MSM: The Best High School Valedictorian Speech

(DailyMail) – Comment: The following speech was delivered by top of the class student Erica Goldson during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School on June 25, 2010

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years . .” ?The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” ?Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”

This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

MSM: Sworn Enemy Of America Kagan Confirmed As Supreme Court Nominee

(BBC) – The US Senate has confirmed Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination, making her the third woman on the nine-member court and the fourth in history.

Five Republicans supported President Barack Obama’s pick, with Nebraskan Ben Nelson the only Democrat to oppose it.

Opponents said she would advocate for liberal policies from the bench and criticised her lack of judicial experience. Full story here.

FLASHBACK: Kagan: ‘Disappear’ Free Speech If The Government Deems It Offensive

FLASHBACK: Senator: Kagan Argued Government Could Ban Books

Video: Schwarzenegger, Murdoch Give Keynote Speeches At The Bohemian Grove

See Also: (PressDemo) – Schwarzenegger to Address Elite at Bohemian Grove – Read More Here

(SteveWatson) – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is to make a keynote address this evening before the Annual Bohemian Club secret gathering – a lifetime achievement for a man who has long been groomed for power by the globalist elite.

Schwarzenegger will speak in front of hundreds of movers and shakers at the 2,700-acre wooded encampment along the Russian River in Monte Rio.

Future of the News

(AmericanThinker) – It’s a frightening thought: government takeover of the media. But having tightened their grip on health care, financial services, and energy, it’s only logical that the Democrats should turn their attention to the media.

Discussions underway at the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission point toward a dangerous new effort to regulate what Americans read and hear. The takeover under discussion would apply across the board to print media, radio and television, and the internet. The result of proposed regulations would be nothing less than an end to free speech in America.

Video: Alex Jones on RT – Government Cyber Invasion

See Also: (PaulWatson) – Facebook Deletes Official Alex Jones Page Over Gadsden Flag – Read More Here

(RussiaToday) – Is the United States government or outside forces the real threat to cyber security? Alex Jones says that the government is trying to silence free speech in America by expanding their reach on the internet. He also says his own personal sites have been censored, even deleted.

Video: The Watson Report – The Real Agenda Behind Cybersecurity

In this special video report for Prison Planet.tv members, Paul Joseph Watson explains why the real agenda behind cybersecurity is political oppression and the death of free speech on the Internet, and how the entire globe is now implementing Chinese style censorship policies to change the nature of the world wide web as we know it forever.

Video: Bilderberg Corporate Media Mogul Wrote Obama Speech

(PaulWatson) – The fact that Barack Obama is nothing more than a corporate sock puppet, a completely hollow vassal being used and manipulated by his globalist controllers to carry out their agenda, has once again been emphasized with the revelation that corporate media mogul and Bilderberg luminary Mortimer Zuckerman wrote one of Obama’s political speeches.

“Well I voted for Obama, I helped write one of his speeches,” Zuckerman told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto yesterday.

Asked which speech he helped write, Zuckerman responded, “I’d rather not go into that.”

Watch the clip.

The Lights Are Going Out For Free Speech On The Internet

(PaulWatson) – Type the keywords “Internet censorship” into Google News and you will immediately understand to what degree the world wide web is under assault from attempts by governments globally to regulate and stifle free speech. From Australia to Belarus, from Turkey to Vietnam, from Pakistan to Egypt, from Afghanistan to Iran, huge chunks of the Internet are going dark as the Chinese model of Internet regulation is adopted worldwide.

But why should Americans concern themselves with countries halfway across the globe adopting Chinese-style net censorship? Because under Senator Joe Lieberman’s 197-page Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, the United States would formally mimic China’s “great firewall” of web censorship.

When Lieberman himself attempted to debunk claims that the bill provides Obama, and any following President for that matter, with a figurative ‘kill switch’ to disable certain parts of the Internet, he explained that the government was merely seeking to emulate powers over the Internet already enjoyed by the Communist Chinese.

Firstly, despite Lieberman’s spin, the text of the bill clearly gives Obama the power to shut down the Internet for at least four months without Congressional oversight.

Video: Freedom Watch – Judge Napolitano

(FoxNews) – July 3, 2010 –

Video: ‘News blackout’ to hit Italy

(PressTV) – Italian journalists say they will stage a “news blackout” to protest a proposed law that could hinder the media freedom in the European country.

Some 2,000 journalists filled Rome’s Piazza Navonna on Wednesday to protest the move, and pledged a news blackout on July 9 to protest the law, which is seen as a threat to the free flow of information, The Boston Globe reported.

