What You Heard About Notre Dame Graduates Walking Out on Pence Is Wrong!

Independentsentinel.com  "The media is misreporting the story of the Notre Dame graduates who walked out on Vice President Michael Pence as he prepared to give his commencement speech. There is much more to the story.

"It’s fake news.  

"Unfortunately, some of the graduates of Notre Dame, who didn’t want Vice President Mike Pence to speak, walked out as you’ve heard. Mainstream media talking heads are gloating over it, but they aren’t telling you the whole truth.

"You’ve been told by the media that 200 students and families walked out and the audience loudly booed Mike Pence.

"About 50 to maybe 75 students walked out, though CNN said it was 200. If families left as CNN reported, it wasn’t obvious. The booing wasn’t for Pence, it was for the rude students who walked out with the encouragement of the idiot adults teaching their classes and possibly the adults at home.

"That was one expensive education wasted. They protested free speech. The Vice President’s speech was about the importance of free speech.

"When VP Pence concluded his speech, most of the graduates stood and applauded. No doubt many were not supporters but they were either pleased with his speech or they wanted to counter their rude classmates." . . .

African American Caucus leaders want to know why U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters was cut off during state convention speech

LA Times

"The head of the California Democratic Party African American Caucus said Monday he was working with state party officials to determine who was responsible for cutting off the sound to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters' microphone as she spoke to the group at the party's convention on Saturday.

" 'This is a very unusual situation, and we are collectively trying to figure out a path forward to address what happened and make sure these things do not happen in the future," Caucus Chairman Darren Parker said.

"Waters, a Los Angeles Democrat whose acerbic comments on President Trump have brought her national attention in her 14th term, was in the middle of a rousing speech against Trump on Saturday night when she was approached by a man who appeared to work for the convention center. 

" 'Hey, leave her alone," audience members shouted as he interrupted to speak to her privately, prompting Parker to show the man away.

" 'That's all right, that's OK — they try to shut me up all the time," Waters quipped to loud cheers as she continued to speak. " . . .

School: Praying for a Colleague is Unacceptable

Todd Starnes  "A school worker in Augusta, Maine was ordered to stop using religious phrases like “I will pray for you” and “You were in my prayers” because such language is not allowed inside a public school building – even in private conversations with coworkers.

    "The Augusta School Department launched an investigation of Toni Richardson after they alleged she “imposed some strong religious/spiritual belief system” towards a coworker.

    "Now, imposing your religion on someone is a serious allegation. Was Ms. Richardson forcing her coworker to convert to Christianity? Did she attempt to baptize him against his will?

    "It turned out to be nothing of the sort.

    "According to an official memorandum from the school district, Ms. Richardson had told a colleague that she was going to pray for him. It just so happens that Ms. Richardson and the colleague attended the same church.

Back in 2016, the colleague had been having a difficult time adjusting to his new job and Ms. Richardson did what most Christians would do – she told him that she would be praying for him.

    "Months later, the colleague and Ms. Richardson had a falling out – leading to the complaint about the prayers.

    "The district sent Ms. Richardson a “coaching memorandum” – warning her that such language is not acceptable – “even if that other person attends the same church as you.”

    "She was not even allowed to use the word “blessing.”

 “In the context of the ‘separation of church and state,’ this case prohibits public school-sponsored religious expression,” the memo read. “Therefore, in the future, it is imperative that you do not use phrases that integrate public and private belief systems when in the public schools.”

    "She was also specifically ordered not to make any “reference to your spiritual or religious beliefs.”

    "The district warned her that any additional infractions could lead to disciplinary action or dismissal.

    “ 'I was shocked that my employer punished me for privately telling a coworker, ‘I will pray for you,’” Ms. Richardson said. “I’m afraid I will lose my job if someone hears me privately discussing my faith with a coworker.”

"Sweet Lord Almighty, America!" . . .

This Professor Resigned Rather Than Go to Diversity Training

"It's hard to figure out what's more appalling about this episode: the ease with which powerful faculty members can strip their colleagues of their ability to do their jobs just because those colleagues exercise free speech and don't sign on to their ideological priorities—or the increasing power of bloated university bureaucracies, especially "diversity" bureaucracies over every facet of existence at a university that is supposed to be devoted to the life of the mind."

Weekly Standard

Paul Griffiths was an esteemed professor at Duke before facing disciplinary action.

You're in your early 60s, and you hold an endowed-chair professorship at Duke University's prestigious divinity school, where your specialty is Catholic theology, and where the subjects of the courses you teach include a range of religious and secular philosophers from Augustine of Hippo to Wittgenstein. You've also written 10 scholarly books as sole author and seven more as co-author or editor. Your endowed chair is the capstone of a distinguished academic career that includes teaching stints at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. 

