Below is my column in the Hill on the rising political violence on the left. Many have found an irresistible release from both reason and responsibility in rage. A new study found more people embracing political violence. Joel Finkelstein, the lead author of the report, stated that “what was formerly taboo culturally has become acceptable… We are seeing a clear shift – glorification, increased attempts and changing norms – all converging into what we define as ‘assassination culture.’” Roughly 40 percent reportedly found it somewhat justifiable to burn a Tesla or even to kill Donald Trump.
Here is the column:
“We should replace our piece of crap Constitution.”
Those words from author Elie Mystal, a regular commentator on MSNBC, are hardly surprising from someone who previously called the Constitution “trash” and urged not just the abolition of the U.S. Senate but also of “all voter registration laws.” But Mystal’s radical rhetoric is becoming mainstream on the left, as shown by his best-selling books and popular media appearances.
There is a counter-constitutional movement building in law schools and across the country. And although Mystal has not advocated violence, some on the left are turning to political violence and criminal acts. It is part of the “righteous rage” that many of them see as absolving them from the basic demands not only of civility but of legality. They are part of a rising class of American Jacobins — bourgeois revolutionaries increasingly prepared to trash everything, from cars to the Constitution.
The Jacobins were a radical group in France that propelled that country into the worst excesses of the French Revolution. They were largely affluent citizens, including journalists, professors, lawyers, and others who shredded existing laws and destroyed property. It would ultimately lead not only to the blood-soaked “Reign of Terror” but also to the demise of the Jacobins themselves as more radical groups turned against them.
Of course, it is not revolution on the minds of most of these individuals. It is rage. Rage is the ultimate drug. It offers a release from longstanding social norms — a license to do those things long repressed by individuals who viewed themselves as decent, law-abiding citizens. Across the country, liberals are destroying Tesla cars, torching dealerships and charging stations, and even allegedly hitting political dissenters with their cars.
Last week, affluent liberal shoppers admitted that they are shoplifting from Whole Foods to strike back at Jeff Bezos for working with the Trump administration and moving the Washington Post back to the political center. They are also enraged at Mark Zuckerberg for restoring free speech protections at Meta.
One “20-something communications professional” in Washington explained“If a billionaire can steal from me, I can scrape a little off the top, too.” These affluent shoplifters portrayed themselves as Robin Hoods. Of course, that is assuming Robin Hood was stealing organic fruit from the rich and giving it to himself.
On college campuses, affluent students and even professors are engaging in political violence. Just this week, University of Wisconsin Professor José Felipe Alvergue, head of the English Department, turned over the table of College Republicans supporting a conservative for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He reportedly declared, “The time for this is over!” Likewise, a mob this week attacked a conservative display and tent on the campus of the University of California-Davis as campus police passively watched. The Antifa protesters, carrying a large banner with the slogan “ACAB” or “all cops are bastards,” trashed the tent and carried it off.
Of course, many of the American Jacobins are themselves bourgeois or even affluent figures. And they are finding a host of enablers telling them that the Constitution itself is a threat, and that the legal system has been corrupted by oligarchs, white supremacists, or reactionaries. This includes leading academics and commentators who are denouncing the Constitution and core American values. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School, is the author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”
In a New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the nation to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Commentator Jennifer Szalai has scoffed at what she called “Constitution worship.” “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us,” she wrote. “A growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.”
Members of Congress such as Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) have called for Tesla CEO Elon Musk to be “taken down” and said that Democrats have to be “OK with punching.” Some take such words as a justification to violently attack a system supposedly advancing the white supremacy or fascism. Fortunately, such violence has been confined so far to a minority of radicalized individuals, but there is an undeniable increase in such violent, threatening speech and in actual violence.
The one thing the American Jacobins will not admit is that they like the rage and the release that it brings them. From shoplifting to arson to attempted assassination, the rejection of our legal system brings them freedom to act outside of morality and to take whatever they want.
Democratic leaders see these “protests” as needed popularism to combat Trump — to make followers “strike ready” and “to stand up and fight back.”
For a politician, a mob can become irresistible if you can steer it against your opponents. The problem is controlling the mob once it has broken free of the bounds of legal and personal accountability.
We have been following the rise of political violence on the left since the Trump election. In reality, attacks on conservative and pro-life faculty and students is nothing new. Today, I am speaking at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill on free speech after a student recently trashed a pro-life table on the campus in Asheville. Now, on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, a professor allegedly trashed a table of the College Republicans over their support for Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel. The accused José Felipe Alvergue, is not just a professor but the chair of the English department.
Tatiana Bobrowicz, the chair of the College Republicans at the school, said she set up the table supporting Schimel outside the student center about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, with candy, doughnuts and literature. Then a man walked up and demanded to know what they were doing. He accused them of being too close to a polling location (which was located in the nearby student center).
Bobrowicz tried to explain that they were not in violation (which allows for tables beyond 100 feet) and that location was approved by the university. She then said that the man declared “the time for this is over,” flipped the table over and then walked away.
Bobrowicz immediately called the police and the UW-Eau Claire identified the man as José Felipe Alvergue, the chair of the English department. He has been put on leave by the university.
In his university bio, Alvergue identifies as “a member of the Salvadoran diaspora.” He adds this rather cryptic statement about “unlocking empathy”:
” I believe that we can’t unlock the empathy hidden behind words if we don’t understand what is at stake in the risk writers and artists take when they decide to transform the matter which makes up the world around them into the story words communicate.”
He is now charged with disorderly conduct, according to Wisconsin court records. While this is a relatively minor crime, it was a crime committed against both students and free speech on campus. He must appear for a court appearance on May 7. He would be hardly unique in advocating or even being convicted of political violence on campus.
At Hunter College in New York, Professor Shellyne Rodríguez was shown trashing a pro-life display of students.
She was captured on a videotape telling the students that “you’re not educating s–t […] This is f–king propaganda. What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
Unlike the professor, the students remained calm and respectful. One even said “sorry” to the accusation that being pro-life was triggering for her students.
Rodríguez continued to rave, stating, “No you’re not — because you can’t even have a f–king baby. So, you don’t even know what that is. Get this s–t the f–k out of here.” In an Instagram post, she is then shown trashing the table. Hunter College, however, did not consider this unhinged attack to be sufficient to terminate Rodríguez.
Another example comes from the State University of New York at Albany, where sociology professor Renee Overdyke shut down a pro-life display and then resisted arrest. One student is heard screaming, “She’s a [expletive] professor.” That of course is the point.
If convicted, Alvergue would be not just guilty of the underlying charge but committing political violence against students. There does not appear to have been mitigating circumstances or any provocation other than students who hold an opposing view from his own.
He then walked away rather than address the matter with the students and the authorities. If convicted, the question is whether conservative students should have to wait for Alvergue to find a way to “unlock [his] empathy” through what is clearly uncontrollable rage.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the increasing political violence on the left, particularly targeting Elon Musk, his companies, and his clients. There have been more arrests of people engaging in property destruction. What is most striking, however, is how Democrats have torched their core beliefs to pursue a scorched Earth campaign against Musk.
Here is the column:
In this “Age of Rage, it is common for people to become the very thing that they despise in others, jettisoning their most cherished values to strike out at those they hate. Since the election, Democrats have shown that very self-destructive quality of rage in adopting anti-immigrant, anti-free speech, anti-labor, and even anti-environmental positions to get at Donald Trump or his supporters. It consumes every part of a person. It is addictive, and it is contagious. What these rage addicts will not admit, however, is that they like it; they need it.
This time, they are targeting Elon Musk, whose dealerships, charging stations, and customers have been hit by political violence from the left. While other billionaires from George Soros to Mark Zuckerberg have spent big on elections for the left, Musk is somehow uniquely evil because he gives money to Republicans and supports the Trump Administration.
This scorched Earth campaign was evident this week in New York, where democratic legislators are again moving to weaponize state laws for political purposes — just like they did with Trump. New York state Sen. Pat Fahy (D-Albany) is pledging to bar Musk from direct sales in the state.
Notably, Fahy has been a longtime advocate of electric vehicles. The move will make it more difficult not just for Musk but other EV dealers to survive, but climate change policies be damned. Fahy and her colleagues want to get at Musk in any way they can.
Fahy explained, “No matter what we do, we’ve got to take this from Elon Musk. He’s part of an effort to go backwards.”
The move is not unique:
* The left decries political violence like January 6th but is largely silent as Teslas are set on fire and Cybertrucks are covered with graffiti. It promotes boycotts and rallies with a wink at the vandals. As the violence increases around the country, the left has held protests featuring signs like “Burn a Tesla, Save Democracy.”
* Democrats have made the defense of immigration a core issue and have objected even to the use of the term “illegal” or “unlawful” to refer to those crossing the Southern border. Yet, they have attacked Musk due to his status as a naturalized citizen. He is denounced as a “foreigner” “meddling” in our government. Some questioned Musk’s loyalty because he is a naturalized American.
* Those who insist that they believe in free speech are supporting censorship and opposing Musk for restoring free speech protections on X.
* In California, labor advocates oppose expanded operations from SpaceX that would benefit workers in the state. California Coastal Commissioner Gretchen Newsom tried to block increased SpaceX launches despite their benefit for both the California economy and national security. Because he “aggressively injected himself into the presidential race,” it does not matter that this would cost money and labor opportunities. Retaliation for “hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods” was more important.
Still, the greatest hypocrisy may be found in the Democrats’ willingness to abandon environmental priorities for political revenge. It is a contest of virtue-signaling. Fighting for Mother Earth is fine on most days, but nothing compares to destroying Elon Musk.
Lawmakers and advocates are also pressuring pension funds to divest from Tesla while trying to force Tesla showrooms to close — at the cost of New York jobs.
Tesla is an American company making and selling cars in this country. It sells more electric vehicles in the US and New York than any other manufacturer. Yet it must now be destroyed because, unlike a Soros or a Zuckerberg, Musk’s political views are not acceptable to the left.
Tesla was allowed to operate five locations to directly sell to consumers under a 2014 deal because it was viewed as good for New York jobs, the New York economy, and, most importantly, the environment.
None of that matters now.
Fahy explained, “The bottom line is, Tesla has lost their right to promote these when they’re part of an administration that wants to go backwards. Elon Musk was handed a privilege here.”
It also does not matter that companies like Rivian and Lucid (and their employees) will be caught in the crossfire. Nothing matters but revenge.
Many Democrats seem to have lost a capacity for shame. They are disgusted only by the refusal of others to yield to their demands, not the use of any means to achieve political ends. The question is, what do Democrats like Fahy now stand for when everything they are is now defined by those they hate?
Below is my column in the Hill on the effort to end the federal subsidy for National Public Radio, an effort that was greatly advanced by the testimony of its Chief Executive Officer. After imploding at a House hearing, NPR’s Katherine Maher even lost HBO’s Bill Maher who now supports defunding NPR. The Democrats hope to peel off a couple Republicans like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to continue to fund the outlet. The pitch is to again mouth “assurances” that NPR will adopt more balanced coverage, the same assurance given for over a decade as the liberal bias at the outlet only became more pronounced.
Here is the column:
“This is NPR.”
Unfortunately for National Public Radio, that proved all too true this week. In one of the most cringeworthy appearances in Congress, Katherine Maher imploded in a House hearing on the public funding of the liberal radio outlet. By the end of her series of contradictions and admissions, Maher had made the definitive case for ending public funding for NPR and state-subsidized media.
Many of us have written for years about the biased reporting at NPR. Not all of this criticism was made out of hostility toward the outlet — many honestly wanted NPR to reverse course and adopt more balanced coverage. That is why, when NPR was searching for a new CEO, I encouraged the board to hire a moderate figure without a history of political advocacy or controversy.
Instead, the board selected Katherine Maher, a former Wikipedia CEO widely criticized for her highly partisan and controversial public statements. She was the personification of advocacy journalism, even declaring that the First Amendment is the “number one challenge” that makes it “tricky” to censor or “modify” content as she would like.
Maher has supported “deplatforming” anyone she deems to be “fascists’” and even suggested that she might support “punching Nazis.” She also declared that “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction [in] getting things done.”
As expected, the bias at NPR only got worse. The leadership even changed a longstanding rule barring journalists from joining political protests.
One editor had had enough. Uri Berliner had watched NPR become an echo chamber for the far left with a virtual purging of all conservatives and Republicans from the newsroom. Berliner noted that NPR’s Washington headquarters has 87 registered Democrats among its editors and zero Republicans.
Maher and NPR remained dismissive of such complaints. Maher attacked the award-winning Berliner for causing an “affront to the individual journalists who work incredibly hard.” She called his criticism “profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”
Berliner resigned, after noting how Maher’s “divisive views confirm the very problems at NPR” that he had been pointing out.
For years, NPR continued along this path but then came an election in which Republicans won both houses of Congress and the White House. The bill came due this week. Much of NPR’s time to testify was exhausted with Maher’s struggle to deny or defend her own past comments.
When asked about her past public statements that Trump is a “deranged, racist sociopath,” she said that she would not post such views today. She similarly brushed off her statements that America is “addicted to White supremacy” and her view that the use of the words “boy and girl” constitute “erasing language” for non-binary people.
When asked about her past assertion that the U.S. was founded on “black plunder and white democracy,” Maher said she no longer believed what she had said.
When asked about her support for the book “The Case for Reparations,” Maher denied any memory of ever having read the book. She was then read back her own public statements about how she took a day to read the book in a virtue-signaling post.
She then denied calling for reparations but was read back her own declaration: “Yes, the North, yes all of us, yes America. Yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day.” She then bizarrely claimed she had not meant giving Black people actual money, or “fiscal reparations.”
When given statistics on the bias in NPR’s hiring and coverage, Maher seemed to shrug as she said she finds such facts “concerning.”
The one moment of clarity came when Maher was asked about NPR’s refusal to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. When first disclosed, with evidence of millions in alleged influence-peddling by the Biden family, NPR’s then-managing editor Terence Samuels made a strident and even mocking statement: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
Now Maher wants Congress to know that “NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner.”
All it took was the threat of a complete cutoff of federal funding.
In the end, NPR’s bias and contempt for the public over the years is well-documented. But this should not be the reason for cutting off such funding. Rather, the cutoff should be based on the principle that democracies do not selectively subsidize media outlets. We have long rejected the model of state media, and it is time we reaffirmed that principle. (I also believe there is ample reason to terminate funding for Voice of America, although that is a different conversation.)
Many defenders of NPR would be apoplectic if the government were to fund such competitors as Fox News. Indeed, Democratic members previously sought to pressure cable carriers to drop Fox, the most popular cable news channel. (For full disclosure, I am a Fox News legal analyst.)
Berliner revealed that according to NPR’s demographic research, only 6 percent of its audience is Black and only 7 percent Hispanic. According to Berliner, only 11 percent of NPR listeners describe themselves as very or somewhat conservative. He further stated that NPR’s audience is mostly liberal white Democrats in coastal cities and college towns.
NPR’s audience declined from 60 million weekly listeners in 2020 to just 42 million in 2024 — a drop of nearly 33 percent. This means Democrats are fighting to force taxpayers to support a biased left-wing news outlet with a declining audience of mainly affluent white liberal listeners.
Compounding this issue is the fact that this country is now $36.22 trillion in debt, and core federal programs are now being cut back. To ask citizens (including the half of voters who just voted for Trump) to continue to subsidize one liberal news outlet is embarrassing. It is time for NPR to compete equally in the media market without the help of federal subsidies.
If there was any doubt about that conclusion, it was surely dispatched by Maher’s appearance. After years of objections over its biases, the NPR board hired a CEO notorious for her activism and far-left viewpoints. Now, Maher is the face of NPR as it tries to convince the public that it can be trusted to reform itself. Her denials and deflections convinced no one. Indeed, Maher may have been the worst possible figure to offer such assurances.
After speaking at the National Press Club, I will be testifying today before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on free speech and censorship. My testimony is below.
The hearing, titled “The Censorship Industrial Complex” will be held in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building at 2 p.m.
We now know a great deal about the censorship system developed under the Biden Administration in coordination with academic and corporate units. Indeed, the release of new information since January has proven a windfall for those of us who have been seeking greater transparency for years. There is still much to be done. It is essential for Congress to complete this work and allow for total transparency on the past funding and coordination by the government.
The past efforts to block investigations and withhold information on the censorship system have failed. However, the motivation is telling. While publicly declaring the need to combat misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, the Biden Administration and its allies in the censorship system struggled to withhold information on their actual targets or actions. The reason again is obvious. The public understands the threat to free speech and strongly supports an investigation into the FBI’s role in censoring social media.
Almost 250 years ago, Tom Paine famously wrote that “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” That was the first line of a work published by Thomas Paine in the Pennsylvania Journal on December 19, 1776, a work which would become known as “The American Crisis.”
We are living through a new crisis in the fight for free speech. The anti-free speech movement that has swept over Europe has now reached our shores. The United States remains a final line of defense for free speech, a nation founded on free speech as our indispensable right as a free people. This is a crisis of faith as the “summer soldier and sunshine patriot” finds every excuse for remaining silent as others are censored or canceled for their views. Congress must step forward to demand both greater transparency and protection for free speech. This new “American crisis” can be our greatest American moment in speaking in one voice – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – in support of the right that defines us as a people.
Below is my column in the Hill on the recent World Forum where leaders gathered to declare “A New World Order with European Values.” Globalists gathered in Berlin to seek a new era based on European values that not only involve the expansion of transnational systems but the contraction of free speech rights.
Here is the column:
“A New World Order with European Values.” Emblazoned across banners and signs, those words met the participants at this week’s meeting of the World Forum in Berlin. Each year, leaders, executives, journalists and academics gather to address the greatest threats facing humanity. This year, there was little doubt about what they view as the current threat: the resurgence of populism and free speech.
In fairness to the Forum, “a New World Order” likely sounds more ominous for some civil libertarians than intended. While the European Union is a transnational government stretching across 27 nations, the organizers were referring to a shift of values away from the United States to Europe.
As one of the few speakers at the forum who was calling for greater protections for free speech, I found it an unnerving message. Even putting aside, the implications of the New World Order, the idea of building a world on today’s European values is alarming for free speech.
Free speech is in a free fall in Europe, with ever-expanding speech regulations and criminal prosecutions — including for having “toxic ideologies.”
The World Forum has a powerful sense of fraternity, even an intimacy, among leaders who see each other as a global elite — a cadre of enlightened minds protecting citizens from their own poor choices and habits. There has long been a push for transnational governing systems, and European figures see an opportunity created by the conflict with President Trump. The European Union is the model for such a Pax Europaea or “European peace.”
The problem is that this vision for a new Holy Roman Empire lacks a Charlamagne. More importantly, it lacks public support.
The very notion of a “New World Order” is chilling to many who oppose the rise of a globalist class with the rise of transnational governance in the European Union and beyond.
This year, there is a sense of panic among Europe’s elite over the victory of Trump and the Republicans in the U.S., as well as nationalist and populist European movements. For globalists, the late Tip O’Neill’s rule that “all politics is local” is anathema. The European Union is intended to transcend national identities and priorities in favor of an inspired transnational government managed by an expert elite.
The message was clear. The new world order would be based on European, not American, values. To rally the faithful to the cause, the organizers called upon two of the patron saints of the global elite: Bill and Hillary Clinton. President Clinton was even given an award as “leader of the century.” The Clintons were clearly in their element. Speaker after speaker denounced Trump and the rise of what they called “autocrats” and “oligarchs.” The irony was crushing. The European Union is based on the oligarchy of a ruling elite. The World Forum even took time to celebrate billionaires from Bill Gates to George Soros for funding “open societies” and greater transnational powers.
The discussions focused on blunting the rise of far-right parties and stemming the flow of “disinformation” that fosters such dissent. Outside of this rarefied environment, the Orwellian language would border on the humorous: protecting democracy from itself and limiting free speech to foster free speech.
Yet, one aspect of the forum was striking and refreshingly open. This year it became clear why transnational governance gravitates toward greater limits on free speech. Of course, all of this must be done in the name of democracy and free speech.
There is a coded language that is now in vogue with the anti-free speech community. They never say the word “censorship.” They prefer “content moderation.” They do not call for limiting speech. Instead, they call for limiting “false,” “hateful” or “inciteful” speech.
As for the rise of opposing parties and figures, they are referred to as movements by “low-information voters” misled by disinformation. Of course, it is the government that will decide what are acceptable and unacceptable viewpoints.
That code was broken recently by Vice President JD Vance, who confronted our European allies in Munich to restore free speech. He stripped away the pretense and called out the censorship.
With the rise of populist groups, anti-immigration movements and critics of European governance, there is a palpable challenge to EU authority. In that environment, free speech can be viewed as destabilizing because it spreads dissent and falsehoods about these figures and their agenda. Thus far, “European peace” has come at the price of silencing many of those voices, achieving the pretense of consensus through coerced silence.
Transnational governance requires consent over a wide swath of territory. The means that the control or cooperation of media and social media is essential to maintaining the consent of the governed. That is why free speech is in a tailspin in Europe, with ever-expanding speech regulations and criminal prosecutions.
Yet, it is difficult to get a free people to give up freedom. They have to be very afraid or very angry. One of the speakers was Maria A. Ressa, a journalist and Nobel laureate. I admire Ressa’s courage as a journalist but previously criticized her anti-free speech positions. Ressa has struck out against critics who have denounced her for allegedly antisemitic views. She has warned that the right is using free speech and declaring “I will say it now: ‘The fascists are coming.’”
At the forum, Ressa again called for the audience of “powerful leaders” to prevent lies and dangerous disinformation from spreading worldwide.
But the free speech movement has shown a surprising resilience in the last few years. First, Elon Musk bought Twitter and dismantled its censorship apparatus, restoring free speech to the social media platform. More recently, Mark Zuckerburg announced that Meta would also restore free speech protections on Facebook and other platforms.
In a shock to many, young Irish voters have been credited with killing a move to further expand the criminalization of speech to include “xenophobia” and the “public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material” from viewpoints barred under the law.
Anti-free speech forces are gathering to push back on such trends. Indeed, Hillary Clinton has hardly been subtle about the dangers of free speech to the new world order. After Musk bought Twitter with the intention of restoring free speech protections, Clinton called upon the European Union to use its infamous Digital Services Act to make Musk censor her fellow Americans. She has also suggested arresting those spreading disinformation.
The European Union did precisely that by threatening Musk with confiscatory fines and even arrest unless he censored users. When Musk decided to interview Trump in this election, EU censors warned him that they would be watching for any disinformation.
For many citizens, European governance does not exactly look like a triumph over “oligarchs” and “autocrats.” Indeed, the EU looks pretty oligarchic with its massive bureaucracy guided by a global elite and “good” billionaires like Soros and Gates.
Citizens would be wise to look beyond the catchy themes and consider what Pax Europaea would truly mean to them. We have many shared values with our European allies. However, given the current laws limiting political speech, a “New World Order Based on European Values” is hardly an inviting prospect for those who believe in robust democratic and free speech values.
Four years ago, we first discussed the case of Professor Jason Kilborn, who was investigated and punished for using a pair of racial slurs as part of an exam in his civil procedure course. I was critical of the actions of the John Marshall Law School at the University of Illinois (Chicago) as inimical to both free speech and academic freedom. Now, the United States Court of Appeals has reversed a district court’s dismissal of his free speech claims. The UofI will continue to spend huge amounts of money in fighting the protections for academics in their classrooms. It is not simply administrators wasting public funds but spending public funds against the public interest.
Professor Kilborn’s Civil Procedure II exam described how an employee quit “after she attended a meeting in which other managers expressed their anger at Plaintiff, calling her a ‘n___’ and ‘b___’ [sic].”