Video Link Here ->

Video: Larry Becraft – Elena Kagan’s Secret Mission is to Totally Socialize The 1st Amendment

(June 29) – Alex also talks with Larry Becraft, Jr., a constitutional attorney based in Huntsville, Alabama, who specializes in criminal defense cases, primarily involving the federal income tax.

Video: The Government Wants To Own The Internet and Turn It Off At Will – Jack Cafferty

(CNNCaffertyFile) – US Senate committee has approved a bill that apparently gives the President authority to shut down the Internet. According to TechWorld.com, “A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.”

The report continues by saying, “The bill, introduced earlier this month [by Senators Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Thomas Carper, D-Delaware], would establish a White House Office for Cyberspace Policy and a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications, which would work with private US companies to create cybersecurity requirements for the electric grid, telecommunications networks and other critical infrastructure.”

Free Speech Gag Bill Moving in House

(GunOwnersOfAmerica) – The ability of American citizens to communicate with their elected officials is one of the most important rights that help preserve our freedoms. In fact, of all the forms of speech protected by the First Amendment, political speech is at the top of the list.

This is exactly what the Supreme Court said earlier this year, in Citizens United v. FEC, when it ruled unconstitutional huge portions of the McCain-Feingold law, otherwise known as the Incumbent Protection Act.

Now, in an effort to undo the victory at the Supreme Court, liberals in Congress are attempting to pass the so-called DISCLOSE Act, which would severely limit the ability of GOA to communicate to our members and the general public.

Video: MSNBC In Cover-Up Of Manifestly Provable Population Control Plan

(PaulWatson) – As part of his obsessive drive to smear anti-big government activists as insanely paranoid and dangerous radicals, Chris Matthews and his guest, establishment neo-lib David Corn, previewed tonight’s “Rise of the New Right” hit piece by claiming that the elite’s agenda to enact dictatorial population control measures was a “conspiracy theory”.

As we have documented on numerous occasions, while Matthews points fingers at his political adversaries for preparing to engage in violence, the only real violence we’re witnessing out on the streets is being committed by Obama supporters, MSNBC thugs and other leftists who refuse to tolerate free speech that counters their propaganda.

However, MSNBC’s goal is not just to demonize the Tea Party and anti-big government activists as dangerous radicals as an avenue through which to sick the police state on them and crush their free speech, they’re also desperate to prevent Americans from lending any credence to what people like Alex Jones have to say by acting as gatekeepers to prevent such information from becoming mainstream.

A perfect example of an issue that Matthews and his ilk want to sideline is the manifestly provable fact that elitists have for decades publicly stated their desire to reduce global population by around 80 per cent and as much as 99 per cent. Video Link Here

New Bill Gives Obama ‘Kill Switch’ To Shut Down The Internet

(PaulWatson) – The federal government would have “absolute power” to shut down the Internet under the terms of a new US Senate bill being pushed by Joe Lieberman, legislation which would hand President Obama a figurative “kill switch” to seize control of the world wide web in response to a Homeland Security directive.

Lieberman has been pushing for government regulation of the Internet for years under the guise of cybersecurity, but this new bill goes even further in handing emergency powers over to the feds which could be used to silence free speech under the pretext of a national emergency.

Obama To Push Nightmare Carbon Tax In Oval Office Speech

(PaulWatson) – President Barack Obama will tonight dispense with all restraint and fully exploit the BP oil spill to push the nightmare globalist agenda of a green economy, a carbon tax on human emissions, and an army of environmental enforcers to implement total big government tyranny.

Obama will announce the acceleration towards an agenda firmly supported by the transnational oil corporations that he is claiming to be reigning in – a post-industrial revolution characterized by artificial scarcity, soaring gas and electricity prices, and a carbon tax that will cripple the economy and drastically lower the living standards of American citizens, completely eviscerating the middle class.

MSNBC Hit Piece Smears Tea Party As Neo-Nazis

(PaulWatson) – An MSNBC hit piece set to air next week attempts to smear Tea Party activists and average Americans concerned about how the financial crisis is being exploited as neo-nazi Hitler supporters who want to go on killing sprees, highlighting once again the corporate media’s desperation to eviscerate the popularity of anti-establishment political candidates in the run up to the November elections.

“The Rise of the New Right” is an MSNBC special presented by Chris Matthews that will air on June 16 at 7 p.m. ET. We obtained a draft transcript of the show which reveals how Matthews and the producers of the show have callously gone back on their word that the program would not be an incendiary attempt to characterize critics of the Obama administration as dangerous lunatics who should have their free speech shut down, which is exactly what it does.

