Ossoff obliterates Perdue in Georgia Senate Debate

Okay to censor the right but not the left?

It's a shame that I have to rely on Breitbart to learn that Pamela Geller won her free speech suit against Detroit after it refused to run her ad on its buses:

Pamela Geller Wins Case Against Detroit Public Transportation Censorship

by Joel B. Pollack

​Writer and activist Pamela Geller has won her free speech case in a case against Detroit’s public transportation agency, which tried to block her from placing a series of ads advising the public about “leaving Islam.”

The case, American Freedom Defensive Initiative v. Suburban Mobility Auth. for Regional Transp., came before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit — and the decision Friday was unanimously in her favor.

The decision said that the Detroit public transportation system’s decision to ban the ads was an unreasonable constraint on speech, and was also not “viewpoint neutral.”

The decision cited recent Supreme Court jurisprudence in its explanation:

The Free Speech Clause limits the government’s power to regulate speech on public property. The government has little leeway to restrict speech in “public forums”: properties like parks or streets that are open to speech by tradition or design. 

It has wider latitude to restrict speech in “nonpublic forums” that have not been opened to debate. Even there, however, speech restrictions must be reasonable and viewpoint neutral.…The American Freedom Defense Initiative sought to run an ad that said: “Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got Questions? Get Answers! RefugefromIslam.com.” 

Michigan’s Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) rejected this ad under two of its speech restrictions. The first prohibits “political” ads; the second prohibits ads that would hold up a group of people to “scorn or ridicule.”

...Earlier in this case, we found, first, that the advertising space on SMART’s buses is a nonpublic forum and, second, that SMART likely could show that its restrictions were reasonable and viewpoint neutral. Am. Freedom Def. Initiative v. Suburban Mobility Auth. for Reg’l Transp., 698 F.3d 885, 890–96 (6th Cir. 2012). 

Since then, the Supreme Court has issued a pair of decisions that compel us to change course on our second conclusion. SMART’s ban on “political” ads is unreasonable for the same reason that a state’s ban on “political” apparel at polling places is unreasonable: SMART offers no “sensible basis for distinguishing what may come in from what must stay out.” Mansky, 138 S. Ct. at 1888. 

Likewise, SMART’s ban on ads that engage in “scorn or ridicule” is not viewpoint neutral for the same reason that a ban on trademarks that disparage people is not viewpoint neutral: For any group, “an applicant may [display] a positive or benign [ad] but not a derogatory one.” Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744, 1766 (2017) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment); id. at 1763 (Alito, No. 19-1311 Am. Freedom Defense v. Suburban Mobility Auth. Page 3 J., opinion).

We thus reverse the district court’s decision rejecting the First Amendment challenge to these two restrictions.

In a statement, Geller said:

It took nearly twelve years, but we did it. My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), has just won an important victory for the freedom of speech. Back in 2009, the Detroit area’s SMART transit refused to run our AFDI ads offering help to people who were in fear for their lives for wanting to leave Islam, or having left it. After an incredibly protracted court battle, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals just stood up for the First Amendment and completely reversed the judgment banning our ads.

...This is all common-sensical and clear even to those with no legal training or experience, but it has taken an incredibly long time to get here. The American Freedom Law Center, whose ace lawyers David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise fought long and hard to win this case, noted: 

“AFDI’s religious freedom advertisement was rejected even though SMART had no problem accepting and running an anti-religion ad sponsored by an atheist organization. That approved ad stated, ‘Don’t Believe in God? You are not alone.’” However, now “the Sixth Circuit ruled unanimously in favor of AFLC, finding that SMART’s rejection of the ad was unreasonable and viewpoint based in violation of the First Amendment. This is a final ruling.”

Geller has been targeted in the past by radical Islamic terrorists for her outspoken views.

Rob's comment:

I can't find anything about the decision at the NY Times or the Washington Post---or even Murdoch's NY Post!

She had the same problem at first when she posted ads on buses in San Francisco, which I blogged about at the time: See Free speech and "hate" speech, City Hall fumbles the Jihad issue---again, Supervisor Chiu, Polk Street, and Jihad, and Dhimmis at the Chronicle and in City Hall.

Republicans confuse cruelty with toughness.

Anthony Fauci: Rolling Stone interview

Corbyn suspended by Labour Party

William Booth in the Washington Post:

LONDON — Britain's Labour Party suspended former leader Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday over his response to a watchdog's report on persistent Anti-Semitism in the center-left opposition party during his five-year reign.

Corbyn’s ouster from a party he led in the last two national elections, in 2019 and 2017, was a stunning rebuke and mark him now as a near-outcast, at least temporarily...

Jewish leaders, including lawmakers in the Labour Party, have for years accused the party rank-and-file and grandees of using anti-Semitic language on social media and in party meetings, including smears against Jews at large and anti-Israel and anti-Zionist rhetoric often veering into outright anti-Semitism.

Corbyn has also personally faced charges of anti-Semitism. He hosted a 2010 panel at which Israelis were compared to Nazis and in 2012 defended an artist’s freedom of speech but did not condemn the London mural that depicted Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on a board balanced on the bent backs of workers...

On Thursday, Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission issued a damning report that concluded that Labour under Corbyn suffered from “serious failings” of leadership “in addressing anti-Semitism and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints.”

The investigators found evidence of harassment targeting those making complaints and “political interference” to blunt the complaints.

Corbyn has played down the report’s conclusions, suggesting that anti-Semitism in Labour was no worse than in British society at large and was hyped by the media and critics. In a statement Thursday, the 71-year-old said, “One Anti-Semite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.”

Corbyn conceded: “That combination hurt Jewish people and must never be repeated. My sincere hope is that relations with Jewish communities can be rebuilt and those fears overcome.”

Corbyn’s pushback against the long-awaited report was in stark contrast to the words uttered a few hours earlier by the Labour Party’s new leader, Keir Starmer, who said, “I found this report hard to read. It is a day of shame for the Labour Party. We have failed Jewish people, our members, our supporters and the British public.”

In a statement he read aloud, Starmer continued, “On behalf of the Labour Party, I am truly sorry for all the pain and grief that has been caused.”

Corbyn’s rebuttal of the report was swiftly dealt with by Labour leaders, who suspended him from the party pending an investigation.

On Twitter, Corbyn said he would strongly contest his ouster and condemned the suspension as a “political intervention.”

Later: Not a single reference to Dean Preston's socialism on his campaign website. See also Dean Preston's mandate.

See also Divided they fell: Charting Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader.