Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Far-Left Hollywood actress to sue conservative publisher

Liberal Hollywood actress and darling of Planned Parenthood, Lena Dunham, is gunning for the Freedom Center and Truth Revolt --- and now I urgently need your help to build up our legal defense fund.

You might have read about it on the Drudge Report or seen it in The Hollywood Reporter, The Daily Mail, the Los Angeles Times, or People Magazine or any other mainstream media outlet...

Leftwing Hollywood feminist Lena Dunham is threatening to sue Truth Revolt and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, because we wrote an article in which we quoted her book, Not That Kind of Girl!

Who is Lena Dunham, you may wonder? She is the New Hot Thing-a leftist actress who is the darling of the liberal media; who has been one of Obama's most rabid backers; who has been in America's face as a supporter of what she calls "reproductive rights" and "female sexuality"; and who teams up with groups such as Emily's List and Planned Parenthood to try to tilt the playing field in favor of leftwing causes.

She's also a best selling author whose new book causes the flesh to crawl because, among other things, of the way it describes her relationship with her younger sister. This part of Not That Kind of Girl caught our eye, which is why we described it, using Dunham's own words, in Truth Revolt.

Without going into detail, I'll just say that it's very disturbing, especially coming from someone who has presented herself as so very progressive and such a critic of sexual abuse --- and in particular, a spokesperson against the right's fictitious War on Women.

Whether you want to call what Dunham wrote an admission of sexual abuse or just a very progressive view of sibling relations is up to you. What is not up for debate is that she wrote some bizarre and graphic passages that Truth Revolt quoted -- and the next thing we knew, we had a letter from her attorney, threatening suit for defamation.

In his "cease-and-desist" letter, Dunham's lawyer stated "Our client intends to vigorously pursue all possible legal remedies available to her . . . Remedies available to my client include, without limitation, actual damages to her personal and professional reputation which likely would be calculated in the millions of dollars [plus] punitive damages." The letter demanded that the story be immediately removed.

The letter also stated: "Demand is further made that you immediately print a prominent public apology and retraction at all media whereat you published the Story, stating that the Story is false, that you regret having published it, and that you apologize to Ms. Dunham and her family for having published it."

We refused to comply with these demands. In response to the attorney's threat, we stated: "We refuse. We refuse to withdraw our story or apologize for running it, because quoting a woman's book does not constitute a "false" story, even if she is a prominent actress and leftwing activist. Lena Dunham may not like our interpretation of her book, but unfortunately for her and her attorneys, she wrote that book - and the First Amendment covers a good deal of material she may not like."

Our lawyer advises us that we have a strong legal defense, based on the First Amendment, and we fully expect to prevail. But the costs of defending a case are high, and now we could be facing $250,000 in legal defense costs-a negligible sum for someone like Dunham, but a serious expense for us.

Lena Dunham is a very public figure that stars and directs the HBO show "Girls." She has made a career out of shocking her audiences and exploiting her celebrity to push hard-left causes. Her book is certainly fair game, as are questions about her sickening conduct with regard to her sister. That is what the First Amendment is for and what it protects.

Truth Revolt criticized Dunham. Dunham fired back on Twitter, and her sycophants in the media covered for her. But she didn't stop there. She decided, as leftists often do, that to silence critics is more appealing than simply utilizing her own freedom of speech under the First Amendment. People like Dunham want to be as "provocative" and "edgy" as they choose. But when anyone calls them on their conduct they want to unplug the microphone.

So, she ordered her attorney to issue this letter threatening suit. If she does sue, the Freedom Center and Truth Revolt are prepared to go to the wall in defense of free speech. Lawsuits can be incredibly expensive, especially when the other side is a major entertainer with millions in the bank and fellow Hollywood leftists urging her to silence a fearless conservative publication like Truth Revolt. But we will do what needs to be done to protect the First Amendment.

Via email.  You can donate to the defense here

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Salon sneers at the Military on Eve of Veterans Day, saying: 'It's been 70 years since we fought a war about freedom.'

