The semi-autonomous government of Hong Kong on Friday announced plans to impose a three-year jail sentence on anyone who disrespects the Chinese national anthem.

AFP explains that China passed laws last year specifying how and when the national anthem can be sung, in particular banning it from performances at parties, weddings, and funerals. Use of the anthem in commercial advertising is also banned.

The punishment specified in the new legislation could be as severe as three years in prison for especially vigorous mockery of the anthem.

The legislation is highly relevant in Hong Kong because soccer fans have a habit of booing the Chinese anthem, turning their backs, and waving Hong Kong independence banners at games.

AFP quotes pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo denouncing Hong Kong’s effort to mirror the Chinese legislation as a “psychological weapon” to make residents “feel more Chinese rather than being Hong Kong.”

“If the bill becomes a reality, this would harm the public’s basic rights,” said opposition leader Wu Chi-wai. “If protesters argue with people who play the national anthem or make gestures at them, even if they do not intend to insult the national anthem, they may get charged by the authorities.”

“If passed, the proposed bill, submitted to the Legislative Council, would also make it a legal requirement for schools to teach the anthem, the ‘March of the Volunteers,’ its history and its ‘spirit,’” Channel News Asia notes.

The South China Morning Post writes that the Hong Kong bill does not clearly define what constitutes an “insult” to the Chinese anthem, which makes “the intention behind any perceived abuse crucial to deciding whether offenders should be jailed.”

Neither is the government source who told the SCMP that a group of people booing the anthem at a soccer game would more likely be charged with contempt than “an individual coughing at that moment,” or diners at a restaurant who forgot to stop eating and pay respects when the anthem is played on television.

“There is still much grey area … and issues that require further clarification,” conceded Civic Party leader Alvin Yeung Ngok-kiu. “The bill will prompt caution and make a lot of people stay away from touching the national anthem; I’m not sure if that’s beneficial to our creativity.”

During the March 15 airing of Breitbart News Daily, Gun Owners of America’s Erich Pratt stressed that students need more protection than that which comes from a “No Guns Allowed” sign.

Pratt was reacting to the left’s two-prong approach of keeping teachers defenseless while trusting criminals will obey signs that say guns are not allowed on campus.

He suggested this same approach is being demonstrated by Congress as a whole, inasmuch as they just voted to spend incredible amounts of money on new school security measures while overlooking the “cheaper” proven solution, which is armed teachers.

Pratt said:

Utah has been arming teachers since 1995, and when I say arming teachers I mean concealed carry holders…are allowed to bring [guns] into school rather than being told, ‘No, you can’t have them here.’ And so there’s never been a school shooting in Utah. And Ohio is training teachers, it’s actually a private organization that’s training the teachers. There are, depending on the laws and how you look at the them, anywhere from 12 to 25 states that are already to some degree allowing teachers to be armed in schools.

While Pratt stressed that teachers should under no circumstance carry unless state/local law allows, he did note that now is the time to change laws so more teachers can be armed for self-defense.

He added, “We protect our President, Congressmen, and banks with guns, why is it that we protect our schools with just a sign that says, ‘No Guns Allowed’? That doesn’t work.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

Despite a frenzied over-reaction that practically nuked Liang Xiangyi off the Internet, the tyrants of Beijing cannot quite make the exasperated reporter in the blue dress disappear.

Perhaps there is some hope to be found in the notion that a woman can still speak truth to power in authoritarian China, or at least say, “Oh, give me a break.”

Liang is the reporter who very visibly displayed her impatience with a toadying question from another journalist at a press conference on Tuesday. The other woman, Zhang Huijun, asked a “question” that was really just an obsequious recital of China’s recent achievements and ended by asking a government bureaucrat how the government of President Xi Jinping planned to be even more awesome in the future.