Video: Alex Covers More Anti Free Speech Attacks from Our Government on The Alex Jones Show

(June 2) – Calls Increase for Government to Regulate Internet Journalists and Bloggers

Groups want FCC to police hate speech on talk radio, cable news networks

(TheHill) – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is being urged to monitor “hate speech” on talk radio and cable broadcast networks.

A coalition of more than 30 organizations argue in a letter to the FCC that the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news.

The groups also charge that syndicated radio and cable television programs “masquerading as news” use hate as a profit model.

Kagan Nomination Advances Obama Totalitarian Agenda

(TravisMonitor) – The nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court is the latest salvo in President Obama’s war on the Constitution. In this case the target is our First Amendment rights to free speech.

There has been a lot of commentary about her booting the military recruiters off the campus at Harvard and less about a far more important problem with Kagan – her anti-constitutional view of freedom of speech. Put simply, she just doesn’t believe in it.

FBI Data Again Shows More Guns = Less Crime

(NRA-ILA) – Anyone needing proof that fanaticism for gun control hasn’t waned on Capitol Hill, that anti-gunners are—as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) put it last year—only waiting to “pick the time,” should watch the video of Mexican president Felipe Calderon’s speech to Congress last week, versions of which have been posted on youtube.com. When Calderon asked that the federal “assault weapon” ban be re-imposed, a very large number of U.S. Representatives and Senators present gave him a standing ovation.

However, on Monday the FBI released crime statistics that should cause the applauding anti-gunners to sit on their hands. The statistics indicate that between 2008 and 2009, as gun sales soared, the number of murders in our country decreased 7.2 percent.  That amounts to about an 8.2 percent decrease in the per capita murder rate, after the increase in our nation’s legal and illegal population is taken into account. And it translates into about a 10.5 percent decrease in the murder rate between 2004, when the ban expired, and the end of 2009. And finally, it means that in 2009 our nation’s murder rate fell to a 45-year low.

The FBI’s report was also bad news for anti-gunners elected to other offices. With the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago no more than a few weeks away, Mayors Bloomberg, of New York City, and Daley, of Chicago—who fear that it will require them to respect the Second Amendment for the first time—have continued to beat their drums for gun control. As we have noted, Bloomberg recently encouraged a Senate committee to support the Lautenberg-King terrorist watchlist bills. And last week Daley told a Chicago Reader reporter, who expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of Chicago’s handgun ban, “It’s been very effective.” Holding a bayonet-equipped rifle, Daley added, “If I put this up your butt, you find out how effective it is.”

But, murders in big cities declined over 11 percent between 2008 and 2009, translating to over a 12 percent decrease in the big city murder per capita rate. We hope, but don’t expect, that the indisputable fact that an increase in gun ownership does not necessarily correspond to an increase in crime, will reduce the frequency of Bloomberg’s stunts aimed at gun shows, and Daley’s periodic rants against the firearm industry. – Source: NRA-ILA

MSM: Homegrown terrorist threat to be part of National Security Strategy

(CNN) – The Obama administration unveils its National Security Strategy on Thursday and it will be the first time a president explicitly recognizes the threat posed to the country by radicalized individuals at home, the president’s chief counterterrorism adviser said.

The security strategy acts as a blueprint for how a White House administration intends to protect Americans. In the past, it has focused mostly on international threats.

But a spate of terror-related plots in the United States recently prompted the Obama administration to include homegrown terrorism in the document, National Security Adviser John Brennan said Wednesday. Read entire article

See Also:

(BigGovernment) – Bloggers Beware — They’re Coming After You!

Just when you thought it was safe to start expressing your right to free speech, Democrats in Congress are gearing up for a vote on a new piece of legislation to blatantly undermine the First Amendment. Known as the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175), this bill – written by the head of the Democrats’ congressional campaign committee – is their response to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In short, the Supreme Court found that the government could not restrict the free speech rights of individuals or other entities wishing to participate in the political dialogue.

It is hard to see how establishing a level playing field for free speech – as our Founding Fathers did by making it a right under the Constitution and which the Supreme Court upheld – is a threat to our democracy. Nevertheless, the White House and their allies on Capitol Hill see honest criticism as a threat to forcing their big government, liberal agenda through Congress. So, there is no time like the present – namely five months before an election – to start putting the muzzle on those individuals and organizations not sticking to the Democrats’ talking points. Read entire article

Video: Congressman Slams “Outrage” Of Calderon Lecture On Immigration

(PaulWatson) – Following Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s attack on the second amendment and his lecturing on American immigration policy, Congressman Tom McClintock described Calderon’s behavior as an “outrage” during a speech on the House floor yesterday, pointing out that America treats immigrants far better than the brutal way they are dealt with in Mexico.

