Did she say 'gay'?
How desperate is the left for anything that could ruin the chances of Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh? Its acolytes have sent public information requests for certain emails written by Ashley Kavanaugh, wife of the nominee, during her tenure as town manager of The Village of Chevy Chase Section 5, according to NTK Network.
The Associated Press requested "all emails sent or received" by Mrs. Kavanaugh. The New York Times asked that the village provide "any emails to or from Mrs. Kavanaugh that contain any of the keywords or terms listed below." Those keywords include "liberal," "gay," "abortion," "gun," "Clinton," "Bush" and "Obama," among others.
The request by The New York Times was made for emails from her start date as town manager in 2016 to the present. The Associated Press demanded the town "justify all deletions" to the request, release all segregable portions of the emails, supply the information in electronic format and do what is asked "as soon as possible" and "as quickly as possible."
Both requests were made under Maryland's Public Information Act.
Sent by God
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is now telling folks she's been sent by God to stop President Donald Trump.
Speaking at a Los Angeles church recently, spewing one demagogic lie after another, she said Russia had elected the president and that he didn't have any plans to make America great again "but [is] taking America down."
Waters, who said she happily accepted her "Auntie Maxine" nickname, made headlines last month when she called for public harassment of Trump Cabinet members.
"If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station - you get out and you create a crowd," she said. "And you push back on them. Tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!"
At the church, though, Waters talked as if she were being threatened.
"I don't know intimidation," she said. "I don't know fear."
And then she got to her new role as God's messenger.
"You've gotta know that I'm here to do the work that I was sent to do," Waters said, "and as pastor said to me when I came in this morning, 'When God sends you to do something, you just do it!' ...
"So, I have a message," she said. "I'm going back to Washington tomorrow morning. I'm going to tell them Pastor told me to come here and just do it!"
That's more like it
A United States District Court in Oregon recently ruled that now-graduated senior Addison Barnes will receive $25,000 and a formal apology from the school district that suspended him in January for wearing a pro-Trump T-shirt.
Barnes' shirt featured the logo "Donald J. Trump Border Wall Construction Co." Asked by a teacher at Liberty High School (that irony is too rich) to cover up the shirt, he put on a jacket. But as the day wore on, he believed the school administration was violating his right to free speech, so he took the jacket off. Told to put it back on or face suspension, he accepted the suspension and left the school.
He said he had a teacher who hung a "pro-sanctuary city" poster in her room for the entire year, "yet as I wear a pro-border wall shirt I get silenced and suspended for wearing that."
In May, Barnes decided to file a lawsuit for nominal damages. In an initial response, a judge ruled he could wear the T-shirt the remainder of the school year.
In time, U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman ruled the school "could not justify its censorship."
"The T-shirt is core protected speech, and walking down the streets of Hillsboro, no state official - petty or grand - would be able to do much about that T-shirt legitimately under the Constitution," he said.
Barnes said he brought the suit for anyone who might be afraid to express right-of-center views.
"We brought the case to police the thought police," Brad Benbrook, one of his lawyers, said.
Truth-deficient
The social media website Twitter attempted to explain its recent censorship of conservatives last week by saying some users were encountering issues because of its "conversational health work." The online site Vice published a study earlier last week in which it accused Twitter of "shadowbanning" conservative individuals such as Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. The study noted the figures didn't show up in the Twitter search bar, while liberal figures showed up immediately.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, using what one commentator called "Orwellian" language with the "conversational health work" reference, said it appeared "we have a lot more work to do to earn people's trust on how we work." In a hailstorm of obfuscation, another Twitter official said, "Our usage of the behavior signals within search was causing this to happen and making search results seem inaccurate." In other words, it was all in the users' minds, but he nevertheless noted that "we're making a change today that will improve this."
It appears website officials, as students, were used to having their "dog ate my homework" excuses accepted.
By last Thursday, the conservative names mysteriously began appearing in the search bar again.