Liang’s increasingly surprised and fed-up response to Huijin’s performance set the Chinese Internet on fire. Of course, the massive Communist censorship apparatus was standing by with fire extinguishers. They went to incredible lengths to make it hard for Chinese users to find this video or learn much of anything about Liang Xiangyi:

Nevertheless, Liang quickly became an iconic symbol of mild defiance, a way for younger Chinese to let the big bosses know they have little choice but to go along with the party line, but they do not actually believe it. It seemed like the perfect way to come up just short of challenging party propaganda, but remind the Party that everyone knows it is propaganda.

The epic eye roll that exposed the sham of China’s biggest political gathering https://t.co/kZiUVHYE2s pic.twitter.com/uy0r49KCX8

— Mathieu Labasse (@zelab) March 15, 2018

Within twenty-four hours, China’s censors had not only blocked web searches for anything related to Liang, but they actually ordered all Chinese media to refrain from mentioning her in any way and delete every single online post referring to the incident. Her own news network, Yicai, tried to regain control of the narrative by posting noncontroversial footage of her asking businesslike questions at an official press conference last weekend, but the government forced them to take even that video down.

CNN notes that one reason the incident caught fire with China’s population is that the National Party Congress has been so tightly scripted. President Xi Jinping is taking dictatorial powers and lifetime tenure. The Party knows this makes many citizens uncomfortable, so they have gone to great lengths to create an impression of enthusiastic national unity behind Xi. In contrast, Liang’s hilarious reaction was like blowing a kazoo in the middle of a funeral procession.

QUEEN. “One colleague told Liang Xiangyi that her eye-rolling moment was broadcast live, to which she replied ‘Because the woman next to me was being an idiot.'” https://t.co/x5CCBH38ke

— Megha Rajagopalan (@meghara) March 13, 2018

As one Internet wag put it, “A huge production with thousands of actors had failed to top the box office for a week, until two extras on set suddenly captured everyone’s imagination. There are no small actors, only small parts.”

China’s rivals in India are greatly enjoying the show, comparing Liang to a young actress named Priya Prakash Varrier who became a comparable Indian Internet sensation with a saucy wink in a movie scene. As in Liang’s case, GIF satirists quickly went to work with Varrier’s wink and created some hilarious parody mash-ups:

对于趋炎附势，捧高踩低，吹牛拍马，助纣为虐的奴才们就该鄙视?

梁相宜女士把我们平时内心的白眼翻了出来#梁相宜 #马云 pic.twitter.com/5jVykSJr1A

— MC 视界 (@Manyi2017) March 13, 2018

The difference for Liang, alas, is that Varrier’s wink was not as a gesture of defiance against a brutal Communist regime that puts a great deal of effort into stamping out dissent. Liang’s swelling fan base tells her she is the only thing they remember about the National Party Congress. The Party hates that.

Liang’s press credentials have reportedly been revoked, and her personal page on Weibo (China’s Twitter) has been taken down. Foreign journalists noted she was curiously absent from an event on Wednesday that she would normally have covered. The company she works for, Yicai Media, did not respond to questions about her status.

According to the Hong Kong Free Press, the last information about Liang was a leaked screenshot from a Yicai Media chat room in which she explained she was exasperated with Zhang, the reporter in the red outfit from the famous video, and not the Chinese government. “Her question was even longer than the answer,” Liang grumbled.

If she is lucky, the government will decide that going any harder on her would be counterproductive.

A footnote for those concerned about the Chinese government’s growing influence over Western companies and media: Zhang, the reporter in the red outfit that drove Liang to distraction by asking such an obsequious question of a Chinese minister, works for an American company called American Multimedia Television. CNN notes the company is based in California and “boasts close ties with China’s state broadcaster CCTV, Zhang’s former employer.”

“Reporters from media outlets based abroad but with ties back to China’s state media apparatus are often called on at government events so that Beijing can appear to cede the floor to ‘foreign’ journalists—who will nonetheless toe the party line,” the Hong Kong Free Press explains.

The University of California has published a list of unacceptable “microaggressions” on its official website, which includes offensive statements such as “America is the land of opportunity.”

