thankfully the country has places like the University of Florida where leadership stated that you are welcome to protest, but if you in any way threaten or hinder another student or law enforcement from free movement on campus, attempt to set up an encampment, or take over any facility, you'll be expelled from the school & prosecuted.
Like him or hate him, Ron DeSantis is not playing games with these students, progressive professors and administrators.
With a little luck, we might see some long overdue and much needed changes in leadership and faculty at our colleges.
U.S. students also protested against apartheid. That was popular, too....and Vietnam....and the Iraq War, etc.
Oh...makes perfect sense...mhas everything to do with the other...cause it's always the same type of people complaining about student protests, isn't it? :)
Let's work through this, shall we? Buckley expressed an opinion in the form of a catchy phrase. Are we good so far? Billiamo quoted the phrase, apparently because he shares the sentiment. Still good? What's really happened is Billiamo has expressed his own opinion using Buckley's words. Got it? In effect, Billiamo stated his opinion, nothing more. That's the end of thought number one.
Now you enter the scene pointing out that Buckley held an opinion about an entirely different issue. Billiamo may agree with that different opinion, he may disagree with that opinion, he may not know about this other opinion regarding the different issue, he may not care about it. The thing is, we don't know Billiamo's take. We know that Billiamo expressed an opinion. Full stop. Buckley apparently is known to have expressed an opinion on a different topic, at a different time. Billiamo's opinion on issue one, has no connection with Buckley's opinion on issue two. One has nothing to do with the other.
You may be trying to do something like this. "Hitler liked chocolate cake. Hitler was bad. Therefor chocolate cake is bad"
It's my experience that people show who they are by their treatment of the "least" of those who are in their employ. Or by their treatment of waitresses and cabdrivers. And maintenance men.
When schools let students be slobs and make the maintenance people clean up after them, it's an indictment. And it certainly serves to infantile students still further.
When my middle schoolers littered my classroom at "snack" time, they weren't allowed to leave until every muffin and popcorn crumb was picked up. "What do you think the maintenance staff are here, your personal maids?" I told them.
And once, only, I had to ask, "Are you still three years old and don't know how to chew? You let all that food fall out of your mouth. Get on the floor and clean up,"
In some schools, that behavior might put you in the hospital (sadly), even though such “discipline” is badly, badly needed. On the treatment of the “least” powerful:
If you examine the “woke agenda”, you’ll start to notice a pattern that consistently favors the interests of the elite over those of “regular” people.
Did poor blacks gain from the BLM movement? No, but the black elites got new jobs as professors, judges, etc. or in the DEI-Industrial Complex, and they’re bulletproof, even in our Bidenomics dumpster fire.
Most of the “green” economy creates high profits for the owners of emerging technologies…but leaves the working classes with higher energy bills and no way to afford those new technologies.
The transgender lobby favors elite men (who, Tinkerbell-like, think that *believing* is enough to change reality) over women in sports, privacy, and even reduce women’s safety in a prison cell.
These pro-Hamas rioters who have “colonized” multiple campuses (ironically unaware of the fact that — according to their own political beliefs — they are conducting an “occupation of “stolen indigenous land”) are leaving the majority of the students (“regular people”) without access to classes, libraries, and other resources they have paid for with their tuition dollars.
That poor maintenance worker was not only physically and verbally abused by these horrible elites, but — as the debt cancellation statistics show — he and his colleagues/families will have the dubious honor of PAYING for their abusers’ Ivy League degrees (which will keep the abusers in the very elite that continues to oppress the working class while pretending to be “Marxist”.
Why do I feel like we’re living out Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic”?
Well, actually they were mostly very good kids. I wouldn't have spoken to them that way if I didn't feel a mix of affection and exasperation. Or if I thought they'd whack me with a chair.
They knew better but were careless, and some maybe were used to getting away with things.
Yes, we are living in perilous times. The 1960s did us no favors.
I think that what tends towards keeping working class people relatively sane is the fact that they won't have been sheep-dipped in lefty groupthink at some institution of so-called 'higher education'. Hugely ironic really
An exemplar of this nonsense, someone who could have been conjured up by the Babylon Bee, is the “PhD student named Johannah King-Slutzky…whose thesis is on ‘theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens’ and the ‘fantasies of limitless energy in the transatlantic Romantic imagination from 1760–1860.’” The fact that King-Slutzky (Damon Runyon could have named her) thought it was a good idea to write such a cloud-cuckoo-land thesis brings to mind George Orwell’s statement that “[t]here are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”
Columbia should convene a meeting of the school’s janitors at which King-Slutzky would give a presentation on her thesis and explain why it will be a valuable contribution to knowledge. A member of the fantastical class lecturing members of the working class - I would pay to watch that!
She’s only “qualified” to “teach “ and I can’t imagine there are many openings. But guaranteed if there are she’d be in the list because universities never learn.
I was wondering what kind of market exists for “theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens.” Could Johannah Hyphenated-Name get any more obscure or esoteric?
Yes and another exemplar....how did someone as intellectually screwed up as Judith Butler ever get to be deemed a 'high-powered academic'; a 'scholar'; a 'philosopher' for Christ's sake? Had she presented herself at any academic institution worthy of the name all those years ago she would have been told politely that the academic life was not for her.
Yeah. Slutsky and her department are nuts. Cuckoo. Wacko. Dingbat. I do wonder if she's rich. When I was in grad school I noticed that a rich student who got money for the department was allowed to present a steaming pile of sh*t, while obviously sneering at the professor in front of everyone. At least that rich boy knew it was all sh*t.
Right? $50k-plus per year to produce that? That is elite education? And I who's been paying for that education? How much better use could that money go to (and the tuitions of tens-of-thousands like her) if it was used improving educational opportunities for low income students - or just on trade schools?
Have you ever read and heard such bullshit come out of this human’s ( if I can call her that) mouth - no wonder our universities are in such mess as my late mother would have asked “excuse me what kind of a degree did you get?”
Working-class people deal with tangible things that are moored to reality; elitist-class people work with intangible things, many (most?) of which are unmoored to reality.
Nice! And Brandon & co. are the universities’ inspiration and example for leading and managing. When do I get to pay off Johannah King-Slutzky’s $300k student loans?
300k, are you kidding. To go to these ivy league schools, it cost close to $400 to 500k, just for your bachelors and then add on a masters and PHD the total ads up to about 1 million dollars.
You see, mentally ill women will vote for you if you *say*you will fix problems. But you can’t show them how you’re going to fix the problem because then they will say
*annoying shrill voice
“Ewww I don’t like that solution. Let’s do something else that’s retarded and won’t work.”
Trump trashed him. The Free Press ignored him. Gannett and McClatchy trashed him at every opportunity. And the meme was he was stiff and not funny. But the biggest was Trump trashing him which was so boorish but typical.
I don't think you can blame Trump. He's been getting viciously trashed and worse for over 8 years and he's stronger now than ever. Lot's of people were looking for an alternative to him and none of them could measure up.
As I called it because he WAS a great nominee, as soon he stepped into the fold the entire world was going to crucify him and they sure did come after him
This is the problem with ANY republican candidate. Happened with Mittens Romney when he went up against Obozo.
You really gotta have balls and fight back if you are a conservative and running for President.
He also did have other problems like a shit campaign mgr
I liked Vivek but, like DeSantis, he couldn't get more than about single-diget support. There were just too many Republicans committed to Trump for anyone else to make a real difference.
I believe he’s still running in a clandestine sort of way.
On X and Instagram his team posts flattering family photos, as well as his political victories, multiple times a day.
Should Trump be jailed or sentenced to prison by the time the convention rolls around, looks like the Florida Governor who’s done everything right would probably become the de facto nominee.
These riots are not tolerated in Texas. Gov. Abbot shut down the University of Texas' pro-Hamas demonstrations almost immediately rounding them up and arresting them and the next day about 30 more of the spoiled, entitled assholes gathered on campus and he had them arrested.
If it were up to me, these brats would be expelled and never allowed in a Texas state college or university again.
The Capitol Police cops beat to shit fighting your rioters rightly object to your belief they "let these kids ransack the buildings." They didn't "let" anyone do anything. They were overwhelmed by the Red Caps.
Only Donald Trump can call out the National Guard, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell cannot. The failure to quash that riot is on Trump, nobody else.
"Has anyone seen a more blatant example of chickenshit leadership & lack of courage than the presidents and administrators of these universities?"
Maybe it’s a coincidence, but there seems to be parallel learning outcomes between women run “elite” institutions and fatherless, single mother households.
Or between women run “elite” institutions and what appear to be predominantly women rioters. I say “appear to be” because I am relying on what I have seen in photos and videos, and I have not found (but would welcome) hard data on this point.
It looks at least 50-50 male/female to me. The males commit most of the violence. Then there's the nonbinary and trans-identifying, who wouldn't last two minutes in Gaza.
Sometimes I feel like we are all already walking around with those VR headsets on - that we all program how we want it to show us the world and that that is the version of reality we see.
In the version of the free press - the congressional committee on the weaponozation of the federal govt just never happened every day for like 2 years. Never heard a word about it here - or the fact that Biden took money illegally from Iran - nope, according to you guys just never happened. Or the persecution of whistleblowers or J6 defendants getting like 10 years for a misdemeanor. And in my imagination I can almost hear that high fiving at the FP every time they indict Trump on a new bogus charge. But I think all this is a mistake. Democracy is not a team sport - when you guys cheer on or ignore the persecution of your fellow citizens and when you throw away the 200 year old concept of equality under the law for people on the other team, then that concept has been destroyed- and those will not be there when injustice happens to you or people you do care about. That guardrail of the bill of rights has been dismantled by the Democratic Party - and the Free Press has had nothing to say about it. But injustice seems to be everywhere now and it does not seem to be contained to anyone anymore.
Florida today is Texas in the late 1970's. Texas was awash in petrochemical money but had an underperforming university system. That changed over the next two decades with investments in higher education. Florida's university system is better at this point than Texas' system in the 70's, and the continuing influx of human and financial capital into the state will, I believe, make Florida an academic destination over the next decade. Kudos to Ron DeSantis, who overcame his Ivy League education to become a pragmatic leader.
The Texas higher education and oil & gas money connection goes back to the inception of the industry. Texas public universities were beneficiaries of the state's O& G royalties from the start and continue to be so today. The states O&G royalties are deposited into a Permanent School Fund and Permanent University Fund. In 2023 that was $1.8 billion in each fund.
So let’s let the little brain dead’s at those schools rail against fossil fuels and go green in the name of the elusive globalwarmingclimatechangeclimatedisruption
NASA having a huge presence in Houston helped immensely. When Oblunder gutted NASA, most of that Houston brain power went into the fossil fuel industry, powering amazing innovations. Thanks BO!
NASA was first gutted in the 1970s and those people in an effort to maintain contact created what would become the world wide web. Al Gore was NOT part of it. Now Shell is closing 1000s of GAS stations and is investing in CHARGING stations. All I want to know is how to invest in the magic wand that is going to be used to generate the necessary electricity. I pay the highest rates for electricity in Texas. But my service was stellar. Until recently. My semi-rural area is overwhelmed by blue state refugees so demand is high. And my electric coop installed new digital meters. Loss of power is becoming routine now.
Due to favorable wind and sun, TX is the #1 source of alternative (I refuse to say 'renewable') energy. Too much of it on a grid destabilizes the grid. This is because it is HIGHLY intermittent. And unpredictably so.
Two things few people know:
1) behind every solar panel or windmill is a Fossil Fuel (or nuclear, but usually FF) plant. Most is NG. The NG plants will be spinning turbines at 50% of capacity, full time. The reason is because the power curve of a turbine is not linear. It's parabolic. If you start from zero, you get very little power for a while before finally climbing the curve and getting a LOT of power. So, they spin them right at the inflection point so they can ramp up quickly if clouds move in or the wind dies or exceeds thresholds.
2) Alt energy proponents use the term LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity). This means that ON AVERAGE an alt energy source will produce 35% of it's nameplate (maximum) capacity. So, FFs must run in the background. But, LCOE is deeply flawed. TX has an LCOE of 35%. But the RANGE is 5% to 70%. When it drops to 5%, there's not enough FF backup to meet all the needs.
So, essentially, in order to guarantee grid stability, for every GW of alt energy you add, you must add a GW of FF, to back it up. This is also why electricity has gotten so expensive. You're sourcing it twice.
That is a great explanation of the variability factor. Variability also impacts transmission and transmission line availability. I do not mean to be a negative Nancy about alternative energy. I think the more alternatives the better. But I think government diktats to accomplish it is foolhardy.
Unfortunately Tom (appropriate last name!)- most voters get lost the minute you use a word like "parabolic"! They are much happier hearing about sunshine, rainbows and unicorns!
And if you think electricity is expensive now, just wait til all the oil and gas furnaces are forcibly converted to heat pumps and EVs are forced on us. We''ll have a winter peaking grid, run on unreliable wind and solar. Electricity will be priced out of range for most consumers. That's why electric rates today already contain subsidies for "low income" customers that are paid for by working men and women.
I live in Texas and my power company sent me a flyer that said the reason of rates went up was because there was not enough wind to power the windmills last year.
Gosh, who would have thought that would happen. Its's like saying when the sun doesn't shine solar panels won't work. Who'da thunk it.
Columbia is not chickenshit. Columbia is run by an islamist. Someone has scared Manouche, and now she's going taqqiya on us.
Aside from that? Bari has made TheFP.com into just another m*therf*cking news aggregator. As if "the news" was watching EVERYONE ELSE'S FUCKING STORIES! As those stories appear on their Twitter (Xwitter?) feed.
I'm arriving at the fuck off Free Press station. Doors are opening. Doom is here.
Congrats Bari. I think you have killed your baby, buried it and you're placing the marker.
Spart-- the one aggregated story I opened up this am was the vegetarian guy sticking up for Kristi Noem. Of course he gave a long wordy (self-absorbed) intro and then- paywall!
More gently, Bari - I expect you are under the direction of some dumbass maven(s) or other purporting to know how to build social media news company(s). Why do I call them dumbass? Because they are 20/200 hindsight people. They can sort of see, dimly, into the past. Peter Theil saw it first. None of your advisers did.
Bari - Remember that the reason people came here to start with is NOT because you were doing it like the dumbass mavens say. Think about that.
I LOVE your first sentence! Unfortunately the janitors are probably spending the next few days cleaning up what these spoiled brats did. Instead of letting the protestors free on a summons they should be required to report to the scene and clean up their mess.
"Has anyone seen a more blatant example of chickenshit leadership & lack of courage than the presidents and administrators of these universities?"
Yes. Most elected officials. I'm not hearing (many) calling the protesters out. No money to colleges. Period. Why are foundations (Tide, Ford, Rockefeller) funding anti-semitic groups?
Several large American companies continue their operations in Russia, after Russia killed hundreds of thousands Ukrainians, occupied and destroyed large portions of Ukraine. Somehow, our brave college students do not demand that their universities divest from those companies. Some companies on that list are: PepsiCo, Cargill, Proctor & Gamble. One may wonder why exactly Israel is such a target?
I willl ask again: can we get a fair piece on the insanity of the current Trump trial? The gag orders are unConstitutional, and the case is an abysmal mess that would not have been brought by any prosecutor in the country, if they were not playing a political game.
