Stacey Patton, professor of journalism at Howard University, has caused an uproar with her advice to white people who want to oppose this Administration. Patton told them that they had to follow the path of John Brown, who led a bloodbath before the Civil War that included killing white slave owners and pro-slave settlers.
In a blog titled “John Brown Didn’t Ask Enslaved People How to Be A Good White Ally,” Patton told white liberals to stop asking how to be a better “ally” to minorities. She writes:
“It’s a question that always lands heavy. Not because I doubt their sincerity, but because the question itself is still a form of protection that centers the asker’s confusion instead of the target’s danger. It’s a request to be taught, forgiven, and reassured, again and again. It’s another round of homework assigned to the wounded…It’s exhausting as hell because it’s still a form of emotional outsourcing.”
Instead, she tells whites to become modern John Browns and presumably unleash a new era akin to “Bleeding Kansas” and the infamous Pottawatomie massacre.
Brown was a militant slave abolitionist during the pre-Civil War “Bleeding Kansas” period. In 1856, he orchestrated the Pottawatomie massacre. He and fellow abolitionists dragged five Kansas settlers, at least three of whom were pro-slavery sympathizers, out of their homes and executed them.
Brown was eventually captured after his raid on Harpers Ferry and hanged.
Patton wants whites to emulate Brown, who “saw the horror for what it was and decided that ending this racist f*ckery mattered more than being understood.” What clearly makes Brown stand out for Patton is his violence: “So when white allies ask, ‘What can I do?’ here’s the answer: Be like John Brown. Ask yourself, what am I willing to burn so somebody else can breathe?”
Of course, a hanging might be a bit stiff for many liberals longing to be Antifa. So, Patton acknowledges, “If you don’t want to die like John Brown, fine. But understand that somebody always does.”
Not surprisingly, the professor has little time for those who want to embrace the alternative, non-violent lessons of Martin Luther King:
“Now, white liberals love to quote Martin Luther King Jr. because he is a man that can be polished into civility. But John Brown doesn’t fit the script. He was a m’fukin’ gangsta! He didn’t ask for gradual change, or healing, or bipartisan cooperation. He saw a nation addicted to violence and knew that moral persuasion alone couldn’t sober it.”
Patton’s column comes after the controversy involving the John Brown Gun Club, which was connected to flyers appearing on campuses like Georgetown reading “Hey, Fascists! Catch!” The phrase was written on unused bullet casings found after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. It went on to proclaim, “The only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.”
The recent charges against Benjamin Song, an Antifa member, also raised the group. Song was charged with three counts of attempted murder of federal agents in addition to three counts of discharging a firearm stemming from an ambush-style shooting at an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas. A dozen others were charged in the plot. He was also reportedly a member of the John Brown Gun Club.
Notably, this is a journalism professor in a school that has long been associated with advocacy journalism and the controversial hire of former New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones.
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.”
Downie recounted how news leaders today.
“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.”
Now, objectivity is virtually synonymous with prejudice. Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press, declared, “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy.”
Stanford journalism professor Ted Glasser insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He declared that “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”
Yet, Howard saw Hannah-Jones as perfect for a chair in its journalism school.
Professor Patton seems to have left not just neutrality but sanity behind with her implied support for violent action. It is unclear how such views impact her journalism courses at Howard University. However, she has featured prominently in The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Chronicle of Higher Education as well as ABC News, CNN, and MSNBC.
Switzerland was famous (or infamous) for staying neutral in World War II. It simply would not take a side between the Nazis and the rest of the world. However, when it comes to free speech, Switzerland has declared war on anyone who challenges certain orthodox positions, including gender policies. Just ask Emanuel Brünisholz.
Brünisholz is reportedly about to start a 10-day prison stint due to his voicing skepticism about claims that skeletons are transgender.
There is very little coverage of this story. Free speech cases are often downplayed by European media. So, we have only limited information coming from conservative sites.
In 2022, he responded to a Facebook post by Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner on the controversy. Some, including academics in the United States, are now claiming that you really cannot gauge the sex of individuals from their skeletons.
The wind-instrument repairman thought that such claims were unfounded and posted a comment that said, “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.”
Brünisholz then received a knock on his door from the Burgdorf police and then a prosecution letter for engaging in “hate speech” and “publicly belittling” comments based on sexual orientation under the Swiss Criminal Code. He was convicted and fined 500 Swiss Francs.
If true, this sounds like just another absurd use of a criminal charge to silence those with opposing views. However, a court actually convicted him and then another court upheld the conviction. He was ordered to pay a fine or go to jail. He is now going to jail for simply expressing his view, a view supported by many scientists and citizens.
The court adopted an exceptionally broad definition of the protected class under Swiss law:
“LGBTQI means lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, queer and intersex, and denotes therefore different sexual orientations. It’s a loose group of people who consider themselves a part of the aforementioned sexual orientations. Therefore, LGBTQI is a group of people with specific sexual orientations.”
The case is only the latest example of how free speech is in a free fall in Europe. I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, where European leaders gathered in one of the most strikingly anti-free speech conferences I have attended. This year’s forum embraced the slogan “A New World Order with European Values.” That “new world order” is based on an aggressive anti-free speech platform that has been enforced for years by the European Union.
Many Americans are allied with the EU and attempting to introduce such anti-free speech laws in the United States. Others are speaking in Europe and inviting the EU to hit U.S. companies with sanctions for failing to censor Americans.
Yet, there remain brave free speech advocates and groups still struggling to restore this indispensable right to their countries. By going to jail, Brünisholz is bringing needed attention to the crackdown on free speech in that country. Despite the disgraceful role of the courts in this effort, citizens like Brünisholz show that the cause of free speech is alive in Europe.
In a recent debate with a Harvard Law Professor, I was surprised when my counterpart insisted with (other dubious factual claims) that no one has celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk. He knew that the challenge for me to name one was unlikely to be answered in a debate on a different topic, even though many have celebrated and mocked the assassination on the left. The tactic is part of a type of name game being played on many cable shows. That was again evident this week when Harry Sisson, a liberal commentator, challenged a panel to name one person who analogized Trump to Hitler. It was also on display when Rep. Dan Goldman (D., N.Y.) challenged anyone to name a single Antifa member. The name game is popular because it is rarely challenged on the spot, though that was not the case with Sisson.
Most people had little knowledge of Sisson’s work as a social media influencer until he was featured in the video circulated by the White House showing President Trump dumping human excrement on his head (as well as others marching in the “No Kings” rally). For the record, I thought that the video was juvenile, distasteful, and remarkably unfunny.
The video propelled Sisson into greater public visibility and he appeared on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” and challenged the panel to name one high-level Democrat who’s compared Trump to Hitler. The response was crushing. When rebutted by the other guests, Sisson then demanded an actual date which is consistent with the tactic. After all, if anyone is fast enough to give a name, they would surely be unable to provide a date. Then someone did.
Obviously, this has been a mantra on the left with many Democratic politicians making the analogy. Jen Rubin was one of the first out of the gate after the election with a column titled “Hitler is in power.”
The whole appeal of the name game is that you make the claim in a forum where no one is likely to respond. It then leaves naive viewers with the impression that it is manifestly true. The saddest aspect of an age of rage is the level of self-delusion that occurs. Many people want to be told that they can ignore troubling facts, leaving narratives unchallenged in their echo-chambered news and social media circles. Figures like Rep. Goldman are the denial agents that many need to avoid addressing their own disinformation or rage rhetoric. They are the Nathan Thurms of American politics:
The point of this game is not that it will convince most people, but will allow many to avoid serious reflection over their own actions or rhetoric. In American politics, there is no Walter White demanding that you “say my name.”
That is the key to the game. No one listening in your echo chamber wants to say the name. The problem is when you invite others to play outside of that silo. Then you end up like Sisson with a virtual Boston telephone book of rebuttals and not a single friend to call.
The large “No Kings” protests this weekend were peaceful with the exception of some hot spots in Portland near ICE facilities. There were the usual hot heads carrying guillotines and North Carolina Democrat Rep. Julie von Haefen is under fire for posting a picture of a beheaded Trump. Another protester was arrested for calling for protesters to “firebomb” ICE facilities and personnel. In another scene, children were encouraged to beat a Trump piñata. There was also an assault on a MAGA supporter. These remained happily isolated incidents. However, two school employees in Chicago drew national attention with their violent speeches and offered another test of our free speech standards.
In Chicago, elementary school teacher Lucy Martinez was shown on video mockingly making a gesture akin to being shot in the neck, mimicking how Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
The video went viral, and her school, Nathan Hale Elementary School, had to shut down its website and social media presence.
Martinez’s gesture is disgusting, and frankly, I would not want my children to be taught by such a person. However, she did not identify herself as a teacher when she made this vile statement outside of school during her own time. As such, it is, in my view, protected speech.
Then there is the controversy surrounding Wilbur Wright College Adult Education Manager Moises Bernal, who screamed to a crowd that “ICE agents gotta get shot and wiped out.” Bernal told the crowd, “You gotta grab a gun!” and “We gotta turn around the guns on this fascist system!”
In 2017, Bernal was sentenced to 12 months probation in a rare move by the court due to disruptive behavior at a hearing for Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke who was charged with murder.
The question is whether calling for the killing of ICE officers crosses the line for an educator. After all, there are ICE officers who come to campuses in their official capacity or as students. There are also students who want to join law enforcement, including ICE.
Even school board members referring to taking faculty “to the slaughterhouse” for questioning DEI policies is considering protected speech.
However, the specificity of Bernal’s call to violence could trigger repercussions for him. If Bernal had proclaimed that people should shoot minorities or women or Jews, there would be little debate that he represented a threatening element on campus. Certainly a student who espoused such violent intentions would not be allowed on campus in most universities.
For the university, it is difficult to see how law enforcement personnel in adult education programs would feel comfortable with an administrator who is encouraging others to murder them. Indeed, most people would not feel comfortable in interacting with someone who wants to kill law enforcement personnel.
Bernal’s comments likely fall short of a criminal threat, though, in New York city, David Cox was arrested after allegedly telling a third person that he had firebombs in his car and would be carrying out an attack. That was a specific threat and alleged plan. Bernal was encouraging violence in general.
However, calling for violence at a protest can cross the line for violent speech under existing precedent. In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that calling for violence is protected under the First Amendment unless there is a threat of “imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”
In this case, there was no violence despite Bernal’s apparent inclinations. There was no evidence of “imminent lawless action.” As such, it is still likely protected. However, that does not mean that Wilbur Wright College, which is part of the city of Chicago college system, cannot fire or suspend him for calling for the murder of law enforcement.
Jimmy Kimmel is back on television by less than popular demand. Kimmel’s ratings are hardly robust (Kimmel pulls in 1.85 million in comparison to Gutfeld! at 3.2 million). Still, his suspension for spreading disinformation about the killer of Charlie Kirk became a cause celebre on the left. Kimmel continues to air nightly screeds against Trump and conservatives. Of course, he is hardly unique in appealing to an echo-chambered audience. However, this week Kimmel showed children being read Eric Trump’s book by a drag queen. What was most disturbing was not the use of the children to echo talking points on how great drag queens are, but showing them throwing Trump’s book into a wood chipper. It appears that nothing is funnier for the modern left than a good book burning or chipping.
Trixie Mattel led the “Drag Queen Storytime” with a group of kids in the satiric treatment of Trump’s book. Mattel asked the kids questions like “Do I scare any of you?” eliciting a response: “You just look amazing. Why would that be scary?”
The children are given choices to read like Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich.
It may be the most bizarre element of the skit, even bordering on the ironically humorous. After all, Mattel was portraying the Trump Administration as Nazis, but was about to show the children how to destroy books that have views that they do not like. That may not bring back memories of collectible Nazi spoons, but it does bring back memories of Nazi book burning.
The audience delights as one child says that she would “kick” Donald Trump “in the…” before the show bleeped out the rest of her response.
Mattel then shows the kids how to “make excellent confetti” out of a book that they do not like with a giant wood chipper outside of the studio. It is the type of comedic styling that would have had Joseph Goebbels rolling on the ground laughing.
For the free-speech community, there are few more disgraceful images as the burning or destruction of books because you do not agree with the author’s viewpoints. To see children participating in such an exercise is even more troubling.
It is easy to dismiss this as simply another bizarre skit on a show struggling for ratings. However, some of us have been raising concerns for years about the embrace of the American left in effective (or even actual) book burning. Some on the right have also embraced book burning.
Cancel campaigns of conservative speakers were not enough for many on the left. They have pressured companies not to publish books by conservatives, including figures like Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It is far easier (and environmentally sound) to ban opposing books than to physically burn them. However, the sentiment is the same. Rather than responding to those who oppose you, you fight to silence them and prevent others from reading them.
That is why the image of children happily tossing books into a wood chipper is so disturbing for many in the free speech community. This is not just satire but reality as many push to destroy books with opposing views.
None of this means that there is any crime in this comedic sketch. Even book burning is protected speech. Yet, the humor is missed by many of us who have been objecting to the rise of a new generation of self-righteous book burners in America.
Below is my column in The Hill on the recent controversy at Rutgers University, where different groups are pushing to ban Turning Point USA and Professor Mark Bray, the author of the “Antifa Handbook.” The campus has become a microcosm of a broader debate in higher education, which continues to struggle with drawing lines on free speech and academic freedom. Notably, the faculty and the student body recently overwhelmingly voted to support Bray, but few have spoken out in support of the TPUSA group.
Here is the column:
Last week, faculty and students signed a petition to oust the local Turning Point student chapter from Rutgers University. The call followed a separate demand from the group to fire Rutgers Professor Mark Bray, the author of the “Antifa Handbook.”
As is often the case, both sides are portraying themselves as defenders of free speech while seeking to silence others.
Free speech is back in vogue on many campuses. Faculty members are suddenly aghast over threats to free speech after staying entirely silent for years as conservative faculty were purged from departments and conservative speakers were cancelled on campus. Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton, who supported censorship under the Biden administration, are even declaring themselves free speech champions.
The Rutgers controversies are a truly teachable moment on how free speech values demand more than supporting speech that you like. The test of principle is supporting the speech of those with whom you disagree, even those whom you despise.
Those of us in the free speech community are rarely called upon to defend popular speech. More often, we support the speech of those who not only hate free speech but hate us as well. Many of those we protect have worked to deny the free speech of others.
Soon after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I wrote how the way to stand with Charlie is to stand with free speech. Charlie was the target, not the proponent of cancel campaigns.
I was disappointed, therefore, when the Rutgers TPUSA members called for the firing of Bray. I have long been a critic of Bray. Indeed, I testified about Antifa before Congress, ran columns on the organization for over a decade, and wrote a book discussing Antifa. That has included years of criticism of Bray and his book.
Bray has long been a controversial figure in academia. In a 2017 Washington Post article titled, “Who are the Antifa?” Bray wrote, “Antifascists argue that after the horrors of chattel slavery and the Holocaust, physical violence against white supremacists is both ethically justifiable and strategically effective.”
Bray’s writings have rallied extremists to this cause for years.
One petition states that “Dr. Bray has regularly referred to mainstream conservative figures such as Bill O’Reilly as fascist while he calls for militant actions to be taken against these individuals. This is the kind of rhetoric that resulted in Charlie Kirk being assassinated last month.”
It also notes that Bray gives half of the proceeds from the “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” to defending arrested Antifa members.
Despite such criticism, I oppose efforts to fire Bray. There is no evidence that Bray has ever engaged in violence or criminal conduct. He is an academic with clearly extreme views, but to fire him is to become no better than Antifa itself — the most violent and anti-free speech movement in our country.
In his “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” Bray explained how Antifa is made up mainly of “anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists” who believe that “‘free speech’ … is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
Bray is now on the receiving end of a blind rage exactly like what Antifa has been unleashing against its targets for decades. He fled to Europe due to threats against him and his family. Whether you call it karma or irony, those who would thus intimidate him are no better than Antifa. His firing would be an assault on both free speech and academic freedom protections.
In the meantime, other Rutgers faculty and students are seeking to expel Turning Point. Their petition accuses Turning Point of “promoting hate speech and inciting violence against our community.” Professors, including Tia Kolbaba, an associate professor of religion at Rutgers, reportedly signed it.
These faculty members and students are demonstrating the same intolerance that long ago changed higher education into the ideological echo chamber it has become on the left.
Neither side is prepared to tolerate opposing views, and both believe that their rage is righteous, whereas the rage on the other side is dangerous.
Drawing the line on free speech rights is often a difficult one. In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,”I argue for universities to focus on conduct rather than the content of speech. Occupying buildings, harassing students, destroying property, and shouting down speakers are forms of conduct that should be subject to suspension or expulsion.
Another professor this week has also raised questions over off-campus conduct. Elias Cepeda, a journalist and English Professor at Northeastern Illinois University, was arrested with a loaded firearm and a large amount of ammunition outside of the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, the scene of violent protests.
Cepeda is a suspected Antifa member and has social posts calling ICE Nazis and calling for armed resistance. In response to Homeland Security posting about an incident of ICE officers being attacked by a man with a weed whacker, Cepeda responded, “First of all, the video you just posted showed your Nazi asses are lying. Secondly, we’d all be morally justified in taking your Nazi heads off with weed whackers.”
He recently declared, “There are things worse than a civil war.”
He has called for teachers to come armed to school to defend students from any ICE officers who show up. He then showed up armed at an ICE facility. He was later released.
If Cepeda committed a crime at the facility or made criminal threats, his conduct can and should be the basis for termination by the university. It is not clear what, if any, charges might be brought in the case.
Meanwhile, constitutional protections for speech do not mean that speech should not be condemned. This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer supported the “No Kings” protests and declared that people should be “forcefully rising up.” Commentators like former CNN host Don Lemon called on minorities to get guns so that they can defend themselves against federal law enforcement officers.
This speech is knowingly inflammatory at a time of rising political violence. They are the same voices that we have heard in every “age of rage.” But that is the price that we pay for free speech.
The costs of the path chosen by many at Rutgers, however, are far higher. Yielding to our anger will place us on the slippery slope of censorship. We can survive with Bray teaching at Rutgers. We cannot survive without free speech.
There has been a massive increase in Turning Point chapters and membership following the assassination of founder Charlie Kirk. Students who felt chilled in their ability to express their faith or values on campus stepped forward after the murder. That does not sit well with some faculty. One example is Derek Lopez, a teacher’s assistant and graduate student at Illinois State University, who was shown trashing a TPUSA table and mocking the shocked students. He was later arrested.
Lopez, 27, is shown on camera standing near the table, taunting the students and saying, “Well, you know, Jesus did it, so you know I gotta do it, right?” He then tosses the table and says, “Thanks, guys, have a great day.” He is then shown tearing down a flyer on a nearby bulletin board.
Lopez was presumably referring to Matthew 21:12 where Jesus turns over the tables of the money lenders in the Temple. In the passage, Jesus says “It is written. My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.”
It is a telling choice. For years, conservative values on campus have been viewed as virtually sacrilegious in a culture of increasing academic orthodoxy. This week we discussed how a leading academic journal ran a long column against intellectual diversity.
Lopez brings a new menacing meaning to the school slogan “gladly we learn and teach.” We have seen faculty engage in such violence and property destruction for years, particularly targeting TPUSA and other conservative groups.
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.
Once again, what is most striking about these individuals is the sense of license to engage in such violence conduct. Higher education has long created a sense of orthodoxy and intolerance on campuses.
The good news is that this individual was reportedly arrested. Presumably, Illinois State University will terminate his teaching position and expel him. There must be clear rules about such conduct in higher education. This type of political violence is anathema to an institution of higher learning.
It is sad that Lopez never embraced the diversity of thought and values that is so essential to a university. However, make no mistake about it, his warped concept of free speech is neither unique nor universally condemned on our campuses.