The Academic Affairs department of the University of California Santa Cruz provides the list of politically incorrect expressions and actions to students and faculty to equip them to recognize microaggressions and eliminate them.

Examples of allegedly “racist” microaggressions furnished by the university include statements such as: “When I look at you, I don’t see color,” “There is only one race, the human race,” and “America is a melting pot.”

It is also a microaggression to say that “the most qualified person should get the job” or to express doubts about the effectiveness of Affirmative Action programs, the website claims. Moreover, to say that “America is the land of opportunity” propagates the “myth of meritocracy,” as do statements such as “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough.”

The University of California offers a helpful definition of microaggressions to better educate the academic community in politically correct behavior.

“Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership,” the website states.

“The first step in addressing microaggressions is to recognize when a microaggression has occurred and what message it may be sending,” the university declares, before proceeding to enumerate common offenses.

According to the Academic Affairs department, microaggressions vary with context and race, so saying something to a black or Asian person is different from saying it to a white person.

For example, it is perfectly acceptable to ask a Caucasian student “Why are you so quiet? We want to know what you think,” whereas to ask this same question of an Asian, Latino or Native American constitutes a microaggression, because it implies that they have not successfully assimilated to “the dominant culture.”

Similarly, asking a black person “Why do you have to be so loud/animated?” is strictly verboten, while asking a white person this question is completely fine.

Moreover, whites should never use the expression “You people” when speaking to blacks, whereas blacks may address whites in this way, the university suggests.

In the eyes of the university, microaggressions also extend to the area of sexual identity or orientation, and include limiting options on official forms to “Male or Female” when identifying one’s sex, or offering only two options for relationship status: married or single.

UC Santa Cruz has been a pioneer in the war against microaggressions and in 2016 hosted a forum titled “Microaggression in the Classroom.” The event was part of UCSC’s “Mentoring Program for Faculty,” sponsored by the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

If you find the double standards and outright foolishness of academic political correctness off-putting, you are in good company.

In a brilliant article in Forbes during the 2016 presidential campaign, the celebrated British historian Paul Johnson called political correctness “one of the most dangerous intellectual afflictions ever to attack mankind.”

PC has “enormous appeal to the semieducated,” Johnson observed, and it “appeals to pseudo-intellectuals everywhere, since it evokes the strong streak of cowardice notable among those wielding academic authority nowadays.”

“Any empty-headed student with a powerful voice can claim someone (never specified) will be ‘hurt’ by a hitherto harmless term, object or activity and be reasonably assured that the dons and professors in charge will show a white feather and do as the student demands,” he said.

“Thus, there isn’t a university campus on either side of the Atlantic that’s not in danger of censorship,” he concluded.

Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome

Turkish troops fighting to conquer the Kurdish-held region of Afrin in Syria are committing “war crimes” against Yazidis and Christians that mirror the “ethnic cleansing and genocide” in the region at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), declared a top United Nations envoy in a letter published this week.

Echoing Kurdish Christian leaders in Afrin and some analysts, U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Nadia Murad, a Yazidi human rights advocate who survived the ISIS genocide in the Middle East, noted in a March 12 statement:

I received information that the area of Afrin inhabited by Kurds, Yazidis and Christians is under siege from all sides. There is only one road through which people can leave the city. 200 civilians have been killed, including 3 Yazidi children. Shrines and religious sites have been destroyed or forcibly converted into mosques. People’s homes are being looted, and minorities are being shamed by extremist militias.

She went on to say that Turkey’s actions against Christians and Yazidis amount to “war crimes.”

“This horror is reminiscent of the initial actions of ISIS in Iraq. Medical and healthcare services are urgently needed. This situation foreshadows ‘ethnic cleansing’ and genocide,” stressed Murad.

