Terminal Liberalism

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2 Kennedys Get Arrested After They ‘Incited Angry Mob’ At Police During Hyannis Port Party


Thank god, they didn’t drive over a bridge.
Via Chicago Tribune:

It was just last week that Democratic gubernatorial contender Chris Kennedy gave a speech regaling listeners with how his grandmother would occasionally grant tourists a tour of his family’s famous Hyannis Port compound.
But any visitors to a party at a nearby Hyannis Port, Mass., home in the early hours of Sunday would have witnessed a less charming drama — Kennedy’s brother Max and niece Caroline being arrested after allegedly “inciting … a mob,” according to a police report.
Chris Kennedy wasn’t at the party and the candidate won’t be commenting on his brother’s arrest, campaign spokeswoman Rebecca O’Halloran Evans told Chicago Inc. on Tuesday.
But a police report from the Barnstable Police Department likely makes embarrassing reading for the Kennedy family, and serves as a reminder that the decadeslong public fascination with the Kennedy clan could prove a headache as well as a boon to the candidate.
The police report alleges a “sweating” and “unsteady” Max Kennedy “immediately became angry” when an officer showed up at the residence, amid noise complaints Sunday night. Rather than accommodate the request to turn down music, guests turned the music up, the report says.
Then “(Max) Kennedy responded by now screaming incoherently at the wall,” according to the report. “When he hit the wall, he grabbed a wall cabinet (filled with glass valuables) and threw it, smashing the contents. I attempted to ask Kennedy why he was acting like this.”
As Max Kennedy was arrested, 10 people in the room surrounded the officer and yelled at him “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” according to the report. A small crowd that followed a handcuffed Max Kennedy and the cop out to a police cruiser was “out of control,” the report states.
Among the crowd, Max Kennedy’s 22-year-old daughter Caroline — Chris’s niece — tried to open the cruiser door, the report states, adding that the father and daughter had “incited this crowd into an angry mob.”
Following her arrest, Caroline Kennedy told cops, “I went to Brown and I’m a teacher, sweetheart!” before sticking out her tongue and bursting into tears, according to the report.
Keep reading…

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Bulletproof professor: Kevin Willmott protesting concealed carry by wearing vest in class

• Rebekah Lodos | @RebekahLodos
• Aug 30, 2017

Kevin Willmott, professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies, wears a bulletproof vest to class in order to spread awareness of the reality of campus carry laws.
Savanna Smith/KANSAN
Kevin Willmott, a professor of film and media studies at the University, taught his first class last Tuesday with a bulletproof vest over his clothes.
“Try to forget that I’m wearing a vest, and I’ll try to forget that you could be packing a .44 magnum,” Willmott said.
At the start of his Aug. 22 class, Willmott distributed a letter that said he is wearing a bulletproof vest to protest the new campus carry law. The law, which came into effect July 1, allows anyone over the age of 21 to carry a concealed weapon on University campuses.




“The disturbing part of the policy for me is that it is concealed,” Willmott said. “It’s kind of a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of a policy, and so, you’re just kind of expected to forget that they’re probably there. And in that sense, you’re kind of living in a lie.”
Willmott said the concealed nature of the law reminds him of a “nice/nasty” type of segregation practiced in Lawrence during the 1950s.
When doing research for his film “Jayhawkers,” which tells the story of Kansas basketball player Wilt Chamberlain, Willmott said the people he spoke to often had no knowledge of the racial segregation taking place around them.
He said that instead of large signs, businesses would opt for smaller signs that went unnoticed.
“And that’s what this policy is all about,” Willmott said. “They don’t want it to be visible, because if it was visible, if everybody was walking around with a bulletproof vest on, people would say, ‘Oh my God, is this a warzone? What’s going on here?’ And yes, it is a warzone. No one’s started shooting yet. Yet. But we don’t know how many people have guns.”