The problem, however, is not these attacks on displays, but the systemic purging of conservative and libertarian faculty from campuses where departments now largely run from the left to the far left. This academic echo chamber fuels even greater intolerance and the sense of license shown by individuals like Lopez.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has long been criticized for far-left policies and activism. Some of us have criticized the organization for ignoring academic priorities and the record-low polling on public trust in higher education. Its president, Todd Wolfson, is now taking that activism global with a boycott policy that leaves little room for faculty members who support Israel.
I previously criticized the selection of Wolfson as the head of the AAUP. Wolfson, a Rutgers University anthropologist and former union leader, is a highly political activist who doubled down on the ideological intolerance that now defines higher education. His election was a defiant statement by faculty members that they will not yield in preserving the current ideological echochamber in our universities and colleges. He promised to keep AAUP as a “fighting organization” for liberal causes.
Wolfson has made clear that there is little tolerance for opposing views on this far-left agenda. Many have analogized Wolfson to teacher union figures like American Federation of Teachers (AFT) chief Randi Weingarten in making the organization an extension of the Democratic Party. Wolfson used his position to oppose Trump’s reelection and has remained an outspoken voice in support of Democratic causes.
One of the issues that has been most divisive on our campuses is the support of Palestine and Israel. Rather than support the free speech rights of both sides, Wolfson and AAUP have abandoned neutrality to call for a weapons boycott of the Jewish state.
A recent interview with Inside Higher Ed contains Wolfson’s signature radical rhetoric in declaring that “Vance and Trump and [Christopher] Rufo and Stephen Miller and the ilk that run our government are fascist in a 21st-century variant.”
Wolfson also echoes the identity politics that have long characterized policies in higher education:
“Faculty and the press and people of color and women and gay people and trans people and anybody that’s not white, Christian nationalist, in the end, is othered. And then even within the white Christian nationalist community, if you’re not MAGA, or you care about a free press, or care about free inquiry, you’re othered.”
One notable element was how Wolfson explained the new foreign policy of the AAUP. He makes clear that the AAUP now believes that Israel must be cut off entirely from any weapons by the United States:
“We believe strongly that no weapons should be sent to Israel at all. Not defensive or offensive, nothing.
What do we do in the U.S., where antisemitism has been used as a weapon, in many ways, by the Trump administration to bring universities to heel—and many times stripping out, or threatening to strip out, hundreds of millions of research dollars that often affect Jewish faculty members? Versus what our position should be on the conflict in the Middle East?”
Notably, he stresses that Israel is guilty of genocide while pushing the new jingoistic term “scholasticide”:
“First and foremost, our job is to safeguard ourselves at home and to set a vision that aligns with what we’re trying to do in the United States. We need to stand up for academic freedom, for freedom of speech, for freedom of assembly for our students so they can protest the war—the genocide, excuse me—that’s taking place in Gaza.
We need to stand up to the weaponization of antisemitism in the Title VI process. And we need to make sure that we defend our members…
The number of universities and faculty and university presidents [in Gaza] that have been killed and universities that have been destroyed in this war is mammoth. We are certainly educating our members on this concept of scholasticide.
It seems pretty evident that they are—but if, in fact, Israel is purposefully destroying the educational infrastructure, both K–12 and higher ed, of Palestine, and of Gaza, that stands against our values of academic freedom. And if that’s the case, and we can unify around that, then we will take a stand and call for an end to the scholasticide.”
So now the AAUP is advocating a weapons boycott, including defensive weapons for a nation that its neighbors have repeatedly attacked? Many countries and groups have dedicated themselves to Israel’s destruction. We have protests in the United States calling for liberation “from the river to the sea,” a mantra viewed as a call for the eradication of Israel. Rather than call for peace and support for academics on both sides, the AAUP is seeking to disarm one side.
The new sloganeering about “scholasticide” would be more convincing if Wolfson were not the very face of ideological orthodoxy and intolerance in higher education. This generation of faculty and administrators has destroyed the intellectual diversity of our campuses. Just last week, the leading AAUP publication ran a long column against intellectual diversity.
What Wolfson and faculty members are doing today is the very definition of scholasticide by effectively purging conservative or libertarian faculty from departments and maintaining the current academic echo chamber. Applications and trust in higher education are plummeting. Yet, the response from the AAUP has been to double down on its political agenda and even adopt a foreign policy targeting Israel.
Given years of hiring faculty from the left to the far left, Wolfson can expect ongoing support from the ranks of the AAUP. However, the public, donors, and many legislators have had enough with the ideological agenda in academia. They are supporting programs that return to core educational priorities and promote a diversity of thought.
Unfortunately, the result will be the increasing balkanization of higher education. However, with Wolfson and the AAUP leading higher education off an ideological cliff, many will choose to get out of the car in this game of chicken. Regrettably, others will decide not to go into academia. We cannot allow this orthodoxy to lead us to give up on the academy. We have to stay and fight for the restoration of intellectual diversity and tolerance in higher education.
I recently wrote about the effort of leading politicians, pundits, and the press to deny the existence of Antifa as violence on the left rises around the country. Even Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) insisted that “nobody” knows what the left-wing terrorist organization Antifa is and that it does not exist. However, he previously promoted the “Antifa Handbook” in 2018 and praised the group as terrifying Trump. Rep. Dan Goldman (D., N.Y.) dared anyone to name a single member of Antifa. The Justice Department just named two in what is believed to be the first terrorism-related prosecution of Antifa members.
Federal prosecutors have charged two North Texas men, Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts, who are accused of helping orchestrate an attack on an ICE detention center in Alvarado. They are charged with providing material support to terrorists, attempted murder of officers and employees of the U.S., and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.
On the night of July 4, several masked individuals dressed in black vandalized vehicles and security cameras in the ICE parking lot and then opened fire on an Alvarado police officer who approached them, seriously wounding one officer.
According to the indictment, Cameron Arnold yelled, “Get to the rifles,” as police responded to the attack.
“Seconds later, coconspirator-1 [Arnold] opened fire on the officers, striking the Alvarado officer in the neck area as the unarmed correctional officers ducked and ran for cover. The wounded officer fell to the ground but was able to return a few shots. Coconspirator-1 continued to fire additional rounds until his rifle jammed. The attackers then left the scene.”
ICE found fliers bearing messages like, “FIGHT ICE TERROR WITH CLASS WAR!” and “FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS” at the scene.
The DOJ describes Antifa “as a militant enterprise made up of networks of individuals and small groups primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the U.S. government, law enforcement authorities, and the system of law.”
By design, Antifa avoids typical leadership hierarchies and organizational structures. Antifa was first created in the 1920s, associated with the Weimar-era German communist group Antifaschistische Aktion. It has always emphasized anonymity and secrecy to evade law enforcement in carrying out violent attacks.
The indictment details how this group used encryption systems to conceal their communication.
The group allegedly showed up with over 50 firearms that were purchased in Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Dallas, and other locations. That included numerous AR-platform rifles.
Former House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was widely ridiculed for denying the existence of Antifa.
Others on the left have joined Goldman in this absurd claim. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel committed part of his monologue to assure viewers that Antifa is no more than a mythical “chupacabra.” “You understand there is no Antifa,” he said. “This is an entirely made-up organization.”
The Administration clearly chose this case carefully for the first terrorism-related case. The level of concealment and coordination reinforces the view of an organizational identity and machine.
In the indictment, the government alleges that “Some Antifa Cell members discussed logistics, previous site reconnaissance, and locations of security cameras at the facility. They exchanged a map of Prarieland and the surrounding area that showed the locations of nearby police stations.” One individual allegedly said that one of the groups would be “bringing a wagon to hold armor and rifles.”
In the end, even if the terrorism-related charge fails, the remaining counts will be difficult to defeat as a whole, and the government only needs one or two counts to secure a lengthy prison sentence.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court held the long-awaited argument in Louisiana v. Callais, considering an appeal of Louisiana’s congressional map. The two majority-black districts are being challenged under the 15th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as unconstitutionally gerrymandered on the basis of race. The case could result in a rejection of race-based congressional districting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Notably, the Louisiana case was previously argued, but on the last day before the summer recess, the court issued an order setting the case for a second oral argument in the 2025-26 term. It later directed the litigants to file briefs addressing:
“whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority district violates either the 14th Amendment or the 15th Amendment, which bars the government from denying or restricting voting rights based on race.”
On Wednesday, I was addressing the annual conference of chief judges, speaking on the Supreme Court. I discussed some of the current cases, including Louisiana v. Callais. I noted that there may now be a majority in favor of a significant change on Section 2, but that some of us would be listening for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett as indicators of the Court balance.
We did hear from Kavanaugh and Barrett and the challengers could take heart in the skepticism that they expressed over the indefinite use of race in such districting.
The oral argument took an interesting turn when Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sought to push back on the need to show a discriminatory intent. She interjected:
“I guess I’m thinking of it, of the fact that remedial action, absent discriminatory intent, is really not a new idea in the civil rights laws. And my kind of paradigmatic example of this is something like the ADA. Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act against the backdrop of a world that was generally not accessible to people with disabilities.
And so it was discriminatory in effect because these folks were not able to access these buildings. And it didn’t matter whether the person who built the building or the person who owned the building intended for them to be exclusionary. That’s irrelevant.
Congress said the facilities have to be made equally open to people with disabilities if readily possible. I guess I don’t understand why that’s not what’s happening here. The idea in Section 2 is that we are responding to current-day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities and make it so that they don’t have equal access to the voting system.
They’re disabled. In fact, we use the word disabled in Milligan. We say that’s a way in which you see that these processes are not equally open.”
Justice Jackson appears to be referring to this paragraph in Allen v. Milligan:
“Individuals thus lack an equal opportunity to participate in the political process when a State’s electoral structure operates in a manner that “minimize[s] or cancel[s] out the[ir] voting strength.” Id., at 47. That occurs where an individual is disabled from “enter[ing] into the political process in a reliable and meaningful manner” “in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise.” White, 412 U. S., at 767, 770. A district is not equally open, in other words, when minority voters face—unlike their majority peers—bloc voting along racial lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial discrimination within the State, that renders a minority vote unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter.” (emphasis added)
The court was not making an analogy to the ADA (though, in fairness to Justice Jackson, she was not suggesting that it made that point). It is also worth noting that Chief Justice John Roberts wrote:
“We have understood the language of §2 against the background of the hard-fought compromise that Congress struck. To that end, we have reiterated that §2 turns on the presence of discriminatory effects, not discriminatory intent.”
Milligan was deeply fractured and the question is whether five justices would now elect to set aside or reframe some of these former rulings.
During the oral argument, Roberts seemed to do precisely that in the use of Milligan, remarking “That case took the existing precedent as a given, it was a case in which we were considering Alabama’s particular challenge based on … what turned out to be an improper evidentiary showing.”
Moreover, Justice Kavanaugh (who was one of the concurrences in Milligan) suggested that we might have reached “the end point” on such race-based districting: “[T]his Court’s cases in a variety of contexts have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, decades in some cases, but … they should not be indefinite and should have a[n] end point.”
Now, back to the ADA analogy.
The disabled face permanent and ongoing physical disabilities in accessing buildings and spaces. While Jackson was stressing that intent does not matter when it comes to discrimination against the disabled, the question of the other justices is whether the use of race-based districts will continue indefinitely. The ADA is permanent because the disabilities are permanent. The analogy plays into the very point of justices like Kavanaugh on whether race-based districting would continue ad infinitum.
If the oral argument is a reflection of the eventual votes of the justices, there now seems to be a working majority of justices willing to bring “an end point” to race-based districting. The result would have tremendous legal and political impact.
Legally, one of the most litigated areas of elections would be largely curtailed. The Voting Rights Act would still be used to prevent measures to inhibit voting and to protect the right to vote for every citizen. However, the constant districting controversies over guaranteeing majority black districts would come to an end.
The move would also be a major additional move of the Roberts court to eliminate the use of race-based classifications in society from college admissions to election districting. In a 2007 case, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that position most succinctly by declaring that the “way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
Politically, any loss of such gerrymandering on the basis of race could impact the Democrats who hold the vast majority of these districts.
Of course, the Court could again fracture as it did in Milligan on the rationale for any opinion. What was notable about the oral argument is that there appeared to be at least five justices considering a threshold rejection of race-based districting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
We previously discussed the case of B.A. v. Tri County Area Schools, where two middle schoolers in Michigan were prevented from wearing “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirts. However, a divided panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled that the school district was within its authority to ban the sweatshirts. The decision, in my view, is wrong, and this could prove a viable case for Supreme Court review, assuming that the plaintiffs will not seek an en banc review.
“Let’s Go Brandon!” has become a similarly unintended political battle cry not just against Biden but also against the bias of the media. It derives from an Oct. 2 interview with race-car driver Brandon Brown after he won his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race. During the interview, NBC reporter Kelli Stavast’s questions were drowned out by loud and clear chants of “F*** Joe Biden.” Stavast quickly and inexplicably declared, “You can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’”
In this case, an assistant principal (Andrew Buikema) and a teacher (Wendy Bradford) “ordered the boys to remove the sweatshirts” for allegedly breaking the school dress code. However, other students were allowed to don political apparel with other political causes, including “gay-pride-themed hoodies.”
The district dress code states the following:
“Students and parents have the right to determine a student’s dress, except when the school administration determines a student’s dress is in conflict with state policy, is a danger to the students’ health and safety,isobscene,isdisruptivetotheteachingand/orlearning environment by calling undue attention to oneself. The dress code may be enforced by any staff member.”
The district reserves the right to bar any clothing “with messages or illustrations that are lewd, indecent, vulgar, or profane, or that advertise any product or service not permitted by law to minors.”
The funny thing about this action is that the slogan is not profane. To the contrary, it substitutes non-profane words for profane words. Nevertheless, “D.A.” was stopped in the hall by Buikema and told that his “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirt was equivalent to “the f–word.”
Sixth Circuit Judge John Nalbandian was joined by Judge Karen Nelson Moore in holding that, under the “vulgarity exception,” the action was constitutional:
“The Constitution doesn’t hamstring school administrators when they are trying to limit profanity and vulgarity in the classroom during school hours. Again, students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” But neither are school administrators powerless to prevent student speech that the administrators reasonably understand to be profane or vulgar. And so “the First Amendment gives a … student the classroom right to wear Tinker’s armband, but not Cohen’s jacket.” Schools are charged with teaching students the “fundamental values necessary to the maintenance of a democratic political system.” And avoiding “vulgar and offensive terms in public discourse” is one such value. After all, “[e]ven the most heated political discourse in a democratic society requires consideration for the personal sensibilities of the other participants and audiences.” …
[A] euphemism is not the same as the explicitly vulgar or profane word it replaces. “Heck” is not literally the same word as “Hell.” But the word’s communicative content is the same even if the speaker takes some steps to obscure the offensive word. The plaintiffs concede that a school could prohibit students from saying “Fuck Joe Biden” because “[k]ids can’t say ‘fuck’ at school.” And yet they insist that the euphemism “Let’s Go Brandon” is distinct—even though many people understand that slogan to mean “Fuck Joe Biden.” So it’s not clear that the school administrators acted unreasonably in determining that the euphemism still conveyed that vulgar message.
After all, Fraser—the first case that recognized the vulgarity exception—involved a school assembly speech that had a rather elaborate sexual metaphor instead of explicitly vulgar or obscene words. And yet the Supreme Court had no reservation in holding that the school was not required to tolerate “lewd, indecent, or offensive speech and conduct.” And it was up to the school to determine “what manner of speech in the classroom or in school assembly is inappropriate.” Because “[t]he pervasive sexual innuendo in Fraser’s speech was plainly offensive to both teachers and students—indeed to any mature person,” the school could discipline his speech despite the absence of explicitly obscene or vulgar words. And so Fraser demonstrates that a school may regulate speech that conveys an obscene or vulgar message even when the words used are not themselves obscene or vulgar.”
In fairness to the majority, courts have been highly deferential to school officials in these areas, particularly in the Sixth Circuit. In Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court famously declared that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” That may be true, but apparently, they can shed their sweatshirts in Michigan.
Judge John Bush offered a spirited dissent, stating:
“[T]he speech here—”Let’s Go Brandon!”—is neither vulgar nor profane on its face, and therefore does not fall into [the Fraser] exception. To the contrary, the phrase is purely political speech. It criticizes a political official—the type of expression that sits “at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect.” No doubt, its euphemistic meaning was offensive to some, particularly those who supported President Biden. But offensive political speech is allowed in school, so long as it does not cause disruption under Tinker. As explained below, Tinker is the standard our circuit applied to cases involving Confederate flag T-shirts and a hat depicting an AR-15 rifle—depictions arguably more offensive than “Let’s Go Brandon!” …
The majority says the sweatshirts’ slogan is crude. But neither the phrase itself nor any word in it has ever been bleeped on television, radio, or other media. Not one of the “seven words you can never say on television” appears in it . Instead, the phrase has been used to advance political arguments, primarily in opposition to President Biden’s policies and secondarily to complain about the way liberal-biased media treats conservatives. It serves as a coded critique—a sarcastic catchphrase meant to express frustration, resentment, and discontent with political opponents. The phrase has been used by members of Congress during debate. And even President Biden himself, attempting to deflect criticism, “agreed” with the phrase.
We cannot lose sight of a key fact: the students’ sweatshirts do not say “F*ck Joe Biden.” Instead, they bear a sanitized phrase made famous by sports reporter Kelli Stavast while interviewing NASCAR race winner Brandon Brown at the Talladega Superspeedway. The reporter said the crowd behind them was yelling “Let’s go, Brandon!” She did not report the vulgar phrase that was actually being chanted. The Majority even concedes Stavast may have used the sanitized phrase to “put a fig leaf over the chant’s vulgarity.” That is telling….”
Judge Bush is correct. The opinion constitutes a significant infringement on the free speech rights of students. I readily admit that I am critical of some past cases, including Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007), where the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Juneau-Douglas High School could suspend student Joseph Frederick after he displayed a banner reading “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS” across the street from the school during the 2002 Winter Olympics torch relay. In my view, the courts have honored Tinker largely in the breach in such cases.
This case, however, involves a sweatshirt without a single vulgar term and a clear political message. It reflects a difference in the default position of both sides. The default in close cases for the majority is with the school’s authority to curtail speech, while the default of Judge Bush is with free speech. As Judge Bush noted:
“Because even offensive political speech demands First Amendment protection, it is inappropriate to delegate unfettered discretion to school officials to characterize the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon!” as vulgar and then regulate it outside the bounds of Tinker. The majority essentially gives school administrators boundless discretion—akin to “I know it when I see it,” Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring)—to redefine facially non-vulgar speech as vulgarity in order to ban it.”
The plaintiffs should appeal this opinion. They have a strong dissent from Judge Bush and a strong free speech case to make either to the full court or the Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge David Nye just rejected a last-minute effort to scuttle a Supreme Court case on transgender athletes. The Little v. Hecox lawsuit was initially filed by Lindsay Hecox in 2020, challenging a state law barring the biologically male athlete from joining the women’s cross-country team at Boise State. After winning before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review. Hecox clearly did not like the prospects on appeal and sought to withdraw the case after the granting of certiorari. Judge Nye just denied that effort.
In the lawsuit, Nye was joined by an anonymous biological female student, Jane Doe, who objected to the sex dispute verification process.
Judge Nye denied the motion to dismiss as too late, ruling that “[Idaho] has a fair right to have its arguments heard and adjudicated once and for all.” He added that “the Court feels [Hecox’s] mootness argument is, as above, somewhat manipulative to avoid Supreme Court review and should not be endorsed.”
After a district court ruled for Hecox, the Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction blocking the state law in 2023. Counsel for Hecox argued that the athlete “has … decided to permanently withdraw and refrain from playing any women’s sports at BSU or in Idaho.”
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney Kristen Waggoner argued against the effort to drop the litigation before the Supreme Court could rule.
This is one of two cases focused on the issue of trans athletes in women’s sports to be heard by the Supreme Court this term. The prospects, in my view, favor the challengers on appeal and a ruling in favor of such state laws.