If you can't bring yourselves to highlight the many positive aspects of Trump, can you at least dismantle in a responsible way some of the obvious lies? Much of our political divide would not exist if everyone were told the full truth all the time.
And it doesn't appear to me most Democrats understand that not only do most Republicans, with justice, view the 2020 election as stolen, but the reelection of Joe Biden as the death knell on our democracy. He has politicized for partisan prosecutions substantially all of our Federal agencies; or at a minimum, he is their horse, because he can be counted on to do nothing to disrupt the power over the media and elections they have acquired in recent years.
This means that violence is very likely, from ordinary people, from veterans, from people who feel they have no choice. I am not one of those people. I figure I will wind up in jail for in effect refusing to live with lies. But this is a serious time, that should be treated seriously. These are not trivial matters.
And there is really no GOOD excuse for not doing your best to tell the full truth on whatever topics you choose to touch.
Unsaint is right. I am no supporter of the immediate past president (nor of the current one). I think that puts me in the majority of American voters. But the NYC trial is in a case that would not have been brought but for political reasons, which itself is a threat to democracy. To leave that uncovered is a disservice to what I understood to be the mission of TFP.
I keep wondering when all the county DAs in red states will copy this administrations tactics and apply the same “legal standards” to the criminals in the Biden administration. There are so many counties and so little time.
The two tier system of (in)justice in America now is utterly depressing, Unsaint. I can’t take the sense of outrage I feel every morning when I look at the news and say to myself, “OK, please God, some sign of sanity today, some justice?”. But, no.
And even if Trump got 100 million votes, the democrats are registering illegals and will get them to vote in swing states.
It ain't over til it's over. To me, the most frustrating thing is how obvious all this is. These are lies that would not have fooled any previous generation of Americans, or so I choose to think. Joe Biden is a vegetable. He takes bribes. He is probably a pedophile of some stripe or other. Yet ordinary, seemingly decent people prefer him over a man who has his flaws, but about which most of what ordinary people think they know is a lie.
We are exposed daily to literally Pravda or Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda level and style lies. Good propagandists understand they need to mostly tell the truth, but that key details need to be omitted, and what is left spun in a way which leads to only one conclusion that is preselected.
All things end. America will end. I don't know when. It may be soon, in all but name. They will never get rid of fraudulent elections, any more than the Chinese or Cubans, in my understanding, have. The Chairman just reliably gets 100% of the vote.
But Bari and Nellie and others have nearly as much to lose as the rest of us, although as a propaganda outlet, they will probably be bought [sic] into the fold. This is a game for a very small power elite, and they know one another. If you are not part of that club, your well being is not the concern of anyone in that group.
If I might channel my inner Stan Lee in a bit of mild levity that I personally need, the extent to which the bastards can baffle with bullshit is bewildering.
How is any of this possible? I ask myself that question every damn day. How can people be that effing stupid?
The difference between Germany of the 1930's and the Roman EMpire is they were dictatorships. America is a republic. The constitution is over 230 years old , has only been amended 27 times, and 10 of those were the Bill of Rights, all done together.
We're in a rough patch, but we will survive. The world has no other choice.
Germany in the 1930s was still pretending to be a democracy, with Hitler given executive order powers due the perception of too many threats to the state.
Similarly, the Romans had remained a republic, with dictatorial powers granted only temporarily in wartime emergencies...until Julius Caesar decided that it would be better if he simply *remained* dictator.
Our Constitution is indeed designed to prevent the U.S. from becoming a dictatorship. But the Democrats have decreed that anyone who disagrees with them is "a threat to democracy," and the majority of the press is happy to spread that message as if it were the truth.
Almost every American institution has been overrun by the Long Marchers. Don't forget that the majority of Democrats thought unvaccinated people should be put in camps (as they were in Australia, another theoretical republic) and denied medical care.
All the Left has to do in order to take over--while retaining, for a while, the illusion of democracy--is to convince enough of the public that it's necessary to suspend certain civil rights and apply certain laws unevenly.
My husband is also fond of the theory that if the US goes down, the world goes down with us. But sadly, I think THAT is the plan. The Plandemic made me realize that there probably is a plan in motion to usher in a one-world government. That's the only way what's happening makes sense. So, to maintain any sanity, I'm trying to make everyday "the best day" and carpe diem. Until the day comes when I can't. And I pray it doesn't!
The result of Trump's Abraham Accords is Saudi Arabia and Jordan coming to the defense of Israel. I never imagined I would see something that positive and hopeful in my lifetime. Yet they still bash Trump and/or ignore the unhinged attacks on him and our right to have our votes counted (unless one votes dem). They rightfully make fun of the pampered Ivy students but can't see the log in their own eye.
I wouldn't assume the Jordan-Saudi help for Israel is all Trump's accords.
1. MBS took over and eviscerated (in many cases literally) the long Democrat party gravy train allied with the islamists. Remember the hotel prison and the NYT columnist disassembled in the Saudi embassy?
2. Iran is Shia. Saudi Arabia is Sunni. They are mutual heretics. Saudi Arabia's mostly lazy, self-centered people are under attack by the Houthi who are Shia. Getting hit pretty deep in their own territory and finding out that the mercenary, unmotivated Saudi military is a weak force woke up the Saudi elites. For now Israel is the necessary option.
3. Jordan is in a similar situation and doesn't want to wind up like Syria, attacked by islamists worse than them.
The points you made are exactly why Trump's Abraham Accords are very effective. It's all about self-interest and Trump understands human motivation and behavior.
You are correct, sir. No one of any political leaning Ive talked to in the Texas Bar thinks this case has any basis whatsoever. As a former DA and defense attorney colleague said, “taking an expired statute of limitations misdemeanor for what’s basically a legal contract and Frisian into this show trial could never happen here because I’d ask to take it to a grand jury and it would be no billed in a New York minute”.
"The "criminal" trial of former president Donald J. Trump is underway, and there is much speculation about the merits of the case. We can dispense with that up front: the merits are practically nonexistent.
Partisan prosecutor Alvin Bragg, more showman than lawman, alleges that a 2016 transaction from the Trump Organization was deceptively categorized in its accounting. Even if that dubious claim were true, it is only a misdemeanor offense whose statute of limitations ran out long ago. So how is it that a felony trial is underway for an act that isn't a felony, and is well outside the statute of limitations?
As millions of Americans across the nation—and the political spectrum—suspect, this entire misadventure is nothing more than a charade. Desperate to do something, anything, to shift the focus from President Joe Biden's failures, Bragg has resorted to prosecuting Trump just months before the election. He knows he is unlikely to win a conviction, but this case isn't about justice; it's about distraction. That is how we get to where we are now. That is how we have a criminal show trial of a former—and likely future—president of the United States, right at the opening of the general-election season."
Exactly. The perpetrators of these sham charges in all cases (except possibly Trump defying the subpoena) know that the verdicts will be reversed on appeal. The financial judgements have been beyond absurd, the over-prosecution has been absurd. The goal has been to completely distract Trump and destroy him financially before the election. The manipulation of our juridical processes is beyond awful and dangerous. How banana-republic we have become.
Given that we are now taking a close look at our universities, which have been communist shitholes for 100 years, we may need Alvin Bragg and Jack Smith to do something antisemitic.
“This means that violence is very likely, from ordinary people”
And that violence is likely to occur as ordinary people like the Columbia janitor, rise up in the best American tradition, to defend the ideals of a nation that our “betters” have abandoned.
I was hoping that the majority "regular" students at the universities who have no interest the Hamas/Israel war would 'bulldoze' the agitators on their campuses so they could get on with their finals and graduations. I would think they outnumber the protestors 100 to 1. But instead they are being sent home and in essence penalized. Its shameful.
Only anarchists are allowed to be confrontational and destructive by our JustUs system. The regular students realize they would likely be suspended, if not expelled.
And what you say is exactly what the "betters" are counting on. Then they can proclaim some sort of marshall law, all in the guise of 'saving democracy'. It's going to happen, and it's not going to be pretty, for anyone. They have been baiting us for years.
For those interested in exploring the fairness of this trial, I recommend reading Alex Berenson (also a former New York Times reporter) on Substack. He said that when he looked into the details of the case, it was even worse—meaning more bogus— than he expected. He goes into a lot of details. Worth reading. I shouldn’t have to say this but I have been a registered Democrat my entire life (that has to change). This type of mob justice trial really disgusts me.
By the way, can someone techie inclined post the astonishing Jimmy Dore clip which features Letitia James on a talk show claiming to be impartial and then has a long string of clips of her out in the street with a bullhorn screaming about getting Trump, he is an illegitimate president, etc. I have never seen anything like it, truly extraordinary. Justice is blind? Yeah right.
Alex Berenson is doing what you say TFP should be doing, and he’s not a fan of the former President, nor am I and will definitely be voting for Trump nonetheless. I totally agree with you. TFP coverage is a bit disturbing.
You’ll never read here what you’d like to read about Trump. Try Don Surber. Then take the many views that each has to offer and realize that the divide in our country will always be. Forever.
I am not asking for partisan love. I am asking for an accurate and complete recitation the facts relevant to a particular news story. If that is an absurd request, then our national decline is almost complete, isn't it? That would mean everything everywhere from here forward is partisan and self interested lies. No nation can survive that without violence and eventual tyranny of one sort or another.
Sofas and a bowl of popcorn are nice, but there is nothing inevitable about them. There are about 8 billion people on the planet. At least 7 billion of them live lives vastly less prosperous and comfortable than our average, even in relatively poor places. Our system can collapse. And it WILL collapse if enough of us choose to continue on this path.
I actually agree with you and I’m not a Trump supporter. I joined TFP to get unbiased information and yet they’ve obviously elected to avoid this topic and not dig deep. I’d like to make my own informed decisions without having to read across a spectrum to get all of the facts straight. Keep at ‘em, Unsaint. Maybe you’ll get what you’re asking for.
Megyn Kelly does a good job of explaining the Trump trial - and other court cases. She has different commentators that have different readings of what is happening.
Had Jason Epstein on who helped Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky era. Hardly a MAGA guy and he went through the similarities of Trump and Clinton hush money payments. Conceded charges would never be brought forth against anyone except a single individual named Donald Trump.
Also some great time machine video of George Stephanopoulus, contrasting his commentary of Clinton's actions at the time and his current hypocritical condemnation of President Trump. Also damning excerpts as to the Clinton strategy of discrediting any woman who claimed she had a "relationship" with Clinton.
yes! i've been listening to her podcasts recently and she does an excellent job explaining things for those of us who don't have a law degree. i also like that she has an interesting cross-section of commentators on her show, too. megyn is also 200% for biological women and their rights and against the mutilation of our children.
I just want Ollie to explain what exactly was the crime Trump supposedly committed. First set forth the law. Then apply the facts. And make clear that paying for an NDA is not a crime
To my understanding there had to be a felony committed to be tried in this way. There was nothing. As you stated, NDAs are not illegal. Vivek had an excellent summation of what’s being done. This is all once again for optics, tying Trump up in the courts in an attempt to keep him from campaigning, issuing unconstitutional gag orders, etc. It will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, too many useful idiots (my term of the week but it so richly applies) will believe he’s guilty because they so very much want to believe it, and will vote accordingly.
TFP has many guest writers. Has Jonathan Turley or Allan Dershowitz. Neither of these guys 'like' Trump, and they are lifetime liberals, but at least they haven't sold their soul, and report on the case honestly. Is that too much to ask, or is Bari concerned she'll lose points with the NYT-affiliated elite?
But surely diseases have causes and cures? And no normal person wants to have a reasonable suspicion they are mentally ill; or if a journalist, willfully incompetent and/or unethical?
I once heard a comment that went something like, "Crazy people will eventually make even sane people act crazy." I think we're getting pretty close to that these days.
Interesting. I read one article over there. He (?) had this to say:
"I spent a few years trying to fight with them, pushing back against the many cancellations, trying to convince my friends and family that something was very wrong with the Left but none of them would listen to me. They were in a kind of “mass formation” fugue state and all they could do was try to pull me back into the fold. Even now they show up with their fingers pointed, accusing me of being a heretic, a blasphemer, a witch.
They whisper about me behind my back, they gossip and worry and fret about what happened to me, why I went so wrong. They seem to think that nothing is quite as bad on the Left as Trump. So they keep asking me, “are you a Trump supporter now?” And “Are you voting for Trump?” If I answer yes, then they have their confession and they can feel satisfied that they were right to throw me away like human garbage. But I don’t answer because I don’t know.
What I do know is that it was a lie that we were the resistance. We were always the empire. It was a lie that Trump was a fascist. We’re closer to fascism now than we’ve ever been as a country with the Democrats in power. And it was always a lie that Trump World was a cult."
These targeted prosecutions ought to worry fair-minded people regardless of political persuasion. I wrote about the disgusting lawfare waged by Letitia James and Arthur Engoron, and how Democrats have decided to sacrifice higher-order values in order to satisfy their raging TDS:
No. The short answer is no you cannot get that here. I have realized this is an elitist publication. Published by elites for elites. Trump has the accoutrements of elitism -NY bona fides, wealth, (poison) Ivy education - but he values money above all else and he understands this elitist BS is destroying profit, that nonelites have a stake and deserve better than the elite trash is serving them.
At the end of the day, TPF is created by and it's writers are Ivy League Democrat elites. They are better than the Leftist nuts that dominate the news, but they still are a product of Democrat snob culture.
The Times article was awful. I'm only interested in the actual interview, so I can read and listen to what Trump actually says. This article was nothing but propaganda that twists Trump's words completely out of context. That said, if his main policy goals are border security and tax cuts, I'm all for it.
Democrat John Edwards was indicted on fraud charges in 2011 and his case went to trial. Was that politically motivated? Was it unfair? Would prosecutors go after someone less high profile just as vigorously? I can’t answer that question and neither can you about Edwards or about Trump. The real question is whether Trump is guilty. As for the gag orders, everyone involved in a trial has limitations put on their speech to ensure the trial is fair, which means witnesses will not be pressured and intimidated by either side. Jurors as well. I’ve served on juries and have heard these instructions. Unfortunately for Trump this greatly interferes with his M.O. of insulting and demeaning others to get his way. He is not some political victim. He’s a guy who openly pushes the boundaries and then whines when he gets pushback. Still, we live in a society that takes its freedoms and laws seriously. Challenges to the various gag orders have and are having their day in court. People are writing about it. The ACLU is taking on certain of them. What is it you want from The Free Press? A Pravda style take on this that embraces Trump’s case as their own? Pravda was the official organ of the communist party. Sounds like you’re looking for The Free Press to play a similar role. Calling something the truth (pravda) doesn’t make it so.
Simple question: do you have the slightest idea of the legal logic underlying these charges? I don't think you do, or you would not be saying such ridiculous things.
One of the things I personally learned in the course of my education is that things are not always what they seem, and two situations that appear similar can be quite different.
What did you learn? In your own self estimation, do you have the capacity to reach independent judgements of your own as a result of independent analysis of the facts, as best you can ascertain them?
Absolutely. I believe the gag order was blatantly unconstitutional, and I dont beleive any American, much less a former President being subjected to a case even his detractors have to confess is political and willfully abusive, has any ethical or legal duty to obey patently tyrannical and illegal orders.
Do you agree with the lions share of legal scholars that he is plainly right, or do you want to play your usual silly games?
