A few Factors on Bill O'Reilly , and Free Speech .

Bill O'Reilly's Factor .

Before his ouster O'Reilly became the
most obnoxious TV personality
in American History .

FOX NEWS pundit (1)>>Bill O'Reilly paid the price this week . After 20 years of giving the "No Spin Zone" & " Talking points"  on his show . FOX NEWS decided to dump him over his reported sexual allegations of harassment . O'Reilly has been in trouble before .We all have heard much about his payouts to women , his outbursts of denial.   Let's focus on his career rather than the allegations for now .  I remember watching Inside Edition in that era of Tabloid themed shows that ran amok on most networks . There were the kings of the afternoon that started out as purely Liberal platforms . There was Geraldo Rivera, "Maury" Povich,  "Jerry" Springer, Michael Medved { I know this list is long .LoL } (1.2)>>Glenn Beck , Mark Levin ,Sean Hannity,  Rush Limbaugh and FINALLY BILL O'Reilly . All these altra right radio , and TV hosts & their shows all had a rather humble start doing gig's for liberal media .  In the 20 years somehow they  crawled to  FOX news , either first had shows on FOX , or appeared as "guests" . The slow transformation from Liberal journalism to the hard line right was taking shape unleashing a monster . One by one, the best of the best have fallen from Fox News. Andrea, Greta, Gretchen, Megyn, and now Bill O'Reilly. What the heck is going on? Murdoch owns Fox. Murdoch and his entire family are HUGE liberals who strongly support very left leaning policies. Any chance that O'Reilly is just the beginninng of bringing Fox more in line with main stream media? Seems so to me. FOX news was built around the Tabloid media format . This tabloid-ism brought in Glenn Beck and O'Reilly shaping how Fox was to evolve.  The idea of a "fair and balanced"a motto liberals have always discounted as clever branding. What ever "fair and balanced" means is an understatement .  Whether Fox is employing adversaries because public feuds fuel ratings, or because it’s in pursuit of a franker public debate, they aren’t saying news from the start faded out over the decade . The only liberal voice on Fox was non other than the late great Alan (2)>>Colmes, who passed away today at age 66.  Another Factor about Fox news was the "bimbo factor" , yea Fox news somehow was able to pull together some of TV's sexy est  { chauvinistic male dominated verbatim  }  sexy  young female anchors . I remember counting how many blue eyed blonds Fox employed , but never connected the dots to O'Reilly and his apparent addiction problem . Foxes big chiefs (3)>>News Chairman Roger Ailes last year was slapped  slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit  it made the news . I am sure that O'Reilly was sweating this out somewhere that his boss was caught trying to get a piece of Gretchen Carlson . I have a funny feeling that the Fox news floor was full of "liaisons" between co-workers not just besides Roger Ailes , it seems from a psychological stand point that the whole floor was a party house . Yes, this kind of environment would foster litigation . For a Conservative TV station Fox news was more a frat house of liberalism { loose morals } in disguise . Fox News is a company at which female employees were encouraged, during Ailes’s tenure,“to wear your skirts short and your heels high,” and to avoid wearing pants at all,allegedly so that Ailes could ogle their legs more efficiently. (Ailes is said to have once yelled, “Tell Catherine [Crier, a former Fox News host] I did not spend x-number of dollars on a glass desk for her to wear pant suits.”)Fox News is the network that in 2013 hosted an all-male panel to debate the question of whether it was okay for women to be a family’s primary breadwinner. Their conclusion: No, it was not okay, because men have to have control over women; that’s just science. “When you look at biology, look at the natural world, the rules of a male and a female in society and other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. Another factor is that  Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s departure from the network was partially inspired by the behavior of colleague Bill O’Reilly, according to a new report.Kelly was frustrated by O’Reilly’s criticism of her for publicly discussing sexual harassment she experienced at Fox, The New York Times reported Friday.The Times said Kelly sent an email to Fox executives complaining about O’Reilly’s behavior during his appearance on "CBS This Morning” in November.O’Reilly criticized Kelly for discussing how former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes allegedly sexually harassed her in a book she released the same day as his interview. Ailes left the network in July amid several several sexual harassment claims against him and a lawsuit from former anchor Gretchen Carlson.“Look, it’s open season,” O’Reilly said when asked about Kelly’s claims. “Let’s whack the Fox News Channel. I’ve had enough of it. It’s a good place to work. All right?”

Free Speech and the Berkley Campus .

Below is a video of the demonstrators

wrecking havoc . But is this free speech?

The question of what exactly is FREE SPEECH made its mark at UC Berkley . The violent clashes have set national . Here is a perfect definition of free speech as defined by the ACLU : “Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.”

—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut

Freedom of speech, the press, association, assembly, and petition: This set of guarantees, protected by the First Amendment, comprises what we refer to as freedom of expression. (4)>> It is the foundation of a vibrant democracy, and without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would wither away. It’s a shame that Berkeley, once the birthplace for a generation’s free speech movement, has become its graveyard. On Monday, police released the names of 19 people arrested on various charges ranging from battery to assault with a deadline weapon. A 17-year-old girl, who was not named because she is a minor, was arrested for battery. City officials promised to sort through more videos taken from nearby businesses and posted on social media, as they have done since violence also broke out March 4 at a similar rally and counter-protest. That one was planned by several of the same groups and also resulted in several injuries and arrests.Violent confrontations broke out in Berkeley on Last  Saturday. Clashes between backers and critics of President Trump — and scuffles between self-described anti-fascists and white nationalists — resulted in 21 arrests

