The Veterans of Foreign Wars declared that Kathy Griffin’s photo of Trump’s severed head is unprotected under the First Amendment.

They are ignorant and have embarrassed themselves. The organization doesn’t even understand what its members have been allegedly fighting to protect and preserve.

VFW National Commander Brian Duffy issued a statement that “The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. strongly condemns comedian Kathy Griffin’s incredibly revolting attack on the President of the United States . . . . What she did was not humorous nor should it be protected speech or expression. Playing to an audience with a severed head is what our enemies do. The USO should end its relationship with her.”

Actually, playing to an audience with a severed head is what Shakespearean companies performing “MacBeth” have done on stages, professional, college and amateur, in the U.S. and elsewhere for hundreds of years, you ignoramus.

This is another reason why the Left’s claims that “hate speech” shouldn’t be protected are so dangerous to our society: too many citizens of all political persuasions don’t understand what free speech is, and are too ignorant to know how to counter this threat to democracy

Let’s see: Griffin, her lawyer, the President and his punching-down tweet; Rosie O’Donnell, who announced that she had no sympathy for 11-year-old Barron Trump seeing photos of someone apparently holding up his father’s head, the mainstream media hypocrites who told audiences that Griffin’s “eliminationist rhetoric” wasn’t news or worth discussing, though a far less threatening image dominated their conversations for weeks when they tried to tie Sarah Palin’s metaphorical cross-hairs on a political race map to the madman who shot Rep. Giffords…I was wondering which organization would be the first on the Right to claim that what Griffin did warranted criminal punishment. The VFW would have been a good bet.

But wait! There’s more!... and I should have seen this one coming too. Progressive favorite Alec Baldwin, a habitual boor and Ethics Dunce, weighed- in in support of Griffin and her severed Trump head as only he can, tweeting,

“Dear Kathy Griffin, Kathy….baby…I’ve been there. The whole Henry Hyde thing [with] Conan, where we bring out an oxygen mask at the end? a joke. That’s what I thought. That’s what we intended. No one walked out of the studio and said, “No! We’re serious!” No one. But all your gutless, weasels in the GOP insisted that I actually threatened Hyde. They played the victim beautifully. Kathy…fuck them. Fuck them all. No 1 believes u meant 2 threaten Trump.Trump is such a senile idiot, all he has is Twitter fights. ignore him. Like the leaders of all the other countries in the world. Ignore him.”

Honestly, I do not understand how anyone can laugh at Baldwin knowing the anger, bitterness and nastiness that ooze out of every pore; it’s like finding Bill Cosby or Woody Allen funny. Yet that this guy passes for a wit, political pundit and truthteller by Hollywood progressive standards.

Dear Alec…

1) Nobody remembers or cares about whatever controversy you were involved in regarding Henry Hyde, who is long dead, and wasn’t President of the United States. But everything is about you, Alec. (Has Baldwin ever had the gall to call Trump a narcissist? I have to check; I bet he has.) 2) The issue with The Head was never that anyone seriously thought Griffin was threatening Trump. I can see why someone like you, Alec,  wouldn’t be able to comprehend such objections as violent imagery directed at the nation’s leader, terrorism images presented as jokes, and blatant appeals to hate and partisan hysteria; after all, having a creep like you play the President on Saturday Night Live is almost as gross and disrespectful as The Head. 3) For you to mock anyone for their conduct on Twitter requires a level of hypocrisy seldom witnessed in the civilized world.

Other observations:

1. Law professor Jonathan Turley itemized all of the ways Lisa Bloom, Griffin’s lawyer, ill-served her client through shocking incompetence:

…the press conference could be a lesson for all lawyers in high-profile controversies of how not to respond to a scandal.  There seemed to be not preparation of Griffin and no development of a single coherent narrative (rather surprising for an entertainer).  The set up for the press conference at the law firm was awkward and made the client look like a caged animal.  Bloom’s lead in remarks seemed more like a stump speech than a legal defense.  Griffin was the object of the exercise rather than a human being in distress.  Bloom’s effort to blame Trump for her client’s conduct contradicted one of a number of different narratives being advanced at the same time. The result was a Jackson Pollock press conference of paint splatters.  The problem is that they did not make for a pleasing final image…” 

If the idea was to launch Gloria Allred’s daughter into the world of  high-profile celebrity lawyering, this backfired badly. Griffin was worse off after the PR stunt  than before it, because she had not been adequately advised or prepped by her smug novice attorney.

2. Turley also flagged the VFW story. Wrote a commenter, “I do think JT has been searching for conservative attacks on free speech to try and counterbalance the flood of attacks on speech from the left.” I sympathize. It’s a dilemma: the Left has embraced censorship and rejection of free speech principles to a shocking degree, but those of us who consistently condemn it will be be accused of an anti-Left bias. Progressives are condemning themselves by this conduct, and it is not a partisan act to point out how undemocratic, unethical and dangerous it is.

3. The really enthusiastic passengers on this train wreck are the  emotional, barely articulate, hate-filled and hyper-partisan members of the public. Here is a sample of the comment thread on The Hill’s report on the Alec Baldwin tweets:

What does Alec’s daughter think of his comments?

 

I believe she knows he is a pompous worthless screaming POS.

No. We are talking about Baldwin’s daughter. Not Ivanka.