West Virginia is also appealing to restore the “Save Women’s Sports Act” in 2021, after a lower court allowed transgender athlete Becky Pepper-Jackson to compete on the school’s cross-country and track teams. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Pepper-Jackson.
One case that will not be before the Court is Lee v. Poudre School District R-1, involving parental rights. The Colorado case concerned two Colorado families whose sixth-grade daughters were encouraged to attend a school-sponsored Genders and Sexualities Alliance meeting. At the meeting, a teacher distributed transgender flags and allegedly encouraged students to “come out.” Students were told not to tell their parents.
In a statement accompanying the denial, Justice Samuel Alito noted that public school policies such as the one in this case are “troubling” and “tragic.”
Back to Little v. Hecox, we have previously seen the Court struggle with litigants gaming the system to pull out of an appeal just before the Court could rule. That was the case with New York when it moved to avoid a ruling on gun control laws and ultimately succeeded in getting a dismissal over the objections of some justices.
The ruling this week will now likely be appealed, setting up another “bait-and-switch” controversy before the Court.
I previously criticized the new Pentagon policies for media organizations. While the Trump Administration made some changes, the rules remained unduly restrictive and unprecedented. As a result, virtually every news organization, including Fox News, refused to sign the agreements at the deadline — a decision that I strongly support.
The changes will effectively bar most media from the Pentagon, undermining the department’s ability to work with reporters to ensure accurate reporting on military operations.
The Pentagon Press Association objected last week that a revised policy still seeks to prohibit journalists from soliciting unauthorized information in addition to accessing it. It said that the rules appeared to be “designed to stifle a free press and potentially expose us to prosecution for simply doing our jobs.”
The PPA added that the revised policy “conveys an unprecedented message of intimidation to everyone within the DoD, warning against any unapproved interactions with the press and even suggesting it’s criminal to speak without express permission – which plainly, it is not”.
The relationship with the press can be strained at times, and tensions with the Trump Administration are notoriously high. However, this is a “beat” that requires close and ongoing communications to keep the media (and the public) fully informed of military policies and programs.
The organizations refusing to sign include outlets that are viewed as supportive of the Trump Administration with large conservative audiences.
Many of us have joined the Trump Administration in criticizing the bias of most media outlets. Indeed, the public reflects the same criticism in polling with the media at record lows of public trust. However, this move is gratuitous and self-defeating.
Despite the anger at the media and the need for serious reforms in many outlets, we need to protect the free press, which plays a critical role in our constitutional system.
Thus far, only One America News Network has agreed to the new regulations.
As I stated earlier, I am dubious about possible legal challenges over access to the Pentagon. Other agencies such as the CIA do not allow general access to the media. The Administration, in my view, has the advantage in any challenges over such rules.
We previously discussed how the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) elected an outspoken activist as its president. The selection of Todd Wolfson, a Rutgers University anthropologist, was viewed by many as the AAUP doubling down on support for academic activism and opposition to intellectual diversity. Now the leading AAUP publication, Academe, has run ‘Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity.’ Written by Lisa Siraganian, the J. R. Herbert Boone Chair in Humanities and professor at Johns Hopkins University, the essay repeats the tired rationalizations of faculty members to excuse their purging of schools of dissenting and largely conservative or libertarian voices.
In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss these arguments to justify the current levels of intolerance and orthodoxy in higher education. Siraganian’s essay is particularly transparent in the effort to dismiss opposing views without seriously addressing the range of objections to the current state of academia.
Siraganian focuses on the effort of the Trump Administration to force universities to restore greater diversity in faculty hiring and teaching. I opposed some of those efforts. While I agree with the need for such changes on faculties (and do not believe that faculty members like Siraganian will ever embrace diversity of thought), I do not like the government dictating such changes.
For liberals, it is impossible to deny the purging of faculties to create an academic echo chamber.
That ideological echo chamber is hardly an enticement for many who are facing rising high tuition costs with relatively little hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views.
There are obviously many reasons why faculty may reject Trump specifically, but this poll also tracks more generally the self-identification and contributions of faculty.
A Georgetown study recently found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll.
There is little evidence that faculty members are interested in changing this culture or creating greater diversity at schools. In places like North Carolina State University a study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 20 to 1.
Harvard has repeatedly 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.
Harvard has long dismissed calls for greater free speech protections or intellectual diversity. It shows.
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.”
Consider that, 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% nationally.
Among law school faculty who have donated more than $200 to a political party, a breathtaking 91 percent of the Harvard faculty gave to democrats.
The student body exhibits the same biased selection. Harvard Crimson previously found that only 7 percent of incoming students identified as conservative. For the vast majority of liberal faculty and students, Harvard amplifies rather than stifles their viewpoints.
This does not happen randomly. Indeed, if a business reduced the number of women or minorities to less than 5 percent, a court would likely find de facto discrimination.
Yet, Kennedy rejected the notion that the elite school should strive to “look more like America.”
It is not just that schools like Harvard “do not look like America,” it does not even look like liberal Massachusetts, which is almost 30 percent Republican.
Our students are being educated by faculty taken from the same liberal elite of just 26 percent of our nation. I have never argued for the hiring of Republicans or the imposition of a partisan quota. Rather, the surveys and self-identification of faculty are one of the few objective means to show how lopsided the ideological balance has become in our schools.
Some sites like Above the Law have supported the exclusion of conservative faculty. Senior Editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” by arguing that hiring a conservative law professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach at a university.
Unable to deny this ideological cleansing of departments, faculty are creating a rationalization for their ideological bias. They declare opposing views as “dangerous” or intellectually lazy.
Notably, Siraganian argues that intellectual diversity can only be defended on “instrumental” grounds. My book criticized “functionalist” or instrumental arguments as rejecting core free speech values based on natural or autonomous values. Adopting functionalist models allows for endless trade-offs in speech.
The same is true for intellectual diversity. Intellectual diversity is not supported as a value in itself but only to the extent that it advances what faculty like Siraganian view as the truth or valid conclusions. Even if one were to confine support for intellectual diversity to its instrumental values, these advocates downplay the value of ideological diversity as key to any institution of higher education. She dismisses such claims, saying that “the pursuit of truth and the value of different opinions—do not work together seamlessly.”
The result, however, is the virtual jettisoning of real diversity. Higher education is currently “seamless” in running from the left to the far left.
I have spoken with various university presidents who privately admit that they want greater intellectual diversity but that departments refuse to make serious efforts to restore such balance. The AAUP and Siraganian are examples of why faculty members will not willingly diversify their ranks. They are now rationalizing their bias and intolerance through righteous rationalizations, claiming they are simply protecting students from harmful or subpar ideas.
Polling indicates that trust in higher education has hit a record low among the public. More importantly, numerous surveys consistently show that the intolerance of faculty members and the lack of diversity have chilled students, who are afraid to share their views in classrooms or on campuses.
Notably, many of these universities have overwhelmingly liberal faculties and student bodies; however, over 90 percent of students in some schools no longer feel comfortable speaking freely in classrooms. At Harvard, only a third of students feel comfortable speaking freely.
The current generation of faculty and administrators has destroyed higher education by destroying diversity of thought and free speech on our campuses. The effort of the AAUP and faculty like Siraganian to rationalize the basis for this intolerance is evidence of the hold of such bias. Faculty members would prefer to allow higher education to plunge to even lower levels of trust and applications than to allow for greater diversity in their departments.
Once again, we cannot rely on faculty members to restore balance. We will need to focus on donors (as well as public-funding legislative bodies) to withhold money from these departments. Universities will not allow for opposing or dissenting views unless they have little financial choice. In this sense, we need to focus on public universities as the best ground to fight for diversity of thought. These schools, directly subject to First Amendment protections, can offer an alternative to schools like Johns Hopkins and Harvard for those who want to learn in a more diverse environment.
Below is my column on the rise of Antifa deniers in Washington. Once embraced and even marketed on the left, Antifa has become the group that must not be named as political violence rises across the country. It does not matter that radicals identify as Antifa, coordinate protests, carry Antifa flags, wear signature clothing, and espouse the same ideas from the “Antifa handbook.” There have even been people elected as Antifa representatives. Yet, the current spin is to pretend that they do not exist as a single organization to deflect the debate over violence on the left. Even with the past and current FBI directors saying that they exist as a group, politicians are mocking those who object to Antifa, even journalists and others targeted by its members.
This week, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) claimed that “nobody” knows what the left-wing terrorist organization Antifa is and that it does not exist. However, he previously promoted the “Antifa Handbook” in 2018 and praised the group as terrifying Trump. Now, however, he has joined the chorus of Antifa denials as political violence rises around the country.
Here is the column:
Roughly seventy years ago, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover famously declared, “There is no organized crime in America.” Hoover’s stubborn denial of the existence of the mafia continued despite ample evidence to the contrary, from arrests to congressional testimony.
Many have speculated on why Hoover maintained his stubborn denial. Perhaps, they say, he was trying to avoid the political embarrassment of long ignoring the single largest criminal network in the country.
Many today seem to be adopting a Hoover-esque wilful blindness about another violent group: Antifa.
Politicians and pundits are denying that the left-wing anarchist group exists, mocking President Trump’s designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) seemed to morph into Hoover before our very eyes, including a posting in which he challenged anyone to “name one member of ‘Antifa.’”
Former House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) was widely ridiculed for denying the existence of Antifa.
Others on the left have joined Goldman in this absurd claim. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel committed part of his monologue to assure viewers that Antifa is no more than a mythical “chupacabra.” “You understand there is no Antifa,” he said. “This is an entirely made-up organization.”
By design, Antifa avoids typical leadership hierarchies and organizational structures. Antifa was first created in the 1920s, associated with the Weimar-era German communist group Antifaschistische Aktion.
It is easy to satisfy Goldman’s demand in naming some members, since they self-identify as members of Antifa. One such student came from my campus and proclaimed that Antifa was winning after his arrest for property destruction.
When another radical was arrested after taking an axe to a congressional office, he self-identified as a member of Antifa.
Before Kyle Benjamin Douglas Calvert, 26, implanted an IED device outside of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office in downtown Montgomery, he put up stickers reading “support your local Antifa.”
Numerous Antifa members have been arrested, including some who claimed to be journalists.
Many protesters belong to Antifa groups that have names like “Rose City Antifa” and offshoots like Love and Rage and Mexico’s Amor Y Rabia. Antifa members have been elected to the French and European parliaments.
Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” called by some the “Antifa bible,” explains that the group is united in its opposition to free speech. “Most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists,” he writes. “From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
Ironically, when many on the left are not denying its existence, they are rallying their members or actually selling Antifa merchandise. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison — now the Minnesota attorney general — proclaimed that Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer.
But ,with Antifa violence on the rise, Democratic leaders have gone back to denying its existence even as Antifa deploys its signature black hoodies and masks.
Indeed, some liberal activists admit to having coordinated violent protests with Antifa groups. For example, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Dwayne Dixon was a member of the radical gun club Redneck Revolt, a group recently referenced in flyers quoting the assassin of Charlie Kirk to rally the left. The flyers read, “Hey, Fascist! Catch! The only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.”
During a panel at Harvard University, Dixon reportedly admitted that an Antifa-linked group requested his gun club to provide security during the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia: “Prior to that day, as the planning for the defense of Charlottesville proceeded, the local Anarchist People of Color Collective … had requested that Redneck Revolt be present to secure Justice Park for a wide variety of activists who were expected to assemble.”
The denial of the existence of an actual group is meant to deflect the discussion of the rising violence from the left, as these same politicians fuel the rage with reckless rhetoric. But they’re not so good at keeping their story straight. While whipping up the mob with claims that democracy is dying and comparing their opponents to Nazis, they deny the existence of the very group that politicians like Ellison praise for targeting conservatives.
Hoover declined to admit the mafia existed until, on November 14, 1957, dozens of mobsters were found meeting in a farmhouse in Apalachin, New York.
What is different is that Antifa has repeatedly had such farmhouse moments, with prosecutions revealing a national movement with self-identified members. So why the denial? These are the shock troops for some politicians who think that they can use the violent group for political advantage. They are mistaken. Antifa is unlikely to have much use for establishment liberals once it gains more power.
Until then, Antifa can count on the Goldmans of the world to give them cover in denying that they exist.
In the film “The Usual Suspects,” the character Verbal Kint offered this explanation for the invisible villain Keyser Söze: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed the long-anticipated “Responsible Gun Manufacturing Act,” Assembly Bill 1127, a law that may now trigger a major challenge under the Second Amendment. The law banned the Glock semi-automatic handguns that are a favorite of American gun owners, including former Vice President Kamala Harris.
The law constitutes one of the most ambitious gun bans since the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) that gun ownership is an individual right. At the time, Justice Antonin Scalia stressed that the Second Amendment protects all types of firearms “in common use at the time” for “lawful purposes like self-defense.”
Gun control advocates have been chipping away at this concept by arguing that a variety of popular weapons, such as the AR-15, cannot be considered “in common use at the time” of the ratification.
Scalia, however, joined Justice Clarence Thomas in 2015 in a dissent in the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, involving a local ban on semi-automatic firearms. Thomas wrote that “several Courts of Appeals… have upheld categorical bans on firearms that millions of Americans commonly own for lawful purposes” and that such rulings are “noncompliance with our Second Amendment precedents.”
Thomas noted that such rulings suggested that states could ban “AR-style semiautomatic rifles” even though an “overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.”
In the case of the AR-15, an estimated one in 20 Americans own such weapons. The Glock is even more popular. In 2021 alone, industry data shows that Glock produced 581,944 handguns with another 465,117 in 2022. It is also the weapon of choice for an estimated over 65 percent of law enforcement agencies.
Notably, we previously discussed how Vice President Kamala Harris made a less-than-convincing pitch to gun owners during her presidential run after years of calling for gun bans. She hailed her Glock as a cherished companion. As it became apparent that Harris was losing men generally, the campaign made ham-handed efforts to reinvent Harris. In a softball interview with Oprah, Harris declared that she is a gun owner and “if somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot.”
When liberals like CBS’s Bill Whitaker expressed shock at her new gun-toting persona on the campaign trail, he asked if she actually fired it. Harris then did her best Rooster Cogburn, who noted “Well a gun that ain’t loaded, ain’t much good for nuthin.”
When she was the San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris was one of the signatories on the District Attorneys’ amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller, in support of the handgun ban.
It convinced no one.
The California law will now take effect on July 1, 2026, “[banning] the sale of new Glock-brand pistols and Glock-style clones.” In my view, it is unconstitutional under prior Supreme Court precedent.
Democrats previously called for banning “Glock switches” that can be affixed to the rear of a Glock slide to make the pistol shoot full auto. However, such switches are already unlawful. They are now going after the gun itself, confirming the objections of gun rights groups that such early bans were moves to lay the foundation to ban semiautomatic weapons generally.
That seems borne out by the language of the bill. The text of AB 1127 says:
“A ‘machinegun-convertible pistol’ as any semiautomatic pistol with a cruciform trigger bar that can be readily converted by hand or with common household tools into a machinegun by the installation or attachment of a pistol converter, as specified, and “pistol converter” as any device or instrument that, when installed in or attached to the rear of the slide of a semiautomatic pistol, replaces the backplate and interferes with the trigger mechanism and thereby enables the pistol to shoot automatically more than one shot by a single function of the trigger.”
The legislation makes repeated reference to any weapon that can be “equipped with a pistol converter.” Thus, even though the Glock switches are unlawful, criminals still use them and thus the gun itself falls under this category as a “machine-gun convertible” weapon.
The Supreme Court has fueled these laws by repeatedly turning down review of bans. States like Illinois outlawed some of the most commonly used rifles and magazines in America. In Bevis v. City of Naperville, the Seventh Circuit overturned the district court’s preliminary injunction against enforcement of the ban on the basis that the plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail.
While various Supreme Court Justices have expressed disagreement with Bevis, the Court refused to take up the case. However, Justice Kavanaugh said that the Court is likely to grant certiorari “in the next Term or two.”
Princeton University announced this week that it will be reinstating the requirement for undergraduate applicants to submit standardized test scores in the 2027–28 admissions cycle. It is only the latest reversal for an ill-conceived and poorly supported movement to achieve greater equity and diversity by eliminating standardized testing in higher education.
Years ago, I wrote columns on the move by many academics to eliminate standardized testing to achieve greater diversity in colleges and universities. 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.
The University of California system was an early supporter of this ridiculous move. Notably, academics in the California system came to the same conclusion as some of us who denounced the move. These tests not only have the most significant predictive value for performance but also play an important role in the advancement of minority students. University of California President Janet Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.
Napolitano responded to such criticism with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students. The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.
Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”
Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.” In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.
That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted. So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions. The system would go to a “test-blind” system until it developed its own test.
Ending standardized testing had an obvious secondary purpose in frustrating new legal challenges on the use of race in college admissions. Last November, Californians rejected a resolution to restore affirmative action in college admissions.
MIT, Penn, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and other schools ultimately reverted to standardized testing. The fact that these schools even joined this movement shows how faculties and administrators jettisoned educational standards for popular causes.
While originally rationalized due to COVID, the move was widely heralded as a victory for equity and diversity. Notably, the policy outlasted COVID as many academics rejected standardized testing as racist. There have even been calls for random selection of students to achieve greater racial diversity.
In the case of Princeton, the faculty took years to give itself sufficient cover to return to standardized testing by studying the obvious. The announcement comes after a five-year review of data, showing that students who submitted test scores generally performed better academically at Princeton than those who did not.
Just as with earlier studies, a new working paper published on the National Bureau of Economic Research website finds that standardized test scores are stronger predictors of college performance than high school GPA, even after controlling for race, gender, and socioeconomic status.
GPA scores are notoriously unreliable due to grade inflation and varying standards across different schools. In San Francisco, “grading for equity” is a goal in public schools. The slipping standards recently became evident when Harvard had to create a course to teach basic high school math to its students.
Columbia remains the last Ivy League holdout in dispensing with mandatory standardized testing.
Below is my column in the New York Post on how Madison’s famous objective of making “ambition … counteract ambition” in the constitutional system depends on the right type of ambition. Today, some members exhibit an ambition that transcends any institutional or constitutional interests. They act more like social media influencers than constitutional actors. One of the best examples is New York Rep. Dan Goldman, who vividly shows the distinction between partisan and institutional interests in a Madisonian system.
Here is the column:
In Federalist No. 51, James Madison famously wrote that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” He believed that members of each branch would jealously protect their own institutions from the other branches.
Of course, Madison never met Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.). Goldman is an example of how the wrong type of ambition can destroy Congress if it becomes widespread among members.
This week, both Republican and Democratic members raised alarm over the disclosure that Special Counsel Jack Smith tracked the telephone calls by members of both houses of Congress.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) stated, “On the surface of it, it would strike me as a significant invasion of the right of Senators to conduct their jobs, so this is something that needs urgent follow-up.”
But one member rushed forward to dismiss such institutional concerns as much ado about nothing. Goldman attacked the victims as legitimate targets to help “confirm Trump’s effort to overturn the election.”
Goldman has long been viewed as the face of rage politics in Washington. He often uses hearings to attack witnesses and political opponents. His signature style involves heaping insults on witnesses and then immediately “reclaiming his time” to prevent them from answering his accusations.
Yet what makes Goldman so notable is his consistent denial of abuses by Democrats, no matter what the evidence may show. Goldman has made himself indispensable as someone who is willing to deny the obvious while attacking anyone who dabbles in reality.
If denial were an art form, Dan Goldman would be the Botticelli of the Beltway.
With the increase in political violence on the left, many are joining in condemning such violent groups on the left as Antifa.
Not Goldman. He rushed forward to deny that Antifa was a real group, demanding that people name just one person who claimed to be a member of Antifa. For those of us who have testified and written about Antifa for years, it was another bizarre moment. Groups like Portland’s Rose City Antifa are some of the oldest such groups in the country and extremists have routinely identified themselves as Antifa. Even far-left activists have acknowledged coordinated protests with Antifa groups.
