Tammy Bruce: First Amendment Archives

First Amendment Archives

Lott Feels the Wrath of Talk Radio

After Senator Trent Lott complained that "talk radio is running America," and that "we have to deal with that problem," I don't think it's an overstatement that many Americans were appalled. Last time I checked, "talk radio" was the last geniune Town Hall available to the American people, the manifestation of freedom of speech; a place where we could speak our minds and discuss the issues in detail. It is the voice of the sovereign.

And now, the Senate doesn't like that one bit. Well, we don't like Lott one bit and now Lott is finding that there are repercussions to what he, and every other Senate Monkey says and does.

Talk radio turns on Sen. Lott

U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., has managed to rile up some of his core supporters - conservative talk radio shows nationwide from Rush Limbaugh to Neil Boortz as well as local Mississippi stations - with remarks last Thursday blaming talk radio for the collapse of the immigration bill.

"Talk radio is running America," Lott said last week. "We have to deal with that problem." [...]

Flagged by the Drudge Report on the Internet, the two-sentence comment reported by the New York Times has inflamed radio hosts and helped propel a small group of about 30 immigration bill protesters to Lott's Jackson office Tuesday, including a few radio hosts, who delivered petitions against the bill. Monday night the Lott comments were debated on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes." [...]

Lott's office is downplaying the uproar over immigration, saying the minority whip wanted to get the Senate to act, not to get talk radio out of the picture. "Sen. Lott is one of the biggest talk radio participants," said Lott spokesman Lee Youngblood. "He's not going to do anything to pull the plug on talk radio."

Caroline Espinosa, spokeswoman for Numbers USA, a nonprofit group opposed to the bill, said she had done a number of interviews recently on talk radio and Lott's name kept coming up. "He doesn't like what talk radio is saying on this particular issue. I did a show in Colorado and they were offended that Sen. Lott was trying to shut the people up."

Punishment awaits.

Posted by Tammy · June 20, 2007 10:31 AM · Permalink · Comments (4)
Fed Incompetence | First Amendment | Radio

Hot Air Posts My O'Reilly Segment

UPDATE: Apparently the Hot Air post is only aportion of the interview. Hutsutraw from the MySpace page has been kind enough to post the entire 5+ minute segment at YouTube, which I have embeddedhere. Thank you Darlene.

***

Thanks to Ian at Hot Air for making the video available. I think the subject matter--the ability of Americans to have a legitimately honest media and the freedom to speak one's mind without being targeted for annihilation by the New Gestapo--is of special importance. All of us rely on being able to express opinions and ideas that may contradict the status quo, challenge authority or the ruling class. Inevitably, those actions will offend someone, either through sloppy remarks or ideas being labeled 'offensive' because they confront power at the source.

This renewed attack on talk radio specifically has never been about 'decency' or minorities being 'offended,' it's about one thing--the use of those arguments as slogans in an attempt to get Americans to 'buy in' to the idea that a Gestapo is needed to protect us from ourselves.

Europeans bought that argument in the 30s and 40s. Are we willing to go down that same road? I think not.

Thanks Ian for the coverage.

Kinky on Cowards

Not only is the attack on Imus a small part of a larger move by the Soros Gestapo to silence talk radio as quickly as possible before the 2008 primaries and election, it is a reflection of the rank hypocrisy of the men who make money hand over fist objectifying and denigrating women (of all colors) with so-called rap or hip-hop, also known as "urban music."

Imus is a straw man in this culture war; a war with an agenda to silence those who are unafraid of the left, who cannot be intimidated into pledging allegiance to the Soros/Clinton/Sharpton agenda of victimhood, hopelessness and malevolence.

In a column for the New York Post, Kinky Friedman has one of the most salient assessments of the situation so far, comparing Imus to those who attack him, and what his firing says of the people who advocated for it. Here's a snippet, but obviously, read the whole thing.

COWARDS KICK AWAY ANOTHER PIECE OF AMERICA'S SOUL

...There's no excusing Imus' recent ridiculous remark, but there's something not kosher in America when one guy gets a Grammy and one gets fired for the same line...

Political correctness, a term first used by Joseph Stalin, has trivialized, sanitized and homogenized America, transforming us into a nation of chain establishments and chain people.