Does your mom know you’re making a mess on her keyboard?

You need to come up with some new jokes. I think you use this one 59 times a day. So does everyone else.

Who said it’s a joke? If someone posts like a 12 year old, what should I do, talk about welfare reform?

Balwin is a intellectual giant…in his little ant sized mind…

Compared to Trump, anyone that graduated grammar school is an intellectual giant.

You’re right. But, no matter the size of his mind, he is extremely intelligent.

I’d hate to be his wife/ex wife or kids……

 

Miltie Ron, ONE witless boy terrorist from two IDs.

Thanx, D.P. and the Haters for DonnieJesus.

The same green bunch that claims to be pro- science with climate issues also is pro death when it comes to the life of the unborn.

Shove that unread bible up your a$$, terrorist. Jesus said squat about abortion, Mythical Jesus said squat about homosexuals in the bible.

St. Paul the Misanthrope hated sex of ANY kind, man woman or man man and etc. HE is the dolt credited with anti-Jesus BS.

First god damn person to make sense. Why do pro-life nut jobs blow up abortion clinics to save the ‘unborn’ and then call them ‘takers’ the moment they get slapped on the A$$

Terrorists and killers kill growing innocent babies.

“What so ever you do unto the least of these you do also unto me.”
(Not bad for an apathetic agnostic-eh?)

Your an idiot

Then there’s you: caring about babies until they leave the womb. After that, if their mother is poor: let them starve.

 

And the alternative you offer is to murder them in the womb? What a ‘choice’ you’ve given: welfare on demand or murder in the womb.

So in your inhumane mind killing growing baby is always better than taking the chance th kid may be a little hungry at some point. your logic is twisted.

I’m not John but hi back and forth on this. We will never convince each other why you have no right to decide what a women aren’t your baby making machines, and she has the final say, not you, on what happens with her body.

 

No one should force a woman to reproduce or not, nor obstruct her access to safe, timely, medically cared for choice, nor to a healthy place to live.

 

It is inhumane to kill a growing baby.

Whatever happened to the Hippocratic oath? (That is right, I forgot. It is the Hypocritical Oath now.)

That’s fine as long as YOU pay for it! Too bad your parents didn’t feel the same way.

Seems you guys are pro death after it’s born

Does your ass hurt little Snowflake?

You guys are so quick with the gay jokes. Such a relentless obsession that haunts you little condemned soul.

You must think that we are talking about you.

We laugh at RonMauriceMiltie, pretending their not just one stupid little sobbing KKK failure.

 

Does it embarrass you that all the other right-wing morons in this thread are better at this than you?

Typical response from the gutless people that you are. Proving his point. If your parents didn’t teach you that, well.. that’s on them.
What makes you better than Alex or Kathy? The 8 years past, there were pictures of President Obama hanging from a rope (some of them, burning while hanging from a rope. If you can’t see the hypocracy, then you are immature. You don’t have to man up, but it would make for a better world if you did.

What is Wrong with Trump supporters’ brains? The Dunning-Kruger effect explains that the problem isn’t just that they are misinformed; it’s that they are completely unaware that they are misinformed. This creates a double burden. Studies have shown that people who lack expertise in some area of knowledge often have a cognitive bias that prevents them from realizing that they lack expertise. This includes political judgment.” Essentially, they’re not smart enough to realize they’re dumb.
And if one is under the illusion that they have sufficient or even superior knowledge, then they have no reason to defer to anyone else’s judgment. This helps explain why even nonpartisan experts — like military generals and Independent former Mayor of New York/billionaire CEO Michael Bloomberg — as well as some respected Republican politicians, don’t seem to be able to say anything that can change the minds of loyal Trump followers

 

What is wrong with the Liberal Cartel. 🤔According to psychologist Dr. Joshua David Stone, people criticize others out of fear and jealousy. Individuals who are critical of others tend to have low-self esteem and a lack of love for themselves. Individuals who constantly criticize others tend to lack control in their own lives and project their own self-doubts onto others.

Dayuuuummm,you just described your President! He couldn’t even contain his narcissism at a prayer breakfast,in front of the whole world! Instead of asking for prayer for the soldier that was killed (because he was trying to play badass)he called Arnold out for ratings,freaking ratings!!!He has called people names like dog face,fat pig,ugly,and the list goes on.He made fun of a reporter with a disability,made racist,sexist,and xenophobic comments! He is nothing but an unregistered sex offender accused of assaulting 15 women, and was about to go on trial for raping a 13 yr old!You people are the biggest hypocrites on the planet,stop holding ordinary citizens to a higher standard than you did the man (with help from the Russians)you elected to run this Country!!! And now,the whole world with suffer because of your selfishness!

And so on….prompting the questions,

1.  Is it any wonder the two poles have contempt for each other?

2. Is it really a mystery why Griffin thought her bloody head would be met with laughter and applause from “the resistance”?

3. Do you really wonder why the President’s blunt and boorish rhetoric didn’t matter to his supporters?

4. Is it  a surprise that the Democratic leadership sees no risk in communicating to its base using profanity, vulgarity, and epithets?

5. Doesn’t this explain why the broadcast news media no longer bothers with objective analysis?

6. And to my friend the commenter who condemns President Trump for not “unifying the nation”: How, given this level of discourse and respect, was he supposed to do that when the public expresses itself like this?