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A day after canceling a scheduled speech by Ann Coulter for security reasons, UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said Thursday that the right-wing pundits insistence on coming anyway persuaded him to rethink her banishment.

An appropriate, protectable venue will be made available on campus May 2 not next Thursday, as originally planned he said, adding that he would disclose the location only after Coulter accepts the new date.

Thats not likely.

Hours later, Coulter shot down the invitation in a series of tweets and said she will speak at Berkeley on Thursday as planned not only because she cant do May 2, but THERE ARE NO CLASSES AT BERKELEY THE WEEK OF MAY 2!!!

Photo: Michael Tran / FilmMagic

Ann Coulter speaks onstage during The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe held at Sony Studios on August 27, 2016 in Los Angeles, California.

Ann Coulter speaks onstage during The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe held at Sony Studios on August 27, 2016 in Los Angeles, California.

UC Berkeley asked Ann Coulter to speak on the Cal campus May 2 instead of next Thursday, as was planned.

UC Berkeley asked Ann Coulter to speak on the Cal campus May 2 instead of next Thursday, as was planned.

Political commentator, author Ann Coulter attends The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe at Sony Studios on August 27, 2016 in Los Angeles, California.

Political commentator, author Ann Coulter attends The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe at Sony Studios on August 27, 2016 in Los Angeles, California.

Ann Coulter rejects Cal offer to switch date of speech

That week is Dead Week, a time when classes are suspended so students can study for exams.

Its at an awful time, said Naweed Tahmas, 20, of the Berkeley College Republicans student group that invited Coulter. Also, the last day of instruction is three days later.

Do not fall for b.s. Berkeley press release claiming they rescinded cancelation, Coulter tweeted. GOOD NEWS FOR CA TAXPAYER! You won't be required to pay $$$$ to compensate me & my crew for rebooked airfare & hotels. I'm speaking on 4/27.

Dirks rejected accusations from Coulter, the student Republicans and the national Young Americas Foundation that the university was infringing on their right to free speech by originally canceling the talk this week.

The university has an unwavering commitment to the First Amendment of the Constitution, Dirks said, adding that student safety is of equal importance.

He said campus police had uncovered threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker, attendees and those who may wish to lawfully protest the event.

Dirks said Coulters response to the cancellation that she planned to speak on or off campus next Thursday regardless of security concerns led him to ask his staff to find a protectable venue.

The location is not one we have used for these sorts of events in the past; it can both accommodate a substantial audience and meet the security criteria established by our police department, Dirks said at a hastily called news conference Thursday.

UC Police Capt. Alex Yao said, Our approach (to Coulters security) will be different than for the Milo (Yiannopoulos) event Feb. 1, when masked and violent agitators infiltrated a student protest of Yiannopoulos another right-wing pundit breaking windows, setting equipment on fire and shutting down his talk before it began.

Declining to offer specifics on security, Yao suggested that more police would be on hand. He said the Yiannopoulos protest and others March 4 and Saturday in Berkeley are causing police to look at how we staff.

Meanwhile, its unclear from Coulters tweets whether she intends to try to speak on campus or in the city of Berkeley on Thursday, and neither the Republican students nor the national Young Americas Foundation, that is paying most of her $20,000 speaking fee, responded to requests for comment.

An informal Chronicle survey of half a dozen event sites in Berkeley yielded not one that would or could have her.

Absolutely not, said Mirian Wolodarski Lundberg, co-manager of the 200-seat Finnish Lodge on Chestnut Street, when asked if Coulter could speak there Thursday.

The Finnish Hall was built in 1932 by immigrants, Wolodarski Lundberg said. Coulter, who was invited by the student Republicans to speak on immigration, is famously anti-immigrant. She also has labeled herself a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative.

Not only would we not agree with her politics, but we would also be concerned about the kind of crowds that she would attract, she said.

Nor could Coulter speak at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse on Addison Street, which has 490 seats. The Cowboy Junkies, a Canadian country-blues band, is playing that night, and I wouldnt consider canceling it for Coulter, said executive director Sharon Dolan.

Besides, Dolan said, the sites nonprofit status could be in jeopardy if it started hosting partisan speakers.

Other places booked Thursday: the 550-seat UC Theater, where a Beatles cover show is playing, and the Berkeley Repertory Theater, where Hershey Feder is playing Irving Berlin.

As for the 120-seat Berkeley Yacht Club, the Sierra Club has it that night.

And even if it didnt, there would be a riot problem to consider.

