90 Miles From Tyranny

Last Thursday night down on Bleeker Street in Manhattan, the libertarian entertainment company We The Internet gathered to throw a bash celebrating its latest mini-documentary, and the launch of its “The Funny Thing About Hate Speech” tour. The 15-minute film, “5 Reasons We Need Hate Speech,” is a full-throated defense of free speech that is well-produced, very clever, and often quite funny. Both the documentary and the party were hosted by Lou Perez, We The Internet’s jocular impresario whose straightforward and aw shucks style cuts straight to the heart of the matter.

The party in a downtown club space was fun and festive, a gathering of free thinkers and iconoclasts. Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie was there (yes, he wore a leather jacket), and former American Civil Liberties Union head Nadine Strossen and author Zachary Wood joined Perez for a panel discussion. Among the questioners from the audience was journalist Jesse Singal, who appears in the film.

The documentary is now airing on YouTube and is linked below. The reasons it discusses for why we need hate speech, or more specifically need to not ban hate speech, are not particularly new. They focus mostly on how such bans not only make hate speech stronger, but that defining hate speech always winds up as a slippery slope that captures at its bottom a much wider range of speech than was ever intended.

What makes the film special, and is true of much of We The Internet’s work, is how difficult it is to pin down politically. Indeed one of the central focuses is European and to a lesser extent American efforts to criminalize or ban criticism of Israel.

In one of the film’s more humorous moments, Perez is on his way to interview a pro-Palestinian group at Fordham University that had been denied the right to organize. Before he arrives, he receives an email from them, explaining that in light of his previous controversial work, they were declining the interview. The irony was amazing. Those demanding free speech were declining this opportunity to engage in free speech.

While We The Internet is not conservative, and Perez insists the group attacks all sides, in this case the libertarian value of free speech overlaps considerably with...

How do you repay all the people that worked their way through college, paid off their debt and how do you repay all the parents that paid for their children's college?

You can't, the cost would be astronomical.

Free college would be worthless college, the current low quality of a college education would simply become an extension of the low quality, mal-education our children currently receive in public schools.

If you want to improve colleges and universities, fire communist indoctrination professors, and deport them to Venezuela.

President Trump Scores Another Economic Victory

Consumer spending increased by the most in more than 9-1/2 years in March, but price pressures remained muted, with a key inflation measure posting its smallest annual gain in 14 months.

The surge in consumer spending reported by the Commerce Department on Monday sets a stronger base for growth in consumption heading into the second quarter after it slowed sharply in the first three months of the year. Tame inflation, however, supports the Federal Reserve’s recent decision to suspend further interest rate increases this year.

Fed officials are scheduled to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday to assess the economy and deliberate on the future course of monetary policy. The U.S. central bank in March dropped forecasts for any interest rate increases this year, halting a three-year policy tightening campaign. The Fed raised borrowing costs four times in 2018.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, surged 0.9 percent as households stepped up purchases of motor vehicles and spent more on healthcare. Consumer spending edged up 0.1 percent in February. Data for January was revised up to show...

New York Times Reduces Ocasio-Cortez To A Sex Object And It Is Hilarious

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was just treated like nothing more than a sex object by the most unlikely of sources.

The New York Times published an op ed on Sunday that reduced all of the 29-year-old’s, admittedly bonehead ideas, to her looks.

“The men at Fox News have a sickly obsession with AOC, partly because they resent her cleverness, charisma and moral vitality, but mostly because they suspect that in high school she was one of those girls they had no hope of getting a date with,” The Times wrote in a tweet.

“I realize that this has become axiomatic on America’s excitable right. I know also that in this country we employ terms like ‘socialism’ with wanton indifference to historical details and conceptual distinctions.

“I grasp too that many among us truly believe that, say, a higher marginal tax rate or a public subsidy for poor children’s dentistry is only a step away from the gulags.

“And I am painfully aware that the male Fox commentariat nurtures its sickly obsession with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez partly because they resent her cleverness, charisma and moral vitality, but mostly because they suspect that in high school she was one of those girls they had no hope of getting a date with (though, really, she comes across as someone who could look past a face of even the purest suet if she thought she glimpsed a healthy soul behind it),” the author wrote.

The worst part about it was that the op ed itself managed to somehow be worse than the tweet which got destroyed.

If You Get Infected With This Disease, It Will Lead To Income Confiscation, Tyranny, Starvation, And Finally: Mass Murder.

Hero Army vet instinctively ran right toward shooter in synagogue, made him drop gun: ‘I scared the hell out of him’

A good guy with a gun.

Heroes are emerging in the aftermath of the tragic shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego last weekend. One of them is U.S. Army veteran Oscar Stewart, who served in the Navy from 1990 to 1994, then enlisted in the Army in 2001 after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

While worshipers took cover when shooter John Earnest started gunning people down inside the synagogue, Stewart leaped into action — fueled by a rage and an inner courage he didn’t know he had.

‘I Ran Toward the Gun Shots’

Oscar Stewart — now a construction worker — stood up and yelled at the shooter during his rampage, according to the Daily Caller.

“Get down!” Stewart yelled, according to several witnesses. “You motherf*cker! I’m going to kill you!” Stewart recounted:

“I knew I had to be within five feet of this guy so his rifle couldn’t get to me. So I ran immediately toward him, and I yelled as loud as I could. And he was scared. I scared the hell out of him.

Looking back, it was kind of a crazy idea to do, but I did it. I heard gunshots. And everybody got up and started trying to get out the back door, so I — for whatever reason — I didn’t do that. I ran the other way. I ran towards the gun shots.

When I came around the corner into the lobby area, I saw the individual with a gun, and he fired two rounds. And I yelled at him and I must have yelled very loud.

When I yelled at him he turned and looked at me, and he like froze. He saw me coming, and I was ready to do whatever I had to do to stop him.

He looked at me, and I must have had a really mean look on my face or something because he immediately dropped his weapon and turned and ran. And then I gave chase.”

‘It Takes a Good Guy with a Gun to Stop a Bad Guy with a Gun’

Stewart ran after the shooter into the parking lot and punched hard on his car.

That’s when a Border Patrol agent who’s a member of the synagogue ran toward the two, yelling for...

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Monday, April 29, 2019