Louise Rosealma was punched
 by Nathan Damigo —
 a white supremacist 

and numerous injuries. A California woman who was caught on a viral video being sucker-punched by a white supremacist at a protest Saturday recalled trying not to get her “skull cracked open” during the violent demonstration. Louise Rosealma was punched by Nathan Damigo — a white supremacist who attends California State Stanislaus — during Saturday’s “Patriots Day” demonstration organized by alt-right Nazi group the Proud Boys, KPIX-TV reported.   Citing safety concerns, administrators on Wednesday postponed Coulter’s scheduled April 27 appearance, saying it needed more time to find a “suitable venue.” The showdown continues between the (5)>>University of California, Berkeley, and Ann Coulter over whether the conservative firebrand will speak at the famously progressive school.Ann Coulter rejected an offer to speak at the University of California at Berkeley on a new date after the university canceled her event because of safety concerns, then quickly reversed itself, saying it would reschedule her speech. Coulter said she can’t attend on the new date and accused the university of continuing to try to place restrictions on her free speech. The student group that invited Coulter is now threatening to sue the school.But Coulter was not having it. In a Twitter rampage and a Fox News appearance, she accused the school of canceling the event and vowed to speak as planned. Event co-sponsor Berkeley College Republicans also pushed back, saying Coulter, a “highly sought after speaker,” could not change her schedule.   Student protest is often, in itself, an act of free speech. But university is a place where students are supposed to learn how to think. That mission is impossible if uncomfortable ideas are off-limits. And protest can easily stray into preciousness: the University of California, for example, suggests that it is a racist “micro-aggression” to say that “America is a land of opportunity”, because it could be taken to imply that those who do not succeed have only themselves to blame.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 (1)>>Bill O'Reilly. In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS Television Distribution)-produced Inside Edition, a tabloid-gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He became the program's anchor three weeks into its run, after the termination of original anchor David Frost. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In October 2004, the O’Reilly Factor star was hit with possibly the greatest lawsuit in the history of cable news: then-associate producer Andrea Mackris accused O’Reilly of sexual harassment, quoting the famed gasbag verbatim from phone calls she surreptitiously recorded. (1.2)>>Glenn Beck. Beck left Fox News after a tumultuous two and a half years at the network. He drew high ratings, but his tenure wasn’t without its share of controversy. Advertisers dropped Beck’s show en masse after he called President Obama a racist, and tensions between Beck’s camp and Fox News grew over other issues.The two groups decided to part ways in 2011. Beck’s comments on Friday echoed remarks he has made before. “I’m so sick and tired of being in the system,” he said when leaving Fox News. "I’m not going to play the game anymore.”   (2)>>Colmes. Alan Colmes was the only "liberal" Voice on FOX news , it was hard to believe that Fox allowed any other opinion since Hannity and O'Reilly set the standard script. The death of Fox News contributor Alan Colmes, who passed away in New York City at the age of 66, has been greeted with an outpouring of emotion from the channel’s on-and-off-the-air talent. Colmes, it seems, was a nice guy, a good friend, and an ideal colleague: all qualities one would imagine people who have had to spend their lives around the likes of Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly would welcome. And while one should usually view tributes to the recently departed with a forgiving cynicism, in this case they are all too believable: Colmes was the most absurd, useless, and mocked television personality in America for many years, precisely because he was nice. In the context of Fox News, being a nice guy—and a “liberal” nice guy at that—meant being a buffoon, and a patsy. Colmes not only played the part to perfection—he defined it. (3)>>News Chairman Roger Ailes .Still, 21st Century Fox has now hired the same law firm that investigated harassment allegations against O’Reilly’s ousted former boss, Roger Ailes. This time, they’re to look into an allegation from former O’Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh that he invited her to dinner, told her he wanted to hire her as a contributor on his show, then turned on her when she wouldn’t follow him to his hotel room. An O'Reilly spokesman called the investigation nothing more than the pro forma follow-up to any report to a Fox complaint line.  Fox News’ parent company announced that Ailes would be resigning his position at Fox News but would receive $60 million and continue to work “as a consultant” with 21st Century Fox. Ailes’ ousting from the company follows a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson. According to The Washington Post, 25 women have come forward to make similar harassment claims against Ailes. The New York Times reported on July 23 that Fox News may have “a broader problem in the workplace,” that extends beyond Ailes after at least “a dozen women” told the Times that “they had experienced some form of sexual harassment or intimidation at Fox News or the Fox Business Network, and half a dozen more who said they had witnessed it. 
Free Speech and the Berkley Campus .
(4)>> It is the foundation of a vibrant democracy, and without it, other fundamental rights. Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Supreme Court : http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/what-does   Free speech is under attack in three ways. First, repression by governments has increased. Several countries have reimposed cold-war controls or introduced new ones. (5)>>University of California, Berkeley. In the 1960s, students at Berkeley helped change the world by igniting the Free Speech Movement, a seminal moment in the history of 20th-century civil liberties. Fifty years later, Berkeley leftists seem to have decided that free speech was a mistake — and the administration seems intent on helping them roll it back.You’ve already read about the riot that attended a speech by conservative stirpot Milo Yiannopoulos. You may have missed the destruction of College Republicans’ property, and the cancellation of a speech by conservative writer David Horowitz, after Berkeley officials told College Republicans that in order to provide adequate security, the speech would have to be held outside the middle of campus, and when many students are still in class.Keeping students safe is, of course, one of the most important jobs of a university. But so is exposing students to diverse viewpoints and supporting the sacred traditions of free speech. Berkeley seems to be willing to sacrifice the main point of an academic institution in order to ensure safety.