It could be argued that America has faced no serious external threat to its freedoms since the war of independence.  But is that the point of past and present American military deployments?  In keeping with  the Leftist lack of feeling for others, the Salon writer is indifferent to attacks on the freedom of other people. People such as the victims of Hitler or ISIS are not worth defending, apparently

Salon.com has a funny way of honoring the military right before Veterans Day.

David Masciorta penned an offensive column Sunday titled, "You don’t protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy" with the sub-head "It's been 70 years since we fought a war about freedom. Forced troop worship and compulsory patriotism must end." The reaction on social media was swift and merciless. The Salon Twitter account used a shortened version of the column's sub-headline to promote clicks to its site:

At the risk of polluting this site with Mr. Maciorta's leftist ranting, let's just take a quick look at his "argument":

"One of the reasons that the American public so eagerly and excitedly complies with the cultural code of lionizing every soldier and cop is because of the physical risk-taking and bravery many of them display on the foreign battleground and the American street. Physical strength and courage is only useful and laudable when invested in a cause that is noble and moral. The causes of American foreign policy, especially at the present, rarely qualify for either compliment. The “troops are heroes” boosters of American life typically toss out clichés to defend their generalization – “They defend our freedom,” “They fight so we don’t have to.”

No American freedom is currently at stake in Afghanistan. It is impossible to imagine an argument to the contrary, just as the war in Iraq was clearly fought for the interests of empire, the profits of defense contractors, and the edification of neoconservative theorists. It had nothing to do with the safety or freedom of the American people. The last time the U.S. military deployed to fight for the protection of American life was in World War II – an inconvenient fact that reduces clichés about “thanking a soldier” for free speech to rubble. If a soldier deserves gratitude, so does the litigator who argued key First Amendment cases in court, the legislators who voted for the protection of free speech, and thousands of external agitators who rallied for more speech rights, less censorship and broader access to media."

Salon's choice of subjects got an immediate reaction on Twitter

More HERE

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Border Patrol Stripping Agents Of Their Rifles

The Obama administration loathes its own agents -- because they want to do their job

The News 4 Tucson Investigators have uncovered that some U.S. Border Patrol agents have lost a key part of their arsenal. And that has agents who patrol along the border here, extremely worried.

We learned that U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Offices of Border Patrol and Training and Development are inspecting the quality of agents’ M4 carbines throughout Border Patrol sectors nationwide. But agents tell us, some of those M4s have not been replaced. And, we’ve learned, agents are required to share rifles amongst each other.

“There’s a lot of agents that are pretty upset over it,” said Art del Cueto, president of the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector union. “We know it’s a dangerous job. We know what we signed on for but we want to have as much of the equipment as we need to perform the job.”

The M4 carbine is used by the U.S. military and by Border Patrol agents. It’s even used by the Border Patrol’s tactical unit, BORTAC. Agent Brian Terry was carrying the M4 when he was shot and killed in December 2010.

Del Cueto tells us that because some of those M4s have not been replaced, agents are pooling their weapons, which makes it difficult to personalize the settings on a rifle, such as the sights.

“The problem is they are now pool guns so what happens is instead of having their individual ones they have sighted in they’re having to use a pool weapon that you don’t know who used it before you,” del Cueto said.

Customs and Border Protection released a statement to the News 4 Tucson Investigators last week, stating: “CBP’s Offices of Border Patrol and Training and Development are jointly inspecting the serviceability of M4 carbines throughout Border Patrol Sectors nationwide. Some of (the) inspected M4 carbines were deemed unserviceable and removed from inventory to alleviate safety concerns. Inspections will continue to ensure the unserviceable M4 carbines are repaired or replaced for reintroduction into the field. No further information is available at this time.” ...

Prather believes removing some of the rifles maybe politically motivated. He says he was told that many of these guns are being removed for issues that are easily repaired like the firing pin and bolt.

