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There is certainly no shortage of examples of progressive attempts to silence unacceptable political speech. From Charles Murray to Ann Coulter to David Horowitz, the Left has upped its game when it comes to censoring, and in some cases even silencing, its political opponents. Some Yale students have even gone so far as to petition for a repeal of the First Amendment in its entirety.

Nobody, however, has done more to reveal the true nature of modern progressives illiberalism than Fresno State professor Gregory Thatcher. Thanks to cell-phone video and a timely complaint filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, Thatchers utter contempt for contrary political thought was exposed after he directed students to scrub pro-life messages that had been scrawled on campus sidewalks by the Fresno State chapter of Students for Life. This sort of mentality is endemic in American academia and increasingly in society at large.

A month prior to the incident, Students for Life e-mailed the appropriate authorities at the University, asking for permission to move forward with their chalking plans. Their request made clear that the plan would aim to convey different facts about development in the womb and celebrat[e] pregnant and parenting students hard work as they pursued their education with messages such as Support Pregnant and Parenting Students, Pregnant on Campus Initiative, and Know Your Title IX Rights. Ultimately, Fresno States Event Review Committee approved the request, just as it had approved many other similar requests in the past.

Pursuant to the approval, the students proceeded to chalk a sidewalk near Fresno States library on the morning of May 2. The messages included provocative statements such as love them both, choose life, save the baby humans, and unborn lives matter.

As seen in the video, after Students for Life chalked around three dozen of these hate-filled messages, students who admitted they had been deputized by Thatcher began scrubbing the sidewalk. Professor Thatcher then came rushing out to the pro-life students, demanding they put an end to the messages and directing them to an unidentified free-speech area. After the pro-life students informed him that they had received university approval for their activities, Thatcher himself began scrubbing, and told the students, You had permission to put it down....I have permission to get rid of it....This is our part of free speech. As if that werent enough, Thatcher concluded by emphasizing that college campuses are not free-speech areas.

Let that sink in for a moment: College campuses are not free-speech areas. If Thatchers right about that, its only because he and his progressive ilk have succeeded in perverting the sacred academic mission of free and open inquiry beyond recognition. Thankfully, they dont seem to have thus succeeded at Fresno State, which in the wake of the incident reaffirmed its policy that freedom of expression is allowed in all outdoor spaces on campus, essentially throwing Thatcher under the bus.

More important than the incidents specifics are what it reveals about the mindset of progressives such as Thatcher. Not only did he think he had the duty to erase messages he deemed offensive, he deputized students as censors to more efficiently fulfill that duty. Instead of encouraging pro-choice students to write their own messages alongside the pro-lifers, as would have been entirely appropriate, Thatcher exhorted his young charges to erase the pro-life messages and then chalk pro-choice ones in their place. Instead of engaging in a war of ideas, progressive such as Thatcher demand that contrary views must be silenced, lest innocent snowflake students be triggered by such provocative messages as, A person is a person, no matter how small. (Who knew Dr. Seuss could be so upsetting?)

Of equal importance is Thatchers distorted view of the powers that the First Amendment bestowson a political opponent. Though there is no more sacred a right then ones ability to express a political message, that right does not empower one to silence political messages one does not agree with. The Supreme Courts jurisprudence on the question of a hecklers veto is mixed, but as the ADFs complaint notes, Thatchers actions censored the content and viewpoint of Plaintiffs expression. (Fresno State appears to concur, noting that those disagreeing with the students message have a right to their own speech, but they do not have the right to erase or stifle someone elses speech under the guise of their own right to free speech.)

Thatchers mindset is, unfortunately, far from unique. On campuses across the country, the same illiberal attitude toward disagreeable speech is growing, and the broader public must take notice. As Nebraska senator Ben Sasse put it at a recent Federalist Society event, The idea that any American could think the First Amendment might go too far means that we as a people havent done the first things of teaching it.

We as Americans can and must do better to protect the vibrant and free exchange of ideas.

READ MORE: Liberal Bullies Threaten Free Speech Potemkin Universities: Breaking Faith with a Legacy of Free Inquiry The Roots of Campus Progressivisms Madness

Jake Curtis is an associate counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Libertys Center for Competitive Federalism.

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The Campus Speech Police Come to Fresno State - National Review

The Trump administration has already done enormous harm to the United States and the planet. Along the way, Trump has also caused many prominent progressives to degrade their own political discourse. Its up to us to challenge the corrosive effects of routine hyperbole and outright demagoguery.