The use of the racial slurs led to a complaint in a letter from the Black Law Students Association and later a petition which called for Kilborn to be stripped of his committee assignments and other reforms. The Petition stated:
The slur shocked students created a momentous distraction and caused unnecessary distress and anxiety for those taking the exam. Considering the subject matter, and the call of the question, the use of the “n____” and “b____” was certainly unwarranted as it did not serve any educational purpose. The question was culturally insensitive and tone-deaf. It lacked basic civility and respect for the student body, especially considering our social justice efforts this year.
The integration of this dark and vile verbiage on a Civil Procedure II exam was inexcusable and appropriate measures of accountability must be executed by the UIC administration.
My objection was to the measures taken against Professor Kilborn, which I do believe undermine academic freedom. He was suspended and put on administrative leave because of a complaint that in my view was a denial of his pedagogical privileges. He was ultimately denied a raise. He was also required to undergo drug testing, agree to a medical examination, and complete eight weeks of diversity training.
I was also concerned by the position of University of Illinois-Chicago Chancellor Michael Amiridis when the university disputed the claim that the use of the terms was “pedagogical relevant” or “necessarily germane to the study of civil procedure.” That is a statement that drives to the very core of academic freedom.
Just because Kilborn teaches Civil Procedure does not mean that hypotheticals raising racial discrimination are not germane. The best Civil Procedure teachers show how these rules can raise difficult political, social, and constitutional issues when applied in different contexts. Moreover, professors have been pushed by universities and various academic groups to incorporate greater consideration of social justice and racial equality issues in their classes.
Professor Kilborn wrote an exam question that included the censored versions of words that are commonly found in media articles and academic publications. For that, he was publicly suspended and ostracized.
An appellate court’s decision found the lower court erred in dismissing Kilborn’s retaliation claim without giving a full consideration to his First Amendment protections.
The panel declined to apply Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410, 418 (2006) as controlling. In that case, the Supreme Court found that public employees are not speaking as citizens when they make statements pursuant to their official duties.” The panel held:
“We decline the University officials’ invitation to extend Garcetti to speech involving university teaching and scholar-ship when the Supreme Court was unwilling to do so. Nor are we alone. Every other circuit to decide the issue has recognized that Garcetti does not apply to university teaching or scholarship.’
According to a FOIA request from the University of Illinois system, UIC Law has already burned through $1.2 million in the case. Rather than discipline these officials who denied basic protections for Kilborn, the school continues to add to the costly effort in the court.
The question is how long the university will burn through funds to fight these core rights afforded to all professors.
The anti-free speech movement in the United States was largely an outgrowth of higher education where viewpoint intolerance has taken hold of many schools. Indeed, intolerance and orthodoxy are often defended on the left in the name of tolerance and pluralism. Harvard Professor Timothy McCarthy is one of those voices demanding the removal of faculty with opposing views in the name of tolerance. He recently told New York University’s Washington Square News that any faculty who do not support “gender-affirming care” should be stripped of their academic titles and fired.
Many academics and citizens oppose “gender-affirming” policies on religious or other grounds. Some believe that school-enforced policies inhibit debate over gender dysphoria and the basis for various treatments and protections on both sides. McCarthy believes that no such debate should be allowed among faculty, declaring that “there’s a particular place in hell for academics who use their academic expertise and power to distort and do violence to people in the world.” He was targeting two professors at NYU who are affiliated with groups critical of surgical and chemical interventions for gender dysphoria.
Professor McCarthy offered the usual nod to free speech and academic freedom before eviscerating both in his comments. He admitted that “a level of suspicion and inquiry into medical practices is healthy,” but then dismissed such views as harmful and mere efforts to “poison the waters.”
There was a time when such intolerance was directed against the left and groups ranging from feminists to those in the LGBT community. Now, it has become a badge of honor, the expected bona fides that show the correctness and firmness of one’s views.
The irony is crushing. Harvard’s Kennedy School website states that McCarthy “was the first openly gay faculty member” at the public policy school “and still teaches the school’s only course on LGBTQ matters.” When I first went into teaching, I had friends who still remained in the closet out of fear that their sexual orientation would undermine their chances for tenure or advancement. Likewise, far-left academics associated with the critical legal studies (CLS) movement were viewed as “poisoning the waters” of higher education and often blocked from teaching.
The left has now adopted the same intolerance and orthodoxy once used against it. Indeed, it has been far more successful in purging the faculty ranks of conservatives, libertarians, and dissenters. As we have previously discussed, Harvard is particularly notorious for this purging of both its faculty and student body.
This year, Harvard again found itself dead last among 251 universities and colleges in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) annual ranking.
The Harvard Crimson has documented how the school’s departments have virtually eliminated Republicans. In one study of multiple departments last year, they found that more than 75 percent of the faculty self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.”
Only 5 percent identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
According to Gallup, the U.S. population is roughly equally divided among conservatives (36%), moderates (35%), and liberals (26%).
So, Harvard has three times the number of liberals as the nation at large, and less than three percent identify as “conservative” rather than 35 percent nationally. According to the last student survey, only 9 percent of the class identified as conservative or very conservative.
Notably, despite Harvard’s maintenance of an overwhelmingly liberal faculty and student body, even liberal students feel stifled at Harvard. Only 41 percent of liberal students reported being comfortable discussing controversial topics, and only 25 percent of moderates and 17 percent of conservatives felt comfortable in doing so.
Among law school faculty who donated more than $200 to a political party, 91 percent of the Harvard faculty gave to Democrats.
Professor McCarthy appears right at home in his public call for a further purging of faculty ranks.
This is an area that has deeply divided the country, as was evident in the last election. Higher education should play a critical role in that debate by allowing faculty and students to engage with each other in civil and substantive debate. Instead of spending so much time and effort trying to silence those with opposing views, the left could instead focus on refuting these claims. Instead, it is replicating that same pattern of cancellations, deplatformings and firings that marked the last decade. It is the same approach used against academics who questioned aspects of COVID policies including mask efficacy doubts, natural immunity theories, opposition to the closing of schools, opposition to the six-foot rule, and the lab theory on the virus’s origin. They were also removed from faculties and associations. Yet, many of these views have since been vindicated.
What was lost was not just free speech and academic freedom, but a rigorous debate that might have helped us avoid some of the costs of unsupported COVID policies. For example, some of our closest allies listened to skeptics on the need to close schools and opted to keep young children in school. They were able to avoid the massive educational and psychological costs that we incurred in this country. Much like Professor McCarthy, these skeptics were accused of “poisoning the waters” and spreading harmful ideas or disinformation.
There is no difference between the intolerance of figures like Professor McCarthy from those who once sought the same measures against liberals, homosexuals, or feminists. Now firmly in control of higher education, many on the left are using their power to win public debate through retribution, coercion, and attrition. In the process, they are destroying the very essense of higher education for not just our students but ourselves.
This week, the Ninth Circuit delivered a significant victory for free speech after Professor Lars Jensen won a critical reversal against Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno. Jensen had criticized the school’s lower standards. Jensen objected in 2020 and 2021 to proposed curriculum changes that he argued would have allowed remedial math classes to count for college credit. He distributed a flyer at an event detailing his concerns and warning that a student would be allowed to graduate from college while only being “ready for middle school math.”
TMCC Dean Julie Ellsworth told Jensen not to circulate his fliers during the break at the event, but he refused to relent. Ellsworth warned him that there would be consequences for his “disobeying” her.
In the two performance reviews following the confrontation, Jensen’s department chair suggested he receive an “excellent” rating, but Ellsworth gave him “unsatisfactory” ratings for “insubordination.” That designation required Jensen to undergo review for possible termination.
District Court Judge Larry Hicks dismissed the case in 2023. Now the Ninth Circuit has reversed Judge Hicks and found that Jensen is entitled to his day in court. Moreover, the panel found that Judge Hicks erred in refusing to allow Jensen to amend his complaint.
The panel applied the Pickering standard that we have previously discussed. The Court has held that, when a public employer retaliates against an employee for workplace-related speech, the First Amendment requires “balanc[ing] . . . the interests of the [public employee], as a citizen, in commenting upon matters of public concern and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968).
That standard, in turn, triggers a five-part inquiry:
“(1) whether the plaintiff spoke on a matter of public concern; (2) whether the plaintiff spoke as a private citizen or public employee; (3) whether the plaintiff’s protected speech was a substantial or motivating factor in the adverse employment action; (4) whether the state had an adequate justification for treating the employee differently from other members of the general public; and (5) whether the state would have taken the adverse employment action even absent the protected speech.” Eng v. Cooley, 552 F.3d 1062, 1070 (9th Cir. 2009).
The Ninth Circuit ruled that:
“Jensen’s criticism of the changes in TMCC’s mathematics curriculum addressed a matter of public concern. “[T]he preferable manner of operating [a] school system . . . clearly concerns an issue of general public interest.” Pickering, 391 U.S. at 571. The handout Jensen distributed at the Math Summit spoke to the preferable manner of operating TMCC, specifically its math department. Jensen described how the math department’s lowered standards would impact almost a third of TMCC’s degree and certificate programs and how graduates would consequently have inadequate math and technical skills when entering the job market. Jensen also grounded his criticism in the effect these lower standards would have on the community, noting that employers in the surrounding area subsidize TMCC through their taxes and expect competent graduates in return. The decline of TMCC’s educational standards and the resulting impact on the community is a matter of public concern.”
The ruling remands the case back to the District Court of Nevada, where Jensen’s First Amendment claims can proceed. He may also choose to amend his other claims as necessary to proceed alongside them. Jensen is also represented by Nevada attorney John Nolan, who brought the lawsuit and wrote the briefs filed with the Ninth Circuit.
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten is known primarily for two things: screaming into microphones at political rallies and making the teacher’s union an extension of the Democratic Party. However, Weingarten had an unintended substantive moment when she changed her earlier position on the elimination of the Education Department. Weingarten previously shrugged off the elimination of the department as not a big deal for education. Recently, she returned to her irate default in denouncing the elimination. The reason, however, was telling.
After Trump was reelected in November, Weingarten said that the elimination was not a big deal and that teachers had originally opposed the creation of the department: “I mean, my members don’t really care about whether they have a bureaucracy of the Department of Education or not. In fact, Al Shanker and the [American Federation of Teachers] in the 1970s were opposed to its creation.”
Now, however, Weingarten has resumed her natural state of being “really angry.” In an interview with MSNBC, Weingarten explained:
“That is why so many people are so mad about it. Because they’re just taking opportunity away from kids that don’t have it. So, billionaires – kids of billionaires, they have it, they go to private schools. Everyone else, 90% go to public schools. Don’t take away their opportunity. Sorry, I’m really angry about this … I’m really angry,”
However, it is the reason that is most interesting.
In a podcast, Weingarten explained that they have to avoid such “block grants” going to families. Host Molly Jong-Fast readily agreed, raising the danger that it might even support Catholic and religious schools. Weingarten stressed that “We know, for example, what Texas would do. They’ll use it for vouchers. So, they won’t give [federal funding] to the kids who have it now, they’ll just give it for vouchers.”
There is reason for Weingarten and the teacher’s union being so concerned. Florida allows for school choice and has demanded greater performance from public schools. Despite attacks by Weingarten and other Democrats, Florida has been ranked as the number one state for both education and the economy.
We have previously discussed how schools have been dropping the use of standardized tests to achieve diversity goals in admissions. That trend continued this month with Cal State dropping standardized testing“to level the playing field” for minority students. I have long been a critic of this movement given the overwhelming evidence that these tests allow an objective measure of academic merit and have great predictive value on the performance of students.
Many colleges and universities are returning to standardized testing after the much-acclaimed abandonment of the tests for a more “holistic approach” to selection.
However, public educators have continued to lower proficiency requirements and cancel gifted programs to “even the playing field.” The result has been to further hide the dismal scores and educational standards of many public-school districts.
I previously wrote about how public educators and teacher unions are killing public education in America. Many of us have advocated for public education for decades. I sent my children to public schools, and I still hope we can turn this around without wholesale voucher systems.
Teachers and boards are killing the institution of public education by treating children and parents more like captives than consumers. They are force-feeding social and political priorities, including passes for engaging in approved protests.
Once parents have a choice, these teachers lose a virtual monopoly over many families. They are no longer a captive audience. If public unions want to maintain funding, they will have to actually improve educational results for these families.
You see, Weingarten knows that, like her, they are “really angry,” but not about the future of a union that increasingly sounds like an educational cartel.
For years, the mantra on the left was “reimagining” everything from policing to free speech to defense. Reimagining often was a synonym for defunding or limiting the subject matter. Now, Georgetown Law Professor Sherally Munshi and others are attacking border enforcement as “ethically indefensible.” Munshi calls it “defamiliarizing” the whole concept of borders, which she and others in higher education now find morally reprehensible.
Munshi’s talk, “Unsettling the Border,” is an example of how radical many law faculties have become. She is by no means a standout in such theories. While schools have purged their ranks of conservative, libertarian, and dissenting faculty, there is no limit to faculty writing on the far left.
Munshi insists that “there is nothing natural or inevitable about the United States’ contemporary borders.” She mocked the whole notion of “the so-called border crisis.” Millions of unvetted people just walking over the border is not a crisis… at least not for the country. It is failure in ourselves; “a crisis of imagination.” Accordingly, she is calling for reimagining or defamiliarizing borders:
“Our task, as I put it, is to unsettle the border, to defamiliarize, disenchant, and recontextualize it by critically evaluating the historical processes, the legal developments, the discursive formations that naturalize and legitimate the border.”
It is, of course, racist to want to have secure borders:
“Rather than redress the fact that the international border regime is practically unsustainable [and] ethically indefensible, majorities in the whitest and wealthiest nations are embracing an increasingly authoritarian form of nationalism and exclusion.”
Borders, according to Professor Munshi, are just a construct “within the American imaginary, the southern border divides white from indigenous, purity from heterogeneity, civilization from savagery, settler from Indian.”
Of course, this reimagining of borders will have to extend back a tad further than the American founders. The concept of the nation-state with sovereign borders was recognized in documents like the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. It was credited with maintaining a Westphalian peace with nations able to maintain their own territory and governing systems. That, in turn, allowed nation-states to form international bodies and further stabilize global relations.
I have heard other faculty present papers along these same lines, dismissing the very concept of border enforcement as racist, privileged, or archaic. It is far rarer to hear conservatives on campuses arguing for border enforcement and deportations. It is even less common to find such advocates on both faculties.
There was another meltdown at the Washington Post after owner Jeff Bezos moved again to moderate the newspaper’s message, which has plummeted in readership. Bezos told the editors that he wanted the newspaper to advocate for individual liberties and the free market. The message sent the left into vapors and led to the resignation of Washington Post opinion editor David Shipley. Outside the paper, another round of calls for boycotts and subscription cancellations followed.
In the announcement below, Bezos declared, “I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.”
He added that a newspaper should be a voice for freedom — “is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.” He noted that:
“There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.”
For those of us in the free speech community, the return of the Post as a champion of free speech and other individual rights would be a welcomed change. Notably, staff did not object when prior owners aligned with their views on editorial priorities. Obviously, we will need to see how this new directive is carried out. I would be equally opposed to the Post purging liberal views in the way it moved against conservative and libertarian views for the last decade. I do not see such a directive in this announcement. Bezos wants his newspaper to be a voice for individual freedom and free market principles. That should not mean that the newspaper will not run any dissenting views on policies and programs. It does mean that the newspaper will continue to be an outlet for voicing extreme views calling for the curtailment of free speech and other individual rights.
What is striking is that many on the left expect Bezos to run the newspaper like a vanity project, losing millions of dollars to bankroll a far-left agenda. This is an announcement that goes to the position of the newspaper, not any intrusion into reporting. It also does not bar a diversity of opinion on the op-ed pages which still have a vast majority of liberal writers.
The thought that the Post would now focus on advocating for individual rights and the free market led Jeffrey Evan Gold, who posts as a legal analyst for CNN and other networks, to declare that it was the “last straw” and post his cancellation.
Jeff Stein, the publisher’s chief economics reporter, denounced Bezos as carrying out a “massive encroachment” that makes it clear “dissenting views will not be published or tolerated there.” For many moderates and conservatives, it was a crushingly ironic objection given the virtual purging of conservative and libertarian voices at the newspaper.
Amanda Katz, who resigned from the Post’s opinion team at the end of 2024, offered a vivid example of the culture that Bezos is trying to change at the Post. Katz said the change was “an absolute abandonment of the principles of accountability of the powerful, justice, democracy, human rights, and accurate information that previously animated the section in favor of a white male billionaire’s self-interested agenda.”
Just as a reminder, Bezos simply stated that the newspaper would advocate for freedom and free markets. However, the most telling condemnation came from Post columnist Philip Bump, who wrote “what the actual f**k.” Not surprisingly, Bump wrote the condemnation on Bluesky, a site that promises a type of safe space for liberals who do not want to be triggered by opposing views.
Bump previously had a meltdown in an interview when confronted about past false claims. After I wrote a column about the litany of such false claims, the Post surprised many of us by issuing a statement that it stood by all of Bump’s reporting, including false columns on the Lafayette Park protests, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and other stories. That was long after other media debunked the claims, but the Post stood by the false reporting.
We have previously discussed the sharp change in culture at the Post, which became an outlet that pushed anti-free speech views and embraced advocacy journalism. The result was that many moderates and conservatives stopped reading the newspaper.
In my book on free speech, I discuss at length how the Post and the mainstream media has joined an alliance with the government and corporations in favor of censorship and blacklisting. I once regularly wrote for the Post and personally witnessed the sharp change in editorial priorities as editors delayed or killed columns with conservative or moderate viewpoints.
Last year, that culture was vividly on display when the newspaper offered no objection or even qualification after its reporter, Cleve Wootson Jr., appeared to call upon the White House to censor the interview of Elon Musk with former President Donald Trump. Under the guise of a question, Wootson told White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that censoring its leading political opponent is “an America issue.”
During a press briefing, the Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson Jr. flagged the interview and said, “I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue…it’s an America issue.”
There was a time when a reporter calling for censorship of a political opponent would have been a matter for immediate termination in the media. Instead, the newspaper that prides itself on the slogan “Democracy dies in Darkness,” was entirely silent. No correction. No qualification.
The Wootson controversy was consistent with the embrace of advocacy journalism at the Post. We previously discussed the release of the results of interviews with over 75 media leaders by former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. They concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”
The former Post editor, Downie, recounted how news leaders:
“believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading “bothsidesism” in covering stories about race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change and many other subjects. And, in today’s diversifying newsrooms, they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”
The decline of the Post has followed a familiar pattern. The editors and reporters simply wrote off half of their audience and became a publication for largely liberal and Democratic readers. In these difficult economic times with limited revenue sources, it is a lethal decision.
Robert Lewis, a British media executive who joined the Post earlier this year, reportedly got into a “heated exchange” with a staffer. Lewis explained that, while reporters were protesting measures to expand readership, the very survival of the paper was now at stake:
“We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around,” Lewis said. “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
Other staffers could not get past the gender and race of those who would oversee them. One staffer complained, “We now have four White men running three newsrooms.” The Post has been buying out staff to avoid mass layoffs, but reporters are up in arms over the effort to turn the newspaper around.
So, let’s recap: The Washington Post’s owner has been pushing the newspaper to shift back toward the middle and restore greater balance on its pages. He is unwilling to bankroll a far-left echo chamber of advocacy journalism. Washington Post opinion editor David Shipley resigned in protest rather than agree to emphasize individual rights and free markets in editorials that speak for the newspaper.
Shipley previously fought to reverse Bezos’s decision not to endorse presidential candidates in 2024 or later elections. Some of us have long argued that newspapers should end such endorsements as inimical to journalistic neutrality and objectivity. The editors reportedly encouraged Bezos that, if he wanted to end such endorsements, he should wait until after endorsing Harris in this election cycle — a remarkable position devoid of any cognizable or controlling principle.
There was a time when advocating for editorials to champion freedom would not have been controversial. The staff’s hyperventilation only reinforces the need for such an intervention. These same voices supported the Post adopting “Democracy dies in Darkness” to oppose what they viewed as an attack on democracy from Trump or the right. However, advocating for freedom in editorials is simply unacceptable.
Perish the thought that a newspaper would commit itself to advocating for individual rights and the free market. (Warning foul language below)
Perhaps the Post could adopt a new slogan: “Freedom dies in Silence.”
Here is the announcement from Jeff Bezos:
I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning: I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.
I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment — I respect his decision.
We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction. I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case with potentially sweeping implications for discrimination cases. Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Service involves an Ohio woman, Marlean Ames, who claims she was discriminated against for being straight as less-qualified LGBT colleagues in Ohio’s youth corrections system were promoted. Ames alleged that she was treated differently due to her heterosexuality at the Ohio Department of Youth Services, resulting in not just a demotion but a pay cut in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Ames started working at the Ohio Department of Youth Services in 2004 as an executive secretary and was promoted several times, ultimately reaching program administrator. In 2017, Ames was given a new supervisor, Ginine Trim, who is openly gay. She alleges that she met or exceeded performance review standards but was discriminated against due to being straight. Her case was dismissed by the lower courts using a three-step process for handling discrimination cases based on indirect evidence under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green (1973).
Under that test, plaintiffs must first present sufficient evidence of discrimination but also requires an added burden for those individuals who are part of a majority group. The test requires plaintiffs like Ames to provide additional “background circumstances” to “support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”
She is arguing that all parties should bear the same burden. In her filing, she calls for the Court to reject the precedent:
“Judges must actually treat plaintiffs differently, by first separating them into majority and minority groups, and then imposing a ‘background circumstances’ requirement on the former but not the latter. In other words, to enforce Title VII’s broad rule of workplace equality, courts must apply the law unequally.”
In reviewing her claim, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit called the matter an “easy” call at the preliminary stage. It noted that Ames could not show that a member of a minority group made the allegedly discriminatory decision, or with evidence demonstrating a pattern of discrimination against members of the majority group.
Judge Raymond Kethledge criticized the court’s requirement that Ames show special “background circumstances” because she is straight. Such a rule, he argued, “discriminates” “on the very grounds that the statute forbids.”
Ames argues that the test’s “background circumstances” component conflicts with the text of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination “against any individual with respect to the terms of conditions of employment because of that individual’s sex” or other protected characteristic. She argues “that the law as applied demands something more of her than the law as written.”
The Court could break from McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green and continue the push of Chief Justice John Roberts in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College to make the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment “universal in its application.”
As the courts hash out the legalities of the orders supporting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the public appears to support the effort despite the almost universal condemnations in the media. Despite the prediction from James Carville that the Trump Administration will collapse within 30 days, a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll shows that most citizens support the cutting of government spending and size. While the courts must rule on the legal basis for these executive orders, the polling shows continued support for both Trump and his agenda after the election.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) also has declared that “remorse” was growing among voters who were souring against the Trump Administration. Yet, the Harvard poll shows Trump with a 50% approval rating, (43% expressing disapproval). That is consistent with the RealClearPolitics polling average, giving Trump a 49.3% approval rating.
What was interesting amid the ongoing judicial and legislative fight is that 83% of voters preferred cutting government spending to raising taxes. Some 77% also supported a broad review of government spending. A massive 70% believe government spending is rife with waste and fraud and 69% support cutting spending by $1 trillion. Sixty percent of voters said that DOGE is carrying out the need of the government to make significant cuts.
Once again, our courts are designed to resist popular demands when they contravene legal or constitutional authorities. However, courts are also sensitive to what is called the “countermajoritarian difficulty.” As Alexander Bickel discussed in his 1962 book, The Least Dangerous Branch, the courts straddle this line between protecting constitutional values and not becoming a type of super-legislature. The political question doctrine and other judicial rules are designed to remove federal judges from making policy or political judgments.
Voters are allowed to bring about significant, even radical, changes in government policies and programs. They are allowed to elect “change agents” to use existing powers to achieve those goals.
