WASHINGTON – Ann Coulter is fact-checking the major media, ripping the New York Times and others for consistently lying about her effort to speak to students next week about immigration on the famously liberal campus at U.C. Berkeley.
"Reporters have got to stop getting the facts wrong," she exclaimed in a series of emails with WND on Saturday, in an attempt to set the record straight.
The conservative commentator highlighted (in bold letters) what she considered one particularly egregious passage by the New York Times' Thomas Fuller on April 19, that read:
"With its reputation as one of the country’s most liberal universities, the campus and surrounding areas have become a target for small, militant and shadowy right-wing groups who in recent months have clashed with equally militant and shadowy anarchist groups based in the San Francisco Bay Area."
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Coulter took aim at the notion peddled by the Times that the violence was coming from both sides, left and right, after Berkeley leftists have been on the attack with such regularity and severity, especially in recent months.
"The failing New York Times and others consistently lie with their 'cycle of violence' crap," she declared.
'Did Oswald shoot Kennedy or did Kennedy shoot Oswald? Who knows? There was violence on both sides!" the author asked with rhetorical sarcasm.
"Conservative speakers show up on campus for pre-arranged events – speeches, rallies – and masked LEFTISTS march in and start beating them up. That’s a fact.
"After that happened in February with (conservative commentator) Milo (Yiannopoulos) – with zero protection on Milo’s side, from the cops or anyone else – when last weekend's pro-Trump event was held, right-wing (maybe “alt-right” – I still am not sure who that is) big guys, Gavin McInness’s 'proud boys', came to protect the Trumpsters."
"But," Coulter lamented, "the New York Times writes that violent right wingers 'targeted' Berkeley."
"NO, THEY CAME TO GIVE A $%^&^%$ SPEECH AND WERE TARGETED BY LEFTISTS!" she wrote in all capital letters, to make sure no one missed her point.
And her point is backed up by recent history.
- Former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopolous canceled a U.C. Berkeley appearance and had to flee for his safety in February after protesters rioted, causing several injuries, outside the event site.
- An appearance by conservative writer David Horowitz was canceled a week ago because university police told a campus Republican group it could not ensure security.
- 21 people were arrested last weekend as hundreds of leftists attacked supporters of President Trump holding a rally.
During the February melee that forced Yiannopolous to cancel his event, rioters beat up Trump supporters, pepper-sprayed bystanders, looted a Starbucks, smashed bank windows and ATMs, and spray-painted "Kill Trump" on storefronts.
Coulter told WND that major media reporters were also getting the facts wrong in her ongoing quest to get U.C. Berkeley to honor its agreement to let her speak on campus this Thursday.
"Reporters almost universally read the title of Berkeley’s press release on Thursday as 'BERKELEY LOVES FREE SPEECH! BERKELEY RESCINDS COULTER SPEECH CANCELLATION!'
"But they didn’t bother reading the body of the press release to see that my speech was still canceled. The university just picked another date a week later (which would have then been canceled when some local public school teacher called in a threat – and hopefully the national press was no longer watching)."
Coulter made these points:
1) "Was (former Mexican President) Vincente Fox or any other liberal speaker ever asked to rebook his flights and hotel rooms and come at a different date a week before his scheduled speech? That’s unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
2) "Neither I, nor my security team, nor the many members of the press, nor other people interested in hearing my speech, were able to make this new fake-date.
3) "Oh and by the way, THERE ARE NO CLASSES the week of the speaking date Berkeley chose (May 2.)"
As WND reported, an attorney representing the groups sponsoring Coulter's appearance has begun initiating a lawsuit to compel U.C. Berkeley to abide by its agreement to let her speak on Thursday and to preserve her constitutional rights, after a Friday deadline passed without a positive response from the university.
On Saturday, Coulter shared a letter sent from San Francisco attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon to Christopher Patti, attorney for U.C. Berkeley.
Coulter said these key elements culled from the letter also represent a series of facts the major media have been getting wrong:
- The campus administration falsely claimed it first learned of BCR's (Berkeley College Republicans) requested date through newspaper reports.
- On March 28, 2017, the two student groups confirmed to university administrators in writing that Ms. Coulter would be in fact be speaking on April 27, 2017, and sought a large venue and suggested two specific desired venues.
- The university informed the students on April 13, of a new, unpublished university policy, developed in a meeting on March 1, 2017, that mandated "events involving high-profile speakers would be conducted during daytime hours."
- U.C .Berkeley chose to keep this ill-defined March 1 “high-profile speakers” rule secret for a month; it was not mentioned to the student groups during the weeks of discussion about the Ann Coulter event, until a mere two weeks before the event.
- The 3 p.m. curfew recently applied to Ms. Coulter’s event was not applied to Vicente Fox nor was it applied to Clinton White House official Maria Echaveste earlier this month.
- After dangling numerous suitable venues before the two student groups, and then narrowing that list after unveiling its hidden curfew policy, U.C. Berkeley then abruptly yanked the venues from the table on this week by cancelling the event unilaterally.
- The university conceded in its letter that U.C. Berkeley chooses to limit speech as a direct result of the successful misconduct of “some of the same groups that previously engaged in local violent action.” In other words, all one has to do to silence conservative speakers at U.C. Berkeley, is to don a mask and become violent, or place anonymous phone calls to the administration threatening such violence.
- The Constitution does not permit the heckler’s veto to drown out the voices of speakers in otherwise permitted places.
- It is disingenuous at best to suggest that there is some date in the future and some place on the campus where conservative invitees may speak free of protest or interference.
- U.C. Berkeley is still obligated under the law to make its facilities available to student groups in a content-neutral and even-handed manner, and no amount of "double-secret" rules for certain speakers, relieves the University of this obligation.
- Imposing a curfew on some "high- profile speakers" but not others, forcing conservative speakers to speak in obscure locations at the edge of campus and only during the middle of the day, and – yesterday – suggesting that Ms.Coulter speak at a place and time when there are no classes and students are therefore not likely to be on campus, manifestly fails any objective test of fairness, rationality, or constitutionality.