University faculty may follow lead of professors leaving due to campus carry



After the public resignation of University professor Jacob Dorman over the concealed carry policy put into effect on July 1, other professors share similar feelings.





Willmott said having guns “welcomed” onto campus can obstruct the free flow of ideas in classrooms when controversial topics like race and religion are discussed.
“As a whole, it just puts a damper on free speech for everyone,” Willmott said.
Braden Robinson, a junior from Wichita, was in the classroom when Willmott announced his gesture of protest. Robinson said he thinks Willmott’s gesture will be effective in reminding people about the reality of concealed carry.
“I have mixed feelings about guns. I don’t think they’re all bad. I can see the reasoning for wanting to carry one,” Robinson said. “But I just don’t think that a place that promotes free speech should have guns. That would definitely affect someone’s willingness to talk, especially if they have an opinion that might be unpopular.”
In a handout titled “Why I Decided to Teach in a Bulletproof Vest,” Willmott wrote that he sat down next to a Muslim professor during a recent open meeting about the new law. Willmott said the professor expressed her fear of this law, and said it would “affect free speech in her class.”




“Students are scared, professors are scared,” Willmott said. “I think even the administration is frustrated and feeling a little helpless right now. And so, for me, the vest becomes a way for this invisible gun to be exposed.”



Campus carry opponents plan to keep pushing, even with law in effect


For four years, dozens of faculty members, students, Lawrence residents and more fought agai…





The mental health of students can be at risk in college, and guns can make it worse, Willmott said.
“My father died when I was in college,” Willmott said. “Those kinds of things can cause depression, those kinds of things can cause changes in your mental outlook. And if a gun is then involved, those things can lead to tragedies.”
Willmott said he plans to wear the vest for at least a year. According to Robinson, none of his classmates expressed disapproval of the gesture.
“You know, I’m a filmmaker, and it’s like you’re living in a satire,” Willmott said. “You’re living in this kind of crazy satire where you’re teaching and people can have guns. I mean it’s crazy, it’s crazy. I don’t know how else to say it.”


Former Everytown Volunteer Blasts Organization Posted at 8:30 am on August 29, 2017 by Tom Knighton
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Kate Ranta was an Everytown Survival Fellow. She’d survived a gunshot wound inflicted by her then husband, and so she’d made it her personal crusade to rid the world of guns. Now, she’s blasting the organization she’d spent so much time and effort with.
Why?
Because Everytown for Gun Safety is a sponsor of the Fraternal Order of Police conference:

The gun violence prevention movement was thrown into utter turmoil this week after survivors and advocates learned that Everytown for Gun Safety has sponsored the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) conference for two out of the past three years (2015 and 2017). Everytown volunteers like me are now leaving the organization in droves, disgusted that our leadership would partner with an organization that has been a steadfast ally of the National Rifle Association and defender of racially-motivated police brutality. For too long, gun control groups like Everytown have implemented top-down organizational models that treat gun violence prevention advocates like servants and gun violence survivors like fundraising fodder, giving us little or no say in our own advocacy. That must end now.

See that? Note how she equates the NRA with “racially-motivated” brutality? Now, bear in mind that the FOP hasn’t actually defended racially-motivated anything. They defend police officers who, from time to time, may find themselves accused of racially-motivated police brutality. They would have stood behind those officers regardless of the races involved, only the news media wouldn’t have made such a big deal about them if the alleged victim hadn’t been a minority.
Let’s also note that the NRA hasn’t uttered a racist word.
None of that matters to Ranta. No, she prefers to take issue with things like sponsorships. It seems Everytown’s involvement wasn’t the only issue for her, however:

Nothing prepared me, however, for the Facebook post I saw this past weekend detailing Everytown’s financial support of the FOP. A friend of mine was looking at FOP’s website when she noticed that Everytown was listed as a sponsor of their upcoming national conference in Nashville — right alongside the NRA, First Tactical, and Beretta — the company that made the handgun my estranged husband shot me with. She immediately informed her online network of gun violence prevention advocates and survivors, including me.

