WISGOP Stands Up For Free Speech (Sometimes)!

 By Jeff Simpson

Scott Walker, took the time out of his busy RGA campaign travel schedule recently, to let us have a peek at the budget ALEC wrote for him, that he plans on introducing.    While there were many interesting things in there, one thing I want to call attention to is something that has been called the Milo law.  

Milo Yiannopoulos, is the latest exhibit of the far right to show off "liberals intolerance",  The bigoted racist ignorant Milo, has caused a stir by speaking at college campuses, and where he speaks there are protests trying to keep him from speaking.   Milo gave a speech at Marquette recently, where he singled out a transgendered student, by name and photo, to give a wink wink to his far right supporters on who to target.  

This did not sit well with the sane among us, and so he has not been welcome by a majority of college students throughout the country.   Most people do not want their college littered with such hate and ignorance.  

This, right on cue, stirs up the faux outrage and unwarranted arrogance of the right.   Scott Walker, championing himself a defender of free speech(if you pretend the whole failed debacle of arresting people for singing in the State Capitol never existed), wants to write into law protecting free speech on campus.

The proposed companion budget bill elaborates, stating among other things, that:

• The UW Board of Regents and each college campus “shall guarantee all members of the system's community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn.”

• “It is not the proper role of the board or any institution or college campus to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

• Members of the system’s community are free to criticize and contest views expressed on campus and "speakers who are invited to express their views, (but) they may not obstruct or otherwise interfere with the freedom of others to express views they reject or even loathe.”

• “The board and each institution and college campus has a responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.”

To prove that Scott Walker "means what he says and says what he means", Milo is headlining the far right extreme CPAC conference this upcoming weekend.   Who will share the stage with the hateful Mr. Yiannopoulos?  Why Wisconsin's very own Scott Walker and Milwaukee's "Democratic" Sheriff David Clarke.  

Who cares if Milo advocates for pedophilia(he is so good at oral sex because of the Father who preyed on him when he was a teen), its all about "free speech" and besides if he pisses liberals off, then its worth promoting pedophilia,.

I admire Scott Walker for being unintimidated (plenty of books still available) and sticking to his guns and sharing a stage with Milo!   It is not like hanging out with adults who prey ion teenage boys is new to him.   Scott just needs to make sure to keep Alex away from the Twitter!

Anyway, this new found "love of free speech" is refreshing, it is just too bad it took a group of white power bigots to bring it out of the WISGOP.  

For those with a longer memory(since the WI Media seem to forget this), but in 2005, the University of Wisconsin -Eau Claire tried to bring Ward Churchill to campus to speak.  Churchill, a college professor,  was widely known as saying that the September 11th attacks on the US, were a result of  our foreign policy and calling the people who worked in the World Trade Centers "Little Eichmanns".  

This upset our friends on the left and the always good for a lunatic quote, Steve nASSelson had this to say at the time(H/T Oshkosh Independent for the best story on this written):

Much to the surprise of the Eau Claire students, the Wisconsin State Legislature tried hard to pressure Eau Claire into canceling the event, including the passage of a joint resolution. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), in 2005 a member of the state assembly representing Whitewater, led the charge to prevent Churchill from speaking. He said “the university wants to hide behind free speech.”  He further told the Badger Herald, “This is not a question of free speech; this is stopping a person who uses hateful, disgusting speech.”

Now, it seems as though the WISGOP and Steve nASSelson has evolved.  Wait we do not believe in evolution, so I should say they "created" a completely new viewpoint.  Recently, there was a UW student, Dan Dropik, who tried to set up a White Nationalist group on the UW-Madison Campus(and who is a non traditional student, because he spent his college years in prison for setting fire to black churches).   Seems Dropik's idea was not very popular amongst the other students at UW and there was major pushback.  

Surprisingly (well not really), Dropik found a defender in the nASSelson combo:

Remember Steve Nass? In 2017 he is a Senator in the Wisconsin State Legislature. He has not yet made any in-depth comments about the governor’s “Milo Law” provisions, but he has threatened to push for reductions in UW funding based on the fact that courses are offered that he finds objectionable. So much for academic freedom. Worse, when non-traditional student at UW Madison Daniel Dropik–who it turns out had in the past been convicted of setting fire to African-American churches–tried to set up a White Nationalist group on campus, Nass somehow found a way to defend him. According to the Associated Press, “Nass spokesman Mike Mikalsen said while Nass disagrees with many of Dropik’s views, the university community unfairly targeted Dropik. ‘Individuals who have alternative viewpoints have a right to express themselves in a university,’ Mikalsen said. ‘That did not happen here.'”