I would, obviously, have a slight concern about that, said the Yacht Clubs manager, Mark Sokolov.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov

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Ann Coulter rejects Cal offer to switch date of speech - Chron.com

By JOCELYN GECKER, Associated Press Published: April 19, 2017 5:41 PM CDT Updated: April 19, 2017 5:42 PM CDT

FILE - In this Feb. 12, 2011 file photo, Ann Coulter waves to the audience after speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. Coulter's planned appearance at the University of California, Berkeley on April 27 has been canceled because of security concerns. UC Berkeley officials say they were unable to find "a safe and suitable" venue for the right-wing provocateur, whom campus Republicans had invited to speak. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Ann Coulter fired off an angry stream of tweets Wednesday vowing to speak as planned next week at the University of California, Berkeley after campus officials called off the event for security concerns.

"I WILL BE SPEAKING NEXT THURSDAY," the right-wing commentator tweeted, calling the move to cancel her planned event on April 27 a ban on free speech.

Coulter was invited to speak at Berkeley by campus Republicans on the subject of illegal immigration. The event raised concerns of more violence at Berkeley, where masked rioters smashed windows, set fires and shut down an appearance by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos in February.

University officials sent the Berkeley College Republicans a letter Tuesday, saying that officials and campus police had determined they could not ensure the safety of Coulter, audience members or protesters expected at the event.

"We have been unable to find a safe and suitable venue," said the letter from Vice Chancellor Scott Biddy and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Stephen Sutton. "Given current active security threats, it is not possible to assure that the event could be held successfully."

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter Wednesday.

The cancellation comes days after violent clashes between far-right and far-left protesters Saturday at a rally supporting President Donald Trump in downtown Berkeley.

University spokesman Dan Mogulof said that campus police learned that some of the groups that appeared to be responsible for the violence last weekend and at the Yiannopoulos event "planned to target the appearance of Ann Coulter on campus."

Last week, posters went up on campus threatening disruption of the event and officials also found chatter on various websites indicating the possibility of planned violence, Mogulof said.

In its letter, the university said the students and officials could work together to reschedule the event for a later date. It noted that "most Mondays and Tuesdays in September during the day should work."

Coulter posted eight tweets in a span of 17 minutes after reports of the cancellation surfaced Wednesday. She called claims of the university trying to set up an alternate date "FAKE NEWS!"

The event was being co-organized by a campus group called BridgeCal and the Young America's Foundation, a conservative group that books Coulter's campus speeches.

"We have no intention of acceding to these unconstitutional acts," the Young America's Foundation said in a statement. "The Ann Coulter lecture... will go forward."

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Ann Coulter vows to speak at Berkeley despite cancellation - NewsOK.com

New York Times

Berkeley Cancels Ann Coulter Speech Over Safety Fears New York Times Ann Coulter in February. After the cancellation was announced on Wednesday, Ms. Coulter posted a Twitter message that no school accepting public funds can ban free speech. Credit Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. SAN FRANCISCO The University of ... Berkeley cancels conservative firebrand Ann Coulter's speech over fears of more violent protestsWashington Post Ann Coulter vows to speak at Berkeley despite cancellationABC News Berkeley cancels Ann Coulter lecture, but she's coming anywayWashington Examiner TIME -USA TODAY -Hollywood Reporter all 53 news articles »

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Berkeley Cancels Ann Coulter Speech Over Safety Fears - New York Times

Modesto Bee

Four GOP leaders will skip Ann Coulter's visit next week to Modesto Modesto Bee Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter has the right to speak her mind, four Republican leaders said at Monday night's town hall meeting in Turlock. And they all plan to be elsewhere when she visits the area April 28. The Coulter question came up during ...

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Four GOP leaders will skip Ann Coulter's visit next week to Modesto - Modesto Bee

She was one of the Iraq Wars loudest pundit proponents during the Bush administration. But a decade later, those pro-war cheers have turned to protest chants against any escalation in the Middle East.

Anyone old enough to remember the height of the Iraq-War carnage of the early Bush years can recall images and audio of Ann Coultera right-wing columnist and longtime cable-news fixtureappointing herself one of the countrys loudest, most flamboyant war defenders and cheerleaders in national media. Coulters 2003 bestselling book was, after all, titled, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, and in November 2005 bashed the Democrats as gutless traitors.

But just two short administrations later, Coulters Iraq-occupation fandom has melted into an America First aversion to further military meddling in the Middle East. Its a tone and posturing that would make her onetime neoconservative allies and fanboys wince and side-eye.

But only until fairly recently, she had yet to alter her tune on the war in Iraq.

I think Iraq was a crucial part of the war on terrorismif you had to choose between Iraq and Afghanistan, Id take Iraq over Afghanistan, Coulter said on a Fox Business panel, debating anti-war libertarians, in late 2011. PATRIOT Act, fantastic, Gitmo, fantastic, waterboarding, not bad, though [even harsher] torture wouldve been better.

