University of California-Berkeley Cry Baby Cartoons

Milo Yiannopoulos: Berkeley riot 'self-defeating for the social justice left'

Milo: Left can't tolerate anyone who doesn't agree with them

Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos said Wednesday that the riot that canceled his planned speech at the University of California-Berkeley was "heavily ironic and very, I think, self-defeating for the social justice left."
Yiannopoulos' planned talk was scrapped after violent protesters hurled smoke bombs, broke windows and started a bonfire outside the student union where he was to appear.
"No one’s safety is at risk from different opinions," Yiannopoulos told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" in a phone interivew. "No one’s physical safety is endangered by political ideas from a speaker on campus, but universities have sort of allowed this stuff to happen, and even in some cases encouraged it."
The Berkeley appearance was to be the 32-year-old's last stop on a nationwide college tour that has sparked protests and occasional violence. Yiannopoulos told Carlson that he believes the protesters view him as a proxy for President Donald Trump, whom he vocally supports.
"I annoy the feminists and the Black Lives Matter guys probably almost as much as Trump does, certainly on college campuses," Yiannopoulos said. "So, they go for the next best thing. They go for  ... the person they think they can scare. Well, they don’t scare me. I will continue to give college talks until the day I drop dead."
Yiannopoulos has made remarks in the past that have been criticized as racist, misogynist, and anti-Muslim.
Of his opponents, Milo said, "They never want to debate because they’re scared of losing. They don’t have the facts on their side and for 30 years the left has been able to bully people into silence by name-calling and they’ve forgotten how to argue."

Sean Hannity: Trump's Supreme Court pick is a home run, and a promise kept

President Trump's choice of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the late, great Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court is yet another example of the new commander-in-chief keeping promises to the American people.
Trump announced the choice in a prime time appearance, and noted that Gorsuch’s impeccable resume and originalist approach to the Constitution showed he was following through on his campaign pledge, a novel concept in Washington.
“When Justice Scalia passed away suddenly last February, I made a promise to the American people,” Trump said. “If I were elected president, I would find the very best judge in the country for the Supreme Court.
“Today, I am keeping another promise to the American people by nominating Judge Neil Gorsuchm” he also said.
During the campaign, I asked then-candidate Trump several times what he was looking for in a justice. He said above all, he wanted a justice who will strictly adhere to the original meaning of the words of the Constitution. And he offered up a list of several accomplished jurists who fit that bill and checked other boxes he believed were crucial.
“I want great intellect,” he said. “These people are all of very high, high intellect.  They're pro-life.”
President Trump was adamant about nominating a justice who believes in coequal branches of government, separation of powers, not somebody who will legislate from the bench, who will read and interpret the U.S. Constitution the way our Founding Fathers and framers intended.
Judge Gorsuch is only 49 years old. He clerked for several prominent judges, including Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. In 2006, he was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, where he currently serves, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a unanimous voice vote.
Judge Gorsuch is also known for being a strong defender of religious liberty. In his key rulings, he sided with Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor in their case against the Obama administration's contraception mandate.
Consider what he said on originalism during a lecture about Justice Antonin Scalia just last year.
“It seems to me that an assiduous focus on text, structure and history is essential to being a good judge,” he told law students at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. “That, yes, judges should be in the business of declaring what the law is using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own views, always with an eye on the outcome, engaged, perhaps, in some Benthamite calculation of pleasures and pains along the way.”
An originalist, intellectual and patriot for the Supreme Court. And a home run for President Trump.

Senate confirms Tillerson as secretary of State, in GOP push to fill Trump Cabinet

