In a new video for PragerU, UCLA Medical School psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Marmer offers practical advice on how to improve your life when things get hard. The secret is &#8220;<a href="https://www.prageru.com/videos/building-resilience-5-ways-better-life">building resilience</a>.&#8221; 
&#8220;In case you hadn&#8217;t noticed, life is difficult, complex and unpredictable,&#8221; observes Dr. Marmer. &#8220;You can&#8217;t change this. It&#8217;s the nature of things. But you can prepare yourself for the next unwelcome surprise. How? By building resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from life&#8217;s inevitable disappointments, failures, and pains.&#8221;
Dr. Marmer explains that &#8220;resilience is the opposite of fragility&#8221; and stresses that allowing every single negative occurrence to impact your life will only lead to misery. He goes on to offer some practical advice on how to build resilience in order to live a happier and more rewarding life.
&#8220;Step back and assess your situation with as much objectivity as you can,&#8221; says Dr. Marmer. &#8220;Usually you&#8217;ll discover the worst thing isn&#8217;t that bad &#8211; and isn&#8217;t even likely to happen.&#8221;
He continues: &#8220;Second, compare the undeserved bad things that have happened to you with the unearned good things that have happened to you. When I ask my patients to do this, they invariably conclude that the unearned good in their life far outweighs the undeserved bad. I&#8217;d say the ratio is at least 10 to 1. In my own case, I didn&#8217;t earn the incredibly good fortune of my grandparents moving to America, or that life-saving penicillin was available to me in my childhood when I was sick. I could go on and on. And so could you. In light of this, maybe things aren&#8217;t so bad after all. In fact, they&#8217;re probably pretty good.&#8221;
Video and transcript below:
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<blockquote>
In case you hadn&#8217;t noticed, life is difficult, complex and unpredictable. You can&#8217;t change this. It&#8217;s the nature of things. But you can prepare yourself for the next unwelcome surprise.
How? By building resilience.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from life&#8217;s inevitable disappointments, failures, and pains.
Let me use an analogy here.
If cars didn&#8217;t have shock absorbers, every ride would be a miserable experience. The ride through life without shock absorbers &#8211; that is, resilience &#8211; would be the same. So, without building resilience &#8211; your own internal shock absorbers &#8211; it&#8217;s not possible to lead a happy and productive life.
Resilience is the opposite of fragility. To be fragile means that just about everything upsets you. And if just about everything upsets you, you will spend a lot of time angry and hurt. And if you spend a lot of time angry and hurt, you will not be a happy person.
Here, I&#8217;m not focusing on severe illness, the death of a loved one or any crushing life-changing event. In such cases, people usually need help to recover. But for most of us, such situations are rare &#8211; while the slights and disappointments of ordinary life are not. And for those, we need resilience.
OK, then. How do you develop resilience? Here are some suggestions to get you started, drawn from my forty-plus years as a psychiatrist.
First, get some perspective.
Step back and assess your situation with as much objectivity as you can. &#8220;How bad is this problem?&#8221; &#8220;Have I overstated it?&#8221;
Sometimes my patients think an unhappy occurrence is much more serious than it really is &#8211; usually because it&#8217;s amplified by evoking a painful childhood issue. Often getting perspective is as simple as asking yourself this question: &#8220;What&#8217;s the worst thing that can happen?&#8221; Usually you&#8217;ll discover the worst thing isn&#8217;t that bad &#8211; and isn&#8217;t even likely to happen.
Second, compare the undeserved bad things that have happened to you with the unearned good things that have happened to you.
When I ask my patients to do this, they invariably conclude that the unearned good in their life far outweighs the undeserved bad. I&#8217;d say the ratio is at least 10 to 1. In my own case, I didn&#8217;t earn the incredibly good fortune of my grandparents moving to America, or that life-saving penicillin was available to me in my childhood when I was sick. I could go on and on. And so could you.
In light of this, maybe things aren&#8217;t so bad after all. In fact, they&#8217;re probably pretty good.
Third, toughen up.
Life hits you from all directions &#8211; health, personal relationships, work challenges, family issues. To deal with them, you need to build up your mental toughness. The earlier in life one starts this process, the better.
That&#8217;s why parents who coddle their children and protect them from every hurt and failure are not doing them any favors. Nor are colleges that provide students with so-called &#8220;safe spaces.&#8221; To toughen up, you need to push yourself. How do you know what you&#8217;re capable of if you don&#8217;t do that?
I was a sickly child. I saw myself as physically fragile. But the grueling hours in medical school and treating patients with serious illnesses during my residency showed me I was much tougher than I thought. You, too, probably have more strength than you realize.
Find out. Finding that strength will give you resilience.
Fourth, be the architect of your own fate.
Although there are many times in life when we can&#8217;t control circumstances, there are very few times when we can&#8217;t control how we react to them.
The late Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer provides an inspiring example of this. Krauthammer became a quadriplegic in medical school following a freak diving accident. Rather than wallow in self-pity, Krauthammer resolved to finish his medical studies from his hospital bed. He did &#8211; and without missing a single semester!
Fifth, take an honest inventory of your life.
Make a real effort to discover how you have contributed to your own misery. In other words, how many of your life&#8217;s speed bumps have you created? This will help you see that the ability to change your life lies as much within you as in external circumstances.
You can then avoid those behaviors that expose you to failure or difficulty. Focus on your power, not your helplessness. And the greatest power anyone has is the capacity to change.
You can certainly experience happy moments without resilience. But to lead a happy life, it&#8217;s essential.
I&#8217;m Dr. Stephen Marmer, psychiatrist, UCLA Medical School, for Prager University.
</blockquote>
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WATCH: ‘Building Resilience: 5 Ways To A Better Life’

California State University

Conservatism

Dennis Prager

Los Angeles (CSULA)

Prager University

Claudia Rueda, a California State University-Los Angeles (CSULA) student <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-immigration-activist-20170518-story.html">detained</a> by Border Patrol last week, is also an activist with the Immigrant Youth Coalition (IYC) &#8211; a group whose fiscal sponsor has received funding from George Soros&#8217; Open Society Foundations and other global, deep-pocketed donors. Rueda, an unlawfully present immigrant, now faces deportation and L.A.&#8217;s progressive community is rallying on her behalf.
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&#8220;One of our most active and powerful students was picked up by border patrol,&#8221; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/melina.abdullah/posts/10155219446675930?pnref=story">wrote</a> <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/16356/exclusive-california-state-professor-brings-her-7-jeffrey-cawood">Melina Abdullah</a>, a professor at CSULA, who also leads the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter. &#8220;We must stand up for Claudia.&#8221;
After meeting with Rueda&#8217;s &#8220;organizing family&#8221; on the day of her capture, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors expressed her anger on Facebook, posting, &#8220;I&#8217;m furious!!!&#8221;
Rueda, a 22-year-old Latin America Studies <a href="http://abc7.com/2013182/">major</a>, has been part of the Immigrant Youth Coalition (IYC) since 2012 &#8211; the same year she was <a href="http://egpnews.com/2012/09/undocumented-students-arrested-supporting-%e2%80%98trust-act%e2%80%99/">arrested</a> for blocking traffic while chanting, &#8220;I&#8217;m undocumented and unafraid.&#8221; Since then, Rueda <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9UTVKHBNEbrT-X5HWY-CnHn7e6uFsX7S65Pzto06hdk69Nw/viewform">serve</a>d as the Los Angeles IYC Youth Coordinator and has repeatedly <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=950303368375721&amp;set=a.327535453985852.73884.100001881997450&amp;type=3&amp;theater">expressed</a> anti-police sentiments like other activists affiliated with Black Lives Matter.
The IYC is <a href="https://borealisphilanthropy.org/grantee/immigrant-youth-coalition/">fiscally sponsored</a> by the National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) &#8211; an open-borders activist group that has <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/us-programs/grantees/national-day-laborer-organizing-network-0">received</a> at least $575,000 <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/us-programs/grantees/national-day-laborer-organizing-network">from</a> Soros&#8217; Open Society Foundations since 2010. It also receives funding from <a href="https://www.unboundphilanthropy.org/who-we-fund">Unbound Philanthropy</a>, a lesser-known pillar of the institutional left, which has approved more than $580,000 in NDLON-bound grants since 2012. Recently, the Borealis Philanthropy authorized a <a href="https://borealisphilanthropy.org/grantee/immigrant-youth-coalition/">Rapid Response Grant</a> designated specifically for IYC organizing efforts &#8211; money allocated from its <a href="https://borealisphilanthropy.org/grantmaking/transforming-movements-fund/grantees/">same fund</a> that finances the Black Lives Matter movement.
 As IYC&#8217;s website <a href="http://theiyc.org/">states</a>:
The Immigrant Youth Coalition (IYC) is an undocumented and Queer/Trans youth led organization based in California. Our mission is to mobilize youth, families and incarcerated people to end the criminalization of immigrants and people of color. We organize to create social change that confronts the interlocking systems of oppression.
IYC&#8217;s objectives are similar to positions held by the Black Lives Matter movement, which <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/">describes</a> itself as both &#8220;Queer&#8221; and &#8220;Transgender-Affirming.&#8221; BLM <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/11-major-misconceptions-about-the-black-lives-matter-movement/">calls</a> for &#8220;a complete dismantling of the <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/16357/exclusive-radical-professor-calls-abolition-police-jeffrey-cawood#.WRcLs_5WgT0.twitter">prison industrial complex</a>,&#8221; and <a href="http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/">cites</a> black immigrants &#8220;living in the shadows&#8221; as an example of how &#8220;Black lives are deprived&#8221; of &#8220;basic human rights and dignity.&#8221;
Coincidentally, IYC&#8217;s financial sponsor has been supportive of Black Lives Matter as early as the Ferguson, Missouri riots in 2014 &#8211; when NDLON called on Latinos and immigrants to <a href="http://www.ndlon.org/en/pressroom/press-releases/item/1078-ferguson">participate</a> in the uprising:
&#8220;&#8230;we urge those within the immigrant rights movement to attend the rallies and protests in the coming days. Black lives matter and any movement against dehumanization must affirm and defend that truth. Mike Brown is not the first but the latest in an epidemic of violence. We say, not one more Black person murdered by police, not one more struggle fought alone, not one more life criminalized as we continue our struggle for not one more deportation.&#8221;
Since Ferguson, the NDLON has continued to intertwine its mission with Black Lives Matter&#8217;s. As a 2015 press release, written by a former Soros Justice Fellow, <a href="http://www.ndlon.org/en/pressroom/press-releases/itemlist/tag/black%20lives%20matter">read</a>s:
&#8220;We understand that the basis of anti-immigrant sentiment is rooted in anti-Black racism and commit to the liberation of Black people as central to the liberation of all immigrants and communities of color. We support the Black Lives Matter movement.&#8221;
The NDLON sponsored an immigration <a href="http://nearchaosblog.com/post/96016975813/lapd-chief-beck-panders-to-afl-cios-durazo">town hall</a> inside Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in 2014, where the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) spoke about policy changes designed to benefit unlawfully present residents.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck explained that the City&#8217;s impound policy had been revised to be &#8220;more generous to people without licenses.&#8221; He reaffirmed that the department &#8220;supported drivers&#8217; licenses for the undocumented.&#8221; He reassured attendees that LAPD &#8220;stopped honoring ICE detention requests in every instance,&#8221; then spoke of his &#8220;obligation&#8221; to enable anyone, lawfully present or not, &#8220;to live a life that is full and happy.&#8221;
According to a <a href="https://capitalresearch.org/article/national-day-laborers-organizing-network-how-it-supports-illegal-immigration/">report</a> published by the Capital Research Center, an investigative think-tank that examines activist nonprofits:
The National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) has an unusual strategy for helping illegal immigrants achieve legal status. It tries to make every aspect of their work lives legal except their immigration status. Foundation grants assist NDLON efforts. NDLON reasons that if illegal immigrants are increasingly open and unremarkable in their day-to-day activities, then American citizens are more likely to approve efforts by lawmakers to give them amnesty.
That recalcitrant philosophy might explain why Rueda never applied for protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program &#8211; which might have prevented her current situation &#8211; despite stating her intentions to do so in 2012.
&#8220;I do plan to apply for deferred action and getting arrested does affect my chances of receiving it, because the arrest prohibits me from filing an application,&#8221; Rueda <a href="http://egpnews.com/2012/09/undocumented-students-arrested-supporting-%e2%80%98trust-act%e2%80%99/">told</a> Eastern Group Publications more than four years ago. &#8220;Instead I have to call a number and talk to the people in charge about my case.&#8221;
&#8220;This is a risk I took for my community,&#8221; Rueda continued.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued the following <a href="https://twitter.com/erikaamartin/status/865766590448418816">statement</a>:
Department of Homeland Security databases indicate Ms. Rueda currently has no legal authorization to be in the United States. Accordingly, she has been placed in removal proceedings before the Department of Justice&#8217;s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). It will now be up to an immigration judge with EOIR to determine whether Ms. Rueda has a legal basis to remain in the U.S. or will be ordered removed.
Now, Claudia Rueda&#8217;s fate will be determined by the same system she has so brazenly worked to destroy.
According to a <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/local-media-release/border-patrol-arrests-7-some-linked-la-based-criminal-organization">statement</a> from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Rueda&#8217;s arrest for immigration violations was &#8220;the result of targeted enforcement actions that were initiated from a criminal investigation&#8221; of &#8220;a cross-border narcotics smuggling organization&#8221; involving her father.
A video below of Immigrant Youth Coalition activists blocking traffic and protesting at demonstrations in Southern California:
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free_claudia_0

EXCLUSIVE: Activist Affiliated With Soros-Funded Group Faces Deportation

Black Lives Matter

George Soros

Illegal Immigration

Melina Abdullah – a professor at California State-LA who also leads the Los Angeles Chapter of Black Lives Matter – brought her three children to a recent Police Commission meeting to <a href="https://youtu.be/Y8xEgcvPdTE">chastise</a> LAPD during public comment.
“Lots of people have died because of you,” Abdullah’s 10-year-old daughter told LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. “I think it’s horrible that you don’t care what you have done, and killed so many young children.”
“I don’t know who to call anymore when I need help,” Abdullah’s 13-year-old daughter told the LAPD commissioners. “We see incident upon incident of people who call the police for help and end up being shot to death.”
“You’re supposed to protect and serve,” said Abdullah’s 7-year-old son. “It’s more like you’re protecting and serving yourselves.”
Dr. Abdullah wanted to teach her children about civic engagement while they were on spring break. However, their perception of law enforcement appears to have already been shaped by their mother, who <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BR_wtAKhlaT/?taken-by=docmellymel">advertises</a> the Pan African Studies Department she heads as “the intellectual arm of the revolution.”
At a conference on intersectionality and diversity earlier this year, Abdullah <a href="https://dailytitan.com/2017/03/southern-california-activists-analyzed-intersectionality-various-types-discrimination-langsdorf-hall/">called</a> police “former slave catchers” and warned college students of the “target” on their back.
Such incendiary comments about police are not unusual from Dr. Abdullah – who repeated claims she’s made several times before about the origin of modern day law enforcement.
At an ACLU-sponsored forum on police reform last September, Abdullah told attendees:
<blockquote>We understand the history of policing, so as a Black Lives Matter organizer, we believe that anytime there’s a system that was intentionally constructed to keep people oppressed, to return enslaved people to their alleged owners, there is no reforming that system. We believe in the abolition of policing as we know it. We believe in, not reform, but transformation of the public safety system.</blockquote>
While her extreme ideas might seem shocking, perhaps Abdullah’s family history provides proper perspective into her long-term goals.
A third-generation radical organizer, Abdullah descends from a line of Marxists that can be traced back to the Communist Party of the German Reich.
For much of her life, Abdullah was known as <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2000/nov/21/local/me-55154">Melina Reimann</a>, the granddaughter of a world-renowned Marxist economist named <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/obituaries/guenter-reimann-economic-publisher-is-dead-at-100.html?_r=0">Günter Reimann</a>, who joined Germany’s Communist Party around 1920.
When he died in 2005, an obituary <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/01/guardianobituaries.germany">explained</a>, “Reimann’s understanding of capitalism derived from the position of desiring its overthrow.”
Long before Reimann advised governments, central banks, and CEOs from all over the globe, he was a 17-year-old rebel writing for Rosa Luxemburg’s Die Rote Fahne, which translates to The Red Banner. It was a communist newspaper <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/obituaries/guenter-reimann-economic-publisher-is-dead-at-100.html?_r=0">described</a> by the New York Times as &#8220;a party organ.&#8221;
As The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/mar/01/guardianobituaries.germany">reported</a> at the time of Reimann’s death:
<blockquote>…he worked underground with German social democrats and communist resistance fighters, fully aware that this might prove a terminal decision. Indeed, by 1934 the Gestapo was closing in. Nazi Officials raided his house and arrested his student guest, Hu Lan-Xi, who would go on to become the Red Army’s first female general.</blockquote>
Reimann soon left Berlin and went into exile.
By 1938, he was living in New York City with political refugee status. Reimann’s new life in the United States was made possible by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) – an organization that has since received <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/us-programs/grantees/american-friends-service-committee-1">funding</a> from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
People Magazine <a href="http://people.com/archive/the-quakers-warn-that-police-spying-on-political-activists-did-not-end-with-vietnam-vol-11-no-23/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>In 1975 the American Friends Service Committee, the activist arm of the Quakers, set up a Program on Government Surveillance and Citizen’s Rights. Using the Freedom of Information Act, it obtained some 13,000 pages of documents that revealed the FBI had been keeping extensive records on the AFSC for more than five decades.</blockquote>
Reimann acquired U.S. citizenship in 1944. Then, two years later his son, John, was born.
John Reimann would relocate to Oakland, California, during the turbulent 1960s, where Melina was born in 1972. At the time, armed Black Panthers “patrolled the pigs” to combat police brutality &#8211; creating the perfect environment to mold an upcoming Black Lives Matter revolutionary.
Abdullah’s mother is black, and her father, John Reimann, is now a white, retired union organizer who is still active in the Bay Area’s progressive scene.
“I was born in the 70s in East Oakland. All of our parents are Panthers, or Black Power organizers, or organizers,” Abdullah <a href="https://www.solidarity-us.org/node/4461">recalled</a>. “We come out politicized.”
Long before the first Molotov cocktail was thrown, John Reimann was <a href="http://www.iww.org/PDF/history/library/Reimann/Politics%20of%20Occupy%20Oakland.pdf">part of</a> Occupy Oakland, which would go on to become one of the most violent branches of the Occupy movement.
As he <a href="http://www.iww.org/PDF/history/library/Reimann/Politics%20of%20Occupy%20Oakland.pdf">wrote</a> in “The Politics of Occupy Oakland – A Marxist Viewpoint:”
<blockquote>Occupy Oakland and the Occupy movement in general is the warning of a far wider movement yet to come. As with Occupy, that wider movement will ultimately rise or fall, it will live or die, based on bold, defiant action and clear ideas. First and foremost must be opposition to capitalism itself.</blockquote>
John Reimann, who contributes to a blog called &#8220;Oakland Socialist,” is also a self-proclaimed <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/news/these-savvy-women-have-made-black-lives-matter-the-most-crucial-left-wing-movement-today-6252489">Trotskyist</a> – a philosophy that advocates global socialism through continuing revolution.
Those same principles are now being promoted by his daughter, Melina Abdullah, preserving the family’s communist calling.
“The system of white supremacist, heteronormative, patriarchal capitalism is extremely fragile,” Abdullah <a href="https://twitter.com/DocMellyMel/status/631504135582433280">tells</a> her followers. “Their power is false and easily toppled.”
In addition to toppling capitalism, Abdullah seeks to replace police with community-based public safety teams. But you won’t find that in her Cal State L.A. <a href="http://web.calstatela.edu/academic/pas/Abdullah.php">bio</a> &#8211; a school that made headlines last year after protesters tried to stop a speech from Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro. He went on to file a lawsuit against the school – and Abdullah – for violating his First Amendment rights.
Three months later at a campus “healing space,” Abdullah <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/6085/csula-professor-calls-ben-shapiro-neo-nazi-neo-kkk-pardes-seleh">labeled</a> Shapiro a “neo-Nazi” and “neo-KKK member.”
As Fox Business <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/05/19/csula-professors-being-sued-for-violating-free-speech-rights.html">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Sources familiar with the lawsuit say senior CSULA administrators purposefully failed to enforce university free speech policies in order to placate the protestors and stop Shapiro’s speech. Students who managed to attend Shapiro’s lecture were told by CSULA police officers not to leave the auditorium or their lives would be in danger.</blockquote>
CSULA President Covino, Professor Melina Abdullah and Professor Robert Weide are among the defendants named in the suit, according to sources familiar with the lawsuit.
As a tenured department head, Abdullah is free to recruit students as Black Lives Matter allies and take road trips half way across the country organizing the people to rise up – all in the name of Pan African Studies.
“Thankful to be part of a department that lives the revolution rather than just theorizing about it,” Abdullah <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PanAfricanStudies/posts/10152675901207863">posted</a> on Facebook after a 2014 sojourn in Ferguson, Missouri, site of the ‘hands up-don’t shoot’ fallacy that led to full-blown riots.
Since then, Abdullah’s tactics have been persistent, creative and disruptive.
As the Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-garcetti-forum-black-lives-matter-20151019-story.html">reported</a> in October 2015, Melina Abdullah ambushed a church hosting a community meeting with Mayor Eric Garcetti, which was “quickly overtaken by about 50 protesters from organizations including the national activist group Black Lives Matter,” and:
As Garcetti spoke to a full house in the church&#8217;s cavernous sanctuary hall, the demonstrators stood and turned their backs to him.
Toward the end of the hour-long session Garcetti, ringed by police officers, struggled to reach his car as he was swarmed by a crowd of chanting activists — and once inside the vehicle, he was forced to wait amid blaring sirens until the crowd was dispersed by the LAPD.
“The mayor has neglected, disrespected and abused the black community for far too long,” Melina Abdullah, a professor of Pan African Studies at Cal State L.A. and organizer for Black Lives Matter, said at the meeting.
Then, two days before Christmas, Abdullah was arrested after shutting down the 405 Freeway – delaying holiday travelers trying to make flights at the nearby LAX airport.
As local public radio station KPCC <a href="http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/12/24/56480/9-charged-with-vandalism-conspiracy-over-405-freew/">reported</a> at the time:
<blockquote>The activists, who were with the Black Lives Matter protest group, are accused of blocking the freeway&#8217;s lanes and painting slogans and the names of several victims of alleged police brutality on the pavement. The protest shut down the southbound lanes at about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday and lasted about 15 minutes.</blockquote>
It was one of several Black Lives Matter protests held in U.S. cities — including acts of civil disobedience in Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco — that took place this week. The group said it hopes the actions would draw attention to incidents they said show &#8220;a consistent reiteration of the devaluing of Black life by law enforcement and their supporters.&#8221;
After Abdullah was asked to leave a Police Commission meeting last year, she cursed at, then <a href="https://youtu.be/n_rKkeKlb7Y">appeared to threaten</a>, LAPD Commissioner Steve Soboroff (father of msNBC’s Jacob Soboroff), who had instructed an activist affiliated with Black Lives Matter to “shut up”:
“You shut the fuck up, Soboroff, you shut up,” Abdullah said while vacating the meeting. “We know where your ass lives too. And we’ve got cars.”
Abdullah’s 13-year-old daughter, Thandiwe, appears to be her protégé – now part of Melina Abdullah’s organizing efforts within the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
When Black Lives Matter held its first event inside an LAUSD school last September, Thandiwe was on the student panel that led the discussion.
KCAL-9 Los Angeles <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/09/29/for-first-time-black-lives-matter-event-held-at-lausd-school/">reported</a>:
“I feel like the school criminalizes me; I feel like the school criminalizes a lot of the people of color,” (Thandiwe Abdullah) added.
She, as well as many parents, says there are too many police officers on campuses, especially those with predominately black student populations.
Two years ago, the Los Angeles Times <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-black-lives-matter-occupy-lapd-protest-20150105-story.html">interviewed</a> Thandiwe Abdullah at an encampment called “Occupy LAPD,” where her mother, Melina, was arrested. The Times reported:
<blockquote>One of the group’s youngest protesters, 11-year-old Thandiwe Abdullah of Los Angeles, said she feared for her own future given the recent police killings. “I have a target on my back everywhere I go to,” she said.</blockquote>
Professor Abdullah has invested years teaching her children, students, and anyone that identifies as &#8220;oppressed&#8221; to distrust law enforcement. She admits that her anti-police activism is part of a much larger strategy of advancing a communist revolt.
As USC Annenberg Media <a href="http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2016/01/19/black-lives-matter-runs-on-girl-power/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Having accumulated milestones here and there, Black Lives Matter is still a long way off from the grand vision. That involves a “massive reform of public safety,” said Abdullah. “We’re talking about police abolition. We’re talking about police disarmament.”
However, she asserts that police are only a tool in a “white supremacist patriarchal heteronormative capitalist society” that requires dismantling.</blockquote>
80 years after Günter Reimann immigrated to America, his anti-capitalist legacy lives on through his granddaughter, Melina Abdullah; the Black Lives Matter radical &#8211; leading “the intellectual arm of the revolution” from within the <a href="http://www.calstate.edu/csufacts/2016facts/documents/facts2016.pdf">largest</a> four-year university system in the United States.
Dr. Abdullah did not respond to requests to comment on this report.
Video of Abdullah at the ACLU-sponsored forum on police reform last September:
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Video of Abdullah telling LAPD commissioner to STFU:
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<div class="embed video fluid-video">Jeffrey Cawood can be followed on Twitter @Near_Chaos</div>