Goldman’s denials can even leave CNN hosts gobsmacked. This week, Goldman challenged claims that there has been a significant increase in attacks on ICE officers. After attacking ICE officers as “violent,” he objected that people “keep talking about a 1000% upswing and all this stuff, I haven’t seen examples of that.” He was literally saying that when other networks were showing such attacks. As CNN hosts and guests described the attacks as “terrible,” Goldman dismissed the accounts of widespread attacks as little more than rumors.
If there is some partisan abuse that even Goldman would not dismiss, it is clearly not censorship. Goldman attacked witnesses seeking to expose the censorship system during the Biden Administration, again dismissing the suppression of opposing views.
It also clearly does not include influence peddling. Goldman was the main denier of Biden family operations that yielded millions. Even as former associates supported these accounts and communications confirmed the allegations, Goldman was still discarding the evidence and calling evidence of corruption as mere “niceties.”
Long after the Hunter Biden laptop was authenticated and major media organizations admitted that they were wrong in dismissing the evidence, Goldman continued to call it a “myth” and attacked those raising evidence that Hunter shook down foreign figures.
When Hunter defied a congressional subpoena while holding a mocking press conference outside of the Capitol building, Goldman defended him.
Despite this history, there was a lingering thought that the tracking of calls by members of Congress might finally prove a bridge too far — even for Goldman. After all, these records of past calls can expose whistleblowers, journalists and other citizens who are seeking help from their representatives.
Goldman, however, again went on X to blast members who objected to having their communications seized by the government — despite the fact that Democratic members also expressed concerns over the implications of this move.
Goldman attacked one of the victims, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and declared (in the ultimate act of transference) “you are shameless.” Goldman first attempted to parse the meaning of surveillance by noting that only the record of past calls and their times were seized (ignoring that such information conveys identifying information and details on communications). He then resumed his signature attack by claiming, “You laundered Russian misinformation in 2020 and then communicated with the WH on Jan 6.”
Putting aside accusations of Goldman as spreading disinformation in his denials, the targets of these orders include not just Johnson but eight other members.
While Goldman refuses to accept facts that show abuses by the left, he is quick to allege facts without a scintilla of support in attacking the right. Thus, when the home of Judge Diane Schafer Goodstein burned down in South Carolina, Goldman rushed to social media to blame Republicans for the fire. He demanded to know why there was no condemnation for “the extreme right” for the “arson.”
The reason is that some tend to wait for the facts to be established. Goldman did not even hold back until the preliminary findings of the fire department, which announced that there was no evidence of arson. The fire remains under investigation.
In the end, our system can withstand a few Goldmans in either party. Our constitution has survived Goldmans for centuries. He is the same guy that we have heard in every age of rage.
The true tragedy is that the voters of New York’s District 10 relish his form of politics. He knows his audience. Many voters want blind wrath and they found the perfect representative in Dan Goldman.
I am returning today from a speech in Boise, Idaho. I love coming to Idaho and Boise in the “Treasure Valley” is always a delight. This city was initially founded as a fort along the Oregon Trail and grew rapidly during the Gold Rush. It remains an American gem, a quiet and graceful city along the Boise River.
For urban dwellers, the friendliness of everyone is striking. Everyone greets you with a giant smile and eagerness. It takes a while to dispel a certain suspicion, but they cannot all be serial killers. It just happens to be a city filled with wonderful people who genuinely want to help you.
Unfortunately, this was a brief trip and I could not get out on the trails. However, here are a few pics. I started by having a burger at Fork, a favorite eating spot known for its fried asparagus.
I visited the State Capitol building, which was built in 1863 when this was still a territory. It was not until July 3, 1890, that Idaho became the 43rd state. The statue with the shoes is the Idaho Women’s Suffrage Commemorative Sculpture to celebrate the trailblazing women of this state. It is the work of local sculptor Irene Deely.
As someone who has taught torts (including defamation) for three decades, I pay close attention to defamation claims coming out of campaigns. I often question the viability of such claims given the higher burden for public officials and public figures under controlling defamation cases. However, a claim during the New Jersey gubernatorial debate between Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Republican Jack Ciattarelli, may have triggered a viable torts case. It occurred when Sherrill accused Ciattarelli of “killing thousands.”
Ciattarelli is threatening a defamation lawsuit and it is no idle threat.
The moment came in the debate after Ciattarelli hit Sherrill for first expressing sympathy for Charlie Kirk after his assassination, but then flipping when the left responded with rage and “calling him a misogynist and a racist.”
Rep. Sherrill responded by condemning Ciattarelli for owning a medical publishing business. However, Ciattarelli then noted that he at least “got to walk at my graduation.” It was a reference to Rep. Sherrill not being allowed to walk at her graduation from the United States Naval Academy, reportedly due to her unspecified involvement in a cheating scandal.
Sherrill shot back with “I’m so glad you went on to kill tens of thousands of people in New Jersey, including children.”
It is the most dangerous legal moment for campaign lawyers when your candidate strikes out in the heat of a debate. What is interesting is that Sherrill then seemed to double down. She told USA Today that
“I guess, to me, it’s not a leap to say that somebody… who was printing [the opioid companies’] misinformation about how safe this was, who then took the next step further to coach people through. This is a time when, at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we’re talking about ‘How are we going to stop these pill pushers?’ and so we’re trying to stop the overprescription of pharmaceuticals as he’s trying to help people go around these doctors.”
Her campaign also pushed back. Sean Higgins, Sherrill’s communications director, said
“Jack’s reaction is to hide behind a lawsuit, not to take responsibility. What’s reckless and irresponsible is Jack Ciattarelli making millions of dollars profiting off the pain of New Jerseyans — publishing misinformation about the dangers of opioid addiction and developing an app to coach patients to ask doctors for more drugs.”
Fact-checkers with PolitiFact and the New Jersey Globe have rejected Sherrill’s claim as untrue.
The failure to issue a retraction leaves Sherill more open to a lawsuit.
The common law has long recognized per se categories of defamation where damages are presumed and special damages need not be proven. These include: (1) disparaging a person’s professional character or standing; (2) alleging a person is unchaste; (3) alleging that a person has committed a criminal act or act of moral turpitude; (4) alleging a person has a sexual or loathsome disease; and (5) attacking a person’s business or professional reputation.
Claiming that Ciattarelli “killed thousands” would certainly fall within these per se categories.
The challenge for Ciattarelli will be the higher standard. Under New York Times v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court crafted the actual malice standard that required public officials to shoulder the higher burden of proving defamation. Under that standard, an official would have to show either actual knowledge of its falsity or a reckless disregard of the truth. That standard was later extended to public figures.
Courts tend to be leery of lawsuits that turn on overheated campaign exchanges. However, this is an express statement that Ciattarelli killed thousands. Sherrill will claim that this was mere campaign rhetoric or obvious opinion.
The Supreme Court dealt with such an overheated council meeting in Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Association v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6 (1970), in which a newspaper was sued for using the word “blackmail” in connection to a real estate developer who was negotiating with the Greenbelt City Council to obtain zoning variances. The Court applied the actual malice standard and noted:
It is simply impossible to believe that a reader who reached the word “blackmail” in either article would not have understood exactly what was meant: It was Bresler’s public and wholly legal negotiating proposals that were being criticized. No reader could have thought that either the speakers at the meetings or the newspaper articles reporting their words were charging Bresler with the commission of a criminal offense. On the contrary, even the most careless reader must have perceived that the word was no more than rhetorical hyperbole, a vigorous epithet used by those who considered Bresler’s negotiating position extremely unreasonable.
The question is whether saying that a candidate literally killed thousands can be dismissed as “rhetorical hyperbole.”
The Supreme Court has shown that there are limits to opinion as a defense as in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990). In that case, there was another inflammatory allegation stemming from a public meeting. An Ohio high school wrestling coach sued over an opinion column alleging that he had lied under oath at a public hearing, saying that it was tantamount to an allegation of perjury.
The trial judge granted summary judgment on the ground that the assertion in the newspaper column was opinion. The Court however rejected the defense in the case in 7-2 opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The Court noted that “expressions of ‘opinion’ may often imply an assertion of objective fact” and may inflict “as much damage to reputation” as factual claims. Moreover, some opinions are based on assertions that are “sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false.”
Saying that a candidate killed thousands would certainly seem to be something “susceptible of being proved true or false.” Moreover, there is ample evidence of malice or reckless disregard in context.
In my view, there is enough here to defeat a motion to dismiss. While she could score a favorable trial judge, I would be surprised if a threshold dismissal would survive appellate review. In other words, Sherrill could well find herself in a trial for defamation.
On MSNBC’s “All In,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) doubled down on his pledge of legal retaliation against Trump officials and associates if Democrats retake power. He noted that Trump “sycophants” in the Department of Justice do not have immunity and will be pursued. The statement comes after the indictment of Letitia James for mortgage fraud. The statement suggests that the country could be in store for waves of purge politics in which parties fire or prosecute officials from the prior administration.
The comments come after the charging of Letitia James for mortgage fraud, a move widely viewed as retaliation for her own lawfare record.
On the program, Jeffries was asked about his prior threats of tit-for-tat actions against Trump supporters or enablers.
Host Chris Hayes noted, “You put a statement out in response to the news of Tish James’s indictment, in which you said, among other things, that those sycophants who aid and abet the president’s schemes will not be able to hide from serious legal consequences of their behavior. They will be held accountable. What do you mean by that?”
Jeffries responded that
“there are so many different corrupt sycophants within the Trump administration, including, but not limited to within the Department of Justice. Now, these people don’t have immunity. And the reality is the statute of limitations is five years, and there will be accountability with the next administration, if not before, when Democrats take back control of the House of Representatives.”
In the meantime, James is claiming victim status in the indictment despite being lawfare’s happiest warrior, who ran on a pledge to nail Trump if elected (without bothering to specify what that crime or offense might be). James is declaring, “I am fearless.” She is also shameless.
I have been critical of some of these cases, which followed a social media posting in which Trump chastised the Justice Department for not indicting a list of political opponents. Within days, Comey and James were indicted. That posting will feature prominently in the challenges to be filed for vindictive prosecution by both defendants. James is likely to raise the resignation of former acting U.S. Attorney Eric Siebert, who reportedly was forced out after objecting to the basis for indicting James.
Jeffries’ pledge suggests that cycles of purge politics are likely to continue unabated in this country.
James Comey made history this week by standing in the dock and entering a not guilty plea as the first FBI Director ever indicted in the history of the country. Comey hopes to be spared the added ignoble distinction of a trial scheduled for 2026. He and his counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, are reportedly going to seek a dismissal under three primary challenges: vindictive prosecution, selective prosecution, and challenging the status of the acting U.S. Attorney, Lindsey Halligan. I wanted to briefly address these claims, including the one that has the most credibility.
As a threshold matter, there is a particular irony in the date selected for the Comey trial: January 5, 2026. That is the anniversary of a notorious briefing of President Barack Obama that laid the foundation for the Russian collusion investigation that Comey would push as director. The intelligence community had already debunked the infamous Steele Dossier, secretly funded and disseminated by the Clinton campaign. Indeed, an intelligence community assessment had found no evidence of a material impact of Russian actors on the 2016 election. Top officials immediately moved to bury the report and to order a new report by a carefully selected group in the final days of the Obama Administration. The result was a report that was ultimately leaked to the media suggesting that there was evidence of Russian interference with the election in support of Trump. Comey and others would use the report to justify what would later become the special counsel’s investigation that effectively derailed Trump’s first term.
Comey is now scheduled to answer for alleged lies and leaks on the ninth anniversary of that meeting.
Vindictive Prosecution
The first two claims are equally laden with a heavy dose of irony. Comey has been accused of intense bias in his actions as FBI Director in targeting Trump and his associates. His top aides expressed open animus for Trump, leaked stories to harm him, and even committed crimes to continue an investigation that was debunked before it started.
Vindictive prosecution claims focus on the motivations of the prosecutors in singling out the defendant. Comey will argue that the charges were the result of a retaliatory effort that originated at the very top with President Trump. The courts overwhelmingly reject these claims. Judges decline to consider the motivations of a prosecutor in an otherwise valid charge.
The vindictive prosecution claim by Comey will rely heavily on President Trump’s own statements. In a Sept. 20 post on Truth Social, Trump declared Comey was “guilty as hell” and, in a message directed toward Attorney General Pam Bondi, stated “We can’t delay any longer,” and “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” It was a remarkably inappropriate and damaging social media post. While the President deleted the posting, the damage was done. The controversy was a repeat from the first term when Trump’s social media postings were used to undermine Administration positions in court.
Despite this unforced error, the odds still favor the Administration in ultimately prevailing on this claim, even if the district court judge were to rule for Comey.
Selective Prosecution
The most ironic of the first two claims is that of selective prosecution, where a defendant argues that similarly situated people routinely commit the same acts but are not charged. Comey and the Special Counsel were accused of precisely that violation repeatedly. They prosecuted Trump associates on wafer-thin false statement claims that resulted in virtually no jail time for the defendants. In the case of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Comey bragged about how he circumvented standard procedures to nail Flynn in the opening days of the Trump Administration.
On his book tour heralding his own “ethical leadership,” Comey thrilled audiences by taking credit for the controversial charge. He explained that it was:
“something we’ve, I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration…I thought, ‘It’s early enough, let’s just send a couple of guys over.’”
The actual agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that he intentionally lied about a meeting with Russian diplomats, but Comey and his investigators pushed for charges anyway. They drained Flynn of resources, threatened to indict his son, and ultimately secured a guilty plea.
Now, it is Comey claiming victim status in being selectively targeted for his own alleged false statements to Congress. As with vindictive prosecution, these claims are routinely and overwhelmingly rejected by courts. Once again, Comey is viewed as having a favorable Biden-appointed judge, but a dismissal on selective prosecution seems unlikely. To prevail in claiming a violation of equal protection, Comey must show that charges were “deliberately based upon an unjustifiable standard.” Comey himself helped establish the record of other false statements.
Unlawful Appointment
The final claim may have more potential for Comey. He will claim that Lindsey Halligan, who signed off on the grand jury indictment, was unlawfully appointed to her position. This technicality could derail the case because the Administration does not have the luxury of going back and redoing the indictment. The Trump Administration brought down the indictment shortly before the expiration of the five-year statute of limitations. If any of these claims succeed, the case is likely dead as Delinger.
This issue turns on a somewhat arcane provision under Section 546(d) of Title 28 of the United States Code, which authorizes an Attorney General to appoint an interim United States Attorney for a term of 120 days. The problem is that the Trump Administration used that provision to appoint Erik Siebert, the predecessor of Halligan. The statute says that once the 120-day period has ended, “the district court for such district may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.”
Comey will argue that this is a one-time option and that the appointment of a new acting U.S. Attorney had to be made by the district court. If so, the indictment was invalid and, again, the case is dead and cannot be revived with the expiration of the statute of limitations.
In Siebert’s case, his term expired 120 days after his Jan. 21 appointment by Acting Attorney General James McHenry, on or about May 21. After that, Whelan said, Eastern District of Virginia judges appointed him to continue to serve.
Comey has the advantage of being able to cite a memorandum by none other than Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito from when he served in the Office of Legal Counsel in 1986. Alito concluded that “after the expiration of the 120-day period further interim appointments are to be made by the court rather than by the Attorney General.” He added, “it would appear that Congress intended to confer on the Attorney General only the power to make one interim appointment; a subsequent interim appointment would have to be made by the district court.”
The Trump Administration can argue that Trump fired Siebert, thereby vacating the office for a second time. Under this argument, the process restarts with the vacancy. Comey will argue that this could allow a president to circumvent the intent of Congress by firing acting U.S. Attorneys to daisy chain vacancies allowing endless new 120-day periods to run.
While these are tough claims to make in a criminal case, the case is equally challenging for the Trump Administration. Putting aside the fact that they are in front of a Biden-appointed judge in a heavily Democratic district, the claims of false statements and obstruction often turn on highly interpretative views of a person’s intent or knowledge. If Comey succeeds on these threshold challenges, the case could also be bogged down for years in appeals. A Democratic president could then scuttle any trial or he could be given a pardon to end the matter effectively.
In other words, it does not sound like Comey is going to jail any time soon.
As a native Chicagoan, I must confess that I have little patience for Mayor Brandon Johnson, a politician who has been a disaster for the city. One of the most unpopular mayors in the city’s history, Johnson has been using the increased ICE operations to try to ride a wave of rage back into popularity. His language has become more and more inflammatory in calling for citizens to “resist” and “fight” federal law enforcement. Now, he is claiming the authority to not only mandate “ICE-free zones” in the city but to arrest federal officers.
Ironically, Johnson has declared that President Donald Trump wants a “rematch of the Civil War.” However, it is Johnson who is pursuing antebellum policies. It was the South that claimed independence from the Union and fought to expel federal troops.
Johnson signed a ridiculous executive order creating “ICE-Free Zones” to ban federal agents from using city-owned properties and property of unwilling private owners as staging areas for immigration enforcement.
The federal government has its own jurisdictional authority and can enter city and private property in pursuit of lawful operations. In terms of “staging” operations, the Constitution, not Brandon Johnson, protects citizens from having their property seized or used for the quartering of troops.
Most importantly, the City of Chicago cannot arrest federal officers who are conducting federal operations. This point was correctly noted earlier by Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, who said that CPD officers will not arrest federal law enforcement, “because someone deems what they are doing is illegal.”
Nevertheless, Johnson was back to his signature chest-pounding bravado: “We’re going to see people in court. As far as other authority that allows for us to be able to enforce this ordinance, we’re exploring.”
In the meantime, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been using equally inflammatory language about a few hundred National Guardsmen “occupying” the city and, most recently, told Rachel Maddow that the National Guard would intimidate voters at polling places and it might even seize voting boxes or ballots to steal the upcoming election.
Both leaders are attempting to marshal the mob for political purposes. At a time of rising political violence, including the recent sniper attack on an ICE facility and the Charlie Kirk assassination, Pritzker and Johnson are fueling the rage.
The federal government has the right to enforce these laws to deport individuals. Congress passed these laws and, if these politicians oppose them, they can seek to rescind deportation laws in the democratic system.
Johnson has continued to double down on his reckless rhetoric, declaring that
“The Trump administration must end the war on Chicago. The Trump administration must end this war against Americans. The Trump administration must end its attempt to dismantle our democracy.”
Threatening the arrest of federal officers enforcing federal law is not defending the rule of law or democracy. Indeed, a similar claim was made by Southern politicians not only before the Civil War but during the Civil Rights era. It was governors like George Wallace who insisted that he could stop federal officials and the National Guard from enforcing federal law.
Likewise, it was George Wallace who objected to the “unwelcomed, unwanted, unwarranted, and force-induced intrusion” in his state by federal law enforcement.
Before Johnson attempts to arrest federal officials, he might want to take another look at the Constitution and review some history on the subject. Wallace also tried to ride the wave of rage to power after “standing at the schoolhouse door in person, if necessary.” It did not work. The federal government prevailed, and Wallace was left as a tragic relic of history.
On Sunday, the Green Party in the United Kingdom voted to “abolish” private landlords in a move that reaffirms the party as a largely socialist movement. For some environmentalists, it is a sad hijacking of a cause by far-left elements that moves it away from its original environmental priorities.
The motion passed at the Greens’ conference in Bournemouth calls for the “effective abolition of private landlordism.”
That would impact roughly three million people in Britain who rent out properties, including at least one high-ranking Green official, Adrian Ramsay, who is one of the Greens’ four MPs.
Ramsay insisted that he is not making a profit on his rental and would soon stop being a landlord.
The Green Party is committed to effectively eliminating private landlords through rent controls, a “land value tax,” and other means.
The move is reminiscent of Zohran Mamdani’s call to seize unoccupied luxury condos in New York and give them to the homeless. He has also called for Democratic Socialists to “seize the means of production” in America.