Coulter went on to tell a bewildered John Stossel and Matt Welch that [Iraq] is a fantastic country for regime change, that torture works beautifully, and that position regarding potential blowback or unintended negative consequences to the war were merely a crazy ACLU argument.

Read a syndicated Coulter column from President George W. Bushs first term, you will more than likely find her chiding treasonous Democratic politicians and liberals for being soft on terror and dictatorshipDemocrats werent interested in liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from woman-hating Islamicist fanatics, she wrote, bashing John Kerry and boosting Bush, in July 2004 at the tail end of the Democratic National Convention.

As the war raged on into the closing years of the Bush presidency, Coulter was still calling for more bombing, bigger war, and much less regard for civilian life. Maybe we could fight the [Iraq] war a little harder, she said on MSNBC in June 2007. [We should be] a little less worried about civilian casualtiesId rather have their civilians die than our civilians die.

You stop [fanatics] by bombing their society, Coulter emphasizedindiscriminately, even.

Flash-forward a little over a decade later, and she couldnt be less enthused about overseas bombing. Coulter was one of the earliest and most vociferous supporters of Trumps insurgent presidential campaign, campaigning for him and regularly trying to drum up support for him, even in Hollywood. She sharply broke with the president specifically on his decision to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian-military airfield earlier this month.

Glad hes not sending troops! [Trump] should fire Nikki Haley and Gen. McMaster, Coulter told The Daily Beast in an email exchange on Tuesday. Constant war was not the platform he ran on. To the contrary, he promised no more disastrous and expensive Middle East wars. Having those two loons ranting and raving about Assad and Putin would be like hiring Luis Gutirrez to run his immigration office.

Asked about her past, big-league support for what she might now call constant war or disastrous and expensive incursions, and if she regrets past support for these wars, she hedged a bit and pointed to her track record of opposing other military interventions.

I am well on the record as opposing most recent wars, Coulter wrote back. I was against Bush 1s Gulf War (in law school so no one knew, other than my friends), against Clinton meddling in the Balkans, against Obamas intervention in Libya and Egypt, FOR Afghanistan, but against [Obama] escalating in Afghanistan (what the fuck is the point of that?). So it was only the Iraq War I staunchly supported and my only regret about that was that this country then elected Barack Obama, who gave our victory away.

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President Obama, while dropping support for Egypts former dictator Hosni Mubarak during the 2011 uprising, did not intervene militarily in Egypt.

These positions are all overI dont have time to look them up for you, Coulter said, before pointing to past columns and speeches. Im all over in 2002-2003 supporting the Iraq War, but NOT because of WMDsthat was just to taunt The New York Times.

The Daily Beast asked Ann if this all means she now agrees that the war in Iraqwhich not too long ago she was still touting as a crucial part of the war on terrorismshould never have been waged in the first place.

YES! But not for the reason liberals say, she emailed.

Its true that no one should mistake Coulters selective anti-intervention positions or motivations as a defection to the anti-war leftism that she has spent years railing against as a fifth column in American society. On Tuesday, for instance, Coulter (who has been very active on social media this month opposing Trumps anti-Assad missile strikes) retweeted a tweet from VDare asking Evan McMullin: why are you so eager to send Americans to fight in Syria?

VDare is a white-nationalist, anti-immigration websitenot exactly the stuff of lefty anti-war dreams.

Still, some of Coulters recent pieces can soundif you isolated certain sentenceslike the musings of an activist college kid who just picked up her first copy of Howard Zinn.

War is like crack for presidents, she wrote in her column, published at Breitbart and The Daily Caller, last week. It confers instant gravitas, catapulting them to respectability, bypassing all station stops. They get to make macho pronouncements on a topic where every utterance is seen as august Trumps Syrian misadventure is immoral, violates every promise he ran on, and could sink his presidency.

Our enemiesboth foreign and domesticwould be delighted to see our broken country further weaken itself with pointless wars, she continued, referring to at least one of the pointless wars to which she once devoted her praise and efforts. Was America strengthened by the Iraq War? The apparently never-ending Afghanistan War? Vietnam? This is how great powers die, which is exactly what the left wants.

Coulter isnt done making the media rounds just yet, with regards to railing against more war in Syria. On Tuesday morning, Fox News host Sean Hannity emailed The Daily Beast that I have her on [my radio show] tomorrow about this topic if you want to tune in.

For Coulter, itll just be another day fighting the good fight against those she dubs the generals straight out of Dr. Strangelove trying to manipulate Donald Trump into starting World War III and toppling brutal dictators.

Someone get Ann Coulter 2004 on the line.

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Ann Coulter Said Anti-War Dems Were Traitors. Now She Says War Is Like Crack for Trump - Daily Beast