BERKELEY, CA—A protest at UC Berkeley turned violent Wednesday night into Thursday morning as hundreds of rioters set fires, assaulted people, damaged vehicles, and smashed storefronts. But in the midst of all the chaos: an inspirational moment. After beating a man unconscious for disagreeing with him, a masked protester pulled out a black marker and […] Read the rest of this entry »
UC-Berkeley Protesters Set Campus on Fire, Shut Down Milo Yiannopoulos Event
Robby Soave writes: Berkeley is burning tonight: the university campus that birthed the Free Speech Movement played host to a despicable display of violence and censorship Wednesday evening that culminated in the cancellation of a planned speech by controversial Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos.
Anti-Yiannopoulos protesters wearing black scarves over their faces hurled fireworks at the building where the alt-right leader was supposed to speak. They also tore down barricades and smashed windows. They used gasoline to start a significant fire on the street that threatened to engulf a nearby tree, and forced police to push people back.
“This is what tolerance looks like at UC Berkeley.”
— Mike Wright
Authority figures deployed rubber bullets and tear gas in an attempt to control the situation. A student who attended the event told me that it seemed like the majority of the violent protesters were not students, but older, masked rioters from the “antifa” movement.
A protester runs back after smashing windows during a protest against right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos who was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017. (Doig Duran/Bay Area News Group)
“This is what tolerance looks like at UC Berkeley,” said Mike Wright, a member of the Berkeley College Republican group that invited Yiannopoulos to speak. Shortly after he made this statement, smoke bombs were set off around him, and someone threw red paint at him, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
I have been evacuated from the UC Berkeley campus after violent left-wing protestors tore down barricades, lit fires, threw rocks and Roman candles at the windows and breached the ground floor of the building. My team and I are safe. But the event has been cancelled. I’ll let you know more when the facts become clear. One thing we do know for sure: the Left is absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down.
As I write this, at 10:00 p.m., the violence and chaos are ongoing. Yiannopoulos was forced to evacuate the campus. Read the rest of this entry »
The Breitbart News editor was set to deliver a speech inside a UC Berkeley campus building but hundreds of protesters began throwing fireworks and pulling down the metal barricades police set up to keep people from rushing into the building. Windows were smashed and fires were set outside the building as masked protesters stormed it.
The Berkeley Police Department said people threw bricks, smoking objects, and fireworks at police officers. University police locked down all buildings and ordered a shelter in place, and later fired rubber pellets into the crowd of protesters who defied orders to leave the area.
“This is what tolerance looks like at UC Berkeley,” said Mike Wright, a Berkeley College Republican member said as smoke bombs went off around him. Someone threw red paint on him. “It’s sad.”
Protesters argued that hate speech isn’t free speech, countering the university’s explanation — free speech — on why it had allowed the event to proceed even as students demanded that the university cancel it.
Yiannopoulos was invited to speak at the campus by the Berkeley College Republicans, a student group that was warned Tuesday by university officials that the event could result in the targeting of undocumented students. Yiannopoulos, an editor for the right-wing Breitbart News website, was expected to use the event in Berkeley to kick off a campaign against “sanctuary campuses” that have vowed to protect undocumented students as President Trump cracks down on illegal immigration.
Here’s a UC Berkeley ‘Antifa’ rioter attacking a female #Trump supporter, then beating a man with a flag-pole… pic.twitter.com/yWWmjXgXTW
Three lines of zip-tied metal fencing separated the crowd of protesters from campus police officers who had secured the building where Yiannopoulos was supposed to speak at 7 p.m. He had arrived earlier, escorted by security, and police said he had left the building after the protests erupted. Read the rest of this entry »
Her rap includes charges of contacting a minor for sex, sending harmful material to a minor with sexual intent and misdemeanor child molestation.
Tobias Salinger reports: A married 32-year-old California gym teacher and swim coach had sex with a boy who goes to her East Bay area high school, police said.
“This is an unfortunate situation that we are sure has generated anxiety and many questions within our community.”
Washington High School teacher Corine (Cory) Audiat was charged Wednesday with six felony sex crimes, including unlawful sex and oral copulation with a minor, according to Fremont police. School officials placed her on unpaid leave and said she would never teach in the district again.
Audiat and the teen carried on months of private conversations this year that became more and more inappropriate until they had sex, investigators said. Police arrested her on Thanksgiving.
“This case is a very unfortunate situation for our community,” Fremont police said in a statement. They asked members of the public to assist in keeping the victim’s identity confidential and to contact investigators with any information they may know about the case.
Officials at Washington High School in Fremont, Calif., said Audiat would never work at the school or in the district again. (CBS SF BAY AREA)
Police said they had received a tip the day before Thanksgiving about Audiat’s affair with the boy. Detectives said they quickly tracked the messages between her and the teen starting earlier this year and arrested her the following day.
Both police and Fremont Unified School District Superintendent Jim Morris said investigators do not believe there were any other victims, KPIX-TV reported. Washington High administrators notified parents of Audiat’s arrest in a letter Thursday promising to make counseling available. Read the rest of this entry »
Brent Baker reports: Fidel Castro, who died late Friday night, was a tyrant who oppressed Cubans and brought misery to many for several decades and while much of the breaking news coverage emphasized that reality, journalists on ABC, CNN and MSNBC – matching how too much of the media approached Castro for decades – couldn’t resist crediting him for supposed great advancements in education, literacy and health care.