Yeah, the nerve of people who need firearms to do their job accepting sponsorship from a firearms company like Beretta, who Ranta is still clearly holding a grudge against despite them having done nothing legally or morally wrong.
The reality here is that Ranta is a prime example of one of the biggest problems in our country.
She can’t tolerate the idea of anyone supposedly on her side associating with anyone she deems on the other. Everytown isn’t sharing a sponsorship with the NRA. It’s sharing sponsorship with a gun company and another company that makes tactical equipment. You know, stuff police departments need?
Let’s be honest, even if Ranta got her dream and Congress passed her dream legislation, the police would still need that gear. They’d need guns and they’d need tactical equipment.
But, apparently because both companies will sell to private citizens, they are unworthy of associating with.
Ranta claims she resigned her spot as an Everytown Survivor Fellow after something happened on Facebook.

On Thursday, I resigned as an Everytown Survivor Fellow after being blocked by the Survivor Network Facebook page for voicing my concerns about the sponsorship. My conclusion is that dissenting voices have no place in these organizations. You toe the line or you’re out.

Why do I suspect her “voicing” her concerns was more like the shrill harpy-like screech so common in American politics, and that was why she was blocked?
It doesn’t matter.
Ranta, however, is urging people to leave the Bloomberg-backed group and support smaller groups. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. Ranta and her ilk stand against our civil rights, and it doesn’t matter who they support, we’ll stand against them.

[Lenno]

"They didn't tell me I have to walk for hours on end!"
By Donald Sensing
Dedication to the cause: "It Only Took A Day For The March To DC To Lose Nearly All Of The Marchers"

The March to DC from Charlottesville, Va., started with nearly 200 marchers Monday, but by Tuesday morning there were only 35 marchers. ...

The overnight rains were enough to keep all but “about 35” from marching Monday morning, the day after the pep talk when police escorted the group from Emancipation Park downtown Sunday.

How far is it? Let's go to Google Maps:

The blue line is the route of the march, 117 miles. Planned for 10 days, it works put to just under 12 miles per day. Trained foot infantry do very well to march four miles per hour, but they are carrying all their stuff on their backs. As the article's photos show, the protest marchers are not carrying their own stuff: "the marchers will be provided with housing" along the way and motor vehicles transport bag and baggage.


But these are not trained marchers. They are not fit, at least not for a 100-plus miles march day after day. When they started, they would have done very well to make three miles per hour, and closer to two mph is probably more realistic. How many of them had ever walked 12 miles nonstop, or walked five to six hours straight?


About 35, maybe?


Well, it is a basically empty gesture that will change nothing anywhere, but will make the sponsors and participants feel good, I guess. I wonder how many will make it all the way. The first day is not the toughest. That will be day four, maybe five, when the joints and muscles below the waist scream in protest. That will be the real decision day for whomever is left. But I hope everyone stays safe and in good health.

The march's Twitter is here. I count 23 heads in their most recent group photo:

Update: This seems relevant:

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Inflexible Progressivism: The Rise of a New Dogma

devadmin July 17, 2017
As a young man coming from a left-wing pedigree, I embraced a liberal agenda which included most notably, a belief in Israel as a bastion of socialism and democracy. In the 1950’s a good progressive was a good Zionist.

Oh, how the world has changed. Now a progressive has moved 180 degrees to anti-Zionist position. As one wag put it, the Left is now the congenial home of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. One of the leaders of the progressive left recently said, “Nothing is creepier than Zionism.”

Linda Sarsour, the leader of the Woman’s March in Washington and a commencement speaker at the City University of New York clearly embodies the new spirit on the Left. She has praised Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, once anathema to liberals. She has honored Embrased Rasmesh Odeh, a terrorist murderer. She has spoken in favor of Sharia finance.