During a series of speeches, including one in front of Congress, Calderon attacked Arizona’s decision to enforce its immigration policy while also calling upon lawmakers to re-enact the assault weapons ban in a bid to disarm the American people as they are integrated into the North American Union system. Read More Here

See Also:

(Alipac) – 17 States Now Filing Versions of Arizona’s Immigration Bill SB 1070

One of America’s national organizations fighting against illegal immigration is announcing that 17 states are now filing versions of Arizona’s SB 1070 law which is designed to help local police enforce America’s existing immigration laws.

Numerous national and local polls indicated that 60-81% of Americans support local police enforcing immigration laws. Read More Here

(FoxNews) – Top Official Says Feds May Not Process Illegals Referred From Arizona

A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.

John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports.

“I don’t think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution,” Morton told the newspaper.

The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, he said, and not a patchwork of state laws. Read entire article

(AaronDykes) – Mexican President Wants to Disarm Americans

Felipe Calderón Pressures U.S. Leadership to Re-Enact Unconstitutional Assault-Weapons Ban from House Floor

Video: Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk

You Can Thank The Federal Reserve For The Coming Hyperinflation

See Also:

(RussiaToday) – Video:Rand Paul wins in a “Randslide” – Interview with Adam Kokesh – View Video Here

(RussiaToday) – Video: Rallying behind Rand – Interview with Shelly Roche – View Video Here

(Fox) – Video: 2010 – Year of the Political Outsider – Ron Paul and Rand Paul on Fox News – View Video Here

(SteveWatson) – Video: DNC Chairman – Rand Paul Is A Far Right “Extreme Candidate”

Commenting on Rand Paul’s historic victory in the Kentucky primary, the Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine called the would be Senator an “extreme candidate”, while other Democrats suggested Paul would be an easy target for them in the November general election.View Video Here

Video: Rand Paul’s victory speech (full) – View Video Here

(LondonTelegraph) – Rand Paul’s win could be bad news for Republicans

The biggest loser from Rand Paul’s win in the Kentucky Republican Senate primary is Mitch McConnell. Read More Here

(Politico) – Rand Paul: “We have come to take our government back” – Read More Here

(CBSNews) – Video: Rand Paul – Tea Party Ready to “Flex Some Muscle”

While critics cast the Tea Party movement as a fad and a flash in the pan, Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary in Kentucky might prove to naysayers that they indeed are a legitimate force and their backing of Dr. Rand Paul has propelled him as the front-runner for what is usually a ho-hum race. Read More Here

(RussiaToday) – Video: Rand Paul – Perfect storm, people want change

RTs Dina Gusovsky is in Kentucky to find out what she can about Rand Paul’s, son of Congressmen Ron Paul, senate campaign and the pivotal primary elections that are taking place. The primaries for the midterm elections will offer a clearer look at whos shaping up to be a powerful force in 2010 and whos struggling to stay relevant in the long midterm cycle. Dina interviewed Rand Pauls family and says that the latest polls have Rand Paul ahead by about 18%.

Kagan on Second Amendment: Like Freedom of Speech Enjoys “Strong But Not Unlimited Protection”

(KaganWatch) – RELATED: Kagan Was ‘Not Sympathetic’ as Law Clerk to Gun-Rights Argument

While in the Clinton White House, Kagan took on gun (and tobacco) industries.

During her confirmation as solicitor general, Kagan said the Second Amendment, like freedom of speech, enjoys “strong but not unlimited protection.”

In a questioner from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) about gun rights during her confirmation to be Solicitor General, Kagan had this to say:

“Once again, there is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to keep and bear arms and that this right, like others in the Constitution, provides strong although not unlimited protection against governmental regulation.” – Source: Kagan Watch

Kagan Argued for Government ‘Redistribution of Speech’

(CNSNews) – Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan said the high court should be focused on ferreting out improper governmental motives when deciding First Amendment cases, arguing that the government’s reasons for restricting free speech were what mattered most and not necessarily the effect of those restrictions on speech. Read More Here

See Also:

(Reason) – The Bounds of Silence – Obama’s Supreme Court pick looks wobbly on freedom of speech – Read More Here

Explosive report shows Kagan supports censorship of TV, radio, posters, and pamphlets

(Examiner) – According to an explosive special report on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s views on the First Amendment right to free speech, in September of 2009 Kagan encouraged the Court to adhere to a new philosophy on the First Amendment that would allow the government to censor posters, pamphlets, and TV and radio content–and the Internet.