"Still, we live in a society that takes its freedoms and laws seriously"
Any objective person familiar with court cases Trump is facing and others on the “enemies list” compiled by the Biden/Obama regime would be embarrassed by naivety of that statement.
It's curious that you mention the Edwards trial, because the charges against him were much more egregious in that he spent a million dollars on private jet travel, luxury hotels and housing to support his pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, during his 2008 presidential campaign. I guess a BJ from a porn star is only worth $130,000. Be that as it may, a grand jury indicted Edwards on charges that “he illegally received campaign donations from his 2008 finance chairman Fred Baron and wealthy heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon”, which “never passed through campaign accounts”. After a deadlocked jury failed to convict him on five felony counts and voted to acquit him on one charge, all charges were dropped. As Edward’s lawyers explained, “we demonstrated at the trial, that he did not violate any campaign law nor even imagined that any campaign laws could apply”.
I'm no lawyer but some might call that a legal precedent. I've never heard an explanation as to why it isn't in Trump's case. Curiously, Edwards was charged for campaign funding violations that occurred while running against the Obama/Biden ticket in the 2008 election. I’m sure that was just a coincidence.
All this searching for bad faith motives on the part of prosecutors feels like a distraction. I’m no fan of this particular charge against Trump by the way. It pales in comparison to the other more important charges. Prosecutions are by their very nature targeted and selective however. Trump makes himself a target practically daring prosecutors to come after him. Now they have. Re John Edwards comparison, the level of the crime isn’t just about the amounts it’s about the purpose and context, does it rise to a felony as the prosecutors are trying to prove. By the way, Edwards was charged in 2011, years after Obama and Biden were elected. Was Nixon targeted too? Was he guilty? Was he guilty enough?
If these charges aren't political ONLY, why did Letitia James campaign and get elected on the slogan 'I will bring down Trump'?
Furthermore, why did the prosecutors wait until 9 months before the election before they brought forth charges? Were they too busy arresting actual criminals in 2021, 2022, 2023?
Alvin Bragg inherited the investigation into Trump’s dealings and was initially skeptical that he could mount a case. It took a year from his entering office to bring charges to the grand jury in 2023. Why did it take so long in the Edwards trial? Why did it take so long in the drunk driving personal injury case I served as a juror on (5 years!) Letitia James is the state attorney general Alvin Bragg the Manhattan district attorney. Yes, her comments are political. But the reality is that people in charge of prosecuting crimes see what we all see (or what a lot of us see) Trump pushing at legal boundaries and crossing them. What if she had run on bringing down some drug kingpin? Or crime boss? The ultimate question for me is does he deserve to be on trial? And the answer is yes. There are many who believe that the only reason he is running for president is so he can defer the trials and jail time or indeed pardon himself if necessary and if possible.
Please Paula, I want to believe you're smarter than this.
The only reason Trump wants to be president is to pardon himself.....the ONLY REASON? You really believe he carried on with a porn star was to "push the legal boundaries and cross them"?
You're not the least bit skeptical why 91 charges in more than one state are brought 9 months before the election? I care not to hear your spin on Georgia; any imbecile can predict your response.
It's ok to disagree, but playing your opposition for fools won't go far. You do not want to be the smartest person in a room full of fools.
John Edwards received white glove/hands off treatment until he was no longer the Presidential candidate.
It was well known he had the mistress and cheated on his wife with his campaign manager 1 year before it all came out. The National Enquirer broke the story a full year before it went public. Democrats across the country laughed at the newspaper. EVERY other media outlet would not touch that story. Every TV news station wouldn’t touch it. I think at the time maybe Fox was the only one. Still, everyone denied it. NO ONE would touch it, because he was still in the campaign.
Do you think that would have happened if it was Trump or any Republican for that matter?
It wasnt until a year later, after he lost the primaries, the news “broke” the story. So of course the DA had to file charges.
Make no mistake. He was treated with white gloves because he was still in the race and no media outlet would touch that story. He was completely protected.
"Federal prosecutors accused Edwards of soliciting nearly $1 million from wealthy donors to hide his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter -- and that he was the father of their baby -- to prevent damage to his reputation as a family man during the campaign.
Edwards' defense team argued the donations were personal gifts from friends, not campaign contributions, and were intended only to hide the affair from his cancer-stricken wife, not voters. A North Carolina jury found Edwards not guilty of one count of receiving illegal campaign donations but deadlocked on five other charges, leading to a mistrial. The Justice Department ultimately dropped the charges."
We can't make any valid comparisons relative to Edwards compared to Trump until the NYC jury returns a verdict.
Also, in my opinion, no one wants TFP to be like Pravda. Just looking to TFP to report full quotes, not misleading edited versions and to cover both sides fairly and equally. I believe that we subscribe to TFP because of our tremendous respect for Bari. She will totally lose that respect if she or anyone at TFP started to feed us a product based on what she thinks we want to see.
In the chance that Jim Jordan is gay, (as most people, I neither know nor care) what have you got against our gay community? Is it only Republican gays that bother you? Aren't you in the party that promotes itself as all-inclusive and compassionate?
You can run from reality comp, but you can't hide. Your hateful and hypocritical self is revealed here on a daily basis.
I envy people who have never crossed paths with you.
I have no problem with gay Republicans.....except for the fact that they vote for a party that hates gays and thinks they're raping/converting kids, which is weird, IMO. So, maybe they think they'll be the last in the train car? But I'm 100% all-inclusive and compassionate for people getting their "wake up call," regardless of race/sexual orientation.
Just like Candace Owens and Dave Rubin got theirs. :)
Do you think Jordan will bring the same evidence as he did for the "Ukraine-Biden/International Crime Syndicate" investigation?
If he was still just real estate DJT would he have been prosecuted like this in NY? I spent decades in NYC and know plenty about him and yeah, he's got a lot of warts. But that is the question I like to throw out at the 'If he is elected it will be the end of democracy crowd.' We are solidly in banana republic territory and it is really heartbreaking.
Andy McCarthy noted that the trial does not meet the requirements of thee NY Constitution. We still do not know the crime that brought back to life the expired misdemeanor. The jury does not know what crime Trump is accused of. Nor does he. How does one prepare to defend oneself if the prosecutor will not tell you what crime you committed?
Doing their nails and making friendship bracelets. It’s like being in a movie for them. Demanding “humanitarian aid” from someone who has never missed a meal is a nice touch. Too bad she didn’t push her “imagination” a little further and contemplate the true death and suffering on both sides of this war. If this isn’t the embodiment of privilege, I don’t know what is.
Plus the truth is that they actually distracted from.meaningful coverage of the war on Gaza. And watching their antics has simply hardened my resolve that it is now or never for Israel, that war is ugly and there is no such thing as civilized war, and that the US has an enemy within.
What I still haven't seen any media mention at all is that Israel is bombing civilian regions in Gaza is because this war has no front line. The Hamas are cowards not real honorable warriors. Actual soldiers have defined war zones where they fight openly on the front lines. These Hamas rats are hiding among civilians and the IDF has no choice but to try to take them out where they are. The spoiled brats screaming Israel "war crimes" have no concept of how war is fought.
Like so many ME terrorists Hamas are cowards. They don't fight heroically on the front line. They massacre by stealth like 9/11 and 10/7. Then they go into hiding. When they execute innocents they mask themselves. They're the biggest bunch of wimps on earth.
They’re also not mentioning (actually they were mentioning it before it happened funnily enough) that Israel needed to bomb so heavily in order to collapse at least some of the tunnels so Hamas couldn’t pop out behind their ground troops
Exactly. You cannot apply the rules/standards of conventional warfare to asymmetric hostilities. Because the non-conventional force by definition does not abide by them.
The Palestinians are really screwed. First, they have been governed by Hamas for almost 20 years, which used all their aid to build tunnels and buy weapons. Then they are invaded by the IDF to root out the terrorists, leading to collateral damage. Then the US sends humanitarian aid, which Hamas again steals. I'd almost feel sorry for them except they voted in Hamas and the vast majority support the October 7 massacre.
It so weird to try to understand what is happening inside her tiny little brain. Maybe the university should have just sacrificed the building and waited for them to come out after a couple days, filthy and hungry. A loss for the institution but also a loss for protestors.
She will be hired as an Assistant Professor at Columbia. Where else can someone with such a degree get hired. And people wonder why these kids act like this??
Shutting down the power and water supplies to the building, although making logical sense, is not an option, less they would be sued for endangering the lives of the protesters. Same as a property owner cannot do the same with squatters occupying their property. Someone here mentioned the hourly workers who will be responsible for cleaning up. This is not recognized nearly enough. That these entitled, clueless, “Marxists” never recognize their entitlement is an irony that is lost to the majority. The photo of the hourly janitor fighting with the entitled protestor says it all. I truly feel for the police sent in to try and clear them out, the abuse they must endure, having to try and do the impossible by removing these angry children without harming them in any way, having to worry about lawsuits and worse for trying to do their jobs.
At my last high school in California, the majority of my students were upper- and upper-middle class. The demographics for my previous school were decidedly on the ‘much’ lower end of the spectrum. The first thing I noticed about my new school was that there were shiny new trash bins everywhere - literally had to zig-zag to avoid running into one. The next thing? They were empty! Students literally leaned against the bins to eat lunch, then dropped their trash on the ground/floor.
One young man had impressed me during first period of my first day as being particularly polite. So, when I saw him walk away from his after-lunch mess, I asked him to pick up after himself. Without slowing his pace, he replied, “That’s the janitor’s job.”
No matter how hard I tried, I never made much headway on this front.
It’s sad indeed, these human traits of selfishness, arrogance, entitlement, total lack of any self awareness. These ugly traits seem to have grown with the wealth of our citizens. It is only the wealthy who can afford the luxury beliefs we see more often now. The protesting students have the luxury of not worrying at all about going to work, having a boss, paying bills. It’s tragic to consider that the reality of what we see today will just continue and grow worse until there is some major trauma to the economy and stability that we all enjoy, thanks not to the elite power brokers, but to the honest working people
I do a 12-hour hunger strike every night, between finishing dinner and having my coffee the next morning. And it’s to protest the bullshit lawfare against President Trump.
Oh, the irony of a trial for election interference which is in and of itself…election interference.
"Doing their nails and making friendship bracelets."
Yes, this is what middle school girls do during "mix it up days," when administrators decide that classes should be canceled so that the students can get a break from their routines. It's stupid for any age, but university students?
Oy.
But it's not all that. From a WSJ opinion:
"Video from UCLA shows protesters surrounding a Jewish girl knocked unconscious by other protesters. This is what happens when school presidents and other leaders let protests persist and grow. They are infiltrated by today’s professional class of left-wing chaos agents."
Wait, I haven't heard about a Jewish girl getting hurt. And it's buried way down in the WSJ article in the same way stuff coming out of Germany in the 1930s was buried. Dad said that as a teenager in Brooklyn he knew what was happening and could never understand why people said they didn't. It was in the newspapers -- if you looked.
I am astounded at what is happening at these universities. These students should not only be arrested but EXPELLED. Period. This is NAZI GERMANY all over again. We desperately need more moderate thinkers from the Muslim community to speak out against this. With regards to Trump, I don't care if you hate him but these charges and trials are nothing but a POLITICAL HIT JOB. I have come to despise the Democrats and everything on the left as a result and I am an INDEPENDENT. Our government is seriously sick ‼️
I’ve said these same things over and over again for 3 1/2 years. This admin has done such damage to this country, yet people are so concerned about a threat to democracy and WWIII starting if Trump is elected. No Arab country wants to take in Palestinian refugees, yet this administration is now working to have some come to the USA with a path to citizenship, as if they didn’t let enough in illegally!! As for the students…they should be expelled…but what to do about the majority that are non-student activists? These protests have shown me so much more about how the admin and professors of universities have been responsible for this filth for decades til now. I feel like I no longer live in the USA. Obama is pulling the strings from behind the scenes doing much more damage than he did in his first two terms, while Michelle still feels oppressed .
When I read that yesterday about bringing the Palestinians here with path to citizenship-I thought it must be fake news. What idiots are running the country?
Later I decided it was just virtue signaling meant to obtain the Michigan Muslim population’s vote. Also in thinking about it, with an open border, what would it matter anyway? Anyone who wants to be here already has ready access and lives off the government dole-hence your tax dollars.
Yes, if Michelle wasn't so oppressed, she'd have had a much more fabulous law career and a much more expensive house at Martha's Vineyard. And a yacht. And a bigger staff for said house and yacht. Etc., etc. Poor baby!
Where around the world are Christians holding people hostage and demanding release of bomb makers and serial killers? Where are Christians martyring their children for the sake of their God? I honestly cannot think you actually believe Christians are anywhere near equivalent.
DID I SAY THAT? I was responding to the comment that Muslims want everyone to convert to Islam. MY RESPONSE ARE CHRISTIANS WANT EVERYONE TO CONVERT TO JESUS.
Christians all over the world peacefully attend church and don’t bother their neighbors. They don’t blow up mosques, synagogues and murder and sacrifice their children. Nor do they beat their daughters with a metal pipe or stone women. Nor do they murder the raped women and children out of honor and saving face. How can you honestly equate the two? Having said that, Jesus said that Christians will be persecuted and so these little insufferable and grossly mistaken comments on an anonymous message board is trifling. Have a wonderful day and peace be to you all!
You grossly exaggerate that everyday Muslims want to convert everyone under compulsion. There are Christians who constantly push Jesus and Christianity as the only true religion and true god. They are just as bad.
Not just a political hit job, but overt election interference and manipulation.
They made sure Trump was the candidate and then launched all the trials they could. All intentional, anti-democratic, scripted tactics for totalitarian takeover.
Every person who cares about the rule of law should be enraged with New York Democrats. Boycott them and stop doing business with them.
There is no excuse to vote for Biden. The Democratic Party's leadership must be completely replaced, and their allies in the Intelligence agencies removed.
More janitors. Less students, professors and administrators. More pay for janitors. Less for professors. That my friends would truly constitute EQUITY!
What about "a Murphy bed" -- to lodge an Irishman overnight, to keep him from driving home drunk? These terms have a long life. They are a laugh. And they are what make us human.
Nah. We found that out when all the Boeing airplane doors were falling off due to "DEI" employees, right? And the ship crashed into the bridge in Baltimore because it had a "DEI" captain, didn't it?
Surely, when YOU say "DEI" you're not referring to white women, those with disabilities, or Asians, are you, Ben? :)
Actually, Kevin, globalization has turned the world into one huge Chinese market. I’m thinking Stanley Market in Hong Kong. We’ve haggled for cheap prices for even cheaper goods only to find in the end we’ve been had.
Yeah people who love ‘Free Trade’ are either criminals or they are the stupid children who failed the Marshmallow Test. Would you rather save 22% on televisions and have a $10 trillion war with China later on OR would you rather have employed neighbors? Stupid children pick the immediate reward of the TV.
Also, when there’s a production facility in the United States, because of a thing called ‘taxes’, the allegedly higher cost of the goods you are voluntarily consuming funds your own government and not China’s. So there’s less welfare demand because your neighbor is employed and less demand for tax revenue because the tax base is larger.
But no, let’s pretend that real globalism has never been tried.