“Castro ‘was considered, even to this day, the George Washington of his country among those who remain in Cuba’.”
On MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell insisted in a stock bio that Castro “gave his people better health care and education.” Appearing live by phone, she soon trumpted how Castro “will be revered” for “education and social services and medical care to all of his people.”
Along a similar theme, in an ABC Special Report during Nightline, Jim Avila maintained that “even Castro’s critics praised his advances in health care and in education.”
In a relatively tough report on Castro’s abuses, CNN’s Martin Savidge, in a pre-recorded bio piece, highlighted how “many saw positives, education and health care for all, racial integration.”
A meandering Brian Williams popped up by phone on MSNBC to ruminate and recalled how in his last visit to Cuba, in 2015: “You see the medicine system they are very proud of.”
ABC’s Avila went so far as to tout how Castro “was considered, even to this day, the George Washington of his country among those who remain in Cuba.”
Will AB2466 pass in the state Senate? Hint: in 2014, three state senators — more than 10 percent of the Democratic caucus — were charged with felonies. The state Democratic Party owns Sacramento, and it’s still not enough. Democratic lawmakers must look at jail and think they hit the jackpot: a captive audience of kindred spirits.
Debra J. Saunders reports: California lawmakers seem intent on making Sacramento the place where reasonable reforms, much like runaway trains, jump the tracks. In that no-speed-limit spirit Tuesday, the California Assembly voted 41-37 to allow convicted felons to vote in jail. (Yes, you read that correctly — in jail.) If Assembly Bill 2466 becomes law, the ACLU estimates that 50,000 adults will be able to vote behind bars. The state doesn’t trust these people on the streets, but they are welcome in the voting booth.
“If Assembly Bill 2466 becomes law, the ACLU estimates that 50,000 adults will be able to vote behind bars. The state doesn’t trust these people on the streets, but they are welcome in the voting booth.”
No need for that in California. In 1976, voters amended the Constitution to end the permanent disenfranchisement of felons. The California Constitution now reads: The Legislature “shall provide for the disqualification of electors while mentally incompetent or imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a felony.”
With such clear language, you would think that a measure to allow felons to vote behind bars first would have to go before voters as a constitutional amendment. But voters get no say thanks to an unholy alliance of California politicians, California courts and the ACLU. In 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Realignment Act, which mandated that low-level felons serve their sentences not in state prisons, but in county jails or under county supervision. It was Brown’s clever way of alleviating state prison overcrowding by moving felons to largely overcrowded jails.
In the county system, “it’s not called parole any more,” explained Assemblymember Melissa Melendez, R-Murrieta (Riverside County) who, like every other Republican member, voted against AB2466. Read the rest of this entry »
Charles C. Johnson reports: While implementation of the federal Obamacare exchange continues to prove vexing to the government, the private sector solved the problem more than a decade ago.
President Obama promised this week that the “best and brightest” will take over building the busted HealthCare.gov website because of widespread “glitches.” He might have consulted the half dozen insurance companies that built successful website before his presidency.
HealthAxis in Pennsylvania successfully launched a website offering health insurance in 19 states in…1998. Another company, eHealthInsurance in California, launched a site allowing thousands to buy health insurance in 1999.
Press releases for both companies stressed the ease with which applicants could enroll in the system, essentially offering what President Obama has claimed the exchanges would offer.
“eHealthInsurance.com offers consumers access to the leading plans at the very best prices, and they can enroll on-line quickly and confidentially,” said Dave Dias, General Manager of eHealthInsurance.com, in 1999. “The site gives people an easy way to purchase health insurance with no sales pressure or bias, just information.”
If Democrats are so convinced that President Obama will win, they why are they so depressed? Michael Medved on the scenario everyone’s ignoring—a Romney landslide
When leading pundits, pollsters and prognosticators seem to agree that the re-election of President Obama is all but inevitable, why do grassroots Democrats seem so anxious and depressed?
Supporters listen at a rally for President Barack Obama on November 1, 2012 in Waukesha, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)
If the president’s most ardent supporters feel soul-deep certainty that their candidate has richly earned another term in office, then how is it that they universally acknowledge that he’ll draw far fewer votes than he did as an untried freshman senator four years ago?
A revealing report by Joe Garofoli in the San Francisco Chroniclefound local liberals “so freaked out about the prospect of President Obama losing his re-election bid that they can’t sleep at night. Can’t talk about anything else. Can’t stop parsing the latest polls.” In a particularly alarming confession, one retired educator said she’s become “so distraught she can’t exercise.” David Plouffe, a top Obama strategist, found such panic attacks so common among his fellow Democrats that he’s even coined a name for the victims: he calls them “bed-wetters.”
In a sense, the recent media mantra about Chris Christie “rescuing” or “saving” the Obama campaign reflects the same sense of desperation about the president’s prospects. Why would a confident, successful chief executive who has masterfully concluded his triumphant term ever require rescue from the boisterous governor of New Jersey? If a few warm words about from a combative, partisan Republican look like a life preserver for Barack Obama, it would seem to suggest that he was, in fact, previously drowning…
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