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rex Tillerson as secretary of State, as part of a fast-paced day for majority Republicans who also pushed past Democratic resistance to advance three other President Trump Cabinet picks to a final vote.
The vote to confirm the former ExxonMobil executive as the country's top diplomat was 56-43.
Trump, during Tillerson's swearing in in the Oval Office, said that it is "time to bring a clear-eyed focus to foreign affairs." He also praised Tillerson's background, telling him, "Your whole life has prepared you for this moment."
Earlier in the day, Senate Republicans, frustrated by Democrats’ attempts to delay other Cabinet confirmations, moved swiftly to advance three nominees to a final vote.
On the most contentious nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 11-to-9, to approve Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., for U.S. attorney general.
The move came after Democrats dragged out proceedings a day earlier. The committee advanced Sessions to the floor on an 11-9 vote.
“No doubt we have the votes” to confirm Sessions, said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a committee member. “It’s going to get done.”
Senate Democrats have attempted to hold up several of Trump’s Cabinet picks over concerns about their records, as well as Trump's new policies and recent executive orders on immigration.
Also on Wednesday, the Republican-led Senate Finance Committee sidestepped Senate Democrats' efforts to slow Trump’s picks for secretaries of Treasury and Health and Human Services by boycotting the votes.
Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, suspended committee rules on the number of members required to vote, to allow Republican members to vote in favor of Steve Mnuchin as Treasury secretary and Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., to serve as Health and Human Services secretary.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the committee’s top Democrat, argued that Hatch broke the rules.
“What you had was a rump group that met in violation of Democratic values to confirm two ethically-challenged nominees,” he told Fox News. “There’s no question about that.”
Mnuchin, Price and Sessions will almost certainly get the required simple majority needed for confirmation because Republicans have 52 senators and Democrats have 48.
Still, Democrats temporarily thwarted a Senate confirmation vote on Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, by again boycotting a key committee meeting.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee rules require at least two members of the minority party be present for a vote to be held.
Committee Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., called the move “political theatre” and vowed to "do what is necessary" to advance Pruitt's nomination, raising the possibility the GOP majority may seek a rules change like the one Hatch got to push a vote before the full Senate.
Republicans created their own challenges Wednesday toward confirming Besty DeVos as Education secretary.
GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, and Susan Collins, Maine, said they won't vote for DeVos in the final Senate vote.
That would create a 50-to-50 tied. But Republicans remain optimistic, considering GOP Vice President Mike Pence would cast the deciding vote in favor of DeVos.
On Tuesday, Democrats had refused to attend the meeting to consider Mnuchin and Price, demanding more information about the nominees.
Hatch called the Democrats’ decision to boycott the vote “the most pathetic thing.”
“We took some unprecedented actions today due to the unprecedented obstruction on the part of our colleagues,” he also said Wednesday.
The rule requires at least one Democrat be present for a vote. With the rules lifted, the committee advanced the nominations to the floor.
“They should be ashamed,” he said. “The only thing missing was a member from the minority side,” Hatch continued.  But, as I noted, they, on their own accord, refused to participate in this exercise.
Hatch said he made the move after getting an OK from the Senate Parliamentarian Office and that every Republican member of the committee was present and voting, exceeding the one-third requirement for a so-called “quorum.”

Trump reportedly accuses Australian PM of seeking to export next ‘Boston bombers’

President Trump reportedly had a fiery conversation over the weekend with Australia’s prime minister over a refugee deal agreed upon under the Obama administration.
Trump reportedly blasted the agreement as “the worst deal ever” and accused Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of seeking to export “the next Boston bombers.”
The call went so badly, Trump told Turnbull that he had spoken to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Russia’s Vladimir  Putin and their call was his “worst so far.”
The Washington Post, citing unidentified senior U.S. officials, reported that Trump cut their first call short with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull after the conversation turn to a deal that would allow mostly Muslim refugees rejected by Australia to be resettled in the US.
Trump reportedly called the agreement “the worst deal ever” and accused the prime minister of seeking to export “the next Boston bombers.”
Turnbull also would not say whether Trump had abruptly ended the expected hour-long conversation after 25 minutes as the Australian attempted to steer the conversation to other topics. Trump was reportedly joined by chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, national security adviser Michael Flynn and White House press  secretary  Sean Spicer.
"It's better that these things -- these conversations -- are conducted candidly, frankly, privately," Turnbull told reporters.
Turnbull said the strength of the bilateral relation was evident in that Trump agreed to resettle refugees from among around 1,600 asylum seekers, most of whom are on island camps on the Pacific nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Trump tweeted Wednesday night, “Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal.”
The Washington Post story immediately shot to the top of trending topics on Twitter in Australia. It was plastered across the top of Australia's major news sites, and the nation's news networks launched into lengthy, running commentaries on it.