You know what I've noticed? Your comments are dropped far from the hierarchy of Top Comments. Bari is gaslighting you, bro......the beginning of getting silenced.
I never paid attention to that and my comments are often overly crass. But there are some times when I have one that gets very few likes and I’m like “Wait a minute that one was actually good….” LOL
“Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even if they disagree with you?” So like, is it possible that they could get just a simple glass of water?”
—————————————————
So this is the food and beverage version of
“You can either have a trans child or a dead child.”
“You can either have a Hamas child or a starving dehydrated child.”
Maybe there’s an opportunity to compromise here with my plan for Palestine protesters to have separate water fountains.
Maybe we should drop some MRE meals for them and let them see what our soldiers, those actually serving our country and standing up for our values, have to eat.
This is the whirlwind we inherit because Universities sold themselves to Islamic money and influence decades ago. They set up Islamic centers and hired anti-American professors who brainwashed students. What did they expect would happen?
I hope to see long stories laying all this out, probaby in the Manhattan Institute publications (Christopher Rufo).
Don’t send in the police. Don’t do exactly what they want: give them an excuse to look like martyrs. Let them sit in whatever building doing nothing but mindlessly chanting all they want. These people demonize police constantly so why should the police now bail out the universities that enable this nonsense? The longer the clown show goes on the more they expose themselves for what they are.
As much as I loved seeing them get arrested, this only adds to their fervor, and it’s a win for them.
What needs to happen now is expulsion for all students, firing the professors involved, kicking the foreign students out of the country, and making masks illegal.
The professional non-student activists who have been arrested repeatedly for the same behavior need to experience some kind of "three strikes" sentencing. They also need to be in gen pop, so they can experience what happens when idiots run their mouths around people who are not afraid to give them consequences.
Anyone who actually committed destructive vandalism should certainly be charged (depending on the value of what they damaged, that could amount to a felony). But the sad fact is that this in NYC, where the DA will drop the charges.
Getting expelled and losing their jobs is a real-world consequence that NY's "justice" system can't save them from.
It's not possible to make masks illegal in the USA. Too bad we can't ship these morons to countries where it's illegal for them to not cover their faces so they can get a taste of what they're protesting for.
Like one protester said…they plan to get arrested, then they’ll be let go 24 hours later, and they’ll start up again. NYPD did such an awesome job last night and it’ll all be for nothing.
That's why the students who were arrested need to be expelled and the professors who were arrested need to be fired. Getting arrested is a badge of honor for these people. Losing employment and future employment prospects is a much more substantial punishment.
While I agree with you I think it is a bit more nuanced than that. I used to own/run a fast food restaurant and employed high school students. Occasionally a parent would show up and tell me, "if they mess around and don't do what you want them to do, call me and I'll fix it." I would let the know that I appreciate the idea but the fact that they would actually tell me that means that there is no way their kid would be anything but a solid employee. Same thing goes here; if the university administration had the stones to actually expel students and fire tenured professors this would not be happening. In a way it's "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." In general, people will not mess with leaders who hold people accountable. They will almost always disregard leaders who don't.
You make a good point. Badly behaved children (which is what most of these protesters are) will push and push and push as long as adults give in to them.
As much as I would love to see them forced to eat gluten and run out of tampons, the other students and local residents should not have to put up with this. I'm glad the police finally intervened. The photo above with the janitor says it all.
That’s a great solution if they’re not interrupting classes or barring other students from what they need to do. It’s like letting a child with a temper tantrum lay on the floor and flail around ridiculously while you walk away and pay no attention to them. I think one of the things they’re looking for is attention and if no one gave it to them, they’d get bored and move on to some other shiny object.
If the mayor had any guts, or smarts, he would have used the police to establish a perimeter. No one new gets in, only people who want to leave are granted permission. No reentrance. That means no food or drink allowed in.
Much of this is Antifa and SEIU commies. You can always tell - they are life's seedy miscreants and losers, and look it. Imagine the bleakness of that 60-year-old woman's pathetic life.Then there are the paramilitary costumes and the awful gray- black jeans. I honestly don't think the arrogant, spoiled woman demanding snacks is fit for non-communist or communist society. If life were fair, and it is not, she'd be on a plane to Gaza, where she can fight side by side with Hamas, live under their rules, and, best of all, demand they bring her snacks.
That's a banger, thank you. When I read FP comments it's often disappointing - too much vitriol, few constructive comments, not enough humor. Keep up your good work.
Some of the outside organizers of these protests came from organizations with lots of money. Ie: CAIR. And some Muslim entrepreneur who recently sold his software company. There was an article abt him back in Dec.
To use a word I now hate, it's systemic. It's the whole ball of wax, beginning with the choreographers of all of this, the so-called professors now denouncing Columbia for clearing out the buildings. As far as I tell, they are de facto enemies of the state. It's clear the higher education system has been infiltrated. Palestinians --students and professors --are disproportionately represented and it's all amplified by intersectional ideology. It's dangerous. Sectors of higher ed are compromised, unable and unwilling to deliver education based on liberal principles, the Enlightenment, and we need to come up with a plan to fix it. That's what Americans do --we fix things. And we build things. We've got to tackle a lawless and hateful assault on who and what we stand for, and that sure as hell isn't Hitler, Part Two.
Yes. I was struck by the sight of that woman, who has been dedicated to destruction her entire life, call those two young men "assholes". She's probably their grandmothers' age. What an evil, pathetic human being.
Why is it that if Palestinian protesters really, really, care about Palestinians, not one has called for Hamas to lay down its arms, surrender and release the hostages?
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib@afalkhatib on X , a Gazan who is an American citizen who has lost many close relatives in this war has been posting his anguish at the lost opportunity to help Gazan Palestinian.These pro terror supporters on campuses have squandered so much good will that should have been used to pressure Hamas to release the hostages and surrender.He is a smart advocate for a pragmatic peace and a voice worth listening to.
Yes Yes. Mosab is truly a prince. His recent discussion with Jordan Peterson was superb.
He did a debate against Marc Lamont Hill in California . He himself paid Hill 20000$ to debate. Mosab said no one would agree to debate with him, Hill agree but for the money.
He is a staunch supporter of Israel beyond just being against the Hamas and other terror factions. The two that I mentioned are anti Hamas,.Ahmed F Alkhatib is very critical of Israel knows peace will have to be made.mI keep trying to find intelligent thoughtful Palestinians that have a vision for path to peace.
Most that I’ve encountered truly believe Israel must be dissolved
Einstein Wilf is an Israeli intellectual from the left peace side who is also someone people interested in the conflict that I hope people will read
This is the problem. I believe most Israelis are open to peace if security can be maintained for Israel. On the other hand, most of the Arabs want Israel eradicated.
As time goes on , the Israeli Right is growing in numbers and thereby political strength.. Many in that camp don’t believe that the majority of the Palestinians want peace at all. West needs to acknowledges this very real probability and deal with it. To expect Israelis to be of the same mindset as they were in 1948, or 1967 or 1973, or 2003, or after pulling all Jews out of Gaza, or after all the years of relentless shelling of civilian towns, is not realistic.
All these Islamofascists and Socialist fascist scum are adults, not "kids", and should face prosecution with the penalties ranging from 6 months jail time in Rikers to execution for the leaders. And if there is a GoFundMe for that janitor, please advise.
At UCLA the student protestors are flagrantly blocking Jews from crossing barriers to attend classes. Multiple protestors physically and. verbally assault Jews all over the country and at other campuses. In NYC a woman screams at the camera. “Jewish women are too ugly to rape … maybe with a condom.”
These protests are about straight-up Jew-hatred, support for Palestinian terrorism, and the unstable, deranged nature of the protestors. It always has been and always will be. Anyone who asserts otherwise is lying.
Gotta love it when one of the Columbia University janitors signs up one of these social justice warriors for a class in fucking around and finding out. That's pure gold.
Has anyone seen a more blatant example of chickenshit leadership & lack of courage than the presidents and administrators of these universities? It’s pathetic to witness the spineless, deer in the headlights paralysis from these people. They are terrified to take a position or make a move against harassment, vandalism, trespassing and violence by these groups and as a result, they now have wide spread destruction of their universities & zero credibility. Portland State will probably never recover and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the activist students and professors don't end up burning the campus to the ground.
Thankfully the country has places like the University of Florida where leadership stated that you are welcome to protest, but if you in any way threaten or hinder another student or law enforcement from free movement on campus, attempt to set up an encampment, or take over any facility, you'll be expelled from the school & prosecuted.
Like him or hate him, Ron DeSantis is not playing games with these students, progressive professors and administrators.
With a little luck, we might see some long overdue and much needed changes in leadership and faculty at our colleges.
The janitors have more common sense than the rioters, the faculty, and the university president combined.
“I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty,” - William F. Buckley
Buckley was also pro-segregation/Jim Crow. He saw ahead of the curve.
What does one have to do with the other? The comment makes no sense.
U.S. students also protested against apartheid. That was popular, too....and Vietnam....and the Iraq War, etc.
Oh...makes perfect sense...mhas everything to do with the other...cause it's always the same type of people complaining about student protests, isn't it? :)
Let's work through this, shall we? Buckley expressed an opinion in the form of a catchy phrase. Are we good so far? Billiamo quoted the phrase, apparently because he shares the sentiment. Still good? What's really happened is Billiamo has expressed his own opinion using Buckley's words. Got it? In effect, Billiamo stated his opinion, nothing more. That's the end of thought number one.
Now you enter the scene pointing out that Buckley held an opinion about an entirely different issue. Billiamo may agree with that different opinion, he may disagree with that opinion, he may not know about this other opinion regarding the different issue, he may not care about it. The thing is, we don't know Billiamo's take. We know that Billiamo expressed an opinion. Full stop. Buckley apparently is known to have expressed an opinion on a different topic, at a different time. Billiamo's opinion on issue one, has no connection with Buckley's opinion on issue two. One has nothing to do with the other.
You may be trying to do something like this. "Hitler liked chocolate cake. Hitler was bad. Therefor chocolate cake is bad"
What we have here is a failure to commit logic.
Students also protested against segregation/Jim Crow....the Vietnam War... Apartheid in S. Africa....Iraq War.....
People complained about those, which indicates someone who is on the wrong side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
It's my experience that people show who they are by their treatment of the "least" of those who are in their employ. Or by their treatment of waitresses and cabdrivers. And maintenance men.
When schools let students be slobs and make the maintenance people clean up after them, it's an indictment. And it certainly serves to infantile students still further.
When my middle schoolers littered my classroom at "snack" time, they weren't allowed to leave until every muffin and popcorn crumb was picked up. "What do you think the maintenance staff are here, your personal maids?" I told them.
And once, only, I had to ask, "Are you still three years old and don't know how to chew? You let all that food fall out of your mouth. Get on the floor and clean up,"
Columbia is in trouble.
In some schools, that behavior might put you in the hospital (sadly), even though such “discipline” is badly, badly needed. On the treatment of the “least” powerful:
If you examine the “woke agenda”, you’ll start to notice a pattern that consistently favors the interests of the elite over those of “regular” people.
Did poor blacks gain from the BLM movement? No, but the black elites got new jobs as professors, judges, etc. or in the DEI-Industrial Complex, and they’re bulletproof, even in our Bidenomics dumpster fire.
Most of the “green” economy creates high profits for the owners of emerging technologies…but leaves the working classes with higher energy bills and no way to afford those new technologies.
The transgender lobby favors elite men (who, Tinkerbell-like, think that *believing* is enough to change reality) over women in sports, privacy, and even reduce women’s safety in a prison cell.
These pro-Hamas rioters who have “colonized” multiple campuses (ironically unaware of the fact that — according to their own political beliefs — they are conducting an “occupation of “stolen indigenous land”) are leaving the majority of the students (“regular people”) without access to classes, libraries, and other resources they have paid for with their tuition dollars.
That poor maintenance worker was not only physically and verbally abused by these horrible elites, but — as the debt cancellation statistics show — he and his colleagues/families will have the dubious honor of PAYING for their abusers’ Ivy League degrees (which will keep the abusers in the very elite that continues to oppress the working class while pretending to be “Marxist”.
Why do I feel like we’re living out Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic”?
Well, actually they were mostly very good kids. I wouldn't have spoken to them that way if I didn't feel a mix of affection and exasperation. Or if I thought they'd whack me with a chair.
They knew better but were careless, and some maybe were used to getting away with things.
Yes, we are living in perilous times. The 1960s did us no favors.
"Infantilize."
Which is why I expect the worthless Columbia administrators to fire them, just as every retail clerk who grabs a shoplifter gets the axe.
Amen
I think that what tends towards keeping working class people relatively sane is the fact that they won't have been sheep-dipped in lefty groupthink at some institution of so-called 'higher education'. Hugely ironic really
An exemplar of this nonsense, someone who could have been conjured up by the Babylon Bee, is the “PhD student named Johannah King-Slutzky…whose thesis is on ‘theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens’ and the ‘fantasies of limitless energy in the transatlantic Romantic imagination from 1760–1860.’” The fact that King-Slutzky (Damon Runyon could have named her) thought it was a good idea to write such a cloud-cuckoo-land thesis brings to mind George Orwell’s statement that “[t]here are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”
Columbia should convene a meeting of the school’s janitors at which King-Slutzky would give a presentation on her thesis and explain why it will be a valuable contribution to knowledge. A member of the fantastical class lecturing members of the working class - I would pay to watch that!
She’s only “qualified” to “teach “ and I can’t imagine there are many openings. But guaranteed if there are she’d be in the list because universities never learn.
Check out the professors in Columbia and Barnard's "Studies" programs, I'm sure they can find a spot for her.
I was wondering what kind of market exists for “theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens.” Could Johannah Hyphenated-Name get any more obscure or esoteric?
I tend to avoid people with hyphenated names.
That's usually a red flag.
I keep seeing that over and over with the left. It must be some sort of "statement."
No!!
Couldn't believe her thesis and what she is studying. No entity should give a student loan for something so frivolous.
Exactly never mind loan, what university offers that kind of crap!
Yes and another exemplar....how did someone as intellectually screwed up as Judith Butler ever get to be deemed a 'high-powered academic'; a 'scholar'; a 'philosopher' for Christ's sake? Had she presented herself at any academic institution worthy of the name all those years ago she would have been told politely that the academic life was not for her.
Yeah. Slutsky and her department are nuts. Cuckoo. Wacko. Dingbat. I do wonder if she's rich. When I was in grad school I noticed that a rich student who got money for the department was allowed to present a steaming pile of sh*t, while obviously sneering at the professor in front of everyone. At least that rich boy knew it was all sh*t.
Shit is not spelled with an *.
Anyway, it made me think of this clip
https://youtu.be/bDEhdYYj0cQ?si=oTYhhGLu-5tDzTnK
Leon's the best.
Yeah he is but sometimes I have to get sub titles, I don’t always understand him
😂😂😂that was funny
Right? $50k-plus per year to produce that? That is elite education? And I who's been paying for that education? How much better use could that money go to (and the tuitions of tens-of-thousands like her) if it was used improving educational opportunities for low income students - or just on trade schools?
Have you ever read and heard such bullshit come out of this human’s ( if I can call her that) mouth - no wonder our universities are in such mess as my late mother would have asked “excuse me what kind of a degree did you get?”
Also the fact that as working-class people, we have to work for our living and earn it.