We are concerned about the current humanitarian situation in the city of Afrin & other areas in Syria.I call on the @UN, @Europarl_EN , @StateDept & Arabic nations to call on a cease fire in Afrin and other areas in Syria. pic.twitter.com/acXkjs64O8

— Nadia Murad (@NadiaMuradBasee) March 12, 2018

The Turkish military claims it has “neutralized” 3,530 so-called terrorists and “assumed control of at least three-fourths of the city from the U.S.-allied People’s Protection Units (YPG) since it began Operation Olive Branch in Afrin on January 20, reports Daily Sabah.

Christians are among the people killed by Turkey in Afrin, according to local pastors and some analysts.

Consistent with a desperate plea for global assistance made by Pastor Hakim Ismael from the Kurdish Church Network International early this year, Murad urged U.N. member states like the United States and the European Union to “demand” that Turkey stop attacking Afrin.

In open letter dated January 20, the day that Turkey began its Afrin operations, Pastor Ismael implored the international community, “Please help us,” noting:

As  the  Leaders  of  the  Christian  churches  in  North  Syria,  in  the  town  of  [Afrin] we  hereby  confirm that we are under attack by Turkey.

The lives of our women and children are in danger. The city of Afrin is being bombarded by Turkish  airstrikes. We  are  asking  for  intervention, and protection against the violent attacks which are being levied against us at this moment.

Many lives are in mortal danger. We are requesting aid and assistance. We are unable to protect ourselves or our families against these attacks, neither are we able to offer assistance or shelter to the innocents.

In early February, Lela Gilbert, an expert on religious freedom at the Hudson Institute, cautioned that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had declared “jihad” on ethnoreligious minorities in Afrin, mirroring actions taking by ISIS in the region.

Echoing the U.S. Departement of State, Dr. Y. Alp Aslandogan, the executive director of the non-profit Alliance for Shared Values, told Breitbart News that Erdogan’s authoritarian government has deemed members of religious minorities, such as Christians and Jews, “enemies of the state” in Turkey.

The U.N. and the American government have officially determined that ISIS committed “genocide” against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minority groups in Iraq and Syria.

Gilbert noted that now Turkey is slaughtering Christians and other religious minorities in neighboring Syria.

Via Twitter, local Kurdish Pastor Valentine Hanan has pleaded for international assistance and protection for Christians in Afrin.

“We demand urgent Int’l protection for the believers in #Afrin and the cease of this Turkish shelling.
We are also against the heavy Turkish shelling and the return of Islamic groups to the region,”- #Christian Pastor Valentine Hanan (4/5) #StopYazidiGenocide #YazidiGenocide

— ZATA RAIN (@BOMBNER) January 27, 2018

An urgent call from Afrin Christians
pastor Valentine Hanan call for urgent demand for international protection. from Islamic factions, which vow to enter #Afrin pic.twitter.com/YYHG6k9wdf

— Peshmerga #Afrin (@KURDISTAN_ARMY) January 22, 2018

Pastor Hanan reportedly wrote on Twitter, “As the Good Shepherd Church in Afrin city, we demand urgent international protection for the believers in Afrin and the cease of this Turkish shelling. We are also against the heavy Turkish shelling and the return of Islamic groups to the region.”

Various news outlets, like the Independent in the U.K., have described that Turkish military effort in Afrin as ethnic cleansing targeting the Kurds and their allies.

In March, the Independent reported:

Syrian Arab militiamen leading the Turkish attack on Afrin in northern Syria are threatening to massacre its Kurdish population unless they convert to the variant of Islam espoused by Isis and al-Qaeda. In the past such demands have preceded the mass killings of sectarian and ethnic minorities in both Syria and Iraq.

Ankara-allied Syrian Arab opposition groups like the Free Syrian Army, which has received U.S. taxpayer-funded assistance, are lending support to the Turkish operation, dubbed “Olive Branch.”

Although the Kurdish YPG forces taking on Turkey in the Afrin helped the United States deal a defeating blow to ISIS in the Middle East, the American military has stressed it has no intention of helping its ongoing partners.