I am returning today after speaking at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs about my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” Last night, I was approached by a student named Andrew who asked whether he should just remain quiet at his college, where professors routinely slam conservatives and teach highly ideological views as gospel. I went on a walk this morning around dawn and spotted this swan. I immediately thought of the young man who came up to me after my talk.
Andrew, when you find yourself surrounded by ducks, don’t try to be a duck.
There are three simple reasons. First, you will make a uniquely poor duck, and the flight South will be exhausting. Second, none of the other ducks are likely to believe that you are really a duck. Finally, and most importantly, you are not a migratory bird. You only go through this life once and either live it on your own terms or live an inauthentic life.
We have discussed how the current orthodox and intolerant environment in higher education has resulted in a culture of self-censorship. (here, here, here, and here). Surveys show conservative students are 300 times more likely to self-censor. Even the largely liberal faculty at leading schools report self-censoring to avoid being targeted.
This year, Harvard found itself in a familiar spot on the annual ranking of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE): dead last among 251 universities and colleges.
What is most striking is the fact that Harvard has created this hostile environment while maintaining an overwhelmingly liberal student body and faculty. Only 9 percent of the class identified as conservative or very conservative.
Yet, even liberals feel stifled at Harvard. Only 41 percent of liberal students reported being comfortable discussing controversial topics, and only 25 percent of moderates and 17 percent of conservatives felt comfortable in doing so.
During the Harvard debate, I raised the gradual reduction of conservatives and libertarians in the student body and the faculty.
The Harvard Crimson has documented how the school’s departments have virtually eliminated Republicans. In one study of multiple departments last year, they found that more than 75 percent of the faculty self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.”
Only 5 percent identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
According to Gallup, the U.S. population is roughly equally divided among conservatives (36%), moderates (35%), and liberals (26%).
So Harvard has three times the number of liberals as the nation at large, and less than three percent identify as “conservative” rather than 35 percent nationally.
Among law school faculty who donated more than $200 to a political party, 91 percent of the Harvard faculty gave to Democrats.
While Professor Kennedy dismissed the notion that Harvard should look more like America, the problem is that it does not even look like Massachusetts. Even as one of the most liberal states in the country, roughly one-third of the voters still identify as Republican.
The student body shows the same selection bias. Harvard Crimson previously found that only 7 percent of incoming students identified as conservative, but the latest survey shows that number at 9 percent.
Some faculty members are wringing their hands over this continued hostile environment. However, the faculty as a whole is unwilling to restore free speech and intellectual diversity by adding conservative and libertarian faculty members and sponsoring events that reflect a broad array of viewpoints.
Given my respect for Professor Kennedy, I was surprised that he dismissed the sharp rise in students saying that they did not feel comfortable speaking in classes. Referring to them as “conservative snowflakes,” he insisted that they had to have the courage of their convictions.
This ignores the fact that they depend upon professors for recommendations, and challenging the school’s orthodoxy can threaten their standing. Moreover, a recent survey shows that even liberal students feel chilled in the environment created by Harvard faculty and administrators.
In other words, these are ducks surrounded by ducks who are still afraid of quacking out of turn.
Even a mute swan is actually not mute and are known to trumpet when other animals (including humans) threaten their nests or cygnets.
In other words, Andrew, if you are a swan, be a swan.
Below is my column in the Hill on the new American emigres: “disinformation experts” who are finding themselves unemployed with the restoration of free speech protections.
Here is the column:
President Trump’s election has brought about mass layoffs among federal employees and contractors, including some who have sued and others who have protested.
But one group — that of America’s would-be censors — is taking its cause worldwide.
During the Biden administration, a massive industry took root, sweeping up billions in taxpayer funds to research, target and combat those accused of misinformation, disinformation and “malinformation.”
Although the exact number is uncertain, many trained censors are now facing unemployment. These self-described “disinformation experts”have become the modern equivalent of rōnin, the Japanese samurai who found themselves without a master and wandered the land looking for a new use of their skill set. They are finding precisely that calling in academia, not-for-profit groups and, most importantly, Europe.
A speech-regulation industry that was booming under Biden has gone bust under Trump. Over the last four years, massive amounts of money were poured into universities, non-governmental organizations and other groups in an unprecedented alliance of government, academia and corporations. The media lionized many in the industry as “saving democracy”by controlling, targeting and suppressing others’ political speech. Not only did federal agencies fund these efforts, but they also coordinated censorship of groups and individuals with opposing views, even objecting to jokes on the internet.
Universities cashed in on this largesse as well. It was popular with most liberal administrators and lucrative for academics.
The sudden shutoff of the federal spigot comes as a blow, but it does not mean the speech warriors will simply convert their censor-shields into plowshares. Many will follow in the footsteps of Nina Jankowicz, briefly the head of a now-defunct disinformation governance board. After the outcry over the board, Jankowicz quickly found her skills were in demand in Europe.
Free speech has been in free-fall in Europe for decades. Germany has long enforced a robust system of speech criminalization that began with Nazi symbolism but steadily expanded to include inciteful speech, insults and merely “disinformative” statements. The United Kingdom and France showed the same insatiable appetite for the inexorable expansion of censorship and prosecutions.
The European Union has also been ground zero for the anti-free speech movement’s aggressive use of the Digital Services Act, which bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.”
When it passed over the objections of free speech advocates, European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager was perfectly ecstatic, declaring it is “not a slogan anymore, that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now, it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.”
That is why Vice President J.D. Vance’s recent speech in Munich was so historic. For the free speech community, Vance went into the belly of the beast and denounced the anti-free-speech movement in the heart of Europe. The response to the Vance speech has been nothing short of panic in the anti-free-speech community. Many are assembling in conferences in Europe, including the upcoming World Forum in Berlin. Bill and Hillary Clinton will be in attendance. (I will also be speaking at the conference.)
It was Hillary Clinton who, after Elon Musk purchased Twitter with the pledge to dismantle the censorship system, called upon the EU to force him and others to censor her fellow U.S. citizens. She embraced the infamous Digital Services Act, which seeks to impose a global system of speech control. She has also suggested the arrest of those spreading disinformation.
Immediately after the speech, familiar European and American voices denounced Vance and doubled down on the need for Europe to hold the line against dangerous free speech.
For the free speech community, there could not be a better place for this debate to unfold. Germany has demonstrated the false claims of the anti-free-speech community over the years. Indeed, you might call their arguments “disinformation.”
Vance and others who have challenged the European censorship systems have been attacked as Nazi enablers or sympathizers. Many of those who have fostered this attack are part of the regulator ronin. Others simply repeated the narrative without thought or support.
Take CBS anchor Margaret Brennan, who confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the outrageous fact that Vance was supporting free speech while “standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.” The claim is stupefyingly uninformed. The first thing that the Nazis did in coming to power was to crack down and criminalize free speech — just as many on the left have done in European countries.
A few have insisted that the Nazis were brought to power by the lack of government controls over what views could be expressed. But this is not true either. The crushing irony is that Article 118 of the Weimar Constitution guaranteed free speech only “within the limits of the general laws.” It did not protect statements deemed by the government as factually untrue, and speech was actively regulated.
Adolf Hitler, for example, was barred from speaking publicly. The Nazis did not use free speech because they did not have it. They did, however, use the denial of free speech to claim that the government was afraid to have certain views aired in public.
Germany has replicated the old system that failed to stop (and perhaps even helped) the Nazis, doubling down on speech controls and criminalization. As I discuss in my book, there has never been a successful censorship system in the history of the world — not one. Germany is again a chilling example of the true record of such systems.
Past polling of German citizens found that only 18 percent felt free to express their opinions in public. Only 17 percent felt free to express themselves on the internet. So, the neo-Nazi movement is flourishing, even as average German citizens feel chilled in their own speech.
Despite this history, the regulatory ronin are hard at work to scare the public back into empowering and especially into funding their efforts.
The outgoing chairman of the Munich Security Conference spoke through tears as he expressed his “fear” that Vance’s call for free speech could take hold in Europe. He tellingly added, “It is clear that our rules-based international order is under pressure. It is my strong belief … that this multipolar world needs to be based on a single set of norms and principles.”
This “international order” has striven to impose a single set of norms on speech, particularly through vehicles like the Digital Services Act. The effort stands at odds with the very essence of the American constitutional system and values.
The only thing both sides agree on is that this is an existential fight. For those in the free speech community, it will determine the future of what Justice Louis Brandeis called “the indispensable right.” For the other side, it is the future of a European model of free speech, limiting the right to deter those with extreme or inciteful views.
The recent successes in the U.S. at X and more recently at Meta are real. However, the displaced speech regulators are not just going to retool and learn to code or train to work in the hospitality industry.
As Vance’s speech showed, we are more isolated than ever. Even Americans like Clinton have joined with the Europeans to fight for censorship. It is time to take a side and fight for freedom of speech.
Founded in 1660, the Royal Society is one of the most prominent scientific organizations in the world with associations to such luminaries as Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. Despite that proud history, British scientists are pushing to politicize the society and expel Elon Musk because they disagree with his political views. It is not simply anti-intellectual but self-destructive for a society committed to the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
Few individuals in history have had a more pronounced impact on scientific and technological advances than Musk. His work on Space X alone has reshaped space technology. The upcoming mission to rescue the stranded scientists only highlights his transformative role and that of his company.
However, more than 2,700 scientists have signed an open letter that cited his public attacks on figures such as Anthony Fauci. They also noted that ‘The situation is rendered more serious because ‘Mr. Musk now occupies a position within a Trump administration in the USA that has over the past several weeks engaged in an assault on scientific research in the US that has fallen foul of federal courts.’”
It is unclear what cases are being referenced, since there have been several rulings against efforts to enjoin DOGE and Musk. More importantly, such litigation has only just begun. Whether the challengers or the Administration have “fallen foul” is yet to be determined.
Others made it clear that they simply disagree with Musk’s views.
Professor Dorothy Bishop, a University of Oxford psychologist, resigned earlier from the society, stating “I just feel far more comfortable to be dissociated from an institution that continues to honour this disreputable man.”
Others accused Musk of spreading “disinformation,” a much-abused category in the United Kingdom as a basis for censorship.
Many of these scientists seem selective in their outrage. I do not recall the Royal Society rushing to the defense of the many scientists who were fired or silenced over their dissenting views on COVID-19.
That includes the lab theory that led to scientists being denounced as conspiracy theorists or racists. Now, federal agencies agree that the theory is legitimate and indeed favored by some offices.
Some experts questioned the efficacy of surgical masks, the scientific support for the six-foot rule and the necessity of shutting down schools. The government has now admitted that many of these objections were valid and that it did not have hard science to support some of the policies. While other allies in the West did not shut down their schools, we never had any substantive debate due to the efforts of this alliance of academic, media and government figures.
Not only did millions die from the pandemic, but the United States is still struggling with the educational and mental health consequences of shutting down all our public schools. That is the true cost of censorship when the government works with the media to stifle scientific debate and public disclosures.
There is an alternative. The Royal Society could confine its review to the scientific contributions of figures like Musk. The subjectivity of this criticism should be antithetical to a scientific organization. Science is ideally a field that transcends political, social, and religious divisions. Few figures in history have advanced the cause of space travel and green technology as Musk.
I hope the Royal Society will decline to engage in such political exclusions, but I am hardly hopeful. However, in carrying out this expulsion, they will do far more harm to their society than to Elon Musk.
Below is my column in the Hill on the historic defense of free speech by Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich last week. Where John F. Kennedy went to Berlin to declare “Ich bin ein Berliner,” Vance went in Munich to declare a type of “Ich bin ein Amerikanisch.” He spoke of free speech as an American with a power and clarity that is unrivaled in modern times. As expected, he is being attacked by Europeans and many in this country on the left. However, his speech was a tour de force of our core values.
Despite that profound point, on Feb. 14, Vance found that transformative moment. Speaking to European leaders at the Munich Security Conference, he shocked his audience by confronting them over their attacks on free speech in the West. For the free speech community, it was truly Churchillian — no less than the famous Iron Curtain speech in which Churchill dared the West to confront the existential dangers of communism.
Roughly 80 years after Churchill’s speech, Vance called our allies to account not for the growing threat from countries like Russia or China, but from themselves. To a clearly shocked audience, Vance declared that he was not worried about “external actors” but “the threat from within the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”
Vance then pulled back the curtain on the censorship and anti-free-speech policies of the European Union and close allies ranging from the United Kingdom to Sweden. He also chastised one of the most vehemently anti-free speech figures in Europe, Thierry Breton, who led the EU efforts to control speech with draconian measures under the infamous Digital Services Act.
Vance called out the hypocrisy of these nations asking for greater and greater military assistance “in the name of our shared democratic values” even as they eviscerate free speech, the very right that once defined Western Civilization.
The point was crushing.
Before we further commit to the defense of Europe, he argued, we should agree on what we are defending. These European nations are erasing the very distinctions between us and our adversaries.
In my recent book, I discussed many of the examples cited by the vice president. One of the most telling came from Canada last year, when the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau temporarily blocked the citizenship of Russian dissident Maria Kartasheva. The reason was that she had a conviction (after a trial in absentia) in Russia for condemning the Ukrainian war. The Canadian government declared that Kartasheva’s conviction in Russia aligns with a Criminal Code offense relating to false information in Canada.
In other words, her use of free speech could be prosecuted in Canada under its abusive Section 372(1) of the Criminal Code, punishing speech deemed to be “convey[ing] false information with the intent to alarm or injure anyone.”
Vance ran through just a fraction of the parade of horribles, from Britain arresting people for silent prayers near abortion clinics to Sweden prosecuting a religious protester who burned a Koran, with Judge Göran Lundahl insisting that freedom of expression does not constitute a “free pass to do or say anything.” Apparently, it does not include acts once called blasphemy or insulting religion.
Vance also mocked the underlying premise for speech crackdowns to combat “disinformation,” pointing out that these measures constitute a far greater threat to citizens in the West than any external threat. He had the courage to say what has long been verboten on the restriction of speech to combat foreign influence: “if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”
In perhaps the greatest single declaration uttered by an American leader since John F. Kennedy in Germany declared “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he added: “If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people that elected me and elected President Trump.”
The reaction of the European diplomats was one of astonishment. Few even offered the usual polite applause. Instead, rows of smug leaders looked straight ahead with the same level of disgust as if Vance were the second coming of the Visogoths threatening the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace.
In a single speech, Vance shattered the hypocrisy of our allies’ calling for a defense of the West while abandoning Western values. They did not like it, and many in the American press joined in dismissing his address. He was called a “wrecking ball” for bringing up the anti-free speech movement that has swept over Europe. One German official declared “This is all so insane and worrying.” This is a diplomat from a nation that shredded free speech for decades, to the point of arresting people over their ringtones.
Of course, our own anti-free speech voices were in attendance, too. Politico quoted one “former House Democratic staffer” who bravely attacked Vance anonymously: “I was aghast … He was blaming the victim. What the f— was that? I had my mouth open in a room full of people with their mouth open. That was bad.”
No, it was not bad. It was glorious.
After Elon Musk purchased Twitter with the pledge to dismantle the company’s censorship system, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned to the EU, calling on it to use its Digital Service Act to force the censorship of her fellow American citizens. That did not leave many people agape. But Vance’s defense of free speech is considered a breathtaking outrage.
In “Hillbilly Elergy,” Vance explained his lack of faith in transformative moments.
“I’ve seen far too many people awash in a genuine desire to change, only to lose their mettle when they realized just how difficult change actually is,” he wrote.
And there is no “genuine desire to change” in Europe. The appetite for censorship is now insatiable, and free speech is in a free fall.
In the midst of this crackdown, Vance spoke with a quintessentially American voice. It was clear, honest and unafraid. There was no pretense or evasion. It was a speech about who we are as a nation and the values that still define us — and no longer define our allies. They saw him as a virtual hillbilly, an American hayseed who does not understand transnational values.
For the rest of us, it was a true elegy — part lament and part liberating.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the unhinged response to Vice President J.D. Vance’s historic defense of free speech in Europe. The chorus of criticism from press and pundits was immediate. Literally speaking through tears, German diplomat Christoph Heusgen responded to VP Vance: “It is clear that our rules-based international order is under pressure. It is my strong belief that this more multipolar world needs to be based on a single set of norms and principles.” Indeed, it is and that is a good thing. Vance was speaking truth to transnationalists who view free speech as a threat to the “international order” that they maintain. The response from the American left was even more bizarre. Not only did CBS’s Margaret Brennan suggest that free speech caused the holocaust, but Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) said that Vance, in defending free speech, used “some of the same language that Hitler used to justify the Holocaust.”
Here is the column:
On Friday, Vice President JD Vance gave a historic defense of free speech at the Munich Security Conference. In front of a clearly hostile assemblage of European diplomats, Vance confronted our allies with their systemic censorship as they demanded more support to “defend democracy.” For the free speech community, it was akin to Ronald Reagan’s call: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Vance questioned how our allies could claim to be the bastions of freedom while denying free expression to their citizens. He then delivered this haymaker: “If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor, for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people that elected me and elected President Trump.”
Not surprisingly, the Europeans sat on their hands while glaring at Vance for calling them out for their hypocrisy. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius declared Vance’s remarks were “not acceptable.” An unnamed German official in attendance declared, “This is all so insane and worrying.”
The outrage of the Europeans was only surpassed by our own anti-free speech voices in government, the media and academia. Commentator and CNN regular Bill Kristol called the speech “a humiliation for the US and a confirmation that this administration isn’t on the side of the democracies.” It appears that free speech is no longer viewed as pro-democracy. Indeed, it could be outright fascism.
In one of the most bizarre attacks, CBS anchor Margaret Brennan confronted Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Vance’s support for free speech given the fact that he was “standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.” In other words, it was free speech that brought Hitler to power and caused the Holocaust. Brennan’s statement is completely detached from history and logic.
Germans did enjoy free speech protections after World War I, though the Weimar Constitution was more limited than the First Amendment. However, one of the first things that the Nazis did in coming to power in 1933 was to crack down on free speech and criminalize dissent. Censorship is the harbinger of authoritarianism and Germany is the ultimate example of how no censorship system in history has ever succeeded in killing one idea or stopping a single movement.
Brennan could not have picked a better country to utterly destroy the point that she was trying to make in favor of limits on free speech.
Germany continued to censor and criminalize speech after World War II, targeting the neo-Nazi movement and other prohibited viewpoints. Authorities charged citizens for everything from wine labels to ringtones with banned content. The government has sought to force figures like X owner Elon Musk to censor Americans and others to combat anything that it deems “fake news” or “disinformation.”
Of course, Germany’s massive censorship effort has done little to deter the thriving neo-Nazi movement. What it has done is chill the speech of ordinary citizens. One poll of German citizens found that only 18% of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. Only 17% felt free to express themselves on the internet.
Other nations joined in the harrumphs with equally disingenuous statements, including the United Kingdom. British diplomats expressed shock despite their systemic suppression of free speech, including arresting citizens for simply praying to themselves near abortion clinics.
The British have doubled down on censorship with sweeping new laws. Hundreds have been arrested recently for speech crimes like spreading “fake news” or disinformation that could lead to “non-trivial psychological or physical harm.”Previously, British citizens were arrested for criticizing religious groups or opposing homosexuality or immigration. In one case, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime.
The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
In 1963, John F. Kennedy went to Germany to declare “Ich bin ein Berliner” to express solidarity with those who were fighting for the right to live and speak freely behind the Iron Curtain.
More than 60 years later, Vance returned to essentially declare “Ich bin ein Amerikanischer,” affirming our commitment to a right that not only defines the United States, but once defined Western civilization. He argued that if we are to defeat our foreign adversaries, we must first protect those rights that distinguish us from them.
The response of our press and pundits only proved Vance’s point. We have returned to the moment described by Tom Paine during our Revolution, a time that would “try men’s souls.”
Those opposing free speech today are like “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot” who, Paine warned, would “shrink” from the defense of our values.
The anti-free speech movement that has swept over Europe has finally reached our shores.
Vance drew a bright line in Europe and we will all have to decide on which side to stand. Some obviously have made the decision to stand with Europe.
For the rest of us, we will stand with free speech.
The defense of free speech by Vice President J.D. Vance in Munich, Germany, has led to open panic on the left in fighting to maintain European censorship and speech criminalization. The response of the American press and pundits was crushingly familiar. From CBS News to members of Congress, Vance (and anyone who supports his speech) was accused of using Nazi tactics. It is the demonization of dissent.
The suggestion that free speech cleared the way for the Holocaust left many scratching their heads, but it is an old saw used by the anti-free speech community, particularly in Germany.
When they came to power, the Nazis moved immediately to crack down on free speech and criminalize dissent. They knew that free speech was not only the “indispensable right” for a free people, but the greatest threat to authoritarian power.
Figures like Brennan appear to blame free speech for the rise of the Nazis because the Weimar Constitution protected the right of Germans, including Nazis, in their right to speak. However, the right to free speech was far more abridged than our own First Amendment. Indeed, it had many of the elements that the left has pushed in Europe and the United States, including allowing crackdowns on disinformation and fake news.
Article 118 of the Weimar Constitution, guaranteed free speech but added that it must be “within the limits of the general laws.” It did not protect statements deemed by the government as factually untrue and speech was actively regulated.
Indeed, Hitler was barred from speaking publicly. It was not free speech that the Nazis used to propel their movement, but the denial of free speech. They portrayed the government as so fearful and fragile that it could not allow opposing views to be stated publicly.
This ridiculous and ahistorical spin also ignores the fact that other countries like the United States had both fascist movements and free speech, but did not succumb to such extremism. Instead, free speech allowed critics to denounce brownshirts as hateful, dangerous individuals. To blame free speech for the rise of the Nazis is like blaming the crimes of Bernie Maddoff on the use of money.
Nevertheless, before the last election, the left was unrelenting in accusing those with opposing views as being Nazis or fascists. During the election, it seemed like a one-answer Rorschach test where Democrats saw a Nazi in every political inkblot.
While the narrative failed in spectacular fashion, the script has not changed. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) expressed sympathy for the “absolute shock, absolute shock of our European allies” to be confronted in this fashion. Rather than address the examples of systemic attacks on free speech, Moulton reached again for the favorite talking point: “if you listen, listen carefully it’s actually much deeper and darker. He was talking about the enemy within. This is some of the same language that Hitler used to justify the Holocaust.”
Like Brennan, Moulton is warning that free speech can be a path to genocide. However, his take is that anyone claiming to be the victim of censorship is taking a page out of the Nazi playbook. The logic is simple. The Nazis complained about censorship. You complained about censorship. Thus, ipso facto, you are a Nazi.
Others joined the mob in denouncing Vance and supporting the Europeans. CNN regular Bill Kristol called the speech “a humiliation for the US and a confirmation that this administration isn’t on the side of the democracies.”
By defending free speech, you are now viewed as anti-democratic. It is part of the Orwellian message of the anti-free-speech movement. Democracy demands censorship, and free speech invites fascism.
It is hardly a novel argument. It was the very rationale used in Germany after World War II to impose what is now one of the most extensive censorship systems in the world. It was initially justified as an anti-Nazi measure but then, as has occurred repeatedly in history, became an insatiable appetite for speech controls. Indeed, the country returned to the prosecution of anything deemed disinformation and fake news by the government.
The result has indeed silenced many, but not those neo-Nazis who are flourishing in Germany. Past polling of German citizens found that only 18% of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. Only 17% felt free to express themselves on the internet. As under the Weimar Constitution, fascist groups are portraying themselves as victims while finding alternative ways to spread their message.
Yet, the American media continues to peddle the same disinformation on the value of censorship. After its anchor made the widely ridiculed claim about free speech leading to genocide, 60 Minutes ran an interview with German officials extolling the success of censorship.