What is truly remarkable, and to some degree ideologically shattering, is that the New York Times wrote a fawning profile about this woman who challenges all liberal principles. She had the audacity to say that “the vagina of Ayaan Hirsi Ali should be taken away,” the same Ayaan who has worked so hard to promote women’s rights throughout the Muslim world. Yet the ADL defends Sarsour.

For the Left, Zionism has promoted Islamophobia – a false critique from the standpoint of Islamists. As a consequence, anti-Semitism is rendered a virtue, as a way to discourage negative sentiment about Islam. Yet even when the evidence of anti-Semitism is incontrovertible, the Left contends anti-Semitism is a figment of an hysterical, oversensitive imagination. For the most part, Jews are being systematically written out of the progressive agenda, even though they were responsible for that agenda in the first place. But why quibble.

This new age, already upon us, has sheltered many Jews from the harsh reality of contemporary progressivism. Jews still gravitate to a Democratic party led by two men (Perez and Ellison) avowedly anti-Zionist. In casual conversation, Jews will say Democrats represent grassroots movements and people. However, it is important to note the party of the hard Left is the government party relying on rules and mandates imposed by Washington DC bureaucrats. It no longer represents the blue collar worker who built the party during the New Deal.

At the Chicago “Dyke March” held recently Jewish Pride flags were banned because Jews “made people feel unsafe” and, after all, the march was pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist. The irony is that the Dyke March preaches inclusion and is billed as “anti-racist, anti-violent, volunteer-led grassroots mobilization and celebration of dyke, queer, bisexual and transgender resilience.” Yes, the march includes every permutation of homosexuality, but it does not include Jews, presumably these are the people found to be “offensive.”

In January 2016 a Shabbat service and reception for Jewish participants at a gay conference in Chicago was disrupted by hundreds of protestors who chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, pinkwashing has got to go.” Pinkwashing is a term to describe efforts by Israel to cover up its treatment of Palestinians by touting its strong record on gay rights. What the incident shows is that even on gay rights Israel will not be given the benefit of the doubt because anti-Zionism trumps homosexual acceptance.

That progressives would find common quarter with Islamists is the shocking part of this ideological evolution. Obviously, secularism has played a role for many Jews. But the ADL’s support for CAIR is nothing short of jarring, despite the extent of Jewish secularization.

To have been a progressive and to see how the word and movement have gone through the cauldron of ideological change demonstrates the influence of Orwellian logic. Orthodoxy is liberalism, dogma is openness; Sharia is expansive. Who would have thought that the modern Jew would imbibe this logic? But as Norman Podhoretz noted in his splendid book, Why Are Jews Liberals? Jews are liberal because liberalism is the new religion of Jews.

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Actress Martha Plimpton: My First Abortion “Was My Best One”


Sick.
Via Life News:

What do you get when you put an actress who jokes about abortion in the same room as an abortionist who says he’s never killed a baby? Cheers, laughter and attacks on pro-life Christians. Or that’s what happened in Seattle.
In June, two media-beloved figures spoke at a #ShoutYourAbortion event in Seattle – but surprisingly the event went unnoticed by the media. Actress Martha Plimpton (The Goonies, The Real O’Neals) interviewed Willie Parker, a Mississippi abortionist and former Planned Parenthood medical director, on his Life’s Work memoir released earlier this year.
But Plimpton began with a different focus: her own two abortions.
“Seattle has some particular significance for me for lots of reasons,” she started. “I’ve got a lot of family here, some of whom are here in the audience tonight. I also had my first abortion here at the Seattle Planned Parenthood.”
“Yayyyyy!” she cheered, prompting the audience into applause.
“Notice I said ‘first.’ I said ‘first.’ And I don’t want Seattle – I don’t want you guys to feel insecure, it was my best one,” she joked, prompting laughter from both the audience and Parker.
“Heads and tails above the rest,” she continued on her abortion. “If I could Yelp review it, I totally would. And if that doctor’s here tonight, I don’t remember you at all, I was 19. I was 19, but I thank you nonetheless.”
Keep reading…