Consider the rhetoric from one of the most promising new House members, Democrat Jamie Raskin, at a rally near the Washington Monument over the weekend. Reading from a prepared text, Raskin warmed up by declaring that Donald Trump is the hoax perpetrated on the Americans by the Russians. Soon the congressman named such varied countries as Hungary, the Philippines, Syria and Venezuela, and immediately proclaimed: All the despots, dictators and kleptocrats have found each other, and Vladimir Putin is the ringleader of the unfree world.

Later, asked about factual errors in his speech, Raskin floundered during a filmed interview with The Real News. What is now boilerplate Democratic Party bombast about Russia has little to do with confirmed facts and much to do with partisan talking points.

The same day that Raskin spoke, the progressive former Labor Secretary Robert Reich featured at the top of his website an article hed written with the headline The Art of the Trump-Putin Deal. The piece had striking similarities to what progressives have detested over the years when coming from right-wing commentators and witchhunters. The timeworn technique was dual track, in effect: I cant prove its true, but lets proceed as though it is.

The lead of Reichs piece was clever. Way too clever: Say youre Vladimir Putin, and you did a deal with Trump last year. Im not suggesting there was any such deal, mind you. But if you are Putin and you did do a deal, what did Trump agree to do?

From there, Reichs piece was off to the conjectural races.

Progressives routinely deplore such propaganda techniques from right-wingers, not only because the left is being targeted but also because we seek a political culture based on facts and fairness rather than innuendos and smears. Its painful now to see numerous progressives engaging in hollow propaganda.

Likewise, its sad to see so much eagerness to trust in the absolute credibility of institutions like the CIA and NSA -- institutions that previously earned wise distrust. Over the last few decades, millions of Americans have gained keen awareness of the power of media manipulation and deception by the U.S. foreign-policy establishment. Yet now, faced with an ascendant extreme right wing, some progressives have yielded to the temptation of blaming our political predicament more on a foreign enemy than on powerful corporate forces at home.

The over-the-top scapegoating of Russia serves many purposes for the military-industrial complex, Republican neocons and kindred liberal interventionist Democrats. Along the way, the blame-Russia-first rhetoric is of enormous help to the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party -- a huge diversion lest its elitism and entwinement with corporate power come under greater scrutiny and stronger challenge from the grassroots.

In this context, the inducements and encouragements to buy into an extreme anti-Russia frenzy have become pervasive. A remarkable number of people claim certainty about hacking and even collusion -- events that they cannot, at this time, truly be certain about. In part thats because of deceptive claims endlessly repeated by Democratic politicians and news media. One example is the rote and highly misleading claim that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies reached the same conclusion about Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee -- a claim that journalist Robert Parry effectively debunked in an article last week.

During a recent appearance on CNN, former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner offered a badly needed perspective on the subject of Russias alleged intrusion into the U.S. election. People in Flint, Michigan wouldn't ask you about Russia and Jared Kushner, she said. They want to know how theyre gonna get some clean water and why 8,000 people are about to lose their homes.

Turner noted that we definitely have to deal with allegations of Russian interference in the election, its on the minds of American people, but if you want to know what people in Ohio -- they want to know about jobs, they want to know about their children. As for Russia, she said, We are preoccupied with this, its not that this is not important, but every day Americans are being left behind because its Russia, Russia, Russia.

Like corporate CEOs whose vision extends only to the next quarter or two, many Democratic politicians have been willing to inject their toxic discourse into the body politic on the theory that it will be politically profitable in the next election or two. But even on its own terms, the approach is apt to fail. Most Americans are far more worried about their economic futures than about the Kremlin. A party that makes itself more known as anti-Russian than pro-working-people has a problematic future.

Today, 15 years after George W. Bushs axis of evil oratory set the stage for ongoing military carnage, politicians who traffic in unhinged rhetoric like Putin is the ringleader of the unfree world are helping to fuel the warfare state -- and, in the process, increasing the chances of direct military conflict between the United States and Russia that could go nuclear and destroy us all. But such concerns can seem like abstractions compared to possibly winning some short-term political gains. Thats the difference between leadership and demagoguery.

Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.

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Dangerous Discourse: When Progressives Sound Like Demagogues - HuffPost

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The coordinated rallies are callingfor an independent commission to investigate alleged collusion between the Trump administration and Russia, investigate whether Russia interfered with the 2016 elections, and call for President Trump to release his tax returns.