CBS’ Sharyn Alfonsi compared how the United States allows “hate-filled or toxic” speech while Germany is “trying to bring some civility to the worldwide web by policing it in a way most Americans could never imagine.”
German prosecutors (Dr. Matthäus Fink, Svenja Meininghaus and Frank-Michael Laue) detailed how they regularly raid homes to crack down on prohibited views with the obvious approval of CBS.
They acknowledged that “the people are surprised that this is really illegal, to post these kind [sic] of words… They don’t think it was illegal. And they say, ‘No, that’s my free speech,’ And we say, ‘No, you have free speech as well, but it also has its limits.’”
Alfonsi explained that the law criminalizes anything the government considers inciteful “or deemed insulting.” She then asked “Is it a crime to insult somebody in public?” The prosecutors eagerly affirmed, but added that the punishment is even higher to insult someone on the Internet.
Meininghaus started to explain that “if you’re [on] the internet, if I insult you or a politician …” Alfonsi could not even wait for the end of the sentence and completed it for him: “It sticks around forever.”
As CBS was completing the sentences of speech regulators, many in Europe were celebrating the Vance speech as breathing new life into the embattled free speech community. What is most striking is how the press and the pundits could not help themselves. They are eagerly proving Vance’s point. This is an existential fight for the “indispensable right.”
Clearly, Dr. Steve Caudle of Greater Second Missionary Baptist Church in Chattanooga is not the “turn-the-other-cheek” type of minister. Caudle called upon his flock to choose violence in responding to the policy changes in progress in Washington with the new Administration. It is a further escalation of the rage rhetoric from Democratic politicians and pundits.
In a sermon live streamed to YouTube on Sunday, Caudle denounced Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for threatening to “steal” Americans’ information and money, and said that a violent “conflict” will be coming:
“In this nation, I’m worried that we are on the verge of bloodshed. This is an attempt to take us back to a day that we do not want to go, and we will not go. Therefore, there will be conflict. I pray that the peace of God will win out and overcome the madness that is attempting to take over this nation.”
“And I will say to you, beloved: no one likes violence, but sometimes violence is necessary. When Elon Musk forces his way into the United States Treasury, and threatens to steal your personal information and your social security check, there is a possibility of violence. Sometimes the devil will act so ugly, that there is no other choice but to get violent and fight!”
Invoking Matthew 11:12, he added:
“… Why not talk this way? Because Jesus did… Jesus said in this key verse… ‘The kingdom of Heaven suffers — what — violence. And the who — the violent — take it by force. The kingdom of God is a warzone, it is a battlefield. You did know this, right?”
There is a normalization of such violent rhetoric with mainstream figures. The result can be a sense of license for some willing to turn to violent forms of expression, particularly when given the patina of moral justification.
As I have previously written, rage rhetoric has long been a part of our political process. However, when religious figures rationalize violent action, we cross a dangerous Rubicon in the use of such rhetoric.
Below is my column in The Hill on Musk-mania gripping Washington. Democrats are using Musk to double down on rage rhetoric and rallying supporters to “fight in the street” in a declared “war.” It is a familiar pattern for many of us.
Here is the column:
Across the Internet, politicians and pundits are in a monstrous mood. The same people who spent the last year declaring the imminent death of democracy if Donald Trump were elected are now insisting that the real threat is the “monster” he has unleashed upon the federal bureaucracy. It is the thing of legend, a Beltway monster that you told your children about around campfires late at night: An outsider who comes to town and lays waste to government waste, firing thousands and slashing budgets. Part Frankenstein, part Bigfoot, that creature never had a name, but would be beholden to no one and uninterested in the status quo. The monster now has a name, and it is Elon Musk.
Democratic politicians are now claiming that reducing government is equivalent to destroying government. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) yelled dramatically to an outdoor crowd this week that Musk’s government efficiency efforts are “taking away everything we have.”
For decades, both Democratic and Republican presidents have run on reducing government and making it more efficient. But everyone knew that such campaign pledges would be quickly discarded after each election. What is so terrifying this time is that Musk means it. We know that because he has done it before.
When Musk bought Twitter with the promise of dismantling its censorship system and culture, he started by firing virtually everyone. Critics immediately declared that he was a fool and did not understand how to run a social media company. Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich said that Musk’s firings meant the death of Twitter and triumphantly declared, “You break it, you own it.”
It did not exactly work out that way. Musk fired as much as 90 percent of his staff and the company survived. Liberals only grew more determined, seeking even to boycott his other companies and bar Space X from needed national security missions. As liberal media and pundits raged, Musk stayed firm and survived. Now Amazon has increased advertising on X, which is now the sixth most popular social media site. It has reportedly hit 500 million subscribers and a reported 40-plus percent profit margin. It is set to make billions with a greatly reduced overhead due to the firings.
Musk’s model has been watched — and to some degree replicated — by other companies. The only way to change a culture is sometimes to change the people. Take the U.S. Agency for International Development, where Musk led an effort to freeze operations at the agency and move it to within the State Department. Notably, they are not shutting down the agency, and Trump has said that he wants to continue foreign aid needed for core missions like clean water and disease prevention, for example.
There are good-faith reasons to be concerned that vital programs must not be abruptly ended. However, the complaint is that USAID is the ultimate example of a bloated agency with a high percentage of funding going to administrative costs over field operations.
The State Department reportedly plans to reduce the USAID workforce from over 10,000 to less than 300. It is vintage Musk. It is easier to take the trauma upfront and then rehire the employees needed to fulfill the mission with a leaner workforce.
That process is easier if you can get people to leave voluntarily. Part of it is performative like Musk showing up at Twitter with a sink — to let reality “sink in” for the thousands of employees.
It appears to be working. Many employees are taking an offer to leave with a generous severance package. The idea is simple: If you throw a badger into a crowded car, people will get out. Musk is that badger.
As for Musk being a democracy-devouring Frankenstein, the rhetoric is again outstripping reality. The fact is that liberals rarely hunt monsters, they create their own monsters.
The making of “Muskenstein” can be found in the cancel campaign launched against him as soon as he pledged to restore free speech on Twitter. An unprecedented alliance of government, corporations, media, and academia were arrayed against him.
This same alliance has worked countless times to get corporations and CEOs to comply with its demands for censorship. But Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, was unbowed. Liberals correctly saw Musk’s defiance as an existential threat. For years, they had exercised virtual total control of social media, legacy media, and academia. Opposing views were denounced as dangerous disinformation.
The key to their system was that you maintain orthodoxy by coercing people into silence. During the COVID pandemic, scientists who challenged the enforced view of masks, COVID-19 origins, and other issues were banned or fired. Others remained silent as they watched colleagues exiled for expressing their opinions.
Musk had to be destroyed, or others might start to believe that they could also defy the groupthink.
The problem is that intolerance for opposing views creates thousands of renegades and outsiders. I was one of them. I was once associated with liberal academia, which frankly worked to my advantage in favorable media and academic opportunities.
I then began to question the growing orthodoxy in academia over the loss of free speech and viewpoint diversity, including the purging of faculties of conservative and libertarian voices. I was quickly targeted for it. But that campaign gave me an even greater understanding of the dangers of the anti-free speech movement from outside the system.
On a much higher level, Musk seems to have felt the same liberating aspects of being declared persona non grata. They turned Musk into the very monster they feared.
They are now doing the same thing with Mark Zuckerberg. After the head of Meta announced that he was going to end the robust censorship system on Facebook and other sites (as well as downsizing staff), the left went after him with the same unhinged hatred.
Like Musk, Zuckerberg had been celebrated as an industry icon, but is now condemned as a grotesque abomination. Politicians such as Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — who once threatened Zuckerberg not to restore free speech values like Musk — are now set against him. There is talk of boycotts as many liberals retreat into the safe space of BlueSky, a site that essentially protects liberals from opposing views.
BlueSky’s appeal is that it stays close to shore, where the waters are safe and shallow. The problem for many on the left is that more and more people want to venture beyond those navigational buoys. Like Musk, they want to consider new horizons and possibilities.
In Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Hector Barbossa warns Captain Jack Sparrow, “You’re off the edge of the map, mate! Here there be monsters!” For liberals, we are now off the map where creatures of mythological shapes dwell.
They found them exactly where they thought they would be. After all, they created them. They have made monsters of everyone who challenges the confines of their known world.
Harvard has long been accused of fostering an anti-free speech environment and quelching viewpoint diversity. That was the subject of my recent debate with Law Professor Randall Kennedy at Harvard. A new report confirms many of the objections raised in that debate, including a chilling environment where only a third of Harvard’s most recent graduating class expressed comfort in discussing controversial subjects.
Some 89 percent of the graduating class responded to the survey. The study of the Classroom Social Compact Committee, co-chaired by Economics professor David I. Laibson ’88 and History professor Maya R. Jasanoff ’96, found that, with an overwhelmingly liberal faculty and student body, even liberal Harvard students still found a chilling environment for free expression at the school. And it is getting worse. The results show a 13 percent decrease from the Class of 2023.
This year, Harvard found itself in a familiar spot on the annual ranking of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE): dead last among 251 universities and colleges.
What is most striking is the fact that Harvard has created this hostile environment while maintaining an overwhelmingly liberal student body and faculty. Only 9 percent of the class identified as conservative or very conservative. Yet even liberals feel stifled at Harvard. Only 41 percent of liberal students reported being comfortable discussing controversial topics, and only 25 percent of moderates and 17 percent of conservatives felt comfortable in doing so.
During the Harvard debate, I raised the gradual reduction of conservatives and libertarians in the student body and the faculty. The Harvard Crimson has documented how the school’s departments have virtually eliminated Republicans. In one study of multiple departments last year, they found that more than 75 percent of the faculty self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Only 5 percent identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”
According to Gallup, the U.S. population is roughly equally divided among conservatives (36%), moderates (35%), and liberals (26%). So Harvard has three times the number of liberals as the nation at large, and less than three percent identify as “conservative” rather than 35 percent nationally.
Among law school faculty who donated more than $200 to a political party, 91 percent of the Harvard faculty gave to Democrats. While Professor Kennedy dismissed the notion that Harvard should look more like America, the problem is that it does not even look like Massachusetts. Even as one of the most liberal states in the country, roughly one-third of the voters still identify as Republican. The student body shows the same bias of selection. Harvard Crimson previously found that only 7 percent of incoming students identified as conservative. The latest survey shows that level at 9 percent.
Some faculty members are wringing their hands over this continued hostile environment. However, the faculty as a whole is unwilling to restore free speech and intellectual diversity by adding conservative and libertarian faculty members and sponsoring events that reflect a broad array of viewpoints.
Given my respect for Professor Kennedy, I was surprised that he dismissed the sharp rise in students saying that they did not feel comfortable speaking in classes. Referring to them as “conservative snowflakes,” he insisted that they had to have the courage of their convictions.
This ignores the fact that they depend upon professors for recommendations, and challenging the school’s orthodoxy can threaten their standing. Moreover, a recent survey shows that even liberal students feel chilled in the environment created by Harvard faculty and administrators.
There was a hopeful aspect, however, to the debate. Before the debate, the large audience voted heavily in favor of Harvard’s position. However, after the debate, they overwhelmingly voted against Harvard’s position on free speech. It is an example of how exposure to opposing views can change the bias or assumptions in higher education.
There is little likelihood that Harvard or higher education will change. It is like the old joke about how many psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is just one but the bulb really has to want to change.
At the end of the day, there is no real indication that Harvard faculty want any of this to change. They will continue to report the results of surveys and express deep angst and confusion over the results. What they will not do is meaningfully change their course in the hiring of faculty, admission of students, and sponsoring of debates.
Below is my column on Fox.com on the bizarre controversy surrounding New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and his suggestion that he was housing an illegal migrant in his home. It is a new version of Murphy’s Law on how virtue signaling can turn into a virtual nightmare for Democrats over immigration.
Here is the column:
For years, engineers have cited Murphy’s Law that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” The law is attributed to aerospace engineer Edward A. Murphy Jr. from the 1940s. However, this week, the law seems re-written by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who is under fire after suggesting that he may be sheltering an undocumented woman above his garage.
Murphy was being interviewed by the liberal group Blue Wave New Jersey and thrilled his Democratic base by indicating that he had given sanctuary to an undocumented person in his home. It was a curious moment when, after promising sanctuary, Murphy not only appeared to out his guest but then taunted ICE to come and try to take her. After seemingly staking out the immigrant like a sacrificial goat in a lion hunt, Murphy’s virtue signaling summoned the authorities. And now, the Iceman Cometh.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan vowed to “look into” the Governor’s house guest.
The interview illustrated how some strive to prove their progressive bona fides at the cost of those they claim to be protecting. It is akin to the good people of Martha’s Vineyard singing to undocumented persons just before shipping them off to a distant military base.
Of course, Murphy appeared to struggle with calling her an undocumented migrant, let alone an illegal alien. Instead. she was described by the governor as a person “whose immigration status is not yet at the point that they are trying to get it to.”
Murphy explained how
“Tammy and I were talking about – I don’t want to get into too much detail, but there is someone in our broader universe whose immigration status is not yet at the point that they are trying to get it to. And we said, you know what? Let’s have her live at our house above our garage.”
You could almost hear the cooing from the crowd. Murphy then added the taunt to the tell: “And good luck to the feds coming in to try to get her.” Of course, the most important “details” for the woman are her status and location.
The most important detail for Murphy was to suggest that he and Tammy have a real live undocumented person housed above their cars. Not a poster or pamphlet on undocumented entry, but a real undocumented person. Of course, what can be lost in such moments is not just the person’s identity but her humanity. She did not seem like a real person at all . . . more like some prop or novelty item to brag about. What was so striking about the interview is that ICE is not generally rounding up undocumented persons. Rather they have focused on aliens who have committed criminal acts. While Murphy and others have issued chest-pounding declarations to defy the federal government, the public is overwhelmingly in support of the effort. Murphy previously declared that he would “fight to the death” against Trump’s agenda.
A recent poll by The New York Times and Ipsos found that an astronomical 88 percent of citizens supported “deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have criminal records.”
Within days of the Trump Administration coming into office, thousands of such targets were located and arrested. For other immigrants, there is still a comfort in numbers. With millions allowed into the country under President Biden, most are keeping a low profile in the knowledge that they are not the priority for ICE.
However, when a governor openly taunts the government and advocates the use of private homes as sanctuaries, he forces the hand of the government. It is even more problematic if this is the governor’s public residence or under the protection of state officers. Murphy may be using such state resources to violate federal law.
It was not clear what the status of Murphy’s guest was. The governor’s breathless account of his own courageous stand suggested that she would be subject to deportation, if discovered.
Under Section 1324 of Title 8 of the United States Code, it is unlawful when anyone “conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.”
That is when Murphy’s law kicked in with a vengeance. After his boast about “hav[ing] her live at our house above our garage,”a close associate later suggested that it was all a type of liberal projection. It is now claimed that he never actually made the offer to the person, but “mentioned to someone else that they could move in if they want, so I think that’s where some of the misunderstanding was.” The source also added that “The person wasn’t undocumented. The person was a legal resident of the United States of America.”
Ok, let’s get this straight. Murphy did an interview with a liberal group on how he agreed to “have her live at our house above our garage” but could not share any other details to be safe. Nevertheless, Murphy warned about the reception if “the feds com[e] in to try to get her.” Yet, his associate is now claiming that there is no harbored illegal to get. Not only was she never in the garage, but she is perfectly legal and is not subject to deportation. It was like Murphy bragging that he has Chris Christie living above his garage. It is hardly the stuff of Harriett Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
The bizarre controversy, however, has greater importance in what Murphy was struggling to convey. He and other governors are pledging to bar any cooperation with the federal government in the deportation of unlawful immigrants. The latest example was Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who pledged to continue to defy federal enforcement even at the loss of substantial state aid. As with Murphy’s faux resident refugee, the declarations in states from Illinois to New Jersey to Massachusetts will force the hand of the federal government. While the federal government cannot “commandeer” state officials in the enforcement of federal law, it also does not have to subsidize those officials in frustrating enforcement efforts. The Trump Administration is expected to move to block funds for sanctuary states and cities. So, in addition to billions being spent on housing and benefits, these states will lose billions in federal aid.
What is most striking is that it never mattered if the Murphy claim was true or not. For many, it was another “I am Spartacus Moment” from a New Jersey Democratic politician that fell comically flat. Gov. Murphy’s law should be a cautionary tale for all of his Democratic colleagues in state houses. Virtue signaling can summon costs not just for themselves but for their states.
With the election of Donald Trump, the federal government and both local and educational authorities are on a collision course over immigration policies. Many states and cities have reaffirmed that they will oppose any deportation efforts, including another recent chest-pounding interview by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. It is likely that the federal government will squeeze federal funding for sanctuary states and cities, though such efforts can trigger “commandeering” and other legal challenges. Universities may be in a more precarious position, but some like the Los Rios Community College District in California are doubling down on plans to oppose any federal enforcement efforts.
Various university and college presidents have reaffirmed their support for undocumented students and staff, including most recently Fordham University President Tania Tetlow. However, the Los Rios Community College District seems to have laid out a more concrete plan to oppose federal enforcement, a plan that was referenced in a January 28 email. The district covers American River College, Cosumnes River College, Folsom Lake College, and Sacramento City College.
The email states that “[t]here have been reports all over the country of increased immigration raids in association with Executive Orders tied to immigration enforcement.” It seeks to address the “[f]ear … widespread throughout the undocumented and ally communities about their safety and the safety of their families and loved ones.”
Just after Trump’s election, Los Rios published a “Compact in Support of Undocumented and DACA Students and Employees,” including the possible concealment of immigration status.
Here are the eight commitments:
Los Rios will do everything in its power to fight for the rights of our immigrant and undocumented students and employees and will always do everything possible to uphold the values of our institutions.
Los Rios stands with state and local leaders who have pledged to do everything possible to defend the rights and protections of immigrant and undocumented Californians.
Los Rios commits to advocating for a permanent legislative solution to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and a pathway to citizenship for our immigrant communities.
Los Rios will immediately provide additional resources to our Undocumented Resource Centers.
The Los Rios Police reaffirms its commitment to not participate in immigration-related activities, including arresting and/or detaining students, consistent with organizational values and state law.
Los Rios will protect students’ rights and confidentiality and will not share the immigration status of students or employees.
Los Rios, its colleges, and partners will do a full review of internal policies and regulations to ensure that we are doing everything possible to protect the rights of students and employees.
The Los Rios Colleges Foundation will create Dream Center Funds with resources for each college, administered by the Undocumented Resource Center on each campus. The Foundation will encourage other community members, employees, and private and corporate funders to give support to undocumented students to help remove critical barriers to their success, such as paying for DACA renewal fees, legal fees, purchasing laptops, and additional resources.
Number 6 is particularly interesting in promising an active role to conceal or withhold immigration status information.
We have been down this road before. Schools previously fought this battle over efforts to bar military recruiters. While I have been a vocal supporter of gay rights on many fronts, I was one of those who opposed the litigation that my law school joined. At the time, I stated that it was not only a clear loser on the law but also represented a type of hypocrisy: We insist that we cannot allow discrimination, but if money is at stake, we will allow it.
In Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc., 547 U.S. 47 (2006), the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the federal government, under the Solomon Amendment, could constitutionally withhold funding from universities if they barred military recruiters from interviewing students. The Solomon Amendment denied federal funding to an institution of higher education that “has a policy or practice … that either prohibits, or in effect prevents” the military “from gaining access to campuses, or access to students … on campuses, for purposes of military recruiting in a manner that is at least equal in quality and scope to the access to campuses and to students that is provided to any other employer.” 10 U. S. C. A. §983(b) (Supp. 2005).
It is easier to limit funds for universities, but it can still raise constitutional problems from free speech to associational rights.
In Rumsfeld v. FAIR, Chief Justice John Roberts noted that such laws could run afoul of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine “if Congress could not directly require universities to provide military recruiters equal access to their students.” He then added:
“This case does not require us to determine when a condition placed on university funding goes beyond the ‘reasonable’ choice offered in Grove City and becomes an unconstitutional condition. It is clear that a funding condition cannot be unconstitutional if it could be constitutionally imposed directly. See Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 526 (1958). Because the First Amendment would not prevent Congress from directly imposing the Solomon Amendment’s access requirement, the statute does not place an unconstitutional condition on the receipt of federal funds.
The Solomon Amendment neither limits what law schools may say nor requires them to say anything. Law schools remain free under the statute to express whatever views they may have on the military’s congressionally mandated employment policy, all the while retaining eligibility for federal funds. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 25 (Solicitor General acknowledging that law schools “could put signs on the bulletin board next to the door, they could engage in speech, they could help organize student protests”). As a general matter, the Solomon Amendment regulates conduct, not speech. It affects what law schools must do—afford equal access to military recruiters—not what they may or may not say.”
The coming challenges could raise the question left open in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. However, the question is whether universities, particularly state institutions, want to go down this road of confrontation rather than cooperation.
The student union of Leeds University has suspended a third-year philosophy and theology student, Connie Shaw, for what were declared “gender critical” views. Shaw’s transgression was to discuss her concerns over transgender ideology. We have previously seen student governments or bodies engage in such anti-free speech activities. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the school administration to maintain free-speech protections on campuses.
Shaw wrote an article, “Gender Madness at the University of Leeds,” questioning the university’s “gender expression fund.” She also interviewed Irish comedian Graham Linehan, an outspoken critic of transgender policies.
She promptly received a “notice of suspension” after she allegedly brought the radio station into “disrepute” because of her “social media activity,” according to The Telegraph.
We have previously discussed how free speech is in a free fall in the United Kingdom. This latest case seems to build on prior moves against “toxic ideologies.”
While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room. Yet, Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”
Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:
“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”
Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.
After the sentencing Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”
“Toxic ideology” also appears to be the target of Ireland’s proposed Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) law. It covers the possession of material deemed hateful. The law is a free speech nightmare. The law makes it a crime to possess “harmful material” as well as “condoning, denying or grossly trivialising genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.” The law expressly states the intent to combat “forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.”
Clearly, Shaw did not confine her views to herself. She wanted to engage and challenge others. She wanted to test her ideas against those who believe strongly in transgender values. Instead of an exchange of differing viewpoints, she received a suspension from further expression by the student group.
The fact that students took the action in Leeds should not change the significance for the free speech community. Universities often allow students to carry out anti-free speech agendas in the name of student self-governance. However, students come to our institutions to learn in an environment of free speech and self-exploration. Administrators cannot simply shrug and walk away as students seek to silence dissenting or opposing viewpoints.
The British government has created a culture of speech criminalization and censorship. This culture infects every aspect of life, from government to the media to academia. It even distorts the view of a group of students engaged in journalism who seek to punish the expression of opposing views. Rather than view this as a great opportunity for a passionate debate, the students prefer to silence or suspend one side in a growing debate around the world. In the ultimate doublespeak, they are enforcing a strict rule of intolerance in the name of tolerance.
I understand that the students have strong views opposing those of Shaw. Those are counter views that should be given the same opportunity of expression. Let’s have the debate rather than focusing on how to silence one side.
Below is my column in The Hill on the furious response of some judges in Washington over the Trump pardons. One judge, however, may have ventured too far in effectively banishing commuted defendants from Washington, D.C. without his prior approval.
Here is the column:
Even though President Trump had made it a campaign pledge to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, the roughly 1,500 pardons Trump issued on his first day produced familiar reactions from politicians and pundits.
In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner pledged to pursue those pardoned or commuted with new charges on the state level — eclipsing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in repackaging federal crimes as state offenses. Others cited the pardons as evidence of an even greater plot or purpose. On MSNBC, former NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund head Sherrilyn Ifill declared that the pardons were all part of a plan to build an army of “brownshirts.”
Not to be outdone, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) warned that Trump was issuing pardons to create a “reserve army of political foot soldiers to act on behalf of MAGA and Donald Trump.”