Ironically, this week former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called out Mamdani for hypocrisy as a landlord of vacant valuable land in Uganda.
The Green Party motion states:
‘The private rental sector has failed, it is a vehicle for wealth extraction, funnelling money from renters to the landlord class…
This motion makes it clear that Green Party policy is to seek the effective abolition of private landlordism and to support the building of council housing.
…The Green Party believes the existence of private landlords adds no positive value to the economy or society, that the relationship between landlord and tenant is inherently and intrinsically extractive and exploitative.”
Carla Denyer, Green MP for Bristol Central, insists that the call to end private landlords as “inherently and intrinsically extractive and exploitative” does not actually mean an outright ban: “While the motion to confidence had an eye-catching name, it does not actually ‘abolish’ landlords.”
Once again, the Green Party has been steadily moving toward an openly socialist agenda, leaving many environmentalists at odds with the party.
Polls show that socialism is now more popular than capitalism in Great Britain, with a shocking increase in favor of communism.
Jay Jones, Virginia’s Democratic attorney general candidate, is under fire for shocking statements that expressed a desire to kill political opponents and their young “fascist” children. Despite the violent rhetoric, Democrats like Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Virginia, have stood by Jones and continue to campaign for his election. Now, however, Jones is accused of making disturbing comments about the benefit of killing a few cops as a warning to others. It is unclear whether the alleged comments were made in writing (as were earlier comments), and Jones has denied them.
Virginia has become a testing ground for rage rhetoric as Democrats stand by Jones and refuse to call for his withdrawal. Spanberger herself was criticized recently for calling on supporters to “Let your rage fuel you.”
What is notable about this latest allegation is that it is coming from the very same legislator who discussed the prior statements, which Jones admitted were true.
According to the New York Post, Republican Del. Carrie Coyner told Virginia Scope on Monday, Jones used a 2020 discussion about qualified immunity to suggest that a few dead cops might be a good thing. She recounted how Jones allegedly said, “Well, maybe if a few of them died, that they would move on, not shooting people, not killing people.”
Jones denied the new allegations: “I did not say this. I have never believed and do not believe that any harm should come to law enforcement, period.”
It is unclear whether Coyner has proof of the new alleged statements.
Jones has not threatened a defamation lawsuit over the allegation. If untrue, the statement could constitute defamation as impugning Jones’s reputation and veracity as a public figure. However, as a public official, he is subject to the New York Times v. Sullivan standard and would have to show a knowing falsehood or reckless disregard for the truth on the part of Rep. Coyner.
Just in time for Halloween, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to rule on Hawaii’s so-called “Vampire Rule” on gun possession in Wolford v. Lopez. The state law bars gun permit holders from bringing handguns onto private property open to the public without the owner’s express permission. So, like vampires, gun owners must be invited in with their weapons.
At the time, the Court stressed that few locations historically met such a definition:
“Although the historical record yields relatively few 18th- and 19th-century ‘sensitive places’ where weapons were altogether prohibited—e.g., legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses—we are also aware of no disputes regarding the lawfulness of such prohibitions. … We therefore can assume it settled that these locations were ‘sensitive places’ where arms carrying could be prohibited consistent with the Second Amendment. And courts can use analogies to those historical regulations of ‘sensitive places’ to determine that modern regulations prohibiting the carry of firearms in new and analogous sensitive places are constitutionally permissible.”
However, gun control states piled on with long lists of “sensitive places” to constructively create a broad ban. In Hawaii, the legislature listed 15 categories of property. It also imposed a different “default rule” that said that permit holders are barred unless a property owner expressly allows them, either verbally or in writing, to enter with a weapon.
A federal court in Honolulu issued a preliminary injunction in August 2023, blocking portions of the law. When the state appealed, a Ninth Circuit panel reversed the injunctions as to bars and restaurants serving alcohol as well as beaches, parks and adjacent parking areas. The panel also upheld the default rule.
That stands in contradiction of the Second Circuit’s opinion in Antonyuk v. James (2024), striking down New York’s ban on firearm possession by a permitee onto private property open to the public unless the owner or lessee expressly consents to bring the firearm onto the property.
The individual plaintiffs — Jason Wolford, Alison Wolford and Atom Kasprzycki allege that they were able to carry handguns at beaches, parks, restaurants serving alcohol and other private properties open to the public before Hawaii’s law took effect.
The plaintiffs challenge the historical foundations for the Hawaii law, cited by the Ninth Circuit: an 1865 Louisiana statute and a 1771 New Jersey statute. The New Jersey law is challenged as applying to private property that is not open to the public.
One issue presented to the Court would have focused on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of certain historical sources. The plaintiffs argued that the Supreme Court was referencing, first and foremost, sources from the founding period while the state and the Ninth Circuit relied on laws from the Reconstruction period.
The Supreme Court notably did not accept that question for review. Instead, the sole question granted review was:
“Whether the Ninth Circuit erred in holding, in direct conflict with the Second Circuit, that Hawaii may presumptively prohibit the carry of handguns by licensed concealed carry permit holders on private property open to the public unless the property owner affirmatively gives express permission to the handgun carrier?”
Lower courts have repeatedly rejected these “vampire laws,” but the case will now allow the Court to clarify what it means by a “sensitive place” where Second Amendment rights can be abridged.
With the briefing to be completed in mid-November, oral arguments may not be held until early 2026, with a possible opinion in June or July of that year.
Below is my column in The Hill on the pledge of Zohran Mamdani to end some of the early Gifted and Talented programs in the New York educational system. The move is part of a national campaign against such programs as racist or privileged due to the higher percentage of White and Asian students who qualify. The fear is that the Mamdani administration will return to the disastrous policies of the de Blasio administration in rolling back on the programs.
Here is the column:
Zohran Mamdani appears to have a plan for leveling the playing fields in education. Faced with a huge number of students with comparably dismal scores in math, English, and science, Mamdani is going to bulldoze higher-achieving programs. It is a pledge that only a Soviet central planner would relish.
By eliminating gifted and talented programs in lower grades, Mamdani will increase equity through mediocrity. With some on the left demanding the closure of all such programs, the concern is that New York is following the trend in other blue cities. (His opponent, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, has said that he would actually expand these programs).
Even the Washington Post’s editors have objected to his plan as “damaging education in the name of equity.”
Although Mamdani is currently focusing on lower grades, these programs are under fire as racist or privileged since less than a quarter of students come from Black or Latino populations. Activists have long objected that roughly 70 percent of students in gifted classrooms were white or Asian American, even though these groups comprise only about 35 percent of the student body.
The result is that politicians like Mamdani are virtually pushing high-achieving families and students out of public education. Once they are gone, the glaring contrasts in proficiency among programs will also be gone.
Gifted and talented programs are a source of pride for many families as students work with advanced technology and theories. Mamdani himself attended one such high school, Bronx High School of Science in Kingsbridge Heights. Students must work extraordinarily hard to gain admission to these programs. But what is merit to some is privilege or racism to others.
These students also can present a glaring and unwelcome contrast with the rest of the school system, particularly among different racial or economic groups. New York spends more than any other city on education at $41 billion a year — $36,293 per pupil. Much of this money is devoured by a bloated educational bureaucracy, which has been failing our children for decades. More than 40 percent of grammar school students in the city failed the state’s standardized math and reading tests last year. There were some gains recently, but these may just be a result of schools lowering the bar for passing the tests.
Across the country, some districts are lowering proficiency requirements and eliminating standardized tests to create an artificial appearance of success. These schools spend massively while cranking out kids with little hope to compete in the new economy or escape a cycle of poverty. This new ideal of “grading for equity” is designed to manipulate test standards to create the appearance of success.
Other districts are dumping standardized tests in favor of plans to prioritize “educational enjoyment” over performance measurements.
Within these under-achieving systems, high-achieving students are not always welcomed. It is obvious that, faced with the elimination of gifted and talented programs, many of these families will simply leave public education if they can find the means to do so.
Many school districts are already experiencing a drain of families who are turning to religious or private schools with a greater emphasis on basic educational skills and subjects. They are tired of districts paying millions for transcendental meditation programs or other woke programs as proficiency levels stagnate or fail.
The response of many politicians has been to fight school voucher programs and other alternatives to their failing public schools. While Mamdani wants to introduce socialist programs like state-run stores as an alternative to private businesses, he is less keen in offering alternatives to government programs like public schools. School officials and unions oppose school choice because they know that many families would just leave public schools in search of better educational opportunities — few, if given a true choice, would buy the public schools’ subpar product. Many are already leaving.
Mamdani now threatens to turn that stream into a tsunami. Rather than fight to keep the most motivated and successful students in the public school system, he is effectively going to chop off the top ten percent. He is following in the footsteps of a disastrous plan under former Mayor Bill de Blasio that later had to be rescinded.
If expanded from these lower grades, Mamdani’s plan would eliminate the prospect of students being able to work at the highest possible levels in the New York school system. New York offers all students the opportunity to undertake advanced work if they work hard enough to gain admission. That includes non-white students who can find opportunities for elite colleges and jobs through such programs. The early grades are a critical period for such students who show extraordinary talents to develop those skills.
For teachers, the result can be equally dysfunctional. They will now be faced with students who require a far more intense level of instruction to progress. With a few gifted and talented students in a class, it is more likely that they will teach to the majority and leave the advanced students stagnating.
That can be devastating for advanced students. The gifted and talented programs allow students to achieve their full intellectual potential. If these students are not challenged, they can become disgruntled and unmotivated, potentially tossing away promising careers.
The dumbing down of our public schools is already manifesting itself in higher education. Recently, Harvard had to offer courses on basic high-school math for its students, who were found unable to do college-level work.
For many, the solution is not to eliminate programs for advanced students, but to elevate the rest of the school system to proficiency levels. Of course, that is easier said than done, and a far more challenging prospect for public educators who have been failing inner-city kids for decades.
As for Mamdani, there seems a certain visceral appeal to pushing everyone toward the lowest common denominator. Mamdani is in his element in railing against the privileges of the children of largely white and Asian families. He can now do for education what the Soviets did for fashion: reducing choices to a few bland options.
Journalist H.L. Mencken once denounced public education as an effort “simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level … to put down dissent and originality.” Mamdani seems intent on realizing Mencken’s worst fears.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of debating Harvard Professor Randall Kennedy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Before returning to Washington, I made a pilgrimage to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage and wanted to share a few pictures. Nashville is a favorite city that has been featured on this blog previously. However, no trip would be truly complete without a trip out to Hermitage.
While I was only in town for a short trip, I was able to walk around the lovely Vanderbilt campus, listen to country music in a couple honky-tonks on Broadway, and stop by Jack’s for some incredible bar-b-que.
The trip to the Hermitage takes about 30 minutes from downtown, and it is worth the Uber ride (it is also on the way to the airport). The grounds are beautiful, featuring old cabins, smokehouses, gardens, and open fields.
The mansion is gorgeous. In comparison to such legendary homes as Mount Vernon, there is something particularly appealing about the flow and large rooms of the home. It has been lovingly preserved and has one of the greatest collections of original artifacts and furniture of such homes. (No photos are allowed inside the house.)
The museum is small but worth a visit. There is a short film that is an excellent production, doing a fair job of presenting Jackson’s contributions and controversies, including his ownership of slaves.
My only minor complaint is that much of Jackson’s life is presented in wall displays. It is a shame that there are no short films with more substantive content focusing on the Battle of New Orleans, the Indian Wars, and the estate itself. Nevertheless, it is great to see Jackson’s carriage, swords, glasses, and other items. Everyone is very knowledgeable and friendly at the museum.
This is a great way to spend a few hours on the tour, simply walking around the estate. Jackson is an intriguing figure. I wrote about him in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” It is a fairly critical account of his treatment of free speech, particularly in New Orleans. However, he had a fascinating life and held the union together as fractures appeared before the Civil War.
Here are a few pictures of the Hermitage on a lovely sunny day in Tennessee:
An elementary school in Kansas has raised a novel question under the First Amendment: whether the freedom of speech includes the right to use the word “freedom.” According to some media reports, Arbor Creek Elementary Principal Melissa Snell stopped the wearing of shirts reading “Freedom,” which have become popular after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The move is clearly a violation under the First Amendment, in my view.
Libs of TikTok posted an email exchange between Arbor Creek Elementary Principal Melissa Snell and an (unnamed) individual in which Snell confirmed the ban. The email stated: “I just want to make sure that you have told your staff to not wear those ‘Freedom’ shirts to school anymore. Thank you.”
Snell allegedly responded: “Yes, I have. Was there someone in particular that you are referring to? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Our crackerjack investigatory unit at Res Ipsa was able to find that person for Snell from what appears to be video of students of Arbor Creek:
Notably, the Olathe Public Schools district itself sells “We All Belong Together” shirts via its Department of Culture and Belonging. However, “Freedom” shirts were banned, at least temporarily.
Deputy Superintendent Lachelle Sigg wrote to the school community that the district “remain[s] committed to […] honoring all first amendment rights and ensuring that personal expression does not disrupt the educational setting.”
If so, that commitment is more rhetorical than actual.
Superintendent Brent Yeager confirmed the emails that Libs of TikTok had posted earlier in the week, but suggested that it was temporary as Snell “reviewed district practices.”
I fail to see why Snell had to suspend the wearing of such shirts pending review. This is clearly a content-based limitation on speech.
In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), the Supreme Court upheld the right of students to wear armbands protesting the Vietnam War, famously writing, “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
This does not involve the type of “lewd,” “vulgar,” “indecent,” or “plainly offensive” speech discussed in cases such as Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986). It is a statement of solidarity between the freedom of speech, a statement made more poignant and urgent with the murder of Kirk for exercising that right.
When I wrote my book on Free Speech in an Age of Rage, I never thought Virginia would become ground zero for rage politics. Yet, recently, the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Abigail Spanberger, told supporters, “Let your rage fuel you.” Then her running mate, Ghazala Firdous Hashmi, seemed to declare the death of the Constitution and democracy … unless they are elected, of course. Now, a shocking series of statements by Jay Jones (the Democratic candidate for Attorney General) from 2022 has been released in which he talks about putting two bullets in the head of a political opponent, “pissing on the grave” of a dead Republican, and asking whether a Republican colleague and his wife were “breeding little fascists.”
In a series of texts, Jones was responding to the eulogies for a Democrat, Del. Joe Johnson, D-Bristol, who was known for working across the aisle with Republicans to achieve bipartisan results.
In messages to Del. Carrie Coyner, R-Chester, Jones referred to “the glowing tributes from the Rs,” including by former Virginia House Republican Leader Todd Gilbert. Jones insisted that the deceased “leaked everything to your [Republican] caucus. It’s why Gilbert gave him such a glowing tribute.”
Jones then promised that “if those guys die before me, I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves. Send them out awash in something.”
He did not stop there. He stated, “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.” To bring that menacing point home, he added: “Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”
Coyner replied with “Jay. Please stop.”
He responded with “Lol. OK, OK,” but later added, “I genuinely was [asking questions]. I wasn’t attacking you. I was trying to understand your logic.” When Coyner disagreed, Jones replied, “Yes, I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
In yet another message, Jones considered whether Gilbert and his wife Jennifer were “breeding little fascists.”
Notably, such claims of fascism were being raised in 2022 and directed against local Republicans by figures like Jones.
In fairness, these were not public comments, but they are still shocking in the use of rage rhetoric. It was notable that, even with the passing of this legislator at age 90, Jones’ inclination was to attack him for working with Republicans. While Jones may have thought some of it was funny, it does not appear to have been taken that way by the other legislator.
Such “rage rhetoric” is becoming all too common in politics and remains unabated even after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In my book, I note that:
“As shown throughout our history, rage is addictive. It bestows a certain license to shed the confining expectations of reason and civility. … At times, our politics seem like a collective primal scream session where only the loudest prevail. Yet, for some, the license to rage goes beyond the amplification of their own views and becomes a demand for the silencing of others.”
I have the pleasure of joining Harvard Professor Randall Kennedy today for a discussion of the state of free speech in America at Vanderbilt University. The event will be held at the Marriott at Vanderbilt University at 4:30 p.m. You can register here: https://globalfreespeechsummit.com/highlights/
Our moderator will be Professor Francesca L. Procaccini, who teaches at Vanderbilt in the areas of constitutional law and free speech.
While the program is quite short for such a big subject, it will be great to join Randall again for a civil discussion of these important issues. I wish to thank Vanderbilt University and Professors Procaccini and Kennedy for making this event possible.
The Democratic candidate for Virginia’s next lieutenant governor, Ghazala Firdous Hashmi, appears to believe that the United States Constitution is dead. During a recent campaign stop, Hashmi gave a speech in front of an upside-down American flag, a symbol of distress, accompanied by a makeshift tombstone that read, “RIP Constitution.”
Recently, I have debated professors from Harvard and Boston College over claims that we are in a “constitutional crisis.” Hashmi is apparently well past a crisis and is suggesting that the Constitution is somehow deceased.
She tells the crowd:“We have to fight. We are not going to concede this democracy to the efforts of tyranny. We are not going to concede the rights that we have in this country to protect every single citizen. We are going to fight. This is an act of civil disobedience that we are going to keep up and make sure that your voices continue throughout Virginia, all throughout the country.”
Hashmi is continuing the Democratic narrative that democracy is dying in America and tyranny is on the rise. It was the mantra before the last election when Republicans secured control of both houses and the White House. Despite that failure, Democrats are doubling down on rage rhetoric and unhinged claims.
Our constitutional system continues to function as it has through prior “ages of rage.” The nation is divided, so less work tends to get done in Congress. In the meantime, the courts continue to address many of these controversies. The Trump Administration has won and lost cases in the federal system, including the Supreme Court.
Many of those declaring the death of democracy seem to primarily object to how the democratic process has worked. Past presidents, including Joe Biden, have violated the Constitution. Yet, these same figures did not declare a constitutional crisis or, in this case, a dead constitution.
However, telling supporters that the Constitution is dead and that tyranny is on the rise only serves to fuel the rage and political violence. Recently, the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Abigail Spanberger, told supporters, “Let your rage fuel you.”
Now the woman running to serve as Spanberger’s Lieutenant Governor is telling people that the Constitution is dead and democracy is dying. Some will hear such inflammatory comments as a license to take extreme actions, including violence.
Yesterday, I flagged the decision of New York University’s School of Law to cancel the planned Federalist Society event featuring conservative legal scholar Ilya Shapiro. It is only the latest example of schools scuttling or limiting speeches by conservatives and libertarians, citing the likely protests on campus. Instead of punishing those who disrupt events, NYU and other schools enable those protesters and reinforce the ideological orthodoxy in higher education.Shapiro was planning to speak on the anniversary of the Hamas massacre in Israel. He was scheduled to speak on October 7 after the law school raised prior objections. The Federalist Society yielded to some demands, but the school then went ahead and cancelled the event anyway, according to FIRE and other sources.Even after the Charlie Kirk assassination, events were held with a large variety of speakers without the necessity of cancelation. I have had seven speeches scheduled after the assassination, including one just days after the tragedy. Not a single event was changed or delayed.NYU Law School’s director of institutional programming and governance, Penelope Fernandes, wrote to student organizers to change the date “for security reasons, and because we anticipate an increased likelihood of demonstrations and protests connected to the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, incidents in Gaza.”
First and foremost, I would not describe the murdering, raping, and kidnapping of innocent people as just a number of “incidents in Gaza.” That is like calling 9-11 an “incident in Manhattan.”The date change is also a curious request. The anniversary is the reason for the event, as people gather to explore the implications of this tragedy for both the Israelis and Gazans. It is akin to asking groups to reschedule an event on the anniversary of 9/11 for 10/11 or 12/11.Fernandes also pushed to hold the event in a basement space to further protect against protesters. It is a victory for these protesters as NYU pushes the event into less visible spaces on some irrelevant date.