Part of a press release for the event states:

The firing of FBI Director Comey, bombshell news of memos that suggest Donald Trump attempted to influence an active FBI investigation, Senate testimony from John Brennan, Sally Yates and James Clapper, and revelations about the Trump administrations handling of information that Mike Flynn was compromised further underscore the need for urgent, well-resourced investigations. As Representative Elijah Cummings noted last week, this investigation represents a fight for the soul of our democracy.

The march organizers stated that they have several simple demands:

Congressional Representatives include Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Nydia Velasquez (D-NY), Brad Sherman (D-CA, Mike Quigley (D-IL), Al Green (D-TX), Robin Kelly (D-IL), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and Donald McEachin (D-VA) are reportedly among politicians attending the rallies. Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks will also attend, in addition to tyranny expert Timothy Snyder, and progressive political commentator Sally Kohn. Leftist Sharia law advocate Linda Sarsour andHamilton star Javier Muozwill also be present.

Marches are being hosted in over 130 cities.

According to theWashington Post, there will be a rally but no actual march in Washington, D.C. However, organizersreportedly plan to take anaerial photograph of protesters on the Mall arranged in the form of the words Investigate Trump.

Last month, approximately 200 demonstrators men, women, and their children used their bodies to form the word RESIST! on the lawn of a public park located at President Trumps golf course in Rancho Palos Verdes, to protest his policies and urge him to release histax returns.

The group Indivisible San Pedro organized the event. Indivisible alsohas a hand in organizing Saturdays March for Truth rallies.

Resist! has become a sort of battle cry for progressives and Democrats.

The D.C. March for Truth is scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. near the Washington Monument and speakers will include Sarsour and Rep.Raskin.

In New York, the rally is slated to begin at9 a.m. at Foley Square. Protesters will then march along Broadway. Actress Rosie ODonnell and Rep. Nadler are expected to speak there. ODonnell has been one of Trumps most vocalopponents.

Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebookand Twitter.

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Progressives Plan National 'March for Truth,' Demand Independent ... - Breitbart News

As Trump stumbles, and maybe crumbles, progressives are confronting a painful truth: Trump is a reflection of a much bigger problem the rise of runaway inequality and the failure of the liberal establishment to address it.

Between 1980 and 2014, the gap between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker climbed from $40 to one to an incredible $844 to one. All boats did not rise. During that time the real income of the average worker (after accounting for inflation) actually declined. Both Republicans and Democrats alike rushed to deregulate Wall Street, which is a major cause of these enormous gaps.

The Democrats, who once spoke for these working people, are in real danger of losing them. Since 2008, they have given up 917 state, local and federal elected offices. There are now 33 Republic governorships.

In workshops around the country, weve been asking participants why Trump won. The answers primarily focus on the Comey letter, Hillary as a poor candidate, the Russian hacking, anti-establishment protest, homophobia, racism, xenophobia, and so on..

In no instance is there any self-reflection from progressives about our own role in any of this. Isnt it possible that maybe, just maybe, the enormous rightward drift has something to do with us with how progressives are organized and disorganized? At the very least, we should admit the obvious: all of this happened and continues to happen on our watch. To not take some responsibility for this growing calamity is to concede that we have no agency, no power, and no effective strategy to forge meaningful social change.

The Hazards of Silo Organizing

For the last generation, progressives have organized themselves into issue silos, each with its own agenda. Survival depends on fundraising (largely from private foundations) based on the uniqueness of ones own silo. Each group must develop its own expertise and activities which distinguish it from other groups. Each needs to proclaim that its issue is the existential threat, be it climate change, police violence, abortion rights or health care. The net result of this Darwinian struggle is a fractured landscape of activity. The creativity, talent and skill are there in abundance, but the coherence and common purpose among groups is not.

Siloed organizational structures also make it extremely difficult to cooperate on a common program to reverse runaway inequality, There is little incentive to form a grand progressive alliance to build what the Sanders campaign, for example, had set in motion. Better to launch your own national effort and claim that it is the center of the organizing universe.

It is therefore not surprising that the two biggest progressive challenges to runaway inequality in the last decade Occupy Wall Street and the Sanders campaign did not arise from within these siloed organizations. OWS largely grew from a notice in Adbusters, a Vancouver, BC, journal. Most of those who did the occupying at the 900 encampments also did not come from progressive siloed organizations. In fact, the non-profit/NGO community more or less watched from the sidelines.