Working-class people deal with tangible things that are moored to reality; elitist-class people work with intangible things, many (most?) of which are unmoored to reality.
"Has anyone seen a more blatant example of chickenshit leadership & lack of courage than the presidents and administrators of these universities?"
Yes, the Biden administration.
Nice! And Brandon & co. are the universities’ inspiration and example for leading and managing. When do I get to pay off Johannah King-Slutzky’s $300k student loans?
300k, are you kidding. To go to these ivy league schools, it cost close to $400 to 500k, just for your bachelors and then add on a masters and PHD the total ads up to about 1 million dollars.
Leading from behind.
How so? Because they've stopped money and arms to Israel. Or because they haven't shot protestors?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
Ron DeSantis would do well to learn a lesson from Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol Police and let these kids ransack the buildings for the optics.
Governor DeSantis's optics are the correct optics.
You see, mentally ill women will vote for you if you *say*you will fix problems. But you can’t show them how you’re going to fix the problem because then they will say
*annoying shrill voice
“Ewww I don’t like that solution. Let’s do something else that’s retarded and won’t work.”
They are the right optics for me but he doesn’t need to swing my vote. I’m not a mentally ill woman.
It’s mind-blowing to me that he didn’t have more traction regarding his attempt at the Republican nomination.
Trump trashed him. The Free Press ignored him. Gannett and McClatchy trashed him at every opportunity. And the meme was he was stiff and not funny. But the biggest was Trump trashing him which was so boorish but typical.
I don't think you can blame Trump. He's been getting viciously trashed and worse for over 8 years and he's stronger now than ever. Lot's of people were looking for an alternative to him and none of them could measure up.
When he preemptively trashes, then yes it’s boorish and partly his fault.
As I called it because he WAS a great nominee, as soon he stepped into the fold the entire world was going to crucify him and they sure did come after him
This is the problem with ANY republican candidate. Happened with Mittens Romney when he went up against Obozo.
You really gotta have balls and fight back if you are a conservative and running for President.
He also did have other problems like a shit campaign mgr
Yes.....The Free Press wrote no articles about DeSantis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
Yep.
I liked Vivek but, like DeSantis, he couldn't get more than about single-diget support. There were just too many Republicans committed to Trump for anyone else to make a real difference.
Maybe having your entire platform being "anti-woke" wasn't the best choice?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
I believe he’s still running in a clandestine sort of way.
On X and Instagram his team posts flattering family photos, as well as his political victories, multiple times a day.
Should Trump be jailed or sentenced to prison by the time the convention rolls around, looks like the Florida Governor who’s done everything right would probably become the de facto nominee.
Or, planning ahead to 2028 when he’ll run against Newsom.
Of course, that depends on if we still have a country in 2028….
These riots are not tolerated in Texas. Gov. Abbot shut down the University of Texas' pro-Hamas demonstrations almost immediately rounding them up and arresting them and the next day about 30 more of the spoiled, entitled assholes gathered on campus and he had them arrested.
If it were up to me, these brats would be expelled and never allowed in a Texas state college or university again.
The Capitol Police cops beat to shit fighting your rioters rightly object to your belief they "let these kids ransack the buildings." They didn't "let" anyone do anything. They were overwhelmed by the Red Caps.
Only Donald Trump can call out the National Guard, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell cannot. The failure to quash that riot is on Trump, nobody else.
Word.
How were Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol Police responsible for the tour that went awry?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
"Has anyone seen a more blatant example of chickenshit leadership & lack of courage than the presidents and administrators of these universities?"
Maybe it’s a coincidence, but there seems to be parallel learning outcomes between women run “elite” institutions and fatherless, single mother households.
Or between women run “elite” institutions and what appear to be predominantly women rioters. I say “appear to be” because I am relying on what I have seen in photos and videos, and I have not found (but would welcome) hard data on this point.
It looks at least 50-50 male/female to me. The males commit most of the violence. Then there's the nonbinary and trans-identifying, who wouldn't last two minutes in Gaza.
But most of the men are soy-boys or one of the 72 genders, so therefore they're also women.
The Spectator has this article exactly: https://thespectator.com/topic/trouble-elite-american-campus-columbia-gaza/
Sometimes I feel like we are all already walking around with those VR headsets on - that we all program how we want it to show us the world and that that is the version of reality we see.
In the version of the free press - the congressional committee on the weaponozation of the federal govt just never happened every day for like 2 years. Never heard a word about it here - or the fact that Biden took money illegally from Iran - nope, according to you guys just never happened. Or the persecution of whistleblowers or J6 defendants getting like 10 years for a misdemeanor. And in my imagination I can almost hear that high fiving at the FP every time they indict Trump on a new bogus charge. But I think all this is a mistake. Democracy is not a team sport - when you guys cheer on or ignore the persecution of your fellow citizens and when you throw away the 200 year old concept of equality under the law for people on the other team, then that concept has been destroyed- and those will not be there when injustice happens to you or people you do care about. That guardrail of the bill of rights has been dismantled by the Democratic Party - and the Free Press has had nothing to say about it. But injustice seems to be everywhere now and it does not seem to be contained to anyone anymore.
Florida today is Texas in the late 1970's. Texas was awash in petrochemical money but had an underperforming university system. That changed over the next two decades with investments in higher education. Florida's university system is better at this point than Texas' system in the 70's, and the continuing influx of human and financial capital into the state will, I believe, make Florida an academic destination over the next decade. Kudos to Ron DeSantis, who overcame his Ivy League education to become a pragmatic leader.
The Texas higher education and oil & gas money connection goes back to the inception of the industry. Texas public universities were beneficiaries of the state's O& G royalties from the start and continue to be so today. The states O&G royalties are deposited into a Permanent School Fund and Permanent University Fund. In 2023 that was $1.8 billion in each fund.
So let’s let the little brain dead’s at those schools rail against fossil fuels and go green in the name of the elusive globalwarmingclimatechangeclimatedisruption
True. But that is no different than the brain dead children exercising their democratic rights on behalf of proxies of theocratic regimes.
Maybe they should read about how that went over in Sri Lanka. People ended up rioting because they had no power, no food, etc.
NASA having a huge presence in Houston helped immensely. When Oblunder gutted NASA, most of that Houston brain power went into the fossil fuel industry, powering amazing innovations. Thanks BO!
NASA was first gutted in the 1970s and those people in an effort to maintain contact created what would become the world wide web. Al Gore was NOT part of it. Now Shell is closing 1000s of GAS stations and is investing in CHARGING stations. All I want to know is how to invest in the magic wand that is going to be used to generate the necessary electricity. I pay the highest rates for electricity in Texas. But my service was stellar. Until recently. My semi-rural area is overwhelmed by blue state refugees so demand is high. And my electric coop installed new digital meters. Loss of power is becoming routine now.
Lynne,
Due to favorable wind and sun, TX is the #1 source of alternative (I refuse to say 'renewable') energy. Too much of it on a grid destabilizes the grid. This is because it is HIGHLY intermittent. And unpredictably so.
Two things few people know:
1) behind every solar panel or windmill is a Fossil Fuel (or nuclear, but usually FF) plant. Most is NG. The NG plants will be spinning turbines at 50% of capacity, full time. The reason is because the power curve of a turbine is not linear. It's parabolic. If you start from zero, you get very little power for a while before finally climbing the curve and getting a LOT of power. So, they spin them right at the inflection point so they can ramp up quickly if clouds move in or the wind dies or exceeds thresholds.
2) Alt energy proponents use the term LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity). This means that ON AVERAGE an alt energy source will produce 35% of it's nameplate (maximum) capacity. So, FFs must run in the background. But, LCOE is deeply flawed. TX has an LCOE of 35%. But the RANGE is 5% to 70%. When it drops to 5%, there's not enough FF backup to meet all the needs.
So, essentially, in order to guarantee grid stability, for every GW of alt energy you add, you must add a GW of FF, to back it up. This is also why electricity has gotten so expensive. You're sourcing it twice.
That is a great explanation of the variability factor. Variability also impacts transmission and transmission line availability. I do not mean to be a negative Nancy about alternative energy. I think the more alternatives the better. But I think government diktats to accomplish it is foolhardy.
Another fact you won't hear from the TrumpPorn news outlets:
It requires 2 tons of coal to drive one EV 15,000 miles.
Tom, I actually prefer your use of "intermittent" energy to "alternative" energy!
Unfortunately Tom (appropriate last name!)- most voters get lost the minute you use a word like "parabolic"! They are much happier hearing about sunshine, rainbows and unicorns!
And if you think electricity is expensive now, just wait til all the oil and gas furnaces are forcibly converted to heat pumps and EVs are forced on us. We''ll have a winter peaking grid, run on unreliable wind and solar. Electricity will be priced out of range for most consumers. That's why electric rates today already contain subsidies for "low income" customers that are paid for by working men and women.
Question: with a variable rotation speed, how is a 60 hz power delivery frequency held constant?
Lot of fancy words for saying "Texas gets f-cked every seasonal change cause they think non-oil is Communist."
I live in Texas and my power company sent me a flyer that said the reason of rates went up was because there was not enough wind to power the windmills last year.
Gosh, who would have thought that would happen. Its's like saying when the sun doesn't shine solar panels won't work. Who'da thunk it.
Those massive highs that park over Texas in the summer mean very little wind.
The Al Gore crap is the gas light of the century. We have to vote right this November no margin for error please.
Apologies for the Californians bringing their stupidity to your state.
There are some sane ones. But they are a definite minority.
Even more kudos to DeSantis, John, for entering the military despite his Ivy League education.
I am so fortunate to not be in college today.
I fought for six years with faculty and brain dead students in the 90s.
I’d have to carry every day were I unfortunate enough to attend today.
Columbia is not chickenshit. Columbia is run by an islamist. Someone has scared Manouche, and now she's going taqqiya on us.
Aside from that? Bari has made TheFP.com into just another m*therf*cking news aggregator. As if "the news" was watching EVERYONE ELSE'S FUCKING STORIES! As those stories appear on their Twitter (Xwitter?) feed.
I'm arriving at the fuck off Free Press station. Doors are opening. Doom is here.
Congrats Bari. I think you have killed your baby, buried it and you're placing the marker.
Spart-- the one aggregated story I opened up this am was the vegetarian guy sticking up for Kristi Noem. Of course he gave a long wordy (self-absorbed) intro and then- paywall!
Yes Bari-- this is crap!
More gently, Bari - I expect you are under the direction of some dumbass maven(s) or other purporting to know how to build social media news company(s). Why do I call them dumbass? Because they are 20/200 hindsight people. They can sort of see, dimly, into the past. Peter Theil saw it first. None of your advisers did.
Bari - Remember that the reason people came here to start with is NOT because you were doing it like the dumbass mavens say. Think about that.
I like your comments and hope you will stick around.
I LOVE your first sentence! Unfortunately the janitors are probably spending the next few days cleaning up what these spoiled brats did. Instead of letting the protestors free on a summons they should be required to report to the scene and clean up their mess.
Those pasty white belly tats aren't the typical accessory for an ivy either. This is more astroturf rioting organized by the professional agitators.
I was struck by the protester's seeming lack of instinct to protect himself. He did not even form a fist. Isn't their symbol a raised fist?
You misspelled raised limp wrist.
I did. Thanks for the catch.
But painted black. Cuz that makes it more scary.
How I wish Ron DeSantis was the Rep candidate for president.
I'm still in mourning
"Has anyone seen a more blatant example of chickenshit leadership & lack of courage than the presidents and administrators of these universities?"
Yes. Most elected officials. I'm not hearing (many) calling the protesters out. No money to colleges. Period. Why are foundations (Tide, Ford, Rockefeller) funding anti-semitic groups?
Several large American companies continue their operations in Russia, after Russia killed hundreds of thousands Ukrainians, occupied and destroyed large portions of Ukraine. Somehow, our brave college students do not demand that their universities divest from those companies. Some companies on that list are: PepsiCo, Cargill, Proctor & Gamble. One may wonder why exactly Israel is such a target?
Ask the Big Guy, who is probably getting his 10% from all the middle-east muslim country donations to the universities.
The NYPD should have refused to go in.
Let these institutions self-destruct. They made their beds, now it’s time to lie in them.
I willl ask again: can we get a fair piece on the insanity of the current Trump trial? The gag orders are unConstitutional, and the case is an abysmal mess that would not have been brought by any prosecutor in the country, if they were not playing a political game.
If you can't bring yourselves to highlight the many positive aspects of Trump, can you at least dismantle in a responsible way some of the obvious lies? Much of our political divide would not exist if everyone were told the full truth all the time.
And it doesn't appear to me most Democrats understand that not only do most Republicans, with justice, view the 2020 election as stolen, but the reelection of Joe Biden as the death knell on our democracy. He has politicized for partisan prosecutions substantially all of our Federal agencies; or at a minimum, he is their horse, because he can be counted on to do nothing to disrupt the power over the media and elections they have acquired in recent years.
This means that violence is very likely, from ordinary people, from veterans, from people who feel they have no choice. I am not one of those people. I figure I will wind up in jail for in effect refusing to live with lies. But this is a serious time, that should be treated seriously. These are not trivial matters.
And there is really no GOOD excuse for not doing your best to tell the full truth on whatever topics you choose to touch.
Unsaint is right. I am no supporter of the immediate past president (nor of the current one). I think that puts me in the majority of American voters. But the NYC trial is in a case that would not have been brought but for political reasons, which itself is a threat to democracy. To leave that uncovered is a disservice to what I understood to be the mission of TFP.
I keep wondering when all the county DAs in red states will copy this administrations tactics and apply the same “legal standards” to the criminals in the Biden administration. There are so many counties and so little time.
They won't because they are pussies
Or perhaps because they have integrity.
Nor did they coordinate all aspects with the White House.
The two tier system of (in)justice in America now is utterly depressing, Unsaint. I can’t take the sense of outrage I feel every morning when I look at the news and say to myself, “OK, please God, some sign of sanity today, some justice?”. But, no.
And even if Trump got 100 million votes, the democrats are registering illegals and will get them to vote in swing states.
It ain't over til it's over. To me, the most frustrating thing is how obvious all this is. These are lies that would not have fooled any previous generation of Americans, or so I choose to think. Joe Biden is a vegetable. He takes bribes. He is probably a pedophile of some stripe or other. Yet ordinary, seemingly decent people prefer him over a man who has his flaws, but about which most of what ordinary people think they know is a lie.
We are exposed daily to literally Pravda or Goebbels Ministry of Propaganda level and style lies. Good propagandists understand they need to mostly tell the truth, but that key details need to be omitted, and what is left spun in a way which leads to only one conclusion that is preselected.
All things end. America will end. I don't know when. It may be soon, in all but name. They will never get rid of fraudulent elections, any more than the Chinese or Cubans, in my understanding, have. The Chairman just reliably gets 100% of the vote.
But Bari and Nellie and others have nearly as much to lose as the rest of us, although as a propaganda outlet, they will probably be bought [sic] into the fold. This is a game for a very small power elite, and they know one another. If you are not part of that club, your well being is not the concern of anyone in that group.
If I might channel my inner Stan Lee in a bit of mild levity that I personally need, the extent to which the bastards can baffle with bullshit is bewildering.
How is any of this possible? I ask myself that question every damn day. How can people be that effing stupid?
