In our lives we all endorse…. even if we don’t put it in those terms, we do it.  Everyone here supports free speech because no matter our differences we are men of the West. That is an endorsement. In one form or another our societies are all based on debate. We have at times devolved into violence, but speech is the Wests Keystone.

Other than that our differences split on cultural lines. A fancy term for tribalism. The values of our tribe is what we endorse. Civilization has homogenized the tribe in the west not so for other areas of the world some are Feudal some are Totalitarian in some it’s still barberism with technology.

We all endorse our unique values….. Can you point to a school that teaches the values that you believe represent your society, your nations cultural values?

I can it’s not the University I attended, it is the one that I wish I had attended. It’s Hillsdale College. Click on it to get a description of who and what they are.

They also offer a Ton of free courses for anyone interested in the US Constitution, The Federalist, The Courts, The workings of Congress, and the Philosophies of the Founders. I highly recommend them to one and all, there are lessons for the world contained there. Please avail yourselves of them it’s never to late to educate yourself and improve the world at the same time. Hillsdale.edu

I just felt like sharing something I find worthwhile.

“When I was interviewed by the special counsel’s office, I was asked about the Trump campaign and our dealings with the NRA,” Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign aide, told CNN.

The special counsel’s team was curious to learn more about how Donald Trump and his operatives first formed a relationship with the NRA and how Trump wound up speaking at the group’s annual meeting in 2015, just months before announcing his presidential bid, Nunberg said.

Remember, we have to sacrifice everything for the planet. We have to sit in the dark and the cold. We have to stop driving. We have to give up meat, have fewer children, take fewer holidays, give up exotic foods from faraway places … we have to live like medieval peasants.

Meanwhile –

The Guardian: Record private jet flights into Davos as leaders arrive for climate talk

“Experts predict up to 1,500 individual private flights in and out of airfields serving Swiss ski resort for World Economic Forum”

I’ve done a lot of additional fact checking since this story was first reported in national and international media.

We don’t know everything still, but we do know this:
a) a group of known black racists were the initial troublemakers

b) Nathan Phillips is a liar. He should be arrested. He has given completely contradictory accounts of what happened that day. He claims that the students attacked the black racists and there is no evidence at all of that. All the video evidence is to the contrary – the students were high spirited, silly and mellow. They were not disposed to attack anyone at all.

c) The Catholic diocese in Kentucky rushed to judgement when it apologized and when it spoke of expelling the students. It is the administration of that school that should be fired.

By all the evidence that we now see, the students have been falsely accused. Lesson learned.

Below, please see an excerpt from Kyle Smith of the National Review, by way of the New York Post. He says it better than I can.

If you are in a public place and someone starts heckling you, are you entitled to heckle back? What if your heckler starts banging a drum in your face? Are you allowed to answer him with a smirk?

I think you are, even if you are wearing a MAGA hat. Even if you’re an entitled brat.

The kids from Covington Catholic HS in Covington, Ky., were ambassadors for causes much bigger than themselves: ­Catholicism and the March for Life. As such, they should have comported themselves better than to jeer and do a tomahawk chop in front of Nathan Phillips, an indigenous man who banged a drum at them in front of the Lincoln ­Memorial on Friday.
Ideally, the kids would have ­ignored him and walked away. ­Until about 10 minutes ago, though, it was broadly agreed in our culture that kids are allowed to do some dumb things because they are kids.

Should these kids’ lives be ruined because some of them ­responded to obnoxious provocation by being a bit rude themselves? I would say their reaction was, if anything, more restrained than you would expect from teenagers.

Phillips, on the other hand, is an adult, and he repeatedly lied about what happened to The Washington Post and other prestige outlets, which reported ­everything he said uncritically.

…

Phillips, who claims to be a former Marine and a Vietnam veteran, told The Detroit Free Press that the Covington kids “were in the process of attacking these four black individuals. I was there and I was witnessing all of this. … As this kept on going on and escalating, it just got to a point where you do something or you walk away, you know?

…

There is a nearly two-hour video of the incident in which about five black individuals from another outfit called the Black Hebrew ­Israelites shout abuse at Catholics and Trump supporters near the Lincoln Memorial. “You believe in a f - - - ing child molester,” they shout. “Christ is coming back to kick your cracker asses.”

…

A lot of people were making videos of the incident. At least one of these videos, it appears, was taken by an ally of Phillips. Yet I haven’t come across a video that shows the Covington kids chanting “build that wall,” as a Washington Post reporter claimed, much less “attacking” black people, as Phillips says.

…

If you insult someone, and that person insults you back, you don’t get to cry, “Oh my gosh, for no reason whatsoever I’ve just been insulted!”