If we could mine irony in WI we could pay off Scott Walker's massive credit card debt.

By the way, why didn't anyone ask Mikelson, since he "disagrees with many" of the views of the church burning white nationalist, which of his views does he agree with?

There is a short history of the love of free speech by the WISGOP in Wisconsin!

Editor note, while I was writing this blog, it seems CPAC has uninvited Mr. Milo to be their keynote speaker.  

"@ACUConservative has decided to rescind the invitation of Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at #CPAC2017." pic.twitter.com/sVWGnPCW7C

— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) February 20, 2017

Instead of the guy that advocates pedophilia they will have to listen to the arrested wife beater and the serial sexual assaulter. 

 I guess the people at the CPAC conference are just a bunch of snowflakes who need a safe space.  

#TBT - Free Speech For Me And Not For Thee

By Jeff Simpson

I am not sure if our friends on the right have a really bad memory, think we are stupid or just have a need to perpetually play the victim.

Let's dig a little deeper into their perpetual whining about the John Doe Investigation and free speech rights.  

I pointed out yesterday about how the Right Wing Speech police targeted me when I was part of the Purple Wisconsin forum.   They never tried to argue policy philosophy or facts, they just had a coordinated email campaign to get me removed after every one of my posts.

As Collin Roth wrote on Right Wisconsin pay website:

 3.) Cutting Off Debate - The political left is constantly looking for ways to cut off debate. It starts in the political and cultural realm where issues are determined to be “settled.” Once a consensus is reached, voices try to discredit and delegitimize those holding different viewpoints and dissenters are dealt with like pariahs or worse - criminals.

Lets go back to the early 2000's after the horribel acts of 9/11 when a controversial Professor from the University of Colorado Boulder named Ward Churchill was out and about telling people that he felt the attacks of 9/11 were a consequence of US foreign policy.  

Well we know that at that time, Fox News made it perfectly clear that if you aren't with us(or a Saudi) you were against us.   

Mr. Churchill received an invitation to speak at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and that made Steve nASS, at the time, chair of the Assembly's Colleges and Universities Committee, head explode:

 In 2005, Nass wanted the Board of Regents to order UW-Whitewater to rescind a speaking invitation to Ward Churchill, a Colorado professor who had compared the World Trade Center victims to Nazi Adolf Eichmann. And last year, Nass pressured UW-Madison to fire Kevin Barrett, an instructor on Islam who believes the U.S. government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. Nass even went on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show to vent his outrage over Barrett.When the university refused to purge Barrett, Nass responded by threatening to cut its budget. And this year, he came up with a slew of targeted budget cuts. These include eliminating funding for the Havens Center - which sponsored a talk by Barrett - and the UW's School for Workers, which educates union activists. (The Assembly version of the budget would also cut all state support to the UW Law School, end the Wisconsin GI bill that pays the tuition of state veterans and mostly eliminate state spending on Wisconsin Public Radio and Public Television, affiliated with the UW-Extension.)

As a matter of fact nASS, even had his staffer threaten legislation to set up a Republican written "code of conduct" for faculty:. 

Mikalsen, who has worked in the Legislature for 16 years, including 12 with Nass, behaves like Nass' critics might expect him to. He sputters and growls and waves his arms. His tone ranges from mild disgust to infinite disdain as he describes the UW's various transgressions.
He also makes more inflammatory comments than his boss. Explaining Nass' 2005 push to make faculty follow codes of conduct, including not making "anti-American" statements, Mikalsen says, "Part of the issue is we have foreign-born professors. Those professors say things."

Free speech is important as long as the words you are saying are approved ahead of time by the Big Government Republicans.  

But wait - There is more!   

The two Republican stooges mentioned above never stop.   During the Act10 protests, the UW School of Workers wanted to have an art show based on the works of local editorail cartoonist Mike Konopacki.   Konopacki, as one would expect, was not very kind , via his medium, to the Republicans in WI.     

This did not sit well with nASSalsen and he threatened to pull funding from UW Madison if they went ahead with this exhibit.   The UW School of workers did go ahead with it but had to find a different venue.  (edit note -full run down here). 

One ironic side note, Konopacki, being an editorialist and satirist, issued a press release that made it look like it came from Steve nASS himself.   

In true sharia law fashion, nASSalsen immediately tried to get Konopacki arrested and sent to jail for teasing them.  

Seriously.   

While we do have some problems in America today with the lack of anyone wanting to hear the "other side", lets not pretend that our Republican friends are the victims and realize they started the whole process and it has gotten so it affects them and they do not know how to handle it.