EXCLUSIVE: California State Professor Brings Her 7-Year-Old To Lecture The Los Angeles Police Department

Ben Shapiro

Los Angeles

Melina Abdullah

Police

California State University &#8211; Los Angeles has revised its policies and practices that were intended to block Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro&#8217;s speech last year as a result of a lawsuit filed by Young Americans for Freedom, Shapiro and others.
The Alliance Defending Freedom represented the plaintiffs. Senior Counsel Casey Mattox, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, stated,
<blockquote>
Today&#8217;s college students will be tomorrow&#8217;s legislators, judges, commissioners, and voters. That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s so important that public universities model the First Amendment values they are supposed to be teaching to students. It should disturb everyone when any university communicates to a generation that the Constitution doesn&#8217;t matter. This agreement will pave the way to more freedom for students and speakers at Cal State L.A.
</blockquote>
As <a href="http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/10117">ADF explained</a>:
<blockquote>
In addition to dropping unconstitutional security charges that are based on the viewpoint being expressed at an event, the university has agreed that it will not cancel or refuse to schedule a speaker based on their viewpoint and will enforce the university&#8217;s Free Expression Policy in a viewpoint-neutral manner. That policy prohibits actions that would block or disrupt access to any event on campus. Because the university opposed Shapiro&#8217;s viewpoint, it had refused to enforce the policy when school officials allowed protesters to block access to the event.
</blockquote>
Because the university agreed to make the changes, the plaintiffs <a href="http://www.adfmedia.org/files/YAF-CovinoDismissal.pdf">dismissed</a> their lawsuit.
The university attempted to shut down Shapiro&#8217;s speech, scheduled by Young Americans for Freedom for February 25, 2016, and co-sponsored by the Young America&#8217;s Foundation. First University officials charged the group $621.50 for security and then canceled the speech. Shapiro went anyway, despite the fact that some professors helped incite a mob to block entry to the venue where Shapiro was speaking. The <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3704/exclusive-csula-police-look-away-protesters-joshua-yasmeh">near-riot</a> that followed saw students listening to the speech and Shapiro himself trapped inside the venue while protesters blocked the exits and triggered the fire alarm.
ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, who <a href="http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/10119">argued before a federal court</a> on behalf of YAF, stated, &#8220;Instead of playing favorites toward some while shutting out others, universities should provide a level playing field so that all students can engage freely in the marketplace of ideas. Cal State L.A.&#8217;s acknowledgment that the university can&#8217;t charge fees for speech it labels &#8216;controversial&#8217; is a recognition that the prior policy violated the students&#8217; freedom of speech. The university&#8217;s changes should enable students to organize future events in a safe and civil environment.&#8221;
Shapiro added, &#8220;Last year&#8217;s near-riot at Cal State L.A. was a travesty with regard to free speech. I&#8217;m excited that we were able to come to an agreement with them to protect free speech in the future, and I look forward to coming to the campus soon to speak again. Hopefully this time, we can have an honest, open, and productive discussion rather than violence and chaos from those who disagree.&#8221;
<blockquote>
Hopefully this time, we can have an honest, open, and productive discussion rather than violence and chaos from those who disagree.&#8221;
Ben Shapiro
</blockquote>
Young America&#8217;s Foundation President Ron Robinson echoed, &#8220;We hope the university&#8217;s affirmation of its free speech policies will help ensure that they will truly apply to all individuals and organizations at Cal State L.A. and not just leftist professors and organizations.&#8221;
YAF and Shapiro are attempting to schedule another speech at the university sometime in 2017.

After Lawsuit From Shapiro And YAF, CSULA Now Will Let Conservatives Speak On Campus

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)

Young America's Foundation

Young Americans for Freedom

On Thursday, more &#8220;tolerance&#8221; from the morally superior left was on full display at the California State University, Los Angeles campus. First, a student referred to black conservatives as &#8220;coons&#8221; on the Facebook page of conservative group Young American&#8217;s Foundation. Later in the day, YAF posters were ripped down by two females on campus because YAF members are &#8220;f***ing retarded.&#8221; 
Facebook user Liana Wilson <a href="http://www.yaf.org/news/black-conservatives-csula-yaf-smeared-coons-chapter-members-called-fing-retarded/">smeared </a>YAF members as &#8220;bigots,&#8221; and labeled &#8220;POC&#8221; (people of color) and black conservatives as &#8220;sellouts&#8221; and &#8220;coons&#8221; on YAF&#8217;s Facebook event page advertising their upcoming lecture featuring conservative activist <a href="http://www.yaf.org/news/black-conservatives-csula-yaf-smeared-coons-chapter-members-called-fing-retarded/">Star Parker</a>, titled, &#8220;Abortion: Planed Parenthood&#8217;s War Against the Poor.&#8221;
&#8220;For all you bigots, especially POC sellouts and coons of YAF,&#8221; wrote Wilson, linking to a screenshot of a tweet which read, &#8220;welcome to america the country that is run by straight cis white males that believe abortion is cold murder but killing black people is not.&#8221;
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As <a href="http://www.yaf.org/news/black-conservatives-csula-yaf-smeared-coons-chapter-members-called-fing-retarded/">noted</a> by YAF, most of their campus members at CSULA happen to be minorities. 
Later that same day, &#8220;tolerant&#8221; campus leftists were caught on video gleefully tearing down CSULA YAF posters advertising the Parker event. When asked why they were destroying the property, the two young girls thoughtfully answered, &#8220;Y&#8217;all f***ing retarted.&#8221; 
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The YAF posters were reportedly replaced with &#8220;flyers promoting abortion, including a quote from radical feminist bell hooks along with contact information for Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation.&#8221;
YAF responded in disgust over the acts carried out by the fascistic campus leftist. 
&#8220;These attacks are disgusting and would be met with uproar had they been carried out by conservatives,&#8221; wrote YAF&#8217;s Emily Jashinsky.
&#8220;CSULA YAF&#8217;s bold minority members are regularly smeared as racists and bigots for promoting conservative ideas, receiving no support from university officials who claim so adamantly to support diversity and inclusion,&#8221; she continued. 
Jashinsky asserted that YAF will &#8220;not be intimidated or silenced&#8221; by the left.
In May, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro&#8217;s scheduled speech at CSULA was temporarily <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3599/csula-president-shuts-down-shapiro-event-shapiro-daily-wire">canceled</a> by CSULA President William Covino. When Shapiro said he&#8217;d come anyway, the administration relented but students were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJjOpl-xZJQ">forcibly denied access</a> to the speech by leftist students and professors at the university. Shapiro and CSULA YAF Chairman Mark Kahanding are now <a href="http://www.yaf.org/news/breaking-yaf-files-first-amendment-lawsuit-against-csula-for-censorship-of-ben-shapiro-lecture/">suing</a> CSULA officials over the anti-American stunt facilitated on their campus.