U.S. NATO ally Turkey has long described the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which both Ankara and Washington have deemed a terrorist group.

Despite Turkey’s concern, the United States continued to lend support to the Kurdish troops, except for those fighting in Afrin.

The U.S. continues to praise the YPG as significant allies in the war against ISIS.

They have a lot of courage NOW, but would they still have it if shit got real?

………………………………… ……………………………………………………. ………………………………………………….. ……………………

………………………………… ……………………………………………………. ………………………………………………….. ……………………

Sometimes it feels as if the fascist left craves another civil war.

Just consider their nonstop protests and riots, their nonstop censorship of opposing views, their nonstop oppression of Christian beliefs and their nonstop attacks on basic decency, rules and laws, common sense, basic facts and history.

Their attacks are relentless, and so is their willingness to use any tactic — deceit, manipulation, intimidation and indoctrination — to achieve their goals.

And don’t even get me started on their rhetoric:

This is the mainstream people… Not an extremist group. He works for CNN

Bernie Sanders Surrogate Celebrates Crash Of Train Carrying GOP Lawmakers In Vile Tweet https://t.co/V9JucVjxVA

— Mike Bennice (@mbennice) February 1, 2018

Trinity Prof. John Williams: “…black emergency personnel should let wounded whites die.”

TX A&M Prof. Tommy Curry: “to be equal, to be liberated, some white people may have to die.” 

There’s hundreds of academics who say these things. Problem or nah?https://t.co/6OQj4sSPGr

— AdamSmith (@AdamSmithFan) November 24, 2017

pic.twitter.com/HI7U2RMCXr

— J.R. Salzman (@jrsalzman) October 2, 2017

It’s an endless torrent of hatred all based on the lopsided belief that the world would be a more compassionate and tolerant place were conservatives or whites or or Trump supporters or whatever other enemy silenced and perhaps even killed.

Uh huh …

But have you ever actually wondered what might happen were this leftist psychopathy to actually drive us into another civil war?

Townhall contributor Kurt Schlichter pondered it, and I got a feeling that his prediction regarding the outcome of another potential civil war will make a lot of liberal heads explode:

The Democrat threat to peace is based on its policies designed to deprive Normal Americans of their right to speak freely, to worship freely, and to defend themselves and their rights with firearms. Make no mistake – millions of Normal Americans are willing to risk death to defend those rights. In fact, many swore to do so when they entered our military and law enforcement.

But who is the leftist big talker willing to die to impose the fascist dream of censorship, religious oppression, and disarmament on Normal American citizens? Is the screeching SJW at Yale going to suit up in Kevlar? Is the Vox columnist going to grab a M4? Is the Hollywood poser going to switch her gyno-beanie for a helmet?

No. Hell, we just heard our liberal opponents explaining why a cop shouldn’t be expected to go fight a scumbag murdering kids because it’s scary. America might split apart, but it’s highly unlikely Team Kale n’ Vinyl would fight should their big talk finally push Normal America too far.

He wasn’t kidding either.

Here’s a look at our potential opponents:

I could bench, squat and deadlift every one of these tools, not that I’m even a fighter. Unlike Sean Hannity, who seriously knows how to kick ass, I train more-so for aesthetics than strength/power. Even then, I could still crush these puny schlubs like bugs.

That’s not even accounting for firearms.

A University of Kansas study highlighted in The Washington Post last year found that in 2012, only 23 percent of Democrats “reported having a gun in the home,” whereas a whopping 54 percent of Republicans had a gun handy.

And with the leftist media striving so diligently daily to brainwash the masses against guns, it would not surprise me if that 23 percent of Democrats has fallen even lower since 2012.

Just to be clear, neither Schlichter nor I believe another civil war is actually likely: “Do I think there will be a civil war? No, but there could be,” he opined.

Exactly, but if there were one — hypothetically speaking of course — it’s pretty clear which side would get its ass walloped.

Hint: It wouldn’t be us, esé!