Such hyperbole, particularly the Nazi references, is now commonplace. Indeed, the left jumped the shark on the Nazi-mania and death-of-democracy mantra months ago. This week, however, some of the most strident comments seem to be coming from the federal bench itself. Indeed, some judges used dismissal hearings to launch into what seemed at points like cable-ready commentary. Take District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who had previously presided over Trump’s election interference case.
Chutkan had been criticized for failing to recuse herself from that case after she made highly controversial statements about Trump from the bench. In a sentencing hearing of a Jan. 6 rioter in 2022, Chutkan said that the rioters “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.” She added then, “[i]t’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” That “one person” was still under investigation at the time and, when Trump was charged, Chutkan refused to let the case go. She then pursued Trump with a vigor second only to Special Counsel Jack Smith.
In the latest hearing, Chutkan again decided to use the bench to amplify her own views of the pardons and Jan. 6. She proclaimed that the pardons could not change the “tragic truth” and “cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”
In fairness, judges often express the gravity of offenses at sentencing, and most of us certainly share the strong revulsion over what occurred on Jan. 6. However, these cases are being dismissed after an election whose winner explicitly pledged to close the prosecutions through executive clemency.
The defendant in her courtroom was there to have a required dismissal entered in his case, not to hear Judge Chutkan speaking truth to power. In this case, she is the power. It is the power to rule dispassionately on the specific case before her. It is not the power to hold court on the merits of presidential decisions.
Down the hall, Chutkan’s colleague Judge Beryl Howell, also an Obama appointee, lashed out at Trump’s actions, writing,“[T]his Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement.”
Yet, all of that paled in comparison to what their colleague U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, also an Obama appointee, did with his Jan. 6 cases. He ordered J6 defendants to seek prior approval before going to Capitol Hill or even coming within any of the 69 square miles of the nation’s Capital. Thus, Mehta practically banished Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and seven other defendants. It does not appear that the Trump Justice Department requested such restrictions, but Mehta was able to impose them because those defendants had received commutations rather than pardons. A commutation does not require the dismissal of a case, and courts are generally allowed to set conditions for released defendants.
However, these are new conditions imposed after presidential commutations. More importantly, they could affect the exercise of First Amendment rights from free speech to free association to the right to petition the government. For example, Rhodes and others would have to disclose intended meetings with members of Congress or participation in political events. Rhodes previously asked to speak to the House committee that investigated the riot, but the Democrat-controlled committee refused to allow it. (A Yale law graduate, Rhodes insisted that the hearing be conducted in public, the very condition Hunter Biden made with the support of some of these same members.)
What if Rhodes now wants to meet privately with members to supply his testimony? He would need Mehta to approve it and potentially make such plans public.
In my book, “The Indispensable Right,” I discuss the J6 cases and serious concerns over what a top Justice Department official called the “shock and awe” campaign to make an example of the defendants by throwing the book at them.
Nevertheless, even though I opposed the seditious conspiracy charges on legal grounds, I did not support the pardoning of violent offenders who attacked police officers.
The court system plays a key role in either tamping down or fueling rage in society. The book details how “rage rhetoric” often became state rage during periods of crackdowns on free speech. Over the last two centuries, some judges used their courtrooms to lash out at political opponents, anarchists, unionists or communists.
I was particularly concerned in these cases with sentences that seemed visceral, even gratuitous, in denying free speech rights. In Washington, judges-imposed limits on what political views defendants could read or share. For example, Judge Reggie B. Walton, a Bush appointee who had previously called Trump a “charlatan,” had before him a typical Jan. 6 case — that of Daniel Goodwyn, 35, of Corinth, Texas. Goodwyn pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2023, to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building. It is a minor offense that generated little jail time.
However, Walton faulted Goodwyn for appearing on Fox News and spreading “disinformation,” and so he ordered the government to monitor what he was viewing and discussing. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rebuked Walton for that surveillance order, but he doubled down. On remand, the Biden Justice Department insisted that Goodwyn was unrepentant and still viewing “extremist media.”
Walton, therefore, determined that the risk was too great in Goodwyn spreading “false narratives” when we are “on the heels of another election.”
Now, his colleague is similarly ordering that those freed under Trump’s commutations will disclose and seek approval to go to the Capitol to speak with members or other citizens.
Many of us have long viewed the Jan. 6 riot as a desecration of our constitutional process. Few people want to defend Rhodes or either the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys. However, the First Amendment was not written to protect popular speech or popular individuals.
The Mehta order should not push President Trump toward converting these commutations into pardons. It should also not prevent us from questioning the court’s authority to regulate the exercise of First Amendment rights.
Every modern president seems to promise transparency during their campaigns, but few ever seem to get around to it. Once in power, the value of being opaque becomes evident. We will have to wait to see if President Donald Trump will fulfill his pledges, but so far this is proving the cellophane administration. Putting aside his constant press gaggles and conferences, the Administration has ordered wholesale disclosures of long-withheld files from everything from the JFK investigation to, most recently, the CIA COVID origins report. That report is particularly stinging for both the Biden Administration and its media allies, which treated the lab theory as a fringe, conspiratorial, or even racist theory.
Newly-confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe released the report, which details how it views the lab theory as the most likely explanation for the virus. Expressing “low confidence,” the agency did not reject the theory over the natural origins theory, which was treated as sacrosanct by the media and favored by figures like Anthony Fauci. (Other recent reports have contradicted the equally orthodox view on the closing of schools, showing no material benefit in terms of slowing the transmission of COVID).
The BBC reported that “the CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is ‘more likely’ to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals. But the intelligence agency cautioned it had ‘low confidence’ in this determination.”
The low confidence finding shows that the agency found the evidence fragmented and fluid. However, the point is that the natural origins theory and the lab theory were both viable theories. Neither was disproven or rejected. Other agencies like the FBI seemed to have a higher confidence in the lab theory over the natural origins’ theory.
Even a low-confidence finding shows the height of hypocrisy in Washington where politicians and pundits savaged any scientist who even suggested the possibility that the virus was man-made and likely originated in the Wuhan lab near the site of the outbreak.
This follows a recent disclosure in the Wall Street Journal of a report on how the Biden administration may have suppressed dissenting views supporting the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of President Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.
As previously discussed, many journalists used the rejection of the lab theory to paint Trump as a bigot. By the time Biden became president, not only were certain government officials heavily invested in the zoonotic or natural origin theory, but so were many in the media.
Reporters used opposition to the lab theory as another opportunity to pound their chests and signal their virtue.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace mocked Trump and others for spreading one of his favorite “conspiracy theories.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt insisted that “we know it’s been debunked that this virus was manmade or modified.”
MSNBC’s Joy Reid also called the lab leak theory “debunked bunkum,” while CNN reporter Drew Griffin criticized spreading the “widely debunked” theory. CNN host Fareed Zakaria told viewers that “the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory” in the lab leak.
NBC News’s Janis Mackey Frayer described it as the “heart of conspiracy theories.”
The Washington Post was particularly dogmatic. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) raised the theory, he was chastised for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.”
Likewise, after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) mentioned the lab theory, Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler mocked him: “I fear @tedcruz missed the scientific animation in the video that shows how it is virtually impossible for this virus jump from the lab. Or the many interviews with actual scientists. We deal in facts, and viewers can judge for themselves.”
As these efforts failed and more information emerged supporting the lab theory, many media figures just looked at their shoes and shrugged. Others became more ardent. In 2021, New York Times science and health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was still calling on reporters not to mention the “racist” lab theory.
In Kessler’s case, he wrote that the lab theory was “suddenly credible” as if it had sprung from the head of Zeus rather than having been supported for years by scientists, many of whom had been canceled and banned.
As these figures were attacking reports, Biden officials were sitting on these reports. Figures like Fauci did nothing to support those academics being canceled or censored for raising the theory.
The very figures claiming to battle “disinformation” were suppressing opposing views that have now been vindicated as credible. It was not only the lab theory. In my recent book, I discuss how signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were fired or disciplined by their schools or associations for questioning COVID-19 policies.
The suppression of the lab theory proves the ultimate fallacy of censorship. Throughout history, censorship has never succeeded. It has never stopped a single idea or a movement. It has a perfect failure rate. Ideas, like water, have a way of finding their way out in time.
Yet, as the last few years have shown, it does succeed in imposing costs on those with dissenting views. For years, figures like Bhattacharya (who was recently awarded the prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award by the American Academy of Sciences and Letters) were hounded and marginalized.
Others opposed Bhattacharya’s right to offer his scientific views, even under oath. For example, in one hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) expressed disgust that Bhattacharya was even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”
One of the saddest aspects of this story is that many of these figures in government, academia and the media were not necessarily trying to shield China. Some were motivated by their investment in the narrative while others were drawn by the political and personal benefits that came from joining the mob against a minority of scientists.
The CIA report obviously does not resolve this debate, but it shows that there is a legitimate debate despite the overwhelming message of the media and the attacks on scientists. Of course, the same media and political figures responsible for this culture of intimidation have simply moved on. The value of an alliance with the media is that such embarrassing contradictions are not reported. At most, these figures shrug and turn to the next subject for groupthink and mob action.
NB: This column was changed shortly after publication to add the link to the meaning of “low confidence” in the CIA report and to repeat that the issue is not which theory is correct, but that neither theory was found dispositive or invalid. Other media links were added as background.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the latest attack on Elon Musk from the left. There is a mania on the left in calling people with opposing views “Nazis” and referencing the Third Reich. The left has jumped the Nazi shark in this rhetoric as the public tunes out these increasingly hysterical voices.
Here is the column:
One of the least successful efforts of the left and many in the media this election was to paint Republican voters as “Nazis” hellbent on destroying democracy. While once verboten as a political comparison, liberal politicians and pundits have developed something of a Nazi fetish, where every statement and gesture is declared a return of the Third Reich. It seems like each news event presents a Rorschach test where every inkblot looks like a Nazi.
That mania reached absurd, even comedic, levels with the attack on Elon Musk over an awkward gesture during the inauguration celebration. An exuberant Musk told the crowd, “My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured.” As he gave those words, he placed his right hand on his chest and stretched his arm outward, his palm facing the floor. He then repeated the gesture before putting his hand on his chest again. It was all done in a matter of seconds, but it was enough for the usual mob to erupt in faux outrage.
Pundits insisted that Musk had chosen the moment to come out as a Nazi on national television. The Washington Post breathlessly reported this week how the “Nazi-style salute” had “invigorated fans on the far right.” The usual liberal professors were rolled out to offer a patina of authority to the ridiculous claim.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University, declared, “Historian of fascism here. It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too.”
Mike Stuchbery went on X (the company owned by the man he now suggests is a Nazi reenactor) to declare, “I studied the Nazis at university, taught the history of Nazi Germany on two continents and wrote for major newspapers about Nazi Germany. I am internet famous for fact-checking chuds [gross people] on the history, ideology and policy of Nazi Germany. That was a Nazi salute.”
Well, that settles it.
As the outrage continued, any doubt or dissent was denounced as evidence that you are obviously a Nazi as well. That became a bit embarrassing when the leading Jewish organization, the Anti-Defamation League, stated the obvious: This was not a Nazi salute but rather an “awkward gesture.”
The core principle of liberal mob tactics is that there can be no divergence, even by a group like the ADL. The way to deal with opposing ideas or writings is by making someone persona non grata. If you do not cancel others, you will be canceled.
So, the ADL was effectively declared soft on Nazis by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): “Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity. People can officially stop listening to you as any sort of reputable source of information now. You work for them. Thank you for making that crystal clear to all.”
We’ve reached a level of absurdity where Jewish advocates are treated like they are virtual Nazi sympathizers.
This is not the first time the Democrats have labeled Trump and his supporters “Nazis.”
It started years ago as Democrats repeated analogies of Trump to Hitler and his followers to brownshirted neo-Nazis. Defeating Trump has been compared to stopping Hitler in 1933, and media personalities like Rachel Maddow went on the air with a hysterical claim that “death squads” were authorized by the Supreme Court.
When Trump held a massive rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden before the election, the media were apoplectic and immediately declared it … you guessed it … akin to a Nazi rally. From the Washington Post to the New York Times, the media formed an affinity group meeting to fret over “echoes of 1939.” In case anyone missed the message, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz emphasized “a direct parallel” with the Nazis.
Over at the Nation, David Zirin treated Madison Square Garden (known for everything from cage fights to dog shows) as an almost Vatican-like space: “With his fascist New York City rally, Donald Trump has befouled what many believe to be a sacred space: Madison Square Garden.”
So Trump is a Nazi. Musk is a Nazi. Half the country are Nazis. The problem is that, if you say everyone is a Nazi, then no one is a Nazi. It loses its meaning.
That includes Ocasio-Cortez, who appears to have joined the ranks of the Reich after critics posted her making a Musk-like gesture during a speech.
There was no torrent of media fretting about how the gesture reflected the extremism of AOC’s questioning need for a Supreme Court, seeking to bar Trump and dozens of Republicans from ballots, or supporting censorship. AOC is a certified Nazi hunter, a license that seems only to be available to figures on the left.
Of course, labeling political opponents as diabolically evil fanatics and seeking to bar candidates from ballots sounds a lot like … well … it sounds familiar.
There is an alternative. We can put the rage rhetoric aside and have honest debates over differences on politics and laws. In other words, we can fight over policy … and leave the Nazis out of it.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the pardoning of the January 6th defendants by President Donald Trump. The scope of the pardon appears broader than some had hoped. What is clear is that any such relief should not extend to violent actors, particularly those who attacked police officers. However, the Justice Department itself may have made the strongest case for presidential pardons.
Here is the column:
On January 20, 2025, the “shock and awe” campaign of the Justice Department came to an end as President Donald Trump pardoned 1,500 January 6th defendants.
Four years ago, the Justice Department set out to send a chilling message to the nation. In an interview with CBS News a year later, Justice Department official Michael Sherwin indicated that they wanted to send a message with the harsh treatment of defendants. Sherwin explained that “our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe … it worked because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they’re, like, ‘If we go there, we’re gonna get charged.’ … We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did.”
The awe is gone but the shock remains at the Justice Department. If Sherwin and his colleagues hoped to “Trump proof” the nation, they failed in spectacular fashion. While there was ample basis for criminal charges, the excessive treatment of some of the January 6th defendants undermined the credibility of their prosecutions for many.
That is no easy feat.
Most of us denounced the January 6th riot as a desecration of our constitutional process. Those who engaged in the rioting, and most importantly the violence, needed to be punished. However, what followed left many increasingly uneasy. The Justice Department rounded up hundreds and, even though most were charged with relatively minor crimes of unlawful entry or trespass, the Justice Department opposed the release of many from jail and sought absurdly long sentences in some cases. It also sought restrictions on defendants that raised troubling first amendment concerns.
In my recent book, “Indispensable Right,” I discuss these cases and their troubling elements.
A good example is the handling of the most well-known case of the so-called QAnon Shaman. Bare-chested, wearing an animal headdress, horns, and red-white-and-blue face paint, Jake Angeli Chansley became the iconic image of the riot.
Seeking to make examples of these defendants, the Justice Department took special measures in hammering Chansley. He was held in solitary confinement and denied bail.
Chansley was treated more harshly because of his visibility. It was his costume, not his conduct, that seemed to drive the sentencing. In the hearing, Judge Royce Lamberth noted, “He made himself the image of the riot, didn’t he? For good or bad, he made himself the very image of this whole event.”
Lamberth hit Chansley with a heavy 41-month sentence for “obstructing a federal proceeding.”
However, long withheld footage, showed recently that Chansley (like hundreds of people that day) simply walked into the Capitol past police officers and was then escorted by officers through the Capitol. At one point, two officers not only appear to guide him to the floor but actually try to open locked doors for him. Chansley is shown walking unimpeded through a large number of armed officers with his four-foot flag-draped spear and horned Viking helmet on his way to the Senate floor.
Does that make Chansley’s actions acceptable, let alone commendable? Of course not. He deserved to be arrested and punished. However, what many saw was a troubled individual being made an example for others.
In my book, I discuss how, in history, “rage rhetoric” was allowed to become “state rage.” This is one such case.
Trump ran on the promise to pardon these defendants and secured not just the White House but the popular vote. It was not just the public that rejected the narrative of January 6th as an “insurrection.”
In the recent Supreme Court decision in Fischer v. U.S. to reject hundreds of charges in January 6th cases for the obstruction of legal proceedings, the Court left most cases as simply a mass trespass and unlawful entry.
The shock may be gone for these defendants, but it may only be beginning for the Justice Department and the FBI.
When the campaign of Hillary Clinton secretly funded the infamous Steele Dossier to launch the Russian conspiracy investigation, it was the Justice Department that was not just the willing but eager partner.
The “insurance policy” described by former FBI official Peter Strzok was redeemed in investigations that derailed much of Trump’s first term.
Later, it was the Justice Department again that pursued a no-holds-barred effort to convict Trump before the election.
The Justice Department is the hardest of silos in Washington to reform. Unlike most departments, it is largely homogenous, with thousands of lawyers who share professional and cultural ties. It is a department composed of people who are by their very definition, litigious.
Trump insisted on selecting an Attorney General, nominee Pam Bondi, who has no past ties or identification with the department. For the Justice Department, it must feel like the Visigoths arriving at the gates of Rome . . . only to be let in by the citizens.
According to polling, the public ultimately found the “barbarians” less threatening than those who have insisted that Rome would fall. That must certainly be shocking for many in Washington, but the record of the Justice Department showed how the awe can become awful when officials feel the license of state rage.
Below is my column on the Biden family pardons in Fox.com. President Joe Biden merely confirmed the worst expectations of his critics. The true condemnation rests with those in the media who enabled the Biden influence-peddling operation.
Here is the column:
At 11:45 am, the media felt the final sting of the Biden scandal. It was delivered by President Joe Biden, who shattered any pretense of principle in pardoning family members allegedly implicated in the influence-peddling corruption scandal.
According to an old fable, a scorpion convinced a leery frog to carry him across a river, noting that he could not sting him since they would both drown. Halfway across, the scorpion struck and the frog asked why he would doom them both. The scorpion replied “I am sorry, but I couldn’t resist the urge. It’s in my nature.”
For those of us who have written about the corruption of the Biden family for decades, the pardons were crushingly predictable. The President simply couldn’t resist the urge. In a city where corruption is a cottage industry, the Bidens have long been in a league of their own, from nepotism to influence peddling to illicit lobbying. In the influence-peddling scandal, millions were generated from foreign sources in virtual plain view.
There were the luxury hotel rooms, a diamond, a sports car, and massive payments called “loans. In the summer of 2019, one Chinese businessman wired Hunter Biden $250,000 using Joe Biden’s Delaware home as the beneficiary address.”
The sense of absolute impunity came out in shake-down communications. For example, there was the WhatsApp message to a Chinese businessman openly threatening the displeasure of Joe Biden if money was not forked over without delay. In the message, Hunter warned:
“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the Chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
That sense of impunity was due to mainstream media forming a protective shell around the family. The media refused to pursue the scandal despite the Hunter Biden laptop and clear evidence of influence peddling.
In 2020, CBS News’s Lesley Stahl literally laughed mockingly at then-President Donald Trump when he raised the Hunter Biden laptop and what it revealed about the Bidens. (Yet Stahl still recently expressed confusion and alarm that people were abandoning legacy media for new media.)
Reporters assured citizens that the laptop was presumptive “Russian disinformation.” Even after the media belatedly acknowledged that it was authentic, MSNBC and Washington Post analysts were still making the claim last year.
After Republicans in the House detailed millions in payments, the media shifted to claiming that there was no real scandal unless it was shown that Joe Biden actually received money directly. It was a ridiculous claim since courts have long treated money going to family members as the same as going directly to a principal as criminal conduct.
The media continued to protect Biden, as evidence showed that Biden had repeatedly lied about not meeting with Hunter’s clients or not having knowledge of his foreign dealings.
As the media narrative continued to collapse, it latched on the promise of Biden that he would never pardon his son – proof that the President was willing to let the criminal justice system run its course. Biden then was shown to be lying about the pardon promise. After he was forced out of the election, Biden signed a pardon for any crimes over a decade committed by his son.
The media gave muttered “harrumphs” and moved on. Many said that it was understandable for a father of a son who struggled with drugs.
Now, in the final minutes of his presidency, Biden pardoned his other allegedly implicated family members, including James Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens, and Francis Biden. James Biden was previously referred for criminal charges for lying under oath to Congress as part of its investigation into the corruption scandal.
The pardons were clearly timed to avoid media scrutiny and questions. While he described the act as one of “conscience,” it was an almost mocking act of corruption.
In a strange way, it passed in Bidenworld as an honest moment. There were no claims of supporting an addicted son or dealing with a pending case. It was done in the final minutes because it was raw and obvious. There is no pretense or apology. Just good old-fashioned corruption Biden-style.
It was as honest a moment as when Biden told a friend that “no one f**ks with a Biden.” There was nothing revealing in this about Biden. He could shrug and say, “It’s in my nature.” The sting instead fell on the media, which trusted Biden not to demean it further with such an unethical and disgraceful final act.
The funny thing is that Biden made it across the river. He boarded his final flight with his family (and himself) protected by the misuse of his presidential authority. However, if he looked out the window, he could see his media allies slipping stunned beneath the waters.
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster, June 18, 2024).
In following the defamation trial against CNN by veteran Zachary Young, we have previously (here, here, and here) marveled at how bad things were going for the network. It appears that they are getting even worse. This has been a brutal week as CNN figures, including host Jake Tapper, took the stand. If “this is CNN,” the judge (and possibly the jury) are not liking what they are seeing. The report at the heart of the case aired on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper” on Nov. 11, 2021, and was shared on social media and (a different version on) CNN’s website. In the segment, Tapper told his audience ominously how CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt discovered that “Afghans trying to get out of the country face a black market full of promises, demands of exorbitant fees, and no guarantee of safety or success.” Marquardt piled on in the segment, claiming that “desperate Afghans are being exploited” and need to pay “exorbitant, often impossible amounts” to flee the country. He then named Young and his company as an example of that startling claim. The evidence included messages from Marquardt that he wanted to “nail this Zachary Young mf**ker” and thought the story would be Young’s “funeral.” After promising to “nail” Young, CNN editor Matthew Philips responded: “gonna hold you to that cowboy!” Likewise, CNN senior editor Fuzz Hogan described Young as “a shit.” As is often done by media, CNN allegedly gave Young only two hours to respond before the story ran. It is a typical ploy of the press to claim that they waited for a response while giving the target the smallest possible window. In this case, Young was able to respond in the short time and Marquardt messaged a colleague, “f**king Young just texted.” In the last week, Tapper was seen on video by the jury and was mocked for claiming under oath that he “doesn’t pay attention to ratings,” a claim that could make him unique as a network host. While Tapper can argue that he was referencing the following of daily numbers, critics hammered him by showing repeated clips where he discussed ratings. However, the most damaging testimony may have come from top producers who told the jurors that they opposed the modest apology given to Young on air. Since Young seemed to do well before the jury, the testimony of senior editor Fuzz Hogan, CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt, CNN producer Michael Conte, CNN’s executive vice president of editorial Virginia Moseley, and CNN supervising producer Michael Callahan undermined any effort to portray the network as seeking to amend a wrong or reduce damage to Young.
Arguably, the worst moment came with an argument by CNN’s lead attorney, David Axelrod. Axelrod introduced a document that he claimed was a smoking gun and showed that Young was a liar. Pointing dramatically at Young and waiving the document in the air, Axelrod declared that he had the proof:
“Plaintiff’s entire case, sitting right there, is that after the publications, he couldn’t get any work…Mr. Young knew, when he filed this lawsuit that he had entered into a new consulting agreement with a government contractor one month after CNN’s publication. This entire lawsuit was a fraud on this court. It was a fraud on CNN. This man knew it. I don’t know what they know. But when this came up in discovery, CNN’s counsel asked Mr. Young about the Helios connection, and he completely lied in his deposition. Over and over again, he made up some incredible ruse that Helios just had his security clearance because it was a company that held security clearances. It makes no sense. He knew at that time that he had a consulting agreement with Helios Global and he didn’t disclose it. It was an outright lie.”