facebook_yaf_

‘Tolerant’ Campus Leftists Call Black Conservatives ‘Coons,’ YAF members ‘F***ing Retarded’ [Video]

Education

Leftism

Racism

The radical leftists at California State University Los Angeles, unsatisfied with causing a near-riot on February 25 when Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro spoke on the campus, have <a href="http://www.yaf.org/news/csula-leftists-lose-it-over-christina-hoff-sommers-yaf-lecture-shut-this-sht-down/">turned their hatred</a> on the school&#8217;s Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter for inviting Christina Hoff Sommers to speak this fall.
Sommers is scheduled to speak on October 4; her speech is titled, &#8220;Where Feminism Went Wrong.&#8221;
One leftist, Alejandra Rodriguez, wrote, &#8220;YAF is a registered hate group. idk why the f*** they&#8217;re allowed on campus.&#8221; Another example, Alfredo Gama, &#8220;It&#8217;s poc (people of color) yearning for white privilege.&#8221; A third voice, P.m. Beers: &#8220;let me know if people just want to shut this sh*t down. I&#8217;m just down the street.&#8221;
Despite the rampant vitriolic rhetoric of leftists about the Sommers event, CSULA YAF&#8217;s chapter chair Mark Kahanding fired back, &#8220;Bring it on.&#8221;
The incident in February with Shapiro prompted Kahanding, Young America&#8217;s Foundation and Kahanding to <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/5895/shapiro-yaf-file-suit-against-csula-protect-free-hank-berrien">file suit</a> against William Covino, the university president, various administrators, and two professors who repeatedly targeted the YAF chapter, for violating their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Sommers, who earned a PhD in philosophy from Brandeis University in 1979, is the author of Who Stole Feminism (1994) and The War Against Boys (2000). She is also the W.H Brady fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

CSULA Leftists Trying To Shut Down Christina Hoff Sommers

Christina Hoff Sommers

Daily Wire Editor-In-Chief Ben Shapiro has been speaking out against leftism since he was 16 at UCLA, standing atop the Ackerman building waving a sign reading &#8220;merit before diversity,&#8221; and writing the book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Brainwashed-Universities-Indoctrinate-Americas-Youth/dp/1595559795/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1472481271&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=brainwashed+ben+shapiro">Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America&#8217;s Youth</a> at 20. Now a whole new generation is being influenced by his books and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiTnIVJLN3wBHM9EQx4kW8g/videos">Ben Shapiro Thug Life videos</a> devoted to his speeches and public debates.
One case in point is Cal State Los Angeles student Mark Kahanding, 20, a finance major at the university and the 2105-2016 chair of its Young Americans for Freedom chapter, who was bullied growing up and as a teenager turned to the writings of Chinese dictator and mass murderer Mao Zedong for comfort. Mao was responsible for executions, imprisonments, forced famines and labor camps that <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2010/02/the-legacy-of-mao-zedong-is-mass-murder">killed</a> an estimated 65 million Chinese.
Kahanding told <a href="https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&amp;sa=t&amp;url=https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/28658/&amp;ct=ga&amp;cd=CAEYACoUMTY1Mjk4MTE5MjI1MDk4Mjg4MDAyGjgzNDRiZWM5Y2IxZTFiNWQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&amp;usg=AFQjCNENlqfvCjTHqrdoSv_2QYr4doA4cA">The College Fix</a>:
<blockquote>
I fell in love with this ideology because prior to high school I was bullied for nine years. Having been treated like dirt, I thought that if I became a communist and helped advance the cause, then no one else would have to go through that. It started off with music from the Cultural Revolution. The song, &#8220;Socialism is Good,&#8221; was catchy and stuck in my head. It forced me to research more and I fell in love with the ideology.
</blockquote>
Despite the fact that his parents were conservative, Kahanding studied Mao&#8217;s teachings, and became so determined that he learned Chinese in order to recite Chinese revolutionary songs from the 1960s. He admitted, &#8220;I would dream for the day that I could tear down the oppressive system so that all men and women would be equals. I would even graffiti the hammer and sickle on sidewalks.&#8221;
Then one day he was at a book store and saw Shapiro&#8217;s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bullies-Culture-Intimidation-Silences-Americans/dp/1476710007/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1472481900&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=bullies+ben+shapiro">Bullies: How the Left&#8217;s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans</a>. Having been bullied himself, Kahanding was intrigued by the title and bought the book, which argues that leftists use the race card, class card and sexism card to demonize conservatives and bully them into submission.
Kahanding said he realized the same bullying tactics that he had suffered were the same as the tactics of the left. He recalled, &#8220;His book showed me that the left was full of horrible people that I thought were tolerant, but they were just hypocrites.&#8221; He stated that he slowly began to embrace his parents&#8217; ideals of personal freedom and liberty as expressed by conservatism, adding, &#8220;I discarded my feelings and embraced facts.&#8221;
Kahanding&#8217;s mother, contacted by The College Fix, said she remembered him listening to communist music in the car and emblazoning the communist symbol on his books. She asserted, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t like it, but I knew it was just a phase so I let time pass by. I am so proud of my son for what he has done and his accomplishments that he has made.&#8221;
It was Kahanding and the members of Young Americans for Freedom on the CSULA campus that invited Shapiro to speak on the campus February 25, prompting the university to first prohibit Shapiro from speaking, then the <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3716/fascists-csula-create-near-riot-pull-fire-alarm-amanda-prestigiacomo">near-riot</a> when Shapiro wound up speaking there and leftists barricaded the doors of the auditorium to trap students inside while leftists pulled the fire alarm.
<blockquote>
&#8220;I would even graffiti the hammer and sickle on sidewalks.&#8221;
CSULA&#8217;s highly-conservative Mark Kahanding, before he read Ben Shapiro&#8217;s book
</blockquote>
Kahanding, Shapiro and Young America&#8217;s Foundation <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/5895/shapiro-yaf-file-suit-against-csula-protect-free-hank-berrien">filed a lawsuit</a> in May against California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) for censoring CSULA Young Americans Foundation&#8217;s (YAF) February 25 lecture featuring Shapiro and violating the plaintiffs&#8217; First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Kahanding concluded: &#8220;Not many people understand this, but as a former Maoist, I see what the left is doing. They are attempting to start another Cultural Revolution. They are like me, a naïve young person who wants everyone to be treated fairly.&#8221;