Nathan Phillips went out seeking to create an incident, and he fooled The New York Times and The Washington Post into accepting his false version of it.

Case of Covington Kids a Perfect Example of Media Bias

We’ve become so jaded in modern times that the thought of a legislature with at least 34 members in prison warms our hearts.
In 1919 the First Dail met in Dublin. Proceedings were conducted in Gaelic, though translated itno Irish and French. It was of course outlawed by the British occupier, who also censored its news in the press. Its members had been elected to Parilment in 1918, but thry refused to take their seats in Westminster.
Invitations were made to all elected in Ireland. Unionists like Carson would not attend the Dail. Republicans like de Valera and Griffith were imprisoned.

They respresented an Ireland that sought self-determination, a lofty goal proclaimed by the US President Wilson, yet not exactly championed consistently by the allied victors. With no real administration or ability to end the occupation militarily, some thought it a mere symbolic stunt. But the power of symbolisim is powerful. Ultimately, the Irish could not inflict military defeat on Britain, but they could make the price of continued occupation too much.

The First Dail ratified the Easter Proclamation of 1916. They moved Ireland along its path to freedom and democracy. And they kept faith with the generations gone by who were defeated in arms but unconquered in spirit.

It’s an irony that on MLK Day a peaceful young man, who did nothing in the face of a possibly aggressive stranger, is having his life wrecked because of the colour of his skin. But at least we now know who the young man is –

1) Yesterday was supposed to be a day of celebration for my middle brother Alex, who got married last night. Instead my family had to deal with the fallout of my youngest brother #MichaelHodge being falsely accused for standing & smiling in front of an indigenous man with a drum

— Andrew Hodge (@PikePlaceTechie) January 20, 2019

Because for 24 hours, the left wing mob went after a young man who was not there and who isn’t a student at Covington High School. They went after his family, his parents, their addresses were widely circulated, their business was identified, and all along they received horrible, violent threats. Bravo commies, really well done.

In just the last few days the entire press pack has run away with a “bombshell” Buzzfeed story which was so bad even Mueller’s office felt obliged to shoot it down. Then the same press pack whipped up a tsunami of hate against perfectly innocent young men, based on edited footage.

Go on, tell me again why the press has the right to be believed.

Two things that you don’t see much anymore – postcards and travelers cheques.

I loved postcards, still do. I’ve sent some over the past five years. The main reason I rarely send them now is that you rarely see them for sale anymore.

Travelers cheques had a good run, in the days when easily stolen cash was king. You’d buy them in the American Express office. The last time I bought them was when I went to Japan. I bought many more than I needed, cashed them in upon return, never bought new ones. A young person wouldn’t know what a travelers cheque is now.

Credit and debit cards have become widely accepted now, in all but the smallest businesses. I hardly ever spend cash when in London now. I have about £70 in notes now, that I may never spend. Credit cards make everything so easy now.

The UK gummint tried to rob me, though. I had £14 in one pound coins that were no longer good. The Theresa May regime withdrew them from circulation after some date in 2017, and I didn’t hear about it. So I was pretty much stuck with them. But I brought them to London last week, in my little plastic bag, and a kindly woman at Lloyds Bank exchanged them for shiny new coins for me.

Traveling economy on business isn’t living the lifestyles of the rich and famous by any means. But I made it better by taking the day flight from JFK out. You leave early, you arrive late, you minimize the jet lag by adjusting to the local time right way, after going to bed at the local time. I took Virgin Atlantic, still a cheery and pleasant British airline.

I can take taxis anytime i want, but I am a subway geek and took the London Underground into town. It’s an old but good subway system, linked well with the local buses. You can now pay your fare either with an Oyster Card ( London version of NYC’s MetroCard ) or you can pay for the train directly from your phone ( Apple Pay etc ) or contactless credit card.

Britain has a thriving craft beer scene. I had a burger and chips at a restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush owned by the Scottish brewer Brewdog, whose beer is highly recommended.

A busy day of meetings near Lloyd’s, a nice dinner, then up at 630 am to catch the flight back home.

I’m well aware that all is not perfect in London, but if you know of a nicer big city, one more filled with all the good things, please tell me about it.

This speech has a special meaning for me. My Grandfather was on the Police Security Detail for this event and had acquired an 8mm film of it that my whole family watched at Sunday diner the following weekend. It has always stayed with me what King said. I hope you listen to it.

A Princeton professor admits that he was rash. Others might like to do so too.

I apologize to the Covington Catholic boys. What Rod Dreher says of himself goes double for me. I jumped the gun and that was stupid and unjust. It is I, not the boys, who needs to take a lesson from this.

The Catholic Bonfire At The Stake https://t.co/uhYcgiLVWI via @amconmag

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) January 20, 2019