"And then you get a mass email—in early February of this year—from one of your younger professor-colleagues. It says:

On behalf of the Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee, I strongly urge you to participate in the Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training planned for March 4 and 5. We have secured funding from the Provost to provide this training free to our community and we hope that this will be a first step in a longer process of working to ensure that DDS is an institution that is both equitable and anti-racist in its practices and culture. … We recognize that it is a significant commitment of time; we also believe it will have great dividends for our community. … Duke Divinity School will host a Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training on March 4 and 5, 2017, 8:30—5 pm both days. Participants should plan to attend both full days of training.

On behalf of the Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Standing Committee, I strongly urge you to participate in the Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training planned for March 4 and 5. We have secured funding from the Provost to provide this training free to our community and we hope that this will be a first step in a longer process of working to ensure that DDS is an institution that is both equitable and anti-racist in its practices and culture. … We recognize that it is a significant commitment of time; we also believe it will have great dividends for our community. … Duke Divinity School will host a Racial Equity Institute Phase I Training on March 4 and 5, 2017, 8:30—5 pm both days. Participants should plan to attend both full days of training.

"Uh-oh, a "training" session. Anyone who's ever worked for an entity with a human resources department knows what that's going to be like: two very, very long days of "workshops" in which overpaid "training" hucksters—sorry, I meant consultants—haul out the PowerPoint slides and waste your time with yada-yada about multiculturalism, structural racism, microagressions, and whatever else is in the social-justice-warrior weapons cache these days. The email continued:" . . .

Cartoon added by TD

The Obamas: The Kardashians 2.0

"The Obamas telegraphed their Kardashian tendencies over the years by inviting criminal rappers, who had to wear ankle monitors so law enforcement could keep track of them, to perform at the White House.  They embraced the Black Lives Matter thugs while, for eight years, they dissed the police.  We will thankfully not see any of that in the Trump administration.  The Kardashian administration is over, and the Obamas are free to fulfill their full Kardashian dreams of all that the Kardashians represent."

via: cartoonsmix.com

nowtheendbegins.

Patricia McCarthy  "One need not to have watched the long-running reality television show Keeping Up with the Kardashians to know what it sells, what it represents, or what it says about American culture.   Since its debut in 2007, the show is a sort of flashing neon light warning about the failure of our educational system and our intellectual and critical decline.  In short, the Kardashian family is an exercise in greed, materialism, shallowness, amorality,  superficiality, and the self-absorption that characterizes much of the millennial generation.  The family, in all its soap-operatic nonsense, is a sad commentary on the entertainment industry and its willingness to capitulate to the lowest common denominator of our selfie-obsessed society.  The characters are, as the saying goes, only "famous for being famous."

"Over the eight years that the Obamas were in the White House, they spent one hundred million taxpayer dollars taking luxury vacations all over the world.  Often Mrs. Obama traveled with her mother, her daughters, and a bevy of pals to the finest, most expensive destinations in the world on our dime.  The presidential family was never one for a small footprint.  No.  They lived like royalty while lecturing the rest of us on how we should live, how our hard-earned money should be redistributed to those who earned nothing." . . .

Case in point:
Obama to Honor Controversial Rapper Known for Cop-Killing, Misogynistic Lyrics  "Are you kidding me? What is this “artist” doing performing at the White House? Is there no shame, is there no decency left in America? Where is the liberal outage at someone who advocates killing cops performing at the White House? Under Obama, America has not just gone Socialist, we’ve gone ghetto.

“ 'First Lady Michelle Obama has scheduled a poetry evening for Wednesday, and  she’s invited several poets, including a successful Chicago poet and rapper,  Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., AKA “Common.” However, Lynn is quite controversial, in  part because his poetry includes threats to shoot police and at least one  passage calling for the “burn[ing]” of then-President George W. Bush." . . .

Welcome to CSU-S&M

thefederalistpapers.

Mike Adams  . . . "Under the current system, the only speakers members of Students for Life at CSU­SM hear are those they are required to subsidize, which are hired by administrators in the Gender Equity Center and the LGBTQA Pride Center. It should go without saying that members of the group disagree with the speaker viewpoints, which include advocating for abortion and sexually promiscuous behavior. Yet they are banned from bringing in their own speakers to present a contrary view.

 "I first learned about all of this last semester when Students for Life at CSU­SM applied for funding and invited me to speak on their campus about the issue of abortion. Unsurprisingly, ASI denied the funding request.

" That is when I put the students in touch with my old friends (and my former lawyers) at ADF.

"As of this writing, ASI continues to provide funding through mandatory fees to the Gender Equity Center and the LGBTQA Pride Center, allowing them to pay to bring numerous speakers to campus, giving voice to their own views on a variety of topics that conflict with those of Students for Life, including abortion and human sexuality.

"However, their chokehold on the marketplace of ideas will soon be broken and students at CSU­SM will be granted the right to bring in their own speakers with opposing viewpoints. In other words, CSU­SM has absolutely no chance of winning this lawsuit. " . . .