Student: Shapiro Made Me Leave Communism

Communism

The day after the near&#8211;riot precipitated by Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro&#8217;s speech at Cal State Los Angeles on February 25, university president William Covino implied to his students that much of the culpability for the violence should be pinned on conservative students, as <a href="http://heatst.com/culture-wars/exclusive-ben-shapiro-threatened-by-violent-vitriolic-mob-called-a-nazi-at-his-cal-state-la-speech-on-diversity/">Heat Street</a> reports.
That claim was a lie, as documents comprising 1,000 pages of records obtained by Heat Street now clearly delineate.
Not only was there clear evidence before the event that the leftist protesters would make trouble, the day of the event, they clearly were responsible for the near-riot that ensued. Roughly 150 leftist protesters blocked entrances to the event, barricaded the doors from outside, thus trapping Shapiro and his listeners inside, and pulled on a fire alarm; a Breitbart reporter was threatened by a protester who said he would &#8220;beat the piss out of you,&#8221; and Shapiro had to be escorted out to his car by a police cordon. Police <a href="http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/05/19/csula-professors-being-sued-for-violating-free-speech-rights.html">reportedly</a> told those who managed to get inside the auditorium to listen to Shapiro&#8217;s speech not to leave the auditorium because of the high risk of violence.
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Students were smuggled in four at a time through the back door; leftists blocked all the entrances. Police were told not to move them.
&#8212; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/703003369321811968">February 25, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
We had to be escorted by a full police cordon as well as a motorcade thanks to safety concerns.
&#8212; Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) <a href="https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/703003637249781761">February 25, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
As reported <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/7757/csula-canceled-shapiro-after-leftists-compared-him-hank-berrien">here</a>, administrators had been worried about Shapiro&#8217;s speech, titled, &#8220;When Diversity Becomes A Problem,&#8221; for months. On Feb. 5, the University&#8217;s director of the Department of Public Safety sent a memo requesting additional law-enforcement, writing, &#8220;While there are no specific threats to the campus or our students or faculty at this time, there have been postings with overtones of violence from supporters and detractors of the event.&#8221;
The university could not obtain insurance for the event; on Feb. 16, a representative from Alliant wrote, &#8220;Unfortunately, due to the nature of the lecture I would need to pass on this one.&#8221; The University&#8217;s director of risk management admitted he had been &#8220;unable to obtain additional insurance beyond what [Shapiro] brings with him and our own [general liability] program.&#8221;
Threats before the event abounded; a Facebook user posting under the name Zamaria Xomez wrote on the event page advertising Shapiro&#8217;s speech, &#8220;All I&#8217;m going to say you chose the wrong campus. Get ready. We don&#8217;t play.&#8221;
Cal State LA sociology professor Robert Weide boasted he would fight the conservative students, calling them &#8220;tough guy provocateurs &#8230; We have an open mat on campus in the gym in the USU building at 1 p.m. Friday and Noon on Saturday if you want to show us your white supremacy. Heads up though, I lift bro&#8230;&#8221; Weide also posted that this was &#8220;your opportunity of a lifetime&#8221; to &#8220;choke one of your anti-fascist professors.&#8221;
Administrators received emails noting Weide&#8217;s threats; one email from February 21 read, &#8220;Faculty member ROBERT WEIDE has been exhibiting bizarre behavior by tearing down posters advertising a guest speaker&#8217;s appearance on campus &#8230; WEIDE has escalated his bullying and badgering by confronting students and threatening them&#8230; WEIDE has resorted to name calling describing members of the Young American for Freedom (YAF) as White Supremacists and Nazi&#8217;s. He has publicly challenged students associated with the YAF to a physical fight. He has publicly threatened others with physical violence.&#8221;
Another student who claimed not to be a conservative pointed out after the event where the culpability truly lay; he wrote about &#8220;a student group being bullied by a violent mob on campus,&#8221; adding that Young Americans for Freedom, which sponsored the event, didn&#8217;t make the situation unsafe; &#8220;it was the violent vitriolic mob who showed up to oppose their right to peaceably assemble.&#8221;

Heat Street: ‘Violent, Vitriolic’ Crowd Descended on Shapiro Cal State LA Speech

<a href="http://heatst.com/culture-wars/exclusive-how-cal-state-canceled-on-ben-shapiro-after-liberal-students-compared-him-to-the-kkk/">According</a> to Heat Street, after administrators at Cal State LA canceled a speech by Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro scheduled for late February, they were deluged with phone calls and emails from students, parents and alumni angry that the University was limiting free speech.
Two months before the scheduled speech, which was titled &#8220;When Diversity Becomes A Problem,&#8221; members of the administration acknowledged that Shapiro&#8217;s well-known criticisms of the tactics of the Left could engender an explosive reaction from furious leftists. Ironically, Shapiro&#8217;s speech was championing the value of diversity of thought and free speech.
On December 7, more than two months before Shapiro&#8217;s February 25 speech, Scott Bowman, dean of the College of Natural and Social Sciences, who had heard Shapiro&#8217;s speech the previous November 19 (<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/node/1236/edit">watched</a> by nearly a quarter of a million people) at the University of Missouri where he openly challenged leftists, including the Black Lives Matter movement, emailed the chief administrators at the college, including President William Covino, alerting them of a possible explosion. He wrote: &#8220;I think the students have the right to hear what he has to say. On the other hand, it could be explosive in the current environment. Nothing he says is hate speech in my view but his critiques of the Left&#8217;s obsession with micro-aggressions and various tactics of groups (e.g., Black Lives Matter) would be labeled racist by them, which is his point, by the way.&#8221; Bowman urged Cal State LA to &#8220;stipulate that he speak in a designated place where there are not unwitting passersby,&#8221; adding, &#8220;we don&#8217;t want to put him in a forum that will incite.&#8221;
Sure enough, some leftist students compared Shapiro&#8217;s upcoming event to an &#8220;undercover KKK meeting.&#8221; On February 20, five days before the speech, a student whose name is redacted in the email wrote to Covino, headlining his email, &#8220;I DO NOT FEEL SAFE!&#8221; The student continued, &#8220;The fact that so many right wing conservatives that own guns RSVPd to this event makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. We should be able to go to an event without worrying about our safety. And frankly this event sounds like an undercover KKK meeting. This event in general speaks volumes as to how little our lives matter&#8230;&#8221;
On February 22, Covino <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3599/csula-president-shuts-down-shapiro-event-shapiro-daily-wire">wrote</a> an email to the Young America&#8217;s Foundation chapter, which was sponsoring the event, to cancel the event. He asserted, &#8220;After careful consideration, I have decided that it will be best for our campus community if we reschedule Ben Shapiro&#8217;s appearance for a later date, so that we can arrange for him to appear as part of a group of speakers with differing viewpoints on diversity. Such an event will better represent our university&#8217;s dedication to the free exchange of ideas and the value of considering multiple viewpoints.&#8221;
That same day, Shapiro fired back, &#8220;The campus fascists have taken over. I pay taxes in the state of California; I&#8217;m paying for these whiny children to be indoctrinated by radical leftists. For CSULA to pretend that they&#8217;re trying to provide balance isn&#8217;t just stupid, it&#8217;s insultingly stupid. I am the balance, and they&#8217;re too afraid to let me speak. These aren&#8217;t diversity warriors. They&#8217;re jackbooted thugs. If they want to call the men with guns to shut down free speech, they&#8217;ll demonstrate clearly just who they are. I&#8217;ll be there on Thursday. See you there, snowflakes.&#8221;
Chancellor Tim White warned Covino on February 23, writing, &#8220;Unclear if your approval is normal protocol for someone else&#8217;s invitation&#8230; This one is on a slippery slope in the absence of fuller understanding.&#8221;
Once the news surfaced that Covino was trying to cancel Shapiro&#8217;s speech, the blowback began. Between the evening of Feb. 23 and Feb. 25, Covino&#8217;s staff received scores of phone calls and emails condemning the university&#8217;s censorship. Examples included:
<blockquote>
02/24/16 at 11:15 a.m. [Redacted] Censoring Ben Shapiro is unconstitutional.
02/24/16 at 11:19 [Redacted] Disgusted at the fact that conservatives cannot adhere to a public meeting without sheltering people.
02/24/16 at 12:36 p.m. [Redacted] &#8216;Honor the 1st Amendment,&#8217;&#8221; lists one run-down of the incoming calls.
</blockquote>
One student, whose name is redacted, said they were &#8220;very disturbed&#8221; about &#8220;a student group being bullied by a violent mob on campus.&#8221; The student informed Covino:
<blockquote>
I think your decision to postpone the event in the first place seemed to send a message that other groups are allowed to invite speakers and this group is not &#8230; It was not the organizers of this group who made the situation unsafe, it was the violent vitriolic mob who showed up to oppose their right to peaceably assemble who made the situation unsafe. &#8230; Well sir, I personally, as a bystander (who also disagrees with YAF and Ben Shapiro) feel intimidated by this mob and by faculty members. &#8230; I feel as though if I say the wrong thing by accident, even in agreement, I will become the victim of violence&#8230;
</blockquote>
One email that was signed &#8220;an actual student with a brain,&#8221; wrote that the administration was &#8220;complicit in the intimidation and violence of your hate-filled and misguided student &#8216;protestors.&#8217; What you fail to realize is that you played exactly into Ben Shapiro&#8217;s hands. Yes, the title of the speech was provocative; the point of which was for Ben to demonstrate how intolerant far leftists are to ideas that are politically inconvenient.&#8221;
One gentleman who had been named the &#8220;Outstanding Male Student&#8221; when he graduated from the university 50 years before said he would terminate donating to the University unless it reissued the invitation to Shapiro. He wrote, &#8220;The University should honor free speech and never offers [to add] a conservative speaker to speak when a liberal is asked to speak.&#8221; That sentiment was echoed by several others.
A parent whose daughter attended a Cal State sister campus, where she was blocked from hearing Shapiro&#8217;s speech, threatened to contact his attorney.
A Washington state mother whose child was graduating high school said the CSULA was off the list after rescinding the invitation to Shapiro. A Cal State employee who took the phone call said, &#8220;She indicated that she is calling on behalf of a number of mothers with high school seniors graduating this year. She said after seeing this, she and the mothers are all saying &#8216;hell no&#8217; to considering Cal State for their kids. She also said word of mouth travels&#8230;&#8221;
As late as May, someone working in the human-resources field wrote Covino, asking for a full list of students &#8220;who are still emotionally and physically hurt by the speech given by Ben Shapiro, which they didn&#8217;t even attend,&#8221; adding that &#8220;my HR department, as well as industry Head Hunters and colleagues would like to add their names to a &#8216;watch list&#8217; of potential incoming resumes to ignore.&#8221;