He broke down a M4 as he spoke.

“This weapon is designed to be able to be in a battle situation, changed out rather quickly even so fast that modern weapons have areas to hold spare bolts,” he said.

That makes him suspicious that the agency could be disarming its agents.

The U.S. government has enough surplus weapons that every local yokel Sheriff’s department gets machine guns and armored vehicles on your tax dollars.  But the Border Patrol agents are getting their rifles confiscated by the Border Patrol.  It sort of makes you think that the administration is trying to cause an invasion, no?

So it’s worse that sending weapons South of the border to criminal cartels in an attempt to shore up the case for a demand letter to FFLs.  Now we want to ensure that agents who want to stop the criminals aren’t armed.  There’s your administration and your tax dollars at work.

SOURCE

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The Bureaucrats’ Secret Buying Spree

Oh, to be a bureaucrat in the U.S. federal government! What other jobs pay just as much or more than similar work done in the private sector, but with much, much more generous benefits? Which would appear to be even more generous than we previously knew, thanks to the discovery of a surprising new perk by Scott McFarlane of Washington, D.C.’s NBC affiliate, News4 I-Team: taxpayer-funded purchase cards with no accountability!

The federal government has spent at least $20 billion in taxpayer money this year on items and services that it is permitted to keep secret from the public, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team.

The purchases, known among federal employees as “micropurchases,” are made by some of the thousands of agency employees who are issued taxpayer-funded purchase cards. The purchases, in most cases, remain confidential and are not publicly disclosed by the agencies. A sampling of those purchases, obtained by the I-Team via the Freedom of Information Act, reveals at least one agency used those cards to buy $30,000 in Starbucks Coffee drinks and products in one year without having to disclose or detail the purchases to the public....

The I-Team, using the Freedom of Information Act, received a list of “micropurchases” made by the Dept. of Homeland Security at Starbucks vendors nationwide in 2013. The list includes dozens of transactions, including in Washington, D.C., and Maryland. Several of the purchases were made at an Alameda, California, Starbucks vendor and cost more than $2,400 each, just below the $3,000 threshold for which purchases need not be publicly disclosed. After reviewing the I-Team’s findings, Rep. John Mica (R-FL), chair of a U.S House Oversight subcommittee said, “When you have $10,000 being spent at one Starbucks by DHS employees in one city in six months, someone is abusing the purchasing permission that we have given them.”

Now, multiply that single abuse by a single federal government bureaucrat for spending $10,000 at a single Starbucks location by the federal government’s two million civilian employees, and that goes a very long way to explaining how the bureaucrats’ secret buying spree can add up to a bill that totals $20 billion dollars.

More HERE

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Anti-Israel Jews object to having a light shone upon them

In October 2014, 40 professors of Jewish studies published a denunciation of a study that named professors who have been identified as expressing “anti-Israel bias, or possibly even antisemitic rhetoric.” While the 40 academics claimed they reject anti-Semitism totally as part of teaching, they were equally critical of the tactics and possible effects of the AMCHA Initiative report, a comprehensive review of the attitudes about Israel of some 200 professors who signed an online petition during the latest Gaza incursion that called for an academic boycott against Israeli scholars.

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) is troubled that a group of largely Jewish professors denounced a study which had as its core purpose to alert students to professors who have demonstrated, in a public forum, that they harbor anti-Israel attitudes. Since the individuals named in the report teach in the area of Middle East studies, they are also likely to bring that anti-Israel bias into the classroom with them, and students, therefore, would obviously benefit from AMCHA’s report.

SPME questions why the 40 academics would oppose such a report of bias that indicates where professors’ stand politically, especially, as in this case, when those anti- Israel attitudes are extremely germane to their area of teaching, namely Middle East studies.

As AMCHA co-founder Tammi Benjamin noted, “I don’t understand why a professor has freedom of expression to sign a boycott petition and we don’t have freedom to say, "Look who signed the boycott petition".

More HERE

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