Take heart, Imus. You're merely joining a long and legendary laundry list of individuals who were summarily sacrificed in the name of society's sanctimonious soul: Socrates, Jesus, Galileo, Joan of Arc, Mozart and Mark Twain, who was decried as a racist until the day he died for using the N-word rather prolifically in "Huckleberry Finn."...

Speaking of which, there will always be plenty of Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons around. There will be plenty of cowardly executives, plenty of fair-weather friends, and plenty of Jehovah's Bystanders, people who believe in God but just don't want to get involved. In this crowd, it could be argued that we need a Don Imus just to wake us up once in a while.

Rank Leftist Fascism at Ohio State

In my new book, "The New American Revolution," I explain how fascism can only spring from the Left; it is a framework that starts as an argument to elevate the oppressed, yet its true goal is to indoctrinate first its followers, and then everyone else, into accepting punishment of those who do not conform to the leftist worldview. This control and destruction of dissent is the foundation of fascism. It must be so, as the only way the Left survives is if it is able to condemn and silence its critics.

A case in point is brought to us by Ace of Spades with his exposure of some Ohio State University professors bringing a sexual harassment suit against a librarian. And why is this? Because the librarian sexually harassed them? Not quite. Librarian Scott Savage is facing that investigation because he recommended four books that do not conform to the leftist message, for a Freshman reading list. I kid you not.

And who are the offending authors and their books? The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian, The Professors by David Horowitz, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’or, and It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum.

The Alliance Defense Fund is on the case. Here's a bit of their report:

OSU librarian slapped with “sexual harassment” charge for recommending conservative books for freshmen

Officials at the Ohio State University are investigating an OSU Mansfield librarian for “sexual harassment” after he recommended four conservative books for a freshman reading program. ADF has demanded that OSU cease its frivolous investigation, yet the university is pressing forward, claiming that it takes the charges “seriously.”

“Universities are one of the most hostile places for Christians and conservatives in America,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David French, who heads ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom. “It is shameful that OSU would investigate a Christian librarian for simply recommending books that are at odds with the prevailing politics of the university.”

Scott Savage, who serves as a reference librarian for the university, suggested four best-selling conservative books for freshman reading in his role as a member of OSU Mansfield’s First Year Reading Experience Committee. The four books he suggested were The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian, The Professors by David Horowitz, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’or, and It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum. Savage made the recommendations after other committee members had suggested a series of books with a left-wing perspective, by authors such as Jimmy Carter and Maria Shriver.

Savage was put under “investigation” by OSU’s Office of Human Resources after three professors filed a complaint of discrimination and harassment against him, saying that the book suggestions made them feel “unsafe.” The complaint came after the OSU Mansfield faculty voted without dissent to file charges against Savage. The faculty later voted to allow the individual professors to file charges. [...]

Sexual harassment has been and remains a problem at schools and in the workforce. I personally have experienced it and sued because of it. At the same time, this is not the first time the left has co-opted an issue and twisted it--using new law and awareness not to empower victims, but to punish those who do not pay allegiance to their worldview.

It is a disgusting situation, and every authentic feminist at Ohio State should be outraged that sexual harassment awareness has been hijacked and turned into a fascist weapon to silence a variety of ideas. Like the now casual everyday abuse of the accusation of racism by the Black Gestapo against those who dare to challenge the status quo, this tactic makes a mockery of sexual harassment itself. It also exposes how those who claim to be feminist, and today's leftists in general, have indeed turned the corner as they embody the rot of fascist theory.

Shame on them and may they fail at every turn. And may librarian Scott Savage prevail with the assistance of the ADF.

And before you jump to conclusions that it was women who filed the complaint, apparently not. Volokh points out that it's gay men who feel 'harassed' because Kupelian's "The Marketing of Evil" is supposedly anti-gay, and consequently creates a "hostile environment" simply because it exists. Volokh expands.

Now my phrase "Gay Gestapo" becomes even more clear, doesn't it?

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Lott Feels the Wrath of Talk Radio

Hot Air Posts My O'Reilly Segment

Kinky on Cowards

Rank Leftist Fascism at Ohio State