“After a review of the already great demands on resources and personnel (including but certainly not limited to security personnel) during the week of October 6-10, 2025, I personally made the decision that we could not host your event on campus during that week…This is not a decision based on the proposed program or speaker but rather based on an obligation to provide enhanced security generally on campus during that week as well as resource commitments we have already made across multiple buildings for public and closed events during the same period.”
However, while Shapiro’s one-hour speech is canceled, other events will continue as planned that same day, including discussions on how to reinforce the “DEI social agenda.” Many conservatives opposed that agenda, but they are not viewed as potentially disruptive.
The Federalist Society has organized an alternative event where free speech can be exercised outside of the NYU campus.
In the meantime, radical left faculty and figures routinely appear on campuses without interruption or added demands from administrators. Schools routinely allow for a type of “heckler’s veto” at such events in closing down speeches. In this case, they did so preemptively, citing the anticipated protests as the basis for the action. Other schools have employed the same tactic in blocking conservative speakers. It is the same rationale cited by some private groups in excluding certain participants over anticipated protests.
The solution is obvious. NYU must stand firm in protecting free speech rights on campus. If students or faculty enter events to shout down or disrupt the speakers, they should be suspended or fired. Campus police should work with local police to facilitate the arrest of trespassers and violent protesters. What they cannot do is yield to these protesters, punishing those who wish to speak or to listen to opposing views.
In the past, universities have been quick to use such rationales to close down conservative speakers. It is a passive-aggressive position where they simply throw up their hands and say that expected protesters forced them to take the action. Administrators are often neither motivated nor empathetic toward those raising opposing views. In this case, they would not allow a one-hour speech by a speaker on the anniversary of a massacre.
This decision should be condemned by faculty and alumni regardless of how they feel about Shapiro or Israel. NYU had a clear choice here: They could stand with free speech or yield to those opposed to its exercise on campus. Their decision to cancel the originally scheduled event is a disgraceful surrender to voices of intolerance and orthodoxy. They failed the most fundamental test of higher education in defending intellectual diversity and free speech.
Once again, it is the mob that prevailed in dictating what can be discussed on campus as Administrators stand in silent acquiescence.
Various people have asked for a video of my debate this week at the Virginia Military Institute over the question of whether “the U.S. is experiencing a constitutional crisis.” I want to thank again the Steamboat Institute and our moderator, Kaylee McGhee White, for facilitating this important debate. I also want to express my gratitude to Professor Daniel Farbman, the McHale Faculty Research Scholar at Boston College Law School, who offered a substantive and civil case for the existence of a constitutional crisis. I have great respect for him and his academic work.
One of the bonuses of participating in the debate was the appearance of our blog editor, Kristin Oren, her husband, Brandon, and their friends. Kristin showed great restraint in not doing a live edit of my remarks during the debate. She also took some snaps of VMI and Washington & Lee that I wanted to share with you in case you have not visited the historic town of Lexington.
I could not recommend a visit to Lexington more highly. It is a wonderful town filled with friendly people and historic sites. It proved the perfect place for the debate.
While negative position prevailed in the initial (54%) and final vote (70%) in the debate, Professor Farbman offered a spirited case for a crisis. Here are the results of the vote:
The Washington Examiner’s Kaelan Deese covered the event.
Judge William Young has had a distinguished career since his appointment by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, including serving as Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. At 85, his career includes notable cases such as the Boston Strangler and the Shoe Bomber. However, his 161-page opinion declaring the Trump Administration in violation of the First Amendment over visa denials is nothing short of bizarre. It starts as a type of letter to an anonymous person who sent the judge a postcard.
Here is how the caption appeared in
Here is a closer image:
The opinion then ends with this conclusion:
With all due respect to Judge Young (who warrants considerable respect after his remarkable career), the captioning and conclusion are improvisational, impulsive, and injudicious. The court injected a political dialogic element in an opinion with sweeping implications for our constitutional system.
I have previously disagreed with some of these measures and agree with some points in this opinion. For those currently in this country, I have long supported free speech protections. That said, I expect that the Administration has the advantage on visa applicants outside of the country. The courts are already working to sort this out and it is likely to result in a split resolution. However, the tenor and odd elements of this opinion take away from these points.
Take District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who had previously presided over Trump’s election interference case. Chutkan was 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.
Chutkan later 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.”
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.”
Other judges have engaged in extrajudicial commentary from the bench that undermines the integrity of the court system and their own authority.
The bizarre captioning and conclusion in this case is another such example. It only served to undermine the opinion itself and the legal points raised by the court. It may have been cathartic, but it was also tedious and prejudicial. It has a certain chest-pounding element that is neither necessary nor compelling for a court to insert into an opinion.
Judge Young would be wise to issue a corrected opinion without the novel captioning and conclusion . . . and simply send a postcard to this curious penpal.
Just The News is reporting that “Person 3” in the Comey indictment is not former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe but rather Columbia Professor Daniel Richman. According to the outlet, Richman is the former FBI employee in the indictment who allegedly leaked information about “Person 1,” who is believed to be Hillary Clinton. The report continues the long uncertainty over Richman’s role in these controversies. Richman has described himself as a friend, an FBI special employee, and the lawyer representing Comey at different times. He has also been a columnist and commentator, including for the site Lawfare run by Comey’s friend Ben Wittes. What Richman was doing at any given time remains strikingly uncertain. Professor Richman is not himself charged with any crime.
Richman’s fluid and changing roles are reminiscent of the debate over the role of Hunter Biden’s friend/lawyer/patron Kevin Morris. There was an evolution in the roles that Richman played over the years that left some of us confused as to his specific status at certain times.
At various points in the investigation, Richman alludes to being Comey’s lawyer, as well as a former aide and a friend. Comey used Richman as a conduit to the press and admitted that he was the means by which Comey leaked the contents of a memo that Comey improperly removed from the FBI after being fired.
The respected veteran investigative reporter Catherine Herridge reported on a June 2017 memorandum that documented a phone call with Richman and the so-called “Comey memos,” which detailed his conversations with President Trump.
According to sources, five days earlier, on June 8, 2017, Comey “asked Professor Richman to disclose the content of at least one of those memoranda to the press…”
In interviews, sources said that Richman was dismissive over the violation of federal rules stating “something to the effect of, ‘You do things by your rules’ and ‘I do things by my rules.’” Richman seemed to claim that he was serving as counsel and allegedly insisted that “there is a substantial extent to which I would raise attorney-client issues.” The suggestion was that, after leaving his position as a Justice Department adviser to Comey, he may have assumed the role as private counsel to Comey.
Richman admitted to media contacts but reportedly said that he did not think that he confirmed classified material from Comey to New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt.
Comey designated Richman as a Special Government Employee (SGE) at the FBI and subsequently utilized him as a conduit to the media. He gave him access to top-secret information, and Richman seems to have floated between Comey and other offices, such as the FBI’s General Counsel’s office.
The FBI said that “Comey instructed the FBI to hire Richman as a Special Government Employee” in 2015 and “to grant him a Top Secret clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information.” It also said its investigation “revealed Comey also hired Richman, so Comey could discuss sensitive matters, including classified information, with someone outside of the FBI’s regular leadership. Comey also used Richman as a liaison to the media.”
Comey’s use of Richman shows how obsessed he was with his image and framing news stories about his tenure as director. Richman would serve as both an unnamed source and a named source in articles.
Richman admitted to agents that he routinely communicated on behalf of Comey with Times reporter Michael Schmidt, who published some of the non-public information that was the subject of past investigations.
According to FBI memos, Richman explained that his role was “to correct stories critical of Comey, the FBI and to shape future press coverage” outside the bureau’s official press office.
The different roles eventually seemed to cause Richman to resign. He sent an email to FBI officials in early February 2017 saying that “I am resigning my SGE status, and will thus not, as of today, be formally working for the Bureau in the immediate future.” He added that “my SGE status is limiting what I can do in my extracurricular life.”
Richman later joined Wittes, who has described himself as a friend of Comey as well as figures like Peter Strzok, at Lawfare. With Wittes, Richman has written highly critical columns of the Trump Administration.
Comey admitted to being a leaker through Richman. He was accused of being a leaker in other stories through other individuals. Andrew McCabe said that he leaked information on behalf of Comey. Likewise, an FBI memo said that a prior investigation “revealed [FBI General Counsel James] Baker to be one of the two sources” in a leak and “revealed Baker disclosed USG classified information to the NYT under the belief he was ultimately instructed and authorized to do so by then FBI Director James Comey.”
Just in the News reported that a “newly-unredacted portion [of a report] added that ‘Baker indicated FBI chief of staff James Rybicki instructed him (Baker) to disclose the information to the NYT, and Baker understood Rybicki was conveying this instruction and authorization from Comey.’”
The question is what Richman was at any given time in this scandal. Ethics rules tend to reinforce clear lines in the roles played by lawyers. Richman has been described as a “friend” by Comey, but Richman has suggested that he was at times serving as his personal lawyer. During his time as an SGE, Richman also seemed to shift in his focus. Richman’s first term as an SGE ended in 2016 and then Comey brought him back to work as a “consultant” for the FBI’s Office of General Counsel. A good portion of his portfolio at times seemed to be running interference for Comey with the media and protecting his image in the press.
Richman has not been charged with any crime or accused of any ethics violation in any of these dealings or positions. Some of us, however, are concerned by the fluidity of these roles over the years as government employee, private counsel, and friend.
Comey appeared to select Richman in part for his loyalty and Richman has continued to defend Comey. Now, Richman has a new role as the main witness in a criminal prosecution against Comey. It may be the only time in this scandal that his role as been singular and clear.
Today, I will be participating in a debate on the following question: “Is the U.S. Experiencing a Constitutional Crisis?” Taking the affirmative side will be Professor Daniel Farbman, the McHale Faculty Research Scholar at Boston College Law School. I will be taking the opposing side in the debate to be held in Lexington, Virginia.
I wish to thank the Steamboat Institute and our moderator, Kaylee McGhee White, for facilitating this important debate.
It will be a pleasure to return to the historic town of Lexington, one of the most beautiful areas of Virginia. Founded in 1839, VMI was described by Abraham Lincoln as “The West Point of the South.” Roughly 65% of graduates still join the United States military, and it has produced some of America’s greatest military leaders, including General George C. Marshall.
The event will be held at 7 pm at the Gillis Theater located at 500 Anderson Drive, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA 24450. It will be streamed.
Below is my column in the Hill on the rise of rage politics. There was barely a respite from the rage rhetoric after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the sniper attack on the ICE facility. Gov. Gavin Newsom is back this week to calling his opponents “fascists” while other Democratic politicians are back to calling ICE “fascists.”
Here is the column:
“Let your rage fuel you.” Those words from Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger captured what I have called “rage politics” in America.
Across the country, politicians and pundits are fueling rage, encouraging voters to embrace it. If you turn on the television, you would think that Darth Sidious had taken over: “Give in to your anger. With each passing moment, you grow stronger.”
I do not think for a second that Spanberger supports violence. She was sharing with voters the “sage advice” of her mother, which she said she has applied in her political career. However, the anger is all around us.
Recently, I debated Harvard Law Professor Michael Klarman, who declared, “I am very angry” and “I am enraged.” In denouncing ICE as “thugs” and saying Trump supporters are “fascists,” Klarman explained that the rage had a purpose: “to shake people out of their insomnia.”
Rage, however, comes at a cost in politics. I recently wrote a book about rage and free speech, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”It discusses our history of rage politics and how it has led to violence and crackdowns. Rage gives people a license to say and do things that they would not otherwise say or do. It is addictive, it is contagious, and it is dangerous.
We are seeing the result of rage rhetoric all around us. That includes the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the sniper attack on ICE agents in Texas this week, in addition to violent protests around the country.
Rage allows you to deny the humanity of those you disagree with. Recently, two sisters were caught on video destroying a memorial to Kirk. Kerri and Kaylee Rollo were later arrested. However, they immediately opened a GoFundMe site to call for donations for “fighting fascism” and Kaylee wrote “my sibling was fired from their job.” Hundreds of donors gave the sisters thousands of dollars as a reward for the latest such attack on a Kirk memorial.
For many months, some of us have warned that violent rhetoric was crossing over into political violence. Democratic politicians have spent months ratcheting up the rhetoric against ICE agents, who have suffered more than a 1,000 percentincrease in attacks, including the recent sniper attack.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), the day before that attack, signed a law that purports to bar ICE agents from wearing masks in California. He openly mocked them, asking, “What are you afraid of?“
Joshua Jahn answered that question the following day in Texas when he fired at ICE personnel, only to shoot three of their detainees.
Previously, Newsom had warned voters that Trump was building ICE into a personal army that might be used to suppress voting in the upcoming midterm elections. “Do you think ICE is not going to show up around voting and polling booths to chill participation?” he said.
Others added to the rage rhetoric by declaring the impending death of democracy and lashing out at ICE. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who has used violent rhetoric in the past, declared that ICE agents were acting like “slave patrols” in hunting down immigrants in the streets.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) used a commencement address to denounce “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets. They’re in unmarked vans, wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons… just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared.”
Others, like Boston Mayor Michele Wu, echoed the claims that ICE personnel are “Nazis” and called ICE Trump’s “secret police.”
The rage rhetoric (and claims of a fascist takeover) has been adopted by a wide range of Democratic politicians, often using the same catchphrases of an “authoritarian playbook.” In our debate, Professor Klarman warned that this was all “authoritarianism rooted in old-fashioned white supremacy.”
As discussed in my book, politicians and pundits have long sought to ride the wave of rage into power or influence. Rage is a powerful narcotic. The problem is when it becomes an addiction. There is always a certain percentage of the population that will believe such hyperbolic claims.
Those are the people who end up trying to kill jurists like Justice Brett Kavanaugh or politicians like Trump. It was also seen in the assassination of Democratic politicians earlier this year in Minnesota.
With the recent assassination and attacks on ICE, some are expressing regret. One of the most telling was Hillary Clinton on MSNBC, who said that we should “stop demonizing each other” while blaming “the right” for most of the hate. It was a curious call from a woman who called Trump supporters “deplorables” and suggested that they should collectively be forced into “deprogramming” as a cult. Just before the interview, Clinton had embraced the “fascism” mantra and, during the interview, she went right back to attacking Republicans.
A new poll shows that 71 percent view political violence as a serious problem, but the rage rhetoric continues unabated.
The perfunctory calls for lowering the temperature after the latest shooting are unlikely to last. Key figures in public life keep injecting rage directly into the veins of American politics. It is hard to go “cold turkey” in breaking that addiction, but you first have to want to do so. There is no indication that our rage-addicts are anywhere near a step-program for recovery. If history is any measure, this fever will only break when voters clearly reject the politics of rage.
Rose Docherty is what they call a criminal recidivist in the United Kingdom. The 75-year-old woman has been arrested for a second time for the same fiendish act: offering to speak to women considering an abortion. She was arrested outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow for carrying a placard which stated “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” Fortunately, she and her sign were quickly seized by the local police to protect the public.
Free speech literally does not have a prayer in the United Kingdom. We previously discussed the case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who was arrested for standing near an abortion clinic while silently praying. Police asked what she was doing standing at the location and when she said that she was praying in her head, they arrested her.
How Docherty ended up in the hoosegow in Glasgow is a chilling tale of how censorship can consume a nation.
The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act came into force last September. The architect of the law, Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay, denounced protests of abortions as “totally unacceptable abuse and obstruction” outside hospitals. So it is now a crime to behave in ways that could influence the decisions of women and staff to access services within the buffer zones.
In other words, it is a crime to exercise free speech. In this case, the “unacceptable abuse” was offering to speak with other women about abortion.
The United Kingdom shows how limiting speech can create an insatiable appetite for greater and greater speech controls. I discuss the UK as a cautionary tale for the United States in my book, The Indispensable Right.
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.”
The idea of cracking down on “toxic ideologies” is of course nothing new in countries like China and Iran. However, the anti-free speech movement in Europe has succeeded in destroying the foundations for free speech in the West. the European Union is now one of the most hostile, anti-free speech organizations in the world.
As the anti-free speech movement grows in this country, citizens need to look at Europe for where this path would take us. Americans are appearing before the EU and speaking at European conferences in support of such measures. Anti-free speech views and books are all the rage in academia. It is a dangerous conceit to believe that what has occurred in Europe cannot occur here.
Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts was arrested this week after fleeing ICE officers and abandoning a school-subsidized car with an illegal handgun inside. Roberts has a criminal record and a long-standing order of removal from the country. The case has become a flashpoint over immigration policies with protesters demanding his release and Democratic politicians denouncing his arrest as evidence of a fascist regime. The controversy is also spilling over into the Senate race, as the district board is headed by Board Chair Jackie Norris, a former Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama and a current Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Norris called for Iowans to rally around Roberts with “radical empathy.”
The DHS statement says Roberts entered the United States on a student visa in 1999. Roberts had a “final order of removal” in May 2024 for the deportation.
The District maintains that a third-party comprehensive background check was conducted on Roberts, and he was required to verify employment eligibility for all employees. If that is the case, Roberts may have lied on school forms about his eligibility. The District says that “Dr. Roberts completed the I-9 employment eligibility verification form and submitted the required documentation.”
His hiring by the Des Moines School District was conducted in secret, and there are conflicting reports on whether some in the district may have been aware of his illegal status. The District denies that allegation, but did acknowledge that they were aware of a prior gun charge related to a hunting rifle.
When ICE and Iowa State police moved to arrest him, Roberts sped off. He was later found hiding in high grass, and his car contained a loaded handgun, a large amount of cash, and a hunting knife.
Associate Superintendent Matt Smith will serve as interim superintendent and quoted Roberts as a guide on how they would move forward. Smith expressed how “devastated” the district is over the arrest, but “In the words of Dr. Roberts, ‘if you paddle together, you will survive the tide. If you paddle alone, you will likely drown.’ As we learn more, we chose to paddle together.”
Paddling together does not seem the case in the public statements and could become more difficult if the federal government pursues the district for the hiring of an undocumented person.
Hundreds of protesters gathered to denounce ICE and demand the return of Roberts. Politicians and protesters brushed aside the illegal gun in his car and his flight from law enforcement. That includes a possible charge from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives over the firearm found in his car.
It also appears that Roberts may have violated the district policies barring weapons, which state that “weapons are prohibited on school grounds or at a school-sponsored or school-related activity.”
In its statement Friday evening, the Des Moines district said a third-party comprehensive background check had been conducted on Roberts and he would have been required to verify employment eligibility for all employees.
In a post on Facebook, Iowa Rep. Larry McBurney, D-Des Moines, said he was “furious” about Roberts’ arrest: “This is not only unacceptable, it is an outright disgrace.” He added:
“I hold President Trump and Iowa’s delegation — Congressman Zach Nunn, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Senator Joni Ernst — directly responsible for this action. Their silence or complicity will not go unnoticed. If they have any shred of leadership, they must intervene immediately.”
Mazie Stilwell, executive director of Progress Iowa, joined McBurney in the expression of outrage:
“No Iowan is safe. We’re living under a fascist regime because Nunn, Miller-Meeks, Hinson, and every single Iowa Member of Congress has been in lockstep with the MAGA administration that is terrorizing our communities. President Trump is willing to use political power against anyone who disagrees with him.”
Roberts, 52, claims a Bachelor of Science degree from Coppin State University in Baltimore and received his doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership and a Master’s degree in Education from St. John’s University in Queens, New York City. He was previously superintendent in the Millcreek Township School District, which covers suburban areas outside Erie, Pennsylvania.
That means that he filled out this paperwork previously and either revealed his undocumented status or lied.
He also worked as the superintendent of the St. Louis Public Schools High School Network, as well as a chief schools officer, superintendent of secondary schools, principal, and senior vice president of a charter management organization in Baltimore, the South Bronx, and Washington, D.C.
As Des Moines’ 15th superintendent, he received a base salary of $270,000 annually as part of his two-year contract. It also includes a payment to a “tax-sheltered annuity” of 14% of his annual salary, as well as a $600 monthly car allowance and reimbursement for “all in-district related travel.”