People have been carefully gaslighted into thinking all of this is normal. Much as the population of Germany was, over the course of the 1930s.
The difference between Germany of the 1930's and the Roman EMpire is they were dictatorships. America is a republic. The constitution is over 230 years old , has only been amended 27 times, and 10 of those were the Bill of Rights, all done together.
We're in a rough patch, but we will survive. The world has no other choice.
Germany in the 1930s was still pretending to be a democracy, with Hitler given executive order powers due the perception of too many threats to the state.
Similarly, the Romans had remained a republic, with dictatorial powers granted only temporarily in wartime emergencies...until Julius Caesar decided that it would be better if he simply *remained* dictator.
Our Constitution is indeed designed to prevent the U.S. from becoming a dictatorship. But the Democrats have decreed that anyone who disagrees with them is "a threat to democracy," and the majority of the press is happy to spread that message as if it were the truth.
Almost every American institution has been overrun by the Long Marchers. Don't forget that the majority of Democrats thought unvaccinated people should be put in camps (as they were in Australia, another theoretical republic) and denied medical care.
All the Left has to do in order to take over--while retaining, for a while, the illusion of democracy--is to convince enough of the public that it's necessary to suspend certain civil rights and apply certain laws unevenly.
Only the second amendment kept us from being like Australia during the plandemic.
Agreed.
The Plandemic was a trial run.
My husband is also fond of the theory that if the US goes down, the world goes down with us. But sadly, I think THAT is the plan. The Plandemic made me realize that there probably is a plan in motion to usher in a one-world government. That's the only way what's happening makes sense. So, to maintain any sanity, I'm trying to make everyday "the best day" and carpe diem. Until the day comes when I can't. And I pray it doesn't!
The result of Trump's Abraham Accords is Saudi Arabia and Jordan coming to the defense of Israel. I never imagined I would see something that positive and hopeful in my lifetime. Yet they still bash Trump and/or ignore the unhinged attacks on him and our right to have our votes counted (unless one votes dem). They rightfully make fun of the pampered Ivy students but can't see the log in their own eye.
I wouldn't assume the Jordan-Saudi help for Israel is all Trump's accords.
1. MBS took over and eviscerated (in many cases literally) the long Democrat party gravy train allied with the islamists. Remember the hotel prison and the NYT columnist disassembled in the Saudi embassy?
2. Iran is Shia. Saudi Arabia is Sunni. They are mutual heretics. Saudi Arabia's mostly lazy, self-centered people are under attack by the Houthi who are Shia. Getting hit pretty deep in their own territory and finding out that the mercenary, unmotivated Saudi military is a weak force woke up the Saudi elites. For now Israel is the necessary option.
3. Jordan is in a similar situation and doesn't want to wind up like Syria, attacked by islamists worse than them.
The points you made are exactly why Trump's Abraham Accords are very effective. It's all about self-interest and Trump understands human motivation and behavior.
Netanyahu going into Rafa is going to change all that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
🎶 you have to be carefully taught 🎶. This song has been in my head for awhile now.
This one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo0kVvdo_C4
It's quite odd that the racists now nourish the conceit they are the anti-racists.
Mine too. Frequently.
Watch The Social Dilemma.
You are correct, sir. No one of any political leaning Ive talked to in the Texas Bar thinks this case has any basis whatsoever. As a former DA and defense attorney colleague said, “taking an expired statute of limitations misdemeanor for what’s basically a legal contract and Frisian into this show trial could never happen here because I’d ask to take it to a grand jury and it would be no billed in a New York minute”.
Maybe you could write about it for FP??!
N
It occurred to me I can to some small extent rectify omissions in the comments section.
Here is one link from Newsweek, that is surprisingly honest: https://www.newsweek.com/alvin-braggs-show-trial-donald-trump-attack-rule-law-opinion-1894293
"The "criminal" trial of former president Donald J. Trump is underway, and there is much speculation about the merits of the case. We can dispense with that up front: the merits are practically nonexistent.
Partisan prosecutor Alvin Bragg, more showman than lawman, alleges that a 2016 transaction from the Trump Organization was deceptively categorized in its accounting. Even if that dubious claim were true, it is only a misdemeanor offense whose statute of limitations ran out long ago. So how is it that a felony trial is underway for an act that isn't a felony, and is well outside the statute of limitations?
As millions of Americans across the nation—and the political spectrum—suspect, this entire misadventure is nothing more than a charade. Desperate to do something, anything, to shift the focus from President Joe Biden's failures, Bragg has resorted to prosecuting Trump just months before the election. He knows he is unlikely to win a conviction, but this case isn't about justice; it's about distraction. That is how we get to where we are now. That is how we have a criminal show trial of a former—and likely future—president of the United States, right at the opening of the general-election season."
Exactly. The perpetrators of these sham charges in all cases (except possibly Trump defying the subpoena) know that the verdicts will be reversed on appeal. The financial judgements have been beyond absurd, the over-prosecution has been absurd. The goal has been to completely distract Trump and destroy him financially before the election. The manipulation of our juridical processes is beyond awful and dangerous. How banana-republic we have become.
Given that we are now taking a close look at our universities, which have been communist shitholes for 100 years, we may need Alvin Bragg and Jack Smith to do something antisemitic.
I love the FP but I think you're out of luck if you're hoping for fair/unbiased perspectives on anything they cover.
“This means that violence is very likely, from ordinary people”
And that violence is likely to occur as ordinary people like the Columbia janitor, rise up in the best American tradition, to defend the ideals of a nation that our “betters” have abandoned.
I was hoping that the majority "regular" students at the universities who have no interest the Hamas/Israel war would 'bulldoze' the agitators on their campuses so they could get on with their finals and graduations. I would think they outnumber the protestors 100 to 1. But instead they are being sent home and in essence penalized. Its shameful.
Parents should be suing for tuition refunds!
THIS!!!
Only anarchists are allowed to be confrontational and destructive by our JustUs system. The regular students realize they would likely be suspended, if not expelled.
And what you say is exactly what the "betters" are counting on. Then they can proclaim some sort of marshall law, all in the guise of 'saving democracy'. It's going to happen, and it's not going to be pretty, for anyone. They have been baiting us for years.
Probably the jihad that's ramping up. October surprise?
For those interested in exploring the fairness of this trial, I recommend reading Alex Berenson (also a former New York Times reporter) on Substack. He said that when he looked into the details of the case, it was even worse—meaning more bogus— than he expected. He goes into a lot of details. Worth reading. I shouldn’t have to say this but I have been a registered Democrat my entire life (that has to change). This type of mob justice trial really disgusts me.
By the way, can someone techie inclined post the astonishing Jimmy Dore clip which features Letitia James on a talk show claiming to be impartial and then has a long string of clips of her out in the street with a bullhorn screaming about getting Trump, he is an illegitimate president, etc. I have never seen anything like it, truly extraordinary. Justice is blind? Yeah right.
There is blindness, but it leads AWAY from justice.
Alex Berenson is doing what you say TFP should be doing, and he’s not a fan of the former President, nor am I and will definitely be voting for Trump nonetheless. I totally agree with you. TFP coverage is a bit disturbing.
You’ll never read here what you’d like to read about Trump. Try Don Surber. Then take the many views that each has to offer and realize that the divide in our country will always be. Forever.
I am not asking for partisan love. I am asking for an accurate and complete recitation the facts relevant to a particular news story. If that is an absurd request, then our national decline is almost complete, isn't it? That would mean everything everywhere from here forward is partisan and self interested lies. No nation can survive that without violence and eventual tyranny of one sort or another.
Sofas and a bowl of popcorn are nice, but there is nothing inevitable about them. There are about 8 billion people on the planet. At least 7 billion of them live lives vastly less prosperous and comfortable than our average, even in relatively poor places. Our system can collapse. And it WILL collapse if enough of us choose to continue on this path.
I actually agree with you and I’m not a Trump supporter. I joined TFP to get unbiased information and yet they’ve obviously elected to avoid this topic and not dig deep. I’d like to make my own informed decisions without having to read across a spectrum to get all of the facts straight. Keep at ‘em, Unsaint. Maybe you’ll get what you’re asking for.
Megyn Kelly does a good job of explaining the Trump trial - and other court cases. She has different commentators that have different readings of what is happening.
Had Jason Epstein on who helped Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky era. Hardly a MAGA guy and he went through the similarities of Trump and Clinton hush money payments. Conceded charges would never be brought forth against anyone except a single individual named Donald Trump.
Also some great time machine video of George Stephanopoulus, contrasting his commentary of Clinton's actions at the time and his current hypocritical condemnation of President Trump. Also damning excerpts as to the Clinton strategy of discrediting any woman who claimed she had a "relationship" with Clinton.
yes! i've been listening to her podcasts recently and she does an excellent job explaining things for those of us who don't have a law degree. i also like that she has an interesting cross-section of commentators on her show, too. megyn is also 200% for biological women and their rights and against the mutilation of our children.
I'll check out Megyn Kelly, but I'd love to hear from a moderate about the Trump trial.
Mary, I have become a regular listener of Megyn Kelly's show. She is outstanding.
What constitutes a moderate to you, or who?
I just want Ollie to explain what exactly was the crime Trump supposedly committed. First set forth the law. Then apply the facts. And make clear that paying for an NDA is not a crime
To my understanding there had to be a felony committed to be tried in this way. There was nothing. As you stated, NDAs are not illegal. Vivek had an excellent summation of what’s being done. This is all once again for optics, tying Trump up in the courts in an attempt to keep him from campaigning, issuing unconstitutional gag orders, etc. It will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, too many useful idiots (my term of the week but it so richly applies) will believe he’s guilty because they so very much want to believe it, and will vote accordingly.
I just want TFP and Wiseman to lay it all out in a clear concise manner .
But not by some partisan hack like Eli Lake.
TFP has many guest writers. Has Jonathan Turley or Allan Dershowitz. Neither of these guys 'like' Trump, and they are lifetime liberals, but at least they haven't sold their soul, and report on the case honestly. Is that too much to ask, or is Bari concerned she'll lose points with the NYT-affiliated elite?
I wouldn’t hold my breath on that
Please, Amy, the correct term is useless idiots.
Have you ever met an idiot who is useful in any manner for any reason? Even the janitor who mops the toilet is useful.........and no idiot.
I do not think that you are asking for partisan love. Sadly, I just don’t think you’ll ever see that info here.
“Syndrome: a characteristic combination of opinions, emotions, or behavior:“
It is called TDS for a reason.
But surely diseases have causes and cures? And no normal person wants to have a reasonable suspicion they are mentally ill; or if a journalist, willfully incompetent and/or unethical?
People with TDS have ceased to be "normal people."
Remember that the mentally ill do not believe for a moment that they are mentally ill. That's what makes them dangerous to the people around them.
I once heard a comment that went something like, "Crazy people will eventually make even sane people act crazy." I think we're getting pretty close to that these days.
just like "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome."
Ha! The only person that I read that has been totally cured of TDS is Sasha Stone-Free Thinking Through Fourth Turning.
As for the rest, even if the evidence is right in front of them, it is something that is willfully ignored
Interesting. I read one article over there. He (?) had this to say:
"I spent a few years trying to fight with them, pushing back against the many cancellations, trying to convince my friends and family that something was very wrong with the Left but none of them would listen to me. They were in a kind of “mass formation” fugue state and all they could do was try to pull me back into the fold. Even now they show up with their fingers pointed, accusing me of being a heretic, a blasphemer, a witch.
They whisper about me behind my back, they gossip and worry and fret about what happened to me, why I went so wrong. They seem to think that nothing is quite as bad on the Left as Trump. So they keep asking me, “are you a Trump supporter now?” And “Are you voting for Trump?” If I answer yes, then they have their confession and they can feel satisfied that they were right to throw me away like human garbage. But I don’t answer because I don’t know.
What I do know is that it was a lie that we were the resistance. We were always the empire. It was a lie that Trump was a fascist. We’re closer to fascism now than we’ve ever been as a country with the Democrats in power. And it was always a lie that Trump World was a cult."
But you have to realize you have a disease to seek a cure.
True. It says something close to "those who know they are insane are not insane" in the Tao Te Ching.
Yes, thank you!
These targeted prosecutions ought to worry fair-minded people regardless of political persuasion. I wrote about the disgusting lawfare waged by Letitia James and Arthur Engoron, and how Democrats have decided to sacrifice higher-order values in order to satisfy their raging TDS:
https://www.euphoricrecall.net/p/the-shameful-lawfare-of-letitia-james
No. The short answer is no you cannot get that here. I have realized this is an elitist publication. Published by elites for elites. Trump has the accoutrements of elitism -NY bona fides, wealth, (poison) Ivy education - but he values money above all else and he understands this elitist BS is destroying profit, that nonelites have a stake and deserve better than the elite trash is serving them.
At the end of the day, TPF is created by and it's writers are Ivy League Democrat elites. They are better than the Leftist nuts that dominate the news, but they still are a product of Democrat snob culture.
The Times article was awful. I'm only interested in the actual interview, so I can read and listen to what Trump actually says. This article was nothing but propaganda that twists Trump's words completely out of context. That said, if his main policy goals are border security and tax cuts, I'm all for it.
Democrat John Edwards was indicted on fraud charges in 2011 and his case went to trial. Was that politically motivated? Was it unfair? Would prosecutors go after someone less high profile just as vigorously? I can’t answer that question and neither can you about Edwards or about Trump. The real question is whether Trump is guilty. As for the gag orders, everyone involved in a trial has limitations put on their speech to ensure the trial is fair, which means witnesses will not be pressured and intimidated by either side. Jurors as well. I’ve served on juries and have heard these instructions. Unfortunately for Trump this greatly interferes with his M.O. of insulting and demeaning others to get his way. He is not some political victim. He’s a guy who openly pushes the boundaries and then whines when he gets pushback. Still, we live in a society that takes its freedoms and laws seriously. Challenges to the various gag orders have and are having their day in court. People are writing about it. The ACLU is taking on certain of them. What is it you want from The Free Press? A Pravda style take on this that embraces Trump’s case as their own? Pravda was the official organ of the communist party. Sounds like you’re looking for The Free Press to play a similar role. Calling something the truth (pravda) doesn’t make it so.
Simple question: do you have the slightest idea of the legal logic underlying these charges? I don't think you do, or you would not be saying such ridiculous things.
One of the things I personally learned in the course of my education is that things are not always what they seem, and two situations that appear similar can be quite different.
What did you learn? In your own self estimation, do you have the capacity to reach independent judgements of your own as a result of independent analysis of the facts, as best you can ascertain them?
Simple question: Does/did Trump violate gag orders or not?
Absolutely. I believe the gag order was blatantly unconstitutional, and I dont beleive any American, much less a former President being subjected to a case even his detractors have to confess is political and willfully abusive, has any ethical or legal duty to obey patently tyrannical and illegal orders.
Do you agree with the lions share of legal scholars that he is plainly right, or do you want to play your usual silly games?
Doesn't matter what you "believe." It isn't.
Did/does he consistently violate it? Yes or No?
Who are the "lions share of legal scholars?" - List them.
Did you read the Newsweek article I posted?
Do you want to make the claim that the law is absolute and everyone is equal before the law in all cases?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
"Still, we live in a society that takes its freedoms and laws seriously"
Any objective person familiar with court cases Trump is facing and others on the “enemies list” compiled by the Biden/Obama regime would be embarrassed by naivety of that statement.