However, it turned out that the document merely was Young’s application to maintain his security clearance.
Young’s attorney, Vel Freedman, later laid waste to CNN. He told the court that Young had lost his security clearance back in 2022 and that he hadn’t been aware of that until he double-checked after his testimony in the case. Freedman asked for the right to present a witness who would testify on the issue and Axelrod objected. Judge Henry had had enough and blew up at CNN. He read back Axelrod’s comments and said “You called him a liar multiple times there.” He told Axelrod that he owed an apology to the plaintiff. After telling CNN that “this isn’t Kindergarten,” he added “Right now, your credibility with me, Mr. Axelrod, is about none.”
That is never a good thing to hear from a judge.
Axelrod apologized but the damage is clearly considerable.
The most chilling aspect from a litigation perspective? Axelrod replaced the earlier lead counsel who also imploded in court over ill-considered arguments.
None of this bodes well for the network. Alienating the judge is obviously never good, but it also could have a material impact if there is an award that CNN wants reduced by a order of remittitur. In addition, having top producers expressing a lack of regret and even opposition to the on-air apology could push such damages higher for a jury. Both sides are arguing that “this is CNN,” but these moments are building a more negative view of what that is.
Martin Speake, a British jazz “composer, saxophonist, academic and educator” is preparing a lawsuit against Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance over a cancel campaign that targeted him after he criticized the school’s “BLM/anti-racist policies and initiatives” and denied that there was “systemic racial inequality in the UK jazz scene.” His case is strikingly similar to other targeted professors discussed in my recent book on free speech.
The controversy began when Speake was asked to give feedback on the policies. As he later explained, he was immediately set upon by critics calling him a racist. He stressed his bona fides:
Sometime later I forwarded this email to a student with whom I had had a stimulating conversation on the topic earlier that day. This student showed the email to some peers, but didn’t forward it to anyone. Nevertheless, as some students heard about it, the email began to attract some discontent and speculation within the student body. TL [Trinity Laban] then halted my teaching and pressured me to consent to the circulation of my email to the entire jazz department.
Speake said that Trinity Laban “threatened” him with “disciplinary action,” and he was subjected to the all-too-familiar cancel campaign, including a boycott of his classes.
Students complained that his view of the jazz community had “affected their mental health” and a Change.org petition created by “Distressed Student” complained of being “deeply affected” by Speake’s view and how it “perpetuated harmful and defamatory narratives about black musicians in the jazz industry.”
Most disturbing may have been the knee-jerk reaction of the London Jazz Orchestra. Speake was the lead alto saxophonist for 15 years, but he was requested to take a leave of absence. So, the London Jazz Orchestra forced a musician to take leave after he exercised his free speech rights. He would not have faced such action if he had supported the policies. He had voiced a dissenting note on such policies, and the Orchestra tossed a fellow artist to the curb.
So, Speake is now persona non grata because, by offering his view of these policies, he allegedly showed a “lack of sensitivity” and “created an uncomfortable and distressing learning environment.”
Speake later announced that “with a very heavy heart I had no choice but to resign from my post with [Trinity Laban] in November 2024 as my working environment had become unbearable.” He has filed a complaint against Trinity Laban.
George Gershwin once said that “life is a lot like jazz… it’s best when you improvise.” However, Trinity Laban and the London Jazz Orchestra would add that musicians should not take such freedom beyond their music. Improvisation in speech is likely to get you canceled. When it comes to free speech, the jazz community is perfectly Gregorian.
This week, North Dakota State University is under fire for its statement of diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, including from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). The university issued a “statement of inclusivity” that included a pledge to combat “violence in language or in action.” The notion of “violent speech” is a touchstone for the anti-free speech community, which treats the expression of viewpoints as akin to physical attacks on students.
While this is merely a university statement, the inclusion of combatting violent speech as a priority was concerning for many. As I have previously written in columns and my recent book on free speech, violent speech has long been a rallying cry in higher education.
The redefinition of opposing views as “violence” is a favorite excuse for violent groups like Antifa, which continue to physically assault speakers with pro-life and other disfavored views. As explained by Rutgers Professor Mark Bray in his “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” the group believes that “‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
As one Antifa member explained, free speech is a “nonargument…you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.” When people criticized Antifa for its violent philosophy, MSNBC’s Joy Reid responded to the critics that “you might be the fascist.”
The Pride Office website at the University of Colorado (Boulder) declared that misgendering people can be considered an “act of violence.”
University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers declared that some of those boycotting the store Target over its line of Pride Month clothing were engaging in “literal terrorism.” (He insists that he was referring to those confronting Target employees.)
The diversity, equity, and inclusion statement at North Dakota State University maintains that the College of Business aims to help students “feel safe” and provide “space to be their own person.” However, the question is how treating speech as violence provides a safe space for free speech on campus.
Blurring the line between speech and violence can lead to censorship and viewpoint intolerance at a university. Speech directed at individuals to threaten them is actionable and potentially criminal. However, sweeping claims that speech is violence are the mantra being used in higher education to rationalize speech codes and censorship. Free speech requires bright lines of protection to avoid the chilling effect of arbitrary or capricious enforcement.
North Dakota State University would be wise to revise its policy statement.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the statement by Acting Justice Juan Merchan in the sentencing of President-elect Donald Trump. Merchan’s effort to justify the handing of the case sounded like the second defense argument made in the hearing. It likely changed few minds in the court of public opinion.
Here is the column:
This week, the sentencing of President-Elect Donald Trump saw one of the most impassioned defense arguments given at such a hearing in years . . . from the judge himself. Acting Justice Juan Merchan admitted that the case was “unique and remarkable” but insisted that “once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique, and extraordinary than the other 32 cases in this courthouse.”
If so, that is a chilling indictment of the entire New York court system. Merchan allowed a dead misdemeanor to be resuscitated by allowing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to effectively prosecute declined federal offenses. He allowed a jury to convict Trump without any agreement, let alone unanimity, on what actually occurred in the case. Merchan ruled that the jury did not have to agree on why Trump committed an alleged offense in describing settlement costs as legal costs. Neither the defendant nor the public will ever know what the jury ultimately found in its verdict.
I once described this case as a legal Frankenstein: “It is the ultimate gravedigger charge, where Bragg unearthed a case from 2016 and, through a series of novel steps, is seeking to bring it back to life…Bragg is combining parts from both state and federal codes.”
Even liberal legal experts have denounced the case and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) recently called it total “b—s–t.”
Now, Merchan seemed to assure this Frankenstein case that he was just like any other creature of the court. It did not matter that he was stitched together from dead cases and zapped into life through lawfare.
Merchan knows that there is a fair chance this monstrosity will finally die on appeal, and he was making the case for his own conduct. The verdict, however, is likely to last far longer than the Trump verdict. It is a judgment against not just Merchan but the New York legal system, which allowed itself to be weaponized against political opponents.
In the Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein says “I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.”
Trump can now appeal the case as a whole. Prior appeals in the New York court system were unsuccessful, and hopes are low that the system will redeem itself. However, Trump can eventually escape the vortex of the New York court system in search of jurists willing to see beyond the rage and bring reason to this case.
Notably, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass cited Chief Justice John Roberts in his argument before Merchan, noting that Roberts recently chastised those who attack the courts. (Roberts just the night before joined liberal justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in refusing to stay the sentencing). Steinglass portrayed Trump as an existential threat to the rule of law.
Roberts, however, is everything that Merchan is not. You can disagree with him, but he has repeatedly ruled against his own preferred outcomes in cases, including rulings against President Trump and his campaign and Administration. For his part, Trump declined to criticize the court and declared that “This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.”
Indeed it is. Merchan’s monster will now go on the road and work its way back to the Supreme Court. Outside of New York this freak attraction will likely be viewed as less thrilling than chilling.
The election had the feel of the townspeople coming to the castle in the movie. In this case, however, the townspeople were right about what they saw in the making of a creature that threatened their very existence. Lawfare is that monster. It threatens us all, even those who hate Trump and his supporters. Once released, it spreads panic among the public which can no longer rely on the guarantees of blind and fair justice. That includes businesses who view this case and the equally absurd civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James as creating a dangerous and even lawless environment. Many are saying “but for the grace of God go I” in a system that allows for selective prosecution.
In the sentencing proceeding, Merchan was downplaying his hand in creating this Frankenstein. However, the case is the fallen angel of the legal system. While heralded in court by Bragg’s office as the triumph of legal process, it is in fact the rawest and most grotesque form of lawfare. Many will be blamed as the creators of this monster but few will escape that blame, including Merchan himself.
Below is my column in The Hill on the one thing that the forthcoming report of Special Counsel Jack Smith will not address: how he destroyed his own case against Donald Trump. Smith will be something of a tragic figure for future special counsels. The only thing missing is a shirt reading, “I spent over two years and $50 million dollars and all I got was this lousy t-shirt (and a redacted report).”
Here is the column:
The expected release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report will occur as early as this weekend, albeit without those sections dealing with the Florida documents case. (Other defendants are still facing prosecution in that case.) However, the most glaring omission will be arguably an explanation of how Smith lost this war without firing a single shot in a trial.
After more than two years, two separate cases and countless appeals (not to mention more than $50 million spent), Smith left without presenting a single witness, let alone charge, at trial. It is an example of how a general can have the largest army and unlimited resources and yet defeat himself with a series of miscalculations.
History probably won’t be kind to Smith, whose record bespeaks a “parade general” — a prosecutor who offered more pretense than progress in the prosecution of an American president.
Indeed, this report will be one of Smith’s last chances to display a case that notably never got close to an actual trial. One-sided and unfiltered, it will have all of the thrill of a Sousa march of a regiment in full dress. We know because we have seen much of this before. At every juncture, Smith has taken his case out on parade in the court of public opinion.
The Smith report will reportedly concern only the Washington case alleging crimes related to Jan. 6 and the 2020 election — a case that was always a bridge too far for Smith.
When first appointed, Smith had a straightforward and relatively easy case to make against Trump over his removal and retention of presidential materials. The case was not without controversy. Some of us questioned the selective nature of the prosecution given past violations by other presidents, particularly as shown by the violations of President Biden going back decades found by another special counsel.
However, the case originally focused on the conspiracy and false statements during the federal investigation into the documents at Mar-a-Lago. Those are well-established crimes that Smith could have brought to trial quickly with a solid shot for conviction.
But Smith’s undoing has always been his appetite. That was evident when he was unanimously reversed by the Supreme Court in his case against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).
In Florida, Smith was in signature form. He took a simple case and loaded it up with press-grabbing charges regarding the retention of classified material. In so doing, he slowed the case to a crawl. As a defense lawyer who has handled classified documents cases, I said at the outset that I did not believe he could get this case to a jury before the 2024 election, and that after that election, Smith might not have a case to present. Smith had outmaneuvered himself.
Then came the Washington filing, the subject of this forthcoming report. It was another vintage Smith moment. Smith played to the public in a case that pushed both the Constitution and statutoryprovisions beyond the breaking point. He simply could not resist, and he was only encouraged after the assignment of Judge Tanya Chutkan, a judge viewed by many as predisposed against Trump.
In a sentencing hearing of a Jan. 6 rioter in 2022, Chutkan had said that the rioters “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.” She added then, “[i]t’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” That “one person” was then brought to her for trial by Smith.
The D.C. case was doomed from the outset by both a prosecutor and judge who, in their zeal to bag Trump, yielded to every temptation. As time ticked away, Smith became almost apoplectic in demanding an expedited path to trial, including cutting short appeals. After refusing to recuse herself, Chutkan seemed to indulge Smith at every turn. But the Supreme Court failed to agree that speed should trump substance in such reviews.
With both cases slipping out of his grasp, Smith then threw a final Hail Mary. He asked Chutkan to let him file what was basically a 165-page summary of this report against Trump before the election. There was no apparent reason for the public release of the filing, except to influence the election — a motivation long barred by Justice Department rules. Chutkan, of course, allowed it anyway, despite admitting that the request was “procedurally irregular.” It did not work. Although the press and pundits eagerly repeated the allegations in the filing, the public had long ago reached its own conclusion and rendered its own verdict in November.
In my view, Smith’s D.C. case would never have been upheld, even if he had made it to a favorable jury in front of a motivated judge. As established by the court in Trump v. United States,Smith could not rely on much of his complaint due to violating constitutionally protected areas.
Smith responded to the immunity decision again in typical Smith fashion, largely keeping the same claims with minimal changes. His new indictment was to indictments what shrinkflation is to consumer products — the same package with less content. As in the McDonnell case, Smith was going for conviction at all costs, despite a high likelihood of the case eventually being overturned.
Then the public effectively put an end to both cases by electing Trump.
The Smith investigation should be a case study for future prosecutors in what not to do. An abundance of appetite and arrogance can prove as deadly as a paucity of evidence and authority.
Ironically, Smith will not be the only special counsel offering such a cautionary tale. The report of Special Counsel David Weiss into the Hunter Biden controversy will also be released soon. Weiss was widely denounced for allowing major crimes to lapse against Hunter Biden and offering an embarrassing sweetheart plea deal that collapsed in open court. Notably, Weiss succeeded by minimizing his charges (for the wrong reason). In that way, Weiss has one claim that Smith does not: He made it to court and secured a conviction. Indeed, he was about to prosecute a second case when President Biden pardoned his son.
Weiss’s report will likely only increase questions over his failure to pursue Hunter more aggressively. For Smith, the question is whether he was too aggressive, to the detriment of his own prosecution.
Prosecutions are not the sole measure of success for a special prosecutor. At times, the report itself can be of equal, if not greater, importance to the public.
This is not one of those cases.
The public will be given Smith’s detailed account of a case that was never brought and would likely never have held up. At more than $50 million, it is arguably the biggest flop since “The Adventures of Pluto Nash.“The difference is that it did not take more than two years to watch Eddie Murphy’s film disaster, and the actor did not then write up a report on how good the movie really was.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court just handed down a victory for free speech in Attorney General v. Hood.As is often the case, defending free speech means supporting viewpoints that most of us find grotesque and hateful. However, the justices rejected the position of the Portsmouth Police Department that it could force the removal of a racist banner from an overpass. Such signs and flags are commonly allowed, but the police and prosecutors insisted that racist messages “interfered with the rights” of other citizens. The controversy began on July 30, 2022, when a group of roughly ten people with NSC-131, a “pro-white, street-oriented fraternity dedicated to raising authentic resistance to the enemies of [its] people in the New England area,” hung banners from the overpass, including one reading “KEEP NEW ENGLAND WHITE.”
The police informed the leader, Christopher Hood, that they were violating a Portsmouth municipal ordinance that prohibited hanging banners from the overpass without a permit. While the group removed the banners, it later posted statements on the incident. The state responded by filing complaints against the defendants seeking civil penalties and injunctive relief for their alleged violation of RSA 354-B:1.
Notably, the state did not deny that groups routinely hang flags and signs from overpasses. However, it claimed that hanging banners reading “Keep New England White” was “motivated by race and interfered with the lawful activities of 2 others.”
N.H. Stats. 354-B:1 provides,
All persons have the right to engage in lawful activities and to exercise and enjoy the rights secured by the [constitutions and laws] without being subject to actual or threatened physical force or violence against them or any other person or by actual or threatened damage to or trespass on property when such actual or threatened conduct is motivated by race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or disability….
It shall be unlawful for any person to interfere or attempt to interfere with the rights secured by this chapter.
The justices held that the enforcement in this case violated the New Hampshire Constitution’s free speech provision:
[T]he State alleged that the defendants “trespassed upon the property of the State of New Hampshire and the City of Portsmouth when [they and other individuals] displayed banners reading ‘Keep New England White’ from the overpass without a permit.” In objecting to Hood’s motion to dismiss, the State argued that “[t]he defendant displayed a banner upon the fencing—causing a thing to enter upon land in possession of another, without any prior authorization from city or state authorities.” Because the State alleged that the defendants intentionally invaded the property of another, and because “[t]he State, no less than a private owner of property, has power to preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is lawfully dedicated,” we conclude that the State’s complaints sufficiently alleged a civil trespass.
Nonetheless, we must next determine whether the State’s proposed construction of the Act, applying the aforementioned definition of trespass, violates the defendants’ constitutional rights to free speech…
Government property generally falls into three categories — traditional public forums, designated public forums, and limited public forums. Here, the trial court correctly reasoned that because “application of the Civil Rights Act requires no consideration of the relevant forum or the nature of the underlying regulations as to that forum,” it applies “with equal force in traditional public fora as it does in limited or nonpublic fora.” We agree with the trial court’s assessment and proceed to the regulation at issue.
Government regulation of speech is content-based if a law applies to a particular type of speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed. The State argues that the Act “does not become a content or viewpoint-based action because the State relies upon a defendant’s speech.” Rather, it maintains that “[c]onsidering an actor’s motivation to assess whether that remedy may be warranted has no impact on the person’s right to freedom of speech, even when proof of motivation relies upon evidence of the person’s speech, because a person’s motivation has always been a proper consideration.” We disagree.
The Act prohibits threatened and actual conduct only when “motivated by race, color, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or disability.” Thus, we agree with the trial court’s assessment that “[b]ecause the Civil Rights Act’s additional sanctions apply only where a speaker is ‘motivated by race’ or another protected characteristic, it is ‘content-based’ in that it ‘applies to … particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed.’”
Content-based restrictions must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The State asserts that the requirement that a trespass be unprivileged or otherwise unlawful functions as a limitation sufficient to prevent its construction of the Act from being unconstitutionally overbroad. We are not persuaded. The trial court determined, and we agree, that although “prohibiting or discouraging interference with the lawful rights of others by way of bias-motivated conduct (including actual trespass) is a compelling government interest,” the State’s construction of the Act “is overly broad and not narrowly tailored to that end because, so construed, the Civil Rights Act applies in numerous circumstances which have no relation to this interest.”
The ruling is notable in part because of the position of various Democratic leaders that hate speech is not protected under the First Amendment. I have spent years contesting that false claim, including in my recent book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Ironically, this false claim, repeated by many Democrats, constitutes one of the most dangerous forms of disinformation. It is being used to convince a free people to give up some of their freedom with a “nothing to see here” pitch.
In prior testimony before Congress on the censorship system under the Biden administration, I was taken aback when the committee’s ranking Democrat, Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), declared, “I hope that [all members] recognize that there is speech that is not constitutionally protected,” and then referenced hate speech as an example.
That false claim has been echoed by others such as Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who is a lawyer. “If you espouse hate,” he said, “…you’re not protected under the First Amendment.” Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean declared the identical position: “Hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.”
Even some dictionaries now espouse this false premise, defining “hate speech” as “Speech not protected by the First Amendment, because it is intended to foster hatred against individuals or groups based on race, religion, gender, sexual preference, place of national origin, or other improper classification.”
The Supreme Court has consistently rejected Gov. Walz’s claim. For example, in the 2016 Matal v. Tam decision, the court stressed that this precise position “strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’”
Below is my column at Fox.com on the sentencing of President-Elect Donald Trump. The conviction should be overturned on appeal. However, the most lasting judgment will be against the New York court system itself in allowing this travesty of justice to occur.
Here is the column:
With the sentencing of Donald Trump Friday, the final verdict on the New York criminal trial of the president-elect is in. The verdict is not the one that led to no jail or probation for the incoming president. Acting Justice Juan Merchan has brought down the gavel on the New York legal system as a whole.
Once considered the premier legal system in the country, figures like New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Justices Arthur F. Engoron and Juan Merchan have caused the system to be weaponized for political purposes. Trump will walk away from this trial and into the White House in less than two weeks, but the New York system will walk into infamy after this day.
The case has long been denounced by objective legal observers, including intense Trump critics, as a legal absurdity. Even CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig denounced the case as legally flawed and unprecedented while Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., simply called it total “b—s–t.”
It is a case based on a non-crime. Bragg took a long-dead misdemeanor and zapped it back into life with a novel and unfounded theory. By using federal violations that were never charged, let alone tried, Bragg turned a misdemeanor into dozens of felonies and essentially tried Trump for federal offenses.
Merchan not only allowed those charges to be brought to trial but then added layers of reversible errors in the effort to bag Trump at any cost. For that, he was lionized by the liberal media and many New Yorkers. However, Trump still managed to pull in 3.6 million New York votes, or 42.7%, in the 2024 election. After all of the lawfare and every advantage (including a heavily biased media and a larger war chest), Vice President Kamala Harris lost hundreds of thousands of votes in 2024 in comparison to Joe Biden just four years earlier.
Many polls showed that the public saw the Manhattan criminal case for what it was: raw lawfare targeting a leading political opponent. The election itself felt like the largest verdict in history as citizens rejected the political, legal, and media establishments in one of our nation’s most historic elections.
The New York court system will now have a chance to redeem itself, but few are holding their breath. The appellate court has still not ruled on an appeal of Attorney General Lettia James’s equally absurd civil lawsuit against Trump. Despite judges expressing skepticism over Engoron’s use of a law to impose a grotesque $455 million in fines and interest, we are still waiting for a decision.
Most are waiting for this criminal case to escape the vortex of the New York court system. With this appeal, this peddler’s wagon of reversible errors will finally pull up in front of the Supreme Court itself.
With its ruling on Thursday night, the setting for a decision could not be better for Trump. The Supreme Court has again demonstrated that it has shown restraint and independence in these cases. In response to the ruling, Trump struck the perfect note Thursday night and declined to criticize the Court, stating that “This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.”
The ultimate penalty on Friday morning from Judge Merchan reflects the lack of seriousness in the case. It was more inflated than the Goodyear blimp, pumped up by hot rage and rhetoric. The sentence was the pinprick that showed the massive void within this case.
The verdict is in. The New York legal system has rendered it against itself.
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster, June 18, 2024).
In the annals of environmental law, no creature is more famous than the Snail Darter, the endangered species that shut down completion of the Tellico Dam in the 1970s. It required congressional legislation to allow the dam to be finished after years in the courts where judges maintained that the species had to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. According to the New York Times., the species may turn out to be as mythical as a unicorn.
The controversy began in 1967 when the Tennessee Valley Authority started constructing a dam on the Little Tennessee River, roughly 20 miles outside Knoxville. Environmentalists and locals opposed the project and, in 1973, a zoologist at the University of Tennessee named David Etnier went snorkeling with his students and found a possible solution. He spotted a small fish and called it a “snail darter” because of its movements and eating habits. He reportedly announced, “Here’s a little fish that might save your farm.”
Dr. Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College, represented the snail darter before the Supreme Court. He did an excellent job, and, in 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that “the Endangered Species Act prohibits impoundment of the Little Tennessee River by the Tellico Dam” to protect the endangered snail darters.
That was then.
The Times now quotes Thomas Near, the curator of ichthyology at the Yale Peabody Museum who leads a fish biology lab at the university, that “there is, technically, no snail darter.” Worse yet, it was actually just another member of the eastern population of Percina uranidea, or stargazing darters, which is not considered endangered. Near and his colleagues have published the results in Current Biology
In other words, years of litigation and millions of dollars were spent on what was a false claim, and the courts accepted the claims hook, line, and sinker.
Under the ESA, the snail darter was listed as protected and therefore triggered Section 7 of the Act barring federal agencies from undertaking actions that could jeopardize a species’ survival or destroy any of its critical habitat.