CSULA Canceled Shapiro After Leftists Compared Him To KKK. Hundreds of Protesters Ripped University In Response.

As California State University &#8211; Los Angeles administrators decide what to do about the students&#8217; recent <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/4010/after-ben-shapiro-csula-speech-student-government-james-barrett">vote to fire the university&#8217;s president</a> for allowing Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro to speak on campus, it seemed like a good moment to note that conservative firebrand Shapiro and dyed-in-the-wool progressive Barack Obama actually do agree on one thing: College students shouldn&#8217;t be &#8220;coddled.&#8221;
At a <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/9/14/9326965/obama-political-correctness">town hall</a> in Des Moines, Iowa back in September, President Obama broke with the social justice &#8220;safe space&#8221; movement and chided college students for trying to silence their opponents, making the obvious point that it was important to actually engage with other points of view. 
&#8220;&#8230;I&#8217;ve heard some college campuses where they don&#8217;t want to have a guest speaker who, you know, is too conservative. Or, they don&#8217;t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African Americans, or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. And, you know, I gotta tell you that I don&#8217;t agree with that either. I don&#8217;t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view,&#8221; he said. 
&#8220;Anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with them. But you shouldn&#8217;t silence them by saying, &#8216;You can&#8217;t come because, you know, my&#8212;I&#8217;m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.&#8217; That&#8217;s not the way we learn either,&#8221; he added.
He also countered the social justice warrior&#8217;s idea of a &#8220;safe space&#8221; with something far more in line with the conservative perspective: &#8220;a space where a lot of ideas a are presented and collide and people are having arguments and people are testing each other&#8217;s theories.&#8221;
&#8220;Look, the purpose of college is not just, as I said before, to transmit skills. It&#8217;s also to widen your horizons; to make you a better citizen; to help you to evaluate information, to help you make your way through the world; to help you be more creative,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The way to do that is to create a space where a lot of ideas are presented and collide and people are having arguments and people are testing each other&#8217;s theories, and over time people learn from each other because they&#8217;re getting out of their own narrow point of view and having a broader point of view.&#8221;
Here&#8217;s the full transcript from the Des Moines town hall via <a href="https://www.thefire.org/transcript-president-obama-echoes-fire-college-students-shouldnt-be-coddled-and-protected-from-different-points-of-view/">FIRE</a>:
<blockquote>
QUESTION: Hi, my name&#8217;s Ava. I&#8217;m currently a junior at Lincoln High School here on the southside of Des Moines. My question is to you is: I know you don&#8217;t want to get involved with the presidential race at the moment, but&#8230; A candidate has said that they want to cut government spending to politically biased colleges. And I was wondering if, say, that would hurt the education system for those who depend on that, or would it better the education as a whole?
OBAMA: First of all, I didn&#8217;t hear this candidate say that. I have no idea what that means. [Laughter.]
I suspect he doesn&#8217;t either. [Laughter; applause.]
Look, the purpose of college is not just, as I said before, to transmit skills. It&#8217;s also to widen your horizons; to make you a better citizen; to help you to evaluate information, to help you make your way through the world; to help you be more creative. The way to do that is to create a space where a lot of ideas are presented and collide and people are having arguments and people are testing each other&#8217;s theories, and over time people learn from each other because they&#8217;re getting out of their own narrow point of view and having a broader point of view.
So, Arne I&#8217;m sure has the same experience that I did, which is, when I went to college, suddenly there were some folks who didn&#8217;t think at all like me. And, if I had an opinion about something, they&#8217;d look at me and say, &#8220;Well, that&#8217;s stupid.&#8221; And then they&#8217;d describe how they saw the world, and they might&#8217;ve had a different sense of politics, or they might have a different view about poverty, or they might have a different perspective on race, and sometimes their views would be infuriating to me. But it was because there was this space where you could interact with people who didn&#8217;t agree with you, and had different backgrounds than you, that I then started testing my own assumptions, and sometimes I changed my mind. Sometimes I realized, &#8220;You know what, maybe I&#8217;ve been too narrow minded. Maybe I didn&#8217;t take this into account. Maybe I should see this person&#8217;s perspective.&#8221; So, that&#8217;s what college, in part, is all about.
The idea that you&#8217;d have somebody in government making a decision about what you should think ahead of time or what you should be taught, and if it&#8217;s not the right thought, or idea, or perspective, or philosophy&#8212;that that person would be&#8212;that they wouldn&#8217;t get funding, runs contrary to everything we believe about education. [Applause.] I mean, I guess that might work in the Soviet Union, but it doesn&#8217;t work here. That&#8217;s not who we are; that&#8217;s not what we&#8217;re about.
Now, one thing I do want to point out is: It&#8217;s not just sometimes folks who are mad that colleges are too liberal, that have a problem; sometimes, you know, there are folks on college campuses who are liberal, and maybe even agree with me on a bunch of issues, who sometimes aren&#8217;t listening to the other side. And that&#8217;s a problem too. I was just talking to a friend of mine about this, you know, I&#8217;ve heard some college campuses where they don&#8217;t want to have a guest speaker who, you know, is too conservative. Or, they don&#8217;t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African Americans, or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. And, you know, I gotta tell you that I don&#8217;t agree with that either. I don&#8217;t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. [Applause.] You know, I think that you should be able to&#8212;[stammers].
Anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with them. But you shouldn&#8217;t silence them by saying, &#8220;You can&#8217;t come because, you know, my&#8212;I&#8217;m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.&#8221; That&#8217;s not the way we learn either.
So, what do you think, Arne?
ARNE DUNCAN: [He responds off-mic.]
OBAMA: He said &#8220;Amen.&#8221; Alright. Okay.
</blockquote>
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Shocker: Ben Shapiro and Barack Obama Agree On Something