It's curious that you mention the Edwards trial, because the charges against him were much more egregious in that he spent a million dollars on private jet travel, luxury hotels and housing to support his pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, during his 2008 presidential campaign. I guess a BJ from a porn star is only worth $130,000. Be that as it may, a grand jury indicted Edwards on charges that “he illegally received campaign donations from his 2008 finance chairman Fred Baron and wealthy heiress Rachel “Bunny” Mellon”, which “never passed through campaign accounts”. After a deadlocked jury failed to convict him on five felony counts and voted to acquit him on one charge, all charges were dropped. As Edward’s lawyers explained, “we demonstrated at the trial, that he did not violate any campaign law nor even imagined that any campaign laws could apply”.
I'm no lawyer but some might call that a legal precedent. I've never heard an explanation as to why it isn't in Trump's case. Curiously, Edwards was charged for campaign funding violations that occurred while running against the Obama/Biden ticket in the 2008 election. I’m sure that was just a coincidence.
All this searching for bad faith motives on the part of prosecutors feels like a distraction. I’m no fan of this particular charge against Trump by the way. It pales in comparison to the other more important charges. Prosecutions are by their very nature targeted and selective however. Trump makes himself a target practically daring prosecutors to come after him. Now they have. Re John Edwards comparison, the level of the crime isn’t just about the amounts it’s about the purpose and context, does it rise to a felony as the prosecutors are trying to prove. By the way, Edwards was charged in 2011, years after Obama and Biden were elected. Was Nixon targeted too? Was he guilty? Was he guilty enough?
If these charges aren't political ONLY, why did Letitia James campaign and get elected on the slogan 'I will bring down Trump'?
Furthermore, why did the prosecutors wait until 9 months before the election before they brought forth charges? Were they too busy arresting actual criminals in 2021, 2022, 2023?
Alvin Bragg inherited the investigation into Trump’s dealings and was initially skeptical that he could mount a case. It took a year from his entering office to bring charges to the grand jury in 2023. Why did it take so long in the Edwards trial? Why did it take so long in the drunk driving personal injury case I served as a juror on (5 years!) Letitia James is the state attorney general Alvin Bragg the Manhattan district attorney. Yes, her comments are political. But the reality is that people in charge of prosecuting crimes see what we all see (or what a lot of us see) Trump pushing at legal boundaries and crossing them. What if she had run on bringing down some drug kingpin? Or crime boss? The ultimate question for me is does he deserve to be on trial? And the answer is yes. There are many who believe that the only reason he is running for president is so he can defer the trials and jail time or indeed pardon himself if necessary and if possible.
Please Paula, I want to believe you're smarter than this.
The only reason Trump wants to be president is to pardon himself.....the ONLY REASON? You really believe he carried on with a porn star was to "push the legal boundaries and cross them"?
You're not the least bit skeptical why 91 charges in more than one state are brought 9 months before the election? I care not to hear your spin on Georgia; any imbecile can predict your response.
It's ok to disagree, but playing your opposition for fools won't go far. You do not want to be the smartest person in a room full of fools.
"Paula Stacey," This person was in my class and she got all "A's" all the time and never misspelled a word.
Teacher’s pet! Teacher’s pet!
Anyone else want to pile on? Let’s see how low this discussion can go.
And this is a bad thing?
Yes Ruth, it is. Especially when the teacher is an idiot.
John Edwards received white glove/hands off treatment until he was no longer the Presidential candidate.
It was well known he had the mistress and cheated on his wife with his campaign manager 1 year before it all came out. The National Enquirer broke the story a full year before it went public. Democrats across the country laughed at the newspaper. EVERY other media outlet would not touch that story. Every TV news station wouldn’t touch it. I think at the time maybe Fox was the only one. Still, everyone denied it. NO ONE would touch it, because he was still in the campaign.
Do you think that would have happened if it was Trump or any Republican for that matter?
It wasnt until a year later, after he lost the primaries, the news “broke” the story. So of course the DA had to file charges.
Make no mistake. He was treated with white gloves because he was still in the race and no media outlet would touch that story. He was completely protected.
"Federal prosecutors accused Edwards of soliciting nearly $1 million from wealthy donors to hide his affair with videographer Rielle Hunter -- and that he was the father of their baby -- to prevent damage to his reputation as a family man during the campaign.
Edwards' defense team argued the donations were personal gifts from friends, not campaign contributions, and were intended only to hide the affair from his cancer-stricken wife, not voters. A North Carolina jury found Edwards not guilty of one count of receiving illegal campaign donations but deadlocked on five other charges, leading to a mistrial. The Justice Department ultimately dropped the charges."
We can't make any valid comparisons relative to Edwards compared to Trump until the NYC jury returns a verdict.
Also, in my opinion, no one wants TFP to be like Pravda. Just looking to TFP to report full quotes, not misleading edited versions and to cover both sides fairly and equally. I believe that we subscribe to TFP because of our tremendous respect for Bari. She will totally lose that respect if she or anyone at TFP started to feed us a product based on what she thinks we want to see.
Thank you for posting a viewpoint that goes contrary to the FP comment chorus.
Where is Jim Jordan on the origins of these prosecutions? He's been quiet as a mouse fart.
Here you go: https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/04/just-jim-jordan-launches-investigation-braggs-top-prosecutor/
TY, saint....proving once again the FP commenters are a much grander source of information than the FP.
This will probably go as well as the "Ukraine-Biden/World International Crime Syndicate" investigation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
Probably checking for more "evidence" in a college wrestlers pants.
In the chance that Jim Jordan is gay, (as most people, I neither know nor care) what have you got against our gay community? Is it only Republican gays that bother you? Aren't you in the party that promotes itself as all-inclusive and compassionate?
You can run from reality comp, but you can't hide. Your hateful and hypocritical self is revealed here on a daily basis.
I envy people who have never crossed paths with you.
Do us all a favor and please go far, far away.
You do care.
I have no problem with gay Republicans.....except for the fact that they vote for a party that hates gays and thinks they're raping/converting kids, which is weird, IMO. So, maybe they think they'll be the last in the train car? But I'm 100% all-inclusive and compassionate for people getting their "wake up call," regardless of race/sexual orientation.
Just like Candace Owens and Dave Rubin got theirs. :)
Do you think Jordan will bring the same evidence as he did for the "Ukraine-Biden/International Crime Syndicate" investigation?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
Go away
No. I will not.
I want the evidence of the "Ukraine-Biden/International Crime Syndicate" that you promised me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
If he was still just real estate DJT would he have been prosecuted like this in NY? I spent decades in NYC and know plenty about him and yeah, he's got a lot of warts. But that is the question I like to throw out at the 'If he is elected it will be the end of democracy crowd.' We are solidly in banana republic territory and it is really heartbreaking.
Andy McCarthy noted that the trial does not meet the requirements of thee NY Constitution. We still do not know the crime that brought back to life the expired misdemeanor. The jury does not know what crime Trump is accused of. Nor does he. How does one prepare to defend oneself if the prosecutor will not tell you what crime you committed?
Kafka comes to mind.
Bless that maintenance man. He doesn’t get paid enough to deal with that shit.
Are you talking about the cleanup the janitors must now do or what was cleared out by the cops?
I'd say both.
Seems the janitor was clearly "oppressed," at least until the police showed up and "de-colonized" his oppressors.
What's not to like?
Doing their nails and making friendship bracelets. It’s like being in a movie for them. Demanding “humanitarian aid” from someone who has never missed a meal is a nice touch. Too bad she didn’t push her “imagination” a little further and contemplate the true death and suffering on both sides of this war. If this isn’t the embodiment of privilege, I don’t know what is.
Plus the truth is that they actually distracted from.meaningful coverage of the war on Gaza. And watching their antics has simply hardened my resolve that it is now or never for Israel, that war is ugly and there is no such thing as civilized war, and that the US has an enemy within.
What I still haven't seen any media mention at all is that Israel is bombing civilian regions in Gaza is because this war has no front line. The Hamas are cowards not real honorable warriors. Actual soldiers have defined war zones where they fight openly on the front lines. These Hamas rats are hiding among civilians and the IDF has no choice but to try to take them out where they are. The spoiled brats screaming Israel "war crimes" have no concept of how war is fought.
Like so many ME terrorists Hamas are cowards. They don't fight heroically on the front line. They massacre by stealth like 9/11 and 10/7. Then they go into hiding. When they execute innocents they mask themselves. They're the biggest bunch of wimps on earth.
And their " noble leaders" hide out in quatar, with the billions in humanitarian aid they've siphoned.
They should send Johannah’s humanitarian aid straight to Qatar!
And send her to them too.
They’re also not mentioning (actually they were mentioning it before it happened funnily enough) that Israel needed to bomb so heavily in order to collapse at least some of the tunnels so Hamas couldn’t pop out behind their ground troops
Exactly. You cannot apply the rules/standards of conventional warfare to asymmetric hostilities. Because the non-conventional force by definition does not abide by them.
The Palestinians are really screwed. First, they have been governed by Hamas for almost 20 years, which used all their aid to build tunnels and buy weapons. Then they are invaded by the IDF to root out the terrorists, leading to collateral damage. Then the US sends humanitarian aid, which Hamas again steals. I'd almost feel sorry for them except they voted in Hamas and the vast majority support the October 7 massacre.
I agree. But it is a lead a horse to water thing I think.
It so weird to try to understand what is happening inside her tiny little brain. Maybe the university should have just sacrificed the building and waited for them to come out after a couple days, filthy and hungry. A loss for the institution but also a loss for protestors.
Her dissertation says it all.
She will be hired as an Assistant Professor at Columbia. Where else can someone with such a degree get hired. And people wonder why these kids act like this??
Nah, she’ll be hired as an adjunct. So she will at last be truly one with the long-suffering.
Maybe she'll make more money working for the UAW? Seems like she is an organizer!
It illustrates the vacuous state of “higher education” these days. She will probably have any student loans “forgiven” by our illustrious President.
Shutting down the power and water supplies to the building, although making logical sense, is not an option, less they would be sued for endangering the lives of the protesters. Same as a property owner cannot do the same with squatters occupying their property. Someone here mentioned the hourly workers who will be responsible for cleaning up. This is not recognized nearly enough. That these entitled, clueless, “Marxists” never recognize their entitlement is an irony that is lost to the majority. The photo of the hourly janitor fighting with the entitled protestor says it all. I truly feel for the police sent in to try and clear them out, the abuse they must endure, having to try and do the impossible by removing these angry children without harming them in any way, having to worry about lawsuits and worse for trying to do their jobs.
At my last high school in California, the majority of my students were upper- and upper-middle class. The demographics for my previous school were decidedly on the ‘much’ lower end of the spectrum. The first thing I noticed about my new school was that there were shiny new trash bins everywhere - literally had to zig-zag to avoid running into one. The next thing? They were empty! Students literally leaned against the bins to eat lunch, then dropped their trash on the ground/floor.
One young man had impressed me during first period of my first day as being particularly polite. So, when I saw him walk away from his after-lunch mess, I asked him to pick up after himself. Without slowing his pace, he replied, “That’s the janitor’s job.”
No matter how hard I tried, I never made much headway on this front.
It’s sad indeed, these human traits of selfishness, arrogance, entitlement, total lack of any self awareness. These ugly traits seem to have grown with the wealth of our citizens. It is only the wealthy who can afford the luxury beliefs we see more often now. The protesting students have the luxury of not worrying at all about going to work, having a boss, paying bills. It’s tragic to consider that the reality of what we see today will just continue and grow worse until there is some major trauma to the economy and stability that we all enjoy, thanks not to the elite power brokers, but to the honest working people
Jam the wi-fi. They wouldn't last 8 hours.
Word. There is absolutely no value inn protesting if you can’t post self righteous photos all over your social media. Takes away all the incentive
Then they would have had to have another protest over their inhumane treatment.
To be fair, before they encamped, they did a couple of 12-hr hunger strikes.
Aka. Intermittent Fasting.
I do a 12-hour hunger strike every night, between finishing dinner and having my coffee the next morning. And it’s to protest the bullshit lawfare against President Trump.
Oh, the irony of a trial for election interference which is in and of itself…election interference.
Those were hilarious.
I limit my hunger strikes to the hours between breakfast and lunch.
Has she never heard of a hunger strike?
No, she has a meal plan, remember?
These kids want regular meals, no jail time- what the hell kind of protesters are they?🙄
The LARPing kind.
"Doing their nails and making friendship bracelets."
Yes, this is what middle school girls do during "mix it up days," when administrators decide that classes should be canceled so that the students can get a break from their routines. It's stupid for any age, but university students?
Oy.
But it's not all that. From a WSJ opinion:
"Video from UCLA shows protesters surrounding a Jewish girl knocked unconscious by other protesters. This is what happens when school presidents and other leaders let protests persist and grow. They are infiltrated by today’s professional class of left-wing chaos agents."
Wait, I haven't heard about a Jewish girl getting hurt. And it's buried way down in the WSJ article in the same way stuff coming out of Germany in the 1930s was buried. Dad said that as a teenager in Brooklyn he knew what was happening and could never understand why people said they didn't. It was in the newspapers -- if you looked.
So here we go.
You'd think she'd at least show solidarity with her Brown and Harvard fellow travelers by going on a 12 hour hunger strike.
Beautifully said!
Another plug for the central plank in my benevolent ruler platform: people like that should go to SERE so they can gain a little perspective.
I am astounded at what is happening at these universities. These students should not only be arrested but EXPELLED. Period. This is NAZI GERMANY all over again. We desperately need more moderate thinkers from the Muslim community to speak out against this. With regards to Trump, I don't care if you hate him but these charges and trials are nothing but a POLITICAL HIT JOB. I have come to despise the Democrats and everything on the left as a result and I am an INDEPENDENT. Our government is seriously sick ‼️
I’ve said these same things over and over again for 3 1/2 years. This admin has done such damage to this country, yet people are so concerned about a threat to democracy and WWIII starting if Trump is elected. No Arab country wants to take in Palestinian refugees, yet this administration is now working to have some come to the USA with a path to citizenship, as if they didn’t let enough in illegally!! As for the students…they should be expelled…but what to do about the majority that are non-student activists? These protests have shown me so much more about how the admin and professors of universities have been responsible for this filth for decades til now. I feel like I no longer live in the USA. Obama is pulling the strings from behind the scenes doing much more damage than he did in his first two terms, while Michelle still feels oppressed .
When I read that yesterday about bringing the Palestinians here with path to citizenship-I thought it must be fake news. What idiots are running the country?
What idiots are VOTING for it
i know, i had to re-read the headline myself several times.
Later I decided it was just virtue signaling meant to obtain the Michigan Muslim population’s vote. Also in thinking about it, with an open border, what would it matter anyway? Anyone who wants to be here already has ready access and lives off the government dole-hence your tax dollars.
i hadn't considered their pandering to the MM vote but you are absolutely right about that and now it is so obvious (to me!) now that you mention it.
Democrat idiots.
Yes, if Michelle wasn't so oppressed, she'd have had a much more fabulous law career and a much more expensive house at Martha's Vineyard. And a yacht. And a bigger staff for said house and yacht. Etc., etc. Poor baby!