In Tennessee Valley Auth. v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978), Chief Justice Warren Burger noted that the finding of this “previously unknown species of perch” changed everything on a legal level. He added:
“Until recently, the finding of a new species of animal life would hardly generate a cause celebre. This is particularly so in the case of darters, of which there are approximately 130 known species, 8 to 10 of these having been identified only in the last five years. The moving force behind the snail darter’s sudden fame came some four months after its discovery, when the Congress passed the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (Act), 87 Stat. 884, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq. (1976 ed.).”
Plater insisted that Dr. Near is merely a “lumper” who tends to rely on genetics rather than being a “splitter” who proliferates new species. Dr. Plater added that “whether he intends it or not, lumping is a great way to cut back on the Endangered Species Act.”
That was a particularly revealing point from the law professor since it suggests what could be an overwhelming motive could be legal and not scientific in declaring the new species — the very objection raised in the litigation and denied by many advocates.
Roughly three years ago, the government declared victory in restoring the snail darter and the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed removing it from the ESA list of threatened species.
Below is my column in Fox.com on the potentially historic change in policy at Meta to restore free speech protections. As one of the longest and loudest critics of the company over its censorship history, it is admittedly hard to trust. However, an alliance of Mark Zuckerberg with Elon Musk could prove the most important development for free speech
Here is the column:
“Faithful friends are hard to find.” For the free speech community, those words from Shakespeare have long been tragically true. Indeed, until Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X), we were losing ground around the world to an unprecedented anti-free speech coalition of government, corporate, media, and academic interests. Now, Musk may have added a major new ally that could help turn the tide for free speech: Mark Zuckerberg.
In a new video, Meta’s CEO announced that the company would adopt X standards and restore free speech protections across Facebook, Instagram, and Meta platforms. Meta will also end its third-party fact-checking program, introduce a ‘community notes’ system, and focus on removing criminal and fraudulent material—the very guidelines proposed by some of us in prior years.
For the free speech community, it was like the United States entering World War II to support Great Britain. Where Musk stopped the progress of the global anti-free speech movement, Zuckerberg could actually help us regain ground around the world.
As one of Zuckerberg’s most vocal critics over free speech, it is admittedly hard to trust. We all love redemptive sinners, but it would be more impressive if the redemption preceded the apprehension.
So allow me a brief cathartic moment…
In the last few years, a mix of House investigations and litigation has forced more of the censorship system under the Biden Administration into public view. That is expected to draw even greater attention with the continued discovery in Missouri v. Biden, showing years of false statements about the extent of this government-corporate alliance across social media platforms.
In my recent book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I wrote about Zuckerberg and Meta’s record on censorship, including their failure (until recently) to release the Facebook files.
Meta resisted efforts to uncover this evidence for years, even after Musk released the Twitter Files and revealed a censorship system described by one court as perfectly “Orwellian.”
While Zuckerberg portrayed Meta as an unwilling partner in this censorship system in his video, he and the company ignored many years of objections from many of us regarding the critical role the company plays in targeting and censoring opposing viewpoints. Facebook even ran a creepy ad campaign to try to convince young people to embrace what they call “content modification” as part of their evolution with technology. It did not work.
When the anti-free speech movement targeted Musk, Zuckerberg did nothing for years. Fearing that other companies might restore free speech protections, members of Congress, including now Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), sent a chilling letter to Facebook stating that it should not even consider such a move or risk becoming “part of our ongoing oversight efforts.”
In a November 2020 Senate hearing, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), D-Conn., warned Zuckerberg and other CEOs that he and his Senate colleagues would not tolerate any “backsliding or retrenching” by “failing to take action against dangerous disinformation.”
While Musk defied those threats, the pressure seemed to work with Zuckerberg. It was not until the Republicans won both houses and the White House that Zuckerberg and Meta decided that free speech was worth fighting for.
In his exclusive interview with Fox News, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, admitted that the Trump election changed the situation for Meta: “We have a new administration coming in that is far from pressuring companies to censor and [is more] a huge supporter of free expression.”
It is a chilling statement if one thinks of what might have happened if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, arguably the most anti-free speech ticket in history, had won. The suggestion is that the new spring at Meta would have turned into a frozen tundra for free speech.
Around the world, free speech is in a free fall. Speech crimes and censorship have become the norm in the West. A new industry of “disinformation” experts has commoditized censorship, making millions in the targeting and silencing of others. An anti-free speech culture has taken root in government, higher education, and the media.
We will either hold the line now or we will lose this indispensable right for future generations. Zuckerberg could make this a truly transformative moment but it will take more than a passing meta-culpa.
We need Zuckerberg now more than ever. So, with that off my chest, I can get to what I have longed to say: Mr. Zuckerberg, welcome to the fight.
After a presidential campaign where both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris pushed back on claims that they were trying to shut down much of the fossil fuel industry, Biden waited until the final days of his administration to ban oil and gas drilling over 670 million acres of America’s coastline. President-elect Donald Trump responded that“It’s ridiculous. I’ll un-ban it immediately. I have the right to un-ban it immediately.” It will likely be more difficult than a simple “un-ban” order. Environmental groups will likely push a “sue, baby, sue” campaign to counter Trump’s “drill, baby, drill.”
In his statement, Biden justified the move to counter the “climate crisis.” A White House announcement stated that “President Biden has determined that the environmental and economic risks and harms that would result from drilling in these areas outweigh their limited fossil fuel resource potential.”
The question is whether the order can handcuff Trump in pursuing one of the main parts of his campaign platform to unleash America’s fossil fuel resources.
This is all familiar ground.
Biden acted under Section 12(a) of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), which states that the president “may, from time to time, withdraw from disposition any of the unleased lands of the Outer Continental Shelf.”
As noted in a Congressional Research Service report there is an ongoing debate over whether presidents can reverse the withdrawals of prior presidents. Trump faced that question in 2017 when he sought to overturn a ban by President Barack Obama in order to open up Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas and some parts of the Atlantic to oil and gas exploration. Two years later, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska struck down Trump’s order. While acknowledging that the law is ambiguous, it did not find express authority for such reversals. Litigation ran out the clock and Biden later overturned Trump’s executive order.
So, there are grounds to assert this authority of reversal, but it will take years in court. The alternative and preferred route would be Congress. This is an issue that should ultimately rest with Congress. This ambiguous law is unfortunately common in poorly crafted provisions giving presidents sweeping authority. Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has already pledged to “push back using every tool at our disposal.”
Below is my column in the Hill on the resignation of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his anti-free speech legacy. The collapse of free speech in Canada is a cautionary tale for Americans. It shows how Trudeau and the Liberal Party used faux rhetoric of tolerance and inclusion to justify intolerance and exclusion.
Here is the column:
With Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he will step down as prime minister, Canada is now looking for a new leader after a decade under his policies. The question is whether anyone will look for the remnants of Canadian free speech in the wreckage of the Trudeau government.
Canada has long been a country caught between two influences: the United Kingdom and the United States. It has shared DNA with both nations. Unfortunately, it has largely followed the British approach in treating free speech more like a privilege than a right. That dubious tradition was magnified over the last decade by a wholesale attack on free speech deemed hostile, insulting or triggering for different groups. In many ways, Canada has been a cautionary tale for many in the U.S., as the same voices of censorship and criminalization grow on our campuses and in Congress.
Indeed, BlueSky, a social media site that offers a safe space for liberals who do not want to be triggered by opposing views, has apparently embraced Canadian-style standards for censorship as part of its pitch for those with viewpoint intolerance.
For over a decade, Trudeau has been the cheerful face of modern censorship. While exuding tolerance and inclusivity, he hammered critics with draconian measures and perfectly Orwellian soundbites. In the name of tolerance, he proudly proclaimed intolerance for opposing views.
Trudeau shows how speech codes and virtue signaling are now chic on the left. In a town hall event, Trudeau chastised a woman for asking a question that used the term “mankind” and instructed her, “We like to say ‘peoplekind’ … because it’s more inclusive.” (He later claimed he was joking. If so, many of his policies have the same punchline and are no joking matter.)
In many ways, Trudeau’s true colors emerged in his crackdown on the trucker protests opposing COVID-19 mandates in 2022, a campaign widely supported by an enabling media. Trudeau invoked the 1988 Emergencies Act for the first time to freeze bank accounts of truckers and contributions by other Canadian citizens, powers long condemned by civil liberties groups in Canada.
The anti-free speech apple did not fall far from the tree. It was Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, who as prime minister used the predecessor to the act for the first time in peacetime to suspend civil liberties.
Trudeau was widely criticized for his anti-free speech policies, including his move to amend the Criminal Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act to criminalize any “communication that expresses detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”
It was used to prevent “social media platforms [from being] used to threaten, intimidate, bully and harass people, or used to promote racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, misogynistic and homophobic views that target communities, put people’s safety at risk and undermine Canada’s social cohesion or democracy.”
Under Trudeau, human rights commissions became virtual speech commissars in Canada. A conservative webmaster was prosecuted for allowing third parties to leave insulting comments about gay people and minorities on the site. Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley insisted that “the minimal harm caused … to freedom of expression is far outweighed by the benefit it provides to vulnerable groups and to the promotion of equality.” Even a comedian was prosecuted for insulting jokes involving lesbians.
Recently, a Canadian mayor and a town were prosecuted for not hoisting an “LGBTQ2 rainbow flag” in celebration of Pride Month — even though they did not have a flagpole.
Despite crushing the trucker protests, the Canadian parliament extended Trudeau’s emergency powers to allow him to continue to harass and threaten those on the right. Despite broad opposition, the Liberal Party, the NDP and other allies were able to muster 181 votes to keep authoritarian powers alive in Canada. (The Canadian courts later, belatedly, declared the Trudeau powers unconstitutional).
Many of the same legislators would later push to increase the penalties for certain speech crimes to life imprisonment. One of the most tragically ironic moments for Canada came last year, when Trudeau’s government blocked the citizenship of Russian dissident Maria Kartasheva because she has a conviction in Russia. She had been tried in absentia by a judge sanctioned by Canada for her exercise of free speech in Russia in condemning the Ukrainian war. The Canadian government informed Kartasheva that her conviction in Russia aligns with a Criminal Code offense relating to false information in Canada.
Think about that. Canada was concerned because she violated anti-free speech laws that are similar to its own. The Russians convicted her of disseminating “deliberately false information,” and Canada convicts’ people under laws like Section 372(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada for efforts “to convey, cause, or procure to be conveyed false information with the intent to alarm or injure anyone.”
That is why some of us spit out our soup in 2022 when Trudeau’s government condemned Cuba for its own crackdown on protesters, claiming that “Canada strongly advocates for freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly free from intimidation.” Trudeau also condemned China for cracking down on protests over COVID-19, the very subject of his own crackdown on the truckers.
Yet Trudeau has been a darling of the Canadian and American press despite a disapproval rate of around 68 percent among Canadian citizens. The media clearly approves of his position that “freedom of expression is not without limits” when others seek “to arbitrarily or unnecessarily injure those with whom we are sharing a society and a planet.”
So the question is: Now that Trudeau is heading out, where do Canadians go to get their free speech back?
Below is my column in the Hill on the sentencing this week of President-Elect Donald Trump in Manhattan. Judge Juan Merchan waited to schedule the hearing for just ten days before the inauguration, limiting the time available to appeal. His order suggests that, if there is any interruption or delay in his sentencing, he might follow the advice of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and suspend sentencing for four years, a terrible option that we previously discussed. One could call that passively aggressive, but it seems quite actively aggressive.
Here is the column:
At 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 10, 2025, the curtain will fall on the longest performance of “Hamlet” in history. Acting Justice Juan Merchan will finally decide whether “to be or not to be” the judge to sentence Trump to jail. (Spoiler alert: He appears set to avoid a jail sentence and likely reversal.)
Since Trump’s conviction in May 2024, Merchan has contemplated his sentencing options. This was to be the orange-jump-suit moment many longed for over years of unrequited lawfare. They will likely be disappointed. As some of us noted after the verdict, this type of case would often result in an unconditional discharge or a sentence without jail time. That prediction became more likely after Trump was reelected in November. Limits on Trump’s freedom or liberty would likely result in a fast reversal, and Merchan knew it.
While various pundits predicted that Trump “will go to jail” after the trial, more realistic lawfare warriors had other ideas. The next best thing was to suspend proceedings and leave Trump in a type of legal suspended animation. Merchan would hold a leash on the president as a criminal defendant awaiting punishment. But the whole point of a trophy-kill case is the trophy itself. Merchan will not disappoint. While indicating that he is inclined to a sentence without jail or probation, he will finalize the conviction of Trump just 10 days before his inauguration. In so doing, he will formally label the president-elect a convicted felon.
It will be punishment by soundbite. Trump will become the first convicted felon to be sworn into office, a historical footnote that will be repeated mantra-like in the media. Merchan seems at points to be writing the actual talking points for the talking heads. In his order, he states grandly that the jurors found that this “was the premediated and continuous deception by the leader of the free world.” He then adds that he could not vacate the conviction because it would … constitute a disproportionate result and cause immeasurable damage to the citizenry’s confidence in the Rule of Law.”
Of course, this did not work out as many hoped. That apparently includes President Biden. Last week, the Washington Post reported that Biden was irate over the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute Trump more quickly to secure a conviction before the election. He also reportedly regretted his appointment of Attorney General Merrick Garland as insufficiently aggressive in pursuing Trump. It appears Garland was not sufficiently Bragg-like for Biden’s lawfare tastes.
The sentencing, however, will have another impact. Trump will finally be able to appeal this horrendous case. It has always been a target-rich opportunity for appeal, but Trump could not launch a comprehensive appeal until after he was sentenced.
Those appellate issues include charges based on a novel criminal theory through which…..
“This body and this nation has [sic] a territories and a colonies problem.” Those words from Del. Stacey Plaskett echoed in the House chamber this week as the delegate interrupted the election of the House speaker to demand a vote for herself and the representatives of other non-states. The problem, however, is not with the House but with Plaskett and other members in demanding the violation of Article I of the Constitution.
After her election in 2015, Plaskett has often shown a certain disregard for constitutional principles and protections. Despite being a lawyer, Plaskett has insisted in Congress that hate speech is not constitutionally protected, a demonstrably false assertion. Where there is overwhelming evidence of a censorship system that a court called “Orwellian,” Plaskett has repeatedly denied the evidence presented before her committee. When a journalist testified on the evidence of that censorship system, Plaskett suggested his possible arrest. (Plaskett suggested that respected journalist Matt Taibbi had committed perjury due to an error that he made, not in testimony but in a tweet that he later corrected).
However, ignoring the free speech or free press values pales in comparison to what Plaskett was suggesting this week in nullifying critical language in Article I.
Article I, Section 2, states:
“The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch in the States Legislature.”
The ability to vote in the House is expressly limited to the elected representatives of “the several states.” Nevertheless, as the vote was being taken on the eventual election of Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), Plaskett rose to demand recognition and to know why she was not allowed to vote:
“I note that the names of representatives from American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia were not called, representing, collectively, 4 million Americans. Mr. Speaker, collectively, the largest per capita of veterans in this country.”
The presiding member asked a rather poignant question in response: “Does the gentlelady have a problem?”
The answer was decidedly “yes.”
Plaskett responded, “I asked why they were not called. I asked why they were not called from the parliamentarian, please.”
The response was obvious:
“Delegates-elect and the resident commissioner-elect are not qualified to vote/ Representatives-elect are the only individuals qualified to vote in the election of the speaker. As provided in Section 36 of the House rules and manual, the speaker is elected by a majority of the members-elect voting by surname.”
Plaskett then declared “This body and this nation has a territory and a colonies problem. What was supposed to be temporary has now, effectively, become permanent. We must do something about this.”
As Plaskett’s mike was cut off, she objected “But I have a voice!” as Democrats gave her a standing ovation………
MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell is under fire this week for using the terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans to attack the United States Army as a greater threat than those crossing our Southern border. The statement is a vintage example of why many are turning away from legacy or mainstream media, including MSNBC (which has lost nearly half its audience since the election).
O’Donnell has long maintained his show as something of a safe space for the left, including declaring that no Trump supporter would be allowed to speak on his show because they are all “liars,” a label that now applies to a majority of American voters in the last election.
Yet, this statement stands out for many in its unhinged effort to spin the tragedy into a more favorable liberal talking point.
O’Donnell declared:
“The simple fact is, this country has suffered more deadly terrorism at the hands of American-born citizens who are veterans of the United States military than people who have crossed into this country at the southern border. It is very clear from the evidence that if you want to worry about terrorism in this country, the United States Army is a much bigger problem than the southern border.”
There are two curious elements to O’Donnell’s comment. The first is that Army training somehow makes veterans greater threats of terrorism. The military also tends to instill patriotism and public service in its members. Moreover, O’Donnell was referencing the fact that Shamsud-Din Jabbar served in the Army, even though he was largely trained as a human resources and information technology expert. His attack was not a McVeigh-like truck bomb, but the use of the truck itself — an unfortunately common terrorist method that hardly speaks to any Army training.
Second, O’Donnell makes reference to those crossing the Southern Border as opposed to others who have either crossed any border or have entered this country legally. Again, the suggestion is that there is something about military training worthy of special concern. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Colvin Reid, James T. Hodgkinson, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Darrell Edward Brooks Jr., and others may beg to differ.
O’Donnell made specific reference to Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist behind the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995:
“Timothy McVeigh parked a truck outside that building loaded with explosives in an act of homegrown American terrorism. Timothy McVeigh’s hatred of the American government was not tamed in any way by his service in the American military. So, too, with America’s latest terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, with an American military veteran driving a pickup truck through a crowd to murder 14 people.”
Ok, McVeigh and Jabbar became extremists after they served in the military. However, all terrorists make such ………
Washington State’s unofficial state motto has long been “Al-ki” which means either “bye and bye” or “by and by” in Chinook. The former meaning now seems official as Gov. Jay Inslee pushes for a “wealth tax.” Wealthy citizens are already saying bye to the state in anticipation of what one Democratic billionaire recently called a “boneheaded” move. The problem is that rich people can move. Unlike fixed assets like a mansion, they can take their wealth and taxes to other states without such laws.
The post from Senate Democrats supporting Senate Bill 5486 said, “The first $250 million of assessed value is exempted, meaning only the wealthiest people in Washington would pay the tax, including some of the wealthiest individuals in the world.”
I have previously written against wealth taxes from both constitutional and practical perspectives in the federal system. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has long been a proponent of wealth taxes and the Biden Administration supported the effort.
The Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania found that Warren’s legislation would raise $2.7 trillion in revenue, but it would also reduce capital by 3.1%, depress average hourly wages by 1.2%, and reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by 1.2% in 2050. It is part of an “eat the rich” pitch from liberal politicians and pundits.
The federal constitutional problems are not barriers to the states. However, the effort to hammer the wealthy has never worked for states or countries. France previously saw a massive exodus after it attempted to clip the most wealthy and had to reverse its policies.
Putting aside expected legal challenges, Democratic donor Nick Hanauer criticized state Democrats for the push and said he had already spoken to the wealthiest citizens about fleeing the state.
“Even if it clears the legal, implementation & other challenges, it’s unlikely to raise much [money] given every wealthy person I’ve spoken to in the last few days has said they will leave the state. I believe them. Thoughtful taxes don’t actually drive people away, boneheaded taxes do.”
That is the problem with eating the rich . . . they have to stay put to be eaten. These wealthy individuals are already willing to pay some of the highest taxes in blue states for income. However, a wealth tax would expose their property to what is likely to become an irresistible target for politicians unwilling to make tough budget choices.
Of course, Washington could follow California in seeking a retroactive tax. Rather than try to keep the most wealthy citizens, it could seek to make them pay to leave the state like a giant Venus Flytrap.
We previously discussed the push in California to impose a retroactive tax on the many citizens and companies fleeing that state due to its high taxes and other problems. Warren wants to do the same nationally. So, if businesses are fleeing the country due to these policies, they would have to essentially pay for the freedom in a type of captivity tax. It is incredibly short-sighted. They need these businesses and they will not be able to coerce them into staying by trying to make it more expensive to leave.
The wealth tax campaigns combine fiscal negligence with political opportunism. Rather than imposing budgetary restraints and reducing budgets, Democrats promise to fleece the superrich. This short-term appeal is likely to cost the state dearly as the wealthy leave for less predatorial states.
You can stay in Washington state and get hit with a wealth tax or you can “bye and bye” and move out of the way. It appears that millionaires are already training with a financial expert in Washington to move out of the way of the wealth tax:
One of the most consistent elements of the identity politics practiced by the left is its selectivity. Whether in politics or higher education, the outrage that comes from allegedly racist or insensitive comments is confined to targets on the right. A case in point is the deafening silence after a diatribe by Rep. Jasmine Crockett D-Texas, during which she accused Hispanic voters of having a “slave mentality” and said that they “can barely vote.” There was no vaporous segment on The View or condemnations on the floor from members.
Crockett has been celebrated in left-wing publications such as Vanity Fair for schooling her colleagues, which she describes as “old as sh*t.” She offered Vanity Fair her “distilled summary of what happens within the Latino community.” Not surprisingly, it is identity politics with a race edge:
“I’ve not run into that with the Asian community. I’ve not run into that with the African community. I’ve not run into that with the Caribbean community. I’ve only run into it with Hispanics. When they think of ‘illegals,’ they think of, you know, maybe people that came out of the cartels and that kind of, like, the criminal-type book or whatever. It’s insane.”
“It almost reminds me of what people would talk about when they would talk about kind of like ‘slave mentality’ and the hate that some slaves would have for themselves. It’s almost like a slave mentality that they have. It is wild to me when I hear how anti-immigrant they are as immigrants, many of them. I’m talking about people that literally just got here and can barely vote that are having this kind of attitude.”
The attack on Hispanic voters as including people who “literally just got here and can barely vote” did not even generate objections from many Democratic Hispanic groups. Imagine if Trump or a conservative commentator made this comment.
Ironically, just before the election, I wrote how recent immigrants seemed to have a particularly strong connection to our defining and collective values. That does not appear a view shared by the congresswoman.
Crockett was, if anything, inclusive in her attacks based on gender and race. She also attacked black men and women for voting for Trump. She just dismissed black men as hating women: “I’m going to chalk up to misogyny.” What is unimaginable is that any woman or person of color could vote on the merits against the Democrats.
Notably, after her loss, Hillary Clinton offered the same attacks on women as voting against her only because they are weak and self-loathing. She claimed that Kamala, who notoriously avoided interviews and could not think of “a thing she would do differently” from Biden, “ran a flawless campaign.” The problem is again self-hating women and minorities, adding, “I don’t trust White women. I said, I’m just telling you, and I think you need to have conversations with your sisters, because they are the group that failed Hillary Clinton.”
The claim that Hispanics “can barely vote” would not be tolerated from someone on the right. It is reminiscent of the controversy involving Democratic lawyer and former Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias over what some called inherently racist comments about Georgia voters. Elias argued that Georgia voters could not be expected to be able to read their driver’s licenses correctly — a statement that seemed to refer to minority voters who would be disproportionately impacted by such a requirement.
What is striking about the Vanity Fair article is that Democrats continued to rely on identity politics despite every indication that it was not working. Now, after losing both houses and the White House, they are doubling down on identity politics.
Below is my column in The Hill on the rising rage of the holiday on the left as we approach the second Trump inauguration. From looking forward to harassment at restaurants to the purchase of Antifa-themed Christmas gifts, some appear to be planning for a hate-fest in the New Year.
Here is the column:
“May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace.”
Those words, from Disney’s new Snow White actress Rachel Zegler, came shortly after half of the country, roughly 77 million Americans, voted for Donald Trump.
Only a few weeks ago, Kamala Harris and her supporters were rallying the country to choose “love over hate.” Now, the “joy” is gone. Tis the season of the liberal hate-fest.
As Washington prepares for the inauguration, we are seeing a return to rage.