Similarly, the Sanders campaign also did not emerge from a concerted effort among progressives to create a new politics within the Democratic Party. Rather, it was driven by Bernies own social-democratic vision that he had been espousing for over 40 years, year after year after year. When his effort showed signs of life, progressives broadly divided between the idealists feeling the burn and the pragmatists seeking to back a sure winner, who at least would provide access to progressive ideas.

The advent of Trump certainly has unleashed an enormous amount of progressive activity. In addition to the many sizeable marches, there are now approximately 5,000 Indivisible groups making life miserable for Republican office holders. However, nearly all of this activity is anti-Trump and defensive. There is no common Indivisible national agenda, nor is there a common organization to set a coherent strategic direction.

More importantly, pure anti-Trumpism guarantees we will be talking to the already convinced. By focusing solely on Trump, it becomes next to impossible to reach the Trump voters who also voted for Sanders and Obama.

Some argue that such outreach is a waste of time because there really are not that many Obama-to-Sanders-to-Trump voters. Unfortunately, exit polls do not give us enough data to reasonably estimate the size of this hybrid voting population. But sources inside the United Steelworkers, for example, report that 50 percent of their members who voted, voted for Trump. Given how representative those members are of the broader working class, were probably looking at several million Obama-Sanders-Trump voters.

We do know this: In the state of Michigan there was a 500,000 vote loss from Obama (2012) to Clinton (2016). It was minus 290,000 in Pennsylvania and minus 222,000 in Wisconsin.

Very few, if any of our siloed progressive organizations are targeting these working people. Danger ahead.

It will not be easy for progressive to reach out to Trump voters, unionized or not. In part, that is because anti-Trump defensive activity has become the basis for a new wave of silo organizing and fundraising. Each group is claiming that its activities will be the most effective means for upending the Trump agenda and returning Congress to the Democrats.

The animosity towards Trump voters runs deep. One prominent progressive educator told me privately that Trump voters should be viewed as terrorists that their anti-establishment revolt was like throwing a grenade into a crowd, and were the collateral damage. Others argue that the Trump voters really are deplorables when it comes to their racism, sexism and anti-immigrant beliefs.

The suspicion also spreads to those who do want to reach out to these Obama-Sanders-Trump voters. They are often criticized for favoring class over race for failing to put anti-racism as the central feature of all organizing and educational efforts. So for example, if addressing white skin privilege is not a major part of the education, then the education is viewed as catering to the racist white working class.

This can cascade into a series of litmus tests on race, gender, immigration, abortion, global warming, etc that must be passed in order to be welcomed into the progressive community. While there is no denying that these issues are of critical importance, the net effect of administering such tests is that progressives will be stuck within their own bubbles.

Were facing a moment of truth about education and social change. We need to decide whether or not we believe that real education about big picture issues can make a difference in how people see the world. This kind of education is not the same as campaign propaganda, sound bite memes or technical training about how to get out the vote or organize an action. Its about building a broad-based discussion on how the economy works and doesnt work, and how to make it serve us all. Here are some of its features:

1. Placing a Target on Wall Street: By showing how and why society is growing more unequal, runaway inequality education (see runawayinequality.org) lays bare the ways in which Wall Street and its CEO partners engage in financial strip-mining, the immoral siphoning away of wealth from our jobs, communities and families. The weapons of financial engineering are many including mortgage fraud, high interest student loans, stock buybacks, payday loans, too big to fail/jail, bailouts, tax loopholes, tax breaks, off-shore accounts, privatization of public assets, and many, many more. None of our silos are immune from ravages of financial strip-mining

2. Building Common Ground: Big picture education can tie together virtually all the issues that we care deeply about. Runaway inequality and runaway finance are linked to runaway global warming. The forces causing runaway inequality are connected to the rise of the prison population and the expansion of private prisons where we now warehouse millions of our impoverished youth. Its tied to the attack on union rights, the decline of good paying jobs, the harassment of immigrants and the failure of our corporate-run health care system. This educational process helps us see that our issue silos are in fact deeply connected.

3. Safe space for Dialogue: A strong educational process provides an excellent venue to have dialogue with those that do not immediately share every progressive value or position. Ive done runaway inequality workshops with Trump voters and the response has been positive. They too want to understand why the richest country in the history of the world cannot provide decent paying jobs and adequate public services for all its people.