In a stunning news report issued today by CNS, the following information was disclosed:

Kagan: ‘Disappear’ Free Speech If The Government Deems It Offensive

(PaulWatson) – President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is perfect in every way – perfect that is if you think the role of the highest judicial body in the United States is to ban free speech, indefinitely detain Americans without trial, resurrect command and control socialism, while urinating on everything the Constitution stands for.

Video: European Central Bank President Calls for Corrupt BIS to Boss Global Government in CFR Speech

(PaulWatson) – In a speech before the elitist Council On Foreign Relations organization in New York earlier this week, President of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet called for the imposition of global governance to be bossed by the G20 and the corrupt Bank of International Settlements in the name of safeguarding the global economy.

Video: Ron Paul’s Tea Party Speech

Chomsky Warns Of Risk Of Fascism In America

(PoliticalTheatrics) – Noam Chomsky, the leading leftwing intellectual, warned last week that fascism may be coming to the United States.

“I’m just old enough to have heard a number of Hitler’s speeches on the radio,” he said, “and I have a memory of the texture and the tone of the cheering mobs, and I have the dread sense of the dark clouds of fascism gathering” here at home.

Video: San Antonio Park Police kills Free Speech – WeAreChange San Antonio

See Also: (SteveWatson) – Video: Unprovoked Cops Viciously Beat Student Then Charge Him With Assault – View Video Here

Part 1 of 4

Make a Complaint to the Officers Precinct Here: # (210) 207-8590 – Officer: Mainez #9846

Illegal Downloaders Face Life Internet Ban

(SkyNews) – The Digital Economy Bill is aimed at stopping people illegally downloading copyrighted material from the internet.

However, critics of the Bill argue that it could have far greater powers and be used to censor and block free speech by whichever political party is in power.

Militia News

(March 31) – Video: Alex Reveals FBI Agent Discovered at Center of Hutaree Militia Set-Up – Video Part 1 – Video Part 2

(AP) – Prosecutor: Agent infiltrated Christian militia – Read More Here

(BungalowBillsCW) – Precrimes, Hutaree, and Free Political Speech

Eight of the nine members of Hutaree pled not guilty to charges brought against them by the federal government. As the story developed this week, we now know that an FBI agent infiltrated the compound and set up the raid from within. Read More Here

(NYTimes) – New York Times: Michigan Militia Member Turned In Hutaree to Cops

The Stone family, and the fiercely militant Christian group that revolved around them at a ramshackle homestead outside of town here, were best known by their neighbors for their active use of guns and their increasingly heated talk about fighting back violently against the government. Read More Here

(MensNewsDaily) – Another Militia Group Indicted by Feds

A federal grand jury in New Haven, Connecticut returned a seven-count indictment charging five individuals with conspiracy and firearms offenses stemming from an alleged attempt to sell firearms and explosive grenades to a white supremacist group located outside of Connecticut. Read More Here

(Reuters) – Eight U.S. militia members enter not guilty pleas

Eight members of an extremist militia group accused of conspiring to kill law enforcement officers as part of a wider war on the U.S. government pleaded not guilty in federal court on Wednesday. Read More Here

Video: Don’t Become What You Are Fighting – Luke Rudkowski

(WeAreChange) – This is an excerpt from Luke Rudkowski’s inspiring and informative speech at the Treason in America Conference.

Video: Obama Just Got His Private Army

Remember when Obama said he wanted a “national security force”? Not the national guard, but a civilian one that has not sworn to uphold the Constitution? On July 2, 2008 in a speech in Colorado Springs, Barack Obama called for a police state.

Video: Alex’s Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Speech at The Doubletree Hotel in Austin, Texas

Alex Jones, International journalist, Radio Talks Show Host, and Documentary film maker, gave a speech on the importance of 9/11 truth on Saturday, March 20, 2010 at the Doubletree Hotel in Austin, Texas.

Shameful Anti-Free Speech Lobby Labels Questioning Government “Hate”

(PaulWatson) – Shameful Zionist propaganda lobby group The Simon Wiesenthal Center has issued a report which smears people who question government as racists and terrorists, labeling conspiracy theories “hate” in the latest crusade against free speech on the Internet.

Video: The Solution

(December 2009) – Montana conservative meeting with speaker Schaeffer Cox

Pelosi on health care: ‘We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it…’

This comes from Speaker Pelosi’s speech today before the Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties. The boldface is mine:

“You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other.  But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket.  Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Americans are precisely worried they will find out, the hard way, “what is in it,” after it’s been passed. Whence “the controversy.”