During the first Trump administration, liberal servers and restaurant owners pledged not to serve Trump officials. Now, the Washingtonian is reporting on the planned resumption of the harassment of those serving in the Trump administration.
Zac Hoffman, manager at the National Democratic Club and “D.C. restaurant veteran,” told the magazine that abusing conservatives was only natural and understandable: “You expect the masses to just ignore RFK eating at Le Diplomate on a Sunday morning after a few mimosas and not to throw a drink in his face?”
One bartender stated that Trump people may “theoretically [have] the power to take away your rights, but I have the power to make you wait 20 minutes to get your entrée.”
Suzannah Van Rooy, a server and manager at Beuchert’s Saloon on Capitol Hill, declared that she would not serve some Trump officials. “It’s not, ‘Oh, we hate Republicans,’” she said. “It’s that this person has moral convictions that are strongly opposed to mine, and I don’t feel comfortable serving them.”
This campaign of hate is all too familiar to conservatives. Many remember when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family were kicked out of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. As others were denied service or chased from restaurants, Democratic members like Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, supported such harassment.
For those restaurants not willing to follow the Red Hen model, the response was equally unhinged. Mariya Rusciano runs a D.C. pizza restaurant. She posted congratulations to Trump on X after the election to encourage everyone to come together as a nation. The response from Democrats was furious, filled with pledges to boycott the restaurant and force it out of business.
It is not just service and civility that are scarce in Washington. Even while accusing Trump of putting his political and personal interests ahead of the nation, Biden is now reportedly moving to veto a bipartisan bill to relieve pressure on our overwhelmed court system.
The Judges Act, supported by both Democrats and Republicans, would add 66 new judgeships to an over-worked court system. The White House supported the bill right up until Trump won the election. While some Democrats are still trying to get the White House to change its mind, liberal groups are applauding the expected veto “to prevent President Trump from having more vacancies.”
If Biden carries out his threat, it will be not only gratuitous but illogical. The bill deliberately staggers the addition of judges over the next decade so that presidents of both parties will presumably be able to appoint them. Moreover, the Senate is still closely divided, and “blue-slipping” (whereby senators can hold up some nominations) remains in effect.
More importantly, the reason for this bipartisan effort is due to a dire need for our courts. Judges are drowning in dockets with rising caseloads. In 2004, the number of cases in district court pending for more than three years was 18,280. This year, there are 81,617. If justice delayed is justice denied, our court system is becoming a tar pit of injustice, with litigants left without verdicts or relief for years.
The word of the intended veto stripped away any pretense of the White House putting the public interest before politics. A veto would put rage before reason. In my recent book, I discussed how addictive rage is. People do not like to admit it, but they like being angry. Sometimes, people can choose madness as a release from reality. It offers a righteous license to slip from the bounds of civility and decency. It allows people to harass Republicans in restaurants or to scream profanities outside of their homes.
It allows a president to say that he might block judgeships for a struggling court system, just because he does not want his successor to make any of the appointments. It is the reason 41 percent of adults under 30 believe that killing others, like healthcare executives, is justified, according to an Emerson College poll.
We cannot seem to shake this rage addiction even after an election or during a holiday committed to peace and understanding. One liberal site, Crooked Media, is actually selling holiday items featuring the violent extremist group Antifa — one of the most anti-free speech groups in history, which routinely attacks journalists, speakers, and conservative demonstrators. Created by former Obama staffers Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, the Crooked Media site is selling a line of Antifa items for liberals, including Antifa onesies for infants and “Antifa Dad” shirts to seemingly celebrate political violence.
It seems the joy, bipartisanship, and civility have all expired like last year’s eggnog. Even Disney’s new Snow White seems to have taken the cue from the Evil Queen and treated this election as “a blast of wind to fan my hate.”
In an explosive exposé, the Wall Street Journal has revealed how the mental decline of President Joe Biden was pronounced from the start of his term. However, cabinet members and other Democrats lied to the public about his declining levels of acuity and engagement. That effort succeeded largely with the help of an alliance with the media, which showed little interest in whether the President was actually running the government.
After President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the solid wall of media and staff shielding his declining mental state collapsed. Even after Special Counsel Robert Hur declined criminal charges against Biden due to his diminished state, Democratic pundits and the press covered for him, claiming that he was sharp and effective. With the debate, the public was able to see what many in the media and the White House had been hiding for years.
After interviewing roughly 50 insiders, the Journal found evidence of a knowing effort to hide Biden’s mental state. For many, Biden’s refusal to leave his home for much of the 2020 campaign was evidence of the insecurity of staff about his ability to engage with reporters. It only got worse during the term as staff virtually tackled anyone trying to ask him a question. Biden was routinely shuffled off stage after reading briefly from a teleprompter.
Behind the scenes, cabinet members reportedly stopped asking for meetings with Biden after staff conveyed that such requests were not welcomed. He held far fewer cabinet meetings and was often considered “down” for any discussions. That included a period during the calamity of the Afghan withdrawal.
One official is quoted as admitting on one occasion in 2021 that Biden “has good days and bad days and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow.” That was just after he was elected. Yet, Biden was kept within the protective cocoon of media that did not press the issue and was infamous for ignoring scandals while asking Biden about his choice of ice cream on a given day.
Now, some media outlets are re-positioning on the issue as they prepare to resume hard questioning and investigations in the new Trump Administration . . . after a four-year hiatus. Suddenly, everyone is shocked to learn that Biden was mentally diminished and blaming nameless staff for misleading them.
One exception this week was Chris Cillizza, who served as CNN’s editor-at-large before leaving the network in 2022. On YouTube, Cillizza stated, “As a reporter, I have a confession to make” and admitted “I should have pushed harder earlier for more information about Joe Biden’s mental and physical well-being and any signs of decline.”
Now, everyone likes a redemptive sinner, and I give Cillizza credit for admitting his own failure to pursue the story despite many critics objecting for years over the lack of such inquiries. However, Cillizza only confessed to failing to pursue the story due to a fear of being accused of “age shaming” Biden. The suggestion is that identity politics chilled journalism, not the overwhelming media support for the President and countervailing opposition to Trump.
The “age shaming” excuse is difficult to square with the failure to pursue an array of other scandals during the term from influence peddling to policy debacles. Nevertheless, Cillizza was remarkably frank that he was only able to push on the story after leaving CNN:
“I didn’t really push on it, if I’m being honest. Now, once I left CNN and once it became a little bit clearer to me about Biden’s age, I think I did write pretty regularly and talk pretty regularly about how I wasn’t sure that this guy was up to it. And then obviously, after the June 27 debate, everybody, including me, was writing and talking about it.”
Putting Cillizza’s statement aside, there is a notable effort by some in the media to retroactively resume journalism after years of docile coverage on issues such as Biden’s incapacity.
The belated interest in the story reflects not only the limits of modern journalism but the limits of the 25th Amendment. From the outset, there was concern over Biden’s acuity and stamina within the White House. It was hidden from the public. His cabinet members like DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and others quashed claims of any diminishment with first-hand testimonials about how sharp and impressive the President was in meetings. Vice President Kamala Harris echoed those claims.
The Vice President and the cabinet are essential to the removal process under the 25th Amendment. Section 4 allows the removal of a president. One option is what I have called the “mutiny option.” It requires a vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to declare that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” and notify Congress that the vice president intends to take over. If Vice President Kamala Harris could get eight Cabinet officers to go along with a letter to Congress, her status as the “Acting President” would likely be short-lived. Joe Biden would only have to declare to Congress that “no inability exists.” Biden would then resume his powers. That would then trigger a congressional fight.
In reality, the Biden term shows how they can often be part of the cover-up.
The 25th Amendment also does not define incapacity and having “good days and bad days” is unlikely to suffice. As I previously discussed, the issue of “disability” of a president was briefly raised in the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It was a delegate from Biden’s home state of Delaware who asked how they would respond to a disability, “and who is to be the judge of it?” John Dickinson’s question was left unanswered in the final version of the Constitution.
What followed were persistent controversies over succession. This issue came to a head after President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a stroke. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Congress finally addressed the issue in the 25th Amendment. The amendment addresses the orderly succession of power as well as temporary disabilities when presidents must undergo medical treatment or surgeries. This process is even more unlikely to occur when the media has formed a protective line around a president.
The problem was never “age shaming,” it was a shameless effort to shield this president from tough questions and public exposure.
Today, the Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her team in the prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump. The final collapse of the House of Willis came after months of her spending enormous amounts of time and money to try to stay at the lead of the high-profile case. Lawfare holds little value unless you are the lead warrior.
For over a year, some have criticized Willis for her refusal to recuse herself. When her hiring of her former lover was first disclosed, Willis could have done the right thing for her office, the case, and the public. She could have recused herself and may have preserved her office’s ability to continue with the case.
She was then given a further opportunity to do the right thing by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee who disqualified her former lover, Nathan Wade, and found an “appearance of impropriety.”
He, however, left it up to Willis to recuse herself after criticizing her conduct. Some of us noted that the finding did not jive with the order. If there was an “appearance of impropriety,” it would obviously continue with Willis remaining at the lead in the case. However, Willis let the case go dormant and committed her office to the fight to preserve her role. Now, the appellate court has forced her off the case and ordered a new office to take over any prosecution. The court ruled that
“[a]fter carefully considering the trial court’s findings in its order, we conclude that it erred by failing to disqualify DA Willis and her office. The remedy crafted by the trial court to prevent an ongoing appearance of impropriety did nothing to address the appearance of impropriety that existed at times when DA Willis was exercising her broad pretrial discretion about who to prosecute and what charges to bring.”
The court admitted that Willis had forced the hand of the court by her refusal to do the right thing in the lower court. It recognized that “an appearance of impropriety generally is not enough to support disqualification, this is the rare case in which disqualification is mandated and no other remedy will suffice to restore public confidence in the integrity of these proceedings.”
Accordingly, it reversed McAffee and found that if “the elected district attorney is wholly disqualified from this case, ‘the assistant district attorneys — whose only power to prosecute a case is derived from the constitutional authority of the district attorney who appointed them — have no authority to proceed.’”
The opinion made clear that these cases cannot become the vanity projects of prosecutors. They are expected to do the right thing, even when the right thing does not come easily personally or politically.
The center of the case now shifts to another prosecutor who will have to decide whether it wants to continue the case and what (and who) to prosecute.
As I have previously written, the Georgia case has viable crimes against others for offenses such as unlawful entry into restricted areas. The case against Trump was deeply flawed. It read like a legal version of six degrees from Kevin Bacon. As my friend and fellow analyst Andy McCarthy noted, this is the first racketeering case that any of us have seen where the strongest connection between the parties was being named in the charging documents.
A new prosecutor should drop the Trump charges and end this ridiculous lawfare enterprise. If not, the case will likely collapse by its own weight due to the attenuated racketeering theory or other legal problems, including the use of evidence barred under the recent presidential immunity decision.
In the end, Willis was reelected by the voters of Atlanta who clearly accepted or supported the weaponization of the criminal justice system to target political opponents. The millions spent in the case were just treated as a cost of doing the business of lawfare.
Hopefully, a new prosecution office will restore a modicum of integrity to the Georgia legal system. It is now time to end this circus as the ringmaster leaves the center ring.
As an academic and a legal commentator, I have sometimes disagreed with the United States Supreme Court, but I often stress the good-faith differences in how certain rights or protections are interpreted. One case, however, has long stood out for me as wildly off base and wrongly decided: Kelo v. New London. The case allowed the government to seize property from one private party and then give it to another private party. There is now a petition before the Supreme Court that would allow it to reconsider this pernicious precedent. The Court should grant review in Bowers v. Oneida County Industrial Development Agency precisely for that purpose.
Many of us expressed outrage at the actions of the city leaders of New London, Connecticut, when they used eminent domain to seize the property of citizens against their will to give it to the Pfizer corporation. This anger grew with the inexplicable decision of the Supreme Court in Kelo v. City of New London to uphold the abusive action. After all the pain that the city caused its own residents and the $80 million it spent to buy and bulldoze the property, it came to nothing. Pfizer later announced that it was closing the facility — leaving the city worse off than when it began.
I will not repeat my fundamental disagreement with the interpretation of the eminent domain power. For my prior testimony on the Kelo decision, click here.
The Bowers case involves New York developer Bryan Bowers who challenged the decision of a county redevelopment agency to condemn his property and then give it to another developer to use as a private parking lot. Most states prohibit this abusive practice but not New York.
Justice Chase (not long after the Bill of Rights was written) rejected this type of abuse:
“An act of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority … . A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean… . [A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it.” Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).
Much has changed on the Court since 2005. It is possible that the new majority could finally correct the mistake made in Kelo. While most states have barred this abusive practice, states like New York still leave property owners at the mercy of local officials who use eminent domain to transfer property between citizens.
For Susette Kelo, she had little chance to fight a major pharmaceutical company for her home. The Supreme Court just looked on passively after local officials seized her home because she was not nearly as valuable to them as Pfizer. This abusive use of eminent domain is not just an invitation for corrupt dealings but a denial of the core protections of individual citizens under our Constitution.
It is time for Kelo to be set aside. The Court has that opportunity with Bowers.
After the election, liberal pundits and media have attempted to rally the public in a shift from X to Bluesky, a smaller site that is viewed as a safe space for the left. I have been critical of the move as a retreat deeper into the liberal echo chamber after an election that showed how out-of-touch many of these writers were with the majority of voters. They would be better served engaging with a broader swath of public opinion. Today, one of the top Bluesky officials embraced Canadian-style speech controls and rejected more robust views of free speech as the model for the site. Bluesky has long been criticized as a site built on the concept of “safe spaces” in higher education for those triggered by opposing views. Many of those leaving Twitter long for the “good ole days” of when all social media platforms engaged in extensive censorship to exclude or marginalize opposing voices. This week, Aaron Rodericks, the head of trust and safety at Bluesky, confirmed the worst fears of the site. Bluesky has been hammered with complaints from conservatives and libertarians that they have been subject to not only death threats on the site but also blocked from posting. Some have demanded even more aggressive measures to block or suppress conservative or libertarian views deemed threatening or demeaning. Liberal pundits have heralded the site as allowing them to “breathe again” without hearing the type of opposing views allowed on X.
Rodericks espoused the type of anti-free speech rationalizations that are addressed in my recent book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” He insisted that there are alternative views of free speech than the type of “absolutism” supported by figures like myself.
Rodericks juxtaposed what he called “free speech absolutism” against the more enlightened Canadian model, adding, “I think it just comes down to philosophies of free speech.”
He explained:
“Being Canadian shapes a lot of my perspective. There’s enough of the American perspective in the world on a day-to-day basis. For example, in the Canadian constitution… you have rights and freedoms, but they’re not unequivocal.”
It was a chilling reference for many in the free speech community since free speech is in a free fall in Canada. As we have previously discussed, there has been a steady criminalization of speech, including even jokes and religious speech, in Canada. The country has eviscerated the right to free speech and association.
Yet, that is apparently the model for Bluesky. Rodericks repeats the doublespeak of the anti-free speech movement in claiming that he just wants to create a space where all are welcomed but excluding those who are not welcomed:
“I’m glad that [critics] consider it a safe space and ideally it can be a safe space for them as well. The whole point of Bluesky is for it to be safe and welcoming to all users. I think the issue is some people are defining their identity by opposition to others and how well they can harass others and deny their existence. Bluesky may not be the right place for them.”
Not surprisingly, Rodericks used to work at trust and safety for Twitter before he was fired by Elon Musk. He has also sued Musk over a tweet. At issue is Musk’s response to the criticism of his firing Rodericks’s team by noting, “Oh you mean the ‘Election Integrity’ Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.” That would seem clearly protected opinion under the First Amendment, but, of course, for the former censors of Twitter, it should not be allowed.
We have previously discussed the censorship standards at Twitter. For example, former Twitter executive Anika Collier Navaroli testified on what she repeatedly called the “nuanced” standard used by her and her staff on censorship. Toward the end of the hearing, she was asked about that standard by Rep. Melanie Ann Stansbury (D., NM). Her answer captured precisely why Twitter’s censorship system proved a nightmare for free expression.
Navaroli then testified how she felt that there should have been much more censorship and how she fought with the company to remove more material that she and her staff considered “dog whistles” and “coded” messaging. She said that they balanced free speech against safety and explained that they sought a different approach:
“Instead of asking just free speech versus safety to say free speech for whom and public safety for whom. So whose free expression are we protecting at the expense of whose safety and whose safety are we willing to allow to go the winds so that people can speak freely.”
Rep. Stansbury responded by saying “Exactly.”
The statement was reminiscent of that of former CEO Parag Agrawal. After taking over as CEO, Agrawal pledged to regulate content as “reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation.” Agrawal said the company would “focus less on thinking about free speech” because “speech is easy on the internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.”
The same standard seems to be at play at Bluesky as controversial figures like Rodericks decide which views are deemed harassing or amount to a denial of the existence of others. They will be shown, Canadian style, why “Bluesky may not be the right place for them.”
Below is my column in the New York Post on the news reports that President Joe Biden is seriously considering preemptive pardons for political allies. In granting what I have called “White Knight pardons,” Biden would achieve more of a political than legal purpose. Democrats are worried about the collapsing narrative that President-elect Donald Trump will destroy democracy, end future elections, and conduct sweeping arrests of everyone from journalists to homosexuals. That narrative, of course, ignores that we have a constitutional system of overlapping protections that has blocked such abuses for over two centuries. Ironically, preemptive pardons would do precisely what Biden suggests that he is deterring: create a dangerous immunity for presidents and their allies in committing criminal abuses.
Here is the column:
There are growing indications that President Joe Biden is about to fundamentally change the use of presidential pardons by granting “prospective” or “preemptive” pardons to political allies. Despite repeated denials of President-elect Donald Trump that he is seeking retaliation against opponents and his statements that he wants “success [to be] my revenge,” Democratic politicians and pundits have called for up to thousands of such pardons.
While there is little threat of any viable prosecution of figures like the members of the January 6th Committee, the use of “White Knight pardons” offers obvious political benefits. After many liberals predicted the imminent collapse of democracy and that opponents would be rounded up in mass by the Trump Administration, they are now contemplating the nightmare that democracy might survive and that there will be no mass arrests.
The next best thing to a convenient collapse of democracy is a claim that Biden’s series of preemptive pardons averted it. It is enough to preserve the narrative in the face of a stable constitutional system . Indeed, Biden’s pardon list has replaced the usual Inauguration Ball lists as the “must-have” item this year. Pardon envy is sweeping over the Beltway as politicians and pundits push to be included on the list of presumptive Trump enemies.
The political stunt will come at a cost. Preemptive pardons could become the norm as presidents pardon whole categories of allies and even themselves to foreclose federal prosecutions. It can quickly become the norm in what I recently wrote about as our “age of rage.”
It will give presidents cover to wipe away any threat of prosecution for friends, donors, and associates. This can include self-pardons issued as implied condemnations of their political opponents. It could easily become the final act of every president to pardon himself and all of the members of his Administration. We would then have an effective immunity rule for outgoing parties in American politics.
Ironically, there is even less need for such preemptive pardons after the Supreme Court recognized that presidents are immune for many decisions made during their presidencies. Likewise, members have robust constitutional protections for their work under Article I, as do journalists and pundits under the Constitution’s First Amendment.
We have gone over two centuries without such blanket immunity. In my book The Indispensable Right, I discuss our periods of violent political strife and widespread arrests. Thomas Jefferson referred to John Adams’s Federalist government as “the reign of the witches.” Yet even presidents in those poisonous times did not do what Joe Biden is now contemplating.
Moreover, presidential pardons have a checkered history, including presidents pardoning family members or political donors. Bill Clinton did both. Not surprisingly, Clinton last week attempted to add his own wife’s name to the sought-after Biden pardon list. He added, however, “I don’t think I should be giving public advice on the pardon power…It’s a very personal thing.”
That is precisely the point. The power was not created to be used for “very personal things,” like pardoning your half-brother and a fugitive Democratic donor on your last day in office. Yet, despite that history, no president has seen fit to go as far as where Biden appears to be heading.
We have a constitutional system that allows for overlapping protections of individuals from abusive prosecutions and convictions. It does not always work as fast as we would want, but it has sustained the oldest and most stable constitutional system in history. These figures would prefer to fundamentally change the use of the pardon power to maintain an apocalyptic narrative that was clearly rejected by the public in this election. If you cannot prove the existence of the widely touted Trump enemies list, a Biden pardon list is the next best thing.
After years of lying to the American people about the influence-peddling scandal and promising not to consider a pardon for his son, Biden would end his legacy with the ultimate dishonesty: converting pardons into virtual party favors.
In doing so, he has ironically lowered the standard and expectations for his successors. Joe Biden has become the president that Richard Nixon only imagined. He would establish with utter clarity that this power is not presidential, but personal and political . . . and many in the Beltway are waiting to give him a standing ovation.
The shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, immediately prompted renewed calls for gun control from President Joe Biden and others. As I have previously written, these calls often appear entirely disconnected from the actual crime or the constitutional protections afforded gun owners, including President Biden demanding a ban on assault weapons after a shooting with a handgun.
President Biden’s call for greater background checks and enforcement was a bit incongruous after he pardoned his own son on gun charges. More importantly, the Wisconsin case only highlighted why these standard demands for gun control would not have impacted that case.
This was a juvenile who is believed to have used a 9mm handgun in the attack. Natalie Rupnow, 15, was not supposed to have a gun and would not have gone through background checks. While both Biden and Kamala Harris have raised limiting or banning the popular 9mm, Harris admits that she is one of millions with the weapon and it would not be subject to any of these proposals.
The president once again denounced the availability of what he collectively calls “assault weapons,” a common reference to such popular models as the AR-15. Efforts to ban this model have already failed in the courts on constitutional grounds, though litigation is continuing on that issue.
In 2008, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, recognizing the Second Amendment as encompassing an individual right to bear arms. The Supreme Court further strengthened the right in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen.
That is why laws to ban or curtail sales of the AR-15 run into constitutional barriers. Even the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit struck down a California ban on adults under 21 purchasing semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15.
These calls for greater gun controls remain either factually ambiguous or legally dubious. For example, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe declared after the Wisconsin shooting that it is time to “change the context of gun ownership.” While admitting that he did not know all of the facts, McCabe said:
We’re [going] nowhere because it keeps happening. We know it’s going to happen again. It’s happening today. It’s going to happen again in the near future. I can guarantee you that and every time it happens, we do just about nothing. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things we can’t do. We could do things. We could — we could support and enact legislation that changes the — the — the context of gun ownership in this country and emphasizes gun safety and responsibility with the firearms that you own and keeping them out of the hands of children and doing — and really vigorous, consistent background checks across the country. We could stop selling people — stop — you — eliminate the ability to purchase guns without a background check.
It is unclear what “changing the context” means, particularly when the context is first and foremost constitutional.
Likewise, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) called for his House colleagues to “stand up to gun manufacturers” but stopped short of explaining what that would actually mean:
Thoughts and prayers without action means more school shootings, more dead kids.
More ACTION is needed by our elected officials.
And more BACKBONE to stand up to gun manufacturers.
This is uniquely a United States problem that doesn't have to happen.
Pocan has previously called for “common sense” laws without tackling the more difficult question of how to produce the sweeping changes given the narrow scope of constitutional limits for an individual right.
Wisconsin has robust gun control laws that did not prevent this shooting because Rupnow was not subject to the background checks and other regulations. She was not supposed to have the weapon and 9mm is not one of the guns that Democrats are calling to ban.
None of this means that people of good faith should not work on new initiatives and measures to combat gun violence. However, politicians like President Biden have misled the public for years about the narrow range of constitutional options for gun control legislation. The suggestion is that “this did not have to happen” despite the fact that none of these proposals would have stopped this from happening.
In a tragedy of this magnitude, our leaders have a duty, first and foremost, of honesty in speaking with the public.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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