4. Developing and Spreading a Common Agenda: Such an educational process also leads naturally to testing and sharing a common agenda to reverse runaway inequality. Such an agenda, in the form of a petition, can serve as an educational tool, and, if it catches on, a way to shift the public debate towards a social-democratic agenda. (See here for national polling results on how young people reacted to such an agenda.)

Learning from the Populists of the late 19th Century

Over a century ago, small farmers, black and white, in the Midwest and South organized a potent mass movement to challenge the power of Wall Street. They called for cooperative enterprises, public banks, public ownership of railroads and telegraph, a progressive income tax and many other limits on corporate power. Their agenda led to many state and nation reforms as well as paving the way for the New Deal and its tight controls on Wall Street.

The key to their organizational successes was education. They fielded 6,000 educators to help build their chapters and spread the word in the 1880s and 1890s. Today we would need about 30,000 to do the same, given the growth of our population.

Building such a network, however, requires having faith in the power of education. It requires that we understand that runaway inequality ties us all together and can only be tackled through a broad-based common movement with a common agenda. This educational process asks us to have the confidence and courage to engage in dialogue with a wide range of people who also care about building a better society for themselves and their families.

None of this will come easy. Our silos provide us with strength. We take pride in our identities and are empowered by them. Also, it is very difficult for us to even imagine what a common movement might look like, let alone how to build one. But we can be sure of one thing: Building a fairer and more just society will require a massive educational movement. As the Populists taught us, it can be done.

(For those willing to take that leap, please join us in building the runawayinequality.org educational network. We need you. We need each other.)

Les Leopold, the director of the Labor Institute, is currently working with labor unions and community organizations to build the runawayinequality.org educational network. His book Runaway Inequality: An Activist Guide to Economic Justice serves as a text for this educational campaign. All proceeds go to support these educational efforts.

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Will Progressives Only Talk To Themselves? - HuffPost

Amid the whirlwind of hysteriaover President Trumpsdecision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement came a genuine revelation: Democrats and progressives embracing an idea they once held in contempt: federalism.

And its all thanks to Donald Trump.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), who signed an executive orderin mid-May directing the states Department of Environmental Quality to begin the process of establishing regulations in Virginia that will reduce carbon emissions from power plants, issued a statement Thursday in which he said he hoped his order would spur other states to join Virginia in showing Washington the way forward on this critical issue for our nation and our world.

Lieutenant Gov. Ralph Northam (D), a candidate for governor,echoedMcAuliffes line, saying he is committed to continuing that process McAuliffe set in motion and would be out there fighting the reckless actions of the Trump administration at every turn.

But for Northams challenger, this doesnt go far enough.

In a video posted to his Twitter feed, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello picked up the threads of McAuliffes statement, saying that at the state level, we will step up and do our part to lead on addressing climate change and making sure that our coastline here in Virginia and all of our clean air and clean water is protected.

But Perriello went much further, promisingthat if he becomes Virginias next governor, he wouldpush for Virginia to join an alliance of states of states committed to saving our planet.

The alliance in question, led by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, California Gov. Jerry Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, all Democrats, says it is committed to achieving the U.S. goal of reducing emissions 26-28 percent from 2005 levels and meeting or exceeding the targets of the federal Clean Power Plan.

States banding together to thwart an unreasonable federal government action?

Thats not new; thats federalism.

And if it all sounds very familiar, it should: Ken Cuccinelli blazed the federalism trail during his time as Virginias attorney general.

In a 2011 speech to Hillsdale Colleges Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, Cuccinelli discussed the number of lawsuits states had filed against the federal government over Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the Affordable Care Act and others and how it all represented pushback against a federal government that had overstepped its constitutional bounds.

Of his legal challenges to the federal government, Cuccinelli said: When I ran for attorney general of Virginia, I said that if the federal government crossed certain lines, I would challenge it.

Cuccinelli added that with the support of fellow Virginians and the American people, we have planted our flag and we are taking a stand. And if we are successful, future generations of Americans will have a chance to enjoy the liberty that has made America the envy of the world.

He made an explicit case for federalism in standing up to EPA regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. Perriello does not use the word but comes to similar conclusions for opposite ends.

In the topsy-turvy world of politics, Cuccinellis fight for individual liberty has become Perriellos fight for the planet.

The tea party meets the resistance and both find themselves marching under the banner of federalism.

Before Virginias elections are finished in November, we might even see a Democratic candidate talking about the rights of sovereign statesto challenge federal over reach.

And all because of Donald Trump.

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Virginia progressives embrace federalism - Washington Post (blog)