Moderate Muslim agenda; ISLAM.
Not necessarily true. And Christians can be just as bad.
Where around the world are Christians holding people hostage and demanding release of bomb makers and serial killers? Where are Christians martyring their children for the sake of their God? I honestly cannot think you actually believe Christians are anywhere near equivalent.
DID I SAY THAT? I was responding to the comment that Muslims want everyone to convert to Islam. MY RESPONSE ARE CHRISTIANS WANT EVERYONE TO CONVERT TO JESUS.
Some christians want everyone to convert to Jesus.
Personally, I don't care which God you worship or if you even believe in God.
I'd bet my last dollar I'm in a large majority......MY LAST DOLLAR.
Christians all over the world peacefully attend church and don’t bother their neighbors. They don’t blow up mosques, synagogues and murder and sacrifice their children. Nor do they beat their daughters with a metal pipe or stone women. Nor do they murder the raped women and children out of honor and saving face. How can you honestly equate the two? Having said that, Jesus said that Christians will be persecuted and so these little insufferable and grossly mistaken comments on an anonymous message board is trifling. Have a wonderful day and peace be to you all!
Yes you said that. And stop shouting. It doesn’t make your comment any worthier.
Well maybe you should learn to read more carefully.
... but not under compulsion, such as the point of a scimitar (or its modern equivalents).
You grossly exaggerate that everyday Muslims want to convert everyone under compulsion. There are Christians who constantly push Jesus and Christianity as the only true religion and true god. They are just as bad.
Really? Could you please tell me the last time Christians hijacked an ocean liner and pushed a disabled man in a wheelchair into the drink?
Not just a political hit job, but overt election interference and manipulation.
They made sure Trump was the candidate and then launched all the trials they could. All intentional, anti-democratic, scripted tactics for totalitarian takeover.
Every person who cares about the rule of law should be enraged with New York Democrats. Boycott them and stop doing business with them.
There is no excuse to vote for Biden. The Democratic Party's leadership must be completely replaced, and their allies in the Intelligence agencies removed.
More janitors. Less students, professors and administrators. More pay for janitors. Less for professors. That my friends would truly constitute EQUITY!
Great comment!!!
“Meanwhile, a PhD student named Johannah King-Slutzky”
——————————————
King-Slutsky was later arrested by NYPD Sgt. Jeffrey Ballsackington.
I can’t believe it.
I’ve lived to see the good folks at TFP use a racial slur.
A “paddy wagon”?
That’s terribly insensitive to those with Irish ancestry.
I think I’ll go protest somewhere and demand free food.
We could change it to pattie wagon but that would get the vegans all spooled up
I never thought about the cruel insensitivity of that phrase before. I shan't use it any more.
What about "a Murphy bed" -- to lodge an Irishman overnight, to keep him from driving home drunk? These terms have a long life. They are a laugh. And they are what make us human.
LOL
lol wtf? ur dumb
Nah. We found that out when all the Boeing airplane doors were falling off due to "DEI" employees, right? And the ship crashed into the bridge in Baltimore because it had a "DEI" captain, didn't it?
Surely, when YOU say "DEI" you're not referring to white women, those with disabilities, or Asians, are you, Ben? :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
666
“The dismantling of globalization and the breakup of the world into adversarial trading blocks will be the most expensive thing anyone has ever done.”
———————————————————-
Yeah because I’ve noticed how globalization has made everything so much cheaper over the last 30 years.
Actually, Kevin, globalization has turned the world into one huge Chinese market. I’m thinking Stanley Market in Hong Kong. We’ve haggled for cheap prices for even cheaper goods only to find in the end we’ve been had.
Yeah people who love ‘Free Trade’ are either criminals or they are the stupid children who failed the Marshmallow Test. Would you rather save 22% on televisions and have a $10 trillion war with China later on OR would you rather have employed neighbors? Stupid children pick the immediate reward of the TV.
Also, when there’s a production facility in the United States, because of a thing called ‘taxes’, the allegedly higher cost of the goods you are voluntarily consuming funds your own government and not China’s. So there’s less welfare demand because your neighbor is employed and less demand for tax revenue because the tax base is larger.
But no, let’s pretend that real globalism has never been tried.
You know what I've noticed? Your comments are dropped far from the hierarchy of Top Comments. Bari is gaslighting you, bro......the beginning of getting silenced.
I never paid attention to that and my comments are often overly crass. But there are some times when I have one that gets very few likes and I’m like “Wait a minute that one was actually good….” LOL
“Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even if they disagree with you?” So like, is it possible that they could get just a simple glass of water?”
—————————————————
So this is the food and beverage version of
“You can either have a trans child or a dead child.”
“You can either have a Hamas child or a starving dehydrated child.”
Maybe there’s an opportunity to compromise here with my plan for Palestine protesters to have separate water fountains.
Yes. The answer is yes. They literally just have to leave to get water or food. If they don't want to, the world needs less idiots anyway.
Maybe we should drop some MRE meals for them and let them see what our soldiers, those actually serving our country and standing up for our values, have to eat.
I mean technically you’re supposed to involuntarily commit people who are making threats to self-harm.
Shouldn't they be starving in solidarity with the "poor Gazans" anyway?
You make me laugh (except sometimes when you go further than my liking!) much more than Nellie on TGIF!
“Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even if they disagree with you?”
No, we don't want the students there to suffer and die from dehydration and starvation....
... except perhaps certain Columbia students... and certain faculty... and most if not all of the university administrators.
This is the whirlwind we inherit because Universities sold themselves to Islamic money and influence decades ago. They set up Islamic centers and hired anti-American professors who brainwashed students. What did they expect would happen?
I hope to see long stories laying all this out, probaby in the Manhattan Institute publications (Christopher Rufo).
Wait until you hear about AIPAC and Hillel House.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
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At least now people are finding out that our Universities have been bought.
And who knew (what you said the universities did)? And that's the rub, for this rube.
Don’t send in the police. Don’t do exactly what they want: give them an excuse to look like martyrs. Let them sit in whatever building doing nothing but mindlessly chanting all they want. These people demonize police constantly so why should the police now bail out the universities that enable this nonsense? The longer the clown show goes on the more they expose themselves for what they are.
As much as I loved seeing them get arrested, this only adds to their fervor, and it’s a win for them.
What needs to happen now is expulsion for all students, firing the professors involved, kicking the foreign students out of the country, and making masks illegal.
Yup, they need REAL consequences, not the "glory" of being arrested for their "cause."
Expulsion for the students and unemployment for the teachers is the only meaningful response.
Not enough, Celia. Criminal charges and jail time.
The professional non-student activists who have been arrested repeatedly for the same behavior need to experience some kind of "three strikes" sentencing. They also need to be in gen pop, so they can experience what happens when idiots run their mouths around people who are not afraid to give them consequences.
Anyone who actually committed destructive vandalism should certainly be charged (depending on the value of what they damaged, that could amount to a felony). But the sad fact is that this in NYC, where the DA will drop the charges.
Getting expelled and losing their jobs is a real-world consequence that NY's "justice" system can't save them from.
I point you to the many college professors whose resumes FEATURE jail time.
Such as?
Just like we did when they protested Apartheid and the Iraq War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
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It's not possible to make masks illegal in the USA. Too bad we can't ship these morons to countries where it's illegal for them to not cover their faces so they can get a taste of what they're protesting for.
It's arrest theater. Charges are dismissed, suspensions lifted.
It won't be a win for them when they apply for a job at my (large) company.
To the contrary, it's a big win for prospective employers to know their names.
Like one protester said…they plan to get arrested, then they’ll be let go 24 hours later, and they’ll start up again. NYPD did such an awesome job last night and it’ll all be for nothing.
That's why the students who were arrested need to be expelled and the professors who were arrested need to be fired. Getting arrested is a badge of honor for these people. Losing employment and future employment prospects is a much more substantial punishment.
While I agree with you I think it is a bit more nuanced than that. I used to own/run a fast food restaurant and employed high school students. Occasionally a parent would show up and tell me, "if they mess around and don't do what you want them to do, call me and I'll fix it." I would let the know that I appreciate the idea but the fact that they would actually tell me that means that there is no way their kid would be anything but a solid employee. Same thing goes here; if the university administration had the stones to actually expel students and fire tenured professors this would not be happening. In a way it's "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." In general, people will not mess with leaders who hold people accountable. They will almost always disregard leaders who don't.
You make a good point. Badly behaved children (which is what most of these protesters are) will push and push and push as long as adults give in to them.
Yes, arrest and expel 2-3 at each college and this nonsense stops everywhere.
100%
In America, if you criticize Israel, you get arrested - but not for long enough.
Or it will turn into CHAZ - New York City.
As much as I would love to see them forced to eat gluten and run out of tampons, the other students and local residents should not have to put up with this. I'm glad the police finally intervened. The photo above with the janitor says it all.
I would not be surprised if the College finally called the cops because that is what the protestors wanted. I mean, why wait this long?
I hate that I can think something so cynical and still have a good chance of being right.
That’s a great solution if they’re not interrupting classes or barring other students from what they need to do. It’s like letting a child with a temper tantrum lay on the floor and flail around ridiculously while you walk away and pay no attention to them. I think one of the things they’re looking for is attention and if no one gave it to them, they’d get bored and move on to some other shiny object.
Self immolation has become quite trendy.
If they hadn’t started destroying the building I’d agree with you. At that point it becomes an issue for the police
If the mayor had any guts, or smarts, he would have used the police to establish a perimeter. No one new gets in, only people who want to leave are granted permission. No reentrance. That means no food or drink allowed in.
Let the children cannibalize themselves.
Lord of the Flies
No. That will not do.
In America, if you criticize Israel, you will be arrested.
Much of this is Antifa and SEIU commies. You can always tell - they are life's seedy miscreants and losers, and look it. Imagine the bleakness of that 60-year-old woman's pathetic life.Then there are the paramilitary costumes and the awful gray- black jeans. I honestly don't think the arrogant, spoiled woman demanding snacks is fit for non-communist or communist society. If life were fair, and it is not, she'd be on a plane to Gaza, where she can fight side by side with Hamas, live under their rules, and, best of all, demand they bring her snacks.
Allah Snackbar?
Underrated comment
I'll try harder next time
Pure gold.
That's a banger, thank you. When I read FP comments it's often disappointing - too much vitriol, few constructive comments, not enough humor. Keep up your good work.
Some of the outside organizers of these protests came from organizations with lots of money. Ie: CAIR. And some Muslim entrepreneur who recently sold his software company. There was an article abt him back in Dec.
To use a word I now hate, it's systemic. It's the whole ball of wax, beginning with the choreographers of all of this, the so-called professors now denouncing Columbia for clearing out the buildings. As far as I tell, they are de facto enemies of the state. It's clear the higher education system has been infiltrated. Palestinians --students and professors --are disproportionately represented and it's all amplified by intersectional ideology. It's dangerous. Sectors of higher ed are compromised, unable and unwilling to deliver education based on liberal principles, the Enlightenment, and we need to come up with a plan to fix it. That's what Americans do --we fix things. And we build things. We've got to tackle a lawless and hateful assault on who and what we stand for, and that sure as hell isn't Hitler, Part Two.
"To use a word I now hate, it's systemic."
- No such thing as systemic racism. It's a myth/lie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
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i also read soros money is supporting it
You forgot BLM, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sybrZXnWx60
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Yes. I was struck by the sight of that woman, who has been dedicated to destruction her entire life, call those two young men "assholes". She's probably their grandmothers' age. What an evil, pathetic human being.
I meant SCIU.
Why is it that if Palestinian protesters really, really, care about Palestinians, not one has called for Hamas to lay down its arms, surrender and release the hostages?
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib@afalkhatib on X , a Gazan who is an American citizen who has lost many close relatives in this war has been posting his anguish at the lost opportunity to help Gazan Palestinian.These pro terror supporters on campuses have squandered so much good will that should have been used to pressure Hamas to release the hostages and surrender.He is a smart advocate for a pragmatic peace and a voice worth listening to.
Another Gazan who only recently escaped the war is Hamza@HowidiHamzaon X . He was tortured by Hamas. https://www.newsweek.com/message-gazan-campus-protesters-youre-hurting-palestinian-cause-opinion-1894313This is the link to his recent op-ed published by Newsweek.
If only we could boost these Palestinian voices
Mosab Hassan Youseff is another sane voice on this issue. Jordan Peterson has a great interview with him.
Yes Yes. Mosab is truly a prince. His recent discussion with Jordan Peterson was superb.
He did a debate against Marc Lamont Hill in California . He himself paid Hill 20000$ to debate. Mosab said no one would agree to debate with him, Hill agree but for the money.
He is a staunch supporter of Israel beyond just being against the Hamas and other terror factions. The two that I mentioned are anti Hamas,.Ahmed F Alkhatib is very critical of Israel knows peace will have to be made.mI keep trying to find intelligent thoughtful Palestinians that have a vision for path to peace.
Most that I’ve encountered truly believe Israel must be dissolved
Einstein Wilf is an Israeli intellectual from the left peace side who is also someone people interested in the conflict that I hope people will read
This is the problem. I believe most Israelis are open to peace if security can be maintained for Israel. On the other hand, most of the Arabs want Israel eradicated.
As time goes on , the Israeli Right is growing in numbers and thereby political strength.. Many in that camp don’t believe that the majority of the Palestinians want peace at all. West needs to acknowledges this very real probability and deal with it. To expect Israelis to be of the same mindset as they were in 1948, or 1967 or 1973, or 2003, or after pulling all Jews out of Gaza, or after all the years of relentless shelling of civilian towns, is not realistic.
I certainly don’t blame them.
All these Islamofascists and Socialist fascist scum are adults, not "kids", and should face prosecution with the penalties ranging from 6 months jail time in Rikers to execution for the leaders. And if there is a GoFundMe for that janitor, please advise.
Not likely in NY, they rarely arrest charge or prosecute criminals. Catch and release with a gift card.
Not for white people. Look at Daniel Penny.
That's the thing with these folks. They think that because they have "white privilege", that they won't get in trouble or face any consequences.
Of course, they'll get bailed out and go back to doing this stuff, but the charges won't be going away
https://twitter.com/RepDonaldsPress/status/1785630408018710681/video/1
Yes I think he deserves a medal and award money at least!! I am in!
At UCLA the student protestors are flagrantly blocking Jews from crossing barriers to attend classes. Multiple protestors physically and. verbally assault Jews all over the country and at other campuses. In NYC a woman screams at the camera. “Jewish women are too ugly to rape … maybe with a condom.”
These protests are about straight-up Jew-hatred, support for Palestinian terrorism, and the unstable, deranged nature of the protestors. It always has been and always will be. Anyone who asserts otherwise is lying.
And yet...... I bring up something I have written countless times on TFP......
WHY DO JEWISH AMERICANS CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THE POLITICAL PARTY THAT CONTINUES TO OPENLY HARBOR SUCH HATE FOR THEIR PEOPLE? WHY!!????
Because it’s their substitute for authentic Judaism.
Where are the anti-racists?
Why are the students who marched for George Floyd silent now?
They are chanting Hamas slogans in the Gaza Groupies encampments.
They're not silent. They are the ringleaders of these hamas loving idiots. They just found another cause, and know they can get away with it.
Imagine if these were blacks that were targeted.