Barack Obama

Liberalism

Social Justice

Back in May, Ben Shapiro was invited to speak on a panel about race in America with three other guests, two off whom were from the far left side of the political spectrum. Shapiro, as always, used logic, facts, and statistics to make his case, which baffled his fellow speakers but delighted the audience. Click above for the truth shellacking.
Speaking of the Baltimore riots, Shapiro said, &#8220;I&#8217;m offended by the language of uprising applied to people who are breaking into other black people&#8217;s stores and looting them. This is a lack of values. People who are destroying private property, destroying cop cars, in an uprising against what exactly? Against a black police chief, against a mostly minority police force, against the black mayor, against the black president, against the black attorney general? Against a city council that is 9 of 15 black and all 15 are elected Democrats? What is the uprising against? What is it seeking to achieve?&#8221;
He concluded by saying the idea that the more outraged and angry you are the more justified you must be in your riotous destruction is absolute nonsense. 
In response to the moderator posing the question, &#8220;How can you argue that racism is not a driving factor in income inequality,&#8221; Shapiro, to the head-shaking and arm-flailing of his fellow panelists, fired back, &#8220;Because it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture.&#8221;
&#8220;Explain to me why black kids aren&#8217;t graduating high school,&#8221; Shapiro continued. &#8220;Explain to me why black kids are shooting each other at significantly higher rates than whites are shooting each other. Explain to me why 13 percent of the population is responsible for 50 percent of the murder. Explain to me why the number of black kids in prison is so high. Explain to me, if it has nothing to do with culture, why the single-motherhood rate in the black community jumped from 20 percent to 70 percent in the same course of time that the civil rights movement has made such tremendous strides. Is America more racist now than it was in 1960? And if it is please explain to me how that happened.&#8221;
Click below to watch the full event&#8230;

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The video&#8217;s description reads:
<blockquote>
&#8220;After the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, the debate on race relations in the U.S. has been reignited. What do the #BlackLivesMatter activists really mean, if conservatives and liberals agree that black lives matter? Are protests (violent or otherwise) to best way to enact change? Where does WA stand on race relations compared to the rest of the country? Join the AM 770 KTTH Freedom Series: Race in America for a local and national analysis, featuring AM 770 KTTH afternoon host and New York Times bestselling author Ben Shapiro, Seattle/King County NAACP development director Dr. Sheley Secrest, The Stranger&#8217;s Charles Mudede, and former State Representative candidate and conservative activist Monique Valenzuela Trudnowski. Moderated by AM 770 KTTH morning host David Boze.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Shapiro recently caused controversy when the president of California State University-Los Angeles canceled his event in which he was to speak on the topic &#8220;<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3718/fascists-tried-silence-him-they-failed-ben-amanda-prestigiacomo">When Diversity Becomes a Problem</a>.&#8221; Shapiro and the Young America&#8217;s Foundation who booked him <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3599/csula-president-shuts-down-shapiro-event-shapiro-daily-wire">defied the order</a> and put the event on anyway to the horror of hundreds of violent college student &#8220;safe-spacers,&#8221; who did their best to <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3704/exclusive-csula-police-look-away-protesters-joshua-yasmeh">block and intimidate attendees</a>. 
Click below for the intro to his speech for which kids literally had to sneak in and protestors pulled the fire alarm in an attempt to silence him&#8230;

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Fo Shapiro&#8217;s full speech, click below&#8230;

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Flashback: Shapiro To NAACP Director, ‘Income Inequality Has Nothing To Do With Race And Everything To Do With Culture’

Race

The chaos continues on the California State University &#8211; Los Angeles campus following conservative author and Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro&#8217;s Feb. 25 speech on &#8220;<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3718/fascists-tried-silence-him-they-failed-ben-amanda-prestigiacomo">when diversity becomes a problem</a>.&#8221; The school&#8217;s student association, Associated Students, Inc. (ASI), gave an official vote of &#8220;<a href="http://csulauniversitytimes.com/6029/news/asi-board-votes-for-covinos-resignation/">no confidence</a>&#8221; in the university&#8217;s president, calling for his resignation.
CSULA President William Covino has come under fire from social justice activists for his handling of Shapiro&#8217;s conservative speech, which the students say was an event that <a href="http://csulauniversitytimes.com/6032/news/covinoresign-rally/">should not have been allowed</a> to proceed because it posed a &#8220;safety&#8221; concern for the &#8220;diverse&#8221; campus.
Just three days before the Young Americans for Freedom-sponsored speech, President Covino announced that it was canceled, calling for a more &#8220;inclusive event,&#8221; suggesting it wasn&#8217;t fair that Shapiro should be allowed to speak without other perspectives also presented to students. After Shapiro declared <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3599/csula-president-shuts-down-shapiro-event-shapiro-daily-wire">in no uncertain terms</a> that he was coming anyway, Covino eventually relented, allowing the YAF student group to hold the event in an auditorium.
Outside, student activists attempted to bar any students from entering the event, with some protesters getting violent, as The Daily Wire <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/3704/exclusive-csula-police-look-away-protesters-joshua-yasmeh">chronicled</a>. Though the only recorded violence was against those trying to attend the event, CSULA students <a href="http://csulauniversitytimes.com/6032/news/covinoresign-rally/">staged a #CovinoResign rally</a> demanding President Covino&#8217;s resignation for failing to adequately protect them. 
&#8220;We believe Covino needs to answer for the conditions he put students under. To cancel the event due to concerns over audience diversity is one thing, but this [Shapiro event] was a safety issue,&#8221; <a href="http://csulauniversitytimes.com/6032/news/covinoresign-rally/">said</a> rally participant and Philosophy graduate student Bree Lacey. &#8220;There was serious negligence where security was needed and that&#8217;s what we are protesting. We don&#8217;t expect a rhetorician [Shapiro] to have the well-being of students in mind; however, we do expect that of our administration, and in particular our president.&#8221;
At the <a href="http://csulauniversitytimes.com/6029/news/asi-board-votes-for-covinos-resignation/">student association vote</a> Thursday March 3, the board voted for the removal of Covino as well as the head of the school&#8217;s public safety department, Rick Wall. Two other administrators whose fate the student government voted on, Vice Presidents Dr. Jose Gomez and Nancy Wada-McKee, ended up being spared by the students.
Though ASI gave several reasons for their overwhelming vote against Covino, it was clearly the Shapiro incident that moved them to take action against him. &#8220;We were left vulnerable and then you don&#8217;t show up to make sure we are okay,&#8221; one student complained.
Here&#8217;s the school&#8217;s paper summarizing some of the other charges against Covino, including temporarily canceling a sex toy event: 
<blockquote>
Illustrating the long history of lingering tensions between President Covino and ASI, which began in the summer of 2015 with a budget refusal of ASI&#8217;s draft by Covino, then later on going on to freeze their budget over a dispute between increased funding of Anna Bing Children&#8217;s Center. The list includes constant disregard of student voices, false counseling to ASI by an administration paid lawyer, and a pattern of cancelling student-organized events mere days, sometimes hours, before its scheduled.
One example referenced by Anthropology student Jose Trinidad Castaneda was the cancellation of the Sex Toys R Us event held last spring quarter where a concerned mother of a high school student called to complain of the event, which was immediately cancelled by President Covino. The cancelling of the event, an LGBTQ sexual education seminar, soon sparked anger from students who held a rally for its speedy renewal that successfully occurred.
</blockquote>
In his statement against Covino, Castaneda cited what he called the president&#8217;s &#8220;pattern&#8221; of limiting free speech as part of the problem. Ironically, it was precisely the limiting of free speech that the activists who opposed Shapiro&#8217;s talk were trying to accomplish.
The university paper reports that the &#8220;no confidence&#8221; vote was passed with an &#8220;<a href="http://csulauniversitytimes.com/6029/news/asi-board-votes-for-covinos-resignation/">overwhelming majority</a>&#8221; of the board.
The next step is for the school&#8217;s faculty-composed Academic Senate to make its recommendation to the Chancellor, the only one with the authority to fire presidents. Meanwhile, as the <a href="http://csulauniversitytimes.com/6032/news/covinoresign-rally/">#CovinoResign rally</a> made clear, outraged students are hoping Covino takes himself out of the equation. 
Since Shapiro&#8217;s &#8220;unsafe&#8221; speech, President Covino has been trying to play damage control. He recently issued a statement calling on student leaders to &#8220;move forward.&#8221;
&#8220;As I noted on Thursday, there have been unfortunate misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the University&#8217;s decisions and priorities, which are focused on student success, safety, and wellbeing,&#8221; Covino <a href="http://csulauniversitytimes.com/6029/news/asi-board-votes-for-covinos-resignation/">wrote</a> in an email. &#8220;Moving forward we will continue to work with student leaders for the benefit of the University community.&#8221;

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