The question is how the federal government will respond to these multiple school districts hiring Roberts. It is unlawful to hire someone with an illegal status under immigration laws.
DHS classifies an employer as “knowingly” hiring an “unauthorized alien” if, after November 6, 1985, the employer “enters into, renegotiates, or extends a contract or subcontract to obtain the labor of an alien you know is not authorized to work in the United States.” Under Section 11.8, ICE allows for a “good faith” defense when determining if an employer knew the illegal immigration status of an employee.
The government can seek injunctive relief against employers who fail to properly vet their workers.
For years, many of us have raised concerns over the political weaponization of the New York legal system from the civil fraud case against the Trump company by New York Attorney General Letitia James to the criminal prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The popularity of these lawfare warriors shows how a dual legal system has taken hold in the city. That was never more evident than in the decision of Bragg to drop the case against Brianna J. Rivers, 30, who assaulted a pro-life advocate in a case of political violence. While blamed on negligence within his office, the dropping of the prosecution of Rivers is only the latest example of enabling those who turn to violence in our political system.
Rivers was captured on videotape attacking Craven Antao after she asked Rivers questions about abortion and repeated her answers. Antao was persistent and argumentative in the video below, but never threatened Rivers or in any way prompted an assault:
New York police arrested Rivers in April on one count of second-degree assault. Prosecutors had this videotape that showed no provocation or excuse for the violent attack. Antao had to go to emergency room for stitches and pay $3,000 in medical bills.
Nevertheless, Bragg’s office first downgraded the charge from second-degree assault to a misdemeanor and has now dropped the case entirely. He is going to let Rivers walk after an act of political violence captured on film.
According to reports, Braggs’ office missed a critical deadline to turn over evidence. However, this came after the office downgraded the case and then threw up its hands after missing the deadline. It is either a case of intentional scuttling or a lack of priority given an allegation of political violence. The most that Braggs’ office can claim is that it was incompetent in one of the most notorious cases in the office. The videotape received national attention with other examples of violent political incidents.
Bragg’s office could not focus on bringing even a misdemeanor case to show that political violence is unacceptable, even from those on the left.
If this were a pro-life advocate attacking a pro-choice person in New York, it is hard to imagine Bragg slow-walking the prosecution, downgrading the charges, and then dismissing the case after missing a deadline. There would have been an outcry from the public for deterrence and prosecution.
We have also seen the wholesale dropping of charges against rioters in major cities despite massive levels of property damage.
Compare the handling of lawyers in New York City who threw Molotov cocktails at police with a recent case in California. The attorneys (Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman) were given generous plea deals by the Southern District of New York with only 15 months in jail. The judge even praised one of the lawyers for her commitment to public interest. There were no state charges.
This week, a ‘scholar-activist” received almost 20 years in prison and a nearly $100,000 in fines for firebombing a University of California Berkeley police car and other acts of arson. Casey Goonan also claimed political motivations in supporting Palestine in the attacks.
Even given the more extensive record of violence of Goonan, the light punishment given to the New York lawyers was shocking to many of us. Admittedly, that was not a state case, but rather a federal case under the Biden Administration. However, it reinforced the uncertainty as to punishment for serious crimes in New York. There was no apparent move by the district attorney to bring state charges or to push for more serious penalties from their federal counterparts.
At a time of increased political violence, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Bragg’s decision sends a chilling message to the most extreme elements in our political system.
Below is my column in the New York Post on the indictment of James Comey. As I mentioned yesterday, the indictment seemed a bit disjointed in referring to “false statements” in the caption and the body, but only describing a single false statement. It appears that the grand jury did not return a “true bill” on one of the originally alleged false statements. That might have been the count related to Professor Daniel Richman, who appeared before the Grand Jury, but that is speculation at this point. However, as I noted, there appears to have been material removed from the original draft of the indictment.
Here is the column:
Yesterday, James Comey became the first former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to be indicted for a federal crime. That is likely the only fact upon which you will receive anything close to agreement in the country. For some, the two-count indictment is a long-overdue accountability for a man who pushed through the now-debunked Russian collusion investigation. For others, it is another abuse on President Donald Trump’s revenge tour.
There are legitimate concerns about the targeting of a political critic of the President, particularly after he publicly complained just days ago that Attorney General Pam Bondi was not indicting Comey and others.
However, Comey is hardly the pristine model of “ethical leadership” that he described in his book. Putting aside his critical role in the Russian collusion investigation, Comey tossed aside even the pretense of ethics after Trump fired him.
The Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, issued a scathing report that found Comey was a leaker and had violated FBI policy in his handling of FBI memos. On his way out of the Bureau, Comey stole FBI materials, including those containing the “code name and true identity” of a sensitive source.
While he did not find that he disclosed the classified information, Horowitz found that Comey took “the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.” He further added that Comey “set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees—and the many thousands of more former FBI employees—who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.”
Comey later admitted that he asked his friend, Columbia Law Professor Daniel Richman, to leak information from the documents to the New York Times.
Comey’s close associate, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, stated that Comey did instruct him to leak information to the media. Comey denied that repeatedly under oath.
James Baker, FBI general counsel and a close adviser to Comey, also told investigators that he was “under the belief” that he was “ultimately instructed and authorized to [provide information to the Times] by then FBI Director James Comey.”
That sets up a straightforward question: who is lying? It could also set up a bizarre scene of McCabe testifying against his friend. McCabe despises Trump as much as Comey, so he may prove to be an overtly hostile witness for the prosecutors.
Washington will be glued to any such trial. The only thing more unnerving than the alleged targeting of a political critic in Washington is the prosecution of a leaker. This is a city that floats on a rolling sea of leaks. The Justice Department is notorious for leaks made with lethal effect against targets. Now the former FBI director will stand trial to see if he is a leaker and a liar.
There is one individual who is likely to be watching with particular interest and perhaps satisfaction: former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Comey is facing two counts of making false statements and obstructing a congressional proceeding. The first count under 18 U.S.C. 1001 (a)(2) is the exact charge that Comey engineered against Flynn.
Comey gave a book tour where he thrilled audiences about how he secured a criminal charge against Flynn for making false statements. In one event, an audience cheered as Comey took credit for the controversial charge. He explained that what he did was not exactly proper. It was, he explained,
“something we’ve, I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a more organized administration…I thought, ‘It’s early enough, let’s just send a couple of guys over.’”
The actual agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe that he intentionally lied about a meeting with Russian diplomats, but Comey and his investigators pushed for charges anyway. They drained Flynn of resources, threatened to indict his son, and ultimately secured a guilty plea.
Now it will be Comey in the dock, facing a charge of making a false statement. He will do so as someone who has admitted to improperly removing FBI material and leaking information to the media.
The odds still favor Comey. He will have a jury taken from a generally liberal, Democratic jury pool. He is also a sophisticated player. Perhaps that is why he issued a videotaped message saying effectively “bring it on” and let’s go to trial.
While an improvement over Comey’s bizarre seashell messages, the videotape may be too confident. Perjury or false statements can be challenging to prove, particularly when vague or nuanced language is used. This is neither vague nor nuanced. Comey repeatedly swore that he never asked anyone at the FBI to leak information. That is either true or it is not.
Comey will continue to be vilified and lionized by different parts of the population. Yet, this is an ignoble moment that he helped bring about. Notably, this indictment comes 50 years after the only Attorney General was convicted of crimes (including false statements and obstruction). That was John Mitchell after the Watergate scandal.
Below is my column on Fox.com from a recent trip to Grand Lake, Colorado, a small town where families gather to celebrate our shared faith in the United States Constitution. For this aging academic, the visit was rejuvenating. It was a sharp contrast to the divisions and anger I had left behind on the East Coast.
Here is the column:
“I am very angry.” Those words from Harvard Law Professor Michael Klarman were something of an understatement in our debate at Colgate University last week over whether our country is in a “constitutional crisis.” Taking the affirmative position, Klarman lashed out at the current “authoritarianism rooted in old-fashioned white supremacy.” Analogizing the current situation to that of Nazi Germany, he denounced Trump and his supporters as “fascists” while calling ICE agents “thugs” operating “concentration camps” where immigrants are “essentially tortured.”
When I noted that Klarman was demonstrating the license of what I have called our “age of rage,” he readily agreed that “I am enraged.” He said he wanted to “show rage” because the constitutional system “is not working” and I do say this to alarm you . . . to shake people out of their insomnia.”
Like many law professors today, Klarman questioned the viability of our constitutional system. However, what he was describing was not a constitutional crisis but a crisis of faith.
A New York Times column last year denounced “Constitution worship” and added that “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.”
There is a growing chorus of faculty calling for us to scrap our constitutional system.
Brown University’s Corey Brettschneider called the Constitution a “dangerous document” that is driving this “threat to democracy.”
George Washington law professor Mary Anne Franks condemned the “cult of the Constitution” that has been defended to advance “white male supremacy.”
In a column titled “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale insisted that we need to “reclaim America from Constitutionalism.”
Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, author of the book “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” argued that the Constitution is now a threat to American democracy.
It is a drumbeat heard on cable news where the Constitution is called “trash” and a vehicle for oppression.
In academia, we are seeing the expansion of this counter-constitutional movement. The recent elections and court cases have gone against the demands of many in the establishment. The conclusion is that the system itself is broken and must be tossed aside.
For many law students, this is the academic echo chamber in which they learn the law. To support the Constitution or deny a “crisis” is to invite ridicule and retribution. It is viewed as simply naïve to suggest that the most successful constitutional system in history is anything but a failed experiment.
Despite engaging in such debates for years, it can take its toll. It can often seem like fewer and fewer people understand the great gift that the Framers gave us in this unique document. While Klarman reminded the students in the audience that the Constitution is merely “words on paper” if it is not working correctly, it is more than that. It is a covenant of a people with each other; a leap of faith in a system that survived wars, economic crises, and social unrest for over two centuries.
I did not come straight home to Washington after the Colgate debate. I had one more stop. I was asked to give the Constitution Day Address for the small town of Grand Lake, Colorado. Nestled in the Rocky Mountains, this town holds an annual celebration and I was intrigued by the invitation. It said that they may be a small town, but they believed in something truly big. They believed in the United States Constitution.
I arrived near midnight and, frankly, I was questioning my decision to make the long trip after two weeks on the road. The next morning, I was pretty worn out when I was taken to the parade before the speech. What I found was what I needed the most. The entire town, along with others from communities as far away as Wyoming, had come out to share their love for our nation and our Constitution.
Before we began, I met three young boys dressed in revolutionary garb and carrying American flags. They were part of the local fife and drum team. We proceeded down main street as families lined up to cheer the Constitution. Flags passed on horseback and a line of go carts as neighbors cheered neighbors. They were not angry. There was not a scintilla of rage. They were grateful.
I am sure that this account will be scoffed at back East as some trite remake of how I came upon an American Whoville. However, living in Washington, you can easily succumb to the cynicism and tribalism of our politics. Patriotism is at best a soundbite to be used by politicians to satisfy the chumps in the hinterlands.
There is a dangerous conceit in every generation by those who believe that their problems are unique and require radical new measures. They are the same voices that we have heard for centuries; they are the voices of an age of rage.
In our debate, Professor Klarman stressed that he was not calling all Trump voters fascists because he believed many are simply ill-informed and “many do not read newspapers.” He added that any students in the room who had “not gone to a protest in the last eight months” were effective accessories in the rise of authoritarianism and autocracy.
I suggested another possibility: most citizens do not agree with the political, academic, and media elite. They are not unread idiots but people who see something that many in academia can no longer see or are unwilling to see in this country.
I respect that Professor Klarman is responding to things that he honestly views as threatening and harmful to the most vulnerable in our society. Yet, at Harvard, where there are only a handful of conservative faculty members, it is easy for students to conclude such views are the unassailable truth.
Outside of Cambridge and Washington, there is an entire nation that still believes in our Constitution. That is why this trip was so rejuvenating for this refugee from higher education. Many law professors today are like priests who have lost their faith but kept their robes. They lash out against a system for failing to meet their demands and an electorate that failed to yield to their collective wisdom.
When I was walking in the town, I came across two boys near the pavilion. They eagerly described their haul of candy and could not wait for the fireworks that night. I was about to walk away when one of them added “and I got this.” He then proudly produced a pocket Constitution. His younger brother immediately objected, saying, “We are sharing it.”
As a nation, we are all still sharing it after two centuries. It defines us as a people. Unlike other nations bound by common language and culture, we are a nation joined by a common legacy of ideas, a revolutionary faith in a free people bound to each other by a simple constitution.
It was hard to leave Grand Lake, but it felt better just knowing that places like this still exist.
I previously discussed the free speech lawsuit of Peter Strzok, expressing skepticism over his claims that the Justice Department violated his First Amendment and privacy rights in firing him. On Tuesday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson agreed and dismissed the lawsuit.
The FBI fired Strzok in 2018 after an investigation into thousands of his texts with bureau lawyer Lisa Page, with whom he was having an affair.Strzok was a key player in Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation into the now debunked Trump-Russia collusion allegations. Shortly before the 2016 presidential election, he texted Page to assure her “that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected,” adding that they “can’t take that risk.” He added that they had it all in hand because “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
He also showed animus for Trump’s supporters, writing to Page “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support…”
Recently disclosure material showed that, after media inquiries into the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Page wrote“if they start digging deep, we are screwed.”
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson noted how Strzok’s filings were filled with “considerable indignation,” but noted that
“Each of the FBI officials deposed maintained that given plaintiff’s rank and his role in the two investigations, and the appearance of bias that permeated the messages, the situation was unprecedented, and there were no comparators.”
She ruled that “the FBI’s imposition of the sanction of termination comported with the Constitution.” She dismissed the case after finding that “the Court finds that there is no genuine dispute of material fact that would preclude the entry of summary judgment in the defendants’ favor and that plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment should be denied.”
It is not surprising that Strzok’s filings showed “considerable indignation” given his signature texts and emails. What was missing was considerable support for his legal claims. He could appeal but this shellacking is unlikely to be reversed.
Recently, I wrote a column about Meta’s restoration of free speech protections after the company admitted to censoring users on platforms like Facebook. The company also revealed that it was pressured by the Biden Administration to conduct such censorship. Now, Google has taken the same step in restoring a number of YouTube accounts and pledging to show greater respect for free speech.
Google made the disclosure in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH):
“Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”
This is another major victory for free speech. Google specifically acknowledged past political censorship and stated that it “values conservative voices on its platform.”
The company, for the first time, admitted that it yielded to comprehensive pressure from the Biden Administration to censor Americans. It acknowledged that the Biden censorship pressure was “unacceptable and wrong” and pledged to resist such pressure in the future.
Meta has substantially reduced censorship by replicating the approach of Elon Musk at X. These changes are a testament to Musk’s legacy in the restoration of free speech on social media. As I previously noted, we need companies like Facebook and Google. These are companies that are big enough to stand up to the European Union (EU) and its unrelenting campaign against free speech.
The censorship on Google and YouTube had a harmful impact beyond the loss of free speech. It suppressed opposing views on Covid policies from the efficacy of masks to the need to shutdown our schools.
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.
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.
The disclosure is also a blow to many Democratic members of Congress who long attacked witnesses, including myself, who testified against the coordinated censorship by corporate and government officials. Before the release of the Twitter files, members insisted that there was no evidence of such coordination. Some still deny such coordination despite multiple companies now confirming it.
The greatest challenge, however, still lies ahead for these companies. The EU remains the greatest threat to free speech facing Americans. After Musk purchased X with a pledge to restore free speech, figures like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded that the EU use its infamous Digital Services Act to force X to censor Americans.
The Trump administration has warned the EU about its efforts to censor Americans. Meta and Google can now join X in creating a formidable corporate alliance for free speech. For the first time, the free speech community might have a coalition of government and corporate allies that could stand up to the EU.
There will likely remain a degree of mistrust from the free speech community towards these companies after years of censorship and stonewalling. However, we also need to accept our allies where and when we can find them. Free speech is in a free fall in Europe and many on the left are encouraging similar censorship laws for the United States. We need these companies and should support them as they take meaningful actions in favor of free speech.
A few days ago, I had the occasion to debate Michael Klarman, the Charles Warren Professor of Legal History at Harvard Law School. Colgate asked us to address the following question: “Is There a Constitutional Crisis? How Would We Know?” Many asked me to post the video of the debate, which is available below. I was also asked to respond to factual assertions made by Professor Klarman, who invited such fact-checking during his remarks.
Professor Klarman stated at the outset that he would present a condensed version of a talk he had given at Harvard. As a result, he did not focus on the specific question presented beyond saying that what constitutes a “constitutional crisis” means different things to different people. Instead, he presented a list of grievances against Trump, the MAGA movement, the Supreme Court, Congress, and the media as evidence of the rise of fascism and authoritarianism in America.
The result was a bit of a disconnect between our remarks. I addressed the common claim of a constitutional crisis and why I do not believe that we are in a true crisis. I have rejected that claim for decades as hyperbolic and unfounded.
Given Colgate’s framing of the debate, I did not respond to many of the specific claims made by Professor Klarman. After the debate, some faculty members and students asked if I disagreed with some of those claims. I thought that I would respond now.
At the outset, I appreciate the invitation of Colgate to address this important question and the work of our moderator, Cornell Law Professor Stephen Garvey. I also want to thank Professor Klarman for his participation and his candor. Although the debate became sharp at points, I still believe that these events are important efforts to expose students to opposing views on the difficult issues facing them and our country.
I should also note, as a threshold matter, that I do not agree with much of Professor Klarman’s characterization of our current conflicts. This includes his repeated references to “fascists,” “ICE thugs,” and analogies to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. During the debate, he stated:
•”[The Republicans] are trying to steal the 2026 election.”
•”[The Administration] is indifferent to suicides committed by transgender youths. There is a word for that. It is fascism.”
•”[The Administration] is essentially telling the world go ahead and attack [transgender people] we don’t care.”
•”They are indifferent to higher death rates among African Americans.”
•”Many [republicans] are very uninformed…many do not read newspapers…”
•”There will be a pretext…I do not know how far it will go…What happens when …. [they[ shoot down immigrants in the streets… seize voting boxes…put troops in democratic cities to intimidate people from voting…that is terrifying.”
It is clear that Professor Klarman truly believes these things and, as he correctly noted, there is subjectivity in how we view the same events or controversies. I credit Professor Klarman for wanting to have an exchange on these issues.
Professor Klarman started his remarks by noting:
“I am going to be extremely factual. Everything I say I can cite check chapter and verse for. You are right to beware of misinformation today but you are not going to get any of it from me.”
He later added that he had spoken completely factually and challenged the audience with “what did I say that is not true?”
I did address a couple of factual assertions during the debate. For example, Professor Klarman claimed that
“[Trump pardoned] violent insurrectionists including several who were directly responsible for the death of police officers.”
As I pointed out, only one person died during the January 6 riot, a protester named Ashli Babbitt. The claims that police officers died that day are false, though often repeated by politicians and pundits. The New York Times helped spread the false claim that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of being hit with a fire extinguisher. Sicknick suffered two strokes and died of natural causes the day after the riot. As a past correction states, “The medical examiner found Sicknick died of natural causes which means ‘a disease alone causes death. If death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.’ Four other officers committed suicide days to months later.” Other officers died months later from such causes as suicide, but there is no direct causal link to the riot.
I would like to now address five additional claims.
“[Undocumented persons are being] deported without due process. Kavanaugh has said go for it, not constitutional problem.”
I am not sure what Professor Klarman was referencing here. However, in cases like A.A.R.P. v. Trump, Justice Kavanaugh joined his colleagues in halting deportations to protect the due process rights of these undocumented persons. It was Justices Alito and Thomas who dissented to allow removal under the Alien Enemies Act. The majority stated that the Administration “erred in dismissing the detainees’ appeal for lack of jurisdiction.” Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence stating:
“The circumstances call for a prompt and final resolution, which likely can be provided only by this Court. At this juncture, I would prefer not to remand to the lower courts and further put off this Court’s final resolution of the critical legal issues. Rather, consistent with the Executive Branch’s request for expedition—and as the detainees themselves urge—I would grant certiorari, order prompt briefing, hold oral argument soon thereafter, and then resolve the legal issues.”
In 2025, he did vote with the majority in a 5-4 decision on Venezuelan immigrants. It allowed for deportations to continue in ruling that the challengers erred in not bringing their challenges as habeas corpus claims. However, it also ruled that the alleged gang members need to be given notice of deportation and the opportunity to contest the deportation. Kavanaugh voted in favor of that position. I may be missing what Professor Klarman is referencing but Kavanaugh has repeatedly voted in favor of due process rights, even if it may not be as robust as Professor Klarman might have wanted. There are cases under this and prior administrations allowing for immediate deportations near the border that occur within a certain period of time. I cannot see any decision where he has effectively “said go for it” and deny any due process.
2. “Washington Post fired a journalist who simply reposted words from Charlie Kirk’s mouth” and “[Bezos] just fired a journalist for basically saying something that is true.”
Professor Klarman made repeated claims about this controversy. It appears to be a reference to the termination of former Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah. However, it is not true that she was fired for “simply reposting words from Charlie Kirk’s mouth” but for making racially inflammatory comments in direct contravention of both Washington Post policies and prior warnings from her editors.
Soon after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Attiah went on to Bluesky to post an attack on him with reference to his race. In one, she declared: “Refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence is….not the same as violence.” In a second posting, she wrote, “Part of what keeps America so violent is the insistence that people perform care, empty goodness and absolution for white men who espouse hatred and violence.”
Those were the comments cited by the Washington Post for its actions. The Post stated “Your postings on Bluesky (which clearly identifies you as a Post Columnist) about white men in response to the killing of Charlie Kirk do not comply with our policy.” The Post prohibits postings that disparage people based on their race, gender, or other protected characteristics.
Sources told the media that Attiah had been confronted multiple times by the paper’s management over her inflammatory social media posts. This includes one in 2020 where she ended up apologizing on social media for erroneously saying that a new French law targeted Muslim children. It is simply not true that the Post fired her for quoting Kirk.
3. “ICE agents acting as thugs are kidnapping people off the streets…They are building concentration camps… they show up on streets without any identification.”
This is a common claim made by politicians and pundits. However, it has been debunked as untrue. ICE agents wear vests and badges that identify them as law enforcement. As with other law enforcement agencies, ICE agents in plain clothes are presumably used on occasion. However, in making an arrest, officers identify themselves as law enforcement. While widely claimed, there has been no evidence submitted (that I know of) of a systemic failure of officers to identify themselves when making an arrest or taking someone into custody.
ICE is not kidnapping people. Once arrested, these individuals are input into an electronic system. Kidnapping is a legal term that does not apply to a case of a person placed into custody by federal law enforcement. Even when an arrest is deemed legally invalid or improper, it is not treated as a kidnapping. That is why there is no case that I know of finding that ICE has engaged in the kidnappings referenced by Professor Klarman.
The reference to “concentration camps” was made in a debate with other references to the Holocaust and the Nazi regime. Large holding areas have been used for decades in immigration operations under both Democratic and Republican presidents. They are not “concentration camps” as the term is commonly understood or used.
4. “Trump says quote ‘slavery was not that bad.'”
This appears to be a claim that was circulating on the Internet and was debunked as untrue. There is no such quote that I could find. On August 19, 2025, Trump criticized Smithsonian museums for focusing on negative aspects of U.S. history to the exclusion of more positive elements. He noted that there was “too much” on slavery. Trump wrote the Smithsonian is “OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.” He went on to add that there is “Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.” One can certainly object to the comment about the relative importance of slavery and why it should be mentioned prominently in these displays. However, the quoted statement by Professor Klarman appears to be apocryphal.
5. “James Madison designed this whole thing without thinking about political parties… he was not thinking [of one party controlling the White House and Congress]”
As someone who frequently writes about Madison, I was surprised by this statement and wanted to present an opposing view. It is certainly true that some figures like George Washington opposed the establishment of political parties. However, Madison actually started one of the first such political parties in the early 1790s around the time that the Constitution was ratified. It was the Democratic-Republican Party created with Thomas Jefferson. The Federalist Party was formally established in 1789 by Alexander Hamilton and other prominent figures. When the Constitution was drafted and ratified, the country was deeply divided along partisan lines. Madison would have had to be naive or moronic to ignore the partisan alliances around him. He was neither naive nor moronic.
I think it was very clear that Madison “was thinking” about political parties when he laid the foundation for the Constitution. While Madison wrote about “factions” rather than “parties” in his famed Federalist Paper writings, he viewed such alliances as natural and inevitable. In a speech to the Constitutional Convention, Madison declared that “no free country has ever been without parties, which are a natural offspring of freedom.” By the time of the Constitutional Convention, the country was already divided along Federalist and Jeffersonian lines. Indeed, he said, in a latter letter to Henry Lee, that “The Constitution itself … must be an unfailing source of party distinctions.”
Clearly, Professor Klarman and I hold opposing views on a myriad of issues. The program at Colgate is an important effort to create greater dialogue and diversity on our campuses. (I will be participating in another debate at the Virginia Military Institute on the same question on Sept. 30).
In fairness to Professor Klarman, these remarks should be considered in their proper context. Below is a link to the debate.
Below is my column in the Hill on the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and how long advocates of censorship and blacklisting are suddenly alarmed over the threat to free speech. The greatest comedic relief came from Hillary Clinton, one of the most anti-free speech figures of the last decade. Without a hint of self-awareness or shame, Clinton expressed horror at a suspension over spreading disinformation.
Here is the column:
Democrats were finally outraged this week. No, it was not about the murder of Charlie Kirk, but rather the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night comedy show.
Democratic leaders are taking to the airways to denounce the decision to take Kimmel off the air after he spread disinformation about Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer.
The same leaders and pundits who have for years fought for censorship in the name of combating disinformation are now making the very arguments they ridiculed just months ago. Democrats once wrote letters to Internet carriers suggesting that Fox News, the most popular cable news network, should be taken off the air in the name of combating disinformation. That was when the Democrats controlled the White House and were targeting conservatives.
Suddenly, now, disinformation is no longer a valid reason to censor and alleged government-corporate alliances are a menace to free speech.
After the tragedy in Utah, many on the left immediately tried to deflect responsibility for the murder by claiming that Kirk’s killer was actually a Trump supporter. On his show, Kimmel declared that “the MAGA Gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
The far-left motivations of the alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, were already well known. His family confirmed that he had been radicalized with leftist ideology and cited pro-transgender views. This was not even a joke — it was just a false factual claim made by Kimmel on national television. And it came at a time when others were spreading this lie.
Despite stories to the contrary, many repeated the false claim. For example, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe posted that “Kirk’s apparent assassin seems to have been ultra-MAGA, exploding the GOP/MAGA attempt to pin the blame for this tragedy on liberals.” (Previously, Tribe had claimed that the October 2023 massacre of Israelis by Hamas was a “wag-the-dog” operation to distract from corruption allegations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu).
The disinformation took hold on the Internet and social media. One poll showed that a plurality of Americans think Robinson was a conservative.
Call it assassination denial. It is all the rage. Former MSNBC and ESPN host Keith Olbermann wrote after Kimmel’s suspension, “Burn in hell, Sinclair. Alongside Charlie Kirk.” He added that “nothing [Kimmel] said was untrue.”
Curiously, some of these politicians and pundits are claiming that, yet again, democracy will die if Kimmel is not allowed to spread disinformation. There are reports that Kimmel was refusing to apologize and planned to double down on the attacks on conservatives in his next show. Faced with a revolt by affiliates and a potential exodus of advertisers, Disney’s head, Bob Iger, pulled the plug. (By the way, Kimmel’s ratings had been falling for years, and he had a smaller audience than the Colbert Show, which was itself discontinued due to loss of money).
The hypocrisy was pure comedy. For years, these same voices demanded censorship of individuals deemed to be spreading disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation. The last category was used by the Biden administration to target statements “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.”
At the same time, they mocked claims that corporations were working with the government to maintain this censorship system.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ran on a pledge to impose new criminal and civil penalties for anyone spreading disinformation. Now, however, censorship is intolerable. Warren told CNN “we know there was federal interference … We saw the government step up and give a hard shove and then we saw a compliant company turn around and suspend Mr. Kimmel.” She added that his collaboration with corporations “truly undermines the whole premise of the First Amendment.”
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) called the suspension one of “the most blatant attacks on the free press in American history.” Schiff had previously demanded that Twitter suspend an array of users and “reduce the visibility” of blacklisted individuals — including a journalist who held opposing views. When Elon Musk reduced censorship at X, it was Schiff who warned Facebook not to follow his example by restoring free speech protections. Schiff threatened legislative action if the company moved to “alter or roll back certain misinformation policies.”
This week, Schiff is outraged by a company’s decision to suspend a host who refused to correct a false story he had spread.
For years, I appeared before these same leaders in Congress as they defended corporate censorship and dismissed allegations of collaboration with the government. I would not cancel Kimmel so long as his show was profitable. But I have long maintained that companies can limit the free speech of employees at work. I do not believe Kimmel should be censored on social media for spreading false information. At the same time, ABC does not have to lose money or viewers because an employee attacks others with vile, false claims.
Now Disney is accused of killing democracy itself, in league with Trump. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) attacked Trump for “trying to destroy our democracy” and acting like “many would-be despots.” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) used Kimmel’s suspension as evidence that “fascism is not on the way, it is here.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) insisted that suspending a host for spreading false information about a murder was “North Korea-style stuff” while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) insisted that it is “what Putin would do.” It is a curious spin, since Putin and Kim Jong Un value media figures who spread false information — particularly about murders.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) went so far as to compare Kimmel to Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense and “Penman of the revolution.”
So Kimmel is now a hero of democracy — all he had to do was spread disinformation. That makes this the funniest joke that Kimmel never told.
This weekend, I had the honor of serving as the Constitution Day speaker for Grand Lake, Colorado. The town, established in 1881, is one of the most irresistibly charming places that I have ever encountered. Located next to Rocky Mountain National Park, it sits adjacent to Grand Lake, Colorado’s largest and deepest natural lake. Nestled between the mountains at roughly 9,000 feet above sea level, Grand Lake seems untouched by time.
The annual celebration in Grand Lake is one of many held around the country as part of the Constitution Day and Citizenship Day mandate, as outlined in 36 U.S. § 106. There is often financial support for these celebrations, and other towns need to join those like Grand Lake that make these parades and celebrations part of their culture and community.
If you are concerned about the decline in civics education in our schools, this is a way to reinforce such knowledge, as well as a sense of patriotism, across political lines. At a time of political division and violence, people of good faith can come together on this day to celebrate our shared commitment to the Constitution.
Grand Lake is approximately two and a half hours from Denver and situated high in the Rocky Mountains. It is best to do the trip during the day since the dark winding road can be a bit unnerving. During the day, you will also see breathtaking scenes, particularly now as aspens and other trees are turning bright yellow, red, and orange. You can see nature repairing the extensive fires from around five years ago outside of Grand Lake. It makes Constitution Day a big draw for many in the area. I met people who drove in from Wyoming and distant parts of Colorado to experience Constitution Day in Grand Lake.
I had the good fortune of staying at the Gateway Inn, which offers a fantastic view of Grand Lake and the surrounding mountains.
This is a family-run hotel with a popular local bar where local bands play at night. It is a great place to stay for those coming to fish, hike, or just contemplate the Rockies. You can wake up to the sun breaking over the Rockies as I did:
I came to Grand Lake after my friend Ron Paul served as the prior speaker. I was told that the annual celebration, featuring a parade down Main Street, was an experience not to be missed, as people from the town and Colorado gathered in this town to celebrate our constitutional history and shared values.
The sincere pride in our nation was evident everywhere in this town as citizens of all ages to reaffirm their shared identity.
Joshua Milan, Noah Milan, Nathaniel Moylan
We were led by a wonderful local fife and drum band, shown here (from left to right, Karen McGuire, Patrick Milan, Joe Carroll, Amanda Brown, Joshua Milan, Noah Milan, Nathaniel Moylan).
I was asked to ride in the parade and took some pictures from that vantage point in driving down main street.
Along the streets of this town were families and their pets gathered to cheer the Constitution and our nation. Working in Washington, you can become cynical as patriotism becomes a soundbite or a joke. It is in towns like Grand Lake that you can return to the headwaters of patriotism in our country, a place where patriotism is not some forced demonstration or performative moment.
After the parade and the speech, I returned to the Gateway Inn and later met with around 80 residents and talked in the night about the many issues dividing our nation from AI to immigration to elections. We then went outside to watch the town’s fireworks over the lake. Families put out their chairs to watch a spectacular display as the fireworks reflected off the mirror-like surface of the lake. Families cheered with each explosion as the fireworks brought an end to a wonderful day.
It was hard to leave this town, but I felt restored and rejuvenated by simply being part of their celebration of our Constitution. As difficult as it is to return to tribalism and cynicism of the Beltway, I felt stronger just knowing that there are still places like this that exist in our country.
Charlotte Bronte once wrote “I believe that creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of oddities.” No quote better captured the chilling curiosity that is Hillary Clinton. This week, Clinton (without any sign of shame or self-awareness) attacked others for seeking censorship and blacklisting political opponents through government and corporate collaboration. Clinton is one of the most anti-free speech figures in the United States and actively campaigned for the censorship of opponents. Today, my column in the Hill discusses the hypocrisy of many on the left this week after the suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. However, there is simply no one in the same class as Clinton in hitting hypocrisy’s rock bottom.
This week, Clinton declared: “I think this is a very clear example of using the power of the state to suppress speech. It is a direct government action to try to intimidate employers, organizations, corporations, much of which we’ve already seen, to remove an opponent, even though it’s a comic.”
For many in the free speech community, the statement led us to spit out our morning coffee.
Clinton and her allies have long shown contempt for the intelligence of the voters, often denying facts or flipping positions while denying any inconsistencies. It was a record that produced not only polling as one of the least popular American politicians but also record lows in the public’s view of trustworthiness and authenticity. Clinton’s campaign routinely lied about major issues, including denying to the media that it funded the infamous Steele dossier.
For the record, I have repeatedly criticized Administration statements from recently on free speech and some of the actions taken against critics as threatening to our core values of free speech. This has included threats to prosecute hate speech and flag burning despite countervailing precedent. However, the last person any of us in the free speech community wants to see in this fight is Hillary Clinton.
As I have previously written, Clinton heralded the growing anti-free speech movement and noted that “there are people who are championing it, but it’s been a long and difficult road to getting anything done.”
In my book, I discuss the challenge for anti-free speech champions like Clinton is that it is not easy to convince a free people to give up their freedom.
That is why figures like Clinton are going “old school” and turning to government or corporations to crack down on citizens. One of the lowest moments came after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, promising to restore free speech protections. Clinton called upon European officials to force Elon Musk to censor American citizens under the infamous Digital Services Act (DSA). This is a former democratic presidential nominee calling upon Europeans to push the censorship of Americans.
Clinton praised the anti-free speech efforts in California and New York and called for the rest of the country to replicate the approach of those states.
Clinton added a particularly illuminating line that said the quiet part out loud. This is all about power and the fear that she and others will “lose control” over speech:
“Whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control and it’s not just the social and psychological effects it’s real harm, it’s child porn and threats of violence, things that are terribly dangerous.”
Clinton continues to offer a textbook example of the anti-free speech narrative. While seeking sweeping censorship for anything deemed disinformation, Clinton cites specific examples that are already barred under federal law like child porn.
Not surprisingly, when I spoke in Berlin on free speech, Hillary Clinton also spoke to call for greater speech limits to a highly appreciative European audience. She has been a major voice in fostering the government-corporate alliance that carried out massive censorship of political opponents.
As Bronte noted, this “creature is a changeling: she is a perfect cabinet of oddities.” Fortunately, the public has never been deceived by the changeling. They have always seen her opportunistic attacks as a sign of contempt for them as a bunch of chumps. Both Clinton and the media have learned in prior elections that these narratives are falling flat with most Americans outside of the core Democratic base.
There has to be some lingering residue of shame left; some modicum of decency in refraining from such raw hypocrisy at these moments. Yet, we seem to be living in an era of post-shame politics. The only thing missing is lawyer Joseph Welch:
In the midst of the flurry of activity on Capitol Hill and in the courts, a single subpoena from federal prosecutors last week went largely unnoticed by many in Washington. However, it could represent a significant development in the long-standing and unresolved questions surrounding the exit of James Comey as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The subpoena was served on Columbia law professor Daniel Richman, a close friend of Comey’s who has been accused of serving as his conduit for leaks to the media.
James Comey has long been one of the most carefully self-constructed images in Washington. Comey’s tenure often seemed more performative than professional, as with his controversial press conference in which he declared that Hillary Clinton had violated federal criminal law with her emails but declined to charge her.
Comey had long been a political operator who portrayed himself as an apolitical public servant, immune to the temptations or trappings of the political class. Investigations have produced a contrary image.
When President Donald Trump canned him in his first term, Comey dropped any pretense. He was later found by the Inspector General to have removed FBI material when he left the bureau related to Trump and the Russian investigation. Some of that information was later given to the New York Times.
The respected veteran investigative reporter Catherine Herridge reported on a June 2017 memorandum that documented a phone call with Richman and the so-called “Comey memos,” which detailed his conversations with President Trump.
According to sources, five days earlier, on June 8, 2017, Comey “asked Professor Richman to disclose the content of at least one of those memoranda to the press…”
The sources said that Richman was dismissive over the violation of federal rules stating “something to the effect, of, ‘You do things by your rules’ and ‘I do things by my rules.’” Richman seemed to claim that he was serving as counsel and allegedly insisted that “there is a substantial extent to which I would raise attorney-client issues.”
Richman later was quoted as saying that he did not think that he confirmed classified material from Comey to New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt while admitting that he did speak to him.
However, he admits that he did share the content of Comey’s stolen memos about his interactions with Trump.
The Inspector General was scathing and found that Comey was a leaker and violated FBI policy in his handling of FBI memos, including material containing the “code name and true identity” of a sensitive source. It did not find that he disclosed the classified information.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz found that Comey took “the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.” He further added that Comey “set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees—and the many thousands of more former FBI employees—who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information.”
Comey was not criminally charged. He is now under investigation again, and the subpoena for his friend, Richman, can only be viewed as ominous.
Notably, when Trump was indicted, Comey celebrated and called it a “good day.” Since then, he has been ridiculed for conveying bizarre, including threatening messages, found in seashells along the beach.
Yet, Comey still fashions himself (with the help of an enabling media) as the model of what he calls “ethical leadership.” Past investigations have already left his prior claims almost comically contradicted, including that “Ethical leaders lead by seeing above the short term, above the urgent or the partisan, and with a higher loyalty to lasting values, most importantly the truth.”
The investigation may now lead to Comey himself being called and placed under oath. The man who pursued leakers and those accused of false statements will now face renewed questions over his own hypocritical conduct.
For Richman, a subpoena carries increased risks because he has previously spoken to both the media and investigators. He reportedly has already met with federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia. Any alleged misrepresentation could result in a charge to pressure him to cooperate as a witness against Comey.
T
Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts was arrested this week after fleeing ICE officers and abandoning a school-subsidized car with an illegal handgun inside. Roberts has a criminal record and a long-standing order of removal from the country. The case has become a flashpoint over immigration policies with protesters demanding his release and Democratic politicians denouncing his arrest as evidence of a fascist regime. The controversy is also spilling over into the Senate race, as the district board is headed by Board Chair Jackie Norris, a former Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama and a current Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Norris called for Iowans to rally around Roberts with “radical empathy.” 
